Yes, the World.

So what’s the trend today?

admin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:39:22 +0000

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

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:56:57 +0000

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)

admin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:55:02 +0000

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.

So I depend on live hour-by-hour tweets of a fellow twitterer.

My colleague hemal returned from a recent Social Media Summit, quite unhappy and concerned. It seems brand managers quite happily spoke about how they infiltrate online communities to fake posts and comments. And yes, most of us digital marketers also fall in the trap by explaining to clients that that’s what we can do for them. It’s the easiest way to explain what we do to someone who doesn’t understand social media.

It’s worth mentioning here that the strength of social media lies in two key areas:

1. network of

2. trust

Networks such as orkut and facebook were easy. but they truly became powerful because users now didn’t just keep in touch, instead they started asking for information, reviews, advice…

Tightening the circle of trust

It is said that 76% of don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertising. Hey but my friend won’t lie. What’s he got to gain?

Trouble is that if brands continue infiltrating and buying bloggers off, your blogger/twitter friend may have something to gain after all. Result? People will start closing in their circles. Tightening their ‘circle of trust’. And soon brands will lose the influence-potential of social media.

Drowning in cynicism

I see the marketers of 2020 in deep shit. People will be far more cynical. (they probably already are. You must’ve noticed the reactions before susan boyle started to sing)

Buzz vs Influence vs Infiltration

Brands like Burger King have been perfect examples of creating buzz over the internet. Fastrack tried out a twitter contest to do just that.

Influence ofcourse can be created just as well by videos on youtube. Pepsi recycle is worth a mention.

Perhaps infiltration, even though it’s the easiest, needs to be killed. It’s a lazy option. It’s going to kill social media. It’s going to effect the social fabric of the web. Perhaps the marketer community needs to take a stand?

The e-riot

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 10:38:18 +0000

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

admin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:43:13 +0000

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

admin — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:29:00 +0000

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

While aimlessly wandering through Inorbit mall at Vashi, I came across a rather interesting store called ‘Lush – fresh handmade cosmetics’.
If you think the concept’s yum, wait till you see totally delicious copy on their packaging.

Their shampoo for curly hair is called ‘Curly Wurly’ (cho chweet! Ahem)

Check out the product description: This thick, rich marvel is so unlike any other shampoo that your hair will think it’s discovered a parallel universe: one where curls soften, relax and shine on command… Apply lovingly, then rinse out thoroughly (this might take a little extra effort due to all the exquisite natural ingredients).

If it weren’t for the constant threat of losing my job in this time of ‘economic downturn’ I would’ve totally picked up that Rs 800 bath gel (FYI)

It’s okay to have some fun

(especially when everything in the world is so heavy and serious and blah)

So anyway, I couldn’t afford the stuff so I went ahead and picked up a cheaper yet even more gorgeous bottle from Herbal Essences. It’s a shampoo for curly hair. And guess what its called. ‘Totally twisted’

No, not Brand X ‘for curly hair’. Not Brand Y ‘to get hair like celebrity A’.

Directions: massage my creaminess in. feel it hug your curves. rinse me out

Both Lush and Herbal Essences, through design and copy make you fall in love with your hair and by extension their product. There’s something so utterly depressing about picking up a bottle that says ‘for dry, damaged hair’ (that’ll probably never recover)

Oh and they’ve got interesting riddles and questions on their shampoo range, the answers to which can be found on the conditioners no wonder I spent so much time at their shelf.

Biotique’s conditioner is called a ‘hair salad’ and that’s somewhere between being confusing and cute. Depending on what you make of it.

Packaging disaster?

Tropicana changed their packaging. Removed the fruits. And received more brickbats than bouquets. There’s a detailed case on the issue here.

I don’t really have a point-of-view on this yet. But yes, I am living proof of the fact that good packaging sells. I haven’t a clue what Totally Twisted is doing for my hair, but by God I love it!

you know you work in advertising when…

admin — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:55:00 +0000

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

2. You see little kids dragging big fancy balloons in a mall and instead of breaking into a the-world-is-a-happy-place smile you wonder if you can put your logo on the balloon

3. You don’t understand why they bore you with the tv show, you’re there for the ads anyway

4. You tell a client -‘You need to look at the bigger picture, what you’re asking for is too tactical’ but what you really means is - we can’t solve your real problems but we’ll confuse you into paying us for something you don’t really need

5. You come to office in a crisp suit and people look at you like you sold out

6. You talk about getting to know the consumer, but when your non-advertising pals give you advice about what kind of ads to make, you can’t wait for them to shut up

7. Your last conversation with your kid neices ended with ‘Is Ben10 cooler or are the Powerpuff’s still a hit?’

8. You know what ‘retro-fit’ means and a lot of your research works that way

9. You know that slide design is more important than content.

10. You think (correction: know) you’re evil and going to hell

Tips From The Pits – Part 1

admin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:30:00 +0000

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?

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:48:00 +0000

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!

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:53:00 +0000

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!