green marketing - can we only plant trees?

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

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

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

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

Stuff to remember when marketing the green:

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

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

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

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

PS: This is the bee-me.


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

you're not being served, because i haven't a clue how

Hi

I am planning a trip to Egypt this winter.
I couldn't find the prices for your Egypt tour on your website.
Could you please mail me some details.

Thank you
Rita Keeling
(UK)

______________________________________________________

Dear Rita

Thank you for your mail.
Please visit our website for information.
www.ihaventaclueaboutcustomerservice.com

Warm regards
Big Brand Pvt Ltd

2 lives left

Okay so I'm dead serious about this. As I inch closer to turning 25 (okay so it's still 6 months away) I don't think I realize that quite a bit of my years on earth are done with.

Call me crazy but I think somewhere deep down I believe this is my first shot, and next time I'll do better.

And no I don't believe in reincarnation. And my religious inclination towards Sikhism has more to do with a sense of community than anything else.

I think too much gaming did me in.

Duke Nukem and God of War. You screwed me in the head. Now I think my life's a practise session.

And my screen says I've got 2 lives left.

the picture with a story

I saw a Raghu Rai exhibition today and I just don't know how he does it. Each of his photographs has a story of its own. One could probably write a book about each one.

I had only just taken out my camera to click the marine drive and was adjusting the zoom and focus just to check; and I heard a woman by the roadside hurl the choicest abuses at me.
(I know they were choicest because I've heard my college batchmates use them to describe very serious situations.)

She had assumed that someone had come by to click a picture of the misery that was her street-life (she failed to note the skyward direction of my lens).

I did what anybody who hates confrontation would do. I ignored her. Pretended to not hear her.

It helps that I haven't a clue what these abuses actually mean. This allows me to maintain my cool and look distracted and lost in whatever I'm doing. (I'm very good at that)

Ofcourse my planner of a mind started to think of possible outcomes
..Would she get up and try and harm my camera?
..Would she hurl abuses that I knew the meanings of? (unlikely, they'd be too mild)
..Would other people support her?

I decided that a click of a building in the distance might prove my decent intentions, and this picture was born.


It's hardly a picture... but now at least it has a story :)

twinning!

To state the cliche yet again - man is a social animal.
While the digital medium allows for easy sharing and networking, in the offline world it seems to put people in silos.

The mp3 player or the mobile phone allowed people to keep to themselves (which they often wanted) and yet be entertained (which hadn't happened since books).

Ever since we came up with the earphone (not the headphone), people discovered a way to share what is essentially an individual sport. I call this 'twinning'.

Twinning: The act of sharing an ear phone with another person so that you can share content.

For youngsters in crowded places, it's the perfect 'personal hangout'. Sharing music, videos and chit-chatting, it provides the ultimate in personal social networking in a crowded place.

Increasingly friends are seen giggling at a video, humming a tune in unison with an ear phone plugged in one ear.

So it's true, you can give people the digital 'individual' space, but at some point they're going to want to share that too; perhaps as a sign of their friendship, their boredom at being on their own, their courtesy towards a friend who isn't carrying her mp3 player, or just as the 'provider' or entertainment that makes one ever-popular. Who knows!

There's something to this twinning, which quite interests me. For the life of me, I just can't seem to put my finger on it.

social-life-killer I am not!

Too many articles and opinions have been doing the rounds about how online social networking is killing real life relationships.

Sure, people are spending a lot of time scrapping each other or hanging-out on gtalk, but that's hardly enough reason to bad-mouth the net as a 'social-life killer'.

With e-networking I can have a word with Bill Gates if I like, so what if I haven't a clue about my neighbour.

How can this kill your social skills when all it's doing is giving wings to those who never had any? It's letting me say hello and wish people on their birthdays when otherwise I probably wouldn't bother.

Yes MMOGs and heavy gaming is killing people's ability to interact and relate with other human beings. But that's hardly digital's fault. Isn't it the same with any form of addiction? Doesn't it consume you, especially if it's an addiction that only involves the individual and not the entire community.

In fact, even if people are becoming more and more withdrawn, they are finding relationships in a different dimension. Why, only some time back a woman tried to attempt suicide and was saved by a joint effort by her online group to locate her.

With busy-bee lives, old-world socializing is dying. No need to see red. Change is inevitable.

Online Social networking isn't all that bad.

God knows, without it I'd be living in my head and talking to myself!

Netnography - i know you now

Newer worlds are being explored fearlessly in the digital domain and newer terms are being born at lightening speed.

Our experiment, '72 hours in Second Life' in which some planners immersed themselves in the virtual lives of Second Life residents, is apparently 'netnography'. (thank you, Prof Falguni)


'Djinn Saphir', my avatar pranced about Second Life, wore fancy denims, carried Gucci bags, and bought coke for a L$ all in the hope of understanding Second Life and it's residents.

