Know Your Audience Next time you go for a movie take notes.

Ages, gender, couples, singles, gang of

girls/ boys, families, kids, attire, language and so on. Go through your notes after front of you will each be different from the other. Which means Avatar, 3 idiots, the freaks, who watch all movies).

you have done it for at least four movies. What you have on the four pages in Ice Age 3 and 2012 will all have different kinds of people watching it (other than

If you make movies that appeal to your group of supporters, you will get repeat business. If not, you will spend all your time marketing without being able to retain your customers. Rajkumar Hirani made Munnabhai MBBS his supporters super hit. 3 idiots is a super duper hit. I managed to see it recently and my first two installments it was a rowdy with a heart of gold and in 3 idiots its a student with a heart of gold. The story also relies heavily on a supporting cast as in both his earlier films. The story I think was also written with a character in

made it a hit, the same people definitely watched Lage raho Munnabhai it was a suspicion of it being in the same genre as both the Munnabhais was true. In the

mind. The cinema hall was mostly full of families and couples, as it was for Lage are the ones who have seen both the previous ones.

raho Munnabhai. I am damn sure if not all most of the people who were present

A superb cast, a good story and brilliant marketing just added to the films success.

Raju Hirani has managed to create successful family entertainers. His supporters would have still watched the movie if the cast would have been different (it could have been successful too). Like wise Priyadarshan is known for making films of a

particular genre and his movies have done well at the box office. He also directed a serious movie (Kyon Ki) in between the funny ones, Kyon Ki failed at the box films 1.40 ki last local, Manorama 6 ft under, Dev D, Oye Lucky we have to office even though it had a good cast. Abhay Deol is a successful hero in off beat wait and watch what happens when he does an out-n-out commercial movie. If

Abhay Deol has understood his supporters well he may not do a completely commercial film.

The marketing lesson to be learnt here is KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE, few who have understood their consumers will stick to what they are good at. Some will try different things that may not succeed. The same is true in case of brands; brand managers who understand their consumers well will succeed in their offerings,

others fail. You can have the best of products, supported by world class service and brilliant advertising. If your customer does not have the need for the product it still fails.

The key to knowing you audience is DATA. As experts in the field have said

success of your marketing campaigns depends 40% on getting your data right, 40% depends on the offer and 20% on creativity. If you dont know your audience you cant make the right product/ offer.

Data tells you everything you need to know about your audience how well you use it to you advantage is up to you.

Be it films, food, music, sports, finance, travel, shopping or sex data never lies to invest the time and effort to KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE?

and gives immense opportunities and learnings. The question is are you willing

(Written by Naveen Nandan, Group Director Rapp India, Mumbai)

Advertising: Expense Or Investment? At the launch event of the book, Draftfcb Ulka Advertising Concepts & Cases Book be seen as investment and not just as short term expense.

II, Mr Ravi Kant, Vice Chairman, Tata Motors, observed that advertising needs to

It takes a seasoned marketing professional to view advertising as a long term investment towards building a long term asset for the corporation: a strong brand.

Most senior managers see advertising as a short term expense aimed at building short term sales. No wonder CFOs look at advertising as the first thing to cut in a down turn. Travel and entertainment come a close second.

Why should advertising be seen as investment, and not as just an expense? Advertising impact is often not visible when measured through a short term yardstick. So even after a heavy dose of advertising the brands sales needle may not move much. Similarly the brands image score also may not move up at all. the brand, should it be stopped or continued?

But if it is known that the advertising that has run addresses key issues faced by

The short term effect of advertising could get masked by heavy competitive events like an interest rate hike.

activities, price cuts, new brand launches or other any significant economic

Prof John Philip Jones has done work on short term effect of advertising, using single source data. But most of his work has been in consumer goods in developed product situations. steady-state markets. I submit that those rules may not apply in all markets, in all

Contrast that point of view to that of seeing advertising as investment. If the approach is that of investment, one look at a short term negative response not

from the context of cutting but of getting to the bottom of the problem. And when one probes deeper one may find that the advertising is in fact working well and results will show up soon enough.

The paradigm creates its own images. Which paradigm will drive your vision, advertising as investment or advertising as expense?

(Ambi MG Parameswaran is ED & CEO, Draft FCB+Ulka)

Hey! The Cop Is My Husband! Synopsis: The way to convert a safe playing client who buys only boring success stories from around the world.

advertising into a client who buys great advertising is to share examples and

There are three kinds of clients (read, buyers of advertising): 1. One who has heard of a certain Ogilvy, the bloke who said what sells is Gandhian repulsion to all things good

creative and is against all glory because advertising must sell and has a

2. One who enjoys the odd good spot on TV and talks about it with great glee but when it comes to his own brand, looks out of the window and says maybe we should just write 50% OFF

3. One who knows about advertising as much as the agency. Is update on what is happening and thinks of advertising as a critical almost crucial part of the marketing mix.

What I feel like telling the first one is to read what Ogilvy said once again. What not sell. To which my client is likely to say, You writers no! You know how to play with words. I suspect he would go home and think a little more about it, still.

sells is creative, beg your pardon sir, wouldnt that mean what is not creative will

Exhibit A here is the kind that believes advertising is a mere necessity that need not be taken too seriously. You say what you have to, if the product is good people will buy it. Yes, you can debate. Like, with a wall.

Exhibit B. Hopeless in a different way. This type believes, its not for him. I dare say, this type is rampant in the FMCG category. So they would talk about the likes codes when it comes to their own advertising. of Doves Real Beauty campaign but will be content with a montage of category

Dear C, I exist for you. You make me think harder. You make the work better. And I know for sure that behind every piece of advertising that I cherish there is a you. You make the other two of your clan bearable.

Theres a Bhojpuri saying that goes, Saiyaanbhayekotwaal. Simply translated that means, hey! The cop is my husband. Popular logic says, that can be made possible in two ways. One, you marry a cop. Two, make the one you marry, a cop. cop is my husband!, after all.

Privileges of Hey! My husband is a cop will be the same as those of Hey! The

Not all of us, at all times are going to get a client who makes us think harder or pushes us to create advertising that is less than ordinary. Hence the cop trick.

To begin with, its pretty easy. Send that link, your advertising friends sent you, to your client/s. Type A is likely to get suspicious immediately and type B will sigh. Keep at it. Next time you see a stunning piece in a relevant category, send it across

again. Maybe this time you can support the creative with results. Type A is likely to call and ask what exactly do you have in mind? Say, nothing really. Type B them on a DVD and send it to your client. It makes for a good weekend watch, if nothing else. Show him the scope of creative thinking. will sigh again. Download those Cannes winning films from canneslions.com, put

Cut to a meeting sometime in near future. Your client is a little more aware. A little closer to the page you are on. A cop more approving and appreciative.

Carry something you would present to a C type client, even if you have to carry the all the category codes options. Present both. You may not see success immediately but you are working at it. He will have things like but this doesnt another success story to share.

work in our category/our country/our market to say. You will have another link,

Keep at it. Push logic and not merely the creativity or your whims, and one day safety guidelines to you.

you will have a kotwaal. Dont do this, and the cop will keep reading out the

Not An Underdog Anymore There is a very distinct taste to Indias win at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. Its something and making it happen. The big thing about this win is that it went as

the taste of definitiveness rather than surprise. The definitiveness of deciding to do planned. Underdogs surprise by their wins, leaders reassure by making their plans real. In many ways Indias victory at this cricket tournament underlines the definitiveness that India is no more in the process of arriving at the world stage, it has already arrived.

Events like these have socio cultural significance as they are lived by people at large. The goose bumps that you and I felt sitting in front of our television sets, looking at our national heroes like Sachin crying with joy will get etched in our cultural consciousness. This moment marks a significant milestone in the psychological evolution of our country.

In fact, culturally we Indians are very suspicious of making a big deal about any keep our fingers crossed and not celebrate before the outcome. Historically, our

upcoming event because we are scared that it will attract an evil eye. We like to fears have often come true. Whenever India has sat in anticipation of a big win, it

has been disappointed. As it was in the Beijing Olympics when we had three boxers in the quarterfinals and the entire country was glued to their television sets.

The flavour of the nation this time around was different. Whether it was the conversations on radio or the facebook updates or the preparations of watching the match with beer and snacks and big screens, they all came with a certain assumption of a positive outcome. Even when India lost its two crucial wickets of

Sehwag and Sachin early on in the finals, the tweeter feed and the facebook the fact that we can live up to our own expectations. That we can prepare for a

updates held their confidence in Indias win. India today has a new found belief

win and it will happen. No jinxes, no bad luck and no floundering of ability can pull us down.

The definitiveness has been an intrinsic part of Indias performance this time around. Those who have been expected to deliver have delivered in the time of need. The most inconsistent of the players as Yuvraj Singh have delivered with a form Mahendra Singh Dhoni got the job (that he had come down for) done with

remarkable consistency winning the match of the series award. Even an out of an unprecedented 91 not out. But more than Indias performance at the finals, formidable teams of the time helped build the assurance factor.

Indias run up to the finals, by defeating Australia and Pakistan, the two most

In these times of global uncertainty, where economies are crumpling overnight and the locus of economic power is shifting eastwards, Indias triumph in the always shone as individuals through their academic and intellectual abilities. Now is the time when we are shining through as a community, as a team that can hold game of cricket is yet another assertion of it global significance. Indians have

its grit and nerves. Indias intellectual prowess has amply been recognized at the world stage, this win celebrates its psychological prowess. And this is the mark of a leader, not an underdog.

(Dheeraj Sinha is the Regional Planning Director, Bates 141 & Author of Consumer India Inside The Mind And Wallet)

Those Magnificent MBAs In Their Flying Machines R.G. Kutty was born in the industrial town of Jamshedpur. Akashneel was born in Kolkata.

Kuttys father was a technical supervisor in a steel plant. A man who never spared actor. A man of Rabindranath Tagores principles.

the rod. Akashs father was a poet/journalist/part time musician/part time theatre

Kuttys nick-name was Kutty, Akashs nick-name was Laltu. Predictably Kutty did well in school and college went to a business school. IIM types. Laltu did well to drift in to advertising.

Kutty listened to Lady Gaga when Lady Gaga played and Justin Bieber when Justin saang, whats there, as per Kutty. Laltu, listened to The Doors. Kutty is now a Brand Manager. Laltu is now a copywriter.

Bieber played. Heck, he wouldnt mind Phil Collins even! A saang is a saang is

The brand is Morning Sun Tea. The brief is to a do TVC that will make people go to the market and buy nothing but Morning Sun Tea.

Laltu wrote a song. The film showed a pretty lass getting up, lingering over her cup and drifting in to the woods near her home watching butterflies fly. Laltu even composed a little tune and played it out for Kutty on his guitar. Kutty

But you are not mentioning the brand name in the jingle!?

speak:

I live in a 2BHK in Bombay. Who has those kind of houses you are showing? What kind of girl is that? She doesnt have to go to college or office or wherever else she goes?

And you are showing a single girl! Our target is families!

I am afraid this might be perceived to be a womans tea! I am afraid this might be perceived to be a single womans tea! Boss! This cougar trend is catching up in India! I dont want our tea to be seen as a cult brand, Morning Sun is for everyone!

Lets see the storyboard and put it in research if you are so convinced, but I am telling you, people will reject it!

Why dont we do a commercial where we show the woman making tea in the says, Morning Sun!? The woman says, Of course, Morning Sun! And then both

morning, her husband gets up okay and she gives him tea, he drinks it and of them show their cups to the camera and say, Our Mornings always with the copywriting these days. Haha Kutty speak to his

Sun Morning Sun! Arre yaar, you guys should pay me, I am doing all the

Call some other agency, these guys dont understand our brand.

pappus

after

the

meeting

with

the

agency:

Some other agency makes Kuttys commercial. Some sales happen because the the trade that is accepted by Kutty.

distribution network is good and the sales staff suggests a promotional scheme for

Kutty grows in confidence. As a copywriter. Morning Sun never becomes a brand. Much later, Kutty hires another agency and briefs them, I want to do something like what Tata tea is doing. Authors Submissions:

Marketing is marketing. Advertising is advertising. The only reason why marketing managers dictate terms is because they happen to be the client. Is that a good reason for anybody to dictate terms. If there was a company be this way?

that had two departments namely marketing and advertising it would it

Kuttys expect advertising agency to understand that they have a sales

target. Can the advertising agencies expect Kuttys to understand there is

even an advertising target? Why not, isnt it true that an ad that people like and remember has achieved the advertising target and one that people dont remember hasnt?

Laltus songs may not be the best idea for a brand but what do Kuttys do? agencies throat what they think works. (Look carefully its mostly the use product, smile formula)

Do they ask for a more distinctive something or do they shove down the

Do Kuttys need an IQ booster to understand that just like there is a

competition in the marketing space, there is a competition in the advertising space. Here is a dictum to wonder about a brand is only as good as its most remembered ad (in this case, the TVC). Is that an extreme statement? Maybe, but theres truth in it.

To buy vegetables you need to know a little about vegetables, why not know a little about advertising if you are going to be buying advertising?

Will Kuttys understand that difference between a brand that is and a brand that will never be may not be agency but the clients themselves!

What do Laltus ought to do? Thats material for another article. Watch this space.

(Ravinder Siwach is Group Creative Director, Ignite Mudra)

1 Year of Scarecrow 1 year ago, we had no office, 2 brands and 5 people. Today, we have two offices, 9 brands and 26 people. The biggest reasons for this growth are, directly and indirectly, related to, well, money.

Let me explain. We are hugely interested in money matters. We actively invest. We are probably the only creative people in the country who know the barrel price of crude, down to the 2nd decimal. We are the only creative guys who know that turmeric gave better returns than Airtel stock last year. We spend more time on moneycontrol than facebook. Our understanding of financial markets and instruments has Capital, to name a few. helped us gain traction with financial services brands, like Religare and Future

We have tied up with Concept, which has helped nearly 40 % of listed companies in India to go public. This association with a company that is adept at generating money for corporates, gives us direct access to many clients.

We are aware that ego can push up operating costs. Ego always shows up in the balance sheet, it is a liability as maintaining it is an expense. Moreover, ego can

also prevent you from grabbing opportunities. Therefore, startups cant afford egos. Thats why we prefer to hire people who are simpletons, just like us.

We also know we need to plough back money back into the venture, especially in

the initial years. Thats why we have invested in an office that makes people forget they are in one. We are also hiring more and more people so that creativity doesnt become mechanized and our employees get the chance to catch the first whenever they feel like it.

day first show of Yamla Pagla Deewana. Or have Irish coffees at Mocambos

We also think art is a great revenue stream. Thats why one wall in our office is

dedicated to displaying art. Our first art exhibition is on February 9th, on our first

anniversary. It is being professionally curated by Niyatee Shinde and even if a couple of paintings sell, that will take care of the air-conditioning and green tea bills of the office for the entire year.

Creating an art deco office also opened up hitherto untapped opportunities. Chrome Pictures used our office to shoot an ad film. (So we are competing with big agencies, even here. Grey is known to lease their premises for shoots). We do shoot on DN Road? That too, at a fraction of the cost? We are not complaining.

understand their logic. Why go all the way to Grosvenor Palace, when you can

Apart from money management, the other key component in any agencys success are people.

We have been fortunate that our stints in ex-agencies have given us fantastic professional atyachars commited by our past bosses, which we use as a handy reference while monitoring our behavior with our current crop of juniors. As a result, we have no heirachies, no layers, no

learnings on how not to treat people. We have compiled a handbook of

Working in Scarecrow is like taking anabolic steroids. Everyone grows up faster as they get complete exposure to the business of advertising. They handle more

politics.

things and a wider range of challenges. At Scarecrow, most discussions are on executive gets to interact with senior clientele. They get to face the full brunt of

marketing problems, not so much on creative briefs. The youngest account the marketing problem even before it gets sculpted into a creative brief. Junior outlet by spending 4 crores? The result, nobody thinks ads. Everyone thinks solutions. And results.

copywriters get briefs as open as How do we increase footfalls by 20% into our

We have been lucky that we have bumped into the right people on the clients Pradeep Natarajan at Future Money, to Jasmin Goller at Margo, to KU Rao at DNA, to Ashish Shah at Wadhwa, to Monica Widhani at BPCL, we have had clients who quality of its work.

side, as well. From Subhrangshu Neogi and Sujith Narayanan at Religare, to

were willing to believe that the size of the agency had no co-relation with the

In Praise Of Committees Committees get a pretty bad rap. Were told that they keep minutes and lose

hours. Theyre apparently cul-de-sacs down which ideas are lured and then dock. As everyone knows, here are no statues to committees.

quietly strangled. If Columbus had had an advisory committee, hed still be in the

But if you think that the world in general hates committees, wait till you hear

what the advertising industry thinks of them. To hear ad men tell it, the individual genius, of men (and theyre usually men) who saw further, or probed

committee has no place in advertising. Ours is an industry predicated on

deeper, thought different willfully unreasonable creative fountainheads who had to fight against groupthink to realize their vision. As David Ogilvy said, Committees can criticize advertisements, but they should never be allowed to make them.

In this, Ogilvy was memorable, witty, and wrong. I think we should stop worrying and learn to love committees. They just need a little rebranding.

Lets get one thing straight. Advertising, like the rest of life, is a team sport. And

team is just another word for a committee, or at least a committee that does great client, and behind every great client is a great product. Even within a

something. Behind every great ad is a great brief, and behind every great brief is a creative department, the process of actually coming up with an idea often idea further. Were all in this together, and we always have been.

involves bouncing ideas off one another, of one person taking another persons

The history of advertising shows a clear movement towards greater collaboration

and teamwork. The specialization of roles at J.Walter Thompsons agency in the serve their client that one guy doing everything himself. The creativity revolution

1890s was predicated on different types of people working together to better launched by Bill Bernbach was in large part due to his practice of making art planning at BMP forty years ago last year was specifically designed to bring in

directors and copy writers sit together and work as a team. The creation of another perspective, and another member of the team. Now we dont just have teamwork within agencies, but between agencies, with digital agencies, PR shops, solving clients business problems. and relationship groups all offering interesting and valuable perspectives on

Why is collaboration so important? Because it works. Bringing different people,

and different perspectives to bear on a problem radically increases your chances of coming up with something better, or newer, or more effective. Other people

have very different ways of looking at the world, ways that you might not have ever considered.

Without other peoples perspectives, we become locked in the echo-chamber of our own preconceptions. As Einstein said, problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which they were created. This seeking out of different more interesting, more creative, and more effective.

opinions, this marketing-by-committee, has made commercial communications

But theres a key watch-out here. You cant just employ more and more specialists to work on their own in splendid isolation. The value of a bunch of different experts working on a business challenge is only realized when they work together creativity and intelligence of the individual experts can be fully leveraged for the benefits of the client.

as a team. Its only by the process of teamwork of committee-work that the

This is easier said than done. You have get the right team in place. You have to be open-minded and listen to each other. You have to expect to disagree sometimes, and to use that tension profitably. You have to be willing to accept good ideas member) or gasp the consumer (another key player).

wherever they come from, even if they come from the client (a vital team

But most of all, you have to have to want to collaborate, it has to seem natural world. Decision through discussion is well entrenched in Indian society. We are against the grain; we just have to embrace our inner committee.

rather than artificial. And this is where I think India is well placed to lead the all Argumentative Indians, as Amartya Sen has it. To succeed, we dont need to go

Because its when everyone comes together the right clients, the right disciplines, the right team that you suddenly understand how wrong the world is about committees. There may be no statues made of dead and lifeless stone to

committees. Instead, we have our monuments to teamwork flesh-marbled, in the living, breathing communities to which we all belong. (Michael Follett is Senior Vice-President, Strategy and Planning, DDB Mudra (Part

of the Mudra Group))

A Journey To Remember It was December 1998, I was wanting to move back into advertising after spending 8 long years in marketing and sales. I had been offered a position in figures in advertising for a position in another large agency in Mumbai. As the Ulka Advertising and a friend set up an interview with one of the most respected interview progressed, I was told repeatedly that Ulka will shut down and You join Ulka and move to the south as its VP South [Mumbai beckoned and I was back a few years later, but that is another story].

are making a big mistake. Two hours and a splitting headache later, I decided to

On 1st February 2011 Ulka or Draftfcb Ulka as it is known today will celebrate its

50th birthday; the agency or should we say the agency group is reported to be

among the top 3 or 4 in the country, a far cry from what was predicted two decades ago. Along the way the agency has proved several sceptics wrong and built a great reputation for being a steady performer and a creator of numerous brand building advertising campaigns. What lessons have we learnt you may ask?

No one in 1998 believed that a team of professionals, many who had spent a longer time in marketing than advertising, could join an agency that was struggling and help turn it around, within a few years. The core team that joined the door and going and winning some key clients.

with Anil Kapoor in 1998 99 did just that, by pulling back clients who were at

No one thinks that people can stay in one agency for over a decade and that too not out of want of choice. But many many very talented people do stay at Draftfcb average tenure with the agency is 10 year +. Ulka. If we were to look at the top 50 people in the Draftfcb Ulka Group, the

No one believes that clients can be made to stay put in one agency for five or ten

years; a consultant told me last week that the tenure is now down to 31 months. Well several of Draftfcb Ulka clients have been with the agency for two decades plus.

No one really believes that an agency can, without acquisitions, spawn successful

sub units. Draftfcb Ulka has managed to create several business units , to serve clients better; from a very successful media agency, a terrific second agency, a direct / digital agency etc.

No one believes that MBAs can be made to join advertising. Draftfcb Ulka has

been running its Management Trainee programme, Star One, for 20 years, hiring even in the worst of time over 20 management graduates from the better management schools.

No one believes that an agency can be run without larger than life personalities,

egos as large as Mt Everest and groups / favourites. Draftfcb Ulka has managed to shun personality cult, idol worship and primo-donna status, yet producing great campaigns and excellent leaders.

No one thinks that clients will want to listen to strategy from ad agencies any

more. Well Draftfcb Ulka today has over 30 top class management graduates working in account planning, and many of the agencys clients insist that the brand consulting unit, Cogito Consulting to take this offer to the next level. planning team give a zero base recommendation. The agency has even set up a

And the list can go on, but let us just say that Draftfcb Ulka is not just another

agency celebrating a milestone. In fact it is possibly the only Indian agency to group, yet preserving the original DNA intact: to be a strategic partner to its clients and a great place for employees to learn and grown. Ask me, I have been here long enough. 21 years and counting.

have transformed itself into communication power house and a part of a global

(Ambi M G Parameswaran, ED, Draftfcb Ulka Advertising)

Why Most Advertising Does Not Turn On A Madrasi It is festival time. Diwali is almost upon us. While Diwali is a festival that all of

India celebrates with varying degrees of intensity, several other festivals are regional and not celebrated with the same fervor in all parts of India. Like Onam for instance which happened a couple of months ago, which to Malayalis (the people from Gods own country) is a big thing. Well a friend of mine remembered me on Onam. He is from Mumbai and really likes me (or so I believe) and he

woke me up at an unearthly hour (it was seven thirty for Gods sake) and said at his cheeriest best Happy Onam! Isnt today a big day for you? Whilst I grumpily

thought that it might have been a better day if I had slept a little longer, I realized

that this guy actually meant well. What the hell, he did not realize that I was a problem is most (oh okay a lot really) of advertising that is created in the North of South India and consequently has little impact on people like me. Cant read, write or

Tamilian; after all we are all Madrasis arent we? So whats the problem? The India (oh okay include Mumbai as well) has a similar haziness about the people of

I was born and brought up in the city (?) of Madras as it used to be called in those

speak

days. My generation grew up right in the middle of the anti Hindi agitation. Several of my friends favorite slogan was Hindi down, down. Now it is not that we felt strongly about the language but used the situation to just not learn the

language. Many people of my generation dont read, write or speak the language. Of course I am one of the few that can speak a sort of language that may pass for Hindi after you have had a couple of really stiff ones. Several others of my friends

would not even try. And while the next generation may be marginally better, it neither shares the prowess nor the interest of my North Indian friends in that pleasant language. So here is my question to some of the best creative minds in India. How relevant is a lot of your advertising that is conceptualized, executed and released in Hindi to most of us? Of course I need to clarify that the problem is not as intense in Karnataka or Andhra as it is in Tamil Nadu or Kerala. The real thing takes a bus to

I am sure some of you have seen the Coke commercial. Let me with my limited powers of expression try to explain the script to you. There is a young man who wants to go home to Delhi for Diwali and is stuck without a mode of transport

Chennai

except a battered down bus. The people around him seem from Shillong or thereabout look at him blankly. He opens his Coke only for life to be transformed. driver who looks a lot like Hashim Amla at the age of sixty, suddenly smiles and There is music, dancing, the bottle assumes magical proportions and the bus takes him to Delhi in the same bus which now looks like a golden chariot. I am

sure you get the drift. Now I am hardly the target audience for Coke, so I dont want to get into the effectiveness of the ad, but am only going to talk about the same ad in Tamil. Everything else is the same. The same cute kid stranded in the Himalayas, the same bemused Tibetan faces, the same Pathan driver and what is the difference. The kid wants to go to Chennai? From the Himalayas? Give me a original and the translation (?) if you can call it that. Is there a

break or better still a Pepsi! And mind you most Tamilians like me have seen the

The average commercial conceptualized in Hindi and translated into Tamil is sixties, so stilted are their expressions. It is compounded by Shah Rukh Khan nothing in our neck of the woods which Coke realized years ago. Our celebrities While that may be an exaggeration, there is no denying the fact that it needs attention. Asian Paints did a Pongal commercial over twenty years ago, which was

better

way?

badly done. The translators must have been banished from Tamil Nadu in the speaking Tamil, or someone doing a passable imitation of him. The Khans mean are different as are our aspirations, as someone said it is a different country.

created in Tamil for Tamilians. The same Asian paints did a wonderful translation of the Sunil Bhai commercial which became part of the local lingo. The Cadburys Dairy Milk Diwali commercial is a brilliant example of communication that is language. Period.

targeted and created for this market. Tamilians want to be spoken to in their

I know enough about arguments about production costs and how Tamil Nadu is just another market. But a one size fits all, cannot work in this country with its diversity, complexity and language bias. Who said advertising was easy?

