I used to live in a place called Mambalam Road, which was once an integral part of a thriving industry. Film Hoardings.

There used to be two large players in this market with the largest being J P Krishna. Almost every single hoarding in the state for all large banners Tamil Film banners including AVM, Satya and Devar used J P Krishna’s services. The speciality? These hoardings were hand painted and will look so real and beautiful. And it used to be a sight to watch these painters at work because being a film fan I used to get to see the posters / photographs before many others. Also, the size used to amaze me. 40ft hoarding will be actually hand painted. WOW!

Come to think of it, that was all they did for promoting a film other than PR. Those were not the days of TV promos because there were only 2 channels. DD local and DD National . Moreover, the film industry wasn’t run by professionals. They were just the creative kind and all they could think of, was film making. So the rest of the departments including marketing weren’t their greatest strength.

I am amazed at the speed with which the Movie Marketing Industry has taken over the Movie Making Industry in current times.

Nowadays, a movie budget includes the marketing budget and the number is substantial enough to ensure that enough visibility is garnered in the first weekend itself. Considering that 50% or more collections for a movie happens in the first weekend (or maybe the first 2 weekends), it is important to have a very high intensity burst and the marketing functions for these film houses do the job brilliantly.

Icing on the cake? They actually employ advertising agencies and they get really creative in promoting a movie. With many aces up their sleeve, I thought it would be worth discussing a few here.

PR – This is something that goes on an overdrive before a movie release. We Indians are suckers for celebrity secrets and the problem is that the movie marketers know it. So before the release of a film, you would end up knowing almost every dirty secret (of which I would assume that more than 60% would be fabricated) will be shared with the publications with enough pictures. Sometimes, not sharing any detail of the film will be the PR activity itself. And many times, it would be some controversy. Take the case of Raavan. The film was mired with enough controversies to ensure that enough people spoke about it. Starting from Junior AB claiming to have done a stunt and some swimmer from Bangalore claiming to have performed the stunt to Senior AB launching a desperate attack on Mani to say that the Hindi edit wasn’t great, PR was on an overdrive. Maybe it is this overdrive that cost the film dear, but the function did its job beautifully. Unfortunate that the strategy didn’t work.

Trailors – With the idiot box taking over as one of the largest modes of promoting a product / service, it meant that the 30 second cut of the film must be so slick that you would want to endure 3 hours of the same thing. So the idiot box edits are nothing short of awesome to make you want to watch the film.

Reality Shows – The world today is nothing short of The Truman Show. With reality shows garnering more TRPs and GRPs than your favorite serials movie houses started connecting with these shows to promote their films. After all, this would mean that they get to promote the film for half hour (or one hour in some cases) in the given channel. So you can find the key cast of a film participating in a reality show just to ensure that their film gets talked about.

Online – Starting from a full fledged website for a film (example: www.idiotsacademy.com) to taking over the twitter accounts of key members of the cast, the online promotions side of the movie house has its hands full. Sonam Kapoor just before the launch of Aisha started sharing images from the film in the pretext of finding out how she looks with everyone. The good looker that she was, the film did get a positive opening owing to her strategy of sharing images through Twitter. Every film today has a Facebook page too. Social media today forms a key part of every film’s marketing strategy.

Just to be sure that we don’t leave out… Print happens too!

However, it is refreshing to see that movie marketing has taken a leaf out of advertising for products and indulge in creative and innovative ways to promote. Furthermore, these campaigns get considered for Advertising awards. The campaigns for Paa & 3 Idiots won accolades at Emvies for innovative usage of the media.

Film stars go to any length (figuratively and literally) to promote their movies. One of the Emvie winner ‘3 Idiots’ got it for Aamir travelling the length and breadth of the country many times in disguise and the competition was to identify him. This kind of made the character blend with the masses, thus ensuring larger audience for the film.

This certainly is a category where the bar is always high and is raised further with each large project. The film making business is creative and to advertise that you would again get creative. Sounds like the second level dream of Fischer in Inception.

