Author

Kanupriya Sindhu

Aamir in Tata Sky Ad

September 16, 2008

I had written earlier in July about Jhingala’s counter strategy and now that Aamir’s ad is out, I have a mixed reaction. Not that I didn’t like the same but at the same time it’s not something which made me say wow! The ad as we have seen features Aamir Khan in a half man half woman (ardhnarishwar) role. Here is a short description of the ad & the video from youtube:

Aamir plays the role of a Punjabi bride AND groom who are fighting over which satellite connection to have? Bride says if he will not get the SKY connection for her, she will go back to her house in London. They fight over TATA or SKY and then dramatically groom says, its India where Tata and Sky are already married to each other and hence by having TATA SKY the consumer not only gets the world class technology from SKY but also reliability and best service from TATA.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUv9HlMpkI]

Well, as a consumer I think it has definitely caught my attention but I think it has its plus and minuses.

  • Message: I think the message is clear and emphasizes the strength of brand very clearly. I’m sure not many people were aware that TATA SKY is a 80:20 joint venture between Tata Sons and BSkyB, a Rupert Murdoch company and this ad very subtly conveys this message thereby accentuating the tech supremacy of the product.

  • Creative Idea: Hmmm, for this I do have a mixed reaction…Am wondering if there could have been any better creative idea for this campaign. Well, starting was sort of ok but I didn’t like the cheesy bollywoodish style ending of the same and the ending line which sounded something like “jo family dekhe Tata Sky saath who rahe hamesha saath saath”! Ummm knowing the excellent creative ideas which Rediffusion DY&R comes up with, I think it could have been bettered up.

  • Execution elements: I think this was brilliant! Whatever the creative idea was Aamir has lived upto it beautifully. Once again you can’t resist from praising Aamir’s acting and performance in this half man half woman role. BTW I think he is looking quite cute as Punjabi bride, LOL :). The ad definitely has got a recall value because of its execution and presentation style.

The ad is making noise all across, now its time to wait and watch if this brand campaign boosts up the figures of Tata Sky as against DishTV whose last campaign (SRK announcing Set Top Box Free!) was pure n pure sales promo campaign.

Hi-tech Ganpati

September 8, 2008

Just came back from an official trip to Mumbai last week and what a nostalgia it was to be in Mumbai after all these years during Ganpati Festival. Mumbai was full of music, dance, colors, vibrancy and fun! I anyways love festivals and ganpati festival of Mumbai, oh wow!!! The merriment and feelings are just unexplainable in words. After work, every day I went for Ganpati puja at night to the nearby pandals. While the divinity remains the same but like many other things, even Ganapti Festival has undergone sea change in all these years. Well, every festival is getting commercialized but Ganpati is not only commercialized in Mumbai rather has gone completely high-tech too 🙂. Marketing and tech suaveness of these events just left me amazed. Here are some of the interesting incidences which I observed in Mumbai:

  • No more those yellow or pink pamphlets with black ink which were printed for puja and arti schedule. The residents of the colony where I was staying have received interesting html mailer invites with schedules and details. Not only that, even reminder emails are being sent for the key events.

  • Even a localized pandal like that of the colony was quite jazzy and full of sponsorship banners. Ah quite interesting banners and standees having interesting ganpati messages followed by promotional offers and almost all of them starting with “this ganpati bring home XYZ…”. Noticeable one was the ending messages after the arti songs in the CD which was also in the tone of arti song only (in hindi), “for success and prosperity, start your day with ganpati aradhana and mantras, buy now and avail N% discounts. Offer valid till ABC sept’08”

  • Move out in the city and there is not even a single brand who is not giving you Ganpati wishes including my company :P. Every other hoarding, bus shelter, bus back and posters are full of Ganapti messages followed by promotional messages establishing the connect between the festival and the need to buy that ABC product. Looks like today’s consumer needs to buy everything on this earth to have an auspicious and prosperous ganapti.

