Know Your Audience

Next time you go for a movie… take notes. Ages, gender, couples, singles, gang of girls/ boys, families, kids, attire, language and so on. Go through your notes after you have done it for at least four movies. What you have on the four pages in front of you will each be different from the other. Which means Avatar, 3 idiots, Ice Age 3 and 2012 will all have different kinds of people watching it (other than the freaks, who watch all movies).

If you make movies that appeal to your group of supporters, you will get repeat business. If not, you will spend all your time marketing without being able to retain your customers. Rajkumar Hirani made Munnabhai MBBS… his supporters made it a hit, the same people definitely watched Lage raho Munnabhai… it was a super hit. 3 idiots is a super duper hit. I managed to see it recently and my suspicion of it being in the same genre as both the Munnabhai’s was true. In the first two installments it was a rowdy with a heart of gold and in 3 idiots it’s a student with a heart of gold. The story also relies heavily on a supporting cast as in both his earlier films. The story I think was also written with a character in mind. The cinema hall was mostly full of families and couples, as it was for Lage raho Munnabhai. I am damn sure if not all most of the people who were present are the ones who have seen both the previous ones.

A superb cast, a good story and brilliant marketing just added to the films success. Raju Hirani has managed to create successful family entertainers. His supporters would have still watched the movie if the cast would have been different (it could have been successful too). Like wise Priyadarshan is known for making films of a particular genre and his movies have done well at the box office. He also directed a serious movie (Kyon Ki) in between the funny ones, Kyon Ki failed at the box office even though it had a good cast. Abhay Deol is a successful hero in off beat films 1.40 ki last local, Manorama 6 ft under, Dev D, Oye Lucky… we have to wait and watch what happens when he does an out-n-out commercial movie. If Abhay Deol has understood his supporters well he may not do a completely commercial film.

The marketing lesson to be learnt here is KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, few who have understood their consumers will stick to what they are good at. Some will try different things that may not succeed. The same is true in case of brands; brand managers who understand their consumers well will succeed in their offerings, others fail. You can have the best of products, supported by world class service and brilliant advertising. If your customer does not have the need for the product it still fails.

The key to knowing you audience is DATA. As experts in the field have said success of your marketing campaigns depends 40% on getting your data right, 40% depends on the offer and 20% on creativity. If you don’t know your audience you can’t make the right product/ offer.

Data tells you everything you need to know about your audience how well you use it to you advantage is up to you.

Be it films, food, music, sports, finance, travel, shopping or sex… data never lies and gives immense opportunities and learning’s. The question is ‘are you willing to invest the time and effort to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE’?

(Written by Naveen Nandan, Group Director – Rapp India, Mumbai)

Advertising: Expense Or Investment?

At the launch event of the book, Draftfcb Ulka Advertising Concepts & Cases Book II, Mr Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman, Tata

Motors, observed that advertising needs to be seen as investment and not just as short term expense.

It takes a seasoned marketing professional to view advertising as a long term investment towards building a long term asset for the corporation: a strong brand.

Most senior managers see advertising as a short term expense aimed at building short term sales. No wonder CFOs look at advertising as the first thing to cut in a down turn. Travel and entertainment come a close second.Why should advertising be seen as investment, and not as just an expense?Advertising impact is often not visible when measured through a short term yardstick. So even after a heavy dose of advertising the brand’s sales needle may not move much. Similarly the brand’s image score also may not move up at all. But if it is known that the advertising that has run addresses key issues faced by the brand, should it be stopped or continued?

The short term effect of advertising could get masked by heavy competitive activities, price cuts, new brand launches or other any significant economic events like an interest rate hike.

Prof John Philip Jones has done work on short term effect of advertising, using single source data. But most of his work has been in consumer goods in developed steady-state markets. I submit that those rules may not apply in all markets, in all product situations.

Contrast that point of view to that of seeing advertising as investment. If the approach is that of investment, one look at a short term negative response not from the context of cutting but of getting to the bottom of the problem. And when one probes deeper one may find that the advertising is in fact working well and results will show up soon enough.

The paradigm creates its own images. Which paradigm will drive your vision, advertising as investment or advertising as expense?

(Ambi MG Parameswaran is ED & CEO, Draft FCB+Ulka)

‘Hey! The Cop Is My Husband!’

Synopsis: The way to convert a safe playing client who buys only boring advertising into a client who buys great advertising is to share examples and success stories from around the world.

There are three kinds of clients (read, buyers of advertising):

1. One who has heard of a certain Ogilvy, the bloke who said ‘what sells is creative’ and is against all glory because advertising must sell and has a Gandhian repulsion to all things good

2. One who enjoys the odd good spot on TV and talks about it with great glee but when it comes to his own brand, looks out of the window and says “maybe we should just write ‘50% OFF”

3. One who knows about advertising as much as the agency. Is update on what is happening and thinks of advertising as a critical almost crucial part of the marketing mix.

What I feel like telling the first one is to read what Ogilvy said once again. ‘What sells is creative’, beg your pardon sir, wouldn’t that mean ‘what is not creative will not sell’. To which my client is likely to say, “You writers no! You know how to play with words”. I suspect he would go home and think a little more about it, still. Exhibit A here is the kind that believes advertising is a mere

necessity that need not be taken too seriously. ‘You say what you have to, if the product is good people will buy it.’ Yes, you can debate. Like, with a wall.

Exhibit B. Hopeless in a different way. This type believes, it’s not for him. I dare say, this type is rampant in the FMCG category. So they would talk about the likes of Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign but will be content with a montage of category codes when it comes to their own advertising.

Dear C, I exist for you. You make me think harder. You make the work better. And I know for sure that behind every piece of advertising that I cherish there is a you. You make the other two of your clan bearable.

There’s a Bhojpuri saying that goes, ‘Saiyaanbhayekotwaal’. Simply translated that means, ‘hey! The cop is my husband’. Popular logic says, that can be made possible in two ways. One, you marry a cop. Two, make the one you marry, a cop. Privileges of – ‘Hey! My husband is a cop’ will be the same as those of ‘Hey! The cop is my husband!’, after all.

Not all of us, at all times are going to get a client who makes us think harder or pushes us to create advertising that is less than ordinary. Hence the cop trick.

To begin with, it’s pretty easy. Send that link, your advertising friends sent you, to your client/s. Type A is likely to get suspicious immediately and type B will sigh. Keep at it. Next time you see a stunning piece in a relevant category, send it across again. Maybe this time you can support the creative with results. Type A is likely to call and ask what exactly do you have in mind? Say, ‘nothing really’. Type B will sigh again. Download those Cannes winning films from canneslions.com, put them on a DVD and send it to your client. It makes for a good weekend watch, if nothing else. Show him the scope of creative thinking.

Cut to a meeting sometime in near future. Your client is a little more aware. A little closer to the page you are on. A cop more approving and appreciative.

Carry something you would present to a C type client, even if you have to carry the ‘all the category codes’ options. Present both. You may not see success immediately but you are working at it. He will have things like ‘but this doesn’t work in our category/our country/our market’ to say. You will have another link, another success story to share.

Keep at it. Push logic and not merely the ‘creativity’ or your whims, and one day you will have a ‘kotwaal’. Don’t do this, and the cop will keep reading out the safety guidelines to you.

Not An Underdog Anymore

There is a very distinct taste to India’s win at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. It’s the taste of definitiveness rather than surprise. The definitiveness of deciding to do something and making it happen. The big thing about this win is that it went as planned. Underdogs surprise by their wins, leaders reassure by making their plans real. In many ways India’s victory at this cricket tournament underlines the definitiveness that India is no more in the process of arriving at the world stage, it has already arrived.

Events like these have socio cultural significance as they are lived by people at large. The goose bumps that you and I felt sitting in front of our television sets, looking at our national heroes like Sachin crying with joy will get etched in our cultural consciousness. This moment marks a significant milestone in the psychological evolution of our country.

In fact, culturally we Indians are very suspicious of making a big deal about any upcoming event because we are scared that it will attract an evil eye. We like to keep our fingers crossed and not celebrate before the outcome. Historically, our fears have often come true. Whenever India has sat in anticipation of a big win, it has been disappointed. As it was in the Beijing Olympics when we had three boxers in the quarterfinals and the entire country was glued to their television sets.

The flavour of the nation this time around was different. Whether it was the conversations on radio or the facebook updates or the preparations of watching the match with beer and snacks and big screens, they all came with a certain assumption of a positive outcome. Even when India lost its two crucial wickets of Sehwag and Sachin early on in the finals, the tweeter feed and the facebook updates held their confidence in India’s win. India today has a new found belief – the fact that we can live up to our own expectations. That we can prepare for a win and it will happen. No jinxes, no bad luck and no floundering of ability can pull us down.

The definitiveness has been an intrinsic part of India’s performance this time around. Those who have been expected to deliver have delivered in the time of need. The most inconsistent of the players as Yuvraj Singh have delivered with a remarkable consistency winning the match of the series award. Even an out of form Mahendra Singh Dhoni got the job (that he had come down for) done with an unprecedented 91 not out. But more than India’s performance at the finals, India’s run up to the finals, by defeating Australia and Pakistan, the two most formidable teams of the time helped build the assurance factor.

In these times of global uncertainty, where economies are crumpling overnight and the locus of economic power is shifting eastwards, India’s triumph in the game of cricket is yet another assertion of it global significance. Indians have always shone as individuals through their academic and intellectual abilities. Now is the time when we are shining through as a community, as a team that can hold its grit and nerves. India’s intellectual prowess has amply been recognized at the world stage, this win celebrates

its psychological prowess. And this is the mark of a leader, not an underdog.

(Dheeraj Sinha is the Regional Planning Director, Bates 141 & Author of ‘Consumer India – Inside The Mind And Wallet’)

Those Magnificent MBAs In Their Flying Machines

R.G. Kutty was born in the industrial town of Jamshedpur. Akashneel was born in Kolkata.

Kutty’s father was a technical supervisor in a steel plant. A man who never spared the rod. Akash’s father was a poet/journalist/part time musician/part time theatre actor. A man of Rabindranath Tagore’s principles.

Kutty’s nick-name was Kutty, Akash’s nick-name was Laltu.

Predictably Kutty did well in school and college went to a business school. IIM types. Laltu did well to drift in to advertising.

Kutty listened to Lady Gaga when Lady Gaga played and Justin Bieber when Justin Bieber played. Heck, he wouldn’t mind Phil Collins even! “A saang is a saang is saang, what’s there”, as per Kutty.

Laltu, listened to The Doors.

Kutty is now a Brand Manager. Laltu is now a copywriter.

The brand is ‘Morning Sun’ Tea. The brief is to a do TVC that will make people go to the market and buy nothing but ‘Morning Sun’ Tea.

Laltu wrote a song. The film showed a pretty lass getting up, lingering over her cup and drifting in to the woods near her home watching butterflies fly. Laltu even composed a little tune and played it out for Kutty on his guitar.

Kutty speak:“But you are not mentioning the brand name in the jingle!?”

“I live in a 2BHK in Bombay. Who has those kind of houses you are showing?”

“What kind of girl is that? She doesn’t have to go to college or office or wherever else she goes?”

“And you are showing a single girl! Our target is families!”

“I am afraid this might be perceived to be a woman’s tea!”

“I am afraid this might be perceived to be a single woman’s tea!”

“Boss! This cougar trend is catching up in India! I don’t want our tea to be seen as a cult brand, ‘Morning Sun’ is for everyone!”

“Let’s see the storyboard and put it in research if you are so convinced, but I am telling you, people will reject it!”

“Why don’t we do a commercial where we show the woman making tea in the morning, her husband gets up… okay… and she gives him tea, he drinks it and says, “Morning Sun!?” The woman says, “Of course, Morning Sun!” And then both of them show their cups to the camera and say, “Our Mornings always with the Sun… Morning Sun! Arre yaar, you guys should pay me, I am doing all the copywriting these days. Haha…”

Kutty speak to his pappus after the meeting with the agency:“Call some other agency, these guys don’t understand our brand.”

‘Some other agency’ makes Kutty’s commercial. Some sales happen because the distribution network is good and the sales staff suggests a promotional scheme for the trade that is accepted by Kutty.

Kutty grows in confidence. As a copywriter.

Morning Sun never becomes a brand.

Much later, Kutty hires another agency and briefs them, “I want to do something like what Tata tea is doing”.

Author’s Submissions:

Marketing is marketing. Advertising is advertising. The only reason why marketing managers dictate terms is because they happen to be the client. Is that a good reason for anybody to dictate terms. If there was a company that had two departments namely – marketing and advertising it would it be this way?

Kuttys expect advertising agency to understand that they have a sales target. Can the advertising agencies expect Kuttys to understand there is even an advertising target? Why not, isn’t it true that an ad that people like and remember has achieved the advertising target and one that people don’t remember hasn’t?

Laltu’s songs may not be the best idea for a brand but what do Kuttys do? Do they ask for a more distinctive something or do they shove down the agencies throat what they think works. (Look carefully it’s mostly the ‘use product, smile’ formula)

Do Kuttys need an IQ booster to understand that just like there is a competition in the marketing space, there is a competition in the advertising space. Here is a dictum to wonder about – ‘a brand is only as good as it’s most remembered ad (in this case, the TVC). Is that an extreme statement? Maybe, but there’s truth in it.

To buy vegetables you need to know a little about vegetables, why not know a little about advertising if you are going to be buying advertising?

Will Kuttys understand that difference between a brand that is and a brand that will never be may not be agency but the clients themselves!

What do Laltus ought to do? That’s material for another article. Watch this space.

(Ravinder Siwach is Group Creative Director, Ignite Mudra)

1 Year of Scarecrow

1 year ago, we had no office, 2 brands and 5 people.

Today, we have two offices, 9 brands and 26 people.

The biggest reasons for this growth are, directly and indirectly, related to, well, money.

Let me explain.

We are hugely interested in money matters. We actively invest. We are probably the only creative people in the country who know the barrel price of crude, down to the 2nd decimal. We are the only creative guys who know that turmeric gave better returns than Airtel stock last year. We spend more time on moneycontrol than facebook. Our understanding of financial markets and instruments has helped us gain traction with financial services brands, like Religare and Future Capital, to name a few.

We have tied up with Concept, which has helped nearly 40 % of listed companies in India to go public. This association with a company that is adept at generating money for corporates, gives us direct access to many clients.

We are aware that ego can push up operating costs. Ego always shows up in the balance sheet, it is a liability as maintaining it is an expense. Moreover, ego can also prevent you from grabbing

opportunities. Therefore, startups can’t afford egos. That’s why we prefer to hire people who are simpletons, just like us.

We also know we need to plough back money back into the venture, especially in the initial years. That’s why we have invested in an office that makes people forget they are in one. We are also hiring more and more people so that creativity doesn’t become mechanized and our employees get the chance to catch the first day first show of Yamla Pagla Deewana. Or have Irish coffees at Mocambos whenever they feel like it.

We also think art is a great revenue stream. That’s why one wall in our office is dedicated to displaying art. Our first art exhibition is on February 9th, on our first anniversary. It is being professionally curated by Niyatee Shinde and even if a couple of paintings sell, that will take care of the air-conditioning and green tea bills of the office for the entire year.

Creating an art deco office also opened up hitherto untapped opportunities. Chrome Pictures used our office to shoot an ad film. (So we are competing with big agencies, even here. Grey is known to lease their premises for shoots). We do understand their logic. Why go all the way to Grosvenor Palace, when you can shoot on DN Road? That too, at a fraction of the cost? We are not complaining.

Apart from money management, the other key component in any agency’s success are people.

We have been fortunate that our stints in ex-agencies have given us fantastic learnings on how ‘not’ to treat people. We have compiled a handbook of ‘professional atyachars’ commited by our past bosses, which we use as a handy reference while monitoring our behavior with our current crop of juniors. As a result, we have no heirachies, no layers, no politics.Working in Scarecrow is like taking anabolic steroids. Everyone grows up faster as they get complete exposure to the ‘business’ of advertising. They handle more things and a wider range of challenges. At Scarecrow, most discussions are on marketing problems, not so much on creative briefs. The youngest account

executive gets to interact with senior clientele. They get to face the full brunt of the marketing problem even before it gets sculpted into a creative brief. Junior copywriters get briefs as open as ‘How do we increase footfalls by 20% into our outlet by spending 4 crores?’ The result, nobody thinks ads. Everyone thinks solutions. And results.

We have been lucky that we have bumped into the ‘right people’ on the client’s side, as well. From Subhrangshu Neogi and Sujith Narayanan at Religare, to Pradeep Natarajan at Future Money, to Jasmin Goller at Margo, to KU Rao at DNA, to Ashish Shah at Wadhwa, to Monica Widhani at BPCL, we have had clients who were willing to believe that the size of the agency had no co-relation with the quality of its work.

In Praise Of Committees

Committees get a pretty bad rap. We’re told that they keep minutes and lose hours. They’re apparently cul-de-sacs down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled. If Columbus had had an advisory committee, he’d still be in the dock. As everyone knows, here are no statues to committees.

But if you think that the world in general hates committees, wait till you hear what the advertising industry thinks of them. To hear ad men tell it, the committee has no place in advertising. Ours is an industry predicated on individual genius, of men (and they’re usually men) who saw further, or probed deeper, thought different – willfully unreasonable creative fountainheads who had to fight against ‘groupthink’ to realize their ‘vision’. As David Ogilvy said, “Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to make them.”

In this, Ogilvy was memorable, witty, and wrong. I think we should stop worrying and learn to love committees. They just need a little rebranding.

Let’s get one thing straight. Advertising, like the rest of life, is a team sport. And ‘team’ is just another word for a committee, or at least a committee that does something. Behind every great ad is a great brief, and behind every great brief is a great client, and behind every great client is a great product. Even within a creative department, the process of actually coming up with an idea often involves bouncing ideas off one another, of one person taking another person’s idea further. We’re all in this together, and we always have been.

The history of advertising shows a clear movement towards greater collaboration and teamwork. The specialization of roles at J.Walter Thompson’s agency in the 1890s was predicated on different types of people working together to better serve their client that one guy doing everything himself. The creativity revolution launched by Bill Bernbach was in large part due to his practice of making art directors and copy writers sit together and work as a team. The creation of planning at BMP forty years ago last year was specifically designed to bring in another perspective, and another member of the team. Now we don’t just have teamwork within agencies, but between agencies, with digital agencies, PR shops, and relationship groups all offering interesting and valuable perspectives on solving clients business problems.

Why is collaboration so important? Because it works. Bringing different people, and different perspectives to bear on a problem radically increases your chances of coming up with something better, or newer, or more effective. Other people have very different ways of looking at the world, ways that you might not have ever considered.

Without other people’s perspectives, we become locked in the echo-chamber of our own preconceptions. As Einstein said, “problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which they were created.” This seeking out of different opinions, this ‘marketing-by-committee’, has made commercial

communications more interesting, more creative, and more effective.

But there’s a key watch-out here. You can’t just employ more and more specialists to work on their own in splendid isolation. The value of a bunch of different experts working on a business challenge is only realized when they work together as a team. It’s only by the process of teamwork – of committee-work – that the creativity and intelligence of the individual experts can be fully leveraged for the benefits of the client.

This is easier said than done. You have get the right team in place. You have to be open-minded and listen to each other. You have to expect to disagree sometimes, and to use that tension profitably. You have to be willing to accept good ideas wherever they come from, even if they come from the client (a vital team member) or – gasp – the consumer (another key player).

But most of all, you have to have to want to collaborate, it has to seem natural rather than artificial. And this is where I think India is well placed to lead the world. Decision through discussion is well entrenched in Indian society. We are all ‘Argumentative Indians’, as Amartya Sen has it. To succeed, we don’t need to go against the grain; we just have to embrace our inner committee.

Because it’s when everyone comes together – the right clients, the right disciplines, the right team – that you suddenly understand how wrong the world is about committees. There may be no statues made of dead and lifeless stone to committees. Instead, we have our monuments to teamwork flesh-marbled, in the living, breathing communities to which we all belong.

(Michael Follett is Senior Vice-President, Strategy and Planning, DDB Mudra (Part of the Mudra Group))

A Journey To Remember

It was December 1998, I was wanting to move back into advertising after spending 8 long years in marketing and sales. I had been offered a position in Ulka Advertising and a friend set up an interview with one of the most respected figures in advertising for a position in another large agency in Mumbai. As the interview progressed, I was told repeatedly that ‘Ulka will shut down’ and ‘You are making a big mistake’. Two hours and a splitting headache later, I decided to join Ulka and move to the south as its VP South [Mumbai beckoned and I was back a few years later, but that is another story].

On 1st February 2011 Ulka or Draftfcb Ulka as it is known today will celebrate its 50th birthday; the agency or should we say the agency group is reported to be among the top 3 or 4 in the country, a far cry from what was predicted two decades ago. Along the way the agency has proved several sceptics wrong and built a great reputation for being a steady performer and a creator of numerous brand building advertising campaigns. What lessons have we learnt you may ask?

No one in 1998 believed that a team of professionals, many who had spent a longer time in marketing than advertising, could join an agency that was struggling and help turn it around, within a few years. The core team that joined with Anil Kapoor in 1998 – 99 did just that, by pulling back clients who were at the door and going and winning some key clients.

No one thinks that people can stay in one agency for over a decade and that too not out of want of choice. But many many very talented people do stay at Draftfcb Ulka. If we were to look at the top 50 people in the Draftfcb Ulka Group, the average tenure with the agency is 10 year +.

No one believes that clients can be made to stay put in one agency for five or ten years; a consultant told me last week that

the tenure is now down to 31 months. Well several of Draftfcb Ulka clients have been with the agency for two decades plus.

No one really believes that an agency can, without acquisitions, spawn successful sub units. Draftfcb Ulka has managed to create several business units , to serve clients better; from a very successful media agency, a terrific second agency, a direct / digital agency etc.

No one believes that MBAs can be made to join advertising. Draftfcb Ulka has been running its Management Trainee programme, Star One, for 20 years, hiring even in the worst of time over 20 management graduates from the better management schools.

No one believes that an agency can be run without larger than life personalities, egos as large as Mt Everest and groups / favourites. Draftfcb Ulka has managed to shun personality cult, idol worship and primo-donna status, yet producing great campaigns and excellent leaders.

No one thinks that clients will want to listen to strategy from ad agencies any more. Well Draftfcb Ulka today has over 30 top class management graduates working in account planning, and many of the agency’s clients insist that the planning team give a ‘zero base’ recommendation. The agency has even set up a brand consulting unit, Cogito Consulting to take this offer to the next level.

And the list can go on, but let us just say that Draftfcb Ulka is not just another agency celebrating a milestone. In fact it is possibly the only Indian agency to have transformed itself into communication power house and a part of a global group, yet preserving the original DNA intact: to be a strategic partner to its clients and a great place for employees to learn and grown. Ask me, I have been here long enough. 21 years and counting.

(Ambi M G Parameswaran, ED, Draftfcb Ulka Advertising)

Why Most Advertising Does Not Turn On A “Madrasi”

It is festival time. Diwali is almost upon us. While Diwali is a festival that all of India celebrates with varying degrees of intensity, several other festivals are regional and not celebrated with the same fervor in all parts of India. Like Onam for instance which happened a couple of months ago, which to Malayalis (the people from God’s own country) is a big thing. Well a friend of mine remembered me on Onam. He is from Mumbai and really likes me (or so I believe) and he woke me up at an unearthly hour (it was seven thirty for God’s sake) and said at his cheeriest best “Happy Onam! Isn’t today a big day for you?” Whilst I grumpily thought that it might have been a better day if I had slept a little longer, I realized that this guy actually meant well. What the hell, he did not realize that I was a Tamilian; after all we are all Madrasis aren’t we? So what’s the problem? The problem is most (oh okay a lot really) of advertising that is created in the North of India (oh okay include Mumbai as well) has a similar haziness about the people of South India and consequently has little impact on people like me.

Can’t read, write or speakI was born and brought up in the city (?) of Madras as it used to be called in those days. My generation grew up right in the middle of the ‘anti Hindi agitation’. Several of my friends favorite slogan was “Hindi down, down”. Now it is not that we felt strongly about the language but used the situation to just not learn the language. Many people of my generation don’t read, write or speak the language. Of course I am one of the few that can speak a sort of language that may pass for Hindi after you have had a couple of really stiff ones. Several others of my friends would not even try. And while the next generation may be marginally better, it neither shares the prowess nor the interest of my North Indian friends in that pleasant language. So here is my question to some of the

best creative minds in India. How relevant is a lot of your advertising that is conceptualized, executed and released in Hindi to most of us? Of course I need to clarify that the problem is not as intense in Karnataka or Andhra as it is in Tamil Nadu or Kerala.

The real thing takes a bus to ChennaiI am sure some of you have seen the Coke commercial. Let me with my limited powers of expression try to explain the script to you. There is a young man who wants to go home to Delhi for Diwali and is stuck without a mode of transport except a battered down bus. The people around him seem from Shillong or thereabout look at him blankly. He opens his Coke only for life to be transformed. There is music, dancing, the bottle assumes magical proportions and the bus driver who looks a lot like Hashim Amla at the age of sixty, suddenly smiles and takes him to Delhi in the same bus which now looks like a golden chariot. I am sure you get the drift. Now I am hardly the target audience for Coke, so I don’t want to get into the effectiveness of the ad, but am only going to talk about the same ad in Tamil. Everything else is the same. The same cute kid stranded in the Himalayas, the same bemused Tibetan faces, the same Pathan driver and what is the difference. The kid wants to go to Chennai? From the Himalayas? Give me a break or better still a Pepsi! And mind you most Tamilians like me have seen the original and the translation (?) if you can call it that.

Is there a better way?The average commercial conceptualized in Hindi and translated into Tamil is badly done. The translators must have been banished from Tamil Nadu in the sixties, so stilted are their expressions. It is compounded by Shah Rukh Khan speaking Tamil, or someone doing a passable imitation of him. The Khans mean nothing in our neck of the woods which Coke realized years ago. Our celebrities are different as are our aspirations, as someone said “it is a different country”. While that may be an exaggeration, there is no denying the fact that it needs attention. Asian Paints did a Pongal commercial over twenty years ago, which was created in Tamil for Tamilians. The same Asian paints did a wonderful translation of the Sunil Bhai commercial which became part of the local lingo. The Cadburys Dairy Milk Diwali commercial is a brilliant example

of communication that is targeted and created for this market. Tamilians want to be spoken to in their language. Period.

I know enough about arguments about production costs and how Tamil Nadu is just another market. But a one size fits all, cannot work in this country with its diversity, complexity and language bias. Who said advertising was easy?

Talk to me in my language and I will listen and better still buy from you. Don’t pass me hand me downs or concepts created for the cow belt! There was a time when mobile phone manufacturers shipped those models that did not sell in other parts of the world. Now what do they do? They launch here as India is the happening market. Tamil Nadu could well be your happening market, if you are ready to recognize and more importantly accept it. On our terms! We are a very considerate people you see!!!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, Brand Comm)

When Media Becomes The Shop

Marketers look at consumer habits in order to choose the medium to reach them. Consumers read the newspaper for news, watch the television for entertainment, browse the Internet for information, use the mobile for communication, and so on. Marketers in India spend close to Rs.50,000Cr a year to reach consumers through these media and plant their brand in their heads, with the belief that it would eventually lead to consumption. In the last 18-24 months, however, businesses in India have gone beyond the goal of using the medium for brand reach and started using media as the shop. The products become the hero instead of the brand, the ad creative substitutes for the retail shelf & packaging, and the phone & Internet become the

cash counter to facilitate payment & delivery. With digital commerce, media has become the shop and directly drives consumption.

