Facebook : Counterpoint

My online friend Satish at Naked NY commented on the Facebook Indigestion post...Said that my Facebook experience could be at dramatic variance with the teen sentiment/ relationship with Facebook!

So, I asked a young friend of mine to put her thoughts around the subject...Here's her take...

My virtual umbilical cord (and no, this is not about the progress in medical technology!)
"The age of the global citizen...half my childhood buddies are all over the world...i know at least one person in every continent(maybe even Antarctica..i wudn't be surprised) friendships made for life...with only a geographical barrier...bridged by something as technological as the internet."

"Technology and relationships don't mix, like cold steel and heartfelt warmth maybe? Well, I'd beg to differ."

"School friends, college friends, colleagues, friends' friends, a lot of alliances you would best forget but there are just as many that matter so much."

"My best friend in 6th grade who left for boarding school in Shimla. Or another bestie who moved home to Japan when i was 14. My first crush who has lived in Colombo since we were 12, but i got in touch with again 7 years later...all thanks to Facebook."

"With such fast paced lives and with everyone in a different part of the world it's difficult to catch up for even a cursory drink, making the Boozemail application one of the largest used on Facebook."

With newsfeeds giving you a play by play update on your friend's lives(which you can update the settings of to ignore lesser acquaintances, and bring your inner circle into the limelight) to building an entirely virtual social life for the simple reason that, having a real one that functions the same way, is plain impossible.

"Facebook is what binds me to my old friends and actually helps me get closer to people I never got a chance to bond with earlier. You may realise that you and a casual friend may have similar interests from the groups you join, the applications you prefer, and a million other things considering Facebook is so customised you can read a person's personality just by visiting their profile page. for eg. Leena and I studied in the same class for 6 years in school, casual friends, but she only realised i was a fellow fan of The Doors when she read my status message. It simply said, 'Bhavna is: stoned immaculate'"

"Friendships are born out of sticky situations, escapades, lurid stories brimful of laughter and tears. Getting caught for bunking maths class and playing basketball instead or talking about your dreams and your passion over a cup of coffee while watching a beautiful sunset cannot be recreated even with the best graphics."

"We bond through sharing good times and the not-so-good (rather horrible, horrendous and torturous) ones and this is not an emotion that transmits through an LCD screen. So when you think about it, Facebook is nothing close to the real thing, but it's one hell of a replacement when the real world is out of reach."

Thanks B for sharing your thoughts...

What have you Stumbled Upon Today?

Stumbled upon this nice post on StumbleUpon Vs Google by Muhammad Saleem!

Nice read...Note to myself - Use StumbleUpon as much as Google...Actually Yahoo. I don't know your experience, but Yahoo searches invariably throw up better results these days!!

StumbleUpon is becoming an essential part of my planner tool-kit!

Facebook Indigestion : Burp:-)

Like many of you, I have been poked by friends, acquaintances, distant friends, old friends, friends of friends, new friends, do-I-know you friends, once-a-year-Happy-New-Year friends and more(phew)...

I get flowers, and wine and nick-names & superlatives and messages on the wall/ upgraded wall, and in the process these drive me up the wall! Generally been twittered and jittered by all this thumb typing and social media.

I soldiered on because I felt if I protested, I would be deemed uncool or out of sync with facebook applications...Until Kajal sent me a mail with somewhat similar thots and sentiments...So, that makes it two of us. I am not the only one facing Facebook Indigestion...

As I surpass the Dunbar Limit/Number(=150) of meaningful relationships, wonder what happens when everyone is connected to everyone. And then we all twitter, skype and say similar things to each other and drive each other crazy!!

Maybe, it ain't that bad. Maybe it's just Ponting's hammering in the T20 match(going on now) that's affecting my thots:-). Or maybe all this is going a lil over-board...I am gonna spend more time with my real job:-), my offline family/community and real flowers and beer!!

Next post. Will touch upon Relationship Capital and the Asymmetric Value of relationships(in normal English, quantity affects the quality of relationships:-)

Disclaimer: I have gained awesomely through all this social networking and web 2.0. it's just that overdose of anything gets you diminishing returns!

