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.

Prose is for Lazy People

Read this very absorbing interview of Prasoon Joshi in Tehelka. Am becoming a big fan of both Tehelka and Joshi Saheb!! You can read the interview here

Thot post-its from the same...

1. We don’t choose ideas. Ideas choose us. We can’t grab a thought. A thought grabs us. You have to be receptive, ready to receive thoughts.

2. In Rang de Basanti there was no place for the song, “Lukka chuppi.” The scene is a son’s funeral and his mother experiencing a terrible loss. Rahman and I used the idea of a mother and son playing hide-and-seek. The sad reality is the son is hidden forever.

3. If there’s a particular word that doesn’t fit the tune, I tell him: No, I need this word. It’s important. It’s like a paperweight, if you remove it, everything will fly away!

It is rather crass of me to compare poetry with presentation/ power-point. But for a recent pitch, we were adamant on 'one' word. And it did make all the difference. We won the business. 30 slides, 40 units of creative all hinged on that 'one' word...Okay that was an unseemly detour.

4. The finest creativity is when you draw a dot and yet everyone can see the circle. If you allow the listeners to participate, they will complete the thought.

5. "I like writing songs featured in the background. What is happening in the mind of the character, but he’s unable to express."

6. It’s important to understand the overall context and then forget it. The mind has absorbed the essential. If you continue to refer to the lead-in situation, you start to mirror it, whereas your song must add another dimension to the narrative.

7. How does poetry express thought better than prose? Through its economy. Take this example: Navak andaz jidhar deeda-e jana honge/ Neem bismil kai honge kai bajan honge (Wherever the eyes of my beloved fall/ Some are wounded, others slain).

The idea is so precise. If you had to explain this in prose, you would have to write an entire page. And prose allows less participation.

8. Why do you think prose is more loved? Because prose is for lazy people. Poetry is for people with a fertile imagination.

Poetry is like a buffet. You must serve yourself because the meal will not be served at your table. It’s a pity we have mostly lost the passion for poetry.

Joshi Saheb, you make me want to read poetry in my attention-deficit, time crunched corporate life...And pick up the threads of the long buried dream(under the debris of trivial pursuits) of learning Urdu all over again!

Divorced from News TV!

A couple of months back, I divorced TV News...I couldn't take it any more!! I ended this relationship of many years...

I knew News as important, relevant, informative, timely...With a sense of purpose and perspective.

But the TRP happy, eye-ball hungry, entertainment-saturated, retarded news with dollops of tantric treacle, crime concoctions, horoscope horrors, XXX sex scandals. irrelevant, inane trivia garnished with gore & a messianic gumption finally weathered my patience and passivity!

So, I dumped Star News, CNN IBN, NDTV 24X7, Times Now and their ilk... These brands and their corporate owners have collectively reduced News to a market driven commodity! So, please chase your trapped eye-balls. Get their attention for free even as they pay a hefty price!!

But I want to pay for my News. I can afford it. Am willing to pay for quality. Am willing to pay for information. Am willing to pay to stay sane...I don't want your dumb feeds for free...

I know I am a minority. And have little idea of the size of this minority!! But my gut says there is a growing demand in the market for premium News TV. Or even a weekly Newstrack like DVD. Or maybe news clips on my cell, or youtube. Or video RSS feeds. The platform is not that important anymore...News is.

I think, I am one among a small breed of people in India who can be classified as 'News TV Divorcee'! LOL. Are you too?

Mobile Talk 1 : Rajesh Jain

Read a decent interview of Rajesh Jain, the man who almost single handedly brought on the dotcom boom to India after selling off his Internet venture, IndiaWorld.com, to Satyam for Rs 499 crore in 1999, on agencyfaqs.com!

Nuggets from the same...

1. Other than email, classifieds, trading and ticketing, not much has happened there. What I think of as the N3 web – Now, New, Near Web – hasn’t really happened. Part of the problem is that access is mainly from cyber cafes, so the Internet has not become a part of people’s lives.

2. There are two aspects to the Internet – the PC and the mobile. PC-based access is very much around the 'reference web'.

The mobile has the opportunity to be the primary mode of access and interaction for the 'incremental web'.

So, I can use the mobile to find directions and similar day to day activities. There are life's 'empty moments' and life's ‘know now’ moments. When you are waiting for someone, for example, you are in an empty moment and you can use your mobile to check stock quotes or text someone. In the ‘know now’ moments, you want to know something immediately instead of going and searching on the web. Now, if you can overlay mobile services with permission, you can give consumers only the information they want.

3. I think in the next few years, when you mention the Internet, it will primarily mean the mobile Internet.

4. Just like on the Internet, the search box has become the starting point for user interaction and monetisation of the web, my belief is that on the mobile phone, it’s going to be the SMS subscription with a brand of your choice.

So, if there’s a special promotion at the mall in the neighbourhood, you want to know. It's called 'invertising' – advertising that consumers invite into their lives. This is a marketer’s dream (come true). For example, if you buy a new Nokia phone, you can get free updates from them about the features of the phone and about upgrading to a new model

5. Why not enough innovations in the mobile industry? Because something has worked very well in the industry... because ringtones, wallpapers, Bollywood, cricket, etc., have become a Rs 4,000 crore industry, where users are spending on consuming this content, we are not looking beyond.

6. SMS subscription is the best way to provide bite-sized content.

7. As we think of roads, airports and power, we need to start thinking of the digital environment as core infrastructure for this country. I think there is no reason why we cannot have state of the art innovation in services here in India. That's going to spur entrepreneurship and will create the next set of large companies in India. Once we make that happen, it’s better for advertisers, marketers and businesses.

Absolut Disappointment

The Ad Club Bombay's, year end ritualistic Ad Review today was a dampener! At 900 bucks, one expected more bang!

You can read a reportage of the evening on afaqs here...

Sonal started well with all the panache of a great showman/presenter, but all he did was run a reel of the best Indian TVCs(his selection) in 2007 peppered with some firang commercials, which were at least 1-3 years old! All Ads, Little Review!

Kishore Biyani, the other speaker of the day, never delivered a speech or his trademark insights separately, but chatted with Sonal moderated by Anuradha Sengupta of CNBC. Regular stuff recycled at low decibel...

Xerox, the main sponsors comically(at least I thought so) decided to thrust a printer at Alyque(for life time achievement)!!! Imagine Alyque's ordeal when after spending some 5 decades in advertising, all he gets is a bloody PRINTER(yikes)...

Who would want to achieve anything in advertising henceforth...LOL

At least the food was decent and the bar was open through-out the evening! The Taj Lands End lawns were a perfect setting for some fireworks...but alas it took 4 Patiala pegs of Absolut + company of old rogue friends to get over the review or the lack of it...

