Recently, a prominent tweeter from Bombay tweeted about such ads being played during prime time (dinner time) on TV. It seems that the sleaze makers in this case had gone overboard and made it difficult for her to have a quiet dinner with her kids in front of TV.

Think of this. You watch TV with your children and this ad plays on TV.

And the resultant questions from the kids may not be a palatable discussion that follows.

Sex education is very unlike the Americas. We have human anatomy discussed in Standard VIII (unless it has changed recently). And schools are not strictly co-education yet. We don’t teach them what it means to reproduce (which partly explains our population burst). And the responsibility is completely vested with parents and is never approached as education. There is no formal, common system of making a child understand this. And we expose them to this:

Amrutanjan Roll-On balm ad by soumyadipc

One has virtually given up on the ‘Deo’ category where the only way to sell is by showing women running behind men in a very pied-piper-ish fashion. AXE started it and we have other brands doing the same. Many industry colleagues have different views about it. But Amrutanjan? Guys, I loved your last campaign based on ‘Funny videos’ where people fall during unexpected moments and ‘Be Ready’ was a fantastic tagline. A proposition to die for. You lose that for this? Mr. Shambu Prasad – I wish we were in touch after our DAV days. I have a few things to talk to you about the iconic brand that your forefathers created!

And Parachute! Whoa! Another iconic brand, which sold a commodity available at the nearest kirana store, branded it and virtually replaced the coconut oil tin cans with brilliant packaging (including the Re.1/- bubble pack available in pan shops) has gotten sleazy with their new product.

Well, there is a difference. The Amrutanjan TVC looks like it has been made like a B grade Boolywood film, while the Parachute TVC has obviously been given a ‘classy touch’. Almost soft porn-ish. Another great comparison would be Gramathu Virundhu by Paravai Muniyamma as against Nigella Lawson cooking up those delicious pastries and digging her chocolate stained dental combination into the awesomely soft lit cake with oodles of flowing chocolate. But hey! Porn is porn is porn.

And all this talk about sensuality is a vague attempt in evading the obvious. Impulse woman was sensuous. Singapore girl was sensuous. Liril girl was sensuous (and certainly bold), but I believe that we have somewhere crossed the thin line between ‘being sensual’ and ‘outright sleaze’.

I am no authority (yet), but I think AAAI can probably look at this seriously. I might be barely scratching the surface, but some ideas (or at least discussion starters) could be:

• A common ‘story board approval’ body by AAAI like the censor board. This can be debated till cows come home, but at least a starting point.
• A common forum where viewers can register their complaints for such campaigns to be quarantined to some restricted channels and not be allowed to be aired in GECs, news channels, kids channels etc.

Also, creative guys. Please get creative. It was fun when AXE did it. It is not when Wild Stone, Adiction and a whole host of others do the same. We also call it plagiarism. J

And marketers – Dudes! Seriously, you buy this S&*% from the creative agencies and put money behind it on media? I think it is just a lazy idea! A better brief to start with can be a good point to begin with.

I respect a condom company for coming up with this:

They are talking sex. But they are talking sensuality. Ain’t it? And I am bloody sure they sell well!

Q.E.D

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I had visited the Byculla zoo this Sunday last for the sake of my nephew & #SidNanda (my son Siddharth as tagged on Twitter). I was thoroughly disappointed and my obvious human mind compared it with the Singapore Zoo and my fond memories of that place. I remember names of the animals that I have interacted with and their trainers too! The place is a destination and I would certainly visit there as often as I can!

Getting back to Byculla, I read in the papers that there is a plan to revamp the zoo at a cost of Rs.150 crores. Here’s the link.

I am sure this money can be put to good use. And once done, by allocating some budget for marketing the place, it can be a grand success. Here’s my list of suggestions (albeit unwarranted).