Would certainly be fun…

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Living in Bombay brings its own idiosyncrasies. One of them is the various modes of public transport. No. I am not talking about trains. The reference points here are the Black-Yellow Taxis and Autos. The germ behind the movement is very simple. Three advertising professionals (Jaidev Rupani, Rachna Brar and Abhilash Krishnan) just decided to take the issue in their hands when they were facing the constant ‘nays’ by these ‘service providers’. Adding fuel to fire, a few weeks back the public transport system came under the mercy of the auto and taxi drivers when they decided to go on a strike demanding a fare hike.

Dubbed Meter Jam and designed like a reverse auction, Meter Jam is a reverse strike. While the taxis and autos be plying the road, the idea was to motivate the common man NOT to take either of these modes.

The movement appealed to the sentiments of the public because everyone has been affected by the ridiculous ways of these operators. It was initially promoted only through Social Networking Sites (SNS). But Six Degrees of Separation led this to become a national movement. Well almost!

To add fuel to the fire, news papers (read ‘tabloids’) picked up this cause and fanning it decently. With Mumbai Mirror starting it and Mid-day following right behind, the rest of the publications didn’t want to be left behind and covered it sufficiently. They actually interviewed the union heads and asked if they were afraid! PR picked up steam and the trio was nothing less than celebrities giving interviews to every channel / newspaper.

It has reached a peak and if you search for Meter Jam today, you would find the press articles before the actual site.

Meter Jam was held (or upheld) on the August 12, 2010. There are mixed reports on how successful the reverse strike was, but I felt the roads to be relatively easy to navigate. There were lesser number of black-yellow vehicles on the road and I personally offered a ride to a few colleagues on my way back.

The movement needed a mainstream support like that of PR for it to be known amongst a larger audience. It is absolutely true that it is not possible to build or retain brand salience only through Facebook and Twitter. It may be a very good starting point. Few reasons:

• The SNS user is looking at a quick bang. You don’t see a topic trending beyond say, 8 hours?!
• There still is a large audience outside SNS. Take me for instance. I have been bitten by the IT Policy bug and I don’t have connectivity to any social media (irrespective of the fact that I use them for official purposes too).
• The relevance of SNS may get restricted to a finite set of audience because amongst your connections / friends / followers, it is not a guarantee that everyone would be moved by your appeal. Striking the right chord at least for a movement should be more than just SNS.

The other one was a media sponsored movement along with an NGO of high repute. The NDTV Greenathon, which the channel conducts on its Flagship NDTV 24×7 every year, is generally a great success. The entire package is 360 degree in approach. The event is well promoted in all the channels owned or is part of the NDTV bouquet. The event is also taken on to other media including online. Today it is possible to connect with your favorite news personality through their website. They have their own social networking platform which is also activated during the Greenathon, which is conducted over a period of 24 hours.

Adding glamour is the presence of Bollywood personalities every year. They have some film start co-hosting it for the entire period, thus ensuring enough eye-balls for the key time-bands at least. The event is generally tied up with TERI and is in support of providing basic amenities in far flung villages of India. Some reasons why it almost always is a hit:

• Promoted by a large news channel, thus ensuring enough reach and visibility for the event.
• Presence of a celebrities (which Meter Jam lacked).
• 360 degree in approach thus ensuring a larger reach and awareness for the event.
• Sufficiently sponsored. With a lot of money going into running this ‘on air, on ground, online’ event, reaching and making it a success is not a great difficulty.
• Having a well known NGO brings in its own set of audience and credibility.

By bringing a serious issue out in the open, social movements take its own course to spread, propagate and in hopefully making this world a better place. However, not all such movements get to see as many reams of paper or footage time. Building a brand like ‘Jaago Re’ cost the Tata Group 2 years and sufficient funds to push the thought through. Even then, we had a key market like Bombay registering 34% votes in the general elections.

Though these social movements become large brands, effectiveness still depends on the buyer of the concept. Pity this is not a product / service.