Eno kahan hai:-)

Jab Gopinath Met Mallya

Am referring to yet another merger and brand name change. Good ole Air Deccan dons the new name of Simplifly Deccan. And here I had barely stomached the inane name change from Indian Airlines to Indian Airlines!

I love both the characters in the sky play - Vijay Mallya,love him for being the Indian Richard Branson(in flamboyance, attitude,business acumen, ambition and aspiration if a little less in business creativity). And Capt. Gopinath for making flying accessible to the common Indian( well the ET/TOI definition of the common Indian:-)

And likewise, their two airline brands are so very different. Air Deccan - simple, accessible, human(thanks to those lovely Orchard advertising), a lil earthy & maybe frugal and KF - reeking with flamboyance, class, excess, exclusivity, Yana Gupta and the dressed-in-red-air-hostesses..

Maybe Air Deccan had to change as Mallya no longer wants it to be a cheap-airline. Budget/ economy yes, cheap no! But why tamper with such a strong brand! Why merge its distinct identity into KF.

I feel the Deccan-KF design promiscuity might dilute the KF aura a bit...It's still early days, but I am not vey sure if this new Deccan nomenclature and 360 design synergy with KF was the best possible branding solution...

GreatWayToHaveAWebsite.com

Some days back, Rob (Mosley) from a small London creative agency Nonsense wrote a mail to me...

He and his team are putting together their web-site...High Time We Had A Website
In a bigger agency set-up, few suits would have gotten together and created a brief and then it would have been delegated to the IT department/ their vendor and periodic status reports...

I think hightimewehadawebsiteis an example of online presence meets agency POV/ creativity meets WOM meets wisdom of the crowd!

Mental note : Must do something on these lines in the next 6 months...In fact the learning would be really useful for a co-creation project that I am doing(for some reason I don't like the sound of this word Co-creation though, sounds too mechanistic)

And guys...Do visit this site and vote...There are just 14 days before voting closes!!

Tough Guy. Great Teacher. Now Gone

Had read this obituary article of James Michaels in HT Mint/ NYT. JM was the editor of Forbes magazine for almost 40 years, died in the first week of this month at 86!

Writer Gretchen Morgenson talks about JM in this obituary- "JM would care only about the Forbes reader. Writers' egos, famously large, concerned him not one bit. When editing, he would hammer his views directly into reporters' copy, often in capital letters. Flaccid writing and weak thinking brought out his bark and bite."

Here are some examples, culled from an aging file known internally at Forbes as the Abuse File. I've kept them because I treasure them"

''This is badly written and badly edited. It would be an insult to foist it on the reader.''

''This is a real snoozer, lacking in specifics. Why not just send them a nice lacy valentine and forget the prose.''

''I'm sending this one back because the character is deader than a dodo.'' Can't the writer ''inject a little life without adding 10,000 words?''

''A good story turned into oatmeal by bad organization.''

''Please fix this quickest. It lacks most of the ingredients of a Forbes story. The quotes are room emptiers.''

''This is the kind of sentence that drives readers to stop reading.''

''This is a paid advertisement. Did you forget to say he walks on water?''

As you can see, the comments were blistering. But they were also instructive. Any writer who heeded them became the better for it. Here are some more:

''If I can't stay awake editing this, how can a reader stay awake reading it? What's the point? If it has a point, maybe we can make a story of it.''

''I can't make head nor tail of this. There's a story buried in all this confusion, but I can't find it. Fix it or kill it.''

''This is a remarkable job of interviewing an interesting and colorful man and getting precisely one quote.''

Writers were not the only ones to feel the Michaels lash. ''Your initials are on this so I suppose you understand it,'' he wrote to one of his editors. ''I don't.'' Atop another article, he wrote: ''Replace or run white space.''

He regularly banned words and phrases he considered overused. ''Fast track,'' ''game plan,'' ''bottom line'' and ''superstar'' were some examples. ''Upscale'' was another: ''If I see this word again I'll upthrow,'' he wrote.

