Year: 2008

  • The Art of Giving

    There’s a theory about the internet I read somewhere that i keep bringing up in different contexts. It goes that if collective consciousness is the path to God, then the internet makes a great first step. To be in touch with the cosmos is perhaps the ideal state in spirituality, and while the cosmos does extend a lot beyond our planet, we could definitely start with being connected here first. And it is in this regard that I rate the potential of the internet to be very high.

    Every time we log in to facebook or orkut or twitter or any social medium out there, we come across people and things we didn’t know about before. It gives us perspective and changes our perceptions about who and what we are. And that reminds me of another quote that I keep using, from the Matrix series “….I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny…” To me, that rings very true for the web. There is a reason why a tool like this has been brought into the life of arguably the smartest species on this planet, and I for one, believe that its role is to further our evolution and bring back things that were lost somewhere along our ‘progress’ – compassion for fellow beings, and the willingness to contribute to things that lie beyond our selfish interests.

    And with that, I end my droning foreword, and would like to introduce to you, this website I came across – Rang De. No, this is not about Bollywood, but about adding color to others’ lives. I’d written about it in my other blog, and finally registered last week. The idea is to extend micro credit from socially conscious folks to the financially disadvantaged. And mind you, its not charity – you get back your money, with a modest interest.

    So I’d like to tag you guys on this. If you’re reading this, I request you guys to check out the site, and write about it (if you have a blog) or spread the word in any way you can. I have just used it for the first time, and  just got a report on how my investment would be spent. So maybe you can start with a small amount and see how it works for you. But we do so many trivial tags, maybe we could do one for what seems a noble cause. It will hopefully connect us and give more meaning to lives – ours and others’.

    until next time, add some color

  • Emotional Brand Stories (1 of 3)

    Last week, Afaqs had covered the Asia Brand Congress 2008, which throws some light on how marketers and agencies view brands and their relationships with consumers. You can read a few reports here. The first link is the rationale behind the campaigns of Zapak and Dainik Bhaskar, both using 360 degree media – one for its launch, and the other for repositioning, with a new brand ambassador. While Zapak’s execution certainly seems to be better, neither are earth shattering revelations.

    The second link is a discussion on how brands need to understand the psyche of consumers, and use ideas that would engage and inspire them. The example of ‘Idea’ brand was taken in this discussion, and as I have written before, I fully agree with the thought. The subtle thought that was communicated in this discussion was that brands should go with the flow, and go easy on the rigid structures that they build around themselves.

    The third link has discussions on different communication for brands at different steps of their lifecycle, and takes examples of Naukri, Cadburys and Coke. The last link explores Saatchi’s concept of Lovemarks,a nd speaks of a paradigm shift – from “You->Your Brand->Consumer” to “You->Consumer->Their Brand”. I found this the most interesting of all the concepts I came across (read), since it also talks of the fallacy of the 360 degree approach and the advertising wars to get the consumers’ attention.

    Before we start on the relationship between brands and consumers, here’s a long, but interesting read on the mind of the consumer. It talks about how the brain uses different structures for different brands, and is the beginning of a research in the field of neuromarketing. It is well known that the emotional relationship with a brand affects the rational purchase decision of a user. Usually brands dwell on the positive perspective of this and try to ‘attract’ consumers. What if the mind relies on the negative perspective, and is more tuned to avoid brands that it hates? Wouldn’t it be more profitable to channel campaign money into making consumers hate rival brands? The brain apparently demarcates the loved and hated brands very clearly. Should marketers be rewarded for shifting the relative position of their brands in this mental make up? Such are the interesting questions this article throws up. 

    Chris Brogan recently wrote about the book “Branding only Works on cattle” by Jonathan Salem Baskin, and his major take outs from the book. One good point that came up was how the core idea of the brand and its context (Starbucks – third place) was more important than the consumer remembering the logo. As this article correctly points out, brands should be great story tellers that weave themselves into the context of our daily lives, at consious and sub conscious levels. After all, the major portion of our ‘story’ is a sum of the brands we use. 