  • But the best was the “bhagwaan aye bluteooth se” promotion of Cycle Brand Agarbatti. They have converted six bus shelters and a hoarding in Mumbai into mini-pandals, decorated with cut-outs of the Ganpati idol and audio tracks of aartis being played twice a day. The brand’s incense sticks are also being burnt from 8 am to 9 pm. Not only that, they have made the bus shelters Bluetooth enabled wherein user can download ganpati related wallpapers, ringtones, videos, audio tracks etc. Very innovative and creative OOH promo strategy from Mudra I must say. Have a look on this interesting pic

  • Like every year even this year the talk of the town was “Lalbaug Cha Raja” who is one of the most popular Ganesh idols of Mumbai. But unlike earlier years, this year Raja was discussed for very different reasons. Lalbaugh Cha Raja turned 75 year this year and for the first time in its 75-year history, Raja’s massive marquee have been insured for a whopping Rs.26.5 million (nearly $600,000). According to Sunil Joshi, president of the Lalbaugcha Raja organisers, the insurance cover has been taken in view of security considerations for the devotees – comprising people from all over the state, foreign tourists, VVIPs, top industrialists and Bollywood personalities. The Ganesh pandal – as the marquees are known, its decorations and lighting have been erected over the past two months at a cost of nearly Rs.26.5 million. In case of any mishap, this will be fully covered by the insurance company as per its usual terms and condition. Rs. 26.5 million for a Pandal, quite an insurance amount by any parameter :O! (Source of this figure: DNA dated 3rd Sept08)

Bhagwaan coming through bluetooth and emails and getting the pandal insured for the safety of his bhaktas! Isn’t that interesting :D?

Mash smashed!

August 31, 2008

Last year I had written about Yahoo launching its social networking site “Mash” and it’s not even an year now when I get this mailer that Yahoo is closing down Mash! Curious enough to know the reason I landed up on Yahoo blog and here is the official statement from Yahoo mentioned in their blog:

“Dear Mash users,

You may have received an email recently regarding the shut-down of Mash on September 29, 2008. To provide more information about what will happen to your Mash profile, and how you can save your profile information, please see the list of FAQs below.

Thank you for trying out our Mash Beta service. We hope you had fun with it!

Matt Warburton

Yahoo! Community Manager”

When Mash was launched last year in September, I remember the membership was through invitation only and curious enough to try it out, I requested one of my friends to send me the invite. Think “join only through invite” was introduced to keep that exclusivity as compared to any other networking site but well just that exclusivity doesn’t make any user to stick to any site esp. when users have hoards of other options to cater to their needs. It can definitely instigate one to register immediately but then you need to have some content or reasons to keep users engaged to any site. I had some hopes with Mash as this was a Yahoo product but well we all know the fate and doomed performance of Yahoo products these days, be it the new mail, yahoo search or their social networking sites, all are not able to compete against their giant competitor Google! After joining Mash, I hardly visited it for maybe 5-6 times and so it doesn’t come to me as a surprise now that Yahoo had decided to shut it down. Frankly speaking there was nothing in it for me as a user to go to that site again and again. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who felt the same and Mash traffic slope has been on downside ever since its launch last year. Infact quantcast graph for Yahoo Mash shows estimated monthly page view count around 2,000 only!!! Well, if that’s the embarrassing pageview count for Mash then it means that its being used by almost none! Considering the reviews and performance I think it makes sense for Yahoo to shut the product down. Sad that yet another social networking site and that too from Yahoo reaches extinction!

iPhone launch in India: A low-key event!

August 24, 2008

Well, it had to happen, I had expected the same fate of iPhone launch in India since the day they announced the price for 8GB model as 31,000 & 16GB model as 36,000! Indian consumers were prepared and were willing to pay premium for a premium product like iPhone but premium as high as 4 times than its price in US? Isn’t it too high esp. when most of the consumers have easy access to US market these days? As I anticipated, the launch of iPhone in India on 22nd Aug’08 in a mid-night launch event didn’t receive onlookers in as high number as US or other countries. The launch event went quite lackluster and even if bunch of people visited the event, the actual conversion number i.e., people buying it first day itself was quite low as against any other country.

Last year when iPhone was launched in US, it was the talk of the town and media was splashed across globally with the launch details and sales volume of iPhone in 1st day itself. Then what went wrong majorly in case of Indian launch? As reported in ET today, “the snazzy gizmo failed to draw crowds to the stores of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar in sharp contrast to the international markets where iPhone lovers had queued up the whole night to buy the handset. The mood was subdued at the midnight launch of iPhone at Mumbai’s Infiniti Mall with Friday being a working day. The stage was set for a grand launch, complete with confetti and cheerleaders, but at the stroke of midnight, there were just 10 people who actually bought the high-end device. At a Vodafone store in Connaught Place, Central Delhi, journalists outnumbered customers by a huge margin. Only about 15 customers turned up to buy the phone. The Airtel retail store nearby wore a deserted look on Friday afternoon, with not a single customer buying the iPhone. In Gurgaon, Airtel unveiled the iPhone at Sahara Mall. Despite the frenzy, the D-day did not quite match the expectations with just about 35-40 people lining up to buy the coveted smartphone.

