Consumercy

Puffer and the Eel

Is it first nature to shun the big, the detail, the complication, the weight and go for something easy, concise, homy, simple. It must be for I feel lot more inclined off late to read blogs, links and articles in here on the ether rather the HBR, FT, Economic Times, Businessweek that I have access to. I think that's just it. "Access Rights" to information in the past made that information invaluable even if worthless, worthy even if irrelevant.

It's all changed and how. Internet smote Reader's Digest, Wired is pinged several times over The Independent, Telegraph, Washington Post and other such 'liberal' media, everyone has a pet online dictionary and Webster rarely does feature, wikipedia Vs britannica, cnet and cnet news is the highest clicked tech-based site vs "subscriber's only" PC Quest (just notice the slash in price in the last six months).

In a time when it's not just fun but relief to see the big burn, news such as this is swell. But then, for every swell news there's the damp squib.

For how long, me thinks.

how drab is tech-marketing?

Here's something I realised this weekend. You seldom shall find computer geeks discussing OS's, platforms, scripts with business and market oriented guys such as me. Not in parks. Not over pints of beer. Frankly, it doesn't make sense. Not to my type. What however we all discuss at ease, business or tech geeks, is the latest pin up gal on the 'Men's World' mag, the latest i-tune single, Firefox, the new resto-bar in town, the new Google office in Bangalore, the  pay-packages, the work culture, winter sale, Shark Tale, et'al.

Each one's equally immersed, interested and considerably knowlegeable on either of such very many topics. So, my take on this?

- the flow of info on tech stuff is asymmetric

- the info on processes, services, markets, businesses, ads, flows symetrically between techies and non-techies

- buzz of processes and not products spread faster and clearer than products. People are more likely to buzz about ads, jokes, songs, remunerations, customer-service, ambience, bosses, faculty in institutes,  easy-fast-small browser etc, and yet be unsure of which product's ad, which singer, which movie director, the pubs location, difference between Firefox and Mozilla 1.7.3, and the bosses full name!

- The buck stops where the buzz stops. The buzz generally stops where the interest ceases. And the interest ceases in the details. So, talk shop. Don't talk stock.

If this is true then why are tech oriented jobs and company ad's so very disinteresting? Why do they talk tons about their products and the platforms and  skillsets and not the processes minus details or the company spirit?

Geeks are no less marketing savvy. I infer.

Sasken got voted as the best company to work for in India. It grants official sabbatical for a year after two years of work with the organization. Supports higher studies and allows it's employees to grow. The word got out. I did'nt read it in the papers. Nor do I know of Sasken's product catalogue. But I'am blogging about it's process. It takes the cake.

The cherry however would be to see 'em tech co's be more vim, have 'em proud employees wearing T-shirts that go , "I'am a Sasken'ian. How are you?"

That i would like to see...

• ATM machines having the option to punch in currency denominations I wish for
• my food talk to me. Generated messages taped to each served dishplate in food parlours. 'Wise Choice' if I order salads....'Remember to wash it down with two glasses of water', if it's a double ham and egg burger I ask for, 'Pinacolada would be swell with fettuccini', 'Hope you ain't planning to eat me alone', if it's a jumbo frankfurter i want.
• fruit juice cartons be transparent and smell of what's inside
• trashbins that say, 'do you like to be used? well, i do'

Will type in more of 'em as they come.

Mall Model II

here's what more i have to say about the topic.

Why do people go to malls?

• Family get away from an otherwise tied weekday. Weeknights and weekends are the times to indulge.
• The disparity between capital savings and dispensible income. While yuppies earn well, lavish residences no faith may beget. Well earning households confined to smaller and smaller homes in the crowding cities. Malls offer open, well-lit, spirited surroundings.
• Urban isolation. I suffer too. Single working men and women, disjointed from families, hometowns and ol' buddies. Malls offer welcome refuge. People, music, chatter, lots of company. Afterall social are we.
• Free Airconditioning. No power cuts. Better anyways than sitting with no work in offices.
• The psychological feel of being associated with the modern society,the vogue.

Yet, there's much to evolve on the parts of these gargantuan mall makers. Simple common sense to be friendlier and thoughtful towards the burgeoning factions. Some might have 'em. Many don't.

