Author

Kanupriya Sindhu

Vertical to Horizontal: Web18

October 17, 2008

While assessing some more shopping portals for promoting the festival gift voucher of my company, I landed on www.storeguru.com, the e-commerce team from web18 had contacted me earlier for placing our product there and I had thought I will take it up further during peak season. But the moment I opened the site today morning, I got the following message:

 

So, aggregation is in the season? www.storeguru.com has become http://shop.in.com! Infact yesterday only I had noticed another development of in.com. As a part of my job, I do give a quick glance to all entertainment industry headlines every morning and www.buzz18.com is one of the sites which come into my this list of regular visits. And since I’m a very regular visitor of this site so it didn’t take me much to notice that www.buzz18.com has now become http://buzz18.in.com/.

 

Well, quite a lot of development at in.com! We saw lots of online as well as television advertisement followed by some noticeable alliances with entertainment programs and now this movement of their vertical portals like Buzz18 and Storeguru to in.com. So, is web18 group moving from vertical portals to a horizontal one? I’m not sure of the exact objective of web18 for doing the same. Strategy of one horizontal portal or multiple vertical portals has different pros and cons, but I think the decision of consolidating one horizontal portal will definitely benefit in.com from traffic point of view. It will surely help in.com in selling higher traffic figures to advertisers and hence negotiate for better deals. Looks like a good movement but lets see if this aggregation helps in.com compete with the already existing horizontal players in India like Yahoo, Rediff etc.

Aftereffects of downturn – 1. LAY-OFFS

October 15, 2008

It scares you when you listen to the experience of lay-off from somebody close to you, it scares you when you listen that some of your very well-settled friends with quality degrees and high paying jobs in US based MNCs have been asked to leave for India over night. It scares you to realize that he is left with no cash to support his needs and it scares you to realize that many of them are depressed to the extent that they intend to give in to the pressure of life. Well to be honest, my intention is not to scare anyone rather express my realistic feelings regarding this issue. And it’s not too late for all of us to be cautious and take some basic steps to deal with this bad time (of course to whatever extent it is possible…). Here are some of my thoughts which I think we can take in person to be prepared for the bad days. Read More…

P.S: I posted this on my other blog today on downturn. Since this topic is not directly related to my this blog but definitely is a burning issue, hence thought of posting a link to it on Marketing Chit-Chat as well, suggestions and feedback are more than welcome 🙂

Airtel Digital TV Ad

October 13, 2008

Guess BigTV got a nice answer of spoofing Airtel’s teaser by this new ad of Airtel Digital TV. Well, if I have to describe this ad in one word, I will say it’s BIG, it gives the impression of being big, being colossal. What an irony, isn’t it? BigTV kept on insisting “Ho toh BIG ho” through different creatives and through different properties…but the imagery of being big got very subtly and beautifully established by Airtel with just one television commercial featuring 10 popular celebrities! And the interesting noticeable point was that the celebrities are not used as endorsers rather they are shown as representative of different properties of the product. After a long time I think celebrities have been utilized in a very interesting and different way, else most of the ads these days just take celebrities for the sake of featuring celebrities and there are quite some examples of multi-starrer ads where not even one celebrity was required. But in this ad, the celebrities totally fit in the concept and the message gets communicated clearly. If I’m not wrong this is the first Indian ad featuring 10 popular celebrities.

The ad features a normal guy Rahul who is being welcomed as soon as he is out of Airport with “Welcome Rahul” board, it shows some Kathakalli dancers, then Sudha Chandran in her “K” serial avatar, comedy icon Raju Srivastava, youth icon VJ Ranvir, some cartoon characters, movie celebrities like Vidya Balan & Madhavan, sports stars – Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, then sizzling Kareena Kapoor opening door for him at his home, A.R.Rahman on piano and finally Saif Ali Khan waiting in his living room, all these characters having only message “Welcome Rahul”, come home to the magic. Wonderful execution! All these celebrities representing different genres and varied categories give a well-structured impression of WHOLESEOME ENTERTAINMENT & COMPLETE FUN. Here is the youtube link for those who have not seen the ad till now:

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xd5qQgIrLo]

Overall, I liked the central theme as well as the execution style of the ad. And guess the whole effort of picking up Red Sofa by BigTV resulted nothing as in its main advertising, Airtel has not used that Sofa at all 🙂. Good work by JWT! Now lets see if next ad from BigTV is a spoof on “Welcome Rahul” :O

BTW just an afterthought – I’m wondering why these two new DTH players are competing against only each other (atleast in advertisements) and not with the already established players like Tata Sky and DishTV?

See you at home… Airtel or BigTV?

