Category: India

  • Big brands, small ideas

    I ended last week’s post with a note that social media services provide brands a way of having their lifestream online, and weaving themselves into the consumers’ context. Last week, I read an interesting article on Six Pixels of Separation titled “Your Company is a Media Company“. It talks about how the different social media tools allow companies to publish their own content without the aid of the earlier generation’s tools and processes – newspapers, PR companies etc, and how these companies are finding new ways to tell stories. It also discusses how consumers now expect companies to be connected, listening and reacting – in a human voice. I remember touching upon this subject in a few old posts of mine – “The new media owners“, and “The Evolution of Content Marketing” a few months back.

    One of the biggest gripes that come up when big brands arrive on social media services is how they use it as just another broadcast channel for their TVCs/microsite/contest etc without adding any value to the reader/consumer. I have seen many a brand on Twitter completely disappear when their promotion ends, perhaps it came up only because ‘Twitter account, Facebook page’ were the current flavours in the marketing communication checklist. These are obviously generalisations, and the three examples that I’d discussed in the last post are obvious exceptions.

    While wondering why it has to be this way, I remembered an old post of mine, which though discussed the future role of a brand manager, had started out on a different premise. It had been triggered by a superb post by Russell Davies titled “the tyranny of the big idea“, and a couple of wonderful notes at Misentropy, which took the idea further. (All the three posts I have linked to are 1-3 years old, and I still find them great reads. What I’m trying to say is that you MUST read them)

    In the last few days, I have seen a few posts that have explored this theme, from different perspectives. Six Pixels of Separation has a post that discusses how the combination of 3 factors – a conversation based social media, real time and fragmented media would mean that marketing strategy would have to move away from the big idea and be more involved with smaller ideas basis the type of people the brand talks to, the platform of discussion, and the context. Closer to home, I read a good post  on afaqs – a question posed – whether television is hogging the resources (financial and talent) because in India it is the most preferred medium (not basis revenue) for marketers as well as the advertising fraternity. L Bhat has a very pertinent post on regional branding, and how Indian brands approach it with a one-size-fits-all approach, relying on translations which don’t do justice to the original idea, or showing contexts which have no relevance to the local audience. He notes (illustrated with examples) that brands which have developed communication specifically for the region have touched a chord with the audience. Another indicator that media fragmentation is not just about the web, let alone social media.

    With the advent of the internet, and specially social media, brands have the opportunity now to use this means of distribution to explore the long tail of audiences and marketing communication. The economies that dictate the usage of television, print etc – in terms of both production and distribution, do not really apply on the web. The NYT has an article on the rise of sentiment analysis – the social web as a ‘canary in the coalmine’, as a way to identify opinion leaders, as a forecasting tool, and so on. Its still early days yet, and we will obviously see much improvement in the current systems. In BlogAdda’s interview with Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics evangelist, I had asked about the effect of the ’emotional responses’ in social media on the field of analytics. As he explains, there cannot be a single tool that can capture all data, and those who monitor this, will have to get used to the idea of multiplicity. From just deciding where communication will be distributed (and to a certain extent, consumed) to  having to track where conversations are happening in an ‘everything reviewed‘ (Transparency, Trendwatching’s September trend)  world, and then deciding the what-why – that is quite a drastic change. These are obviously not mutually exclusive, but it still is a challenge.

    The earlier models of communication (and even some elements of strategy) have perhaps been conceptualised and practised without factoring in instant two way communication, conversation among consumers, and multiple touch points. It was relatively easy for everyone concerned to have one big idea and push it into all the channels. That is perhaps what is happening as ‘social’ is seen as just another ‘media’, but it works differently. It involves a whole new set of rules, some yet to be even thought of. While there will be quite a few advantages, there will also be several challenges for the brand- to be different within the core brand idea, to add value to the different kinds of audiences in context, to decide levels of transparency and be comfortable with it, to be a ‘media company’, to be also comfortable with the rigours of listening and possibly having to react real time. There will be challenges for the brand manager, like I mentioned in the post earlier. There will be challenges for the creative agencies – when they develop ideas, they have to be medium and context specific, and also know how to respond in real time. They will also have to be churning out fresh ideas on a regular basis. There will be challenges for media agencies – to find out the maximum possible touch points relevant for the brand. And this is not just to do with the web and social media alone, but the better usage of other media too. Brands can actually be different things to different people, and be relevant. In short, a drastic overhaul of the system which currently operates, before they an get to being a media company. Being a ‘media company’ and ‘always on’ means that the ‘content’ cannot solely be made of big ideas. Possible, but impractical, I’d say, unless its an idea with several rendition and execution possibilities. From one big idea every quarter/year to a stream of small ideas. Not necessarily, perhaps, but probably so. I wonder, how many big brands and agencies will be game for playing with small ideas.. and failing sometimes?

    until next time, a tyrannosaurus hex 🙂

  • Bloody cool. They’ve earned it. Cheers.