• Where are the benches and wheelchairs? To seat old folks and pregnant women. Ain't seen one in many malls all across.
• Forum and Bangalore Central the latest plushpoints in Bangalore just serve one purpose. Shopping. Where's the activity to engage toddlers, bored husbands and fathers?
• Escorts and assistances to locate a lost child, lost article, or help a senior citizen on the escalator or staircase.
• Ambulances for emergencies be it fall on the staircase, getting pulled into the escalator, wheezing etc etc.
• A feedback or suggestion on the mall itself? How often have you seen that.

And all these from personal experiences. You may have one too. All money does'nt necessarily make up for a complete job. Thought matters.

Overnight Branding

What's it with jib-jab, Shrek, Usher and M. night Syamalan. They were overnight successes....instant hits...overnight brands. It shows then that overnight brands do exist. What then about branding being subject to recollection, rememberance, attachment, perception, TIME. Or so worded David Ogilvy.

It happens all around us. Some new album, shop, book, movie, fad, game, comes by out of nowhere and shoots to recognition.

How? What is it that overnight brands do?

• Overnight Brands provide an escape from the routine either by putting an entirely new offering on the mantle or transforming the moribund existing space. Shrek came at a time when animations meant cartoons and reformed the space by offering movielike fun via this medium. Last month HBR ran an article on Cirque and how it transformed the flailing circus industry by mixing it with theatre and ballet.
• Overnight Brands make you want to be a part of the coterie that tries it first, opinionates and recommends it first. They provide a 'have arrived' feel to the consumers. I remember particularly the Matrix, and how everyone horded to be the first to palate it and propound their own theories on the concept of "maya". It was the in-thing then to be a Matrix lover and pass it on. Ditto for Usher's discordia.
• Instant hits either relate to you or they don't. The first case is obvious. The latter however is about how certain offerings albeit queer and uneasy to the user, succeed by detaching the user from the others who do not subscribe to it. Hardee's is the latest one to play sucker in the trite health-food scene. Hell is heaven for the edacious junta in here.
• Overnight brands don't overproduce, overexpose, overstock, oversell. Each offering is an exclusivity in itself. Up for grabs. Be it the limited edition Zara or the one in two years Shyamalan film.

Where the consumer is a jittery one, unsure one, demanding one, 'constanly searching for you' one...unlike the contented zero-choice consumer of a decade back, it does'nt take time to seep through into his psyche. It could be as fast as a cupid's arrow or as nasty as a jab below the belt . But then that's about bad taste branding.. contrabranding, the type that leaves a bad taste in your mind.

sarcastic but true

Lower the expectations of your consumer where they are already met. That’s what most of the incumbents do anyways. A little here and a little there, and what seems like the most rosy act to us consumers. One is prejudiced to believe that rules, conventions, inertia of unchange are characteristics of these very incumbents. Rarely though. For you find ghastly rules lurking within the presentable exteriors of every operation.

-      USA Inc immigration for one. Twisted brow officials at the desk wrote away a professor from India invited over to Oberlin for lecturing on Indo-Asian history. Said he wasn’t entitled for per day compensation on a B1-B2 visa. The rule (as they knew it) said so. “And do they really pay ya that much for teaching history!?”, queried he. Back home at the US Consulate, it was made certain that B1-B2 visa’s are entitled for pay upto nine days.

-     ‘Sorry sir, we open only at 10am’, said the manager at Spencers.

’But it’s already open, ain’t it. The shutters are up. YOU are here. Your guys are here…and it’s 0950 already. All I need is this one can of chilli garlic cashews. You see ‘am on my way to the station and promised my mom I would pick it up. Have a departure in half hour….will pay cash…need no bill.

‘Sorry sir, billing only at 10. (retailer’s commandment?)

-     (Font 6 prints)

    # The product model shown in the ad might not be the same on sale

* The offer is on the discretion of the retailer

^ Conditions apply

# On select items only

* Accessories shown are not a part of the standard product

     -      Warranty clauses, customer care, loan sanctions, it almost seems as if  they  are in place just to prohibit what they are up for.

There are just innumerable instances when these conventions just take it away from us and a set up a distant reality that’s got nothing to do with customer pleasure. The pleasure one gets in getting away displeased.

