How to post something from time to time...

A Day in the life of the Internet; Wonderful graphic, done by these chaps over at www.onlineeducation.net


Created by Online Education

I don't usually cross-promote stuff. However, was surprised to see that the only presentation I had uploaded on slideshare has gotten some 1000 plus views, thought it might be good to put it in here as well.

psst: wanted to get a move on on the blog too, at least 3 full fledged unwritten would-be-blogposts await the reticent blogger!!!

What Is Roi For Social Media

View more presentations from Sudarshan Banerjee.

Relevance: Old yet New

I was recently watching the telly and caught an ad for Add Pens, a variant which they claimed has helped a few crore students write their exams. Nothing to write home about and couldn't find the commercial on any of the sites (they thought the same too, I guess). So why write a post about it?

The Ad went on to also provide a promo offer. Buy an Add pen and get an Add Save Tree Pencil free. Now that was something that caught my attention. "Save Tree Pencil" is essentially one of those mechanical pencils (also called the clicky pencil), which doesn't have the two pieces of wooden strips glued to the graphite stick in between. They used to be around, even when I was a student. So I looked them up, to find out how long they have been in circulation. According to wiki, these pencils were invented in Britain in, hold your breath, 1822 !! I was a little taken aback, and checked on when Pencils were invented, turns out sometime in the 1500s.

(image courtesy : wikipedia & www.staedtler.com)

Now here's the point. We've all been using the typical wooden pencil for many many years, ok, make allowances for making the big shift to pens when we moved to high school, but still for something or the other. Most of us would've used the clicky pencils too, for not wanting to sharpen the wooden pencil or for making us look good in front of our not so fortunate classmates. However, it has never occurred to people to portray it from a 'tree-saver' perspective (I could be wrong here, but I haven't come across this myself). Environmental awareness is all the buzz today; carbon footprints, carbon credits, etc are bandied about in casual conversation and such a simple proposition was just waiting to be taken: 'Relevance'.


The guys over at Add pens or their agency or whosoever could be credited with this, has no idea what they have with them. It could become seriously big if it touches the right chords.

p.s: While digging around, also learnt that, while The black core of pencils is still referred to as “lead,” it never contained the element 'Lead' and contrary to popular notions, putting it into one's mouth is absolutely safe :-)


(image courtesy - Thinker Labs)

Ambient Media - Getting it right!

I have this thing for Ambient Media. Have done several posts in the past , over at my older blog.

Had recently seen something very interesting done by the Delhi office of Euro RSCG India, which had taken my fancy and the reticent blogger in me had forgotten all about it, till I was going through my older posts and found something similar. It's not an inspiration story at all. Both the ideas are really strong and while the other idea is for an iconic brand like Ikea, this one is for a small consulting firm - the only thing common are outsides of buildings. However, fantastic usage of the medium, which is always the hallmark of a good ambient idea.

Here they are, Judge for yourself.

 

(The Ikea storage idea on balconies)

(The Euro RSCG idea - the clients in that building, you could get jobs with them) :-)

what else but ZooZoos

No. This is not the post I was wanting to write for a long time. (That was about effectiveness of the communication- about how even if the communication is superhit, the product might not move; Airtel VAS ads versus the Vodafone Ads).

The ZooZoos have pervaded everything. Fantastic 360 effort, must say! The ET/TOI masthead captures, the being in the IPL crowd thingy, the Brand Equity story about them and the no-relation-yet-there kinda presence. The umpteen ads on TV, a pre-launch on facebook everyday, et al. They are all over. In fact, somebody who works for hanung toys, called me to ask if I could get them a 'soft toy' deal done. Are you listening guys?

Everybody and their Uncle and their nephews (2.65lac of them only on facebook) have now been discussing zoozoos; it's funny when a communication/ad piece suddenly gets mainstream attention, when people send pics of their making over the mail, when mature individuals take what kind of zoozoo you are kinda quizzes on facebook, you know they are onto something.

