Year: 2008

  • Desi Onion

    Quite a while back, after several months of ‘The Onion’ fandom, I wanted to start a similar site for India. Well, if not a site, at least a blog. In fact i even squatted on the blogspot url – ‘pyaaz’. Well, I’m happy to announce that the site has been launched…..by someone else.

    A tweet from Sanjukta alerted me on the site – Career Pigeon, which seems to be a part of TechTribe, a career networking portal, make that techie career. The site is definitely inspired by the Onion, but it makes quite a decent effort to adapt the content to the Indian workplace scenario.  The site also has the latest Amul creative (wonder if they took permissions for that), Amul being a good example of how good creatives can still rule.

    What is funny (no pun intended) though is that the TT homepage has no links to this. In fact, considering the fact that job portals – old and new are grasping at any straws for differentiation, and this seems to be a good engagement device, I’d have thought that TT would’ve at least communicated this, if not hyped it much. And its not as though this is the first edition, it is the second. I agree with WOMM in general, but a little bit of seeding does help. To be fair, maybe they did send a mailer to the TT database, which I’m not part of.

    until next time, hope it has a safe flight

  • Reach out

    Last week, I read an article that gave the ‘share of the pie’ picture of different media in India. As expected, print is still king, though TV is fast catching up. Internet is still fighting to touch 2%. Meanwhile, something else i read quite sometime back says how an online video ad gives an 84% recall as against a 54% for the same ad on TV. So, why wouldn’t brands be more digital than TV?

    I might be over simplifying it by putting it that way, but the power of the medium seems to be only measured by its reach. And that’s when the marketing gurus (including self proclaimed ones) are crying themselves hoarse saying that engagement is the key (at least until we get the new term). So, then, is everyone trying for a balance? Similar to Nikhil‘s comment on a post a while back, are marketers using offline for reach and online for stickiness? You wish. Thats generalisation, but there are too few examples for me to not generalise.

    While it is claimed that it is the lack of broadband penetration that is preventing the web from manifesting its true potential, I think, from a marketing standpoint, its also the mindset. If engagement was the mindset, don’t television and radio also offer some opportunities, at least some, if not the multitude that the internet provides? Interactivity still means SMS contest, without context.

    So, its all pointing to the fact that different media are used with a simple logic – x numbers of my TG can be reached through that medium. And what do we do after reaching them – Why, show them our ad, what else? And until that midset changes, would it really matter if our broadband penetration suddenly zoomed?

    until next time, reach out, engagement in?

  • The Journey

    And they walked on, through the twists and turns of joys and sorrows and mundane experiences. They were happy, they knew that such was life. The only sadness was that through the twists and turns, they lost sight of who they were when they started out, and now there was no time to go back.

    until next time, keeping track

  • Indijoe

    No, not the one on Airport Road- the one made famous by what I consider is the one of the best value-for-money lunch buffet in the city. They have recently opened an outlet on Old Madras Road. To reach there, go down OM road towards KR Puram. After crossing Big Bazaar (on your right), you’ll see RMZ Infinity on the right, would be difficult to miss it with the Mc Donalds M neon. That’s where you’ll find the new Joe. 🙂 Among other things in the same complex/mall(?), there’s a food court, a Subway, a CCD, Beijing Bites, Pathankot, Hakka (Mainland China).

    Though we called for reservations, we were told that they don’t take reservations on weekends, which seems to be becoming a trend these days. Anyway, with all those options above (and I’m sure I’ve missed a couple) that drive would be worthwhile, i guess.

    We got there by around 7.45 and the place was about 75% full. The IPL could explain the crowd at this relatively early hour. You could either sit inside or on the lawn /road facing vernadah. We chose the outside since it was surprisingly more quiet (again thanks to a raucous IPL cheering crowd inside). The ambience inside is a replica of the other Indijoe, and the menu seems to be a truncated version of the same.

