Disciplined Creativity

Starbucks logo in Madina

2012-01-15T11:59:00.000+03:00

The mermaid in the Starbucks logo in Madina has gone underwater, leaving behind her crown floating on waves. This is an example of Think Global, Act Local maxim.

Marriage, fire and social media

2011-11-24T09:26:00.001+03:00

I received two images in separate emails which depict how social media encompasses almost every moment of life. I am posting them and they tell the story on their own.

What if- Cameras could differentiate man from the background

2011-11-21T10:28:00.001+03:00

I am not a technology guy, and I don’t like sci-fi movies or fiction, but I like to imagine what technology can do in the future, because imagining an innovation is the beginning of it. These days when multiple people chat on web cams, they see each other in their respective backgrounds. It is a common meeting but everybody is in a different room. Who knows it may be possible in the future that the camera will differentiate the person from his background, and will place him in a shared meeting room. This way all the people who are present will be seen sitting in a virtual room offered by the computer. The virtual meeting room can come in variety of options, such as a conference room, drawing room, park, your dream tourist destination etc. It will bring a sense of closeness and may give comfort to people who claim to be in the office while sitting on a beach.

Slow motion eating and brisk walking

2011-11-01T15:44:00.000+03:00

This post is in the series of insights for use, where I share some insights through observation.

Slow motion eating:

Some days ago, I was eating some snack after exercise and in order to enjoy the taste, I started eating it slowing. I think when we enjoy taste of the food, we tend to chew it in slow motion. This inside could be used for any food category product.

Walking lightly:

When we are happy, we tend to take long strides and walk in a sort of jumping manner. I don’t how to define this walk, but I guess you’ve got what I mean. This insight can be used for a category where happiness is one of the emotional benefits.

What if: Auto-focus in cameras through interactive touch screen

2011-10-25T12:15:00.000+03:00

The auto-focus system in the camera works on the contrast, it focuses on the object that is in contrast with the background. This is the silliest explanation that a layman can give, and off course the detailed explanation is not sought by the person doesn’t care what manual or auto-focus system is. The camera, being a machine, might confuse the auto-focus system at times, and might focus on an object which is closer, although your interest lies in a far lying object. For example, you are focussing on a poster on the wall, but a man stands close-by, so the camera will focus on the man. Most people will not know the difference, but auto-focus does at times focus on hair or collar of a person, rather than the eyes, which are the most important objects to focus.

What if we had a system that the photographer can touch on the LCD screen to tell the camera where to focus! This will make photography very simple, and so is the goal of all technology, to make life simple. It can be especially useful for novice photographers like me, and while shooting a fast moving object. Who knows we might have screens where, we decide focus with one touch and click with another.

I tried to search on Internet and it seems this technology is not available. It will take long before we see such technology because we are talking of having a command in the LCD display of a digital camera, which presently serves the purpose of display only and has no interactivity. But, imagine this screen is like iPad and linked with the software in the camera, it can be made possible. If so happens, it will not be called auto-focus, but touch-focus because it requires some human judgement.

Advertising and packaging

2011-09-19T09:36:00.006+03:00

Here are some observations on the go:

Net banking:

You know what is the most cool thing about our net-banking? Guess, hmm, you can’t. Well, you can access it anywhere. Forget about snowy mountains, no, if you go near a volcano, your laptop might get overheated. If you try while hanging with a parachute, you run the risk of dropping your laptop. But, you know what, next time you go diving, do carry your laptop there. When you have reached at the bottom of the sea, take a deep breath, remove your mask, and start selling all your shares. After you have logged on our website, we might ask you to type in the password which we will send on your latest mobile number. If you can’t receive this number there in the sea, don’t blame us; blame your mobile service provider. If fish wonder at what you are doing, tell them to mind their own business. If a shark is around, forget net-banking and run to save your life, our insurance policy doesn’t cover adventure sports. So, here you go, with our net-banking, we are together, wherever you go.

Goober:

Tired of a regular jam, try Goober. It has nothing to do with goo, it is not even gober, and it is just goober. If you know what it means, you will never give up buying it. Try it, it is always fresh.

Laban:

Tired of eating your laban, we have a new type of laban for you. It is drinkable. Here you go. Drink our new drinkable laban, and have fun.

What is next for Google+

2011-08-10T12:19:00.001+03:00

Google+ seems very promising. I am very positive that Google+ can kill Facebook. Yesterday, this phrase ‘Facebook, Google’ll kill you!’was buzzing in mind. It sprung from Holden’s sister Phoebe’s dialogue ‘They’ll kill you’ in The Catcher in the Rye which she repeats very often to tell him that their parents would not like it when they will know that he got an axe from one more school. Where Google+ stands today cannot be compared with Facebook, but the right comparison will be with what Facebook was when it was launched several years ago.

I already wrote it would be taking away lots of noise that Facebook has by clubbing all contacts in the together. I also wish that they do not have those applications that businesses use to save people form boredom, and if there are any, the alerts should go only to the people who are sharing that application. If I do not care what Farmville is, I do not want to know how cheap tomato is on somebody’s shop.

I believe the next step for Google will be to offer a platform for forums. People who really follow an interested-based community, such as a photography, literature, sports or travel group, do not rely on the popular social networking because there aim is only to chat about the interest. They also want to limit their interaction to the topic, and do not want to extend friendship with each forum member. The forums allow them to interact with like minded people, while maintaining the anonymity of the Internet offers because other forum members know only as much information about them as they wish to reveal. If Google will offer a platform where people can start and run forums for free, as they are offering blog platform now, most forums and communities can move to Google. It will be convenient because people will not have to sign up when they want to participate in multiple forums. However, Google will have to ensure that the forum members get to chose their ID/ nic name for each forum because they may not want to trouble their friends or acquaintances with what they are discussing. In return, Google can do better targeted advertising as it really knows what are the interests of a user.

If they can run these forums, they can even make forums available to other businesses, such as to newspapers, magazines and businesses, where customers share comments with the only sign up of Google, although choosing a nic name (What will internet be if people did not have nic names!) as they like. This will be a more effective usage than the ‘fan pages’ which we have on Facebook because they will have more meaningful and honest dialogues, and fewer promotions because social media is not for promotion.

If that happens, Google will rule the social media. And, it has potential to reach there.

Google +

2011-07-12T11:17:00.003+03:00

Google + is the hot things. Everyone is talking of it, me too, without knowing what it does and how it does. But, one thing people know is that this kid can beat Facebook. Wow, it will be nice to see a fight. Such choices might people more interested in social networking, at the same time, they might get fedup with social networks and resign to them all because they are so unstable. I just got used to Facebook, and now you say I should sign up on one more. I sent Google feedback by email. I wrote it spontaneously and felt that this email could be a post on my blog, so I am copying it here:

Hi there,

Good work guys. I think you are going to make it big because the photos of your Swiss office impress me and I believe people can really come up with great ideas in such a surrounding.

Jokes apart, I believe it will be a success because people hate Number 1. They want to see a fight, and they want to see that the number 1 really deserve to be in that place.

One main problem I had faced in Facebook was that all kind of people are in my network. You have done the right thing by classifying them as friends, colleagues, family etc. You should also give me freedom to choose that whenever I post a status, photo or video, I should be able to chose who should see this post. This will give me freedom. I do not want my colleagues to know that I have a lot of time to spend on the Facebook.

Best wishes,

Anis

Confusion helps

2011-06-20T17:31:00.000+03:00

I have been supporter of simplicity for long time, and I still believe achievement of simplicity is one of the biggest achievements any person can make in his life. I wrote a few days ago, Sorry, the path to simplicity is not simple. It takes mastery over complexity to achieve simplicity.

However, in some business functions, complexity helps. It works when you have to present some information and you do want it to be looked as basic. It creates totally different impression when the same information is presented with the help of flow charts, even if it is not needed. It creates impression if someone uses buzzwords, such as Brand Social Capital, even if they make sense or not. If you analyze deeply, sometimes the mission statement, vision, brand essence and brand promise overlap so much that it is hard to distinguish what is what. But, if the same consultant was to come up with one statement, whichever of these it may be, nobody will take him seriously.

One of my previous bosses gave an example in this context. He said that if you take your kid to a doctor and he prescribes Panadol, even if this is what the kid needs, you will think the doctor is a fool. But, if he writes some investigations and prescribes 2-3 medicines, you trust the doctor more.

Planning with the worst case scenario

2011-06-09T09:54:00.002+03:00

In Saudi Arabia, door to door post system did not exist. In the traditional system, a PO Box are placed in post offices and the person authorised to collect mails will have to visit the post office to pick up the mails. Most people working in private companies used the PO box of their company, and will get a letter within a month after it has been sent to them, with only few instances of missed mails. Its inconvenience was not only in losing mails, but also in changing the postal address whenever you change your job. I went through a long debate with my bank in India to explain them that the postal address in Saudi Arabia is not the same as residence address. They had to change the rules for updating postal address for Saudi Arabia to make it easy for their customers.

A few years before the postal department in Saudi Arabia came up with an ambitious plan to introduce door-to-door post. It wasn’t exactly door to door, but they placed personalised mail boxes outside all residential buildings for the postman to deliver the posts. The plan went into execution. Post boxes were installed outside buildings. A massive advertising campaign was used to create awareness about the new postal system. The result, you can see in the photo. Kids used these boxes as punching bags and challenged each other as who can break more boxes with a single box. The boxes that survived were the ones which were outside the range of kids. I do not remember seeing a single building where these boxes are intact.

I wonder if they did a market research before launching this plan, and if they did, the market research company certainly did a bad job. The idea was alright. A personalised postal box will mean more privacy and speedier receipt of the posts. It would make the life easy for people who did not work for a company, for example single women, to have a PO Box outside their building. It would also create jobs, and probably revenue in long run, and a stronger infrastructure for the online shopping industry. Where did it go wrong? I believe it is extremely hard to change behaviour of the people, unless there is a strong motivation, coupled with trust that the new approach will work. Most people who used postal address were accustomed to the traditional system. They did not trust that Saudi Postal department, which never had any door to door postal service, will do an efficient job in delivering their mails to them. The postal department would have saved money and face, if they had installed one solid box outside each building which children could not break. I think people would be thanking God that they did not subscribe to PO boxes which any kid could break.

It is good to have ambitious plans, but it also makes sense to do the plan by keeping the worst case scenario in mind. What if everything goes wrong? This is why marketers have the concept of test marketing, so that you can know if the things are not working.

Get me customers. Fast. Please!

2011-06-08T17:42:00.002+03:00

Two weeks ago, I applied for a tourist visa for Australia. The agency that handles the visa process said that I have to get a demand draft from Saudi Hollandi Bank. Their Dubai office that processes the visa said any bank will do, but the local office insisted on Saudi Hollandi bank. It was a smart trick to get customers, especially those who are travelling internationally. I went to the bank and the cashier said that I must have an account with the bank in order to get a demand draft. I filled up the form and waited, and waited. Anyway, wait is part of the Saudi life, but it’s not the theme of the story. I got my account, and deposited money in it. The customer service guy asked if I needed ATM card. I said, No. Then, the cashier made demand drafts, five of them for my family and relatives, with only one mistake. I went back to the customer service guy and asked the balance amount in my account. He printed the bank statement. It was one hundred and seventy nine riyal and thirty five halala. After having gone through three hours of painful wait because of tricky marketing, I withdrew one hundred and seventy nine riyal, and left thirty five halala in the bank, and thanked them for their kindness, and said good bye. The bank has good system, it sends me SMS update for new products. Today they sent me an account statement too which stated that I have an account balance of 0.35 riyal. I think this is the natural result when you try to trap customers. You cannot trap a pigeon for long. It will fly as soon as it gets an opportunity; to trap a thinking human being is a tough task.

Art and confusion

2011-06-04T16:42:00.000+03:00

A colleague of mine explained to me how to appreciate art. He said that while looking at a painting, one should try to experience what feelings this painting evokes in you. I liked this approach. I still do not get any modern painting, but I can feel good or bad about some of them. A lemon evokes tangy feeling in me and blue evokes I-do-no-what feeling.

There are two paintings in one of the meeting rooms in my office. When I looked at them analytically, I found them ugly. Last week I was sitting in the same room with the colleague who had explained art to me and I repeated my observation on these paintings. I asked him if he knew the person who painted them. He said, ‘I created them. You have no sense of art. Try to feel them. What do they make you feel?’

‘Confused.’

‘Try to experience colours in them. It’s about ruggedness and aggression. What do you see?’

‘They contain an obscure car, and there are streaks of ugly yellow, red and black colour. The greenish yellow is somewhat girlish or childish. Tell me what it is that you wanted to convey with them?’

‘You know there was a group which always opposed Da vinci. Do you know that Van Gough never got recognition during his lifetime?’

‘That’s fine. But, until you reach at that level, you will have to answer tough questions from stupid people like me. What is that you wanted to convey in these paintings?’

At this moment he spoke the truth. He said, ‘You know, they are really very ugly. I was under terrible pressure to do something very urgently and I created them. It is no way close to what you call art. But, funny thing is that some people visit this room and say ‘wow, it is amazing.’ I am sure they do not know what they like about them, and they admire the paintings thinking if they do not they will be taken for dumb.’

