For the past few days, I’ve been working on an online media plan for a client. It has been almost 5 years since I had actively been involved in making media plans. I realize nothing much has changed – then & now…
Media planning, we have been made to believe, is a mixture of art + science. What the ratio of the secret mixture is like the Coke recipe formula – everyone knows it is there, but no-one is aware what exactly it is.
5 years back, media planning was mostly about impressions (CPM), Clicks (CPC), and Leads…. The ROI’s were mostly about Click through Rates (CTRs) and effective CPCs… It still is.
5 years back, the tags and weight of the creative were an issue with most publishers… it still is. A normal flash file of 25KB to 35KB is what most of the publisher accepts. It seems like the broadband penetration has done nothing good to the quality of ads that can be served.
5 years back most ad serving tools reported the performance, basis the type of inventory, time, geo, etc. it still does the same, mostly.
5 years back campaign optimization was mostly based on ad inventory placement, frequency capping, creative refresh, or value adds…. It still is
5 years back most innovations were limited to roadblocks, interstitials, shoshkeles, page take overs… It still is
5 years back, search marketing (Google PPC campaign) played an important role in optimizing the performance of campaign… it still does
They say 6 months is too long in digital marketing… but, when it comes to digital media planning, 5 years does not seem like a long period. Well, to be fair, the use of 3rd party reports have increased – ComScore and Vizisense gives the media planner a sense of the media consumption amongst the TG. Things like audience duplicity, is all important information that goes into media planning…
However, the media planning formula hasn’t changed much… Maybe, the ratio would have changed a bit… if previously, it was 75% art and 25% science… now it would be 70% art and 30% science
Cheers
Santosh
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Santosh. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Santosh. Tampilkan semua postingan
Minggu, 14 Agustus 2011
Digital Media Planning – Then and Now
For the past few days, I’ve been working on an online media plan for a client. It has been almost 5 years since I had actively been involved in making media plans. I realize nothing much has changed – then & now…
Media planning, we have been made to believe, is a mixture of art + science. What the ratio of the secret mixture is like the Coke recipe formula – everyone knows it is there, but no-one is aware what exactly it is.
5 years back, media planning was mostly about impressions (CPM), Clicks (CPC), and Leads…. The ROI’s were mostly about Click through Rates (CTRs) and effective CPCs… It still is.
5 years back, the tags and weight of the creative were an issue with most publishers… it still is. A normal flash file of 25KB to 35KB is what most of the publisher accepts. It seems like the broadband penetration has done nothing good to the quality of ads that can be served.
5 years back most ad serving tools reported the performance, basis the type of inventory, time, geo, etc. it still does the same, mostly.
5 years back campaign optimization was mostly based on ad inventory placement, frequency capping, creative refresh, or value adds…. It still is
5 years back most innovations were limited to roadblocks, interstitials, shoshkeles, page take overs… It still is
5 years back, search marketing (Google PPC campaign) played an important role in optimizing the performance of campaign… it still does
They say 6 months is too long in digital marketing… but, when it comes to digital media planning, 5 years does not seem like a long period. Well, to be fair, the use of 3rd party reports have increased – ComScore and Vizisense gives the media planner a sense of the media consumption amongst the TG. Things like audience duplicity, is all important information that goes into media planning…
However, the media planning formula hasn’t changed much… Maybe, the ratio would have changed a bit… if previously, it was 75% art and 25% science… now it would be 70% art and 30% science
Cheers
Santosh
Media planning, we have been made to believe, is a mixture of art + science. What the ratio of the secret mixture is like the Coke recipe formula – everyone knows it is there, but no-one is aware what exactly it is.
5 years back, media planning was mostly about impressions (CPM), Clicks (CPC), and Leads…. The ROI’s were mostly about Click through Rates (CTRs) and effective CPCs… It still is.
5 years back, the tags and weight of the creative were an issue with most publishers… it still is. A normal flash file of 25KB to 35KB is what most of the publisher accepts. It seems like the broadband penetration has done nothing good to the quality of ads that can be served.
5 years back most ad serving tools reported the performance, basis the type of inventory, time, geo, etc. it still does the same, mostly.
5 years back campaign optimization was mostly based on ad inventory placement, frequency capping, creative refresh, or value adds…. It still is
5 years back most innovations were limited to roadblocks, interstitials, shoshkeles, page take overs… It still is
5 years back, search marketing (Google PPC campaign) played an important role in optimizing the performance of campaign… it still does
They say 6 months is too long in digital marketing… but, when it comes to digital media planning, 5 years does not seem like a long period. Well, to be fair, the use of 3rd party reports have increased – ComScore and Vizisense gives the media planner a sense of the media consumption amongst the TG. Things like audience duplicity, is all important information that goes into media planning…
However, the media planning formula hasn’t changed much… Maybe, the ratio would have changed a bit… if previously, it was 75% art and 25% science… now it would be 70% art and 30% science
Cheers
Santosh
Digital Media Planning – Then and Now
For the past few days, I’ve been working on an online media plan for a client. It has been almost 5 years since I had actively been involved in making media plans. I realize nothing much has changed – then & now…
Media planning, we have been made to believe, is a mixture of art + science. What the ratio of the secret mixture is like the Coke recipe formula – everyone knows it is there, but no-one is aware what exactly it is.
5 years back, media planning was mostly about impressions (CPM), Clicks (CPC), and Leads…. The ROI’s were mostly about Click through Rates (CTRs) and effective CPCs… It still is.