Some call this digital commerce because the front-end of this business is a digital device – mobile and computer. Others call it digital commerce because the back-end of this business is digital and therefore enables digital scale, as opposed to brick-and-mortar scale. There have always been businesses using local, below-the-line or direct marketing approaches to drive direct consumption, but what is fundamentally different about digital commerce is the ability to collect payments from and deliver products to hundreds of millions of households across tens of thousands of pin-codes in India, while providing consistent quality, price and experience. Unlike the US where mail ordering preceded e-commerce, Indians are seeing the first wave of shopping where they pay first and then wait for product delivery. The few days in between this first-moment-of-truth and second-moment-of-truth are crucial in delivering on the nervous expectations created by this leap of faith, and eventually creating a behavior change that would explode this market, further accelerated with the growing consumption and consumerism.

Many leading TV channel owners, leading daily newspapers, and leading Internet portals have realized the digital commerce opportunity and invested in their media platform to drive home shopping. While media-led digital commerce is a good start, the business will be won by consumption-led digital commerce players, such as retailers, e-commerce destinations, product makers and distribution networks with a nose for consumption trends. Media owners investing in an autonomous consumption-led play are likely to win, rather than an opportunistic media-led play to monetize slow moving inventory. In a way, the role of media in digital-commerce is similar to the role of real-estate in retail – location is important, understanding it is a core part of making business profitable, owning it makes you eligible to enter the business but success requires understanding consumption. While the medium is a core part of digital commerce, it is a consumption business first, and a marketing business second.

When the medium becomes the shop, computing cost of sales becomes straight-forward. The first instinct of many media owners is to not participate in this digital commerce revolution in order to avoid becoming ROI accountable & losing reach premium from advertisers in the guise of cost-of-branding. However, media owners who are able to resist this innovators’ dilemma and innovate their media properties & business models to measure, control, analyze and enhance ROI will significantly increase their own value and might build the largest media company of India. Google probably had a similar intuition in Oct 2000 when they launched Adwords with 350 customers, now a $25 Billion business and nearly 3 times the size of the media spend of India.

(Kashyap Deorah is CEO, Chaupaati.com)

LOOK! Who’s changing?

There was a time when very large advertisers believed in ads that were strong on problem/solution communication. The ads clearly talked about what the problem is and how the brand/product comes to the rescue and solves the problem; for example how a detergent brand removes stains on shirts and makes it super white; and the wife gets appreciative glances from the husband ,the ultimate high for the woman. (Or atleast thats what men thought!)

These were hard working ads. But these ads were boring ads and put off creatives way before they put off consumers. The good creatives did not want to work on these kind of ads. And did not want to work in agencies that handled such brands immaterial of how big the brands were or how visible the advertising was. It was a moot question whether the ads worked or the huge budgets that

supported such ads that were invariably the work of a hundred different people and perfected to death, so to speak.

Then came a period when things took a complete turn. Advertisers became happy with what we call highly creative ads – humourous, irreverent, etc. These were highly entertaining ads. You saw a lot of ads which belonged to this genre. In fact some ads were so creative that you remembered the ads but not the brand names. It is true that with these kind of highly creative ads (provided that there was a complete connect between the storyline and brand) the advertisers needed to spend less in media since such ads managed to break the clutter and stand out. You saw a lot of big advertisers go to Cannes to get some learnings/exposure to help them better their advertising. Creatives also loved to work in agencies which created these ads.Today, a lot of big advertisers are neither happy with the 1st genre, i.e. hardworking ads nor with the 2nd genre, i.e. entertaining ads. I hear a lot of big advertisers say that they need agencies who can create the ideal ads for them. To me ideal ads are the ones that are neither just hard working nor just entertaining. They have to be both. I believe that for advertising to work best for advertisers, we need to create ads that are both – hardworking + entertaining .

This will help advertisers (big and small) to get more for their buck – get better results with lower spends. But the moot question is, do we have the talent pool to create such ads?

(Prabha Prabhu is CEO, BMB Madison Advertising)

25th August 2010: Music Royalty’s D-Day

When the Indian Government deregulated the FM industry and offered licenses to private media players to operate the same in the year 2001, it was with a spring in their step and song on their lips that several large media conglomerates decided to enter this new exciting domain.However because of speculative bidding and a poorly thought out auctioning process, the bid amounts ended up making the annual fixed license fees prohibitive and hugely expensive. This resulted in all radio networks racking up huge losses even as they set up stations across the country in 12 cities. While for some players the high license fee ensured that the game had ended even before it started, some of the more serious players interested in building long term FM businesses persevered. Radio City, then a part of the Star network was one such player.As all of us struggled to build viable businesses, another bitter reality was soon staring us in the face. And that was the exorbitant royalties that the music industry started charging all the radio stations. I think they saw in the FM business a new messiah, to pull them out of their myriad miseries, of diminishing revenues which were a consequence of piracy, and an increasing reluctance of the digital consumer to pay for music.Radio City filed a case in 2002 and thus started a journey along the long and arduous corridors of Justice with the case moving from the Copyright Board to the High Court and then to the Supreme court before being remanded back to the Copyright Board in the middle of 2008. In the due course of these travails and travels, Phase 2 of the FM de regulation process was announced and several new entrants entered the private FM industry taking its strength from a handful of pioneers to 42 operators running approximately 280 stations in 81 cities. Through this policy change undoubtedly the FM industry got immense relief, since the government moved to a revenue share model in its collection of license fee, however the music royalties continued to plague the profitability of the stations.With most of the new stations opening in Class B, C and D towns with limited revenue potential , the fixed royalty payment became even more aggravating since the royalty payable for large metros and small towns was the same . So while the revenue potential differed manifold between the stations the royalty payment was

the same. Thus it came to pass that most of the small stations ended up paying almost their entire revenue as royalty. Industry Estimates suggest that we were paying close to 15% of all our revenues as music royalty versus international norms of 0-2%.Some of the questions that further plagued all of us were:1. When most music was essentially created for movies and the creators of that music got adequately reimbursed by their primary buyers – the movie producers directly and the movie going public indirectly, why did music companies still want to charge huge amounts for radio play outs?2. On the one hand music companies treated radio as a marketing vehicle to promote both the music and the movie by constantly requesting for increased play out of their music, then why did they portray that radio was the enemy of music labels?3. Finally why did various bodies and individuals demand different royalties for the same piece of work when it was a well known fact that the composition in its entirety had been sold to the music label?The copyright board finally started its hearings in July 2008, however after continued delays in submitting documents it was forced to set a deadline of June 09 as the date for final submission of all documents. Examination of witnesses started in July 09 exactly a year after the copyright board had been directed by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional authority, to decide on royalty rates for the industry for automatic licensing. One more year passed before all the hearings extra concluded in July 10 including detailed questioning of many of us as material witnesses in the case. I think the witnesses of Radio City spent several hours being questioned. Finally D –Day was set as 25th August 2010 and the judgement was announced which stated that the royalty payment for all music providers would be at 2% of the net advertisement earning of each FM radio station accruing from the radio business for that radio station.It took nearly 10 years of effort, innumerable man hours, not to mention legal costs but all of us strongly believe that the end result is going to work in the benefit of all constituents involved. Recognition of the internationally accepted revenue sharing model will help both the music and the radio industries grow and prosper. Revenue sharing as compared to fixed fee models are

universally accepted to work for the benefit of all constituents as was proven even in the FM license fee change from the fixed format in Phase 1 to the revenue sharing format in Phase 2. Not only did the radio industry as the licensee, benefit, but also the Government of India as the licensor, made more money in Phase 2 than in Phase 1.

When the Indian Government deregulated the FM industry and offered licenses to private media players to operate the same in the year 2001, it was with a spring in their step and song on their lips that several large media conglomerates decided to enter this new exciting domain.

However because of speculative bidding and a poorly thought out auctioning process, the bid amounts ended up making the annual fixed license fees prohibitive and hugely expensive. This resulted in all radio networks racking up huge losses even as they set up stations across the country in 12 cities. While for some players the high license fee ensured that the game had ended even before it started, some of the more serious players interested in building long term FM businesses persevered. Radio City, then a part of the Star network was one such player.

As all of us struggled to build viable businesses, another bitter reality was soon staring us in the face. And that was the exorbitant royalties that the music industry started charging all the radio stations. I think they saw in the FM business a new messiah, to pull them out of their myriad miseries, of diminishing revenues which were a consequence of piracy, and an increasing reluctance of the digital consumer to pay for music.

Radio City filed a case in 2002 and thus started a journey along the long and arduous corridors of Justice with the case moving from the Copyright Board to the High Court and then to the Supreme court before being remanded back to the Copyright Board in the middle of 2008. In the due course of these travails and travels, Phase 2 of the FM de regulation process was announced and several new entrants entered the private FM industry taking its strength from a handful of pioneers to 42 operators running approximately 280 stations in 81 cities.

Through this policy change undoubtedly the FM industry got immense relief, since the government moved to a revenue share model in its collection of license fee, however the music royalties continued to plague the profitability of the stations.

With most of the new stations opening in Class B, C and D towns with limited revenue potential , the fixed royalty payment became even more aggravating since the royalty payable for large metros and small towns was the same . So while the revenue potential differed manifold between the stations the royalty payment was the same. Thus it came to pass that most of the small stations ended up paying almost their entire revenue as royalty. Industry Estimates suggest that we were paying close to 15% of all our revenues as music royalty versus international norms of 0-2%.

Some of the questions that further plagued all of us were:

1. When most music was essentially created for movies and the creators of that music got adequately reimbursed by their primary buyers – the movie producers directly and the movie going public indirectly, why did music companies still want to charge huge amounts for radio play outs?

2. On the one hand music companies treated radio as a marketing vehicle to promote both the music and the movie by constantly requesting for increased play out of their music, then why did they portray that radio was the enemy of music labels?

3. Finally why did various bodies and individuals demand different royalties for the same piece of work when it was a well known fact that the composition in its entirety had been sold to the music label?

The copyright board finally started its hearings in July 2008, however after continued delays in submitting documents it was forced to set a deadline of June 09 as the date for final submission of all documents. Examination of witnesses started in July 09 exactly a year after the copyright board had been directed by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional authority, to decide on royalty rates for the industry for automatic licensing. One more year

passed before all the hearings extra concluded in July 10 including detailed questioning of many of us as material witnesses in the case. I think the witnesses of Radio City spent several hours being questioned. Finally D –Day was set as 25th August 2010 and the judgement was announced which stated that the royalty payment for all music providers would be at 2% of the net advertisement earning of each FM radio station accruing from the radio business for that radio station.

It took nearly 10 years of effort, innumerable man hours, not to mention legal costs but all of us strongly believe that the end result is going to work in the benefit of all constituents involved. Recognition of the internationally accepted revenue sharing model will help both the music and the radio industries grow and prosper. Revenue sharing as compared to fixed fee models are universally accepted to work for the benefit of all constituents as was proven even in the FM license fee change from the fixed format in Phase 1 to the revenue sharing format in Phase 2. Not only did the radio industry as the licensee, benefit, but also the Government of India as the licensor, made more money in Phase 2 than in Phase 1.

(Apurva Purohit is CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM)

Adding Value To The Rupee

Director of Elephant Design on why the new symbol for the Rupee matters

There are two things that drive most Indian corporates to look at their image, branding, quality of products & services, differentiation in offering, communication values etc. Either they are facing competition from global brands in India or they foresee

themselves exporting their products/services in markets where global brands have firmly established themselves already. It is never too late to start something that feels right.

Peculiarly, Indian Government followed the same principle. As it saw the Indian currency making its way to becoming convertible with other globally accepted currencies, it realized it had no identity to claim as its own! No visual symbol!

And to make it more confusing, several of our neighbors too call their money by the same name. So we are surrounded by the Nepalese Rupee (NPR Rs), Pakistani Rupee (PKR Rs), Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR Rs), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR Rp), Maldives Rifiyan (MVR Rf) and so on.

Indeed a very smart move by the Finance Ministry of India to float a brief for Rupee symbol design. It makes us the leaders, as we rightfully are on many global parameters, it gives us the opportunity to have a face for our improving economy & it adds to our dignity as a nation in general.

As a process, the Rupee design competition was quite engaging & inspiring as can be seen from the number of entries that qualified… some 2,500 odd number. I am guessing there were as many more that probably did not make it through the first round.

According to me, the most challenging part of the brief was that identity was expected to “represent the historical and cultural ethos of India.” Considering the vast cultural diversity & historical expanse of India, this seemed like the toughest part. While there were basic expectations that the identity would be adaptable in the conventional key-board system, the brief made no reference to what the identity needed to do from the global business & finance perspective. I missed that part.

The competition was announced in March 2009 & we did not hear anything further till our Finance Minister talked about it during the Union Budget of 2010. Finally, the winning entry was unveiled earlier this month i.e. July 2010!

Do I like it?

Well, it does the job for me. I feel positive. As we get familiar with it, I am sure we will all like it.

Is it distinct?

It follows the design of horizontal strokes found in Euro & Yen completely and Pound to some extent. So on a scale of global currencies it is not distinct. I would say it is harmonious to other global currencies.

Is it Indian?

To an Indian who is familiar with Devnagari alphabet with the horizontal top line (shiro rekha), it is undoubtedly Indian.

To know what non-Indians think about it, (and this is the real test for a currency that has global ambitions), I actually gathered opinions from my designer friends who run design consultancies that are sensitive towards Asian culture. Here is what they say:

“I understand the ‘R’ but not the two horizontal strokes — do they mean anything in the local context or were they influenced by the Japanese Yen? The symbol seems to be “in a hurry”, maintaining a delicate balance (so as not to topple over). In contrast, the Dollar, Yen and Sterling Pound, for example, are stable and sit solidly on the ground. I don’t think its a bad design. I can live with it, and so will the world after the debate has died down.” – William Harald-Wong, Malaysia.

“I do feel it is too complicated for an international visitor. It should be a “R” isn’t it? Because (of) the stroke on the top it looks like another language which I don’t know and difficult to remember.” Freeman Lau, Hong Kong/ China.

“It reminds me of Communism symbol… my first impression.” Theresa Yong, Singapore.

“I feel confused with horizontal lines. Those lines make me think of Railways. “ Irvan Noe’man, Indonesia.

“I feel the details and proportions of its design as a character are a bit odd, it might be a relationship of elements and strokes. To me, it was a strong reminder to the Euro sign, almost saw a flipped E of the Euro immediately.” Tarek Atrissi, The Netherlands.

“It is (fast) recognizable.” Punlarp Punnotok, Thailand.

“It is a bit too difficult if you have to write this symbol by your hand. Lesser details, more simple and easy to remember are what I prefer. Reminds me of some ancient script” Siam Attariya, Thailand.

“Top heavy. No solid foundation. The cross bars are disturbingly located… could be a rail transport symbol.” Stanley Tan, Singapore.

This of course is only one (designer) community reacting to it. But as William says, the world will live with it.

Where will I like to see it?

Definitely & quickly across all currency exchange booths across the world!

(Ashwini Deshpande is the Director of Elephant Srategy + Design)

Adding Value To The Rupee

Director of Elephant Design on why the new symbol for the Rupee matters

There are two things that drive most Indian corporates to look at their image, branding, quality of products & services, differentiation in offering, communication values etc. Either they are facing competition from global brands in India or they foresee

themselves exporting their products/services in markets where global brands have firmly established themselves already. It is never too late to start something that feels right.

Peculiarly, Indian Government followed the same principle. As it saw the Indian currency making its way to becoming convertible with other globally accepted currencies, it realized it had no identity to claim as its own! No visual symbol!

And to make it more confusing, several of our neighbors too call their money by the same name. So we are surrounded by the Nepalese Rupee (NPR Rs), Pakistani Rupee (PKR Rs), Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR Rs), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR Rp), Maldives Rifiyan (MVR Rf) and so on.

Indeed a very smart move by the Finance Ministry of India to float a brief for Rupee symbol design. It makes us the leaders, as we rightfully are on many global parameters, it gives us the opportunity to have a face for our improving economy & it adds to our dignity as a nation in general.

As a process, the Rupee design competition was quite engaging & inspiring as can be seen from the number of entries that qualified… some 2,500 odd number. I am guessing there were as many more that probably did not make it through the first round.

According to me, the most challenging part of the brief was that identity was expected to “represent the historical and cultural ethos of India.” Considering the vast cultural diversity & historical expanse of India, this seemed like the toughest part. While there were basic expectations that the identity would be adaptable in the conventional key-board system, the brief made no reference to what the identity needed to do from the global business & finance perspective. I missed that part.

The competition was announced in March 2009 & we did not hear anything further till our Finance Minister talked about it during the Union Budget of 2010. Finally, the winning entry was unveiled earlier this month i.e. July 2010!

Do I like it?

Well, it does the job for me. I feel positive. As we get familiar with it, I am sure we will all like it.

Is it distinct?

It follows the design of horizontal strokes found in Euro & Yen completely and Pound to some extent. So on a scale of global currencies it is not distinct. I would say it is harmonious to other global currencies.

Is it Indian?

To an Indian who is familiar with Devnagari alphabet with the horizontal top line (shiro rekha), it is undoubtedly Indian.

To know what non-Indians think about it, (and this is the real test for a currency that has global ambitions), I actually gathered opinions from my designer friends who run design consultancies that are sensitive towards Asian culture. Here is what they say:

“I understand the ‘R’ but not the two horizontal strokes — do they mean anything in the local context or were they influenced by the Japanese Yen? The symbol seems to be “in a hurry”, maintaining a delicate balance (so as not to topple over). In contrast, the Dollar, Yen and Sterling Pound, for example, are stable and sit solidly on the ground. I don’t think its a bad design. I can live with it, and so will the world after the debate has died down.” – William Harald-Wong, Malaysia.

“I do feel it is too complicated for an international visitor. It should be a “R” isn’t it? Because (of) the stroke on the top it looks like another language which I don’t know and difficult to remember.” Freeman Lau, Hong Kong/ China.

“It reminds me of Communism symbol… my first impression.” Theresa Yong, Singapore.

“I feel confused with horizontal lines. Those lines make me think of Railways. “ Irvan Noe’man, Indonesia.

“I feel the details and proportions of its design as a character are a bit odd, it might be a relationship of elements and strokes. To me, it was a strong reminder to the Euro sign, almost saw a flipped E of the Euro immediately.” Tarek Atrissi, The Netherlands.

“It is (fast) recognizable.” Punlarp Punnotok, Thailand.

“It is a bit too difficult if you have to write this symbol by your hand. Lesser details, more simple and easy to remember are what I prefer. Reminds me of some ancient script” Siam Attariya, Thailand.

“Top heavy. No solid foundation. The cross bars are disturbingly located… could be a rail transport symbol.” Stanley Tan, Singapore.

This of course is only one (designer) community reacting to it. But as William says, the world will live with it.

Where will I like to see it?

Definitely & quickly across all currency exchange booths across the world!

(Ashwini Deshpande is the Director of Elephant Srategy + Design)

Paddy Fields @ Cannes

Co-Founder & NCD, TapRoot India on his experience at Cannes this year

This year was my fifth at the mega advertising festival and I have seen it becoming bigger and bigger through the years across platforms. The theme at this year’s fest was ‘Connections made

easy’, which is so relevant for people who come there to network, meet prospective clients, buyers and the big hires etc.I even recollect a few of the themes from past years: ‘The more you see the more you learn’, ‘Big ideas can make anyone feel smaller’ and some more. And even if these sound cliché, they can only be owned by Cannes Lions. Because the festival has delivered everything that they have been saying over these years. The way they manage the award shows, the seminars and the talks, the scale and the delegates to say a few. Really, hats off to Terry Savage, Philip Thomas and the entire Cannes Lions team. They have managed to seed different festivals for different regions as well. Like Dubai Lynx and Spikes for Asia, which has picked up pretty well in last few years, So in a way, we owe them big time for what we gain out of these festivals. Together, they truly make for a complete global advertising festival! It’s not a bad idea Terry to take over the Indian local awards or at least help us to retain it please!Last year being the launch of Taproot India, I was a bit tied up with a few things and missed the bus. Just three months old and we didn’t have anything to enter at Cannes. And so I thought we could manage to skip the fest. But that was an incorrect decision on my part I believe, as these days Cannes is much more than entering work.This is about everything from clients to creatives to marketers and more. And learnings wise, each has more than what you can take. Take me for instance. Every time, I return from Cannes with a swollen head. For there so much for one to learn: seminars, talks, the new director’s showcase, thousands of shortlists across twelve categories in the form of presentation boards, print/posters, radio ads and screenings for titanium and film. To see all of it plus make your presence felt at gutter bar and various parties, you surely need to be one hell of a time management guru or else it’s impossible. Or maybe you could get on a computer and see all the entries that have been submitted, Something I did with my favourite categories, by giving few seminars a miss. Which later I heard was a right decision. I prefer to see versus hear. It’s a choice you need to make. After all, it is up to you, how much you can milk in the allotted seven days.

A festival like this is extremely helpful to juniors and seniors alike. Because considering the busy schedules seniors in the industry have, they do not get chance or have time to see what’s happening around. And it sure matters in many ways. From the standard of creativity to who’s doing what and how to what ideas have already been done. And more importantly, the work that challenges you, awakens your creative spirit and compels you to deliver a better creative product every next time you face a blank page. Which largely, is what core job of a creative person at the end of the day is. Plus, somehow, I feel mini ad festivals should happen at least twice or thrice a year. If nothing, to challenge your right brain more often.Alright, 2010 wasn’t the best year for India. Then again, it wasn’t the worst year either. A total of 17 metals (with 3 golds) compared to 23 and 24 in past two years, more or less we’ve done the job this year. But of course, a lot more was expected from us. Expectations are escalating with each passing year. And when I saw some of our entries at Goafest here at Cannes, I felt we believe in God a tad too much. And depend too much on luck and magic. The mantra seems to be this: the more you enter the more you get. And while that’s true only in case of quality work, mere quantity is going to get you nowhere. Like, on the first day we had just 7 shortlist across 3 categories (media, promo and direct) out of 306 entries which is just about 2% of the shortlist. We got 2 metals. Adds up to less than 1 %. And to our 1026 entires across categories, we bagged 17 metals which is less than 2%, we often compare ourself with Brazil, why? Their strike rate is 10 times more than us, that whole nation works as a team, they help each other that makes them more superior and super power than us, it’s high time we look at the other aspects as well apart from just work. On the quality of work, the pieces that made me feel jealous (and wish I would have done them) were the Gatorade Replay, the Heineken music concert, the Anti-knife Crime protest online campaign by the metropolitan police, the Canon photochain and the Andes beer pub innovation. These are also my favourite. And if you look closely, these are the pieces that struck in most categories. Now that’s what I call the power of an idea. No lobbying, no pushing. It cuts across all barriers and reaches where

it deserves to be. Also, the way the Billboard Magazine campaign was taken across mediums from print to outdoor to digital, it was among my favourites as well. Purely from the engagement and the simplicity which it had across all mediums, I was a bit disappointed with the film grand prix and the poster grand prix. These according to me, were awarded to the logos that appeared in the end or on the right hand bottom corner and may be due to the media budget. Now don’t get me wrong. I have huge respect for the kind of brand work both brands have been doing, and has done. Hats off to them and one more bow for both the campaigns for they have generated so much goodwill for the respective clients. And a great contender for Effies, But Grand Prix? Grand Prix is all about an idea that becomes an inspiration and a benchmark for the next year. The brands are inspiring but in my opinion, the same can’t be said for the campaigns. Just because it worked in a particular region doesn’t necessarily mean it has a great idea. Our very own ‘Digen Verma’ or ‘Balbeer Pasha’ campaigns were also quite talked about in India.It’s the power of an idea that should matter, not the budget. Likewise, I don’t think the size of an agency matters anymore. It’s the size of your ideas that matter in the end. Nobody was ever awarded in advertising because they had 4000 odd folks working for them.We, Taproot India, believe in the same principles and which has worked for us, we have been rated as the No.1 Indian agency at Cannes this year. Looking at our metal tally, we’re happy for the gold and silver for our Conqueror Paper print campaign. But overall, just a bit disappointed for the Times of India Aman Ki Asha campaign. The kind of applause it generated at the independent agency session at Cannes, everyone thought it deserved something. It also goes on to show that we’ve done extremely well this year, both on businesses as well as at the creative award shows. We bagged 6 metals at Goafest, we did exceptionally well at The One Show, we were the only agency from whole of Asia to win a gold at Clio and topping it all was topping the Indian table at Cannes. Past year gives much confidence to try out a few more things. And we’re already planning to explore possibilities.I wish Cannes would do more for the under 30 (or under 28). It could even be in the form of delegate entry concessions, or

anything, as they are the best guys to come out with options/solution, As youth are the future of advertising and most of them certainly can’t afford to manage by themselves. Moreover, I don’t think bigger agencies take a conscious decision to invest in juniors (which in a way must be right the way they think) but if somehow, Cannes could crack this one, it’d help the industry a lot. Especially in the coming years, as the festival could do with looking a lot younger!

This year was my fifth at the mega advertising festival and I have seen it becoming bigger and bigger through the years across platforms. The theme at this year’s fest was ‘Connections made easy’, which is so relevant for people who come there to network, meet prospective clients, buyers and the big hires etc.

I even recollect a few of the themes from past years: ‘The more you see the more you learn’, ‘Big ideas can make anyone feel smaller’ and some more. And even if these sound cliché, they can only be owned by Cannes Lions. Because the festival has delivered everything that they have been saying over these years. The way they manage the award shows, the seminars and the talks, the scale and the delegates to say a few. Really, hats off to Terry Savage, Philip Thomas and the entire Cannes Lions team. They have managed to seed different festivals for different regions as well. Like Dubai Lynx and Spikes for Asia, which has picked up pretty well in last few years, So in a way, we owe them big time for what we gain out of these festivals. Together, they truly make for a complete global advertising festival! It’s not a bad idea Terry to take over the Indian local awards or at least help us to retain it please!

Last year being the launch of Taproot India, I was a bit tied up with a few things and missed the bus. Just three months old and we didn’t have anything to enter at Cannes. And so I thought we could manage to skip the fest. But that was an incorrect decision on my part I believe, as these days Cannes is much more than entering work.

This is about everything from clients to creatives to marketers and more. And learnings wise, each has more than what you can take.

Take me for instance. Every time, I return from Cannes with a swollen head. For there so much for one to learn: seminars, talks, the new director’s showcase, thousands of shortlists across twelve categories in the form of presentation boards, print/posters, radio ads and screenings for titanium and film. To see all of it plus make your presence felt at gutter bar and various parties, you surely need to be one hell of a time management guru or else it’s impossible. Or maybe you could get on a computer and see all the entries that have been submitted, Something I did with my favourite categories, by giving few seminars a miss. Which later I heard was a right decision. I prefer to see versus hear. It’s a choice you need to make. After all, it is up to you, how much you can milk in the allotted seven days.