Snake charmers talk of engagements, successful companies talk of gratifying customers

2011-06-01T16:48:00.001+03:00

Only a few buzzwords tend to make sense in long run, such as brand equity and balanced scorecard, and the rest tend to get popular because they create some noise in the mind. Brand engagement is one such word. Engagement tend to limit the focus only on communication and you feel satisfied that you have moved ahead from getting attention to your communication to engaging the customers with it. However, when the moment of engagement passes away, the customer will walk away, the same way as the crowd gathered to see a dancing snake does. However, the customer won’t forget if they get real value from the company because this is what compensates the pain of parting with the money. I love the slogan of Interbrand, which is Creating and managing brand value. It is because the core motive of the business is to build ‘value’ of the brand in tangible and intangible means, and this can only be achieved by adding value to the lives of customers. In the absence of the value addition through product innovation, design, pricing, experience, associations, the brand engagement becomes only a trickster’s job.

What social media gurus won’t tell you

2011-05-29T12:33:00.004+03:00

The basics of marketing do not change:

I am a firm believer in getting the basics right. The risk one runs by hearing too many experts is that he can forget the basics and ride on a wave which takes him away from the shore. I received a call from an event management company and the caller said, ‘Have you heard of experience marketing?’ I said, ‘I heard of it four or five years ago, along with other terms like guerrilla marketing, emotional branding etc.’ The caller asked, ‘What do you think of experience marketing?’ I said, ‘I am a believer in the old school of marketing with four Ps. If you deliver them right, with passionate and innovation, you do not have to worry about anything else. Experience is part of the product, and more so for the industries where customer gets in touch with the product more frequently, such as airlines, automotive, hotels etc. So delivering right experience is fundamental necessity, it should not be thought as a new way to market your products.’ I believe, if you are trying to create experience by stepping out of your product interaction, such as Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, you have to be Ferrari to do this. In fact, according to the old school of marketing of four Ps even Ferrari World is a kind of ‘promotion’ because you are building the brand image.

ROI should not be ignored for any business investment:

I read blog post of so called gurus of social media who invent fanciful terms such as social capital, social media quotient, community, and engagement. Nobody talks of marriage or ROI in the social media. I read one detailed article about ROI in the social media who wrote four pages but still could not explain clearly how can you measure ROI in the social media, especially if we talk of returns in monetary value. It is anyway a tough question in marketing, and it sounds villainous while talking about social media. ROI brings accountability and serious thinking in any investments that a company decides to make in social media.

Social media is not free:

The social media gurus claim that social media is for everyone and most business owners who have not tried it get the impression that it is free. Yes, it is free for me to post my blogs, presentations, photos and make connections, but a company has to try harder, and once you are client you know how much it costs. The case study of Ford Fiesta is often cited as a wonderful example of successful social media campaign, and most people get the impression that Ford generated lots of PR impressions for free. It was not for free. Ford invested millions of dollars behind the campaign and gave 100 cars free to their fans to drive across the country and post updates.

Social media is not the only way for two way dialogue with customers:

The impression one gets is it is first time in the history when companies are having a two way dialogue through the social media. This is wrong; two way dialogues have always taken place at point of sales, toll free numbers and customer service through emails or chatting. Yes, advertising tends to get response now in the social media, unlike before, because now audience can say ‘Your ad sucks.’

There is more to customer satisfaction than social media:

A company that has not tried other routes of customer engagement (let’s use this word, although I hate it. My favourite is term is customer satisfaction) should not think of jumping to social media. The website and customer service centre always remain the most important touch points outside the showroom or service centre. If your website is not updated, you will get fans who will post on your wall ‘hey guys your website has no information, what are you doing about it? You need a complaint resolution mechanism to resolve the complaints of angry customers, and it has to be off social media. In the absence of that, you will open up volley of complaints from the customers who did not have a channel to express their disappointment earlier. But, when the right mechanism of customer complaint management is in place, which is more appropriately CRM approach, rather than through Facebook or Twitter, you can direct angry customers to this channel. You can only listen to complaints on the social media, but trying to resolve them there is a bad idea. It is the same as if you have an angry customer in the showroom you better take him aside and listen to him patiently rather than argue with him in front of other customers.

Most of your customers may not become your fans on the Facebook:

It is also important to remember that only a certain section of customers who are comfortable with social media will come to your pages. We know from experience that people who like to talk loudly in a gathering are fewer than those who avoid it. There might be a significant number of customers who do not like talking in public or showing to others what they like or dislike about their brand will either not join your page and even if they do they will remain silent spectators. For example, Toyota sold 1.76 million vehicles in USA in 2010, however, Toyota USA Facebook fan page has 400,000 fans. It is the most popular Fan page for Toyota so I believe a lot of fans will be from Canada, as well as from other parts of the world. There are also fans or agents of competitive brands who just join to pour shit on Toyota. This means that not every new vehicle buyer who is spending thousands of dollars on the car is becoming a fan, and if we take an estimate of five year sale to be 8 million, there are only 5% Toyota owners who joined the Toyota Facebook fan page. The remaining 95% of the customers interact with the company more intimately when call their toll-free number or take their car for service. and the company gets many more opportunities to gratify them, let alone engage them.

Unethical practices:

Your Facebook fan page and Twitter followers might be people who do not give a hoot to your business. A friend told me that his business page had a swarm of fans from Far-East countries when ran some contests based on the-most-liked-content-wins. There is an army of geeks who claim to increase your YouTube videos views by thousands. I have seen some incredibly stupid videos, just arrangement of images available on a company’s website, to have more than 100,000 views which is not possible through ethical means. Just try searching on Google ‘Increase my YouTube video views’ and you will see how many suppliers promise to do that with dirt cheap cost. Facebook has right mechanism that it makes creating fake IDs difficult, yet it is not impossible for people to create them. This is why I joked with my friends that after Pay Per Click, Pay per Engagement, Pay per lead, Pay per Acquisition, (by the way I love all these concepts, and they bring in real accountability, ROI and value for investments) soon we are going to someone come up with the concept of Pay per fake account.

Conclusive thoughts:

My point is not that social media is a bad idea, of course you need to give platform to your passionate fans who want to say something publicly, and to those who believe they were not heard well on any other channel such as a toll free number or email. But, if a company has to choose in allocating the resources, spending money on customer retention is much better idea. It doesn’t make sense to invest in the social media when you do not have customer complaint management system in place and you are not tracking customer satisfaction through market research and taking appropriate actions to improve scores. The old wisdom that you get much more business from satisfied customers, as some say that 80% of the business comes from repeat customers, always holds true. A satisfied customer will only talk positively, whether in the social media or among a group of friends. Yes, an unhappy one has many more choices to curse you in the social media, so you need to be even more watchful for customer satisfaction than you ever were.

Critical evaluation of advertising art

2011-05-28T10:14:00.002+03:00

I do not have much understanding of art except for prose and photography. There are websites where photographers and writers post their craft and seek feedback. Sometimes the critique is so ruthless that it might make the man cry. But at the same time, the only learning comes when experts can point out specific weaknesses that most people will ignore or would not point out because of politeness. Critique on the photography website 1x.com has to be so professional that if any user who writes pointers such as ‘I like colours in it’ or ‘it is a bit blurred’ is banned from the page for one week. It has to be very thoughtful critique that points out areas of improvement.

I wondered can there be a forum where confident professionals of advertising post their ads and seek critical opinion on the same. In my experience, most creative professional of advertising tend to get so sensitive about their work that a person rejecting their work has to have finer conversation skills like that of diplomats to give feedback without making them disappointed. Many people mention the similitude of a creative/ art director’s obsession with the idea as that of a mother for her child. I read an art director’s view some years ago who said that the critical evaluation on an advertising idea by strategic planning, client servicing or client sounds like some doctors come in white dress, come and take away your baby and do the examination to tell you whether the baby is alright. In fact the allegory of baby and mother is wrong with art, because a mother produces only limited number of babies while an artist can produce dozens of fine pieces of art. Ideas are not pieces of art; they are merely seeds for the plants. An apple tree is not disappointed of some of its apples are not ripe, so why should an artist be disappointed if some his work is not up to the mark.

Real artists are very humble people and driven by their convictions. They look at their own work more critically than anyone else does. This is why they are able to produce something that sells on its own. Martin Amis told in an interview that his father Sir Kingley Amis hated most writers, so no wonder he disapproved his son’s work too. Real artists are so confident that they will produce a piece of art just for the pleasure of it, even if it is not acclaimed by the majority and makes a commercial success, and even if it makes them unpopular. Advertising art is like a protected industry by the government, it survives because of vested interests. Nobody pays money to see an ad, unlike other works of art such as movies, music or novel. Social media has given some power to the consumers to really tell which creative they liked as most liked creative ads tend to go viral, however, that test is not a good benchmark either because most consumers would not look at the ad critically. They will only look at the entertainment value of the ad and will forward it as long as it makes them smile or think, without giving a hoot to what brand values have been communicated and what associations have been established. I saw an ad for Shangri-la hotels almost a year ago in which a man loses his way in a snowy mountain and after having tried hard, he falls unconscious. A pack of wolves that has been tracking the man, comes forward and snuggle him to save his life. The ad is very popular on YouTube, and I liked it on the first instance of it, but, I also felt that something is wrong here, although it took me sometime to point out what is wrong. It was the imagery of wolves that was associated with the hospitable staff of the hotel. It is not a pleasant imagery, wolves are after all animals. What if they change their mind before the man wakes up? If you cannot trust wolves, you cannot trust the employees of Shangri-la too. A consumer may not be able to tell what is wrong, but the subconscious absorbs all the cues and reacts to them silently. This is why critical evaluation of work, which will not sell on itself and require investments to be made public, is essential.

Next evolution for Facebook

2011-05-28T10:11:00.000+03:00

There is often talking of how Facebook has to evolve and what would be the next thing to overtake Facebook, if it doesn’t. Twitter got lots of hype, but as I had suspected, it did not have the fire to become a phenomenon in most countries. There are reports now that Twitter is dying. If it does, it will save celebrities some money for the people who tweet on their behalf. CNN published a report in January this year indicating that twitter growth has flattened which made this gossip even more relevant.

Facebook has become the face of social media although the social media existed much before Facebook gained popularity. Blogs and sharing websites such as Flickr, slideshare and YouTube have always been popular. There were other networking sites such as Ning and myfamily.com which lost relevance because Facebook gave the capabilities of all social networking websites, and even the options of sharing photos, videos and blogs too. But, I believe this open-for-all is its biggest weak point. This is why LinkedIn is still popular for professional contacts because most people do not want to mix up their contacts from different spheres. I believe if Facebook can evolve to the next technology where the contacts are grouped by family, professional, classmates, friends, etc. and the user has an option to chose which group can see his post or photos, I think that will be very liberating for the users. There might be even sub-pages of Facebook profile such as professional, family & friends, networking etc, and only the people who are given access to certain page can see it. There is an option of ‘limited’ profile presently, but it is too vague to be useful. If Facebook can ensure privacy in the social networking, it might take over more social media networks.

Confronting the problem upfront - Sony data breach

2011-04-28T11:57:00.001+03:00

The first step to solve any problem is to accept with integrity that the problem exists. Sony has confirmed that the data of 70 million of its customers might have been accessed by an unauthorised person. Shares of Sony fell by 5% on Thursday. The company might face a legal action but their integrity in accepting the problem upfront must be appreciated. Many times companies try to hush up a problem and do not admit it even when consumers report damages due to inadequate quality checks or data theft.

Here is the link to the news story.

What If- Eye-glasses as view-finder for photography

2011-04-26T15:57:00.001+03:00

Amateur photographers had struggled for decades through the view finder in the cameras before the LCD screen display arrived in the digital cameras. It made taking photos very easy for amateurs. However, seeing through the view-finder or LCD can be a struggle at times when you try to focus. The LCD screen may not be as bright in the sunlight. What if there were eye-glasses which could be connected with the camera through a remote control allowing the photographer to see the image exactly as it would show on in final print. It might be awkward in the beginning because with these glasses you will have to turn your camera not your neck to see what else is around. At the same time, it will have the thrill of seeing the image as it would appear exactly, without losing time in trial and error.

What if- Compulsory photo categorization on Internet

2011-04-26T15:25:00.000+03:00

These days you can hardly spend two hours with friends without discussing something on Facebook. A couple of my friends shared about their friends who posted graphic images of people eating dogs and broken heads on the Facebook. They complained that these images spoilt their mood. What if it was made compulsory for all websites that before uploading any image the user has to specify whether it contains any nude and graphic content or not. This should be enforced on all websites through the Internet regulatory bodies. And the web browser should be able to block the images with nude and graphic content which will only show upon clicking.

The Magic Mirror – A short story Edith Howes, and Level-5 leadership

2011-03-26T15:52:00.001+03:00

This story talks about how rulers of two states managed the affairs of their people and what was the real secret behind prosperity of one the state. This story is very relevant in the present day times when several countries are shaken by popular dissent. I would like to quote the following dialogue from the story, which is: ‘Your son, looking in his mirror, sees but himself; I see the sufferings of my people and know what things they need, and so plainly are these pictures set before me that I cannot rest till I have used my power to give relief.’