5 years back, the tags and weight of the creative were an issue with most publishers… it still is. A normal flash file of 25KB to 35KB is what most of the publisher accepts. It seems like the broadband penetration has done nothing good to the quality of ads that can be served.
5 years back most ad serving tools reported the performance, basis the type of inventory, time, geo, etc. it still does the same, mostly.
5 years back campaign optimization was mostly based on ad inventory placement, frequency capping, creative refresh, or value adds…. It still is
5 years back most innovations were limited to roadblocks, interstitials, shoshkeles, page take overs… It still is
5 years back, search marketing (Google PPC campaign) played an important role in optimizing the performance of campaign… it still does
They say 6 months is too long in digital marketing… but, when it comes to digital media planning, 5 years does not seem like a long period. Well, to be fair, the use of 3rd party reports have increased – ComScore and Vizisense gives the media planner a sense of the media consumption amongst the TG. Things like audience duplicity, is all important information that goes into media planning…
However, the media planning formula hasn’t changed much… Maybe, the ratio would have changed a bit… if previously, it was 75% art and 25% science… now it would be 70% art and 30% science
Cheers
Santosh
Media planning, we have been made to believe, is a mixture of art + science. What the ratio of the secret mixture is like the Coke recipe formula – everyone knows it is there, but no-one is aware what exactly it is.
5 years back, media planning was mostly about impressions (CPM), Clicks (CPC), and Leads…. The ROI’s were mostly about Click through Rates (CTRs) and effective CPCs… It still is.
5 years back, the tags and weight of the creative were an issue with most publishers… it still is. A normal flash file of 25KB to 35KB is what most of the publisher accepts. It seems like the broadband penetration has done nothing good to the quality of ads that can be served.
5 years back most ad serving tools reported the performance, basis the type of inventory, time, geo, etc. it still does the same, mostly.
5 years back campaign optimization was mostly based on ad inventory placement, frequency capping, creative refresh, or value adds…. It still is
5 years back most innovations were limited to roadblocks, interstitials, shoshkeles, page take overs… It still is
5 years back, search marketing (Google PPC campaign) played an important role in optimizing the performance of campaign… it still does
They say 6 months is too long in digital marketing… but, when it comes to digital media planning, 5 years does not seem like a long period. Well, to be fair, the use of 3rd party reports have increased – ComScore and Vizisense gives the media planner a sense of the media consumption amongst the TG. Things like audience duplicity, is all important information that goes into media planning…
However, the media planning formula hasn’t changed much… Maybe, the ratio would have changed a bit… if previously, it was 75% art and 25% science… now it would be 70% art and 30% science
Cheers
Santosh
Selasa, 29 Maret 2011
Impact of Mobile Number Portability in India
Well, after long delay and many missed deadlines mobile number portability (MNP) has come to effect. It is almost 2 months since MNP is in effect and there has been some traction in terms of people shifting from one service provider to another.
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Impact of Mobile Number Portability in India
Well, after long delay and many missed deadlines mobile number portability (MNP) has come to effect. It is almost 2 months since MNP is in effect and there has been some traction in terms of people shifting from one service provider to another.
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Impact of Mobile Number Portability in India
Well, after long delay and many missed deadlines mobile number portability (MNP) has come to effect. It is almost 2 months since MNP is in effect and there has been some traction in terms of people shifting from one service provider to another.
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Some of the obvious impact of Mobile Number Portability are:
- The customer service and network offering would become better;
- Parity on the cost / packages
On other hand, I think there could be far more subtle impact on the current mobile marketing environment. 5 changes that i foresee are:-
- There could be increase in network locked phone schemes (Handset + Connection)...where-in high end phones are offered for lower prices
- Increased Value added services. Companies would offer access to exclusive content so as to keep the customer engaged with content and thus create higher exit barrier
- Annual subscription packages, in form of widgets and data which would get discontinued when people shift the service provider
- Common denominators across all service provider - including 3rd party maintained cellular towers, out sourcing of non core operations, etc (in fact it is already happening)
- Increased 'guerrilla marketing' .... while the bigger player would be looking at expanding the market, the smaller players would try to entice the existing customers of bigger player
Cheers
Santosh
Kamis, 02 Desember 2010
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
Information Scarcity to Information Abundance – Changing thoughts
Couple of things that happened recently, made me think… Has the growth of technology (esp. Internet) actually diminished the value of information?
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
2 reasons that got me thinking were -
1) I was planning to make a Goan dish – Vindaloo... I logged on to the Internet to check the recipe. I read it, used it to make the dish. All throughout, I never made an effort to remember the recipe and process of making it…One reason could be - In case I need the same information in the future, I could get it at the click of a button…
2) In the past few weeks… the (scam) news sequence could be summed up as follows – IPL scam>CWG scam>2G scam>Adarsh>Media Tapes. While each of the news is important in terms of the freshness and context…the value we attach to the previous incident diminishes drastically with each passing day. The News today has a short shelf life
About 20 years back, (access to) information was scarce. The only known and popular sources of information were – the books, Newspapers, Radio, Television, Magazines, People, etc. Information was also available on computers and various storage devices (remember the floppy disks, tapes ). The information on the new technology systems were more on limited data retrieval rather than real time access of information/news. There was a lot of barrier in terms of accessibility and availability (on demand, real-time basis) of information/news. Yes, in those days, information was a scarce commodity.
