Ok. What is the connection between an Obese Man having reduced to ‘normal weight range’ and social media? Little do we realise the power of community building, cause marketing, social media and a huge mash up of all these three! Here goes the story!

Big Loser #bglsr

Around February 2011, a gentleman who goes by the twitter handle @b50 and is a twitter celebrity of sorts, probably felt that he had to lose weight and required motivation and started a movement called Big Loser (Twitter hashtag #bglsr). It is a movement where one sponsors another for weight-loss. By sponsor, it means that the person who sponsors will pay a pre-decided amount (say Rs.10) for every kilo of weight lost by the person who is being sponsored.

On February 1, 2012, the first edition of #bglsr closed with 28 contributors donating over Rs.1 lakh for a charity. Impressive because some donations came from people who have never met each other before!

The Social Media angle

The entire movement in my eyes is an awesome Marketing effort. Knowingly or unknowingly, the Big Loser movement seems to have touched every nerve with the right pressure and has built an online community only through social media!

There was a purpose. A purpose that everyone could identify themselves with! Healthy living married with charity. This is almost like Lagaan which mashed up Love, patriotism & cricket! Couldn’t get any better. Having identified the purpose and having put it out in the open, the role that the community builder (@b50 & his gang @chhavi, @sashg & @aalaap) had to play was just to channelize the energy. Regular offline meetings / tweet-ups were held and each person amongst the coordinators had a distinct role to play. And the best part was the role that each participant had to play. They all knew their roles and it was sufficiently made clear… only through twitter and the website built for this purpose (www.bigloserindia.com).

Sub-events like #BLOTW – Big Loser Of The Week were created to keep the momentum going for an entire year. Some kind hearted corporates (including The Bombay Store, Staeta Soy Milk, Placid Hairdressing & Skin, Popsci Magazine et al chipped in with goodies for #BLOTW winners.

Participants were motivated to update their data online. An application to track how much weight has been lost was built and could be accessed through Twitter credentials.

At its peak, the number of participants soared beyond thousands and averaged about 4-5 tweets every second carrying the #bglsr tag. People started tweeting about their morning walks and hash tagged #bglsr. The momentum was achieved. Spiralled / Viralled whatever you call it, what started as a germ of a thought had become a community movement and had followings from across the world.

A key point to be noted is that the only offline support that this movement received was through the bit of press coverage that they had. What was impressive is the fact that they got coverage from Forbes apart from Hindustan Times, DNA & Mumbai Mirror!

Result?

1. Some really healthy individuals. Proof: https://twitter.com/#!/b50/status/166047187468435456
2. A tally of Rs.104,750/- as donations to charities designated by the organisers.
3. Some people who ‘sponsored’ haven’t met the people they were sponsoring. Either there was a sense of belief on the amount of weight lost or they just went by images of ‘before & after’. This was a strong message in terms of community building. The belief that was blindly placed on the ‘bigloser’ was nothing less than awesome.
4. A successful community which is now on its way to starting ‘season 2’ a la the TV series’ of now.
5. Clear vision on the events, sub-events, groups, the roles that each one had to play and a meaningful purpose that needs to be chased!

As @b50 says, “We didn’t have to monitor the number of people who joined the movement. The usage of the hashtag wasn’t restricted and was free flowing. But what mattered was the result. Healthy people and a healthy amount to support a good cause!”

The introduction of the book Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities outlines the following nine clear steps to build successful communities on the web.

1. Define and articulate your PURPOSE
2. Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES
3. Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES
4. Design for a range of ROLES
5. Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program
6. Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE
7. Promoting cyclic EVENTS
8. Integrate the RITUALS of community life
9. Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS

And I have little doubt that #bglsr movement is an awesome case study in executing a very successful online community. A great lesson to be learnt!

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I have also borrowed liberally from Mr. Kotler

After all, isn’t he still the first word in Marketing?

Here’s the presentation. I will upload each of my sessions subsequently. As and when it happens.

