Brand Bling-bling

Read about Bling-bling in wikipedia and DNA today! Bling-bling is a hip hop slang term, refers to expensive jewellery and other accoutrements, and also to an entire lifestyle built around excess spending and ostentation.

The term originates from a hip hop track by rapper B.G. From there the use spread to street culture and then was adopted mainstream. It evolved from diamond-encrusted medallions for gansta rappers to dangling, sparkly earrings, bejewelled bags and belts, and skirts and tops - playing full volume now in Mumbai's pubs, clubs and restaurants.

The 'street' has been ahead of Bollywood and definitely most organised fashion/apparel brands for quite some time. The 'street' is quicker, more experimentative and is wired into the global chic community!

Was wondering if Bling-bling can add a dash of spark to many mainstream brands that get jaded because of their assembly line forms, designs and inventory. Bling-bling satisfies that latent need for a regular dose of small indulgence, the hedonistic streak in many of us!

It's also a surprise touch. And as many brands in the new millennium are discovering, people adore surprises more than brand manual dictated consistency!

Provogue I guess is a good fit for some Bling-bling, Van Heusen for all it's corporate wrappings can do well with a touch of Bling-bling, some denim brands can fly with bling-bling accessories.

However, the trick would be to maintain a whiff of street irregularity and rough edge. The moment companies try to corporatise Bling-bling, it will fade away!

Words, Meanings And Combination Maths

I was briefing Kapil this afternoon and once again I experienced a sharp reminder that some words have lost their meaning and some meanings need new words!

Sample this! What do you think when you read/ see/ come across words like Trust, Imagine, Building India, Farm Fresh, Taazgi, Wow, New Improved, It's different...?

As a consumer, with every subsequent dollop of use, these words mean less to me if anything at all. And yet as a marketer, agency creative or planner we continue to recycle them in 30 sec TVCs, in briefs, in power-point presentations, as brand positioning thoughts!

It's time to re-look at the inventory of words and re-arrange them or import new words from other categories/ sources, or invent new words to label old stuff. Because if we do not stand apart from the crowd, we will never be able to get noticed in an attention-deficit world!

On the other hand, there are some new meanings that are in seacrh of descriptors/ words.
- I want one 'word' to describe the feeling I have at the increasing sense of technology whizzing past me.
- I need a word to describe the growing role of design in brand selection.
- I am on the look-out for a word to describe the frequent anxiety I feel of not doing anything in an always 'switched on' world.
- Any suggestions to describe the diminshing joy experienced in every subsequent indulgence.
- One word for the new love-hate relationships we have with many brands( TOI, Coke, Microsoft)

As communication people, we must experiment more often with the inventory of words, visuals and symbols. We are dealing with a jaded world mind, an-overadvertised global brain.

In order to interest people, excite them, win their trust, loyalty or 5 seconds of attention, new permutations and combinations of words and meanings are needed!

Go Episodic - Conceptoids and Factoids

Had written a post sometime back on what we can learn from tea bag marketing! Revisiting the theme of smaller SKUs of thought!

As planners( time starved & stretched) who routinely handle tons of data, information and tasks, our ability to do fundamanetal enquiries into consumers and other stuff gets heavily constrained!

Sometime back, I discovered a small trick of storing thoughts which I call conceptoids. These are essentially 3-5 slides of thoughtlets around a brand problem, a consumer insight, an observation from the media landscape, learning from the fringe, etc. They do not demand the time or the rigour of a full scale presentation or analysis. Yet are immensely useful later. I have a collection of about 100 conceptoids developed over a 2 year period!

In the last 40 days of active blogging, have realised that blogs are another way of concepting! Stray thoughts that earlier withered away now get stored. Often amplified by others' comments. Many a time become fodder for presentations. Or lead to other ideas. Other thought destinations!

As knowledge workers/ planners - conceptoids, factoids( bytes of information about the consumer or brand which shed an interesting light/ tell something new)and other smaller SKUs of thinking are very important to navigate through the info-glut.

The latest Economist issue says even gaming has realised the importance of episodic extensions rather than full scale ver2.0s. As a rule of thumb, when content in a game doubles, four times the intial resources are needed. So, the new trend seems to be game add-ons, which cost a fraction in time and money of a totally new game version and can be bought through micro payments!

Conceptoids help me sample more thoughts, keep a track of new learning, and generally stay afloat and sane among all the giga bytes of new information and content! Any similar experiences of new thoughtware for our times?

Let's talk to the 'Net Guys' after this!

Was at a meeting with a media partner today. After the ATL and BTL discussions were over, my repeated query to discuss the internet strategy was met with a matter-of-fact- 'We will talk to the net guys after this'. That's the fate of most 360 discussions in India. 360 is just a convenient wrapping for in-reality-36-degree thinking!

It's not an integrated, cohesive brand thinking. Most 360 thinking is along the following templates.