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Anil Nair (Senior)

Mr. Anil Nair,  CEO & Managing Partner at Law & Kenneth India. Little introduction needed for people in the advertising and marketing industry. About 6 years back, Law & Kenneth (L&K) was considered to be a boutique agency. Today they are considered to be amongst the largest! A good part of that credit must go to this gent who was kind enough to answer a few questions for this blogathon. In fact, he is one of the inspirations for me to have started this writing attempt. Thanks Senior (as we all call him) for both pushing me to write again and for answering these questions!

1. With more and more clients looking towards the online medium, how do you think the amalgamation will happen between offline campaigns and online campaigns?
   It will happen simply because the effectiveness of separate campaigns for offline and online will stop yielding results. The only way ahead is media neutral conversations with consumers and this needs a total rethinking among marketing practitioners. Putting the TVC on Youtube or making a banner of the press ads are not what I mean by amalgamation here.
2. In this world of instant gratification, how do you think brands should mould themselves to be relevant? Especially in mainstream media.
   Move away from disruption to dialogue. Be ready to build relationships. Be honest and be brave.
3. How have brands been reacting to the sudden influx of online tools? Do they change their strategy or do you see a gap?
   I really can’t generalize this but very few brands have understood the role or opportunity of personal digital media like mobile internet. So they are currently being led by techno minded online experts who confuse the hell out of brand custodians by techno jargons and irrelevant applications. Many of them follow the herd and get lost in the virtual space. I have met few marketers who are really excited by the results that these online campaigns delivered.
4. How has Rural Marketing and advertising for the rural consumers changed? Is it still required to have specific campaigns for them or have they – in your opinion – been able to consume the campaigns which happen nationally with specific targets towards cities. Your views would be highly relevant in the telecom and FMCG sectors for example.
   Advertising guys always had this holier than thou approach when it comes to our brethren from hinterlands. Look at Bollywood! Do they make rural cinema and urban cinema? Brands have to make a choice about who they wish to have a relationship with. And once they do that they need to speak to the consumer in a tone and manner which is relevant irrespective of where they come from.  Am sure brands like Micromax and Bingo has managed to do that. The real problem is that most creative guys are creating communication to prove a point/impress the fellow creative crowd. The only thing marketers need to keep in mind is that they use the correct media to reach the rural consumers.
5. We have recently seen a large advertising organization group all its services under a roof (like the good old days!). Have we already come a full circle? Do you think the agency business will be re-cast again with being 360-degree approach rather than have specialists like we currently do?
   The future belongs to ‘media neutral, idea driven, fearlessly innovative, conversation creators’. The so called integrated or specialist groups have no clue on the Tsunami which is headed their way. The days of 360 degree big idea roll outs are over. The future is about participative, culturally relevant conversations at real time. Tell many how many brands or agencies are ready for a feedback from the consumer 2 hours from the time they have launched it. How open are they to listen to feedback and respond. It’s the end of the marketing as we knew it and thank god for that!

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First flight journey. First flight ticket. It was a rectangular booklet containing 3 self-carbonated sheets which had the details neatly printed. It had my name and the best part was that it was next to the Indian Airlines logo. Felt proud! The pride was because the ticket cost was almost Rs.10,000 (which was loads of money around then).

I still remember how tickets used to get booked then. You called up your local travel agent and he would quote a rate for different airlines and different timings etc. You need to choose and then you end up ‘blocking’ the ticket. Once you pay, the blocking becomes a confirmation and you had you ticket to your destination. Whoa! Was it that complicated?

Let us take the trip back to today’s times. You want to take a trip, you get on to the internet and choose amongst the many aggregator brands like Ixigo, Cleartrip, MakeMyTrip, Yatra etc, choose the sector, the dates and voila! You have details of all flights for the sector you require across all time frames and the cost of your travel including all taxes etc. You can choose your convenient flight which comes within your budget and you are e-mailed your ticket which you take a print out of and travel. If that wasn’t enough, you can follow any of these brands on Facebook or Twitter and you will keep getting the best deal at any point of time!

What has been explained in the earlier paragraph almost killed an industry, but made an EMPEROR out of the customer. The entire ilk of Travel Agents had to change their business model because of technology helping what can be termed ‘Price Discovery Mechanism’.