October 10, 2008

So, my confusion was genuine enough and I was not puzzled unnecessarily … I was observing this ad on television showcasing a big Red Sofa and “See you at home” with small fonts mentioning “coming to your home on 9th Oct” but looks like they revealed their product on 8th itself as suddenly on 8th I saw the same Red Sofa with “See you at home with 32 cinema halls” or “See you at home with digital picture and sound” kind of promotion from BigTV. First reaction – ah another one from BigTV but then immediately one thought crossed my mind – why are they doing teaser campaigns again when they have already launched the product with that hopeless “Ho toh BIG ho campaign”! Got quite confused but then thought maybe because of the response to their pathetic creative last time they are planning to re-launch the campaign with a different message.

But well, got an answer to my confusion when I read yesterday’s Livemint having coverage on how BigTV crashed its rival Airtel Digital TV’s teaser campaign. That Red Sofa and “See you at home” campaign was originally of Airtel but the idea got skyjacked by BigTV’s campaign immediately. Since that teaser campaign was not having any mention of Airtel or any other brand, so Airtel was not having any copyright on the same. BigTV launched a stunningly similar campaign using that very similar Red Sofa and the same line “See you at home” with some extra additions like 32 cinema halls, digital picture etc. Ah, so it was a spoof on Airtel Ad and yet another counter strategy to spoil the campaign of a rival brand! Now spoofs, satire or take-offs are not something new in ad world in India – be it the never ending war between Cola giants or the strife between Telecommunication players. But now looks like with increasing number of players the same trend is observed in DTH industry as well. Nothing majorly wrong strategy wise but somehow I didn’t like this counter movement of BigTV at all – first they launch their service with a terrible campaign like “Ho toh BIG ho” and now this force fitted spoof using that red sofa needlessly. Wish instead of thinking of spoiling Airtel’s ad campaign if the creative agency of BigTV would have thought of some other original idea then chances are that they might have come out with something more sensible than nonsensical “Ho toh BIG ho”…

Changing with times: Amar Chitra Katha

October 7, 2008

Recently while doing some grocery shopping in one of the retail stores, I glanced on TINKLE digest which was kept on the billing counter itself…and well, as usual I couldn’t refrain myself from buying it (Pssst…Shhh with a hidden face I am accepting that though I’m in my late 20s but I still can’t resist comics like Archies, Tintin, Tinkle etc… :P). Anyways, the comic was as interesting as ever but something which caught my immediate attention was the back cover page of the book. The page was heavily promoting online shopping of Tinkle comics as well as e-comics and contest on their website www.amarchitrkatha.com . Hmmm, looks like they have also revamped their website now and that’s why aggressively promoting their e-content.

Curious enough I clicked their URL and the first impression was WOW! Well, lots of changes as compared to their earlier website. Being a Tinkle fan, I had checked their old website once or twice earlier but there was nothing much for me to go back again. But new UI definitely gave an impression that even this 42 year old Indian Comic giant is changing with times. Not only they have changed the look and feel but they have introduced some other interesting features as well which is giving the website overall a modern outlook. I spent quite some time in navigating through the new website and here are some of the things which I personally liked about it:

  • Homepage looks neat and nice. Navigation is quite easy now.

  • Focus is not only on promoting its own content but rather creating user generated content as well. One section clearly focuses on inviting story as well as illustrations from users. Another section is focusing on contests. Very interesting features from customer engagement point of view.

  • Online shop with free delivery anywhere in India. Also offers and promotions depending upon the seasonality. As of today, one can see a Diwali gifting banner there.

  • ACK Pedia which is going to be a user-generated repository of information pertaining to people, places and culture of the India. Considering their credibility in offline medium for Indian legends, folktales and parables, if they do it rightly I’m sure they can become the authority in online space as well.

  • Recommendation Section which they are planning to launch in which they will not only review their own books rather other books as well as other edutainment related products. Good feature as per me.

Well, lots of good things but there are definitely some other things which have got some scope for improvement, like:

  • The home page loads very slow. I have tried it on high speed connections as well but not much luck. They need to look into their performance.

  • I think comic illustrations need bit of revamp. While it’s good to see our good old characters but to suit the taste of today’s generation kids and compete with likes of western ones like Tintin and all, definitely some new character and new content needs to be introduced with a bit modern kinda illustrations.

  • I know the world has moved towards complete English comics but still I think a section of Hindi comics can give them bit of edge in Indian market.

  • The content needs to be refreshed bit more on their homepage, I think as of now major changes are happening once a week, but in today’s fast changing times it would be good if they can manage to change some content daily.

  • It would be a good idea to launch a weekly contest instead of one generic contest with prominent highlighting of weekly winners.

  • I think there is a huge scope of improvement in their edutainment content in digital forms like DVDs, VCDs, video gallery on their own website.

But overall I liked this initiative of Amar Chitra Katha and yes, now I do have reasons to go back to their website again and again. Hope they manage to impress their actual TG i.e., kids and teenagers and they also feel the same about this revamped website :-).