1. 'Stretch'
The brilliant 30 sec commercial forcefully stretched into posters, magazine wraps, orthogonal danglers, matt-finished coasters, never-done-before-door-knobs, heritage-trees, large-elevators, etc. Looks 'Wow' when viewed together on the large wooden conference room table!

2. 'Afterthought'
Now that we have an expensive 30 sec commercial. Lets talk to the activation guy. Then the DM guy, then maybe the net guy, then the film placement guy! Have we left anyone??

3. 'Serendipity'
Multiple SKUs of creative done on their own but which somehow make a great Effie case study at the end of the year!

I am being a bit cynical and hard on ourselves.And of course in the best of mature markets, many instances of 360 thinking does happen by stretch, upon after-thought or serendipity. But it also happens by integration. In fact Keith Reinhard, the ex-head of DDB is a great promoter of 'integrators'.

Good planners with their unique skill sets, knowledge and right attitude can be potential integrators. In fact it makes a lot of sense in a collaborative world that we live in to have creative planners and integration planners.

Creative planners would be the more intuitive ones and would help make great ideas come to life across media.

Integration Planners on the other hand could play the role of tying the loose threads of brand communication across media into a cohesive whole. A role which should have taken shape. But is difficult to execute due to the current shortage of planner supply, their increasingly elastic roles and lack of adequate power in the system!

For this role to take shape and gain acceptance, it needs the CEO's push and blessings.

Also the integrator must have the necessary seniority and power. Maybe it's a bit blue-sky thinking at the moment. But the future demands such a role. And the future is already here!

The 'Soviet Union Model' of Agencies

Read a small note on Gary Hamel( the strategy guru who wrote 'Competing for the Future' among other books-do read the book if you haven't already!) in today's TOI where he talks about the Soviet Union model of Innovation - completely top-down, central command, and so on!

The article then talks about the contrasting 'innovation model of silicon valley' - a hot-bed of bottom-up innovations! Google, a bottom-up-driven-organisation for example is organised into 300 teams working on a variety of projects.

There's much to learn from the Silicon valley model for an ad agency. The rants in no particular order.

1. Most Agencies follow an 'innovation/ creativity apartheid'. Only the creatives are allowed to participate in the 'actual' creative process. Okay occassional sops are thrown where non-creatives participate in 'brain-storming'and other niche sports but then when it comes to the 'big-ideas-game', its a NO ENTRY sign for the rest of the agency.

2. Most agancies spend less than 1% of their annual time(am talking about company time, not individual time) on thinking about the business. Improvements in the creative process/ model. The changing media landscape. Fringe studies. Fringe imports. Self funded knowledge/ skill upgradation projects.

3. Silicon valley thrives on collaboration. Apartheid needs segregation! Again many agencies pay lip-service to collaboration. The creative egos generally are too huge for most team endeavours!

4. The smart young guys( brimming with new ideas and creative energy) from account management are mostly handed out low-end jobs and 'follow up' tasks. The bulk of their time is spent in covering up the inefficiencies of the people, systems or the 'Soviet Union Model' of creative management. Little wonder that these smart, young guys are moving in droves away from the 'Soviet Agencies' to the 'Silicon Valleys of 'retail', 'new media' or 'new technology'.

The agency's unwillingness to look hard at it's Soviet Model reminds me of a Chinese Proverb - "If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed." :-)

Formula 69 of myContent

Formula 69 is the name of a 90 minute film - a collab between IIT Delhi students and an IIM alumnus! The theme - 3 students studying in IIT Delhi have to solve the mystery of their murdered dean and retrieve the secret formula he has been working on! The heroes are called Magga, Bhains and Chatur( love the names!)

There are some great gizmos in the script. The first is a taste-maker which can make any yuck canteen food tasty( one less reason to hang onto Coke!), then there is B2B -a brain to beauty invention that converts mental prowess into beauty. And the third is called 'Jugaad' - a special automobile which is made entirely of scrap and runs on bio-degradable trash!

Yet another brilliant example of user-genareted content. So, after under-ground music - like Sutta, we now have an entire movie! My prediction is that the next cool/ cult film DCH2 will also originate from the IIT campus. Can't afford them, else would have loved to get some trainees from IIT for planning. (Meraj -Maybe you can pass the indiadrant link to some of them.)

Well, do mail your IIT/IIM friends and try to 'jugaad' a copy of the film.

McHealth and Brand Grey Zone

There are some big global brands about whom I feel increasingly indifferent and ambivalent. And I have an inkling this might be a shared feeling for a lot of us! Top of charts would be McDonalds and Coke/Pepsi...

Today is World Heart Day. I celebrated it by visting McDonalds with Shilpi and Neo:-)
As I had McBites and gulped Coke, a multitude of conflicting thoughts about the two brands raced my mind. Thoughts which never get captured in a focus group, a 2D Hofstede or a single lens laundry list of virtuous values compiled by the brand manager or the planner. But thoughts which increasingly traverse a knowledge-based consumerist culture!

