Monday, December 31, 2007

Top 5 Marketing Predictions for 2008

This month, I have seen many trends being talked about from media, marketing, internet, technology, innovation or what not (Posted earlier) all across the internet. Some are big while some are just micro (in real sense). Some will be hit or hot for year 2008 while some will just fizz away with WTF* statement!!

Still I wanted to share something which I have been seeing for quite sometime now in the business circuit, especially in the marketing arena for that matter. So here are my trends for year 2008:-
  • Branding Shift: Branding will move from traditional way to more nicher media with the advent of newer technologies. Usage of internet as a branding medium will catch on the fire, even in India.
  • Total Brand Experience: Advertisements in the form of televison, outdoors, billboards etc will bring customers close to the brands to complete that “Total Brand Experience” i.e. TBE. Even the engagement of these interactions between customers & brands will increase next year.

  • Social Media Fire: Countries like India where mass marketing is the bread & butter for most marketers, social media will catch the fire as marketers will realize the potentiality of social media. Companies will start using SN and Twitter to understand their customers in a better way. Social Media will be more prominent in western countries with importance on more customer interactivity.

  • Search Engine Optimization: Companies will move away slowly but steadily from Google as advertisement repository to more nicher areas like Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us etc (Social Bookmarking sites). The reason is relevant search results for end users. Year 2008 will start the beginning of the importance of Semantic Web until Google starts thinking hard to tackle it. I'm sure they will with Knol etc.

  • More disruptive Innovations: Companies like Apple, Google, MSFT and not forgetting Facebook alikes will come with more innovations (mostly disruptive which will set the industry standards). We will see many new products as well great new services.
These 5 predictions will be there in year 2008 mostly. Though all may not be true but I just hope most of them are. But I can guarantee one thing for the future: THE CUSTOMERS WILL HAVE MANY BETTER CHOICES. So companies have to really try hard to pull that extra buck out of our wallet.

So lastly Happy New Year to all of you and have a great time ahead. Cheers!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Using Facebook as Marketing Platform

I have been using Facebook for quite sometime now. Though as a social networking site, it's not that much prevalent in India till now (::come next year though:: It will be a different scene altogether). As a matter of fact, if you type "India" in Facebook search, this is the figure that will show up (People=500+; Groups=130; Events=141; Applications=18). This figure is quite less compared to other active social networking countries. Reason may be partly due to its emergence in the West and less promotion in the east.

Still Facebook as a Marketing Platform can never be denied in terms of its Web Apps/Widgets. Though it can't be ruled as a viable option too. But Facebook with it's rapidly growing user base can be a marketer's bread & butter in terms of exposure for your brand, product or website.

Ways in which Facebook can be used as a marketing platform for companies are:

#1. Targeted Brand Exposure: Facebook with its clearly demarcated demographics can be easily used to to spread the brand communication message.

#2. Viral Marketing: Facebook can be used to spread the word as both content (brand message) & services are fused together in a single platform. E.g. Amazon's Visual Bookshelf apps. The bigger picture is that companies won't have to spend much since the word will be carried forward by the users as engagement between users & apps increases when value will be added to each interaction between apps and users.

#3. Easy hunting ground for Market Research: Facebook's biggest success formula has been it varied demographics ranging from teens to baby boomers. So companies can easily use this wide demographics for different Market Research to understand its target market in a better way.

Not everything is rosy about Facebook. Along with so much promise, there still lurks the usual fad attached to social networking sites like these. So some of the problems marketers may face are:

#1. Fad attached to social networking sites: If something new and cool comes in the way and as we all are aware of B.S.O.S (Bright & Shiny Object Syndrome), so Facebook may just dissipate in the horizon.

#2.
Flyers to Fliers: Furthermore, while some users praise Facebook flyers because they blend in with the rest of the Facebook interface and are not intrusive, others argue that this is precisely the reason why the click-through rates are so low. At the same time, these people welcome using pay-per-click marketing because that way, you only pay when someone notices and clicks on your advertisement. (Thanks Pronetadvertising)

So at the end of it all, Creativity is "THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP" in approaching social communities and hence opportunities can be created if, and only if, you play by the rules and also as marketers we have to consider "Adding value to each interaction" i.e. c0-create the naturally viral nature of the community instead of forcing it.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Links for 2007-12-26

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

5 things I did & learnt in 2007

As year 2007 is coming to its end, I sat back and tried to scribble some thoughts about what I did & learn this year as a marketer, a social being and more importantly as a human being. So here are the 5 most important things I learnt in 2007 (in random order):

#1. I started my blog which helped me not only in jotting down random thoughts about marketing and life par se but also these thoughts are now present as an online journal. I can look back at those reflections whenever I want to. In the process, I got some applause as well as criticism. Thanks a ton to everyone for those comments too.

#2. I became more active in Social Media (apart from my single a/c in orkut). Now I have active accounts in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,AdGabber, SlideShare, StumpleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us etc to name a few. These associations helped me to understand Marketing in a whole new way.

#3. In this process, I joined as well as promoted some social causes like "Cause a Ripple" (which is still in my weblog) to "Stop Global Warming" (in my Facebook Profile) to name a few. It helped me realize that as social human beings it's our duty to give something back to our future Gen (though in a small way) as well as our Mother Earth.

#4. Network of Associations: This year I have networked with people whom I know from distant past as well as with people from some social networking sites. This has helped me to learn a lot from small snippets to large gimmicks. Thanks to Twitter as well as to those bloggers (a long list actually) by and large.

#5. Year 2007 has been quite fulfilling in terms of amount of quality books that I read (Posted earlier in my blog). All in all, I read something about 15 odd books which were not only insightful but also quite heart rendering at times.

So for me year 2007 has been quite enriching in terms of learning, networking as well as my long term desire of philanthropy (in small measure though). So I hope year 2008 also brings the same - not only for me but all my blog readers as well as those who are going to read it in the near future. So, all my well wishes from my side for year 2008.

So what about you in 2007? Did you had a good year?

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas ::Ho Ho Ho::


I would like to wish all of you merry Christmas and a happy & prosperous 2008.

One more thing about Xmas which really excites me is "Coke" and Christmas' Santa Claus. The similarity is stupendous. Especially the color combination i.e. Red & white which symbolizes Coke all the way. Did Santa wore it all the way through or it was just a perfectly executed marketing plan which become some sort of "Marketing Icon" by itself. Great work by Coke guys (especially attaching religious myth with brand imagery). So as long as X-Mas will be around we will never forget Santa or its pal Coke!!

Further reading @ Love for color Red in Brand Logos

Friday, December 21, 2007

*Christvertising*:God & Branding

In the process of discovering insightful as well as weird sites, I stumbled upon this one. It's up to you guys to decide whether this is hilarious, insightful or sheer blasphemous. After seeing this, one thing becomes very clear i.e. US people take their Christian Belief very seriously. According to their Website (link) i.e. "Christvertising", they proclaim that through their BTP (Brand Targeted Prayers), millions of ardent Christian believers will pray for your brands. So all in all, here's "Christvertising" as well as me wishing you merry Christmas and Happy 2008.



Sources: Adverblog

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Getting Nostalgic (the ad syndrome)

Nothing great about the ad though, but remembering those days. Actually seeing this ad after a long time (beautifully crafted by P&G and Saatchi & Saatchi). I feel from a marketer's point of view that we all are turning out to be like them i.e. self-centric kid in this era of prosumer (producer+consumer).


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Links for 2007-12-18

Monday, December 17, 2007

India: Thinking Digital, Going Conventional

What it means to go digital? Is it another B.S.O.S (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome) which the industry guys just love to latch on. Part of my statement is due to the fact that most of the executions are not that new. They are the same old crap wrapped in neat packages.