Talk to me in my language and I will listen and better still buy from you. Dont

pass me hand me downs or concepts created for the cow belt! There was a time

when mobile phone manufacturers shipped those models that did not sell in other

parts of the world. Now what do they do? They launch here as India is the

happening market. Tamil Nadu could well be your happening market, if you are ready to recognize and more importantly accept it. On our terms! We are a very considerate people you see!!!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, Brand Comm)

When Media Becomes The Shop Marketers look at consumer habits in order to choose the medium to reach them. Consumers read the newspaper for news, watch the television for entertainment, on. Marketers in India spend close to Rs.50,000Cr a year to reach consumers browse the Internet for information, use the mobile for communication, and so through these media and plant their brand in their heads, with the belief that it businesses in India have gone beyond the goal of using the medium for brand

would eventually lead to consumption. In the last 18-24 months, however, reach and started using media as the shop. The products become the hero instead phone & Internet become the cash counter to facilitate payment & delivery. With digital commerce, media has become the shop and directly drives consumption.

of the brand, the ad creative substitutes for the retail shelf & packaging, and the

Some call this digital commerce because the front-end of this business is a digital end of this business is digital and therefore enables digital scale, as opposed to

device mobile and computer. Others call it digital commerce because the backbrick-and-mortar scale. There have always been businesses using local, belowthe-line or direct marketing approaches to drive direct consumption, but what is

fundamentally different about digital commerce is the ability to collect payments

from and deliver products to hundreds of millions of households across tens of

thousands of pin-codes in India, while providing consistent quality, price and are seeing the first wave of shopping where they pay first and then wait for second-moment-of-truth are crucial in delivering on the nervous expectations would explode this market, further accelerated with the growing consumption and consumerism.

experience. Unlike the US where mail ordering preceded e-commerce, Indians product delivery. The few days in between this first-moment-of-truth and created by this leap of faith, and eventually creating a behavior change that

Many leading TV channel owners, leading daily newspapers, and leading Internet

portals have realized the digital commerce opportunity and invested in their

media platform to drive home shopping. While media-led digital commerce is a players, such as retailers, e-commerce destinations, product makers and distribution networks with a nose for consumption trends. Media owners

good start, the business will be won by consumption-led digital commerce

investing in an autonomous consumption-led play are likely to win, rather than an opportunistic media-led play to monetize slow moving inventory. In a way, the location is important, understanding it is a core part of making business role of media in digital-commerce is similar to the role of real-estate in retail profitable, owning it makes you eligible to enter the business but success requires understanding consumption. While the medium is a core part of digital commerce, it is a consumption business first, and a marketing business second.

When the medium becomes the shop, computing cost of sales becomes straightforward. The first instinct of many media owners is to not participate in this digital commerce revolution in order to avoid becoming ROI accountable & losing

reach premium from advertisers in the guise of cost-of-branding. However, media owners who are able to resist this innovators dilemma and innovate their media properties & business models to measure, control, analyze and enhance ROI

will significantly increase their own value and might build the largest media company of India. Google probably had a similar intuition in Oct 2000 when they times the size of the media spend of India. launched Adwords with 350 customers, now a $25 Billion business and nearly 3

(Kashyap Deorah is CEO, Chaupaati.com)

LOOK! Whos changing? There was a time when very large advertisers believed in ads that were strong on

problem/solution communication. The ads clearly talked about what the problem

is and how the brand/product comes to the rescue and solves the problem; for example how a detergent brand removes stains on shirts and makes it super white; and the wife gets appreciative glances from the husband ,the ultimate high for the woman. (Or atleast thats what men thought!)

These were hard working ads. But these ads were boring ads and put off creatives way before they put off consumers. The good creatives did not want to work on these kind of ads. And did not want to work in agencies that handled such brands

immaterial of how big the brands were or how visible the advertising was. It was a moot question whether the ads worked or the huge budgets that supported such death, so to speak. ads that were invariably the work of a hundred different people and perfected to

Then came a period when things took a complete turn. Advertisers became happy with what we call highly creative ads humourous, irreverent, etc. These were highly entertaining ads. You saw a lot of ads which belonged to this genre. In fact It is true that with these kind of highly creative ads (provided that there was a spend less in media since such ads managed to break the clutter and stand out.

some ads were so creative that you remembered the ads but not the brand names. complete connect between the storyline and brand) the advertisers needed to You saw a lot of big advertisers go to Cannes to get some learnings/exposure to help them better their advertising. Creatives also loved to work in agencies which created Today, a lot of big advertisers are neither happy with the 1st genre, i.e. hardworking ads nor with the 2nd genre, i.e. entertaining ads. I hear a lot of big me ideal ads are the ones that are neither just hard working nor just entertaining. need to create ads that are both hardworking + entertaining . these ads.

advertisers say that they need agencies who can create the ideal ads for them. To They have to be both. I believe that for advertising to work best for advertisers, we

This will help advertisers (big and small) to get more for their buck get better results with lower spends. But the moot question is, do we have the talent pool to create such ads?

(Prabha Prabhu is CEO, BMB Madison Advertising)

25th August 2010: Music Royaltys D-Day

When the Indian Government deregulated the FM industry and offered licenses to

private media players to operate the same in the year 2001, it was with a spring to enter this new exciting domain.

in their step and song on their lips that several large media conglomerates decided However because of speculative bidding and a poorly thought out auctioning prohibitive and hugely expensive. This resulted in all radio networks racking up huge losses even as they set up stations across the country in 12 cities. While for some players the high license fee ensured that the game had ended even before it started, some of the more serious players interested in building long term FM businesses persevered. Radio City, then a part of the Star network was one such player.

process, the bid amounts ended up making the annual fixed license fees

As all of us struggled to build viable businesses, another bitter reality was soon staring us in the face. And that was the exorbitant royalties that the music industry started charging all the radio stations. I think they saw in the FM revenues which were a consequence of piracy, and an increasing reluctance of the digital consumer to pay for music.

business a new messiah, to pull them out of their myriad miseries, of diminishing

Radio City filed a case in 2002 and thus started a journey along the long and

arduous corridors of Justice with the case moving from the Copyright Board to the High Court and then to the Supreme court before being remanded back to the Copyright Board in the middle of 2008. In the due course of these travails and entrants entered the private FM industry taking its strength from a handful of

travels, Phase 2 of the FM de regulation process was announced and several new pioneers to 42 operators running approximately 280 stations in 81 cities. Through this policy change undoubtedly the FM industry got immense relief, since the government moved to a revenue share model in its collection of license fee, however the music royalties continued to plague the profitability of the stations.

With most of the new stations opening in Class B, C and D towns with limited

revenue potential , the fixed royalty payment became even more aggravating since the royalty payable for large metros and small towns was the same . So while the revenue potential differed manifold between the stations the royalty

payment was the same. Thus it came to pass that most of the small stations ended up paying almost their entire revenue as royalty. Industry Estimates suggest that we were paying close to 15% of all our revenues as music royalty versus international norms of 0-2%. Some of the questions that further plagued all of us were: 1. When most music was essentially created for movies and the creators of that music got adequately reimbursed by their primary buyers the movie producers want to charge huge amounts for radio play outs?

directly and the movie going public indirectly, why did music companies still 2. On the one hand music companies treated radio as a marketing vehicle to promote both the music and the movie by constantly requesting for increased play labels? out of their music, then why did they portray that radio was the enemy of music 3. Finally why did various bodies and individuals demand different royalties for the same piece of work when it was a well known fact that the composition in its entirety had been sold to the music label?

The copyright board finally started its hearings in July 2008, however after 09 as the date for final submission of all documents. Examination of witnesses

continued delays in submitting documents it was forced to set a deadline of June started in July 09 exactly a year after the copyright board had been directed by industry for automatic licensing. One more year passed before all the hearings

the Supreme Court, as a constitutional authority, to decide on royalty rates for the extra concluded in July 10 including detailed questioning of many of us as material witnesses in the case. I think the witnesses of Radio City spent several hours being questioned. Finally D Day was set as 25th August 2010 and the

judgement was announced which stated that the royalty payment for all music

providers would be at 2% of the net advertisement earning of each FM radio station accruing from the radio business for that radio station. It took nearly 10 years of effort, innumerable man hours, not to mention legal

costs but all of us strongly believe that the end result is going to work in the benefit of all constituents involved. Recognition of the internationally accepted revenue sharing model will help both the music and the radio industries grow accepted to work for the benefit of all constituents as was proven even in the FM license fee change from the fixed format in Phase 1 to the revenue sharing format

and prosper. Revenue sharing as compared to fixed fee models are universally

in Phase 2. Not only did the radio industry as the licensee, benefit, but also the Government of India as the licensor, made more money in Phase 2 than in Phase 1.

When the Indian Government deregulated the FM industry and offered licenses to

private media players to operate the same in the year 2001, it was with a spring in their step and song on their lips that several large media conglomerates decided to enter this new exciting domain.

However because of speculative bidding and a poorly thought out auctioning prohibitive and hugely expensive. This resulted in all radio networks racking up huge losses even as they set up stations across the country in 12 cities. While for

process, the bid amounts ended up making the annual fixed license fees

some players the high license fee ensured that the game had ended even before it started, some of the more serious players interested in building long term FM businesses persevered. Radio City, then a part of the Star network was one such player.

As all of us struggled to build viable businesses, another bitter reality was soon staring us in the face. And that was the exorbitant royalties that the music industry started charging all the radio stations. I think they saw in the FM business a new messiah, to pull them out of their myriad miseries, of diminishing

revenues which were a consequence of piracy, and an increasing reluctance of the digital consumer to pay for music.

Radio City filed a case in 2002 and thus started a journey along the long and

arduous corridors of Justice with the case moving from the Copyright Board to the High Court and then to the Supreme court before being remanded back to the Copyright Board in the middle of 2008. In the due course of these travails and travels, Phase 2 of the FM de regulation process was announced and several new entrants entered the private FM industry taking its strength from a handful of

pioneers to 42 operators running approximately 280 stations in 81 cities. Through this policy change undoubtedly the FM industry got immense relief, since the government moved to a revenue share model in its collection of license fee, however the music royalties continued to plague the profitability of the stations.

With most of the new stations opening in Class B, C and D towns with limited

revenue potential , the fixed royalty payment became even more aggravating since the royalty payable for large metros and small towns was the same . So while the revenue potential differed manifold between the stations the royalty

payment was the same. Thus it came to pass that most of the small stations ended up paying almost their entire revenue as royalty. Industry Estimates suggest that we were paying close to 15% of all our revenues as music royalty versus international norms of 0-2%. Some of the questions that further plagued all of us were: 1. When most music was essentially created for movies and the creators of that directly and the movie going public indirectly, why did music companies still want to charge huge amounts for radio play outs?

music got adequately reimbursed by their primary buyers the movie producers

2. On the one hand music companies treated radio as a marketing vehicle to promote both the music and the movie by constantly requesting for increased play labels? out of their music, then why did they portray that radio was the enemy of music

3. Finally why did various bodies and individuals demand different royalties for the same piece of work when it was a well known fact that the composition in its entirety had been sold to the music label?

The copyright board finally started its hearings in July 2008, however after continued delays in submitting documents it was forced to set a deadline of June 09 as the date for final submission of all documents. Examination of witnesses

started in July 09 exactly a year after the copyright board had been directed by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional authority, to decide on royalty rates for the industry for automatic licensing. One more year passed before all the hearings

extra concluded in July 10 including detailed questioning of many of us as material witnesses in the case. I think the witnesses of Radio City spent several hours being questioned. Finally D Day was set as 25th August 2010 and the judgement was announced which stated that the royalty payment for all music station accruing from the radio business for that radio station. providers would be at 2% of the net advertisement earning of each FM radio

It took nearly 10 years of effort, innumerable man hours, not to mention legal

costs but all of us strongly believe that the end result is going to work in the benefit of all constituents involved. Recognition of the internationally accepted revenue sharing model will help both the music and the radio industries grow accepted to work for the benefit of all constituents as was proven even in the FM license fee change from the fixed format in Phase 1 to the revenue sharing format

and prosper. Revenue sharing as compared to fixed fee models are universally

in Phase 2. Not only did the radio industry as the licensee, benefit, but also the

Government of India as the licensor, made more money in Phase 2 than in Phase 1.

(Apurva Purohit is CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM)

Adding Value To The Rupee Director of Elephant Design on why the new symbol for the Rupee matters There are two things that drive most Indian corporates to look at their image, branding, communication values etc. Either they are facing competition from global brands quality of products & services, differentiation in offering,

in India or they foresee themselves exporting their products/services in markets where global brands have firmly established themselves already. It is never too late to start something that feels right.

Peculiarly, Indian Government followed the same principle. As it saw the Indian currencies, it realized it had no identity to claim as its own! No visual symbol!

currency making its way to becoming convertible with other globally accepted

And to make it more confusing, several of our neighbors too call their money by

the same name. So we are surrounded by the Nepalese Rupee (NPR Rs), Pakistani Rupee (PKR Rs), Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR Rs), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR Rp), Maldives Rifiyan (MVR Rf) and so on.

Indeed a very smart move by the Finance Ministry of India to float a brief for parameters, it gives us the opportunity to have a face for our improving economy & it adds to our dignity as a nation in general.

Rupee symbol design. It makes us the leaders, as we rightfully are on many global

As a process, the Rupee design competition was quite engaging & inspiring as can be seen from the number of entries that qualified some 2,500 odd number. I am guessing there were as many more that probably did not make it through the first round.

According to me, the most challenging part of the brief was that identity was vast cultural diversity & historical expanse of India, this seemed like the toughest part. While there were basic expectations that the identity would be adaptable in

expected to represent the historical and cultural ethos of India. Considering the

the conventional key-board system, the brief made no reference to what the identity needed to do from the global business & finance perspective. I missed that part.

The competition was announced in March 2009 & we did not hear anything Finally, the winning entry was unveiled earlier this month i.e. July 2010! Do I like it? Well, it does the job for me. I feel positive. As we get familiar with it, I am sure we will all like it. Is it distinct?

further till our Finance Minister talked about it during the Union Budget of 2010.

It follows the design of horizontal strokes found in Euro & Yen completely and say it is harmonious to other global currencies.

Pound to some extent. So on a scale of global currencies it is not distinct. I would

Is it Indian? To an Indian who is familiar with Devnagari alphabet with the horizontal top line (shiro rekha), it is undoubtedly Indian.

To know what non-Indians think about it, (and this is the real test for a currency who run design consultancies that are sensitive towards Asian culture. Here is what they say:

that has global ambitions), I actually gathered opinions from my designer friends

I understand the R but not the two horizontal strokes do they mean anything seems to be in a hurry, maintaining a delicate balance (so as not to topple over). In contrast, the Dollar, Yen and Sterling Pound, for example, are stable and sit the world after the debate has died down. William Harald-Wong, Malaysia.

in the local context or were they influenced by the Japanese Yen? The symbol

solidly on the ground. I dont think its a bad design. I can live with it, and so will

I do feel it is too complicated for an international visitor. It should be a R isnt it? Because (of) the stroke on the top it looks like another language which I dont know and difficult to remember. Freeman Lau, Hong Kong/ China.

It reminds me of Communism symbol my first impression. Theresa Yong, Singapore.

I feel confused with horizontal lines. Those lines make me think of Railways. Irvan Noeman, Indonesia.

I feel the details and proportions of its design as a character are a bit odd, it might be a relationship of elements and strokes. To me, it was a strong reminder to the Euro sign, almost saw a flipped E of the Euro immediately. Tarek Atrissi, The Netherlands.

It is (fast) recognizable. Punlarp Punnotok, Thailand.

It is a bit too difficult if you have to write this symbol by your hand. Lesser details, more simple and easy to remember are what I prefer. Reminds me of some ancient script Siam Attariya, Thailand.

Top heavy. No solid foundation. The cross bars are disturbingly located could be a rail transport symbol. Stanley Tan, Singapore.

This of course is only one (designer) community reacting to it. But as William says, the world will live with it. Where will I like to see it? Definitely & quickly across all currency exchange booths across the world!

(Ashwini Deshpande is the Director of Elephant Srategy + Design)

Adding Value To The Rupee Director of Elephant Design on why the new symbol for the Rupee matters There are two things that drive most Indian corporates to look at their image, branding, quality of products & services, differentiation in

communication values etc. Either they are facing competition from global brands

offering,

in India or they foresee themselves exporting their products/services in markets late to start something that feels right.

where global brands have firmly established themselves already. It is never too

Peculiarly, Indian Government followed the same principle. As it saw the Indian currency making its way to becoming convertible with other globally accepted currencies, it realized it had no identity to claim as its own! No visual symbol!

And to make it more confusing, several of our neighbors too call their money by

the same name. So we are surrounded by the Nepalese Rupee (NPR Rs), Pakistani Rupee (PKR Rs), Sri Lankan Rupee (LKR Rs), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR Rp), Maldives Rifiyan (MVR Rf) and so on.

Indeed a very smart move by the Finance Ministry of India to float a brief for Rupee symbol design. It makes us the leaders, as we rightfully are on many global parameters, it gives us the opportunity to have a face for our improving economy & it adds to our dignity as a nation in general.

As a process, the Rupee design competition was quite engaging & inspiring as can be seen from the number of entries that qualified some 2,500 odd number. I am guessing there were as many more that probably did not make it through the first round.

According to me, the most challenging part of the brief was that identity was expected to represent the historical and cultural ethos of India. Considering the vast cultural diversity & historical expanse of India, this seemed like the toughest

part. While there were basic expectations that the identity would be adaptable in the conventional key-board system, the brief made no reference to what the identity needed to do from the global business & finance perspective. I missed that part.

The competition was announced in March 2009 & we did not hear anything further till our Finance Minister talked about it during the Union Budget of 2010. Finally, the winning entry was unveiled earlier this month i.e. July 2010! Do I like it?

Well, it does the job for me. I feel positive. As we get familiar with it, I am sure we will all like it. Is it distinct? It follows the design of horizontal strokes found in Euro & Yen completely and say it is harmonious to other global currencies. Is it Indian? To an Indian who is familiar with Devnagari alphabet with the horizontal top line (shiro rekha), it is undoubtedly Indian.

Pound to some extent. So on a scale of global currencies it is not distinct. I would

To know what non-Indians think about it, (and this is the real test for a currency who run design consultancies that are sensitive towards Asian culture. Here is what they say:

that has global ambitions), I actually gathered opinions from my designer friends

I understand the R but not the two horizontal strokes do they mean anything in the local context or were they influenced by the Japanese Yen? The symbol seems to be in a hurry, maintaining a delicate balance (so as not to topple over). In contrast, the Dollar, Yen and Sterling Pound, for example, are stable and sit the world after the debate has died down. William Harald-Wong, Malaysia.

solidly on the ground. I dont think its a bad design. I can live with it, and so will

I do feel it is too complicated for an international visitor. It should be a R isnt know and difficult to remember. Freeman Lau, Hong Kong/ China.

it? Because (of) the stroke on the top it looks like another language which I dont

It reminds me of Communism symbol my first impression. Theresa Yong, Singapore.

I feel confused with horizontal lines. Those lines make me think of Railways. Irvan Noeman, Indonesia.

I feel the details and proportions of its design as a character are a bit odd, it

might be a relationship of elements and strokes. To me, it was a strong reminder The Netherlands.

to the Euro sign, almost saw a flipped E of the Euro immediately. Tarek Atrissi,

It is (fast) recognizable. Punlarp Punnotok, Thailand. It is a bit too difficult if you have to write this symbol by your hand. Lesser details, script Siam Attariya, Thailand.

more simple and easy to remember are what I prefer. Reminds me of some ancient

Top heavy. No solid foundation. The cross bars are disturbingly located could be a rail transport symbol. Stanley Tan, Singapore.

This of course is only one (designer) community reacting to it. But as William says, the world will live with it. Where will I like to see it? Definitely & quickly across all currency exchange booths across the world!

(Ashwini Deshpande is the Director of Elephant Srategy + Design)

Paddy Fields @ Cannes

Co-Founder & NCD, TapRoot India on his experience at Cannes this year This year was my fifth at the mega advertising festival and I have seen it becoming bigger and bigger through the years across platforms. The theme at this years fest network, meet prospective clients, buyers and the big hires etc. was Connections made easy, which is so relevant for people who come there to I even recollect a few of the themes from past years: The more you see the more these sound clich, they can only be owned by Cannes Lions. Because the festival

you learn, Big ideas can make anyone feel smaller and some more. And even if has delivered everything that they have been saying over these years. The way delegates to say a few. Really, hats off to Terry Savage, Philip Thomas and the different regions as well. Like Dubai Lynx and Spikes for Asia, which has picked gain out of these festivals. Together, they truly make for a complete global or at least help us to retain it please!

they manage the award shows, the seminars and the talks, the scale and the entire Cannes Lions team. They have managed to seed different festivals for up pretty well in last few years, So in a way, we owe them big time for what we advertising festival! Its not a bad idea Terry to take over the Indian local awards Last year being the launch of Taproot India, I was a bit tied up with a few things

and missed the bus. Just three months old and we didnt have anything to enter at Cannes. And so I thought we could manage to skip the fest. But that was an entering work. incorrect decision on my part I believe, as these days Cannes is much more than This is about everything from clients to creatives to marketers and more. And learnings wise, each has more than what you can take. Take me for instance. Every time, I return from Cannes with a swollen head. For there so much for one

to learn: seminars, talks, the new directors showcase, thousands of shortlists

across twelve categories in the form of presentation boards, print/posters, radio ads and screenings for titanium and film. To see all of it plus make your presence felt at gutter bar and various parties, you surely need to be one hell of a time

management guru or else its impossible. Or maybe you could get on a computer favourite categories, by giving few seminars a miss. Which later I heard was a right decision. I prefer to see versus hear. Its a choice you need to make. After all, it is up to you, how much you can milk in the allotted seven days.

and see all the entries that have been submitted, Something I did with my

A festival like this is extremely helpful to juniors and seniors alike. Because chance or have time to see whats happening around. And it sure matters in many

considering the busy schedules seniors in the industry have, they do not get ways. From the standard of creativity to whos doing what and how to what ideas have already been done. And more importantly, the work that challenges you, every next time you face a blank page. Which largely, is what core job of a awakens your creative spirit and compels you to deliver a better creative product creative person at the end of the day is. Plus, somehow, I feel mini ad festivals brain more often.

should happen at least twice or thrice a year. If nothing, to challenge your right Alright, 2010 wasnt the best year for India. Then again, it wasnt the worst year either. A total of 17 metals (with 3 golds) compared to 23 and 24 in past two years, more or less weve done the job this year. But of course, a lot more was saw some of our entries at Goafest here at Cannes, I felt we believe in God a tad

expected from us. Expectations are escalating with each passing year. And when I too much. And depend too much on luck and magic. The mantra seems to be this: work, mere quantity is going to get you nowhere. Like, on the first day we had just 7 shortlist across 3 categories (media, promo and direct) out of 306 entries which our 1026 entires across categories, we bagged 17 metals which is less than 2%, is just about 2% of the shortlist. We got 2 metals. Adds up to less than 1 %. And to we often compare ourself with Brazil, why? Their strike rate is 10 times more

the more you enter the more you get. And while thats true only in case of quality

than us, that whole nation works as a team, they help each other that makes them more superior and super power than us, its high time we look at the other aspects as well apart from just work.

On the quality of work, the pieces that made me feel jealous (and wish I would

have done them) were the Gatorade Replay, the Heineken music concert, the Antiknife Crime protest online campaign by the metropolitan police, the Canon photochain and the Andes beer pub innovation. These are also my favourite. And what I call the power of an idea. No lobbying, no pushing. It cuts across all

if you look closely, these are the pieces that struck in most categories. Now thats barriers and reaches where it deserves to be. Also, the way the Billboard Magazine campaign was taken across mediums from print to outdoor to digital, it was which it had across all mediums, I was a bit disappointed with the film grand prix among my favourites as well. Purely from the engagement and the simplicity and the poster grand prix. These according to me, were awarded to the logos that media budget. Now dont get me wrong. I have huge respect for the kind of brand

appeared in the end or on the right hand bottom corner and may be due to the work both brands have been doing, and has done. Hats off to them and one more respective clients. And a great contender for Effies, But Grand Prix? Grand Prix is

bow for both the campaigns for they have generated so much goodwill for the all about an idea that becomes an inspiration and a benchmark for the next year. campaigns. Just because it worked in a particular region doesnt necessarily mean were also quite talked about in India.

The brands are inspiring but in my opinion, the same cant be said for the it has a great idea. Our very own Digen Verma or Balbeer Pasha campaigns Its the power of an idea that should matter, not the budget. Likewise, I dont think the size of an agency matters anymore. Its the size of your ideas that matter in the end. Nobody was ever awarded in advertising because they had 4000 odd folks working for them.

We, Taproot India, believe in the same principles and which has worked for us, we have been rated as the No.1 Indian agency at Cannes this year. Looking at our metal tally, were happy for the gold and silver for our Conqueror Paper print campaign. The kind of applause it generated at the independent agency session at

campaign. But overall, just a bit disappointed for the Times of India Aman Ki Asha

Cannes, everyone thought it deserved something. It also goes on to show that

weve done extremely well this year, both on businesses as well as at the creative award shows. We bagged 6 metals at Goafest, we did exceptionally well at The One Show, we were the only agency from whole of Asia to win a gold at Clio and topping it all was topping the Indian table at Cannes. Past year gives much possibilities.

confidence to try out a few more things. And were already planning to explore I wish Cannes would do more for the under 30 (or under 28). It could even be in

the form of delegate entry concessions, or anything, as they are the best guys to come out with options/solution, As youth are the future of advertising and most of them certainly cant afford to manage by themselves. Moreover, I dont think bigger agencies take a conscious decision to invest in juniors (which in a way

must be right the way they think) but if somehow, Cannes could crack this one, itd help the industry a lot. Especially in the coming years, as the festival could do with looking a lot younger!

This year was my fifth at the mega advertising festival and I have seen it becoming bigger and bigger through the years across platforms. The theme at this years fest was Connections made easy, which is so relevant for people who come there to network, meet prospective clients, buyers and the big hires etc.

I even recollect a few of the themes from past years: The more you see the more you learn, Big ideas can make anyone feel smaller and some more. And even if these sound clich, they can only be owned by Cannes Lions. Because the festival

has delivered everything that they have been saying over these years. The way they manage the award shows, the seminars and the talks, the scale and the delegates to say a few. Really, hats off to Terry Savage, Philip Thomas and the different regions as well. Like Dubai Lynx and Spikes for Asia, which has picked up pretty well in last few years, So in a way, we owe them big time for what we entire Cannes Lions team. They have managed to seed different festivals for

gain out of these festivals. Together, they truly make for a complete global

advertising festival! Its not a bad idea Terry to take over the Indian local awards or at least help us to retain it please!

Last year being the launch of Taproot India, I was a bit tied up with a few things

and missed the bus. Just three months old and we didnt have anything to enter at Cannes. And so I thought we could manage to skip the fest. But that was an entering work. incorrect decision on my part I believe, as these days Cannes is much more than

This is about everything from clients to creatives to marketers and more. And learnings wise, each has more than what you can take. Take me for instance. Every time, I return from Cannes with a swollen head. For there so much for one

to learn: seminars, talks, the new directors showcase, thousands of shortlists

across twelve categories in the form of presentation boards, print/posters, radio ads and screenings for titanium and film. To see all of it plus make your presence felt at gutter bar and various parties, you surely need to be one hell of a time and see all the entries that have been submitted, Something I did with my favourite categories, by giving few seminars a miss. Which later I heard was a it is up to you, how much you can milk in the allotted seven days.

management guru or else its impossible. Or maybe you could get on a computer

right decision. I prefer to see versus hear. Its a choice you need to make. After all,

A festival like this is extremely helpful to juniors and seniors alike. Because chance or have time to see whats happening around. And it sure matters in many

considering the busy schedules seniors in the industry have, they do not get ways. From the standard of creativity to whos doing what and how to what ideas

have already been done. And more importantly, the work that challenges you, every next time you face a blank page. Which largely, is what core job of a

awakens your creative spirit and compels you to deliver a better creative product creative person at the end of the day is. Plus, somehow, I feel mini ad festivals

should happen at least twice or thrice a year. If nothing, to challenge your right brain more often.