Taking a cue from where I left day before, I am trying to explore the pricing function and the effect of Web 2.0. Airline industry is just an example.

To my best knowledge all airlines uses a system called Galileo for their ticketing and sector planning requirements. Crudely put, Galileo is something similar to the Finacle of the Banking industry. But Galileo suffered from an ugly-face syndrome. Basically the entire system lacked a decent front end.

With a bit of help from Web Technologies like AJAX, Flash etc Galileo acquired a beautiful front end. All airlines started building their own front-ends running on the same back end. And thus started the advent of aggregator websites like the ones mentioned earlier and they started giving pricing of the various airlines on a real time basis on their website. Your friendly neighborhood travel agent was replaced by a user-friendly web application.

Add to this another entity called the payment gateway. This entity again uses Web 2.0 front end technologies to run on their complex database heavy back end engines and process payments through the internet. So once you as a customer discovered the price at which you will buy a product / service, you have these payment gateways which will help transfer funds from your bank / credit card to the vendor and your transaction is complete.

This poses a great challenge for the airlines. Especially the budget kind. They now have to track the pricing of their competition from all these sites and ensure that their pricing is at least a Rupee less. Thus price wars have acquired a new dimension. And basking in all this is the customer. He surely is the king.

This now is true of many other industries. Some examples:

• Rural India now uses Web 2.0 technologies sponsored by corporates like ITC (ITC e-choupal) to trade on their produce. The produce includes agricultural produce like Potatoes, Sugarcane, wheat etc.
• If you have ever used the internet to trade on stocks and shares, you have been touched by Web 2.0. These technologies help you in identifying the latest price of a particular share in the market and help you complete a purchase or sell transaction.
• Amazon, eBay, Flipkart etc are more examples of Web 2.0 helping in identifying the price and giving you the ‘best’ deal.

So the next time you get a quote for a stock, air ticket or a quintal of sugarcane over the internet, remember that pricing of the offering has been reached to you using Web 2.0 technologies. In the fond hope that the price that is being quoted is dynamic enough to appeal to your sensibilities and aid your purchase. Price Discovery has acquired a new meaning with the advent of Web 2.0.

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‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it’s thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

These above lines were immortalized by the King of Pop – Michael Jackson. I would attribute the success of MJ to an external factor. Agreed he was awesome with his music and moves, but what brought him to light and reached him to a larger audience was something he had no control on.

MTV

I think MTV was a game changer of the 1980 thus opening up many new avenues of livelihood apart from being a trendsetter concept in itself. Some of the many firsts which can be attributed to MTV include:

• Music Videos
• VJ a.k.a Video Jockeys
• Music Awards
• Musics News
• Music Promotion

MTV changed the way people viewed many things, including life. MTV became a rage and its influence on the young is a still debated topic. With the advent of MTV, new and specialized genres started getting its place under the sun. Not just on TV, but on every other medium. It would be fair to say that MTV has influenced every one of us in a very strong way. I must admit that I am!

There is another concept which is silently doing what MTV did in the 1980s. We are about to see the world operate very differently owing to this phenomenon. People will think differently, communicate differently and operate very differently. And that is…

WEB 2.0

Though there is no difference in the technology between ‘World Wide Web as it existed before’ and Web 2.0, the difference is in the interactivity. The power of the internet has become manifold owing to its interactivity and its omnipresence. We now have the web with all its interactive features in almost every single carrier and medium you can think of.

Interactivity, which forms the core of Web 2.0 can now be seen everywhere. An example of interactivity and Web 2.0 at its best is something that you and I use everyday. It is called Facebook. I am just attempting to explain how Web 2.0 will change the way we function with Facebook as an example here.

Communication
Facebook has just changed the way people communicate. With the advent of e-mail, we lost the Postman (at least a large section of the population did). With the advent of Facebook, we now have a communication tool, which is many-to-many and is available at the comfort of your desk. So if I have good news to share, I just put it up on ‘FB’ and I have communicated it to many people. And all my ‘friends’ on FB would congratulate me right there! Many-to-many communication platform right in front of you!

