Month: January 2013

  • Full of Toys

    Full of Toys seeks to ensure that a child’s playtime is meaningful and fun with world class toys. In conversation with founder Gautam Gupta

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  • The year that will be…

    Crystal gazing began in right earnest in Dec 2012, and across the web, there were many top x predictions for 2013.

    Trendwatching made a list, and my favourites in it were #9 and #10 – “Full Frontal” and “Demanding Brands” respectively. The first was about brands moving further on the transparency curve and proactively showing they have nothing to hide as opposed to merely reacting. The second was about brands getting their consumers to contribute to their sustainability and socially-responsible endeavours.

    Branding Strategy Insider made 2 lists – Brand and Digital & Media. In the first, I found #5 – ‘The Known and the Branded’ – a very intriguing thought. Brands being thought of as category placeholders, stuff that doesn’t really stand for anything. Understandably, brands will find it harder to differentiate themselves. In the second list, again #5 – omni-channel marketing is something I have written about earlier while on the subject of cohesive experiences.

    JWT has their annual 10 trends list as well, and I thought #1 “Play as a competitive advantage” and #9 – “Going Private in Public” were particularly insightful. The reason I look forward to the JWT list is because while they deal with the immediate, they also come up with a couple of nuggets which are really far out. But the thing is, I can instinctively connect with them and am sure that even if not this year, these are inevitable somewhere down the line.

    This year, I also found Next Generation Media’s list quite interesting, especially because of their ‘implications for brands’ after each trend. My favourites in this list were #9 and #10 – “New Currencies” and “The WOW factor” respectively. I like the direction of the former, but would have liked it to be pushed further, but that’s mostly because of a more (personal) philosophical perspective on us having no alternatives to money as a currency. “The WOW factor” – related to ‘The Known and the Branded’ I mentioned earlier in the post, and the writing is pretty much on the wall for brands!

    Update: Came in late, but Simply Zesty’s list is a must-read as well!

    until next time, hope y’all have an awesome 2013. 🙂

  • Oh, my 90s

    A couple of years back, I had written this post about the golden years of Bollywood music in my life – the 90s. The search for a restaurant within JP Nagar before we watched Talaash (at Gopalan) took us to Kakori Kababs & Curries. The restaurant review is for later, but what really made the day for me was their instrumental music collection of 90s Bollywood music. I listened to songs from Sainik, Imtihaan, Damini and it was amazing how I could remember most of the lyrics despite not having heard these in years! Just goes to show the power of those imprints.

    Later, Talaash also took me on a sidetrack – memories, and I thought about how our reality changes massively over time. Many things that seemed to be the crux of our existence at one point in time slowly fade away into memories and then into archives of insignificance in the larger chapters of our lives. We can’t even mourn or be happy about them because we don’t remember them in the first place.

    So the next day, I started working on this playlist, just so that every time I go through my YouTube channel, I would remember, and could help myself to a blast from the past. Music has always been time travel for me. Probably, many years later, when the memories surrounding these songs and the times they existed in slowly begin to fade, and they seem like a dream from years back, (what they say when they come across the lamp post at the end of The Chronicles of Narnia Part 1) this would be my crutch to go hobbling on that path. 🙂

    until next time, the soul of music