1. Since 2003 if not earlier, I stopped believing in the McDonalds positioning - "If food is a friend, McDonalds is family". Today, McDonalds for me is a slickly packaged, kid-friendly junk food brand. Similarly, for me Coke lost it's 'always refreshing' meaning many years ago. Today, it's a brand of 'small indulgence' which has 6parts per bn pesticide( small enough not to desist me from drinking it twice weekly but large enough not to get the PET bottle home).

2. I am fairly addicted to Coke. Given a choice will always prefer it to a Pepsi. But then again I don't think I have a cache of positive feelings or loyalty towards the brand!
I am addicted to (a)it's complimentary role- Tandoori Chicken and Coke, Movie + Popcorn + Coke, Bland Canteen Food + Coke, Boredom + Coke; (b) it's taste and fizz,(c) the brand graphics and history and (d) the sense of Internationalism and Americana it still holds for me!

3. Increasingly, I find most Cola advertising(Indian) quite idiotic and unnecessary! It might be worthwhile to risk a quarter, free of cola advertising and check the resultant effect on sales. My wicked guess is nothing much will change! Cola advertsing I believe is largely an ego game for marketers and agencies played on mass media.

4. Most celebrity advertising, as I said in my last post is filtered by the savvy consumer(young and old). Celeb endorsement specifically for cola brands I feel is at best entertainment( when executed well -Thanda matlab Coca Cola) and at worst plain 'COLA noise'

5. Like many SEC A Indians, today I dole out generous reward points to health/ fitness conscious, natural brands! Climbing my mental InterBrand scale are brands like Himalaya, Dabur Real, Amul, etc. McDonalds and Coke/ Pepsi hold the bottom most ranks.

6 Hard sell doesn't work for me at all. Therefore, when McDonalds starts preaching vitamin science on its table-mats, I recoil. In similar vein, when Aamir or Rajeev Bakshi come on TV in defence of their brands, it irritates me more. My advice to these mega brands - Please don't jabber McHealth. Please be true to your junk core. I am partly addicted to your brand anyways. I will continue to indulge though in smaller SKUs. You will never regain the glory of yester years. And no amout of slick advertising, hard-nosed PR will ever change my views!

7. Well, the reason I went to McDonalds today was to check out the linking road branch for Neo's birthday! The place had a budget scheme, it had the balloons and the festoons, it had Ronald McDonald..And McDonalds would make my son and his friends happy. Yet, in my heart there was a great dissonance and resistance for the brand. Because my mind is storing a simple equation. McDonalds = Junk Food. And that's not good for Neo and his friends! It will never be...

Would love to compile a list of brands which we love to consume and hate as well! O smart consumer, welcome to the grey zone of modern brands...

In-film Advertising : Random Thoughts

This one's in response to an article I read in DNA Mumbai grandiosely titled - Marketer + Film Maker = Winning Union. As usual, there was a lot of stuff I disageed with.
Here's the rant...
Myth 1 : Consumers tune out TV ads, therefore in-film advertising is better
Reality : We tune out BAD ads, all media!
No more than we tune out irritating news anchors, tune out hyped Bollywood/ Hollywood movies, tune out bad power-point presentations, tune out unnecessary gyan, bad relationships, BAD anything!! And therefore BAD in-film placement as well!

Myth 2 : The Idea is King
Reality : Execution is King!
A great idea, in sync with core brand values but with low decibel promotion will fetch less publicity than an average idea, stretched through innovations, 360 extensions and the right media monies!

Myth 3 : Films are a great medium for celebrity endorsement
Reality : Celebrity endorsement will be dead by 2010!
When 10 Bollywood stars endorse 200 brands. Nothing is an endorsement anymore. It's just a safe strategy and 'feel-good for the marketer'! Barring of course the Big B who is an exception in the world of celeb marketing...But he is approaching 65!

End of rant. If you have other thoughts on the subject, BUZZ!

Agency 2.0 : Refresh to Rule

Many of us know of the zen story of a pompous student who goes to the zen master for learning. Instead of listening, the student starts blowing his own trumpet. The master then asks for tea and when the tea arrives, starts pouring a cup for the student. He keeps pouring into the cup without stopping. The cup overflows and the tea spills onto the table. Irritated, the students says -"Stop, can't you see the cup is full?". The Master smiles, "And so is your mind. Unless you empty it, what can you learn".

I feel many of us in the ad industry are full with ideas of the way things should be done. And are brimming to the top with fixed notions of:
- the way to manage talent
- the definition of what is an agency
- the business model of an agency
- the definition and possibility of new media
- the capability and effectiveness of new media
- the relationship between old media and new media
- notions of the power of the 30 sec TVC
- the definition of creativity
- the value chain of the creative product
- the role of account planning
- the need for young blood and different blood groups!
- the need to diversify the search for agency talent
- the pricing model of our services
- the range and menu of our services
- the use of technology to increase productivity
- the way the different departments function in a agency
- clients' expectations from us
- training and skilling as a tool for competitive advantage
- the need to think about the larger business context and not just the next budget

But,in a flat & fast world, we need to empty our minds of old ideas and THINK anew. Because, if we don't the ground will slip beneath our feet. Digital, animation, design, Bollywood, mobile and gaming companies among others are all eating into our business! First in small nibbles and then in big chunks! The leaders need to refresh their thinking. Replace vendor thinking by bold, lateral, thinking!

