Category: India

  • A rocky future ?

    The video that marked the end of Rocky Mountain News, a daily newspaper in Denver, would have a sobering effect on anyone who’s worked in the industry. The newspaper printed its final edition on Feb 27th, 55 days short of its 150th birthday. And there’s no succour when The Business Insider points out a list of 9 newspapers that are likely to fold. Newspapers in the US are still in shock at how an industry that was once really profitable seems to be on the path of extinction. Gawker is a good place to keep track. The reasons for decline are many – the rapid technological advances, changing consumption habits, newspapers not reacting early enough – to name a few. That’s a track we have walked several times, so I shall move on.

    What are newspapers doing to survive? A few examples. The Hearst Corporation, which publishes the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Albany Times Union, and has interests in an additional 43 daily and 72 non-daily newspapers, is going to charge for some of its online content. The New York Times fights on, bringing out something new on a regular basis, the latest being the version 2 of their popular iPhone app, which offers extensive support for offline reading. (via RWW) It is also starting a neighbourhood blog project, which will have content from editors as well as citizen journalists, and they are planning to target local businesses for ads. (via TechCrunch) Across the pond, FT reports that the UK’s top regional newspaper groups have banded together to negotiate with the government as they seek urgent help to save further titles from closure.  Meanwhile, The Guardian has announced its Open Platform, which will allow developers to use its content (from 1999)  in myriad ways. The more interesting part is what it states  on the Partner Program page “You can display your own ads and keep your own revenue. We will require that you join our ad network in the future.”A very innovative approach!!

    Even content reccomendation services, like Loomia, used on sites such as WSJ, are looking to get revenues for their publishers. Meanwhile, advice is pouring in, from all quarters. Social Media Explorer has an excellent post on how journalists can leverage social media. This Mashable post shows “10 ways newspapers are using social media to save the industry”. This not only includes suggestions, but also tools that are available for free. I know at least a couple of journalists here who also use Twitter for story ideas, opinions etc.

    Debates still rage on the role that newspapers play in the community, and whether its loss is something much beyond that of just a source of news. One view is that society is losing a watchdog, and that stories are reported because of full time journalists, and that in a world, where all content is free, no news gathering will happen, because there is a price to it. But there are those who think otherwise. This is a good read, on that counter view. Some recent studies would support the latter. In fact, it raises a good point about revenue, which we’ll come to in a while. But both agree that to survive, newspapers have to quickly figure out how to factor the net into their business model, whether it is too late, only time can tell.

    As this article points out, the two revenue sources of newspapers – circulation and advertising, are linked. When content becomes free (the net has forced that) people are no longer interested in paying for it offline, which essentially means that advertisers don’t get the reach that they used to, from newspapers. And projections suggest that its not just offline ad revenues that are in a free fall, online newspaper ad revenues will continue to decline in 2009. Whether the state of the online component is a function of recession, is debatable. After all, when it comes to advertising on the net, even the biggest of newspapers have a formidable foe – Google. Google, which is now putting ads in Google  News, when you search for a particular topic. Remember that Google news is only an aggregator, and as of now, there are no updates of revenue sharing arrangement with the news sources.

    Newspapers are still producing content that people want. Only, there are other sources too now.  More than the assets required to generate the content (editorial staff and related infrastructure expenses), it is the delivery platform (press, newsprint, and even the distribution) that is costing the newspaper. Now consider this, with rapid technological advances, it is becoming easier for newspapers to generate the same content, and perhaps at a lesser cost (fewer reporters combined with crowd sourcing, for example) There is still some cost involved in this, and so, it is debatable whether all the content generated should be given free online. If some thought can be applied to utilising other delivery platforms which are cheaper, a revenue model scalable with costs incurred could be achieved. In any case, newspapers never made money out of content directly. They built audiences around the content they provided, and then leveraged that audience to create a revenue model in which advertisers paid to reach that audience. Maybe it is time to rekindle that relationship with the customers and give him more options than the ‘one size fits all’ newspaper.

