Zoom In

On one hand, i see the TV media guys, sprucing up their websites to improve engagement with users. On the other hand, I also read about how they are sharing content with pure play internet channels. I guess it will be a while before we see exactly how TV and internet will co-exist and still make money.

I’m still figuring out Blinkx only slowly, especially since another entity of a similar kind caused me a lot of heartburn when i checked it out. In my first attempt at Hulu, they refused to show me most of the stuff I wanted to see, citing some regional reasons. I was so looking forward to seeing some Simpsons episodes In my second attempt, i had to be operating from the US to see anything at all. Blinkx, however, operates on a video search level, though in the future, I wonder how much of a distinction there will be among a youtube, hulu, blinkx etc especially if content - professionally created or uder generated, will be shared everywhere. Will there be someone interested in keeping their content exclusive, or will it be too risky not to share it? Its something I’ve yet to understand. This and this, though old, might throw some light on it.

Meanwhile, the other big news today is the launch of in.com. WATBlog says Web18 might have spent 2 C for that domain. I thought of taking it for a pin and have been told that it might take a couple of weeks since my mail id is in a queue. In typical Indian fashion, they told me that jumping the queue is possible, if i give my mobile number. But since I’ve been inundated with SMS relating to everything from commodities to movie tickets to holiday packages to jobs and everything in between, I decided to pass. Unfortunately, even WATBlog’s username/password combo doesn’t seem to work anymore. You can also read about it here.

While its competing in the quite cluttered horizontal portal space, it already has a tangible differentiation with the homepage. I’ve always liked Web18’s moves even though they took the concept of niches to an extreme, and now this one seems likely to set a new benchmark for Rediff & Co. Come to think of it, com.in would also have been a cool name, maybe with a teaser like “Com.in soon”. “In.come soon” also has a nice ring to it. Haha, okay, i shall refrain. They also have a presence on TV which is also on expansion mode. That almost makes them a ‘one of a kind’ entity here, except for, of course The Times Group. Incidentally, i saw an ad of Zoom yesterday (below)

It claims to have 23 applications on Facebook. Now, I consider myself fairly active on Facebook, and have never come across a Facebook application from Zoom. Can someone enlighten me, coz i love Bollywood trivia games. Incidentally, if you consider yourself a Heroes fan try out my quiz here.

until next time, kisko dekho?

One up

While watching the nation’s current pastime yesterday, those irritating screen-side-and-bottom takeovers started happening, but there was one creative that made me smile. It had two popups (both with what looked liked an actress caricature). The first said “I will expose if the script demands it” and the second said “I will expose if i get enough money”. Guess the brand….. Sprite - Seedhi baat, no bakwas.

I read an interesting post the other day on tag lines, about their ownability, and how integrating the brand name into the tag line makes it more powerful. What struck me when i saw the ad yesterday was the tagline of Sprite, and that also got me thinking about its competitor- 7up. As i’ve said before I was a huge fan of Fido until they started using for such nonsensical stuff as this and this. I did enjoy the female leads though. And while this was definitely better, they regressed with this. I really wonder what they were drinking when they came up with ‘Bheja Fry, 7up try’. Why stop with Bheja, i say, maybe you could do some ambient stuff in restaurants with ‘Pomfret Fry, 7up try’ and ‘Chicken Fry, 7up try’. The possibilities are endless. 7up, keep trying.

And while that was happening, Sprite obviously thought about the entire thing, and came out with this positioning. And as though following a script, Pepsi played into their hands and they came out with a killer spoof, that fitted their positioning completely. Sprite has to be commended for a wonderful follow up to their earlier ‘Sprite bujhaye only pyaas, baki sab bakwas’. Remember that, in turn that evolved from ‘Sprite -clear hain‘, and take a look at this. The wonderful thing for Sprite is that they have taken a completely generic positioning (Mumbai Mirror and Bangalore Mirror launched with a ‘Lets cut the crap’ line which is saying the same thing - seedhi baat, no bakwas, but with a different set of words) and made it into their own.

With so much of beating around the bush/implying/connoting happening, they can take any subject and make a creative around it, and across media, because they have a brand promise which they can easily fulfill - quenching thirst. At the same time, note that they’ve evolved a very appealing proposition from that basic drab premise that every soft drink can make a claim for.

Notice that both brands have their names in the tag lines, but look at the difference. I really would’ve loved to see Fido playing the brand ambassador for the Sprite line (he fits really well because that’s where he started out), but that, i guess, would be asking for too much.

until next time, upstaged

Brand new lock

We’ve seen Vodafone going through a massive exercise, we recently saw Ceat going through a painful exercise, and softly, quietly, like the brand its always been, Godrej has unveiled its new look recently.