Alright, 2010 wasnt the best year for India. Then again, it wasnt the worst year

either. A total of 17 metals (with 3 golds) compared to 23 and 24 in past two

years, more or less weve done the job this year. But of course, a lot more was expected from us. Expectations are escalating with each passing year. And when I saw some of our entries at Goafest here at Cannes, I felt we believe in God a tad

too much. And depend too much on luck and magic. The mantra seems to be this: the more you enter the more you get. And while thats true only in case of quality work, mere quantity is going to get you nowhere. Like, on the first day we had just is just about 2% of the shortlist. We got 2 metals. Adds up to less than 1 %. And to our 1026 entires across categories, we bagged 17 metals which is less than 2%,

7 shortlist across 3 categories (media, promo and direct) out of 306 entries which

we often compare ourself with Brazil, why? Their strike rate is 10 times more than us, that whole nation works as a team, they help each other that makes them as well apart from just work. more superior and super power than us, its high time we look at the other aspects

On the quality of work, the pieces that made me feel jealous (and wish I would have done them) were the Gatorade Replay, the Heineken music concert, the Antiknife Crime protest online campaign by the metropolitan police, the Canon photochain and the Andes beer pub innovation. These are also my favourite. And if you look closely, these are the pieces that struck in most categories. Now thats what I call the power of an idea. No lobbying, no pushing. It cuts across all

barriers and reaches where it deserves to be. Also, the way the Billboard Magazine campaign was taken across mediums from print to outdoor to digital, it was among my favourites as well. Purely from the engagement and the simplicity which it had across all mediums, I was a bit disappointed with the film grand prix

and the poster grand prix. These according to me, were awarded to the logos that appeared in the end or on the right hand bottom corner and may be due to the

media budget. Now dont get me wrong. I have huge respect for the kind of brand

work both brands have been doing, and has done. Hats off to them and one more bow for both the campaigns for they have generated so much goodwill for the respective clients. And a great contender for Effies, But Grand Prix? Grand Prix is

all about an idea that becomes an inspiration and a benchmark for the next year. The brands are inspiring but in my opinion, the same cant be said for the campaigns. Just because it worked in a particular region doesnt necessarily mean were also quite talked about in India.

it has a great idea. Our very own Digen Verma or Balbeer Pasha campaigns

Its the power of an idea that should matter, not the budget. Likewise, I dont think

the size of an agency matters anymore. Its the size of your ideas that matter in the working for them.

end. Nobody was ever awarded in advertising because they had 4000 odd folks

We, Taproot India, believe in the same principles and which has worked for us,

we have been rated as the No.1 Indian agency at Cannes this year. Looking at our campaign. But overall, just a bit disappointed for the Times of India Aman Ki Asha

metal tally, were happy for the gold and silver for our Conqueror Paper print campaign. The kind of applause it generated at the independent agency session at Cannes, everyone thought it deserved something. It also goes on to show that weve done extremely well this year, both on businesses as well as at the creative award shows. We bagged 6 metals at Goafest, we did exceptionally well at The topping it all was topping the Indian table at Cannes. Past year gives much possibilities.

One Show, we were the only agency from whole of Asia to win a gold at Clio and confidence to try out a few more things. And were already planning to explore

I wish Cannes would do more for the under 30 (or under 28). It could even be in the form of delegate entry concessions, or anything, as they are the best guys to come out with options/solution, As youth are the future of advertising and most of

them certainly cant afford to manage by themselves. Moreover, I dont think must be right the way they think) but if somehow, Cannes could crack this one, with looking a lot younger!

bigger agencies take a conscious decision to invest in juniors (which in a way itd help the industry a lot. Especially in the coming years, as the festival could do

(Santosh Padhi, or Paddy as hes better known, is National Creative Director & CoFounder of TapRoot India)

RADIO: 10 Lessons From Cannes 2010 Jury Member (Radio Lions) de-learns, learns & re-learns from Cannes 10 Extension of lesson 1: Whoever said local doesnt sell globally? Lets create more and more spots with local flavour [dont we have them in abundance?]. local. And thus, it automatically qualifies to become a potential winner. Again, radio jurors love a whiff of anything fresh. Lesson 3: Remember: English is seen and heard as an English idea. Not as an Indian idea in And more importantly, a radio spot help build a brand better when produced

Indian English. And hence, an English spot is seen through a magnifying lens of

English sensibilities. Not with Indian sensibilities. And since they (jury) understand the English language, they often presume they understand an Indian idea done in English too. And thus, they evaluate or, if you are unlucky, devaluate your spot. To that extent your scoring chances might dramatically climb down. regional work in the spirit of that language. Lesson 4:

On the flipside in fact, a sincere attempt is always made by juries to hear the

Having said that, lesson 3 holds little significance, should the subject and the object require English. Simply put, if the TG and idea itself are well bred in the Queens language, by all means we must record in the English language. should know that. Lesson 5:

After all, modern India regards English as one of her many languages. And Jury

Let the script and execution not reveal or conceal too much. For, we must neither underestimate the jury nor challenge it beyond its wits! Managing a fine balance is an art of craft. Lesson 6:

The jury might want to hear the spot in English. Which means, if the spot needs to be recorded in English lets please leave no stone unturned in investing time and money to record a version in the lingua-franca. But of course with a footnote: rendition if its likely to be detrimental to our chance of winning. Though, we cannot do away with an indicative English script. Helping the jury evaluate your spots helps you! Lesson 7:

diluted / skeleton version in English. However, lets not furnish an English

If we have a support story to tell, lets narrate it. We cannot afford not to. We are provided with space to describe our work, lets fill it with apt set of words. If it helps, and only if it helps, we should make an audio-visual presentation to further explain how radio as a relevant medium was put to best use. Packaging works. Presentation adds value to substance.

Support material helps. It lifts the spot a few notches up. We can score. Lesson 8: Lets face it: If we continue to switch into our radio mode only in the 11th hour of

the 12th month, we could well miss the flight to Nice, Cannes. Lets invest time in

the medium. Its not a backroom activity. Lets do some homework. Lets be proactive about the pro-active. A 1-hour PPM and a 1-hour analysis will surely polish the rough edges. Lesson 9: And will bring the metals within reach. Radio as a medium is yet to be taken to another level. This medium needs

handholding from agencies, ad clubs, local awards bodies, the entire fraternity filters is only going to bring the category tumbling down. Locally being tough on judging is different from being harsh. If you are declared not good enough on your home turf, you are discouraged to enter international. When you dont enter, you are no more in the picture. Lesson 10:

and even advertisers. Running this otherwise light-hearted medium through nine

Lets take radio seriously. Lets please realise that radio, inherently and whole heartedly, belongs to India. And vice-versa. Hail Radio.

Manohar Nayak, Radio jury, Cannes Lions 2010 Managing Direrctor, Lingo India P. Ltd. Lesson 1: Lets not refrain from entering originally regional kick-ass radio spots. Often, minute regional nuances get jurys special attention. And when we have apt understand regional and therefore they play it down. The fact is: if you make an to decode the essence. descriptions in place, they do get jurys appreciation. Its a myth that they dont effort to trans-create your idea in support material, juries too will make an effort

And of course, the radio jury always has a ready pair of eyes for anything unheard of. Lesson 2: Extension of lesson 1: Whoever said local doesnt sell globally? Lets create more and more spots with local flavour [dont we have them in abundance?].

And more importantly, a radio spot help build a brand better when produced local. And thus, it automatically qualifies to become a potential winner. Again, radio jurors love a whiff of anything fresh. Lesson 3: Remember: English is seen and heard as an English idea. Not as an Indian idea in

Indian English. And hence, an English spot is seen through a magnifying lens of English sensibilities. Not with Indian sensibilities. And since they (jury) understand the English language, they often presume they understand an Indian your spot. To that extent your scoring chances might dramatically climb down.

idea done in English too. And thus, they evaluate or, if you are unlucky, devaluate

On the flipside in fact, a sincere attempt is always made by juries to hear the regional work in the spirit of that language. Lesson 4: Having said that, lesson 3 holds little significance, should the subject and the object require English. Simply put, if the TG and idea itself are well bred in the Queens language, by all means we must record in the English language.

After all, modern India regards English as one of her many languages. And Jury should know that.

Lesson 5: Let the script and execution not reveal or conceal too much. For, we must neither underestimate the jury nor challenge it beyond its wits! Managing a fine balance is an art of craft. Lesson 6: The jury might want to hear the spot in English. Which means, if the spot needs to be recorded in English lets please leave no stone unturned in investing time and diluted / skeleton version in English. However, lets not furnish an English cannot do away with an indicative English script. Helping the jury evaluate your spots helps you! Lesson 7: If we have a support story to tell, lets narrate it. We cannot afford not to. We are provided with space to describe our work, lets fill it with apt set of words. If it helps, and only if it helps, we should make an audio-visual presentation to further explain how radio as a relevant medium was put to best use. Packaging works. Presentation adds value to substance. money to record a version in the lingua-franca. But of course with a footnote: rendition if its likely to be detrimental to our chance of winning. Though, we

Support material helps. It lifts the spot a few notches up. We can score. Lesson 8: Lets face it: If we continue to switch into our radio mode only in the 11th hour of the 12th month, we could well miss the flight to Nice, Cannes. Lets invest time in the medium. Its not a backroom activity. Lets do some homework. Lets be pro-

active about the pro-active. A 1-hour PPM and a 1-hour analysis will surely polish the rough edges.

And will bring the metals within reach. Lesson 9: Radio as a medium is yet to be taken to another level. This medium needs

handholding from agencies, ad clubs, local awards bodies, the entire fraternity and even advertisers. Running this otherwise light-hearted medium through nine filters is only going to bring the category tumbling down. Locally being tough on judging is different from being harsh. If you are declared not good enough on your home turf, you are discouraged to enter international. When you dont enter, you are no more in the picture. Lesson 10: Lets take radio seriously. Lets please realise that radio, inherently and whole heartedly, belongs to India. And vice-versa. Hail Radio.

(Manohar Nayak was Jury Member, Radio Lions 2010 & is the Managing Direrctor of Lingo India)

Winning At Cannes Jury Member, PR Lions, on what separates the winners from all the others

Cannes PR Lions Jury President, Paul Taffes statement, kick in the bum at a press conference to announce the awards, captured headlines. This was aimed at the PR industry, in reference to the abysmally low number of entries from PR firms that

made it to the winners shortlist. This was obvious as we reviewed the initial body of works that saw a 32% increase in the number of entries this year (the PR category is still fledgling as it was introduced to the Cannes Advertising Festival last year). Amusing and annoying at the same time, quite a few entries cited that when entering in the PR category! The Grand Prix was

they had no money and hence, turned to PR clearly not a smart thing to do

(http://www.canneslions.com/work/pr/) that saw Gatorade and the agency reunite However, my hero was fellow juror, Tom Beckman. The tall, lanky, straight faced

awarded

to

TBWAs

entry

REPLAY

the football teams that drew their game fifteen years ago, for just that a replay. executive creative director, owner and senior partner of Swedens largest and most awarded PR agency taught me a few invaluable lessons. Toms firm walked away with five metals two gold Lions and three silver Lions.

So, what made the forty three entries winners out of a total of 571 entries, this

year? The jury was clearly looking to define creativity from a public relations perspective. Two aspects were defined at the onset, articulated well by, Paul in his introductory communication to us: a demonstrable and compelling link between creativity, strategy, execution and results; and reward creativity that lasts over conversation seem to play to the heart of what powerful PR is about. relations, crisis communication, internal communication and even in a domain like healthcare which predominantly uses public relations.

time at the expense of something that is one-off. Ideas that galvanize a wider Unfortunately, few entries made the cut in traditional PR domains of media

As we approached the final stages of our grueling judging sessions, there was campaigns that touched a chord.

another aspect that stood out: a high degree of authenticity in the winning

That brings me back to Tom and the work done by his firm, Prime PR. It was clear

that the agency strived to identify strong insights that led to the big idea triggering the wider conversation that Paul spoke about. We worked very hard for this, Tom told me. This was evident in all their entries (they had ten shortlists). Not just did their work stand out distinctly from a campaign perspective, categories made them reign

packaging of their entries and well thought out decisions to enter in the right As Cannes PR Lions enters its third year, our Industry must shed its indifference

supreme.

and stake claim to the category created for us. Prime PR offers us the example that exemplary campaigns can originate from PR firms, and creativity can indeed cross advertising borders.

(Nandita Lakshmanan, Founder and CEO, The PRactice was a juror at the Cannes PR Lions 2010)

Book Marketing using Social Media Author, The Immortals Of Meluha on digital mktg of books One of the benefits with being an outsider to the publishing trade (Im basically a

Finance guy) is that my advisors and I were not constrained by any pre-existing notions. So we were willing to try new and different ideas to market The Immortals of Meluha (currently # 1 on the HT bestseller list and # 2 on the India

Today bestseller list). I have been told that many of the marketing ideas we these ideas was a free promotional copy of the book, a trailer film for the book and very active use of social media. Free promotional copy of the book:

implemented have never been done earlier for the promotion of books. Amongst

We printed the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha with the same cover as the main book and had it distributed free in key national book stores such as Crossword, Landmark and Odyssey. This was done around 2 weeks before the release of the main book. The idea was to give a sampler to the audience of what to expect in the book. Since the free promotional copy was to be distributed at cash counters, it also ensured good pre-launch visibility for the book with both customers and bookstore staff. It is very crucial for the bookstore staff to also be get was that the stores got such positive feedback on the promotional copy that

aware of the book so that they would recommend it. A surprising benefit we did their first orders for the main book was much beyond what we expected. Our release!

publisher, Tara Press had to go in for a reprint within the first week of the book Trailer film for the book:

Weve been told that the book has a very visual feel, with many readers giving

vivid descriptions of the war scenes and the cities. So the idea of making a trailer home. An original soundtrack for the trailer film was composed by Taufiq

film, which would bring the book to life in an audio-visual form really struck Qureshi, the celebrated percussionist & music director and son of Ustad with the script written by Abhijeet Powdwal, special effects by Amit Chitnis and official website of The Immortals of

Allahrakha. The film was directed by Atul Manjrekar, a well-know ad film maker, with Rohan Dhuri as the model. The film was uploaded on youtube and the

Meluha

(http://www.shivatrilogy.com/theimmortalsofmeluha.html) to be shared with customers, distributors and retailers. The film (along with its different versions)

has already garnered more than 8000 views through pure viral forwards from viewers and has helped promote the book in a large way. Social media

There are two main tools that have been used in social media viz: Facebook and extremely efficient as a targeted broadcast tool.

Twitter. Facebook is a fantastic deep engagement tool whereas Twitter is Facebook has been a powerful engagement device for us. There are two Facebook accounts (Shivatrilogy and Amish Tripathi) and a group (The Immortals of Meluha). The group was not even set up by me. A few people whom I dont know,

who had read the free promotional copy of The Immortals of Meluha, set up the group. And I was invited into the group once it already had more than 150 members and someone realised that the author is also on Facebook! It was surreal.

Across the Facebook accounts/groups I already have over 1500 relationships and over 90% of them are people that I didnt know earlier and havent even met as yet. This group are like my insiders, my extended family. I post links on my wall and they place it on their walls so that all their friends know. We discuss various check up across the country on whether the books were being properly

aspects of the book (like the philosophies etc) on Facebook. My friends would distributed/displayed across book stores and would give information to me thus allowing me to provide feedback to my publisher, distributors and retail partners. Net-net, thanks to Facebook, I have developed a bunch of close friends who are as committed as me to making the book widely available and read.

Twitter on the other hand is a great targeted broadcast tool. It is difficult to have a conversation on twitter with the 140 character limit. But it is a great tool to make targeted broadcasts and announcements. It is also useful to give short succinct

reverts on feedback. Getting followers takes time (unless you are a celebrity). Hence my twitter handle is being aggressively promoted on every communication tool e.g. book backpage, website etc. Over time, as the number of followers rise, Twitter would be a perfect place to broadcast events, share news, thoughts of the

author, responses on the book etc. Of course Twitter also allows us to target

customers across the world weve got interest from UK/US/Middleeast/Malaysia. All this will aid in getting international publishing deals as well.

One of the benefits with being an outsider to the publishing trade (Im basically a Finance guy) is that my advisors and I were not constrained by any pre-existing notions. So we were willing to try new and different ideas to market The Immortals of Meluha (currently # 1 on the HT bestseller list and # 2 on the India Today bestseller list). I have been told that many of the marketing ideas we these ideas was a free promotional copy of the book, a trailer film for the book and very active use of social media. Free promotional copy of the book: We printed the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha with the same cover as the main book and had it distributed free in key national book stores such as Crossword, Landmark and Odyssey. This was done around 2 weeks before the release of the main book. The idea was to give a sampler to the audience of what to expect in the book. Since the free promotional copy was to be distributed at implemented have never been done earlier for the promotion of books. Amongst

cash counters, it also ensured good pre-launch visibility for the book with both customers and bookstore staff. It is very crucial for the bookstore staff to also be aware of the book so that they would recommend it. A surprising benefit we did

get was that the stores got such positive feedback on the promotional copy that their first orders for the main book was much beyond what we expected. Our publisher, Tara Press had to go in for a reprint within the first week of the book release!

Trailer film for the book: Weve been told that the book has a very visual feel, with many readers giving vivid descriptions of the war scenes and the cities. So the idea of making a trailer film, which would bring the book to life in an audio-visual form really struck

home. An original soundtrack for the trailer film was composed by Taufiq Qureshi, the celebrated percussionist & music director and son of Ustad with the script written by Abhijeet Powdwal, special effects by Amit Chitnis and Allahrakha. The film was directed by Atul Manjrekar, a well-know ad film maker, with Rohan Dhuri as the model. The film was uploaded on youtube and the

official website of The Immortals of Meluha to be shared with customers, distributors and retailers. The film (along with its different versions) has already garnered more than 8000 views through pure viral forwards from viewers and has helped promote the book in a large way. Social media There are two main tools that have been used in social media viz: Facebook and Twitter. Facebook is a fantastic deep engagement tool whereas Twitter is extremely efficient as a targeted broadcast tool.

Facebook has been a powerful engagement device for us. There are two Facebook Meluha). The group was not even set up by me. A few people whom I dont know,

accounts (Shivatrilogy and Amish Tripathi) and a group (The Immortals of who had read the free promotional copy of The Immortals of Meluha, set up the members and someone realised that the author is also on Facebook! It was surreal.

group. And I was invited into the group once it already had more than 150 Across the Facebook accounts/groups I already have over 1500 relationships as yet. This group are like my insiders, my extended family. I post links on my wall and they place it on their walls so that all their friends know. We discuss various

and over 90% of them are people that I didnt know earlier and havent even met

aspects of the book (like the philosophies etc) on Facebook. My friends would

check up across the country on whether the books were being properly

distributed/displayed across book stores and would give information to me thus allowing me to provide feedback to my publisher, distributors and retail partners.

Net-net, thanks to Facebook, I have developed a bunch of close friends who are as committed as me to making the book widely available and read.

Twitter on the other hand is a great targeted broadcast tool. It is difficult to have a

conversation on twitter with the 140 character limit. But it is a great tool to make targeted broadcasts and announcements. It is also useful to give short succinct reverts on feedback. Getting followers takes time (unless you are a celebrity). tool e.g. book backpage, website etc. Over time, as the number of followers rise,

Hence my twitter handle is being aggressively promoted on every communication Twitter would be a perfect place to broadcast events, share news, thoughts of the

author, responses on the book etc. Of course Twitter also allows us to target east/Malaysia. All this will aid in getting international publishing deals as well.

customers across the world weve got interest from UK/US/Middle-

(Amish Tripathi is the National Head Marketing & Product Development, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance & author of The Immortals of Melhua)

Rin-In-The-Face Is all of Indian advertising getting progressively more and more simple? Are brands getting back to the good old basics? Colgate is talking the language of white teeth once again. Discarding everything

else and very directly, re-discovering the tabletop model of the teeth as well and talking endlessly on the subject of germs hidden in-between teeth, which only Colgate reaches out to. Nirma is talking dirt-busting capability with its eminently well-created Nirma jingle TV commercial that has dirt freezing in its tracks, quite afraid of the

stentorian jingle of Nirma done with pizzazz and pomp. Nirma reinvents for itself its USP and the jingle. Both together. And now Rin has gone back to a creative piece that re-discovers the joy, the pain and the trauma of comparative advertising. Good formats and the good old ways seem to never tire in their efficiency scores.

The competitors brand to many is a four-letter word. In the case of Rin, it really is a four letter word as well: Tide. The current piece of Rin advertising, whichhas the eye and very-very straight. brand name Tide repeated many times over, is certainly new, refreshing, in-theThere are many ways of looking at this creative. Here are just two quick Jekyll and Hyde set of thoughts of mine. 1. This is a very confident piece of advertising. It takes the time-tested route of direct product delivery and capability comparisons. Just as long as your data is independent and reliable, go ahead and do this sort of thing. If Rin had pixilated works with the consumer is confidence. Go out there and say it confidently if you

the brand name and done this, it would seem a trifle under-confident. What have your facts right. Regain confidence for your brand and shake the competitors brand confidence index. Make people sit up and question with their eyes. Name the brand outright! Be bold! Take the battle out into the bastion of the competitors brand.

2. Hey! This is old hat. This kind of comparative advertising used to work in the good old days when consumers sat up and made purchase decisions basis product attributes and product delivery norms in terms of solutions. Good scent and

whiteness are rather both generic to the category. How much ever anyone shouts

in messaging such as this, consumers are going to be yawning and saying what have the same old message of the sixties with the creative ability and excellence of change.

next. Consumers hate this kind of relapse into age-old advertising formats that production standards of the 2000s staring back at them. Wake up and smell the What do I believe in?

I do believe this is a confident piece of advertising. Its a good one that will have consumerssitting up and take note of a very boring category that has been around will sit up and will want to enjoy the fight. In the boring detergents category, they will surely expect a Tide re-buff ad hitting the airwaves. Later than sooner. since the days of Sunlight and Det. Consumers arevoyeuristic in their habits. They

In this summer of detergent-discontent, consumers will watch the fun as it unfolds and will do just what they want. They will take their favorite brand back home for more reasons than product attribute and product delivery reasons alone. brand. Tide Naturals has much to sell in its brand name itself on this count. And

They will pick the brand basis the scent of the brand. Basis the language of the the bulk of consumers will buy basis the price of the brand as well. Price, sadly to common denominator nudge point for brand purchase in parri passu categories such as detergents today in India. The Rin ad is good for the category at large as consumers sit up and watch the and homes of the millions of consumers who use these brands.

the chagrin of the marketer and advertiser alike, remains the biggest lowest

fight unfold on their television sets, in the courts, and indeed in the marketplace The current piece of Rin advertising is very clear in its visual language of

comparison. There are shots of the competitive brands in the shopping baskets of emerging from the bus, one with the whitest of whites and the other with the the brands with Rin winning over Tide. Rin understands the importance of price vocally and visually. Whats ahead then?

both the women waiting for their kids. There is the all give-away shot of the boys creamiest of the creams. And finally there is the comparative half screen of both in this category and brings that in as well, as the round-figure of Rs.25 shouts

The Rin ad will be pulled off the screens. The fight will move off-screen. Rin would have got its bang for the buck already in terms of brand awareness scores in the initial burst of advertising before pullout. Many will criticize the genre of

advertising as being nasty and a bit too nifty. Rebuff ads will follow. And much else will happen. The fun has just begun. (Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.) Feedback: ceo@harishbijoorconsults.com

Is all of Indian advertising getting progressively more and more simple? Are brands getting back to the good old basics?

Colgate is talking the language of white teeth once again. Discarding everything

else and very directly, re-discovering the tabletop model of the teeth as well and Colgate reaches out to.

talking endlessly on the subject of germs hidden in-between teeth, which only

Nirma is talking dirt-busting capability with its eminently well-created Nirma jingle TV commercial that has dirt freezing in its tracks, quite afraid of the its USP and the jingle. Both together. stentorian jingle of Nirma done with pizzazz and pomp. Nirma reinvents for itself

And now Rin has gone back to a creative piece that re-discovers the joy, the pain and the trauma of comparative advertising. Good formats and the good old ways seem to never tire in their efficiency scores. The competitors brand to many is a four-letter word. In the case of Rin, it really is a four letter word as well: Tide. The current piece of Rin advertising, which has refreshing, in-the-eye and very-very straight. the brand name Tide repeated (and shown) many times over, is certainly new,

There are many ways of looking at this creative. Here are just two quick Jekyll and Hyde set of thoughts of mine.

1. This is a very confident piece of advertising. It takes the time-tested route of direct product delivery and capability comparisons. Just as long as your data is

independent and reliable, go ahead and do this sort of thing. If Rin had pixilated works with the consumer is confidence. Go out there and say it confidently if you

the brand name and done this, it would seem a trifle under-confident. What have your facts right. Regain confidence for your brand and shake the

competitors brand confidence index. Make people sit up and question with their competitors brand.

eyes. Name the brand outright! Be bold! Take the battle out into the bastion of the

2. Hey! This is old hat. This kind of comparative advertising used to work in the

good old days when consumers sat up and made purchase decisions on the basis

of product attributes and product delivery norms in terms of solutions. Good scent and whiteness are rather both generic to the category. How much ever anyone shouts in messaging such as this, consumers are going to be yawning and saying

what next. Consumers hate this kind of relapse into age-old advertising formats that have the same old message of the sixties with the creative ability and and smell the change. What do I believe in? I do believe this is a confident piece of advertising. Its a good one that will have consumers sitting up and take note of a very boring category that has been around since the days of Sunlight and Det. Consumers are voyeuristic in their excellence of production standards of the 2000s staring back at them. Wake up

habits. They will sit up and will want to enjoy the fight. In the boring detergents sooner.

category, they will surely expect a Tide re-buff ad hitting the airwaves. Later than

In this summer of detergent-discontent, consumers will watch the fun as it unfolds and will do just what they want. They will take their favorite brand back home for more reasons than product attribute and product delivery reasons alone. They will pick the brand basis the scent of the brand. Basis the language of the

brand. Tide Naturals has much to sell in its brand name itself on this count. And the bulk of consumers will buy basis the price of the brand as well. Price, sadly to the chagrin of the marketer and advertiser alike, remains the biggest lowest such as detergents today in India.

common denominator nudge point for brand purchase in pari passu categories

The Rin ad is good for the category at large as consumers sit up and watch the and homes of the millions of consumers who use these brands.

fight unfold on their television sets, in the courts, and indeed in the marketplace

The current piece of Rin advertising is very clear in its visual language of comparison. There are shots of the competitive brands in the shopping baskets of both the women waiting for their kids. There is the all give-away shot of the boys emerging from the bus, one with the whitest of whites and the other with the creamiest of the creams. And finally there is the comparative half screen of both the brands with Rin winning over Tide. Rin understands the importance of price vocally and visually. Whats ahead then? The Rin ad will (surely) be pulled off the screens. The fight will move off-screen. Rin would have got its bang for the buck already in terms of brand awareness scores in the initial burst of advertising before pullout. Many will criticize the genre of advertising as being nasty and a bit too nifty. Rebuff ads will follow. And much else will happen. The fun has just begun.

in this category and brings that in as well, as the round-figure of Rs.25 shouts

(Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)

Talking Trust I have been in India for eight months now and have fascinated by the extent and

reach of the Indian media. I dont think we have anything like this in terms of

diversity, vigour and robustness in the U.S. I have been witness to some really variety of issues. The questions that did strike me though at intervals was: Do people believe everything they hear and see in the media? For that matter, do and the more they see and consume it?

vociferous debates on national television and leading print publications on a

people trust the media as an institution in itself the more they get of the media Trust in institutions in Asia Pacific is still high compared to that in the West. India

is most trusting of business, and trust in government as well as CEOs has held steady over the past year. But trust in media is curiously on the decline in contrast to past years, where trust in both media and NGOs was high. This is where India

stood out in the Asiapac region. But this years study shows a sharp drop over the past two years in trust in TV news from 61% to 36%, business magazines from 72% to 47%, newspapers from 61% to 40% and friends and peers online from 50% to 40%.