    The time is ripe for Indian newspapers (especially the English dailies) to do some experimenting.  I wonder if its a good idea to treat the newspaper’s web presence as a separate business unit. Rather than blindly putting all the news available in the physical paper online for free,  start from scratch on the web, have a separate news gathering process (or attribute a part of the overall cost to this unit), start figuring out the requirements of consumers, allow some customisation,  (the net allows a lot already, but its still worth a shot in India) play around with local/sub local content, (they’ve to work fast on this one, since Twitter is also working on local news updates)  work on the digital delivery platforms, deliver more targeted consumers to advertisers with customised solutions rather than broadcast style ads, and maybe a fate similar to the US counterparts can be averted.

    until next time, newspaper

  • The heat is on…

    You know its summer when you see the various soft drinks launching their ‘season collection’. Coke, Pepsi, Thums Up, Mirinda and Sprite have all started bombarding the channels with their respective ads. Meanwhile, I was really surprised to know that Sprite is now the #2 soft drink brand in the country after Thums Up, the brand refused to die. This happened in October 2008, and since then Sprite has not only cemented its position (at 15.6%) ahead of pepsi (at 13%), but is also closing in on Thums Up (16.16%) (via Economic Times)

    So, let’s begin with Coke’s TVC. Coke has brought the ‘Open Happiness’ theme (which i’d written about earlier) to India, and has started the campaign with an ad featuring Gautam Gambhir. (because he’s an opener? ok sorry) The ad shows how the game of cricket (with Coke) adds fun and refreshment in our lives and builds community  by sharing our moments of happiness together – in this case, a cricket match. Gautham Gambhir brings to life a regular hangout joint by offering ‘ a dost free with every Coke’. The wife uncharitably commented that a free dosa might get more response!!

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S59gN7bl6As

    I honestly wasn’t impressed with the ‘Open Happiness’ theme anyway- Coke has done much better campaigns before, and this has cemented that opinion. Unless the remaining ads do wonders, I doubt if that opinion will change.  In fact I got thinking about Coke’s Slumdog association, rather dissociation, which i wrote about earlier. If they had allowed that association, the Oscar win would have gone wonderfully with the theme, and the Oscar is a global thing. They could’ve even done a cheering ad at the bottom of the screen whenever SDM got an award. (at least in the repeat telecast). Oh well, why cry over spilt cola.

    On to Pepsi’s latest TVC. With the cricket team in action, and IPL coming up, it looks like Pepsi has (thankfully) decided to shelf R.Kap and D.Pad for a while, and move on to Dhoni and Co. This is continuing the path of “echoing youth sentiment” – the last ad talked about how padhai wasn’t the only way to success, and this one talks of how people use their connections (jaanta hain mera baap kaun hai?) to get ahead in life. The concept, though a bit jaded, might actually work because of the execution (Sehwag’s wig’s contribution must be noted)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2xS3P_Ejjg

    And now Sprite. I had written sometime back about how Sprite is going about things in a very methodical manner. In plain words, I think they have a strategy, and from the numbers it seems to be working. Clear Hai !! They’ve added the  no nonsense approach to their product benefit of slaking thirst and the renditions have been great so far. As a massive Fido Dido fan (7 up) I can only grudgingly admire. Brilliant. They have released two ads recently, but they really don’t measure up to the earlier work.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQr9gwb_-I

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-vVSEDOWmA

    The positioning has gotten a bit diluted, I felt, maybe the later ads will be better. Lets hope someone gives them something to spoof on. And meanwhile, the big news is that King Khan, after Pepsi’s non renewal of his contract, will now say ‘Baki Sab Bakwas’. Yes, he is Sprite’s new brand ambassador!! Coke has the most awesome Bollywood portfolio now – Aamir for Coke, SRK for Sprite, and Akshay for Thums Up.

    Speaking of which, Thums Up has also released its TVC, which features Akshay in a double role.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQUcO4GMus

    The typical Akshay-Thums Up ad, all slick action and stunts, centred around “will do anything for a Thums Up”. Wonder if Pepsi will spoof like last time.