• Today the zoo is just a large garden with enclosures where we can’t find the animals half the time and is ill-maintained. The place first needs a clean-up, laid pathways (flooring was very uncomfortable for pushing a pram), lacks sanitation & drinking water facilities, lacks dust bins etc. By keeping the place clean, half the problem can be solved. No need to cut / uproot / move any of the vegetation! Basics handled would be half the problem solved.
• The place needs a route plan: Think Super Markets! The retail industry is a science by itself! Big Bazaar, Shoppers Stop & Hypercity have mastered it. The way the shop floor designer guides you through your essentials, fringes, not-required but good to have, absolutely not required but I will buy it, and finally those smalls nuggets at the billing counter including the gums, chocolates etc which parents cannot refuse their children while waiting to pay up. Whoa! It is an awesome ride into a human mind. The zoo can take some examples from here. Segregate the animals, birds, insect worlds separately and have a floor plan and guide the visitor to go every place.
• Sign boards & indicators: The zoo requires boards. People must know what they are seeing inside the enclosure. And for heaven’s sake, it is not ‘just’ lion. It can be an African or Indian Lion and they have zoological names. A plain simple Lion won’t do. What are you going to teach the children that visit? I am sure teachers of today would cringe to take their wards to this zoo because of some uncomfortable questions on the species. PLUS, they make awesome advertising opportunity. Most companies have CSR initiatives today and this is one fantastic way to tap it.
• Shows: Seeing a monkey jumping inside a cage is fun. But when you are interacting with it, it is another! I still remember the first Orangutan that kissed me. His name is Surya and he was 4 months old when I first held him in my hands. When I went to the Singapore Zoo the second time, I made it a point to meet Surya again. Only this time he was 7 years old and was a grown up. More stronger and more agile and more beautiful than ever before. I cherish my having met him. Now isn’t that an experience? By letting kids interact with these animals, the zoo would help them in understanding the importance of conserving nature and by pricing it right, you end up making some money too! Trust me, children will make their parents pay for it!
• Shops inside: Why haven’t we learnt to sell wares & merchandise? It is pretty much the same across all national parks & animal houses across the country. I remember the shop from Sanjay Gandhi National Park. It is a shame. Not enough merchandise, not priced right, not visually appealing. It is a shop for the sake of having a shop. Here’s my idea. Outsource it to a private apparel brand. It could be Nike, Adidas, Reliance Trends, Wills Lifestyle, Trent… whoever! Outsource it. Don’t charge them rent for the first 3 years, but charge them from the 4^th year onwards. They must sell only Zoo based merchandise in the store. But they must come up with ideas & merchandise that would make people want to yank their wallets out. The business plan for the brand should be to make it profitable in three years time and then share the profit with the zoo authorities. It is okay if you don’t make money in the first three years. You are not making money from it anyway!
• Food & relaxation joints: There are a few dirty ‘some trust’ sponsored cemented benches which are perennially covered with algae. People will leave the zoo earlier if they are tired of walking. Provide place to sit. Create space for food joints. Same rule as above. Maybe with a one year moratorium. Vadapav, Dabeli stalls with ice-creams while enjoying the pleasant coolness of flora & fauna well within the city of Bombay! Think of the potential. That would make people stay longer, visit again and thus more business.
• Transport facilities to the zoo: Two buses painted in zoo colors can go around town picking up people for visits. They can also be given on hire for school children planning to visit the zoo. Make it a package for the schools to visit the zoo on a regular basis. An entire school cannot visit the zoo on the same day. But each school has at least 1000 children. In batches of 100, you have 10 visits from each school by having an annual tie-up. With a tie-up with even 50 schools, your ticket sales at the zoo would bring in a small fortune. Won’t it?
• Transport facilities within the zoo. Battery trains, golf carts etc. Just to ensure that even if the place isn’t large, it gives the feeling of largeness. One can walk through the zoo in no time, but by planning the pathway to be long and winding, you can make it interesting enough to make people pay a small fee for these rides!
• Entry fee: At Rs.5/- the zoo is not keeping the unnecessary crowd out. And is not earning from it either. By having the fee to a slightly higher level, it would keep the wastrels out and also ensure that there’s more revenue coming in. I wouldn’t mind paying Rs.50 to go to the zoo if the facilities are good. So improve the facilities and charge higher. Having shops inside would also help add to the revenue!
• Corporate tie-ups. Each section Primates, birds, cats, other mammals, reptiles etc can be sponsorship opportunities. Let’s say Reliance Trends wants to have the apparel store inside, then they can be asked to ‘adopt’ the Reptile farm for a specified period. By having such tie-ups the revenue for the zoo will go up, the entry fee can be kept low and higher foot falls generated.
• Bring in local heroes (not the Salman Khan types) who have done a lot of work towards environment protection as part of the core team. Snake catchers like Ibrahim, Vijay Raghavan, Anand Mohite etc have done great work in the concrete jungle called Bombay. I am sure involving them in doing shows at the zoo would be great. They would get their due for the work they do, and the zoo would be able to get more footfalls.
• Social Media: Less said about this the better. Creating a FB page or twitter handle (there I said it!) would be a bit more helpful. I still remember the Bronx Zoo Python that escaped and the twitter handle which freaked out on it. If an imaginary twitter python can shake the room, then think what social media can do for a live animal!?!?!
• Bring in the Animal World Celebrities. If Steve Irwin was alive and is visiting Byculla Zoo to play in the crocodile pool, I am sure there is a huge bunch of people who would pay to visit on that day! We have Romulus Whitaker and Alphonse Roy who still do similar or greater work! Why can’t we have a celebrity day at the zoo?
• BMC runs the zoo. Why can’t they have a zoo day?! Or something equivalent! By having a special promo drive for the zoo, the authorities would be able to make the place a much loved destination.

