Power Cut Effect

With mercury levels reaching out to Himalayas for salvation in Summer, we are left to reconcile with the uncomfortable, sweaty truth of our cities that dawns the moment we turn on the Air Conditioner that hasn't been powered by electricity. Material comforts are illusory unless they are powered by higher forces. That everything is uncertain is perhaps the only true wisdom chronic power shortages will demonstrate religiously every day to our lives.

Education is sheer fun!

Blasphemy! How could this be true? After all, career is not a joke. Haven’t we seen next door funny bumpkins, who fooled around in their classes, suffer later at the vicissitudes of fate, resigning their lives to sheer mediocrity or ideologies of bankrupt philosophy while studious, midnight oil burning students became great officers or at least glorified clerks, making their families proud.

Why Personal Branding Matters - Part 1


The word 'brand' no longer carries its old world charm. It is used often casually at the drop of a hat, as if it were a proposition in the long-winding sentence of our lives. However, we are not blaming anyone. Aren't we living in an over-marketed world, littered with brands seeping inside every fabric of our lives? If this sounds cynical and depressing, it simply means that, you have to wake up to the new reality we are living in. Wait, this reality is not about adjusting our fragmented lives in a commoditized world.

Radio: The theater of the mind


I had an interesting session today with the Sales Head of Radio Mirchi, Chennai, Mr. Manoj Mathan where he talked about the significance of Radio Medium. Some of the points were quite fascinating.

1) Radio is the most flexible medium that's available today as it has the biggest advantage of having songs as the main content. This allows them the flexibility to spice up their main content depending on the needs of the client. The songs remain as a template which can be perfectly adapted to suit the necessity of the moment. When we contrast this with the television, we understand how big this difference is. In a Television show, the content is entirely what is shot and played for TV. When a program is played, the program is viewed in totality. It cannot be seen as jutting of programming content and songs.

2) It is second most effective medium in the category of Ad Avoidance. After SMS, Radio is the only medium in which Ads cannot be avoided. The main reason being, the ads are often played subtly and not on your face as it appears in television. For instance, the use of Underlays-branding through music of the brand, played in background, ensures that message reaches subconsciously without avoiding itself to be filtered

3) Since Radio is only about Voice, It has the quickest Turn Around Time. Campaigns can be built quickly with less cost.

4) Radio as a medium segues well into several medium, be it print or Television or OOH. Its interactive nature is its biggest strength and it can adapt itself very well.

While I was exploring about Radio, I came across this videohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbwnnj-Vl9Q which says that Radio leads Internet media by 7 percentage across US.

When Phase III comes in place, it will be interesting to see how this relatively new media shapes up. Moreover there is a whole bunch of opportunities in the horizon waiting to be explored with regard to Digital Radio and Internet.

If you thought this is it, wait untill you check this link out:http://www.worthytips.com/byo-fm-create-free-radio-station/

You can create your own Radio Station, hire DJs and stream your songs on air!! Im bowled over by the amount of incredible things happening across the Web.. Really interesting times ahead...

What does 'engagement' really mean?

{PS: This post needs to be updated as my work and various experiences has changed my thinking on how I approach this..}
I have been wrestling with this word for quite some time. A recent article which lambasted this innocuous word for being used irresponsibly across the Social Media articles provoked me to probe into it. What does engagement mean? From its simple english usage, one does understand that it is the means to build a good relationship, be it over the real world of atoms or over the virtual world of bits. However, if we introspect over the meaning of engagement in the real world ( or to be precise, in the traditional media sense), we would observe that the meaning isnt quite the same. I gained this insight during my internship at Radio Mirchi while my senses were becoming numb, thanks to an endless barrage of FM listening, as a part of media monitoring. My poor aural nerve alerted me over a commercial that was playing in the FM Radio. It was about American Tourister: The tough luggage. The positioning hinged upon the idea of toughness




The voiceover in the Spot Radio Ad said : "How many times have you ever been tough to challenging situations like: a) somebody occupying your seat in the train and never budges to move... b) when you were subjected to eve-teasing c) you were accosted by a ruffian.
Share with us your tough experiences through an SMS to xxx number and win cool gifts from American Tourister."

Now what do we make of this? Can we call this an effective "engagement" with the consumers? Some might say "Yes", calculating how quickly over 15 seconds, the ad conveyed its positioning and also teased the audience to grab a gift using their tough stories, thus cementing a relationship between the toughness of American Tourister and that of the consumer.