The mirror analogy is also given in the in the theory of level-5 leadership given by Jim Collins, who says that all good to great companies have level-5 leaders who are characterised by personal humility and a strong professional will power. In contrast, the level-4 leaders are egoist and self-indulgent. According to Jim Collins, a level-5 leader looks in the mirror when something wrong happens and he looks outside the window when something good happens, which means he analyzes his own mistakes in tough times and he give credit to others, such as co-workers, God, or luck, when something good happens. A level-4 leader does just the opposite. He looks in the mirror to pat his own back when something good happens and looks outside the window when something bad happens, in order to pass the blame on other people or outside circumstances.

Harvard Business Review had published the entire article in pdf format on the website, but it is no longer there. Here is the link for Jim Collins website where some of his lectures are available in audio-files.

What if: Blog update from word file

2011-03-10T09:11:00.001+03:00

It might sound difficult now but I think the web technologies have advanced to such a level that this can become a reality very soon. Presently you need to log in to your blog site to update or edit a blog post. What if a word file can be linked directly with the blog and whatever changes you do in the word file, it will automatically update in the blog. It might require some special formatting for the word file, but I think it may be possible in near future.

Tussle of white and blue

2011-03-10T09:02:00.001+03:00

Two weeks ago Unilever launched an outdoor campaign to promote Clear shampoo. A dark blue Clear pack stood in the centre, overshadowing multiple white packs of an unknown shampoo brand. A keen observer could tell from the curve of white packs that it is meant to be Head & Shoulders. Today I noticed an ad from P&G for Head & Shoulders and just opposite of Clear ad in execution. This time a white H&S pack stands tall in the middle, and in the background are a number of dark blue packs, although Clear pack shape, unlike H&S’s, is not so distinct that it can be identified easily when unbranded. I can’t say whether consumers noticed and enjoyed this tussle, but I am sure the ad agencies did.

An insight is what sounds new and true.

2011-02-21T16:04:00.001+03:00

I have struggled many times to express what an insight is. I am still now sure whether I know. But, these words hit my mind today. An insight is what sounds new and true. It should have a revelation, which makes it new, and it should be fundamentally true.

Where are you

2011-02-02T11:25:00.001+03:00

I have wondered, why do we ask ‘where are you?’ when we call up someone on their mobile phones. At least, I know some people who do this, and I have also heard of someone who habitually states a wrong destination, even a wrong city. But, anyway, the point is: why ask it, if you do not intend to go and meet him right away or want him to buy chocolate from your favourite store.I think it is because we like to create a mental image of the surrounding of the person we are talking to. It fulfils the audio-visual inclination of our imagination. What a torture it will be if we are deprived of the privilege of imagination.

Paradox of advertising

2010-08-16T15:25:00.000+03:00

Demand and Supply:

Ad professionals often talk about advertising clutter and the ways to break it. Clutter is only of unwanted things. We never say there is clutter of movies, books, music albums or paintings. All products survive on the demand and supply law. If any product can’t earn enough to cover the costs, it goes out of market. Advertising is one such product which has ever increasing supply but no demand. Nobody will pay money to watch ads. In fact, the consumer would pay not to watch ads. They might like a movie channel more which promises that there would not ad breaks. I can’t imagine anybody buying books with world’s best ads if he has nothing to do with the ad industry. The best deal ad agencies get is through social media where they don’t pay for the media. Even in this free media, the consumer is not paying for to watch the ads.

Business vs. awards:

There is an inherent contradiction in the goals of ad agency and clients. The ad agencies want award winning ads, and the client’s wants ad that sell their products. Many times agencies come up with a queer ad and beg the client to fund it in the cheapest magazine possible so that it could be qualified for the award entry. The agency considers such an ad as the biggest achievement of the team. I believe any ad which has not received at least 10% budget of the total media budget for the brand, should not be considered for an award show. What good is an ad for if the client doesn’t have confidence to put money behind it? If the ad really does a good job, the client will definitely put their money behind it because they are paid to spend on advertising communications, but effectively. If an ad wins an award, despite the fact that the client did not spend heavily on it, it means either the jury or the client do not know advertising business.

Communications vs. creativity:

The primary purpose of an ad is to communicate the selling benefits of a product. This communication is done through different tricks of special effects, poetic copy, humour, celebrity, story, facts, exaggeration, metaphor, and so on. When consumers are asked what they liked in an ad, they mention the tricks used to grab their attention. They would say, ‘The ad was funny’, or ‘it had a beautiful story.’ They do not say, ‘I like the ad because I believe this shampoo will remove dandruff from my hair.’ The ads for Gillette shaving system are seldom creative but they are right on communication. (Although I am not convinced with the slogan – The best a man can get.) Unfortunately, it is hard to communicate product superiority for some categories such as soft drinks, confectionary, beer etc. But, if you have a superior product, the product should be the hero in the ad. I saw an outdoor ad for Goody Mayonnaise and it shows a photo of a Chef and pack of Good Mayonnaise, along with the slogan ‘real taste.’ This ad grabs attention because a Chef is unusual thing and it communicates the core benefit of the product. However, the creative team must have been depressed after developing such ad. They feel it is waste of their creative energies to come up with such a boring ad. They are right in a way too, nobody asks a creative director how compelling or effective communications he developed, but they will always ask how many award-winning ads he has developed.

Intuition

2010-06-29T11:37:00.001+03:00

A new post on this blog is after four months gap, which means the blog is not dead yet.

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A friend gave me a book on intuitive thinking. I have always relied on intuition, and I believe it is the single most powerful tool that God has given to human beings. It's important to nurture intuition as much as it is to gain knowledge, which is why when my daughter doesn’t like something intuitively, I do not force her to develop likeness for it. I did not read the book except few pages, because I have dozens of books in the waiting list, but I did think about intuition. I thought intuition is condensed awareness. And, awareness is simplified knowledge. When we know something, it goes in our awareness. When we are aware of multiple things, they all synchronise in the brain, and form intuition. For example, we have knowledge about face features of people, another experience about body language, and about the social and cultural background of people, and so on. All this knowledge forms awareness, and an intuitive reaction to somebody is combined response of this holistic awareness. I call intuition condensed awareness, because we do not realise what all goes into it. I read sometime back that a research study proved that intuition is not just a feeling, but it has knowledge behind it which we are not aware of. Coming back to the book, the author, who is an Indian, was CEO of Unilever Arabia in early 1990s. In the first chapter, he wrote about a business decision regarding the launch of a new product innovation which he wasn’t convinced with, although the decision seemed right from the market researches. He mentioned some factors, which made him feel that the researches could be wrong. He wasn’t convinced that Saudis would buy compact detergent because they owned large houses and had no motivation to save space through compact detergent. Thus, his intuitive judgement was actually based on knowledge. If you expect consumers to pay a premium, there should be a benefit for it. If the consumers do not need your benefit, for example, women do not need a shampoo that prevents baldness, the innovative product may not move. I did not read the book further, but I think one factor might have played a role in that consumer perception of compact detergent. Many consumers believe that more foam means a detergent washes effectively, although foam or lather has no relevance to cleansing. It is just there to fool us. So it needs consumer education to tell them that a detergent can be effective even without foam.

The difference between reliable intuitionve and hunch is that one could explain intuition. One wouldn't think about the reasons all the times, but they are there and can be referred to when one strives to find them.

One thousand words for an ad

2010-02-27T12:48:00.001+03:00

Jack Neff writes in Ad Age that Axe advertising is set to do something different, he says: Axe ads have traditionally been about products that instantly turn women into lust-crazed vixens bent on coupling with Axe-wearing gents as quickly as possible. But in the first ad for the new fragrance Twist, a robot makes over a guy repeatedly during the course of a date in which the woman appears acutely interested only at the end.

I see a paradox here. The robot is changing the looks of the man so that his girlfriend can stay interested, does that mean that Axe team has finally admitted that the deodorant fragrance is not enough to pull brains out of women’s head and men need to look good as well?

The core idea of this campaign is "fragrance that changes." I will need to borrow a nose from a dog to notice that the fragrance has changed, but I trust it really does. Sometimes it changes when the deodorant is overrun by perspiration.

I find words like ‘crowd sourcing’ and ‘co-creation’ bombast (creative directors barely listen to a brief, let alone an idea from a focus group) and I am even more puzzled with the following paragraph: “While fragrance developers often look to minimize the differences in fragrance note, the co-creation team asked the fragrance house "to punch up the top note really hard and then make the bottom note very smooth and rounded and much more opulent," he said, "to magnify the differences."

The researchers spoke with women in the focus groups because boys brag while talking about girls. I think women did not agree with the power of Axe to hypnotize them and complained that Axe ads insult women by showing them devoid of reason and showing their brains shut off by deodorant. So this ad is set to please women as well because it shows the man seeking a robot’s help to please his girlfriend.

The analysis of a good idea kills its entertainment power, this ad is good san the analysis and words like co-creation and crowd sourcing.

Marketing, social media and ROI

2010-02-09T11:04:00.001+03:00

Much of marketing troubles come because we assume it is science which it is not. A doctor gives antibiotics and is sure that the infection will be cured, but ad man or brand consultant cannot give guarantee that the suggested strategy will solve the problem for sure. The reason different agencies would come up with different campaigns for the same brief is because it is not science. The agencies and clients both take partially informed (experience and market research) and partly gut feel based decision.

The phrase ‘half of advertising money is waste’ has almost become cliché. I think the primary responsibility is to determine which half is waste because we are talking about 50% wastage to begin with; which is also a guess mark. Who knows if 80% or 20% of the advertising money is waste? The puzzle of marketing ROI cannot be solved unless this wastage is identified and fixed. Thankfully digital marketing is measurable to some extent and we can know the click-through-rate and conversion rate. Yet we do not know the conversion was because of compelling campaign or unique product.

Marketing is common sense. You give something and you get something. All the rest is philosophy. I am yet to find a convincing approach that can differentiate the impact of ad campaign from the brand reputation and consumer trust. A consumer action has combined influence of many factors that include previous experience, quality, availability, value, image, advertising and retail. In order to differentiate the impact of each element we might be required to do some Simulated Test Marketing researches which are done only in rare cases. Even ad recalls researches are not fully reliable because consumers don’t see advertising and brand reputation separately. They love the brand and feel they have seen an ad for it just yesterday. They don’t like a brand and will ignore its most dramatic advertising right away.

Experts now claim to measure returns even on social media which is so vast spread to begin with. How do you measure returns on social media when a lot of consumers are talking about you for free? They become fans on facebook for free. A company may not spend a dollar in the social media, yet consumers could be talking about the brand because they find it fascinating and they are thrilled by the service. Some enthusiasts even create videos and post them without expecting any rewards from the company. Some videos happen by chance, a customer sees his favourite SUV pulling a competitor in desert, and he shoots it by his mobile and posts it. This gives unique satisfaction to the consumer because he can boast that he has the same vehicle. And when the company makes a mistake in product or service, the consumers lose no time in bitching about it in the social media. In fact they will certainly report a problem in the social media if the company is not responsive.

The best marketing investment is a good product and proactive service. Everything else follows - such as engagement, reputation, loyalty, and worth of mouth buzz. When people know about a restaurant that has really good food, they do not mind travelling long distance and even struggling for parking to get the food they want. Consumers care for the value they get, and they tend to forget preaching soon.

Information overload in the age of technology

2010-02-06T12:18:00.002+03:00

George Packer wrote an article in The New Yorker on Twitter. The PR of Twitter fascinates me. If there is an agency behind the entire PR that Twitter gets, I must salute it. There are far more users for Google and facebook but no one writes articles on them as much as people do for Twitter. Facebook claims to have 400 million users word wide, but Twitter users are not known and guesses say that they are somewhere between 5 to 10 million. However, Google News search for both give almost similar results i.e. 120,000 approximately.

There isn’t a single business magazine that can avoid talking about Twitter. Iran had troubles after elections and Twitter was referred as frequently as the wrangling parties. Shashi Tharoor, and Indian Minister, was criticised because of his tweet. Now media doesn’t talk about his decisions on the as a minister as much as they talk about this tweets. If he has to oppose a government decision, he doesn’t talk to his colleagues and posts it on Twitter.

George Packer argues that this information overload has taken up time from serious thinking and book reading habits. I support that view. We need to know what kind of information should come in and selecting only worthwhile magazines or websites for information input is much better than going through thousands of micro-blogging or blog posts. I am more contended to have Wikipedia as my home page because I know that everything that it contains is worth talking about.

I believe micro-blogging on Twitter or facebook updates steals the opportunity to develop an idea. A small idea can develop in a blog post or article, but when it is posted in micro-blogging we pay the opportunity cost. It also takes our thinking in a ‘reactionary’ mode and we may stop evaluating what is worth reacting and what is not, because each reaction takes time and energy. And, it reduces our attention span. When we tune our minds to get into the habit of reading information in one or two lines, we struggle to focus on something much detailed and rich.

Some experts claim that digital versions of newspapers will be extinct in future. I think online version of magazines cannot provide the joy of reading that comes from holding a magazine. We tend to develop sense of belonging with a book which cannot come from its soft copy.

We need to reclaim our focus and appetite for rich information otherwise we will not realise when information overload has crushed our capabilities for reflection and analysis. We cannot form an opinion without analysis, fast pace of information influx doesn’t leave us with enough time to go through analysis. Information needs to be channelized after it has been absorbed, and right channelization is having an opinion on it. Sometimes having an opinion is better than having information.

