of hammers and nails

There's something wrong with advertising. I think that reflects in our lingo.
We don't usually consider our consumers as people. We think consumers are mindless tin-men whose behaviour depends on what we 'communicate' to them.

How else can you explain the most commonly used phrase in advertising - "hammer the audience"

Usage: 'we'll hammer the audience with the message through TVCs and mall activities'

Meaning: We'll repeatedly send out the same message till they know it well and recognize it in spite of current brand clutter.

Glad you all hate wearing helmets. Makes my job easier.

So excuse me while I go and figure out new ways to hammer you all.

zappos. doing it right.

There are very few companies that seem to be making a concerted effort towards engaging with their online audience... perhaps it's easier for companies whose business exists in the online space.

I've been pretty impressed with zappos.com. It started in 1999 (wikipedia) with zero sales and is today the largest footwear selling business online.

So here are a couple of things they've done online (and done well I might add)

• They have a blog.

• They also do cute and crazy videos called Zappos TV on youtube. Their video on 'why do ppl work at zappos' is a fun way to impress potential employees.

• Their CEO is also on twitter and sends out regular tweets. This is a video of him asking an employee to slap him :D
  
  
  
  

• They also ran a contest recently where people had to make videos about what's the craziest thing you can do with a shoe. They received some 17 video responses. It's not much, but the energy around the brand is just so cool and fun.

The company of course is hugely popular because of their free shipping policy and some 365 day return policy. I haven't bought anything from them since they don't ship to India (bummer). But I sure do love the brand.

in-tunnel advertising

I saw a mention of in-tunnel advertising on TV some time back and it's worth a mention here too.

In tunnel advertising is the newest thing to hit the market is already being used by Kotak in the Delhi metro.

What is in-tunnel advertising
It is advertising inside tunnels where neatly lined and lit up screens provide a moving picture experience to those sitting inside the train.

More about it here.




Of course people are already complaining about how marketers never leave them alone. I for one am thankful for the entertainment it offers during the commute. For once the men will be distracted by the advertising and stop staring at women passengers. No?

It's only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away

The Bee Gees sure got something right. Nothing is truer in advertising than this.

So I figured that I'd mention the two ads in recent times that have (IMHO) used words incredibly well.

1. Chuskiyaan zindagi ki

I just loved this. Those three words play up so much in my mind. So many memories, anecdotes. It just encapsulates the perfect Indian experience... family conversations over tea. While the CCDs of the world proclaim that a lot can happen over coffee... tea promises a lot of simple and memorable conversations. sigh. too bad i don't drink tea or coffee. Else Red Label would be my way to go.
Though I find it off that they didn't capitalize on a line like that. I have seen on this one commercial. Are there more?

2. Lagan ki syahi se...

Okay so I hope I got the brand right. The new TVC by Cello is really my favourite these days. Simply because of the words. If memory serves me right, it goes something like this..
mehnat se himmat se lagan ki syahi se kuch kar dikhao kuch ban dikhao

and I totally love the lagan ki syahi se part. what a nice way to look at pens.

However the situation isn't all that great for everyone. the new Reliance Ad tries to force fit some good writing even though it has nothing to do with the brand. Sure the words are good but then make no sense with the ad:

suna hai khwaabon ko room mein band rakhne se par nikal aatey hai... it goes on like that but at the end i'm left wondering what the ad was really about. Cuz the words went one way and the brand was... well, lost.

Any ad I've missed out?

Update by Prof Falguni. It turns out the ad is not from reliance but by Tata Indicom. So much for brand recall :) Whatever happened to look & feel of a brand being similar across communication?

ragging on TV

Ragging is obviously our national pass time and since they banned it we now put it on the damned TV.

Dadagiri, a show on Bindass (the youth channel? Urgh.) is all about ragging. The self-proclaimed ‘meanest show on tv’ involves 4 contestants or fucchas (I never understood what that word meant but I know newbies are referred to as that).

The mean guys come in one by and one and abuse, heckle, dominate the contestants. From snake dances to climbing ropes, the fucchas do the drill. Of course this is peppered with the correct number of beeped out abuses. If you lose you have to eat worms out of a shit pot. (How did they get this on TV!!)

I have only 2 questions:

1. To Bindass
Why the hell would you create such a show? Why would you allow your anchors to pick on a scrawny fellow with glasses. Wasn’t it enough when it happened in school?