Godrej, for me, has been about locks. That’s the product in which I’ve seen the logo the maximum number of times. Although Cinthol happened to come a close second. (Cinthol has also gone in for an entire rebranding exrecise, about which i wrote earlier.) The Godrej TVC is decently executed, with the brand shown as shaking off a stern fuddy duddy image and moving onto a more ‘likeable’ and trendy avtar. The total spend on this exercise seems to be in the tune of Rs.30 crore. But are they making better locks now might be a badly timed question, i guess.

I’ve always wondered about the kind of money that brands spend on such exercises. The attempt is obviously to change the perception about itself in the consumer’s mindspace. But how much care do they take to ensure that the attitude change percolates down to the lowest level, and specifically the departments that interface with the customer? And as a customer, do i really expect the Vodafone employee to suddenly become chirpier and more pleasing in their interactions after their new customer care ads? The other point is that I rarely have that interaction because i can do all the things that needs to be done through the net. Similar is the case, with say, financial products.

When i see a Shoppers Stop, a Megamart, all changing their colors/looks/shapes and going for a complete overhaul, and spending massive amounts of money and energy on these efforts, I always wonder whether the end customer really cares about it at all. Is ‘rebranding’ an exercise that’s done when brands get tired of the % off, new schemes and other tacticals and have no more stories to keep themselves relevant in the mind of the consumer? More importantly, in a constantly changing landscape, where one wrong YouTube video can wreck your brand’s image , should you be putting such a lot of eggs in one basket? Shouldn’t the focus be on customer touchpoints, be it real or virtual?

until next time, kuch to log kahenge, logo ka kaam hai kehna

Insurance Maxims

I bet all of you guys who’ve been following IPL would know Sanju by now. Sanju, who just gets lost in his iPod music, can’t hear his wife calling him, and ends up scaring the living hell out of her. And she’s not easily scared, judging by an earlier Vodafone ad  In case, you really don’t know what I’m talking about, take a look at it here.

The Sanju situation is something that could happen to us at any point of time, and i think their understanding of the consumer mindset has been bang on target with this one. All of us, who know we’re not exactly in the healthiest of states, but haven’t done much about it since we believe in our immortality. The ad execution keeps you glued to the storyline, expecting the worst and finally delivering a ‘Oh thank God’ moment’, but leaving the message behind loud and clear. Its a story that I can identify with, and that makes it powerful.

Its part of a series of communication from Max New York. The other two that i have seen are this and this. Though the ‘child’s dreams’ path is a heavily trodden one (HDFC’s ‘Haan, Papa’ comes to mind immediately), the other two themes were pretty good and managed to strike a chord, at least in my case. And they’re definitely a good context led follow up for this.

The last one is the guy who’s been giving up his own dreams at various times and having his decisions forced upon him by various things like parental approval, family, its stability and security, children’s future etc, and finally during old age. The implementation is classic, as every time he almost takes a decision he sees his ‘responsibilities’ appearing before him. This one is for pension plans, and ends with its message to finally end those compromises. Again, very easy to identify with. Much better than this, for instance.

While its easy to say that most communication these days aims for slice of life scenes, its something very difficult to execute, especially since most brands like to hog footage. The difference in this set is that it gives the story most importance, gives a context and then shows how the product offers a solution. Incidentally, I also liked the humour pitch that was in vogue earlier -  this from TATA AIG, and HDFC’s take on other financial products like Savings or Mutual Funds. I wonder why HDFC didn’t adopt this tone for insurance, maybe they felt it was too serious a subject?

All well and good, but i always wonder about the role of brand vs performance as a factor in decision making as far as financial products go. Yes, you wouldn’t choose it if you didn’t know about it, but is heavy TV advertising the most optimal way to build equity?

until next time, i guess TVC works as some kinda insurance

Born tough, but advertising ruined me

Change. Thats exactly what I’d like those Ceat guys to do about their campaign. After their TVC started airing, it took me this post to understand exactly what they meant by the ad, because I was too busy trying to figure out what was happening to notice the logo change. Also happened to see more from the same family like this, this, and this. Just because change is a constant does it mean you have to force it to happen? Couldn’t see anything wrong with a positioning like ‘Born Tough’, unless of course they either hired a new marketing head or a new agency, who, by now would wish they had the original rhino’s thick skin judging by the reviews I’m reading online.

I wish someone could’ve explained by now what exactly has changed and why, because if i happen to see that guy on the road, I just might dip my hand into the wallet and offer him some….. change. I wonder why they didn’t tie up with TOI for their Chennai launch, after all the campaign said ‘Next Change’. The possibilities just go on - the guy sitting on a beach and the super going ‘Sea Change’, CEAT changing the model, and the old guy walking with a tee saying ‘Ex-change’, and so on.

For a product like tyres, wouldn’t it be better if they concentrated on the product, retail and distribution, and talked about its benefits rather than talk about change. After all, the category that the brand operates in should be kept in mind before deciding on communication strategies. This kind of stuff begs something similar to that old KF-Jet-Go Air jpeg that made its rounds. In this case, MRF coming out with something on the lines of ‘No Change. Still the best’.