A festival like this is extremely helpful to juniors and seniors alike. Because considering the busy schedules seniors in the industry have, they do not get chance or have time to see what’s happening around. And it sure matters in many ways. From the standard of creativity to who’s doing what and how to what ideas have already been done. And more importantly, the work that challenges you, awakens your creative spirit and compels you to deliver a better creative product every next time you face a blank page. Which largely, is what core job of a creative person at the end of the day is. Plus, somehow, I feel mini ad festivals should happen at least twice or thrice a year. If nothing, to challenge your right brain more often.

Alright, 2010 wasn’t the best year for India. Then again, it wasn’t the worst year either. A total of 17 metals (with 3 golds) compared to 23 and 24 in past two years, more or less we’ve done the job this year. But of course, a lot more was expected from us. Expectations are escalating with each passing year. And when I saw some of our entries at Goafest here at Cannes, I felt we believe in God a tad too much. And depend too much on luck and magic. The mantra seems to be this: the more you enter the more you get. And while that’s true only in case of quality work, mere quantity is going to get you nowhere. Like, on the first day we had just 7 shortlist across 3 categories (media, promo and direct) out of 306 entries which is just about 2% of the shortlist. We got 2 metals. Adds up to less than 1 %. And to our 1026 entires across

categories, we bagged 17 metals which is less than 2%, we often compare ourself with Brazil, why? Their strike rate is 10 times more than us, that whole nation works as a team, they help each other that makes them more superior and super power than us, it’s high time we look at the other aspects as well apart from just work.

On the quality of work, the pieces that made me feel jealous (and wish I would have done them) were the Gatorade Replay, the Heineken music concert, the Anti-knife Crime protest online campaign by the metropolitan police, the Canon photochain and the Andes beer pub innovation. These are also my favourite. And if you look closely, these are the pieces that struck in most categories. Now that’s what I call the power of an idea. No lobbying, no pushing. It cuts across all barriers and reaches where it deserves to be. Also, the way the Billboard Magazine campaign was taken across mediums from print to outdoor to digital, it was among my favourites as well. Purely from the engagement and the simplicity which it had across all mediums, I was a bit disappointed with the film grand prix and the poster grand prix. These according to me, were awarded to the logos that appeared in the end or on the right hand bottom corner and may be due to the media budget. Now don’t get me wrong. I have huge respect for the kind of brand work both brands have been doing, and has done. Hats off to them and one more bow for both the campaigns for they have generated so much goodwill for the respective clients. And a great contender for Effies, But Grand Prix? Grand Prix is all about an idea that becomes an inspiration and a benchmark for the next year. The brands are inspiring but in my opinion, the same can’t be said for the campaigns. Just because it worked in a particular region doesn’t necessarily mean it has a great idea. Our very own ‘Digen Verma’ or ‘Balbeer Pasha’ campaigns were also quite talked about in India.

It’s the power of an idea that should matter, not the budget. Likewise, I don’t think the size of an agency matters anymore. It’s the size of your ideas that matter in the end. Nobody was ever awarded in advertising because they had 4000 odd folks working for them.

We, Taproot India, believe in the same principles and which has worked for us, we have been rated as the No.1 Indian agency at Cannes this year. Looking at our metal tally, we’re happy for the gold and silver for our Conqueror Paper print campaign. But overall, just a bit disappointed for the Times of India Aman Ki Asha campaign. The kind of applause it generated at the independent agency session at Cannes, everyone thought it deserved something. It also goes on to show that we’ve done extremely well this year, both on businesses as well as at the creative award shows. We bagged 6 metals at Goafest, we did exceptionally well at The One Show, we were the only agency from whole of Asia to win a gold at Clio and topping it all was topping the Indian table at Cannes. Past year gives much confidence to try out a few more things. And we’re already planning to explore possibilities.

I wish Cannes would do more for the under 30 (or under 28). It could even be in the form of delegate entry concessions, or anything, as they are the best guys to come out with options/solution, As youth are the future of advertising and most of them certainly can’t afford to manage by themselves. Moreover, I don’t think bigger agencies take a conscious decision to invest in juniors (which in a way must be right the way they think) but if somehow, Cannes could crack this one, it’d help the industry a lot. Especially in the coming years, as the festival could do with looking a lot younger!

(Santosh Padhi, or Paddy as he’s better known, is National Creative Director & Co-Founder of TapRoot India)

RADIO: 10 Lessons From Cannes 2010

Jury Member (Radio Lions) de-learns, learns & re-learns from Cannes ‘10

Extension of lesson 1: Whoever said local doesn’t sell globally? Let’s create more and more spots with local flavour [don’t we have them in abundance?].And more importantly, a radio spot help build a brand better when produced local. And thus, it automatically qualifies to become a potential winner.Again, radio jurors love a whiff of anything fresh.Lesson 3:Remember: English is seen and heard as an English idea. Not as an Indian idea in Indian English. And hence, an English spot is seen through a magnifying lens of English sensibilities. Not with Indian sensibilities. And since they (jury) understand the English language, they often presume they understand an Indian idea done in English too. And thus, they evaluate or, if you are unlucky, devaluate your spot. To that extent your scoring chances might dramatically climb down.On the flipside in fact, a sincere attempt is always made by juries to hear the regional work in the spirit of that language.Lesson 4:Having said that, lesson 3 holds little significance, should the subject and the object require English. Simply put, if the TG and idea itself are well bred in the Queen’s language, by all means we must record in the English language.After all, modern India regards English as one of her many languages. And Jury should know that.Lesson 5:Let the script and execution not reveal or conceal too much. For, we must neither underestimate the jury nor challenge it beyond its wits!Managing a fine balance is an art of craft.Lesson 6:The jury might want to hear the spot in English. Which means, if the spot needs to be recorded in English let’s please leave no stone unturned in investing time and money to record a version in the lingua-franca. But of course with a footnote: ‘diluted / skeleton

version in English’. However, let’s not furnish an English rendition if it’s likely to be detrimental to our chance of winning. Though, we cannot do away with an indicative English script.Helping the jury evaluate your spots helps you!Lesson 7:If we have a support story to tell, let’s narrate it. We cannot afford not to. We are provided with space to describe our work, let’s fill it with apt set of words. If it helps, and only if it helps, we should make an audio-visual presentation to further explain how radio as a relevant medium was put to best use. Packaging works. Presentation adds value to substance.Support material helps. It lifts the spot a few notches up. We can score.Lesson 8:Let’s face it: If we continue to switch into our radio mode only in the 11th hour of the 12th month, we could well miss the flight to Nice, Cannes. Let’s invest time in the medium. It’s not a backroom activity. Let’s do some homework. Let’s be pro-active about the ‘pro-active’. A 1-hour PPM and a 1-hour analysis will surely polish the rough edges.And will bring the metals within reach.Lesson 9:Radio as a medium is yet to be taken to another level. This medium needs handholding – from agencies, ad clubs, local awards bodies, the entire fraternity and even advertisers. Running this otherwise light-hearted medium through nine filters is only going to bring the category tumbling down. Locally being tough on judging is different from being harsh. If you are declared ‘not good enough’ on your home turf, you are discouraged to enter international.When you don’t enter, you are no more in the picture.Lesson 10:Let’s take radio seriously. Let’s please realise that radio, inherently and whole heartedly, belongs to India. And vice-versa.Hail Radio.Manohar Nayak, Radio jury, Cannes Lions 2010Managing Direrctor, Lingo India P. Ltd.

Lesson 1:

Let’s not refrain from entering ‘originally regional’ kick-ass radio spots. Often, minute regional nuances get jury’s special attention. And when we have apt descriptions in place, they do get jury’s appreciation. It’s a myth that ‘they don’t understand regional and therefore they play it down’. The fact is: if you make an effort to trans-create your idea in support material, juries too will make an effort to decode the essence.

And of course, the radio jury always has a ready pair of eyes for anything unheard of.

Lesson 2:

Extension of lesson 1: Whoever said local doesn’t sell globally? Let’s create more and more spots with local flavour [don’t we have them in abundance?].

And more importantly, a radio spot help build a brand better when produced local. And thus, it automatically qualifies to become a potential winner.

Again, radio jurors love a whiff of anything fresh.

Lesson 3:

Remember: English is seen and heard as an English idea. Not as an Indian idea in Indian English. And hence, an English spot is seen through a magnifying lens of English sensibilities. Not with Indian sensibilities. And since they (jury) understand the English language, they often presume they understand an Indian idea done in English too. And thus, they evaluate or, if you are unlucky, devaluate your spot. To that extent your scoring chances might dramatically climb down.

On the flipside in fact, a sincere attempt is always made by juries to hear the regional work in the spirit of that language.

Lesson 4:

Having said that, lesson 3 holds little significance, should the subject and the object require English. Simply put, if the TG and

idea itself are well bred in the Queen’s language, by all means we must record in the English language.

After all, modern India regards English as one of her many languages. And Jury should know that.

Lesson 5:

Let the script and execution not reveal or conceal too much. For, we must neither underestimate the jury nor challenge it beyond its wits!

Managing a fine balance is an art of craft.

Lesson 6:

The jury might want to hear the spot in English. Which means, if the spot needs to be recorded in English let’s please leave no stone unturned in investing time and money to record a version in the lingua-franca. But of course with a footnote: ‘diluted / skeleton version in English’. However, let’s not furnish an English rendition if it’s likely to be detrimental to our chance of winning. Though, we cannot do away with an indicative English script.

Helping the jury evaluate your spots helps you!

Lesson 7:

If we have a support story to tell, let’s narrate it. We cannot afford not to. We are provided with space to describe our work, let’s fill it with apt set of words. If it helps, and only if it helps, we should make an audio-visual presentation to further explain how radio as a relevant medium was put to best use. Packaging works. Presentation adds value to substance.

Support material helps. It lifts the spot a few notches up. We can score.

Lesson 8:

Let’s face it: If we continue to switch into our radio mode only in the 11th hour of the 12th month, we could well miss the flight to Nice, Cannes. Let’s invest time in the medium. It’s not a backroom activity. Let’s do some homework. Let’s be pro-active about the ‘pro-active’. A 1-hour PPM and a 1-hour analysis will surely polish the rough edges.

And will bring the metals within reach.

Lesson 9:

Radio as a medium is yet to be taken to another level. This medium needs handholding – from agencies, ad clubs, local awards bodies, the entire fraternity and even advertisers. Running this otherwise light-hearted medium through nine filters is only going to bring the category tumbling down. Locally being tough on judging is different from being harsh. If you are declared ‘not good enough’ on your home turf, you are discouraged to enter international.

When you don’t enter, you are no more in the picture.

Lesson 10:

Let’s take radio seriously. Let’s please realise that radio, inherently and whole heartedly, belongs to India. And vice-versa.

Hail Radio.

(Manohar Nayak was Jury Member, Radio Lions 2010 & is the Managing Direrctor of Lingo India)

Winning At Cannes

Jury Member, PR Lions, on what separates the winners from all the others

Cannes PR Lions Jury President, Paul Taffe’s statement, “kick in the bum” at a press conference to announce the awards, captured headlines. This was aimed at the PR industry, in reference to the abysmally low number of entries from PR firms that made it to the winners’ shortlist. This was obvious as we reviewed the initial body of works that saw a 32% increase in the number of entries this year (the PR category is still fledgling as it was introduced to the Cannes Advertising Festival last year). Amusing and annoying at the same time, quite a few entries cited that “they had no money and hence, turned to PR” – clearly not a smart thing to do when entering in the PR category!

The Grand Prix was awarded to TBWA’s entry REPLAY (http://www.canneslions.com/work/pr/) that saw Gatorade and the agency reunite the football teams that drew their game fifteen years ago, for just that – a replay. However, my hero was fellow juror, Tom Beckman. The tall, lanky, straight faced executive creative director, owner and senior partner of Sweden’s largest and most awarded PR agency taught me a few invaluable lessons. Tom’s firm walked away with five metals – two gold Lions and three silver Lions.

So, what made the forty three entries winners out of a total of 571 entries, this year? The jury was clearly looking to define creativity from a public relations perspective. Two aspects were defined at the onset, articulated well by, Paul in his introductory communication to us: “a demonstrable and compelling link between creativity, strategy, execution and results; and reward creativity that lasts over time at the expense of something that is one-off. Ideas that galvanize a wider conversation seem to play to the heart of what powerful PR is about”. Unfortunately, few entries made the cut in traditional PR domains of media relations, crisis communication, internal communication and even in a domain like healthcare which predominantly uses public relations.

As we approached the final stages of our grueling judging sessions, there was another aspect that stood out: a high degree of authenticity in the winning campaigns that touched a chord.

That brings me back to Tom and the work done by his firm, Prime PR. It was clear that the agency strived to identify strong insights that led to the big idea triggering the “wider conversation” that Paul spoke about. “We worked very hard for this,” Tom told me. This was evident in all their entries (they had ten shortlists). Not just did their work stand out distinctly from a campaign perspective, packaging of their entries and well thought out decisions to enter in the right categories made them reign supreme. As Cannes PR Lions enters its third year, our Industry must shed its indifference and stake claim to the category created for us. Prime PR offers us the example that exemplary campaigns can originate from PR firms, and creativity can indeed cross advertising borders.

(Nandita Lakshmanan, Founder and CEO, The PRactice was a juror at the Cannes PR Lions 2010)

Book Marketing using Social Media

Author, “The Immortals Of Meluha” on digital mktg of books

One of the benefits with being an outsider to the publishing trade (I’m basically a Finance guy) is that my advisors and I were not constrained by any pre-existing notions. So we were willing to try new and different ideas to market The Immortals of Meluha (currently # 1 on the HT bestseller list and # 2 on the India Today bestseller list). I have been told that many of the marketing ideas we implemented have never been done earlier for the promotion of books. Amongst these ideas was a free promotional copy of the book, a trailer film for the book and very active use of social media.

Free promotional copy of the book:

We printed the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha with the same cover as the main book and had it distributed free in key national book stores such as Crossword, Landmark and Odyssey. This was done around 2 weeks before the release of the main book. The idea was to give a sampler to the audience of what to expect in the book. Since the free promotional copy was to be distributed at cash counters, it also ensured good pre-launch visibility for the book with both customers and bookstore staff. It is very crucial for the bookstore staff to also be aware of the book so that they would recommend it. A surprising benefit we did get was that the stores got such positive feedback on the promotional copy that their first orders for the main book was much beyond what we expected. Our publisher, Tara Press had to go in for a reprint within the first week of the book release!Trailer film for the book:We’ve been told that the book has a very visual feel, with many readers giving vivid descriptions of the war scenes and the cities. So the idea of making a trailer film, which would bring the book to life in an audio-visual form really struck home. An original soundtrack for the trailer film was composed by Taufiq Qureshi, the celebrated percussionist & music director and son of Ustad Allahrakha. The film was directed by Atul Manjrekar, a well-know ad film maker, with the script written by Abhijeet Powdwal, special effects by Amit Chitnis and with Rohan Dhuri as the model. The film was uploaded on youtube and the official website of The Immortals of Meluha (http://www.shivatrilogy.com/theimmortalsofmeluha.html) to be shared with customers, distributors and retailers. The film (along with it’s different versions) has already garnered more than 8000 views through pure viral forwards from viewers and has helped promote the book in a large way.Social mediaThere are two main tools that have been used in social media viz: Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a fantastic ‘deep engagement tool’ whereas Twitter is extremely efficient as a ‘targeted broadcast tool’.Facebook has been a powerful engagement device for us. There are two Facebook accounts (Shivatrilogy and Amish Tripathi) and a group (The Immortals of Meluha). The group was not even set

up by me. A few people whom I don’t know, who had read the free promotional copy of The Immortals of Meluha, set up the group. And I was invited into the group once it already had more than 150 members and someone realised that the author is also on Facebook! It was surreal. Across the Facebook accounts/groups I already have over 1500 relationships – and over 90% of them are people that I didn’t know earlier and haven’t even met as yet. This group are like my insiders, my extended family. I post links on my wall and they place it on their walls so that all their friends know. We discuss various aspects of the book (like the philosophies etc) on Facebook. My friends would check up across the country on whether the books were being properly distributed/displayed across book stores and would give information to me – thus allowing me to provide feedback to my publisher, distributors and retail partners. Net-net, thanks to Facebook, I have developed a bunch of close friends who are as committed as me to making the book widely available and read. Twitter on the other hand is a great targeted broadcast tool. It is difficult to have a conversation on twitter with the 140 character limit. But it is a great tool to make targeted broadcasts and announcements. It is also useful to give short succinct reverts on feedback. Getting followers takes time (unless you are a celebrity). Hence my twitter handle is being aggressively promoted on every communication tool e.g. book backpage, website etc. Over time, as the number of followers rise, Twitter would be a perfect place to broadcast events, share news, thoughts of the author, responses on the book etc. Of course Twitter also allows us to target customers across the world – we’ve got interest from UK/US/Middle-east/Malaysia. All this will aid in getting international publishing deals as well.

One of the benefits with being an outsider to the publishing trade (I’m basically a Finance guy) is that my advisors and I were not constrained by any pre-existing notions. So we were willing to try new and different ideas to market The Immortals of Meluha (currently # 1 on the HT bestseller list and # 2 on the India Today bestseller list). I have been told that many of the marketing ideas we implemented have never been done earlier for the promotion of books. Amongst these ideas was a free promotional copy of the

book, a trailer film for the book and very active use of social media.

Free promotional copy of the book:

We printed the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha with the same cover as the main book and had it distributed free in key national book stores such as Crossword, Landmark and Odyssey. This was done around 2 weeks before the release of the main book. The idea was to give a sampler to the audience of what to expect in the book. Since the free promotional copy was to be distributed at cash counters, it also ensured good pre-launch visibility for the book with both customers and bookstore staff. It is very crucial for the bookstore staff to also be aware of the book so that they would recommend it. A surprising benefit we did get was that the stores got such positive feedback on the promotional copy that their first orders for the main book was much beyond what we expected. Our publisher, Tara Press had to go in for a reprint within the first week of the book release!

Trailer film for the book:

We’ve been told that the book has a very visual feel, with many readers giving vivid descriptions of the war scenes and the cities. So the idea of making a trailer film, which would bring the book to life in an audio-visual form really struck home. An original soundtrack for the trailer film was composed by Taufiq Qureshi, the celebrated percussionist & music director and son of Ustad Allahrakha. The film was directed by Atul Manjrekar, a well-know ad film maker, with the script written by Abhijeet Powdwal, special effects by Amit Chitnis and with Rohan Dhuri as the model. The film was uploaded on youtube and the official website of The Immortals of Meluha to be shared with customers, distributors and retailers. The film (along with it’s different versions) has already garnered more than 8000 views through pure viral forwards from viewers and has helped promote the book in a large way.

Social media

There are two main tools that have been used in social media viz: Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a fantastic ‘deep engagement tool’ whereas Twitter is extremely efficient as a ‘targeted broadcast tool’.

Facebook has been a powerful engagement device for us. There are two Facebook accounts (Shivatrilogy and Amish Tripathi) and a group (The Immortals of Meluha). The group was not even set up by me. A few people whom I don’t know, who had read the free promotional copy of The Immortals of Meluha, set up the group. And I was invited into the group once it already had more than 150 members and someone realised that the author is also on Facebook! It was surreal. Across the Facebook accounts/groups I already have over 1500 relationships – and over 90% of them are people that I didn’t know earlier and haven’t even met as yet. This group are like my insiders, my extended family. I post links on my wall and they place it on their walls so that all their friends know. We discuss various aspects of the book (like the philosophies etc) on Facebook. My friends would check up across the country on whether the books were being properly distributed/displayed across book stores and would give information to me – thus allowing me to provide feedback to my publisher, distributors and retail partners. Net-net, thanks to Facebook, I have developed a bunch of close friends who are as committed as me to making the book widely available and read.

Twitter on the other hand is a great targeted broadcast tool. It is difficult to have a conversation on twitter with the 140 character limit. But it is a great tool to make targeted broadcasts and announcements. It is also useful to give short succinct reverts on feedback. Getting followers takes time (unless you are a celebrity). Hence my twitter handle is being aggressively promoted on every communication tool e.g. book backpage, website etc. Over time, as the number of followers rise, Twitter would be a perfect place to broadcast events, share news, thoughts of the author, responses on the book etc. Of course Twitter also allows us to target customers across the world – we’ve got interest from UK/US/Middle-east/Malaysia. All this will aid in getting international publishing deals as well.

(Amish Tripathi is the National Head – Marketing & Product Development, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance & author of “The Immortals of Melhua”)

Rin-In-The-Face

Is all of Indian advertising getting progressively more and more simple? Are brands getting back to the good old basics?Colgate is talking the language of white teeth once again. Discarding everything else and very directly, re-discovering the tabletop model of the teeth as well and talking endlessly on the subject of germs hidden in-between teeth, which only Colgate reaches out to.Nirma is talking dirt-busting capability with its eminently well-created Nirma jingle TV commercial that has dirt freezing in its tracks, quite afraid of the stentorian jingle of Nirma done with pizzazz and pomp. Nirma reinvents for itself its USP and the jingle. Both together.And now Rin has gone back to a creative piece that re-discovers the joy, the pain and the trauma of comparative advertising.Good formats and the good old ways seem to never tire in their efficiency scores. The competitor’s brand to many is a four-letter word. In the case of Rin, it really is a four letter word as well: Tide. The current piece of Rin advertising, whichhas the brand name Tide repeated many times over, is certainly new, refreshing, in-the-eye and very-very straight.There are many ways of looking at this creative. Here are just two quick Jekyll and Hyde set of thoughts of mine.1. This is a very confident piece of advertising. It takes the time-tested route of direct product delivery and capability comparisons. Just as long as your data is independent and reliable, go ahead and do this sort of thing. If Rin had pixilated the brand name and done this, it would seem a trifle under-confident. What works with the consumer is confidence. Go out there and say it confidently if you have your facts right. Regain confidence for your brand and

shake the competitors brand confidence index. Make people sit up and question with their eyes. Name the brand outright! Be bold! Take the battle out into the bastion of the competitor’s brand.2. Hey! This is old hat. This kind of comparative advertising used to work in the good old days when consumers sat up and made purchase decisions basis product attributes and product delivery norms in terms of solutions. Good scent and whiteness are rather both generic to the category. How much ever anyone shouts in messaging such as this, consumers are going to be yawning and saying what next. Consumers hate this kind of relapse into age-old advertising formats that have the same old message of the sixties with the creative ability and excellence of production standards of the 2000’s staring back at them. Wake up and smell the change.What do I believe in?I do believe this is a confident piece of advertising. It’s a good one that will have consumerssitting up and take note of a very boring category that has been around since the days of Sunlight and Det. Consumers arevoyeuristic in their habits. They will sit up and will want to enjoy the fight. In the boring detergents category, they will surely expect a Tide re-buff ad hitting the airwaves. Later than sooner.In this summer of detergent-discontent, consumers will watch the fun as it unfolds and will do just what they want. They will take their favorite brand back home for more reasons than product attribute and product delivery reasons alone. They will pick the brand basis the scent of the brand. Basis the language of the brand. Tide Naturals has much to sell in its brand name itself on this count. And the bulk of consumers will buy basis the price of the brand as well. Price, sadly to the chagrin of the marketer and advertiser alike, remains the biggest lowest common denominator nudge point for brand purchase in ‘parri passu’ categories such as detergents today in India.The Rin ad is good for the category at large as consumers sit up and watch the fight unfold on their television sets, in the courts, and indeed in the marketplace and homes of the millions of consumers who use these brands.The current piece of Rin advertising is very clear in its visual language of comparison. There are shots of the competitive

brands in the shopping baskets of both the women waiting for their kids. There is the all give-away shot of the boys emerging from the bus, one with the whitest of whites and the other with the creamiest of the creams. And finally there is the comparative half screen of both the brands with Rin winning over Tide. Rin understands the importance of price in this category and brings that in as well, as the round-figure of Rs.25 shouts vocally and visually.What’s ahead then? The Rin ad will be pulled off the screens. The fight will move off-screen. Rin would have got its bang for the buck already in terms of brand awareness scores in the initial burst of advertising before pullout. Many will criticize the genre of advertising as being nasty and a bit too nifty. Rebuff ads will follow. And much else will happen. The fun has just begun.(Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)Feedback: ceo@harishbijoorconsults.com

Is all of Indian advertising getting progressively more and more simple? Are brands getting back to the good old basics?

Colgate is talking the language of white teeth once again. Discarding everything else and very directly, re-discovering the tabletop model of the teeth as well and talking endlessly on the subject of germs hidden in-between teeth, which only Colgate reaches out to.

Nirma is talking dirt-busting capability with its eminently well-created Nirma jingle TV commercial that has dirt freezing in its tracks, quite afraid of the stentorian jingle of Nirma done with pizzazz and pomp. Nirma reinvents for itself its USP and the jingle. Both together.

And now Rin has gone back to a creative piece that re-discovers the joy, the pain and the trauma of comparative advertising.

Good formats and the good old ways seem to never tire in their efficiency scores.

The competitor’s brand to many is a four-letter word. In the case of Rin, it really is a four letter word as well: Tide. The current piece of Rin advertising, which has the brand name Tide repeated (and shown) many times over, is certainly new, refreshing, in-the-eye and very-very straight.

There are many ways of looking at this creative. Here are just two quick Jekyll and Hyde set of thoughts of mine.

1. This is a very confident piece of advertising. It takes the time-tested route of direct product delivery and capability comparisons. Just as long as your data is independent and reliable, go ahead and do this sort of thing. If Rin had pixilated the brand name and done this, it would seem a trifle under-confident. What works with the consumer is confidence. Go out there and say it confidently if you have your facts right. Regain confidence for your brand and shake the competitors brand confidence index. Make people sit up and question with their eyes. Name the brand outright! Be bold! Take the battle out into the bastion of the competitor’s brand.

2. Hey! This is old hat. This kind of comparative advertising used to work in the good old days when consumers sat up and made purchase decisions on the basis of product attributes and product delivery norms in terms of solutions. Good scent and whiteness are rather both generic to the category. How much ever anyone shouts in messaging such as this, consumers are going to be yawning and saying what next. Consumers hate this kind of relapse into age-old advertising formats that have the same old message of the sixties with the creative ability and excellence of production standards of the 2000’s staring back at them. Wake up and smell the change.

What do I believe in?

I do believe this is a confident piece of advertising. It’s a good one that will have consumers sitting up and take note of a very boring category that has been around since the days of Sunlight and Det. Consumers are voyeuristic in their habits. They will sit up and will want to enjoy the fight. In the boring detergents category, they

will surely expect a Tide re-buff ad hitting the airwaves. Later than sooner.

In this summer of detergent-discontent, consumers will watch the fun as it unfolds and will do just what they want. They will take their favorite brand back home for more reasons than product attribute and product delivery reasons alone. They will pick the brand basis the scent of the brand. Basis the language of the brand. Tide Naturals has much to sell in its brand name itself on this count. And the bulk of consumers will buy basis the price of the brand as well. Price, sadly to the chagrin of the marketer and advertiser alike, remains the biggest lowest common denominator nudge point for brand purchase in ‘pari passu’ categories such as detergents today in India.

The Rin ad is good for the category at large as consumers sit up and watch the fight unfold on their television sets, in the courts, and indeed in the marketplace and homes of the millions of consumers who use these brands.