Almost all the companies in the world, starting from emerging markets like India to developed nations like US have some kind of presence in web. But the point is how much importance do the top honchos give to this new system of distribution and connection with the customers where the long tail concept is very evidential.

Specially talking about emerging markets like India, the Long Tail concept loses it bastion which it enjoys in western countries in most of the product categories. So when does a company think digital in emerging markets? By and large, most of the activities related to engaging the customers are very conventional in terms of communicating with the customers.

Some of the major road blocks in the way to go digital are lack of awareness of the potential of internet (both in terms of scale as well as reach), low awareness about how internet marketing works at multi-stage level and last but not least resistance to try out new things. Still over the couple of years, internet has gathered some critical mass (at least you can see that in everyday newspapers).So when and how do we exactly start off doing digital....
  • Traditional + Digital = Effective customer engagement: A right blend of both traditional marketing and digital marketing is what is required now. Since the customers are habitual of the usual touchpoints, so going totally digital won't solve the problem. But using technology to co-create newer touchpoints can surely engage your customers in a varied level.
  • Proliferation of newer Technologies: Every month, near about a million cell phone users get added up in India. Whoa!! Thats a huge figure. So getting access to new technologies to engage the customers have increased. But the pace at which the customers have accepted these newer technologies is not at the same rate that of the companies. So try using it to nudge your customer's expectation but bearing the fact that it should not be an interrupting proposition.
  • Exciting those senses:Digital marketing has the power to excite our senses like sight, sound and motion (SiSoMo).Now think about your customers who have always been fed with monologue communication process. This will definitely excite them and make them think about you in this media cluttered environment.
This is the crux of the post. Though there can be other ways too to reach customers and engage them. So any thoughts from your side....

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Links for 2007-12-15

Friday, December 14, 2007

Google's "Don't be Evil" mantra - Holy shit

Last night Google announced that they are starting a new project named Knol. Hmm interesting I must say. Actually, it pertains to creating wiki like pages. Now people will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on and so forth. One of two things comes to my mind when I read about this new development. Firstly, will Wikipedia and Wikia become yesterday and secondly if it becomes due to certain reasons which I will elaborate later, then are we going to get crappy results (spoke about it in earlier post) which we most often get when we try finding something in Google.

Considering that, Wikipedia is turning out to be one of Google's biggest rivals in terms of search results. So there is all the more possibilities that Google is trying hard to kill both Wikipedia and Wikia (Jimmy Wales social search engine).

So the interesting detail among all these is the timing of this announcement which comes just days before Wikia's beta launch. So what's the future of Wikipedia and Wikia? It all rests in our hands. Though Google is in a win-win situation because of the following reasons:
  • Still we use Google as primary search engine and with its allied services, we will be driven towards making those knols which can anyway outrun Wikipedia in terms of the fresh content which we found in Wiki.
  • Remember Google's indexing mechanism which can now index Knols to a larger extent (since it's Google's own system)and keep the major traffic away from Wiki.
  • The moolah factor which is on the side of Google will definitely help it to close the deal better than wikipedia which is trying to raise some money.
  • The corporations just love Google because of its far-flung reach through its ads program and other different tie-ups. So when the corporations love Google and in a way hate Wikipedia on its openness program, so biting the larger chunk of the cake won't be that difficult for Google, I suppose.
  • Last but not least, the power of the masses is in favor of Google as of now due to its reach.
So my take on this will be conservative, as in, it will take some time for people to get used to Knols and creating, editing & publishing fresh content. But my gut feeling says that the war is far from getting over between Google & Wikipedia. And at the end of it all, we the users will be most benefited as I suppose some changes are due in Wiki's front and I personally want to see what Google comes up with next.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Height of Measuring Word-of-Mouth

Some skeptics say that social media lacks two most important attributes: One being the lack of scalability & the other being the measurability parameter. Though, I don't totally disagree with the above statement but it has always been one of my interests to understand how to measure effectiveness of things like word-of-mouth without asking the analytics guy to work overtime.

The answer came in a very weird fashion if I may say so. Being a marketer, it's important to have an eye for detailing. Even more in your observation, understanding and last but not least sharing the information with your peers, family and sometimes to those whom you don't actually like sometimes :-). So that is the very essence of word of mouth. But you can't actually measure it until & unless you see your sales figure or something related to that moving northwards. Isn't it?

But I have an interesting point of view here. You may disagree with me totally. But being a marketer, when you see your non-geek friend, less media savvy guy or sometimes your grandmother talk about something new which she has seen or heard; then you know that it must be working.

Actually, the point is that nowadays we read into too much of data and forgo the intuition part of it. So when your next door neighbor (whom you usually hate sometimes) tells you about a new gizmo he has seen few days back; remember that your company (if it is making that gizmo), then actually you are doing good in your word-of-mouth campaign. So Information+Intuition=Order of the day.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Memes, Haikus & Tinyurls are the order of the day

I am always on a lookout for what's in & what's out, primarily in the business arena. Though it will take the dexterity and finesse of a pro, still my thirst to find something in nothing won't go away that easy. I won't deny at this point that the idea of Twitter"ing" is just very addictive. But on the hindsight if you think about it, internet is nowadays so open that for a web onlooker like me memes, hiakus & tinyurl's is all that matters to start off a conversation.

"Conversation" or you can say dialogue (remember DI-alogue) is the power of two. Bearing the fact that once upon a time, it used to be just TV who was the sole bearer of ideas. Now the power has shifted and now every marketer knows the fact. Infact, the reason TV used to work tremendously well for quite some time was because that was new then and it touched people in a way which they could never have imagined. Now it's not so. The only reason that could be cited is due to more choices and less time. So the most obvious thing that consumers can do is to just ignore you (No wonder there are so many new product launch failures..approx 95%).

So then the whole Web 2.0 emerged. It's not at all that having a web presence will solve all the problems, but definitely it will help people to talk about you at the end of the day. Now, in the post PC era, companies which let its customers talk about itself makes "Meaning beyond Money". That is power of conversation.

And talking about conversation in Web 2.0, its not all about blogs, wikis etc. It's more about new emerging micro-trends like Twitter, Jaiku's, Truemors etc which are having a very significant & influential impact, even in business and the way your customers talk about you.

So at the end of it all, if you scroll down to that moment when you talk about customer touch points, think about this for a while. The latest cool thing for customers are memes, haikus and all those million tinyurl's which float in this vast web because now the customers can talk, share, criticize, spread the word about you.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

How can watching Movies in theaters be more interactive

Turn your brand message into a brand experience through emerging technologies- that's what most brand evangelists will say. But the question pertains to rather difficult proposition of nudging consumer's expectations.

I can't help thinking myself doing anything different except buying the usual popcorn, waiting for the intro trailers and finally the moment of truth i.e. the movie. So is there any other way to make movie-watching more exciting? How about this video....



The video above dubs the concept of "Human Joysticks". This shows the power of engagement & participation in the world of conversations between the value innovators (companies) and value perceivers (customers).