I keep asking myself if this is the result of too much of a good thing! Is there so

much of media in India that some kind of reaction is beginning to set in? Has not skeptical? Are people beginning to step back a bit before they decide to how much of the media they want and how they want to engage with it?

sudden, increased over-exposure resulted in people becoming more discerning, if

How does all this impact brands and the business of brand building? What do brands need to do differently in the light of declining trust in the mediums for the message? How do we bridge the trust deficit?

Perhaps, till there is evidence of media regaining peoples trust, brands need to do more to retain and sustain trust. Inherent in this is the implicit deduction that

brands need now to have a social value added to their selling proposition. No social value, embrace the concept of mutual responsibility by engaging the consumer in a deeper dialogue.

longer is it enough only to be a good quality product; a brand has to demonstrate

An earlier research piece by Edelman, the Annual GoodPurpose study shows that can arise when brands and consumers join forces around a social platform or meaningful cause are immense. Corporate philanthropy may be one way, but it is obviously not suited to the long-term needs of a multinational behemoth or a brand that seeks to sustain trust. This is where the concept of social responsibility is beginning to play an increasingly greater role.

brands need to be socially responsible. The financially lucrative opportunities that

Having been in Edelman for a number of years, I have had the good fortune of

looking closely at the annual Trust Barometer. Now into its 11th year, the Trust

Barometer, is an annual survey conducted across 22 countries and targets an age group of the college educated between 25-64 years of age who report significant media consumption and engagement in business news and issues of public policy. This years Trust Barometer answered some of my questions on the Trust Factor and how it has emerged as a critical factor to the success of a brand and, I daresay, to various other components of our day to day life.

I have been in India for eight months now and have fascinated by the extent and

reach of the Indian media. I dont think we have anything like this in terms of

diversity, vigour and robustness in the U.S. I have been witness to some really vociferous debates on national television and leading print publications on a variety of issues. The questions that did strike me though at intervals was: Do people believe everything they hear and see in the media? For that matter, do people trust the media as an institution in itself the more they get of the media and the more they see and consume it?

Trust in institutions in Asia Pacific is still high compared to that in the West. India

is most trusting of business, and trust in government as well as CEOs has held steady over the past year. But trust in media is curiously on the decline in contrast to past years, where trust in both media and NGOs was high. This is where India

stood out in the Asiapac region. But this years study shows a sharp drop over the past two years in trust in TV news from 61% to 36%, business magazines from 72% to 47%, newspapers from 61% to 40% and friends and peers online from 50% to 40%.

I keep asking myself if this is the result of too much of a good thing! Is there so much of media in India that some kind of reaction is beginning to set in? Has not skeptical? Are people beginning to step back a bit before they decide to how much of the media they want and how they want to engage with it? sudden, increased over-exposure resulted in people becoming more discerning, if

How does all this impact brands and the business of brand building? What do brands need to do differently in the light of declining trust in the mediums for the message? How do we bridge the trust deficit?

Perhaps, till there is evidence of media regaining peoples trust, brands need to do

more to retain and sustain trust. Inherent in this is the implicit deduction that

brands need now to have a social value added to their selling proposition. No longer is it enough only to be a good quality product; a brand has to demonstrate consumer in a deeper dialogue. social value, embrace the concept of mutual responsibility by engaging the

An earlier research piece by Edelman, the Annual GoodPurpose study shows that brands need to be socially responsible. The financially lucrative opportunities that meaningful cause are immense. Corporate philanthropy may be one way, but it is can arise when brands and consumers join forces around a social platform or obviously not suited to the long-term needs of a multinational behemoth or a

brand that seeks to sustain trust. This is where the concept of social responsibility is beginning to play an increasingly greater role.

(Robert Holdheim is Managing Director, Edelman India)

Abundant Content Choice on TV: How Are Consumers Coping? Storyboard recently asked me to pen down the insights and reasons behind launching Indias first consumer TV Guidance channel. This is a short article on our journey within the fast expanding, changing world of Indian Television. The four viewer insights mentioned later in this piece have dramatically shaped our approach to creating our model.

Triple the choice. Times 20 million! The last 6 years of Digital TV in India have had a devastating and irreversible impact on the way viewers watch Television. Since the roll-out of Digital TV has happened gradually, we have not been able to appreciate just how much has changed since 2004-05.

So think for a moment what happens to consumer choice when the number of channels in an analog Indian home triple or quadruple when that household 40 or 50 percent but a 200 to 300% increase in options! turns to Digital TV? The increase from 60-70 channels to 200 channels is not of

Dramatic impact on choice you say? Now multiply that choice with 20 million! Because thats roughly the total number of Digital TV connections in India at the end of 2009 leading to roughly 100 million Digital viewers! Not to forget we will

add another 100 channels and more than 10 million Digital TV Homes in the next two years.

Long Tail of TV Content My company (www.whatsonindia.com) and I were fortunate to have chosen in business model for us. Hence, in the last 4 years, we have specialized in how forms of content on TV are increasing.

2005 the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) and Consumer TV Guidance as a consumers exercised choice on TV in a situation wherein channels and other

The changes are being seen in many ways. The starkest being the sharp drop in TV ratings of the Top 100 shows in 2009 as against any other time in the last 8 years! (See graph http://bit.ly/8CmRKP). The fall has not only happened at the number 1 or number 2 show ratings. ranked show, for the 100th ranked show! One can attribute this fall to other phenomenon such as increase in competition among Hindi General Viewership has fallen by more than half for the 55th ranked show, for the 79th

Entertainment Channels (GECs) as well. But then GECs have been launched earlier every occasion, consumers switch on their TV sets they encounter a massive consideration set of an average viewer! Is EPG the answer? Maybe. Maybe not.

as well (remember STAR ONE and Sahara One?). The writing on the wall is clear dilemma on what to watch thats caused because of a sharp rise in the

To aid viewers find the right programs, we first undertook creation of Nationwide EPGs inside set-top-boxes (Cable and DTH). It took us 2 years to build that system and by 2008-09 we swept the Indian TV industry with our EPGs feeding

millions of set-top-boxes. Today, all major DTH and Cable systems as well as all TV networks interface with the EPGs that we create within the Indian market.

However, the EPG in India has technological limitations. The most basic is the fact that due to the middleware employed by different operators, the Program Guide is at best only a directory, a list. In this situation, the viewer has to click-click-click and find whats going on TV. Finding content is dependent on users own intelligence. Our finding is that viewers in such situations have the anxiety of I dont know what I dont know! Within the EPG, there is no provision for content homes, EPG doesnt even exist as they get their TV through only the coaxial cable! Consumer studies reveal demand for TV Guidance In 2009, we structured a series of studies and consumer behavior analysis that have modeled these to structure our TV Guidance channel for Indian viewers :-

discovery to happen on its own. In any case, for 80 percent of Analog Indian

revealed some key insights. I have listed those down below and revealed how we

Insight #1: In 70 percent of occasions that TV viewers were switching on their sets, they wouldnt know what to watch! In these instances, viewers would spend anywhere between 2 to 10 minutes trying to find something interesting.
How we have used this: On the WHATS ON INDIA channel, viewers can find the best options to watch across a wide variety of universal interest areas/ genres

Insight #2: Every consumer that we spoke to in-depth said I need the first channel on my set to tell me what are the best options to watch right now. These demands were also picked up by some of the Operators who participated in a few of our tests.
How we have used this: The WHATS ON INDIA channel, is available as the Home channel across a host of DTH and Cable operators. That makes it easily accessible

whenever a viewer was to switch on his/ her set-top-box. In places with constraints of the Home channel we are placed next to the Home channel. We would like to appreciate the boldness shown by our partner Cable and DTH operators in taking this step in viewer interest and user experience.

Insight #3: Viewers switching on TV experience a strange anxiety of Theres something special happening on TV right now and I dont know where to find it.
How we have used this: We have designed the WHATS ON INDIA channel to flash key specials playing on that day at that time across channels! So for instance, on 26/11 or on New Years and then on Republic Day we highlighted the various dynamism of daily TV that on a daily basis there are special episodes with Reality shows, regional festivals, sports finals, etc that need to be highlighted to viewers.

special programs, interviews, documentaries that were playing on TV. Such is the

Insight #4: Viewers need different cues to decide what programs to watch. In some cases, just pure play info would be sought. In others, details of the show and in still other cases a small promo/ preview.
How we have used this: The WHATS ON INDIA channel plays a constant bottom scroll that covers the current running shows across 100s of major channels. shows, films, sports, documentaries that are playing in a NOW | NEXT time a view to arm the viewer with an informed choice of what to watch on TV. Our bag of goodies on the channel will keep growing as we clarify the TV Guidance model in this market.

Besides this there are round-the-clock recommendations and suggestions about frame. The channel also shows previews and promos of upcoming shows. All with

Reactions to the WHATS ON INDIA channel Even in very early days of the channel launch, the reactions to the channel have

been fantastic! While consumers have appreciated the channel the most

surprising response has come from Analog TV operators who are switching on the have come from Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh wherein a for Hindi Entertainment channels! Viewer Content Swayamvar

channel voluntarily across the country. In the first few weeks, the best reactions host of cases the channels been put on to prime frequencies usually reserved only

The WHATS ON INDIA channel has been structured to play the role of the channels getting launched in the next few months, how consumers react to this listening very hard to viewer expectations and molding our model accordingly.

match-maker between the right eye-balls to the right content. With more initiative of ours is anybodys guess. As a company we remain committed to

(Atul Phadnis is Founder & Chief Executive, Whats On India)

Learnings From Suresh Mullick I was at IIM Ahmedabad attending the launch of new programme called Learning What is Not Taught conceived and conducted by Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons. It was an outstanding programme. However, this piece is not about that programme.

The title of the programme Learning What is not taught triggered several thoughts in my mind. I asked myself, Have I learnt anything that was not taught?

As it happened, I have been involved in bringing out an e-book on Suresh Mullick created the original Mile Sur Mera Tumhara.

who was the National Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather and the genius who

As I read what other people had written, I realize the unintended effect people can

have on others. If you read the e-book (you can download it from http://periscopedesign.co.in/index.html ), you will see how one man has left an indelible impression on others.

Suresh and I worked together in Ogilvy for 25 years. I was lucky that I came to

know Suresh very early in my career at Ogilvy. I now realize that he treated me the same way when I was an account executive and later became his colleague on the board of the company.

When I read about Suresh through the lenses of different people, one more point Generosity was Sureshs second nature.

became evident. People never forget little acts of kindness and courtesy.

I often used to wonder if humility a desirable virtue in the corporate world. Suresh showed me that you could be humble and yet be effective. Humility is not irrespective of hierarchy. servility. It is about openness and willingness to listen, accept ideas from any one,

I remember when Suresh was working on an advertisement for Bru; he showed me the copy and asked me for my opinion. I did not like the work and I did not know how to say it. You dont like it?

I am not sure. Why dont you talk about it? He led the conversation, gently helping me to express my views without fear. Finally, I mentioned that his headline was buried in the body copy. He jumped. Say that again. Your headline is buried in the body copy. Show me the headline, which is buried. I showed him the particular line that I thought had the potential to be a good headline.

He went away without saying anything. I was not sure whether I had spoken too with a new headline.

much. Half an hour later Suresh was back, this time with a revised advertisement

He was generous in his praise and sharing credits with people, however small

their contributions were. That is why for many of us it was a surprise that there

was no mention about Suresh in the launch of Phir Mile Sur. Every one talked about how inspiring was the Original Mile Sur. However, there was no mention Spirit of Freedom, Mile Sur and Raag Desh. I consoled myself saying, How many matter? of Suresh, the genius who created the original Mile Sur. He had created a trilogy people today know who wrote the national anthem or Vande Mataram? Does it

(I have now received clarification that both Kailash Surendranath and Suresh Bala of Zoom did refer to Suresh; it was an unfortunate omission in the media.)

I saw the screening of Phir Mile Sur later in the evening yesterday. I remember what Amitabh Bacchan had said about the newer version of Don. I prefer the original.

I say the same thing: I prefer the original.

(R. Sridhar is Innovation Coach, IDEAS-RS

Effective Or Creative: Do We Have To Choose? Judging and juries in Effies have evolved ever since effectiveness got recognized as distinct from craft with its own band of fans. Craft had become the de facto measure of creativity, category break throughs and pushing the envelop of become the counter point to the use of metaphor and font.

freshness. Thanks to Effie, market performance and campaign effectiveness

In a world of subjectivity and craft, Effie has been built on the bedrock of rings the cash bells. Even this development has had an interesting evolution.

consumer acceptance, brand market share and offtake as much as creativity that

In the early part of the last decade, creativity and craft pushed the frontiers so hard that a lot of big successful brands found it hard to be creative in the eyes of creative gurus worldwide. It was not surprising therefore that the adage emergedthat effective advertising is neither creative nor clever. In fact it became fashionable for clients to say that if the advertising wins awards it wont

do well in the market place. This was rather strange since wasnt it Bernbach who had taught the world that If it aint creative , it wont sell?

Creativity worldwide got pushed on many small challenger brands by risk taking the big brands and their agencies woke up to join the rush to get off the beaten

creative boutique agencies. When their work started looking fresh and innovative, track. Unilever brands like Dove and Axe, P&Gs Pampers and Levis started to make the big brands look contemporary and having it. A case in point is the number of delegates from Unilever, P&G , Coke etc. at Cannes over the recent giants. So when the craft of creativity got stretched by the glory seekers, clients rewarding effectiveness got more strident.

years. Or the inclusion of several small creative agencies on their roster by global found themselves perplexed by the new framework and naturally the cry for

The Effie became the comfort zone for clients who put all their might into supporting effectiveness that is documented rather than on a campaign that has counter point to the big idea whose time had still not come. Thus was born the soul of Effie vs craft awards like Abby or Cannes, etc. set new benchmarks in tone, style and execution. The case study became the

Initially the Effie swung to the tunes of marketing folks who chose campaigns that rocked the shop audit or top of mind recall. But the creatives howled when awards started recognizing not necessarily outstanding creative work which was mark on the gongs.

built on High GRPs thus making it easy for big spending brands to make their

Jury compositions became key to the kind of work that was getting recognized.

For instance if the creative standards of Happydent and Lead India made an performers went unrewarded simply because now effective had also become creative. This is a great trend which is making the marketing and creative divide

impact on both judges and consumers, the market performance of bigger

slowly vanish. The Effie success of Vodafone zoo zoos and Tata Teas Jaago Re campaigns are both good examples of this trend this year.

Happily of late jury compositions have moved from a predominately marketing

focus to a mix of marketing, creative and strategy planning bias. For every point creative conscience of the of the jury that questions freshness and breaking

of marketing success measured by brand and planning pundits there is the category benchmarks and global creative standards. This healthy debate has now reached a fine balance where a couple of changes in the composition can tilt the results towards more creative or more hard working campaigns getting rewarded.

Of late there have been more agreements than disagreements between marketing

and creative going by the results of the last 3 to 4 years. For starters, 3 different agencies have won the Effie Agency of the year in this period. Clients like Unilever, Marico, P&G have rubbed shoulders with Vodafone, Perfetti and Coke in winning honours. More and more creative work which is also effective getting will be happy to see the trend in this area.

rewarded. The fine line between creative and effective is dissolving. Bernbach

More introspection still needs to done in the quest for furthering the progress

made. Are the standards of cases improving ? Is dramatics and theatre a necessary core part of the successful cases? Are regional campaigns stacking up versus the national ones this is still a hot topic. The national campaign advocates have the familiarity card while the regional campaigns have the underdog appeal. We still need to focus on rewarding the work and not the Agency as an attitude in some

sections of our opinion leaders. After all, the maturity of our judging is the but also the work done by the country in our attempt to climb the global charts.

starting point of honest self-evaluation of not just the work done by the agencies

The Effie is playing a remarkable role in bridging the effective and creative divide. In the years to come, one can hope for keener competition and a place for creativity awards. And increasingly you dont have to choose between effective and creative any more. effectiveness that is now firmly established as an alternative to the halo of the

(Ajay Chandwani is Director, Percept & Joint Secretary of the Ad Club, Bombay)

Jaago India Jaago Silver Jubilees always fascinate me. It gives us a chance to go down memory lane,

recall the good ole times and have a kick start for the future. The Advertising

Standards Council of India will be in its 25th year in 2010.Its a great time for reflection and a pat on the back for all those who helped build this Organization Founder members who had the vision for Self Regulation, the Board of Governors on the complaints brought to their doorstep. to reach the highest level of credibility amongst the Advertising Fraternity. The and the Consumer Complaints Council members who have so impartially decided

What has been ASCIs overarching goal? It has been to maintain and enhance the publics confidence in advertising. ASCI seeks to ensure that advertisements Truthful and fair to consumers and conform to its Code for Self-Regulation which requires advertisements to be Within the bounds of generally accepted standards of public decency and propriety. competitors.

Not used indiscriminately for the promotion of products, hazardous or harmful

to society or to individuals particularly minors, to a degree unacceptable to society at large.

ASCI has been doing this year in and year out over the years, religiously Government of Indias recognition when the Code for Self Regulation became

processing thousands of complaints over 3400 Advertisements. It has won The mandatory under the Cable TV Network Act and Rules. It has been invited by the Government on every Committee dealing with Advertisements. It has won international recognition when it won The European Advertising Standards Alliance Silver Award in its very first year of joining that Organization.

So why the need for the Awareness Campaign? All consumers in the country need higher level of credibility in Advertising. We need to move from 150 complaints a Media in line with the highest level of ethics in Advertising.

to be sensitized to their rights and be aware that such alertness will ensure a year to 250 complaints. We also need to have the Advertisers, Ad Agencies and

The process has started. More than 50 Presentations replete with case studies have been across all Members Companies and Ad Clubs. The Awareness Campaign shout out from the rooftops Jaago India Jaago. across Media- TV, Newspapers, Magazines, Hoardings and Kiosks will definitely

(Alan Joseph Collaco is the Secretary General of the Advertising Standards Council of India)

Brand Tiger Woods is dead, long live Tiger Woods The professional Tiger will live on, file many more Eagles, win multi-million dollar championships, fame and name and all that matters in the game. What seems next to impossible is for the Brand Tiger Woods to just do it again! [No will regain his concentration and the touch soon enough. offence to Nike or Adidas!]. Of course, even the former statement assumes that he

Brands are like rivers, when they change course, they hardly ever come back to

the original and when they do if they do its beyond several lifetimes. Human susceptible to the blocks and tackles on the way. And looking at things the way they are, the current crisis for Brand Tiger is not just a block but as big as a dam. Damn!

brands are swifter rivers, better when they are fresher and in rapid action, but

Consumers are not morons. Theyre babies. They give everything when they love a brand and hate from the core of the heart when the brands dont deliver to the promises. One of the biggest unsaid promise brands put on the line is trustworthiness. So while Tiger Woods is probably a score up on recognition

now, he would suffer on likeability and therefore popularity and he would be tumbling down to ground zero when it comes to trust. No points for guessing that even though most brands need their endorsers to be at least neutral or fair on this first to desert him, for a while. Home products would be the next in line and probably only the impulse fun, sporty brands can still continue working with him.

criteria, the Financial and high involvement products and services would be the

This is the risk brands run when they hire a single, iconic celebrity as their mascot or ambassador. In the need to rub off all positive energy from the endorser to the brand, the brand managers do need to keep in mind that they also enherit what brand is to maximise the positives and negate any negatives that can ever happen.

goes wrong with their ambassador. A key creative challenge therefore for each

I cannot help but quote other indigenous example of Salman Khan and Mohammed Azharuddin here, from the film and the sports world respectively. Salman allegedly hunted a deer first and then mowed down people. He still scores highest* in recognition [above SRK] in the country but scores rapidly start falling

on likability and image. On trustworthiness and family orientation, he is nowhere while searching for their face. The result is that Salman is devoid of any

amongst the top stars, and they happen to be pre-requisites for many a brand endorsement [sans a recent Perfetti because the product thrives on his fun image

is not too fussy on the trust part. It does help also to have a creative and experimentative top boss and as I understand, the endorsement did not give him much money but just a break back into the market]. Azharuddin was stripped off his cap, his pride and also any endorsements his way, immediately when he was charged with cheating the country. Mind you, both of them have a successful career [Salman continues to be an ace hero and Azhar is a successful politician

now] but still find few takers when it comes to the endorsement world. Corporate Brands run on safer grounds than entertainment brands and Dus ka dum is easier for Salman than the next advertising for a car.

Swoosh back to the tiger and his agents have a bit of busy time in the future. Not

earning for him, but controlling fires. I hope that while a part of their team is his image, and looking for the new course brand Tiger would take and not expect that he will some day start from where he left. The river has changed course!

doing that, the other part is spending significant time and energy in re-building

Assuming Tiger and the media is able to put this story behind, do huge damage

control by admission by choice and not force and he further does not throw in the some future. But different from what it could have been. Tiger minus trust plus

towel by going mad trying to hold his wife and forgetting the game, there may be humility minus time lost plus regained likability could be the new course for brand Tiger. He could either stand for a corrected individual and hopes the world and his family forgive him like they forgave Clinton or could be the next anti-

hero who does not care and then expect the anti-brands to back him. Both are long drawn an dangerous routes. Does he have a choice but??

(Manish Porwal is CEO, Percept Talent Management)

In My Lifetime Thank you Madhukar, Sundar, Colvyn and everyone at the Executive Committee of AAAI and the Advertising Industry for according me this honour. I must confess I didnt realize when I accepted this award that its going to be so much work:

Talking to Media about my past; about my successes and failures and minutes

Now I have this request from AAAI that I should speak to you for 45 And acknowledging the huge number of letters, mails and smses that I have got from my clients, friends and well-wishers.

An interesting sideline of these communications has been that 50% of them said

the award has come several years too late and another 50% said, its too early to who is right, but one thing I like to clarify that this award does not mean I am thinking of retiring any time soon.

give you this award and it should have been given a few years later. I dont know

And by the way how old do you think I am? 58 to be precise and not 60 as one

channel reported and have 37 years of work experience in marketing and

advertising behind me and not 40 as another publication reported. Its ironical years, when it was only sometime ago, when I had 8 years of experience, I would to round it off and say almost 10 years. Colvyn tells me that I must reflect on my past and share my thoughts with all of you. Yes, its been an exciting, varied challenges, highs and lows with measured spoons of success.

that I am quibbling over over-reporting my age or my work experience by a few

journey, a roller-coaster ride with adequate doses of trials, tribulations,

I am a slow, steady, patient kind of guy, willing to put in the extra dose of work

without expecting anything in return in terms of laurels or money and perhaps that todays youngsters, be they in advertising or in any other field would laugh

this in some measure has contributed to my limited success. Of course, sentiments at. It took me 16 years of rich and varied experience to start Madison; Experience and later Cadbury which was then a Rs. 20 crore Company, but with an image then. And 8 years in advertising with Contract as its founder member and Mudra,

of 8 years in marketing with Sarabhais where I was Brand Manager of Det Cake several times its size and now its advertising spend is several times its turnover then an entrepreneurial small Ahmedabad based agency, to convince myself that I had what it takes to start and lead an agency that would be sustainable and worthy of my working in it. Not so surprisingly a young man who worked in

Madison in his first job as an Account Executive for 2 years or perhaps 3, teamed up with a young copywriter, again from Madison, with even less experience to start his own agency. So you can see it takes a lot to get me going.

At Madison, now in its 22nd year, if I look back I think I can see 3 clear phases which we adopted, ofcourse intuitively or commonsensically.

The first phase was the cautious phase. We started Madison with just two clients Godrej with Cinthol Brand and Nelcos Blue Diamond TVs. And for the first 4 came to us with new business, we made it difficult for them to accept our terms. years virtually, we did not go after new businesses, not only that, if somebody

In hindsight how ridiculous and stupid could I have got? Or was it wisdom of a

dimension that todays world including me can neither understand nor appreciate. My simple reasoning was I did not want to bite off more than what I could chew and let my worthy and esteemed clients down.

The second phase was the growth phase, started around 1992 93, when India liberalized and the realization dawned on me that my philosophy of Small is beautiful is not going to hold me in good stead in the new emerging India. Incidentally, I must mention that my decision to start an agency was quite abrupt with a few large clients and I felt that I was not the right man to lead Mudra, who by then had acquired ambitions of wanting to be number 1, in terms of size.

and was born out of a deep rooted belief that a good agency was a small agency

Again, because I felt that I wanted to be a craftsman in advertising rather than a manager of men and money which one would invariably become, as the head of a large agency. In this phase, Godrej came together with Procter & Gamble (P&G) and we began to interface with P&G for Cinthol and assuredly they thought we had what it takes to handle their brands Vicks and Whisper and therefore encouraged us to talk to DMB&B, who we got in bed with after 2 years of on and

off and very tiring discussions, helped along the way substantially by Godrej and P&G and in no small measure, I am sure by my friend Mohommed Khan, whose agency Enterprise was then tied up with DMB&B and who must have given them a tough time and thought they and their international President John Ferris did

not know the ABC of advertising. Right, Mohommed? P&G I must confess in to the technology to be followed in creation of effective advertising. Those were not and I fell hook, line and sinker for the belief that advertising must sell and

hindsight exposed us to what I may call non-creative advertising that works; and the days of side-by-side demos and cut-aways and product windows and what advertising that entertains is wasteful. P&G dealt with 4 or 5 agencies then, and those were the heady days of sponsored programmes, and Doordarshan where you earned 10% of the total spend irrespective of whether you handled the brand

or not and me having the heritage of Rajni and Buniyaad at Mudra and the agility

of a monkey managed to corner a substantial share of revenue from P&Gs

advertising budget. One fine day when Doordarshan was the reigning monolith and sponsorship of Chitrahaar and Feature Film and Chayyageet could spell the difference between success and failure of brand plans and Zee was just about in India? (I asked what is AOR, because I did not know). To their surprise or even disappointment, I said no, because its better to have 4 agencies fighting for you to

gaining ground, P&G called me to ask if the concept of a media AOR would work

get a disproportionate share of sponsorships than one. Later the C&S scene hotted up further and the time was right for an AOR. Our appointment caused a storm at this august body which is conferring on me the award and we spent hours and And the AAAI even passed a rule that only a Club agency can be appointed as an hours discussing how AORs would spell doom and how they should be stopped. AOR and that an agency to be appointed a Media AOR should handle atleast 10% of the clients business. And Tata Tea our second media AOR, handed over a brand to us for creative because of this. A double whammy. How times change?