All are Invited

The latest is that BMW is setting up a plant in Gurgaon, (near New Delhi). Porsche, Chevrolet, Toyota are here. Maybach’s already booked for 20 units a year. Bentley has designs to come in by 2006. Meanwhile Walmart, Tesco, Save-a-Lot are shifting it’s procurement base for leather, medicines, textiles, herbal products, handicrafts to India(Lee Scott was here last month). Currently 90% of Walmart shelves are China filled. The biggest global recruiters have ventured, acquired, consolidated here. Benetton is launching an India Couture line. Legal firms in US and UK are outsourcing case consulting to India

What’s more?

- India has a greater English-speaking population than US and Europe combined

- Highest service exports growth in the world(17.5% in 2003 worth $25bn)

- One of the highest work hours in the world (1932 hrs per annum). In comparision OECD averages is 1615 hrs)

- Skilled labour is cheaper than in China(one-sixth that of US) and the Rupee weaker compared to the Yuan.

-Piracy is the highest in China

-Bureaucracy is much worse in China

Source: BusinessWeek, Economist, Economic Times, Fast Company,OECD

“they’re back”

Like I blogged prior, resurrection does inflict recognition from the past.  The ‘Devil’ in the Onida campaign is back. Fido Dido is here again and so is Charlie Chaplin for Cherry Blossom.

Next step, get ‘em Shekhar Kapoor for Digjam, Karan Kapoor for Bombay Dyeing, Persis Khambatta for Garden Varelli, . Vintage brand ambassadors is a good next step. What better way to show that no matter the age, grace remains and that raiment just ascertains.

Here's David Wolfe on the topic

ad-nauseam

it takes no more mind than a candy floss seller's to come up with the kind of ads one sees on television. Movie directors turning ad makers, music video makers turning ad-directors, musicians planning ad-campaigns and one has an overflowing potpourri of non sensical moulan rouge'ish ads galore. Be it the Hundai Getz ad that strikes no chord whatsoever with the band of hot-pants clad dudettes, or the innumerable pepsi and coke ads. Actually every other. where's the creativity gone, one asks?

...... but then when branding is about celebrity endorsements (overshadwing your own brand with another brand and splurging for that too!!!), shoddy ideas are veiled by huge ad-spends and international shoots, and 'best-looking' ads outnumber 'best-concept' ads and are vied for, the most sensible marketing ploy seems to be making lavisher ads to trounce opponents and where these enormous spends are justified as being 'in line with the brand value of the product' (after all can a diamond ad campaign be cheap??) where's the outside chance to sit back and try not making sitcoms out of your products and campaigns.

Home Trade spent 1.5 million for each of it's 14 sequences of ads with the gliterrati, and where's the company today? Pan-Parag, the tobacco company has kept the same ad and the same packaging for over two decades and still retains pole position in the segment inspite of high rolling competitors.

Boy, does the profligacy dawn upon erudite heads.

- Toilet cleaners and disinfectants could take up a public hygiene drive, nationwide public urinal cleaning crusade as a campaign that goes in hand to their product motive plus doing something truly responsible and thoughtful for the consumer.

- Ditto for healthcare, energy drinks, fabricare products-appliances, insect repellants, air conditioners, blah,blah,blah...taking 'em to government hospitals, old-age homes etc to showcase cause not gloss.

- In Asian countries the life of an automobile is anywhere between 10-15 years and the conditions are a lot more bumpier, crowded, dustier, hot and harsh compared to the west. Ever seen an automobile ad sans waxed monochrome, all-accessories fitted, wonderfully manoeuvred shoot. where's the reality guys..where's the requirement? Who needs to look at a new car on TV when one is really interested in how it would still be performing years from now.

All ads look the same, feel the same, spend the same. What's needed is a 'Fahrenheit', Hyderabad Blues, Blairwitch Project of ads that exudes sense than shekels.

Souse thy Consumer

At a waterhole over the weekend it just struck me a few rounds up, that the waiter had actually swiped vodkas on me. From Smirnoff Peach to godknowswhat! And what did i know..already had guzzled a few 'em glasses down before mah tastebuds pinged me.

The next day, somewhere between the coffees and the lemon teas it seemed that pubs and disco's and bars were the best places to sell stuff that otherwise you could'nt yell to sell. The kind that knocks you on a idle sunday morning.... memory cards, electromechanical jigs, herbal hemorrhoid cream, Natasha Bedingfield's latest single...or simply some other drink. Just pass it on...before i pass pass out and rest assured you shall have a seller.

Get 'em sozzled and wipe 'em clean. who gets to know anyways.