    Ok, that was a fairly long and (to some of you) meaningless title, but that was the only way I could think of, to connect the three brands whose activities on Twitter make up this post. Since I rarely come across  praiseworthy efforts from Indian brands on Twitter, I thought it would be worthwhile to keep track of those who are making some decent attempts.

    We’ll start with Channel V, whose Rs. 5 crore makeover to a ‘Bloody Cool’ channel has been a talking point, thanks to a multimedia blitz including write ups in print, flash mobs and online activity, which could leave the viewer ‘exhausted’. I first came across them on Twitter when they RT ed a tweet of mine a couple of weeks back, and have since then seen several people on my list change their display pictures to the Channel V logo. There were two activities that they were doing on Twitter. One was basis the site ISawTheChange (loved Simpoo’s ‘Saw the chanze’ touch), where users were asked to spot the changes in an image on the site, and there were prizes to be won daily. Users had to respond on Twitter which meant that my stream also had people regularly tweeting ‘I saw the change at….’. This site also has a link to Channel V’s Facebook activities. They actually have more fans on FB!! The other activity was basis the OnYours site, and this was led to the sprouting of huge numbers of Channel V logos on my stream, as users changed their display pictures. The interesting part of this was that the user’s original display picture and the Channel V logo would be switched randomly during the period of the promotion (till Aug 22nd) Users also had the option to withdraw at any time. If they remained signed in for 5 days or more, they had a chance to win a tee. In addition to both these activities, on Aug 21st (the day before the change) Channel V also had a 12 hour (11 Pm onwards) – 48 question challenge and a chance to win more prizes. Judging by the timeline, there wasn’t a lack of participation.

    Of course, not everyone liked their in-your-face approach to ‘hijacking’ twitter (maybe a twibbon like approach would’ve been preferred), but the point was, the participation was crowd driven and if someone had to be blamed for the logo blitz, it could only be the people one followed. Channel V also used their stream to announce the details of their flash mobs and even answer the question ‘why a relaunch‘. Most importantly, they took everything in good humour, including my BC MC tweet. 🙂 They have built a fair amount of good equity on Twitter, it will be interesting to see how they take it forward. I was wondering if they’ll do a Twitter version of ‘Exhausted’, with tasks specifically created for the way Twitter operates (including pictures and videos using apps). Might be a good experiment. In fact, when i got the DM for the 12 hour quiz I mentioned earlier, I was wondering if it would be a promo for #exhausted. On the music side, they could latch on to several existing tags like #musicmonday, or even create their own #nowplaying. They could also use this to announce music launches and give video previews etc. With Twitter now getting serious about geolocation, there are bound to be some good apps coming along. They could use that to inform specific audiences about concerts/gigs happening in their city. There are, as always possibilities.

    Though I wasn’t a big fan of the initial promos on Twitter for its blog, the second brand that is doing some interesting activity now is the Cadbury Bournville brand with the #earnit tags. Interesting to note that there’s also a Bournville News operating from Birmingham, and that’s also about the Cadbury brand!! Meanwhile, our version of Bournville manages to insert the tag in context on a regular basis. From Vir Sanghvi’s articles to promising Pinstorm chocolates if they showed 5 reasons why they had #earned it, the brand manages to keep the conversation alive. What it should be perhaps working on is the integration that Channel V has been able to achieve – online as well as offline. For instance, though they do connect to Facebook, their ad on YouTube and even its spoof, I couldn’t find anything about their twitter activity on the website. And the connection to the the-dark-truth.com? In fact, with all the contests that V has been running, they could have easily tagged along and gifted some dark chocolate to the winners (at least where it is operationally feasible for Mumbai, like Mumbai?) Even though operations would be tough, it would be nice to see them running some Twitter contests (say, how have you #earnedit in 140 characters or a twitpic) and doing a gratification offline. I am sure they can at least tie up with a few retail chains to accept Bournville vouchers and give away chocolates. With people winning awards and contests on a regular basis, there is indeed potential for #earningit.