Inhuman Billboards

Today was not the first time that I had noticed them - the men squatting/standing on the sides of streets sporting hand held cloth/ vinyl banners. In the past they have launched newspaper brands and waged mobile wars in the city. Today, it was for a car brand.

Often they are smartly dressed under-paid teenagers with brightly coloured caps. Today, they were the Dharavi poor. Perhaps, it was a quick job with impossible deadline for the agency. For a petty sum of money, these bill-boards would stand still under the hot sun and high humidity.

Their unshaven face, hungry looks, and near bed-raggled clothes were in stark contrast to the bright artwork of the banner. The logo was big and clear. The brand is among India's most admired ones. That's what the JD Power study had shown. The message/ copy was readable from inside the air-conditioned car!

Something was very amiss. It was this 'inhuman bill-board'.
Like life in Mumbai, it had two faces. The shining and the dark.
One riding on the other. Blissfully unconcerned. Long live the brand!

Dying Music

The latest issue of 'Outlook' magazine has a very telling cover story. It's about our aging music maestros. And the million dollar question. After them who? On a similar plane it also reminds me of Javed Akhtar and Gulzar Saheb...After them who?

Artists always capture the happenings around in their work or musings...

Here's a compilation of their laments from the Outlook issue. (So advertisng is not the only indusrtry that's facing a talent crunch!)

"Aaj ki hawa hi kharaab hai." - Dadra and Thumri singer, Girija Devi

"There's lack of patience in the young, who want to hit the stage just after 2-3 years of learning." - Buddhadev Dasgupta

"We used to do riyaaz of a taan not by the number of hours but by the number of candles burning out. We would aspire to be a paanch-mombatti-riyaazi. That spirit is missing today" - Late Ustad Vilayat Khan

" A lot of today's gurus are performers, have one foot here, the other abroad. When will they teach?" - Hari Prasad Chaurasia

" It is rare to get a guru. It is equally rare to get a good disciple. Every performer is not an able guru. Not many have the patience for teaching." - Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma

" Audiences aren't discerning any more. Earlier, they would catch a single note that went awry." - Sitarist Debu Chaudhary

"We build grand stadiums, but we do not have a concert hall of the calibre of London's Royal Albert Hall or Sydney's Opera House. What kind of message are we giving to youngsters about the respect given to classical music" - Amzad Ali Khan

"Many aspirig musicians have to kill their talent, because they have to earn their living from fields other than music." Hari Prasad Chaurasia

" It's also an era of stage-managed success where professional agencies are roped in to 'manage' the public image of star children and disciples." - Debu Chaudhary

"Crores of rupees are being pumped into cricket. How many people does that benefit and what tradition is being kept alive? Even if a fraction of that came to music, we would see a better tomorrow." Girija Devi

As a nation we are pretty poor at preserving either music, monuments or movies...But maybe there's hope! Some super rich NRI/ IITian from the silicon valley with love for music and a conscience will fund the music gharanas...

Bollywood Remakes : TVC 2.0

Bollywood is ahead of advertising yet again! You must have read about the impending slew of classic remakes. Don, Jai Santoshi Maa( this one's a cult in it's own regard), Umrao Jaan, Saheb Biwi Aur Gulaam and Sholay. Is there a major omission?

Now, there are various schools of thought on the 'remake genre'. For purists, the idea is profane, then there is the 'great- expectations' school, the 'all-will-be-duds-but-will-watch-it-anyway' school!

As an advertsing person, with my limited understanding of the way Bollywood brands work, I feel the 'remake genre' on a larger scale fulfills the need gap of 'nostalgia'. Reliving the happy, landmark moments of the past through the experiential lens of a meaningful and audio-visual 'entertainment brand'.

Just yesterday was watching Brand Equity on Times Now. There was a section on 'Gold Spot' - the 'Zing Thing'. It felt real good. In an instant the mind replayed all the positive imagery for the brand hidden in the remote recesses. And this for a beverage brand that was taken off the market a decade back!

Coming back to Bollywood. It has a better risk appetite because of lack of accountability, more entreprenuers than bean-counters, low MBA head count and some underworld funding! But there are lessons for the more corporatised ad brethren!

Remakes of old TVCs may bring back the fondness for the brand. In categories not plagued by rapid technology progress and consequent obsolescence, remakes are a good way to showcase brand history and heritage, relive brand memories.
Many a time consumers want to hear the same old brand story! Of course the agencies will always resist remakes. Because this doesn't allow them to be 'creative' and perhaps it could start the trend of clients going to the producers themselves for the 'remakes'.