Think Hatke. Think Widgets

Am trying to learn a little more about widgets and then maybe write an article on the subject - How brands and marketers can use them. Are there some examples of Indian brands using widgets?

Widgets are mini-Web applications that are downloaded onto a desktop or transported into personal Web pages, blogs or social-network profiles. For users, they are a source of constantly updated information, from weather and sports scores to personal photos, which can eliminate the need to visit multiple Web sites.

Stumbled upon these links while I was in google-yahoo mode!

1. This is a 2006 post on OpenGardens blog. It's about how advertisers/ marketers/ brands can use widgets?

2. Then there was this piece on imediaconnection.com - The what, who, why, how and wow of widgets.

3. And then there was this article - Marketers Wend Widgets Into Interactive Tactics at brandweek.com

Okay going back to my learning mode...

Bheja Fry. Phir Karo Try!!

Pepsico delivers another advertising dud. The new 7UP commercial, BBDO's opening shot is quite a let down. You can view the TVC on youtube here...

Though, I like the Bheja Fry. 7Up Try tag-line, found the plot bland and straight from the 80's! Countless fizz and non-fizz brands have done similar stuff to death...Don't know why they couldn't get a smarter rendition...

The little that I know of youth brands...
1. 38 trying to be 18 won't work.
2. Cool and dumb don't bed together!
3. Recycling works well for the environment, not for ads.

4. We live in an age where 80% of the brands are young. So, the really young@heart brands must lead the conversation. Through new stories, fresh insights(a la Sprite), new technology...Or simply a great(expensive) execution like the 2cr Thums Up fillum!!

But, maybe BBDO deserves the benefit of doubt. It's their maiden over.
So, Bheja Fry. Phir Karo Try!!

The Joy and Despair of Flying

Disclaimer: I like/okay love XYZ Airways. Last year I made 83 trips...I am their platinum card member...And the free air miles financed my Kerala trip in December:-)

So this rant against their public address system(and many other airlines) is just one peeve among the many joys!!

Hey guys, do something about it...The more I hear, the more I hate!!

Sample this(of course hugely contrived and exaggerated for effect:-)

1.This is your captain speaking from the cock-pit.
Oh great I thought you were making out in the loo...

2. Whether you are in business class or economy, I have pleasure in announcing that all of you are flying to Mumbai. Window, middle, aisle seats. All of you guys...
Thank you so much captain! I was waiting for that re-assurance from you!!!

3. It's a pleasure having you on-board.(Actually in a 2 hour flight this message often comes after 90minutes of flight...LOL

4. The temperature outside is -38.673 deg Celsius. This is 2.456 degrees less than normal. Mind it!!

3. But we have somehow managed to maintain the temperature inside the cabin at an annoyingly high 26 degrees...Since we love playing with the temperature knob. And pushing down our otherwise high consumer satisfaction scores!

4. We are now flying over the lovely city of Jaipur. If you manage to strain your neck 254 degrees from the aisle seat, you will still not be able to see anything...It's just a practical joke we play on the aisle seat passengers!!

5. The aircraft is flying at 854km/hr. But we will still be late by 55 minutes. Please ponder over this meaningless statistic. We get joy at throwing random numbers at people.

6. As per the current report from the control-room, we are number 12 in the Mumbai air-traffic-queue. But you know the fickle minded, twice-divorced air-traffic controller...By the time we approach Mumbai, he may put us at number 21!! So, don't take any of these announcements at face value...

7. I hope you followed my delayed, mostly irrelevant information read from a script outsourced by the legendary Rapidex guys and delivered in our trade-mark English which only frequent flyers can understand or so we think...

(We at XYZ airways have collectively failed the 'Lagey Raho' speech improvement programme...But Hum Honge Kaamyaab Ek Din...)

Finally the last of these messages put you to deep sleep despite the insidious 'temperature knob playing tactic!!!

I don't know who looks after the public address systems of most airlines...But they are uniformly crappy and banal...

For all brands, specially the service brands, the last mile customer-exchange/ conversation/monologue is quite important...

No, I wouldn't ever change my airlines because of this. I have far too many reward points to take care off:-)
But there are no diminishing returns for a service brand for being interesting, witty, human and sensible even at 45000ft up in the sky when the temperature outside is -38.679 deg Celsius...LOL

Random Note - Why Write, Just Type!

These days the only time I wield the pen is to sign cheques!!

I had quite a lousy hand-writing which affected quite a few grades in school and college! In fact, I am surprised how I ever passed some of my engineering papers. By the time I finished scribbling on the last ream of paper, it was illegible to even me!!

Anyways am happy, I don't have to wield the pen any more. On MS Word, finally I have caught up with some of my more calligraphically gifted school friends:-)

Hopefully, in another couple of years, with speech recognition software getting better, my slow typing speed will also cease to be a handicap...

Maybe finally the thinking > typing > writing...

I wonder of what use are the hand-writing sessions that my 4 year old son Neo under-takes...He will learn wriitng only to never use it in later life...Why don't schools teach typing instead. Make it compulsory...

And why don't we teach better thinking tools in schools. We need better thinkers in larger numbers today, far more than guys with great hand-writing....

Joshi Saheb, Mudra and Dumbistaan2

I am a double amateur when it comes to appreciating music! But the songs of Taare Zameen Par and in particular the lyrics by Prasoon Joshi have been a constant earworm* for me this month!

The Filmfare award to him for best lyrics(for Maa)is well deserved. Though my favourite is 'Kholo kholo darwaze...' A matter of pride for the advertising industry...Congratulations Joshi Saheb! I am your admirer...(no I don't want a job in McCann planning...LOL)

Away from the glitz of Bollywood, Mudra won an award for Continuous Innovation and HR Strategy at Work by the World HRD Congress! Though it's a little difficult to tell from the HRD's pedestrian web-site and the India-centricity of the awards(in 2006)how global they really are!

But for an industry never really known for it's HR friendliness forget HR innovation this is good news! I hope others get inspired.

And finally I had to reproduce this e-mail sent by a friend of mine(inhabitant of youngistaan)...

hey (insert my name)....finally caught it on youtube...i watched it...n then i watched it again thinkin that maybe i'm slow n maybe i missed the point in the ad....but this defintely is one of the crappier ads SRK has done and lil ranbir is getting quite a reputation for behaving nonsensical...deepika looks way better in anythin else that i've seen her in...she looks like just another girl in this ad...all she hadta do was stand n look pretty but cudnt manage that here...they shud've gotten the same make up artist they used in OSO!!!! lines are drab...idea is moronic...acting is so-so...actually everything about this ad is crap...also read the interview by XYZ of JWT...XYZ may be able to sell the interview to a few weak minds but definitely won't sell any pepsi with this strategy...this calls for a change of agency, people!!!!