Monday, December 10, 2007

Happy Communion of Man,Technology & Data

Moments back, a friend told me about emerging technology trends and its repercussions on us. So where are we going exactly? 3 trends that have followed suit while we were sleeping :-) all this while were:
  1. Moore's Law which states that number of transistors on a chip doubles every after two years. Which means in a simple layman's term that we will see a lot of happenings in tech space (more in hardware though), but also somehow connected to software by and large.
  2. Data,Data everywhere: The second noteworthy thing is proliferation of data as suggested by Forrester Research which talks mostly about how the volume of the world’s data doubles approximately every three years.
  3. Third but lastly, the human element. More and more, in the post PC era (started with iPods,Zunes,iPhones etc), we are getting more and more techno savvy. So dilution of technology is at its prime and least amount of resistance is coming from consumers.
So, the picture seems perfect. Or we may say it seems like a happy communion of ever growing data with fitting technology to collect,hold & distribute it and at the end of it acceptance by man. So the future seems right, isn't it? Or it is just a small blip in the long tail of B.S.O.S. (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome).

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Word of Mouth - *The Pond-Ripple Effect*

It's not that word of mouth is now a trend. It's been there for ages; definitely in a different way of course starting from biblical ages. But things have definitely changed along the way. The way it was perceived; the way it was spread; the way it got assimilated in our culture. And of course authors writing about it, made hell lot of difference in the way companies took it as an important marketing tool- be it in form of viral like "dove-evolution to onslaught" campaign or "We didn't start the viral" campaign to name a few in recent times.

But there has been a shift in the way it used to be spread then and now. I call it "The Pond-Ripple Effect". To simplify the concept, few things have to be kept in mind. First, a news/information which has to be spread is more like a story which is passed along the way like a baton. Secondly, the target audience is more like a pond along whose contours we are going to play with (metaphor).

So, we are already there to demystify the strategy. Supposedly, a story (here it is like a stone) is thrown to a target audience (the pond) through various means of media to create a ripple effect i.e. some sort of hype (may be good or bad). Generally, the stone is thrown in the middle of the pond to create maximum ripples. But sooner or later it fades away because of media proliferation and lack of customer attention.

So what do we do now? No, we are not heading towards the dead end. Take this case into consideration. Supposedly, the same story is thrown towards some opinionated evangelists who forms the boundary of the target audience (the pond). Now what may happen is this- Since marketing today has become more of a reflection of social paradigms and we believe more on peer recommendation, so these stories will keep on adding new values all the way through in the pond with bigger & better ripples.

So at the end of the day, your target audience knows about you; credibility is duly manifested since in every culture we follow some figures who are most often than not opinionated and at the end of it, you are creating conversations which makes "Meaning beyond Money".

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

My 5 most favourite books- Have you read them?

It seems that the difference between a good marketer and a (not so good) marketer depends by and large on the amount of knowledge that he/she possesses. Now for me thats not all. For me it also depends on how the theory that we learn from these books can be practically transformed into real life solutions. Now thats what is required from a neo age Marketer.

So for all those knowledge thirsty marketers who are always on a lookout for refined knowledge resource, I fortunately came across some of the books which shaped me, guided me, molded me all this while. So this post is dedicated to all those greats who have written those books.

1. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin
2.
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke
3. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
4. The Search by John Battelle
5. Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe

This list of 5 books have been my best read books of the year 2007 (though the list is not on the priority basis). Hope to read some more like those in the next year. So what are you reading now?


Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Slidepost: Innovate to Differentiate

Months back, I wrote a post on "Innovate to Differentiate" in which I try to explain how Innovation is so important to essentially differentiate in the mass cluttered marketplace. Now I came up with a slide which I want to share in this post.


If any of you, has some suggestion, surely I will try to improve in my next slideshare post.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Advertising: Do you know the truth?

Ever wondered about why your customers are getting weary about your ad messages day by day. Now Nielsen did a global survey<download pdf> about which advertising platforms in use today is most effective in terms of generating "Trust" from consumers.

What emerged from this survey is quite interesting. I won't go much into the details (you better download the article) but one thing is of prime importance than everything else- Word of Mouth.

Meanwhile, I will give some of the most important and revealing truths about traditional media. Check it out for yourself; then you can decide whether your last advertising budget should have gone to better places.


  • 18%: Proportion of TV advertising campaigns generating positive ROI
  • 54 cents: Average return in sales for every $1 spent on advertising
  • 256%: The increase in TV advertising costs (CPM) in the past decade
  • 84%: Proportion of B2B marketing campaigns resulting in falling sales
  • 100%: The increase needed in advertising spend to add 1-2% in sales
  • 14%: Proportion of people who trust advertising information
  • 90%: Proportion of people who can skip TV ads who do skip TV ads
  • 80%: Market share of video recorders with ad skipping technology in 2008
  • 95%: The failure rate for new product introductions
  • 117: The number of prime time TV spots in 2002 needed to reach 80% of adult population – up from just 3 in 1965
  • 3000: Number of advertising messages people are exposed to per day
  • 56%: Proportion of people who avoid buying products from companies who they think advertise too much
  • 65%: Proportion of people who believe that they are constantly bombarded with too much advertising
  • 69%: Proportion of people interested in technology or devices that enable them to skip or block advertising
Source: Justin Kirby & Paul Marsden (2006). Connected marketing. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. xix

So based on these hard data, everything boils down to two important questions:

  1. How are you going to engage your customers?
  2. How are you going to deliver good customer experiences consistently?

Monday, December 31, 2007

Top 5 Marketing Predictions for 2008

This month, I have seen many trends being talked about from media, marketing, internet, technology, innovation or what not (Posted earlier) all across the internet. Some are big while some are just micro (in real sense). Some will be hit or hot for year 2008 while some will just fizz away with WTF* statement!!

Still I wanted to share something which I have been seeing for quite sometime now in the business circuit, especially in the marketing arena for that matter. So here are my trends for year 2008:-
  • Branding Shift: Branding will move from traditional way to more nicher media with the advent of newer technologies. Usage of internet as a branding medium will catch on the fire, even in India.
  • Total Brand Experience: Advertisements in the form of televison, outdoors, billboards etc will bring customers close to the brands to complete that “Total Brand Experience” i.e. TBE. Even the engagement of these interactions between customers & brands will increase next year.

  • Social Media Fire: Countries like India where mass marketing is the bread & butter for most marketers, social media will catch the fire as marketers will realize the potentiality of social media. Companies will start using SN and Twitter to understand their customers in a better way. Social Media will be more prominent in western countries with importance on more customer interactivity.

  • Search Engine Optimization: Companies will move away slowly but steadily from Google as advertisement repository to more nicher areas like Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us etc (Social Bookmarking sites). The reason is relevant search results for end users. Year 2008 will start the beginning of the importance of Semantic Web until Google starts thinking hard to tackle it. I'm sure they will with Knol etc.

  • More disruptive Innovations: Companies like Apple, Google, MSFT and not forgetting Facebook alikes will come with more innovations (mostly disruptive which will set the industry standards). We will see many new products as well great new services.
These 5 predictions will be there in year 2008 mostly. Though all may not be true but I just hope most of them are. But I can guarantee one thing for the future: THE CUSTOMERS WILL HAVE MANY BETTER CHOICES. So companies have to really try hard to pull that extra buck out of our wallet.

So lastly Happy New Year to all of you and have a great time ahead. Cheers!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Using Facebook as Marketing Platform

I have been using Facebook for quite sometime now. Though as a social networking site, it's not that much prevalent in India till now (::come next year though:: It will be a different scene altogether). As a matter of fact, if you type "India" in Facebook search, this is the figure that will show up (People=500+; Groups=130; Events=141; Applications=18). This figure is quite less compared to other active social networking countries. Reason may be partly due to its emergence in the West and less promotion in the east.

Still Facebook as a Marketing Platform can never be denied in terms of its Web Apps/Widgets. Though it can't be ruled as a viable option too. But Facebook with it's rapidly growing user base can be a marketer's bread & butter in terms of exposure for your brand, product or website.