The current piece of Rin advertising is very clear in its visual language of comparison. There are shots of the competitive brands in the shopping baskets of both the women waiting for their kids. There is the all give-away shot of the boys emerging from the bus, one with the whitest of whites and the other with the creamiest of the creams. And finally there is the comparative half screen of both the brands with Rin winning over Tide. Rin understands the importance of price in this category and brings that in as well, as the round-figure of Rs.25 shouts vocally and visually.

What’s ahead then?

The Rin ad will (surely) be pulled off the screens. The fight will move off-screen. Rin would have got its bang for the buck already in terms of brand awareness scores in the initial burst of advertising before pullout. Many will criticize the genre of advertising as being nasty and a bit too nifty. Rebuff ads will follow. And much else will happen. The fun has just begun.

(Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)

Talking Trust

I have been in India for eight months now and have fascinated by the extent and reach of the Indian media. I don’t think we have anything like this in terms of diversity, vigour and robustness in the U.S. I have been witness to some really vociferous debates on national television and leading print publications on a variety of issues. The questions that did strike me though at intervals was: Do people believe everything they hear and see in the media? For that matter, do people trust the media as an institution in itself the more they get of the media and the more they see and consume it? Trust in institutions in Asia Pacific is still high compared to that in the West. India is most trusting of business, and trust in government as well as CEOs has held steady over the past year. But trust in media is curiously on the decline in contrast to past years, where trust in both media and NGOs was high. This is where India stood out in the Asiapac region. But this year’s study shows a sharp drop over the past two years — in trust in TV news from 61% to 36%, business magazines from 72% to 47%, newspapers from 61% to 40% and friends and peers online from 50% to 40%. I keep asking myself if this is the result of too much of a good thing! Is there so much of media in India that some kind of reaction is beginning to set in? Has sudden, increased over-exposure resulted in people becoming more discerning, if not skeptical? Are people beginning to step back a bit before they decide to how much of the media they want and how they want to engage with it?How does all this impact brands and the business of brand building? What do brands need to do differently in the light of

declining trust in the ‘mediums’ for the message? How do we bridge the trust deficit?Perhaps, till there is evidence of media regaining people’s trust, brands need to do more to retain and sustain trust. Inherent in this is the implicit deduction that brands need now to have a social value added to their selling proposition. No longer is it enough only to be a good quality product; a brand has to demonstrate social value, embrace the concept of mutual responsibility by engaging the consumer in a deeper dialogue. An earlier research piece by Edelman, the Annual GoodPurpose study shows that brands need to be socially responsible. The financially lucrative opportunities that can arise when brands and consumers join forces around a social platform or meaningful cause are immense. Corporate philanthropy may be one way, but it is obviously not suited to the long-term needs of a multinational behemoth or a brand that seeks to sustain trust. This is where the concept of social responsibility is beginning to play an increasingly greater role.

Having been in Edelman for a number of years, I have had the good fortune of looking closely at the annual Trust Barometer. Now into its 11th year, the Trust Barometer, is an annual survey conducted across 22 countries and targets an age group of the college educated between 25-64 years of age who report significant media consumption and engagement in business news and issues of public policy. This year’s Trust Barometer answered some of my questions on the Trust Factor and how it has emerged as a critical factor to the success of a brand and, I daresay, to various other components of our day to day life.

I have been in India for eight months now and have fascinated by the extent and reach of the Indian media. I don’t think we have anything like this in terms of diversity, vigour and robustness in the U.S. I have been witness to some really vociferous debates on national television and leading print publications on a variety of issues. The questions that did strike me though at intervals was: Do people believe everything they hear and see in the media? For that matter, do people trust the media as an institution in itself the more they get of the media and the more they see and consume it?

Trust in institutions in Asia Pacific is still high compared to that in the West. India is most trusting of business, and trust in government as well as CEOs has held steady over the past year. But trust in media is curiously on the decline in contrast to past years, where trust in both media and NGOs was high. This is where India stood out in the Asiapac region. But this year’s study shows a sharp drop over the past two years — in trust in TV news from 61% to 36%, business magazines from 72% to 47%, newspapers from 61% to 40% and friends and peers online from 50% to 40%.

I keep asking myself if this is the result of too much of a good thing! Is there so much of media in India that some kind of reaction is beginning to set in? Has sudden, increased over-exposure resulted in people becoming more discerning, if not skeptical? Are people beginning to step back a bit before they decide to how much of the media they want and how they want to engage with it?

How does all this impact brands and the business of brand building? What do brands need to do differently in the light of declining trust in the ‘mediums’ for the message? How do we bridge the trust deficit?

Perhaps, till there is evidence of media regaining people’s trust, brands need to do more to retain and sustain trust. Inherent in this is the implicit deduction that brands need now to have a social value added to their selling proposition. No longer is it enough only to be a good quality product; a brand has to demonstrate social value, embrace the concept of mutual responsibility by engaging the consumer in a deeper dialogue.

An earlier research piece by Edelman, the Annual GoodPurpose study shows that brands need to be socially responsible. The financially lucrative opportunities that can arise when brands and consumers join forces around a social platform or meaningful cause are immense. Corporate philanthropy may be one way, but it is obviously not suited to the long-term needs of a multinational behemoth or a brand that seeks to sustain trust. This is where the

concept of social responsibility is beginning to play an increasingly greater role.

(Robert Holdheim is Managing Director, Edelman India)

Abundant Content Choice on TV: How Are Consumers Coping?

Storyboard recently asked me to pen down the insights and reasons behind launching India’s first consumer TV Guidance channel. This is a short article on our journey within the fast expanding, changing world of Indian Television. The four viewer insights mentioned later in this piece have dramatically shaped our approach to creating our model.

Triple the choice. Times 20 million!

The last 6 years of Digital TV in India have had a devastating and irreversible impact on the way viewers watch Television. Since the roll-out of Digital TV has happened gradually, we have not been able to appreciate just how much has changed since 2004-05.

So think for a moment – what happens to consumer choice when the number of channels in an analog Indian home triple or quadruple when that household turns to Digital TV? The increase from 60-70 channels to 200 channels is not of 40 or 50 percent but a 200 to 300% increase in options!

Dramatic impact on choice you say? Now multiply that choice with 20 million! Because that’s roughly the total number of Digital TV connections in India at the end of 2009 leading to roughly 100 million Digital viewers! Not to forget we will add another 100 channels and more than 10 million Digital TV Homes in the next two years.

Long Tail of TV Content

My company (www.whatsonindia.com) and I were fortunate to have chosen in 2005 the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and Consumer TV Guidance as a business model for us. Hence, in the last 4 years, we have specialized in how consumers exercised choice on TV in a situation wherein channels and other forms of content on TV are increasing.

The changes are being seen in many ways. The starkest being the sharp drop in TV ratings of the Top 100 shows in 2009 as against any other time in the last 8 years!

(See graph http://bit.ly/8CmRKP).

The fall has not only happened at the number 1 or number 2 show ratings. Viewership has fallen by more than half for the 55th

ranked show, for the 79th ranked show, for the 100th ranked show! One can attribute this fall to other phenomenon such as increase in competition among Hindi General Entertainment Channels (GECs) as well. But then GECs have been launched earlier as well (remember STAR ONE and Sahara One?). The writing on the wall is clear – every occasion, consumers switch on their TV sets they encounter a massive dilemma on what to watch that’s caused because of a sharp rise in the consideration set of an average viewer!

Is EPG the answer? Maybe. Maybe not.

To aid viewers find the right programs, we first undertook creation of Nation-wide EPGs inside set-top-boxes (Cable and DTH). It took us 2 years to build that system and by 2008-09 we swept the Indian TV industry with our EPGs feeding millions of set-top-boxes. Today, all major DTH and Cable systems as well as all TV networks interface with the EPGs that we create within the Indian market.

However, the EPG in India has technological limitations. The most basic is the fact that due to the middleware employed by different operators, the Program Guide is at best only a directory, a list. In this situation, the viewer has to click-click-click and find what’s going on TV. Finding content is dependent on user’s own intelligence. Our finding is that viewers in such situations have the

anxiety of “I don’t know what I don’t know”! Within the EPG, there is no provision for content discovery to happen on its own. In any case, for 80 percent of Analog Indian homes, EPG doesn’t even exist as they get their TV through only the coaxial cable!

Consumer studies reveal demand for TV Guidance

In 2009, we structured a series of studies and consumer behavior analysis that revealed some key insights. I have listed those down below and revealed how we have modeled these to structure our TV Guidance channel for Indian viewers :-

Insight #1: In 70 percent of occasions that TV viewers were switching on their sets, they wouldn’t know what to watch! In these instances, viewers would spend anywhere between 2 to 10 minutes trying to find something interesting.

How we have used this: On the WHAT’S ON INDIA channel, viewers can find the best options to watch across a wide variety of universal interest areas/ genres

Insight #2: Every consumer that we spoke to in-depth said “I need the first channel on my set to tell me what are the best options to watch right now”. These demands were also picked up by some of the Operators who participated in a few of our tests.

How we have used this: The WHAT’S ON INDIA channel, is available as the Home channel across a host of DTH and Cable operators. That makes it easily accessible whenever a viewer was to switch on his/ her set-top-box. In places with constraints of the Home channel we are placed next to the Home channel. We would like to appreciate the boldness shown by our partner Cable and DTH operators in taking this step in viewer interest and user experience.

Insight #3: Viewers switching on TV experience a strange anxiety of “There’s something special happening on TV right now and I don’t know where to find it”.

How we have used this: We have designed the WHAT’S ON INDIA channel to flash key specials playing on that day at that time

across channels! So for instance, on 26/11 or on New Years and then on Republic Day we highlighted the various special programs, interviews, documentaries that were playing on TV. Such is the dynamism of daily TV that on a daily basis there are special episodes with Reality shows, regional festivals, sports finals, etc that need to be highlighted to viewers.

Insight #4: Viewers need different cues to decide what programs to watch. In some cases, just pure play info would be sought. In others, details of the show and in still other cases a small promo/ preview.

How we have used this: The WHAT’S ON INDIA channel plays a constant bottom scroll that covers the current running shows across 100s of major channels. Besides this there are round-the-clock recommendations and suggestions about shows, films, sports, documentaries that are playing in a NOW | NEXT time frame. The channel also shows previews and promos of upcoming shows. All with a view to arm the viewer with an informed choice of what to watch on TV. Our bag of goodies on the channel will keep growing as we clarify the TV Guidance model in this market.

Reactions to the WHAT’S ON INDIA channel

Even in very early days of the channel launch, the reactions to the channel have been fantastic! While consumers have appreciated the channel the most surprising response has come from Analog TV operators who are switching on the channel voluntarily across the country. In the first few weeks, the best reactions have come from Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh wherein a host of cases the channels been put on to prime frequencies usually reserved only for Hindi Entertainment channels!

Viewer – Content Swayamvar

The WHAT’S ON INDIA channel has been structured to play the role of the match-maker between the right eye-balls to the right content. With more channels getting launched in the next few months, how consumers react to this initiative of ours is anybody’s guess. As a company we remain committed to listening

very hard to viewer expectations and molding our model accordingly.

(Atul Phadnis is Founder & Chief Executive, What’s On India)

Learnings From Suresh Mullick

I was at IIM Ahmedabad attending the launch of new programme called “Learning What is Not Taught” – conceived and conducted by Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons. It was an outstanding programme. However, this piece is not about that programme.

The title of the programme “Learning What is not taught” triggered several thoughts in my mind. I asked myself, “Have I learnt anything that was not taught?”

As it happened, I have been involved in bringing out an e-book on Suresh Mullick who was the National Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather and the genius who created the original “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara.”

As I read what other people had written, I realize the unintended effect people can have on others. If you read the e-book (you can download it from http://periscopedesign.co.in/index.html ), you will see how one man has left an indelible impression on others.

Suresh and I worked together in Ogilvy for 25 years. I was lucky that I came to know Suresh very early in my career at Ogilvy. I now realize that he treated me the same way when I was an account executive and later became his colleague on the board of the company.

When I read about Suresh through the lenses of different people, one more point became evident. People never forget little acts of kindness and courtesy. Generosity was Suresh’s second nature.

I often used to wonder if humility a desirable virtue in the corporate world. Suresh showed me that you could be humble and yet be effective. Humility is not servility. It is about openness and willingness to listen, accept ideas from any one, irrespective of hierarchy.

I remember when Suresh was working on an advertisement for Bru; he showed me the copy and asked me for my opinion. I did not like the work and I did not know how to say it.

“You don’t like it?”

“I am not sure.”

“Why don’t you talk about it?”

He led the conversation, gently helping me to express my views without fear. Finally, I mentioned that his headline was buried in the body copy. He jumped.

“Say that again.”

“Your headline is buried in the body copy.”

“Show me the headline, which is buried.”

I showed him the particular line that I thought had the potential to be a good headline.

He went away without saying anything. I was not sure whether I had spoken too much. Half an hour later Suresh was back, this time with a revised advertisement with a new headline.

He was generous in his praise and sharing credits with people, however small their contributions were. That is why for many of us it was a surprise that there was no mention about Suresh in the launch of Phir Mile Sur. Every one talked about how inspiring was

the Original Mile Sur. However, there was no mention of Suresh, the genius who created the original Mile Sur. He had created a trilogy – Spirit of Freedom, Mile Sur and Raag Desh. I consoled myself saying, “How many people today know who wrote the national anthem or Vande Mataram? Does it matter?”

(I have now received clarification that both Kailash Surendranath and Suresh Bala of Zoom did refer to Suresh; it was an unfortunate omission in the media.)

I saw the screening of Phir Mile Sur later in the evening yesterday. I remember what Amitabh Bacchan had said about the newer version of Don. “I prefer the original.”

I say the same thing: “I prefer the original.”

(R. Sridhar is Innovation Coach, IDEAS-RS

Effective Or Creative: Do We Have To Choose?

Judging and juries in Effies have evolved ever since effectiveness got recognized as distinct from craft with its own band of fans. Craft had become the de facto measure of creativity, category break throughs and pushing the envelop of ‘freshness’. Thanks to Effie, market performance and campaign effectiveness become the counter point to the use of metaphor and font.

In a world of subjectivity and craft, Effie has been built on the bedrock of consumer acceptance, brand market share and offtake as much as creativity that rings the cash bells. Even this development has had an interesting evolution.

In the early part of the last decade, creativity and craft pushed the frontiers so hard that a lot of big successful brands found it hard to be creative in the eyes of creative gurus worldwide. It was not surprising therefore that the adage emerged…that effective advertising is neither creative nor clever. In fact it became fashionable for clients to say that if the advertising wins awards it won’t do well in the market place. This was rather strange since wasn’t it Bernbach who had taught the world that “If it ain’t creative , it won’t sell?”

Creativity worldwide got pushed on many small challenger brands by risk taking creative boutique agencies. When their work started looking fresh and innovative, the big brands and their agencies woke up to join the rush to get off the beaten track. Unilever brands like Dove and Axe, P&G’s Pampers and Levis started to make the big brands look contemporary and ‘having it’. A case in point is the number of delegates from Unilever, P&G , Coke etc. at Cannes over the recent years. Or the inclusion of several small creative agencies on their roster by global giants. So when the craft of creativity got stretched by the glory seekers, clients found themselves perplexed by the new framework and naturally the cry for rewarding effectiveness got more strident.

The Effie became the comfort zone for clients who put all their might into supporting effectiveness that is documented rather than on a campaign that has set new benchmarks in tone, style and execution. The case study became the counter point to the big idea whose time had still not come. Thus was born the soul of Effie vs craft awards like Abby or Cannes, etc.

Initially the Effie swung to the tunes of marketing folks who chose campaigns that rocked the shop audit or top of mind recall. But the creative’s howled when awards started recognizing not necessarily outstanding creative work which was built on High GRPs thus making it easy for big spending brands to make their mark on the gongs.

Jury compositions became key to the kind of work that was getting recognized. For instance if the creative standards of Happydent and Lead India made an impact on both judges and consumers,

the market performance of bigger performers went unrewarded simply because now ‘effective’ had also become ‘creative’. This is a great trend which is making the marketing and creative divide slowly vanish. The Effie success of Vodafone zoo zoos and Tata Tea’s Jaago Re campaigns are both good examples of this trend this year.

Happily of late jury compositions have moved from a predominately marketing focus to a mix of marketing, creative and strategy planning bias. For every point of marketing success measured by brand and planning pundits there is the creative conscience of the of the jury that questions ‘freshness’ and ‘breaking category benchmarks and global creative standards’. This healthy debate has now reached a fine balance where a couple of changes in the composition can tilt the results towards ‘more creative’ or ‘more hard working’ campaigns getting rewarded.

Of late there have been more agreements than disagreements between marketing and creative going by the results of the last 3 to 4 years. For starters, 3 different agencies have won the Effie Agency of the year in this period. Clients like Unilever, Marico, P&G have rubbed shoulders with Vodafone, Perfetti and Coke in winning honours. More and more’ creative ‘ work which is also ‘effective’ getting rewarded. The fine line between ‘creative’ and ‘effective’ is dissolving. Bernbach will be happy to see the trend in this area.

More introspection still needs to done in the quest for furthering the progress made. Are the standards of cases improving ? Is dramatics and theatre a necessary core part of the successful cases? Are regional campaigns stacking up versus the national ones… this is still a hot topic. The national campaign advocates have the familiarity card while the regional campaigns have the underdog appeal. We still need to focus on rewarding the work and not the Agency as an attitude in some sections of our opinion leaders. After all, the maturity of our judging is the starting point of honest self-evaluation of not just the work done by the agencies but also the work done by the country in our attempt to climb the global charts.

The Effie is playing a remarkable role in bridging the ‘effective’ and ‘creative’ divide. In the years to come, one can hope for keener competition and a place for effectiveness that is now firmly established as an alternative to the halo of the creativity awards. And increasingly you don’t have to choose between ‘effective’ and ‘creative’ any more.

(Ajay Chandwani is Director, Percept & Joint Secretary of the Ad Club, Bombay)

‘Jaago India Jaago’

Silver Jubilees always fascinate me. It gives us a chance to go down memory lane, recall the good ole times and have a kick start for the future. The Advertising Standards Council of India will be in its 25th year in 2010.Its a great time for reflection and a pat on the back for all those who helped build this Organization to reach the highest level of credibility amongst the Advertising Fraternity. The Founder members who had the vision for Self Regulation, the Board of Governors and the Consumer Complaints Council members who have so impartially decided on the complaints brought to their doorstep.

What has been ASCI’s overarching goal? It has been to maintain and enhance the public’s confidence in advertising. ASCI seeks to ensure that advertisements conform to its Code for Self-Regulation which requires advertisements to be• Truthful and fair to consumers and competitors.• Within the bounds of generally accepted standards of public decency and propriety.• Not used indiscriminately for the promotion of products, hazardous or harmful to society or to individuals particularly minors, to a degree unacceptable to society at large.

ASCI has been doing this year in and year out over the years, religiously processing thousands of complaints over 3400 Advertisements. It has won The Government of India’s recognition when the Code for Self Regulation became mandatory under the Cable TV Network Act and Rules. It has been invited by the Government on every Committee dealing with Advertisements. It has won international recognition when it won The European Advertising Standards Alliance Silver Award in its very first year of joining that Organization.

So why the need for the Awareness Campaign? All consumers in the country need to be sensitized to their rights and be aware that such alertness will ensure a higher level of credibility in Advertising. We need to move from 150 complaints a year to 250 complaints. We also need to have the Advertisers, Ad Agencies and Media in line with the highest level of ethics in Advertising.

The process has started. More than 50 Presentations replete with case studies have been across all Members Companies and Ad Clubs. The Awareness Campaign across Media- TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Hoardings and Kiosks will definitely shout out from the rooftops Jaago India Jaago.

(Alan Joseph Collaco is the Secretary General of the Advertising Standards Council of India)

Brand Tiger Woods is dead, long live Tiger Woods

The professional Tiger will live on, file many more Eagles, win multi-million dollar championships, fame and name and all that matters in the game. What seems next to impossible is for the Brand Tiger Woods to just do it again! [No offence to Nike or

Adidas!]. Of course, even the former statement assumes that he will regain his concentration and the ‘touch’ soon enough.

Brands are like rivers, when they change course, they hardly ever come back to the original – and when they do – if they do – it’s beyond several lifetimes. Human brands are swifter rivers, better when they are fresher and in rapid action, but susceptible to the blocks and tackles on the way. And looking at things the way they are, the current crisis for Brand Tiger is not just a block but as big as a dam. Damn!

Consumers are not morons. They’re babies. They give everything when they love a brand and hate from the core of the heart when the brands don’t deliver to the promises. One of the biggest unsaid promise brands put on the line is ‘trustworthiness’. So while Tiger Woods is probably a score up on recognition now, he would suffer on likeability and therefore popularity and he would be tumbling down to ground zero when it comes to trust. No points for guessing that even though most brands need their endorsers to be at least neutral or fair on this criteria, the Financial and high involvement products and services would be the first to desert him, for a while. Home products would be the next in line and probably only the impulse fun, sporty brands can still continue working with him.

This is the risk brands run when they hire a single, iconic celebrity as their mascot or ambassador. In the need to rub off all positive energy from the endorser to the brand, the brand managers do need to keep in mind that they also enherit what goes wrong with their ambassador. A key creative challenge therefore for each brand is to maximise the positives and negate any negatives that can ever happen.

I cannot help but quote other indigenous example of Salman Khan and Mohammed Azharuddin here, from the film and the sports world respectively. Salman allegedly hunted a deer first and then mowed down people. He still scores highest* in recognition [above SRK] in the country but scores rapidly start falling on likability and image. On trustworthiness and family orientation, he is nowhere amongst the top stars, and they happen to be pre-requisites for

many a brand while searching for their face. The result is that Salman is devoid of any endorsement [sans a recent Perfetti because the product thrives on his ‘fun’ image is not too fussy on the trust part. It does help also to have a creative and experimentative top boss and as I understand, the endorsement did not give him much money but just a break back into the market]. Azharuddin was stripped off his cap, his pride and also any endorsements his way, immediately when he was charged with cheating the country. Mind you, both of them have a successful career [Salman continues to be an ace hero and Azhar is a successful politician now] but still find few takers when it comes to the endorsement world. Corporate Brands run on safer grounds than entertainment brands and Dus ka dum is easier for Salman than the next advertising for a car.

Swoosh back to the tiger and his agents have a bit of busy time in the future. Not earning for him, but controlling fires. I hope that while a part of their team is doing that, the other part is spending significant time and energy in re-building his image, and looking for the new course brand Tiger would take and not expect that he will some day start from where he left. The river has changed course!

Assuming Tiger and the media is able to put this story behind, do huge damage control by admission by choice and not force and he further does not throw in the towel by going mad trying to hold his wife and forgetting the game, there may be some future. But different from what it could have been. Tiger minus trust plus humility minus time lost plus regained likability could be the new course for brand Tiger. He could either stand for a corrected individual and hopes the world and his family forgive him like they forgave Clinton or could be the next anti-hero who does not care and then expect the anti-brands to back him. Both are long drawn an dangerous routes. Does he have a choice but??

(Manish Porwal is CEO, Percept Talent Management)

In My Lifetime

Thank you Madhukar, Sundar, Colvyn and everyone at the Executive Committee of AAAI and the Advertising Industry for according me this honour. I must confess I didn’t realize when I accepted this award that it’s going to be so much work:

Talking to Media about my past; about my successes and failures and

Now I have this request from AAAI that I should speak to you for 45 minutes

And acknowledging the huge number of letters, mails and smses that I have got from my clients, friends and well-wishers.

An interesting sideline of these communications has been that 50% of them said the award has come several years too late and another 50% said, it’s too early to give you this award and it should have been given a few years later. I don’t know who is right, but one thing I like to clarify that this award does not mean I am thinking of retiring any time soon.

And by the way how old do you think I am? 58 to be precise and not 60 as one channel reported and have 37 years of work experience in marketing and advertising behind me and not 40 as another publication reported. It’s ironical that I am quibbling over over-reporting my age or my work experience by a few years, when it was only sometime ago, when I had 8 years of experience, I would to round it off and say almost 10 years. Colvyn tells me that I must reflect on my past and share my thoughts with all of you. Yes, it’s been an exciting, varied journey, a roller-coaster ride with adequate doses of trials, tribulations, challenges, highs and lows with measured spoons of success.

I am a slow, steady, patient kind of guy, willing to put in the extra dose of work without expecting anything in return in terms of

laurels or money and perhaps this in some measure has contributed to my limited success. Of course, sentiments that today’s youngsters, be they in advertising or in any other field would laugh at. It took me 16 years of rich and varied experience to start Madison; Experience of 8 years in marketing with Sarabhais – where I was Brand Manager of Det Cake and later Cadbury which was then a Rs. 20 crore Company, but with an image several times its size and now its advertising spend is several times its turnover then. And 8 years in advertising with Contract as its founder member and Mudra, then an entrepreneurial small Ahmedabad based agency, to convince myself that I had what it takes to start and lead an agency that would be sustainable and worthy of my working in it. Not so surprisingly a young man who worked in Madison in his first job as an Account Executive for 2 years or perhaps 3, teamed up with a young copywriter, again from Madison, with even less experience to start his own agency. So you can see it takes a lot to get me going.

At Madison, now in its 22nd year, if I look back I think I can see 3 clear phases which we adopted, ofcourse intuitively or commonsensically.

The first phase was the cautious phase. We started Madison with just two clients Godrej with Cinthol Brand and Nelco’s Blue Diamond TVs. And for the first 4 years virtually, we did not go after new businesses, not only that, if somebody came to us with new business, we made it difficult for them to accept our terms. In hindsight how ridiculous and stupid could I have got? Or was it wisdom of a dimension that today’s world including me can neither understand nor appreciate. My simple reasoning was I did not want to bite off more than what I could chew and let my worthy and esteemed clients down.

The second phase was the growth phase, started around 1992 – 93, when India liberalized and the realization dawned on me that my philosophy of “Small is beautiful” is not going to hold me in good stead in the new emerging India. Incidentally, I must mention that my decision to start an agency was quite abrupt and was born out of a deep rooted belief that a good agency was a

small agency with a few large clients and I felt that I was not the right man to lead Mudra, who by then had acquired ambitions of wanting to be number 1, in terms of size. Again, because I felt that I wanted to be a craftsman in advertising rather than a manager of men and money which one would invariably become, as the head of a large agency. In this phase, Godrej came together with Procter & Gamble (P&G) and we began to interface with P&G for Cinthol and assuredly they thought we had what it takes to handle their brands Vicks and Whisper and therefore encouraged us to talk to DMB&B, who we got in bed with after 2 years of on and off and very tiring discussions, helped along the way substantially by Godrej and P&G and in no small measure, I am sure by my friend Mohommed Khan, whose agency Enterprise was then tied up with DMB&B and who must have given them a tough time and thought they and their international President John Ferris did not know the ABC of advertising. Right, Mohommed? P&G I must confess in hindsight exposed us to what I may call non-creative advertising that works; and to the technology to be followed in creation of effective advertising. Those were the days of side-by-side demos and cut-aways and product windows and what not and I fell hook, line and sinker for the belief that advertising must sell and advertising that entertains is wasteful. P&G dealt with 4 or 5 agencies then, and those were the heady days of sponsored programmes, and Doordarshan where you earned 10% of the total spend irrespective of whether you handled the brand or not and me having the heritage of Rajni and Buniyaad at Mudra and the agility of a monkey managed to corner a substantial share of revenue from P&G’s advertising budget. One fine day when Doordarshan was the reigning monolith and sponsorship of Chitrahaar and Feature Film and Chayyageet could spell the difference between success and failure of brand plans and Zee was just about gaining ground, P&G called me to ask if the concept of a media AOR would work in India? (I asked what is AOR, because I did not know). To their surprise or even disappointment, I said no, because it’s better to have 4 agencies fighting for you to get a disproportionate share of sponsorships than one. Later the C&S scene hotted up further and the time was right for an AOR. Our appointment caused a storm at this august body which is conferring on me the award and we spent hours and

hours discussing how AORs would spell doom and how they should be stopped. And the AAAI even passed a rule that only a Club agency can be appointed as an AOR and that an agency to be appointed a Media AOR should handle atleast 10% of the client’s business. And Tata Tea our second media AOR, handed over a brand to us for creative because of this. A double whammy. How times change?