2. To the dadas of dadagiri
Get a life will you?

Dadagiri, you are not cool che-ed.

Poll: What are you most likely to forward?

Hi, this isn't a formal research (obviously). I'm just interested in knowing what people forward...


What are you most likely to forward?

Also what's your favourite forward/viral? I'd love to know. I'm putting together a list of the most popular ones.

5 professions the internet has most annoyed

1. Doctors

I think doctors are great and they know a lot. But then they can’t know more than google right?

Anyway, point being, the internet allows us to figure out what’s wrong with us and what to do about it. It doesn’t replace doctors of course. But imagine having to deal with a patient who tells you to check for so and so complication because Maria in Brazil suffered from it last year .. so says google.

So I won’t blame the doctors if they hate the internet and the free and perhaps inaccurate medical advice it brings.

2. Teachers

I remember telling a professor at MICA that now that the internet rules our lives, we no longer need teachers. Err.. after all we can learn from the web, right?

Sure the internet lets teachers access amazing study material from across the world. But it also lets students know more about stuff than their teachers. Imagine telling a class about Shakespeare for the first time and having a kid quote Macbeth to you off the net.

I think the internet is forcing teachers to evolve. They can no longer be information gatherers.

3. Quizzers

I’m no quizzer. I never have been. I find it impossible to retain information and I lost the only quiz I ever participated in. I remember my partner giving me the stink-eye after I passed every question. (Sorry little boy who had to team up with me. You were good but so was I. They just didn’t ask the right questions!)

Anyway, I think that the internet takes away from quizzing too. While it’s a wonder that someone knows the names of so many of the capitals of the world, I think it was a bigger wonder that the person put it all together. Google surely takes away from that. No?

4. Match makers

I am told that earlier every village had a match maker. A man who was often a postman or a barber, would know the inside scoop on families. He would help out in suggesting matches. The internet sure did him in.

5.___________ So while I’d have loved this post to be about 5 I couldn’t think of anything. So help me out a little :)

Kunal says it's the postman. Poor chap can't even ask for bakshish anymore :)

you have been 'cool che-ed'

To,

the cool people in their cool world

Am I the only one who hasn’t received her lingo upgrade, because I’m way behind!

I still get taken aback when people go around cool-che-ing each other in meetings, at coffee-shops etc.

Cool-che literally means ‘cool hai’ which means ‘it’s cool’ (i think)

There are just way too many people cool che-ing each other these days.

Of course this could be because

1. They are gujaratis
2. They want to be gujaratis
3. Cool was too uncool, so you had to add some zing.. err che
4. Che Guevera worship?
5. Going back to my roots (read desi-fied lingo)

My guess is

1. Cool has really been over-used. And I think closing a conversation with just the word ‘cool’ seemed incomplete. People no longer bother to say ‘hey that’s cool’ or ‘hey that’s okay’. They just shorten it to ‘cool’.
2. So then how does one complete their expression of this apparent coolness. You add a che.
3. It makes it fun… only funner (American teen hang-over)
4. Cool Che means you’re with it in the Indian way (American cool is no longer cool. Thank you Mr Bush)
5. Also it takes away the apparent seriousness of a conversation. You can say ‘cool’ very seriously in agreement with whatever has been decided at a major meeting. But I bet you can’t say cool che without minus-ing the serious-quotient.

a lil low on the cool quotient,

Sonal Jhuj

getmooh.com - 'get me out of here'

Friends don't come through for us all the time.

When we need to be saved from a sticky situation and tell a friend to give us an emergency call to get us away, chances are the friend will already be on the phone with her boyfriend and will forget about you.

So then why not just eliminate the friend altogether ... in this situation only and of course i don't mean eliminate eliminate.

Enter getmooh.com. A service that lets you set a time for your escape call. getmooh then calls you at the specified time and plays a voice recording which by the way you can select.

So it sounds great and I've sent one for 11:01 today (IST? GMT?). Let's see what happens. Though I must admit, I got a rather blank page after I set it all up.

Hope I get the call, else they just fooled me into giving away my mobile number for some evil marketer's evil purposes. *fingers crossed*

Update. To answer all the people who've been asking me if I got the call... I have not received the call yet (sigh). I'm guessing it runs on a different timezone. Will keep everyone updated.
Final Update. Okay so I never received a call. if anyone else tries it out and it actually works, lemme know.