Well there have been two remakes recently. One for Bajaj Bulbs and the other for Pan Parag. But these look like desperate efforts at reviving the fortunes of dying brands rather than a well thought out strategy for nostalgia marketing! The only great brand TVC remake I can rememeber is the all time favourite Bajaj Auto - 'Hamara Bajaj' TVC! Maybe Bajaj should make a remake every decade:-)

I feel many Indian brands have much more to gain from 'remakes' than the MNC brands simply because they have hung around for a longer time. And therefore, the masses have more positve residual imagery of them! So can we hope for remakes of Parle G, Thumbs Up, Limca, Vimal( they ought to sack the agency that made the new TVC), Garden, Pan Pasand, Raymond...

Some questions need to be answered.
- Will remakes make the brand look older?
- How does it handle the disconnect it might have with the younger consumer?
- Is this a lazy way out for brands?
- Consumers and cultures move ahead. Should the brand be caught in a time warp?

Do post your Qs and As.

Consumer Ki Kahani, Tea Bags Ki Zubaani

Was reading an article in NYT on the changing tea bag(author Florence Fabricant)when it hit me that the changes in the humble tea bag reasonably capture the changes in all of us as consumers. So here are the similarities!

1. Convenience. Tea bags are all about a quick chai! For the last decade or so, many commercial engagements have become quick, impulse purchases. From mobile phones to durables to sundry services, we increasingly are buying stuff on impulse like a tea-bag dip!

2. No Sweat. "People like good tea but not the work". Simlarly consumers like good quality & service but display 'zero sweat tolerance' . Everything-home delivered, from the comfort of their e-bay screens...Not wanting to wade through the drudgery of the streets and the angst of Mumbai-car-parking!

3. Small Indulgeces. Tea bags with micro 'dust tea' fillings are passe..."The new trend is to have bags filled with high quality long leafs, floral, herbaceous, spicy or fruity leaves!" As consumers, we too want more of the exotic experiences. But within affordable limits. Massclusivity is in. So is 'Affordable Luxury'. Budget Boutiques. It's like the new tea bag is the metaphor for the growing incidence of 'small indulgences' that Faith Popcorn predicted...

4. Pop Expertise. James Wong, a Unilever VP and GM of Lipton says that - "every consumer is becoming a gourmand". And its not just true for the tea category alone. Whether its music or electronics purchase or buying Mutual Funds, in the knowledge economy, many consumers want to be 'pop experts'. Consumer goods brands are largely at par at a transaction level. So, little known facts, brand trivia, history and heritage and design stories give the brand an edge! The knowledge makes the consumer look like an expert!

The emerging popularity of 'exotic tea bags' in a way also symnbolises the morphing of high and low brow in consumer culture. The bridging of sensory experiences, great quality and brand heritage with convenience and DIY in a time-starved world! The 'exotic tea bag model' is a good one to introduce new products and services! What do you think?

Creative Strategists : Unsilo the agency

When I look at life around me, I find a world where highbrow and lowbrow, producer and consumer, mass media and blog media, technology and design, work and play are all coming togther and morphing!

Yet in most ad agencies the creative department and the rest haven’t yet morphed. Formally or even informally! The suits are shunned and the few planners in the system have a defined turf! I think this is a primitive way to solve the complex communication and business problems of today.

Ad agency creative units have some similarity with a software program – which is a combination of science and art, blue-sky-thinking and disciplined-coding! And both are served well by ‘fusion thinking’.

The silos in an agency exist because they haven’t been questioned! They exist to perpetuate turf. They exist to prevent scrutiny. I think this silo working is producing gross inefficiencies and mediocrity in the system. In an industry reeling under a talent crunch, the present silo-working only exacerbates the situation…

Agencies in the modern world must be modeled like design firms, marketing and strategy consultancies. Where all members are equal partners Ranked only by project experience and domain expertise. Leadership roles are shared by rotation and based solely on project needs and individual strengths.

The communication solutions of current and future industries will require a lot of enmeshed working between strategy and creative, between deep understanding of complex client businesses and inspired thinking. The existing silo system is not geared to solve retail, telecom, new technology and new media problems. It can never have the understanding, the ownership, the speed and the holistic thinking of a creative-strategist team model. Any believers?

News TV : For Adults Only

Well, I have been meaning to rant on this one for quite some time. If you are a regular news watcher, you would be reeling under the increasingly high decibels of violence, aggression and needless display of voyeuristic imagery on the news channels.

All channels are culprits to a lesser or larger degree. But the Hindi brands have a greater bizarreness quotient that their English counterparts! The programming is packed with crime stories, vandalism of property, local family feuds packaged as breaking news, domestic fights wrapped as national news and sundry exaggerated, mangled stories with gore and indiscretion as embellishments!

Add to that the almost daily feeds of terror stories that are hyped, shown in endless loops with the same aggression!

