Month: January 2009

  • Electronic Social Responsibility

    Late last year, I remember reading this article that talked about a study by Havas Media, which “looks at the impact of climate change on business from the point of view of consumer”. From the study,

    With respect to India, the survey claims that 86% of Indians would rather buy from companies that are trying to reduce their contribution to global warming. Further, 50% of Indian respondents would be more likely to buy environmentally-friendly goods in the next 12 months, if they were at the same price and standard as their usual brands. 43% would be willing to pay a little extra for those goods.

    Somebody has been listening, or more likely, had been listening for quite a while, for earlier this month, I read about Nokia India’s efforts though its ‘Take Back’ campaign, which aims to educate consumers about the recycling and re-use of old handsets and accessories. In addition to this contribution, Nokia will also plant a tree for every handset dropped at the recycling bins. I was extremely impressed by Nokia’s official notes on their efforts. As a market leader, Nokia has done a great job.

    Meanwhile, another key player has also been doing its bit for a better planet. I remember writing about Motorola last year – the Motopower project, that has 55 solar powered kiosks in Uganda offering free mobile charging to consumers. Motorola also has its share of recycling efforts, and I found its latest effort – the W233 Renew, very refreshing. This handset is the world’s first mobile phone made with plastics comprised of recycled water bottles., and is also the world’s first Carbonfree cell phone on the market.  The site also says that through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the energy used to manufacture, distribute and operate of the phone. (through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation, courtesy Wild Blue Skies) The unfortunate bit, hopefully for now, is that this is not an India phenomenon now. Judging by the Havas Media report, Motorola is missing out on a huge opportunity in India.

    It is indeed good to see genuine efforts from major global players to make the world a better place, sustainable efforts  because they also make buiness sense, and are not spur-of-the-moment CSR initiatives.There can never be enough efforts, and in an increasingly connected world, which thrives on transparency, there’s nothing like a genuine effort to build on brand equity.

    until next time, (as a Springfield tee says) Respect Green Rules

  • Home is where….

    He enjoyed the cosmopolitan version of Bangalore. One of his favourite haunts was Indiranagar. When he’d first come to Bangalore, Indiranagar’s 100 ft road had lots of trees and a few brand stores. Now the situation had been reversed. And it wasn’t just brand stores, there were restaurants – fine dining and cafes. Yes, he did hear residents complaining ever so often about how Indiranagar used to be a peaceful locality until a few years back, and now the retired folk rarely dared to come out. It wasn’t just the noise, the bustle and the pollution, there was also the problem of how costly everything had become all of a sudden. He understood their plight, but couldn’t really sympathise with them, after all he enjoyed the cosmopolitan Bangalore.

    He loved Cochin, it was the place he wanted to retire to..later, after all it was his hometown. In addition to that sentiment, there was something fitting about dying in the place you were born in, a kind of closing the circle. When he walked the streets, when he talked to people, when he looked around, he knew that he belonged to the place, and  in spite of some things he loved to hate, his love for the place was quite unconditional. But he wondered what was up with these new malls, cafe coffee days, swank cars, swankier apartments and a cost of living that was aiming for the stars. The place was, damn, becoming cosmopolitan, and he didn’t like it one bit. After all, this was the place he wanted to retire to, and he had made an image of it in his head, which he didn’t want changed.

    And thus the realisation that the cosmos always has the last laugh.

    until next time, a homing device

  • Web 2.0 and transience

    As I am wont to do at infrequent intervals, I came up with one of  those  quirky connections – this one, for Tata Sky. I mentioned on Twitter that “aamir’s ghajini character could find Tata Sky Plus’ features quite useful-pause, rewind, record 😉 wonder if they’ll make a TVC with that”. In the days that followed, Asin has been extensively used in the Tata Sky campaign, so now I’m hoping thay actually make that TVC, complete with the Tata Sky helpline number tattooed on Aamir. 😉

    It led me to a tangential thought on social media. (the FB, Twitter variety, not business networking like LinkedIn) In what might amount to blasphemy, I wondered whether brands should make desperate efforts to be ‘engaging’ in social media. They need to be there definitely, but perhaps its only to know what’s being talked about them, and why. They perhaps need to be there more for reactions than actions. This also saves them the challenge of generating interesting ‘engagement ideas’ at all times.

    Why did I think all this? Because I realised that the engagement is being created by users themselves, for each other. For non web 2.0 brands, the engagement is most likely a result of something that’s been done offline. A TVC, a billboard, a radio jingle and so on. Must say, this perspective on how to use twitter for Marketing and PR made me think too.