The success of our media service convinced me about the benefits of

specialization that could accrue to an Advertiser, thereby making the agency systems and processes, which regulate and drive efficiency and build a cadre of people that are proud about their work. In the days when I joined advertising the

offering invaluable. In my view, specialization develops a body of knowledge,

only qualification required of a media person was that he should be a good honest South Indian with an ability to use a calculator, accurately and quickly and type even faster so that if the typist did not come, he could put together a 15 page print

estimate for the next day mornings meeting. Fast-forward to 2009 to Welingkars Auditorium and you saw an auditorium full of professionals, cheering and sometimes jeering outstanding and ingenious work of quality that could stand out and be counted as the worlds best.

The third phase, marked by the arrival of Lara on the scene has been arena. And a bit more focus on internal systems, processes, standard SNOPs and in our specialist units Orbit that we now call Madison World.

Consolidation and Diversification into new streams within the communication organization building to ensure sustainability and continue to plug gaps that exist

I was fortunate to be involved in Reliance Cup, the first time when the Cricket

World Cup was to be played in India and Ambanis had bought the entire rights much to put a logo on cricketers underwear. I learnt from Ambanis about big,

lock, stock and barrel for under Rs. 5 crore. These days, I guess it would cost that heavy audacious goals before the term was coined in the western world, but more done on time. I learnt from the Godrejs importance of a value system. And from

importantly that, nothing was impossible and that every job has to be done and Procter & Gamble (P&G) the importance of a codified process for almost everything including the creation and release of advertising. I am grateful to both; Godrej Adi & Parmeshwar Godrej for placing their confidence in me in the early days of Madison. And P&G for discovering our unusual and uncanny strengths in media. I have been fortunate to have tough and demanding, but enlightened helped raise the bar at Madison every successive year.

clients who have taught me much more than what I contributed to them and

When I look back I have had to do some crazy hilarious and stupid things in my

working life. I would count using a toilet in a one story guest house in winter in a small town in Bihar, that was cantilevered outside the room and which had only wooden slats as walls that let biting cold, gusty winds pass through, that virtually numbed me, as one of them. Trying to shoot a film with a prominent celebrity without letting him know that we were shooting a film was another. Getting it on air on Doordarshan in 36 hours from idea, to script, to storyboard approval was another. Having a woman in DD Chennai, shriek and jump up in her chair when noble cause of trying to get a storyboard approved!

my colleague pulled out a Whisper Wings from her purse was another- all for the

I have had my fair share of highs from instituting and running Indias first

afternoon daily soap Shanti, thanks to Bharat Patels passion for TV, to running Reliance Cup, to instituting the rotating BPL Replay Bug, to becoming the first media agency in India to win 2 Cannes Media Lions. But I had to remind myself

everytime that you are only as good as your last achievement and if public all lows would be the year 1998, when we lost 70% of our income. And it took several years to build it back. But build we did. MY INVOLVEMENT WITH

memory is short, our industry memory is even shorter. And among the mother of

Let me now move to my involvement with industry matters. You could say that my association with industry started within the first year of my working life. Thanks to Roger Pereira of Shilpi, then which was my agency when I was in

INDUSTRY

AFFAIRS:

Sarabhais . He asked me to contribute a bi-monthly article in SOLUS magazine on marketing. A kind of a scan of the marketing scene. I spent many Saturdays cutting out ads that I liked and ads on promos that I thought would yield results. I assignments and project reports too. They say the route to a mans heart is different route! So as you can see from early days I spent a fair amount of my

did it with the help of my then girlfriend Homai- she typed all my Bajaj through his stomach. Homai, as some of my friends from Bajaj know used a non-working time on matters relating to industry. This early writing under the mentorship of then SOLUS Editor Hafiz Noorani of Geoffrey Manners, God bless his soul! helped me pause, think, reflect and analyze, early in life on matters

beyond my immediate work. Some years later I got catapulted into the hot seat of President of The Advertising Club, Bombay and following in the close footsteps of illustrious leaders like Roger, Pheroza, Amol and Mukul, because our then

President Sushil Bal decided to abruptly leave office. I must tell you that in those days putting together an event was a lot more taxing or even treacherous, because there was no sponsorship, hardly any money and no event managers or agencies

that you could out-source lights, sound, stage, menu, ushers or hostesses to and

when I was editor of SOLUS I had to be in charge of content, layout, print and production too! Mercifully I did not have to hand deliver the copies too!

My mantra for industry matters has been patience and perseverance, which I that would upset the apple cart.

believe bring about consensus and acceptance of what initially seem radical ideas

I mooted the idea of bringing in Media agencies to the top table when I was

President of AAAI way back in 2002 but did not want to push it through unless it to initiate a Media Agencies Association, I resisted the idea because I felt the cause

had unanimous approval atleast at the Executive Committee. Despite provocations of our industry would be better served by the media agencies sitting at the same Madhukars Presidentship, a few months earlier at an EGM, the Association Association. What is 7 years in the life of an Industry? INDUSTRY

table as the creative agencies. And I am delighted that just 7 years later under passed a resolution unanimously to make Media Agencies members of the

To say that our advertising agency industry is going through some tough times,

ISSUES:

would be an understatement and I dont know if merely changing nomenclature

like Advertising Agencies Association of America has done and become 4As is going to solve the problem. An agency runs on only one pillar its talent pool and that is fed by only one source of income or should be fed by only one source of income the commission or fees that the client pays. And such costs account for rightly so, that it is his birth right to buy everything at the lowest possible cost,

50% to 55% of an agencys P&L. Every client organisation believes and yes including agency services and has unleashed an army of procurement officers on

agencies, ill-equipped to deal with them, and our industry is succumbing like a pack of cards. Whilst the immediate result of this is more than satisfactory for my Advertiser friends; ( I read in a report that the Worlds top 100 Advertisers

margins has dropped by just 0.1% to 11.5%, whereas Agencies margins had

dropped by 1.7% to 10.5%) I fear that adequate investment in attracting and nurturing talent for the future is going to take an even further back seat. How many recruits have we made from IIM, Ahmedabad or ISB, Hyderabad in the last 5 years and what was that figure 20 years ago? If I was the Chairman of a large multi billion dollar Company or an Indian large FMCG company, that believes would worry. Or are we saying that a new kind of Agency or Organization will effective than what we do today and at a far lower cost.

that advertising is a key ingredient to sustain market share and therefore profit, I emerge with less expensive talent that can produce better advertising, that is more

Mr. New President, you and your band of 20 wise men including me, must sit and engage with our advertiser friends to discuss future sustainability. Our friends in Media have set up structures to engage with their clients, i.e. ourselves. Perhaps

the time has come for us to seriously engage with our clients at a macro and policy level to discuss issues of sustainability of the advertising profession, not of the earth. Let us leave that to IAA and Dr. Pachauri.

But before we do that we must make up our mind that we want to be counted as

outstanding professionals of a high caliber possessing high intellectual capital and businessmen, out to make a fast buck whenever and from whoever and wherever

let us resist the temptation of becoming or being seen as opportunistic possible. This would serve all constituents better and would enable us to develop skills and capabilities and that would then give us the guts and courage to demand our price, whether it be in the form of commission or a flat fee or a

combination and reject those businesses as clients who feel that the value that we deliver is not worth the fee that we demand, rather than succumb to clients pressure and acquire them on any terms to meet inflated growth objectives and that unrealistic growth objectives and our weakness for new business is the root cause of a lot of what is wrong today. The advertising market is bound to grow by

then find ways and means of handling the business profitably. I have often felt

leaps and bounds, atleast in India and there will be plenty to go around for everyone, so our anxiousness is misplaced.

We need to re-affirm our faith in our business model that we get appointed by the they be and we earn from the advertiser a fee that covers us adequately for all our costs and leaves room for a handsome profit margin to allow us to invest in training , tools and top quality talent.

advertiser, we work for the advertiser to achieve his business objectives whatever

Another suggestion I have Mr. President is for AAAI to institute a Client Credit and its ability to adhere to payment deadlines either on account of cash flow or on a Ratings Provider to provide 2 sets of ratings:

Process Rating System that allows us to objectively assess every clients record on account of process issues. Perhaps the job of Credit Rating could be outsourced to

One based on advertisers ability to pay and media

Another based on advertisers track record on payments to agencies and

We owe this to our esteemed AAA+ rated advertisers sitting in this room tonight. It is unfair to paint all with the same stroke.

And simultaneously we must initiate a dialogue with our media owner friends to bring in the concept of sequential liability. This will allow the advertising agencies to focus on their core job of increasing the sale of the advertisers products and way our advertising market can dramatically increase the way we want it to from the current 21000 crore, is if our clients sale dramatically increases, for which they hire agencies in the first place. THANK services and the honest truth that my media friends must know, is that the only

My ride has been cushioned by a band of highly motivated and capable people

YOUs

who fortunately for me, understood my ways and I must thank from the bottom of

my heart: the affable Prabha, objective Punitha and her band of committed 7

COOs, meticulous Veena, my rural pundits Rajan and Seshadri, diplomatic Arminio and his ever growing empire, aggressive Darshana, analytical Murthy, unflappable Divya, athletic Melroy, fastidious Rachna and their band of 750

committed professionals, not forgetting my Ravi who performs the toughest job of all. And my business partners Noomi and Sunil Gavaskar in PMG and Martin Sorrell in Mediacom in India.

And I have my wifes permission not to thank her since she told me last night Dont be silly- you are not getting an Oscar. But I must thank my friends for sometimes having to wait endlessly for what seemed like critical tasks then, but now in hindsight dont. I recall once quite shame fully making 4 car loads of as my client and I vacillated over the choice of a word or two over a headline and

friends wait outside Godrej at Vikhroli, enroute to Lonavala for a couple of hours the appropriateness of Lisa Rays skin tone. And my daughter Tanya for her inspirational smss on life, success and failure that invariably reach me most mornings as I enter office. And Lara ofcourse who works longer hours than me and who has currently become the darling of media.

Id like to end with the sentiment that hopefully I have miles to go before I sleep. Thank You The Advertising Agencies Association of India, once again. (From the speech delivered by Sam Balsara, CMD of Madison World, after

receiving the AAAI LifetimeAchievement Award on 25th November 2009)

My Seven Big Thoughts for the Rural Markets 1. Rural Boom: By 2012 it is expected that every village will be connected by an all weather road, every village will have internet connectivity, and almost every home will have electricity and possess a mobile phone. This significant

improvement in rural infrastructure coupled with agriculture reforms already under way we can expect rural markets to reach inflexion point. This will lead to an explosion in demand the way it happened in the urban markets in the mid 90s

as a result of easy consumer finance, a boom in the IT sector and steep increase in corporate salaries. Companies are not anticipating this boom and many will be taken by surprise when it happens.

2. Reverse Innovation: Ever since the BoP concept was introduced at the turn of

the century many companies have tried to transform their business models through single serve sachets, low cost production, extended mom and pop distribution and NGO partnerships. But in the rush to capture the fortune at the base of the pyramid, something may have been lost-the perspective of the poor themselves. In my view most such initiatives have failed to hit the mark. Pushing produce incremental sales in the short term. But in the long term, this strategy intends to serve. the companys reformulated or repackaged products into villages may indeed will almost certainly fail because the business remains alien to the communities it For decades, MNCs have sold modified products in India, a process widely recognized as glocalization. This strategy worked reasonably well with the more affluent urban consumers whose behavior is somewhat similar to Western consumers. With growing rural purchasing power and the three times larger population than urban, companies will need to develop appropriate products for this market. The glocalization or minor modification will not work as rural consumers are very different. This will call for a reverse innovation approach,

totally opposite to the glocalization approach. This will involve a bottom up,

community embedded process of co-invention and business co-creation. Such an approach will bring the company into close, personal business partnership with BoP communities. While creating enduring value for the community, it will establish a foundation for long-term corporate growth and innovation.

3. New price-performance paradigm: What the rural market requires of products is delivery of decent performance at very low cost. My advise to companies is to aim for 75% performance at 25% cost. Nirma or Ghadi washing powders are Ariel brands. Rural consumers are interested in deriving core benefit from the

excellent lower performance-low cost products compared to the global Surf and product and these low priced brands essentially clean clothes adequately. Users are not worried if these powders dont have a softener or whitener. The sachet as as the price still continues to remain high. a solution of making the offering more affordable will not work in the long term 4. Innovative rural distribution: The biggest challenge in rural remains reaching

your product to 600,000 villages compared to 5,000 odd towns in urban. A few choupal and HUL Project Shakti. But much more needs to be done in this area.

new rural distribution and procurement models have been innovated by ITC eOne possibility is the use of the social infrastructure being created by government. For example there are over 5 million womens micro-finance groups in existence and by 2011 the number of groups is expected to jump to 15 million. Thus 150 million rural women or 150 million of the 200 million total households in rural would be linked to self help groups. Can this channel be used innovatively to reach products and services to rural homes? 5. Dedicated Rural teams: Companies will need to shift power to where the

growth is by dedicating empowered teams for the rural markets so that they can develop their own strategies and products. A separate sales force is also desirable markets. MBAs from B grade small town institutes should be hired. Not only will as the regular force will avoid covering the more difficult and small off-take rural

they work at much lower salaries but will stick around as they belong to the local areas. 6. Inclusive marketing: This is a new concept I have created which goes much

beyond BoP. Inclusive marketing looks at the poor not only as consumers but also

as producers/suppliers of goods and services. This approach offers promise to add

economic value to goods and services contributed by the poor. It can therefore

impact poverty positively. ITCs E-choupal is a perfect example of inclusive marketing. The business model ensures that farmers as producers get better value for their produce. Once their incomes are enhanced the model then uses the same channel that was created for procuring produce to push relevant goods and

services needed by the farmers as consumers. Government and the private sector need to come together to promote inclusive marketing and grow the size of the rural pie through the development of reverse distribution channels rather than companies fighting with each other to grab share of the limited pie. 7. New Opportunities; Rural markets now offer a number of new opportunities.

Healthcare: Total rural spending on health care currently is Rs 700 billion and expected to reach Rs 3.5 trillion by 2025, an impressive fivefold increase. Despite the private sector. the launch of the National Rural Health Mission 80% of health spending will be in Durables consumer financing: In the 90s consumer finance became available easily which led to high growth in sale of durables. Rural consumer finance has become a big opportunity only now with rapid electrification of rural households million.

Banking: According to a World Bank study bankable people in rural India is 185 Construction and Housing: Currently there is shortage of 40 million houses in rural India. In conclusion I would say the next growth will come from the rural market and 2012 it is expected that every village will be connected by an all weather road,

companies that ignore this segment will do so at their own peril.1. Rural Boom: By every village will have internet connectivity, and almost every home will have

electricity and possess a mobile phone. This significant improvement in rural

infrastructure coupled with agriculture reforms already under way we can expect the way it happened in the urban markets in the mid 90s as a result of easy

rural markets to reach inflexion point. This will lead to an explosion in demand consumer finance, a boom in the IT sector and steep increase in corporate salaries. when it happens.

Companies are not anticipating this boom and many will be taken by surprise

2. Reverse Innovation: Ever since the BoP concept was introduced at the turn of the century many companies have tried to transform their business models distribution and NGO partnerships. But in the rush to capture the fortune at the themselves. In my view most such initiatives have failed to hit the mark. Pushing produce incremental sales in the short term. But in the long term, this strategy intends to serve. through single serve sachets, low cost production, extended mom and pop base of the pyramid, something may have been lost-the perspective of the poor the companys reformulated or repackaged products into villages may indeed will almost certainly fail because the business remains alien to the communities it

For decades, MNCs have sold modified products in India, a process widely recognized as glocalization. This strategy worked reasonably well with the more affluent urban consumers whose behavior is somewhat similar to Western

consumers. With growing rural purchasing power and the three times larger population than urban, companies will need to develop appropriate products for this market. The glocalization or minor modification will not work as rural

consumers are very different. This will call for a reverse innovation approach, totally opposite to the glocalization approach. This will involve a bottom up, community embedded process of co-invention and business co-creation. Such an approach will bring the company into close, personal business partnership with BoP communities. While creating enduring value for the community, it will establish a foundation for long-term corporate growth and innovation.

3. New price-performance paradigm: What the rural market requires of products aim for 75% performance at 25% cost. Nirma or Ghadi washing powders are

is delivery of decent performance at very low cost. My advise to companies is to excellent lower performance-low cost products compared to the global Surf and product and these low priced brands essentially clean clothes adequately. Users are not worried if these powders dont have a softener or whitener. The sachet as a solution of making the offering more affordable will not work in the long term as the price still continues to remain high.

Ariel brands. Rural consumers are interested in deriving core benefit from the

4. Innovative rural distribution: The biggest challenge in rural remains reaching your product to 600,000 villages compared to 5,000 odd towns in urban. A few choupal and HUL Project Shakti. But much more needs to be done in this area. new rural distribution and procurement models have been innovated by ITC eOne possibility is the use of the social infrastructure being created by government. For example there are over 5 million womens micro-finance groups in existence and by 2011 the number of groups is expected to jump to 15 million. Thus 150 million rural women or 150 million of the 200 million total households in rural reach products and services to rural homes?

would be linked to self help groups. Can this channel be used innovatively to

5. Dedicated Rural teams: Companies will need to shift power to where the growth is by dedicating empowered teams for the rural markets so that they can develop their own strategies and products. A separate sales force is also desirable as the regular force will avoid covering the more difficult and small off-take rural markets. MBAs from B grade small town institutes should be hired. Not only will areas.

they work at much lower salaries but will stick around as they belong to the local

6. Inclusive marketing: This is a new concept I have created which goes much

beyond BoP. Inclusive marketing looks at the poor not only as consumers but also

as producers/suppliers of goods and services. This approach offers promise to add

economic value to goods and services contributed by the poor. It can therefore marketing. The business model ensures that farmers as producers get better value channel that was created for procuring produce to push relevant goods and

impact poverty positively. ITCs E-choupal is a perfect example of inclusive for their produce. Once their incomes are enhanced the model then uses the same services needed by the farmers as consumers. Government and the private sector rural pie through the development of reverse distribution channels rather than companies fighting with each other to grab share of the limited pie.

need to come together to promote inclusive marketing and grow the size of the

7. New Opportunities: Rural markets now offer a number of new opportunities.

Healthcare: Total rural spending on health care currently is Rs 700 billion

and expected to reach Rs 3.5 trillion by 2025, an impressive fivefold increase. Despite the launch of the National Rural Health Mission 80% of health spending will be in the private sector.

Durables consumer financing: In the 90s consumer finance became

available easily which led to high growth in sale of durables. Rural electrification of rural households consumer finance has become a big opportunity only now with rapid

Banking: According to a World Bank study bankable people in rural India is

185 million.

Construction and Housing: Currently there is shortage of 40 million houses

in rural India.

In conclusion I would say the next growth will come from the rural market and companies that ignore this segment will do so at their own peril.

(Pradeep Kashyap is the President, Rural Marketing Association of India and Founder & CEO, MART)

I am a piano player, I plant trees What would you make of the following three people, if you met them for the first time, and they spoke to you thus: Hello. Im KT, I am a veterinary doctor, but I am working towards acquiring a who bring cows with brucellosis or foot and mouth disease for treatment to me become a welder. I expect it to build loyalty among my clientele

degree in Medieval History I think it will help increase the number of people Hi! I am a hair dresser, but I intend to spend my evenings learning how to Namaste! I am a school teacher, and I think the parents of the students in my artist

algebra class will respect me more if they learn that I am an excellent trapeze You might be pardoned for moving away from them slowly, without making any sudden moves, and wondering if they had been smoking banned substances. unusual in corporate circles. But such eclectic-collinearity, to give it a pseudo-scientific legitimacy, is not so I dont want to sound cynical about CSR. What I do feel however, is what the authors of Half the sky, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, talk about when they say that events that happen on a particular day get noticed, but that worthy.

events that happen every day are not noticed or are not considered mediaDitto with opportunistic goodness. Corporates wake up on the eve of milestone days to proclaim their goodness.

A brand of beverage wants to champion democracy and the exercise of the vote, when elections appear on the horizon. A brand of telecommunications wishes to become a supplier of equipment to security forces on the eve of the anniversary of a terrorist attack. A brand of skin cream whose descriptor essentially suggests a pretty albino, and which spends the entire year brainwashing women that they are in effect the more. colour of their epidermis, remembers on Womens Day that they are so much If we seek conceptual justification, at least the last one has a connection to the target group it serves. But in many other situations, the act of goodness and the by the tenuous thread of a clever line. normal acts of the company are connected to the category and target group only As I wonder why these companies find it necessary to do this, I am reminded of a

line of dialogue from the film Deewar. The situation is this: Satyen Kappu, father trade union leader. He is being coerced into signing an unfair trade union

of the children who will grow up into Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, is a agreement by the company owner, by being shown a picture of his wife and children who have been kidnapped and are being held by the owners henchman. helplessness, ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta, Anand babu, lekin kya karun, am a businessman) As if that explains everything. When Kappu protests that this is wrong, the owner smiling evilly, explains his I yam a bijinaismain (I too dont want to do this Anand babu, but what can I do, I And in the 1970s perhaps it did. Because in the days still under the long shadow of a socialistic mindset, businessman was an euphemism for the evil one. But today? One sometimes wonders whether anything has changed. I suspect there is still a lingering guilt associated with business and profits. Both among the general public and among businessmen.

So an engineering company finds itself running eye surgery clinics. A finance company starts helping childrens education.

One of the techniques often used is to donate X% of each sale or Rs.Y per piece

to some cause. To begin with, this is borrowed generosity all that the company is doing is giving away some of the money you spend. And for another, I would the amounts spent advertising the nobility of the brand. dearly want to know how much is the final contribution to the cause, compared to What also makes things more difficult to swallow is that the same actor who commercial in the commercial break, is playing blind mans buff with his to shilling for his next film next. So much for singleminded sincerity.

sombrely seeks your participation in helping the security forces in one TV beauteous wife and plump maid a few seconds later, only to then smoothly move Why is is so difficult to accept that the business of an honest business is to produce great products and services? That is enough. A business contributes to society through employment generation, dividends distributed to shareholders,

investments made in capital expenditure, taxes paid to the country. A baseline for a US company many years ago, stated simply, We make things people need. Including profits. At times one wonders if CSR is the corporate equivalent of making a pilgrimage or

a trip to a holy land to wash away ones sins. Perhaps token acts of goodness as long as they feel of their acts, ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta lekin kya karun I yam a bijinaismain.

acts of penance will continue to salve the conscience of guilt-ridden corporates as

What would you make of the following three people, if you met them for the first time, and they spoke to you thus:

Hello. Im KT, I am a veterinary doctor, but I am working towards acquiring a who bring cows with brucellosis or foot and mouth disease for treatment to me

degree in Medieval History I think it will help increase the number of people

Hi! I am a hair dresser, but I intend to spend my evenings learning how to become a welder. I expect it to build loyalty among my clientele

Namaste! I am a school teacher, and I think the parents of the students in my algebra class will respect me more if they learn that I am an excellent trapeze artist

You might be pardoned for moving away from them slowly, without making any sudden moves, and wondering if they had been smoking banned substances.

But such eclectic-collinearity, to give it a pseudo-scientific legitimacy, is not so unusual in corporate circles.

I dont want to sound cynical about CSR. What I do feel however, is what the

authors of Half the sky, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, talk about when they say that events that happen on a particular day get noticed, but that worthy. events that happen every day are not noticed or are not considered media-

Ditto with opportunistic goodness. Corporates wake up on the eve of milestone days to proclaim their goodness.

A brand of beverage wants to champion democracy and the exercise of the vote, when elections appear on the horizon.

A brand of telecommunications wishes to become a supplier of equipment to security forces on the eve of the anniversary of a terrorist attack.

A brand of skin cream whose descriptor essentially suggests a pretty albino, and which spends the entire year brainwashing women that they are in effect the more. colour of their epidermis, remembers on Womens Day that they are so much

If we seek conceptual justification, at least the last one has a connection to the target group it serves. But in many other situations, the act of goodness and the

normal acts of the company are connected to the category and target group only by the tenuous thread of a clever line.

As I wonder why these companies find it necessary to do this, I am reminded of a of the children who will grow up into Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor, is a trade union leader. He is being coerced into signing an unfair trade union agreement by the company owner, by being shown a picture of his wife and

line of dialogue from the film Deewar. The situation is this: Satyen Kappu, father

children who have been kidnapped and are being held by the owners henchman. When Kappu protests that this is wrong, the owner smiling evilly, explains his helplessness, ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta, Anand babu, lekin kya karun, am a businessman) As if that explains everything.

I yam a bijinaismain (I too dont want to do this Anand babu, but what can I do, I

And in the 1970s perhaps it did. Because in the days still under the long shadow of a socialistic mindset, businessman was an euphemism for the evil one.

But today? One sometimes wonders whether anything has changed. I suspect there is still a lingering guilt associated with business and profits. Both among the general public and among businessmen.

So an engineering company finds itself running eye surgery clinics. A finance company starts helping childrens education.

One of the techniques often used is to donate X% of each sale or Rs.Y per piece

to some cause. To begin with, this is borrowed generosity all that the company is doing is giving away some of the money you spend. And for another, I would dearly want to know how much is the final contribution to the cause, compared to the amounts spent advertising the nobility of the brand.

What also makes things more difficult to swallow is that the same actor who sombrely seeks your participation in helping the security forces in one TV

commercial in the commercial break, is playing blind mans buff with his to shilling for his next film next. So much for singleminded sincerity.

beauteous wife and plump maid a few seconds later, only to then smoothly move

Why is is so difficult to accept that the business of an honest business is to

produce great products and services? That is enough. A business contributes to investments made in capital expenditure, taxes paid to the country. A baseline for a US company many years ago, stated simply, We make things people need. Including profits.

society through employment generation, dividends distributed to shareholders,

At times one wonders if CSR is the corporate equivalent of making a pilgrimage or a trip to a holy land to wash away ones sins. Perhaps token acts of goodness as acts of penance will continue to salve the conscience of guilt-ridden corporates as karun I yam a bijinaismain.

long as they feel of their acts, ye sab to main bhi karna nahi chahta lekin kya

Why Cricket should remain at the Top? Since the late Eighties, sports in India has centered on one key sport called Cricket. In all industry discussion forums on Television Content, like the famous 4Ps of Marketing, Cricket comes as part of the 3Cs of Content with ability to attract officials of the sport in India along with some smart marketing, small content

huge audiences the others being Cinema & Crime. Over time, governing changes and heavy promotion of key cricketers as idols to the common man have

enhanced the financial valuation of cricket leaps and bounds! Today, with over 200 million+ TV audiences in India and across the globe, this sport is aspired to by to the extent that when India is playing cricket live (like in the Commonwealth almost every advertiser (large & small). In India, it has outshone every other sport Bank series from Australia in 2008), the rare occurrence of Indian tennis stars telecast live simultaneously on another channel received subdued levels of viewing!

Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi in the mixed doubles finals of Australian Open

Hence no wonder, in a recent Sports Marketing forum that was organized in New

Delhi, many of heads of the other Indian sports bodies were found criticizing the monopoly hold that cricket has on advertisers budgets and blaming cricket singularly for the downfall of all other sport in India. While a blame game is part other sports in India, I was reflecting on a thought that if cricket did undergo a other sports in India? of Indian sports bodys ritual to defend failures in marketing and promotion of deflation in audiences and value associated with it, will it be a boon or disaster for

My point of view is that cricket is like the Himalayas in India. It is the foundation to the well being of a country like India. It protects us from the chilly cold winter of North Asia, blocks the rain clouds to shower its water on the Indian plains,

supplies year round flowing rivers, rich with minerals to the agricultural soils of India and uplifts underground water tables to spring new flora life across the plateau regions. In other words, the Himalayas are not just a mountain range, but cricket starts declining, it will have a negative effect on other Sports growth in India. There are two reasons

a life germinator. Cricket is also a germinator of life, a life-line to other sports. If

(A) Cricket in India brings in the largest aggregation of audiences to one place In stadia as well as on TV. When you have such a large aggregation, it provides such a wonderful opportunity for every other mass audience seeking sport to use

innovative ways to promote itself. The cost of such promotions will also be

cheaper. Even at a small rate of conversion, given the huge audience base for

cricket, the awareness creation as well as walk-ins to watch that specific noncricket sport will be larger than previous levels. Some of the non-sports TV genres have used this route and succeeded in creating trial consumption to their content. So why dont other sports take advantage of this route? Especially Commonwealth Games, which is a year away from happening in New Delhi, should have taken

advantage of the just concluded Aussie series and the present on-going Sri Lanka series to spread awareness of the games across India. Until some other sports come forward to rule the top, cricket should be given due credit to bringing in this level of audience aggregation.

(B) Cricket earns its revenues largely from selling the TV Telecast Rights as well as

sponsorship of the event. TV cricket content rights are galloping at a frantic pace and are expected to reach astronomical levels. The two IPL seasons have already set the pace. This means that only a few chosen set of advertisers with large ad

spend budgets will be able to afford not only buying bulk spots during live telecast on TV, but also engage themselves in sponsorship of the tournament. The unaffordablity to buy into cricket for small advertisers and brands will make them

shy of cricket giving a fantastic opportunity for other sports bodies to woo them into sponsoring other sports. Cricket can act like a benchmark for other sports for categorizing its advertising and sponsorship rates. The higher cricket benchmarks

itself the more benefits will flow to other sports. If a 10 second commercial in cricket sells at Rs. 5 Lakhs, even a Rs. 50,000 for 10 seconds in other sports will be jingle to advertisers and sponsors provided the sports bodies invest in marketing, Advertiser/Brands needs. If pricing for cricket crumbles to low values, it is bound to create a rumble on costs for other sports properties too!

promoting and scheduling the event to generate mass awareness conducive to the

Hence my view that until a new sport is able to perch itself at the top to replace cricket with the same magnitude & intensity in terms of audience & valuation,

Cricket should remain at the top and pray that it continues to grow at the same pace its been doing all these years!

Moulding Perceptions As my creative partner for last 13 years Raghu wrote in his blog entry here,

Creative people gravitate naturally towards non-political workplaces. But, my in our industry ? Isnt it better to pursue Political Advertising / Communication career than practicing politics in Advertising Industry?

question is Are there enough numbers of so called non-political work places

As it is, I dont have aspirations of becoming Mayawati of Madison Avenue meaningful.

I would rather spend time on something bigger or even smaller but

With my partner, Raghu and some like-minded friends in Advertising (yes, in small numbers but they do exist ) I did Respect

The

The Ad-Museum ( The Worlds first Virtual Museum of Advertising & Design) currently under renovation, but I will revamp & relaunch it future whenever I get enough The Gujarat Anthem sung by 25 Celebrity Gujarati Singers time for it

Hostel

Holi

project

the

for

the

National

cause

of

Anthem Eye

donation

project..

I wish to do something equally meaningful (small or big doesnt matter) for my state once again for the occasion of 50th anniversary of Gujarat.

We are communication people blessed with creativity We must utilize our core meaningful After all we have one life

strength The power to communicate using creativity - to do something

In our industry, we are involved with moulding perceptions. I would like to mould them based on truth.

A small example. We have seen a lot of criticism in the press about the Narmada

Rehabilitation Program. I was invited to do a public service campaign against the Dam Project a couple of years ago. Before doing that, I called up my Civil Engineer Brother who works for Ambuja Cements, the Cement supplier of Narmada Dam. According to him the rehabilitation in Gujarat was one of the best in the world during such mega project I also called up some of my folks in my

native villages of Gujarat including affected farmers who had been rehabilitated

because of the Dam project They not only supported the construction & height

increase of the dam but also volunteered to come down to Mumbai at their own expense and enter into a debate with anyone holding a contrary opinion. Thats when I decided not to do the campaign, as it wasnt entirely based on truth.

So, I am summarizing that I am neither changing my role to pursue my political dreams, nor my core competence

Im just broadening my skills as a communication expert. I believe this experience will further polish my abilities while creating communication for brands.

And I personally believe Political Advertising is a pretty challenging form of enlightened choice and that, ultimately, helps the country.

communication. If you handle it carefully, you can help people make a more

Life After Advertising When people are depressed, they shop. When creative people people are depressed, they become entrepreneurs. Just joking! Not that I was depressed but well, last week, I put in my papers in

Contract to start my designer laptop bag e-venture called Fungus Designs. Manish government.

did the same to pursue communications consultancy with the Gujarat

People have been asking us What makes people, especially creative people, quit ad agencies? Is the ad agency business losing its sheen? Is advertising not fun any more? That depends on who we are talking about. For example, its safe to assume that the CEOs of most agencies are having a lot of fun. Even though their agencies arent exactly firing on all cylinders, the good life downturn and GDP over rounds of golf and brunches at the Gymkhana. continues and its not uncommon to find them discussing topics like new media,

Coming to creative people, the situation is very fluid, to put it very delicately. Most of them and Im talking of fairly senior people here, are confused about the future. Some of them think advertising is too insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Some feel that it pays peanuts and therefore, cant be a long-term option. Others feel that the advertising product has become a commodity and cant command a premium.

The result? I know an NCD who has mutated into a full-fledged painter. Another has opened a rain-forest cafe. And another, who has taken a sabbatical to direct a movie.

From one level, advertising seems to be a bit like a Titanic. People seem to be in an icy unknown, they at least had life boats!

awful hurry to jump off! Except that, when people jumped off the Titanic into the

Why is this happening? Why are the agencies not being to retain the good guys? Talking of myslf, I joined advertising because I genuinely thought any job that lets you come to work in Bermudas and sneakers cant be all that bad. I still think that. Freedom of speech, attire, thought and action are huge draws for all creative people. But these are getting undermined.

The biggest threats to the big agency today are bureaucracy, democracy and plutocracy.

Some agencies allow the use of bureaucracy as an instrument of subjugation over

the creative individual. Examples? The accounts person who decides the business class tickets) based on a code thats even more ancient than the Dead Sea scrolls.

increments of a creative person. Or the distribution of privileges (like laptops,

Many good creative people have a pathological dislike for democracy. Democracy basis of performance. In his epochal book, The 80:20 Principle, Robert Koch says

implies the division of spoils, or increments if you like, equally, rather than on the we are moving towards an era where the fewest number of people will decide the Individual. Most agencies reject the individual. This is a mistake. Alex Ferguson

destinies of the maximum number of people. In other words, the era of the

is a successful manager because he maintains the sanctity of the organisation

(Manchester United) without sacrificing the celebration of individual genius.(Of a reward.

Ronaldo). Fact is, creative people thrive on high responsibility, high risk and high

And of course, plutocracy, which means the rule of the old, not old people, but old ideas, old notions of doing things. Separate loos for the management? Not a good idea.

There are other reasons. There is no universally acknowledged forum for applauding great advertising. Not everyone who is part of an advertising jury belongs there. Again, democracy at work! As a result, a lot of mediocre advertising gets celebrated. CNBC will hate me for writing this but the standard of journos covering advertising has fallen. In one of my ex-agencies, I sacked a trainee writer after telling him politely that he should consider other careers as he and even reviewed some of my campaigns! Then again, a few years ago, a said- Hey man! Nice ad! When did you do it? couldnt write. Two months, he resurfaced as an advertising reporter for a website journalist looked at the Ogilvys famous Schweppes ad stuck to my softboard and

Also advertising is at best, an applied art. It exists at the intersection of art and commerce. To that extent, its not a pure art, like music or painting. All exponents a more pure and hence, a more creative form. of applied art have a natural inclination to migrate to pure art, as it is considered

But all said and done, the fact is, it doesnt take too much to keep creative people people have.

happy. Any agency can do a better retention by identifying certain traits creative

Creative people have a need to be creative every single day.

They need the stimulation of working on different categories and the challenge of the ever shrinking deadline.

They are happiest when they crack an idea. Their happiness extends till the time the the idea is executed.

They are suckers for appreciation. They like to be applauded, by clients, by their peers and also, the target audience.

Creative people gravitate naturally towards non-political workplaces. All creative people would love to take part of their salary in peace of mind.

And most importantly, creative guys never tire of being creative. Just like Yehudi

Menuhin who used to play the violin till the age of 80 or Sachin trying to master

the reverse sweep at 35, creative people will enjoy being in a place that allows them to learn, make mistakes, say the wrong things and be honest and courageous.

Sights & Sounds When you want someone to tell you their deepest, darkest secret; would you call them into a room of 8 unknown people and say, So, tell me?

A little unfair on the person and more unfair on you because she just isnt going isnt perfect in front of strangers. She isnt going to tell you that she is worried her is what you will take away.

to tell you. She isnt going to tell you that her relationship with her mother-in-law children might fail. She wants to be perceived as the perfect home-maker and that

Dont get me wrong. I am not predicting the death of the FGD. I think they work

perfectly well, for instance, when you want to see how a new product is received

by a peer group. For effective research, the context has to be right and we need to is like a good artist; she can bring out anything. Its a classic case of quality over quantity so choosing the right moderator becomes an essential.

be clear of what we are going after. And of course, a qualitative group moderator

The point is that research today is just being used to check where the consumer is products or communication or even for propositions.

currently at. It is being used to check relevance in her current life be it for new

Who said that brands have to follow the path that the consumer is already taking?

Rather than tracking consumer trends, as marketers we need to understand the Eye On Asia tries to unearth some of these for us.

what is she missing in that journey? Where is she likely to head next? A study like

The study conducted by Grey Asia Pacific delivers some Eye-Sights that give us a picture of how she is actually feeling. It tells us what is missing in her life. It gives us gaps that our brands can fill for her because the equation is changing. It isnt about; Main brand, tum consumer these days. It isnt about Consumer is king either. It is more about getting a partnership going.

So, for instance, all of us are gung-ho about the technological progress. About how consumers are catching up and loving the fact that they have so many options. If you asked him in front of 8 people his interaction with technology he would probably tell you that it is essential for him to be technologically savvy for him to get ahead in this race called life. But in the Eye on Asia study he admits that it overwhelms him and he wishes it would stop.

We all know India is charting ahead, everyone is ready to make it. Everyone is 73% of the people interviewed would like the pace of life to slow down.

struggling. Did anyone ask them if they miss the life of leisure? We found that

If it werent for research, it would be impossible for us to unearth these insights.

Nobody said that research is a line in stone. We can find our own way of doing it depending on what we want to know, who we want to know and what is the role and secrets for now. we want to play in the journey of their life thats just a glimpse of some sights

(Bindu Sethi is SVP and National Planning Director, Grey India)

Reflections of an ADASIAN Anuradha has requisitioned me to write a piece for Storyboards website and I

write this on my way back on a lazy Sunday evening sitting at Kuala Lumpur ADASIA.

airport sipping a cuppa along with Priyanka and predictably my mind is on

My earliest exposure to ADASIA was way back in early 1980s when it was held in

New Delhi and even then it had by and large surpassed the expectations of

seasoned delegates. Subhas Ghosal was the Chairman of the Organising Committee and I was drafted in to specifically assist him with what looked like a mammoth task. My first ADASIA out of the country was in Bangkok where I

remember being fascinated among other things by the convenience offered by the all in one place and all

convention centre, hotel and what looked then like a humongous shopping mall Isnt it wonderful that hundreds of senior marketing, advertising and media interconnected.

executives all over Asia give so freely of their time and resources and selflessly

take on the trials and tribulations of putting together the Congress every two

years? I remember a Filipino, one Anthony de Hoya who came to India way back

in seventies to champion the cause of an Asian Federation, which is now called his words and the passion with which they were delivered. He argued that Asians

AFAA and which runs ADASIA, APMEDIA FORUM and MEDIAFEST . I remember are similar in many ways and collectively our value systems, philosophy and should come together and if we did we could achieve a lot.

outlook are very different from those who live in the West and therefore we

Full marks to Peter Das, the boss of ADASIA2009 for pulling off ADAsia2009

under challenging circumstances and that too after taking the responsibility only and the Malaysian team.

a year ago after the decision to move the venue from Pakistan. Take a bow Peter

Day 2 of ADASIA looked to me a lot more meaty and enlightening. What were my mind space would provide a good filter so that I dont overload you!

takeouts from the presentations? I recall them from memory. Thought my limited

- Sir Martin highlighting that huge overcapacities in production existed in most

categories around the world, about the concentration of power in the hands of a now and no longer a nice thing to spend surplus cash on. He concluded that companies that intelligently use the power of branding and use innovation as a delivery through video did not take away too much from the points that he made.

few retail giants, and the growing realisation that CSR is a business imperative

core principle are likely to succeed in future. A very insightful 20 minutes and the

- Mary Brown, a spunky colored lady who moved from London to Asia to start an Asian Food Channel made the maximum impact as a speaker. Her core message: was not enough, made the audience repeat it after her thrice. I hope after all this CREATIVITY EQUALS PROFITABILITY and she repeated it 4 times and as if that delegates do remember this mantra in their business and branding processes. She

made a remarkable impact on most delegates I spoke to and not just because she

highlighted that research and data cannot run a business but passion and gut feel can. Although she did not spell it out, I guess what she meant to say was that a hypothesis for a business or a creative plan must be developed based on observation and gut feel, which can later be verified by research and data, but the basic hypothesis itself cannot come out of research. Made a senior FMCG Hutch featuring the pug. I can almost hear researchers and marketing gurus snigger at Mary but you need a few Marys to get a conference going.

professional concur and remark that I doubt if we can make a commercial like

- Bernhard Glock , just 3 weeks out of his top job at P&G and 3 weeks into his

new job as President, The Bernhard Glock Media Leadership company made a

well thought through presentation on the need for all activity to flow from or

meet or be evaluated against strategic intent. I was mighty pleased that the Gillette Internationally passed this test in his view. He ended with what I thought was an

case study from India which has won virtually every possible Award in India and interesting model for marketers to stay on course and achieve success with he is not planning to develop this further, he should. To a question from yours demand adequate remuneration but on strength of clear deliverables.

brands, which he called the 7Cs. Expect to hear more from him on this subject. If truly he said that advertisers need agencies, should use agencies and the latter can

- It was good meeting my old friend, Sattar Khan who looked older and wiser and has started his own strategic consultancy firm. He is, among other things advising on the setting up of nuclear plants. Just shows how skills acquired at work on

advertising , when vested in a fertile mind can be applied in a million ways,

almost universally. He made an interesting point that based on needs and habits of

a community , we should adapt and position a product or sku relevant to the but in markets like India had opened up a huge market for shampoos because of its low unit value. Similarly the perfume vials given in malls for sampling could be used as a selling unit to enable travellers and others to refresh on the go.

market. He gave the example of a sachet pack being a sampling device in the West

Two smart and world class professionals, now entrepereneurs Bernhard and Sattar; new organisations and aged multinationals could do well to consult them and tap into their brains for a fresh perspective.

- The Dentsu presentation added an extra P to the 4Ps in the beginning to stand for Philosophy meaning vision and values and what every brand must stand for and a 6th P at the end to stand for Public relations. My friend Veena , head of

Madison PR I am sure will be delighted, since she has long held the view that Brand PR is underutilized and marketers who spend millions in advertising and then do not add PR to the Marketing mix are being plain stupid.

- The Hakahudo guys made a good pitch for looking at Koreans as the new

marketing whiz kids on the strength of success of Hyundai, Samsung and LG in

globally competitive categories. I guess if we are going to see new Korean brands

on the global scene, we will have to give them more credit than we currently do and stop looking at them as shrewd sharp shooting business men who can give our Marwari businessmen a run for their money.

- Allyson warned us of not taking desperate measures in desperate times so that erode brand equity.

we dont repent later and warned of the consequences of initiating price wars that

AND HERE ARE A FEW RANDOM NOTES ON ADASIA 2009 AND MORE ON GOING - The India night was clearly the highlight of the Congress. Diana Hayden looked their photos with her. Hard Kore (my spelling!) rocked the night and it was an

FORWARD

stunning and stunned the audience judging by the number of people who wanted enjoyable evening, cold food served at the head table notwithstanding. Wonder

why Dentsu who has been sponsoring ADASIA dinners ever since I can remember cant make their evenings a little more spunky and fun. Take a bow Pradeep and Raj. You lived up to your reputation. And India hers.

- Is the extent, variety and sophistication of a citys night life, the barometer of its progress? If it is, congratulations KL!

- And lastly a thought for AFAA. Isnt ADASIA a valuable brand? If it is so, then it

must be nurtured, protected, looked after, developed and made bigger, year after year. Whilst the practice of passing on responsibility from country to country is erode brand value. Because an important promise of any good and big brand is that the consumer can buy it with confidence and each time be assured of a expeditious and practical it may in future lead to an inconsistency and therefore

standard quality he or she has experienced before. How about considering outsourcing the job to a professional organisation and make them responsible for clear deliverables and objectives to be delivered over a period of 10 years. The country Organising Committee and be remunerated on the basis of a percentage share of the surplus. May I suggest that Pradeep Guhas new company consider pitching in for this job. He has a proven track record and a passion for excelling

outsourced team can work under the overall supervision of the AFAA and the

at such events. If this idea seems audacious or impractical may I suggest that

AFAA play a more active role in organising the event rather than leaving everything to the Organising Committee of the host nation. Also a manual for the rigour and discipline is consistently applied. This will ensure quality outcome and build in time buffers to overcome unforeseen circumstances. event must now be prepared with the help of a consultant to ensure that a certain

- On to ADASIA 2011Delhi and whilst wishing good luck to Pradeep, Raj, Madhukar and Bhaskar to meet the challenge head on, if we want a Jaipur raised to the power of 2, the entire industry will have to chip in. We are ready to land. Good night.

(The above piece is penned by Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison Media Group)

No Money Marketing From Upstart to Market Leader Money, or the lack of it, is relative. If I have a million-dollar marketing budget, in absolute terms, my marketing investment is not small. But if my competitor has $10 million then I will have to be very innovative and frugal to succeed. Many firms find themselves in this position either because they have a new, innovative business model and are trying to establish it, or because they are established entrenched players.

players seeking growth and expansion in markets where there are other, more

Marketing frugally demands clarity of vision and purpose. You have to be able to answer three fundamental questions about your offering succinctly and honestly Who am I? Why buy me? Why not buy someone else? The third question is the clincher why do your customers buy from you and not that other chap down program around this. the road? Once you know the answer, you can build your communication

The next big decision is to determine whether you are a better mousetrap company or a better cheese + average mousetrap kind of company. The Better Mousetrap company will focus on communicating the aspects that shape the company product Quality, Delivery Process, Business Benefits. The Better Cheese company will talk a bit about the product (which is usually a parity one) but will spend a lot of effort in communicating all the surround attributes eg Price, have their own merits which is covered in detail in the book.

Executive Backgrounds, Location. The two are distinctly different approaches and

Once the positioning has been determined, we can move into the execution phase, a frugal marketing program: THINK NARROW:

which is communicating to our target audience. Here are four tips to put together

Define your target audience as tightly as possible. This allows you to avoid expensive mass media and target your prospects one on one. You can also define your area of operations narrowly, so that you can own

a superlative such as largest, fastest, biggest. For example, it is better, and more memorable, to say you are the top producer in a particular state than to say you are number 13th in the country. Most of these superlatives are

transient and you will have to constantly innovate to keep the position alive. For example if first is the chosen position, you will have to constantly be the first in various fields. THINK COLLABORATION:

Your customers can, and will, talk to each other through blogs, chats,

online opinion polls, supplier rating systems, with or without your help. As communication channels with your customer base. Invest in interactive its usually free.

a good marketer, this is an amazing opportunity to establish two-way websites, discussion boards, moderated forums on social networking sites Buyers can hear about your offering from different parts of their industry,

and some elements (for example media) may have a higher level of

influence in their decision-making process. Often, there is no cost to put in the effort to identify them and create relevant, custom media required for a direct contact with the buyer.

contacting the members of an industry eco-system, though you will have to communication. But you can save a lot of money by avoiding the mass

THINK FRUGAL

Often, the easiest way to reach your audience will be the most expensive. Thats because someone else is doing the thinking behind creating that opportunity and also bringing in the audience for you. But if you were to build instead of buying then the costs go down.

For example, lets say that you work with a hotel to offer their guests something in return for placing flyers in the rooms. If you are the first it as easy additional revenue for no work. person to approach the hotel then the costs will be low as the hotel will see

You can persuade most dailies to run your ad in a limited number of copies

and have those distributed only in your chosen locality. For example, to

announce your new product launch it may be sufficient to cover just the afford a 4-page ad (called a power jacket.) THINK SMART, THINK INSIGHTFUL

main business district, and since the number of copies is so low you can

Being boring is the cardinal sin in todays world. You have to keep doing helps to create buzz and generate free publicity.

exciting things to keep yourself relevant in the mind of your audience. This

The other big shift is that the internet has made information cheap.

Customers now crave insights, they want someone to sift through all the data that is sloshing about and tell them how they can benefit. If you are that person, you will gain disproportionately in loyalty and stickiness.

Finally, allow me to pass on to you the two words, which have been handed down

from generation to generation of marketers, and which if followed diligently will

save you form a premature old-age caused by the occupational hazards of typos, Cool.

missed deadlines, leaked releases, corrupted databases, and irate bosses: Stay

(Jessie Paul is the Chief Marketing Officer at Wipro Technologies, Indias first CMO on Twitter, and among other things, a Coffee Planter)

The Day A Brand Won The Nobel Interesting, how the Nobel Committee finally recognized its own inadequacies as

also the global impact of the Prize it offered. There was rapid dilution (for

instance do you remember who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008?) which is why they had to resuscitate a dying brand if not a completely irrelevant one and at the same time make it look kosher as also globally powerful. So they did what altar of safety and wisely, made it something the consumer would want!

any sensible person would do. They went ahead and hedged brand risks at the

And the consumer could buy in. Sure the American media has gone berserk but certain, a documentary will follow but this is the point.

when does it not? Michael Moore has already written to Obama and I am pretty

The Nobel Peace Prize of 2009 went to a brand and not to a cause and since when

did we ever imagine that the cause was more important than the brand? The fact if the same award had gone to the International Red Cross, we would have all yawned and the Nobel magic would have eroded a little more.

that Obama was the human face or the brand per se is equally significant because

As the news of Obamas victory filtered in, I sent off a text message to all my

friends, saying Brand Obama and not President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize and I was not playing with semantics as many commentators later realized. The essence of my argument is that many a time, associations and utterances are

enough to both inspire and suggest future action. Which is what Obama stands for. He has been inspirational, he has been evocative on issues that matter and for many these may seem minor victories but then in the universality of things, they

matter a lot. And please dont forget Obama conquered Europe before the Nobel Committee even started its deliberations. How can you forget that remarkable before he speech he gave at the Brandenburg Gate in erstwhile East Germany last year

President: his speech then was about ensuring a freer world, but also a more just world. The eminent 20th century philosopher Raol Kahl, wrote that justice is fairness and this is precisely what Obama set out to do. When Obama took oath in some strange way was the President of the World.

became

office of the President of the United States, millions across the world tuned into: he

On another plane, the Nobel had to be re-invented. It needed to be on social networking sites and blogs. It required a presence in the minds of the young. It onto a brand that will be in the public eye for the next four years for sure ACROSS could not afford to be an old boys club and thus what better way than to latch the world. And whenever there is anything said or written about the man, the Committee has also ensured that their brand is in communication currency. In

words Nobel Laureate will certainly precede or follow. In a swift way, the Nobel many ways this is a victory both for Brand Nobel and Brand Obama. Self-survival twisted way, it is a victory for brands as well.

for the Nobel folks and glory for Barack Hussein Obama and thus in a strange

People remember brands when they exude and offer compelling benefits. In many ways, whatever Obama does in the domain of global peace or climate change or now that he is a Nobel Laureate because in some strange way he has been anointed Strangely, whatever Obama achieves will also be a pat on the backs of the folks at even before being nuclear non- proliferation, there will always be a surreal pressure on him to act baptized!

the Nobel Committee and they will often (and hopefully repeatedly) be praised for the foresight: once again a win for dual brands.

And perhaps the most classic case of brand revival is the fact that we have spent

hours discussing and reading the Obama Nobel: if it was not compelling or riveting, would we have? That is yet another facet of the powerful magnetism that brands have. They remain not just in minds and hearts but also equally in conversation and chatter.

My sense is that this will be a tremendous revival for Brand Noble and a great pressure tactic on Obama and the eternal optimist that I am, I believe if the Nobel to Obama can even make the world a tad more peaceful, then to hell with the cynics and critics. Yes, he can!

Diwali The Vijay Sales Way! Diwali by far is the biggest festival as far as consumer buying is concerned .In fact in the consumer durable industry we say we have 13 months in a calendar year and the extra month comes in the form of the diwali sales.

Actually speaking, the period from Navratra to Diwali accounts for nearly a months sale in addition to the normal monthly throughput .Thus, this is the time which is very crucial for our industry both for the manufacturers as well as the well as the sale pattern for the remainder of the year, to a large extent. In fact,

retailers. The Diwali sale determines the fate of the brand as well as the retailer as

when we open a new store, it starts performing much better after it has seen its first Diwali.

