Yes, the World.

in fond memory of yahoo chat

There was a time when yahoo chat rooms were ‘in’. a/s/l was the buzzword way before RT even existed.

The yahoo chatrooms allowed you to pretty much pick any topic of your interest and join in conversation with a bunch of people that you did not need to know. There was true exchange of ideas without having to break ice or know about the other person. Sure the occasional ASLs were exchanged and people took conversation off the group into the personal domain. But it really was the coolest thing ever. Don’t have friends that listen to western classical? Join the chat room for it and have intelligent and rewarding conversations with strangers from all over the world.

Twitter started out that way too. You could follow anyone you found interesting, without having to say hello or ask about his dog. You could follow his thoughts and the links he shared. Scott Frogg and Shashi Tharoor was suddenly within reach. You could shout out to them and engage in interesting conversation.

But somewhere along the way with @replies, people turned it into personal networks and group chat with many followers finding themselves in the middle of conversations that are useless to them. Is twitter now perhaps a FacebookLite.

With the demise of the yahoo chat room, where does today’s surfer go for interesting conversations without having to engage personally? Omegle?

the blog needs you :)

Hi

This blog’s been nominated under the Best Business Blog category for the

Indibloggies 2008 awards.

It’s up against some very famous older blogs and your vote will really count

It in category number 13. Vote here http://multivote.sparklit.com/web_poll.spark/21900

Thank you!

Here are the other nominees in the category:

Bhatnaturally

Gauravonomics

Ideasmarkit

India Business Blog

India PR Blog

Plugged.in

The India Street

The Money Maniac

The Ribbon Farm

So what’s the trend today?

Trends are like snitches in our world of advertising. They’re tough to spot and tougher to catch. But they sure help you win the game.

There are plenty of websites that you can subscribe to that send you latest trends from across the globe. (trendspotting trendhunter trendrr) There are plenty of advertising pundits too who spew trends at the speed of light.

I write about this today because I see that ‘trends’ and ‘insights’ are often abused. There is almost an angry rush to catch the trend or an insight for every piece of communication we do. And judging by the number of ads released in the market every day, our planners must be spewing insights by the hour

So I pose a question now – are trends simply observations of existing advertising?

Sample this:

Trend: ‘people are exploring their roots and being Indian is now cool’

Support: This trend could come from the observation that sanskrit language insititutes are seeing a rise in registrations, comparable to alliance francaise.

Now I can live with that. I can.

But I don’t see how trend-specialists can analyze existing advertising and pick trends from there.

Trend by trend-spewing ad-guru: ‘people are exploring their roots and being Indian is now cool’

Support by trend-spewing ad-guru: Fundamint talks about ‘being desi’.

You can’t observe an ad for fundamint and announce that being desi is a trend!

Why not? Because someone’s already thought of it and made an ad on it. Clearly you’re not spotting a trend then. You’re simply picking a trend in advertising. You’re no guru, I should think. Anyone can comment on the great work others do, doesn’t make you great strategist. Makes you a reporter.

Should a trend not come from observations made of the world which don’t include our own projection of it (advertising)? Or should we include advertising themes as part of social culture? But then it’s one big loop of a mess no?

Truth and advertising

I can see my friend Sultie smirking at this header. Truth and advertising is as much of a possibility as me and a raise. (but then that’s another story for another time)

You see, I read this post by Dave Trott where he spoke of the need to be honest. He said in advertising, like in life, you must be honest. While I completely appreciate the sentiment, advertising lies in its exaggeration. In drama. In romance.
Okay so you migt say, give the fancy schmancy to the consumer but at least be honest with the client.
Now I think we can still be honest to the consumer but it’s even tougher being honest to a client. As in any service industry, in advertising too, you get business per square inch of arse licking. Gross as it is, it’s true. Don’t be surprised if you think your agency is fabulous but the numbers are still heading south. It’s probably a case of your agency doing that horrid TVC to keep you happy knowing fully well that consumers won’t pick up your product even if you paid them.
There is a constant struggle in agencies, to maintain this balance. Keeping the client happy and keeping his brand happy. Unfortunately they never lie on the same plane. Clients pay us the money, no wonder then, that sometimes the see-saw weighs in favour of the brand manager who pays by square inch.

Heard on twitter tht U suck (Buzz vs Influence vs Infiltration)

I depend on twitter users to tell me what movies to watch or which online serice to pick. Of course I do this because I have a sneaking suspicion that Nikhat Kazmi may be receiving kickbacks for the 5 stars he she gives a Karan Johar movie. 

The e-riot

During my research at MICA on the 1984 Sikh riots, the most obvious property of a crowd kept popping up. The fact that crowds amplify sentiments. It’s only natural after all.

If one wants to be a part of the crowd or be heard in one, you have to be more extreme than them all. 

The result is that your group turns into a group of extremists, really. All raging to out-do the other and yet show loyalty to the group’s thought and cause.

The online world isn’t much different if you ask me. These rules of the crowd apply just as much.

People tend to react in extremes in the online world. They either love you or they hate you. This may be common in today’s world but it’s accentuated by the fact that online you’re competing for popularity, page views, subscribers, followers with only your words to stand for you. And since CAPS is considered bad manners, you’ve only got biting words at your disposal.