    At one point, web 1.0 used eyeballs as measurement, that’s an idea thats not going anywhere great? Web 1.o gave us many great websites and lessons, but in a few years time, we jumped into web 2.0. The attention span and shelf lives for most things are becoming smaller. Is web 2.o just a transient phase that is needed to get us to another version? The optimist in me (which is usually bullied into submission) says that when a certain version is reached, the engagement and revenue models will manifest itself in an uncomplicated manner. (now you know why it needs to be bullied). Maybe the baby steps of getting connected are meant for simple things. Maybe it is only meant to let businesses know  that a connected world can shake up existing models. Maybe there’s some growing up to do, some discovery to be made, before revenue models and engagement by brands can happen as a regular occurrence.

    Or perhaps I’m going out of whack and being impatient. Center Networks has a good comparison of Web 1.0/ 2.0 revenue models and profitability. As this good post sums up in a different context

    New business models for media require entirely new exchanges of value — it’s not about finding new ways to balance the old equation.

    Perhaps the more meaningful discussions lie in figuring out how the basic pillars of web 2.o – connecting, sharing, collaborating-  can be used to build brands. The ‘How to use Twitter/Facebook for Marketing/PR’ are based on tools, and that would mean that we’ve been confusing tactics for strategy.

    until next time, discover 🙂

    PS: A few things that I thought were good to share

    Discovery Is The New Cocaine – Going Beyond Engagement

    View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: discovery ux)

    Social Media PR vs Social Media Marketing, and in context,a tool – CoTweet, that’d be a help to teams handling a brand on Twitter.

  • Something Fishy

    Actually a lot of things. But before your imagination runs wild, its only the name of a restaurant in Langford Town. Its actually a 2.0 version, since they’d been closed for sometime, for renovation, and the new avatar looks markedly different from the older one – more spread out, some props, and a distinct increase in price, but thankfully, the food remains fabulous. When coming from the Koramangala side, take a left towards Langford Town, keep going until you see Divyasree Chambers, and soon after that, you’ll have Something Fishy on the right.

    The place offers coastal cuisine – Mangalorean, Goan, Kerala. It does have some Tandoor and Chinese stuff, but I’d say, ignore that. We also decided to ignore the soups, and go for an Anjal Masala Fry as a starter. Thats King Fish, with one of the tastiest masala you’ll ever find. One portion gives you a couple of pieces. You could also try the Pomfret version.

    For the main course, we ordered a Chicken Ghee Roast ( Chicken cooked in fine ground masala and home made ghee), butter dosas, sannas and a fish biriyani. The Chicken Ghee Roast is just spectacular, but you should be tolerant to spicy food to enjoy it. Its a very thick gravy (actually a paste) and is of enough quantity to last through all the other items. They also give you some gravy, so you dont really have to order anything extra. The butter dosas are the kal dosa (thick) types, so if you prefer the thin version, go for neer dosas. The sannas were the only disappointment – quite flaky. In fact, we haven’t had good sannas in a while now – the last being at Kubay‘s first avatar. The fish biriyani was also quite good. The end result was that we were stuffed.

    Now, since we’d returned from our Kerala trip only a few days back, we didn’t try any of our Mallu dishes, but you should definitely try them. There are prawns, Chicken stew, squid and so on, though I thought the Malabar Porotta was a bit steeply priced at Rs.25. Meanwhile, our meal cost us just over Rs.600 – the best dinner we’ve had in quite a while. 🙂

    Something Fishy, #1, Cornwell Street, Langford Road, Langford Town. Ph: 41245505, 42114007

    Menu at Zomato.

  • Isaac Asimov: The Complete Stories

    Isaac Asimov

    Forget science fiction, if you are the kind who is affected by story telling and the imagination involved therein, this is a must-read. Its amazing that even after half a century has passed, and humanity has advanced quite a bit, Asimov’s work, even in terms of human relationships, raises questions we haven’t even begun exploring. He has a great sense of humour, which raises its head at the most improbable moments, thereby making it all the more fun.
    The collection has quite a few stories about Multivac, the super computer that guides humanity and its actions. ‘The Last Question’ is an amazing piece of work that deserves special mention. In addition to being a fantastic science fiction tale, it also offers a wonderful take on the origin of the universe.
    The other story that’s interesting happens to be Franchise, whose storyline is that by studying patterns of human behaviour over a long timeframe, Multivac is able to use one person as a representative sample and elect the US president basis his choice of candidates. The story is set in 2008. I guess humanity hasn’t progressed as fast as Asimov imagined. More change we need. 🙂
    Now for Volume 2.