The online outcast

So you thought that the net was all-inclusive. Was meant to empower everyone. And you were rid of anything and everything that divides people in real life.

Tch Tch. Come now. Let’s not be naïve.

Here is a list of things that might make one an online outcast (no offence)

1. If you don’t have a gmail ID

What’s your gmail? Oh what? No mail? You’re on yahoo. Err.. (almost asked why) okay.

2. If you’re not on any social networking site

What’s your facebook? Err… I’m not on facebook. Isn’t that a waste of time? :O

Recently a long lost NRI brother got in touch and was shocked to see me on facebook. Cuz after all, wasn't facebook for 'cool' people he said. ouch.

3. If you don’t use firefox

4. If you still use yahoo messenger

Gawd! Didn’t those cute little yellow smileys die a horrible death after gtalk was born?

Update. Thank you Prof Falguni

5. If you know what a bank passbook is
Dude. it's so not cool to have a bank pass book. I mean, save the trees and ask them to email it to your yahoo ID hyuk hyuk :D

For additions to the list mail me @sonaljhuj@ you know what

the piracy they earned

There was a time when people appreciated artists and what they stood for. Their passion was what got them their fans.

Of course that time gave way to Rakhi Sawant. Angel-winged strippers took over music and before you knew it you had videos selling the music. They got their fans too but somewhere down the line the respect for good music and a good artist reached an all time low.

I know that piracy sucks and all that. But I think once people realized that the artists was in it just for the money, they started to rip music without guilt.

Off late I notice a turn of events. Though piracy continues unabated, I find that some people ready to purchase original music/films simply out of respect for the artist who created it.

A friend refused to get a pirated version of 'Aamir' because everyone said it was a good movie and they’d released the DVD, 'so then why screw someone when they’ve done a good job'.

I’ve heard a lot about Rabbi’s new album and really want to listen to it.

Rabbi’s lyrics are moving. And in today’s day and age if someone can sing about things the way he does, then I want to buy that damned original CD to show my support for him and his music.

I think it’s pretty cool if you buy an original just because you believe that the person’s work is worth supporting. In the age of information sharing and easy downloads, it says a lot about an artist’s worth.

While I agree piracy sucks, I think some artists totally deserve it :D (not you Rabbi. not you)

Sometimes it sucks that the internet remembers everything

Let's face it, we've googled ourselves at some point or the other. It's cool to see that we exist on the internet and google identifies us as a piece in the world wide web.

And of course with each episode of googling, sometimes a link about you surfaces which could be embarrassing. Like being ranked in the last quartile on an afaqs! quiz years go (that's me). Or seeing a link of a weird college video you once posted and are now ashamed of. The internet doesn't forget much.

I was reading the story of a mother pregnant with a child who has congenital heart disease. She wants it aborted but the courts just ruled that she can't. Hopefully the child will grow up and live as normal a life as once can hope for in this situation. Which brings me to the unfortunate point that when the child grows up and googles his family how will he/she react to the information that his parents didn't want him born?

Sure once he/she grows up, he/she might understand and empathize with his/her parents' situation. But when the child's young, who's to stop it from reading the nationwide online debate about his/her abortion.

For the child's sake I wish the internet suffers from amnesia this one time.

PS: I'm afraid I've only added to the 'internet's memory' with this post

Update. Couple of links (Cached pages, Deleting things from google) for those who want to read more about google cache and how not to let it remember things long after you've deleted them. Thanks for the links Namit.

Update. The lady carrying the child in question here has suffered a miscarriage. I suppose that closes this debate... for now.

It's my brand

Agencies have long been telling clients that the brand no longer belongs to a company but instead belongs to the people who use it, view its ads and spread the word.

MTV took a leap with "It's my MTV". Though I'm not sure if that was a conscious step towards letting the consumers own the brand.

With the internet, the consumer's voice has only gotten stronger by the byte. And though companies are obviously not ready to surrender their billion dollar brands to the people, in some cases they are left with no choice.

After tonnes of people voiced their displeasure over the TVC, Verizon decided that it was best to just yank it off air. An example of a company bowing down to the consumer. Of course this has happened tonnes of times before. But it's quite cool that with the help of the internet consumers can help shape the brand and what it should stand for. In most situations it would work best for both parties.

Yes, there may be that chance that a brand will be vandalized, but brands can still attempt to relinquish control, one baby step at a time.