Why I am reproducing this article is because I feel, as a planner one has to go through a lot of crap as well - some copy-writer generated:-) much client generated, mostly other planner/ self generated!!

It pays to avoid the wind in strategic thinking and conversations. And one has to work mightiliy hard to expel it. The sharper the words, the better the thinking!

These JM nuggets(acerbic quotes)are really a tresure trove!! They give one a lot of direction if we are willing to learn.

Context is Everything

Spotted this little ad on the now ubiquitous Garbage Dumper on the streets of Bombay...

Translated it means - "Please don't litter or spread old jokes!!"
It's an ad for the show Great Indian Laughter Challenge III on Star One...

Another kick-ass 'contextual ad' was the towel I got as a freebie at the Goa Ad Fest earlier this year from Times Now. The message said - "Big or small, we cover them all":-)

One of the biggest ways to fight ad clutter in the media landscape would be to tell interesting stories in a context. The relentless pumping of advertising rupees without a context mostly irritates the consumer or is plain filtered...

The Consumer Is Clueless

My friend Benny mailed me this link a while ago...Have a dekko!

1. It proves yet again what I firmly believe, perhaps you might as well!!
That consumers can be mostly misleading when it comes to evaluating a half-cooked creative stimulus. They are clueless. But we can't entirely blame them!

2. Yet, clients(almost all) will hang on to every word of the 6-8 guys(who make the FGD group) who pop-analyse the creative thread-bare as if all of them were seasoned critics...Even though at the back of their mind they might know that the FGD guy is a 'frequent participant' from Amar Colony/ Lajpat Nagar(if you are doing the FGD in Delhi:-)

3. The often hurriedly assembled narrimatics, animatics or other aha-I-managed-to-kill-the-creative-matics are as different from the final creative as chalk and cheese. Yet, this fact is brazenly ignored by the research agency and the client.

4. With almost all the persuasiveness and memorability of the ad dependent on the final execution and the special effects of the finished product, I fail to understand what benefit do we gather by the rigorous analysis of the half-cooked creatives...

Finally, however unscientific it may sound, there is little substitute to creative judgement and trust between the client and the agency...

More than 20 years after this 1984 Apple TVC, the 'life of a creative campaign' around the globe is still hostage to the tyranny of the FGD - the pop-pontification of the 'career FGDist'!

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...

Little Drops of Joy. A Torrent of Money Wasted

The most lousy ads that I have come across this last month must be this Coca Cola corporate spiel!

In an environment of general upper middle class cola-apathy, this just is so out of place...

I guess there are other ways to highlight the good corporate citizen-ship work that the cola majors are doing. Good work. A bit underplayed by a cola-bashing media. Helping the government in some water-table/ irrigation related issues and else...

So why this terrible campaign? Why should anybody in their right mind believe this piece of manufacture statement - Little Drops of Joy!!!

In any case it looks like a rehash of the old Kinley tagline - Boond boond mein vishwas, which at that time made sense, was in a context and was a reasonably nice campaign...

I mean a good percentage of the country is/ was under floods. 70% of the Indian population lives off Rs.20 per day and here's this global brand telling us that its largely sugar-and-perhaps-not-so-pure-water, aerated drink gives us Indians joy in our daily lives..

I have not been able to figure out which is worse, the strategy or the creative campaign...

Visual Post Its : Ganpati Marketing

Every year, Ganpati is getting more and more immersed in marketing...Few samples from this year!!

And if you have better/ bizarre/ innovative examples do share...

Spatial Reach of Brands and Us

Have been down with an eye infection which has severely curtailed net-surfing or substantial reading...Bored I figured book-surfing a better way to kill time!

Was flipping through 'Revolutionary Wealth' - the Alvin & Heidi Toffler book...Stumbled upon the chapter on Spatial Reach(chapter 11, pp73-77)...Found it quite interesting and relevant.

Some quick mental notes before the eye starts hurting again:-(

1. The Tofflers talk about the increased geography of our travel reach. We travel between countries as our parents travelled between cities...