    Amidst the multi crore advertising blitzkreigs that brands continually unleash on their consumers, it is important for them to understand the importance of the emotional connect of consumers that affect their purchase behaviour, and perhaps dwell a little more on the core value they offer to consumers, and how they can bring it into the context of the consumers’ lives. This is specially important in an increasingly connected world, in which WOM plays an important part.

    until next time, show me some emotion, you big brand 😉

    PS. Have two more posts that take this thought forward – shall post that on Wednesday and Friday.

  • The In thing

    A few days back, I had written about wanting to see an internet entity’s brand campaign. And within a few days, as if on demand, the in.com TV commercials started appearing. In case, you haven’t chanced upon them yet, take a look here, and here. These two have highlighted two aspects of in.com – music and gaming. The others are news, mail, search and videos. The ads throw up stats of users who have been enjoying these services.

    Though my first brush with them left me highly dissatisfied, I have always liked the vertical properties they have built up over a period of time. I use Money Control and Compare India quite a lot, but that’s only 2 of the entire set that includes IBNLive, Biztech2, Storeguru, IndiWo, Bookmyshow, Yatra, Jobstreet, Cricketnext, Poweryourtrade, commodities control, Tech2, Buzz18 and Josh18. While I sometimes feel that a few of the properties overlap hugely on the service they provide and the target audience, it is quite a formidable line up. And perhaps that is what led to their reach being higher than that of the Times Group’s internet properties and only behind Rediff’s as far as Indian entities go. According to this article, In.com is already #7 in India’s portals list, and is planning to have job search, real estate search and bars and nightclubs search. Here’s an interesting post that throws some new light on those numbers.

    The site is quite different from the other portals, perhaps because of the rich interface, and, at a basic level is a massive meta-aggregator, which collects news from its own services as well as other prominent sites. To this is added a structure that builds in crowd choices, and all this creates great differentiation. The ‘reverse’ strategy of building verticals (sub brands) and then aggregating (flagship brand) is interesting, but unlike what I’ve seen in a few banners, I think “India’s homepage” is still rediff, and it will take some effort from Network 18 to topple it from that place. Its a simple recall factor, I am so used to rediff.

    Meanwhile, they are doing a lot of interesting things by way of association. The Bigg Boss tie up result is a great example, which to me is also a pointer towards some smart integration thoughts – Colors, on which Bigg Boss airs, is after all, a Viacom 18 channel. The other smart integration is MTV’s Youth Icon, MTV being another Viacom 18 venture. If this is done on a continuous basis, with more network channels, and a bit more push is given (in context) on the channels, I think In.com has a great future ahead. Will Roadies 6.0 will get to play a part soon?

    I also wonder what the role of the email service will be, after all, Rediff’s popularity was based a lot on that. It definitely has some very good features. Other than a 10 GB mailbox, linked messages, and the now common friends import from other mail services, it gives a ‘social’ touch to the service by allowing the user to share and promote content,  rate and comment on stories, add feeds and bookmarks, thereby making a customised ‘start’ page for life on the net. It is quite tempting, when compared to many other services. 🙂 But again, the lethargy factor is quite strong here. GMail and GTalk is so ingrained into my virtual life!!

    But in spite of all that, In.com has great potential as a horizontal portal and if they can continue the integration with their mass media properties and provide good service on the net, there’s no reason that they should not replace Rediff as India’s premium internet home brand, and set a benchmark on how the same entity can be a cutting edge player in traditional and new media.

    until next time, I’m in 🙂

  • Catching up with Google’s past

    Google did quite a cool thing today, as part of its birthday celebrations. It brought back the oldest working version of the search index available. While you could see the old Google at the internet archive (the two oldest archived pages of google are these), this actually shows you the results that would have appeared in 2001. Give it a spin and try searching for say iPhone, Obama, or even 9/11. The results will really take you back, and aback!!

    And quite coincidentally, I came across a social networking site with a twist – Way of Pearls. While the ones we are used to give us a clue of what others are doing, this one tells you what a person will be doing later – days, months or even years later. It is most useful for planning events. There is a lifestreaming service available at the same site called Social Oyster. Together these could work well.

    until next time, back to the present

  • Once in a year….

    He was very happy, someone was cleaning his toilet. It’d never happened before, in almost a year since he’d begun using this place, right on the main road. But just as he began his morning rituals, the man threw a bucket of water. He flew away, looking for another statue, wondering why today was special.

    until next time, happy gandhi jayanthi