The success of our media service convinced me about the benefits of specialization that could accrue to an Advertiser, thereby making the agency offering invaluable. In my view, specialization develops a body of knowledge, systems and processes, which regulate and drive efficiency and build a cadre of people that are proud about their work. In the days when I joined advertising the only qualification required of a media person was that he should be a good honest South Indian with an ability to use a calculator, accurately and quickly and type even faster so that if the typist did not come, he could put together a 15 page print estimate for the next day morning’s meeting. Fast-forward to 2009 to Welingkar’s Auditorium and you saw an auditorium full of professionals, cheering and sometimes jeering outstanding and ingenious work of quality that could stand out and be counted as the world’s best.

The third phase, marked by the arrival of Lara on the scene has been Consolidation and Diversification into new streams within the communication arena. And a bit more focus on internal systems, processes, standard SNOPs and organization building to ensure sustainability and continue to plug gaps that exist in our specialist units Orbit that we now call Madison World.

I was fortunate to be involved in Reliance Cup, the first time when the Cricket World Cup was to be played in India and Ambanis had bought the entire rights lock, stock and barrel for under Rs. 5 crore. These days, I guess it would cost that much to put a logo on cricketers’ underwear. I learnt from Ambanis about big, heavy audacious goals before the term was coined in the western world, but more importantly that, nothing was impossible and that every job has to be done and done on time. I learnt from the Godrejs’ importance of a value system. And from Procter & Gamble (P&G)

the importance of a codified process for almost everything including the creation and release of advertising. I am grateful to both; Godrej – Adi & Parmeshwar Godrej for placing their confidence in me in the early days of Madison. And P&G for discovering our unusual and uncanny strengths in media. I have been fortunate to have tough and demanding, but enlightened clients who have taught me much more than what I contributed to them and helped raise the bar at Madison every successive year.

When I look back I have had to do some crazy hilarious and stupid things in my working life. I would count using a toilet in a one story guest house in winter in a small town in Bihar, that was cantilevered outside the room and which had only wooden slats as walls that let biting cold, gusty winds pass through, that virtually numbed me, as one of them. Trying to shoot a film with a prominent celebrity without letting him know that we were shooting a film was another. Getting it on air on Doordarshan in 36 hours from idea, to script, to storyboard approval was another. Having a woman in DD Chennai, shriek and jump up in her chair when my colleague pulled out a Whisper Wings from her purse was another- all for the noble cause of trying to get a storyboard approved!

I have had my fair share of highs from instituting and running India’s first afternoon daily soap ‘Shanti’, thanks to Bharat Patel’s passion for TV, to running Reliance Cup, to instituting the rotating BPL Replay Bug, to becoming the first media agency in India to win 2 Cannes Media Lions. But I had to remind myself everytime that you are only as good as your last achievement and if public memory is short, our industry memory is even shorter. And among the mother of all “lows” would be the year 1998, when we lost 70% of our income. And it took several years to build it back. But build we did.

MY INVOLVEMENT WITH INDUSTRY AFFAIRS:Let me now move to my involvement with industry matters. You could say that my association with industry started within the first year of my working life. Thanks to Roger Pereira of Shilpi, then which was my agency when I was in Sarabhais . He asked me to contribute a bi-monthly article in SOLUS magazine on marketing.

A kind of a scan of the marketing scene. I spent many Saturdays cutting out ads that I liked and ads on promos that I thought would yield results. I did it with the help of my then girlfriend Homai- she typed all my Bajaj assignments and project reports too. They say the route to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Homai, as some of my friends from Bajaj know used a different route! So as you can see from early days I spent a fair amount of my non-working time on matters relating to industry. This early writing under the mentorship of then SOLUS Editor Hafiz Noorani of Geoffrey Manners, God bless his soul! helped me pause, think, reflect and analyze, early in life on matters beyond my immediate work. Some years later I got catapulted into the hot seat of President of The Advertising Club, Bombay and following in the close footsteps of illustrious leaders like Roger, Pheroza, Amol and Mukul, because our then President Sushil Bal decided to abruptly leave office. I must tell you that in those days putting together an event was a lot more taxing or even treacherous, because there was no sponsorship, hardly any money and no event managers or agencies that you could out-source lights, sound, stage, menu, ushers or hostesses to and when I was editor of SOLUS I had to be in charge of content, layout, print and production too! Mercifully I did not have to hand deliver the copies too!

My mantra for industry matters has been patience and perseverance, which I believe bring about consensus and acceptance of what initially seem radical ideas that would upset the apple cart.

I mooted the idea of bringing in Media agencies to the top table when I was President of AAAI way back in 2002 but did not want to push it through unless it had unanimous approval atleast at the Executive Committee. Despite provocations to initiate a Media Agencies Association, I resisted the idea because I felt the cause of our industry would be better served by the media agencies sitting at the same table as the creative agencies. And I am delighted that just 7 years later under Madhukar’s Presidentship, a few months earlier at an EGM, the Association passed a resolution unanimously to make Media Agencies members of the Association. What is 7 years in the life of an Industry?

INDUSTRY ISSUES:To say that our advertising agency industry is going through some tough times, would be an understatement and I don’t know if merely changing nomenclature like Advertising Agencies Association of America has done and become 4As is going to solve the problem. An agency runs on only one pillar – its talent pool and that is fed by only one source of income or should be fed by only one source of income – the commission or fees that the client pays. And such costs account for 50% to 55% of an agency’s P&L. Every client –organisation believes and yes rightly so, that it is his birth right to buy everything at the lowest possible cost, including agency services and has unleashed an army of procurement officers on agencies, ill-equipped to deal with them, and our industry is succumbing like a pack of cards. Whilst the immediate result of this is more than satisfactory for my Advertiser friends; ( I read in a report that the World’s top 100 Advertisers’ margins has dropped by just 0.1% to 11.5%, whereas Agencies’ margins had dropped by 1.7% to 10.5%) I fear that adequate investment in attracting and nurturing talent for the future is going to take an even further back seat. How many recruits have we made from IIM, Ahmedabad or ISB, Hyderabad in the last 5 years and what was that figure 20 years ago? If I was the Chairman of a large multi billion dollar Company or an Indian large FMCG company, that believes that advertising is a key ingredient to sustain market share and therefore profit, I would worry. Or are we saying that a new kind of Agency or Organization will emerge with less expensive talent that can produce better advertising, that is more effective than what we do today and at a far lower cost.

Mr. New President, you and your band of 20 wise men including me, must sit and engage with our advertiser friends to discuss future sustainability. Our friends in Media have set up structures to engage with their clients, i.e. ourselves. Perhaps the time has come for us to seriously engage with our clients at a macro and policy level to discuss issues of sustainability of the advertising profession, not of the earth. Let us leave that to IAA and Dr. Pachauri.

But before we do that we must make up our mind that we want to be counted as outstanding professionals of a high caliber

possessing high intellectual capital and let us resist the temptation of becoming or being seen as opportunistic businessmen, out to make a fast buck whenever and from whoever and wherever possible. This would serve all constituents better and would enable us to develop skills and capabilities and that would then give us the guts and courage to demand our price, whether it be in the form of commission or a flat fee or a combination and reject those businesses as clients who feel that the value that we deliver is not worth the fee that we demand, rather than succumb to clients’ pressure and acquire them on any terms to meet inflated growth objectives and then find ways and means of handling the business profitably. I have often felt that unrealistic growth objectives and our weakness for new business is the root cause of a lot of what is wrong today. The advertising market is bound to grow by leaps and bounds, atleast in India and there will be plenty to go around for everyone, so our anxiousness is misplaced.

We need to re-affirm our faith in our business model that we get appointed by the advertiser, we work for the advertiser to achieve his business objectives whatever they be and we earn from the advertiser a fee that covers us adequately for all our costs and leaves room for a handsome profit margin to allow us to invest in training , tools and top quality talent.

Another suggestion I have Mr. President is for AAAI to institute a Client Credit and Process Rating System that allows us to objectively assess every client’s record on its ability to adhere to payment deadlines either on account of cash flow or on account of process issues. Perhaps the job of Credit Rating could be outsourced to a Ratings Provider to provide 2 sets of ratings:

One based on advertiser’s ability to pay and Another based on advertiser’s track record on payments to

agencies and media

We owe this to our esteemed AAA+ rated advertisers sitting in this room tonight. It is unfair to paint all with the same stroke.

And simultaneously we must initiate a dialogue with our media owner friends to bring in the concept of sequential liability. This will allow the advertising agencies to focus on their core job of increasing the sale of the advertiser’s products and services and the honest truth that my media friends must know, is that the only way our advertising market can dramatically increase the way we want it to from the current 21000 crore, is if our client’s sale dramatically increases, for which they hire agencies in the first place.

THANK YOUsMy ride has been cushioned by a band of highly motivated and capable people who fortunately for me, understood my ways and I must thank from the bottom of my heart: the affable Prabha, objective Punitha and her band of committed 7 COOs, meticulous Veena, my rural pundits Rajan and Seshadri, diplomatic Arminio and his ever growing empire, aggressive Darshana, analytical Murthy, unflappable Divya, athletic Melroy, fastidious Rachna and their band of 750 committed professionals, not forgetting my Ravi who performs the toughest job of all. And my business partners Noomi and Sunil Gavaskar in PMG and Martin Sorrell in Mediacom in India.

And I have my wife’s permission not to thank her since she told me last night –Don’t be silly- you are not getting an Oscar. But I must thank my friends for sometimes having to wait endlessly for what seemed like critical tasks then, but now in hindsight don’t. I recall once quite shame fully making 4 car loads of friends wait outside Godrej at Vikhroli, enroute to Lonavala for a couple of hours as my client and I vacillated over the choice of a word or two over a headline and the appropriateness of Lisa Ray’s skin tone. And my daughter Tanya for her inspirational sms’s on life, success and failure that invariably reach me most mornings as I enter office. And Lara ofcourse who works longer hours than me and who has currently become the darling of media.

I’d like to end with the sentiment that hopefully I have miles to go before I sleep.

Thank You –The Advertising Agencies Association of India, once again.

(From the speech delivered by Sam Balsara, CMD of Madison World, after receiving the AAAI LifetimeAchievement Award on 25th November 2009)

My Seven Big Thoughts for the Rural Markets

1. Rural Boom: By 2012 it is expected that every village will be connected by an all weather road, every village will have internet connectivity, and almost every home will have electricity and possess a mobile phone. This significant improvement in rural infrastructure coupled with agriculture reforms already under way we can expect rural markets to reach inflexion point. This will lead to an explosion in demand the way it happened in the urban markets in the mid 90s as a result of easy consumer finance, a boom in the IT sector and steep increase in corporate salaries. Companies are not anticipating this boom and many will be taken by surprise when it happens.

2. Reverse Innovation: Ever since the BoP concept was introduced at the turn of the century many companies have tried to transform their business models through single serve sachets, low cost production, extended mom and pop distribution and NGO partnerships. But in the rush to capture the fortune at the base of the pyramid, something may have been lost-the perspective of the poor themselves. In my view most such initiatives have failed to hit the mark. Pushing the company’s reformulated or repackaged products into villages may indeed produce incremental sales in the short term. But in the long term, this strategy will almost certainly fail because the business remains alien to the communities it intends to serve.

For decades, MNCs have sold modified products in India, a process widely recognized as glocalization. This strategy worked reasonably well with the more affluent urban consumers whose behavior is somewhat similar to Western consumers. With growing rural purchasing power and the three times larger population than urban, companies will need to develop appropriate products for this market. The glocalization or minor modification will not work as rural consumers are very different. This will call for a reverse innovation approach, totally opposite to the glocalization approach. This will involve a bottom up, community embedded process of co-invention and business co-creation. Such an approach will bring the company into close, personal business partnership with BoP communities. While creating enduring value for the community, it will establish a foundation for long-term corporate growth and innovation.3. New price-performance paradigm: What the rural market requires of products is delivery of decent performance at very low cost. My advise to companies is to aim for 75% performance at 25% cost. Nirma or Ghadi washing powders are excellent lower performance-low cost products compared to the global Surf and Ariel brands. Rural consumers are interested in deriving core benefit from the product and these low priced brands essentially clean clothes adequately. Users are not worried if these powders don’t have a softener or whitener. The sachet as a solution of making the offering more affordable will not work in the long term as the price still continues to remain high.4. Innovative rural distribution: The biggest challenge in rural remains reaching your product to 600,000 villages compared to 5,000 odd towns in urban. A few new rural distribution and procurement models have been innovated by ITC e-choupal and HUL Project Shakti. But much more needs to be done in this area. One possibility is the use of the social infrastructure being created by government. For example there are over 5 million women’s micro-finance groups in existence and by 2011 the number of groups is expected to jump to 15 million. Thus 150 million rural women or 150 million of the 200 million total households in rural would be linked to self help groups. Can this channel be used innovatively to reach products and services to rural homes?

5. Dedicated Rural teams: Companies will need to shift power to where the growth is by dedicating empowered teams for the rural markets so that they can develop their own strategies and products. A separate sales force is also desirable as the regular force will avoid covering the more difficult and small off-take rural markets. MBAs from B grade small town institutes should be hired. Not only will they work at much lower salaries but will stick around as they belong to the local areas.6. Inclusive marketing: This is a new concept I have created which goes much beyond BoP. Inclusive marketing looks at the poor not only as consumers but also as producers/suppliers of goods and services. This approach offers promise to add economic value to goods and services contributed by the poor. It can therefore impact poverty positively. ITC’s E-choupal is a perfect example of inclusive marketing. The business model ensures that farmers as producers get better value for their produce. Once their incomes are enhanced the model then uses the same channel that was created for procuring produce to push relevant goods and services needed by the farmers as consumers. Government and the private sector need to come together to promote inclusive marketing and grow the size of the rural pie through the development of reverse distribution channels rather than companies fighting with each other to grab share of the limited pie.7. New Opportunities; Rural markets now offer a number of new opportunities.Healthcare: Total rural spending on health care currently is Rs 700 billion and expected to reach Rs 3.5 trillion by 2025, an impressive fivefold increase. Despite the launch of the National Rural Health Mission 80% of health spending will be in the private sector.Durables consumer financing: In the 90s consumer finance became available easily which led to high growth in sale of durables. Rural consumer finance has become a big opportunity only now with rapid electrification of rural householdsBanking: According to a World Bank study bankable people in rural India is 185 million.Construction and Housing: Currently there is shortage of 40 million houses in rural India.

In conclusion I would say the next growth will come from the rural market and companies that ignore this segment will do so at their own peril.1. Rural Boom: By 2012 it is expected that every village will be connected by an all weather road, every village will have internet connectivity, and almost every home will have electricity and possess a mobile phone. This significant improvement in rural infrastructure coupled with agriculture reforms already under way we can expect rural markets to reach inflexion point. This will lead to an explosion in demand the way it happened in the urban markets in the mid 90s as a result of easy consumer finance, a boom in the IT sector and steep increase in corporate salaries. Companies are not anticipating this boom and many will be taken by surprise when it happens.

2. Reverse Innovation: Ever since the BoP concept was introduced at the turn of the century many companies have tried to transform their business models through single serve sachets, low cost production, extended mom and pop distribution and NGO partnerships. But in the rush to capture the fortune at the base of the pyramid, something may have been lost-the perspective of the poor themselves. In my view most such initiatives have failed to hit the mark. Pushing the company’s reformulated or repackaged products into villages may indeed produce incremental sales in the short term. But in the long term, this strategy will almost certainly fail because the business remains alien to the communities it intends to serve.

For decades, MNCs have sold modified products in India, a process widely recognized as glocalization. This strategy worked reasonably well with the more affluent urban consumers whose behavior is somewhat similar to Western consumers. With growing rural purchasing power and the three times larger population than urban, companies will need to develop appropriate products for this market. The glocalization or minor modification will not work as rural consumers are very different. This will call for a reverse innovation approach, totally opposite to the glocalization approach. This will involve a bottom up, community embedded process of co-invention and business co-creation. Such an approach will bring the company into close, personal business partnership with BoP communities. While creating enduring value

for the community, it will establish a foundation for long-term corporate growth and innovation.

3. New price-performance paradigm: What the rural market requires of products is delivery of decent performance at very low cost. My advise to companies is to aim for 75% performance at 25% cost. Nirma or Ghadi washing powders are excellent lower performance-low cost products compared to the global Surf and Ariel brands. Rural consumers are interested in deriving core benefit from the product and these low priced brands essentially clean clothes adequately. Users are not worried if these powders don’t have a softener or whitener. The sachet as a solution of making the offering more affordable will not work in the long term as the price still continues to remain high.

4. Innovative rural distribution: The biggest challenge in rural remains reaching your product to 600,000 villages compared to 5,000 odd towns in urban. A few new rural distribution and procurement models have been innovated by ITC e-choupal and HUL Project Shakti. But much more needs to be done in this area. One possibility is the use of the social infrastructure being created by government. For example there are over 5 million women’s micro-finance groups in existence and by 2011 the number of groups is expected to jump to 15 million. Thus 150 million rural women or 150 million of the 200 million total households in rural would be linked to self help groups. Can this channel be used innovatively to reach products and services to rural homes?

5. Dedicated Rural teams: Companies will need to shift power to where the growth is by dedicating empowered teams for the rural markets so that they can develop their own strategies and products. A separate sales force is also desirable as the regular force will avoid covering the more difficult and small off-take rural markets. MBAs from B grade small town institutes should be hired. Not only will they work at much lower salaries but will stick around as they belong to the local areas.

6. Inclusive marketing: This is a new concept I have created which goes much beyond BoP. Inclusive marketing looks at the poor not only as consumers but also as producers/suppliers of

goods and services. This approach offers promise to add economic value to goods and services contributed by the poor. It can therefore impact poverty positively. ITC’s E-choupal is a perfect example of inclusive marketing. The business model ensures that farmers as producers get better value for their produce. Once their incomes are enhanced the model then uses the same channel that was created for procuring produce to push relevant goods and services needed by the farmers as consumers. Government and the private sector need to come together to promote inclusive marketing and grow the size of the rural pie through the development of reverse distribution channels rather than companies fighting with each other to grab share of the limited pie.

7. New Opportunities: Rural markets now offer a number of new opportunities.

Healthcare: Total rural spending on health care currently is Rs 700 billion and expected to reach Rs 3.5 trillion by 2025, an impressive fivefold increase. Despite the launch of the National Rural Health Mission 80% of health spending will be in the private sector.

Durables consumer financing: In the 90s consumer finance became available easily which led to high growth in sale of durables. Rural consumer finance has become a big opportunity only now with rapid electrification of rural households

Banking: According to a World Bank study bankable people in rural India is 185 million.

Construction and Housing: Currently there is shortage of 40 million houses in rural India.

In conclusion I would say the next growth will come from the rural market and companies that ignore this segment will do so at their own peril.

(Pradeep Kashyap is the President, Rural Marketing Association of India and Founder & CEO, MART)

“I am a piano player, I plant trees”

What would you make of the following three people, if you met them for the first time, and they spoke to you thus:“Hello. I’m KT, I am a veterinary doctor, but I am working towards acquiring a degree in Medieval History… I think it will help increase the number of people who bring cows with brucellosis or foot and mouth disease for treatment to me”“Hi! I am a hair dresser, but I intend to spend my evenings learning how to become a welder. I expect it to build loyalty among my clientele”“Namaste! I am a school teacher, and I think the parents of the students in my algebra class will respect me more if they learn that I am an excellent trapeze artist”You might be pardoned for moving away from them slowly, without making any sudden moves, and wondering if they had been smoking banned substances.But such ‘eclectic-collinearity’, to give it a pseudo-scientific legitimacy, is not so unusual in corporate circles.I don’t want to sound cynical about CSR. What I do feel however, is what the authors of ‘Half the sky’, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, talk about when they say that “events that happen on a particular day” get noticed, but that “events that happen every day” are not noticed or are not considered media-worthy.Ditto with “opportunistic goodness”. Corporates wake up on the eve of ‘milestone days’ to proclaim their goodness.A brand of beverage wants to champion democracy and the exercise of the vote, when elections appear on the horizon.A brand of telecommunications wishes to become a supplier of equipment to security forces on the eve of the anniversary of a terrorist attack.A brand of skin cream whose descriptor essentially suggests a pretty albino, and which spends the entire year brainwashing

women that they are in effect the colour of their epidermis, remembers on Women’s Day that they are so much more.If we seek conceptual justification, at least the last one has a connection to the target group it serves. But in many other situations, the act of goodness and the normal acts of the company are connected to the category and target group only by the tenuous thread of a clever line.As I wonder why these companies find it necessary to do this, I am reminded of a line of dialogue from the film ‘Deewar’. The situation is this: Satyen Kappu, father of the children who will grow up into Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, is a trade union leader. He is being coerced into signing an unfair trade union agreement by the company owner, by being shown a picture of his wife and children who have been kidnapped and are being held by the owner’s henchman. When Kappu protests that this is wrong, the owner smiling evilly, explains his helplessness, “ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta, Anand babu, lekin kya karun, I yam a bijinaismain” (I too don’t want to do this Anand babu, but what can I do, I am a businessman) As if that explains everything.And in the 1970s perhaps it did. Because in the days still under the long shadow of a socialistic mindset, ‘businessman’ was an euphemism for ‘the evil one’.But today? One sometimes wonders whether anything has changed. I suspect there is still a lingering guilt associated with business and profits. Both among the general public and among businessmen.So an engineering company finds itself running eye surgery clinics. A finance company starts helping children’s education.One of the techniques often used is to donate “X% of each sale” or “Rs.Y per piece” to some cause. To begin with, this is “borrowed generosity” – all that the company is doing is giving away some of the money you spend. And for another, I would dearly want to know how much is the final contribution to the cause, compared to the amounts spent advertising the nobility of the brand.What also makes things more difficult to swallow is that the same actor who sombrely seeks your participation in helping the security forces in one TV commercial in the commercial break, is

playing blind man’s buff with his beauteous wife and plump maid a few seconds later, only to then smoothly move to shilling for his next film next. So much for singleminded sincerity.Why is is so difficult to accept that the business of an honest business is to produce great products and services? That is enough. A business contributes to society through employment generation, dividends distributed to shareholders, investments made in capital expenditure, taxes paid to the country. A baseline for a US company many years ago, stated simply, “We make things people need. Including profits.”At times one wonders if CSR is the corporate equivalent of making a pilgrimage or a trip to a holy land to wash away one’s sins. Perhaps token acts of ‘goodness’ as acts of penance will continue to salve the conscience of guilt-ridden corporates as long as they feel of their acts, ‘ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta… lekin kya karun I yam a bijinaismain.’

What would you make of the following three people, if you met them for the first time, and they spoke to you thus:

“Hello. I’m KT, I am a veterinary doctor, but I am working towards acquiring a degree in Medieval History… I think it will help increase the number of people who bring cows with brucellosis or foot and mouth disease for treatment to me”

“Hi! I am a hair dresser, but I intend to spend my evenings learning how to become a welder. I expect it to build loyalty among my clientele”

“Namaste! I am a school teacher, and I think the parents of the students in my algebra class will respect me more if they learn that I am an excellent trapeze artist”

You might be pardoned for moving away from them slowly, without making any sudden moves, and wondering if they had been smoking banned substances.

But such ‘eclectic-collinearity’, to give it a pseudo-scientific legitimacy, is not so unusual in corporate circles.

I don’t want to sound cynical about CSR. What I do feel however, is what the authors of ‘Half the sky’, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, talk about when they say that “events that happen on a particular day” get noticed, but that “events that happen every day” are not noticed or are not considered media-worthy.

Ditto with “opportunistic goodness”. Corporates wake up on the eve of ‘milestone days’ to proclaim their goodness.

A brand of beverage wants to champion democracy and the exercise of the vote, when elections appear on the horizon.

A brand of telecommunications wishes to become a supplier of equipment to security forces on the eve of the anniversary of a terrorist attack.

A brand of skin cream whose descriptor essentially suggests a pretty albino, and which spends the entire year brainwashing women that they are in effect the colour of their epidermis, remembers on Women’s Day that they are so much more.

If we seek conceptual justification, at least the last one has a connection to the target group it serves. But in many other situations, the act of goodness and the normal acts of the company are connected to the category and target group only by the tenuous thread of a clever line.

As I wonder why these companies find it necessary to do this, I am reminded of a line of dialogue from the film ‘Deewar’. The situation is this: Satyen Kappu, father of the children who will grow up into Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, is a trade union leader. He is being coerced into signing an unfair trade union agreement by the company owner, by being shown a picture of his wife and children who have been kidnapped and are being held by the owner’s henchman. When Kappu protests that this is wrong, the owner smiling evilly, explains his helplessness, “ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta, Anand babu, lekin kya karun, I yam a bijinaismain” (I too don’t want to do this Anand babu, but what can I do, I am a businessman) As if that explains everything.

And in the 1970s perhaps it did. Because in the days still under the long shadow of a socialistic mindset, ‘businessman’ was an euphemism for ‘the evil one’.

But today? One sometimes wonders whether anything has changed. I suspect there is still a lingering guilt associated with business and profits. Both among the general public and among businessmen.

So an engineering company finds itself running eye surgery clinics. A finance company starts helping children’s education.

One of the techniques often used is to donate “X% of each sale” or “Rs.Y per piece” to some cause. To begin with, this is “borrowed generosity” – all that the company is doing is giving away some of the money you spend. And for another, I would dearly want to know how much is the final contribution to the cause, compared to the amounts spent advertising the nobility of the brand.

What also makes things more difficult to swallow is that the same actor who sombrely seeks your participation in helping the security forces in one TV commercial in the commercial break, is playing blind man’s buff with his beauteous wife and plump maid a few seconds later, only to then smoothly move to shilling for his next film next. So much for singleminded sincerity.

Why is is so difficult to accept that the business of an honest business is to produce great products and services? That is enough. A business contributes to society through employment generation, dividends distributed to shareholders, investments made in capital expenditure, taxes paid to the country. A baseline for a US company many years ago, stated simply, “We make things people need. Including profits.”

At times one wonders if CSR is the corporate equivalent of making a pilgrimage or a trip to a holy land to wash away one’s sins. Perhaps token acts of ‘goodness’ as acts of penance will continue to salve the conscience of guilt-ridden corporates as long as they

feel of their acts, ‘ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta… lekin kya karun I yam a bijinaismain.’

Why Cricket should remain at the Top?