Infact a day after the launch also, I don’t think there has been any noticeable upsurge in the sales volume in any of the cities. I remember reading it somewhere that more than 2 lakh people had registered on Airtel website as prospective buyers for iPhone. 2 lakh only on Airtel website! Then what would have been the overall size of the prospective buyers in India? But looks like such a high pricing has dampened the spirits of most of the Indian consumers who were eagerly awaiting this Apple product in India. I know of many people personally who were initially waiting for this phone but now have decided to settle for some other set stating that 31k for 8GB phone is just too high! Well, as of now it looks like iPhone has gone majorly wrong in its launch pricing strategy in India. But nothing can be concluded so soon, let’s wait and watch if service providers will bring down the prices to capture the mass or keep it at the same price to target the niche!

Phoonk Contest – Movie Promotion Strategy

August 12, 2008

So, it was not hoax… This contest news started doing rounds in media somewhere in last week of July’08 and almost every publication including ET has covered it. But somehow I kept on thinking that it’s not real and is yet another scandalous strategy to promote the upcoming horror movie of Ram Gopal Varma – PHOONK. But well, I was wrong, it’s true that Ram Gopal Verma is running a “Dare to watch it alone” contest wherein he is announcing a prize money of Rs. 5 lakh for anyone who dares to watch this movie from start to finish alone in a theater. Very interesting promotional strategy to instigate people to watch this movie.

Azam Khan the producer of the film says, “We’re confident that the film is so scary that it will be extremely difficult to watch it all alone in a theater. We will be running a contest and giving out details on our website about how to participate in it. Right now we have decided that we will screen the film for the winners of the contest a few days before the release of the film, that is on August 22. At the moment we have planned four trials that we will screen in a preview theatre.” (source: economictimes.com). Infact the contest details are out on their website www.phoonk.in as well as their official communities on facebook and orkut. Official communities on facebook and orkut are asking people to visit their website and I must say that PHOONK website is a very well done up website unlike many other movie website which are just a collection of some html pages promoting the wallpapers and ringtones. I really liked the UI of this website and the background score is creepy enough to scare a person like me at night :P, have a look on this snapshot yourself:

This contest has definitely become a hit I think, as out of 423 members (as of today) on the official community of facebook, more than 180 people have commented saying they are willing to accept the challenge. Not only that all official articles in online newspapers, official blogs etc are flooded with comments of people dropping their mobile number and email ids to participate in this contest. It had to happen for sure, general human psychology is that the moment you dare people for anything, most of them would like to try it out. I am sure that because of this contest and hype about Phoonk being one of the scaroest movies ever made, many people will go now to watch it in theater. Apart from this dare to watch it alone contest there is another contest announced on their website viz., “It Happened to me” contest wherein participants are supposed to share their real life scariest experience, black magic stories or ghostly encounter and the 10 best entries selected by Ram Gopal Varma will be paid Rs. 25,000 each. Not only that, if your story is good enough to be made into a feature film you will win as good as Rs. 5 lakh and if your story is selected and you can write a complete script for the film you will win Rs. 10 lakh!

Yet another exciting and very impressive promotional strategy from bollywood! As I mentioned earlier bollywood is getting seriously innovative day by day to promote its movies and PHOONK is another example of that. Now let’s wait and watch if these marketing gimmicks are going to give any success to Phoonk or it will be just another dud from RGV factory!

Internet shopping boom in India

August 9, 2008

Well, Rakhi season is here and as expected all my inboxes are flooded with promo mailers from different e-commerce sites about online Rakhi hampers and packs. After going through different mailers and hampers on offer, I settled for one of the Rakhi packs from rediff.com shopping portal. I have been sending Rakhi through online shopping for last 5 years I think. Though it is bit expensive than the normal post / courier service but I still prefer it over those primarily because of delivery guarantee and presentation / packaging. I have faced some irritating issues earlier when Rakhi was not delivered on time even after couriering it well in advance and once I remember I had sent the Rakhi and a small gift in a very beautiful packet only to come to know later that my brother had only received Rakhi in an open envelope without any gift inside 🙂. So, considering the assurance and convenience which I get while sending it through these e-commerce sites I find it to be justified to spend those extra bucks for it.