Ways in which Facebook can be used as a marketing platform for companies are:

#1. Targeted Brand Exposure: Facebook with its clearly demarcated demographics can be easily used to to spread the brand communication message.

#2. Viral Marketing: Facebook can be used to spread the word as both content (brand message) & services are fused together in a single platform. E.g. Amazon's Visual Bookshelf apps. The bigger picture is that companies won't have to spend much since the word will be carried forward by the users as engagement between users & apps increases when value will be added to each interaction between apps and users.

#3. Easy hunting ground for Market Research: Facebook's biggest success formula has been it varied demographics ranging from teens to baby boomers. So companies can easily use this wide demographics for different Market Research to understand its target market in a better way.

Not everything is rosy about Facebook. Along with so much promise, there still lurks the usual fad attached to social networking sites like these. So some of the problems marketers may face are:

#1. Fad attached to social networking sites: If something new and cool comes in the way and as we all are aware of B.S.O.S (Bright & Shiny Object Syndrome), so Facebook may just dissipate in the horizon.

#2.
Flyers to Fliers: Furthermore, while some users praise Facebook flyers because they blend in with the rest of the Facebook interface and are not intrusive, others argue that this is precisely the reason why the click-through rates are so low. At the same time, these people welcome using pay-per-click marketing because that way, you only pay when someone notices and clicks on your advertisement. (Thanks Pronetadvertising)

So at the end of it all, Creativity is "THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP" in approaching social communities and hence opportunities can be created if, and only if, you play by the rules and also as marketers we have to consider "Adding value to each interaction" i.e. c0-create the naturally viral nature of the community instead of forcing it.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Links for 2007-12-26

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

5 things I did & learnt in 2007

As year 2007 is coming to its end, I sat back and tried to scribble some thoughts about what I did & learn this year as a marketer, a social being and more importantly as a human being. So here are the 5 most important things I learnt in 2007 (in random order):

#1. I started my blog which helped me not only in jotting down random thoughts about marketing and life par se but also these thoughts are now present as an online journal. I can look back at those reflections whenever I want to. In the process, I got some applause as well as criticism. Thanks a ton to everyone for those comments too.

#2. I became more active in Social Media (apart from my single a/c in orkut). Now I have active accounts in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,AdGabber, SlideShare, StumpleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us etc to name a few. These associations helped me to understand Marketing in a whole new way.

#3. In this process, I joined as well as promoted some social causes like "Cause a Ripple" (which is still in my weblog) to "Stop Global Warming" (in my Facebook Profile) to name a few. It helped me realize that as social human beings it's our duty to give something back to our future Gen (though in a small way) as well as our Mother Earth.

#4. Network of Associations: This year I have networked with people whom I know from distant past as well as with people from some social networking sites. This has helped me to learn a lot from small snippets to large gimmicks. Thanks to Twitter as well as to those bloggers (a long list actually) by and large.

#5. Year 2007 has been quite fulfilling in terms of amount of quality books that I read (Posted earlier in my blog). All in all, I read something about 15 odd books which were not only insightful but also quite heart rendering at times.

So for me year 2007 has been quite enriching in terms of learning, networking as well as my long term desire of philanthropy (in small measure though). So I hope year 2008 also brings the same - not only for me but all my blog readers as well as those who are going to read it in the near future. So, all my well wishes from my side for year 2008.

So what about you in 2007? Did you had a good year?

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas ::Ho Ho Ho::


I would like to wish all of you merry Christmas and a happy & prosperous 2008.

One more thing about Xmas which really excites me is "Coke" and Christmas' Santa Claus. The similarity is stupendous. Especially the color combination i.e. Red & white which symbolizes Coke all the way. Did Santa wore it all the way through or it was just a perfectly executed marketing plan which become some sort of "Marketing Icon" by itself. Great work by Coke guys (especially attaching religious myth with brand imagery). So as long as X-Mas will be around we will never forget Santa or its pal Coke!!

Further reading @ Love for color Red in Brand Logos

Friday, December 21, 2007

*Christvertising*:God & Branding

In the process of discovering insightful as well as weird sites, I stumbled upon this one. It's up to you guys to decide whether this is hilarious, insightful or sheer blasphemous. After seeing this, one thing becomes very clear i.e. US people take their Christian Belief very seriously. According to their Website (link) i.e. "Christvertising", they proclaim that through their BTP (Brand Targeted Prayers), millions of ardent Christian believers will pray for your brands. So all in all, here's "Christvertising" as well as me wishing you merry Christmas and Happy 2008.



Sources: Adverblog

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Getting Nostalgic (the ad syndrome)

Nothing great about the ad though, but remembering those days. Actually seeing this ad after a long time (beautifully crafted by P&G and Saatchi & Saatchi). I feel from a marketer's point of view that we all are turning out to be like them i.e. self-centric kid in this era of prosumer (producer+consumer).


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Links for 2007-12-18

Monday, December 17, 2007

India: Thinking Digital, Going Conventional

What it means to go digital? Is it another B.S.O.S (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome) which the industry guys just love to latch on. Part of my statement is due to the fact that most of the executions are not that new. They are the same old crap wrapped in neat packages.

Almost all the companies in the world, starting from emerging markets like India to developed nations like US have some kind of presence in web. But the point is how much importance do the top honchos give to this new system of distribution and connection with the customers where the long tail concept is very evidential.

Specially talking about emerging markets like India, the Long Tail concept loses it bastion which it enjoys in western countries in most of the product categories. So when does a company think digital in emerging markets? By and large, most of the activities related to engaging the customers are very conventional in terms of communicating with the customers.

Some of the major road blocks in the way to go digital are lack of awareness of the potential of internet (both in terms of scale as well as reach), low awareness about how internet marketing works at multi-stage level and last but not least resistance to try out new things. Still over the couple of years, internet has gathered some critical mass (at least you can see that in everyday newspapers).So when and how do we exactly start off doing digital....
  • Traditional + Digital = Effective customer engagement: A right blend of both traditional marketing and digital marketing is what is required now. Since the customers are habitual of the usual touchpoints, so going totally digital won't solve the problem. But using technology to co-create newer touchpoints can surely engage your customers in a varied level.
  • Proliferation of newer Technologies: Every month, near about a million cell phone users get added up in India. Whoa!! Thats a huge figure. So getting access to new technologies to engage the customers have increased. But the pace at which the customers have accepted these newer technologies is not at the same rate that of the companies. So try using it to nudge your customer's expectation but bearing the fact that it should not be an interrupting proposition.
  • Exciting those senses:Digital marketing has the power to excite our senses like sight, sound and motion (SiSoMo).Now think about your customers who have always been fed with monologue communication process. This will definitely excite them and make them think about you in this media cluttered environment.
This is the crux of the post. Though there can be other ways too to reach customers and engage them. So any thoughts from your side....

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Links for 2007-12-15

Friday, December 14, 2007

Google's "Don't be Evil" mantra - Holy shit

Last night Google announced that they are starting a new project named Knol. Hmm interesting I must say. Actually, it pertains to creating wiki like pages. Now people will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on and so forth. One of two things comes to my mind when I read about this new development. Firstly, will Wikipedia and Wikia become yesterday and secondly if it becomes due to certain reasons which I will elaborate later, then are we going to get crappy results (spoke about it in earlier post) which we most often get when we try finding something in Google.

Considering that, Wikipedia is turning out to be one of Google's biggest rivals in terms of search results. So there is all the more possibilities that Google is trying hard to kill both Wikipedia and Wikia (Jimmy Wales social search engine).