Hey guys...I didn't make that up:-)

*Earworms is a term for a portion of a song or other musical material that becomes "stuck" in a person's "head" or repeats against one's will within one's mind...Check wikipedia for more details here

Dil Peechha Karta Hai Dil Ka....

Watch the video here!
Tere ishq mein apni manzil ka...thus goes the new viral video from SimplyMarry.com! Watch it here on FireandIce.co.in

Simple, clean, hummable track with cute animation - dil karta hai forward karene ka... Ab yeh 'Youngistaan Hai Meri Jaan!'

The Feminisation of the Internet

Meraj forwarded me this link from NYT. Thanks Meraj, somehow it feels you still work for me(and that too without pay..LOL). It's an article of how more girls than boys are creating content on/for the web!!

Come to think of it there are more and more women creating content on the web or are more conversant with technology in India as well. The other thing is many of the content-creating guys have a strong feminine side to them(including you Meraj and me:-)

Some key points from the article...
1. Among the youngest Internet users, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

2. A study published in December by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among Web users ages 12 to 17, significantly more girls than boys blog (35% of girls compared with 20% of boys) and create or work on their own Web pages (32 % of girls compared with 22% of boys).

3. Girls also eclipse boys when it comes to building or working on Web sites for other people and creating profiles on social networking sites (70 percent of girls 15 to 17 have one, versus 57 percent of boys 15 to 17). Video posting was the sole area in which boys outdid girls: boys are almost twice as likely as girls to post video files.

4. A Pew study published in 2005 also found that teenage girls were the primary content creators — but the gender gap for blogging, in particular, has widened. The findings have implications beyond blogging, according to Pew, because bloggers are “much more likely to engage in other content-creating activities than nonblogging teens".

It's interesting. The idea that the gender of the world wide web might be changing over time...Mental Bookmark.

Picture Source : www.jupiterimages.com

The Danger of Getting Dooced!!

Came across this word - Dooced at the Urban Dictionary

dooced : Getting fired because of something that you wrote in your blog.

"Blogger Heather B. Armstrong coined the phrase in 2002, after she was fired from her Web design job for writing about work and colleagues on her blog, Dooce.com" (Source: Yahoo.com)

Last October, Delta Air Lines flight attendant Ellen Simonetti was fired, she said, for what her supervisor called a misuse of uniform. Simonetti had posted on her personal blog, Queen of Sky (now called Diary of a Fired Flight Attendant), pictures of herself, in her uniform, on an empty plane. Her blog also contained thinly veiled work stories.
(Yahoo! News)

Thank God for low internet usage and lower blog readership in India!! LOL
Picture Source : www.blogwriteforceos.com

Youngistaan - Quite Dumbistaan

Saw the new Pepsi film on air. It's been talked about in ET and agencyfaqs

I found it quite dumbistaan. Though, my wife says am too old to evaluate 'youngistaan':-(

SRK is wasted and frankly as Deepika's bade bhaiyya, in the immediate aftermath of the sizzling pairing with her in Om Shanti Om is a bit off-putting!!

Ranbir looks stupid as always! But maybe, it's just me and my blogistaan that thinks like this...

And yes, one more thing! For a brand that's so Youngistaan and all that, it forgot to upload the TVC on either agencyfaqs or youtube-istaan!! LOL

The Great Pink Stink

This day, last year had written this post.
It's Valentine's again & pink is haunting like a ghost!

Roses & hearts & Archies are back with a vengeance.
Painting malls, pubs, skylines, all the Bandra fence!

Raju Srivastava on Radio, was good in cameo parts.
Annoying as hell he is as the new ambassador of hearts!

Diamond talk is the new topic of the week/day.
As if they are unripe Alphonsoes sold in May!

Dr. Mallaya launched a vodka coloured PINK.
Cars, condoms, caviar marketing - all blushing in sync!

Raj Saheb, if you are feeling out of work.
North Indians ko chhodiye, focus on these jerk(s)!

Akhha India is threatened by love-virus PINK.
Somebody please help harpic this new urban stink!

Tip: Buy your roses tomorrow, it's not a big deal.
Your Valentine will be livid, but you will get a great deal!!

Happy Valentine's Day:-)

What do the advertisers get in exchange4media?

Well above is the screen grap of exchange4media...Since there is hardly any content on this page, I have never really bothered to look at any of the ads...

I think the scientific term for this is inattentive blindness:-)

Dainik Jagran, Vanita, Radio One, Radio Dhamaal, Big FM, Dainik Bhaskar, Jagran Solutions, Sahara One, Radio Mirchi, Outlook - that's some 10 brands trying to get my in-attention...LOL

Clutter is as bad in virtual real estate as in the real world!

I feel it's the worst designed media web-site...But maybe exchange4media has high-resolution retinal scan to measure effectiveness and eyeball-enthusiasm:-)

Biztech2.0 - New Kid on the Block

Few days ago, exchange4media reported the launch of Biztech2TV. You can read the write-up here...

- It's a Web18 venture. BiztechTV gives TV-style programming on the Internet!

- Biztech2.0 promises incisive, crisp and business-centered content, offering business technology decision makers never-before-seen videos(their claim), in addition to News, Features, Interviews, Reviews, Case Studies, White Papers and more.

Of course with the f***ed up broadband access I have through the reliance data card, it was impossible to download any video!!

This looks like a media magazine meets youtube meets TV meets reportage.... Hope they live up to the promise/ hype!

Brand Blogs - Hat Na Re

Read this write-up in DNAindia on branded cartoon characters.

- Mumbai-based Phonethics is one firm which is tapping into the new opportunity. It has developed around 20 characters and is licensing them to various brands. (But my 7 min minute google-n-yahoo searches couldn't get me the web-site). Help!

- Sometime back, when Sony introduced Chaalbaz No.1, it used Mian Fekoo, a character based on a street poet, from Phonethics. Content in the form of videos, experiences and ideas were then posted on a blog, where nearly 25,000 hits were generated.

- Other characters include Farmao Jaan, Mr. Madhuri and Bhakt Harvakt. All of them have certain unique traits and mannerisms. Phonethics is now planning to create around 150 such characters!! Must say, they look and sound quite kewl!

- Phonethics clients include Tata Motors, Sony Entertainment Television and Nokia. Nokia is also planning to have a similar strategy for the launch of N82 and has roped in the company to design a character!