Memory in motion

2010-01-28T12:21:00.002+03:00

Life is motion and our memory is able to hold a motion much easier than facts. In simpler words we can say that we are more likely to remember a story than facts. If you watch a documentary and read informative article most likely the facts will fade out from the memory but if that article or documentary covered a story then it is more likely to last in the memory.

I think the memory ladder goes in the following manner.

Words or facts: They are most difficult to hold in memory. We tend to forget most of the words learnt in the schoolbooks.

Images: They are relatively easy to remember as compared to words. Volcanoes can never fade from the memory because they have unique pictures association with them.

Event or story: They are most easy to remember. A story presents a fact in a motion and makes it memorable. Most of the people can easily remember events in their lives and pass on them as stories.

If I read an article and try to remember all the facts, it will be a difficult process for the brain. Especially when it is not crucial to remember all those facts. We need to summarise any new learning in two sentences to remember it. If I read a detailed article on Uyghur problem in China, I cannot remember all the details but if I summarise it to myself as a story in two or three sentences with key words such as Uyghur, Xinjiang and Han, I will have less difficulty in remembering it.

A story that is unique and emotionally appealing is likely to be remembered more. Thus, if any new information is seen with interest and curiosity it tends to be memorable.

Insights beyond cultures

2010-01-26T09:58:00.001+03:00

There are some things people do across cultures even though they the cultures might be completed detached. I read about children throwing stones and it happens in different cultures although the object of stones might differ. I read in David Copperfield how as a young child when he is left alone at a house along with two other female members, he wishes if there would be attack from any animal or man and he could beat the attacker and gain glory. This is one of the childhood fancies to seek glory and it isn’t specific to any culture. I once noticed a young boy from distance and he was leading a fight of his own. He had imagined some offender whom he was kicking and punching like a movie star. Most boys do this when nobody notices them. I have done it a few times as well. I think if any advertising campaign taps into such global insights, it has potential to be liked by all. MasterCard campaign of ‘priceless’ has one such global insight that travels across cultures.

Rose, tears and marketing

2010-01-13T10:08:00.000+03:00

"What's in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet."

- Shakespeare

Shakespeare did not know that in future brand naming consultants will take an offence on his wisdom and the sweetness of rose will differ depending on the brand name and stories attached to it. I met a gentleman who is fan of Guerlain perfumes and he likes India also because Guerlain has named many of their products from Indian tradition. He spoke about Shalimar and how Jacques Guerlain was inspired by the tragedy of Mumtaj Mahal whom her emperor husband Shah Jahan missed so much after her death that he built Taj Mahal. Three hundred years later her story inspired Jacques Guerlain who imagined her sitting in desert and shedding tears (though she did not live in desert but perhaps people go there after death in order to meditate). Her tears would mix with the desert sand and inspire a curious soul to develop Shalimar that will give solace to generations of perfume lovers. It’s a bit ironical although that tears would inspire an indulgence product but even the tears of celebrities have power to sell products.

Ad campaigns to shape image of a brand die but the stories live on. Almost every marketer knows the story of Coca-Cola when consumers rejected the New Coke because its taste was different. Researchers present it as a case of badly designed research (branded testing vs unbranded testing) and brand managers speak about how brands become cultural icons. The New Coke failed but Coca-Cola won as a result of this story. There is also story about Coca-Cola secret-formula being guarded passionately over years. This story adds to the mystery and aura to the world’s number-one brand. Parley, an Indian company, made equally good cola under brand name Thums up in 1977 and this brand has so loyal consumers that even though Coca-Cola tried to kill it after buying it the consumers continue to ask for it. There is hardly any secret in business these days but fiction never dies.

Brands need heavier reliance on stories when their benefits are abstract. A unique product speaks on its own. iPhone and HP tablet don’t need stories because their benefits are obvious. Their advertising can also live without creativity and story. But when a marketer has to sell fashion, perfumes, chocolates etc they need to find fascinating stories.

If you stand before a crowd and take out a stone and ask: ‘How much you are going to pay me for this?’ The audience might laugh at you. But if you say, ‘This stone is from moon, how much are you going to pay for this?’ they start looking around to salute the man who will have guts and pockets to buy this. The sand has no value in the absence of the story, like desert sand had no value before embracing the tears of the queen.

Previous posts on story:

Truth Well Told
Brand Positioning As a Story
Nothing Succeeds Like Story Telling
Brand Positioning As a Story
One minute of story telling and no selling:

3-D people

2010-01-12T17:12:00.000+03:00

The simplest way to look at people is only in one dimension, a person is hard worker, tough, liar, cheater, manipulative, sensitive, or aggressive. But most people are not just one type, they have multiple facets which show in different situations. A person can be sensitive and tough at the same time. A person can be boring and interesting at the same time, for example a scientist is boring for someone who doesn’t care about science but may be fascinating for another curious person.

Some advertising briefs define the consumer as Mr. Joe Somebody in order to have more focus, and they may also use DILO approach i.e A Day in the Life of Consumer. Here a planner becomes a story teller and paints a story as ‘Mr. Lonemourn wakes up at 7:00 AM, and yawns at 7:05 AM...’ The creative director is hoping to find a story in this schedule. When research presents schedule in the form of percentages it becomes even more confusing. A researcher will say ‘70% wake up late on weekends but 90% reach late to offices on weekdays.’

People are not that simple to define in the form of DILO or percentages. What may be a meaningful approach is to look at their values to choose a brand message so advertising can say how the brand adds in the lives of consumers. The story doesn’t end at value because it is just the beginning and further study of lifestyle can bring up consumer insights to connect brands better with the consumers. Recently I admired a Fairy dish wash liquid ad that shows how an old lady is preparing warm water to clean dishes better and when she realises Fairy can do this without difficulty, she changes her mind to use that water for soup. This ad has a story that consumers can related with as they would have seen their grandmothers pouring traditional wisdom in household chores but if the ad was to show a Eskimo using Fairy dish was liquid, it will amuse the award committee but confuse the consumers.

Advertising and customer experience

2010-01-10T17:25:00.002+03:00

If someone is not aware of the Google ad-words pay-per-click advertising may not be how Google earns revenue through the search engine. They not only kept intrusive advertising out not only from search engine but also from Gmail and YouTube. Although industry experts say that YouTube is taking losses since years. They do not want to compromise on the customer experience for short term revenue gains. When advertising intrudes it takes away consumer happiness of a moment. David Ogilvy said, "I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one improved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bikes, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?"

Today’s advertising is becoming increasingly intrusive and the idea of an ad on public bathrooms is considered smart. We are instinctively design to ignore noise and irrelevant stimuli, thus most of advertising intrusion is waste of money. Technology such as TiVo has already empowered consumers to bar ad intrusion. Internet gives abound knowledge on products through company, experts and consumer evaluation. One thing that consumers never regret is good experience. Google doesn’t compromise customer experience for advertising revenue. Advertising agencies will have to adopt such innovative thinking so that they can partner marketers in delivering better customer experience.

Failure to innovate

2010-01-10T11:44:00.001+03:00

Since my childhood I have seen many iconic brands in India vanish from the market place. All these brands have done one thing consistently- they failed to innovate. They never expected that the consumers to change and it was too late when they new brands came to challenge their domination.

Hindustan Motors made Ambassador cars and for many years Indians had known cars to synonymous with Ambassador. They had round conventional design and followed the same decade after decade. Suzuki started manufacturing small cars in collaboration with Maruti and challenged the hegemony of Ambassodor. Even Maruti followed the tradition of failing to innovate and did not introduce any new model for a decade. Then came international players and woke up Ambassador and Maruti. Maruti somehow tried to cope by introducing new models to defend their 80% market share and it was too late for Ambassador. They did a campaign to position the brand as ‘heritage’ and ‘part of culture’ but they did not realise two things: one, culture is not a static thing, and no ad guru can rescue a brand that fails to innovate. Now Ambassador has become a government car and no consumer buys them.

The other brands that I have seen losing significant market share are Boroline cosmetic cream, Nycil, Binaca toothpaste, Forhans toothpaste, Halo shampoo (by Colgate Palmolive) and Keo Karpin hair oil. One iconic brand that still leads the category is Amul for dairy products. A dairy products brand has little challenge to innovate because it relies on a natural produce and thus a traditional product is strength as well. Fevicol also dominates the category of professional glue and the reason may be consistent advertising and target customers (furniture makers) being less inclined to new products. Two fizzy drinks might also disappear in near future i.e. Thums up and Limca but perhaps they will because of the strategy of Coca-Cola to focus only on Coke and let the brands of local origin struggle on their own.

Bajaj has been an iconic brand for scooters and they never came up with a new model until LML Vespa challenged their leadership with stylish scooters. Recently the company decided to stop the production of scooters because the category is dying. Motorcycles will prevail in two-wheelers category. However, within scooters there is a sub-segment that will survive which is of small scooties targeted to women. Women in India will not be comfortable with motorcycles and scooties become a natural choice. Bajaj failed to take a lead in this segment as well and allowed Hero Honda to dominate the category although they had a traditional image for being a scooter brand.

An iconic brand has to put double the efforts to keep up the image of innovative because it also carries the advantage and baggage of grandfather’s brands. Coca-cola is a great example of being an iconic brand and yet never failing to appeal the younger generation. Toyota also maintains its credentials for consistent quality while trying to introduce youthful cars such as iQ and FJ Cruiser.

Insights for use: Simplicity and convenience

2010-01-06T16:33:00.002+03:00

A former colleague told me that when his child was young, he would say to him, ‘When will you grow up and tell me I want this and I want that?’ It is rewarding for the fathers to buy things for their children. One expert on shopper insight believes that this is because men want to show the power of money, so they are eager to buy love with money. I think it may be a show of power, but it may be a convenient love because other things require more involvement and efforts such telling a story or playing. Keeping this in mind if any product is targeted to men alone they would appreciate simplicity and convenience in the service experience.

The other side of the weakness can be strength

2010-01-05T16:19:00.000+03:00

When market research shows weak aspect of a product, the whole focus of marketing thinking diverts towards the weakness. It is known from research that it is much easier to strengthen one’s strong aspects rather than trying to overcome weaknesses. Many times weakness is there because of the strength, such as high price is because of high quality. It is better to focus on high quality rather than worrying about some customers who are choosing cheaper products. I worked on researches for several universal brands, and the weakness of Dove would come out to be ‘not easy to rinse off’ and weakness of Lux would be ‘makes skin dry’. The weakness of Dove is because it is soft and meant to moisturise the skin, while the weakness of Lux is because it is meant to ‘clean the skin well’. Lux cannot give ‘clean squeaky feeling’ and ‘moisturisation’ at the same time. And Dove cannot have ‘creamy lather’ and ‘ease of rinsing’ at the same time. To take another example, a car might look serious and boring, and thus connoting high quality. The design engineer can make it look exciting but there is also possibility that it takes away the ‘seriousness’ and ‘quality’ perception in the process. The best policy is to minimize weaknesses while retaining the strengths.

One weakness that never has acceptable excuse is ‘poor customer service’. Even high customer turnaround doesn’t justify this because each customer is adding to the revenue of the company which the company is not using in providing the service. We hear the cliché on toll free number ‘due to high turnaround of customers, our agents are busy, please hold’. The person who wrote these lines must be very proud of them but an individual customer doesn’t care how much volume of customers you have but wants his or her problems to be solved in time.

Future of internet

2010-01-04T16:54:00.003+03:00

Tim and Pin studied in the same college. Tim became a journalist and never heard of Pin. One day he received an email that Pin invites him on facebook. Tim created a facebook profile which became his personal webpage. He controlled the web page and could change its feel everyday though updates and photos. His friends could write on his wall. Tim did not know web 2, but if he did he would thank web 2 technology for giving him facebook, youtube, twitter and blogger. Web 2 enabled internet users to create their own web pages and change them by adding and deleting stuff as I can change my blog without knowing anything about web designing.

But web 2 still requires human interference. Web 3 will be able to think and act on its own. If Tim has a headache, he has to search internet to know what to do. In web 3 if Tim would update his profile status ‘got headache’, internet will search his blood pressure history and say your headache is due to high blood pressure for you had five similar headaches after watching Saturday night thriller movie in the past 3 months, so you better take some coffee rather than aspirin. It will also relay a message to Pin that Tin would like to see him over coffee.

Web 3 is called Sematic Web by Tim Berners-Lee who invented the (first) World Wide Web. I am copying the following text from an article on PC magazine about Web 3 which shows how fascinating the future technology can be:

Tomorrow's Web, Today

In some respects, Web 3.0 is nothing more than a parlor game. Ideas tossed out here and there. But at the very least, these ideas have roots in current trends. Many companies, from HP and Yahoo! to Radar Networks, are adopting official Semantic Web standards. Polar Rose and Ojos are improving image search. Google and Microsoft are moving toward 3D. No one can predict what Web 3.0 will look like. But one thing's for sure: It'll happen. — next: An Idiot's Guide to Web 3.0

An Idiot's Guide to Web 3.0

What will Web 3.0 look like? Who knows? But here are a few possibilities.

The Semantic Web

A Web where machines can read sites as easily as humans read them (almost). You ask your machine to check your schedule against the schedules of all the dentists and doctors within a 10-mile radius—and it obeys.

The 3D Web

A Web you can walk through. Without leaving your desk, you can go house hunting across town or take a tour of Europe. Or you can walk through a Second Life–style virtual world, surfing for data and interacting with others in 3D.