Connect: I know of friends from the fifth grade with whom I connected through FB. If not for FB, I would probably have not gotten in touch with him ever. Especially since he lives in faraway Athens now!

Play: With online interactive games like Farmville and Mafia Wars and many others that I have never bothered to find out about, one has a very different way of connecting with his / her friends and make new ones. Farmville for instance is so addictive (apparently!) that I know of people who have spent eight hours a day just to ensure that they reach the next level faster. I am sure they would have learnt a thing or two about farming, but I think the intention was to make friends, spend time (euphemistic way of putting it) and have a bit of fun. Today, games have taken a very different plane and connect people very differently.

Those were just a couple of examples of how Web2.0 can change the world. But I am going to delve a little deeper on how Web 2.0 can change the way marketing would be affected in days to come. So here goes…

FB has a very active market place. I once wanted to sell something away and I had put it up in FB marketplace. I would have received as many as 15 calls in less than a week. And I am not the most active on FB. If I can get to have as many responses, then an active marketer can milk FB to its hilt. Here’s an imaginary situation:

Sabyasachi Mukherjee (SM) has just launched his new Winter collection (is it winter collection now?) and has decided to launch it online. So you now have videos of the entire collection shot in the cozy comfort of his home draped on a few friends (read: top models) and uploaded on Youtube and has been FBed (well, that’s the term dudes) at 10.30 am on 28-July-2010. Guess when he can get the result for his collection?

1 month later?
15 days later?
1 week later?

All of the above is wrong. He would get the result real time. Same day, same moment! Because there is a ‘like’ button in Facebook which has changed the way people express themselves. So SM would know the marketability of his collection real-time and would also get comments on why the collection is good or bad. What needs to be considered is his readiness to change the collection according to the tastes of the larger audience and ensure that the collection is a success. It will also help him understand the niches which he needs to cater to with his designing.

For instance, there might a few hundred people who might like the collection and would also be willing to pay a premium because it appeals to their sensitivities. But there might be a thousand others who would believe that they would not take a particular outfit because it costs more than what they are willing to pay.

Going by the above imaginary example, Facebook is now the source and soul of the Marketing Mix. Product, Price, Place, Promotion.

Here you have Facebook, which helps you in taking a product decision. SM has created a collection and has tested his line using FB (consumer research) and has tweaked his collection a bit to cater to the larger audience and has also got ideas for his new niche line owing to a few people specifically giving comments on what they would want.

Price decision has also been arrived at using FB. He now has a section of people who are willing to pay a premium because they like some items in the collection and with a little tweaks they would get what they want. So SM tweaks the collection both ways to cater to a niche and to also to a larger audience and prices the two collections differently. He makes his money and retains his elite client base. Best of both worlds!

Place – Obviously all this has happened in an imaginary market place which was created using Web 2.0. Today, web based sales enabled by Web 2.0 tools like FB, Amazon, eBay etc form almost 20% of physical retail sales. My sincere apologies to calling FB, Amazon & eBay as ‘tools’, but honestly that’s what they are! These Web 2.0 tools are amongst the largest market places in the world today. With instant results!

Promotion – Less said about this the better. We have almost every product or service peddled on the internet. From books to insurance policies availability of these offerings on the internet has opened up the requirement of promoting them using these same tools.

Web 2.0 being the core of your marketing mix is not far off and is already a reality with many products / offerings. And Web 2.0 is changing the marketing world in the same way the MTV of the 80s did to culture. I am sure there is more to discuss here, but for now that’s that!

Note 1: One of the regular (!!!!) readers of this blog Mr. Vasudevan had suggested that I delve deep into one of the topics rather than discuss many points as bullets. I am planning to take his advice and will probably attempt to provide my views on Web 2.0 as a marketing tool in my subsequent posts.
Note 2: Some parts of this post were inspired and influenced by a discussion which I had with “Senior”. Yes! We refer to him as Senior and he also goes by the name Anil Nair. He is a founder member of a leading communications, advertising and marketing firm Law & Kenneth.