2. Then there is our new on-line/ virtual reach. What co-incidence...I just discovered(through Google Analytics) that this blog reached 23 countries over the space of last week. Of course the bulk of the visitors being from India...What an amazing Spatial Reach we have today. Toffler says in 12th century Europe, the average peasant in his entire life-time just travelled in an area of about 15 miles around his village...

3. The spatial reach at the workplace is also global these days. I often respond to a mail from Singapore in the morning, then check for updates on the 'Digital Sparks' Ning site(which has members from all our 14 offices across Asia. There might be a stray comment on the blog from another city. A chat with my brother during the day on Google Talk. Another with a quali researcher from Bangalore on a collaborative project.
Quick phone calls with my planners in Delhi and Bangalore...A mere click on the blogroll transports me to US/ UK/ parts of Europe...What a fascinating web this personal spatial reach has become. Unimaginable a few years back!!

4. And what about Brand Spatial Reach? Today, we have access to brands, it's marketing and marketer's POV across geographies...It's both a boon and a challenge. Because with the growing spatial access, people also communicate about their brand relationships as much as the brands can reach to different parts of the globe...

It would be really cool to draw my personal spatial reach...I hope a software exists somewhere to do this. Maybe Google can help:-)

Twenty20 : Observations of a Couch Potato

What a match!! What a befitting final for the twenty20 game...Wonder what the TRPs have shot to!

This is the raciest format of cricket on the planet, and as a couch potato, there is never a moment to slouch save for the ads, the best of which appear so repetitive and boring!

As I watched the matches up to the final, few thoughts passed my mind. In no particular order...

1. Multiple Creatives. I wish marketers and us agency types quickly root for multiple creatives. If our messages are repetitive, in the racy Twenty20 format, they would be all screened out by the viewer!! Even the SRK starrer Pepsi ad became a headache after a while(and that when I am a die-hard SRK fan)

2. Entertainment Quotient.. I guess we now need to rate all our ads on EQ and not just messaging objectives! Only the ones that have an EQ comparable to the twenty20 game ought to be aired:-) The rest will be noisy irritants, filtered by the couch potato! I ignored all of them!

Guys, at best we are creating branded interruptions. The public might just appreciate if we make them really entertaining.

3. Category fit.I feel certain categories are a total mis-fit with this racy, non-stop, edge-of-the-seat format of the game. I remember I saw an ad for Amity B-School. The message and the creative execution was clearly out of place with the twenty20 environment!

If your product category doesn't fit in this breezy format, one would better stay away and save some money!

4. Media Innovation. If you ask me the best media innovation would be to air shorter TVCs. If the overs have reduced from 50 to 20, shouldn't the TVC duration be reduced to 5 seconders or some such thing:-)

Twenty20 is transforming the game of cricket as the overs reduce from 50 to 20. It is less cricket and more like a 'Bollywood entertainer'. I think our humble ads need to change to fit in this new game...

Bang On, Big Bang But Very Expected!

Of course I didn't watch the Hutch(oops Vodaphone) TVCs on now the much hyped Star TV block. There are more interesting things like the Twenty20 on the tube!

Hyped as a major media innovation( although I fail to see why it's an innovation.)It's a big budget ROAD BLOCK rather than a Great Idea.

Well, finally Hutch - the country’s fourth-largest mobile service provider has changed it's identity yet again. And I think it has done it the right way. Almost too right I feel:-)

1. Retained the cute, lovable pug as well as the two animated characters (the girl and the boy)

2. Promises to retain the tagline - "Wherever you go, the network follows" especially for the network related ads.

3. “Hutch was a well-loved brand, and all the things which the customer found endearing will continue to be projected,” said Harit Nagpal, the company's marketing and new business director, on agencyfaqs.com. Well, that again is the most sensible thing to do. Indian marketers I feel are too trigger happy with change. Very often change for change sake!

4. The company insists, Vodaphone will be a more mass brand, offering value-added services, in all the existing 16 circles rather than maintaining an up-market brand imagery from it's international lineage...