    I also saw a couple of Mirinda ads, featuring Asin, very entertaining ones, but with a distinct south Indian flavour, which, am not sure will work across India (especially the market ones, which relies on wordplay a lot)

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65DbA-baZYA

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esp026fOXlE&NR=1

    The smaller 15 second ones which would work for a national audience don’t reach the same level as the ones above.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCiZ6ZCiDQ8

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em8_fbMGRKI

    7 Up has been silent so far. I hope they do something good with Fido Dido, which is a lot to ask for, considering the work so far. I couldn’t help but wonder the good use that Fido could’ve been put to in social media. This is the only brand which is instinctively identified with a character, and in a medium in which people like to talk to people and not brands, Fido could’ve served as a wonderful front end for the brand. His coolness wowed one generation, if someone thinks hard enough, he could easily wow many more too. Will he make a comeback with the new Pepsi lemon drink – Nimbooz? I, for one, hope he does.

    With the uninspiring 7Up and even Mirinda, Pepsi really has no flanking products. Coke, on the other hand, has two of its brands at the top. Pepsi needs a miracle now, to claw back. I have a feeling that Sprite is getting ready for the war for the top spot, and Pepsi played into their hands by releasing SRK. Thums Up, with Akshay at #1, and within touching distance Sprite at #2, with Shah Rukh. With these two sharing icy cold vibes these days in real life over the Bollywood #1 position, I think, we have a thriller on our hands.

    until next time, cold war!!

    PS. Interesting tactic by Coke – Don’t Dew it, a 24-ounce Vault (Coke) free with any purchase of a 20 ounce Mountain Dew (Pespsi)

  • Brands & Media Metrics

    Rajesh Lalwani raised an interesting point in his post a few days back, on how the performance of a social media campaign should not be judged solely by the buzz it generates, since a lot of conversations flow ‘below the surface’ i.e. emails, telecons and face-to-face. I’d also add Chat (the GTalk type) and DM.

    My reply consisted of several parts, and some of it got me thinking on the concept of ‘measurement’.  Among other things,  I felt that, relatively speaking, it is more convenient to measure buzz (a social media search or even a Google search) than the ‘below the surface’ versions. You really can’t track what I speak with someone else on GTalk. But more importantly I felt that this love for measurement stems from a need for control.

    So I looked back at the brand campaigns around, the media used and the measurement. Following is a rant.(and is quite India specific) Though its extremely relevant, I shall, for now, ignore brands’ following a ‘campaign strategy’ at the cost of brand strategy. Generally, the campaign would consist of Outdoor (billboards), Print, Television, Radio and *new* Internet. So, lets see the measurement criteria for these. Outdoor – you can’t go wrong with one on Brigade Road- Residency Road (that’s Bangalore) junction, everyone goes there. Print – XYZ has circulation and readership of …. Television – XYZ channel and the TRPs it delivers. Radio – say RAM and listenership. While there are numbers and numbers, there is really no way to figure out exactly how many people saw/heard the ad and responded (not even if you put call centre numbers/email ids/call ins).  The sales spike that happens on the day the ad is released is the indicator of its success in print. If ‘people’ saw/heard it, TV/Outdoor/Radio has worked. Yes, I’m generalising, and I do know what value market research can offer. And so Internet. Now the internet obviously needs to match up to the awesome quantitative measurement options that the other media provide. 😐

    And so the brand guys waited for the net to show some real numbers. And it did, as it was bound to. Depending on who you ask, this number could now vary anywhere over 28 million users. ComScore puts India’s net population at 32 million, and within that, the social networking population at 19 million, Orkut firmly leading with 12.8 million. The figure reminded me of the leading English daily’s readership – as per IRS R2 2008, it was 13.3 million. 🙂

    And while the numbers rose, the digital sellers walked in with the stats and taught the brand guys CTR, CPC, CPM (no, that’s not political)  and to use banners and site takeovers and microsites on the net. The measurement criteria was made up of numbers. So, the internet with the amazing CPT (cost per thousand) it provides, is no longer an afterthought in a media plan (Thanks to R, who gave me her valuable thoughts on media planning). Pay for Performance was the mantra and its pillars were leads and clicks.Is that a problem? Not by itself, but when you consider the potential the medium offers, and how it can be used for measurable branding, its not a problem, its an injustice. To quote from this wonderful article on the subject

    In fact it is precisely this cult of accountability that is getting in the way of the digital community progressing from clever marketing handymen to the architects of brand success….So long as the digital community clings to its obsession with accountability over effectiveness it will remain in the unedifying position of creating engaging brand fluff on the one hand and highly measurable but largely pointless direct response advertising on the other.