The increase in usage of Internet and availability of Internet for public at large changed it all. Suddenly, Information generation and sharing have become simpler. It no longer was confined to mediums that were not in the grasp of the common man. Real time exchange of ideas, news, and content across the globe was a norm. In today’s world, the use of social media platform has made the availability and accessibility of news on as-it-happens basis. In today’s world Information/News is in abundance.
What is the effect of this on the Human Behaviour??
Economists, sociologists have long said: Every market-place reaction is based on 2 key factors of scarcity and abundance. The technology guru George Gilder has long postulated: "Every economic era is based on a key abundance and a key scarcity." I have to add here that most human development and behavior too is formed basis scarcity and abundance.
When the food is in abundance, the Human body stores it as fat in the body so that it can survive during the time of scarcity.
The human brain is also constructed to store huge amount of information. This ability to store and retrieve information has put humans in the apex of the animal kingdom. Humans would have developed the memorizing capabilities by trying to store information about hunting grounds, watering holes, things to avoid, etc during their early years of development as primates. Since the source of information was mostly through experience it was important crucial for our primates ancestors to memorize and store the experience
One of the important effects of things being scare is that its value is always high. That is the reason why we put high value for limited and finite resources like precious stones, minerals, land, etc…
The value of information and specifically information such as News was high during the scarce period. Since the value of News was high, we used to make extra effort to memorize and store the information. I remember my childhood days on how I used to consume news.. reading the newspaper from Left Hand Top to Right Hand Bottom, and trying to memorize as much as possible. Mapping that day’s information with earlier day’s News to construct a flow of events. Even with the advent of TV into every household the consumption of News/Information remained the same… only the format of the source of information changed. Our behavior in terms of storing/memorizing information remained similar
Since there was a high value assigned to information…We conditioned our brains to memorize and remember it.
With the adoption of technology (especially Internet) and the information abundance that followed with it, especially access to real-time news, the value of information has reduced
Whether it is a news item or a video clip of a particular episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S …it is all available at a click on YouTube or similar Video sharing channel
While ready access to information would have reduced the value of information in terms of us trying to memorize and remember it, another reason could be that we are exposed to multiple source of information (same and different) and human brains could have an auto switch-off mechanism when it reaches, what it believes is, overdose of information. The communication experts have coined a nice term for such thing – Short Attention Span
My guess on the impact of information abundance on the human behavior is that we would depend more on technology to store information and use our brains to memorize where we can find them in the technology map. We would train our brains more on how to index where the information is and how to find the information rather than the content of the information itself
Example: I would try and remember what keywords I had used to search for specific information on Google and what website I visited post the search results… not necessarily the content of the webpage itself
A few centuries later, this could be a common household scenario
Child: Dad, Where is Africa?
Dad: Ask Google (surely by then Google search would be in speech command mode)
Until then, try and remember the content that is written above :)
Cheers
Santosh
Santosh E.G. |Associate Vice President - Digital Marketing
MRM Worldwide | McCann Worldgroup
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/santosheg
Twitter: @santosheg
Minggu, 26 September 2010
Is online a ‘frivolous’ medium for advertising?
Ok. I know it is a very uncomfortable question, especially in emerging markets where Internet advertising is just about finding its place, and is also one of the fastest growing - in terms of advertising revenue growth. It becomes all the more uncomfortable when you are talking about it online :)
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Is online a ‘frivolous’ medium for advertising?
Ok. I know it is a very uncomfortable question, especially in emerging markets where Internet advertising is just about finding its place, and is also one of the fastest growing - in terms of advertising revenue growth. It becomes all the more uncomfortable when you are talking about it online :)
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Is online a ‘frivolous’ medium for advertising?
Ok. I know it is a very uncomfortable question, especially in emerging markets where Internet advertising is just about finding its place, and is also one of the fastest growing - in terms of advertising revenue growth. It becomes all the more uncomfortable when you are talking about it online :)
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Some weeks back, I overheard someone say that compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Online Advertising as a medium need not to be considered seriously (at-least for now). India, for example, still is a market driven by TVC and Print ads.
True? True, but partially
True, because most of the online advertising is limited to online banners (a replication of the mainline creative/message) with a campaign website that is informative in nature. True, because in most ad agencies, the creative think about the message in terms of TVC, Print, Radio, etc…. and then decide to do something ‘cool’ in the online space. “Let’s have something cool on Facebook” is the latest mantra. True again, because agencies/clients use the Internet for uploading and publishing a so called humorous animated movie, a.k.a ‘Viral Movie’ and hope that it is seen by ‘n’ number of people. Sometimes, it just feels like - “if it is online, it needs to be humorous”. I never could understand, why is that clients and agencies are willing to ‘create’ and ‘seed’ a viral movie on the Internet, but usually shy away from promoting the same as a TVC? Is it, that a creative that is only good for the Internet is not good for mainline advertising??
The above ‘truths’ are here to stay for sometime but there are changes happening (and happening real fast)
If I were to analyze these 3 mediums of advertising (Print, TVC, and Online), this is what I see –
- The Constants
- The Channels
- The Creative
- The Consumer
- The Confusion
- The Change
- The Challenge
The Constants:
Whatever be the format of advertisement, the truth is that it is part of the same campaign there are some things which would be constants – the campaign objective, the value proposition, the message, the visuals, etc
The Channels:
Each of the channels has a perception built around it. This perception has a rub-off on the advertisements that it carries.