5. It's among the most humongous brand name changes in Indian marketing, affecting the lives of almost 35 million customers across 400,000 shops! And looks like the client and the agency have done a great logistical job!

From the little that I have seen of the name-change, it's bang-on and correct but somewhere my expectations from Hutch( sorry Vodaphone:-) and the agency Ogilvy in particular were a bit higher...But it's still early days!

Ogilvy has a habit of surprising everyone with great advertising particularly towards the year end:-)

The Hidden Rules of Coolfacture 1

Read a very interesting and academic article on the subject of Cool in the Knowledge@Wharton series(also covered in the Brand Equity yesterday)...

Some gleanings from the same mashed-up with a couple of my own home grown observations on this very interesting area of 'Cool manufacture'...

1. New research(from the Wharton studies) provides insight into how consumers use products to signal membership in social groups, but swiftly abandon those same products when the original message is diluted as other groups co-opt the trend.

Most visible in fashion perhaps...

2. People make inferences about others based on the products they buy, and when lots of similar people adopt a product, it can gain meaning as a social signal.

3. The Internet with it's 24X7 connectivity makes the signaling process faster, product trends can explode across mass markets more rapidly than ever before. At the same time, the enormity of those markets can also turn off the original customer base quickly.

This has implications for youth brands. Every marketer wants to do a 'cool viral' these days. But we must understand that our product/ product category must be amenable to a 'cool' communication. Plus there is always the danger of over-doing it...

Coolfacture is an art which the likes of Steve Jobs have perfected. It does not follow mass market rules.

The recent Pepsi commercial with both SRK and John Abraham is a nice, entertaining ad. Better than the average stuff Pepsi generates these days. But it may not be cool for the edgy youth!!

4. 'Cool variants'. Today, cool may come in many variants. 'Desi cool' for the masses, 'Global cool' for the classes. 'Cross-over cool'. And each market may be substantially different from the other.

Going forward Indian and Asian brands need to re-interpret the definition of cool.
While 'Coolfacture' might never become an exact science, its good to generate some rules when dealing with the youth categories....These are interesting times. All old tight-definitions need to be re-looked and over-hauled!

iPology

I first came across this term - 'iPology' on Steve Chazin's web-site! Read the post on Marketingapple.com!

In Chazin's words - "All the Apple marketing gets dwarfed by Steve's apology for cutting the price and undercutting his early adopters - so much so that MarketWatch's Tom Bemis invents a term for it, sure to be taught in business schools everywhere - the iPology.

And all this does is ensure that Apple doesn't have to spend a dime on its traditional marketing when the popular press does it all for them, at much greater reach and value.

In fact, by my calculation the value of the free advertising Apple received (this blog included) is greater the cost of the $100 rebate times all the iPhone sold to date.

Folks, you are living through what has to be the Golden Age of marketing and Steve Jobs is its king."

In fact check out another iPology story on AdAge called - Steve Jobs, My Fruit Vendor and How to Keep Customers!

It's amazing what the power of a simple apology can be. Am puzzled why more marketers don't use it when things go wrong!

Thakur Ka Inteqam, Webchutney Ka Kaam

Yet another kewl viral video by Webchutney...Just when Ramgopal Varma has managed to get 'diminishing returns' on the Sholay meme, the guys at Webchutney have cracked another winner. Simple, loveable and pure viral fun!

Maa ki Tongue

A kewl video for the yahoo language chat...Check it out(if you haven't already)!

The Changed Face of the Angrezi Dawakhana

Was at Asian Chemist(Bandra)last week. Have often wondered how the once clinical interiors of the medicine shop now give competition to the grocery store...

At the muhalla level, the chemist shop shelf space has morphed beyond recognition.
Diapers jostle for space with Digene,
Gilette with Gelusil
and extra large packs of KS with Crocin!!

And the good ole 'Angrezi Dawakhana' has become 'Angrezi 7 Eleven'!!

The Bland(?) & the B E A U T I F U L

Among the better OOH communication this month! Although, I find it a trifle bland for outdoors...

The visuals and art could have been more lustrous, with more sheen and shine like the hair they are talking about...