Oh damn, now i can see the banner ads on rediff too!! Like the author of the post i mentioned earlier suggested, by this token, a tee should end all concerns regarding a brand’s identity change. And continuing with his take on ambient ideas, here’s one, while driving on a mountain road, you see a theatre playing ‘Darr’. A little way ahead, you see another theatre, guess what movie is playing there?

until next time, tough luck

Mark diya jayein?

Like any normal working blog, this one too is affected by the general laziness that appears around this time of the week. So, this will post will be a potpourri of sorts.

First up, this site that i got to know about from here. (!)Yureekah, still in alpha stage, tells you where exactly brands are placing their ads online.  First request, if I have already given you my details once, please allow me to login and not repeat the process everytime i decide to visit. And no, I don’t want the computer to remember me. While it is most definitely not comprehensive, basis a couple of searches I did for Indiatimes Mail and a few other brands, I think the thought needs to be appreciated. It definitely has the potential to become a great tool, not just for knowing where brands place ads, but going a step further and analysing why they’ve done it, and perhaps in the process figuring out better places and ways to reach your own target audiences. Forget the media part, it even showed me a couple of creatives that I hadn’t seen earlier. Read more about them here.

Meanwhile, a quick query, am I the only moron to not figure out the feed for agencyfaqs digital (not the general site feed, the digital section feed)? I’ve been spoilt by feed readers and am regularly missing out good reads!!

The other site which i came across today is this. PracharThis, an Indian social bookmarking widget. Hmm, but first, ‘Roshini’, through ‘her’ (same) comment on almost all the sites i frequent, managed to get my attention. Whether zis (Nice Post !You should use an Indian social bookmarking widget like PrachaarThis to let your users easily bookmark your blog posts.) is a nice way of promoting the site is quite debatable. (What do ya mean I’m just peeved at being ignored by even spam? )

Meanwhile, what does it do? Like any other widget which you can add to your blog, it allows you to add the particular site to  humsurfer, Indianpad, Tagza, all desi versions of Digg and that is definitely not something I’ve seen any other widget do. This is in addition to the regular digg, facebook, stumbleupon, del.icio.us etc that one regularly sees in such widgets. So its definitely a value add for the regular users of the digg clones, and adds a desi touch to social bookmarking widgets, but how much really is that value? I think a better understanding of the unique extra sites is required to answer that question. Any volunteers? 

Meanwhile, you can get the code for the widget (for blogger, typepad, wordpress and general websites) on the homepage itself. Good. Also, what i did find there were quite a few good links to some Indian blogs, so perhaps a nice add on would be to prompt me (when i use this widget to save a url) to visit similar urls (similar to a ‘people who added this also added..)?

until next time, well fed?

One for the elephant

आप ट्यूब says Google Translator when I asked for a translation to celebrate the launch of You Tube in India. This will give you the details including the content partners that has the likes of NDTV, Zoom, UTVi, Bindass etc. I’d written earlier about the other video sharing sites. This launch should be a huge blow to all of them unless they can really do some differentiation.

All this attention for India had already made me feel very globally wanted and then I read this in the morning about Yahoo India launching a different kind of search - Glue. What is different? Lets try an example - Aamir Khan. Unlike say, a Google/Yahoo search which gives you links, and you can make it images or videos or blogs etc at a button click, what the new Yahoo Search does is give you not just the links, but also quick facts, videos, images, (boring?) Yahoo Answers , LastFM top tracks ( :p you didn’t expect those ). Interesting, don’t you think, even though it would be significant only for celeb entities and not for people like moi? Of course, Live Search does give some images, but this goes beyond that. And for now, i think, it happens only in India, and so we’re no longer glueless in search (okay, i shall refrain)

I had this sense of deja vu, which i thought was because of a blog platform experiences of a similar nature, but I was wrong. A bit of search in my Favourites pointed me to this. Not surprisingly, from yahoo themselves, and a while back. Okay, this one doesn’t throw up Radio (Yahoo Music? for international version), but hey, its got Wiki, and you can customise your search. Take it for a spin and see if you can discover more.

I have a suggestion, considering that you’re looking at search, and the world is going social, how about including one of my fave Yahoo acquisitions del.icio.us also in this new search page? Think about it, if i have searched for some stuff on our currently used example Aamir Khan, and if i found it interesting, I’d have bookmarked it. Of course, while privacy settings do exist, a lot of this kind of content would be public. Which means that the search might also throw up (through the del.icio.us links) some interesting but not so well known links about Aamir. In addition, Yahoo also gets some mileage for Del.icio.us.