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October 29, 2011 was a fantastically different experience for me. I have given lectures & have taken part in panel discussions before. But this was a completely different experience purely owing to the time I had to spend with a bunch of students. At a stretch!

ITM – Institute for Technology & Management is considered amongst the well known institutes for imparting Management Education to working professionals and offers courses on various other subjects including Engineering, Health Sciences, Hospitality Management & Fashion designing. Their Executive MBA is a tie-up with Southern New Hampshire University USA, where the students have an option of completing the course in US if they so will.

I was contacted by their course co-ordinators for a guest lecture as a visiting faculty for Marketing Research. The Cross-Functional Executive MBA batch had myriad experience with students from IT, Finance etc. There was an entrepreneur too.

The purpose of my lecture was to give an overview of Marketing Research as a subject, its functions and uses. The curriculum had to cover the following topics under Marketing Research.

• Role & Scope of Marketing Research.
• Marketing Research process & problem definition.
• Research Designs.
• Methods & Data Collection.
• Survey method of data collection.
• Measurement, scaling & sampling.
• Design of survey questionnaires.
• Qualitative v/s Quantitative Research.
• Methods of Qualitative research.
• Quantitative Research.
• Data Interpretation.

Although it was meant to be spread over 2 weekends, the institute felt the need to have it as a marathon session since this was just an overview subject for this batch. I took the challenge of providing an overview in 7 hours!

I am sharing the PPT I made with Marketing Research – by Aaker, Kumar & Dey as reference material.

What did I get out of it?

Honestly, Marketing Research is not my strongest of areas. One could be a good user of research, but executing research is not an easy task. I have worked with research agencies and I know how they operate. The theory behind the subject is not difficult since I have never been out of touch with research owing to work. Challenge was to engage students for the long session. I was expecting to get the kicks of teaching, learning, interacting and gain momentum. The session certainly gave me all that.

Also, it gave me an opportunity to get back to books. It is an awesome feeling to go back to the roots once in a while and force yourself into the learning habit. While you do learn everyday from work, theorizing some of what you’ve learnt practically is a different kick. I was looking forward to that too. The session didn’t fail me in giving me that.

It took me about a week to put together the presentation from the book using various materials provided by the authors and also include learnings from my experiences. I was back to learning! That is the biggest benefit that once can get out of teaching. I honestly feel I know more about Marketing Research than when I did my management because of the blend of theory learnt during campus and the experience of research during work went well together.

It was also a bit of soul searching. I was able to engage students who were not specializing in Marketing (let alone Marketing Research) and was able to keep the session interesting with examples taken from the students themselves! I guess nothing like keeping it impromptu by taking examples from their own experiences. The engagement levels and the session would then be lively.

I realized that I love teaching as a job! It is fun because it keeps you on the ball always. By interacting with students (especially if they are experienced), one gets to learn a lot from them. The learning habit can never die if one is teaching.

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The arrival of #SidNanda (as my 6-month old son is referred to on Twitter) has heralded many changes at home and after a couple of falls, we decided to give him a safe place to sleep. We zeroed in on Hauck made crib / travel cot. Being Indian, we looked for the best deal and found it on www.letbabyplay.com. The site quoted the price as INR.4,425/- and when I was making the purchase, I was offered a further discount and the credit card was charged only for INR.4,335/-. Happiness… thus far!

Let Baby Play Order

I got a mail as promised. But the merchandise which was to reach in 5 days didn’t. The website quotes a mobile number as ‘customer care’. I did call the number of the 3^rd and the 4^th day to find out status of the delivery, just to find out if the material has left Delhi. The call was picked by a girl who couldn’t speak English to save her life and Hindi wasn’t much help either because I figured that her knowledge about the product or the service was at its nadir.

After a bit of hollering, I got a mail from ‘Aditya Agarwal’ stating that the purchase made on the site has been cancelled. No reason quoted!