The Media-Centric Web

A Web where you can find media using other media—not just keywords. You supply, say, a photo of your favorite painting and your search engines turn up hundreds of similar paintings.

The Pervasive Web

A Web that's everywhere. On your PC. On your cell phone. On your clothes and jewelry. Spread throughout your home and office. Even your bedroom windows are online, checking the weather, so they know when to open and close.

Face detection:

2010-01-03T11:00:00.002+03:00

After having started the blog Never a Day without a Line, I stopped updating this blog. I thought it would die. But now I think my creativity and itch to talk about advertising and marketing is returning.

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If I were a creative director, I would like to work for an agency that has account for digital camera that can recognize faces. This technology is fascinating because it brings out what isn’t obvious otherwise. First these cameras had the effectiveness of a pregnancy scan to recognize the face of the baby through the tummy of his mother. After that these cameras became capable of recognizing ghost faces in a hotel room. Now they are even more adamant, even if you hide your face out of shame these cameras can detect it and paint it on top of the fingers. What will be the next destination for these cameras? May be to recognize a face of an alien beneath his special suit, or to recognize the face of a dead man from his tomb, or to recognize the face of Barney. The next generation of these camera's might start identifying the real face of politicians and diplomats.

Here is the camera that would not let you hide your face.

Another blog- Never a Day Without a Line

2009-09-29T15:41:00.001+03:00

I started another blog: Never a day without a line. This is translation of a latin proverb Nulla Dies Sine Linea. I recently wrote a post on this topic. \

Disciplined Creativity had advertising and marketing focus, although many times I deviated to write random thoughts. The purpose of Never A Day without a Line to write anything, just anything. Bad writing will happily find a place in this blog, and, sometimes, good writing will walk in.

Show business has a phrase: The show must go on. Writers could have similar phrase: the keyboard must continue to sing.

Rules

2009-09-26T16:56:00.000+03:00

Rules are not meant to be broken- they are to contain nonsense of the unruly to himself. If someone aims to break the rules, he has to first obey them, then think above them, and then make new rules which will make life of many people better.

Good and wonderful

2009-09-26T16:51:00.000+03:00

Good is what makes you smile, wonderful is what takes your breath away.

Nulla dies sine linea

2009-09-16T12:12:00.003+03:00

I picked up a book by Donald Murray- he was an award winning writer who mentored many writers. I was not looking for a book on writing, but this one just came in front of me, and it had many useful tips. The motto of Donald Murray was ‘Nulla dies sine linea’, which means ‘never a day without a line’. He argues good writing comes from bad writing; we just have to keep on writing, without striving for perfection. He quotes John Jerome, ‘Perfect is the enemy of good’. He also quotes William Stafford on writer’s block: “I believe that the so called writers block is product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and you performance…It is easy to write. You just shouldn’t have standards that inhibit you from writing.’

I like ‘Nulla dies sine linea’. This is in fact a latin proverb. I would also like to add: ‘Never a day without a page’. Writing is the product of imagination, and reading beautifies imagination and brings form in it.

What advertising people can learn from the photographers?

2009-09-05T15:20:00.000+03:00

An ad men might say out rightly: we use photographers as a part of our projects, what can we learn from them; however, there is a learning from every sphere of life, and the art of photography has some learning for advertising as well. A good photograph has either of the two things, or both: 1) Beauty and 2) Story. A good photograph may be merely showing something stunning and beautiful which can be a person, nature, culture, wildlife, building, art or anything else. The photographer captures the beauty as is, or adds an angle to it. The other type of photographs tell a story which can be a painful and disturbing story as well. Here is what an advertising people can learn from photographers:

Beauty: Many ads just show the product in a fascinating way that the consumers are impressed and cannot forget the ad. For example, the Sony Bravia ad for colourful fountains over a huge building is an impressive ad that shows beauty of colours in a stunning way. There are many other examples of similar ads, for example Coca-Cola happiness factory ad shows a fairytale like situation of what is going inside a Coca-Cola vending machine. The beauty aspects can never be undermined, a food product ad that shows the food in irresistible format does the half job, the same way, a hair care product ad has to show the beauty of hair that are being promised. The marketers of luxury products know the value of beauty, and never miss a chance to show the product in a beautiful way, be it a car or piece of jewellery. A lot of sports products ads e.g. Nike and Adidas show the beauty and passion of a sport moment.

Story: The story in advertising can be related with an interesting way to present the brand or a point of view on the brand benefits. A story makes the simple and memorable. Many times story is also used to give a personal touch and human angle to the brand story. Toyota Corolla ads show the dependable quality in a series of stories in which they show that a Corolla doesn’t break down.

Focus: A photographer doesn’t try to show too many things in a one photograph, but there is clarity and focus on what is being shown. Most of the times, a good photograph can be described in a sentence. The photographer is clear about what element he wants to highlight, and what angles he wants to show. The same way, good ads have to have focus and clarity of purpose. An ad that is trying to say too many things might cause more confusion than conviction.

Thought of the day

2009-08-22T15:30:00.002+03:00

It’s not whether you can prove your point or not, its whether you need to prove your point or not.

Brand Action vs Brand Behaviour

2009-08-20T12:43:00.001+03:00

These are some of the thought bubbles that were floating since a long time between heart and mind, and now I decided to exhale them. The thought is about brand action vs. brand behaviour. A lot of writers talk about the ‘brand behaviour’ and ad agencies especially focus on the ‘behaviour’ part because that opens up scope for brand image and personality, and makes it much easy to differentiate the brand and tell stories about the same. However, what sustains at the end of the day is 'brand action': how a brand performs, or delivers experience for the user. Any amount of projection away from this real action may not hold long term appeal or credibility. The analysis of brand action brings the core truth on surface, and if further aspects have to be added in terms of values, personality, behavior or image, they should be based on the real brand action. FMCG companies tend to follow marketing by the books, and a lot of times their advertising messages are solely focused on the brand action; for example Reckitt Benckiser advertising is consistently focused on the key brand action; the same way Gillette, P&G and even Unilever advertising is also rooted in the core brand action or advantage. The values and personality comes in the packaging of the same. So, to summarise, the first question that should be asked for any brand positioning is: ‘how are we making a difference in the lives of the consumers?’

Thought of the day

2009-08-16T20:42:00.000+03:00

A brand is what a brand does!

Thought of the day

2009-07-21T10:51:00.000+03:00

Keep walking with a dream, and the path will unfold.

Thought of the day

2009-07-20T12:47:00.001+03:00

Ignorance is the reason behind overconfidence, and sheer ignorance is reason behind pride.

What if: Unique Global Internet ID

2009-07-09T12:41:00.002+03:00

What I want to write about now might seem too difficult but I am confident this will be a basic thing in the coming generations. I think each individual around the world can have a unique internet ID, the same as IBAN (International Bank Account Number) which is a unique global ID given to all bank account holders. The case with IBAN is different in a way that you can have multiple IDs; and, multiples IDs still happen on Internet as username for different websites. But, what I foresee is that a unique global ID for access of any form of internet, this ID becomes compulsory for any internet access, and this is why nobody is anonymous on the internet when it comes to security. It will serve the purpose of security and authenticity, for example when any website seeks age verification, it will be real age; no kids pretending to be adults, or vice versa. In terms of security it will ensure enhanced security of communications, data, online banking and credit card transactions. Who knows, it might even replace passports, and all you need at the airports is to give your fingerprint for your visa, passport and travel details to appear. This is already happening, but in this case it might be a global and standard thing.

Now comes the question how can this be managed, because internet is not owned by a single source; but once it starts happened, governments might enforce it on websites to make it necessary for the access. It might seem cumbersome, but there is also a possibility that in future we have all computers with fingerprint access, and the same fingerprint data for global internet ID can ensure no abuse or duplication of this ID, as presently it can be done by accessing the password. It may be cumbersome on the face of it, but imagine just giving one finger print, and then not having to type any username or password for any email or web access!

Another question comes about ‘privacy’. But, I see gradually the role of Internet will be to ensure more and more transparency and openness, rather than privacy, and with the fashion of social networking, less and less people are asserting on privacy. Earlier you had privacy of emails, and not everybody could know who is in your address book; but, now with social networks a lot of messaging is open for all, and it is not hard to know who are your friends/contacts. Social networks also make it difficult to play double roles, as it was the case of emails, as you cannot completely replicate your contacts and friends with multiple IDs. So, gradually we are moving towards a world where dialogues are open, and privacy is being reduced to bank accounts. In fact people want to be known and talked about, this is why they update post on twitter so that their followers can know even what is in their minds.
We may not be alive to see it happen, but as I said, this is one of the ‘what if’ series which really seem to be possible.

Photo courtesy: Ronan johns

Conspiracy of C words

2009-07-08T10:39:00.003+03:00

I seem to be fascinated by C words! They tend to make a rally and jump in my hand now and then. I wrote a post earlier about planners love the C words, and today three C words joined hands to say that we can be basis for the structure of any presentation or article. They are as follows:

Context

Case

Conclusion

I am too lazy to write in details what each of the three C words contain, but there are some pointers given below:

Context:

Background

Relevance

Trends

Case:

Difference

Argument

Perspective

Reasons

Conclusions:

Key learning

Points to consider

The conspiracy of C words doesn’t stop here, there are more in this post. These are 3 C words that make an effective presentation or article:

Clear

Concise

Compelling

Photo : drrus2000

Forwarded emails and marketing:

2009-07-07T13:35:00.003+03:00

I believe that there are higher chances of a piece of news reaching wider audiences through forwarded emails, as compared to the mass media. People have stopped using ‘weather’ as a favorite topic to start conversation, and ‘yesterday’s emails’ give much easier topics to start a conversation. A careful look at the types of forwarded emails can reveal some learning about marketing as well. The following types of emails get forwarded most frequently:

Fear: Maslow said it right, we all want security at the first point. If the email contains threats such as, AIDS needles in the cinema, battery burst from mobile, a freak virus on rampage, hazards of deos or microwave etc., there are good chances that such news will be spread. Unilever knows it well, this is why Rexona says ‘it won’t let you down’. Reckitt & Benckiser has build the whole range of Dettol only on this platform.
Toys: We all love toys from childhood till death, though, their form change depending on the life stage and lifestyle; it might be a remote car in childhood and a real car in adulthood, a paint brush in childhood and a DSLR camera in adult hood, but at the end of the day we spend money on toys. Emails that contain games are more likely to spread because they entertain people. So, if the email has a game, a user is likely to forward it, because he thinks that his friends will thank for taking a bit of stress off. So, if you are a marketer, try to create a short online promotion with a quick interesting game where people can spend time. I say quick because a lot of people will not have time for a long game, unless you are talking to teenagers.
Free gift: I have seen even the smartest people forwarding the emails containing messages ‘get a free laptop or free mobile’. Everybody loves free stuff, even if it is cheap. Put a camera in a store, and let the sales men give even a small gift to every customer, you will see that every face brightens and almost everyone will smile. All marketers know the value of free gift, this is why they try to run promotions from time to time.
Entertainment: If the email has creative ideas e.g. pictures on hands or ground, humorous ads, viral videos etc, there are good chances that it will be forwarded. So, if you invite audiences for our even, try to entertain them. This is why creative advertising can take the brand forward even without defined point of advantage.
Usefulness: Another category of emails that get forwarded are contain useful info e.g. how to ensure safety of your tires, important short cuts in Microsoft office applications, healthy diets, e-books etc. So, if your product really solves a consumer problem, e.g. face identification in lap tops, its better to highlight the feature.

Food industry: Promises and commitment

2009-07-01T14:09:00.001+03:00

A report in AdAge suggests that many restaurants are ‘bending over backwards to offer lower-calorie options’ but it is not selling as consumers do not seem to want healthy food. In fact restaurants do not mind a ‘healthy food’, but what they actually want to ride is a ‘trend’. If ‘Atkins’ becomes a trend, they will offer ‘low carb’ options while knowing that low carb with this half a kilo meat is not going to serve any lasting purpose. If a fastfood chain is really serious about promoting healthy eating, they should be giving special discount on salads, instead they would charge more premium on the same. A simple initiative in genuine efforts can be to abandon french fries and introduce a healthy alternative, or, give a choice of fries or something else. Another thing can be to list calories in the menu, as it is in the supermarket items, but they know that it will appall the customers; or they can at least have this menu option, which can be produced upon request. Besides, they should not hide the effects of MSG (monosodium glutamate) on healthy, and make customers aware about level of MSG used in their food. Instead, food industry has figured out other names for monosodium glutamate so that customers cannot identify it in the ingredients listed on packages. Healthy eating is not in favor of fast food business. A fat freak ensures continuous business for फास्ट food food chains, and also recruits more customers because he would be less confident in advocating healthy food to his children. Healthy food (fruits, salad, nuts, yogurt, whole wheat bread, etc.) cultivates healthy bacteria (the likes of ones in yogurt) in your intestines which regulates your appetite, help you digest better, help you reduce cholesterol and crave only wholesome food. On the contrary, most of the processed food and fast food contain high amount of taste enhancer MSG which enhances the taste but is also responsible for food craving and weight gain. This is why if you regularly eat fast food, something in your stomach seems to be shouting Í want this!, I want that’. But, once you abandon fast food, your taste buds are also not treating it like a lost friend and this doesn’t sound ‘amazing’ any more.