Thus the importance of Diwali need not be emphasized more and the preparations for this great SALE period start nearly two months in advance. crowds, and the post sale installations are the areas we focus on. Basically promotions, advertising, logistics, in store readiness to take in huge

First and foremost, last years data is collated, targets based on the previous years are set, and then the ball starts rolling. Depending on the targets, the logistics are planned in terms of extra warehousing space and extra manpower. Extra delivery

vans and even extra sales executives, cashiers and customer care executives are deployed. Fortunately during Diwali colleges are closed; hence we are able to attract a large number of students who want to do vacation jobs so as to lay their foundation for their foray into retailing post graduation.

Once manpower is set, the next area to look at is the infrastructure in terms of air

conditioning, cash tills, credit card swipe machines and so on each and everything has to be looked into. If anything fails on those important days it would result in not only huge sales loss but also loss of face which in my opinion is a bigger loss.

Then comes the theme of advertising and marketing as along with company offers easy job but now with increasing competition we need to be more careful in

customers do expect some extra offers from the retailers too. Earlier this was an planning, marketing and advertising as one should have a differentiator in terms of offering to the customers. Also the buying for the season starts much before as fewer stocks than needed. we need to block stocks with the brands else invariably you may land up with

Once all is set, the wait for the big rush starts and invariably in the first few days

I dont know why the customers every year do give the retailer butterflies in

the stomach by not beginning to shop. But experience has always made us wiser to be patient as 4 to 5 days prior to dhanteras the great rush begins and gets a smile from all of us.

In spite of all the preparations at times things do misfire a delivery gets delayed, a model booked has run out of stock or the installation person does not reach on time and it is at these times we have to go the extra mile to get back the smile on the face of our customer.

All in all its a great experience to work for Diwali and each Diwali gives us a new set of learnings for the next Diwali.

Within Ethical Limits Or Beyond It In Brazil, contraceptive pills rank amongst the highest revenue spinners for diseases. I was surprised to hear that on my last visit to that country two years ago but then I was also told that most taking those pills are fully aware of the profile of the drug and its effects. Can we claim the same awareness levels in India?

pharmaceutical companies, much ahead of drugs that are meant to treat lifestyle

Cipla and Mankind, the companies manufacturing those drugs in addition to a Mankind, known to be extremely strong in several rural pockets in North India, is

few others, have gone on ballistic in their ad campaigns to capture market share.

scoring big with its reach. Cipla too, with the number one crown in the domestic market, But the war for market share is spilling over and drug authorities are already the television. wants to retain its segment

leadership.

speaking about restrictions in the way the products are being promoted through

Nothing wrong with the way the drugs are being promoted with an indication of its availability over-the-counter only if there is an emergency need but let us population, which have the requisite education and tools to study the drug and the rural consumer, bound by traditions over logic. remember we have two levels of India consumers to deal with. The urban

The drug authorities are caught in a strange dilemma. If they allow the product to

be sold and almost indiscriminately used, we run the risk of ending up with major side-effects and if it says no to the product being sold over the counter, the industry blames it being too tight with its controlling mechanism.

We have ethical concerns about these advertisements, they are not projecting the message clearly that these pills are emergency contraceptives and not regular told AFP Wednesday. contraceptives, Ram Teke, the deputy Drug Controller General of India (DCGI)

The balance may still be found here. Companies approaching the largely uneducated population in India need to tell them the side effects of the product very clearly. They also need to ensure that the morning after pill does not become present, the ads for Unwanted seems to convey to the audience the subtle message that the drug can be taken routinely.

a normal headache reliever as there are more serious side effects of the drug. At

If this war of advertisements unleashed in the media does not stop or being more Americans where everything from Lipitor to Aleve can be advertised.

rational, the DCGIs office should review the situation. After all, we are not

Design Doodles from the Spikes Asia Festival It is my firm belief that the more fun you have doing any kind of creative work,

the more the fame and fortune will follow. The first ten years of Ambience with Ashok Kurien reinforced my belief, attracting great talent who shared our passion and enthusiasm.

Since 2007, Ive rediscovered my love for design, set up a little design cell for family, managed to do all the things the hectic pace of advertising life had snuffed

Publicis called Red Lion, completed two half-marathons, had time to enjoy my out, all the while growing the design business by leaps and bounds. Coincidentally Spikes Asia, Cannes Lions, even our very own Goafest (where I had the honour of chairing the Design jury) introduced design as a new category during the same time.

And last week in Singapore during the Spikes Asia Festival 2009, it was indeed gold award from Rodney Fitch (Chairman of the Design Jury) with the thunder of applause and a million flashbulbs flashing (at least that was how it felt).

exhilarating to be up on stage at the elegant Victoria Concert Hall, to collect our

I then discovered nothing much has changed, even if my life in design had changed completely. It turned out to be another evening of drinking and celebrating with a bunch of predominantly ad people patting each other on the back. Some smart new advertising ideas in a brand new category exclusively for

design? At the award function, we saw the same pieces of work winning in many

advertising categories, and the lines between design and advertising were blurring.

As part of the design jury, we sat for 2 whole days poring over corporate

identities, posters, flyers, calendars, stationery, publications, self promotions, point-of-sale, broadcast design, graphics and digital design, environmental more. design, packaging for foods, drinks, household goods, cosmetics, toiletries and

The jury (a wonderfully balanced, accomplished lot of people, equally representative of both advertising and design agencies) was curious about why there were so few entries in packaging. I mentioned to Rodney Fitch that perhaps from design agencies. Therefore packaging, which is more often handled by entered their work.

most of the entries in other categories were from advertising agencies and not specialist design agencies, wasnt present because the design agencies hadnt

Many enlightened heads of industry in India have hired design agencies like Landor, Fitch, Brand Union, and several others. They are looking beyond their identity, much before any other form of communication. advertising agencies and are investing in the expertise of creating a brand

Obviously, the value of good design is gaining ground in India. So why were most entries at the awards in the design category from advertising agencies and not design professionals? There were Barbro Ohlson Smith and Steff Geissbuhler as

part of the jury, both well-respected graphic designers, who were a bit confused about awarding design from a pure design point of view, versus advertising communication.

Is it design from advertising agencies that qualifies as the best in the world? If so, I pedestal, where we are valued for the work we love to do. Advertising agency

would urge more great minds to join this exalted place called design, put it on a

rates on design honestly devalue the thought and expertise we bring to the table,

where the detail in design is usually handed out to the lowest rung in creative, sometimes even a trainee, while the creative directors concentrate on the major campaigns. Design is nascent in India, is it the same all over the world?

The results had me thinking out of 20 metals awarded in all, 4 gold, 3 silver and 13 bronzes, was it odd to see Red Lion, the only design agency apart from Kinetic Singapore (which on their site say they are a design and advertising agency) Proximity BBDO (a global digital and eCRM agency) the only independent design businesses winning an award?

The 17 other winners, including the well-deserved grand prix were from advertising, some on work that they do for their long term clients, and some others brief flashes of inspiration. I was maybe naively under the impression that advertising, unlike design, worked on long term associations with clients and ad agencies work as partners in communication. Design however, much like architecture or product design is always billed per project however little or time an honest piece of work for a project. consuming they may be, therefore an entry from a design agency is almost always

It seems to me that there are many advertising agencies doing design projects. Can a business card for a private detective be an advertising agency client? There was a brilliant card for a private detective in Thailand, where the title of the detective had options of mr/mrs/lady/senator/professor etc., which had us all in splits. But when we called the detective just to make sure, a voice in Thai answered and neither he or we had any idea why his card should be so clever in English?!

It made me think, and I mentioned to the jury, that perhaps most design agencies

just dont have the funds required to enter their work the entry fees are steep for most of us. Maybe they are not in the race for awards, and there are other

measurements of excellence that take priority. And perhaps they are too busy enjoying every day they spend designing.

Advertising agencies seem to have a budget for awards, just like a budget for PR,

that allows them the luxury of being awarded, sometimes with the same piece of work in several categories, and now one more in the design category! They also have a budget for making audio visuals, presenting their work to the jury, to a rousing audio track including AR Rehmans Jai Ho!

sometimes with clients interviews, global views and strategic insights on India set

I know there are many many brilliant designers out there who need to be awarded but do not stand a chance, due to both monetary constraints and the lack hungry bunch of advertising people. They do great work that they love doing, and the work itself speaks volumes. of expertise in making an award winning entry. They are not part of this award

I am indeed grateful to Publicis and my years in advertising that gave me the luxury of entering these awards, and thank you Spikes, Cannes and Goafest for introducing a design category where between 4 of us designers in Red Lion this silver at Spikes Asia and a silver Lion in Cannes, minus the hype of audio visual from the heart always speaks for itself. Jai Ho!

year, we were blessed with wealth 4 times over a gold at Goafest, a gold and presentations to juries and repeated entries in the same festival. Work straight

(Elsie Nanji is a managing partner at Red Lion, the design wing of Publicis in India, and is a multiple award winner at both Indian and international award shows. Shes also won the Art Director of the Year award in India three years in a row)

HUL and its Colossal Wave of Advertising HUL is in the news again. This time for its innovative Channel-block strategy used repeatedly twice over across two separate channels in recent weeks.

One has heard of road-block, and time-slot blocks, where whichever channel you advertising spot that begs to be watched. Now, we have for the first time, a channel block. A channel block that has many a marketing pundit imagine that the spend is as big as all of 20 Crores INR even!

flick with your handy remote, you will always land up at the very same

Whatever the spend, the amount is not as important as is the tactic. Many questions around then. Why such a colossal wave of advertising when there is no new news to share? Why such a big spend when there is no new advertising? And many more. launch at all? Why now? Is this not a waste of plenty of good money chasing bad

Let me attempt to answer some of these questions as a rank outsider with no

interest in the affairs of HUL and its marketing and business strategy whatsoever. might want to use to justify it all.

These are at best guesses. Possibly intelligent guesses. Possibly even arguments one

Let me attempt the 2 big questions: 1. Why now?

The last three quarters have been quarters when India at large has been at stress.

The International recession and its cascade impact has been felt by many a booming industry sector in India. The IT, ITES, Biotech, Retail, Manufacturing, the

Services and indeed every other sector there is, except agriculture, has felt the cascade of International depression.

Though India does not really have a recession at its door-step, urban India has been through what I call a cautionary recession. Consumers across categories have postponed purchases, even though they have had a good amount of money

in their hands. Overall, even though there has been no recession in pure definition terms in India, there has been a recessionary mind-set that has been at large. People have lost jobs, increments have not happened, promotions have got deferred, people are working longer hours than before and there is certainly a certain degree of job-insecurity around.

In such an environment, HUL has possibly thought it right to be the harbinger of

good times by heralding the good times through a dominant use of an entire bright and the time to spend is here.

content and advertising channel. A great way of signaling that things are looking

The leader guards the sentiment. HUL does well on this count. The sentiment of positivism in the market and its strength is a good signal to give.

I am sure the respective television channels are not complaining. If I am to take the analogy of the real estate category: In a market where customers have been hesitating to buy a 2BHK apartment in the 200-apartment complex up for sale, here is a company that has decided to buy the whole complex! Good for sentiment. All around. No one will complain. Except those that did not get a pound of flesh for themselves! Ouch!

The timing in many ways is just right. The stock-market is looking up. The festival happening. Vanity is entering the market. The timing is right.

season is just about to dawn. Stocking in for the season ahead is just about

2.

Not at all. HUL does not waste money. Not ever. The money spent on this is really

Is

this

colossal

waste

of

money?

not as large and inflated as the card rates of these channels look. I am sure there has been a deep cut. A cut so large that no one in Indian industry has possibly ever seen before. Inventories have in any case been going light. Time to fill it up.

The money is really well spent as the company has a whole portfolio of brands that benefit from the exercise. Consumers really look at brands as brands, and not Every brand gets blessed. There is variety for the consumer to choose from. As I necessarily as brands from one big behemoth of a company. HUL does it well. keep saying. HUL is a veritable super-market of brands on its own. If you add and all.

every brand and every SKU there is, this super-market has much to offer. To one

Add to it the joy of editorial coverage this move of HUL is getting. Bang for the buck has been attained!

Harish Bijoor is a brand-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

HUL Re-energised Is it a mere coincidence that suddenly a host of HUL brands are hyperactive on

Television or is it a conscious strategy on the part of these mega brands to create a deep impact in this market condition? In the last 4 weeks flagship HUL brands such as Lux, Surf Excel, Pepsodent have been very visible on TV. Whether its spots, these brands have suddenly exhibited a spurt in visibility.

sponsoring large format reality show or gobble up hundreds of GRP generating

So till we hear more from the company itself on what is the new thought or the reasons as well as the impact of these actions. An eye for an eye.

new strategy, I thought it could be a good idea to discuss both the possible

High GRP blitz by HUL is similar to the HLL template of the 90s when it would believe that creating a spike of media spends dramatically alters brand scores in a desirable zone thereby leading to gains. More than a decade ago when I was a Planner on HLL, the media planning template in Personal Products (Shampoos, Toilet Soaps and Oral Care) would be to out-shout the nearest competitor by a launched, the Pepsodent 102% campaign a decade ago against Colgate Dental Cream were outputs of that aggressive template. The last 5 years had seen a lull in face of stretched margins. So is the current situation a signal of things going back to having large media spends spikes? New Evidence of

Maybe

two

or

three?

margin of 2 or 3! The Sunsilk campaigns in the mid-1990s when Pantene was

that kind of fierce ad blitz from HUL. There was a distinct rationalization in the

Another speculation could be lower consumer conversions in the face of

Lowering

Conversions?

New

Guidelines?

increasing consumer maturity and an explosion of social networking media, traditional media and mobile phones. In my conversation with the head of a audience research company, I have been fascinated to hear that latest studies show a fall in conversion ratios across multiple categories owing to societal changes stated earlier. Maybe there are new guidelines or benchmarks that HUL is currently planning media on that have led to revisiting budgetary levels. I from two rival agencies (HTA and Lintas). Finally the HTA media guideline was went steeply Northwards.

remember one such set of media guidelines in 1998 that became a sore point accepted and was to have a dramatic change in media budget benchmarks that

High

Professionals familiar with HUL say that the current Marketing folk in the company (some who have come from Cellular Service Providers) have exerted campaigns. The FMCG marketing model in any case prescribes high SOVs for result of this high SOV target leading to high TRP programs being bought. Cheap Media, Low extremely high Share-of-Voice (SOV) targets on their marketing and media good SOMs (share of market). The media blitz that we are discussing could be the

SOV

Targets

Could there be a tactical reason for the high visibility? Maybe TV media inventory thats available cheap? This seems unlikely as the rates have been lower for a long time now since the immediate aftermath of the meltdown last year. In which case it could be argued that most advertisers were laying low then and that HUL other reason for the increase could also be the well researched benefit of high promoting a brand during periods of growth. Surprise! has budgets (and the will) right now to unleash this advertising firestorm. One advertising during slow down having the greatest impact on market shares than

Clutter

P&G had clearly surprised all its competitors wherein it slashed prices for key brands all of a sudden a few years ago leading to market share gains for itself. Maybe the ad blitz is HULs way of saying Surprise!. Am sure if these levels hadnt been expected earlier by HUL competitors in those categories, there would be worried rivals waiting to see the impact of this on their market shares. Famous last words Irrespective of the reasons for heightened visibility for HUL brands, their ads make TV look great, vibrant and interesting. My hunch is that the reason is perhaps a combination of these stated factors rather than only one or two factors. And if these are signs that the giant is shedding its last few years of conservative

media spends, one would, as part of the TV industry, just like to shout out Welcome back HUL!

Atul Phadnis, CEO, Whats-On-India. Atul is a keen TV media industry observer and a digital television evangelist/ enthusiast

So I Am Going Home A little over twenty two years ago, I landed into Ahmedabad. It was a blistering 7 pm, solar fried at around 42 degrees C.

I wasnt ready for daylight at that time. But I suppose I had discounted geography and the late sunsets as one goes further north.

The heat stung me. The dust seared me. This was no city made for humans. Here I was, eager beaver copywriter wannabe, thrust into the gullet of a fire spewing dragon.

Twilight painted the skies. Russet clouds hovered over the city. It was like fire in the sky. Very deep purple, I remember scowling.

I watched fat cows standing in the middle of the road. Unmoving and unmoved. But chewing thoughtfully. I never knew Rodin had bovine followers.

I saw camels plod through the streets. A forest of brown legs through which adding to the oppressive air that scalded my poor mallu skin.

cyclists wove alongside rickety autos that sputtered kerosene fumes. Further

I peered all the way to Chaitanya Apartments. Baked butt, roasted everything else. No coconut palms. Just an all encompassing envelope of dust and haze and heat.

This certainly was a zillion miles from where I woke that morning. No blue skies.

This is criminal, I rebelled with myself. How will I ever survive here? How can anyone survive this punishment?

My auto suddenly veered into this swank apartment complex. On wide CG Road. Above Kapoor Lamp Shades. Even after so many years, my memories are crystal.

I walked in through the glass door, lugging my one companion for a long time. A to the Mudra guesthouse.

broken, limping VIP suitcase. There in front of me was the elevator thatd take me

I pressed the button, and almost instantaneously the elevator opened and a rather well fed man stepped out. I recognized him, his effusiveness, and his 1000 watt smile.

There stood Dr. P.B. Naganand Kumar. The head of human resources. The man who had interviewed me. The man who read my mind. The man who didnt pick me as a copy trainee, but chose to take me as a copywriter.

He hugged me and my crisscrossing thoughts, and welcomed me to Ahmedabad. Go up he said. The copy trainees live there, but theres place for you. With that he vamoosed, warning that he might be back at midnight.

I stepped out on to the floor to face a big broad wooden door. Rang the bell and a I was solar as well as lingua challenged.

small man, the caretaker, opened the door. And in fluent Gujarati, he ensured that

Thankfully Kuriakose met me, and his excited bout of Malayalam and English and pumped myself up. If he could handle the heat, I bet I could.

assured me that all wasnt lost. Hope sprung eternal. I looked at his enthusiasm,

Soon I met the lot. Five more of the guys who arguably made better copy trainees than me. Was I jealous? Of course. But that was more an expected reaction.

I met an IIM-A graduate Ramki alias D. Ramakrishna, I met a tall lanky North

Indian Pankaj Mridul, I met a short stocky Punjabi Sunil Gautam, I met a short

cocky Assamese Dhrubo Borkotoky, I met a former computer guy Balki alias Metaphysics, plus Kuriakose the zoologist turned journalist turned basketballer turned copy cub.

A quick ride back through the maddening crowd took me and Kuriaps to Girish

Cold Drinks Navarangpura . Where I had the first lassi of my life. It was cold, hooked since that first sip.

sweet, deliciously thick, with a half a ton layer of cream on top. And I have been

The next couple of days that I stayed with them taught me a few things. Rather, I observed, learned and absorbed.

These were genuine people. No pony tails. No torn tattered jeans. No affectations. No hang ups. They were sincere human beings.

But they were bristling with ideas. They were brutal in criticizing. Some of them were aggressive. Other gentler. Work and deadlines charged them up. And Naga had no respect for time.

Slowly I was accepted. I was the outsider. Some one who bucked the traineeship, and was made a full bird copywriter. With a fatter wallet. But that was where everything else ended.

I was sucked into the system. Manikyam Apartments embraced me. A churning vortex of thoughts and actions. There was no pfaff. There was no fluff. No south Bombay cool.

Mudra Ahmedabad was a place that held its own. There was no pretence. There was no glam. Just hardwork. Middle class people with solid values. A heart handpicked from across India. of Indianess. But lavished with the finest from IIM, and a creative force

There was Dr. Ram, Dr.MR Arun, Dr. Naga, Ravi Ratan Arora, Abhijeet Almeida, Raju Murugesan, Bala, Subrata Bhowmik, Pritam Parmar, Ranjan Thomas, Philip DSouza, Simon Fernandes, Adrian Mendoza and of course AGK himself.

There couldnt have been such an overdose of talent in any advertising office anywhere. Little me struggled among the thunder of voices and the brilliance of minds.

It was potent. If you liked the combination, then it was heady. To learn, to unlearn, to challenge, to be admonished, to be whipped, to be inspired, to be blunt, to be tough, to push, to pull, to be true, to be right, to be honest, to be respectful, to be modest, and above all to be part of a team.

There was a fire, and gumption. There was a clear mission. There was focus. There was no denying our Indian roots. There was pride. There was passion. And there was no dithering.

Slowly I became part of all that, and I believed in it. I believed in the place. I ground I walked on. There were people all around who you could depend on.

believed in the people. I believed I could walk without fearing my back. Or the

I trusted in others. Others trusted in me. We grew strong. Our careers grew

stronger. Friendships grew thick. We were a band of people unlike no other. We

had a culture that was common across all branches. We were united. We were welded.

And we truly became the agency of choice. And even the girls wore buttons that said they were proud to be one of the boys. hehe.

Of course, life and opportunity called most of away from these roots, Ahmedabad and other Mudra offices. And while many of us slipped into newer roles and newer organisations, none of us ever forgot or changed the core that was made in Mudra.

It can never be defiled. Nor can it get corrupted. Its precious, and I think all of us, like Its not something that can be easily explained. Its one of those truths that have to be experienced. a reflex will go out of the way to protect it.

This evening when many of us meet again, I can guarantee one thing. No one is going to be stranger. No one is going to walk in wearing invisible armour. Theres going to be neither smoke nor mirrors. Its just going to be awesome. Like a great visionary, and father figure all rolled into one AGK.

big family. Getting together in the company of an amazing teacher, leader,

The xMudra Reunion is something that I thought we needed. An occasion to replenish ourselves with a certain goodness. A time to remember our beginnings. And a time to remember our memories. To be students, and even children.

Mudra for all of us wasnt just an agency. It was an institution. Big inspiring is home.

umbrella. True banyan tree. It was a place that nourished life. It was home. No, it

Prathap Suthan is Chief Creative Officer at Cheil India. He started off his career at Mudra Ahmedabad/Calcutta (1987 1995)

Delivering The Aegon Religare Babies We are obsessed by the thought of creating campaigns that dont have an expiry

date. Hemingway said- the object of every artist to create something of lasting value. A similar motivation guides us while creating campaigns. We want to create stuff that dominates conversations, stops traffic on the roads, pops up in

panel discussions years after it first appeared. And in this ambition, our strongest ally is the Internet. The net is the janta ki adaalat. If the people love your stuff, nobody can touch you. If the content is compelling and entertaining, it spreads spread. We love the purity of this medium. Bad work cant pass off as effective work that is greeted with a thunderous silence.

like a cancer cell. It just spreads. Nobody, not you, not me has the power to halt its work on the web. There is good work that gets celebrated and shared, there is bad

When we received the brief for the launch of Aegon Religare Star Child Plan, we had these kind of ambitions. Of course, there was also the desire to create a bigger impact than the KILB and the Irrfan Khan Pension plan launches.

We knew that our child plan was a vanilla offering. So, the creative had to stimulate interest, likeability and hype.

We decided to use babies as babies are instant traffic stoppers and conversation starters. But we wanted to make them do something extraordinary to create that edge.

We also wanted to attempt a technically difficult job. This was important as we designers.

wanted to provoke a parallel conversation amongst animators and graphic

The films have been directed by Shiven Surendranath of Old School Films, while

the post-production has been done at VHQ, Singapore. As a starting point, the the roles. The team got these children to play with a football or toy around with a observed minutely. A still shoot was also done, to replicate the faces and bodies in animation.

team auditioned nearly 100 18-month old babies, and shortlisted a handful for guitar. This footage was then captured on camera and their movements were

The footage was taken to Singapore, and VHQ, along with Surendranath and his

team, then created images on computer graphics (CG) from various angles, to match the actual babies. The details like the hair to the shape and size of the eyeballs, we had to take care that everything looked similar to the real baby.

Next, a smaller animated video in grey-scale was created with the baby moving around, while a rubbery skin was created to go with it. It took about two weeks to create the actual film after the creation of this mini-video, but the entire process of production took around two-and-a-half months. These are the first babies to be born in the record time of two-and-a-half months.

To give the film a candid, easy, home-video feel, it was shot in one take, avoiding too many cuts in the frames. The music for the films has been given by Vipin Mishra.

The post-production was an elaborate process, with animators from France and the UK working on it, while a software expert from London flew down to Singapore to rewrite the customised animation software for this project.

Manish Bhatt & Raghu Bhat are the Senior Vice Presidents & Executive Creative Directors at Contract Advertising India.

The Solutions Approach A Solution has many names 360 degree Communication, Total communication, Multi-media Plan, Media-neutral media platform, Media surround etc. These look at other media to deliver the incremental reach that would plateau in traditional media. A buyer could look at Solutions as a means to do innovative could all mean very different things to different people. A media planner may

stuff which may not be possible in expensive mass media vehicles. A brand manager would look at supplementing the mass media activity with digital media be part of a Solution, none of them completely define a Solution. What it is in order to ensure ticks in check-boxes of things to do. While these may very well

not!

A Solution is not just a multi-media deal. It is not a check-list of media or media vehicles to be necessarily used as part of the plan. This kind of an approach would usually result in extending the mass media creative into other media without any attempt to examine the distinct strengths of that medium or an attempt to leverage these. This is exactly the kind of approach that results in the creative on view as it is a replica of a similar print ad. Similar case of internet banners on consumer enough so that he clicks on the ad. Outdoor sites with the branding at the bottom of the hoarding being blocked from websites which are again like the print ad with no attempt to engage the

Nor is a Solution a bringing together or consolidation of all activity within the group in order to demand a lower rate. A Solution in that sense is not a buying tool. Very often a Solution would have an innovative or creative element and almost always a fair bit of customization. This would actually come at a premium versus the norm of consolidation of business delivering better value to the client or agency either in terms of more savings or increased value-adds. A True-blue Solution Brand

A Solution should be focused on the brand and should try to solve brand issues or problems. A Solution does not necessarily have to have all possible media or vehicles but should be a judicious mix of media required to achieve the brands marketing and communication objectives. It is usually a synergistic execution of

Focused

the communication across media but need not be necessarily so. For instance a trying to establish the variants and the unique features of each variant while it

shampoo brand like Sunsilk may have a campaign running across TV and radio may run an unconnected online activity like Sunsilk Gang of Girls which would have a different communication objective of attempting to build a community and a closer identification with the brand. The online activity is a part of the whole and solves a unique brand issue or problem.

A Solution works in a way such that the sum of the individual parts is greater than the whole. This is also called the media multiplier effect and a Solutions approach takes it to a level even beyond that with each element solving some brand issue and the whole effort delivering more. This is the reason that Solutions willing to pay a premium. Why are not a consolidated, discounted buy but one where the marketer should be

Why Solutions if 85%+ of the money continues to be spent on Print & TV ? With brand proliferation and a bitter share battle being fought in the market place, the trick lies in being relevant to the consumer and in being able to deliver

Solutions?

a value proposition that cant be replaced. Differentiation, practicing the art of Marketers are moving from an All things to All people strategy to an All things

Niche marketing, Narrowcasting or Consumer Segmentation is therefore the key. to Some people or a Some things to Some people strategy. From mass brand like Lux and Lifebuoy, we now have Dove, a moisturizing soap for the older woman, a washes. Even a herbal soap like Medimix is now available in 4 variants. fairness soap, an anti-acne soap, an anti-bacterial soap and even soap-free face

With so many choices, a brand needs to be well differentiated and relevant to the consumer. Conventional advertising may be too passive and marketers are more and more looking at going beyond conventional brand communication and providing the consumer a richer brand experience in a competitive market. in delivering engaged eyeballs. The consumer is much more mobile and is

Traditional high reach delivery media are seen to be passive and not as effective exposed to a large number of unconventional media vehicles. Both the agency and the client are therefore looking at a more 360 degree approach for the communication plan with multiple touch-points for the changed consumer.