So the interesting detail among all these is the timing of this announcement which comes just days before Wikia's beta launch. So what's the future of Wikipedia and Wikia? It all rests in our hands. Though Google is in a win-win situation because of the following reasons:
  • Still we use Google as primary search engine and with its allied services, we will be driven towards making those knols which can anyway outrun Wikipedia in terms of the fresh content which we found in Wiki.
  • Remember Google's indexing mechanism which can now index Knols to a larger extent (since it's Google's own system)and keep the major traffic away from Wiki.
  • The moolah factor which is on the side of Google will definitely help it to close the deal better than wikipedia which is trying to raise some money.
  • The corporations just love Google because of its far-flung reach through its ads program and other different tie-ups. So when the corporations love Google and in a way hate Wikipedia on its openness program, so biting the larger chunk of the cake won't be that difficult for Google, I suppose.
  • Last but not least, the power of the masses is in favor of Google as of now due to its reach.
So my take on this will be conservative, as in, it will take some time for people to get used to Knols and creating, editing & publishing fresh content. But my gut feeling says that the war is far from getting over between Google & Wikipedia. And at the end of it all, we the users will be most benefited as I suppose some changes are due in Wiki's front and I personally want to see what Google comes up with next.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Height of Measuring Word-of-Mouth

Some skeptics say that social media lacks two most important attributes: One being the lack of scalability & the other being the measurability parameter. Though, I don't totally disagree with the above statement but it has always been one of my interests to understand how to measure effectiveness of things like word-of-mouth without asking the analytics guy to work overtime.

The answer came in a very weird fashion if I may say so. Being a marketer, it's important to have an eye for detailing. Even more in your observation, understanding and last but not least sharing the information with your peers, family and sometimes to those whom you don't actually like sometimes :-). So that is the very essence of word of mouth. But you can't actually measure it until & unless you see your sales figure or something related to that moving northwards. Isn't it?

But I have an interesting point of view here. You may disagree with me totally. But being a marketer, when you see your non-geek friend, less media savvy guy or sometimes your grandmother talk about something new which she has seen or heard; then you know that it must be working.

Actually, the point is that nowadays we read into too much of data and forgo the intuition part of it. So when your next door neighbor (whom you usually hate sometimes) tells you about a new gizmo he has seen few days back; remember that your company (if it is making that gizmo), then actually you are doing good in your word-of-mouth campaign. So Information+Intuition=Order of the day.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Memes, Haikus & Tinyurls are the order of the day

I am always on a lookout for what's in & what's out, primarily in the business arena. Though it will take the dexterity and finesse of a pro, still my thirst to find something in nothing won't go away that easy. I won't deny at this point that the idea of Twitter"ing" is just very addictive. But on the hindsight if you think about it, internet is nowadays so open that for a web onlooker like me memes, hiakus & tinyurl's is all that matters to start off a conversation.

"Conversation" or you can say dialogue (remember DI-alogue) is the power of two. Bearing the fact that once upon a time, it used to be just TV who was the sole bearer of ideas. Now the power has shifted and now every marketer knows the fact. Infact, the reason TV used to work tremendously well for quite some time was because that was new then and it touched people in a way which they could never have imagined. Now it's not so. The only reason that could be cited is due to more choices and less time. So the most obvious thing that consumers can do is to just ignore you (No wonder there are so many new product launch failures..approx 95%).

So then the whole Web 2.0 emerged. It's not at all that having a web presence will solve all the problems, but definitely it will help people to talk about you at the end of the day. Now, in the post PC era, companies which let its customers talk about itself makes "Meaning beyond Money". That is power of conversation.

And talking about conversation in Web 2.0, its not all about blogs, wikis etc. It's more about new emerging micro-trends like Twitter, Jaiku's, Truemors etc which are having a very significant & influential impact, even in business and the way your customers talk about you.

So at the end of it all, if you scroll down to that moment when you talk about customer touch points, think about this for a while. The latest cool thing for customers are memes, haikus and all those million tinyurl's which float in this vast web because now the customers can talk, share, criticize, spread the word about you.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

How can watching Movies in theaters be more interactive

Turn your brand message into a brand experience through emerging technologies- that's what most brand evangelists will say. But the question pertains to rather difficult proposition of nudging consumer's expectations.

I can't help thinking myself doing anything different except buying the usual popcorn, waiting for the intro trailers and finally the moment of truth i.e. the movie. So is there any other way to make movie-watching more exciting? How about this video....



The video above dubs the concept of "Human Joysticks". This shows the power of engagement & participation in the world of conversations between the value innovators (companies) and value perceivers (customers).

Monday, December 10, 2007

Happy Communion of Man,Technology & Data

Moments back, a friend told me about emerging technology trends and its repercussions on us. So where are we going exactly? 3 trends that have followed suit while we were sleeping :-) all this while were:
  1. Moore's Law which states that number of transistors on a chip doubles every after two years. Which means in a simple layman's term that we will see a lot of happenings in tech space (more in hardware though), but also somehow connected to software by and large.
  2. Data,Data everywhere: The second noteworthy thing is proliferation of data as suggested by Forrester Research which talks mostly about how the volume of the world’s data doubles approximately every three years.
  3. Third but lastly, the human element. More and more, in the post PC era (started with iPods,Zunes,iPhones etc), we are getting more and more techno savvy. So dilution of technology is at its prime and least amount of resistance is coming from consumers.
So, the picture seems perfect. Or we may say it seems like a happy communion of ever growing data with fitting technology to collect,hold & distribute it and at the end of it acceptance by man. So the future seems right, isn't it? Or it is just a small blip in the long tail of B.S.O.S. (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome).

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Word of Mouth - *The Pond-Ripple Effect*

It's not that word of mouth is now a trend. It's been there for ages; definitely in a different way of course starting from biblical ages. But things have definitely changed along the way. The way it was perceived; the way it was spread; the way it got assimilated in our culture. And of course authors writing about it, made hell lot of difference in the way companies took it as an important marketing tool- be it in form of viral like "dove-evolution to onslaught" campaign or "We didn't start the viral" campaign to name a few in recent times.

But there has been a shift in the way it used to be spread then and now. I call it "The Pond-Ripple Effect". To simplify the concept, few things have to be kept in mind. First, a news/information which has to be spread is more like a story which is passed along the way like a baton. Secondly, the target audience is more like a pond along whose contours we are going to play with (metaphor).

So, we are already there to demystify the strategy. Supposedly, a story (here it is like a stone) is thrown to a target audience (the pond) through various means of media to create a ripple effect i.e. some sort of hype (may be good or bad). Generally, the stone is thrown in the middle of the pond to create maximum ripples. But sooner or later it fades away because of media proliferation and lack of customer attention.

So what do we do now? No, we are not heading towards the dead end. Take this case into consideration. Supposedly, the same story is thrown towards some opinionated evangelists who forms the boundary of the target audience (the pond). Now what may happen is this- Since marketing today has become more of a reflection of social paradigms and we believe more on peer recommendation, so these stories will keep on adding new values all the way through in the pond with bigger & better ripples.

So at the end of the day, your target audience knows about you; credibility is duly manifested since in every culture we follow some figures who are most often than not opinionated and at the end of it, you are creating conversations which makes "Meaning beyond Money".

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

My 5 most favourite books- Have you read them?

It seems that the difference between a good marketer and a (not so good) marketer depends by and large on the amount of knowledge that he/she possesses. Now for me thats not all. For me it also depends on how the theory that we learn from these books can be practically transformed into real life solutions. Now thats what is required from a neo age Marketer.