Now at least I can justify my paycheck. I wasn't prancing about Second Life, I was performing (doing/practising?) Netnography.

if you're marketing, you're dead

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

digital-free

I forgot both my phone and my watch at home before leaving for Bikaner.



No internet, so what if I had to go and book my ticket at a counter.

No emails. No calls. So what if I missed saying goodbye to a US-bound friend.

No sense of time... sure I missed a flight, but what the heck.

No sense of location... I had to brush up my non-existent social skills to ask people repeatedly if my station had passed.


Spent time with family, ate tonnes of Quality Street, stepped on a rat at the famous rat-temple (karni mata ka mandir), took some pictures..

Damn. Forgot my camera's digital.

Love,
Almost Digital-Free

i no speaka da english

Now if you didn't laugh at this sign then:

1. you didnt understand a thing
2. you don't know about the fuel crisis
3. you think sonal has a shitty sense of humour (hmph)


Language just evolves so much. I remember when during my teenage 'move it' and 'cool it' were very popular terms though I was never sure what the 'it' was. I even recall telling a cow to 'move it' as it struggled past our car, leaving me with an LOLing family and a rather bewildered cow that went WTF!

when digital should shut up and watch some TV

I don't know about you, but the TV has given me many great memories. The most important thing that TV advertising has given me (yes it has given me something) are the fun jingles.

Okay so i'm no TV-geek but I find myself singing old jingles that formed a part of my childhood. Remember Nerolac?
Jab ghar ki raunak badhani ho..
deewaron ko jab sajana ho...
Nerolac! Nerolac! :D

Maybe these are early days, but digital really isn't 'making memories'. It's making links, forwards and all that, but that collective memory is missing.

Sure I may say, 'seen that forward?! No??' and then quickly look through my mail to find it and show it to you. But it's really not that same.

I think it's the lack of use of music and other content that can be viralled by 'mouth'. No, WOM as in digital buzz is not same as it actually being viralled by 'mouth' :)

So give it up for 'Doodh doodh doodh doodh, piyo glassful... doodh!'

While I love the digital space, I think sometimes when the TV scores over it, we digitophiles should shut up and listen. TV's not all that out the window just yet.

PS: I know you sang the nerolac jingle when you read this :p

One Ferarri please.

I would like to inform you that I want a Ferrari and shall wait for you all to make it come true. No, i'm not being silly.

Turns out that a man in the US got laid off by Yahoo and soon started to twitter about his unfortunate 'day of firing'. This got many people involved and some thought of it as quite 'engaging'.

Needless to say help poured in and now he not only has many job offers but a new business partner.

So now, where's my ferrari?

the 72 hour experiment begins

Yup, starting now, I and a colleague are about to sacrifice our first lives for 72 hours in Second Life!

Goodbye mama, papa, simran, bruno (my dog).
Too bad you all don't have a second life.

But don't worry after 72 hours I'll reclaim my first. I promise!


(more on our 'experiences in second life' later)

why it sucks to work in a basement

To put my misery in perspective for everyone, let me inform you that I work in Mumbai. A city which is about to face a nasty monsoon (they're expecting 102% rainfall this year, whatever that means).

Last year was my first monsoon in Mumbai. Sitting at my desk in the basement I was quite paranoid about the rains since I'd heard plenty about Mumbai's penchant for drowning.


On a rainy day during my first month in Mumbai, my colleagues from another unit from my basement started to pack up and leave at 3pm. Looking out I panicked as I saw the raindrops trickling down the little ventilator window.


Grabbing my umbrella and bag I decided that I would leave for home at that very moment (even at the risk of getting fired for taking an unauthorized 'half-day').

In my head, I was already revising my argument for leaving early.
I wasn't going to let myself drown to death because of my job!! Enough is enough.


Okay, so basically it turned out the rest of them were leaving for a team party, and there was no threat of drowning to 'death' as I had imagined.

Yes, I returned to my desk and worked till 8.

Meet Jensport, Jansport’s Indian sister.

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

This is Espreet, Esprit’s Punjabi aunt.

Or this is Adidash, Adidas’ sprinter brother.

Once upon a time

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

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

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

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

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

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

BREAKING NEWS: digital natives' super powers discovered!

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

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

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

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

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

This is a worrying sign for marketers.

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

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

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

Muahaha

... Damn they found the remote!”

3-point digital checklist

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

1. Is there a brand connect?

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

*Off-set the evil*

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

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

2. Is there any brand ‘experience’?

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

*MTV Roadies Auditions*

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

3. Are you involving me for WOM?

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

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

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

*Elf yourself* by OfficeMax

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

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

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

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

my avatar my life

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

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

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

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

why the avatar is big

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

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

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

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

stages of your avatar-ed self

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

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

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

William Gibson said:

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

the microsite invasion

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

Do a microsite. D-uh!


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


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


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

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

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