Yes, the World.

Ajanta Hotel takes to the web

I came across a banner ad for a hotel in Delhi and I’m not sure what it was about the ad, but I clicked. And I’m glad I did. Ajanta hotel is perhaps the best example of an Indian Hotel using the web to its max potential.

A quick look at the site and you’ll find video testimonials, quick-booking and even a ‘send-an-sms-feature’(though I wonder why).

Clearly this hotel is looking to attract the foreign travellers and they’re doing it well.

The Hotel has a page on facebook, it supports UNICEF and is pet friendly as well. The perfect triple sundae to get those foreign tourists salivating.

Now that’s a businessman, who knows his TG well and is going all out to make it known. And yes their online banners show a nice picture of a clean hotel and their emphasis on ‘budget hotel’ sure made me click.

I’m really impressed by the way the hotel has taken to the internet and has said all the right things.

Their homepage is perfect and tells me everything I need to know. Their booking system is lovely and even shows you thumbnails of rooms to help you decide which one to pick. While booking you can even add a trip to agra if you wish.

That’s a wow for a little hotel in New Delhi.

there’s something about twitter

Wassup?!

Wassup is the most asked question among pals and one that provides answers from ‘nothing much’ to ‘thinking about the meaning of life’.

But what if you have too-long a friend-list and can’t ask all your pals this all-important life-changing-question?

Enter twitter. It’s a site that basically ‘wassup’s your friends all day long and lets you read their answers if you choose to subscribe (follow: in twitter parlance).

Twitter lets you publish updates about your life in 140 characters or less to family or friends who choose to follow you. (people on your twitter contact list are called followers)

All you need to do is answer the question. ‘what are you doing?’ through your phone, messenger, site or even email.

‘Life happens between blogs and email’

As Common Craft puts it, ‘Life happens between blog posts and emails’. And it is this life between the blog and email that twitter lets you publish.

While many people send out updates like “had an amazing cup of coffee” or “going for a jog”, twitter is increasingly being used by people to share their thoughts and links to things they are reading.

There are many benefits to twitter, other than of course keeping up with the lives of your pals.

For one, it’s easy. With technology at our beck and call, we’re pretty much a lazy people. Blogs of 300 words or more are passé with people turning to micro-blogging from the comfort (or the stylus-inflicted awkwardness) of their mobile phones.

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s twitter!

Saving men, helping the helpless, almost sounds like superman.

Twitter recently saved a man from jail and got an unemployed person the job of his dreams. A man who was jailed in Egypt sent frantic tweets (updates) and his ‘followers’ (contacts) mobilized forces to get him out of jail. Another man in the US sent out a minute-by-minute update of the day he was laid off by Yahoo! His followers were glued to their screens as he sent updates about packing his belongings, meeting HR and leaving office. Before he knew it, job offers from helpful netizens were pouring in!

Of course this doesn’t mean that all the one million twitter members get such dramatic results through their tweets. Why then does twitter generate so much interest?

Thoughts. Ideas. Conversations.

Twitter ignites new thinking, conversations and ideas. It allows people from across the world to come together and share their thoughts and lives. It brings together people and their ideas which lead to newer conversations and lines of thought.

Twitter lets you follow the most creative, bizarre, new-age thinkers on the internet. So if you’re bored of getting the same old updates from friends, you can follow some CEOs, inventors, thinkers.

Follow Scott Goodson (CEO, Strawberry Frog) on twitter and

you’ll get updates about what he’s reading, thinking or doing. It’s pretty much like being with the person 24*7, only that they choose what you get to see.

Twitter’s also great for self promotion and resource sharing. You can send updates about your company, your work or share links to resources that are of value to you and your followers.

Tweeting brands

Brands too have jumped headlong into twitter and few are faring well.

Some twitter users believe that brands that exist on twitter are ‘lame’ since they aren’t people and are pretending to be part of a conversation where big corporates don’t belong.

American airline, Delta Airlines is on twitter and sends our tweets about offers, promos and other airline related information.