Movie Marketing: Drona

September 29, 2008

As I said earlier like Hollywood, movie marketing is getting innovative day by day in Bollywood as well. We can see quite ground-breaking examples with each movie, be it Jaane Tu Jaane Na, Love Story 2050, Bachna Ae Hasseno, Rock On, Phoonk etc. Promoters are trying everything from reality shows, online promotions, interactive websites, innovative contests, promotions on social media to the good ol’ days traditional promotions like television, hoardings and print. While everybody is trying to do some or other promotions but there are some who start a trend by trying out something hat ke. Joining the bandwagon of bit hat ke promotion now is the upcoming movie Drona.

  • This weekend television was flooded with Abhishek Bachchan appearance in every other program, you switch any channel and you can see Junior B doing only three things – either mentioning the fact that Drona is the best movie he would have worked in or praising his dad and wifey’s acting talent or shaking his legs on Kajra Re 🙂. So, what was so Hat ke about Drona promos on television? I mean these days weekends are flooded with star appearances promoting their upcoming movie, so wasn’t Abhishek’s presence same as any other movie promo on television these days? Well, it was more or less same on other channels wherein he was judging reality shows like X, Y, Z, A, B, C, 1, 2, 3, 200, 300, 400 (oh I’m actually losing count of ongoing reality shows 😛) but it was definitely different on NDTV and Colors. On NDTV, this time in “India Questions” series it was Jr. B who made an appearance, this program is hosted by none other than Dr. Prannoy Roy himself and I personally like to watch this program whenever I can. But naturally the audience ratio was skewed positively towards females and the way the program was conducted was interesting. Apart from promo of movie Drona in a very subtle way, Abhishek’s fans got to know lots of other interesting facts about Abhishek as well thereby definitely leaving a positive impact of the actor and his upcoming movie Drona. Next was his appearance in this very irritating program Bigg Boss…well personally I hate that program from the core of my heart but the way Jr. B was involved in that program has definitely created quite some noise…the participants not only were made to act some scenes of Drona rather Abhishek got to spend some time inside the house as a normal participant. Well, many people who are not regular viewer of that program also actually ended up watching that episode because of Jr. B’s presence inside the house.

  • Next very noticeable promotion strategy of this movie is the hat-ke merchandize of the movie Drona. Producers of Drona are all set to launch a comic series based on Drona, the first of which titled “The Crowning” is set to hit the shelves of book stores on 30th Sep’08. Now in Hollywood we all know the trend of movies based on comic but this trend of a comic based on movie is quite interesting I must say. Of late, producers have tried games and other interactive merchandises based on Bollywood movies but not many of them were as such a huge success but Drona being a sci-fi movie maybe the comic will click with kids and younger comic loving TG. The comic is priced at Rs. 50 and is distributed by Euro Kids. Approx 20,000 copies have been printed in first phase and will be circulated through various key channels like Shoppers’ Stop, Future Group outlets etc. Hmmm interesting merchandise option and I think comic based on Indian Super hero has some potential as well.

Drona is slated to release on 2nd Oct’08, now let’s see how the end product is and what has box office in store for this movie? At the end no promotion can help in sustaining a product if the product itself is not good 🙂

Social Networking Sites more popular than Porn Sites???

September 23, 2008

Well, this news in ET yesterday caught my immediate attention which reads something like this – “Social networking sites are the hottest attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate, according to a Web guru. Bill Tancer, a self-described “data geek”, has analysed information for over 10 million Web users to conclude that we are, in fact, what we click, with Internet searches giving an up-to-date view of how society and people are changing. Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, an Internet tracking company, said one of the major shifts in Internet use in the past decade had been the fall off in interest in pornography or adult entertainment sites. He said surfing for porn had dropped to about 10 per cent of searches from 20 per cent a decade ago, and the hottest Internet searches now are for social networking sites.” (Source: Economic Times dated 22nd Sep’08)

Prima facie it looks like a good news, isn’t it? Atleast parents of growing kids and admin guys in corporates can heave a sigh of relief to read this, they need not worry about monitoring their kids and employees respectively and brooding over their wasting time on internet by searching and surfing adult contents. As per Tancer’s assumption, young people aged between 18-24 are spending more and more time on social networks and hence they are not left with much time to spend on porn sites… Hmmm interesting observation but is it the reality??? Don’t you think this is a very theoretical assumption? Well, we all know that almost all social networking sites are full of porn and adult content, infact I think its all the more easier to access such content through these social networking sites. I know of parents who have put filter for certain URLs in their home computers but of course have allowed sites like Orkut and facebook as that’s where their kids prefer to spend most of their times, now isn’t it true that most of the teenagers these days can access any kind of porn content on social networking sites like orkut or video sites like youtube? Infact finding girls / boys, contacting them, sex-chatting, dating etc have become so easy these days through these sites and almost all possible information are available at one place only. Now why will the searching of porn content not go down when everything is so easily accessible now? Social networking sites are definitely getting more and more popular day by day and yes youngsters are spending more time on such sites than specific porn sites these days but isn’t it because of apart from other X reasons like bonding with friends, finding old friends etc, youngsters are surfing lots of porn content on these sites itself? Well, atleast I strongly think so and feel porn is another spicy hook for social networking sites being so sticky apart from other reasons like friends, hobbies, games, applications, networking etc etc etc.

