Year: 2008

  • Remote Control

    It would’ve been a big shock to Airtel, having their entire teaser campaign hijacked by BIG. Painstakingly created, their four ads conveyed four different aspects of the service and had the ‘See you at home’ and the red couch in common. Though I missed the ads, I read this report about Airtel’s launch of their DTH service on a particular day, told my wife that it was Airtel’s DTH service, only to be given a look of scorn when BIG ‘revealed’ the couch and the service’s key features. From my reaction, I can imagine the sheer rage and frustration that JWT and Airtel must’ve felt after spending time, money and energy on the teasers. I can also imagine the Mudra guy devilishly grinning with a ‘Yeah, see you at home’ mutter when the guerilla idea struck him. I wonder of this will be a strong case against teasers and will go down in history as the most quoted example against brands which want to do a bit of teasing.

    Airtel can take solace in the fact that at least Reliance sees them as a threat. This should prepare them for the long battle ahead. Of course, sometimes I think nothing is preparation enough for Reliance (check out my ‘vision‘ of BIG). Sadly, the final Airtel launch ad, though interesting for a couple of watches, is not exactly engrossing after that. 

    But Reliance has also to be complimented on the extremely devious but smart thinking, that just took the steam out of Airtel’s campaign. It was quite refreshing to see someone other than the colas going for a head to head battle. Meanwhile, I simply loved their latest TVC for showcasing their 32 movie halls. Amitabh’s ‘Mere paas maa hain’ dialogue from Deewar has been mothered by brands across categories. Its plain irritating usually and forget me, I bet even Big B would be cursing them with a different ‘maa’ reference!! So this one was a welcome change with a new twist. What i liked best was the way this single dialogue was used to showcase the offering, almost like “with 32 movie halls, you can get more movie dialogues” 

    Meanwhile, I expect some star wars to happen in the DTH space. Aamir endorses Tata Sky, i think it will be only a matter of time before the Big B steps in for Reliance (in spite of Big B fatigue, I think ‘Ho to big ho’ will sound perfect coming from him). Airtel already has a plethora of stars – Kareena, Madhavan, Vidya Balan, Saif Ali Khan, A R Rahman etc endorsing them. I like the little connections in this – Madhavan and Vidya were paired first in Guru, which was supposed to be a take on Dhirubhai, and Reliance owns Big TV. The ‘tragedy’, meanwhile, is that SRK, who is Airtel’s biggest brand ambassador, is ‘santusht’ with Dish TV. Well, maybe he is not, but i wonder if he has a choice. Is that a lesson for brands to have a bit more ‘vision’ while signing contracts? Anyway, we should see some interesting wars ahead for control of the remote. 

    until next time, the telecasting couch 🙂

  • A Matter of life and death

    It is not about death. That is a process that starts as soon as we’re born. It is the reminders of mortality that has led to my aversion for hospitals. Mangled body parts, groans of suffering that beg me to put the sick person out of his misery. Painful messages that tell me that I’m really not in control.
    It is not about control. That is a process that stops as soon as we’re born, or perhaps way before that. It is the reminders of the hands that decide my destiny that nauseate me. Faces begging for answers as to why it had to happen to them. It warns me of age, and a clock ticking somewhere.
    It is not about death. It is about groping frustratingly for answers that seem to elude me. It is about wondering if I have missed my destiny, and wondering if everything I experience is a clue to something that I’m missing, and the futility that I’d experience if I kept missing them. For, it is when I walk through hospital corridors, that I painfully see the possibilities- physical and mental wrecks of what were once, human beings, it is then I realize that it’s life I’m afraid of.

    Until next time, live

  • Locally cold, globally cool

    Like I commented here,  my reaction to Coke’s latest TVC is one of its own iconic tag lines – Thanda Matlab Coca Cola. The ad, which tries to showcase that Coke, in the festive season of Diwali brings family, friends and even strangers together, left me absolutely cold. While the earlier Hrithik commercial was far from impressive, its tag line – Jashn Mana Le, I thought, would’ve been a great fit here, wonder why they didn’t continue the thought.

    Coke has, in the past, done some great contextual stuff. I recently came across an old ad of theirs that used the premise of Grand Theft Auto, and did a neat twist to the character, who does good deeds instead of bad ones, and says that ‘Give a little Love and it all comes back to you in the Coke side of life!’ That seemed to be taking forward the theme of an older ad – “What goes around comes around”. I wonder why the ‘Coke side of life’ has not been utilised here. Actually, even this old Xmas ad of theirs was well worth aping.