Tony Hsieh, CEO of popular online company specializing in footwear – Zappos, is on twitter too, though his tweets are as much personal as professional. He has a whopping 7000+ followers. What that does f

or his brand is debatable, but here’s a CEO striking a conversation with his TG in a space of their choice.

Twitter it right

As much as I may love twitter, there are enough people who hate it. Complaints about receiving silly updates like ‘in the loo’, ‘eating a muffin’ are aplenty in twitter world. But then twitter is a network, and a network is only as good as the people in it. Pick the right ones to follow and you may just find yourself tweeting gladly in twitter world.

Oh and for those who hate the 140 character limit, there are always blogs…

PS: the Zappos CEO is now following me on twitter… it doesn’t mean much since he follows many, but it’s a step in the right direction for the brand.

NOTE: twitter works on the give and take principle, so follow a couple of people to have people follow you. You can’t hoard in the internet space you know!

green marketing – can we only plant trees?

PrimeGreen is perhaps one of the only Indian agencies to offer ‘green solutions’ to its clients. They do some amazing work in solar powered hoardings.

But when it comes to brand equity, it needn’t be all about planting trees and saving energy. You could go ahead and save something totally cooler that links better with your brand and makes it endearing.

HaagenDazs did just that. They decided that they’d like to save the bees. Like ‘The Happening’ tells us, there’d be no world (no fruits, no flowers, no nothing) if the bees died.

Haagendazs decided to save the bees that are responsible for the natural flavours of their ice creams. And ofcourse they used the ‘cute potential’ to the max.
Help the Honey Bees is a cool initiative by Haagendazs and you get to learn how to save the bees an even create your own bee self.
The site is cute and sweetly done. And once you create your own bee self you’ll love the little stripey creatures so much that you’ll swear to save them.

Stuff to remember when marketing the green:

1. Choose a cause that is linked to your brand/product
People need to remember your brand. That’s really why you’re doing it. And if your cause and brand are headed in different directions, chances are people will remember the cause and ignore the brand (shudder). Haagendazs chose a cause that was closely linked (or they linked it anyway) to their product.

2. Choose a cool cause
Everyone is saving the trees, the forests, women, children. Pick a cause that won’t be lost in the crowd. And trust me, there still are many very important causes left in this miserable world.

3. Don’t let the cause overtake your brand
Every time you read about the bee, the site reminded you that the bees were responsible (not for nature) but for Haagendazs lovely natural flavours.

My take-aways as a site visitor
1. Bees are cute. and they’re important. I’d like to save ‘em.
2. Haagendazs uses natural fruit.
3. Haagendazs is classy and cool.

PS: This is the bee-me.

Create your own and off you go! Wheeee! I mean Buzzzzzzzzzz.

if you’re marketing, you’re dead

We all realize that the digital space is about engaging people and having a conversation with them.

One-way marketing messages mean you’ll rot in digital hell. (which isn’t any better than the real hell, what with the distinction between the real and the virtual blurring)

While trying to promote a website for diabetic kids (chidia.com) I ended up plastering orkut and facebook and created a page for the lovable little chirpy that was the mascot.

I had committed the dreaded M word. Marketing. I tried to post mention of the public-service-site in as many forums as possible without giving any thought to the existing conversations on the forums.

Why the digital space is tough on marketers
1. It takes too much time and patience to be a part of the hundreds of conversations online!
2. Poor things, they confuse digital and broadcast all the time. Marketers have been broadcasting messages forever and it’s not easy to suddenly have to have a ‘dialogue’ with consumers, who historically were supposed to just shut up and listen.

It’s so easy as marketers to just advertise. I shouldv’e known it wouldn’t work. I mean, if I was having a conversation with my friends and an idiot of a marketer jumped in, mouthed a jingle or a message and ran away, I think I’d be pretty pissed.

So, here’s to having more conversations about chidia.com and lesser social-network-bombarding.

Meet Jensport, Jansport’s Indian sister.

In India we love our brands. We love them so much that we want them to have a family.

This is Espreet, Esprit’s Punjabi aunt.

Or this is Adidash, Adidas’ sprinter brother.