I would be very happy to wear a ‘I <3 Byculla Zoo’ Tee which glows in the dark and has the face of a beautiful tiger. Won’t you?

Note: The article in today’s paper does not attribute any amount of the Rs.150 crore towards any kind of marketing activity. BMC would do itself a world of good by allocating even a small amount towards promoting the zoo and thus increasing its own usefulness and provide an awesome destination in Bombay! Think again!

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It is true that many times the best sample size for a market research activity is ‘1’, but can we really do that when we choose media? Here’s a small example: Data says (at least if we still can trust RAM) that Radio One is the leading FM Channel in Bombay (yes, I refuse to call this city Mumbai. If you don’t like it, watch Russel Peters for the reason). However, the CEO prefers Malishka of Red FM over “Who’s that unknown RJ in 91.1 FM, which claims to be no.1? It is very Indianly common to have hoardings from the Airport to Office (even if it is just for a few days) for the ‘senior management’ to see & feel happy about during branch visits. It surely keeps the bosses happy!

That apart, it always is a good idea to take a hard look at one’s own media habits. It may just help plan better the next time you write the brief for the campaign plan.

That’s what I am planning to do now. How do I consume media? What do I watch? What do I do? Maybe some planner may get some idea from what I do (unconsciously). My routine can (hopefully) be the trigger for dropping that self-proclaimed omnipresent media vehicle! Here goes:

My demographics:

Age: 37

City: Mumbai

Occupation: Marketing head for a Financial Services Firm

SEC: I don’t believe in this classification. But am earning well.

MHI: ahem! See earlier point!

So what do I do everyday?