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“Nope! I have heard it all the time. Twitter is not just online anymore. I get to read tweets from celebrities on every newspaper”, my boss said looking at me without raising his head.

“Yeah! Almost all newspapers have a twitter beat now”, I said with total abandon. Half the newspapers waste environment by printing SRK’s tweets without realizing that almost all of their readers have already read them online.

“So what is it? How does it work? I am feeling archaic about this Social Networking thingy!” said my boss, now lifting his face.

It was a difficult and awkward moment in one. Probably he was genuinely interested. Or he just wanted to humor me and understand how I work. But none the less, I took the bait.

The discussion started with me trying to explain to him why it was important for our brand to go online and ensure that we ‘listen’ to our customers. I even shared with him a print-out (fml – If you don’t understand what it means, click here of the article by Rameet Arora on Afaqs!

“So, Twitter & Facebook are social networking sites. They are not alone. There are more like Orkut, myspace etc. You can create your profile and get connected with your friends through these sites.”

“How does it help me? I am anyway connected with them otherwise!”

“But boss, your status update or comment will reach all of them at the same time – provided they are also online. You can comment about almost anything under the sun. And that’s where the importance of brands being online comes in.”

“How?”

“See, I will just give you an example. Hippo – a snack food brand from Parle Foods decided to get information about stores where the snack is not available so that they can fill the shelves immediately. They used Twitter as the medium to get the info and went online to commit that they will fill the shelves of all stores where people claim that Hippo wasn’t available. They started receiving responses from people across the country – from more than 25 cities. Hippo got this information free of cost. They outsourced the demand gauging exercise to the customer itself. They crowdsourced it.”

“What? All this online?”

I was just getting excited. Totally warmed up!

“Yeah boss! There are enough cases on how we can use online platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube to further the cause of the brand.”

“How?”

“Twitter for instance is a medium where you air your thoughts within 140 characters, but Facebook, Orkut or Myspace doesn’t have such a restriction and also works differently. You can create fan pages on Facebook to provide and receive information. It has now become a two way communication model. Gone are the days when you just made a creative, carpet bombed it and waited for the best results. We are fast moving towards a period where you will make a product, put it up in the market and get the result of customer acceptance by the next day, if not the same evening. Hippo is just one such case.”

“Wow! Show me a plan on social media. And I like this piece about ‘listening’ to the customer. What did you say is your twitter username?”

“err… Sir…”

There goes my only source for venting! My boss-bashing on Twitter stops with immediate effect!

Note: This is an attempt to use a different format to put my thoughts across. After all, this is a writing attempt and it is only fair that I try different styles. Comments would be very welcome! Note: psst… I generally don’t boss-bash on Twitter. I have other vents

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Web 2.0 is a complex matrix, interconnecting web tools and thus a wonderful platform for a meaningful conversation. For many users, tools like Facebook or Twitter starts as a ‘fun thing’. But the number of serious users who use these tools to speak about brands, offerings and what can now be termed ‘word of the written word’ a.k.a ‘www’ as a substitute for ‘word of mouth’ is not a joke anymore.

An article in a recent prominent daily mentioned how scared Bollywood is about ‘twitter’. Because the success (or the failure) of many movies are decided by Twitter and not trade reports anymore.

Should this be the case, how should one treat the online space? My two cents:

The web is the most democratic place in the world. However it affects (and gets affected) by the ‘real’ or brick & mortar world!
The online world is very democratic experience. Users have the power to say what they want and the power to accept / reject what the other users are saying. A living example is Shashi Tharoor. What led him to be the most talked about junior ministers also led him to his fall from grace.

The same media which eulogized his tweeting habits helping a little girl in faraway Trivandrum get monetary support bashed him with front page news over a scandal which cost him his ministerial job.

Lessons: Response – real time. Affects you in the real world and can continue to chase you for a while.

I heard a recent incident when a friend of mine tweeted about an issue with his iPhone and Apple started ‘following’ his tweets. Within a couple of days, Apple sent him a direct message with a link to upgrade his software. Response was real time and you have a customer who speaks about the brand. Online and offline!