I feel these characters are important to mainstream digital platforms and offerings. Used well, they can demystify technology.

Technology brands need to hand-hold the consumers (early and late majority) and educate them a lot. And these characters can help do that!

Tera Kya Hoga Johnny

Was reading Sudhir Mishra's post on the making of 'Khoya Khoya Chand'. You can read it on passionforcinema.com

Tucked at the bottom is this small reference to his forthcoming movie - 'Tera Kya Hoga Johnny' - a film about three people who wonder what’s going to happen to Johnny, this little street kid who sells coffee on the road.

He wonders what’s going to happen to them. They are all going haywire.

It’s about Bombay now. It’s also interesting to capture this transitory phase in Bombay. How it’s changing. The whole city is changing, in terms of architecture, the spaces. How they are being occupied by one kind of thing – malls, offices, commercial complexes.

The city is being taken over and in this transitory phase there’s this little kid who sells coffee.

Some time back, I had had similar thots on/about Bandra. How the quiet, quaint bylanes have been taken over by the builder lobby. Small cottages being razed to make way for ugly(mostly), glass-n-chrome highrises!

Steel over sensibility, aggressive architecture over aesthetics, business clamour over creative calm...Tujhe Kya Ho Gaya Bandra:-(

The Size of Thoughts

I had/have a book by this name. By Nicholson Baker - a contemporary American novelist, whose writings focus on minute inspection of the narrator's stream of thought.

Baker is difficult to follow. Past attempts have been bouncers. But I love this phrase - the size of thoughts...

So, I decided to compile 10 Size of Thoughts Thots:-)

1. Very often, my immediate pressing work requires very small sized thoughts. Nano thoughts. Sometimes, no thoughts at all.

2. If we are satisfied with mid-sized thoughts, that's all we will ever have!

3. The company we keep, affects the size of our thoughts. Some people, organisations just shrink the size of your thoughts! Stay away from them...

4. Children have a habit of why-chaining(aisa kyun hota hai) everything! Their constant company can increase both the size and the shape of one's thoughts!

5. One person can change the size of thoughts of a country, an industry - Gandhi, Ratan Tata!

6. The more we stay with a problem, the more the size of our thoughts increase!

7. In advertising, who has the thought/ or sometimes the department of thought determines the size of thought:-)

8. Has constant blogging increased the size of my thoughts?! Decreased the size of my thoughts?

9. Do you only wonder about the size of thoughts related to work? What about the size of thoughts outside of work? For a social cause, any cause...

10. Have you noticed how News TV is squeezing the size of our thoughts?

I don't know whether it's making much sense...But I enjoyed the shape of these thots if not their size:-)

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!!

Digital is Unevenly Distributed...

On Monday, Jan 21st, Tribal DDB Worldwide became the first Digital Shop/ agency/ global digital brain to Win the Ad Age Global Agency Network of the Year!!

Big Congrats to them!!

This marks the first time in history that a digital company has won this honour!

You can check the full story here

Maybe, things will change from a 30sec obsession to more digital solutions in India as well...

Although, have you ever heard a Balki, Piyush, Pops, Chax, Aggie, etc. talk about the internet, new media, digital, UGC...I haven't! LOL

Prasoon might be an exception. He did talk about Second Life in a ET/ DNA article last year...

The digital lead is already being taken by the likes of Tribal DDB, Webchutney, PC Webwise, Pinstorm, Quasar, Creative Avenues, etc.

Later WPP, IPG and Omnicom companies will buy them at fat sums:-)( Quasar was lapped up by WPP Digital a short while ago)

At the moment, digital is unevenly distributed - the thinking, the creatives, the planners, the urgency, the talent and the CEO priority...

Bono-vita 2

It's been a busy week till now. Meetings, travel, more meetings...

Planner time is the most elastic resource in an agency. It can be consumed for almost anything!

On days like these, I always perk myself with a glass of milk, a spoon of Chywanprash and some Bono-vita(just kidding)

Edward De Bono-vita thoughts...
1. "The ability to send hundreds of e-mails does not ensure the ability to write something intelligent or amusing."

How about an e-mail free day every week? And then check employee productivity! Or our own. What about Thursdays? :-)

2. "Everything is fine but the ship is still heading in the wrong direction."

Have you had that feeling lately?

Less Gas, More Ass

Was browsing through the year end Outlook magazine, Images 2007! Spotted this unique Naked Eco-activism/protest against oil dependency and car culture!

The photographer is Spencer Tunick...Cyclists in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vancouver, Madrid have joined the 'Less Gas, More Ass' movement!

Mumbai is next on Spencer's itinerary LOL

There is a whole lot of creativity that is required in the eco-activism space with or without ass-baring!

Mental note - think about the 'Mumbai Batti Band' campaign...What can be done to actually cut down the metro's electricity consumption even as the Reliance IPO shrieks Power On. India On:-)

Kick Ass Manifesto

You can read it better here!

Stumbled upon this kick-ass manifesto of Webchutney, amongst India's hottest/ coolest digital full service agencies...Have a dekko at their blog here!

Don't think any Indian traditional offline agency has a blog yet! Correct me if I am wrong!

You can find 3 real cool webchutney virals here...(viral classics like Thakur Ka Inteqam, Makkad-man and Ali Baba(done for the Airtel ring-tone) LOL

Who Needs Advertising When You Have a Nano!

By now you must have heard & seen it all. The Buzz. The Bytes and the hottening Bazaar for the Nano.

The giga byte Nano surround sound!!

I can't remember when was the last time I really got excited about a car launch(actually any product)!!

A friend called me excitedly as CNBC broke the launch story from the Auto Expo...

In the evening I caught up with a high-decibel and a not-so-high quality debate on NDTV with Suhel Seth, R K Pachauri(noble winner), Sunita Narain(Centre for Science & Environment) and Medha Patkar...

Had a debate about the Nano with my wife in the morning over chai! Thought about it(about the road congestion, about buying it, about gifting it:-) about getting it's ad account) all through yesterday!!

Sample the headlines in the various dailies today...

HT - H/L : Small wonder
Body Copy : It is green, it is global, it is Indian. It costs a lakh and it
is called the Nano.

TOI - H/L : Tata Reinvents the Wheel
Body Copy : Others said No. Tata said Nano

HT Mint - H/l : Tata Small Car Throws a Big Punch
Body copy : Ratan Tata's personal quest ends in a winner!

ET - H/L : Nano Second to None
Body Copy : Dream car's brush with history

Indian Express - H/L : 1 lakh car drives 1 billion dreams
Body Copy : Little Nano, the big thing!