All emotions are forms of love and hate:

2009-06-27T11:08:00.004+03:00

The 3:00 AM thinking started with a perspective that all motivations have either love or hate at the root- people take life or give life because of love and hate. Then came the counter argument: what about other emotions e.g. pride, envy, excitement etc. But, there is a way to rationalize that they too are related with love and hate in some or other manner. This is how it goes:

Envy: Hate for other people’s possessions
Pride: Exaggerated love for oneself
Humility: Caution in love for oneself
Frustration: Hate for the moment
Anger: Hate for something
Excitement: Love for the moment
Passion: Blind/ intense love
Lust: Physical love

The list is endless, but I am sure you get the idea of what I mean. There was a time when I did not like the use of word ‘hate’ in general conversation because I felt it is too strong a word. Later on I started using it occasionally because it flows well, and has right emphasis. But I think the word ‘hate’ can be forsaken altogether, not from actual dictionary, but from attitude. This is not to say the phony view as you can read on t-shirts ‘world without strangers’ because that too is dreamlike situation, we human beings are made diverse and contradictions are likely to arise now and then; instead, the practical point of view is that ‘hate’ can be replaced with ‘disapprove’ which allows freedom of disagreement without going to extreme. The real truth is that hate doesn’t lead to anything productive, love does. Hate in itself is a powerless and purposeless emotion while ‘disapproval’ can lead to taking constructive steps so that there isn’t repetition of what you hate. What differentiates disapproval from hate is the exercise of logic and discipline, and when logic and discipline comes in an emotion, it tends to become constructive. Disapproval forces you to think ‘why’’, and that why leads to ‘what now’, which is a beginning of constructive thinking instead of sulking over the matter.

Image courtesy: whatmegsaid

Was shit Vital?

2009-06-11T15:50:00.006+03:00

This thing has been bugging me since long and I had thought I will never write about it, because I have no right to comment on the judgement of a creative genius. I salute Slumdog Millionaire for it is an outrageously candid and hard-hitting movie, I never questioned a thing, except the protagonist boy in a shit pond. I could not help but think, was shit vital? Does a director actually have to use shit in all its colour to show a life in deep shit? I agree that it helps to shock to make an impact, but does shocking have to be so distasteful? The boy did not jump in the shit pond because a vampire was chasing him, so it was a smart thing to do; but he did it out of positivity, reverence and will to take autograph of superstar Amitabh Bachhan, and took care that the photograph that he holds doesn't get into what he was going through. Does a slumdog, who actually has more confidence than Amitabh Bachhan, actually have to jump in a shit to take an autograph? And, he looks so cool in shit pack that even Amitabh Bachhan doesnt hurry to fly back by his helicopter, but proudly gives an autograph.

A creative genius has thousands of ideas to make a point, so, couldn't Danny Boyle think of something less smelly and disgusting to show the ardour of the boy?... I don't want to know the answer, I just wanted to get this shit out of my mind. Probably I will be able to sleep now, and stop reflecting on shitty ideas.

PS: I have not used the pic from the net for this scene because I don't want the reader to reflect more on it. But, if you are curious, visit this link:

The mystery behind the lady’s smile

2009-05-31T11:34:00.007+03:00

This article starts with an innocent question, what’s the big deal about Mona Lisa- I am in; after all it’s a lady who is smiling half heartedly. Then writer goes on explaining that there are different interpretations by critics, which include: 1) a cheerful lady, 2) a sad lady, and 3) a lady who died thousands years ago. I looked at the picture again, and could feel that there is certainly a mysterious fascination in the lady’s demeanor. After a while, I felt the eyes become stony, and the smile turns out to be sarcastic as if she is saying ‘I know what you don’t know’. Perhaps she knows why she fascinates so many people, especially critics because they make us find fascinating reasons in her; otherwise, an ordinary human being will have to concede that he doesn’t have taste for art and culture, worthless creatures! Even artists in those times were kind to paint objects that people human sights are familiar with; now, some modern artists paint abstract stuff which an ordinary soul will struggle to be fascinated with because it wants to know the ‘what is this’ before falling in love.

Effective Listening

2009-05-17T15:53:00.006+03:00

International Listening Association highlights very interesting data on listening which shows how often we tend to ignore the importance of listening:

Some studies indicate that we may be listening at only a 25 percent comprehension rate.

How much of what we know that we have learned by listening? 85% (Shorpe)

Amount of the time we are distracted, preoccupied or forgetful? 75% (Hunsaker)

How much we usually recall immediately after we listen to someone talk? 50% (Robinson)

Amount of time we spend listening? 45% (Robinson)

How much we remember of what we hear? 20% (Shorpe)

Amount of us who have had formal educational experience with listening? less than 2% (Gregg)

We listen at 125-250 words per minute, but think at 1000-3000 words per minute. (HighGain, Inc.)

Number of business studies that indicate that listening is a top skill needed for success in business? more than 35 (HighGain, Inc.)

First of all it’s important to clarify a few things about listening:

Listening ≠ hearing

Listening ≠ paying attention

Listening ≠ keeping mum

Listening ≠ restraining from answering back

Listening ≠ looking interested

Listening ≠ completely agreeing

Listening ≠ not confronting, protesting or complaining

Listening ≠ conforming

Listening = developing a common understanding, shared goal and vision

Effective listening is a win-win solution. Listening is a skill that seems passive but actually effective listening is requires more proactivity than speaking. Listening doesn’t come naturally; active listening requires far more preparation than speaking because while speaking we have to focus only on what we are going to say; but while listening we have to focus on the speaker, content, situation, evaluation, and feedback- while resisting a temptation to reply back inappropriately or prematurely.

Here are some thoughts while listening is not easy:

1. Silence is related with insecurity: It’s easy to speak, but to hold your tongue requires greater self-awareness, wisdom, patience, respect, balance, and objectivity. We tend to believe that we are dominating while we are speaking, and at the same time sub-consciously believe that we are allowing ourselves to be dominated while 'listening'. Most of the people are likely to develop a sense of insecurity if they don’t get an opportunity to speak. This is why if a person is feeling oppressed, he will feel more relaxed after sharing his feelings or expressing his anger.

2. Instinct to dominate: We grow up seeing that powerful people speak and weaker people listen. In a family the father speaks and children listen, in an office the boss speaks and subordinates listen, and at social/ political level the celebrities/politicians speak and public listens. Powerful people get a chance to speak in public and get a clamour for effective speech. In debating competitions, the person who speaks better, wins; but there are no awards for listeners. This is why speaking is sub-consciously associated with power. Probably this is the reason why women often complain that ‘men don’t listen’ because sub-consciously they may not be willing to be dominated by women as listeners. To remain silent might mean accepting that I am not worthwhile to speak; but a person with stronger confidence will know that not speaking doesn’t mean ‘inability to speak’ or ‘lack of knowledge’. On the contrary wise people repeatedly remind themselves that silence is sign of subtle power, wisdom, reflection, and confidence.

3. Tendency to form assumptions: The opposite of assumption is analysis; which requires enterprise, discipline and readiness to accept the outcome which might be contrary to previous beliefs. The instinct to form assumption is a nature’s gift to take quick decision, but it needs to be resisted when there is no need for it. If the listener assumes that he knows the goals, point of view, knowledge, and flow of thoughts of the speaker, he would not want to waste time in listening.

4. Lack of respect: In order to listen to somebody we have to believe at heart that the person has something worthwhile to say. If we have pre-conceived notion about someone’s knowledge, objectivity, fairness or efficiency, we are not going to pay attention to listen to the person. This is why we tend to listen to somebody whose authority, experience, expertise, and impartiality is proven. In order to listen effectively, we have to believe that every person is gifted with unique intelligence, talent, and capabilities, and he must be respected for those strengths. We don’t have to compare people from our yardsticks but with their environments.

5. Overconfidence: Some people are just driven by ‘I’ factor. They cannot focus on anybody else’s opinion or situation. Even when they are pretending to listen to someone, they are just doing it to give a ‘fitting reply’. Overconfidence blinds the speaker with the reality, and makes him focus only on his flow of thoughts, goals and objectives.

6. Focusing on words rather than on the bigger picture: If we tend to focus only on words or present situation, we lose the focus on bigger picture which might present a different reality. In order to focus on bigger picture we have to have a great empathy with the other person’s situation, character, communication style, needs, expectations, motives and issues. For example, somebody is speaking just to express that he is more knowledgeable and dominant, we don’t have to answer all his comments because he is not seeking an answer. Similarly a child may be throwing tantrums because he is just bored, so we don’t have to explain and rationalise to him why he should behave; but just to get him entertained and engaged. A lot of times a ping-pong dialogue only pursues because both parties are focused on the words being spoken, and they continue to answer each other aptly on the words/arguments, rather than trying to generate a consensus and common understanding.

As I said, listening is a strong skill of emotional intelligence which needs to be learned through constant practice; it cannot be learnt in a day or two. There are a few things which a listener can remind himself in order to listen better:

Spontaneous reaction is not always a good idea

I don’t have to answer or react now

There is something beyond than what is being said

This person has something really worthwhile to say

I can learn something from this person

I should only speak if I have something worthwhile to say

A person who speaks more doesn’t need to be more powerful

If I allow myself to be influenced by someone else, I don’t lose my individuality

I should listen to make the other person win, not to make the other person lose

I should listen for a shared vision and success

I should focus on the person, rather than on the words or subject

As said earlier, listening is a constant learning because you get new ways to listen from different people. You will know that your listening skills are improving when other people are comfortable to share/chat with you, even if you are not contributing significantly to the dialogue.

Photo courtesy:

Marketing Definition

2009-05-06T09:13:00.003+03:00

The discussions in the CMOs group on LinkedIn often throw lots of interesting perspective and viewpoints. Recently, there was a discussion on the ‘one line definition of marketing’. My definition was:

‘Marketing is identifying consumer needs, developing products to meet those needs, and enabling the products to reach the consumer in right environment, packaging, pricing, and promotion- when marketing doesn't help develop the products, they help in creating the context to relate the existing products with consumer needs.'

Thankfully, Mr. Nelson Duffle, a CMO, liked my definition and said he would like to quote it in his e-book, attributing to me. I felt elated- young people do with such complements- and I had the following thoughts to elaborate on it further:

‘Many people tend to confuse marketing as bigger brother of sales; but marketing even begins before development of the products, and continues after a sale is done in order to ensure consumer loyalty and repeat purchase. Many activities of marketing are not expected to generate sales e.g. corporate social responsibility initiatives, but aimed at building corporate reputation which will help in consumer, employee and shareholders trust.’

As I have started, I would like to write down all the thoughts; marketing is about seeing the unseen: seeing the opportunities that exist in the market, new product innovations that consumers would like, ideas of creating consumer experience that do not exist, seeing the product strengths from a new or fresh perspective, identifying new consumer trends and segments, and tapping on the needs that consumers cannot even articulate. I am impressed by the quote of Sony’s founder Akio Morita: ‘We don't ask consumers what they want. They don't know.’ Imagine, which consumer would say a decade ago ‘I need a camera which is not thicker than my finger’, or ‘I need a mobile phone, in which I can flip photos with the touch of my finger’.

In sum, marketing is about establishing a long term, sustainable, and profitable relationship between a company and its consumers. All the activities of marketing are part of this relationship building.

Bawdy copy

2009-05-04T15:39:00.004+03:00

Extra ordinary times require extraordinary efforts- a car has to go to shrines to seek blessings, and a copywriter has to prove that he has got more ideas than hair on his body. Here is a copywriter who is proud of his gender, and believes that this gender can also win business by shunning clothes. This is why the web address defines the gender and business of the copywriting before anybody gets confused with the home page. It doesn’t mean though that you should contact the copywriter only if you have allergy to females and need only a ‘male’ copywriter. Even the females are equally welcome as silhouette of several women circling the title of the site leave no doubt about it. There is a contradiction though- an art director would pat his chest out of pride and say, ‘see, a copy writer has to rely on the power of visual.’ The website shakes your calm, and your conscience shrieks, ‘hell, this guy needs food and clothes, and recession has forced him to pose naked, let’s give him some business, besides he is also asserting that he is serious. ’ No doubt, he is damn serious.

Here is the link, if you need a male copywriter: http://www.malecopywriter.com/

Conflectual

2009-04-29T17:08:00.000+03:00

- an intellectual who is confused or confuses

This is a new word dedicated to: All the information which does not pass through the brain, and get stuck in the wires somewhere to cause confusion.

First impression matters, but why:

2009-04-29T14:58:00.005+03:00

‘You don’t get a second chance to make the first impression.’ I don’t know who said it originally, but I heard it from a friend, and never forgot it. There is no point to debate that first impression matters; the question is, why? Here are a few thoughts on the psychology of first impression:

First, we human beings, like animals, are designed to take snap judgements in order to handle frightful or friendly situations without losing time. Scientists tell us animals instinctively chose partners, and we see on streets cats vanishing within split-seconds before a dog prepares to pounce. It is something like fight or flight response which is instinctively taken to respond to a situation. This is why we naturally, instinctively, and habitually make our own portraits of people when we meet them. We might call it inner representation of the reality.

Second, we don’t like mental processing; it’s a tiresome job, which is why the people who are accustomed to use brain more frequently and productively tend to earn better rewards. This is the reason most people prefer to watch a movie, rather than reading a novel. We would like to make a judgement on food from the aroma and appearance, instead of inquiring about its ingredients, recipe and chef. Who would take all this pain, and why, when we are gifted with a faculty of snap judgement, which often turns out to be true as well.