When that happens, I think, suddenly, the responsibility of the creators go up. They ought to, IMHO, start feeding the social media public more and more about the creation, the stories, the origins, the inspirations, the barriers they overcame. Remember the yin-yang theory in terms of branding. Today's customer is more evolved, enough to know that nobody is perfect, including brands. They would love a brand more if they came out in the open and said 'we are trying something, we might have some short comings, give us an opportunity, sample us'. Gmail has been in beta for about 5 years now!

In the context of this, I came across today, something via twitter and promptly took a stance on the same. I realised later, with help from my friend @manuscrypts that it wasn't practically all that important. It wasn't. But, you know what, when one is seeking information, due to your superlative efforts, you should feed them the info.


Like a prof. had once said in PR class, back in the Univ : "your brand would form an image anyway, it helps if you've shaped it right"








(for more on the post I am mentioning- go here :
ZooZoos - Inspiration or Imitation?

Yet, nothing succeeds like success right? The zoozoos have gone on to bag the Ad Age's best viral campaign of the week. Go get 'em guys!

Adopt a pup!

Just doing my bit. Write in at the email in the poster. Give a pup your love.

 

Loved the poster enough to promote; love the pups as well, but can't adopt myself.

The theory of Evolution retold

Now I know; All guys take heart. AA be damned ;-)
Source: here (via email from Abbas)

Ambient Media - The street is your billboard!

The streets have always been a favourite Advertising medium, what with all the Billboards shouting for commuter attention, then came the lamps, the mid-street kiosks, the bus/tram shelters, the sandwich men, the street art, the street side installations, et al.

If done well, (read: giving credence to the intelligence of the commuter), it is definitely seen and remembered, like this one done by Calcium Sandoz or this one done by Onida washing machines.

Found a bunch of zebra crossings used as Ad medium on this posterous link, some seen earlier, some new, some not so hot, but loved the collection on the whole. Take a look.

 

 

Glenfiddich - The Art in the Barrel

London based design agency Johnson Banks has been doing some wonderful work for Glenfiddich.

They have made the barrels that hold the Glenfiddich scotch into an integral part of their communication.
The brief, as posted on their blog, was to show the vast lengths of time it takes to produce a bottle of the product. The tag line for Glenfiddich incidentally is that 'every year counts'. They have used parts of the barrels itself - the charred staves, the metal hoops, etc. Read more here

Some of the work reproduced from their site here.

 

Their blog also lists some of their early ideas and the brief, which is rather nice.

Anyone else wants to give it a shot?

Innocent!

For a couple of years now, I have been quite in awe of the Innocent Smoothies Brand. 
They represent to me, what happens when passion meets entrepreneurship. 
The history of the brand's beginnings had made me very curious. It goes thus:

Richard, Adam and Jon left university and went into the obligatory milk-round professions 
- one into advertising, two into management consultancy.

Four years later, they were still talking about their business idea, 
although they still had no product.

In 1998, after six months of trying out recipes on friends, they spent £500 on fruit,
turned it into smoothies, and sold them at a small music festival in London.

Their much-recounted scenario goes like this:

"We put up a big sign saying, 
'Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?' 
and put out a bin saying 'YES' and a bin saying 'NO' and asked people to put 
the empty bottle in the right bin.

"At the end of the weekend the 'YES' bin was full 
so we went in the next day and resigned."

- Just an Innocent Business, by Laura Cummings, BBC

I also loved their simple, honest-to-God kind of Advertising, from on-pack to on-distribution vans 
to on the usual billboards, etc. Check out a few examples here:

Some more advertising of Innocent that I had saved
in my personal choice folder were these,

Innocent employs 275 people, has a turnover of more than £100m and sells about
two million smoothies per week.
CocaCola recently acquired a 20-30% stake in Innocent for £30m.
This will apparently let Innocent Smoothies reach out to a larger global market.
Awaiting the same.

In the mean time, the Indian fruit juice market has seen a lot of activity with a new category
emerging, the 100% juice category, see article in afaqs .
After Dabur's Real, Pepsi's Tropicana, Parle Agro also launched their 100% fruit juice
'Saint'. It immediately reminded me of 'Innocent'

(pic courtesy: Campaign India)

Then I came across this new campaign from Saint on the Mumbai billboards,

which reminded me some more. Take a look.