As a genre of content, news channels would be the most aggressive genre in India!

In a nation of single TVs, it's difficult to censor or screen the violence on TV at homes completely. It's partially or fully consumed by children of all ages. Instead of the brouhaha over late night adult content which is relatively easier to control, I feel immediate attention should be focussed on the news channels transgressions!

Let the channels show gore in their chase for TRP's but at least they must tag it with 'Unfit for Children' messages! News has used violence and crime reportage as a TRP tool with total disdain for viewer sensibilities! I feel the time for 'adult certification' of content has come.

Flash Brands Bollywood Ishtyle

Most of us have used flash memory and some of us know about flash mobs -a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, do something unusual for a brief period of time, and then quickly disperse. They are usually organized with the help of the Internet or other digital media/network. Though I have not really heard of flash mobs in India! Have you?

Now, Bollywood is increasingly using the same tactics to sell its masala fare. Here its the film - KANK, Bunti Aur Babli, Rang De Basanti or Hanuman! Bunty and Babli did something unusual - Abhishek and Rani as news anchors on NDTV, KANK stoked a national debate on extra-marital affairs, RDB had candle light protests all over the country...

Each of the 'flash films' grabbed the Nation's attention for a fortnite to a month. Got the viewers to the theatres, created 'buzz' and WOM like never before. And then equally fast dispersed from the scene. Although the memes remain active in pop culture. All the symtoms of a 'flash brand'.

All these 'flash films/ brands' practiced 360 branding with aggression - News content, actors as event managers, merchandise, digital media, sms/ mms, songs, national debates, controversies(RDB, Fanaah), the making of the movie DVDs, press conferences...

Welcome to the era of 'Flash Branding'. Aditya Chopra, Karan Johar and Aamir Khan know it. Maybe FMCG brands can learn the tactics of flash branding from Bollywood. Of course the products are different but there are occassions such as festivals where 'flash branding' can work very well! Any thoughts?

Live Work Play

The new BusinessWeek, Sep 18 cover-story talks about the best places to work. It also talks about what makes the Gen Y or the Millennial worker happy.
Here are the 6 best practices from the issue:
1. Don't hype your company to the future employee. The 1 hour power-pointed hype can wither in 5 minutes on Orkut and MySpace or on Google Talk. Hype sucks!
2. After a point more money has diminishing returns. Gen Y wants more life. Well all of us...Be liberal with chutti!
3. Gen Y are knowledge workers. They can think anywhere. Companies should not chain them to clocks. They love to work but on their terms and rhythm!
4. For Gen Y risk and responsibility appetite alone must decide the size and challenge of projects given to them. Not the title or the number of years of experience alone.
5. Give back feedback. Remember it's a knowledge economy we work in. Students need guidance and constant learning not just control and reward.
6. Giving back matters. Work does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in society. Employers must create purpose. Gen Y must have the time to give back to the city, to the old age home in the neighbourhood, to some cause, any cause beyond the corporate cause...

If your current company is doing these, give 1 point to every Q and score your employer. So how does your company score?

Invention is the mother of necessity

All of us have grown up with the adage - 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. But in today's world, maybe a 180 deg. spin on it is true as well i.e. 'invention is the mother of necessity'. I love this phrase which I chanced upon in Evan Schwartz book - Juice.

Look at the products, brands and services around us - sms, google, wikipedia, orkut, ipod, blackberry, et al. All inventions that have become necessities for some part of the world!
Now try writing a concept note for 'sms as a service' and researching an imaginary consumer. Do you think she would have given a thumbs up for a service where you have to type the letters one by one on a tiny keypad!

In Brand thinking we have always looked at the need gap, then went to the drawing board and arrived at the communication concepts. But in future, there would be a parallel space for brand concepts that cater to new, non-existent need-gaps. Know of any inventions looking for a necessity?

The Wrong Prism : Technology vs Psychology

Sometime back, at a multi-agency pitch for an online marriage portal brand, I realised how important it was to view and define a technology brand problem primarily through the prism of human behaviour.

Viewed through the technology prism, the task was to get more and more eye-balls to the site. To increase the conversion ratio of visitors. To increase the number of registered members. And so on...

But when viewed through the prism of human behaviour, the task was to
1. Simulate the traditional Indian marriage eco-system on the Internet
2. To bridge the generational gap of conversations on the online portal
3. To understand that it was not the unit called 'youth' or 'family' alone that we were talking to. But that we were attempting to reach out to the aspirations of the bridegroom, the anxieties of the bride, the social expectations of the bride's mother, the financial concerns of the bride's father, etc.
4. What we were targetting were not standardised eye-balls but gujarati, punjabi, marathi, kayasth eyeballs.:-)
5. And most importantly, to cross the chasm of acceptance of the on-line marriage portals, we had to simulate the conversations and the habits of the off-line marriage dynamics.

In handling most technology brands, the easiest approach is to solve the communication problem through the prism of technology and invariably it's the wrong approach. At least that's been my limited experience on the subject!