Let us remember we are talking about Radio as a medium. If you look at the TVC,http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysIcnD5oFHg&feature=player_embedded
we can see this well shot Ad of a foreigner's luggage finding its way bravely in the dreaded Mumbai local trains. The attracting power of the visuals make us vicariously feel the toughness of the brand.

As we can see, engagement is reinforced over a span of few seconds, through feeding the persona of the brand. This engagement could turn into a long-standing relationship with the brand, or might simply fade away depending on the power of the message. As we can see, the onus is here on the attractiveness and unique nature of the message which has the potential to break the clutter and make its presence felt. This is becoming increasingly difficult with the explosion of media channels.

So what does engagement mean in the Social Media Space? As the cliched line goes, It is all about conversation. It is the closest any brand can get to building long term relationships, much like humans do with other fellow beings. As we all aware, this engagement takes time. Ask all those who set out to woo a girl. They will tell you how much time it will take. However, the fruits of this long term investment is immense. The obvious reason being, over the period of time, the relationship becomes a sense of commitment with the user. This long-term aspsect is indeed the haggling part of this entire ball game. Marketers must learn to be patient and keep their stakes to build this long relationship. It is quite easy to get tempted to embrace the easier route through traditional media where the engagement is all about flaunting. Haven't we seen in parties, strangers trying to flaunt their talents and their achievement? We feel nauseated and often shun such company. We are witnessing something very similar in the media space. We are looking for a brand which has integrity and speaks honestly without any pompousness.!

The million dollar question is : Are marketers ready?


Shhh...Somebody is following you!


I have just been baptized into the fascinating world of Social Media. I have started taking my little tweedle steps and like most kids, I am simply drooling over the candies hanging in several tweets, hungrily devouring all I could and sharing hesitantly what I have to offer to the big Tweeterati. All this seemed exciting untill a mail came from Twitter.


Pepsi The Game (PepsiTheGame) is now following your tweets on Twitter.

I didnt know how to react. I began to feel a little pride, when I wondered how a famous brand like Pepsi could begin to take me and my tweets seriously and could follow me. While the feeling of pride welled up, I could sense a little repulsiveness over the bad taste Pepsi has often left my mouth with, both literally and metaphorically, on various fronts. I've never been impressed by the idea of Youngistaan.

Few random searches in Google made me aware that after the( in)famous Marlboro Country(depending on which side of the story you stood for), Pepsi is trying to do the same by creating this fictional country. The song track depicting the core idea of Youngistaan sounds more like like an invitation for an utopian resort called Youngistaan, where everybody chills out and parties 24 x 7. Although it might help in creating a feel-good factor for the brand, it never really conveys the spirit of Indian Youth. And if the idea werent crassy enough, Youngistaan ka Wow looked even more ludicrous, aimed at bonding with the blogging Gen-Y Folks. No wonder, I was followed as I was a blogger. Perturbed by this provocative announcement, I felt like shouting, "Please stop following me...I really dont care about your brand and that stupid game played by Ranbir, with some cheap Indiana Jones stunts and dumb molls hanging around with a villanous buffoon with no job. 

The point is simple. As long as you make trash, you are simply trash-worthy. Period." After some time, I tried composing myself, observing my bouts of negative emotions towards Pepsi. The omnipresent, cliched noise surrounding the Gen-Next Youth annoys me a lot. It seems as if every marketer in India wants to target this segment, as they find it convenient to fool around with all the schmaltz and fizz surrounding the resurgent Globalised India, just to occupy some mental space in their already crowded mindscape ! Ofcourse, its the huge disposable income at the hands of the Youth which makes them drool and come running behind! Cant they depict Gen-Next earnestly? No doubt, Gen-Next likes to party and chill out. However, he doesnt lead rosy lives, as shown often in movies, where hero is the hyper intelligent, multi tasking GOD, capable of cavorting girls, fighting gundas and cross tribulations of poverty and failure within the stretch of a 3 minute song. This is precisely the reason why any actor can never stand tall as an ambassador for Youth. Actors are only used by Lazy Marketers!

If brands are serious about finding the Gen-Next Brand Ambassador, why not go on a Nation-wide hunt to determine the smartest entrepreneur in India? Why isn't any TV producer interested in creating a GAME based on taking us through the travails of the great Indian Entrepreneur, a striking example of baptism by fire, someone, who strives to make a difference in this country!
Its high time marketers invest their brains, rather than money to understand the pulse of the Youth!


Pyar Actually

An irritating and compelling sound suddenly drilled into unknown corners of my subconscious mind, which until then was busy playing distantly possible but soothing moving images of a singer singing with full beans. 