So for all those knowledge thirsty marketers who are always on a lookout for refined knowledge resource, I fortunately came across some of the books which shaped me, guided me, molded me all this while. So this post is dedicated to all those greats who have written those books.

1. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin
2.
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke
3. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
4. The Search by John Battelle
5. Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe

This list of 5 books have been my best read books of the year 2007 (though the list is not on the priority basis). Hope to read some more like those in the next year. So what are you reading now?


Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Slidepost: Innovate to Differentiate

Months back, I wrote a post on "Innovate to Differentiate" in which I try to explain how Innovation is so important to essentially differentiate in the mass cluttered marketplace. Now I came up with a slide which I want to share in this post.


If any of you, has some suggestion, surely I will try to improve in my next slideshare post.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Advertising: Do you know the truth?

Ever wondered about why your customers are getting weary about your ad messages day by day. Now Nielsen did a global survey<download pdf> about which advertising platforms in use today is most effective in terms of generating "Trust" from consumers.

What emerged from this survey is quite interesting. I won't go much into the details (you better download the article) but one thing is of prime importance than everything else- Word of Mouth.

Meanwhile, I will give some of the most important and revealing truths about traditional media. Check it out for yourself; then you can decide whether your last advertising budget should have gone to better places.


  • 18%: Proportion of TV advertising campaigns generating positive ROI
  • 54 cents: Average return in sales for every $1 spent on advertising
  • 256%: The increase in TV advertising costs (CPM) in the past decade
  • 84%: Proportion of B2B marketing campaigns resulting in falling sales
  • 100%: The increase needed in advertising spend to add 1-2% in sales
  • 14%: Proportion of people who trust advertising information
  • 90%: Proportion of people who can skip TV ads who do skip TV ads
  • 80%: Market share of video recorders with ad skipping technology in 2008
  • 95%: The failure rate for new product introductions
  • 117: The number of prime time TV spots in 2002 needed to reach 80% of adult population – up from just 3 in 1965
  • 3000: Number of advertising messages people are exposed to per day
  • 56%: Proportion of people who avoid buying products from companies who they think advertise too much
  • 65%: Proportion of people who believe that they are constantly bombarded with too much advertising
  • 69%: Proportion of people interested in technology or devices that enable them to skip or block advertising
Source: Justin Kirby & Paul Marsden (2006). Connected marketing. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. xix

So based on these hard data, everything boils down to two important questions:

  1. How are you going to engage your customers?
  2. How are you going to deliver good customer experiences consistently?

Monday, December 31, 2007

Top 5 Marketing Predictions for 2008

This month, I have seen many trends being talked about from media, marketing, internet, technology, innovation or what not (Posted earlier) all across the internet. Some are big while some are just micro (in real sense). Some will be hit or hot for year 2008 while some will just fizz away with WTF* statement!!

Still I wanted to share something which I have been seeing for quite sometime now in the business circuit, especially in the marketing arena for that matter. So here are my trends for year 2008:-
  • Branding Shift: Branding will move from traditional way to more nicher media with the advent of newer technologies. Usage of internet as a branding medium will catch on the fire, even in India.
  • Total Brand Experience: Advertisements in the form of televison, outdoors, billboards etc will bring customers close to the brands to complete that “Total Brand Experience” i.e. TBE. Even the engagement of these interactions between customers & brands will increase next year.

  • Social Media Fire: Countries like India where mass marketing is the bread & butter for most marketers, social media will catch the fire as marketers will realize the potentiality of social media. Companies will start using SN and Twitter to understand their customers in a better way. Social Media will be more prominent in western countries with importance on more customer interactivity.

  • Search Engine Optimization: Companies will move away slowly but steadily from Google as advertisement repository to more nicher areas like Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us etc (Social Bookmarking sites). The reason is relevant search results for end users. Year 2008 will start the beginning of the importance of Semantic Web until Google starts thinking hard to tackle it. I'm sure they will with Knol etc.

  • More disruptive Innovations: Companies like Apple, Google, MSFT and not forgetting Facebook alikes will come with more innovations (mostly disruptive which will set the industry standards). We will see many new products as well great new services.
These 5 predictions will be there in year 2008 mostly. Though all may not be true but I just hope most of them are. But I can guarantee one thing for the future: THE CUSTOMERS WILL HAVE MANY BETTER CHOICES. So companies have to really try hard to pull that extra buck out of our wallet.

So lastly Happy New Year to all of you and have a great time ahead. Cheers!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Using Facebook as Marketing Platform

I have been using Facebook for quite sometime now. Though as a social networking site, it's not that much prevalent in India till now (::come next year though:: It will be a different scene altogether). As a matter of fact, if you type "India" in Facebook search, this is the figure that will show up (People=500+; Groups=130; Events=141; Applications=18). This figure is quite less compared to other active social networking countries. Reason may be partly due to its emergence in the West and less promotion in the east.

Still Facebook as a Marketing Platform can never be denied in terms of its Web Apps/Widgets. Though it can't be ruled as a viable option too. But Facebook with it's rapidly growing user base can be a marketer's bread & butter in terms of exposure for your brand, product or website.

Ways in which Facebook can be used as a marketing platform for companies are:

#1. Targeted Brand Exposure: Facebook with its clearly demarcated demographics can be easily used to to spread the brand communication message.

#2. Viral Marketing: Facebook can be used to spread the word as both content (brand message) & services are fused together in a single platform. E.g. Amazon's Visual Bookshelf apps. The bigger picture is that companies won't have to spend much since the word will be carried forward by the users as engagement between users & apps increases when value will be added to each interaction between apps and users.

#3. Easy hunting ground for Market Research: Facebook's biggest success formula has been it varied demographics ranging from teens to baby boomers. So companies can easily use this wide demographics for different Market Research to understand its target market in a better way.

Not everything is rosy about Facebook. Along with so much promise, there still lurks the usual fad attached to social networking sites like these. So some of the problems marketers may face are:

#1. Fad attached to social networking sites: If something new and cool comes in the way and as we all are aware of B.S.O.S (Bright & Shiny Object Syndrome), so Facebook may just dissipate in the horizon.

#2.
Flyers to Fliers: Furthermore, while some users praise Facebook flyers because they blend in with the rest of the Facebook interface and are not intrusive, others argue that this is precisely the reason why the click-through rates are so low. At the same time, these people welcome using pay-per-click marketing because that way, you only pay when someone notices and clicks on your advertisement. (Thanks Pronetadvertising)

So at the end of it all, Creativity is "THE MOST IMPORTANT STEP" in approaching social communities and hence opportunities can be created if, and only if, you play by the rules and also as marketers we have to consider "Adding value to each interaction" i.e. c0-create the naturally viral nature of the community instead of forcing it.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Links for 2007-12-26

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

5 things I did & learnt in 2007

As year 2007 is coming to its end, I sat back and tried to scribble some thoughts about what I did & learn this year as a marketer, a social being and more importantly as a human being. So here are the 5 most important things I learnt in 2007 (in random order):

#1. I started my blog which helped me not only in jotting down random thoughts about marketing and life par se but also these thoughts are now present as an online journal. I can look back at those reflections whenever I want to. In the process, I got some applause as well as criticism. Thanks a ton to everyone for those comments too.

#2. I became more active in Social Media (apart from my single a/c in orkut). Now I have active accounts in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,AdGabber, SlideShare, StumpleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us etc to name a few. These associations helped me to understand Marketing in a whole new way.

#3. In this process, I joined as well as promoted some social causes like "Cause a Ripple" (which is still in my weblog) to "Stop Global Warming" (in my Facebook Profile) to name a few. It helped me realize that as social human beings it's our duty to give something back to our future Gen (though in a small way) as well as our Mother Earth.