Print: Most print publications are perceived as – Serious, trustworthy, reliable (esp. Newspaper and most magazines). Thus an advertisement present in such an environment would have some rub-off on to it from the context of the medium itself
Television: Most TV Channels are perceived as a window to the world – real and imaginary. TV Channels are entertainment, information and come with some amount of reliability – A perception built by the channels over the years of broadcasting (BBC, STAR, etc). While the environment at which the TVC plays do not have much impact on the TVC itself since the brand story is capsulated by the entirety of the commercial itself
Internet: Compared to the above two mediums of advertising, Internet is still in its infancy. Internet for a long time was under the control of the academicians, students, and some Government organizations. It is only in the last 2 decades that the people at large had access to Internet through www. While the other traditional forms of media were developed with a business model in mind, Internet was developed more by trial and error. All the major development of Internet – be it web-based email, search engines, SNS sites like Facebook all were developed and popularized by the techno-savvy individuals rather than business entrepreneurs. Also since it was developed by the youth, it was predominantly for the youth destinations that came to populate the www. This early perception of the Net being youth-centric destination, and with no proper business model stuck with the marketers and public…and it stayed on
The Creative
Print: The format is primarily – Static Image, with text.
Television: Moving images, graphics, audio – ability to tell the brand story in the closest format of storytelling – Tone, Emotions, scenarios, plot, characters, etc.
Internet: It encompasses the above formats of Image/Text and also Moving Images, graphics, audio etc…. but it also has another two crucial components that makes it different – Interactivity and Technology. While these are the USP’s of Internet, the creative people who make the ads fail to capitalize on it..since never in the history of advertising did any company needed to think about their message being ‘interactive’ (on a real-time basis) nor the technology having a direct impact on the advertisement/communication itself. Compared to other traditional mediums of advertising Internet is still in its infancy.
The Consumer:
The truth is that as consumers we always have been exposed to unidirectional communication. Whether it be in our homes (Parents to Child), or at School (Teacher to student), or at work (Manager to employees) – the communication is mostly unidirectional. The advertising message format too has so far been unidirectional – Company to Consumer. And since the format of communication (unidirectional) was something we were familiar with, the advertising message as it is was accepted without much bother
The Confusion:
Technology for creators of advertisements had been mostly helping them create ads faster and better. Be it the Photoshop, Illustrator, 3D animation software, or the desktop editing tools or the high processor hardware all these helped the creative team to build ads in the format they are used to. But advertising on the Internet, had technology not as a facilitator of creating ads but an integral part of the creative itself. Suddenly the creative was not about what the story says, but what the story does.
The Change:
Change is something that everyone is uncomfortable with. We all like things to be predictable and hence stick to things that are tried and tested. The same is the case with marketers. Traditional advertising is something that the CMO’s are most comfortable with. They know what works and what doesn’t. So far, Internet advertising was always relegated to the newbie in the department. But the times are changing and the youth of yesterday who have been exposed to Internet from early years are now taking reins of marketing department. They have seen the medium grow and know the potential of this medium. While it would be a fallacy to say that they would replace traditional forms of advertising, digital advertising would soon be the centre of all advertising campaigns.
The Challenge:
The challenge for the creative team and ad agencies is how to think ‘Technology’ when creating ads. It is not about what Technology can do for them, but what they can do with Technology. Internet is about interactivity, and it is about how to create message that just does not say something, but also does something. This would mean that there should be members in the team who can bring the message ‘alive’ – in true sense.
Another challenge is something that time will solve. As more and more people start replacing the traditional forms of media consumption with Internet, the medium itself would start being perceived as an evolved medium. This is already happening with people using Google (or other Search Engines) as the primary source of information seeking. Also it was in news a few days back how the traditional source of English Language (Dictionary) is being replaced by the Wikipedia. Twitter, a micro-blogging platform, is giving the traditional news channels a run for their money by being a popular source for real-time news
I’m sure in the near future today’s CG (Creative Guru) would be replaced by tomorrow’s CG (Creative Geek) :)
Cheers
Santosh
Jumat, 03 September 2010
The Importance of “Positioning”
The online would have enough and more dope on Brand Positioning; So, I'd not go into the detailing of what is positioning, and how it can be achieved? I will also not talk about the Importance of Positioning but would try and give some examples of some brand names you are familiar with and interact on day to day basis in the online space.
Couple of days back, I was talking to a brand manager who was mentioning how the online platforms are only best suited for tactical purposes. He went onto mention that maybe in future "positioning" would not be a marketing focus, and "being tactical" would be the marketing strategy of the day. I argued, on the importance of positioning, and had taken couple of examples from the Internet space and said if online companies are focusing on positioning, then 'positioning' is and will be crucial aspect of marketing.