T - Shirt Marketing

At least on 3 occassions in the past(once when handling Sprite at Ogilvy, the other time pitching for Kesari Jeevan at TBWA, and now for a client at David) I have initiated a discussion on T-shirt marketing! Tantra like 'brand messages' cheekily targetted at a niche audience...I feel its the next best thing to brand tattoes:-)

But everytime, the idea fell short of being executed for a myriad of reasons.

And now I find this Swedish company called T-post that sends subscription T-shirts!! Every six weeks the T-post crew focuses on an appropriate news story and gets to work on designing a T-shirt based on that news. You may not always read about your T-shirt’s story in the papers but in the T-post crew’s opinion, you should have.The story behind each shirt’s design is printed on the inside of the T-shirt, and the final result is more than just a cool looking T-shirt, it’s something to talk about.

I feel the idea is waiting to be exploited by marketers in India as well.

Many channels can use it to their advantage, so can youth brands - be it a Pepsi( can actually play around with the pesticide controversy), a Star Laughter Challenge or a Moto Razr. Any takers?

Small Pie, Big Players

While everybody keeps on lamenting and berating the ad industry, we were amongst the first industries to be globalised. The biggies are even more active now - Sir Martin's WPP, IPG, Dentsu, Omnicom, Publicis and even Havas!

But it's still a very very small pie. If we add advertisng, PR, digital promotions, design, events, DM and sundry marketing activities, they would still add up to a measly $5bn. Which is a mere 0.4% of the global market for such services!!

It would still take a long time for Indian advertising to jostle for more mindspace in Thomas Friedman's 'flat world'. Of course, in a connected world, it doesn't take eternity to ramp up. But apart from money, it would need a lot of vision and leadership which doesn't seem to be in too great a supply!

Psychic Concierge : Van Toffler Gets It

Van Toffler is the President of MTV Networks. In a recent article on Fast Company, he compared the new digital music service of MTV to a psychic concierge.

I loved the metaphor. The internet he said is like a huge black hole and brands like 'Urge' will help the music lover navigate it. So, the game is not about a Rs. 5 song download. It's about finding out more about the artists behind the new album. What other stuff have they played in the past. Do they belong to a specific genre? Can you create a radio station specific for me. Is there a device that I can carry with me which always has my recent favourite 100 songs?

'Urge' is the urge to spend more time with the artists, the album and the art of song creation! Not once does he talk about eyeballs, thumb-balls, ear-worms and other marketing jargon and yet I believe he will be a hit and get all the consumer pulse in the world! Van Toffler gets it. MTV is getting it! What do you think?

Brand Refreshers: Create new entry points for branded content

All of us, in big and small doses have grown up in school and colleges on 'refreshers'. The 'kunjis'. Be it for Hindi, Physics or Chemistry! In an info-overloaded world, even brands and branded content need a refresher!

In the papers today saw a refresher for the program 'Left Right Left' on Sony Sab TV*. A 2 hour refresher episode for all the past 32. I think it's a great idea. Serialised content has a high entry barrier when you miss the start! Refreshers are a great way to give another entry chance to time-starved viewers.

Am not very clued on to the serialised content tactics. But I think Sony and Euro know their prosumer pattern well!

*Will somebody please tell me how to pronounce this brand - Sony Sab, Sab Sony, S Sab...

Papa, Birbal kaun hai, I only know of Harry Potter!

A Bangalore based NGO is organising a month long 'story-telling festival'. That's great. Because children like brands need stories. It nourishes them and grows them.
Howvever, a cursory look at the stories, the festival advertising and promotion shows a disportionate skew towards western characters. True, we have all grown up with Snow White, Cindrella, sundry elfs & goblins but we also had Akbar-Birbal, Tenali Raman, Mulla Nasruddin and hazaar Pariyon Ki Kahaniyan.

As the father of a 3 year old, when I go to up-market book-stores, I find a preponderance of books with western characters. I feel if we keep burying the Indianianess of our stories, we would deprive a generation of its unique voice and identity.

Globalisation is great but cultural sanitization and homogenisation are not. The inherent Indianness of our stories must not be sacrificed. When executed with finesse and detail, a Hanuman or Krssh can be as popular and endearing. Shekhar Kapur is reviving the lost art through his Virgin-Devi comic books. The kids channels are bringing back stories of Lord Krishna and Ganesha back to our living rooms.

I hope my son loves Birbal as much as Harry Potter when he grows up!

The Hi-Brow Agency

Agencies have ridiculously low levels of training per employee per annum. The little training imparted is random, without much thought and almost never consistent. Plus its seen by the bean counters only as EXPENSE! However, things needed be so. With a little bit of imagination, agencies can move up the hi-brow continuum.

Some business is today being farmed to mom-n-pop branding consultancies, one man strategy companies and other strategy sweat shops. And the pie can be much bigger.

