• Wild things

    They set out early in the morning, with the cameras ready. As the boat moved silently in the morning, they waitedwith bated breath for the sightings and the stories they could share. The excitement changed to hope and lasted till five minutes before the tour ended. Quite obviously, someone forgot to tell the animals.

    until next time, jungle talk

  • Turn Turn Turn

    Relationships. Hugs and backslaps give way to handshakes and then smiles. Swearwords give way to way to polite greetings and then a ‘Hi’. Long chats give way to short conversations to scraps on orkut and then to nothingness. Maybe that’s the way life is, but maybe its also time, place, context and things unexplainable. Fade.


    until next time, we say ‘it depends’ 🙂

  • I remember a house, like a lot of other houses, a yard…..

    From streets lined with trees, from flyover constructions, from roads whose names gave indications of a colonial past, from temples and their loudspeaker bhajans and flower fragrances, from an old theatre that played mallu movies, from rail tracks and the hoot of the occasional train. To change, and the creation of another set of memories.

    until next time, shift

  • Bill meets Mark

    Well, maybe Bill and Mark have met before in other contexts, but to actually have a promo of MS doing a facebook application in India is perhaps a first. And thats not all, there’s a game on zapak too.

    ‘Heroes Happen Here’ is the theme of the entire promo being done by MS. While the entire deal looks like a mash up (not literally) of information disseminaton & trials for Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 (do not close the window, i am as technologically challenged as you are on those) and community building, I, for one, am extremely envious of the brand/product guy who got to do this. It has stuff for IT professionals, developers and enthusiasts.

    As you might have guessed, this blog is interested because of the way a social network and a gaming site have been weaved in to the communication strategy. Communication strategy, because i saw an ad for this, not on facebook, but on the rediff homepage. Which means that not only have they spent money on the game and the application, but they’re also spending on advertising the stuff. I say cool!!

    I haven’t been able to add the application, but if you do, lemme know how it went.

     until next time, soft socialism

  • Connecting Ads

    A couple of posts back, I’d written about the possibility of brands getting together to make a TVC. And Hallelujah, they’re listening :). Airtel and Nokia (and SRK and Madhavan) have teamed to bring us a combo ad, which though begins as if a lot of people are suddenly having heart attacks, has been done quite well. See, SRK really meant it when he said thoda wish karo. Oh Okay, i was just being mean 😀

    While these were two completely related products (mobile handset and service provider), what I’d like to see is an ad featuring products whose only relation to each other is the target audience they’re aiming at, and the way the brands fit into their lives, either by say, time (Gillette + Kelloggs) or geography (Woodland + Vodafone). Strange, but fun.

    Meanwhile, i read on agencyfaqs that Simply Marry has tried a viral approach to marketing. I had a look at the site, and while the animation and music is pretty decent, i felt the entire concept is too frivolous to become a viral. In fact, I’d like to pitch another thing to them. Why couldn’t they just buy over a property like this, and then start making episodes of these with more and different characters. Meanwhile, also make it multi platform and offer downloads of mobisodes, if the idea is also for 58888 to make money. They can even do an entire reality series based on this and air it on Zoom and Times Now. Even if not a TV reality show, this can be an MMS based mobile reality show. Connect to a Reliance/Vodafone/Airtel or even that insufferable Tata Indicom (free couple available with brand)  and they’d be happy to partner, i guess. Promotion shouldn’t be a problem with the group’s immense newsprint strength. Considering this is a ‘metromonial’ site, I’m sure all these media are toppers in their respective genres. Yes, all except ‘Isko Dekho’, though statistics and niches can be found, i bet.

    until next time, howzzat for connections? 😉