While there is a grain of truth in saying that in future "being tactical" would be important…since new changes and innovations would happen overnight, there would be instant stars, etc..that a long term strategic approach would be so flexible, that any unforeseen eventuality would need to be addressed by a quick-fix tactic
However, the importance of Positioning cannot be discounted…. For example:
What would have happened if Blogger.com, Typepad or Wordpress had come with a feature on their blogging platform where-in they tell the users that their blog update can be only fewer than 140 characters…The up-side is they can update their blog by SMS too. Would there be any takers?? I guess not. As a product, I have a platform where I can write in unlimited words/characters, upload visuals and drive home the point with extensive note… then why would I want to blog with a limited character space…that too 140 characters and only text!!! Ridiculous…. Then comes a company who does just that…..with a single value proposition – tell others "What are you doing" … They positioned themselves as a "Micro-Blogging Platform" – which in truth is nothing but a Lite version of a blog…where in you can't express yourself properly with the character limit constraint. But today, Who Cares! You have a new set of vocabulary that has come up – thanks to Tweet-o-mania
Another similar example would be the Groups and message boards that I'd first experienced in the Yahoo! website. In my initial days of Internet exploring… I was a biiiiggg fan of Yahoo! It was one of the few sites which had a search facility. I could also go and place a request for my web-page to be indexed by Yahoo!. Then of course there was the Yahoo! Email service. But the best things which I liked and used to use the most frequent were the Chat rooms, message boards, groups… All in one site…. You could actually live your entire Internet life without stepping out of Yahoo!... I could connect with friends, real time (Chat/IM) and delayed (over mail, groups), share with them (online briefcase, photos), reach to like-minded people (message boards, chat-rooms)….I'm sure with a single website offering all these utility…no one would have looked any further. Right? Wrong. There comes a company who positions themselves as a 'social utility that connects people and friends around them'… What it had was all the utility tools which already existed… but packaged and positioned differently. Today it becomes a part of our 'social' life….and the utilities that Yahoo! had, all but forgotten
Imagine a portal like Monster.com…. One fine day if they decide to let everyone view your CV. Would you like it? No. I guess not. One of the biggest USP of Monster.com was that you as a candidate could have privacy control on who could view your profile and who could not. You were confident that your CV was secure and would not be shared with anyone else. Job market made a living by providing confidentiality. No-one would ever want to be made public that they are looking for a career change (especially with the current employer getting to know)… Then comes a company that asks you to post your CV and make it public, but positions itself as a professional network platform that will help you build connections. But the underlying truth is that it is used for career opportunities – both by the prospective employer and employee. By positioning itself as a professional network tool… it has made job hunting open and cool under the garb – Relationship Matters
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – all these online giants have understood the power of Positioning – by tweaking, packaging and marketing existing products differently
I wonder why that brand manager felt differently
Santosh
The Importance of “Positioning”
The online would have enough and more dope on Brand Positioning; So, I'd not go into the detailing of what is positioning, and how it can be achieved? I will also not talk about the Importance of Positioning but would try and give some examples of some brand names you are familiar with and interact on day to day basis in the online space.
Couple of days back, I was talking to a brand manager who was mentioning how the online platforms are only best suited for tactical purposes. He went onto mention that maybe in future "positioning" would not be a marketing focus, and "being tactical" would be the marketing strategy of the day. I argued, on the importance of positioning, and had taken couple of examples from the Internet space and said if online companies are focusing on positioning, then 'positioning' is and will be crucial aspect of marketing.
While there is a grain of truth in saying that in future "being tactical" would be important…since new changes and innovations would happen overnight, there would be instant stars, etc..that a long term strategic approach would be so flexible, that any unforeseen eventuality would need to be addressed by a quick-fix tactic
However, the importance of Positioning cannot be discounted…. For example:
What would have happened if Blogger.com, Typepad or Wordpress had come with a feature on their blogging platform where-in they tell the users that their blog update can be only fewer than 140 characters…The up-side is they can update their blog by SMS too. Would there be any takers?? I guess not. As a product, I have a platform where I can write in unlimited words/characters, upload visuals and drive home the point with extensive note… then why would I want to blog with a limited character space…that too 140 characters and only text!!! Ridiculous…. Then comes a company who does just that…..with a single value proposition – tell others "What are you doing" … They positioned themselves as a "Micro-Blogging Platform" – which in truth is nothing but a Lite version of a blog…where in you can't express yourself properly with the character limit constraint. But today, Who Cares! You have a new set of vocabulary that has come up – thanks to Tweet-o-mania
Another similar example would be the Groups and message boards that I'd first experienced in the Yahoo! website. In my initial days of Internet exploring… I was a biiiiggg fan of Yahoo! It was one of the few sites which had a search facility. I could also go and place a request for my web-page to be indexed by Yahoo!. Then of course there was the Yahoo! Email service. But the best things which I liked and used to use the most frequent were the Chat rooms, message boards, groups… All in one site…. You could actually live your entire Internet life without stepping out of Yahoo!... I could connect with friends, real time (Chat/IM) and delayed (over mail, groups), share with them (online briefcase, photos), reach to like-minded people (message boards, chat-rooms)….I'm sure with a single website offering all these utility…no one would have looked any further. Right? Wrong. There comes a company who positions themselves as a 'social utility that connects people and friends around them'… What it had was all the utility tools which already existed… but packaged and positioned differently. Today it becomes a part of our 'social' life….and the utilities that Yahoo! had, all but forgotten
Imagine a portal like Monster.com…. One fine day if they decide to let everyone view your CV. Would you like it? No. I guess not. One of the biggest USP of Monster.com was that you as a candidate could have privacy control on who could view your profile and who could not. You were confident that your CV was secure and would not be shared with anyone else. Job market made a living by providing confidentiality. No-one would ever want to be made public that they are looking for a career change (especially with the current employer getting to know)… Then comes a company that asks you to post your CV and make it public, but positions itself as a professional network platform that will help you build connections. But the underlying truth is that it is used for career opportunities – both by the prospective employer and employee. By positioning itself as a professional network tool… it has made job hunting open and cool under the garb – Relationship Matters
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – all these online giants have understood the power of Positioning – by tweaking, packaging and marketing existing products differently
I wonder why that brand manager felt differently
Santosh
The Importance of “Positioning”
The online would have enough and more dope on Brand Positioning; So, I'd not go into the detailing of what is positioning, and how it can be achieved? I will also not talk about the Importance of Positioning but would try and give some examples of some brand names you are familiar with and interact on day to day basis in the online space.
