Category: Strategy

  • Better..Best..Bested

    A long time ago, during those heady MBA days, a few of us had put together a theme for the batch – kaizen, a Japanese philosophy for constant improvement. I think it still holds a lot of relevance with regards to the way brands treat themselves. Google, while not the web’s knight in shining armor it used to be, still teaches a lot of lessons, and I remembered them when i read this article on how, perhaps the first killer app on the net – email is now being challenged by things like micro-blogging platforms.

    Remembered them because, even though they were late entrants into the arena, the ‘invite’ marketing really worked for GMail, and though competitors matched or improved their storage space factor, GMail was so good, that I have never felt the need to consider an option. Thats also because while most other players stopped after they matched the space and minor additions, GMail kept improving, and still does – check this and this. And the counter on the GMail homepage continues to increase. Constant improvement.

    Meanwhile, the proposed competitor to email, micro blogging, and more specifically Twitter also seems to be on a constant improvement mode. After being heavily criticised for their downtime, they seem to be getting that under control and now the rumour mills are abuzz with their proposed purchase of Summize.

    On the flip side, I saw a video sharing site – Viddler.com, with some pretty cool features, like being able to add tags and comments right within the timeline. So when a scene appears, the comment appears right then. I haven’t seen too many innovations from YouTube recently. I also read a nice article recently, on how del.icio.us had perhaps lost the chance to become Friendfeed. Intriguing, right? Perhaps, Yahoo may be getting the message, and hence this radical move in the search space, where lots of new players like Yoozilla, Gloofi, Evri and possibly a dozen others are cropping up and doing amazing things that Google is perhaps missing out on. And while Google ups the ante in virtual worlds with the launch of Lively, there is Vivaty, which is ‘virtual world meets social networking’

    So, is improvement a function of current size? When a player gets beyond a certain size (in terms of products, sales, manpower and so on) is it then tougher for them to improve constantly.? Does the growth curve plateau and newer, smallers start taking the shine off from the once nimble large player? If we stretch that and step back a bit, is that the reason why say, a traditional set of players like newspapers are having problems adjusting to the web (generalising here) while new entities like Instablogs or possibly soon, a Topix (a potentially cool site, you must take a look) increase in popularity and relevance?

    In the future, will this constant improvement create a scenario where services will, in short time frames , change so rapidly, that they will bear only a slight resemblance to what they started out as, with only the brand name being a constant, a brand that stands for the cutting edge in that service category?

    until next time, zen and the art of constant improvement

  • Kwippy quips

    Move over microblogging, here comes nano blogging. Have been exploring a new service the last couple of days. Most of you would have heard about it by now, it goes by the name of Kwippy. This gives a great intro to the service. (a Kwiki, if you will)  While it is definitely related to the Twitter / Plurk clan, its distantly related, at least a cousin, and definitely not a clone. And its desi manufactured 🙂

    I got hold of an invite by just asking for one, the response was prompt. And that, from my interactions so far, has been the hallmark of the Kwippy team – timely and efficient response.

    Kwippy can be made to work in sync with your GTalk or Y! Messenger, or like me, if you easily get sick of the GTalk alerts (i have disabled twitter because I couldn’t take the constant blinking) you could use the web interface. And using that, you can Kwip your status messages, share bookmarks and more or less do most of the things that you would do on IM with your friends. Ah, friends, thats another key thing, because unlike say twitter, where we add a lot of people who are not known to us, the IMs usually have friends we really know. While this may become very twitterlike when the crowd pours in, for now its friends and friends of friends, more so because its on ‘invite’ mode.

    So you might ask, THAT’s the differentiator from twitter? No, the difference maker for me, is the threading. Unlike Twitter, but like Friendfeed, you can comment on my Kwip on Kwippy, which means we can keep having conversations on a post, but open up other threads simultaneously, and most importantly, easily keep track of all this.

    So I’ve been reasonably impressed with the service so far, despite a few 500 errors. Dammit, twitter got funded, and still has problems,  and we still grin and bear, so its okay!!

    But my common grouse with all the new services that keep getting launched applies to this one too. Most new services, with perhaps a small and partial exception – Friendfeed, take me out of the carefully created environs of the existing service, be it facebook, twitter, my blog and so on. To recreate the world, I have to wait till all my friends get there. So my immediate but (possibly) very ambitious wishlist from Kwippy or any service/ on the lines of ‘conversation enabling’ would be, for starters

    • making it easy to import friends from other ecosystems (kwippy from twitter? 😉 )
    • evolving a mechanism to have a Disqus kind of widget (thanks to wordpress’ anti javascript stance, disqus won’t work here), that would allow me to connect my blog with a kwippy site (I agree that its a nano blogging platform, but in essence, comments are nanoblogging too) That would allow me to link my blog crowd (don’t snigger, my other blog gets decent comments) with the Kwippy crowd.
    • a browser (ff) add on, to some its more convenient than IM

    Meanwhile I’m awaiting an invite from LiL, it seems to be on a ‘sharing moments’ path. In case you need Kwippy invites, all you have to do is ask. 🙂

    until next time, try kwipping

    PS Speaking of Indian startups, this is an awesome compilation. Hats off!!

  • Opacity

    Read two interesting posts, seemingly not very connected, but actually so. The first one was here, (don’t miss the article it has linked to either) and it talks about brands including an RTI clause in their charter, and anyone from a stakeholder (thats including consumers) to competition being able to demand answers from the company/brand and more importantly, being able to get it. I wonder though, how an RTI clause could co-exist with competitive advantage (brand strategies).