Interactive, customized brand communication makes for a touch-and-feel experience that delivers a richer brand experience for the consumer and delivers a more engaged audience to the marketer and allows for a check on the response to the brand and communication unlike conventional media. Participation in Media of

India will have 500 mn phones by 2010. Juxtapose this with about 130-140mn TV homes and even with a multiplier of 5 per household, mobile owners would actually be in the same ball-park as TV equaling the mass reach delivery of television! With this kind of potential for digital media, all marketers want to ensure that they are future ready when it comes to talking the digital language. part of the overall communication plan and scale-up participation basis results. Solutions allow marketers to experiment with digital media on a smaller scale as

the

Future

Accountability

The explosion of media choices and the resultant audience fragmentation has

driven up overall costs for the marketer. The marketer now needs more media

platforms and higher budgets to deliver the same (or even lower) reach! The marketer needing to know exactly where each rupee of his advertising budget is

pressure is on the marketer and Accountability is the need of the hour with the going and what it is delivering. Most Solutions have an in-built response tracking mechanism which is actually able to measure the effect of the communication. This is far more valuable to the marketer as it actually goes beyond measuring Measurable Solutions meet clients need for increased accountability. Marrying the Existing with the advertising exposure to the effect of the advertising and links up to ROI.

A solution is usually a marrying of the Existing with the Possible. While

Possible

customization is key, existing properties or initiatives which are focused on the specific TG and have a close fit with the brand can serve the purpose with a little bit of tweaking. Customized events, properties also need to be created especially for the Client. While inventory across the entire portfolio is on offer, it is not make sense for the brand and its objectives. A solution normally incorporates a feel the brand. An ideal Solution also needs to be response based in order to be able to measure performance. Solutions

necessary for every group vehicle to be a part of the deal, only the ones which brand experience component which is where the consumer gets to touch-and-

Solution selling requires a different mindset from the usual sales orientation. It requires an understanding of the clients issues and problems, a thorough important for the Solutions team to have an understanding of how marketing works and it is also important to have an ideator or at the very least a person

Mindset

knowledge of the media brand and then the ability to connect the two. It is

with a creative bent of mind in the team who can generate the innovative ideas that need to be part of the solution. Execution

The Proof of the pudding is in the eating and execution is everything in a

Solutions deal. A badly executed activation will not get the advertiser the response imagery and capabilities. A media group should offer Solutions only if they have a in the possible response from its user base. Solutions Star

he was expecting. This actually has a hugely negative impact on the media group strong back-end events and activation team to execute the ideas and confidence

With the growing need of advertisers for a Solutions approach, more and more

on

the

Ascent

media houses are gearing up to serve up a Solutions fare. Agencies are setting up changing with a Business head trying to integrate the various divisions for a more Solutions and 3600 approach.

specialist cells to go beyond conventional media. Agency structures too are

Emvies, the Ad Club Awards for media excellence is the barometer of the rising

popularity of the Solutions approach. Winning Media Strategy cases a couple of years ago were more research based. For the last couple of years, winning cases have been ones which have a 360 degree Solutions approach be it the Horlicks, Nerolac or Vodafone. A few years ago a new category was introduced at the Integrated Campaign! Emvies aside from Best Strategy, Best Research and Best Innovation Best

(Arpita Menon is Managing Partner of Quantemplate, a media analytics firm she fondly refers to as her baby)

Design Is More Valuable Than Ever In India we have always celebrated Design. Design has been an integral part of our visual and material culture. We have always marvelled at the handmade objects made by the traditional artists. Architecture from various eras has its own

mark. No other country is as rich as India in its textiles heritage. There has been an abundant amount of creativity in India, and it had been fairly democratised. Almost every household in rural India still takes pride in bits and pieces of this creative process of living beautifully.

But we didnt really put a lot of effort to understand the processes of these creative outputs. We have always been too happy to live in the result and not ponder on what creates the result. This is very visible from the way we handle advertising young applied arts graduates. None of whom have gone through a process of

creativity as well. We create visualisers, creative directors from the passion of the questioning. They do acquire this however on the way and acquire it well enough

to win International awards. But I dont see much academic discussion or many PhDs being performed on this creative process, unlike many other places in the world.

What is the difference between art and design? I always say art does not need to doesnt mean that Design is a process that can be repeated like scientific experiments. So there is Art in Design. It is amazing to see what an artist can do if

have a process to create, whereas Design needs to have a process in place. It

he follows a process. This is especially true of commercial or Applied art graduates. Perhaps time for AICTE to upgrade all commercial and applied art to Graphic design levels.

The Industry that benefits most from Artists converting into designers is the behaviour. This combination becomes a strong agent of change.

Advertising Industry since it does make money by using art to persuade a

Design helps us to understand the changes in the world around us, and to turn

them to our advantage by translating them into things that can make our lives

better. Now, at a time of crisis and unprecedented change in every area of our lives economic, political, environmental, societal and in science and technology design is more valuable than ever.

At a time when Design has evolved in many countries, we in India are taking our first steps. In India we do have a Design Policy by the government in place for last two years. As perhaps the first objective now we have India Design Council

nominated by the ministry of Industry and headed by Shri Anand Mahindra. remains to be Industrial Design, it is true that the lead will come from the Visual

Though the focus of The Design Policy as well as The India Design Council Design areas. Whether they are pure graphic design, Advertising, Films, premiums in these areas.

Animation or gaming, web or interactive media. Indians are already commanding

Once a tool of consumption (Design) chiefly involved in the production of objects and images, design is now also engaged with developing and building systems disciplines. Design and strategies, and in changing behaviour often in collaboration with different

Build

Gain

strategic

insight

is

Clarify,

illustrate

Generate

foresight and

about

being to

peoples

communicate

creative

discover

needs

used new

and

opportunities

desires

to:

complex

information

possibilities

Deliver solutions into the world as innovations adopted at scale.

Invent,

prototype

and

test

novel

solutions

of

value

I will not elaborate the benefits that brings in for our communication, branding biggest challenges for design and also its greatest opportunities are in social areas. where design can play and should be explored to play a role in our context;

and advertising Industry since that is so obvious but in the current climate, the The World Economic Forum, Global Design Council confirms the following areas

Well-being Design can make an important contribution to the redefinition and

delivery of social services by addressing acute problems such as ageing, youth

crime, housing and health. Many designers are striving to enable people all over the world to lead their lives with dignity, especially the deprived majority of the global population the other 90% who have the greatest need of design innovation.

Sustainability Designers can play a critical role in ensuring that products,

systems and services are developed, produced, shipped, sold and will eventually meeting and surpassing consumers expectations.

be disposed of in an ethically and environmentally responsible manner, thereby

Learning Design can help to rebuild the education system to ensure that it fits its purpose in the 21st Century. Another challenge is to redefine or reorient the design educational system at a time of unprecedented demand when thousands of

new design schools are being built worldwide and design is increasingly being integrated into other curricula. Designers are also deploying their skill at communication and visualization to explain and interpret the overwhelming volume of extraordinarily complex information.

Innovation Designers are continuing to develop and deliver innovative new products at a turbulent time when consumer attitudes are changing dramatically, thereby creating new and exciting entrepreneurial opportunities in the current

crisis. They are increasingly using their expertise to innovate in new areas such as the creation of new business models and the adoption of a strategic and systemic role in both the public and private sectors.

In this context you also realise that perhaps it is wrong to compartmentalise the

process thinking in Design. There has to be a better understanding of Links as communication design.

Prof. Kaustav says. The links exist in fashion, architecture, interior, product and

Designyatra 2009 brings these links out in the forefront with so many speakers

with such diverse backgrounds. I will miss the fashion, apparel and textile inputs linked with development of process and thinking in all these Design areas.

though. I hope with time we realise the way to our own progress is so intimately

Sudhir Sharma is the chairman of Indi Creative Group and founded Elephant Design. He is a member of the India Design Council and was recently invited to join the Global Design Council of the World Economic Forum.

The Value of Being No.1 - And what it takes to get there in Indias FMCG market Indias FMCG market is a vibrant ever growing market. With a steady growth

trajectory over the last four years, increasing rural demand helped the Rs.100,000

Crore industry grow at an estimated 17-18% (CAGR) despite rising input costs, high inflation and economic uncertainty.

This points to the fact that, clearly, rural India remains a growth driver and

companies will battle each other to innovate in product formulation and Rural Indias consumption increase has been aided by higher MSPs (Minimum NREGA/NREGS has helped boost purchasing power.

distribution in a bid to penetrate the hinterland. This is not without good reason. Support Prices) for many commodities and government action in the form of

Making the most of this opportunity however, will take more than mere optimism and will hinge on specific strategies. For instance, the ominously branded Godrej No.1 brand of toilet soaps continues to build its franchise on a few powerful

fundamentals that have seen it grow in stature to capture the northern market and beat back many of its rivals to acquire a dominant position in a highly competitive category. Here are a few lessons that it has learnt along the way.

Consumer-centricity:

Building brands based on consumer insight is a good practice. But centering your entire business around them is great practice. For Godrej No.1 this has meant studying consumer needs gaps closely and working in tandem with its customers (trade) as well. By placing the consumer at the core of the product innovation cycle and using it as the litmus test of everything that brand management,

operations, production, distribution and sales do, is that starting step. At Godrej we ask ourselves How will this improve the consumers brand experience? Does better your chances of being part of their shopping basket. it empathize with their needs? The sooner and more tangible the answers, the

Value

That the Indian consumer is value conscious is a well known fact. Growing

consciousness

and

the

price/value

equation:

incomes and increasing brand choice may prompt some marketers to suspect that

this is changing. While this may be true for some items of expenditure, when it

comes to personal care and groceries, the Indian consumer remains as value atmosphere but it doesnt mean consumers have stopped spending altogether. Instead, they are constantly evaluating the price / value equation while shopping

conscious as ever. This tendency has accelerated within a recessionary

while growing ever more demanding instead of simply downtrading to cheaper substitutes. This has resulted in a Sachetization of virtually every category from personal care (shampoos) to cars (Nano!). Today, every brand has a sachet version of itself available to adhere to the price/value equation and balance price with preference.

Godrej No.1 spotted this trend ahead of the curve and rode it well to cross the magic Rs. 500 Crore number faster than most other brands. By first offering unmatched quality (at 76% TFM Godrej No.1 is one of few Grade 1 soaps) at an

affordable price. While most other brands include talc and other fillers to boost manufacturer margins, Godrej No.1 eschewed this path and decided to offer the best quality at the best possible price. This has helped the brand build a loyal base of consumers that hold it in good stead whenever it launches a new variant.

This strategy has been strengthened by pioneering the multi-pack offering and increased trials and frequency of usage by introducing SKUs at the 5 and 10 rupee price points.

Segmentation:

Even as consumer preferences become more specific, marketers have rushed to micro-segment their categories. Segmentation strategies have followed everything segmentation (fairness cream variants for men). from age-based segmentation (milk food variants for children) to gender-based

For Godrej No.1 this has taken a different route. By building on its consumercentric approach, Godrej No.1 fashioned a targeted varianting strategy based on

consumer research and understanding. This led to the creation of successful consumer trend analysis.

variants created for specific consumers using a combination of insight and

For instance, Asian trends showed that consumers moved from flowery fragrances

to fruity ones. Hence, a Papaya Lotus variant was launched before the trend

started in the Indian market. Similarly, the popular Strawberry & Walnut variant soaps) was launched with moisturizing benefits for a premium imagery. While, skin was launched for broader base of consumers.

(the first soap with a beaded appearance o pieces of Strawberry embedded in the the recently launched Lime & Aloe Vera variant with the proposition of fresh soft

Customization

In market as varied as India, no one-size-fits-all strategy can succeed for an different folks. This requires a deeper and more nuanced understanding of consumer needs. The sheer demographic and psychographic complexity offers a

&

Focus:

indefinite period of time. Over time, marketers need to adapt different strokes for

vast array of opportunities. For instance the preference for Sandalwood in the South is an example that merits its own marketing and media mix to suit the needs of a specific audience. Creating a media, activation and promotional plan proposition more effectively. that converges around this consumer insight helps communicate the brands

This can sometimes lead to counter-intuitive strategies that pay off handsomely.

For instance, Godrej No.1 is the typical David vs Goliath story while most other brands in the toilet soap category have a 10-12% (ad spend as a percentage of sales) media spend, Godrej No.1 has managed to optimize spends and increase sales by investing in local media and activation.

Be

Granted, none of this is easy. But it can be achieved through a dedication to

like

your

consumer:

consumer insight and an unbreakable bond of empathy with the people most likely to make your brand a success.

Above all else, it takes hard running to rise to the top and a large group of motivated professionals who are as value conscious as the consumers they serve.

(Dalip Sehgal is MD, Godrej Consumer Products)

10 Years of Branding, 10 Years of chlorophyll Events always appear logical, even inevitable in retrospect. The bumps and rough edges of reality are removed by the smoothening effect of history.

Reality of course is under no compulsion to offer a smooth equation that places

events on a neat curve, and offers a high goodness of fit! Even so, some events do revealed itself even if only in hindsight. The last decade which happened to be the first ten years in the life of chlorophyll (we were born on 15th August 1999), marketing, advertising and branding. have also been years of perhaps the greatest ever change in the world of

stand out as milestones along a journey where some fundamental new variable

Here is my list of some of them, and some ways in which chlorophyll responded to these changes. The

We saw, perhaps for the first time, the branding of a calendar moment: Y2K

Intangibles

(everyone got on to the bandwagon, there was even a Y2K sandwich sold near Churchgate station!), but more importantly, it was the age of the dotcom.

It is one of chlorophylls fundamental beliefs that intangibles must drive tangibles (think of the emotion of love as an intangible, driving the gifting of a rose as the tangible!)

But the critical element is that the brand DOES have something tangible to offer!

With VCs, Mary Meeker and others suggesting there was value even with crore valuation from monetising eyeballs! Thankfully we insisted on a real amount in lakhs, rather than accept the offers of several hypothetical crores!

intangibles as the ONLY thing we had enquiries offering us a share of the 400

This malaise was greatest in the IT space, but we insisted that a brand must offer which reflected this emerging truth.

tangible value. One of our early launches was Adrenalin for Polaris, Chennai,

Adrenalin - It Transforms! India arrives on the world stage

1999 also had a truly red letter day for India Inc. Infy came to life on the Nasdaq

Exchange. And in the process, Infosys Technologies (Nasdaq symbol: INFY) stepped on the path on which so many other Indian companies followed, to the

stage where today news of Indian companies buying international companies, no longer even makes the front page.

But the event was important in another way as well: Indian brands had arrived on the world stage and there would no more escape from global standards. In a sense all brands had to learn to be global brands.

A Dabur today offers Real fruit juice that offers the same quality as a tropicana. A Thums Up continues to beat Pepsi and Coca Cola. At your

When the last millennium came to an end, India had almost without anyone noticing already become a services-economy (By the years 2000-01 to 200203, the average contribution of services to Indias GDP had already reached 57%)

service

Shoppers Stop had started in 1991, but went from 5 stores to 20 in the 5-year period of 2000 2005. It marked the upsurge that resulted in retail becoming a brought to the forefront, the realisation that, especially in Service brands, behaviour IS the brand. major economic sector (albeit with more than its fair share of controversy!). But it

More importantly, it marked a crossover from communication to behaviour as new process, with alignment of behaviour and communication around a Brand Core as the goal of branding. We applied this to hospitality and created the Smart Basics service mark for Ginger hotels for the Taj Group. Consistency bull$#@t. is

the primary foundation stone of brand-building. We developed and copyrighted a

king

There was yet another change taking place: the consumer had had enough

Companies brought up on an exclusive diet of mass communication however,

continued to miss the fact that the consumer could see the inconsistency between

communication and behaviour, even if the company couldnt.

They spotted the inconsistency of values in communication and behaviour. A

cosmetics company that celebrated the new woman on Womens Day, but spent husband.

the rest of the year telling her how to be a docile decorative object for her

A food product that wanted to attract the empowered woman, but whose promotional offer was a Free kadhai!

And they punished the brands in the simplest way: they stopped buying the story. And the brand. Make-over

2005: The mid-point of the decade unleashed an avalanche of brand makeovers led by Bank of Baroda (who ended up hijacking the colour orange from the decided to change their logos. The poor logo was being turned into a modern companys image!

mania

mobile company!) A host of brands, wanting to reinvent themselves, also mule, the beast of burden that had to carry the entire load of changing the

We believed there was a bigger issue involved. And created the ideantity We define it as a visual with an idea inside it. And it is not just a design the idea is built on the basis of the Brand Core the unchanging idea that drives a company.

An ideantity is the cheapest method of buying space in the most expensive real estate on earth: human memory.

Here is a snapshot of how we have developed dramatically different ideantities for

a number of companies in the same space - financial services. Because the Brand
Core in each case was different.

Same Space, Different Ideantity These then, are just a few of the ways in which the world has changed in the last ten years: The discovery of the importance of intangibles, but also that they have to be reflected in tangibles. The need to go beyond design to ideantity.

And most critically, the importance of behaviour over talk in brand-building. What lies in the next ten yearswho knows? But one thing is clear. Words aint gonna be enough.

As Eliza Doolittle said in My fair lady: Words! Im I get Words! all Words! through; love, words!

so

First from him, now from you! Is that all you blighters can do? Dont Show Tell talk of stars Burning above; If youre in

words

sick

of

day

me

no

dreams

me!

Filled

Show me!

with

desire.

If

youre

on

fire,

Vodafone Happily Helping! The business was built as a combination of start ups and acquisitions. Brands like Essar, BPL, Command, Fascel, Max Touch & Orange required rebranding to Hutch which itself was subsequently rebranded to Vodafone.

The first rebranding exercise gave us butterflies in the digestive track and required much convincing of the stake holders. Every successful transition had us approaching the change with confidence. We had distilled the core factors that delivered a successful change programme. The rest was easy.

Unlike some other categories, we were not dealing with transacting customers who had the option of changing their brand often. Instead we had subscribers and most were happy with the services they were using. They required a reassurance

that they would continue to enjoy what they were even with the change of brand name. Symbolic continuity, with the help of communication devices that the customers found endearing, viz. the pug, the animated characters, Irfan Khan, etc. at the time of brand change helped provide this comfort.

To ensure that the change was not just a rebadging exercise we used the opportunity to look for processes that the customer found cumbersome and others

that he often wished that we had offered. These were eliminated or made available as key substantiators of every change.

Service brands like ours do not offer products with physical dimensions and

depend on interactions & experiences for customer opinion. Delivery of these experiences depends on customer centric processes and trained people. Probes customers. This knowledge was then used to devise new processes and helped us gain ownership for change amongst those responsible for delivering it. with customer facing employees helped identify the likes and dislikes of the

On line, real time capture of the voice of the customer is key to all above. Are service brands different from physical products? Yes & no. Just like any other category, services too need to fulfill core customer needs to enter the consideration set of customers. A detergent is meant to clean and a cannot make up for the shortcomings on account of core product benefits. shaving cream to soften the beard. Addition of a fancy perfume in either of these Similarly endearing advertising for services can neither help acquire customers service recovery mechanism are core to a good telecom service. Deficiencies on account of these core category benefits cannot be made up by cute advertising and superstar endorsements. Brands are not built only out of billboards.

nor make them stay. Availability of a near seamless network and a working

It is easy to segment physical products basis ingredients, packaging and thus

price. Products like shampoos, talcs, soaps & deos can be named and packaged brand, certainly for a telecom operator. Hence all above the line communication needs to be age, gender & SEC neutral. Almost all segmentation efforts is exercised on a one on one basis as customized rate plans, service differentials, etc.

differently and made to cater to multiple segments. This is difficult for a service

Physical products have a sequential delivery mechanism and functions like procurement, production, logistics & distribution can exist, most often, in silos. A production manager of a soap plant and its salesman could be sleeping in their

respective homes while the customer bathes. Not true in the case of a service brand. Everyone involved needs to be pretty much in the factory while the customer makes a call or uses a service.

Telecom, just like most other categories, centers around acquiring customers, retaining them and growing their consumption. The emphasis on one or more of these core business processes varies basis the life cycle stage of the category. Also

delivery mechanisms may vary depending on local environment. However, we requiring a unique communication and a business model. This includes adjoining values.

often hear every state in the country define their situation as unique thus states that are contiguous political divisions and people with similar cultural

This is also true when one deals with countries across the globe. Having experienced the diversity within the country and delivering a consistent yet not a constant brand experience across geographies and customer segments will come of use when dealing with multiple countries with similar diversities.

Harit Nagpal,

Vodafone

(Former Chief Marketing Officer at Vodafone India, Harit Nagpal now joins Vodafones global marketing team starting August)

Responding to the Responses It was indeed a delight to find that over 50 readers have taken the time to read the piece on my book Ride The Change and post messages about the introductory Crash Course I had written exclusively for storyboard.in.com.

I was also happy to note that some of the respondents had read my previous

books, FCB Ulka Brand Building Advertising Concepts & Cases and Building these books can be fulfilled if and only if they are found to be of use to young

Brand Value Five Steps To Building Powerful Brands. The purpose of writing managers and management students. To that extent I feel blessed that my books words of encouragement.

are seen to be of use and value by many of you. Thank you for all your warm

The book Ride The Change is a collection of about 35 articles written over the

last seven years. In the introductory Crash Course article, I had touched upon some of the key issues that these articles attempt to cover. Since there have been several comments and queries, I thought it is best that I address some of them here.

Anuj has pointed out that while the life of urban women may have changed

dramatically in the last ten years, the lives of lower middle class women in semiurban and rural areas has hardly changed. Well Anuj, you are right. Economic development does not treat all consumers as equal. But what we have found in are also echoing the sentiment we hear loudly in the Metro cities of Mumbai and slower in the smaller cities.

our study, WomanMood II, women in non-metro cities like Madurai and Kanpur Delhi. So women of India are changing, but the pace of change may be a little

Rahul Pandeys point is that men too have changed and that does merit a review. I believe men are changing as a direct after effect of the changes we have seen in women. If the wife insists on taking over some of the duties that the husband used

to do till recently, men will have no option but to hand over the keys. Interestingly, one area where there has been a rapid change, almost reflecting a global trend, is the growth of mens cosmetics.

Robin Kumar Das is appreciative of the article on Innovation that I mentioned in the book Game Changers by Ram Charan and AG Lafley may be a good introduction to some of the innovation networking tools used by the global major P&G.

my previous piece. Well, there have been many books written on this topic, and

Internet and Mobile are going to be the future media of choice, as Priyanka Jain has pointed out. I have devoted a couple of articles to this phenomenon. The critical issue with the net is the short attention span that a consumer has while banner gets the attention of the viewer in 8 seconds, it is a lost cause.

surfing the net. Apparently 8 seconds. So unless the website, or viral, or the

Kapil Mohanani has asked about the rural consumers. I believe they too are industry leaders pointed out that there is significant change in the mindset of our rural cousins. The speaker pointed out that the rural consumers are getting into an urban mindset: of upgrading products, experimenting with new technology, paying a little more for a better product experience.

changing in line with their urban cousins. In fact at a recent seminar, one of the

Let me end with my response to the comment made by Hitesh Arora. He has pointed out how even school kids are today playing a critical role in product the entire family going to a temple to celebrate (pretty much like what the first recipient of the Nano did in Mumbai last week). As a school kid I just about got a purchase. I remember my father buying an Ambassador many decades ago and

seat in the car as it drove off. I am sure most fathers (and mothers) today take their school kids when they are on a car hunting spree. In fact when it comes to the teenager is not just the influencer, but actually may be the final decision maker. products like computers, mobile phones, or music systems, I would suspect that

The reality is that the post-liberalisation generation truly knows a lot more than their parents about many things. And their parents are often grateful for their advice. They only hope that their kids return the favour occasionally.

Ambi ED DraftFCB M Ulka G Parameswaran

&

CEO

Author of Ride The Change

Advertising

Mumbai

A Marked Man I joined The Lovemarks Company just a couple of weeks back. For those who came in late, thats Saatchi & Saatchi.

Its quite refreshing, the change. This place doesnt think, feel or behave like an ad agency. It feels like a team meeting room. They even have a mascot, Captain

CareAbout, who at the door reminds you that everyone inside is passionate about something.

We dont even believe in brands out here. We believe in strange new things called Lovemarks.

Lovemarks , as a philosophy is quite simple. It goes something like this. Mere products cant command love or respect. Fads attract love but no respect, just a Only Lovemarks can command both respect and love. passing infatuation. Brands attract respect, even lasting respect, but without love.

Sweet! So how does one turn a brand into something consumers love? I could tell you, but Ill have to kill you LOL (actually, its all there on the net. Read up, ye ignoramus! www.lovemarks.com) So far, so good. With just one problem where do I fit in? You see, I am an old, industrial media kind of a guy. You know, the film, print, Mount Sinai, dropping my tablets of messages on the heads of hapless multitude. And I dont want the multitude to be talking back to me, thank you!

radio types? I am comfortable in broadcasting messages. Like a later day Moses on

But even a testosterone-crazed eighteen year old knows Love needs conversation, dude! Listening, as much as talking. And that, I am not used to.

Also these guys believe in talking to communities here living, breathing groups

of people in an intense relationship with things they passionately care about. Not and Class-A towns that I used batter to submission with gargantuan ad spends. That too, is taking some getting used to.

the faceless, shapeless masses from SEC A,B and C, living in metros, mini-metros

I am unlearning things here. Big time. And enjoying the exhilarating feeling that floods you when firm ground is pulled suddenly from beneath your feet.

But I have able teachers. Juju, Hanoz, Shormistha and Suhas are already doing

wonderful new things I am eager to learn. They are a helpful bunch here. So, no worries! Im slowly, but surely working my way out of my digital denial. Already docs. So there! I can tell you which hashtags are trending on twitter. And I wrote this on Google

What are the key accounts here? Every account we handle, irrespective of size. What is the challenge before me? To make it an agency whose work people look forward to. Easy! I am just an old dog learning new tricks here. I guess its the proper, post-modern thing to do. In these post-modern times where less is more.

About the future, I am as much in the dark as anyone else. My two-year old may never learn to write. He will type. Millions of Indian youngsters who have never seen a desktop are downloading caller tunes on their GPRS enabled phones. Right now.

But thankfully, creative leadership has always been a case of blind leading the blind. But my feet tell me that this path I tread seems the one less traveled by, and I hope that makes all the difference (Apologies, Mr. Frost!). Inshallah! Ramanuj Shastry

Saatchi & Saatchi