Once upon a time

Jensport and Jansport lived in the US. They were very close to each other and looked so much alike that often people confused one for the other.

When Jansport became really famous and started visiting countries across the world, jensport realized that she could do the same in India by allowing people to mistake her for her sister.

But this was not done for any personal benefit. In fact Jensport came to India much before her sister Jansport and helped build the ground for her sister’s success. Indians soon got to know that someone by the name ‘Jansport’ existed all because of Jensport.

Needless to say, Jensport’s frayed clothes and tattered ends helped people realize that Jansport (the pretty, colourful one) was the true star and they soon began to aspire to meet Jansport instead.

Soon Jansport achieved celebrity status without doing a thing. Sure sure, Jensport did make a quick buck and earn cheap publicity, but she did it all for Jansport.

May every brand find a sister as true as her. *(Love thy clone)*

BREAKING NEWS: digital natives’ super powers discovered!

It has come to our attention that digital natives possess the super power to automatically block any online banner advertising.

It seems at least 600 marketers have been fired, though reports coming in claim that the actual number is much higher.

Listen up all digital media specialists, marketers, offline-but-wanting-to-go-online-planners.

Sonal Jhuj reports: “While marketers are busy buying millions worth of banner space over the internet, news has just come in that all digital natives in fact have the capacity to ignore it.

Surprisingly they do not ignore online advertising consciously. It seems that this is an ability that functions without the individual even being aware of it.

This is a worrying sign for marketers.

i-spent-4million-on-banner-space-marketer says “How can they not see the banner! It’s ridiculous”

digital native, Ajinkya looks puzzled, “banner? Hmm?”

Keep watching, we’ll be back after a short break. Luckily for us, there exists no super power for you to ignore the TVC.

Muahaha

… Damn they found the remote!”

3-point digital checklist

While I cannot claim to be a digital expert, I still do have a personal checklist for digital work. And it goes something like this…

1. Is there a brand connect?

Putting up a microsite with skimpily clad women might be just the thing for Axe, but if you’re going to chipkao (lazily replicate) your idea on another unsuspecting brand, it can be quite injurious to the brand’s health.

*Off-set the evil*

Just today a colleague introduced me to http://offsettheevil.com/ .

They made a violent evil game (condemned 2) and to showcase the experience of the game, they decided that to off-set the evil of the game one should visit http://offsettheevil.com/ . The site is cute, beautiful and happy. The game is now etched in my memory as bloody and violent. I suppose that is what they were hoping for.

2. Is there any brand ‘experience’?

Recent work done by Tribal for MTV Roadies is one of the best online brand experiences in recent times.

*MTV Roadies Auditions*

MTV’s reality show Roadies has one of the meanest auditions ever. And they took the mean judges online to recreate the show’s experience. Quite an interesting thing. Try taking an online audition here.

3. Are you involving me for WOM?

I’m a little concerned about the viral. No, I don’t imagine it’ll die or anything. Just that we’re pretty much taking the viral for an online TVC, which it is not.

Sure, you show me some weird flash video and promote your chips, but I see no reason why I would want to send it across to all the unsuspecting contacts in my address list.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on getting blocked by everyone I know!

*Elf yourself* by OfficeMax

This is best involving and therefore WOM-able piece of work I’ve seen recently. Within minutes my entire gtalk list was flashing their own elfyourself videos.

All you need to do is upload a picture, and watch your eflved self make some real cool moves.

Mine was particularly cute *blush*. But I didn’t save it anywhere. Watch this one instead.

It did manage a small peak in an otherwise declining graph for Office Max.

my avatar my life

I’m not big on avatars. I mean, I have my fun dressing up an avatar but I lose interest in it soon enough. (Though I must admit, the southpark avatars did catch my fancy.)

But obviously I am not a majority, since there seem to be quite a few people spending amazing amounts of time and money .. and *money*

NHN Hangame , a Japanese game portal, recorded revenue of US $36.8 million from avatar and related sales.

