Building useful products and apps to enhance the experience on the ever increasing tribe of smartphones and tablets, tha
t's what JiniLabs has set out to do. In conversation with co-founder Amit Rana….
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The idea was to go to this new place called ‘Pot Puree‘, but they were just so ‘helpful’ with the directions that we sulked and decided not to visit even though we finally found the place. Since I don’t need to be particularly persuaded for Chinese food, we decided to drop in at Sichuan, after we found it quite appealing from the outside.
Sichuan falls on your left when going from Sony World Junction, Koramangala towards 1st Block, just after Natural Ice Creams, (map) and after our favourite hole-in-the-wall Mallu joint – Little Home. If you’ve been around that area, you’ll know that parking is a pain and your only hope is one of the side lanes nearby.
The take away counter is on the ground floor along with a few tables, but the main dining area is on the first floor. Not a large area, but the decor is handled well with the familiar dim red chinese lantern effect. There’s a nice cosy feel to the place, and if you get the right table, you can watch life pass by in Koramangala, as the serene Buddha in the corner seemed to be doing.
Zomato has the menu, though this is the take away/delivery menu. The dining menu has a few mocktails and desserts too. Some of them are here. Our hunger made us uncharacteristically go for dim-sum and soup. The Hot Mushroom, Coriander and Chicken soup came first and was thick with a spicy undertone. Watch out for that red chilli specifically. Perfect start. The Cheung Fun took a while, but the rice paper rolls with chicken, mushroom and green onions also turned out great, though we missed the ginger flavour.
For the main course, we ordered a Cantonese Fragrant Rice (chicken) and as per the advice, a Kunming Chilli Chicken, which was supposed to be medium spicy. The latter turns from medium to high as soon as the green chilli turns up in your mouth, but the rice complements it very well. We wanted to sample the Mango – Lemon Grass mousse, but it wasn’t available. Wonder if desserts would sell here, Natural is a strong force. 🙂 All of the above cost us just over Rs.500.
Delicacy and China Pearl remain favourites in different contexts, but the next time I have a Chinese food craving, I might just land up here again.
Sichuan, #1016, 80 ft Road, 1st Block, Koramangala. Ph: 41317636
For men who find shopping for shirts an exercise they can do without, Peprismine offers multiple design options and
neat fit clothing, all virtually. In conversation with co-founder Anuj Ramachandra.
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This week's updates include Android's market share increase, new apps – Path, StockTwits, Hulu and update on Skype; shutting down of Microsoft Hohm, partnership with Baidu, patent protection, Skype update; Facebook improvements to chat, new data centres, Circlehack;
Twitter stats and valuation, FTC investigation, BackType acquisition, Joe Biden joining; Google+ rebranding of Picasa and Blogger, NFC tag reading, Chrome market share, offline status of WonderWheel and Realtime search, loss of Nortel patents.
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One of the interview questions that brand managers get asked early in their careers is 'What is a brand?' Some of my favourite answers have been 'a promise to the consumer' and 'a thought in the consumer's mind'. But changing landscapes in technology and consumption mean that the definition remains an evolving one. I found a few interesting perspectives last week in this context.
The first is this seemingly simple, but excellent post at HBR titled 'A Logo is Not a Brand' which (to really summarise) explains how the brand is its strategy, the stories that its products tell, its calls to action, its customer service, its tone, attitude, its people, communication tools and its logo and visuals are all part of the brand. And he asks a very pertinent question in the end
Whether you know it or not, whether you have a swanky logo or not, you do have a brand. The question is whether or not it's the brand you really want.
With social platforms and user voices that become more effective than the brand's own, the likelihood of different perceptions is indeed high, but the good news is these very same tools also offer brands the opportunity to bridge the chasm.
The second post titled 'Brand Building: Is Function the new Emotion' builds on the view (that I also subscribe to) that the best advertisement for a brand is its product. But the twist in the end is that “the functional integration into a consumer's life creates an emotional bond” and sustaining it requires “superior performance and meaningful, empathetic innovation”. Completely agree, because it does tie into the idea of social business and identifying a workforce and processes that will help build and sustain it.
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A brand's purpose is something I have written about many times earlier on this blog. I found a very elegant brand framework – part of Leo Burnett's Human Brands concept – in one of the Cannes 2011 decks. According to Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer, “Brands which have a purpose, but don't act dreamy, while brands which act without a purpose are noisy. And, for brands which lack both, they are lazy.” (via) The top right quadrant belongs to 'HumanKind', and that's where successful brands are.
So what prevents other brands from occupying it? One interesting answer I read was 'Fear'. As the post says, to build a leading brand, “organizational thinking must be on the creative plane (possibility and potential) not the competitive plane (hard bargains and discount pricing)”, and marketers are frightened of what this entails. The post even outlines a six step transformational cycle. Metrics are mentioned as a strong deterrent.
I have always felt that most advertising have not been measurable from an actual sales perspective. Parameters like TOM, salience in brand advertising are a no-brainer, but even in 'performance' advertising, there are so many factors that remain unaccounted for and unmeasured. But most brands go through the loops. We come back to the first reference about brands being a collection of various parts, a sentiment that is echoed in the last reference too, as the author defines leadership as “the quality of one’s presence in every aspect of life”. When organisations learn to do that, brand utopia will be nearer.
until next time, contrabrand