• 6.00 am to 7.30 am: The first media that I consume is Vijay TV. Judge me if you must, but Vijay TV in the mornings broadcasts spiritual stuff and it helps keep my mind clear of all the nonsense like corruption, accidents, murders, scandals and other such ‘outrage inducing’ news. So Vijay TV it is!
• 7.30 am: Yes. I do read ToI. But I just browse. I don’t find their editorial engaging enough. Not for me at least. Also, owing to business considerations, their news is filled with negativity. Read point 1 for what I would like to avoid and TOI is filled with it anyway. Lately, even the sports coverage has scandals as the pivot. But yes, I browse through that paper for just being abreast.
• 7.30 am: My modified Nook Color which is now an Android Tablet. I access NDTV app, Economist, Huffington post, NYT for a bit of world coverage. I prefer to read the politics and broader economy items rather than most other categories. Sports comes in too.
• Economic Times: Being in Financial Services, it is imperative for me to read this paper. Thought the colour is mildly yellow, this pink paper is a must read for me to ‘be in the know’. Also, this is the largest circulated / read (both are different) newspaper and I handle retail. QED.
• The Mint: For me, this is intelligent reading. This newspaper is actually where there is limited or no jargon and complex financial events can be understood, albeit with a little effort. Must read
• Google News: A site that is ‘almost permanently’ open on my computer to get my dose of news. I read through articles of varied topics through Google News and it’s constantly updating feeds
• LinkedIn: Provides me with business updates through links posted, people with whom I am connected and business related news.
• Twitter through the day: In intermittent spells, I tweet and read tweets. I follow some news junkies, stand up comedians, advertising, PR & digital media folks, and some politicians too. Most times, twitter is my first source of breaking news. In that same vein, Facebook is almost relegated to a weekly once kind of activity or ‘only when there’s time’.
• I also frequently visit Quora, Mashable & Rediff (not necessarily in that order) for reading about anything under the sun.
• Infrequently, I also read blog posts when someone tweets their links. Not much time.
• My evenings are typically spent with Raymond / AFV, followed by MasterChef Australia. Food is the new porn (as my wife called it) and Masterchef is the epicenter of it all for me! Despite knowing the result, one is always drawn to the edge of the seat with this programme. I try my best not to miss it. Also, I toggle sometimes with Super Singer on Vijay TV. Those singers are by no stretch of imagination ‘amateurs’. Continuing with porn takes the logical next step to Nigella Lawson. I may never eat a morsel of what gets cooked in Masterchef or Nigella’s show, but I seem to be relishing it with glee!
• Back to Nook Color, news & other apps before I crash.
• I drive to work & back. Outdoor is dangerous for me to keep track of! But hey! This is Bombay and traffic is always ‘almost still’. So I do watch out for the billboards too! I am generally a safe but distracted driver! J

I have conveniently and consciously left my personal life out of this!

So, does that make a generalization? Not at all. It is how I seem to be sharing my time with the various media vehicles that I consume / come across.

If this helps anyone while making a media plan, ping me.

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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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It was true for a long time. People ended up seeing music rather than just listening to it. Music Videos were a rage. They could see the stars in flesh and blood dancing in front of them at the comfort of their homes. Music proliferation with the advent of national and international channels meant great fame for the performers. Media became as big as the musician itself. They thought the airwaves will forever be filled with digitized signals containing audio and visuals.

And then Radio found its own space to co-exist.

When Weblogs (blogs) came to existence, everyone had one. It was like there was a surge in writers across the world. Every e-mail signature had a blog ID as part of it. Many lost steam after a while, but some wrote on. Some were on and off (like me). But blogs were still around with a fairly sizeable number of readers.

Then came Twitter! A 140 character invention, which took the world by storm. Everyone jumped into the bandwagon. It took me many reports about the November 26 attacks on Bombay to get on to it. I read reports about how people used Twitter to inform the world about what was happening inside the Taj Mahal Hotel. On many other occasions I saw the use of Twitter where people informed their status from inside a disaster zone. It was too good for me to stay away. I started my twitter account.

I had started to tweet and was learning the ropes, not that I am a pro yet! My topics of interest were quotes, news and satire. Twitter is filled with them. I realized that I was making friends through Twitter, attended Tweet-ups and wrote everything in 140 characters. At one corner of my mind, I felt that the blogger in me was giving up. Though I was not a regular in writing, I believe that some people like the way I write. I have been published a few times and it always is a good feeling to see your name on print or on a popular website.

I was actually a #ShamelessAddict in Twitter language. But I could figure that many of the popular bloggers were straddling both these worlds with consummate ease. It took some effort for me to get away from Twitter and to concentrate on blogging again. But today I find that twitter is actually helping me in my blogging too.

I have now connected my blog to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Network Blogging using Hootsuite & Facebook. With every post, the link for the post is automatically posted on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In. Network Blog pulls data from the blog entry and posts an excerpt on Facebook. Many benefits and some issues.

Today I get a lot of traffic from Twitter and Linked In. Many read the blog post as part of my Linkedin profile too. The post is available as part of Network Blogs on Facebook. So many read it there. I have added a wordpress widget called SocioFluid which helps in posting the link to many social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit and many more.