    The last interesting brand I’d like to mention is Kingfisher. Kingfisher came to my attention thanks to their timely and correct response to a user’s tweet. They managed to clarify an issue very well. Kingfisher also uses the stream to RT any mention of their brand by folks on Twitter (example) as well as give information about their events. Kingfisher does have a good opportunity to perhaps associate with tweetups in various cities by leveraging their association with F&B establishments. Again, given the amount of events that they partner, they could also further streamline their alerts using Twitter Local features later.

    In spite of the various challenges, Twitter does allow a unique way for brands to have their lifestream online. It enhances the story telling opportunities, and ways to weave themselves more into their consumers’ context. Such cases hopefully will encourage more brands to try out the service and take their brand beyond one way communication efforts.

    until next time, brandstreams and blue oceans

    Update: Just got to know that a fellow member of the Digital Marketing India group on LinkedIn – Sanjay Mehta, and his company, Social Wavelength (www.socialwavelength.com) are behind Channel V’s efforts described above. In my view, a splendid effort. 🙂

    No, there’s nothing to disclose 🙂

  • Paper Capers

    Almost 2 months since we last discussed newspapers, so I thought its a good time to update. Rumour is that Murdoch plans to sue Google and Yahoo over news services. Fact is that he’s going to charge for news, something he’s been doing for a while with WSJ, and the ‘experiment’ is going to start with The Sunday Times. Others are set to follow his example.  “Quality journalism is not cheap,” said Murdoch. “The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive distribution channels but it has not made content free. We intend to charge for all our news websites.“

    I, for one, am happy, because the keywords for me are ‘quality journalism’. Its perhaps a prelude to a shakedown, and the survival of only those who can adapt to a world with internet. With the width and depth of content available, the debate of ‘free vs paid’ has been going on for a while now. But perhaps the time has come to end it. Build the wall, and let’s see if people want to pay to enter. (that link is an excellent read, detailed and thought through, check it out) Opinions are bound to vary – and to be in extremes. Most people feel that it is flawed. Chris Anderson feels that at some point in the future, “maybe media will be a hobby rather than a job“,  Vivian Schiller, former senior vice president and general manager of the NYTimes.com, believes that “people will not in large numbers pay for news content online“, but there’s still space for an NYT to cut expenses and survive. Murdoch obviously believes he can get the audience to pay.

    Meanwhile, the Associated Press is planning to charge $2.50 per word if 5 words or more are quoted from its articles, with the help of a microformat. Not surprisingly, it has been widely criticised in several tones all over the web. Jeff Jarvis even has a post on ‘How (and why) to replace the AP‘, and illustrates the interesting concept of ‘reverse syndication’. Chris Ahearn, at Thomson Reuters, implores entities that are declaring war on the link economy to stop whining, and stands ready to help those who wish for an alternative to AP.

    Interestingly, Google had recently quadrupled its newspaper archives. (Locally, Dainik Jagran is now part of Google’s News Archive Partner Programme, and has a strategic deal with Google to help the group archive its bilingual daily, Inext) The average newspaper’s stance on Google is understandably ambivalent. On one hand, it is happy to get the traffic from Google, but its not happy that its only one among the websites shown, and the amount of content that Google shows. (that might prevent a reader from visiting the site) Sometime back, Google had posted its views and how, any publication can block search engines with a slight change in code.

    The reactions to this obvious ‘transition stage‘ for the newspaper industry has been taking many forms. Paywalls are boycotts are only one kind. Alternate methods of news collection like crowdsourcing+crowdfunding, public collaboration, (an interesting case, for more than this reason), nichepapers and ways in which journalists can use tools like Facebook and Twitter, are being discussed, as well as radical ideas like making the newspaper a gateway for particpative experiences, even as technological developments – touch screen ‘intelligent plastic’ roll up reader, and experiments from NYT (‘What we are reading‘) continue.

    While it would be easy to say that these are trends in the West, that are not very relevant to India at this stage, I’d still say that these are trends that media in India, especially newspapers, should be closely watching and learning from. A good read from Pradyuman Maheshwari at e4m on the same subject. While the Nielsen Online Global Survey on trust, value and engagement in advertising shows that newspapers are the most trusted form of paid advertising (in india), the TCS study on Indian urban school children show that they are extremely technology savvy and totally at ease with the web and social media.