A dislike for a brand’s campaign can suddenly spiral into a I-hate-brand-X campaign with bloggers sporting buttons and hacking you down on twitter. After all, the stronger my point of view, the more peopel are bound to take me seriously. Plus the stronger my words, the more likely you are to read on.

Reacting vs Responding

With such little time left for reflection

with 20 tweets a minute

with 10 feeds updates an hour

you really have such little time to process information you read. And the constant need to be a part of the conversation and be one with th group means we’re all often reacting rather than responding.  (Amazon Fail)

Notice the sudden outrage at the Amazon story #AmazonFail

This is especially worrisome if you agree that  ”If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states” (Twitter and Facebook could harm moral values, scientists warn)

This reaction is often exaggerated by social media socialites and turns outrage into a true blue e-riot.

Show-you-your-place syndrome

Now this is where the power gets to your head. The 66 odd subscribers I have and how I can use them to show this person/company/brand that I can ’screw their happiness’.

Outrage is more justice seeking and serves as a good warning (in my humble opinion). While the second one is plain vindictive.

Coke did this campaign with bloggers some time back where they asked them

 to give some of their home page to their new brand i9. In return they sent

 them a cool usb-fridge. To say thank you ofcourse.

Now outrage would be saying coke shouldn’t have done this. why buy bloggers off. unfair. boo.

But what really happened is plain vindictive -

Bloggers who were not a aprt of the campaign starting trashing coke left right and centre. Perhaps they were jealous. Perhaps they hated the idea of bloggers being bought. But then they weren’t being bought, right? so why all the fuss?

Imitation brands

Prenu coughed just like me.

She also walked like me.

Ate the things I liked and liked the people I liked too.

She was the tiniest kiddo in my neighbourhood and I suppose she wanted to be me. Afterall I was clearly the eldest person around and therefore cooler I suppose (or just nicer, I never was cool)

She observed me all the time (it was quite freaky if you ask me).

Vicks’ Prenu

There’s a brand in the market that’s pretty much Vicks’ Prenu. It looks just liek Vicks form a distance, though it isn’t a counterfeit. The packaging, the choice of colours, it all gives you the unblocked feeling of being around Vicks. And mind you, it’s worked wonders for them. From a no-brand to an almost-know-brand, the team’s convinced the brand’s going places.

So when someone suggests a new design and look, it’s only natural for the management to balk at them. After all, who in their right mind would change something that’s doing well.

But ofcourse there’s something wrong with that thinking (else I wouldn’t be writing a post about it, now would i)

Vicks’ Prenu is a small brand today. It managed huge gains by virtue of imitation. But sadly it’ll always remain an imitation. A copy. A me-too. A wannabe.

It’ll grow. A lot. And that’ll be great. But then it’ll stop. Like really.

Brand ambition

Imitation doesn’t work for ambitious brands. The ones who want to kick the leader off his pedestal. It works great for those who wants a piece of the market-pie, albeit a small one.

At some point of time when you’re nearing the market leader, when you’re available at the same shelves, you’re advertising in the same expensive papers and TV channels… someone’s bound to notice that you’re a rip-off. And really, why’d I buy a me-too when I can get the real thing?

But then, how do you convince a client that what’s been working for him these past years won’t work any more…

yummy packaging

I find packaging design really intriguing, though sadly I don’t know enough about the science (or the art) behind it.
But as a plain old consumer (who we in advertising lovingly refer to as a ‘target’) I have my favourites.

Good Packaging sells

you know you work in advertising when…

1. You don’t watch a movie, you look for product placement

Tips From The Pits – Part 1

As a marketer you’ll often come across some amazing marketing tactic employed by a local brand that clearly the marketing bigwigs are missing out on.

So Tips From The Pits will hopefully be a series (I hope to find more). And no, by ‘pits’ I don’t mean that these companies or brands are bad, just that they’re small timers who can probably teach us more than a thing or two.

Tizen Mens wear

I came across this ad in the local train that I travel to work by every day.

 

From

 

I was a bit far from the poster so the image isn’t too clear, but here is what it actually says…

“SMS Tizen  to 56677. Example Tizen dadar to 56677″

This is why this one poster is just fantabulous

1. They know that men in the first class cabin of the train have a lot of time to kill during their long mumbai commutes. So they’ll read my poster.

2. People who travel by locals generally prefer that mode alone and are more likely to visit shops/outlets that are close to a railway station. So why not give them info about my closest shop with respect to a railway station.

3. I can’t list down all of my outlets, besides people aren’t going to remember it all anyway, so let me tell them only what they need. Let me ask them for their preferred station.

4. Of course I wouldn’t want them to forget the details so I’ll just sms it to them

I don’t know how many people have been to a Tizen showroom because of the poster, but I did send Tizen an sms. I know their address in Mulund now. It’s stored in my phone because I have a lot of internal memory and don’t need to delete every message as it comes (prolly the same for us all). So if tomorrow you ask me for a men’s wear outlet in mulund, I might just forward the msg to you.

Or you could just sms tizen to 56677

PS: I saw some cool jugaad tricks to get your business going, here.