Third, we tend to reaffirm our own judgements. It is a self-reward system of telling oneself, ‘see, I was right’. It has equal pleasure of telling someone else, ‘I told you so’. So, when we make a first impression, later on subconsciously we are trying to find reasons to re-affirm this judgement. It will be a mental struggle, kind of acceptance of failure to accept the opposite of our initial impression. This is why, if we believe that someone is intelligent, we tend to take a note when we the person reading a book, while we will simply ignore it if another person, not to intellectual in our opinion, is doing the same.

Important learnings arise from contradictions.. and I had one from a book on ‘people reading’ in which the writer emphasized again and again: ‘Don’t make snap judgements, unless you absolutely have to’. This mean that if you are in a lonely street, and need to make a judgement on stranger walking towards you, use your snap judgement instinct, but tame it in usual situations when life will give you so many cues and opportunities to form a definite, reasonable, comprehensive, and fair opinion of a person. This learning is hard to imbibe because it goes against instinct, but it is enduring, unlike first impressions.

Photo courtesy:

Insight: Clothe care

2009-04-21T18:14:00.002+03:00

When washing machine is done with washing and drying of the clothes, the clothes are entangled with each other and they need to be spread so that the remaining moisture can vanish. Many consumers would flap the clothes, so that it takes the moisture away and eases the crumples which makes clothe easy to iron. This is a burdensome process, but a useful one. Companies with clothe care products (e.g. ironing spray, conditioner) can target this process as ‘give your arms rest for you no longer need to flap your clothes for easy ironing’.

Freedom is, but a delusion

2009-04-17T16:55:00.003+03:00

If only I could proclaim, my thoughts and fancies are my own, but a whisperer. If only my hands could craft my fate. I reserve the right to chose, which is all freedom I have.

Yes, I saw the ad

2009-04-17T00:28:00.000+03:00

In theory ad recall research sounds very good that you will do a research and know how many people have seen the ad, and how did this advertising influence their attitude towards the brand; but the reality it is very hard to measure ad recall because there is so much branding stimuli a consumer get exposed to every day. It is very much possible that you ask a consumer which banks he has seen ads for, and he mentions his own bank because he did internet banking the same day or any other bank for which he read an article in the newspaper. The consume doesn’t intend to bluff or lie, but it’s a natural confusion which should be expected in today’s heavily marketed world where brand communications are competing with oxygen to penetrate the minds of consumers. Unless there is a real media burst for certain brand, it is hard for the consumers to remember which brand stimuli penetrated their mind at what mind: whether it was an ad, an article, a showroom signage, ownership or loyalty towards the brand, tele-marketing, or just a discussion with a friend. When the consumers see an ad, they don’t know a researcher might stop them in the way a few weeks from, and ask about these ads. This is why sometime the clients are surprised when they know that there is recall for TV ads while they did not have money for TV for this campaign. But smart researchers ask the media plan and ad concepts beforehand, so that any such surprises are not passed on to the client.

Our minds are designed to forget the information which is not relevant or useful; otherwise the hard disk beneath the skull will be full of viruses. If the research is done among consumers who are considering a purchase for product in the similar category, it might be a reliable recall because in that case the advertising will be relevant to them, so they are likely to register it and remember it. I am not considering buying insurance because I already have one, and I am sure I have seen ads for at least 4-5 insurance companies in past two months, even good ones, but I do not know which company is what because I never cared to note the brand name and the ad together. These ads helped my recall, and consideration, but I cannot recall them specifically and relate the message where it belonged.

If the feedback is for aided recall of the ad concepts, after showing them the actual ads, it is somehow believable; still it is not easy to rule out the possibility of confusion with other ads from the same brand.

Even funnier is the pre and post research in which the research agency promises that by asking 300 people we can tell you what where did your brand stand before this campaign, and where it reached after this campaign. A brand is not built with a one month campaign, nor is brand perception changed over night; it is consistent exposure to certain brand message, coupled with experience, which shapes the brand image or perceptions. It makes sense to expect changes in brand perception over 2-3 years time – unless there was a major product launch or PR mishap- and to expect the brand image or perceptions to change in two months is asking for the moon in the ice cream cup. If Nissan repositions worldwide under the umbrella of SHIFT_, it will take time for the consumer to change attitudes because they still see the same cars on the street. If a researcher comes to me with a result that Nissan is ‘bold’ brand after the SHIFT_ campaign, I will complement the researcher for his smartness. This is not to say that campaigns cannot pay any results in short term; there are certainly going to be core users and potential users whom the advertisings gives a new perspective or point of view, but in general it takes time to build the brand equity.

I believe ad recall research should always have a time limit, the shorter the better- and for me the reliable time limit is yesterday. It is very much possible that if someone asks me which ads I have seen yesterday, I can specify some; but to mention the ones seen in past one month is to ask a two year old to do mathematics.

Besides, it makes much more sense to test ad concepts in research before spending money in the media, instead of having aired a campaign by gut feel commendation, under unreasonable hurry, and then trying to justify this gut feel through a research.

Genchi Genbutsu

2009-04-07T14:01:00.002+03:00

It is opposite of 'assume'; which is dissected by some intelligent people as ‘ass- of-u-and-me’. Assumption comes naturally, but investigation requires enterprise; which is why we would rather assume than investigate. Genchi Genbutsu is a Japanese expression and an integral part of Toyota Production System. It means ‘go and see for yourself’. This leaves little scope of ‘methinks’.

It is very easy to assume the consumer attitude and lifestyle, but it is worth spending the efforts in researching the insights, and mapping the issues in right context. Planners are many times compared with doctors and lawyers because they give ‘advise and recommendation’, but a doctor or lawyer cannot afford to make assumptions, but planners can; because its both way a win win situation- if the campaign goes excellent, it becomes a case study, and if it doesn’t work, its hard to determine what went wrong- whether it was a faulty strategy, misfired creativity, or frail media budget.

If you want to change the behaviour, change the beliefs

2009-04-06T14:30:00.003+03:00

Have you ever noticed that when we feel good, we are generally nice with others; and if a sullen feeling is dominating, the behaviour shifts to another axis? These feelings do not just happen by chance, but they are result of deep rooted belief to a particular situation or idea. If you believe that you are in a deep trouble, you cannot feel excited, no matter how hard you try. The feelings will only change when our belief regarding that situation is changed. These feelings affect the behaviour, and this is a subconscious process when we don’t even realise most of the times how our beliefs, feelings and behaviour are constantly being shaped.

Beliefs are very powerful, because they are at the core, albeit hidden. You cannot feel confident, unless you believe you are confident. And, once you start believing you are confident, you will feel positive about yourself, and it will reflect in the behaviour as well. Thus, if we have to change our behaviour, we need to change our beliefs.

Consumer behaviour is also result of how consumer feels towards the brand, and these feelings do not happen by chance, but they are result of consumer beliefs towards the brand. If advertising is just creative and entertaining, it might instil some positive feelings in the short run, but in order to change the consumer behaviour the advertising will need to change their beliefs with respect to the brand and category. And, in order to change the beliefs, the advertising message has to be well researched, having a consumer context, consistent, and convincing. For example, Omo launched campaign ‘Dirt is good’ and tried to change the belief that it is not necessary a bad thing for kids to play and get their clothes dirty, but this dirt is helping them grow and learn. This advertising message was based on consumer insight, and had the power to change beliefs towards stains.

In some cases, constant positive messages, point of view or perspective can also shape beliefs as long as it is credible, for example 'Coke side of life' or 'Marlboro man' imagery, but if the positive point of view is nowhere the reality, it may not have the moving power to change the beliefs, for example the healthy lifestyle campaign of Mc Donalds.

Stress is a ghost

2009-03-30T17:06:00.002+03:00

Even if ghosts exist, thinking about them doesn't make them less harmful. They are best forgotten. Emotional intelligence is about controlling the state of mind, and I believe a strong emotional intelligence skill can be if a person can decide 'when to worry'. That is emotional proactivity.

Thought of the day

2009-03-30T14:55:00.000+03:00

Ignorance is also a source of confidence.

This reminds me a real incident that happened with one of my relatives in Pakistan. This gentleman, my uncle, is very suave and gentle- never aggressive. One day some burglars entered into his house. He woke up after hearing some noises, and saw a man with face muffled. My uncle was drowsy and did not like this intrusion in his sleep; he did not care to spend efforts in identifying the person, and yelled: 'What is this nonsense? Is this a time to come? Go away, right now! Stupid!' And with these strong words, he went back and slept peacefully. Next day when the family woke up, they realised that the house has been burgled, there was a window broken, telephone line disconnected, but thankfully nothing stolen. My uncle ruminated, and said: 'Oh, so, he was the bugler... and I thought this is the maid who comes to clean the house, I felt she came too a bit too early in the morning, so told her to leave immediately.'

Passion is a journey, Perfection is a dead end:

2009-03-29T18:01:00.004+03:00

Ben Okri says, “The fact of storytelling hints at a fundamental human unease, hints at human imperfection. Where there is perfection there is no story to tell.” If perfection means absence of defects, or flawlessness- the idea of perfection is unrealistic idealism. The whole idea of human creativity is to find flaws and recommend new solutions; so to say that something is perfect is to say that it has yet not been seen by a creative eye. I would say perfect means ‘the most satisfying thing at the moment’ because the idea of satisfaction will vary from person to person; and the claim that it is satisfying at a certain moment, accepts the possibility that it may not be perfect under different circumstances or time. For example, at one time iPhone may seem perfect but after few other innovations, something else will become perfect.

Lexus brand architects new that perfection is a dead end; this is why they did not claim perfection- but ‘pursuit of perfection'. The load that leads to perfection is passion. Passion is the journey, never ending, and ever satisfying, because it is more about process than about results; if the process is right, the result has to be right. If something is done with passion- sincere and unrelenting - it has to touch the boundaries of perfection. Passion in itself brings creativity, hard work, commitment, and enterprise; all it needs is to be guided by objectivity, to make a commercial success.

Defining Success

2009-03-24T18:17:00.003+03:00

This is a very broad topic, and most of the people will have their own views and convictions, but I read a quote which I could not help but write here, which is: "There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way." - Christopher Morley

The other way to say the same thing can be- you are successful if you are happy with yourself; or you do not wish that you were someone else.

What are the needs answered by facebook?

2009-03-23T11:09:00.004+03:00

Need to express and share: We need to express in some way or other; otherwise we feel suffocated. Some people can express with their dressing, others can do it with a gazette, and some others can do the same with their profession, especially in creative business. Similarly facebook allows opportunity to express the urge to break the neck of the boss, or fascination with a philosophical line, or just experience of change. Whatever it is, just say it in your status.

Need for affiliation- We feel good when we are around human beings; this is why people don’t like the idea of dining alone, or spending the weekend alone. Even if somebody enjoys it, he or she will not speak out because socially it is not a normal thing. Facebook gives you a sense of keeping touch with hundreds of people, even if you are not actually talking regularly to a few of them on regular basis.

Need for novel experiences: Since childhood we love novelty, which is why the idea of a circus or travel is fascinating because it gives a new experience. Facebook gives lots of applications, games to do new things every day; one day you can know what your eyes say behind the specs; another day you can know what your name says, and another day you might be trying to figure out an actress by looking at her nostrils, and something like that.

Need to waste time: Proactivity is the rule number 1 for Steven Covey, but it is the rule number 10 for human beings in general. We love free time, and the idea of doing nothing productive in the free time. Facebook gives you lots of ways to do that, like a drawing book for a kid, you can do lots of things which feel good at the moment and give a different experience, but may not be adding anything to your learning or knowledge.

Need to stay updated: We need to go what is going around, which is why news media has existed in several forms. Facebook is the news channel of the people the people in your network- you can know: who had a kid, and who got divorced; who changed a job, and who is still sulking at his present job.

Image Courtesy

Knowing your weakness is half the success

2009-03-18T11:31:00.006+03:00

We tend to nurture positive thoughts about ourselves and even when our weakness confront us, we tend to forget them very soon. Even, the pessimistic people are not pessimistic about themselves, but about the situation or people around them.

Only if you are aware of the weaknesses at the person level, you are going to put conscious efforts to improve upon them. And, when we are aware of the weaknesses at the brand level, we are not going to promise something that is not credible. Many times small business owners cannot make a breakthrough in their business because they are not willing to accept that their product quality level is not up to the consumer expectations or key competitive brands. Similarly, many creative guys may not like the idea of testing ads among consumers because they are not willing to face the reality that they can be wrong or hitting a wrong spot.

This is not to say that we should not have confidence in our capabilities, but we should be consciously aware or 'potential areas of improvement'.

Insights for use: Children like to hide things

2009-03-11T11:59:00.002+03:00

Among several activities that young children do for fun, one is to hide things in house, and the idea is that it will be fun when the mother will go about searching it. The motive can be innocent fun, or a subconscious tendency to give challenges to the adults, or something else that child psychologists can explain, but I have noticed thins commonly among kids. Probably there is something about hide and seek activity that makes it safe and handy fun, because hide and seek is a favourite game for kids in general.

Thought of the day

2009-03-07T15:39:00.001+03:00

Theory gives perspective, experience gives conviction.