But then again Dove is a mild brand in its essence, packaging and communication!
And who knows what women want:-)

Last Mile Stories 2

Kapil had shared this loo photograph of the Novotel Hotel in Bangkok...Smart LMI(Last Mile Idea:-)

On the subject of last-mile interaction, I feel the humble post-it can be put to great use. Many companies(especially the small retail stores) can gain immensely by using post-its at the Last Mile for instant feedback. Instead of giving those boring, lousy feedback forms...What say?

Of course. Agreed, you can't process the feedback quantitatively. But do we always need to process data quantitatively. Often I feel a combination of experience, gut feel and random but in-depth feedback from a few passionate shoppers serves the purpose just as well!

Ad Agency Thinking

Disclaimer : This aerial snap-shot is not entirely true for all the ad agencies except the ones that are dying from the inside...LOL

Small Big Idea

The soon to be launched in Mumbai - the all woman Taxi service!!This woman's brain child!!

Nostalgia Brand

Neo went to a birthday party...And got these Camlin Flora pencils in his 'khoi bag'- the goody bag which kids get(I hope I got the name right...)

Hey Meraj, these Camlin Flora pencils haven't changed since I was a kid and that guys was almost BC LOL

I tried stealing some of the pencils...Neo kept thwarting my efforts...

Just a thought - it's such an un-explored area in India - the creation of Nostalgia brands...Is there a big enough market for them?

Cars, music systems(Imagine launching a really retro-cool Murphy radio with the calendar FREE!!) or Binaca toothpaste with the plastic small toys only for 30+ guys...LOL

Guess age is catching up with me...sigh

Last Mile Stories

These days many agency conversations are about the last mile...Many theories, some obvious stuff power-pointed as 'gyan' by last mile experts and lots of CRM and technology...

But in the end last mile in retail is left to the store managers, the sales staff, the durbaan and the stink-quotient of the store loo:-)

Some last mile experiences I had in the last one month.The first was this message in the loo of a home decorations store in Andheri...A small detail but it lifted the last mile score(LMS)to near 100!!Next was this 'saunf' and 'chat-pati goli' tray at Papa Panchos. After an otherwise very ordinary lunch, I was willing to give an LMS of 70! As a culture, I have experienced Indians to be quite forgiving whenever bad service meets genuinine apology.(Lesson- you can get away with bad food, as long as the saunf/ pan/ meethi goli is great!!)And this was an LCD screen at a bar in Singapore(Pink Elephant or some such name...) which kept on displaying sexually loaded jokes( some good, some PJs)a brilliant idea but since the number of looped jokes were limited, it became a blind spot and an irritant after some time. LMS = 35!!

Mental note: Keep collecting these last mile samples...Will come handy one day:-)
Anyone, any last mile experience to share??

The Rules of Mallvertising

Was at the Inorbit mall, Malad the other day...Saw one of those increasingly ubiquitous LCD screens - some in-your-face locations, others tucked in corners...

Had some thoughts and observations on the increasingly relevant subject of Mallvertising!

1. Treat them as more electronic hoardings than TVCs.Which means LARGE FONTS, clutter free, very less copy and visually engaging....Lets not forget the LCD screen is nestled in a Mall environ with many more distractions!

2. From WIIFM to WIIFMN. That's What's in it for me NOW? Saw couple of TVCs playing on the LCD screen . Would have preferred to see where the SALE is, which store on which floor has a new range, any contests, promotions, trial offers...
Last mile communication must be about WIIFMNOW...

3. Mute Check. Another test that we could subject our messages to, is to see if they are comprehensible on 'mute'. The Mall has it's own decibel level and the LCD messaging might get lost unless it is 'Mute-Checked'.

4. It may make more sense to model the last mile communication on Cinema Slides.. Focussed, fast and 3-sec long(not 30sec).

5. Think catchment not catch-phrase.Related to points 1 & 2 above.
Slogans, what's the big idea, brand propositions could be suspended at the mall. It's a different buyer mind-set that we are looking at. In a hurry, the mood being part-indulgent-part-VFM.