Couple of days back, I was talking to a brand manager who was mentioning how the online platforms are only best suited for tactical purposes. He went onto mention that maybe in future "positioning" would not be a marketing focus, and "being tactical" would be the marketing strategy of the day. I argued, on the importance of positioning, and had taken couple of examples from the Internet space and said if online companies are focusing on positioning, then 'positioning' is and will be crucial aspect of marketing.
While there is a grain of truth in saying that in future "being tactical" would be important…since new changes and innovations would happen overnight, there would be instant stars, etc..that a long term strategic approach would be so flexible, that any unforeseen eventuality would need to be addressed by a quick-fix tactic
However, the importance of Positioning cannot be discounted…. For example:
What would have happened if Blogger.com, Typepad or Wordpress had come with a feature on their blogging platform where-in they tell the users that their blog update can be only fewer than 140 characters…The up-side is they can update their blog by SMS too. Would there be any takers?? I guess not. As a product, I have a platform where I can write in unlimited words/characters, upload visuals and drive home the point with extensive note… then why would I want to blog with a limited character space…that too 140 characters and only text!!! Ridiculous…. Then comes a company who does just that…..with a single value proposition – tell others "What are you doing" … They positioned themselves as a "Micro-Blogging Platform" – which in truth is nothing but a Lite version of a blog…where in you can't express yourself properly with the character limit constraint. But today, Who Cares! You have a new set of vocabulary that has come up – thanks to Tweet-o-mania
Another similar example would be the Groups and message boards that I'd first experienced in the Yahoo! website. In my initial days of Internet exploring… I was a biiiiggg fan of Yahoo! It was one of the few sites which had a search facility. I could also go and place a request for my web-page to be indexed by Yahoo!. Then of course there was the Yahoo! Email service. But the best things which I liked and used to use the most frequent were the Chat rooms, message boards, groups… All in one site…. You could actually live your entire Internet life without stepping out of Yahoo!... I could connect with friends, real time (Chat/IM) and delayed (over mail, groups), share with them (online briefcase, photos), reach to like-minded people (message boards, chat-rooms)….I'm sure with a single website offering all these utility…no one would have looked any further. Right? Wrong. There comes a company who positions themselves as a 'social utility that connects people and friends around them'… What it had was all the utility tools which already existed… but packaged and positioned differently. Today it becomes a part of our 'social' life….and the utilities that Yahoo! had, all but forgotten
Imagine a portal like Monster.com…. One fine day if they decide to let everyone view your CV. Would you like it? No. I guess not. One of the biggest USP of Monster.com was that you as a candidate could have privacy control on who could view your profile and who could not. You were confident that your CV was secure and would not be shared with anyone else. Job market made a living by providing confidentiality. No-one would ever want to be made public that they are looking for a career change (especially with the current employer getting to know)… Then comes a company that asks you to post your CV and make it public, but positions itself as a professional network platform that will help you build connections. But the underlying truth is that it is used for career opportunities – both by the prospective employer and employee. By positioning itself as a professional network tool… it has made job hunting open and cool under the garb – Relationship Matters
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn – all these online giants have understood the power of Positioning – by tweaking, packaging and marketing existing products differently
I wonder why that brand manager felt differently
Santosh
Minggu, 22 Agustus 2010
Who do they think I am?
I was mentioning in my earlier post that almost 80% of the SMS messages I receive are SPAM. Looking at the propositions they are offering me through SMS, I think this is what they think I am – their Target Customer.
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
Who do they think I am?
I was mentioning in my earlier post that almost 80% of the SMS messages I receive are SPAM. Looking at the propositions they are offering me through SMS, I think this is what they think I am – their Target Customer.
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
Who do they think I am?
I was mentioning in my earlier post that almost 80% of the SMS messages I receive are SPAM. Looking at the propositions they are offering me through SMS, I think this is what they think I am – their Target Customer.
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
One Marketer thinks I am a pot-bellied person, and have some interesting schemes on buying slim belts for 0% interest on EMI’s
According to another Marketer, I am a rich person who invests in properties. The number of Apartments for sale, realty projects that is coming up in Delhi and NCR I have the details of those in my SMS inbox. Another Marketer too thinks the same way bombarding me with 12% return of Investment through mutual funds. How I wish I fell in this category
Yes, I am deeply into religion and devotion. With the service provider themselves sending me ‘exciting and interesting’ offers of VAS. Download a devotional song as ringtone or set it as a caller tune….else offers of Mobile wallpapers and screensavers of gods and goddesses is a daily norm
Some other marketer thinks otherwise about me. He believes I’d love to have photos of the top models in bikinis and swimsuits in my mobile phone
Also I’m a person who likes to indulge in a weekly sauna bath and visit SPA regularly.