    As stated in the TCS study “This societal trend has important implications for parents, educators, policy makers, as future employers as well as companies and brands that want to sell to tomorrow’s generation.” Some understand this, and have started experimenting with new forms of distribution. I just got  a mail asking me to check out Star Player!! The point is that one can never be sure whether the trends in the US will be replicated in India, though I’d say its more a ‘when’ question than an ‘if’, even though India’s version of the trends would be mutated, thanks to its own socio-cultural and economic pecularities. But it helps to be prepared. I read at Medianama, a few days back that the Hindu is taking Ergo, its 5 day a week publication aimed at young professionals in Chennai, online. Though the motive might have been cost saving, I’m sure it will be a great learning in understanding consumption patterns and figuring out revenue streams. I quite liked the site, powered by WordPress, with a very casual ‘About’ page, and covering some interesting stuff. It looks like an online news site, not the website of a newspaper.

    On hindsight, the collision was bound to happen. Newspapers, which subsidised news to the reading audience by making advertising pay for it. Google, which aggregated content, and served ads in context. They had to meet somewhere, and disagree on who makes how much. The concern areas for newspapers are manifold – news consumption has changed – quantitatively and qualitatively, modes of creation and distribution have changed, and Google has developed a much better advertising model. In essence, all entities in the publishing business have changed – producers, consumers, advertisers. Isn’t it inevitable that the publisher has to find a new business model? Newspapers in India still have some time on their hands, and some good tools too. With most publishing houses having multiple products that cater to specific audiences, they can actually experiment in different directions. It does cost money to create good content, the trick obviously is to figure out ways to minimise the cost and work out how much each stakeholder – reader and advertiser, is willing to pay for it. Now would definitely be a good time to start, unless you want to sound like the (as usual) hilarious Onion story – “Why did no one inform us of the imminent death of the American Newspaper industry” 🙂

    until next time, think about the link economy

  • Mob bile

    Facebook recently launched Live Stream Box, which allows webmasters to stream relevant real time status updates on their site. Users can log in with Facebook Connect and post updates that will appear on facebook (their own profile as well as friends depending on their settings) as well as the site. It means that if say, I’m watching a live stream of any event on a particular site, which has this installed, I can use this to get my friends on FB to join the conversation. Two things struck me- one, it makes a whole new way of connecting friends around their topic of interest (context), and two, (a question), is this a step aimed at bettering twitter’s common lifestream and hashtag based way of aggregating conversations? (something that Facebook lacked so far)

    As all the services increase their focus on real time, I couldn’t help but think of the impact it has had on usage. Are the users on these services becoming increasingly trigger happy? TC had an article recently titled “Friendfeed, syphilis and the perfection of online mobs“, which talked about the service being the hotbed of mob justice enthusiasts.  (because of its ability to aggregate conversations in one place) Its a subject that I have discussed here earlier – once in the Hasbro-Scrabulous context, and then collating 3 separate incidents. I must say that we have moved on since then- to places closer to home – the latest being The Kiruba Incident involving Cleartrip (The Kiruba version) In many cases, the mob doesn’t even pause to check the facts or look at the issue objectively/rationally, before they react. With all kinds of people out there, I wonder how long it will be before someone decides to use more than just the keyboard, and look at real justice options. (Actually it has happened before)

    So, what would the effect of all this be on brands? Would they be able to keep up? Would they be able to deal with an angry mob? Real time is a reality, and it is would be more of a loss if brands decided not to use twitter. Its a different matter whether they choose to engage or are content with listening. There are quite a few tools out there which can help monitor the conversations, but what if the brands are not wired enough to respond effectively to the fires that happen? In this context, I read an interesting article on Adage, that talks about Slow Marketing. It talks about going back to the basics, and a need to focus on human, one-to-one connections.

    The responsibility is on both sides. In their eagerness to cash in on the new big thing and create buzz, brands (and agencies that advise brands) set expectations that may be way beyond what the organisation behind the brand can actually meet – in this context, perhaps turn around speed, and response to all communication directed at it. From the article, 

    Pick your battles: The social-media feeding frenzy puts a premium on responding to all conversation. You don’t need to respond to everything. Take a step back before diving in. In some cases, not engaging is the best form of engagement.

    The responsibility lies with users too. Long before there were brands on the real time platforms, there were people. And people used to help newbies learn the protocols of communicating in the network. If you were a user, you wouldn’t want to be in a place where people were only out to make fun or do harm to you. Maybe we should extend that courtesy to brands too, and allow some leeway, at least in terms of reaction time. In many cases, the person behind the handle will be just another enthusiast like you, with hardly any support from the organisation, and he would be trying to show to his bosses the value that these services can provide. All of us have favourite brands, which, if they use social media effectively, will end up being more useful to us. By making witchhunts a standard operating procedure, we might be doing more harm than we realise.