1. There are no rules. The rules are made as you go along
   Ever watched The Matrix – the movie? Morpheus tells Neo, “I can only show you the door. You have to walk through it”. These tools are available for you to use and with good knowledge! It is up to the marketer to make the rules. Since the online world is the best democracy, one will have people on both sides opining about every step of your way. However, if it does good to the brand, the rules are right. If it leads to continuous discomfort, it means that there is an immediate need for tweaking.
2. The response is real time. So better be prepared to respond in real time
   The online space is extremely transparent and puts you on the pedestal immediately. Every move on the web is noticed by millions of users and provides them with an opportunity to react or respond to it immediately. A prominent blogger wrote about his good experience with an online travel portal and how helpful they were offline. The travel company’s response (which was real time) and the mix (online and offline response) coordinated well saved a potential disaster leading to a great experience. Result: Happy Customer. Now, get on your feet!
3. Be a child. Learn everyday
   The online space changes the field every day. If one doesn’t learn and learn at the speed at which the world teaches you, chances are, that you are being left behind. So if you are still thinking ‘blogging about your offerings’ would be a great way to reach out to millions, think again. Twitter and Facebook have taken over a while back? And if we think Twitter and Facebook are permanent, maybe we would be wrong again.
4. Product life cycle is short
   A interbrand report last year listed the top brands in the world and there are just three brands under the category ‘Internet services’ in the top 50 viz., Google (7), Amazon (43), and eBay (46). It is mighty difficult for an internet services company to sustain the pace with which users move. Add to it the cultural and geographic differences and the task becomes even difficult. It is important to re-invent and re-invest continuously to be up the curve. Google is a live example of that. Very few realize that Google offers thousands of services for the internet. Being a search engine is just one business vertical for the brand.
5. Be up the curve and ride the wave
   Easier said than done! It is important for identifying patterns on user movement from one service to another. When Facebook was launched not many realized how big it is going to be! But now we see that applications within Facebook like ‘Mafia Wars’ and ‘Farmville’ (sounds outdated now!) are growing in numbers with millions of people joining everyday and thousands sustaining their stay! Maybe observing these patterns provide for excellent opportunities. Stupid how much ever it may sound, I believe that this is a fantastic opportunity for farming companies to provide ‘tools & ideas’ for Farmville users. There are many individuals who have taken a fancy to organic farming as a hobby and produce their own crop for their consumption. Providing tips to them and ‘virtual equipment’ would help growing their brand with them, however small the returns are now!

Well, thinking of a product line for ‘Mafia Wars’? How about Reid & Taylor suitings and Set Wet Gels? The big baddie is gifted by the mentor with Suitings and Gel to make him look cool!

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A few weeks back, we had LinkedIn opening an office in India. And close on its heels, we find Facebook opening its Hyderabad center. And by trending topics like #awesomeindianthings, #nithyananda etc, we are making @twitter hear us too. I won’t be surprised if they open shop here soon!

China Vs India

India may not have as many internet users. China surely beats us on this statistic. India doesn’t match up to the telecom infrastructure of China either. Certainly not. But what was always touted to be out weakness, could well turn out to be our strength. The slow but open environment for business. The battle between India and China (literally and metaphorically) is just hotting up. And news like this at the wake of internet giants like Google looking to divorcing the dragon should hopefully put India higher up on the investment map.

It has been a while since the Indian internet user has loitered around waiting to be recognized. We have had way too many stalwarts in the internet space, who have done some pathbreaking work whether it is on the technical side or on the user experience space. But the elephant was always ignored owing to the Government apathy to promote business in this space and provide a conducive environment for foreign investments. Notwithstanding all this, India’s internet population has been ever growing, ever hungry and has provided a platform / rationale for larger organisations to start operations in India.

What’s in it for us users?

Awesomeness! We will have local presence of LinkedIn, Facebook and hopefully Twitter reducing the gap between our needs (which are very different from the average American) and the offerings by the site.