I have been writing today on a daily basis as a part of this blogathon and I am able to gain new friends, new associates and I am known within the professional circle because of these community building tools.

As regards to the purpose of my writing, I am not doing this for Google Adsense. If I make money, I would welcome it, but I am doing this for my own satisfaction. This trains me in writing which I enjoy. And it helps me voice my opinions and interact with other professionals in the field.

The world always comes around. Just when you think video killed the radio star, FM became an inseparable part of your drive time. And when I thought Twitter killed the blogger in me, I run a blogathon. And Twitter is only helping me find more readers and interact with them on different platforms.

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Kiruba Shankar – who was once referred by Gul Panag as a Twitter Superstar was kind enough to answer a few questions.

Kiruba Shankar

A few pointers on the questions. I think that Kiruba is a good example for personal branding. And I have tried to bring out that aspect here. If you see his Bio, you will see that this man is multi-talented. Pity Maniratnam hasn’t met him yet :p Or has he?

Why waste your time? Here goes the interview!

1. You were working in the corporate sector for a long time. What made you take this shift into launching your own company?
   You are right. I’ve been in the corporate world for over 12 years. That’s a long time to get used having the luxury of having one’s bank account get replenished at the beginning of every month. I should really thank the economy downturn for helping make my decision to become an entrepreneur.  The recession made things difficult in the last company that I worked in.I chose to opt out and instead of taking another 9 to 5 job, I chose to pick up projects on my own. I had consciously been building up my business contacts and was focused on building my own brand. This greatly helped when I branched out on my own.  I soon realized that it perfectly matched my multi-interest lifestyle.  I was my own boss and I chose my schedule.
2. With two kids it must have been a tough decision. How did you manage your initial years? (I know it is a personal question, but there are people who are unable to do this! Includes me!)
   Actually, it was not a tough decision at all. That’s the beauty of not having choices   If I had to feed my family I had to get in the projects. That kind of pressure actually helped me a lot in getting my firm up and running quickly.
   The initial years were quite adventurous. We had to keep running fast to stay in the same place. My biggest support system was my wife. She quit her job too and joined me at my startup. Having an understanding and supportive wife is a huge bonus.
   We had a very strict rule that we will not delay the salary of our employees even by a single day. There were half a dozen times I had to pawn my wife’s jewelry to pay the employees’ salaries. We always pay ourselves the last. But magically, we would bounce back every single time. We were also gifted by a very loyal associates who put their best into the job.
3. How big is your firm? What all services do you provide and how competitive is the market that you operate on?
   We are a dozen people strong. We run a very lean organization and our overheads are intentionally kept very low. We run our operations out of two double bedroom flats in Chennai.
   We are a Social Media Consultancy. We help large corporate companies leverage the power of Web 2.0. We help evaluate, strategize and execute plans on corporate blogging, podcasting, enterprise wikis, online community building, reputation management and research.  We are extremely passionate about this medium and that greatly helps us walk the talk.
   The competition isn’t very high. We are amongst very few pure-play social media focused organization in Chennai and even across India, there aren’t many.
4. On a daily basis there is some new technology or the other cropping up. How do you manage to keep in touch with all this? How inquisitive are you?
   I follow a few sites like TechMeme and Mashable that really feeds me on the latest trends in technology and social media space. It also greatly helps that we run the Social Media Research Lab and that gives us sufficient reason to keep our ears close to the ground to learn the latest stuff.
5. There was a point when you used to have blog entries on a regular basis. Lately, you don’t blog as much?
   There’s a huge difference when you did something as an hobby and when you did something for a career.  The effect is telling.  Besides, Twitter and Facebook have cannibalized my blogging. Its so much easier and quicker to say the thing I want to say.  However, blogging is my career and if I don’t blog enough, I’m not practicing what I’m preaching. Atleast for that sake, I will get back to active blogging.
6. How do you think creating an online personality has changed over years? And how has its effect on the offline world been? (Being a blogger and being known and being a tweeter and being known. How do you think things have changed)
   I don’t think creating an online personality has changed much. What has changed though has been the tools that helped you express your ideas.  Its without doubt that building one’s own brand is an extremely wise investment for the future. By building one’s brand online, you’ll soon realize that it starts to open many doors in terms of business and helps it easier to make good connections.  An online brand has a huge rub-off in the offline world.
7. Few words about your book on Personal branding that’s coming up?
   It’s a tweet book published by Happy About, a California based publishing house run by Mitchell Levy. The book contains 140 nuggets of information about personal branding. The book will be published in the later part of 2010.