Since the late Eighties, sports in India has centered on one key sport called Cricket. In all industry discussion forums on Television Content, like the famous 4Ps of Marketing, Cricket comes as part of the 3C’s of Content with ability to attract huge audiences — the others being Cinema & Crime. Over time, governing officials of the sport in India along with some smart marketing, small content changes and heavy promotion of key cricketers as idols to the common man have enhanced the financial valuation of cricket leaps and bounds! Today, with over 200 million+ TV audiences in India and across the globe, this sport is aspired to by almost every advertiser (large & small). In India, it has outshone every other sport to the extent that when India is playing cricket live (like in the Commonwealth Bank series from Australia in 2008), the rare occurrence of Indian tennis stars Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi in the mixed doubles finals of Australian Open telecast live simultaneously on another channel received subdued levels of viewing!

Hence no wonder, in a recent Sports Marketing forum that was organized in New Delhi, many of heads of the other Indian sports bodies were found criticizing the monopoly hold that cricket has on advertisers’ budgets and blaming cricket singularly for the downfall of all other sport in India. While a blame game is part of Indian sports body’s ritual to defend failures in marketing and promotion of other sports in India, I was reflecting on a thought that if cricket did undergo a deflation in audiences and value associated with it, will it be a boon or disaster for other sports in India?

My point of view is that cricket is like the Himalayas in India. It is the foundation to the well being of a country like India. It protects us from the chilly cold winter of North Asia, blocks the rain clouds to shower its water on the Indian plains, supplies year round flowing rivers, rich with minerals to the agricultural soils of India and uplifts underground water tables to spring new flora life across the plateau regions. In other words, the Himalayas are not just a mountain range, but a life germinator. Cricket is also a germinator of life, a life-line to other sports. If cricket starts declining, it will have a negative effect on other Sports growth in India. There are two reasons…

(A) Cricket in India brings in the largest aggregation of audiences to one place — In stadia as well as on TV. When you have such a large aggregation, it provides such a wonderful opportunity for every other mass audience seeking sport to use innovative ways to promote itself. The cost of such promotions will also be cheaper. Even at a small rate of conversion, given the huge audience base for cricket, the awareness creation as well as walk-ins to watch that specific non-cricket sport will be larger than previous levels. Some of the non-sports TV genres have used this route and succeeded in creating trial consumption to their content. So why don’t other sports take advantage of this route? Especially Commonwealth Games, which is a year away from happening in New Delhi, should have taken advantage of the just concluded Aussie series and the present on-going Sri Lanka series to spread awareness of the games across India. Until some other sports come forward to rule the top, cricket should be given due credit to bringing in this level of audience aggregation.

(B) Cricket earns its revenues largely from selling the TV Telecast Rights as well as sponsorship of the event. TV cricket content rights are galloping at a frantic pace and are expected to reach astronomical levels. The two IPL seasons have already set the pace. This means that only a few chosen set of advertisers with large ad spend budgets will be able to afford not only buying bulk spots during live telecast on TV, but also engage themselves in sponsorship of the tournament. The unaffordablity to buy into cricket for small advertisers and brands will make them shy of cricket giving a fantastic opportunity for other sports bodies to

woo them into sponsoring other sports. Cricket can act like a benchmark for other sports for categorizing its advertising and sponsorship rates. The higher cricket benchmarks itself the more benefits will flow to other sports. If a 10 second commercial in cricket sells at Rs. 5 Lakhs, even a Rs. 50,000 for 10 seconds in other sports will be jingle to advertisers and sponsors provided the sports bodies invest in marketing, promoting and scheduling the event to generate mass awareness conducive to the Advertiser/Brand’s needs. If pricing for cricket crumbles to low values, it is bound to create a rumble on costs for other sports properties too!

Hence my view that until a new sport is able to perch itself at the top to replace cricket with the same magnitude & intensity in terms of audience & valuation, Cricket should remain at the top and pray that it continues to grow at the same pace its been doing all these years!

Moulding Perceptions

As my creative partner for last 13 years – Raghu wrote in his blog entry here, “Creative people gravitate naturally towards non-political workplaces.” But, my question is – “Are there enough numbers of so called ‘non-political work places’ in our industry ?” Isn’t it better to pursue Political Advertising / Communication career than practicing politics in Advertising Industry?

As it is, I don’t have aspirations of becoming “Mayawati of Madison Avenue”…I would rather spend time on something bigger… or even smaller but meaningful….

With my partner, Raghu and some like-minded friends in Advertising (yes, in small numbers but they do exist )

I did ” Respect the National Anthem” project..The Hostel / Holi project for the cause of Eye donation…The Ad-Museum ( The World’s first Virtual Museum of Advertising & Design) – currently under renovation, but I will revamp & relaunch it future whenever I get enough time for it…The Gujarat Anthem sung by 25 Celebrity Gujarati Singers…

I wish to do something equally meaningful (small or big doesn’t matter) for my state… once again for the occasion of 50th anniversary of Gujarat.

We are communication people blessed with creativity… We must utilize our core strength – The power to communicate using creativity - to do something meaningful… After all we have one life…

In our industry, we are involved with moulding perceptions. I would like to mould them based on truth.

A small example. We have seen a lot of criticism in the press about the Narmada Rehabilitation Program. I was invited to do a public service campaign against the Dam Project a couple of years ago. Before doing that, I called up my Civil Engineer Brother who works for Ambuja Cements, the Cement supplier of Narmada Dam. According to him the rehabilitation in Gujarat was one of the best in the world during such mega project… I also called up some of my folks in my native villages of Gujarat including affected farmers who had been rehabilitated because of the Dam project… They not only supported the construction & height increase of the dam but also volunteered to come down to Mumbai at their own expense and enter into a debate with anyone holding a contrary opinion. That’s when I decided not to do the campaign, as it wasn’t entirely based on truth.

So, I am summarizing that I am neither changing my role to pursue my political dreams, nor my core competence…

I’m just broadening my skills as a communication expert. I believe this experience will further polish my abilities while creating communication for brands.

And I personally believe… “Political Advertising” is a pretty challenging form of communication. If you handle it carefully, you can help people make a more enlightened choice and that, ultimately, helps the country.

Life After Advertising

When people are depressed, they shop.

When creative people people are depressed, they become entrepreneurs.

Just joking! Not that I was depressed but well, last week, I put in my papers in Contract to start my designer laptop bag e-venture called Fungus Designs. Manish did the same to pursue communications consultancy with the Gujarat government.

People have been asking us – What makes people, especially creative people, quit ad agencies? Is the ad agency business losing its sheen? Is advertising not fun any more?

That depends on who we are talking about.

For example, it’s safe to assume that the CEOs of most agencies are having a lot of fun. Even though their agencies aren’t exactly firing on all cylinders, the good life continues and it’s not uncommon to find them discussing topics like ‘new media’, ‘downturn’ and ‘GDP’ over rounds of golf and brunches at the Gymkhana.

Coming to creative people, the situation is very fluid, to put it very delicately.

Most of them and I’m talking of fairly senior people here, are confused about the future. Some of them think advertising is too

insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Some feel that it pays peanuts and therefore, can’t be a long-term option. Others feel that the advertising product has become a commodity and can’t command a premium.

The result? I know an NCD who has mutated into a full-fledged painter. Another has opened a rain-forest cafe. And another, who has taken a sabbatical to direct a movie.

From one level, advertising seems to be a bit like a Titanic. People seem to be in an awful hurry to jump off! Except that, when people jumped off the Titanic into the icy unknown, they at least had life boats!

Why is this happening? Why are the agencies not being to retain the good guys?

Talking of myslf, I joined advertising because I genuinely thought any job that lets you come to work in Bermudas and sneakers can’t be all that bad.

I still think that.

Freedom of speech, attire, thought and action are huge draws for all creative people. But these are getting undermined.

The biggest threats to the big agency today are bureaucracy, democracy and plutocracy.

Some agencies allow the use of bureaucracy as an instrument of subjugation over the creative individual. Examples? The accounts person who decides the increments of a creative person. Or the distribution of privileges (like laptops, business class tickets) based on a code that’s even more ancient than the Dead Sea scrolls.

Many good creative people have a pathological dislike for democracy. Democracy implies the division of spoils, or increments if you like, equally, rather than on the basis of performance. In his epochal book, The 80:20 Principle, Robert Koch says we are moving towards an era where the fewest

number of people will decide the destinies of the maximum number of people. In other words, the era of the Individual. Most agencies reject the ‘individual’. This is a mistake. Alex Ferguson is a successful manager because he maintains the sanctity of the organisation (Manchester United) without sacrificing the celebration of individual genius.(Of a Ronaldo). Fact is, creative people thrive on high responsibility, high risk and high reward.

And of course, plutocracy, which means the ‘rule of the old’, not old people, but old ideas, old notions of doing things. Separate loos for the management? Not a good idea.

There are other reasons. There is no universally acknowledged forum for applauding great advertising. Not everyone who is part of an advertising jury belongs there. Again, democracy at work! As a result, a lot of mediocre advertising gets celebrated. CNBC will hate me for writing this but the standard of journos covering advertising has fallen. In one of my ex-agencies, I sacked a trainee writer after telling him politely that he should consider other careers as he couldn’t write. Two months, he resurfaced as an advertising reporter for a website and even reviewed some of my campaigns! Then again, a few years ago, a journalist looked at the Ogilvy’s famous Schweppes ad stuck to my softboard and said- “Hey man! Nice ad! When did you do it?”

Also advertising is at best, an applied art. It exists at the intersection of art and commerce. To that extent, it’s not a pure art, like music or painting. All exponents of applied art have a natural inclination to migrate to pure art, as it is considered a more pure and hence, a more creative form.

But all said and done, the fact is, it doesn’t take too much to keep creative people happy. Any agency can do a better retention by identifying certain traits creative people have.

Creative people have a need to be creative every single day.

They need the stimulation of working on different categories and the challenge of the ever shrinking deadline.

They are happiest when they crack an idea. Their happiness extends till the time the the idea is executed.

They are suckers for appreciation. They like to be applauded, by clients, by their peers and also, the target audience.

Creative people gravitate naturally towards non-political workplaces. All creative people would love to take part of their salary in ‘peace of mind’.

And most importantly, creative guys never tire of being creative. Just like Yehudi Menuhin who used to play the violin till the age of 80 or Sachin trying to master the reverse sweep at 35, creative people will enjoy being in a place that allows them to learn, make mistakes, say the wrong things and be honest and courageous.

Sights & Sounds

When you want someone to tell you their deepest, darkest secret; would you call them into a room of 8 unknown people and say, “So, tell me?”

A little unfair on the person and more unfair on you because she just isn’t going to tell you. She isn’t going to tell you that her relationship with her mother-in-law isn’t perfect in front of strangers. She isn’t going to tell you that she is worried her children might fail. She wants to be perceived as the perfect home-maker and that is what you will take away.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not predicting the death of the FGD. I think they work perfectly well, for instance, when you want to see how a new product is received by a peer group. For effective research, the context has to be right and we need to be clear of what we are going after. And of course, a qualitative group moderator is like a good artist; she can bring out anything. It’s a classic case of quality over quantity – so choosing the right moderator becomes an essential.

The point is that research today is just being used to check where the consumer is currently at. It is being used to check relevance in her current life – be it for new products or communication or even for propositions.

Who said that brands have to follow the path that the consumer is already taking? Rather than tracking consumer trends, as marketers we need to understand – what is she missing in that journey? Where is she likely to head next? A study like the ‘Eye On Asia’ tries to unearth some of these for us.

The study conducted by Grey Asia Pacific delivers some ‘Eye-Sights’ that give us a picture of how she is actually feeling. It tells us what is missing in her life. It gives us gaps that our brands can fill for her because the equation is changing. It isn’t about; “Main brand, tum consumer” these days. It isn’t about “Consumer is king” either. It is more about getting a partnership going.

So, for instance, all of us are gung-ho about the technological progress. About how consumers are catching up and loving the fact that they have so many options. If you asked him in front of 8 people his interaction with technology – he would probably tell you that it is essential for him to be technologically savvy for him to get ahead in this race called life. But in the Eye on Asia study – he admits that it overwhelms him and he wishes it would stop.

We all know India is charting ahead, everyone is ready to ‘make it’. Everyone is struggling. Did anyone ask them if they miss the life of leisure? We found that 73% of the people interviewed would like the pace of life to slow down.

If it weren’t for research, it would be impossible for us to unearth these insights. Nobody said that research is a line in stone. We can find our own way of doing it depending on what we want to know, who we want to know and what is the role we want to play in the journey of their life – that’s just a glimpse of some sights and secrets for now.

(Bindu Sethi is SVP and National Planning Director, Grey India)

Reflections of an ADASIAN

Anuradha has requisitioned me to write a piece for Storyboard’s website and I write this on my way back on a lazy Sunday evening sitting at Kuala Lumpur airport sipping a cuppa along with Priyanka and predictably my mind is on ADASIA.

My earliest exposure to ADASIA was way back in early 1980s when it was held in New Delhi and even then it had by and large surpassed the expectations of seasoned delegates. Subhas Ghosal was the Chairman of the Organising Committee and I was drafted in to specifically assist him with what looked like a mammoth task. My first ADASIA out of the country was in Bangkok where I remember being fascinated among other things by the convenience offered by the convention centre, hotel and what looked then like a humongous shopping mall all in one place and all interconnected.Isn’t it wonderful that hundreds of senior marketing, advertising and media executives all over Asia give so freely of their time and resources and selflessly take on the trials and tribulations of putting together the Congress every two years? I remember a Filipino, one Anthony de Hoya who came to India way back in seventies to champion the cause of an Asian Federation, which is now called AFAA and which runs ADASIA, APMEDIA FORUM and MEDIAFEST . I remember his words and the passion with which they were delivered. He argued that Asians are similar in many ways and collectively our value systems, philosophy and outlook are very different from those who live in the West and therefore we should come together and if we did we could achieve a lot.

Full marks to Peter Das, the boss of ADASIA2009 for pulling off ADAsia2009 under challenging circumstances and that too after taking the responsibility only a year ago after the decision to

move the venue from Pakistan. Take a bow Peter and the Malaysian team.

Day 2 of ADASIA looked to me a lot more meaty and enlightening. What were my takeouts from the presentations? I recall them from memory. Thought my limited mind space would provide a good filter so that I don’t overload you!

- Sir Martin highlighting that huge overcapacities in production existed in most categories around the world, about the concentration of power in the hands of a few retail giants, and the growing realisation that CSR is a business imperative now and no longer a nice thing to spend surplus cash on. He concluded that companies that intelligently use the power of branding and use innovation as a core principle are likely to succeed in future. A very insightful 20 minutes and the delivery through video did not take away too much from the points that he made.

- Mary Brown, a spunky colored lady who moved from London to Asia to start an Asian Food Channel made the maximum impact as a speaker. Her core message: CREATIVITY EQUALS PROFITABILITY and she repeated it 4 times and as if that was not enough, made the audience repeat it after her thrice. I hope after all this delegates do remember this mantra in their business and branding processes. She made a remarkable impact on most delegates I spoke to and not just because she highlighted that research and data cannot run a business but passion and gut feel can. Although she did not spell it out, I guess what she meant to say was that a hypothesis for a business or a creative plan must be developed based on observation and gut feel, which can later be verified by research and data, but the basic hypothesis itself cannot come out of research. Made a senior FMCG professional concur and remark that “I doubt if we can make a commercial like Hutch featuring the pug. I can almost hear researchers and marketing gurus snigger at Mary but you need a few Marys to get a conference going.

- Bernhard Glock , just 3 weeks out of his top job at P&G and 3 weeks into his new job as President, The Bernhard Glock Media Leadership company made a well thought through presentation

on the need for all activity to flow from or meet or be evaluated against strategic intent. I was mighty pleased that the Gillette case study from India which has won virtually every possible Award in India and Internationally passed this test in his view. He ended with what I thought was an interesting model for marketers to stay on course and achieve success with brands, which he called the 7Cs. Expect to hear more from him on this subject. If he is not planning to develop this further, he should. To a question from yours truly he said that advertisers need agencies, should use agencies and the latter can demand adequate remuneration but on strength of clear deliverables.

- It was good meeting my old friend, Sattar Khan who looked older and wiser and has started his own strategic consultancy firm. He is, among other things advising on the setting up of nuclear plants. Just shows how skills acquired at work on advertising , when vested in a fertile mind can be applied in a million ways, almost universally. He made an interesting point that based on needs and habits of a community , we should adapt and position a product or sku relevant to the market. He gave the example of a sachet pack being a sampling device in the West but in markets like India had opened up a huge market for shampoos because of its low unit value. Similarly the perfume vials given in malls for sampling could be used as a selling unit to enable travellers and others to refresh on the go.

Two smart and world class professionals, now entrepereneurs – Bernhard and Sattar; new organisations and aged multinationals could do well to consult them and tap into their brains for a fresh perspective.- The Dentsu presentation added an extra P to the 4Ps in the beginning to stand for Philosophy meaning vision and values and what every brand must stand for and a 6th P at the end to stand for Public relations. My friend Veena , head of Madison PR I am sure will be delighted, since she has long held the view that Brand PR is underutilized and marketers who spend millions in advertising and then do not add PR to the Marketing mix are being plain stupid.

- The Hakahudo guys made a good pitch for looking at Koreans as the new marketing whiz kids on the strength of success of Hyundai, Samsung and LG in globally competitive categories. I guess if we are going to see new Korean brands on the global scene, we will have to give them more credit than we currently do and stop looking at them as shrewd sharp shooting business men who can give our Marwari businessmen a run for their money.

- Allyson warned us of not taking desperate measures in desperate times so that we don’t repent later and warned of the consequences of initiating price wars that erode brand equity.

AND HERE ARE A FEW RANDOM NOTES ON ADASIA 2009 AND MORE ON GOING FORWARD- The India night was clearly the highlight of the Congress. Diana Hayden looked stunning and stunned the audience judging by the number of people who wanted their photos with her. Hard Kore (my spelling!) rocked the night and it was an enjoyable evening, cold food served at the head table notwithstanding. Wonder why Dentsu who has been sponsoring ADASIA dinners ever since I can remember can’t make their evenings a little more spunky and fun. Take a bow Pradeep and Raj. You lived up to your reputation. And India hers.

- Is the extent, variety and sophistication of a city’s night life, the barometer of its progress? If it is, congratulations KL!

- And lastly a thought for AFAA. Isn’t ADASIA a valuable brand? If it is so, then it must be nurtured, protected, looked after, developed and made bigger, year after year. Whilst the practice of passing on responsibility from country to country is expeditious and practical it may in future lead to an inconsistency and therefore erode brand value. Because an important promise of any good and big brand is that the consumer can buy it with confidence and each time be assured of a standard quality he or she has experienced before. How about considering outsourcing the job to a professional organisation and make them responsible for clear deliverables and objectives to be delivered over a period of 10 years. The outsourced team can work under the overall supervision of the AFAA and the country Organising Committee

and be remunerated on the basis of a percentage share of the surplus. May I suggest that Pradeep Guha’s new company consider pitching in for this job. He has a proven track record and a passion for excelling at such events. If this idea seems audacious or impractical may I suggest that AFAA play a more active role in organising the event rather than leaving everything to the Organising Committee of the host nation. Also a manual for the event must now be prepared with the help of a consultant to ensure that a certain rigour and discipline is consistently applied. This will ensure quality outcome and build in time buffers to overcome unforeseen circumstances.

- On to ADASIA 2011Delhi and whilst wishing good luck to Pradeep, Raj, Madhukar and Bhaskar to meet the challenge head on, if we want a Jaipur raised to the power of 2, the entire industry will have to chip in.

We are ready to land. Good night.

(The above piece is penned by Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison Media Group)

No Money Marketing – From Upstart to Market Leader

Money, or the lack of it, is relative. If I have a million-dollar marketing budget, in absolute terms, my marketing investment is not small. But if my competitor has $10 million then I will have to be very innovative and frugal to succeed. Many firms find themselves in this position either because they have a new, innovative business model and are trying to establish it, or because they are established players seeking growth and expansion in markets where there are other, more entrenched players.

Marketing frugally demands clarity of vision and purpose. You have to be able to answer three fundamental questions about your offering succinctly and honestly – Who am I? Why buy me? Why not buy someone else? The third question is the clincher – why do your customers buy from you and not that other chap down the road? Once you know the answer, you can build your communication program around this.

The next big decision is to determine whether you are a “better mousetrap” company or a “better cheese + average mousetrap” kind of company. The Better Mousetrap company will focus on communicating the aspects that shape the company product – Quality, Delivery Process, Business Benefits. The Better Cheese company will talk a bit about the product (which is usually a parity one) but will spend a lot of effort in communicating all the surround attributes eg Price, Executive Backgrounds, Location. The two are distinctly different approaches and have their own merits which is covered in detail in the book.

Once the positioning has been determined, we can move into the execution phase, which is communicating to our target audience. Here are four tips to put together a frugal marketing program:

THINK NARROW:

Define your target audience as tightly as possible. This allows you to avoid expensive mass media and target your prospects one on one.

You can also define your area of operations narrowly, so that you can own a superlative such as largest, fastest, biggest. For example, it is better, and more memorable, to say you are the top producer in a particular state than to say you are number 13th in the country. Most of these superlatives are transient and you will have to constantly innovate to keep the position alive. For example if “first” is the chosen position, you will have to constantly be the first in various fields.

THINK COLLABORATION:

Your customers can, and will, talk to each other through blogs, chats, online opinion polls, supplier rating systems, with or without your help. As a good marketer, this is an amazing opportunity to establish two-way communication channels with your customer base. Invest in interactive websites, discussion boards, moderated forums on social networking sites -it’s usually free.

Buyers can hear about your offering from different parts of their industry, and some elements (for example media) may have a higher level of influence in their decision-making process. Often, there is no cost to contacting the members of an industry eco-system, though you will have to put in the effort to identify them and create relevant, custom communication. But you can save a lot of money by avoiding the mass media required for a direct contact with the buyer.

THINK FRUGAL

Often, the easiest way to reach your audience will be the most expensive. That’s because someone else is doing the thinking behind creating that opportunity and also bringing in the audience for you. But if you were to build instead of buying then the costs go down.

For example, let’s say that you work with a hotel to offer their guests something in return for placing flyers in the rooms. If you are the first person to approach the hotel then the costs will be low as the hotel will see it as easy additional revenue for no work.

You can persuade most dailies to run your ad in a limited number of copies and have those distributed only in your chosen locality. For example, to announce your new product launch it may be sufficient to cover just the main business district, and since the number of copies is so low you can afford a 4-page ad (called a “power jacket”.)

THINK SMART, THINK INSIGHTFUL

Being boring is the cardinal sin in today’s world. You have to keep doing exciting things to keep yourself relevant in the

mind of your audience. This helps to create buzz and generate free publicity.

The other big shift is that the internet has made information cheap. Customers now crave insights, they want someone to sift through all the data that is sloshing about and tell them how they can benefit. If you are that person, you will gain disproportionately in loyalty and stickiness.

Finally, allow me to pass on to you the two words, which have been handed down from generation to generation of marketers, and which if followed diligently will save you form a premature old-age caused by the occupational hazards of typos, missed deadlines, leaked releases, corrupted databases, and irate bosses: ‘Stay Cool’.

(Jessie Paul is the Chief Marketing Officer at Wipro Technologies, India’s first CMO on Twitter, and among other things, a Coffee Planter)

The Day A Brand Won The Nobel

Interesting, how the Nobel Committee finally recognized its own inadequacies as also the global impact of the Prize it offered. There was rapid dilution (for instance do you remember who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008?) which is why they had to resuscitate a dying brand if not a completely irrelevant one and at the same time make it look kosher as also globally powerful. So they did what any sensible person would do. They went ahead and hedged brand risks at the altar of safety and wisely, made it something the consumer would want!

And the consumer could buy in. Sure the American media has gone berserk but when does it not? Michael Moore has already written to Obama and I am pretty certain, a documentary will follow but this is the point.

The Nobel Peace Prize of 2009 went to a brand and not to a cause and since when did we ever imagine that the cause was more important than the brand? The fact that Obama was the human face or the brand per se is equally significant because if the same award had gone to the International Red Cross, we would have all yawned and the Nobel magic would have eroded a little more.

As the news of Obama’s victory filtered in, I sent off a text message to all my friends, saying Brand Obama and not President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize and I was not playing with semantics as many commentators later realized. The essence of my argument is that many a time, associations and utterances are enough to both inspire and suggest future action. Which is what Obama stands for. He has been inspirational, he has been evocative on issues that matter and for many these may seem minor victories but then in the universality of things, they matter a lot. And please don’t forget Obama conquered Europe before the Nobel Committee even started its deliberations. How can you forget that remarkable speech he gave at the Brandenburg Gate in erstwhile East Germany last year before he becamePresident: his speech then was about ensuring a freer world, but also a more just world. The eminent 20th century philosopher Raol Kahl, wrote that ‘justice is fairness’ and this is precisely what Obama set out to do. When Obama took oath office of the President of the United States, millions across the world tuned into: he in some strange way was the President of the World.

On another plane, the Nobel had to be re-invented. It needed to be on social networking sites and blogs. It required a presence in the minds of the young. It could not afford to be an old boy’s club and thus what better way than to latch onto a brand that will be in the public eye for the next four years for sure ACROSS the world. And whenever there is anything said or written about the man, the words Nobel Laureate will certainly precede or follow. In a swift way, the Nobel Committee has also ensured that their brand is in communication currency. In many ways this is a victory both for Brand Nobel and Brand Obama. Self-survival for the Nobel folks and glory for Barack Hussein Obama and thus in a strange twisted way, it is a victory for brands as well.

People remember brands when they exude and offer compelling benefits. In many ways, whatever Obama does in the domain of global peace or climate change or nuclear non- proliferation, there will always be a surreal pressure on him to act now that he is a Nobel Laureate because in some strange way he has been anointed even before being baptized!Strangely, whatever Obama achieves will also be a pat on the backs of the folks at the Nobel Committee and they will often (and hopefully repeatedly) be praised for the foresight: once again a win for dual brands.

And perhaps the most classic case of brand revival is the fact that we have spent hours discussing and reading the Obama Nobel: if it was not compelling or riveting, would we have? That is yet another facet of the powerful magnetism that brands have. They remain not just in minds and hearts but also equally in conversation and chatter.

My sense is that this will be a tremendous revival for Brand Noble and a great pressure tactic on Obama and the eternal optimist that I am, I believe if the Nobel to Obama can even make the world a tad more peaceful, then to hell with the cynics and critics. Yes, he can!

Diwali – The Vijay Sales Way!

Diwali by far is the biggest festival as far as consumer buying is concerned .In fact in the consumer durable industry we say we have 13 months in a calendar year and the extra month comes in the form of the diwali sales.

Actually speaking, the period from Navratra to Diwali accounts for nearly a month’s sale in addition to the normal monthly

throughput .Thus, this is the time which is very crucial for our industry both for the manufacturers as well as the retailers. The Diwali sale determines the fate of the brand as well as the retailer as well as the sale pattern for the remainder of the year, to a large extent. In fact, when we open a new store, it starts performing much better after it has seen its first Diwali.

Thus the importance of Diwali need not be emphasized more and the preparations for this great SALE period start nearly two months in advance. Basically promotions, advertising, logistics, in store readiness to take in huge crowds, and the post sale installations are the areas we focus on.