    All these are not unknown issues. WATBlog’s panel discussion in Delhi covered much of this. And with all this playing in the background, arrives social media. And it won’t make sense because brands only use media on a campaign to campaign basis, and social media is about the brand’s strategy and a consistent presence- building an audience, listening to them, asking their views, collecting insights, making better products, and so on. It is not about statistics and definitely not a get in-bombard with ads- collect leads-get out deal. Besides, measurements are more qualitative!! The criteria that mass media provides for measurement are almost irrelevant here, and rightly so!! Because in social media, the crowd responds, they talk to each other, and if you don’t participate, and attempt to treat it like a broadcast medium (the way the measurement based web is being treated), someone is likely to have fun, most likely at your expense. And in social media, what a brand says is less important than what the brand’s consumers say.

    Like the general web before it, it is only a matter of time  before the social web  reaches a scale which forces brands to use it. I hope they don’t use it like broadcast media, and instead learn to use it – not as a templated solution, but as a subjective, evolving mechanism.

    until next time, cast away

    Note: i have nothing against mass media. It has its uses. I have a problem with this social media measurement obsession, without the correct metrices and by involving it only from a communication perspective and not the other parts of the brand’s life cycle, and finally stating that it’s just fun and doesn’t work for brands.

  • Paper Money

    There was a wonderful post in the Edelman Digital blog titled ‘The Last Newspaper‘. An insightful, well balanced and objective take on stories and content which perhaps captures the newspaper and web relationship best. From the post

    Stories are personal and transformational. Stories have definition and character. Stories are history personified.

    But content is cold, distant. Content is a commodity – a finite consumable of fleeting value. Content is artificial intelligence.

    Quite a paradox for brands that handle stories, when we consider that brands that tell the most interesting stories are loved by consumers. Taking it to a not-so-appealing premise was this question that was asked on Friendfeed recently, by Adam Lasnik.

    “I’m becoming increasingly concerned about the growing sensationalism in online “journalism.” Will the pursuit of pageviews ultimately trump integrity and thoughtfulness? I’m seriously worried.”

    When news becomes a commodity, publishers have to find a way to make theirs look more appealing than someone else’s. This is an unfortunate but inevitable by product.

    Publishers. On one side, we have Kindle 2, and its competitors (via @chupchap) work on an alternate platform for news delivery, and on the other, we have The Printed Blog rolling out a printed newspaper. Meanwhile, we  have Japanese newspapers collaborating for an iphone app. We also have an entity like NYT, which carries an op-ed article stating that perhaps non-profit, endowment based system is the way forward for newspapers, but is still the world’s best newspaper website,  taking radical steps to figure out ways to evolve, basis the understanding that newspapers are perhaps not the preferred means of delivery anymore – an API which offers developers access to 2.8 million articles from NYT, and another that gives developers data on the sharing and reading habits of Times People’s registered users. In essence, from a newspaper or even a news website, it transforms itself into a platform on which users and developers can use this mound of information for various purposes, and the possibility of linking it all together semantically. In context, an article from over 2 years back, still relevant.

    Closer to home, the top Indian newspapers are still grappling with the issue of how to handle themselves on the web. That’s not to say that some publications aren’t trying. HT, for example, has started blogs recently. Now you could turn around and say that’s basic, but that’s the state of Indian print media for you. Future revenue models are not even being thought of in most places. From their three main sources of revenue – subscription, stand sales and advertising, the first two are at best on plateaus and the last is suffering, largely due to recession. Recently, there was even a delegation of publication owners that approached the government for help!! Maybe they should be doing this instead – collaborative link journalism by Publish2. Vernacular papers are in better shape. But for English newspapers, i really don’t know what’s a better time to start thinking about future revenue.