Not to forget…they think that like most Indians I’m also crazy about Cricket…and would love to get any promo messages on Cricket/ cricketers
It is a known fact that for any database marketing, segmentation is very important. It is unfortunate that while the medium offers pin-point targeting, most marketers use the medium for carpet bombing. While me as a customer remains the same individual… each marketer think different about me, like the Elephant in the room... to each his own (version of me)
In the meantime can someone answer me - who am I really?
Santosh
Jumat, 13 Agustus 2010
Hello, Is it Rajeev Rai speaking?
“Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?” I’ve been hearing this since the time I took a new mobile connection when I got transferred to Delhi (about 3 years back)..
The calls on my new number asking for Rajeev Rai has been insistent and consistent over the last 3 years…. Phone calls from banks, friends, loan sharks, out of town relatives..and even from the mobile service provider!!! (Vodafone India you have an awesome database about your customers)
Basis the inputs (from the wrong calls) I’ve been receiving on Rajeev Rai… I’ve been able to create a personality of Rajeev Rai….
I believe Rajeev Rai is around 35-40 years old….He would belong to SEC C category in terms of the socioeconomic classification… (Reason… most of the calls address him to either Rajeev Rai-ji and also some instances of him being referred to as ‘mama’ (Uncle)and almost all the calls are from people who speak vernacular Hindi)
My strong guess is that he is/was a small shop owner… this number was his primary phone and he had another mobile connection too… If I were to visualize his physical appearance (now here I’m stereotyping :)) – He has brownish skin complexion, a thin moustache, a protruding belly, might be consuming paan or paan masala habitually, and drives around in a two wheeler
Some of the above observations are concluded from the fact that he has taken petty bank loans (I receive SMS alerts from bank on payment due date and O/S)…. And also had taken loans from loan sharks… I’m sure the loan amount he has taken from loan sharks are not high…as the calls from loan sharks are few and rare (usually it is late night and a drunken voice other side asking for Rajeev Rai with mention of payment to be done)… and usually it is people who are in trade business (where the cash flow is quick) who take loan on high interest from loan sharks and try and re-pay immediately…
Sometimes I get to think that Rajeev Rai is a victim of the liberalized free economy of the new and resurgent India. There could be thousands of Rajeev Rai’s across India who could be first generation entrepreneur, who start-off with a dream and taking capital on high interest…soon the market reality sets in and they caught in a quagmire of loans and repayments….
Other times I think…that Rajeev Rai could be one of the thousand street smart operator…who to maintain a minimum standard of living which is beyond his normal means takes loan/credit from others… thus he is a victim of consumerism - that comes along with free market
Whatever it is…. For me Rajeev Rai is going to die soon…for the next call I get, the conversation would go something like this:
Other person on line: Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?
Me: Aap Koun? (Who are you?)
Other person on line: Ji, Hum ------- bank se bol rahen hain. (We are calling from -------- bank)
Me: Ji..ab bahut der ho gaya hain… kuch hi din pahle unka dehaant ho gaya (Now it is too late… he died a few days back)
….and the line goes dead (hopefully)…..and hope the calls to Rajeev Rai ceases.
R.I.P Rajeev Rai
Santosh
The calls on my new number asking for Rajeev Rai has been insistent and consistent over the last 3 years…. Phone calls from banks, friends, loan sharks, out of town relatives..and even from the mobile service provider!!! (Vodafone India you have an awesome database about your customers)
Basis the inputs (from the wrong calls) I’ve been receiving on Rajeev Rai… I’ve been able to create a personality of Rajeev Rai….
I believe Rajeev Rai is around 35-40 years old….He would belong to SEC C category in terms of the socioeconomic classification… (Reason… most of the calls address him to either Rajeev Rai-ji and also some instances of him being referred to as ‘mama’ (Uncle)and almost all the calls are from people who speak vernacular Hindi)
My strong guess is that he is/was a small shop owner… this number was his primary phone and he had another mobile connection too… If I were to visualize his physical appearance (now here I’m stereotyping :)) – He has brownish skin complexion, a thin moustache, a protruding belly, might be consuming paan or paan masala habitually, and drives around in a two wheeler
Some of the above observations are concluded from the fact that he has taken petty bank loans (I receive SMS alerts from bank on payment due date and O/S)…. And also had taken loans from loan sharks… I’m sure the loan amount he has taken from loan sharks are not high…as the calls from loan sharks are few and rare (usually it is late night and a drunken voice other side asking for Rajeev Rai with mention of payment to be done)… and usually it is people who are in trade business (where the cash flow is quick) who take loan on high interest from loan sharks and try and re-pay immediately…
Sometimes I get to think that Rajeev Rai is a victim of the liberalized free economy of the new and resurgent India. There could be thousands of Rajeev Rai’s across India who could be first generation entrepreneur, who start-off with a dream and taking capital on high interest…soon the market reality sets in and they caught in a quagmire of loans and repayments….
Other times I think…that Rajeev Rai could be one of the thousand street smart operator…who to maintain a minimum standard of living which is beyond his normal means takes loan/credit from others… thus he is a victim of consumerism - that comes along with free market
Whatever it is…. For me Rajeev Rai is going to die soon…for the next call I get, the conversation would go something like this:
Other person on line: Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?
Me: Aap Koun? (Who are you?)
Other person on line: Ji, Hum ------- bank se bol rahen hain. (We are calling from -------- bank)
Me: Ji..ab bahut der ho gaya hain… kuch hi din pahle unka dehaant ho gaya (Now it is too late… he died a few days back)
….and the line goes dead (hopefully)…..and hope the calls to Rajeev Rai ceases.