The planning cells of agencies should be beefed up with vengeance. With talent, resources and imagination. My guess is there is loads of money in retail, inhouse-branding, new media, image-consultancy and various sun-rise sectors which agencies are and cannot tap because of their current low-brow status.

Agencies have the right heritage, soft skills and still some low cost talent which can be trained for a high-brow innings!

Josh : The Branded HR

Today's ET talks about a branded HR initiative at Wipro BPO. Project Josh. It's supposed to "deepen the sense of bondship and identification with the 'Wipro Brand' across the companies huge BPO employee pool".

There would be a series of connection activities. Josh Walks, Josh Idol, Josh Quiz amongst others!

Now are ad agencies tuned in? Software, ITES, BPOs have substantial budgets for internal employee programs. They are waiting to be branded. As the activity falls at the cusp of training and branding, agencies can either wait and watch or get into this business up the value chain!

Honda : 360 Thinkering

Agencies and clients often run themselves thin thinking of 360 degree ideas. Often they are idiotic extensions of the main TV or print dependent idea. Sometimes bizarre, many-a-time interruptive and seldom adding to the brand gestalt in a long term way.

In contrast, this Honda example of 360 thinking I read in Forbes Asia is break-through, unplanned & refreshing. Shipping containers to the Honda plant in the US carrying auto parts were returning empty to Japan. So, Honda bought a small company producing soya beans for tofu. The empty containers started carrying upto 33K pounds of soya bean to Japan. Honda also set up a centre to improve agricultural processes!

That's what I would call 'inventive 360 tinkering'- Power of out-of-box thinking + eco-friendliness + really stretching the brand gestalt. And there's TV/ PR/ WOM campaign hidden here as well!

White Collar Work, Blue Collar Pay

Many big media companies that deal with 'Creativity & Ideas' often for the rank and file dole out pay-packets and incentives based on the 'quantity of time spent' rather than the 'quality of idea spelt'. The systems for performance measurement are not as scientific and real-time as the ones for billing clients!

True, ideas are difficult to measure. But then when we can devise people meters to measure fleeting eyeball traffic, why not people meters to measure employee ideation and passion levels.

Instead of time sheets, and number of hours logged. Could we have idea sheets and number of ideas logged!

The actual methodology can be perfected over time! I guess crazy times need crazy ideas!

Mindset Jugaad, Ideas Hazaar

Was wondering, in recent times ad agencies and other media eco-system allies have really been prolific in what is loosely labelled as 360 ideas! There is no surprise in this. Our culture, mythology, religion, constraint economy roots have all led to this jugaad-thinking.

However, the flip side of this quick-fix/ jugaad mind-set is that the rate of break-through ideas is quite low when the going is smooth.

Jugaad is creativity during constraints. I feel what we now need is creativity during times of plenty. It's like for the next phase of Amul's rise as a dairy and marketing company, they will have to re-invent themselves. Which they are doing very well! What's the anti-dote to Jugaad. Any ideas??

Fark and the Market of One

I, the 18 day old blogger, was thinking blogging is for the under-ground men. Its for venting the thoughts, memes and other trapped emotions! But now a crop of entrepreneur bloggers, among them Drew Curtis, the founder of Fark.com are on their way to earn good money through blogging!

What is so insanely beautiful about Fark.com is that it's just a collection of reader submitted links to kick-ass videos, jokes and sundry trivia from around the web.

And even though many such sites might just be catering to markets of one, as the Long Tail points out there might be moolah there finally!

By the way, Drew of Fark is making at least $600,000 a month!!

Browsing the Newspaper, Reading the Net

Everyday I feel, there is a war out there between the two media worlds that I am familiar with - the off-line and the on-line. NRS 06 says print readership is actually on the rise! But so has internet penetration, the visitors to MySpace and Orkut. The blogosphere has reached 50mn and shows no signs of abating.

And I,the media grazer am juggling between the off-line and the on-line worlds. Work demands that I consume a lot of information and news. So, in 2006 am getting four newspapers up from two last year( the subsidised annual subscriptions are the real cause). And grazing a lot of NET and TV as well!

But my newspaper reading time has not dramatically increased. Net readership time has! Increasingly I find myself browsing the newspapers, and reading the net, be it wikipedia, google news RSS feeds, John Grant and Russell Davies blogs, and more trivia and junk than ever before!

My media habits in the last 2 years have changed beyond recognition.
- I consume news as entertainment
- There is no fixed time of news consumption. They happen like internet packets all through the day.
- TV is for breaking the news and chat shows
- Internet for following up stories of interest
- My news sources have ballooned from 2-3 to at least 6-8 on a regular basis.
- News sharing is a new acquired habit
- And recently I have started logging and blogging my POV on the news that I browse.

But for the organised media, am still the SEC A, age 30-35 unit. I guess there are thousands of media animals whose grazing grounds and habits have fundamentally changed. Yet they do not feature in the large scale, print or TV skewed researches.

Would love to hear similar tales of new grazing habits from you...