#4. Network of Associations: This year I have networked with people whom I know from distant past as well as with people from some social networking sites. This has helped me to learn a lot from small snippets to large gimmicks. Thanks to Twitter as well as to those bloggers (a long list actually) by and large.

#5. Year 2007 has been quite fulfilling in terms of amount of quality books that I read (Posted earlier in my blog). All in all, I read something about 15 odd books which were not only insightful but also quite heart rendering at times.

So for me year 2007 has been quite enriching in terms of learning, networking as well as my long term desire of philanthropy (in small measure though). So I hope year 2008 also brings the same - not only for me but all my blog readers as well as those who are going to read it in the near future. So, all my well wishes from my side for year 2008.

So what about you in 2007? Did you had a good year?

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas ::Ho Ho Ho::


I would like to wish all of you merry Christmas and a happy & prosperous 2008.

One more thing about Xmas which really excites me is "Coke" and Christmas' Santa Claus. The similarity is stupendous. Especially the color combination i.e. Red & white which symbolizes Coke all the way. Did Santa wore it all the way through or it was just a perfectly executed marketing plan which become some sort of "Marketing Icon" by itself. Great work by Coke guys (especially attaching religious myth with brand imagery). So as long as X-Mas will be around we will never forget Santa or its pal Coke!!

Further reading @ Love for color Red in Brand Logos

Friday, December 21, 2007

*Christvertising*:God & Branding

In the process of discovering insightful as well as weird sites, I stumbled upon this one. It's up to you guys to decide whether this is hilarious, insightful or sheer blasphemous. After seeing this, one thing becomes very clear i.e. US people take their Christian Belief very seriously. According to their Website (link) i.e. "Christvertising", they proclaim that through their BTP (Brand Targeted Prayers), millions of ardent Christian believers will pray for your brands. So all in all, here's "Christvertising" as well as me wishing you merry Christmas and Happy 2008.



Sources: Adverblog

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Getting Nostalgic (the ad syndrome)

Nothing great about the ad though, but remembering those days. Actually seeing this ad after a long time (beautifully crafted by P&G and Saatchi & Saatchi). I feel from a marketer's point of view that we all are turning out to be like them i.e. self-centric kid in this era of prosumer (producer+consumer).


Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Links for 2007-12-18

Monday, December 17, 2007

India: Thinking Digital, Going Conventional

What it means to go digital? Is it another B.S.O.S (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome) which the industry guys just love to latch on. Part of my statement is due to the fact that most of the executions are not that new. They are the same old crap wrapped in neat packages.

Almost all the companies in the world, starting from emerging markets like India to developed nations like US have some kind of presence in web. But the point is how much importance do the top honchos give to this new system of distribution and connection with the customers where the long tail concept is very evidential.

Specially talking about emerging markets like India, the Long Tail concept loses it bastion which it enjoys in western countries in most of the product categories. So when does a company think digital in emerging markets? By and large, most of the activities related to engaging the customers are very conventional in terms of communicating with the customers.

Some of the major road blocks in the way to go digital are lack of awareness of the potential of internet (both in terms of scale as well as reach), low awareness about how internet marketing works at multi-stage level and last but not least resistance to try out new things. Still over the couple of years, internet has gathered some critical mass (at least you can see that in everyday newspapers).So when and how do we exactly start off doing digital....
  • Traditional + Digital = Effective customer engagement: A right blend of both traditional marketing and digital marketing is what is required now. Since the customers are habitual of the usual touchpoints, so going totally digital won't solve the problem. But using technology to co-create newer touchpoints can surely engage your customers in a varied level.
  • Proliferation of newer Technologies: Every month, near about a million cell phone users get added up in India. Whoa!! Thats a huge figure. So getting access to new technologies to engage the customers have increased. But the pace at which the customers have accepted these newer technologies is not at the same rate that of the companies. So try using it to nudge your customer's expectation but bearing the fact that it should not be an interrupting proposition.
  • Exciting those senses:Digital marketing has the power to excite our senses like sight, sound and motion (SiSoMo).Now think about your customers who have always been fed with monologue communication process. This will definitely excite them and make them think about you in this media cluttered environment.
This is the crux of the post. Though there can be other ways too to reach customers and engage them. So any thoughts from your side....

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Links for 2007-12-15

Friday, December 14, 2007

Google's "Don't be Evil" mantra - Holy shit

Last night Google announced that they are starting a new project named Knol. Hmm interesting I must say. Actually, it pertains to creating wiki like pages. Now people will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on and so forth. One of two things comes to my mind when I read about this new development. Firstly, will Wikipedia and Wikia become yesterday and secondly if it becomes due to certain reasons which I will elaborate later, then are we going to get crappy results (spoke about it in earlier post) which we most often get when we try finding something in Google.

Considering that, Wikipedia is turning out to be one of Google's biggest rivals in terms of search results. So there is all the more possibilities that Google is trying hard to kill both Wikipedia and Wikia (Jimmy Wales social search engine).

So the interesting detail among all these is the timing of this announcement which comes just days before Wikia's beta launch. So what's the future of Wikipedia and Wikia? It all rests in our hands. Though Google is in a win-win situation because of the following reasons:
  • Still we use Google as primary search engine and with its allied services, we will be driven towards making those knols which can anyway outrun Wikipedia in terms of the fresh content which we found in Wiki.
  • Remember Google's indexing mechanism which can now index Knols to a larger extent (since it's Google's own system)and keep the major traffic away from Wiki.
  • The moolah factor which is on the side of Google will definitely help it to close the deal better than wikipedia which is trying to raise some money.
  • The corporations just love Google because of its far-flung reach through its ads program and other different tie-ups. So when the corporations love Google and in a way hate Wikipedia on its openness program, so biting the larger chunk of the cake won't be that difficult for Google, I suppose.
  • Last but not least, the power of the masses is in favor of Google as of now due to its reach.
So my take on this will be conservative, as in, it will take some time for people to get used to Knols and creating, editing & publishing fresh content. But my gut feeling says that the war is far from getting over between Google & Wikipedia. And at the end of it all, we the users will be most benefited as I suppose some changes are due in Wiki's front and I personally want to see what Google comes up with next.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Height of Measuring Word-of-Mouth

Some skeptics say that social media lacks two most important attributes: One being the lack of scalability & the other being the measurability parameter. Though, I don't totally disagree with the above statement but it has always been one of my interests to understand how to measure effectiveness of things like word-of-mouth without asking the analytics guy to work overtime.

The answer came in a very weird fashion if I may say so. Being a marketer, it's important to have an eye for detailing. Even more in your observation, understanding and last but not least sharing the information with your peers, family and sometimes to those whom you don't actually like sometimes :-). So that is the very essence of word of mouth. But you can't actually measure it until & unless you see your sales figure or something related to that moving northwards. Isn't it?

But I have an interesting point of view here. You may disagree with me totally. But being a marketer, when you see your non-geek friend, less media savvy guy or sometimes your grandmother talk about something new which she has seen or heard; then you know that it must be working.

Actually, the point is that nowadays we read into too much of data and forgo the intuition part of it. So when your next door neighbor (whom you usually hate sometimes) tells you about a new gizmo he has seen few days back; remember that your company (if it is making that gizmo), then actually you are doing good in your word-of-mouth campaign. So Information+Intuition=Order of the day.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Memes, Haikus & Tinyurls are the order of the day

I am always on a lookout for what's in & what's out, primarily in the business arena. Though it will take the dexterity and finesse of a pro, still my thirst to find something in nothing won't go away that easy. I won't deny at this point that the idea of Twitter"ing" is just very addictive. But on the hindsight if you think about it, internet is nowadays so open that for a web onlooker like me memes, hiakus & tinyurl's is all that matters to start off a conversation.