But meanwhile, sigh, all this for the 9% broadband penetration. The elephant had better get a move on, if all this interest is to be sustained.

until next time, a search engine for soulsearching

Bubble 2.0

This could be called a misleading title, since it doesn’t have anything to do with the doomsday messages for web2.0, but working in a tabloid sometimes has its effects.

I’d written earlier on how a few of yesteryear brands were staging a comeback of sorts. Cinthol was one of them, and I’d written how the website just wasn’t happening. Well, according to this, they’ve just done a revamp.

I’m not going to get into the review of the site, this captures it well, though a bit harshly , since i thought the execution by Interactive Avenues was decent, if not great. To begin with, lets take a look at the rationale - “Godrej wanted us to create a platform where the youth could find out about Cinthol’s brand values and which they would find entertaining enough to continue their interaction with the brand. In simple words, ‘take the real life freshness and energetic Cinthol experience online’.”

While I agree that the digital medium is definitely worth every praise it gets, and the youth does connect to it in a major way, does it mean that every brand, irrespective of its category, mode of distribution, value proposition to the user etc jump onto it, without a real clue on the tangible gains that can be derived?

Back to Cithol, this is only Phase 1, according to the article, tie ups with Yahoo, rediff, Zapak etc will generate site traffic. No social media for now. Phew! Assume (for now) that they have content in place, how much of an impact does a communication of brand ethos online and a few games have on really buying the soap/deo offline? I’m really not convinced about ‘Dude, that flash game was cool, let’s buy the soap’. Unless the idea is to start a dhobi ghaat, there is a limit to what community building can be expected to achieve.

Meanwhile, there’s another bubbly player, according to this article. Even though the article says that the site design is not exactly excellent, at least in the case of Surf Excel there is a possibility of finding a tangible connect between stain removing methods online and buying the product offline. But they seem to have gone to the other extreme by forcing users to give addresses, and thereby standing a good chance of er, staining the relationship.

I personally think that brands have to take a long look at their objectives before they ride the bandwagon.

until next time, daily soap

Printing Concerns

This post suggests that its not not just Jaipur and Goa that’s going to have changing times, the Gulf too might have TOI spewing out the intricacies of their version of Page 3. Considering the ever growing number of my brethren there, maybe they should consider a Malayalam edition?

Meanwhile, The Economist has an article on the newspaper scene in the US, where a lot of the old mastheads might soon be out of circulation, while web only entities like the Huffington Post are flourishing. Thankfully, Bush hasn’t blamed India for the decline, yet. The article also goes on to say that while the majority of players are suffering there are some who are bucking this trend. But there’s no arguing that the web, which is seen as a major contributor to the decline, is here to stay.

Meanwhile, they have another article, which talks about the print industry in india, for which PwC predicts a rosy future, thanks to rising literacy levels. But we have to keep in mind (as the article says) that it is an industry that survives on ad rates as opposed to circulation and pricing, and the IRS figures anyway show at best a single digit growth, if at all there is a growth. Also, English dailies are more of an urban phenomenon, it is unlikely that future growth will come from rural areas, because the audience may not be monetisable, and the vernacular dailies would be taking a large share of the advertising pie already. Which only leaves the urban areas, where the medium itself would face stiff competition in future from Television, radio and the internet, especially since the last one provides much better measurement metrics.

So I, for one, would like to know the details of PwC’s study that claim that the print media in India will rise from 149 billion rupees ($3.6 billion) in 2007 to 281 billion rupees in 2012. I am also not sure why a scenario like the US would not be replicated, at least in urban India. For those who say that the broadband penetration in India is a pipe dream, we must not forget the other medium called mobile, thats growing at a blistering pace.

until next time, stop press?

Rediffined

Just noticed the rediff homepage has had a small makeover. The Get Ahead section which used to be at the bottom of the top set of tabs, has now been promoted to one of the tabs. And the entire bottom space has been taken over by  iShare. And if I’m not mistaken , Q & A, Rediff’s version of Answers, has also been promoted.

The other thing i noticed is a ‘Compare Mobiles’ at the very top. But that did not impress me much because while it wasn’t just limited to mobiles, and included DVD players, microwaves and a host of other things including gaming consoles and automobiles, the interface is not as good as say, Compare India.

Meanwhile, had written earlier about how I thought Rediff was getting increasingly active in the video sharing segment. The change above also points to the same pattern, and the overall attention to user generated content. This assumes greater significance if you consider this story, which predicts a You Tube-India launch a couple of days from now. With rediff’s equity and reach in the Indian market, and You Tube’s cutting edge tech, this will be an interesting locking of horns, especially since YouTube is quite popular in India already.

And talk about coincidence, the banner that was playing at rediff when i was checking it out happen to be from an entity called MyPopkorn. According to their ‘About Us’ section, thay have professional content from television, movies etc and in genres like news, romance, comedy etc. Where do they fit in this new ecosystem of video sharing?

until next time,  web killed the video star?