First and foremost, last year’s data is collated, targets based on the previous years are set, and then the ball starts rolling. Depending on the targets, the logistics are planned in terms of extra warehousing space and extra manpower. Extra delivery vans and even extra sales executives, cashiers and customer care executives are deployed. Fortunately during Diwali colleges are closed; hence we are able to attract a large number of students who want to do vacation jobs so as to lay their foundation for their foray into retailing post graduation.

Once manpower is set, the next area to look at is the infrastructure in terms of air conditioning, cash tills, credit card swipe machines and so on — each and everything has to be looked into. If anything fails on those important days it would result in not only huge sales loss but also loss of face which in my opinion is a bigger loss.

Then comes the theme of advertising and marketing as along with company offers customers do expect some extra offers from the retailers too. Earlier this was an easy job but now with increasing competition we need to be more careful in planning, marketing and advertising as one should have a differentiator in terms of offering to the customers. Also the buying for the season starts much before as we need to block stocks with the brands else invariably you may land up with fewer stocks than needed.

Once all is set, the wait for the big rush starts and invariably in the first few days — I don’t know why — the customers every year do give the retailer butterflies in the stomach by not beginning to shop. But experience has always made us wiser to be patient as 4 to 5 days prior to dhanteras the great rush begins and gets a smile from all of us.

In spite of all the preparations at times things do misfire — a delivery gets delayed, a model booked has run out of stock or the installation person does not reach on time and it is at these times we have to go the extra mile to get back the smile on the face of our customer.

All in all it’s a great experience to work for Diwali and each Diwali gives us a new set of learnings for the next Diwali.

Within Ethical Limits Or Beyond It

In Brazil, contraceptive pills rank amongst the highest revenue spinners for pharmaceutical companies, much ahead of drugs that are meant to treat lifestyle diseases. I was surprised to hear that on my last visit to that country two years ago but then I was also told that most taking those pills are fully aware of the profile of the drug and its effects. Can we claim the same awareness levels in India?

Cipla and Mankind, the companies manufacturing those drugs in addition to a few others, have gone on ballistic in their ad campaigns to capture market share. Mankind, known to be extremely strong in several rural pockets in North India, is scoring big with its reach. Cipla too, with the number one crown in the

domestic market, wants to retain its segment leadership.But the war for market share is spilling over and drug authorities are already speaking about restrictions in the way the products are being promoted through the television.

Nothing wrong with the way the drugs are being promoted with an indication of its availability over-the-counter only if there is an emergency need but let us remember we have two levels of India consumers to deal with. The urban population, which have the requisite education and tools to study the drug and the rural consumer, bound by traditions over logic.

The drug authorities are caught in a strange dilemma. If they allow the product to be sold and almost indiscriminately used, we run the risk of ending up with major side-effects and if it says no to the product being sold over the counter, the industry blames it being too tight with its controlling mechanism.

“We have ethical concerns about these advertisements, they are not projecting the message clearly that these pills are emergency contraceptives and not regular contraceptives,” Ram Teke, the deputy Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) told AFP Wednesday.

The balance may still be found here. Companies approaching the largely uneducated population in India need to tell them the side effects of the product very clearly. They also need to ensure that the morning after pill does not become a normal headache reliever as there are more serious side effects of the drug. At present, the ads for Unwanted seems to convey to the audience the subtle message that the drug can be taken routinely.

If this war of advertisements unleashed in the media does not stop or being more rational, the DCGI’s office should review the situation. After all, we are not Americans where everything from Lipitor to Aleve can be advertised.

Design Doodles from the Spikes Asia Festival

It is my firm belief that the more fun you have doing any kind of creative work, the more the fame and fortune will follow. The first ten years of Ambience with Ashok Kurien reinforced my belief, attracting great talent who shared our passion and enthusiasm.

Since 2007, I’ve rediscovered my love for design, set up a little design cell for Publicis called Red Lion, completed two half-marathons, had time to enjoy my family, managed to do all the things the hectic pace of advertising life had snuffed out, all the while growing the design business by leaps and bounds. Co-incidentally Spikes Asia, Cannes Lions, even our very own Goafest (where I had the honour of chairing the Design jury) introduced design as a new category during the same time.

And last week in Singapore during the Spikes Asia Festival 2009, it was indeed exhilarating to be up on stage at the elegant Victoria Concert Hall, to collect our gold award from Rodney Fitch (Chairman of the Design Jury) with the thunder of applause and a million flashbulbs flashing (at least that was how it felt).

I then discovered nothing much has changed, even if my life in design had changed completely. It turned out to be another evening of drinking and celebrating with a bunch of predominantly ad people patting each other on the back. Some smart new advertising ideas in a brand new category exclusively for design? At the award function, we saw the same pieces of work winning in many advertising categories, and the lines between design and advertising were blurring.

As part of the design jury, we sat for 2 whole days poring over corporate identities, posters, flyers, calendars, stationery, publications, self promotions, point-of-sale, broadcast design, graphics and digital design, environmental design, packaging for foods, drinks, household goods, cosmetics, toiletries and more.

The jury (a wonderfully balanced, accomplished lot of people, equally representative of both advertising and design agencies) was curious about why there were so few entries in packaging. I mentioned to Rodney Fitch that perhaps most of the entries in other categories were from advertising agencies and not from design agencies. Therefore packaging, which is more often handled by specialist design agencies, wasn’t present because the design agencies hadn’t entered their work.

Many enlightened heads of industry in India have hired design agencies like Landor, Fitch, Brand Union, and several others. They are looking beyond their advertising agencies and are investing in the expertise of creating a brand identity, much before any other form of communication.

Obviously, the value of good design is gaining ground in India. So why were most entries at the awards in the design category from advertising agencies and not design professionals? There were Barbro Ohlson Smith and Steff Geissbuhler as part of the jury, both well-respected graphic designers, who were a bit confused about awarding design from a pure design point of view, versus advertising communication.

Is it design from advertising agencies that qualifies as the best in the world? If so, I would urge more great minds to join this exalted place called design, put it on a pedestal, where we are valued for the work we love to do. Advertising agency rates on design honestly devalue the thought and expertise we bring to the table, where the detail in design is usually handed out to the lowest rung in creative, sometimes even a trainee, while the creative directors concentrate on the major campaigns. Design is nascent in India, is it the same all over the world?

The results had me thinking – out of 20 metals awarded in all, 4 gold, 3 silver and 13 bronzes, was it odd to see Red Lion, the only design agency apart from Kinetic Singapore (which on their site say they are a design and advertising agency) Proximity BBDO (a global digital and eCRM agency) the only independent design businesses winning an award?

The 17 other winners, including the well-deserved grand prix were from advertising, some on work that they do for their long term clients, and some others brief flashes of inspiration. I was maybe naively under the impression that advertising, unlike design, worked on long term associations with clients and ad agencies work as partners in communication. Design however, much like architecture or product design is always billed per project however little or time consuming they may be, therefore an entry from a design agency is almost always an honest piece of work for a project.

It seems to me that there are many advertising agencies doing design projects. Can a business card for a private detective be an advertising agency client? There was a brilliant card for a private detective in Thailand, where the title of the detective had options of mr/mrs/lady/senator/professor etc., which had us all in splits. But when we called the detective just to make sure, a voice in Thai answered and neither he or we had any idea why his card should be so clever in English?!

It made me think, and I mentioned to the jury, that perhaps most design agencies just don’t have the funds required to enter their work – the entry fees are steep for most of us. Maybe they are not in the race for awards, and there are other measurements of excellence that take priority. And perhaps they are too busy enjoying every day they spend designing.

Advertising agencies seem to have a budget for awards, just like a budget for PR, that allows them the luxury of being awarded, sometimes with the same piece of work in several categories, and now one more in the design category! They also have a budget for making audio visuals, presenting their work to the jury, sometimes with clients interviews, global views and strategic insights on India set to a rousing audio track including AR Rehman’s ‘Jai Ho’!

I know there are many many brilliant designers out there who need to be awarded but do not stand a chance, due to both monetary constraints and the lack of expertise in making an award winning entry. They are not part of this award hungry

bunch of advertising people. They do great work that they love doing, and the work itself speaks volumes.

I am indeed grateful to Publicis and my years in advertising that gave me the luxury of entering these awards, and thank you Spikes, Cannes and Goafest for introducing a design category where between 4 of us designers in Red Lion this year, we were blessed with wealth 4 times over – a gold at Goafest, a gold and silver at Spikes Asia and a silver Lion in Cannes, minus the hype of audio visual presentations to juries and repeated entries in the same festival. Work straight from the heart always speaks for itself.

Jai Ho!

(Elsie Nanji is a managing partner at Red Lion, the design wing of Publicis in India, and is a multiple award winner at both Indian and international award shows. She’s also won the Art Director of the Year award in India three years in a row)

HUL and its Colossal Wave of Advertising

HUL is in the news again. This time for its innovative Channel-block strategy used repeatedly twice over across two separate channels in recent weeks.

One has heard of road-block, and time-slot blocks, where whichever channel you flick with your handy remote, you will always land up at the very same advertising spot that begs to be watched. Now, we have for the first time, a channel block. A channel block that has many a marketing pundit imagine that the spend is as big as all of 20 Crores INR even!

Whatever the spend, the amount is not as important as is the tactic.

Many questions around then. Why such a colossal wave of advertising when there is no new news to share? Why such a big spend when there is no new launch at all? Why now? Is this not a waste of plenty of good money chasing bad advertising? And many more.

Let me attempt to answer some of these questions as a rank outsider with no interest in the affairs of HUL and its marketing and business strategy whatsoever. These are at best guesses. Possibly intelligent guesses. Possibly even arguments one might want to use to justify it all.

Let me attempt the 2 big questions:

1. Why now?The last three quarters have been quarters when India at large has been at stress. The International recession and its cascade impact has been felt by many a booming industry sector in India. The IT, ITES, Biotech, Retail, Manufacturing, the Services and indeed every other sector there is, except agriculture, has felt the cascade of International depression.

Though India does not really have a recession at its door-step, urban India has been through what I call a cautionary recession. Consumers across categories have postponed purchases, even though they have had a good amount of money in their hands. Overall, even though there has been no recession in pure definition terms in India, there has been a recessionary mind-set that has been at large. People have lost jobs, increments have not happened, promotions have got deferred, people are working longer hours than before and there is certainly a certain degree of job-insecurity around.

In such an environment, HUL has possibly thought it right to be the harbinger of good times by heralding the good times through a dominant use of an entire content and advertising channel. A great way of signaling that things are looking bright and the time to spend is here.

The leader guards the sentiment. HUL does well on this count. The sentiment of positivism in the market and its strength is a good signal to give.

I am sure the respective television channels are not complaining. If I am to take the analogy of the real estate category: In a market where customers have been hesitating to buy a 2BHK apartment in the 200-apartment complex up for sale, here is a company that has decided to buy the whole complex! Good for sentiment. All around. No one will complain. Except those that did not get a pound of flesh for themselves! Ouch!

The timing in many ways is just right. The stock-market is looking up. The festival season is just about to dawn. Stocking in for the season ahead is just about happening. Vanity is entering the market. The timing is right.

2. Is this a colossal waste of money?Not at all. HUL does not waste money. Not ever. The money spent on this is really not as large and inflated as the card rates of these channels look. I am sure there has been a deep cut. A cut so large that no one in Indian industry has possibly ever seen before. Inventories have in any case been going light. Time to fill it up.

The money is really well spent as the company has a whole portfolio of brands that benefit from the exercise. Consumers really look at brands as brands, and not necessarily as brands from one big behemoth of a company. HUL does it well. Every brand gets blessed. There is variety for the consumer to choose from. As I keep saying. HUL is a veritable super-market of brands on its own. If you add every brand and every SKU there is, this super-market has much to offer. To one and all.

Add to it the joy of editorial coverage this move of HUL is getting. Bang for the buck has been attained!

Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

HUL Re-energised

Is it a mere coincidence that suddenly a host of HUL brands are hyperactive on Television or is it a conscious strategy on the part of these mega brands to create a deep impact in this market condition? In the last 4 weeks flagship HUL brands such as Lux, Surf Excel, Pepsodent have been very visible on TV. Whether its sponsoring large format reality show or gobble up hundreds of GRP generating spots, these brands have suddenly exhibited a spurt in visibility.

So till we hear more from the company itself on what is the new thought or the new strategy, I thought it could be a good idea to discuss both – the possible reasons as well as the impact of these actions.

An eye for an eye. Maybe two or three?High GRP blitz by HUL is similar to the HLL template of the 90s when it would believe that creating a spike of media spends dramatically alters brand scores in a desirable zone thereby leading to gains. More than a decade ago when I was a Planner on HLL, the media planning template in Personal Products (Shampoos, Toilet Soaps and Oral Care) would be to out-shout the nearest competitor by a margin of 2 or 3! The Sunsilk campaigns in the mid-1990s when Pantene was launched, the Pepsodent “102%” campaign a decade ago against Colgate Dental Cream were outputs of that aggressive template. The last 5 years had seen a lull in that kind of fierce ad blitz from HUL. There was a distinct rationalization in the face of stretched margins. So is the current situation a signal of things going back to having large media spends spikes?

New Evidence of Lowering Conversions? New Guidelines?Another speculation could be lower consumer conversions in the face of increasing consumer maturity and an explosion of social networking media, traditional media and mobile phones. In my conversation with the head of a audience research company, I have been fascinated to hear that latest studies show a fall in

conversion ratios across multiple categories owing to societal changes stated earlier. Maybe there are new guidelines or benchmarks that HUL is currently planning media on that have led to revisiting budgetary levels. I remember one such set of media guidelines in 1998 that became a sore point from two rival agencies (HTA and Lintas). Finally the HTA media guideline was accepted and was to have a dramatic change in media budget benchmarks that went steeply Northwards.

High SOV TargetsProfessionals familiar with HUL say that the current Marketing folk in the company (some who have come from Cellular Service Providers) have exerted extremely high Share-of-Voice (SOV) targets on their marketing and media campaigns. The FMCG marketing model in any case prescribes high SOVs for good SOMs (share of market). The media blitz that we are discussing could be the result of this high SOV target leading to high TRP programs being bought.

Cheap Media, Low ClutterCould there be a tactical reason for the high visibility? Maybe TV media inventory that’s available cheap? This seems unlikely as the rates have been lower for a long time now – since the immediate aftermath of the meltdown last year. In which case it could be argued that most advertisers were laying low then and that HUL has budgets (and the will) right now to unleash this advertising firestorm. One other reason for the increase could also be the well researched benefit of high advertising during slow down having the greatest impact on market shares than promoting a brand during periods of growth.

Surprise!P&G had clearly surprised all its competitors wherein it slashed prices for key brands all of a sudden a few years ago leading to market share gains for itself. Maybe the ad blitz is HUL’s way of saying “Surprise!”. Am sure if these levels hadn’t been expected earlier by HUL competitors in those categories, there would be worried rivals waiting to see the impact of this on their market shares.

Famous last words

Irrespective of the reasons for heightened visibility for HUL brands, their ads make TV look great, vibrant and interesting. My hunch is that the reason is perhaps a combination of these stated factors rather than only one or two factors. And if these are signs that the giant is shedding its last few years of conservative media spends, one would, as part of the TV industry, just like to shout out – “Welcome back HUL!”

Atul Phadnis, CEO, Whats-On-India. Atul is a keen TV media industry observer and a digital television evangelist/ enthusiast

So I Am Going Home

A little over twenty two years ago, I landed into Ahmedabad. It was a blistering 7 pm, solar fried at around 42 degrees C.

I wasn’t ready for daylight at that time. But I suppose I had discounted geography and the late sunsets as one goes further north.

The heat stung me. The dust seared me. This was no city made for humans. Here I was, eager beaver copywriter wannabe, thrust into the gullet of a fire spewing dragon.

Twilight painted the skies. Russet clouds hovered over the city. It was like fire in the sky. Very deep purple, I remember scowling.

I watched fat cows standing in the middle of the road. Unmoving and unmoved. But chewing thoughtfully. I never knew Rodin had bovine followers.

I saw camels plod through the streets. A forest of brown legs through which cyclists wove alongside rickety autos that sputtered kerosene fumes. Further adding to the oppressive air that scalded my poor mallu skin.

I peered all the way to Chaitanya Apartments. Baked butt, roasted everything else. This certainly was a zillion miles from where I woke that morning. No blue skies. No coconut palms. Just an all encompassing envelope of dust and haze and heat.

This is criminal, I rebelled with myself. How will I ever survive here? How can anyone survive this punishment?

My auto suddenly veered into this swank apartment complex. On wide CG Road. Above Kapoor Lamp Shades. Even after so many years, my memories are crystal.

I walked in through the glass door, lugging my one companion for a long time. A broken, limping VIP suitcase. There in front of me was the elevator that’d take me to the Mudra guesthouse.

I pressed the button, and almost instantaneously the elevator opened and a rather well fed man stepped out. I recognized him, his effusiveness, and his 1000 watt smile.

There stood Dr. P.B. Naganand Kumar. The head of human resources. The man who had interviewed me. The man who read my mind. The man who didn’t pick me as a copy trainee, but chose to take me as a copywriter.

He hugged me and my crisscrossing thoughts, and welcomed me to Ahmedabad. Go up he said. ‘The copy trainees live there, but there’s place for you’. With that he vamoosed, warning that he might be back at midnight.

I stepped out on to the floor to face a big broad wooden door. Rang the bell and a small man, the caretaker, opened the door. And in fluent Gujarati, he ensured that I was solar as well as lingua challenged.

Thankfully Kuriakose met me, and his excited bout of Malayalam and English assured me that all wasn’t lost. Hope sprung eternal. I looked at his enthusiasm, and pumped myself up. If he could handle the heat, I bet I could.

Soon I met the lot. Five more of the guys who arguably made better copy trainees than me. Was I jealous? Of course. But that was more an expected reaction.

I met an IIM-A graduate – Ramki alias D. Ramakrishna, I met a tall lanky North Indian – Pankaj Mridul, I met a short stocky Punjabi – Sunil Gautam, I met a short cocky Assamese – Dhrubo Borkotoky, I met a former computer guy – Balki alias Metaphysics, plus Kuriakose – the zoologist turned journalist turned basketballer turned copy cub.

A quick ride back through the maddening crowd took me and Kuriaps to Girish Cold Drinks – Navarangpura . Where I had the first lassi of my life. It was cold, sweet, deliciously thick, with a half a ton layer of cream on top. And I have been hooked since that first sip.

The next couple of days that I stayed with them taught me a few things. Rather, I observed, learned and absorbed.

These were genuine people. No pony tails. No torn tattered jeans. No affectations. No hang ups. They were sincere human beings.

But they were bristling with ideas. They were brutal in criticizing.Some of them were aggressive. Other gentler. Work and deadlines charged them up. And Naga had no respect for time.

Slowly I was accepted. I was the outsider. Some one who bucked the traineeship, and was made a full bird copywriter. With a fatter wallet. But that was where everything else ended.

I was sucked into the system. Manikyam Apartments embraced me. A churning vortex of thoughts and actions. There was no pfaff. There was no fluff. No south Bombay cool.

Mudra Ahmedabad was a place that held its own. There was no pretence.There was no glam. Just hardwork. Middle class people with solid values. A heart of Indianess. But lavished with the finest from IIM, and a creative force handpicked from across India.

There was Dr. Ram, Dr.MR Arun, Dr. Naga, Ravi Ratan Arora, Abhijeet Almeida, Raju Murugesan, Bala, Subrata Bhowmik, Pritam Parmar, Ranjan Thomas, Philip DSouza, Simon Fernandes, Adrian Mendoza and of course AGK himself.

There couldn’t have been such an overdose of talent in any advertising office anywhere. Little me struggled among the thunder of voices and the brilliance of minds.

It was potent. If you liked the combination, then it was heady. To learn, to unlearn, to challenge, to be admonished, to be whipped, to be inspired, to be blunt, to be tough, to push, to pull, to be true, to be right, to be honest, to be respectful, to be modest, and above all to be part of a team.

There was a fire, and gumption. There was a clear mission. There was focus. There was no denying our Indian roots. There was pride. There was passion. And there was no dithering.

Slowly I became part of all that, and I believed in it. I believed in the place. I believed in the people. I believed I could walk without fearing my back. Or the ground I walked on. There were people all around who you could depend on.

I trusted in others. Others trusted in me. We grew strong. Our careers grew stronger. Friendships grew thick. We were a band of people unlike no other. We had a culture that was common across all branches. We were united. We were welded.

And we truly became the agency of choice. And even the girls wore buttons that said they were proud to be one of the boys. hehe.

Of course, life and opportunity called most of away from these roots, Ahmedabad and other Mudra offices. And while many of us

slipped into newer roles and newer organisations, none of us ever forgot or changed the core that was made in Mudra.

It can never be defiled. Nor can it get corrupted. It’s precious, and I think all of us, like a reflex will go out of the way to protect it.It’s not something that can be easily explained. It’s one of those truths that have to be experienced.

This evening when many of us meet again, I can guarantee one thing. No one is going to be stranger. No one is going to walk in wearing invisible armour. There’s going to be neither smoke nor mirrors. It’s just going to be awesome. Like a great big family. Getting together in the company of an amazing teacher, leader, visionary, and father figure all rolled into one – AGK.

The xMudra Reunion is something that I thought we needed. An occasion to replenish ourselves with a certain goodness. A time to remember our beginnings. And a time to remember our memories. To be students, and even children.

Mudra for all of us wasn’t just an agency. It was an institution. Big inspiring umbrella. True banyan tree. It was a place that nourished life. It was home. No, it is home.

Prathap Suthan is Chief Creative Officer at Cheil India. He started off his career at Mudra Ahmedabad/Calcutta (1987 – 1995)

Delivering The Aegon Religare Babies

We are obsessed by the thought of creating campaigns that don’t have an expiry date. Hemingway said- the object of every artist to create something of lasting value. A similar motivation guides us while creating campaigns. We want to create stuff that dominates conversations, stops traffic on the roads, pops up in panel discussions years after it first appeared. And in this ambition, our

strongest ally is the Internet. The net is the janta ki adaalat. If the people love your stuff, nobody can touch you. If the content is compelling and entertaining, it spreads like a cancer cell. It just spreads. Nobody, not you, not me has the power to halt its spread. We love the purity of this medium. Bad work can’t pass off as ‘effective work’ on the web. There is good work that gets celebrated and shared, there is bad work that is greeted with a thunderous silence.

When we received the brief for the launch of Aegon Religare Star Child Plan, we had these kind of ambitions. Of course, there was also the desire to create a bigger impact than the KILB and the Irrfan Khan Pension plan launches.

We knew that our child plan was a vanilla offering. So, the creative had to stimulate interest, likeability and hype.

We decided to use babies as babies are instant traffic stoppers and conversation starters. But we wanted to make them do something extraordinary to create that edge.

We also wanted to attempt a technically difficult job. This was important as we wanted to provoke a parallel conversation amongst animators and graphic designers.

The films have been directed by Shiven Surendranath of Old School Films, while the post-production has been done at VHQ, Singapore. As a starting point, the team auditioned nearly 100 18-month old babies, and shortlisted a handful for the ‘roles’. The team got these children to play with a football or toy around with a guitar. This footage was then captured on camera and their movements were observed minutely. A still shoot was also done, to replicate the faces and bodies in animation.

The footage was taken to Singapore, and VHQ, along with Surendranath and his team, then created images on computer graphics (CG) from various angles, to match the actual babies. The details like the hair to the shape and size of the eyeballs, we had to take care that everything looked similar to the real baby.

Next, a smaller animated video in grey-scale was created with the baby ‘moving’ around, while a rubbery skin was created to go with it. It took about two weeks to create the actual film after the creation of this mini-video, but the entire process of production took around two-and-a-half months. These are the first babies to be born in the record time of two-and-a-half months.

To give the film a candid, easy, home-video feel, it was shot in one take, avoiding too many cuts in the frames. The music for the films has been given by Vipin Mishra.

The post-production was an elaborate process, with animators from France and the UK working on it, while a software expert from London flew down to Singapore to rewrite the customised animation software for this project.

Manish Bhatt & Raghu Bhat are the Senior Vice Presidents & Executive Creative Directors at Contract Advertising India.

The Solutions Approach

A Solution has many names – 360 degree Communication, Total communication, Multi-media Plan, Media-neutral media platform, Media surround etc. These could all mean very different things to different people. A media planner may look at ‘other media’ to deliver the incremental reach that would plateau in traditional media. A buyer could look at Solutions as a means to do innovative stuff which may not be possible in expensive mass media vehicles. A brand manager would look at supplementing the mass media activity with digital media in order to ensure ticks in check-boxes of things to do. While these may very well be part of a Solution, none of them completely define a Solution.

What it is not!A Solution is not just a multi-media deal. It is not a check-list of

media or media vehicles to be necessarily used as part of the plan. This kind of an approach would usually result in extending the mass media creative into other media without any attempt to examine the distinct strengths of that medium or an attempt to leverage these. This is exactly the kind of approach that results in the creative on Outdoor sites with the branding at the bottom of the hoarding being blocked from view as it is a replica of a similar print ad. Similar case of internet banners on websites which are again like the print ad with no attempt to engage the consumer enough so that he clicks on the ad.

Nor is a Solution a bringing together or consolidation of all activity within the group in order to demand a lower rate. A Solution in that sense is not a buying tool. Very often a Solution would have an innovative or creative element and almost always a fair bit of customization. This would actually come at a premium versus the norm of consolidation of business delivering better value to the client or agency either in terms of more savings or increased value-adds.

A True-blue ‘Solution’ – Brand FocusedA Solution should be focused on the brand and should try to solve brand issues or problems. A Solution does not necessarily have to have all possible media or vehicles but should be a judicious mix of media required to achieve the brand’s marketing and communication objectives. It is usually a synergistic execution of the communication across media but need not be necessarily so. For instance a shampoo brand like Sunsilk may have a campaign running across TV and radio trying to establish the variants and the unique features of each variant while it may run an unconnected online activity like Sunsilk ‘Gang of Girls’ which would have a different communication objective of attempting to build a community and a closer identification with the brand. The online activity is a part of the whole and solves a unique brand issue or problem.

A Solution works in a way such that the sum of the individual parts is greater than the whole. This is also called the media multiplier effect and a Solutions approach takes it to a level even beyond that with each element solving some brand issue and the whole

effort delivering more. This is the reason that Solutions are not a consolidated, discounted buy but one where the marketer should be willing to pay a premium.

Why Solutions?Why ‘Solutions’ if 85%+ of the money continues to be spent on Print & TV ?With brand proliferation and a bitter share battle being fought in the market place, the trick lies in being relevant to the consumer and in being able to deliver a value proposition that can’t be replaced. Differentiation, practicing the art of Niche marketing, Narrowcasting or Consumer Segmentation is therefore the key. Marketers are moving from an ‘All things to All people’ strategy to an ‘All things to Some people’ or a ‘Some things to Some people’ strategy. From mass brand like Lux and Lifebuoy, we now have Dove, a moisturizing soap for the older woman, a fairness soap, an anti-acne soap, an anti-bacterial soap and even soap-free face washes. Even a herbal soap like Medimix is now available in 4 variants.