I called the number again and insisted on speaking with Aditya and during that conversation, I figured that they couldn’t manage to get the merchandise from the distributor. Obviously, they were operating on a no-material-on-site policy. No warehouse, no stocks and all purchases were being serviced on a transaction basis. Fail whale alert!

He was polite though and confirmed to me that he has not charged the credit card company and promptly reimbursed the funds that were charged to my card. The best part of the transaction undeniably!

Cut to www.firstcry.com

Smooth transaction. Call center was actually a call center. They called back to confirm the purchase. The cost of the same product was INR.4,425/-, which wasn’t different from the earlier site. And I actually got the material at home on T+2 basis.

Note: I have no financial or material interests with First Cry. I just am a satisfied customer having dealt with them once.

Some points:

• An online business model MUST have a workable support system offline. Without warehousing facilities, expecting to operate purely on JIT basis is not a workable solution in India at least.
• Customer care: Key in today’s world. We are great at bad mouthing. I am doing just that here and bad WOM is nothing short of murder for the brand. Letbabyplay.com is almost dead for me at least. The discussions with the lady carrying the customer care mobile left me perplexed after having swiped 4K plus.
• Size does matter (sometimes at least): LBP was entirely relying on suppliers and merely a platform. If that was the case, the link-up between the suppliers and the site should have been stronger. To manage this with greater control, one needs to have a slightly larger team of people with proper line-of-command. LBP seemed to be a one-man-operation.
• Site control: If a product is not available offline, then there must have been better controls to take it off the website. By further downpricing the product which is non-existent, one is digging his own grave… faster.
• The site also talks about ‘express delivery’ – a service which was non-existent. Why have it in the first place if the service is not provided?

Customer is key / king, is the motto of many organizations at least on paper. But to live it is another.

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Well from then till about a few weeks back, Airtel has never ever told me how important I am to them. Not even once.

I am dead sure that a Vodafone / Loop / Aircel / (fill in name of your service provider) is no different either.

Today’s a different story!

I have received calendar(s) from Airtel. I urge you to note the ‘(s)’ when I say calendar. Yes. I got them twice. The same calendar which is personalized to have my name inscribed in different images in different formats! My name is written in the clouds, on filing cabinets, on car number plates, on chocolates and as firework bursts! Yum! Customer delight, right? WRONG!

• Sudden shower of love on your partner after ages of neglect would make her / him believe that you are cheating on them! The customer of today is not dumb. If these service providers don’t believe it, I would urge them to get on twitter. These same customers would be found calling your bluff in a public forum.
• Providing options on billing plans! This is amongst the worst that the current network can do to its customer. It is almost akin to telling him “Hey fool! I have been overcharging you till date. But since you want to go away from my network, I will now charge you what I should have been charging you ages back!”
• Providing upgrades / freebees – Well this is the least disruptive. At least, this may be seen as a genuine effort to keep the customer rather than letting them go.
• Not being helpful to a customer who wants to go. Recently, I read reports (unable to find the link) that service providers are not being helpful during the porting process and are disrupting calls during the process etc. This would result in only one thing! Even if the other service provider is bad, he/she will NEVER come back to you!

By doing any or all of the above these behemoth organizations are forgetting that they are forgetting the fundamental principles of marketing, customer service and management in general.

• Customer centricity – It is more important to have 5 absolutely delighted / satisfied customers than 45 disgruntled customers. In the name of business expansion, most telecom companies have done exactly that!
• Consistency – If you wanted to keep the customer happy, do that continuously. Not when the customer has suddenly become more powerful than you. Or at least has the power to say ‘no’ to you!
• Brand image – Consistency again! Every brand has gone through changes in logo, image and message at least 3-4 times in the last 10 years. It is (in my humble opinion) futile to change the brand image and the logo so many times! I agree that people have short memory. Which is more of a reason why a large brand should reinforce their existing message than changing their tonality and the message every four years.
• Attention to detail – It is important to do 4 things right as against 50 wrong. Just see these two images below and you would understand what I mean.

