Yes, the World.

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 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.

Sony Pix – The brand that could have been?

When I was studying at MICA, one of the projects that came to us was on Sony Pix (or Set Pix?).
We were told that Sony Pix simply could never match an HBO because it did  not have blockbuster titles. It did, however, have some award winning movies.

So they said ‘we tell stories’. ‘Wow’, I thought. That’s smart. Interesting.

We tell stories.
There was something so powerful in this line for an otherwise lackluster channel. The movies had no great stars but surely… it had some stories?

I just simply adored the idea of watching a channel that tells stories and doesn’t just show me Brad Pitt’s armpits. (this worked well for the aspirational angle too where you want intelligent and heart-felt cinema?)

The we-don’t-have-the-stars-but-we-have-what-matters approach sounded simply yum!

Missed the bus?
However I can’t help but feel that where a channel could thrive around the ‘we tell stories’ approach, it still hasn’t done enough to capitalize on it.

For example, if you told good stories but nobody had heard of their names, wouldn’t you want to catch people and engage them with previews of the stories instead of sad TV listings, where I’d rather pick an HBO’s MissionImpossible over you?

Also I can’t for the life of me understand how the tacky promos for Chicks on Flicks would gel with your stand on telling stories? How in the world would calling women ‘chicks’ and movies ‘flicks’ work for you? Are you Star Movies? Cmon, you’re more powerful than that. You tell stories, remember?

Why in your, otherwise lovely, ‘The Pix Story’ section, would you have Diamond Comics-like sketches in the corner to illustrate the point?

Bah! Nevermind. I’m just upset because I love Sony Pix and it’s becoming a brand that-could-have-been.

Thankfully during my recent visit to Crossword with Sonali and Meenal, I saw this Set Pix branding.

Now that makes sense! Cuz you tell stories. Would be nice if somehow one could know what those great stories are … could’ve added a link to your site there, but I’ll shut up

PS: Sony Pix or Set Pix? Which is it?

One online community for young-ambitious-SEC-A-males coming up!

Sit down. Take a deep breath. Know that this is not the end of the world. You will not lose your job over this. Another deep breath please.
It’s official – most of your branded online communities are doomed.

According to a recent Deloitte study that I read about here, ‘35% of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members despite the fact that close to 6% of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects.’

Now before you scroll right down to comments and begin to stab at your keys, let me assure you that I am not against online communities. Now, who in their right mind would be!

But I do have an issue with brands deciding to just ‘create’ an online community in the hope of building a loyal fan base. It’s like they think online community’s their jackpot. As if those 100 people in their community are like zombies waiting to watch every piece of advertising they send out.

1. Add value
If you’re a client and your brief to your digital agency is ‘i want an online community for young ambitious SEC A males’ then let me assure you that you’re not going to get anywhere with this social-media-thing.
Any community must add value. Must provide info/entertainment that the person actually needs.
No, wallpapers and screensavers of your latest canned juice don’t help. No ambitious-SEC-A-male wants to stare at wallpapers of your often not-so-cool product.
And adding a ’send to friend’ link cannot help your cause if that’s all you intend to offer.

2. Know ‘why’
It’s really important to figure out why you’re asking for an online community anyway.
Is it because
- You want to do something with this social-media-thing
- You believe that people who join your community will just go nuts about your product
- Gang of Girls did it (personally i could write a book about why GoG isn’t a great case study, but whatever!)
- You just want one and that’s that!

If you want a community because your aim is to just spread the magical powers of your brand around, think again. Communities that are created without any clear value-add don’t really go anywhere. And if your community starts and ends with your brand then your entire process is oriented around how many more people can you attract, instead of what you’re giving to all those people who are already a part of your community.

Communities grow when people who are already in them decide that it’s a damn good place to be in and call-in their friends.

Couple of things you may want to do
1. Be specific. What kind of people do you want in your community. It’s great to want millions in your fanbase, but then often a handful of strong believers are better than hordes of drifters.

2. Or else just use existing communities to peddle your goods. Why create another facebook when it already exists. You don’t always have to start from scratch. Don’t reinvent the wheel as Manish always says.

And no, you cannot blame your digital agency if your community doesn’t pick up.
We’ll just re-direct you to this post!

Brand soundtrack or item number?

It’s a no-brainer that a good soundtrack can make people want to stick to the channel when your ad is playing. I did that for Parachute’s Gorgeous Hamesha and even the karo zyada ka irada for Max New York Life.

So it comes as no surprise that I am completely bowled over by the Discovery campaign ‘I love the whole world’. So much so that I want it as my ringtone, caller tune, soundtrack for life and whatever else there is!

The song makes me want to give Discovery a BIG hug and definitely adds to brand. In addition to being informative, discovery to me, is now totally lovable.

I can’t help but compare the rather expensive Hero Honda music video ‘dhak dhak go’. The video had its moments with people coming together and it perhaps even had some optimism about the future of our young nation… blah blah. But it didn’t really evoke any sentiment, much less a download.

Oh and you can download the official mp3 and video of I love the whole world from the discovery site. So you can viral it around. That’s something Hero Honda missed on their site. (I couldn’t find it, if you can then lemme know)

Sentiment vs Information vs Item Number
Music, to my mind, is about a sentiment, a feeling. And if you use it to just force your brand down someone’s throat you’ll be left with a B-Tex type of khujli ad and nothing more.
Though I must confess I am not sure how much good a soundtrack does to a brand in the long run, but it sure helps memorability of an otherwise run-of-the-mill campaign.
Of course one runs the risk of turning the soundtrack into an item number. Complete with background dancers, confetti and disco lights. And then just like with item numbers, another brand comes to replace yours the next week.

Perhaps like Airtel and Puma (Paulo Nutini’s ‘New shoes’) more brands need to look at their soundtrack more seriously. It might just allow their brand to live well beyond the measure of media spends.

A PR story?

I have no clue what this new milk brand (Sach) in the market is (see image). I’ve been away from the net/newspaper etc lately. But I did go to Big Bazaar and see this new milk with Sachin’s photo and signature on it.

 

Is it PR or just a coincidence that there has been news of an award to Sachin for his good health and his love for milk before a match?

“tendulkar likes hot milk with turmeric before a match”

“Sachin Tendulkar is healthiest and happiest person in India”

“Milk is the secret of Sachin’s fitness”

 

 

Maybe it’s pure coincidence or have I become too cynical?