With so many choices, a brand needs to be well differentiated and relevant to the consumer. Conventional advertising may be too passive and marketers are more and more looking at going beyond conventional brand communication and providing the consumer a richer brand experience in a competitive market. Traditional high reach delivery media are seen to be passive and not as effective in delivering engaged eyeballs. The consumer is much more mobile and is exposed to a large number of unconventional media vehicles. Both the agency and the client are therefore looking at a more 360 degree approach for the communication plan with multiple touch-points for the changed consumer.

Interactive, customized brand communication makes for a ‘touch-and-feel’ experience that delivers a richer brand experience for the consumer and delivers a more engaged audience to the marketer and allows for a check on the response to the brand and communication unlike conventional media.

Participation in Media of the FutureIndia will have 500 mn phones by 2010. Juxtapose this with about 130-140mn TV homes and even with a multiplier of 5 per household, mobile owners would actually be in the same ball-park as TV equaling the mass reach delivery of television! With this kind of potential for digital media, all marketers want to ensure that they are future ready when it comes to talking the digital language. Solutions allow marketers to experiment with digital media on a smaller scale as part of the overall communication plan and scale-up participation basis results.

AccountabilityThe explosion of media choices and the resultant audience fragmentation has driven up overall costs for the marketer. The marketer now needs more media platforms and higher budgets to deliver the same (or even lower) reach! The pressure is on the marketer and Accountability is the need of the hour with the marketer needing to know exactly where each rupee of his advertising budget is going and what it is delivering. Most Solutions have an in-built response tracking mechanism which is actually able to measure the effect of the communication. This is far more valuable to the marketer as it actually goes beyond measuring advertising exposure to the effect of the advertising and links up to ROI. Measurable Solutions meet client’s need for increased accountability.

Marrying the Existing with the PossibleA solution is usually a marrying of the ‘Existing’ with the ‘Possible’. While customization is key, existing properties or initiatives which are focused on the specific TG and have a close fit with the brand can serve the purpose with a little bit of tweaking. Customized events, properties also need to be created especially for the Client. While inventory across the entire portfolio is on offer, it is not necessary for every group vehicle to be a part of the deal, only the ones which make sense for the brand and its objectives. A solution normally incorporates a ‘brand experience’ component which is where the consumer gets to touch-and-feel the brand. An ideal Solution also needs to be response based in order to be able to measure performance.

Solutions MindsetSolution selling requires a different mindset from the usual sales orientation. It requires an understanding of the client’s issues and problems, a thorough knowledge of the media brand and then the ability to connect the two. It is important for the Solutions team to have an understanding of how marketing works and it is also important to have an ‘ideator’ or at the very least a person with a creative bent of mind in the team who can generate the innovative ideas that need to be part of the solution.

ExecutionThe Proof of the pudding is in the eating and execution is everything in a Solutions deal. A badly executed activation will not get the advertiser the response he was expecting. This actually has a hugely negative impact on the media group imagery and capabilities. A media group should offer Solutions only if they have a strong back-end events and activation team to execute the ideas and confidence in the possible response from its user base.

Solution’s Star on the AscentWith the growing need of advertisers for a Solutions approach, more and more media houses are gearing up to serve up a Solutions fare. Agencies are setting up specialist cells to go beyond conventional media. Agency structures too are changing with a Business head trying to integrate the various divisions for a more Solutions and 3600 approach.

Emvies, the Ad Club Awards for media excellence is the barometer of the rising popularity of the Solutions approach. Winning Media Strategy cases a couple of years ago were more research based. For the last couple of years, winning cases have been ones which have a ‘360 degree Solutions approach’ be it the Horlicks, Nerolac or Vodafone. A few years ago a new category was introduced at the Emvies aside from Best Strategy, Best Research and Best Innovation – Best Integrated Campaign!

(Arpita Menon is Managing Partner of Quantemplate, a media analytics firm she fondly refers to as ‘her baby’)

Design Is More Valuable Than Ever

In India we have always celebrated Design. Design has been an integral part of our visual and material culture. We have always marvelled at the handmade objects made by the traditional artists. Architecture from various era’s has its own mark. No other country is as rich as India in its textiles heritage. There has been an abundant amount of creativity in India, and it had been fairly democratised. Almost every household in rural India still takes pride in bits and pieces of this creative process of living beautifully.

But we didn’t really put a lot of effort to understand the processes of these creative outputs. We have always been too happy to live in the result and not ponder on what creates the result. This is very visible from the way we handle advertising creativity as well. We create visualisers, creative directors from the passion of the young applied arts graduates. None of whom have gone through a process of questioning. They do acquire this however on the way and acquire it well enough to win International awards. But I don’t see much academic discussion or many PhD’s being performed on this creative process, unlike many other places in the world.

What is the difference between art and design? I always say art does not need to have a process to create, whereas Design needs to have a process in place. It doesn’t mean that Design is a process that can be repeated like scientific experiments. So there is Art in Design. It is amazing to see what an artist can do if he follows a process. This is especially true of commercial or Applied art graduates. Perhaps time for AICTE to upgrade all commercial and applied art to Graphic design levels.

The Industry that benefits most from Artists converting into designers is the Advertising Industry since it does make money by using art to persuade a behaviour. This combination becomes a strong agent of change.

Design helps us to understand the changes in the world around us, and to turn them to our advantage by translating them into things that can make our lives better. Now, at a time of crisis and unprecedented change in every area of our lives – economic, political, environmental, societal and in science and technology – design is more valuable than ever.

At a time when Design has evolved in many countries, we in India are taking our first steps. In India we do have a Design Policy by the government in place for last two years. As perhaps the first objective now we have “India Design Council” nominated by the ministry of Industry and headed by Shri Anand Mahindra. Though the focus of The Design Policy as well as The India Design Council remains to be Industrial Design, it is true that the lead will come from the Visual Design areas. Whether they are pure graphic design, Advertising, Films, Animation or gaming, web or interactive media. Indians are already commanding premiums in these areas.

Once a tool of consumption (Design) chiefly involved in the production of objects and images, design is now also engaged with developing and building systems and strategies, and in changing behaviour often in collaboration with different disciplines.

Design is being used to:· Gain insight about people’s needs and desires· Build strategic foresight to discover new opportunities· Generate creative possibilities· Clarify, illustrate and communicate complex information· Invent, prototype and test novel solutions of value· Deliver solutions into the world as innovations adopted at scale.

I will not elaborate the benefits that brings in for our communication, branding and advertising Industry since that is so obvious but in the current climate, the biggest challenges for design and also its greatest opportunities are in social areas. The World Economic Forum, Global Design Council confirms the following areas where design can play and should be explored to play a role in our context;

· Well-being – Design can make an important contribution to the redefinition and delivery of social services by addressing acute problems such as ageing, youth crime, housing and health. Many designers are striving to enable people all over the world to lead their lives with dignity, especially the deprived majority of the global population – “the other 90%” who have the greatest need of design innovation.

· Sustainability – Designers can play a critical role in ensuring that products, systems and services are developed, produced, shipped, sold and will eventually be disposed of in an ethically and environmentally responsible manner, thereby meeting – and surpassing – consumers’ expectations.

· Learning – Design can help to rebuild the education system to ensure that it fits its purpose in the 21st Century. Another challenge is to redefine or reorient the design educational system at a time of unprecedented demand when thousands of new design schools are being built worldwide and design is increasingly being integrated into other curricula. Designers are also deploying their skill at communication and visualization to explain and interpret the overwhelming volume of extraordinarily complex information.

· Innovation – Designers are continuing to develop and deliver innovative new products at a turbulent time when consumer attitudes are changing dramatically, thereby creating new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities in the current crisis. They are increasingly using their expertise to innovate in new areas such as the creation of new business models and the adoption of a strategic and systemic role in both the public and private sectors.

In this context you also realise that perhaps it is wrong to compartmentalise the process thinking in Design. There has to be a better understanding of ‘Links’ as Prof. Kaustav says. The links exist in fashion, architecture, interior, product and communication design.

Designyatra 2009 brings these links out in the forefront with so many speakers with such diverse backgrounds. I will miss the

fashion, apparel and textile inputs though. I hope with time we realise the way to our own progress is so intimately linked with development of process and thinking in all these Design areas.

Sudhir Sharma is the chairman of ‘Indi Creative Group’ and founded Elephant Design. He is a member of the India Design Council and was recently invited to join the Global Design Council of the World Economic Forum.

The Value of Being No.1

- And what it takes to get there in India’s FMCG market

India’s FMCG market is a vibrant ever growing market. With a steady growth trajectory over the last four years, increasing rural demand helped the Rs.100,000 Crore industry grow at an estimated 17-18% (CAGR) despite rising input costs, high inflation and economic uncertainty.

This points to the fact that, clearly, rural India remains a growth driver and companies will battle each other to innovate in product formulation and distribution in a bid to penetrate the hinterland. This is not without good reason. Rural India’s consumption increase has been aided by higher MSPs (Minimum Support Prices) for many commodities and government action in the form of NREGA/NREGS has helped boost purchasing power.

Making the most of this opportunity however, will take more than mere optimism and will hinge on specific strategies. For instance, the ominously branded Godrej No.1 brand of toilet soaps continues to build its franchise on a few powerful fundamentals that have seen it grow in stature to capture the northern market and beat back many of its rivals to acquire a dominant position in

a highly competitive category. Here are a few lessons that it has learnt along the way.

Consumer-centricity:Building brands based on consumer insight is a good practice. But centering your entire business around them is great practice. For Godrej No.1 this has meant studying consumer needs gaps closely and working in tandem with its customers (trade) as well. By placing the consumer at the core of the product innovation cycle and using it as the litmus test of everything that brand management, operations, production, distribution and sales do, is that starting step. At Godrej we ask ourselves – How will this improve the consumers’ brand experience? Does it empathize with their needs? The sooner and more tangible the answers, the better your chances of being part of their shopping basket.

Value consciousness and the price/value equation:That the Indian consumer is value conscious is a well known fact. Growing incomes and increasing brand choice may prompt some marketers to suspect that this is changing. While this may be true for some items of expenditure, when it comes to personal care and groceries, the Indian consumer remains as value conscious as ever. This tendency has accelerated within a recessionary atmosphere but it doesn’t mean consumers have stopped spending altogether. Instead, they are constantly evaluating the price / value equation while shopping while growing ever more demanding instead of simply downtrading to cheaper substitutes. This has resulted in a ‘Sachetization’ of virtually every category from personal care (shampoos) to cars (Nano!). Today, every brand has a ‘sachet’ version of itself available to adhere to the price/value equation and balance price with preference.

Godrej No.1 spotted this trend ahead of the curve and rode it well to cross the magic Rs. 500 Crore number faster than most other brands. By first offering unmatched quality (at 76% TFM Godrej No.1 is one of few Grade 1 soaps) at an affordable price. While most other brands include talc and other ‘fillers’ to boost manufacturer margins, Godrej No.1 eschewed this path and decided to offer the best quality at the best possible price. This

has helped the brand build a loyal base of consumers that hold it in good stead whenever it launches a new variant.

This strategy has been strengthened by pioneering the ‘multi-pack’ offering and increased trials and frequency of usage by introducing SKUs at the 5 and 10 rupee price points.

Segmentation:Even as consumer preferences become more specific, marketers have rushed to micro-segment their categories. Segmentation strategies have followed everything from age-based segmentation (milk food variants for children) to gender-based segmentation (fairness cream variants for men).

For Godrej No.1 this has taken a different route. By building on its consumer-centric approach, Godrej No.1 fashioned a targeted varianting strategy based on consumer research and understanding. This led to the creation of successful variants created for specific consumers using a combination of insight and consumer trend analysis.

For instance, Asian trends showed that consumers moved from flowery fragrances to fruity ones. Hence, a ‘Papaya Lotus’ variant was launched before the trend started in the Indian market. Similarly, the popular ‘Strawberry & Walnut’ variant (the first soap with a ‘beaded’ appearance o pieces of Strawberry embedded in the soaps) was launched with moisturizing benefits for a premium imagery. While, the recently launched ‘Lime & Aloe Vera’ variant with the proposition of fresh soft skin was launched for broader base of consumers.

Customization & Focus:In market as varied as India, no ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy can succeed for an indefinite period of time. Over time, marketers need to adapt different strokes for different folks. This requires a deeper and more nuanced understanding of consumer needs. The sheer demographic and psychographic complexity offers a vast array of opportunities. For instance the preference for Sandalwood in the South is an example that merits its own marketing and media mix to suit the needs of a specific audience. Creating a

media, activation and promotional plan that converges around this consumer insight helps communicate the brand’s proposition more effectively.

This can sometimes lead to counter-intuitive strategies that pay off handsomely. For instance, Godrej No.1 is the typical ‘David vs Goliath’ story – while most other brands in the toilet soap category have a 10-12% (ad spend as a percentage of sales) media spend, Godrej No.1 has managed to optimize spends and increase sales by investing in local media and activation.

Be like your consumer:Granted, none of this is easy. But it can be achieved through a dedication to consumer insight and an unbreakable bond of empathy with the people most likely to make your brand a success.

Above all else, it takes hard running to rise to the top and a large group of motivated professionals who are as value conscious as the consumers they serve.

(Dalip Sehgal is MD, Godrej Consumer Products)

10 Years of Branding, 10 Years of chlorophyll

Events always appear logical, even ‘inevitable’ in retrospect. The bumps and rough edges of reality are removed by the smoothening effect of history.

Reality of course is under no compulsion to offer a smooth “equation” that places events on a neat curve, and offers a high “goodness of fit”! Even so, some events do stand out as milestones along a journey where some fundamental new variable

revealed itself – even if only in hindsight. The last decade which happened to be the first ten years in the life of chlorophyll (we were ‘born’ on 15th August 1999), have also been years of perhaps the greatest ever change in the world of marketing, advertising and branding.

Here is my list of some of them, and some ways in which chlorophyll responded to these changes.

The IntangiblesWe saw, perhaps for the first time, the branding of a calendar moment: “Y2K” (everyone got on to the bandwagon, there was even a “Y2K sandwich” sold near Churchgate station!), but more importantly, it was the age of the ‘dotcom’.

It is one of chlorophyll’s fundamental beliefs that intangibles must drive tangibles (think of the emotion of love as an intangible, driving the gifting of a rose as the tangible!)

But the critical element is that the brand DOES have something tangible to offer! With VCs, Mary Meeker and others suggesting there was value even with intangibles as the ONLY thing – we had enquiries offering us a share of the “400 crore valuation” from monetising eyeballs! Thankfully we insisted on a real amount in lakhs, rather than accept the offers of several hypothetical crores!

This malaise was greatest in the IT space, but we insisted that a brand must offer tangible value. One of our early launches was Adrenalin for Polaris, Chennai, which reflected this emerging truth.

Adrenalin - It Transforms!

India arrives on the world stage1999 also had a truly red letter day for India Inc. “Infy” came to life on the Nasdaq Exchange. And in the process, Infosys Technologies (Nasdaq symbol: INFY) stepped on the path on which so many other Indian companies followed, to the stage where today news of Indian companies buying international companies, no longer even makes the front page.

But the event was important in another way as well: Indian brands had arrived on the world stage and there would no more escape from global standards. In a sense all brands had to learn to be global brands.

A Dabur today offers Real fruit juice that offers the same quality as a tropicana. A Thums Up continues to beat Pepsi and Coca Cola.

At your serviceWhen the last millennium came to an end, India had – almost without anyone noticing – already become a services-economy (By the years 2000-01 to 2002-03, the average contribution of services to India’s GDP had already reached 57%)

Shoppers’ Stop had started in 1991, but went from 5 stores to 20 in the 5-year period of 2000 – 2005. It marked the upsurge that resulted in “retail” becoming a major economic sector (albeit with more than its fair share of controversy!). But it brought to the forefront, the realisation that, especially in Service brands, behaviour IS the brand.

More importantly, it marked a ‘crossover’ from communication to behaviour as the primary foundation stone of brand-building. We developed and copyrighted a new process, with alignment of behaviour and communication around a Brand Core as the goal of branding. We applied this to hospitality and created the ‘Smart Basics’ service mark for Ginger hotels for the Taj Group.

Consistency is kingThere was yet another change taking place: the consumer had had enough bull$#@t.

Companies brought up on an exclusive diet of mass communication however, continued to miss the fact that the consumer could see the inconsistency between communication and behaviour, even if the company couldn’t.

They spotted the inconsistency of values in communication and behaviour. A cosmetics company that celebrated the new woman on Women’s Day, but spent the rest of the year telling her how to be a docile decorative object for her husband.

A food product that wanted to attract the “empowered woman”, but whose promotional offer was a Free kadhai!

And they punished the brands in the simplest way: they stopped buying the story. And the brand.

Make-over mania2005: The mid-point of the decade unleashed an avalanche of “brand makeovers” led by Bank of Baroda (who ended up hijacking the colour orange from the mobile company!) A host of brands, wanting to “reinvent themselves”, also decided to change their logos. The poor logo was being turned into a modern mule, the beast of burden that had to carry the entire load of changing the company’s image!

We believed there was a bigger issue involved. And created the ideantity© We define it as a visual with an ‘idea’ inside it. And it is not just a ‘design’ – the idea is built on the basis of the Brand Core – the unchanging idea that drives a company.

An ideantity© is the cheapest method of buying space in the most expensive real estate on earth: human memory.

Here is a snapshot of how we have developed dramatically different ideantities for a number of companies in the same space - financial services. Because the Brand Core in each case was different.

Same Space, Different Ideantity

These then, are just a few of the ways in which the world has changed in the last ten years: The discovery of the importance of intangibles, but also that they have to be reflected in tangibles. The need to go beyond ‘design’ to ideantity©.

And most critically, the importance of behaviour over talk in brand-building. What lies in the next ten years…who knows? But one thing is clear. Words ain’t gonna be enough.

As Eliza Doolittle said in ‘My fair lady’:

“Words! Words! Words!I’m so sick of words!I get words all day through;First from him, now from you! Is that all you blighters can do?Don’t talk of stars Burning above; If you’re in love,Show me!Tell me no dreamsFilled with desire. If you’re on fire,Show me!”

Vodafone – Happily Helping!

The business was built as a combination of start ups and acquisitions. Brands like Essar, BPL, Command, Fascel, Max Touch & Orange required rebranding to Hutch which itself was subsequently rebranded to Vodafone.

The first rebranding exercise gave us butterflies in the digestive track and required much convincing of the stake holders. Every successful transition had us approaching the change with confidence. We had distilled the core factors that delivered a successful change programme. The rest was easy.

Unlike some other categories, we were not dealing with transacting customers who had the option of changing their brand often. Instead we had subscribers and most were happy with the services they were using. They required a reassurance that they would continue to enjoy what they were even with the change of brand name. Symbolic continuity, with the help of communication devices that the customers found endearing, viz. the pug, the animated characters, Irfan Khan, etc. at the time of brand change helped provide this comfort.

To ensure that the change was not just a rebadging exercise we used the opportunity to look for processes that the customer found cumbersome and others that he often wished that we had offered. These were eliminated or made available as key substantiators of every change.

Service brands like ours do not offer products with physical dimensions and depend on interactions & experiences for customer opinion. Delivery of these experiences depends on customer centric processes and trained people. Probes with customer facing employees helped identify the likes and dislikes of the customers. This knowledge was then used to devise new processes and helped us gain ownership for change amongst those responsible for delivering it.

On line, real time capture of the voice of the customer is key to all above.

Are service brands different from physical products? Yes & no.

Just like any other category, services too need to fulfill core customer needs to enter the consideration set of customers. A detergent is meant to clean and a shaving cream to soften the beard. Addition of a fancy perfume in either of these cannot make up for the shortcomings on account of core product benefits. Similarly endearing advertising for services can neither help acquire customers nor make them stay. Availability of a near seamless network and a working service recovery mechanism are core to a good telecom service. Deficiencies on account of these core category benefits cannot be made up by cute advertising and superstar endorsements. Brands are not built only out of billboards.

It is easy to segment physical products basis ingredients, packaging and thus price. Products like shampoos, talcs, soaps & deos can be named and packaged differently and made to cater to multiple segments. This is difficult for a service brand, certainly for a telecom operator. Hence all above the line communication needs to be age, gender & SEC neutral. Almost all segmentation efforts is exercised on a one on one basis as customized rate plans, service differentials, etc.

Physical products have a sequential delivery mechanism and functions like procurement, production, logistics & distribution can exist, most often, in silos. A production manager of a soap plant and its salesman could be sleeping in their respective homes while the customer bathes. Not true in the case of a service brand. Everyone involved needs to be pretty much in the factory while the customer makes a call or uses a service.

Telecom, just like most other categories, centers around acquiring customers, retaining them and growing their consumption. The emphasis on one or more of these core business processes varies basis the life cycle stage of the category. Also delivery mechanisms may vary depending on local environment. However, we often hear every state in the country define their situation as unique thus requiring a unique communication and a business

model. This includes adjoining states that are contiguous political divisions and people with similar cultural values.

This is also true when one deals with countries across the globe.

Having experienced the diversity within the country and delivering a consistent yet not a constant brand experience across geographies and customer segments will come of use when dealing with multiple countries with similar diversities.

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Harit Nagpal,Vodafone

(Former Chief Marketing Officer at Vodafone India, Harit Nagpal now joins Vodafone’s global marketing team starting August)

Responding to the Responses

It was indeed a delight to find that over 50 readers have taken the time to read the piece on my book ‘Ride The Change’ and post messages about the introductory ‘Crash Course’ I had written exclusively for storyboard.in.com.

I was also happy to note that some of the respondents had read my previous books, ‘FCB Ulka Brand Building Advertising – Concepts & Cases’ and ‘Building Brand Value – Five Steps To Building Powerful Brands’. The purpose of writing these books can be fulfilled if and only if they are found to be of use to young managers and management students. To that extent I feel blessed that my books are seen to be of use and value by many of you. Thank you for all your warm words of encouragement.

The book ‘Ride The Change’ is a collection of about 35 articles written over the last seven years. In the introductory ‘Crash Course’ article, I had touched upon some of the key issues that these articles attempt to cover. Since there have been several comments and queries, I thought it is best that I address some of them here.

Anuj has pointed out that while the life of urban women may have changed dramatically in the last ten years, the lives of lower middle class women in semi-urban and rural areas has hardly changed. Well Anuj, you are right. Economic development does not treat all consumers as equal. But what we have found in our study, WomanMood II, women in non-metro cities like Madurai and Kanpur are also echoing the sentiment we hear loudly in the Metro cities of Mumbai and Delhi. So women of India are changing, but the pace of change may be a little slower in the smaller cities.

Rahul Pandey’s point is that men too have changed and that does merit a review. I believe men are changing as a direct after effect of the changes we have seen in women. If the wife insists on taking over some of the duties that the husband used to do till recently, men will have no option but to hand over the keys. Interestingly, one area where there has been a rapid change, almost reflecting a global trend, is the growth of men’s cosmetics.

Robin Kumar Das is appreciative of the article on Innovation that I mentioned in my previous piece. Well, there have been many books written on this topic, and the book ‘Game Changers’ by Ram Charan and AG Lafley may be a good introduction to some of the innovation networking tools used by the global major P&G.

Internet and Mobile are going to be the future media of choice, as Priyanka Jain has pointed out. I have devoted a couple of articles to this phenomenon. The critical issue with the net is the short attention span that a consumer has while surfing the net. Apparently 8 seconds. So unless the website, or viral, or the banner gets the attention of the viewer in 8 seconds, it is a lost cause.

Kapil Mohanani has asked about the rural consumers. I believe they too are changing in line with their urban cousins. In fact at a recent seminar, one of the industry leaders pointed out that there is significant change in the mindset of our rural cousins. The speaker pointed out that the rural consumers are getting into an urban mindset: of upgrading products, experimenting with new technology, paying a little more for a better product experience.

Let me end with my response to the comment made by Hitesh Arora. He has pointed out how even school kids are today playing a critical role in product purchase. I remember my father buying an Ambassador many decades ago and the entire family going to a temple to celebrate (pretty much like what the first recipient of the Nano did in Mumbai last week). As a school kid I just about got a seat in the car as it drove off. I am sure most fathers (and mothers) today take their school kids when they are on a car hunting spree. In fact when it comes to products like computers, mobile phones, or music systems, I would suspect that the teenager is not just the influencer, but actually may be the final decision maker.

The reality is that the post-liberalisation generation truly knows a lot more than their parents about many things. And their parents are often grateful for their advice. They only hope that their kids return the favour occasionally.

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Ambi M G ParameswaranED & CEO MumbaiDraftFCB Ulka AdvertisingAuthor of ‘Ride The Change’

A Marked Man

I joined The Lovemarks Company just a couple of weeks back. For those who came in late, that’s Saatchi & Saatchi.

It’s quite refreshing, the change. This place doesn’t think, feel or behave like an ad agency. It feels like a team meeting room. They even have a mascot, Captain CareAbout, who at the door reminds you that everyone inside is passionate about something.

We don’t even believe in ‘brands’ out here. We believe in strange new things called ‘Lovemarks’.

Lovemarks , as a philosophy is quite simple. It goes something like this. Mere products can’t command love or respect. Fads attract love but no respect, just a passing infatuation. Brands attract respect, even lasting respect, but without love. Only Lovemarks can command both respect and love.

Sweet! So how does one turn a brand into something consumers love? I could tell you, but I’ll have to kill you… LOL (actually, it’s all there on the net. Read up, ye ignoramus! www.lovemarks.com)

So far, so good. With just one problem – where do I fit in?

You see, I am an old, ‘industrial media’ kind of a guy. You know, the film, print, radio types? I am comfortable in broadcasting messages. Like a later day Moses on Mount Sinai, dropping my tablets of messages on the heads of hapless multitude. And I don’t want the multitude to be talking back to me, thank you!

But even a testosterone-crazed eighteen year old knows ‘Love’ needs conversation, dude! Listening, as much as talking. And that, I am not used to.

Also these guys believe in talking to communities here – living, breathing groups of people in an intense relationship with things they passionately care about. Not the faceless, shapeless masses from SEC A,B and C, living in metros, mini-metros and Class-A

towns that I used batter to submission with gargantuan ad spends.

That too, is taking some getting used to.

I am unlearning things here. Big time. And enjoying the exhilarating feeling that floods you when firm ground is pulled suddenly from beneath your feet.

But I have able teachers. Juju, Hanoz, Shormistha and Suhas are already doing wonderful new things I am eager to learn. They are a helpful bunch here. So, no worries! I’m slowly, but surely working my way out of my ‘digital denial’. Already I can tell you which hashtags are trending on twitter. And I wrote this on Google docs. So there!

What are the key accounts here? Every account we handle, irrespective of size. What is the challenge before me? To make it an agency whose work people look forward to.

Easy!

I am just an old dog learning new tricks here. I guess it’s the proper, post-modern thing to do. In these post-modern times where less is more.

About the future, I am as much in the dark as anyone else. My two-year old may never learn to write. He will type. Millions of Indian youngsters who have never seen a desktop are downloading caller tunes on their GPRS enabled phones. Right now.

But thankfully, creative leadership has always been a case of ‘blind leading the blind’. But my feet tell me that this path I tread seems the one less traveled by, and I hope that makes all the difference (Apologies, Mr. Frost!).

Inshallah!

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Ramanuj ShastrySaatchi & Saatchi