    In that context, this post correctly states that micropayments for news (here’s a rebuttal too)  is not an option. Some revenue could be possible by making some parts of the content paid for, as the NYT is planning, but that still cannot be the main source of revenue. I am wondering how well a subscription model based on a different platform (mobile) could work. The news alerts on SMS are only the tip. While GPRS penetration is not exactly astounding, it is bound to grow especially in the segment that the English newspapers operate in, so perhaps it is a path to be explored. Locality based, contextual advertising could be fun.

    Newspapers, especially in India, would do well to heed a great piece of advice that I got from this post on brands, and the need for evolution. (via Gabriel Rossi)

    “Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.” William Pollard

    Its not merely a change in delivery platform or an API that makes the move by NYT so radical. Its the mindset change, and until Indian newspapers realise that, no efforts will make long term sense. For now, they are smug in treating only other newspapers as competition, not even considering the possibility of an entire army of vertical-specialised content providers who now have digital media which gives them advantages like never before, to generate and distribute content.

    until next time, paper tigers…

    PS. This – Google buying a paper mill and converting it into a data centre, I thought, was very symbolic.

  • More than fizz and froth

    While the recession hits the economies worldwide, the cola giants have been trying their bubbly best to get the fizz back into the lives of their target audience, through hope and optimism campaigns.

    Pepsi began proceedings with its new logo, accompanied by a tagline “Every generation refreshes the world”. You can catch an entire set of creatives in this New Year video. On an aside, the (yet to be proved conclusively) brief for this campaign has caused much amusement. You really have to take a look – it is bizarre and includes everything from gravitational pull and thr relativity of space-time to Mona Lisa and the Bible!! (via psfk) Meanwhile, Coke rolled out its ‘Open Happiness’ campaign a few weeks later, complete with a massive campaign and 2 new Super Bowl spots, prompting the question “Who smiled first“. The answer turned out to be Obama, but Pepsi claimed that finally Coke was following them. Coke pointed out that it had started using smiley logos six months back.

    Critics have been skeptical about Coke moving away from the ‘Coke side of life’. Pepsi, they say, having always been a youthful brand has been able to bring out a more buoyant and less laboured campaign. In India, they’ve decided to be totally Youngistan, with SRK no longer a brand ambassador, leaving us stuck with Ranbir Kapoor’s adventures. Some respite recently from Dhoni and gang, with the baap connection.

    Meanwhile, these campaigns also made me wonder whether typical mass media communication and feel good campaigns are indeed the way to connect during such troubled times,  more so when I read this article by Tom Martin in AdAge. It talks about “the simple human need to connect to others.”

    And that brings me to a brilliant campaign I’ve seen (virtually) – froth brand this time, instead of fizz- Starbucks’ “I’m In” campaign, (in association with ‘Hands On Network’) “ an initiative to make it easy to participate in the President-elect’s call for national service.” The campaign allows a person to pledge five hours or more of community service toward a local volunteer opportunity of choice. It rewards the person with a free coffee. The goal is to raise pledges in excess of one million hours of service from all over the country. You can catch the results here. This is what is correctly described as ‘marketing with meaning‘ – which includes several facets – social, personal, storytelling, disruptive, responsible, each of which gives individuals different sets of incentives to be part of the campaign. Starbucks timed the campaign brilliantly – Obama’s inauguration week, and got itself an Oprah Effect. It has all the ingredients required to make a consumer want to be associated with the campaign, and has used the social web very well.

    Now I’m not sure of Coke/Pepsi in the US have tangible renditions of the happiness theme on ground, but I know several campaigns in India which have paid lip service to excellent themes/ideas and have ended up looking superficial. In the times and circumstances we live in, there are excellent opportunities for brands to genuinely do good to society within the sphere of their category, and thereby increase their equity in the consumer’s mind.  (Jaago re is a great example) I wonder how many brands will see this.

    until next time, a lot can happen over coffee 🙂

    PS. While on fizzy stuff, did you hear about the RSS launching cow’s urine as a soft drink? Called gau-jal, its undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”. Sumant suggests Mo (rarji) Desai in low riding jeans, basketball jersey and bling, as brand ambassador, and I suggested the tagline Pee yo! Wonder if Coke and Pepsi are pissed 😉