Avatars are pretty big in schools even in my hometown of Chandigarh. My kid cousins routinely change and re-do their avatars (though quite a few are too sexy for the 13 yr olds to sport).

why the avatar is big

The avatar isn’t just a doll you dress up. Unlike a Barbie, where we’re dressing up another ‘person’, we think of the avatar as ‘ourselves’ (even if it doesn’t sport the paunch we do).

The avatar therefore ends the classic struggle between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’.

In reality, we have a self (towards which we may feel love, hatred etc) and the ‘other’ who is everything the self is not (which again we may like or dislike). The differentiation between the self and the other is essential for one’s understanding of oneself.

The avatar puts those two together, allowing us to create that which is us and at the same time is the other. Much like an actor. Only this time, the virtual is almost real (second life marriage).

stages of your avatar-ed self

The ‘connect’ stage is really the same as ‘discovering online chatting for the first time. There is a tendency to be all that you aren’t. Saying things you otherwise wouldn’t. Experiencing freedom from your physical self.

The ‘merge’ stage makes for a curious study. Here the virtual avatar begins to reflect the real self as one slowly becomes comfortable with oneself and opens up to the virtual world.

It is perhaps this mix of the ‘self and the ‘other’ in one, which merges the boundaries between the real and virtual

William Gibson said:

“One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from the real, the virtual from the real. In the future, that will become literally impossible. The distinction between cyberspace and that which isn’t cyberspace is going to be unimaginable”

the microsite invasion

Want to do a promo?
Want to engage the customer?
Simply don’t know what to do online?

Do a microsite. D-uh!

With millions of microsites floating around it’s obviously an idea that client’s are willingly accepting.

While a microsite’s great for..
1. creating some short term buzz
2. providing some superficial brand experience
3. encouraging a reluctant client to step into the digital space
4. an emergency pitch

One should really watch out for..
1. Non-WOM-ability (non-viralability)
2. Flash games and things in which we’ve forced the brand
3. Requirement for major offline support

I’m not saying I hate microsites. But is that all digital’s good for? Virals and microsites?

While they surely gets the numbers and are perfect for short term brand promos and experiences, one can’t help feel that it’s a short cut solution that’s so easy that we don’t bother taking the bigger leap.

Why the viral will not die

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, and many marketers are sick of hearing the ‘let’s do a viral’ idea. Most are convinced that since everyone’s doing it, they shouldn’t; or worse, everyone’s doing one, so let’s! But the truth is, a viral is not something that has been done to death. And, a viral is hardly something you can ‘do’.

What is a viral

Viral: A self-propagating practice. It could be a video, image, text… any message.

And in that ‘self-propagation’ lies the excitement and the misery of a marketer. While a true online viral means limited marketing spends, it also means that netizens decide its worth and love or trash it at will.

No, a 2 minute video that a marketer believes is funny and releases to a bunch of netizens, is not a viral. It is a ‘viral-to-be’ and the power to make it viral rests with the viewer.

Not again!

While most marketers are yet to warm up to the idea of a viral, ‘do a viral’ is becoming quite a boring brief that keeps coming one’s way. Simply because not every brand can and should be viralled.

Why the viral will not die

1. Virals are fun

They entertain. And considering how everyone around me is ‘so bored’ all the time, I guess virals help.

2. They make people feel important

People love to be the ones who know things and can tell others about them (“Oh! You didn’t know that! Let me tell you.”)

3. They make people feel like they had something to do with it

This is perhaps the best part of a viral. In the act of forwarding a viral leads the forwarder to believe that he/she had something to do with it. Forwarders almost believe that they play a part in the viral (and they do!) and it allows for the coolness or funniness of the viral to rub off on them.

‘Popular by association’ is the name of the game.

4. Even the lazy ones can share

It takes just a click. Serves the lazy ones well.

What will die

1. Patience with poor virals

Show me one more annoying viral masquerading as an attempt at ‘engagement’ and I vow to not use your brand!

2. Marketers patience with the digital medium

They’ve only just warmed up to our medium and there we go giving them virals that never viral. Ladies and gentlemen say goodbye to your digital budgets.

The viral will not die (no matter how much we wish the ‘do a viral’ brief would).

But really, a viral needs to viral.