Mere Pass ZooZoo hai!!

Amidst all the IPL hoopla, the new series of Vodafone ZooZoo ads stand out. You can read the entire story of the making, the production, the props and people involved in the campaign here at afaqs... Ads on youtube here.

Was speaking to my friend Kumar @ Ogilvy after browsing through the zoozoo fan club on facebook(it's got > 26K fans!!) a while back and then generally thought about the zoozoos...

1. Talk Value. It's a great example of awesome creatives generating a natural buzz for the brand in internet time. With the top end of the audience now digitally immersed, they are commenting on, participating in the zoozoo conversation.

Also the brand is giving back enough stuff - wallpapers, screensavers, ringtones, IPL related offers, special tag-me images, Zoozoo sounds(Zoozoo laughter and music tracks, ad previews, Twitter updates etc.

2. Stories. But is that enough? Perhaps not. Maybe there is space for an entire zoozoo world with zoozoobeings with their zoozoo antics! In a digital world, the digital creative has an infinite life and therefore if you have great creative content like the 'zoozoos' one could look at creating more stories for niche consumption and popular culture seeding. Of course vodafone has done good stuff through the zoozoo quizzes and contests!! But there is scope for much more.

3. Conversation Creative.Zoozoos are a great example of a new creative style - the conversation creative where the TV creative generates great and ongoing conversations in the digital world(and of course the offline world as well). The 26K+ fans on facebook, the 84 comments on the afaqs article, the twitter fan following are all adding on to the conversation.

While I quickly scanned through the comments on afaqs, stumbled upon some zoozooisms- "Mummy mujhe zoozoo lagi hai", zoomply great, keep zoo zooing, zoo che!!!

This is a new strain of co-created conversation creative that is being created in real time and the agency and brand team can brainstorm how best to make use of it...

It is interesting content which can either die a natural death or put to better use!
Also, is the brand bold enough to open up the Zoozoo creative for the consumers to play! A campaign that can create 26K fans in a short time has great UGC potential.

4. Amplification. The other area where brands need to put more focus is amplification of the 'core idea'. A great and viral-ble idea like the zoozoos should now be amplified and seeded into popular culture. Of course the facebook, twitter stuff is good but perhaps it needs to be amplified through the mobile phone to really blow up the idea in a big way!!

5. Surprise is the new consistency. In the consumers-are-bored-and-networked era, brands must learn to surprise their followers rather than needlessly bother about consistency. Zoozoos have nothing in common with the pug(apart from the simplicity and cuteness quotient) or the Vodafone boy-n-girl, yet they make for arresting memorable stories. The consumer mind has evolved to a stage where he/ she can store these multiple stories and enjoy them and connect them back to Vodafone.

We shouldn't worry too much if the Zoozoos get more Talk Value in the short term than Vodafone itself! Zoozoos, the pug are cute characters , obviously they will get talked about more than the brand name...

Once again, some inspiring stuff from Ogilvy and very digital-media-friendly creatives...

Just Tag It!!

Was having coffee with my Slovenian friend, Alen on mobile, digital and other stuff! When he showed me the Tagit barcode. I have known about this company(Ranjan apparently has some stake in it:-) for some time now...But have never seen anybody use it...

Check out the demo video on the tagit site here...

-Tagit offers marketers a way to establish interactive relationships with their consumers. Adlabs is a client!

-Simple, low-cost solutions to businesses for inventory or asset tracking, identity verification and data management.

-Useful applications for government services, such as security access control, personal or vehicle identification and information dissemination

-When a display screen was added to the first mobile phone, a new media was created. The additions of a camera and Internet access have created a whole new way of interaction with the physical world.

Mobiquity(Mobile + Ubiquity) is here...We must know how to Tagit to our brands and communication in innovative ways!! Need another coffee with Alen session.

Mobiquity

Just put the finishing touches to my paper for Atticus this year.

Called Mobiquity = Mobile + Ubiquity, it's an attempt to look at the near future impact of the ubiquitous mobile phone!

Zillion thanks to Reshma, who did the quali research for the same & co-wrote it...

We looked at the device, the interface, mobile through an emerging market lens as well as the techno-social impact of the phone!

This surely ranks amongst the coolest research work I/ we did in a long time!

Will soon write a column to share the findings in the public domain!!

Vodaphone Throws a Bouncer

On the back of a strategically sound ad campaign for the Hutch name change comes this unlikely bouncer from Ogilvy! Maybe there is more to follow, but the first burst leaves me cold...

1. Beats me. What does Vodaphone mean by make the most of now?? The consumer hardly knows the brand. Why should he/she listen to this rather patronizing tone...

2. Suddenly the warmth and the simplicity of Hutch is gone! Kaput! This is not the continuation of the 'brand switch-over'? And if Vodaphone had to do such a dramatically different campaign, why did it blow up crores of rupees on the 'pug campaign' till last week??

Maybe, I am suffering from 'premature enunciation', but this doesn't make sense as of now...

Great Train Journey 2

Another long train journey in just over a month...This time around I had my wife too to care care of Neo. So did manage more sleep and few thoughts:-)

Some random observations in no particular order or significance...

1. The humble newspaper is the one true community product. Especially in a railway coach. This is perhaps the only place where people sometimes don't even bother to ask for the paper. They just take and browse. The thank you is implicit, seldom verbalised!

2. Adjust kar lenge. Is perhaps the opening line of most train journeys as passengers begin to arrange their luggage in the compartment. The sweetness of the 'adjust kar lijiye' is directly proportional to the available luggage space!

3. T-bags : the bland equaliser. Till the Taj Mahal and the Tetley tea bags came into circulation, different stations had their own tea flavours and vendors had their distinctive sales andaaz. My favourite was 'Choudhary ki chai' - the adrak spiced milk-tea that I used to get ahead of Bhusawal on train journeys to my college in Surat. Choudhary was a ritual we used to look forward to. He had amongst the most lyrical sales pitch that memory recalls. Had character. A big smile and most importantly good chai.

No disrespect to T-bags; but in one swoop, they have managed to homogenise the tea drinking experience. It's the same bland sugary stuff wherever you go!

4. Graveyard shift As I have gradually migrated to the AC 3/2 tier, the buzz of the sleeper is gone. I never realised that as a nation we are so sleep deprived. A majority of the passengers sleep for the better half of the journey.
Rarely have I encountered the loud conversations/ debates on national politics, cricket and other topical issues which were an essential part of the long 'sleeper' journeys of the past!

5. Purdah-hai-purdah. The other public obsession in the AC 2 tier is the attachment to the purdah(curtains). For an otherwise open, loud, display-friendly and sociable nation, I find this cocooning inside the train purdah quite perplexing! Any insights here? Reminds me of the 'purdah' people had in the good ole Ambasador!

6. The Charger as ice-breaker. Saurabh in his post had pointed out on the ice-breaking qualities of the Nokia charger! I too had first hand experience when a portly Auntyji intruded our purdah with a warm -"Beta tumhara charger kaam kar raha hai kya". And thus ensued a relay race. Between the saas and the heavily sindur-ed bahu, they charged 3 mobile phones! Like good train Samaritans, hum thoda sa adjust kar liye:-)

But for the techno-social effects of mobile phones, mp3 players and laptops...many of the rituals of the train journey are intact...

However, the journey itself has irreversibly changed. With the constant beep of cell phones and the tracking by anxious family members, you are never on your own/ alone.

Yet again I missed the timelessness and the lost in wilderness feel...Promise to myself - Will keep the cell phone switched off for all the 30 hours next time!!