Till the summers last...yours innocently :-)

Lipstick sales indicate Economic Scenario

I am sure most people have heard of the Big Mac Index. The Economist magazine attempts
to light-heartedly show the economic scenario of a country from the purchasing power parity
perspective of the price of a Big Mac in each country.

 

 Have now come across another interesting trend from an Economics point of view. 

Presenting the Lipstick Indicator. Estee Lauder Chairperson Leonard Lauder coined 

the word Lipstick Index after the 9-11 depression. 

The Newyork Times notes Lipstick sales to have upped by 40%.

Even in the Indian Market, Lipstick sales are up growing at 20%.

  

(Image courtesy - The trendspotting Blog) 

 

 (Image courtesy - thisismoney.co.uk)

There are other things like Booze and  Skirt Length theories also, read more here.
So the next time you visit the mall with your girlfriend or wife,
buy her a Lipstick, at least!

Ambient Media gone wrong or Pure Scam?

Would you use these tissues? Recycling be damned!

 

via :  Adsoftheworld

Credits - By Far, Denmark

Released - Juxt Consult India Online 2009 Study

Yes, it's out again. The Juxt Consult report on Indian Internet Advertising.
Interestingly, the study claims that the total number of Internet users in India has gone down from 49 million in 2008 to 47 million in 2009.

Of the 47 million users, 39 million consumers stay in urban areas, while 8 million reside in rural places.
(courtesy afaqs article on the same)

The fall seems to be due to the fall in occasional users, while regular users have gone up by 10%.
A whopping 71% of Internet users stay in the non-metros. Now you can go out and tell all those doubting thomases who brush the Internet aside as a metro phenomenon.

Other interesting findings, Of the regular Internet users, about 5 million also surf the Internet on mobile phones. About 80 per cent of the users are in the age group of 19-35 years.

For a snapshot of the Juxt Consult report for 2009, see this deck.

Snapshot Of Juxt Consult India Online 2009 Study

View more presentations from inetk.

Is your business pitch starting right?

Reality 1: Times are bad.
Reality 2 : Many opting out and setting up on their own.
Reality 3: New Businesses are hard to come by

Isn't it time, you paid more attention to your pitch, beginning with your business calling card.
In the light of this thinking came across these gems. Go ahead, get inspired :-)

 

  

  

 All the above, courtesy of Ivan's blog ; many more there, take a look.

Another bunch of designs on this flickr page  

I remember erstwhile Indian agency RMG David (now, Bates David Enterprise), had an interesting bunch too, using baby pictures of each of the employees.

While looking up other articles on visiting cards, came across this one, from ET, interesting read and one I had written previously.

CelebTrack - Is it worth the money?

Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Aishwarya Rai, Katrina Kaif.... Do they really think it's worth spending Rs. 10.8 lakh to unlock this secret?

Well, any marketing and advertising professional worth his salt can come up with this list, even a layman with some common sense can tell you this! This is just one more of those shallow marketing gimmicks and I wonder how easy it is to make money out of these cash-rich companies who do not think before spending on such obviously overrated tools!

- Thus reads one of the comments that accompanied the revelation of CelebTrack, Percept Talent Management & Hansa Research's new tool to track Celebrities.

The report goes on to say, the tool measures the celebrity power score (CPS) across five parameters -- media presence, popularity (what proportion of people like the celebrity), image attributes (whether the celebrity is charming, quick witted, stylish, classy, funny and so on), power of persuasion ( how the celebrity image attribute will help the brand) and overexposure.