But I must say unlike few years back, this year it took me some time to make my purchase decision mainly because every online shopping was having some or other interesting thing to offer with almost nil price differentiation. Another interesting thing to be noticed was the way packets were described in these portals, instead of simply saying packet consists of 1 Rakhi, 1 card, etc. most of them were focusing on the packaging and the relevance of it to the tradition of Rakhi. Ehhh quite attractive and strong marketing so to say. E-commerce sites are learning it well to push online shopping esp. during festivals in India. Despite the price curve moving steeply upwards during peak season these sites are very much able to sell their products as there is a certain set of TG in Indian market now who is becoming used to the convenience of online shopping.

Infact last week only I had read an interesting article in ET about internet shopping catching up fastly in India. As per the statistics, eBay India is selling one product a minute and its not only software or tech product which is being sold, rather its surprising to know that one of the most common products sold online is jewelery. Here are some other interesting figures from that ET article [dated 3rd Aug’08] about eBay India which reinforces the surge of internet shopping in India.

  • On an average day a piece of jewellery is sold every seven minutes, a coin or note sells every 16 minutes, a stamp sells every 19 minutes, an apparel sells every 22 minutes and a book is sold every 27 minutes on eBay India
  • 70-75% of buyers on eBay India are from age group of 25-30 years.
  • It is jewellery that is the most sought product on this site.
  • Buying trend wise electronic gadgets are popular among male buyers and jewellery is the obvious choice of Indian women.
  • Apart from jewellery, apparel category is the other area which is a favorite among women buyers.

Apparel and jewellery being bought online in India, online shopping is really catching up then 🙂

Internet rejuvenating Indian Art Industry!

July 30, 2008

Yesterday while just casually browsing through ET, one piece which caught my immediate attention was how internet is changing the face of Indian Art Industry. Indian Art and Internet, oh wow what a lovely combination as both happen to be my special areas of interests – art out of passion and internet out of profession J. I immediately stopped over to read the complete story and I was quite happy to observe the shift which is happening even in Indian Art Industry because of this overall internet revolution. Not only artists are using Internet for reaching out to different markets but they are also using it for expanding their canvas of inspiration. While offline stores, galleries and exhibitions give artists a chance to promote large number of creations at one go but at the same time Internet gives them a very wide avenue for promoting their work to right kind of TG across different geographies at a very economic cost. Most importantly you get to see work of other people, you can discuss and share feedback with like minded people as well as it provides ample opportunities for an artist to study and research the subject of painting thereby expanding his / her creative horizon. While downside of it is definitely there with more chances of plagiarism and piracy but as per me the positive aspects of it outweigh the negative ones.

Indian Art industry is moving ahead quite positively and thanks to the internet exposure that prices of Indian works are growing northwards. As per an estimate by the creator of The Fine Art Fund, Phillip Hoffman, the size of the Indian market has grown from $2 million to approximately $400 million in the last seven years and to add to that as per Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, which is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field”. More and more people outside are looking out for Indian masterpieces and famous artists are getting unimaginable prices too. Early this year M.F. Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1.6 million in New York! $1.6 million…this is seriously some money man J.

As an amateur artist with a strong passion towards painting, I have always believed in the power of internet for promoting Indian Art to the right TG. Personally speaking I paint out of hobby and have never tried doing it commercially but I know of many good and senior artists who earn their living through art only and I know how difficult it is for them to meet their ends because of low potential in the local market. I know of this friend of mine who is a very good senior level artist but she was always confined to the limits of Indian Market. One fine day I helped her in building a website and we put her paintings in sites like e-bay etc. Though there was no miraculous result which happened immediately and of course she didn’t make any earnings in million dollars but results were not bad either. She started making money slowly out of online selling and atleast she gets lots of leads now through her website of people interested in learning painting from her. She has got steady income and now she keeps on telling everybody about power of internet and how it can help them in reaching out to wider sphere.