So that’s that! My first interview! I hope the questions were relevant! Comments would be really appreciated!
My special thanks to Kiruba Shankar for taking time out for my blogathon.

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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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My father used to tour a lot as part of his work and for time periods like 15 days at a stretch. Those were days when having a phone was a ‘luxury’ and the favourite mode of communication always used to be India Post.

If I am travelling today, I must SMS my wife before boarding and after reaching. Period!

Sets me thinking: Advertising, Communication and Marketing (they are separate according to me), used to be very different those days. There always used to be a sender and many receivers. A straight line! Lack of communication tools was the key reason.

Today we live in a ‘Matrix’ed world. And the pun is intended. The consumer has a powerful tool in his hand and (s)he can be constructive or destructive. And the best part is the fact that they know that they have the power. The customer has decided to talk back and technology has helped them do so.

1. Technology has helped cross-conversations
   Back then, the brands used to choose when they talk to their consumers. There was a seasonality associated with it. For instance, the marketers chose when to provide discounts on Air Conditioners or Airline Tickets. Prices used to be very different in different cities (and the reason was not just C&F, transportation etc). With price discovery mechanism taking center stage with liberal help from technology, the marketers are left with little choice but to listen to the consumer. Today, the customer is able to decide between two airlines or air conditioners and is able to choose the best within his price range with the best deal in terms of service / quality.
   It is now possible for anyone to talk to anyone, so long as there is a willingness to communicate. I can have a conversation with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and the only thing that can stop me from doing so is Mr. Bachchan himself. And brands are no different. Unless they engage the consumer in a conversation, it is impossible for them to reach out, be heard and be talked about. Today, that would be the space between success and failure of a brand.
2. Don’t call them consumers anymore
   ‘Consumers’ as a term has ceased to exist at least with respect to communication. Successful advertising during the earlier days used to be of two broad kinds. Great advertising with no money to back it up AND sad advertising with lots of money! Today, great advertising or not, if the offering (product / service) doesn’t live up to the expectations, chances are that the product will fail in the market. The allowed margin of error has gone down significantly. The customer now has a voice, is heard and ensures that (s)he is loud and clear.
   So if a brand is not engaging them meaningfully, they have the choice and the power to tarnish a brand’s reputation if they choose to.
3. Brand Loyalty – Heh!
   Options – A word that just used to exist in the marketers mind when discussing creative pieces with the agency. Now the consumer is throwing the same word at him and with a vengeance. Loyalty programs have failed like duds because he wants great service for the price he pays. And the quality of such service is always decided by him. If you don’t believe me, get on twitter. NOW!
4. Consumer engages you!
   Traditional Marketers used to believe that the message is always from them. And the messenger is the media. Such a strong decision is not taken by the marketers anymore. Neither the message nor the media. The consumer chooses to engage with any brand at his own convenience and expects that the brand is ‘available’ for his to talk to. All he has to do is to use any of the social networking tools and give a shout out. If you don’t respond, your competitor will. And you have lost this customer forever. If a consumer is not happy with my mobile service provider, he gets onto Twitter and calls out for the brand. If the brand is not available, he is more than happy to switch to another brand without the least of issues. Keeping customers has never been this difficult. So it is important to be present at a place where he chooses to talk to you.

Marketers have been talking all this while and they have just been interrupted. They now have to listen and engage. And if marketers are not willing to participate in a discussion, the brand will end up facing a slow but sure death.

Traditional marketing as was known is dead. Long live Traditional Marketing.

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