As I open my gmail in the morning, my friend and benevolent spamster - Ramakant has already sent me a Nano pix and sound bytes & another friend has sent some stories about the making of the Nano!

However, in sharp contract to the Giga Buzz, the paid ad by Rediff(Full Page in TOI) was quite mediocre(though the car looks beautiful in the layout), low on energy and perhaps quite unnecessary!

The Rediff Nano ad reads...
H/L : It's here. The new Tata Nano
To end all speculation, debate and talk!

Okay, thanks for telling me that!! But Mr. Advertising Agency, you are 24 hours late, got nothing new to tell and need a better copy-writer. Try HT, Indian Express...

Of course, I maybe too immersed in the Nano; but so is the nation...And as communications people, who need to have a pulse on the nation's psyche...this ad should have been done differently(if at all)

Quick thoughts on how I wud have done it...Actually, no why give ideas for free:-)

But the point is it would have paid(like hell) to take into account the context of a national frenzy around a dream car. Plug into the conversation of the people. And I don't mean higher SEC people who e-mail, search, blog, twitter, orkut, facebook it only!

Plug into even the choupal conversations, the adda, udipi, nukkad conversations...(Maybe it's all coming around the corner. Maybe this rant is a bit early...)

But for God's sake, add something to that conversation. However, Nano it might be or get out of the way and save some precious media budgets!

Let TOI, Aaj Tak, Dainik Jagran, Punjab Kesari and Saamna do the job well.

Nano is a small car but a big paradigm shift! Can advertising build a philosophy around the car?

It's not so much about positioning. In the long run, it's more about the new priorities and the complex questions (environmental, ethical, etc.)that the Nano will throw up!

Can Nano be the desire to celebrate 'Less is More'. Of reducing the carbon and other foot-print, of using less resources....Then communication has a role!

Otherwise, to sell a cute 1 lakh car, who needs advertising!!

Bono-vita

"If we ask children below the age of 10(maybe lower) to draw a spacecraft, they will design their own design.

After the age of 10, they will draw a rocket with N.A.S.A written on the side!!

We think we like children to be children but create conditions( generally speaking) where they prefer to act like adults as soon as possible:-(" - from Edward de Bono's book 'New Thinking for the New Millennium'

The Salt Curve

I want to do a Edward de Bono week...I came in contact with this father of lateral thinking at the 'dilli gate' second hand book bazaar over a decade back(maybe more...)

Since then I have been regularly snacking on his ideas and concepts. It's a bit difficult and exhausting to read a Edward Bono cover to cover, but snacking Bono regularly has been both delicious and healthy!!

In his book, New Thinking for the New Millennium, Bono has argued that our judging system is flawed as we believe that 'if something is good, then surely more of that thing is better'!

No salt in the food makes it bad/ bland. When we add a little salt,it tastes good. But if we add more of the salt, it tastes bad again!

Technology is good. So more technology is better. However, it took more than two decades for worker productivity to actually rise after computers were first introduced in offices in the US.

Communication is good. So more communication is better. But I feel there was more information, more emotion and better communication in the monthly letter I wrote to my parents during my engineering days than the daily staccato communication on the mobile phone!

Blogging is good. So twitter is better!! Highly questionable I feel...

Humour in ads is good. So more humour in all ads is better??

Information is good. So more information is better. But 100 slide power-points often have less to tell than a 20 slide presentation!! More information might actually clog human decision making ability. And intuition tells me is the number one planner malaise:-)

de Bono's Salt Curve is therefore a great concept to keep in mind when devising communication solutions!

The Young in India : 18 to 80:-)

Nice article by Vir Sanghvi in HT Mint where he questions why India doesn't want to give power to it's young in various walks of life. You can read the entire article here.


Big chunks from the article...
1. A couple of weeks ago, The Observer(London) bragged about a generational change in the UK. Prime Minister Gordon Brown(age 56) is increasingly being seen as too old and too tired to inspire the country.

In the same week, the BJP named L.K. Advani its prime ministerial candidate. If Advani ever gets to be prime minister, he will be more than 80 by the time he moves into Race Course Road.

The present incumbent, Manmohan Singh, is in his 70s. His rivals for the job within the Congress (Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, etc.) are the same vintage.

2. David Cameron(the Conservative leader) who may well defeat Brown at the next election, is 41. Which is almost the same age as Rahul Gandhi. And we regard Rahul Gandhi as too young to become a cabinet minister.

3. On media. Rajdeep Sardesai and Barkha Dutt are young editors of TV channels. But most of their counterparts in the TV and magazine world are over 50. Both Prannoy Roy and Raghav Bahl are far older than Sardesai.

On the entertainment side, Kunal Dasgupta (Sony) and Pradeep Guha (Zee) are in their 50s. The vast majority of print editors are 50 or older.

Shekhar Gupta, at 50, is probably the most youthful, but N. Ram, Aveek Sarkar, Vinod Mehta, Aroon Purie, Prabhu Chawla, M.J. Akbar, Chandan Mitra and Mrinal Pande are all 50-plus. So are both of India’s most powerful press barons. Shobhana Bhartia, vice-chairperson of HT Media Ltd is 50 and Samir Jain is probably three or four years older.

4. It is the same with business. Even if you take Ratan Tata (70) out of the mix, just look at the ages of the high-profile industrialists who have come to symbolize the new India: Nandan Nilekani, Mukesh Ambani, Anand Mahindra, Sunil Mittal, etc.

They are all around 50 or more (the exception is probably Kumar Mangalam Birla, who is much younger, but he took over the family empire in unusual circumstances).

5. Sanghvi claims he doesn't have answers to India's obsession with the old young! His guess is that India defines youth differently from the rest of the world.

In the West you are ready for a second career when you reach 50. In India, that’s usually the age when you’ve only just reached near the top in your first career.

Isn’t it time we took demographics into account and recognized that an “emerging superpower” cannot be run by emerging pensioners?

On Being Creative 1

I have been struggling to write this first post of the year. Planners block in week one is not a good sign:-)

But I wanted to write about something happy, hopeful but most of all on the subject of being creative!

Luckily for me I stumbled upon Hugh MacLeod's(of the gaping void blog fame)this very old post(by life-on-the-web-standards).

Hugh is an ex agency copy-writer turned marketing strategist. But he is most famous for his cartoon-on-business-cards-concept(am a newly converted fan of his).

You can read the original post - 'How to be Creative'here

Here's my selection from the original spiked a little by my personal experience...

1.Ignore Everybody
And that includes EVERYBODY. Of course not all of them together and not all of them all the time!! LOL

Your spouse. Your parents. Your boss. The once-upon-a-time-mentor. The good-friend-who-always-thinks-good-of-you. The featured-in-the-Brand-Equity-Power List CEO type...