    Meanwhile, Coke’s on to a lot of good things otherwise. I recently read about its efforts to go green. This  TVC, which aims to spread awareness of the fact that Coke is made without any artificial flavours. is a part of this effort. They recently launched a range of sustainable tees, made from its recycled PET bottles, and in the recently concluded Olympics, distributed it to athletes. They also partnered with the Olympics organising committee to make sure that all PET plastic bottles collected from all official venues were fully recycled into valuable reuses. Read about more efforts here.

    Coke has also launched The Design Machine, which ensures that its image in markets, across all brands,  around the world reflects the core strategy as far as POS materials go, but allows enough flexibility for localisation. This should allow them to get the perfect mix of glocalisation. You can read the details here.

    And its not just the real world, but they seem to be doing some interesting stuff virtually too. Coketag is a widget that allows users to package and share links across the web. This can be a “blog, work, interests, team, band or whatever you like or care about”. Once the links are shared, you can also track its popularity. The widget can also be shared on Facebook. A good widget to facilitate connecting and sharing, another aspect of ‘the coke side of life’ (via Startup Meme)

    All the above activities are in line with Coke’s position as a market leader. With the advances Coke is making in glocalisation, we can hopefully see the good work happening in other markets being adapted contextually in India. Or we could make better ads here 😐

    until next time, the green side of life..

     

  • No more holy days…

    Last week had a very holiday theme to it. Technically, there was only a day off, but the particular day was different for different places..and work places. I had the day off on Wednesday and D had an off on Thursday. Well, a far cry from the good old days, when the Puja holidays was an eagerly awaited annual event.

    Its appeal lay in the fact that school books could be ‘legally’ laid aside for a few days. I still remember treating the occasion with all the seriousness it demanded, and even including comics in the book-ban. As i grew older, non-school books were gently eased out of the process. So were many accessory rituals like the early morning bath and going to the temple.

    Zoom to now, when the single day off is just another holiday to me. D does try her best to retain the last vestiges of an occasion that now exists only in the memory archives. But the link to the original event is all but severed.

    There are two losses that i mourn for. The first is of character – the character that differentiated and defined each of these holidays. The character that made sure each of these holidays created specific memory associations (our memory, i think, used folksonomy long before web 2.0) that would last decades after the holiday was last celebrated in the way it was meant to be. The memories now created are just another multiplex movie and a few ‘upto 50%’ off deals. I think we are celebrating more, only we have forgotten what we’re really celebrating. (pardon the generalisation) The second is of the innocence – individual more than collective. From the child who had oodles of faith and belief in the sanctity of the rituals he undertook, and derived great pleasure from it, to the cynical adult who battles hard to regain his faith, albeit in the form of spirituality.

    until next time, keep the faith

  • Creating Super Brands

    Found an excellent article shared via Reader (thanks to @vimoh) which sought to mash marketing, and more specifically, social media into the life of Superman. Through this example, and three different scenarios, it shows the typical position of an older brand, presented with new competitors and having to cope with a changing media landscape. The article itself is an absolute laugh riot and brings to light the various kinds of social media ‘experts’ operating today, with their own prescriptions for social media triumph. It ends with the simple but (what i consider) correct lesson of staying true to yourself, and doing the best possible you can.

    On a similar context, I found another article that talked about how

    “Soleil-Media Metrics analyst Laura Martin cut her rating on Google to “Hold” from “Buy” and slashed her price target to $350 from $580…saying the company’s practice of giving 10 percent of profits to charity and giving employees one day a week to work on pet projects should end amid the current economic climate………she highlighted another company practice she believes should end – “the confusing myriad of non-revenue producing Google-products in the marketplace.””

    The Google culture has had a tremendous influence on the awesome products that are must-have’s now. Would anyone with that understanding have made a statement like this? I shudder to think what this analyst would say about say, Twitter, if ever it got listed..hmmm

    While I’m definitely not against a revenue model for social media, or an ROI concept for the brands/organisations that involve themselves in social media, I am against the typical Wall Street business analyst’s parameters of returns. Mashable has a good post on figuring out the ROI models in social media. Here is another good post on selling the social media concept in your organisation.

    I absolutely subscribe to this line of thought (via Online Marketing Blog). Applying the regular ROI metrices to social media is going to take away from the essence of what social media is all about. What’s the next step – how do i monetise my relationship with my friend on Facebook?

    Meanwhile, this is a contrarian view on listening to customers, and this is a very interesting read on the busting of Web 2.0. Coming from someone who’s seen it all right from Dotcom Bust 1.0, i think it pays to at least listen.

    If the intent is wrong, social media cannot help. Social media can only help if you have a good product, willingness to involve the users, and accept their feedback to improve the product. If the idea is to simply use social media as just another platform to air commercials/messages, build in templates like ‘corporate blog’ and ‘user generated content’ and then apply typical ROI metrices to track and measure it, social media will disappoint, but a great intent and a great product will have the potential to create a super brand.

    until next time, its a brand new social world…