    The second post talks about Friendfeed being a great tool for brands since it aggregates the contents from blogs, microblogging platforms, photo sharing services, social bookmarking sites and most possible social media. The snag though is that a Facebook or an Orkut are not accommodated there, yet, and the crowds frequenting the two kinds of sites are not exactly duplicated.

    But yes, the connection between the two posts is transparency, and i feel that in india, we have a long way to go before we reach that state. That’s because more than a certain set of processes, we are talking about a philosophy here. In the first digital (mini) wave and its aftermath, when blogs became a corporate mantra, how many companies/brands took it seriously and how many have persisted? For a transparent system to get established and flourish, it needs to start with a strategy thats consumer centric, a strong rationale for why x strategy was chosen over y to achieve a certain strategic objective, the wisdom to understand that we are human, and plans can go wrong, inspite of having backup plans running from b to z, and most importantly the maturity to listen to feedback, accept responsibility and take criticism, but learn from it, fix it and get better.

    When i hear people ask for changes in communication strategy based on very subjective likes and dislikes (sorry, its not always purely subjective, i have also heard ‘my wife likes pink’ for a campaign theme color), and when i get this response from them when asked about consumer preferences, and when, on hearing that I blog, I am asked to write good about the brands I work with, irrespective of reality, and when FYI (F*** You Instead – courtesy ‘One Night at the Call centre) responsibility strategies are given more importance than the brand’s performance, and many many more such occurrences, it gives me enough reason to believe that transparency is a long way off.

    On an aside, I read here that apparently the blogosphere was abuzz today with the Vodafone ad for iPhone. Interestingly, I saw three tweets today basically asking why the Vodafone customer service couldn’t be manned by people who knew about iPhone. 🙂

    until next time, mind set

  • Ad-vanced Processing

    No, don’t go away, this is not a tech post.  And stop sniggering, one day I will write a tech post.  Hell, if Laloo can blog…There’s been a spate of celebrity blogs recently – started perhaps with Aamir Khan, then Big B, Salman Khan and a couple of days back, Karan Johar. The fad, I think will soon run out of steam.

    But there’s a very interesting twist I saw to the celebrity-in-the-internet space today, and felt it was very well weaved into a brand’s strategy. The brand is a processor – AMD, and it has chosen Viswananthan Anand as its brand ambassador. On a broad level, the processor-chess-intelligence connection is itself a good one. The TVC idea is a neat analogy, showing Anand try his hand at cricket, failing, and then saying that in a cricket crazy nation, he chose to pursue chess because he was good at it. From an analogy point, cricket is Intel, and the message is that one should choose a processor according to one’s requirements, and not because everyone else follows a trend.

    Coming back, a site has been launched – askvishy.com. As the name suggests, the site gets Anand to clear perceptions about computers, and also offers help in choosing computers according to requirements.There’s also some kind of contest there, but didn’t participate because they asked for the address in stage 1 itself.

    In essence, a well thought out campaign, that uses the brand ambassador well, but only a first step towards what should be a prolonged strike at the far-and-ahead market leader. Intel can’t afford to stay inside anymore.

    until next time, AMD is no more wishy washy

  • First Life

    MMOGs have always fascinated me, but I have never managed to get hooked on to Second Life. And I’m yet to read Neal Stephenson’s Snowcrash, though its been on my shelf for sometime now. But yes, I insist that I am interested nevertheless and still play a browser game set in the middle ages. 🙂

    So, when Wipro became the first Indian brand (or is it VR1? ) to get into Second Life, to me, it was a kind of defining moment. But then, Wipro, to me is a very tech organisation and less connected to a normal consumer inspite of the bulbs and oils. So i wasnt surprised with a “Offshore Development Center (ODC) model campus with facilities like Client engagement center, Learning Center, 3 floor ODC setup with cubicles….Admin, Data center and Library.” presenceon the virtual world. But it was also mentioned that resumes could also be submitted at the virtual campus, wonder what stage that is in.

    And a few days back, Amul also decided to get a life.. a second life. The popularity of Amul’s hoardings is legendary, which is why it was surprising when Amul’s presence was stated to be “…a simulation of its production and distribution facility.” But thankfully, there also seem to be plans for having ice cream parlours which, other than the products, would also feature communication.

    But honestly, I’m still not convinced. Amul is a consumer brand- the taste of India. Also, its no secret that the ‘utterly butterly’ babe on the hoardings played an integral part in building the brand. Isn’t it logical to carry the two components into a virtual platform? Billboards on Second Life showcasing the unique Amul perspective on issues. Isnt it perfectly placed to be a sort of spokesperson for India on global issues? For example, when Bush makes his trademark absurdities (like how India’s prosperity led to a global food shortage) Amul can be the champion of India’s cause, with a trademark oneliner. While I understand that the Bush channel is soon to be closed, and there need not be an Indian perspective on everything, the perspective can be on anything – sports, movies, politics. All of this and more interest the Indian audience. By doing this, Amul becomes the ‘Voice of India’ (not the show, though that can also be done virtually..after all the world does go gaga over Eendian music 😀 ) and is able to showcase itself as a vibrant brand.

    Ah well, for the second life to be good, there should be clarity on the first life. Most brands are yet to reach there. I, for one, would love to have Amul play a much larger role on Second Life, not strictly related to its product range, but more as a brand, with an utterly butterly babe avtar to boot. Whatcha think?

    Meanwhile, this one’s a must read, especially for those of us who are hooked on to 2.0

    until next time, life’s like that?