The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you.

2. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in nursery.

The silo system puts all sorts of department labels to shut you up. But never lose your voice. Don't under-rate your inherent creativity. Write with your heart about the brand. Think taglines while you think strategy or run errands. Better the body copy of the ad if you can. Romance your brand in words slapped on gettyimages!

Think media neutral solutions. Think fearlessly. Talk about them. e-mail them to other people. Blog about them.

As a planner I have written print ads for clients, read out TV scripts at new business pitches often throwing the CD in a fit of shock, have written 360 brand narratives in new business and more over the year.

It's bloody tough & frustrating at times. But it's doable. And there's always a way for the creative mind:-) Like they will call a planner ad a brand print and other such non-sense! But stay on course. Enjoy the game!

Listen to the little voice(of creativity inside you) or it will die... taking a big chunk of you along with it.

Life has a little box of crayons for all of us. We didn't fear them in nursery, why fear them now?

3. Keep your day job.
THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

For me this blog is SEX, enduring endless-pointless-meetings CASH.
Leading projects like 'Future of Mobility' SEX, doing 'daak bangla' research CASH
Thinking about planning and creativity as part of my day job is SEX, living 3 days a week in Delhi CASH:-)and Jet miles LOL

4. Hang out with a Changing World
Some people are hip to it, others are not. If you want to be able to afford groceries in 5 years, I'd recommend listening closely to the former and avoiding the latter.

That means hanging out more with the really creative people not labels and visiting cards, the freaks, the real visionaries, than you're already doing.

Thinking more about what their needs are, and responding accordingly.

It doesn't matter what industry we're talking about- architecture, advertising, petrochemicals, journalism- they're around, they're easy enough to find if you make the effort, if you've got something worthwhile to offer in return.

Avoid the dullards; avoid the folk who play it safe. They can't help you any more. Their stability model no longer offers that much stability. They are extinct, they are extinction.

In the past year and a half, it's the conversations with people
outside my department
outside my company,
outside advertising,
outside India,
outside my comfort zone,
outside of what I know that have been really insightful....

The insiders haven't had much to offer:-)

5. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.

6. Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.

7.The best way to get approval is not to need it.

In 2008 and beyond, we will have to get used to a world that will gradually not look like the world in which we have worked till now.

The agencies, our jobs, the power-equations, the concept of what's creative, the supremacy and primacy of 30sec commercials, creativity in the digital domain will require all of us to be more creative in whatever we do...

Related posts on the subject of creativity- The New Creative, Where's the Glue Around Here?, Open Source Creativity

Person of the Year : Ashish Khetan

I want to dedicate the last post of the year to the gutsy, ballsy Tehelka reporter, Ashish Khetanwho exposed the men behind the Gujarat pogrom of 2002!!

Of course, now with the election results and Modi back in the saddle, the landscape of debate has changed. Mass media(with few exceptions) is singing hymns of the man's iron-will, economic savviness, political ideology and more...Modi masks are doing brisk business & the Moditva TRPs have over-taken saas-bahu soaps...Judging by the history of judicial probes into riots and government excesses, I don't think the rioters, rapists and murderers will ever get punished!!

But hats off to Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal & his editorial team and in particular Ashish Khetan, who carried this audacious sting operation over a 6 month period, risked his life to bring the gory facts to light.

You can read the cover-story(Tehelka Nov 03,'07 issue)here...

You may like to read another thought provoking write-up by Tarun Tejpal(To Kill A Party, Tehelka, Jan 12 issue)...

From the column "Do we wish to travel on the miraculous road the founding fathers forged: democratic, liberal, inclusive, modern?

Or are we going to careen off into jingoism, bigotry, retrograde religion, and the powermongering of political-corporate cabals?

As a people do we look to becoming modern or merely prosperous?

As a people do we understand that a free society, a democracy, is not just about winning elections but about creating and sustaining institutions that strive for equality, justice and fairplay?

Might is not right. Majority is not right. Money is not right. In the good society, only right is right. And we all know, at all times, the difference between right and wrong.

The Future of Entertainment

Just read my blog friend Neil Perkins's detailed post on the 'Future of Entertainment. Since many of the trends 2008 pieces in the Indian media-sphere have been quite vapid and vacuous, catching up on this post was quite a relief...

Neil, allow me to quote from your post and salt & pepper it with my India-centric thots.

1. Entertainment is becoming more fluid and flexible, interactive and active, individually defined, networked, varied in time, location and place...

2. Growing affluence underpins higher expectations. Even children have increasingly sophisticated demands. They are not confined by traditional constructs of consumption!

Just this morning, my 4 yr old son, Neo asked his Nani for a 'real mobile'. He was specific & assertive - 'Khilona nahin chahiye. Baat karna hai'!! Our own expectations from customer service, vacations, lifestyle, fashion & technology brands have grown exponentially and continue to do so...

We are all on a hedonistic consumer treadmill. We need better experiences to give us the same or less kick!

3. There is a powerful role for the shared collective experience (seen currently in the growth in live music, and strong demand for sports viewing).

This is one area where we cud spend some time in 2008. Brand conversations, activities and planned actions largely happen with a one-to-one marketer mind-set.

4. Networks of communication are already ubiquitous but our understanding of their full potential and operation is still pubescent. But huge potential exists beyond the blogging phenomenon and current popular networking sites for evolving forms of creativity and expression.

Ad agencies will take a while understanding the potential of community communication here in India. My guess is that media agencies, digital out-fits and new web based entrepreneurial companies, small and mid size will show the path. Then maybe the large networks will wake up and shake up!

5. A growing proportion of the population is and will be consistently multitasking. According to this research, people are currently fitting in more than 7.2 hours of additional activities into the average day!!

- How do I calculate how many more hours did I pack in my day in 2007??
- So do we do MGFs(Multi Tasking Group Discussions) now to elicit new behavioural patterns?
- And how do we measure attentive eye-balls!:-)
- How does it impact the 30 sec commercial, or the viral video.
- Do we need a new guy, say called the Media Landscapist to do the thinking around this subject...

6. The ‘new meaning of luxury’ is about time oases and getting away from it all. And reinforces the long term demand for the ‘bring it on’ realm of media-delivered entertainment on TV and magazines, as well as creating interesting links to the ‘cult of the home’ with home as primary site for downtime, in our busy, choice-overloaded daily lives...

- Hey, this trend I had predicted in 2002-03( pre blogging days). Had written a piece called the 'Division Economy' back then. Maybe it was ahead of its time. LOL
- Will this new time oasis be age dependent?
- Is it a big enough business to leave my planner job and jump into? LOL

Thanks Neil for getting me thinking as always and Happy New Year buddy!