"Conversation" or you can say dialogue (remember DI-alogue) is the power of two. Bearing the fact that once upon a time, it used to be just TV who was the sole bearer of ideas. Now the power has shifted and now every marketer knows the fact. Infact, the reason TV used to work tremendously well for quite some time was because that was new then and it touched people in a way which they could never have imagined. Now it's not so. The only reason that could be cited is due to more choices and less time. So the most obvious thing that consumers can do is to just ignore you (No wonder there are so many new product launch failures..approx 95%).

So then the whole Web 2.0 emerged. It's not at all that having a web presence will solve all the problems, but definitely it will help people to talk about you at the end of the day. Now, in the post PC era, companies which let its customers talk about itself makes "Meaning beyond Money". That is power of conversation.

And talking about conversation in Web 2.0, its not all about blogs, wikis etc. It's more about new emerging micro-trends like Twitter, Jaiku's, Truemors etc which are having a very significant & influential impact, even in business and the way your customers talk about you.

So at the end of it all, if you scroll down to that moment when you talk about customer touch points, think about this for a while. The latest cool thing for customers are memes, haikus and all those million tinyurl's which float in this vast web because now the customers can talk, share, criticize, spread the word about you.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

How can watching Movies in theaters be more interactive

Turn your brand message into a brand experience through emerging technologies- that's what most brand evangelists will say. But the question pertains to rather difficult proposition of nudging consumer's expectations.

I can't help thinking myself doing anything different except buying the usual popcorn, waiting for the intro trailers and finally the moment of truth i.e. the movie. So is there any other way to make movie-watching more exciting? How about this video....



The video above dubs the concept of "Human Joysticks". This shows the power of engagement & participation in the world of conversations between the value innovators (companies) and value perceivers (customers).

Monday, December 10, 2007

Happy Communion of Man,Technology & Data

Moments back, a friend told me about emerging technology trends and its repercussions on us. So where are we going exactly? 3 trends that have followed suit while we were sleeping :-) all this while were:
  1. Moore's Law which states that number of transistors on a chip doubles every after two years. Which means in a simple layman's term that we will see a lot of happenings in tech space (more in hardware though), but also somehow connected to software by and large.
  2. Data,Data everywhere: The second noteworthy thing is proliferation of data as suggested by Forrester Research which talks mostly about how the volume of the world’s data doubles approximately every three years.
  3. Third but lastly, the human element. More and more, in the post PC era (started with iPods,Zunes,iPhones etc), we are getting more and more techno savvy. So dilution of technology is at its prime and least amount of resistance is coming from consumers.
So, the picture seems perfect. Or we may say it seems like a happy communion of ever growing data with fitting technology to collect,hold & distribute it and at the end of it acceptance by man. So the future seems right, isn't it? Or it is just a small blip in the long tail of B.S.O.S. (Bright and Shiny Objects Syndrome).

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Word of Mouth - *The Pond-Ripple Effect*

It's not that word of mouth is now a trend. It's been there for ages; definitely in a different way of course starting from biblical ages. But things have definitely changed along the way. The way it was perceived; the way it was spread; the way it got assimilated in our culture. And of course authors writing about it, made hell lot of difference in the way companies took it as an important marketing tool- be it in form of viral like "dove-evolution to onslaught" campaign or "We didn't start the viral" campaign to name a few in recent times.

But there has been a shift in the way it used to be spread then and now. I call it "The Pond-Ripple Effect". To simplify the concept, few things have to be kept in mind. First, a news/information which has to be spread is more like a story which is passed along the way like a baton. Secondly, the target audience is more like a pond along whose contours we are going to play with (metaphor).

So, we are already there to demystify the strategy. Supposedly, a story (here it is like a stone) is thrown to a target audience (the pond) through various means of media to create a ripple effect i.e. some sort of hype (may be good or bad). Generally, the stone is thrown in the middle of the pond to create maximum ripples. But sooner or later it fades away because of media proliferation and lack of customer attention.

So what do we do now? No, we are not heading towards the dead end. Take this case into consideration. Supposedly, the same story is thrown towards some opinionated evangelists who forms the boundary of the target audience (the pond). Now what may happen is this- Since marketing today has become more of a reflection of social paradigms and we believe more on peer recommendation, so these stories will keep on adding new values all the way through in the pond with bigger & better ripples.

So at the end of the day, your target audience knows about you; credibility is duly manifested since in every culture we follow some figures who are most often than not opinionated and at the end of it, you are creating conversations which makes "Meaning beyond Money".

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

My 5 most favourite books- Have you read them?

It seems that the difference between a good marketer and a (not so good) marketer depends by and large on the amount of knowledge that he/she possesses. Now for me thats not all. For me it also depends on how the theory that we learn from these books can be practically transformed into real life solutions. Now thats what is required from a neo age Marketer.

So for all those knowledge thirsty marketers who are always on a lookout for refined knowledge resource, I fortunately came across some of the books which shaped me, guided me, molded me all this while. So this post is dedicated to all those greats who have written those books.

1. All Marketers are Liars by Seth Godin
2.
The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke
3. The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
4. The Search by John Battelle
5. Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe

This list of 5 books have been my best read books of the year 2007 (though the list is not on the priority basis). Hope to read some more like those in the next year. So what are you reading now?


Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Slidepost: Innovate to Differentiate

Months back, I wrote a post on "Innovate to Differentiate" in which I try to explain how Innovation is so important to essentially differentiate in the mass cluttered marketplace. Now I came up with a slide which I want to share in this post.


If any of you, has some suggestion, surely I will try to improve in my next slideshare post.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Advertising: Do you know the truth?

Ever wondered about why your customers are getting weary about your ad messages day by day. Now Nielsen did a global survey<download pdf> about which advertising platforms in use today is most effective in terms of generating "Trust" from consumers.

What emerged from this survey is quite interesting. I won't go much into the details (you better download the article) but one thing is of prime importance than everything else- Word of Mouth.

Meanwhile, I will give some of the most important and revealing truths about traditional media. Check it out for yourself; then you can decide whether your last advertising budget should have gone to better places.


  • 18%: Proportion of TV advertising campaigns generating positive ROI
  • 54 cents: Average return in sales for every $1 spent on advertising
  • 256%: The increase in TV advertising costs (CPM) in the past decade
  • 84%: Proportion of B2B marketing campaigns resulting in falling sales
  • 100%: The increase needed in advertising spend to add 1-2% in sales
  • 14%: Proportion of people who trust advertising information
  • 90%: Proportion of people who can skip TV ads who do skip TV ads
  • 80%: Market share of video recorders with ad skipping technology in 2008
  • 95%: The failure rate for new product introductions
  • 117: The number of prime time TV spots in 2002 needed to reach 80% of adult population – up from just 3 in 1965
  • 3000: Number of advertising messages people are exposed to per day
  • 56%: Proportion of people who avoid buying products from companies who they think advertise too much
  • 65%: Proportion of people who believe that they are constantly bombarded with too much advertising
  • 69%: Proportion of people interested in technology or devices that enable them to skip or block advertising
Source: Justin Kirby & Paul Marsden (2006). Connected marketing. Oxford, UK: Butterworth-Heinemann. xix

So based on these hard data, everything boils down to two important questions:

  1. How are you going to engage your customers?
  2. How are you going to deliver good customer experiences consistently?