http://helpbihar.in: Interesting Example of Viral Marketing

September 20, 2008

One of my friends forwarded me the link http://helpbihar.in which is a campaign for helping Bihar Flood Victims. Its an initiative started by www.planindia.org and the conceptualization and design is done by Quasar – an interactive online agency. This site asks you to fill answer for some simple questions and for each correct answer sponsors would donate Torches, Candles, Milk powder, Match Boxes, Chlorine Tablets, Nylon Ropes, Tarpaulin Sheets and Biscuits to Bihar Flood Victims. Sponsors name and logo is mentioned in the right hand side of each question and some of the sponsors observed by me were Godrej, Chevrolet and Cadence. For each correct answer you get to know what you have donated to help the Bihar Flood Victims. The more people answer the questions, the more donations go to flood victims.

Initially I had some doubt on the authenticity of this campaign and hence I directly asked it from one of my business associates who works for Quasar and he confirmed that this is very much a real campaign and the donations are being given by the sponsors to Bihar Flood Victims. The site has this message displayed on top – “The more people play this game, the more help goes to flood victims. So click here to invite your friends. My first reaction as a user after submitting the answers was to send this to all my friends and acquaintances. Me and many of my friends have donated money and clothes to victims as per our means and resources but when I sent this link to them not only did they answer the questions themselves but most of them have forwarded this link to all in their contact list. When I put this link in my status message in all chat engines, almost 50% of my contacts in my list pinged me and asked, “what is this link all about”. A very very effective viral marketing example I must say! This definitely has the power to encourage individuals to pass on this message to others and hence has the potential for exponential growth and influence. And the best part is that it immediately connects to you and sending it to others is very spontaneous and intuitive. I liked this concept a lot and I think Quasar has done a wonderful job as far as conceptualization is concerned. Its really good to see such innovative viral campaigns not only for product promotions but for serious social causes like helping flood victims etc.

BigB’s blog statistics – Bigadda or BigBadda?

September 17, 2008

I had written earlier about BigB blogging on www.bigadda.com and initially I had read some of his posts as well but then in due course of time I stopped visiting his blog. But today I dropped into his blog again mainly because of some noise in media about his recent posts and oh the look and feel has changed completely from what it used to be during its initial days but nevertheless this new look is quite impressive! And the first quote by Harivansh Rai Bachchan is as always soooo good! But what caught my attention was the fact the current post is of day 151 and almost everyday there is atleast one post posted on that blog. Wow, this is really regular and good! As I said in my earlier post if it is BigB genuinely writing these posts then it is praiseworthy. Even if he is narrating and some content writer from BigAdda is writing it on his behalf then too I think its commendable, though because of so much of personal touch I am forced to think that its BigB who is writing all these posts. What caught my next attention was the post of day 140 which mentions the traffic of his blog since April’08, here is a snapshot of some of the important figures available on his blog:

  • Unique visitors since April08 – 1,05,0,520
  • Unique visitor for Sept 08 – 37,509
  • Average number of visits per day – 16,000 +
  • Total number of visits since April08 – 2,37,0,000
  • Total page views since April – 1,14,00,000
  • Average page views per day – 100,000

For once I think Bigadda has not hyped up this figure much. Considering the number of comments which any post is receiving on this blog (on an average each post receives somewhere between 700-1000 comments), I am sure 16000+ daily visitors is sort of a real figure. And 11.4 million pageviews is a very striking figure considering its hardly a six month old blog. Not many websites also achieve this kind of figures in such a short span. Good for Bigadda, atleast they have one differentiator now which can bring more traffic to their website. Otherwise there was hardly anything on their website (apart from those “lets catch up” ads on which they wasted few crores to get some one time visitors, LOL 🙂) which can make anyone visit their site again. With a 16,000+ daily visitor count, I am sure BigB’s blog is contributing to a major % of their daily traffic. Infact recently bigadda has changed their UI, considering the % contribution and the fact that this is Bigadda’s only strong point, I am wondering if apart from UI, Bigadda should have gone for a re-branding exercise as well and change it to BigBadda 🙂

Overall very remarkable statistics considering its just a blog, but afterall its BigB’s blog!