Change Story - Letterman

G. P. Sawant, 61, estimates that he has written more than 10,000 letters for people who were unable to do so.

The frenetic pace of change in India has been captured and replayed to us to death by planner power-points:-) and research dockets.

But Change I feel is best captured in stories...

So here's a nice story of a man who made a living by writing letters(what are they??:-) for the unlettered before the communication/mobile revolution took India by storm.

The story was forwarded by Meraj. It appeared in NYT.

A Legend Hangs His Boots

Friday was the official farewell of Mohammed Khan - our out-going Chairman and creative honcho. Pity, I never got to know him well/actually at all. Last couple of months, he had mostly been on leave or on baton-passing-role...

Mohammed has been involved in setting-up of some of India’s best-known creative agencies today. He was one of the co-founders of Rediffusion in 1973, came on board to start Contract in 1978 and finally in 1983, started Enterprise.

He has been involved with/ built iconic brands like Raymond, Charms, Lakme and most brands that had their origins in the 70s and 80s.

Mohammed modestly says: “Half the credit should go the clients, we had excellent relationships.” “In fact, that’s one thing that’s missing today –– agency relationships with suppliers, photographers, directors etc, which made them give that little extra. That was what made the difference between good and great.” (ET)

Most of the advertising honchos were there - Ranjan Kapur, Piyush, Prasoon, Balki, ...along with the Bates team with Sonal and Subhash!

The high-point of the evening was Tom Alter(a close friend of Mohammed) reciting Ghalib with lot of passion & feeling to a youngish crowd, who listened impatiently with little understanding of the Urdu language or the nuances of Ghalib...

Though I was a bit inebriated on Sula red wine, managed to take some pix and catch snippets of eulogising speech and random spice:-)

1. Lets start with Mohammed. A legend. He thanked three people in particular in his warm, avuncular(though have heard stories of his temper) style. Subhash Ghoshal for rehabilitating him at Contract. His client Sunny Pillai of VST industries for writing a cheque of 10 lacs that enabled him and Rajeev Aggrawal(also present at the party) to start 'Enterprise' and Raghu - a soulmate and co-worker of many years!

Mohammed also said that he had two big worries. Both of which seem to have been resolved. The first being what would he do after retirement. But then he recently saw Alyque with a smashing babe and thought that life after advertising might not be so bad after all LOL. And after Sonal taking over the creative leadership at Bates, his second worry has also been taken care of...

And his friendly poke at Ogilvy while introducing Sonal was - "Piyush, watch out your ass!!:-)"

2. Ranjan recalled the famous Khan remarks during the heydays of Enterprise- "Ogilvy is just a middle of the road agency" and "the reason that Ogilvy claps so hard at award shows is that they have little else to cheer about"!

3. The streaky haired Sonal had this to say - "Mohammad saab, aapke itne bade jootey aur hamare itne chhote pair, kam se kam hamare pairon ka size toh dekh liya hota"...

All in all a nice warm party, a sentimental send-off with a good blend of veterans from the past and the present.Tom Alter, Juhi Babbar & Rajeev RajaRanjan & MohammedSonal & Mohammed

You can read a Mohd. Khan interview at Nita's blog here...

The Future of Futures

Around this time last year, I was busy trying to predict(in my little, limited way) the possible trends for 2007. Have a look here(2007 - 50 Drifts)...

This time around, I have had the benefit of staying connected with online networks and the global wisdom for over a year and I find the world more complex and chaotic than ever before...

I don't feel the courage or the necessary talent/ wherewithal to even attempt a look into possible futures:-)

However, I came across this nice read on economist.com on 'The Future of Futurology'.

The message is simple : Think Small. Think Short.(SHUT UP)and Listen!

Image : Courtesy - gettyimages.com

Vinod Mehta Ko Gussa Kyun Aata Hai

Just read a good speech by Vinod Mehta(editor-in-chief, Outlook group of publications) on afaqs. Since it's getting harder and harder these days to read/ view good content in the Indian media-sphere, any good content must be re-purposed and circulated:-) May the tribes of men/ women like Mehta increase...

You can read the full article on agencyfaqs here...

Snack bytes
1. He touched upon the media’s myopia regarding how its credibility is being eroded. To the extent that journalism today is often confused with being part of the entertainment industry.

2. Once you treat the media as if it is no different from running an ice-cream parlour, journalism loses out to commerce.

3. As journalists we need to remember that a newspaper’s credibility is like the virginity of a woman. You can lose it only once.

4. "I say this with much humility, but brand managers, with honourable exceptions, are congenitally incapable of understanding the nature and purpose of journalism. They simply cannot understand it by virtue of their background: which is sales in order to maximise profits. They can never understand that content is more, much more, than what readers want. It also has a social dimension. Thus, content is a mix of what the reader wants and what he does not want. The trick is to marry the two and make money."

5. Ladies and gentlemen, in my nearly 30 years as editor, I have heard a lot of nonsense talked about journalism and its role in India, but this piece of nonsense - 'The reader is King and give him what he demands' - is outrageously and self-evidently absurd and dangerous.

To demolish it is urgent. To let it become the benchmark of our profession is to put in peril everything we have worked for in 60 years.

6. We must lead readers, not be led by them. Really great journalism must do more than merely give people what they want. There has to be room for the unexpected, for stories the public has no idea it wants until it sees them.

What Mr. Mehta rants about is not a phenomena restricted to print or TV media. This senseless and gut-less pandering to 'this is what the consumer wants' ails advertising as well. Read a related post here...

The Diminishing Return On Taglines

After more than two weeks of 'Zero TV'(just a few DVDs), switched on the tube. With little Neo around, watched Tom & Jerry, Mr. Bean and Ben10(hope I remember the name right!!).

Then switched between the half a dozen(lesser) barely sane News Channels and loads of ads...Some ad tagline triggered this train of thot...

1. The one-word-creative-brief and the creative leap has resulted in a whole factory of brand taglines of the 'xyz de' format...

Hilaa de, Pilaa de, Ghumaa de, Jalaa de, Dhikhaa de, Bataa de, Jeeta de

2. At first these 'xyz de' ads were genuinely funny, then there were occasional bright sparks, then they became a Big Bazaar commodity product and now they are mostly pakao spam ads on TV. At least they appear to me:-) Disagreements invited.

3. The thing about these 'xyz de' taglines is that one mostly attributes the tagline to the wrong brand, or even the wrong category and mostly never remembers the message(if there is one)...