Interesting Product Innovation

2009-02-28T11:29:00.002+03:00

Why do we shake hands with people?

2009-02-24T15:37:00.004+03:00

MSN gives a historical explanation on the habit of shaking hands, here it goes:

Why do we shake hands with people?

The origin of the handshake lies in medieval history. By offering a right hand to a stranger, a hand that could otherwise be used to draw a sword, men were overtly displaying their intentions of peace toward one another. Nowadays, from signing a treaty to settling a bet with friends, "shaking on it" remains a symbolic sign of agreement.

I am a simple thinker. I believe we shake hands because we cannot shake anything else, and stay safe at the same time. On a serious note, touching is an expression of intimacy among human beings, we pat on back to encourage someone, and touch the shoulder to express support. In some cultures, touching cheek to cheek is a way of greeting, and Sudanese greet by putting hands on the shoulder of other person. So, in simple words, shaking hands is just a respectful way of touching, and showing a welcoming attitude. When we meet someone on regular basis, the intimacy and welcome attitude is taken for granted and we do not shake hands.

God Bless New Launches

2009-02-23T11:11:00.003+03:00

Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures; perhaphs the brand managers have accepted that the economic crisis needs heavenly intervention- Tata's most talked about new car Nano, popularly known as US$ 2,500 car, is also offering chadar in Ajmer, and visit to Golden Temple in Amritsar. This scene combines the cultural diversity, religious harmony, and business ambitions of India in one gesture. Good luck Nano!

Click here to read more.

Good, evil and advertising

2009-02-20T10:36:00.004+03:00

The most fascinating stories have the struggle between good and evil- the evil might be projected as villain, mafia, aliens, ghosts, terrorists, father of the heroin, politician, weird creatures, ego, and when there is no external evil, the evil might be fate which brings tragedy in the lives of characters. However, the tussle between the good and evil makes the story interesting, and gives a reason to prolong it because audience would naturally want to see the good winning over the evil. We are instinctively designed to fear evil, and want to see it crushed.

If we have to look at the brand management, what will be good and evil. The marketing manager Coke might consider the Pepsi as evil- and even there have been such advertising especially between Coke and Pepsi that insult the competitive brand. However, this is a subjective opinion. The evil in branding perspective is the 'problem' that the consumer faces, and the good is 'the solution or reason to believe' in the brand that is going to solve the problem. The problem can be body odor, rough skin, damaged hair, poor connectivity on mobile, unhealthy food, ineffective weight loss programs, lack of confidence, and so on. This problem or evil is exaggerated by the creative people as body odour is compared with dustbin, hair fall turning into vines, poor quality tires compared with bombs etc; and the brand comes as a hero to give hope and save the day.

Thought of the day

2009-02-19T12:40:00.003+03:00

Reality and imagination are connected with each other as if connected with a rubber band- imagination can be stretched from the reality, but never disconnected altogether. Even in our wildest dreams, there is some connection of reality.

Thought of the day

2009-02-18T10:43:00.001+03:00

The mood of a city can be judged from its traffic.

Media muscles and creativity

2009-02-12T11:10:00.003+03:00

I have heard several creative people talking about the P&G or Unilever style of advertising which has too many limits and norms that it constrains potentials for creativity. That's true, the message and branding is as much important as creativity for these giants. Their ads might compromise on creativity but never on the clarity of message. The truth is, do you really need creativity with media muscles like those of Unilever and P&G. If you say the most silly lines thousand times, the customers are going to remember it and get influenced by it.

Thought of the day

2009-02-12T10:51:00.002+03:00

Development in a country is not about the living standards of the richest, but the living standards of the poorest.

Further thoughts: A lot of times wealth and high rise buildings are seen as a signs of development for a nation, but development is far beyond economic measures. Development at a country level is about education, technological advancement, rights of the all sections of people, transparency of the system, faith of people in the system, and feeling of safety and security. You can call it development if the weakest person in a country feels confident that he can sue the most powerful when his rights are violated, and his grievances will be addressed. It is the confidence level of common man in the system which is more important than what is written in the constitution or legal books.

Insights for use: You are so funny

2009-02-12T10:38:00.003+03:00

You would have heard the phrase 'you are so funny' when a girl has just finished her laughter upon jokes of a man. It is generally believed that women like men with good sense of humour- everybody likes men and women with good sense of humour. The additional angle is that liking can precede humour; if a woman likes a man, she tends to laugh on his jokes even if they are not so funny. Sometimes women also use humour as a signal of appreciation (may be subconsciously), or a tactic to pamper the ego of man who is trying to be funny. Humour gets a kick with the steam of laughter, the man gets confident when he sees laughter and tries to be even funnier and partly succeeds in it. This insight can be used for dental, telecom and several other products that need to show bonding through laughter.

What if: One mobile number

2009-02-12T10:27:00.003+03:00

Different mobile operators come up lots of offers and services but changing the mobile number is a hassle. Can it be possible that customers get one mobile number from the telecom regulator (i.e. government) and they can chose services from any service provider and change the provider whenever they wish? This will bring lots of competitiveness among mobile service providers and customers will have less hesitation in switching service providers. Sounds complicated, but all technologies sound complicated before they are reality.

Mastercard Priceless Elephant

2009-02-10T12:46:00.001+03:00

Master card has a positioning statement that can last forever.

Creativity in Excel

2009-02-09T11:55:00.003+03:00

Excel is anyway a very intriguing and fascinating tool and an excel freak has done a really cool stuff with this.

To check this you need to download the excel file from this link and following these steps:

1. Open the attachment Village.xls
2. Select all cells (or press CTRL+A).
3. Go to Format menu, select row, and height & type 15.33 as Row height..
4. Again go to Format menu, select column, and width & type 2.4 as column width
5. Admire the result. Absolutely Brilliant!!! !

Previously on amazing creative ideas:

House

Picture

Water

Several others

Face detection, in a smart way

2009-02-07T11:04:00.005+03:00

The Nikon S60. Detects up to 12 faces.

This is a very smart treatment of face detection technology by Euro RSCG Singapore.

Courtesy: Ads of the World

Thought of the day

2009-02-03T13:25:00.003+03:00

Hesitation is a silent enemy, most of the times we don't know that it is working against us.

Further thoughts: I am deeply convinced with the ideas of Stephen Covey that maturity means finding the balance between courage and consideration. While courage enables us to take new steps and advances, consideration ensures that courage is not immature or childlike. If you have a great idea to suggest to a CEO, you should be courageous enough to share it, but also have the consideration to do it in the manner that it respects the position, and is worth time and attention of CEO, that is to say that it is good enough, sincere enough, well researched, and well presented.

You can do more in the outdoor-2

2009-02-03T10:13:00.004+03:00

This is a very refreshing and smart idea to promote Rimmel Quick Dry Nailpolish.

Courtesy: Ads of the world

Scandals Sell

2009-02-02T01:54:00.002+03:00

A Bollywood film award function is hosted by a presenter who made his career by making jokes on stars. A director gets upset on those jokes and criticises the same on the stage. An angry exchange of words follows. The news of this drama is out before the show is aired. People sit to watch the show, and bear all the blows of dudgeon in the show, just to watch the real life drama in the last part of the show. A cynic like me cannot help but question- was this drama real or scripted to increase the GRP of the show? There is no doubt that the drama of reality shows is scripted and it shows so many times that well reputed celebrities cannot be fighting like children before live cameras. The reality show Big Brother got unprecedented popularity because of the racist remarks on Shilpa Shetty. We instinctively tame our worst frustrations when cautious of presence of others, and presence of audience and cameras is enough to make a person conscious enough to control unruly emotions. It has also become an art to craft scandals. It gives free media coverage. But, it’s a double edged sword, you have to be prepared to set it loose like a kite. It doesn't harm stars in the glamour world, because what matters is staying in the news, be it for good reasons or bad reasons.

Word of the day

2009-01-30T14:33:00.001+03:00

Get this widget!

Visit the Widget Gallery

Why not: Personalized Radio Channel

2009-01-30T10:53:00.004+03:00

Technology has made life so easy that its hard to live without gadgets that control the personal, business, and social life. Can we develop a technology in future to have a personalized radio channel; where a person can listen to his or emails, schedule, latest news, stored articles, music etc. through mobile headphone or car stereo? I think in future we will see people walking and talking to no one- that noone will be a micro chip in ear taking orders about meeting schedule, travel plan, writing emails etc.

Insights for use: Mirror, Mirror on the wall

2009-01-29T14:48:00.001+03:00

Often the image that we see in the mirror is slightly better as compared to our usual image because we tend to take the right posture and angle to ensure that we see the best image. This tendency of project oneself in the best image before mirror can be used for several personal care products. Think of a promise, something like: ‘makes you look as good as you would like to see yourself in the mirror’

Insights for use: Men like to boast about adventures

2009-01-29T14:46:00.002+03:00

It’s hard to miss the car of a diver- they make it a point to put stickers to convince the onlookers that they are into sports beneath the earth surface. The words used in such slogans paint a very vivid picture of depth and adventure with the same. Some bodybuilders also like to boast about size even if their small cars might not stand some malicious speed breaker. I have met several army or police officers who have to have an interesting adventurous story to tell from their days of duty- most of the times a story about how the officer escaped a near death situation. There are men who would never take the car to off road, and hate the bumps in the city as well; but would make it a point to buy a city gas guzzler SUV so that they can project a macho imagery. So, in summary, men like to boast about their adventures- how do they do it vary depends on the background and lifestyle of the person. This insight can be used for a lot of mannish products e.g. SUV, beer, sports, personal accessories and apparel.

A little bit this, a little bit that

2009-01-25T19:34:00.002+03:00

Creative people tend to be paradoxical; naïve yet smart, passionate yet cool, proud yet humble- that doesn’t sound very easy to appreciate like a curry.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi published a very interesting analysis of a creative personality on the Psychology Today in 1996. The summary of the ten paradoxical points is below. Click here to read the full article.

Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they’re also often quiet and at rest. They work long hours, with great concentration, while projecting an aura of freshness and enthusiasm.
Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time. Another way of expressing this dialectic is the contrasting poles of wisdom and childishness.
Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality. Great art and great science involve a leap of imagination into a world that is different from the present.
Creative people trend to be both extroverted and introverted.
Creative people are humble and proud at the same time.
Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping.
Creative people are both rebellious and conservative.
Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.
Creative people’s openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.

You can do more in the outdoor

2009-01-21T11:29:00.006+03:00

3M was so sure their Security Glass was unbreakable, they put a large stack of cash behind it and shoved it in a bus stop.

Australia Post Bus Stop Advertisement

This living room bus stop was created by Ikea as marketing for the Design Week 2006

The Face of the Speed

2009-01-21T10:16:00.003+03:00

This distorted face is capable of distorting faces; some frowning, some concerned, some pitying, others wondering what the hell. For a while you are going to struggle, like Dr Watson- is this man being drowned in a bath tub; has some windy jinny entered in his body and distorted the outlook; has he tasted something so bad that he feels almost repulsive; is it a cadaver that has been uncovered after lying in peace beneath snow for years; or it was a mannequin that got distorted under heat. If you are patient enough to discover, which you will certainly be if you worked in advertising, you will know it is for Berlin's fastest bike couriers. This is the face of speed. Wow! It does get attention; which justifies the efforts puts in distorting this face.

Check Ads of the World for more of such faces.

BRICs know the Tricks

2009-01-18T17:56:00.002+03:00

Its an interesting acronym, and a relevant one too. BRIC or BRICs is an acronym that refers to the fast growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. The Economist explains why BRICs are going to have less impact of the slowdown in the automotive sector: "Although not immune from the rich countries’ troubles, they are likely to suffer much less. For one thing, levels of personal debt are far lower and a smaller proportion of cars are bought on credit. For another, the BRIC economies have been expanding so fast that even a slowdown should still leave them with growth rates that look respectable to Western eyes."

Click here to read more on BRIC

Goldman Sachs has very detailed report on tbe BRICs: DreamingWith BRICs: The Path to 2050

Show me dolphins

2009-01-15T14:06:00.002+03:00

Many times the message of ad is what the marketing head or business head wants to hear; rather than what is true and relevant to the consumer; because, at the end of the day, the approval on advertising lies with the client, not with the consumers. Advertising is taking place, but the target audience is the client, not the consumers of client's product.

I met a person recently who was telling me experience of advertising when they started an ad agency a couple of decades ago. He said that the business owner was fascinated with dolphins, and had them wherever he could. So they came up with ads that showed dolphins, and the client loves those ads for the newspaper. This is what client servicing means when they mean customer satisfaction. The planner comes in the picture as a devil advocate, so at least there is an honest debate, if not an honest conclusion.

Consumer Response

2009-01-15T13:12:00.001+03:00

Its important to think through what kind of response a marketing communication is going to generate. The consumer could responsd in a variety of ways, including the following:

- Thank you for telling me, now get lost!
- So what?
- Ok, fine!
- Come on, do you think I am stupid or what!

If the consumer response is 'that's interesting, tell me more' the advertising has done the job in being interesting, engaging and communicating in the right tonality that the consumer can associate with.

If the consumer response is 'thats what I was looking for', its even better because now you have solved a problem, and answered a need.

A lot of times, advertising cannot help solve a problem, but marketing does. The marketing department has to identify problems and evelop solutions and products to answer the same. If its a right product/service and right message, nothing like.