    There is an interesting discussion online, that talks about company websites and their return to favour, but more on that next week 😉

    until next time, see you later

  • Broken News models

    The Iran crisis once again brought the present day tools of news gathering into the limelight, even while highlighting the inadequacies of traditional media. From real time tools like PicBrk to spoof ads and stories, the tools became the focal point of the protests. It was as much about changes in news gathering as it was about the ability to share, both in real time, a skill that traditional is yet to pick up, in spite of ‘breaking news’ on television. The significance of Twitter’s contribution can be gauged from the fact that the US government asked Twitter to postpone its scheduled maintenance so as not to disrupt the flow of news from Iran. The inability of traditional news gathering and distribution systems to come to terms with real time media consumption, and their usage of social media as yet another broadcast medium was highlighted at the 140 Characters Conference (#140conf). All this makes me consider, yet again, the future of traditional media systems and conglomerates, especially newspapers.

    A few days back, I read about the Associated Press issuing social media guidelines to its staff – not to show political affiliations, or post views on contentious issues among other things. The ‘best’ part is that they also have to monitor their profile to ensure that comments by others do not violate AP standards!! Ahmadinejad Press? Here’s the policy in its awesome entirety.

    It’s been quite a fun week, with a speech by Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton – also the publisher of the WSJ, adding to the amazing show of perspective. He described Google as a giant vampire that was sucking the blood of the newspaper industry. Now, I have reasons enough of my own to be cross with the omnipotent Google, but  even assuming that it is a vampire, who showed them the “X – blood here” sign in the first place? While Google states that its mission is to give readers more perspective by aggregating news from different sources, and even directs clicks to the newspaper sites. Newspapers argue that these clicks are nowhere near to the visits (and revenue) that they’d have gained if people came directly to their websites. They also have a problem with ads appearing on the side when people search for news. (Source) I have actually not come across those, and Google News definitely doesnt have them anyway.

    That is context enough for an interesting article I saw on Adage – ” Why ‘Going Galt’ isn’t the solution for newspapers”. The article is in light of the digital startegy of The Newport Daily News in Rhode Island, that’s closing its ad supported site and selling digital subscription only. John Galt, meanwhile, doesn’t need introduction for Ayn Rand readers, but if you are asking “Who is John Galt”, catch up here. In this context, it means that newspapers stop creating content for aggregators to pick up and make money. As the article points out, its chances of success is only when it deals with news that’s not commodity – could be specific locality/genre where there aren’t competitors. Its quite easy for newspapers to stop Google from taking its content – a 2 line code, as has been pointed out regularly.

    Cody Brown has an excellent article which shows the inherent differences between print and online, in terms of how news is processed. To summarise, print uses batch processing, where news and rumours are sifted through, verified and reverified and the crux is the final output and the credibility of the publication. The web, uses real time processing, it works like a gigantic wiki, everyone contributes, the crowd corrects, and the final output is of relatively less importance. The flaws of one become the benefits of the other. Batch processing finds few takers in the age of real time, and as this article points out so correctly, Twitter is the fastest way to get informed, or misinformed. This explains why I see stuff on my networks, and immediately move to a rediff/Google News to immediately verify from a trusted source.

    So newspapers face a double whammy. On one hand, its news creation is facing obsolescence in the face of changing media consumption habits, and on the other hand, it cannot find ways to make enough revenue out of the content that it ‘painstakingly’ produces. There are of course, traditional players who are bucking this, but as this article makes a case for, there can only be one Apple, who is an un-Google. I am still trying to fit in this understanding with the David – Goliath model. Apple operates so differently from Google, that it would be easy to summarily dismiss them as non-competitors, but there’s more to it. That’s for later, but the idea seems to be not to be a better Goliath, but to be the best David and play by rules that would take Goliath enough time to figure out, for David to finish the game.

    A small note on the Indian scene.  We are perhaps a few years away from the mess that US newspapers are in,   But consider, a Galt stance would’ve been possible a few years back, but with players as diverse as Rediff and Instablogs having a mechanism of reporting, it would be a folly to even try now. Rediff has built services and business models that doesn’t leave them to the mercy of making money out of news. Instablogs is also figuring out revenue models, at obviously lesser costs. Technology and faster news delivery platforms will appear, its inevitable. Newspapers in india  need to replicate their real world credibility online very fast, understand ‘real time’ game rules, and evolve radically new business models if they don’t want to repeat the US scenario. For ““News doesn’t break, it tweets”, the TC article credits Paul Saffo as saying.

    until next time, notice how many newspapers have ‘Times’ in their name? Real time? 😉