Methinks the lady is right. Take a bow Anujai Saxena! The report is here :

The Top 100 April Fool's day hoaxes:

The Top 100 April Fool's day hoaxes:

One of my favourite currently is this one:

#32: The Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie

1997: Comic strip fans opened their papers on April 1, 1997 and discovered their favorite strips looked different. Not only that, but in many cases characters from other strips popped up out of place. The reason for the chaos was the Great Comics Switcheroonie. Forty-six comic-strip artists conspired to pen each other's strips for the day. For instance, Scott Adams of Dilbert took over Family Circus by Bil Keane, where he added a touch of corporate cynicism to the family-themed strip by having the mother tell her kid to "work cuter, not harder." Jim Davis of Garfield took over Blondie, which allowed him to show his famous overweight cat eating one of Dagwood's sandwiches. The stunt was masterminded by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, creators of the Baby Blues comic strip. When asked why he participated, Scott Adams noted, "You don't get that many chances to tunnel under the fence."
More here...






http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/P20/
Which one's yours?

Try some dark chocolate this new year!

It seems to be a good start to the New year, actually started in the last week of Dec as well, but don't want to get to happy with things, till they materialize.

Many things have happened, writing a post regularly hasn't. And it isn't even my new year resolution, blame it all on twitter - have been micro-blogging my heart out.

Have just posted some 6 tweets and realised that maybe I should rather write a post on the new Cadbury's Bournville India launch (re-stage/re-launch)

The campaign launches via a , well TVC, what did you think? Click on the link to view it.

Client: Cadbury
Advert title(s): Earn it
Creative Agency (Name, City, Country): Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai, India
Creative Team - Manoj Shetty, Siddhartha Dutta and Sreejith Kodoth
Interactive Team - Prasanna Kulkarni, Navin Kansal, Anand Gharat and Sony Varghese
source - afaqs

The route is predictable perhaps - dark chocolate - superstitions - international pedigree sub-brand & name, so international feel to the ad. However, it is quite enjoyable, a hark back to some old advertising, the types we don't see around much these days - a kind of going retro thing.

What I also liked is the website, a friend asked me, if it is linked to the ad, and i said, no, but it builds on the brand - http://www.bournville.in

And I really liked the site, although, this bit of 'perspective' on a site has been done before, in fact even in TVCs and I really love this route of story telling - picture in picture in picture - changing perspectives...

However, one small appeal to people in charge of the brand, how difficult is it to sync a couple of things, it is one brand story at the end of the day.

While the ad talks about a legend wherein you need to have 'earned a bournville', not just 'buy it' as part of the steps to savour it,
the section of 'How to savour' on the website has these steps - and no mention of 'earning it'. Sure the TVC is there on the site as a link, but that's about all the sync available.

"This perfect bar of dark chocolate turns the simple act of eating it into a form of art. It demands a certain ritual, not just for connoisseurs but for people who really want to savour good, dark chocolate.

Step1 - Hold the chocolate and delicately peel the top half of the wrapper. One slow circle after another. After you've tempted your eyes long enough, allow them to set their sight on the fine dark chocolate.
Step 2 - Bring the chocolate next to your ear and snap off a single cube. Let its sharp sound resonate inside you, long enough for your eyes to shut unknowingly.
Step 3 - Smell the chocolate before you eat it. Its distinct aroma is a tantalizing invitation to the tongue. It also prepares you for tasting the chocolate. This will enhance your perception of the flavour.

Here's the jar - the ad says, but before you eat it, ask yourself if you've earned it

Step 4 - Place the chocolate on your tongue and allow it to melt by pressing it on the roof of your mouth. The cocoa butter will spread evenly and an evolution of flavours will build up on your palate"

Finally, the website lets you submit your name and email id promising you a challenge if you do so, I did.

Here's the mail from the webmaster -

Hi.

To resume your Bournville journey, simply log on to the site, click on the 'Resume Journey' link and enter this password: .

www.bournville.in

As you can see, no password came, but when I was closing the site, it said, if you want to resume your journey, use this password - 'Flowers'
And when you do click on the resume journey link and enter the password, you start the entire loop of the site again, NO NEW CHALLENGE, as promised.

I don't usually make much of a fuss about many websites, because expectations are low. The point is when you raise expectations with something good, live up to it!

• Posted on: Tue, Jan 6 2009 11:54 AM