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!