Category: Brand

  • Contrabrand

    And they asked in desperation, If you had to choose between sin and God, weaver, what would you choose? And he laughed and he said, Sin, always sin. Sin is fun, sin is forbidden, sin is, what shall i say, so sinful. They should forbid God as they forbid sin, then maybe he would become far more attractive and we would all be drawn to him.
    God’s Little Soldier, Kiran Nagarkar
    The concept, if you think about it, is not an unknown one in marketing, its called positioning. On the contrary, it is one of the pillars, and in this era of commoditisation, it is all the more significant. So it’s not altogether surprising to see brands like Chlormint, Mentos, Happydent and Orbit veer away from the expected trajectory, in their advertising.
    There is some spring mention of the product in the ads, and the emphasis is on making the ad as ‘different’ as possible. From the weird cow doctor to a town getting lit by shining teeth and from ‘dubara mat poochna’ to noisy footwear in a classical concert, the ads are entertaining, to say the least, and show an abundance in creativity.
    But a small dipstick i did, (unsurprisingly) proved my hunch- the ad was remembered, and appreciated, but what was the brand again?
    So what’s upsetting the apple cart – commoditisation or hypercreativity?
    What a bunch of cretins you have for your devotees, oh Lord, he laughed out loud. The fools would sever you from your creation.
    and i bid adieu while you chew on it.
  • The New Microsoft

    Its like the typical bollywood underworld story which is told from the anti hero’s perspective… The hero makes his entrance to save society from the evil villain’s menace, then takes the villain’s place, and pretty soon the line between good and evil becomes a big blur…
    In the internet story, MS played the big villain, thanks to its monopolistic leanings and bundling tactics, almost forcing users to choose it.. and that set the scene for the entry of the perfect hero – google… and as the story goes, slowly but surely google trumped the villain at every possible juncture in a matter of few years… and users stuck to it, inspite of blips like Gmail being a snoopy service that peeps into their mailbox…
    And Google went on with its contextual relatonship with its customers… after all how can google serve its users best until it knows all that is to know about the user… so that it can serve up ads well in context and give the user the correct info exactly when he needs it… and the behemoth continues into radio ads, moves into the television ad space and local billboard space.. all in the guise of the hero serving the society, slowly converting homo sapiens into homo searchians…
    after all even if the slogan is “don’t be evil”, all it takes is changing the definition of evil…

    until next time, should the users feel lucky ?
  • Reclamation cost

    If you have been watching the cricket series or i guess, even television in general around this part of the world, you couldn’t have missed a (literally) screaming red Tata Safari asking you to reclaim your life.. I have seen around 3 print advertisements of this, and the copy is amazing, have a look here if you havent seen them yet… in fact i liked the entire concept of’reclaim your life’, i would have even bought the SUV, but it starts at 6.4 lakhs..
    And hence a small issue with the enire concept.. if i do decide to buy that awesome red colored machine, i’d have to take a loan, since old man Ratan doesnt know me from Jack…that leaves me paying off a reasonably big four figure sum as emi.. now assuming that most parts of the machine would be non edible, that necessarily means i have to be working on a salary that allows me to also spend on stuff that i can eat, and wear and all those other things that unfortunately are the hallmarks of civilisation…
    that reminds me of the old joke about the city guy who sees a man sitting by the river, fishing,and asks him whats his daily catch.. then goes on to teach him a thing or two about business, on how he should invest in a bigger fishing rig, get rich, build a processing plant, get richer, start exporting, get even richer and then take a vacation, and maybe go fishing, at which point, the man quietly points out that thats exactly what he is doing now…
    so the point being, if its all about reclaiming life, is buying an SUV worth 6.4 lakhs exactly the best way to start? or maybe i am just not the target audience 🙂

    until next time, wonder if the ad has a disclaimer..
  • G MS Y?

    While all the wars were being fought in recent times over virtual space, one player was conspicuous by its absence – but some announcements in the last few days got the gates backwide open…
    the good part is, i am not geek enough to analyse the services of the three major players in virtual space… the bad news is, that doesnt stop me from writing about it…:)
    Good Ol’ Bill is an icon, theres no denying it… but unfortunately he has never been able to translate that into a favourable opinion about his enterprise… while there are a lot of us who display ‘Get firefox’ icons, havent seen any ‘I use E’ (yup, bad one acknowledged) buttons… also, theres no denying the fact to a lot of us, Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc are still THE applications and they have indeed made lives a lot easier (hmm, not powerpoint,on second thoughts..hehe), and when you add MSN chat and Hotmail into the mix, MS automatically becomes an integral part of our automated life.. normally that gives a load of ammunition forworship, but surprisingly all that doesnt make us say ‘I Love MS’…
    Is it that we love the underdog? or is it that we hate the way MS has been getting too many dollar bills? if it is the latter, is there too much of a harm in a guy making money out ofhis ideas and work? isnt that supposed to be the mantra of knowledge working and the basis of copyrights? why should we be having a problem with the money being made? why should it be open source??
    i wonder if the ‘no love’ is because it has changed the way we work… or is it something like school?.. none of us liked it when we had to go to school, but down the line there is also a realisation that perhaps it did do some good for us, or more importantly, it made a difference in the direction of our lives…perhaps, Bill, you have to wait some more for the idolising…
    until next time, yahoo!!! Gmail is moving towards 3 GB….:)
  • Tech Republic

    Upfront, let me admit that an intense subconscious jealousy might be the reason for the contents of this post, but thats a big ‘might’. and before i start off, let me assure you that i have nothing against the people i write about, only sympathy at the way they are being used.. and it may not be a situation which applies to everyone in the industry… disclaimer over, post start…
    A few days back, i read an article that a reputed software company is going to start a beauty salon, on its campus.. the reason being that since the employees start work early and end late,they may not have time to get a haircut or facial, and so the oh-so-concerned employer is taking care of it… sometime earlier, i had also read about how creches were the latest HR craze in the silicon towers..reason being that employees shouldnt be bothered about finding a safe parking place for their toddlers… i assume the forthcoming attractions would be a work station which will double up as a dorm at night, with facilities for brushing/shaving etc, entertainment facilities for the last generation of visiting parents, express mating services coz baby, who has the time for love and romance, mini sperm banks and artificial insemination procedures, so that the correct genetic ingredients can be used to make a perfect tech kid who might be able to start programming after uttering the cursory ‘papa’ and ‘mama’ utterances, and its formal introduction to them, and yes, before i really lose it, please, a toilet seat instead of the regular seat….
    Welcome to the tech republic, founded on the toil of a million professionals who bravely walk that thin line between their retina and their monitor, and their fingers and the keyboard… who are led to believe that their work is making a difference to millions of users whose life has been made easier because of the billion applications/programs that are being churned out… who are worth so much, thanks to their ESOPs, that it would make every other kind of professional hide his face in shame, but who wouldnt have the time to enjoy it.. whose life, for me, is still an enigmatic code… er, before we got diverted, wasnt the whole process about improving lives? i guess,like every republic has its own set of martyrs, so too does the tech republic…
    until next time < / post >