Social Media Club Chennai: Presentation by Mr.Sukumar Rajagopal

Social Media Club in Chennai hosted their second session on Social Media with a brilliant presentation by Mr. Sukumar Rajagopal on "Can Social Media Cross the Chasm". While Sandeep covered the session succinctly in his blog, I shall cover some of the other topics which were discussed and also share some of my thoughts on the presentation.


First of all, It was so refreshing to hear an Indian experience in Social Media. I could not help but contrasting it with one of my favorite FastCompany's brilliant article on Cisco Corporation where Steve Chambers narrates his experiences in social networking and his ideas of socialist leadership in sync with the networked world we are now living in. While Chambers addressed how businesses need to be ".. an idea engine where leadership emerges organically, unfettered by a chain command" , Mr. Sukumar stressed the need for social media to complement the traditional organizational hierarchy to empower the employees, leading to better engagement. He also cheekily mentioned how he designed his social media policy, inspired by IBM's which fostered Open Culture to allow participation and create value. 

While he began to discuss performance management for participation in community activities, an interesting debate followed over whether it was necessary to include one's performance in these communities to the regular appraisal system. While Mr. Sukumar added how employees are rewarded with small goodies for their contributions, he strongly felt the need to not include such activities in the appraisal system, as it would debase such activities, perfunctorily done for the sake of appraisal. He further quoted Dan Pink, whose latest book on motivation urges managers to shun with the conventional Carrot & Stick approach we are so familiar with. He later presented Social Media as a case in Change Management using Geoffrey Moore's Chasm Curve. The presentation was followed by a lively discussion on several aspects of Social Media including the possibility of SMS as a potential medium for leveraging the power of the Social Media.

Open Graph: Few thoughts


Facebook’s Open Graph announcement at F8 conference is making all the news. While many have heralded the dawn of Web 3.0, the media, unable to comprehend the excitement going all around the web, have crowned Facebook as the new Google, making ambitious assertions over how the popular ‘like’ button could replace the links, the raison d’etre behind Google’s monopoly over the web. Whoahh! If we could let the feverish excitement peter down for a while, we shall begin our journey to understand what it means for the future of the web.

What is Open Graph? What is so open about it? This announcement is ambitious, no doubt, daring to change the fundamental core of our web experience. The timing could not have been any better, considering the tsunamic explosion of social media in the recent years which has brought about a need to engender a personal web experience determined by the preferences of people whom we care about in our social network. This Open Graph is one of the first steps in realizing Sir Tim Berners Lee’s vision of building a semantically aware web where information is organized based on individual engagement with the information along with its relevance, thus opening up the silos of information. Let us start our journey from Facebook to understand this further.

Most of us are familiar with Face Book ‘Share’ and ‘Like’ features where links and photos are featured in the news feed, recommended by our social network. Several social networking sites which sprung up after Face Book began to incorporate such features and began to annotate the information users shared in the network. The volcanic explosion of such social networks in the recent years led to creation of several huge social islands, populated by a passionate set of adopters, who began to share their lives in these islands. These adopters had to undergo the trouble of trudging through multitudes of several islands as they played different roles in each of them, built to suit their needs with distinct characteristics. For instance, an engineer at work might engage in a LinkedIn community to find a solution for a technical issue, would eagerly flaunt his love for music in an entirely different community.

Using social Plugins that would enable “like” buttons in every website, Face book will create common platform that would merge these social islands into unified, whole network. We could perhaps use another analogy to understand this further. Imagine creating a compendium of information built on large limbs of social networks. While we begin to pull one limb, the remaining limbs would also follow, thus bringing along the whole legion of data. This would help in creating Linked data, as envisioned by Sir Tim Berners Lee, dramatically changing the purview in which information is sought.

While this experiment sounds exciting, it will be naïve to assume that this would replace the world of links we’ve built laboriously so far. While we might depend on our peer group to decide on the restaurant we wish to go, we would rather prefer an expert opinion when we are about to decide the course of treatment for a specific symptom. It would be pragmatic to perceive open graph as an added dimension in which documents would arrange itself personally, along with the traditional page rank algorithm we are so used to.

I know what you’re thinking at. While Face book likes us to believe that the fears of piracy are unfounded, this experiment brings in the Benefits Vs Privacy Conundrum in far bigger scope than any other innovation in Facebook ever warranted. While it ambitiously seeks to integrate the various social islands we’ve built, it would work only if we are willing to lose control and repose trust in this panoramic web of networks which Face book strives to build.
One thing is for sure. The meaning of Viral Marketing would take a grander dimension, far beyond our conceptions, thus transforming the way businesses existed in the web. Exciting days are indeed ahead.