• I won’t be surprised if a linkedin.in would provide India specific networking opportunities, jobs etc
• There is a huge scope for offline events (at least from LinkedIn) to promote job searches, corporate networking etc.
• I also see an opportunity for Naukri / Monster India / Shine and other job search brands to tie-up with LinkedIn
• Facebook applications will be Indianised. Think Farmville with ‘verkadalai’ and Mafia Wars with ‘Varadaraja Mudaliar’.
• Local companies will tie up with FB to peddle their wares / services through facebook (FB can see revenues from India sooner)
• You won’t be served with “Anglicised looking Lose 15 pounds in 4 weeks ads. They would now read Lose 30 kilos in 3 weeks instead. This would mean a huge opportunity for Indian SEM, third party market and will be available at Indian rates.
• Offline advertising by these organisations would further propel the burgeoning OOH media apart from the traditional media spaces.
• And many more!

Having said that, a lot more can be done to promote business entities in the Internet space in India. The government should take these cues to help (if not overtly, at least by providing a conducive business atmosphere) such organisations to start shop in India. This should help open up more business verticals, employment and in a small but significant way the economy.

What should the Government do?

• Not to belittle what has already been done, telecom infrastructure (thanks to Rajeev Gandhi & Sam Pitroda) has grown leaps and bounds. But there is still a lot more ground to be covered. And with technology know-how in access, leap frogging should not be a problem
• Simplify the process of setting up a business. I know of a brilliant entrepreuner, who is yet to get his company’s bank account opened because the Registrar of Companies (ROC) is delaying the registration of his internet based education company www.ivarsity.net. Without a bank account, the company’s time to market will get extended and business plans go awry. Finding an angel investor or a PE fund to grow the business will become that much a bigger challenge.
• And for heaven’s sake (and for the sake of business), get the 3G auction off the ground

There could probably be a lot more, but I think that addressing some of these fundamental issues would go a long way in making the elephant tackle the dragon by its tail. Do you agree? Drop in a comment and we can discuss it!

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I follow Mr. Anand Mahindra on Twitter (@anandmahindra), and I would like to share one of his tweets with you. Pardon me Mr. Mahindra for a minor ‘copyright violation’! This is being done for a good cause! His tweet reads:

Mr. Anand Mahindra's tweet on a new campaign

This is the power of the online medium, where you are able to inform and immediately engage (in this case, create a curiosity about an upcoming campaign) the customer and it is common sense to understand that Mr. Mahindra was not even on his desk while he sent this message out to his ‘followers’. Fantastic is an understatement to gauge the power of this medium.

But at best, this is just the start. Engaging a potential customer, the conversion and the follow up with after sales go a long way in building the brand reputation online. I would be particularly interested to see if the Mahindra marketing team is following up with a campaign in the online space and if ever I am hit by it and ‘engaged’, I am sure to write about it in this space!

PS: I am yet to be ‘followed’ by any authorised Mahindra marketing team on twitter. Refer my earlier post on how Apple started following a friend of mine, the moment he tweeted a difficulty with his iPhone. As an aside, I tweeted something about Orianthi (the guitarist in ‘This Is It – the Michael Jackson movie), and I had Orianthi following me from the next day!

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At its worst, this new breed of online advertisers seem to see online advertising as one would a hoarding –  and -  just slightly above it – as a mini-TV commercial. Much of today’s online advertising , to borrow a phrase from DO,  is like a ship passing in the night.

These are squandered opportunities.  This is a recipe for disaster. 

Soon one can hear these worthies muttering, “we went online but did not get any results”. One shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, if the advertising wasn’t designed for results, results will not be forthcoming.

More is the pity, because this need not be the case at all, if putative online advertisers understand one basic axiom: Online  is an interactive medium. Advertising online represents an opportunity to engage with the audience. 

A click on the remote when a tv spot is running is a desire to escape the advertising.

A click on an online ad is a desire to know more/better. Use this desire to further the brand’s cause, and, not to turn away a potential customer.

And, measure it to improve it … online advertising can be measured till the cows come home – so measure it and improve customer engagement.

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