Mobile Number Portability has suddenly pushed telcos to understand the importance of ‘customer retention’. It is a great thing to have happened for the customer. However, it is sad that the telecom companies have been almost juvenile in handling this eventuality despite having had ample time to put their house in order!

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India’s financial capital Mumbai was virtually at a standstill for a few days recently because Mumbai’s favorite God Ganesha paid a visit. Being a recent addition to the burgeoning population of this city, I am still at awe of the fact that the entire city gets together to bring home their Lord and to give him a pompous, happy and a colourful send off to their beloved deity.

I have read many accounts that Ganpati celebrations were popularized by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak. For brevity’s sake we shall refer to this great gentleman as Tilakji.

Tilakji walked this earth when British ruled India and Indians were trying to get out of the English clutch. It required that the people got together for this common cause and NOT be stuck in their mundane life. It meant that people have to be motivated, kept that way and get them to respond to a few given stimuli in achieving the desired result.

Ganesha Community

The PURPOSE was to bring people together so that they can fight for the cause of freedom! Being sentimental, God loving and emotional that Indians are, the easiest platform that can bring them together would be religion. What better way to start than Lord Ganesha – the remover of all obstacles? Ganesha was the reason why Tilakji got these people gathered and when there is a gathering it is but natural that social issues get discussed. Freedom was discussed.

Tilakji was also clear about getting this event executed in public PLACES. Mitr Mandals (loosely translated as ‘Friend Groups’) were formed who were given the job of organizing the Ganpati events. Larger than life Ganpati images were made for which Hindu rituals were performed. The Mandals had a hierarchy based on their public PROFILES and people who organized these events were revered amongst the community. Tilakji ensured that each member of the Mandal had a clear ROLE to play, thus there was division of work, but still the cause was maintained.

It is not surprising that the key members of these Mandals also were key members in politics and were absorbed into the larger freedom movement. These members were groomed to become LEADERS later. Not to forget Tilakji constituted various SUB-COMMITTEES for different activities leading to successful conduct of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival. These groups were incharge of various activities like organizing the Pandal, flowers, music et cetera.

Even the events were planned to bring the people together. Pujas were performed in the mornings and evenings for 11 days and the job of upkeep of the pandal where the Ganpati idol was kept. By having a proper PROTOCOL of activities, Tilakji brought about discipline of high order within the community. There were other RELATED EVENTS like Music, Dance and Drama which gave the public reason to get together to both relax from their daily routine and also to gather and discuss larger issues pertaining to the community.

In the last four years that I have lived in Mumbai, this community has only grown and new Mandals have cropped up with every new building society getting registered. It is now a viral / word-of-mouth based bunches of communities which come together every year for the same cause. Today you can see Mandals portraying social causes using Lord Ganesha as the messenger.

By the way, the introduction of the book Community Building on the Web: Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities outlines the following nine clear steps to build successful communities on the web.

1. Define and articulate your PURPOSE
2. Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES
3. Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES
4. Design for a range of ROLES
5. Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program
6. Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE
7. Promoting cyclic EVENTS
8. Integrate the RITUALS of community life
9. Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS

Just in case you missed the point, scroll above and watch out for the words in bold. Go figure.

Move over Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone. We just had a quick lesson on community building from Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

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The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters …

More here

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The ‘Anti Soviet’ brand apparently excited such wide spread interest that wide swathes of the Russian polity – citizens, politicians, bureaucrats, thugs, commentators, et al joined and took sides … so much so that it almos trigerred another EU vs Russia showdown!

And what does one make of

Until recently, the restoration of the Soviet past was mainly symbolic and stylistic. The cynical, commercially-aware Kremlin ideologues winked and nodded, implying that these things were simply a cover that helped them modernise the country. But, as some recent events show, what used to be symbols are now becoming facts.

Is this the beginning of a new chapter in global branding, one wonders!

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