R.I.P Rajeev Rai
Santosh
Hello, Is it Rajeev Rai speaking?
“Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?” I’ve been hearing this since the time I took a new mobile connection when I got transferred to Delhi (about 3 years back)..
The calls on my new number asking for Rajeev Rai has been insistent and consistent over the last 3 years…. Phone calls from banks, friends, loan sharks, out of town relatives..and even from the mobile service provider!!! (Vodafone India you have an awesome database about your customers)
Basis the inputs (from the wrong calls) I’ve been receiving on Rajeev Rai… I’ve been able to create a personality of Rajeev Rai….
I believe Rajeev Rai is around 35-40 years old….He would belong to SEC C category in terms of the socioeconomic classification… (Reason… most of the calls address him to either Rajeev Rai-ji and also some instances of him being referred to as ‘mama’ (Uncle)and almost all the calls are from people who speak vernacular Hindi)
My strong guess is that he is/was a small shop owner… this number was his primary phone and he had another mobile connection too… If I were to visualize his physical appearance (now here I’m stereotyping :)) – He has brownish skin complexion, a thin moustache, a protruding belly, might be consuming paan or paan masala habitually, and drives around in a two wheeler
Some of the above observations are concluded from the fact that he has taken petty bank loans (I receive SMS alerts from bank on payment due date and O/S)…. And also had taken loans from loan sharks… I’m sure the loan amount he has taken from loan sharks are not high…as the calls from loan sharks are few and rare (usually it is late night and a drunken voice other side asking for Rajeev Rai with mention of payment to be done)… and usually it is people who are in trade business (where the cash flow is quick) who take loan on high interest from loan sharks and try and re-pay immediately…
Sometimes I get to think that Rajeev Rai is a victim of the liberalized free economy of the new and resurgent India. There could be thousands of Rajeev Rai’s across India who could be first generation entrepreneur, who start-off with a dream and taking capital on high interest…soon the market reality sets in and they caught in a quagmire of loans and repayments….
Other times I think…that Rajeev Rai could be one of the thousand street smart operator…who to maintain a minimum standard of living which is beyond his normal means takes loan/credit from others… thus he is a victim of consumerism - that comes along with free market
Whatever it is…. For me Rajeev Rai is going to die soon…for the next call I get, the conversation would go something like this:
Other person on line: Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?
Me: Aap Koun? (Who are you?)
Other person on line: Ji, Hum ------- bank se bol rahen hain. (We are calling from -------- bank)
Me: Ji..ab bahut der ho gaya hain… kuch hi din pahle unka dehaant ho gaya (Now it is too late… he died a few days back)
….and the line goes dead (hopefully)…..and hope the calls to Rajeev Rai ceases.
R.I.P Rajeev Rai
Santosh
The calls on my new number asking for Rajeev Rai has been insistent and consistent over the last 3 years…. Phone calls from banks, friends, loan sharks, out of town relatives..and even from the mobile service provider!!! (Vodafone India you have an awesome database about your customers)
Basis the inputs (from the wrong calls) I’ve been receiving on Rajeev Rai… I’ve been able to create a personality of Rajeev Rai….
I believe Rajeev Rai is around 35-40 years old….He would belong to SEC C category in terms of the socioeconomic classification… (Reason… most of the calls address him to either Rajeev Rai-ji and also some instances of him being referred to as ‘mama’ (Uncle)and almost all the calls are from people who speak vernacular Hindi)
My strong guess is that he is/was a small shop owner… this number was his primary phone and he had another mobile connection too… If I were to visualize his physical appearance (now here I’m stereotyping :)) – He has brownish skin complexion, a thin moustache, a protruding belly, might be consuming paan or paan masala habitually, and drives around in a two wheeler
Some of the above observations are concluded from the fact that he has taken petty bank loans (I receive SMS alerts from bank on payment due date and O/S)…. And also had taken loans from loan sharks… I’m sure the loan amount he has taken from loan sharks are not high…as the calls from loan sharks are few and rare (usually it is late night and a drunken voice other side asking for Rajeev Rai with mention of payment to be done)… and usually it is people who are in trade business (where the cash flow is quick) who take loan on high interest from loan sharks and try and re-pay immediately…
Sometimes I get to think that Rajeev Rai is a victim of the liberalized free economy of the new and resurgent India. There could be thousands of Rajeev Rai’s across India who could be first generation entrepreneur, who start-off with a dream and taking capital on high interest…soon the market reality sets in and they caught in a quagmire of loans and repayments….
Other times I think…that Rajeev Rai could be one of the thousand street smart operator…who to maintain a minimum standard of living which is beyond his normal means takes loan/credit from others… thus he is a victim of consumerism - that comes along with free market
Whatever it is…. For me Rajeev Rai is going to die soon…for the next call I get, the conversation would go something like this:
Other person on line: Hello, aap Rajeev Rai-ji bol rahen hain?
Me: Aap Koun? (Who are you?)
Other person on line: Ji, Hum ------- bank se bol rahen hain. (We are calling from -------- bank)
Me: Ji..ab bahut der ho gaya hain… kuch hi din pahle unka dehaant ho gaya (Now it is too late… he died a few days back)
….and the line goes dead (hopefully)…..and hope the calls to Rajeev Rai ceases.
R.I.P Rajeev Rai
Santosh
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