Reading that article in ET with the word “industry” suffixed everywhere after “Indian Art” instilled quite some hope within me. Wish, like many other industries internet revolutionizes Indian Art industry as well with more and more open minded artists who are willing to try out newer technologies and platforms.

Women Gamers to double by 2010

July 27, 2008

So, gone are the days when games esp. online games were monopolized by kids and men. According to a recent survey report of video game industry’s trade group, 40% of gamers in US are women. Another interesting trend is the average age of gamers which has gone upto 35 years (Source: Womengamers.com, 18th July’08). 40% women gamers, whoa that’s an impressive figure esp. when the general perception is that women prefer television or books more for entertainment as compared to anything else.

Gaming scene even back home for women is quite positive. Many Indian gaming companies are launching games targeted esp. towards women. Infact women’s attitude towards entertainment is changing quite interestingly. Unlike earlier days, not only women are seeking entertainment avenues to beat the stress of work and home but they are also open to trying out new platforms. No more women are glued on to only television soaps or the saas bahu saga, today’s women are trying it all, right from online music to movies to games. Now online games and Indian women connection seem very intriguing esp. when till few years back most of the Indian women used to forbid their kids from playing video games considering it be absolute waste of time and distraction from studies J.

Lots of Indian companies are launching women specific games especially to woo them considering women are the most important decision makers for most of the purchase decisions in a family. Here are some of the observations to substantiate this further:

  • FX Labs recently launched its game named “Agni” in which the story revolves around a mother and a child. Infact they are heavily promoting this game and Malaika Arora Khan is the brand ambassador for Agni.

  • Games2win has released close to 60 games targeted at women and has spent clore to Rs 4 crore on their development.

  • Onlinerealgames.com and neodelight.com have got more than 50 women centric games and more interesting is the statistics of women subscribers on onlinerealgames.com. Approx 30% if its overall subscribers are women.

  • Zapak has got a special section in its site for women known as zapakgirls.com and it has got different interesting games for women of different age groups.

  • Lastly and most importantly, I as a woman consumer find online gaming to be a huge stress buster and I am seriously glued on to some of the games on Zapak and Games2win J

Online gaming industry in India is growing encouragingly and is projected to touch $100 million in India by 2010, which is already a $2.25-billion market globally. Women gamers are expected to double in this segment by 2010. Double in next 2 years and that too in such a non-conventional entertainment segment, way to go women!

Jhingalala’s counter strategy

July 11, 2008

So, this is the counter strategy of Jhingalala brand – TATA Sky. Well, media is splashed all across these days with “Wish Karo Dish Karo” statement of SRK – TV, Press, Online, Outdoor almost everywhere you go, you can see an ad of DishTV these days! Even the price has been reduced drastically now and Set Top Box offered is completely free. I was wondering where has Tata Sky gone suddenly? They had started with a big bang with Hrithik Roshan, Kirron Kher, Paresh Rawal etc etc appearing in their ads but then there was sort of silence from their side for quite some now. Well looks like the silence is over. Aamir Khan has been signed as the new brand ambassador for Tata Sky! Bingoooo…Aamir to counter Shahrukh! Well, good one. Anyways there is enough noise about Aamir – SRK hot chemistry in media these days be it films or the endorsements or the blog 🙂. Remember the buzz about Aamir’s blog with Shahrukh or tiff-taff between these two endorsers indirectly through their brands like Samsung (read Aamir) vs. Nokia (Shahrukh). So, looks like now it’s again gonna be Aamir Vs. Shahrukh through DishTV vs. Tata Sky.

With Indian consumer spending more and more on entertainment these days, DTH market is growing quite positively esp. after the recent price war between different players. Infact like most of the consumer electronics & entertainment items, prices have gone down drastically for DTH too in India. DishTV had recently launched its very attractive pricing based campaign where set box was offered completely free! As per the media coverages, DishTV subscription has gone up by 60% after the launch of this campaign. With 57% market share of overall DTH market, DishTV has currently approx 3.5 million subscriber base whereas Tata Sky has just 2.2 million (source: televisionpoint.com, date: 10th July’08). Hmmm time for Tata Sky to pull up its sleeves now. Let’s see what’s in store for consumers from Tata Sky now, with Aamir as the new endorser and campaigns round the corner, hope Jhingalala comes up with something better this time as against Wish karo Dish karo!