Although I hate the word - eye-balls, Mallvertising is made more difficult as we are addressing travelling eye-balls! And the last thing people need is some esoteric brand advertising...

As mobile, digital screens, sensors, blue-tooth, RFID technologies develop, I am sure the science of Mallvertising will be more focussed and engaging for the customers...

McTV with McMUJRA

Was at McDonalds Linking Road last evening. Saw this McTV sprout over the steps to the first floor. Playing McMUJRA(fully faltu item number on one of the SONY channels).

While the marketer/ agency/ OOH house was right in placing this LCD to get all the 'climbing kid eye-balls', it's a dangerous place to put a screen(the paranoid father in me thinks...)

Any McThots...

The City In A Loop

BPL's now not so new 'In the Loop' campaign grows from strength to strength. It's grown from the teasers to a multi-media(print, radio, OOH; haven't checked the net for any sound bytes though...)

1. It's very colourful and loads of gettyimages but what's the point!!

2. Don't think the young TG that it's meant to woo are really buying it. Had a chat with a couple of them. Small sample, but they think it just isn't true of BPL. All this loop hype...

3. The other funny thing is that brand BPL is completely lost. All the ads promote is Loop. Unless they want to kill BPL and construct LOOP. Then it works:-)

Must talk to more BPL consumers and figure out how they view the campaign. I might be a bit too biased. Although, I like the art direction. It's fresh. But still a lot out of loop if you ask me!

Indiadrant is 1 year old 2day

Hey guys...Indiadrant is a year old today! It's been a journey of 223 posts!! Not a bad statistic at all:-) (Back-slapping) Long, fun-filled, at the expense of a lot of family-time and some work time...

But been good. Much of my learning in web 2.0 has been thru Indiadrant. Many contacts, friends, a hire, few spam, many many useful comments and learning/interactions...

Was planning to write an anniversary post with bells and whistles and multiple thank yous, but feeling drained out. Five days of boot camp and a 6th of the strategy council day-long meet has left me blissfully empty!

Am catching up on all the lost sleep...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

P.S. Here's the Aug 18th post from 2006 on Memes in case you don't believe me:-)

Last Bytes from the Boot Camp

And finally the Boot Camp ended today amidst a lot of last day excitement, business card swapping and photoclick sessions!The day's summary:
1. When it comes to spends on the net, there is a marketing confidence gap that exists...

2. Chris - our guest speaker from Microsoft reiterated that people increasingly wanna watch video content which they want and at their chosen time...Many of them in advanced markets are saying - We don't want advertising to interrupt us anymore.

3. Important figures to remember : Global software mkt = $135bn;Ad market = $570bn...But the geeks are meeting the creative!

4. Another very interesting comment by Chris: Reason leads to conclusions, emotions lead to action.

The day ended with all of us singing a rap song - penned by Desiree and yours truly...Goes something like this...

Slog thru da week, enjoy da WEEK-END
If u don’t make in this life, der will always be a SECOND

U don’t need Java or any other SCRIPT
Just b urself in the digital world to be a real HIT

Friendster, myspace, facebook, ORKUT
All guaranteed to get you real HOOK’T

And there is youtube, blogger , flickr, ETC.
When you chatter, gossip, twitter, they call it UGC

Upload, download, search, tag and SHARE
Be wer your consumers are, listen what they CARE

Sms, mobile, QR codes, CONVERGENCE
Being digital is learning with a VENGEANCE

And for all of us in the AGENCY
Digital opens POSSIBILITY!!

The video soon coming to a youtube near you:-)Sangkyu in the making of the videoDavid in the video shoot!

Day 4 - Boot Camp Bytes

And today, finally the meat of the boot camp. The often mis-understood, mis-managed, and 'black-box' subject of digital creatives...

Just came back meeting my college friend and his cute 3 year old son Yash. He reminded me of Neo!!My friend's adorable son - Yash. High-point of the day- Yash's squeal of delight upon seeing his new toy car...

Back to the workshop...Some of the key observations/ learnings of the day, in no particular order...