    We ordered a non veg combo and a chicken satellite sizzler. The non veg combo consisted of chicken pyramids (er, mini samosa like 😉 ), chicken tenders, mozzarella in carrozza (the taste was worth the spelling), dynabites (these guys know their branding – bread pakoras 😀 ) and spicy chicken wings. The non veg combo is a good way of having a little bit of a lot of things. It actually gives you a feel that you have eaten a lot, and tasty things at that. Dont mistake the red sauce they serve alongside for the normal tomato variety, this one is special, if you are the spicy type. They also give a mustard based sauce, that made me change my impression of mustard in general. The different stuff on the platter also gives you an excuse to try the different sauces one finds at Indijoe – tabasco, worcestershire, and something called HP sauce (wonder if its a tribute to a similar sounding organisation’s office nearby 😉 )

    The chicken satellite sizzler has grilled boneless chicken with mushroom sauce, with sauteed mushroom garnished with cheese and fresh cream. Yes, and fries. The stuff was good, except that the mushroom was almost charred. We would give the benefit of the doubt to the cook, since the match was evenly poised around that time. I’m sure he didn’t mean it. The good part is that even with all the above, it didn’t give us a bloated feeling, so we decided to plod ahead with a ‘Chocolate Decadence’, that, according to the menu was a four storey high chocolate avalanche. In looks, it lived upto its name, but the secret is that its a lot of fluff 🙂 Though it was quite good, it’s no match for those monstrosities one gets at Frescoes. Now, thats chocolate.

    The service is quite good. We got the food very fast. But i think he didnt expect us to have the dessert, so he’d already got the bill made. Indijoe, I’ve always felt, is the least snobbish of the BJN array of eateries, and this one lives up to that image. All of the above cost us about Rs.600. If you don’t mind the longish ride (for anyone not around Indiranagar and its surroundings) a visit would be worth it.

    Indijoe, RMZ Infinity, Old Madras Road. Ph-41113377/3553

  • EnGROSSment

    Yesterday’s, and for that matter today’s big story has been the apparent ‘Daraar’ in the Malaika-Arbaaz marriage, and the subsequent revelation that it was some sort of half baked PR gimmick for a skin cream. Poor Mumbai Mirror had to even apologise to readers, though thats okay. Why? Because it throws light on the fact that the divorce of a star brother and an item girl morphed into reality show judge can make the headlines. You can read all about it here, here and everywhere. But that’s not what this post is all about.

    I’ve already written about my views on endorsement. While i understand that it makes sense in some cases, the above skin cream debacle makes  endorsements look really gross, but that perhaps is only a result of the reader’s/viewer’s obsession with  the lives of others, but then again, is that media created?  Also, why am i digressing??!!

    While stars endorse brands, they themselves are brands. So like every brand, they have a lifecycle, and like every good brand, they try to leap onto the next growth curve and avoid the decline part, by constantly updating and upgrading themselves and sparing no effort in trying to make themselves constantly relevant to the audience. The sports stars can only do it with performance. And they all get slotted – Dravid with stability, Sachin with stability and sheer brilliance, Dhoni as the new Indian spirit and so on. Movie stars have it slightly easier as the kind of movies they are seen in and the kind of activities they are seen doing (remember SRK and the whole OSO promotion hungama during the cricket match) all contribute to their brand attributes. But over a period of time, the kind of ads they do also decide their brand image, which is perhaps why stars are increasingly choosy about the brands they associate with. It also explains why an SRK would do a ‘Panchvi Pass’ to reach the highly monetisable kiddy brigade which Aamir (TZP) and Hrithik (Krrish) have already tapped.

    Which brings me back to the girl who danced on the train, and increased her star power. This gimmick would’ve heavily reduced her credibilty factor. So, while this stunt created  buzz once, would the public believe it the next time she endorsed a toothpaste with that toothy smile? (that’s in case they were believing it all this while). Arbaaz doesn’t have to worry because no one asks him to endorse anyway. The ‘stars’ are now blaming the tabloids and the PR guys, but the damage is done. This might be a good lesson for the stars who agree to act out brand scripts that clearly impinge on their personal lives, and its most definitely a lesson for the brand guys who resort to such half baked gimmicks, that clearly take the consuming public to be sub moronic.

    The best comment i got on this issue was when i broke this news to a twitter friend. She said, “Are you sure it’s for a skin cream? Would’ve made perfect sense for Fevicol”. 🙂

    until next time, are endorsements only skin deep? 😉