4. Fleeting thot - This 'xyz de' tagline hype is in such sharp contrast to the general conversational tone of the web, blogs and the tweets...

5. I feel the 'xyz ads' have mostly diminishing returns today. With the odd exception of say a Mentos where 'Aam Zindagi vs Mentos Zindagi' is a clearly differentiated brand turf, the rest are largely creative indulgences at the expense of the client's money!!

6. So what's the solution? I think it's time we looked at ads sans taglines. There are simply too many of them. We don't need them. Because I suspect people don't register and definitely can't keep track of them anyways. Tagline Overload - especially if you are the 25th candy brand in a cluttered market.

7. So what's the solution? Focus on creating enduring/ endearing symbols/ icons(Mc Donalds), memetic concepts(Wah Sunil Babu, Badhia Hai variety), sticky concepts that can be built into a brand world-view(yes even for a candy brand), a micro-site to engage, develop the thot. Maybe a combo solution. But definitely not a 'xyz de' tagline...

8. There ain't no easy solution. Especially with a generation of creatives in India raised on the belief that 1-word briefs and 3 word taglines will Sab problem solve kara de!!:-)

There is no "Chutki Mein Suljha de" solution here...LOL

No Entry To Brands

I hate the term social media. I feel it lowers the value of both 'media' and the concept of being social. The term is just a convenient envelope to help brands/ commercial media trespass into the private space of people more indiscreetly than ever before!!

Some time back had stumbled upon this post by Richard Huntington which splendidly captures my sentiment. Do read the post.

By trespassing on spheres of conversations between real people, brands reveal their fake selves even more quickly than before.

Social media must not end up being a 'Selling Ground' for brands...The sooner marketers realise this, the better. Because the people out here are smarter, with more IQ, more EQ, more creativity, more environmental sensitiveness than what mass market brands would have ever come across!!

The cost of a backlash to an intrusive brand sales pitch could be quite high in the long term!!

C2B2 + OSO

I saw the movie(musical) Chitty Chitty Bang Bang(C2B2) with little Neo in Munnar some days back...Loved it.

From wikipedia - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is a 1968 feature film with a script by Roald Dahl and Ken Hughes, and songs by the Sherman Brothers, based on Ian Fleming's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which he wrote for his son, Caspar!!

It's the enchanting story of a Magical Car. The film was directed by Ken Hughes and produced by Albert R. Broccoli, of the James Bond films fame!!

Back home was flipping through the TOI and the weekly column by Santosh(Desai) called City City Bang Bang written in his inimitable style and the trademark command over the language...

With C2B2 fresh in the mind as a different back-drop:-) couldn't resist capturing my stray thoughts on the subject of OSO and nostalgia entwined with Santosh's observations.

1. SD - "At a time when there is so much talk about the future, why are we looking(through films like Om Shanti Om) so much to the past? Shouldn't this be a time to reimagine the future in new terms rather than sigh nostalgically about dog collared shirts and polka -dotted trousers?"

My own hypothesis about OSO is that it's amongst the most successfully marketed 'remix/pastiche' Bollywood products of recent times.(see post on OSO) There is a huge charm of the re-mix. We have now lived through a re-mix decade as far as songs are concerned. Here comes the first re-mixed movie.

And it's different from a remake. Farhan's Don was a remake...OSO is a remix. Where the story, the structure, the context are all remixed to give a pastiche product!

2. SD - "We take the reality of the 70s and paint on it a coating of the hyperseventies. The seventies we remember are all electrons and sound rather than flesh and blood... An actual 70s movie is not aware of its temporal displacement and takes itself seriously. In doing so, it becomes fodder for retrospective irony. What we like most about the 70s movie is that it's behind us safely enough for us to enjoy it. It exaggerates our bumbling inadequacy and now that we are perched atop some affluence, now that our vantage point is lofty, we can chuckle with affection at who we were then."

But what of the generation who don't remember the 70s. Or who are born in the 90's or like little Neo( all of 4 years) who adores SRK and dotes on Shanti:-)what product have they consumed in OSO. Obviously, it's not nostalgia. It's slick, entertaining paisa wasool low brow remix.

That's the product and that's it's allure...It just has a veneer of the 70s. For that matter Farah could have chosen a veneer of the 60s or the 50s. My guess is the final product could still have been the same!

3. SD - "But the question is whether nostalgia is at all a form of memory. We have no desire to remember the past in most other arenas. Memory when intact seems to be inadequate. It is only when it is reconceived that it interests us. And that is perhaps key to the nostalgia we are seeing today.

OSO celebrates our present by going back and irrigating our past."

Finely argued and eloquently expressed. But the remixed OSO I maintain has just a veneer of nostalgia. In a frenziedly active and globalising Bollywood, remake and remixes are a quick way to capitalise on old successful block-busters - be it a Don, Devdas, or OSO!! More commercial interests than a conscious attempt to celebrate the present by going back and irrigating our past.

4. SD - "The images of the past when examined closely reveal themselves to be pixelated with the sensibilities of today. We look back as a way of looking ahead. In that, perhaps, OSO is set in the future."

I totally agree that the movie has the sensibility of today. But OSO is definitely not set in the future. It is perhaps set in the past and definitely set in commerce and marketing!!

As a movie and as a cultural signpost OSO is low-brow, maybe even retrograde like the Ekta Kapoor serials. Of course a zillion times more slick and entertaining than the saas-bahu soaps!!!

How Not To Be A Digital Agency Part 2

I had promised myself to stay away from the screen, the web and most things that connect back to work:-)...Am away on leave in Kerala(today in Munnar). Just came on the web for a while...

Okay lemme just post the second part of the 'How Not To Be...' thots...

7. It's not about the digital department or wing or cell. It's about the
digital projects. Before you do the department and cell, get the projects. Somehow/ anyhow.

8. It's not only about learning. It's an equal dose of unlearning everyday. And believe me, the un-learning part is tougher!!

9. It's not about geography & branch turfs anymore...The digital agency must function across geography as a seamless talent hot group connected by technology. It's about structural tweaking. Get the CEO on your side...

10. It's not about creative and strategy and digital dudes. It's about 'problem
solving and creation using digital tools and platforms...Sounds obvious, but one hell of a tough task within the agency!

11. It's not about telling. It's an equal measure about selling. Internally, with clients. Digital Evangelism needed. And as many teachers as students:-)

12. Digital is not a technology or a platform or the debate about organic and
inorganic growth.

Digital is our business. The short term and the long term of it. Period.
P.S. Okay back to my holidays. Indiadrant will be back in full force around Dec 17!
Cheers
(Tried to add some lovely Kerala pix but failed 6 times. I give up!!) Later...