1. Digital creative, UGC, content in general forces us to ask the question - what business are we really in? Or more specifically what business do we want to be into...

These convergence days are exciting times. Bollywood meets MTV meets advertising meets Web 2.0 meets mobile content meets UGC meets PR meets something new every day! So, where do we want to go today:-)Paul and Brian from RightClicka, the social media experimental lab epicentred on music!!

2. As an industry and as my specific discipline(account planning), we have always been obsessed with the study of popular culture. But now with digital technology and democratisation of creativity, there is this huge opportunity of inventing popular culture...But are we ready as an industry to harness it. Don't think so:-(

3. The digital creative companies of the future need to be open-sourced. Their structures must be more collaborative and experimentative. And they must model themselves on software companies - projects, teams, constant learning and open to out-sourcing!

4. Digital Creative also demands that many of us wear multiple hats. Strategy and creative hats, project management and IT hats, strategy, creative and tech guru hats, project management and story telling hats. Successful models will have to burn their silo walls is what I feel.Our two Chinese interpreters for the day(at the back). I am liking the multi-culturalness of this boot camp...

5. We need 'cool scouts' - guys who are constantly on the look-out for 'cool content' & 'Cool Inventors'. And many of our current agency creatives may not be the guys who can invent 'cool'. These guys are scattered in music, movie, gaming industries...We need to hire/ work closely with them on digital projects.

6. I also strongly feel that 'the One Line proposition' led thinking has to give way to 'Multiple line/ context conversation' led briefing...Small ideas will coalesce to form the Big Idea! Digital Creative might also be of a 'Shoot-then-aim' mould!

This is the most complex topic as any real change demands structural changes in our business without disrupting the regular work and revenue streams. Balancing deep change with quarterly revenue targets:-) Tough task because as an industry, with all the back-slapping and PR around new tools, our fundamental structure( am restricting myself to mainstream agencies/ networks) hasn't changed in decades...

But if we need to change our core/ DNA to digital then we will have to disrupt our work, thought and administrative structures...Else the smaller, nimbler, smarter 1st generation digital shops will always enjoy a lead over the agency...

Of course much of this change might be messy, evolutionary, revolutionary...or forced upon by business imperatives...

But whatever be the outcome, digital content/ creativity/ market/ business model is an exciting playground. I am loving it!!

Boot Camp - Day Three - UGC & Digital Media

Digital Sparks

I have maintained for some time now that 'digital' is less about the technology and more about the psychology(client's, consumer's, etc.)

And today's session was mostly about this. The morning UGC session by Ajit was quite kick-ass...Some of the main carry-away thots were:

1. If you really love your brand, find out your way of letting it go...

2. Brand thinking must accommodate non-linear thinking. The best ideas have an element of surprise. Strategy is tactics today!

3. UGC insight : None of us is as smart as all of us.

4. English is no longer the dominant language of blogs/ expression/ conversations on the web!More of our Digital SparksBetter lunch than yesterday:-)

5. Interestingly 'Letting go of content control' also sits with massive control of traffic/ content through web 2.0 tools and other technology.

6. The new media signals a shift from the age of deference to an age of reference.

7. Ad agencies need to be prepared for the fundamental shift from 15% commission to 15 minutes of fame of their consumers!!

8. Media is social currency. if it isn't worth forwarding it, it isn't worth much:-)

9. Kids/ audience don't need another web-site! They need content and applications to make the digital space their own.
Ajit in Action

10. We had a very interesting talk by Ian Stewart, the Sr. VP, Viacom as the guest speaker for the day! He made a crisp presentation on the new digital generation!The impressive 'sensor-based interactive display' at the Funan Mall.

A packed day ended at the Brewerkz...The local micro brewery-in-a-restaurant where we downed beerJohn and his indecisiveness:-)...

Followed by a round of beer at Crazy Elephant...and another in John's room...

10. The 1% rule is all pervasive. 1% of the guys create content, 90% are passive viewers. The film maker, the critique and the viewer: the rules haven't changed much...Maybe they will never!

It's zzzzztime again!!