Well, changing my blog look was on my agenda since long but after losing my personal template code last week, now I a neither have the time nor the enthu to write another template code for myself. It’s hell lot of work and needs some dedicated time which I don’t have as of now! Even weekends are damn busy these days and hence I decided to go ahead with this standard extra column template. Though I have done bit of customizations in terms of images and columns but most of it is from the standard layout. I personally like 2 sidebar designs just like my wordpress blog and so went ahead with changing the old blogger template to this. It needs some more work but will do those customizations as and when I will get time, till then at least there is a fresh look on my blog 🙂
Ghajini Marketing: Employees go bald!
December 19, 2008While I was anyways impressed with these interesting collaterals of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in multiplexes, I get to hear of this another very different kind of promotion campaign of Aamir Khan’s upcoming movie Ghajini. Now first speaking of this Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi collateral which I noticed in a popular retail outlet in the form of a table top followed by a theater in the form of a long standee where I went to watch this movie, it was having a very fascinating dual visual effect. Same standee was showing two different forms of Shahrukh and Anushka if seen from two different angles – one was showing him in his common man avtaar and the next angle was showing him in his hip and cool avtaar. Quite interesting and attention grabbing! Wish I could have taken a picture of the same.
But I think what Ghajini has done is far more catchy and really unique in terms of promotion strategy. Ghajini promoters have tied up with leading multiplexes in Mumbai where multiplex staffs have volunteered to sport the famous Ghajini hairstyle from 9th Dec – 25th Dec’08. Well, actually they have gone bald like Aamir, so I am not sure how they are saying that this promotion is valid only till 25th Dec’08. I think it has to be valid till they don’t get their hair back…LOL, isn’t it? Can you imagine everybody i.e., right from administrative and refreshment counter staffs to ushers being bald at the same time??? Have a look on this pic and for more such pics check out this NDTV photo gallery.
I must say I found this promotion to be quite interesting and very hatke! At least I had not heard of this kind of thing before in Bollywood. Looks like Ghajini is not leaving any stone unturned for competing against the big releases like RNBDJ and Jumbo. Though jumbo is a movie of very different genre but RNBDJ is definitely having SRK and when it’s a competition between SRK & Aamir…well the whole world knows how and what it is J. Promotion wise definitely Ghajini is standing out more, but let’s see who stands out more at BO finally?
Ghajini Marketing: Employees go bald!
December 19, 2008
While I was anyways impressed with these interesting collaterals of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi in multiplexes, I get to hear of this another very different kind of promotion campaign of Aamir Khan’s upcoming movie Ghajini. Read More At Marketing Chit-Chat…
Remembering Murphy’s Law
December 18, 2008I rushed to my admin guy and he again very conveniently replied, “don’t worry since it’s a new one it’s still under warranty and they will replace the hard disc”. “REPLACE! But about my data?” Another frustrating reply, “we will try to retrieve D drive but C is gone”!!!!!
Now I really don’t know how to react? This was a new laptop with high-end configuration given to me only few weeks back and since I had recently migrated all my stuffs to this new laptop so I have not even kept any back-up of the files anywhere. Considering the brand and configuration I never expected this to happen so soon! How will I manage my work without any file??????? Apart from all my office data of past 2 years, my favorite songs and some snaps recently downloaded from my camera, it also had some of my very important personal stuffs like snaps of my paintings which are hard to get back as I have given away most of my paintings to my friends and acquaintances :-(….So, all of those are gone! This realization is too upsetting and disturbing. I am feeling damn irritated and hopelessly thinking of Mr. Murphy who one fine day said, “when things have to go wrong, they will”. Were they actually having me in mind while devising laws like – “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” or “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time, in the worst possible way”!!!
Recession and Consumer Spending Behavior
December 12, 2008A lot is discussed now-a-days about India being geared up for economic downturn and consumer spending not observing any major shift as compared to its earlier pattern. Well, to some extent it’s true and being a marketer myself I understand that one needs to be optimistic about the market and consumer purchasing power but when I think of myself as a consumer I do feel that my spending behavior has undergone some major changes in last 3-4 months. Call it the effect of this phrase “onset of downturn” or the effect of phrase “save cash for those bad times” I have definitely changed my behavior towards lots of purchase decision which were not thought through earlier by me or my husband. In fact some of these were never so called purchase decisions rather they used to be just one of those impromptu expenses. But now we do think before spending on such things and I can observe a similar pattern amongst my peer circle as well. As a salaried class consumer, here is a list of my top five curtailed expenses which used to be regular affair earlier:
- Dine Outs: Oh I really don’t have a count of the earlier frequency of our dine outs and most of such expenses being absolutely unplanned and ad lib. But now with our saving belt on suddenly we found ourselves questioning, do we really need to eat out? Shall we really spend this X amount of money for a casual meal for two? Not only these occasional questioning is helping us keeping a check on our wallet rather its having the same effect on our weighing scale too J. Frequency has gone down to absolutely a countable figure now.
- Movie / Entertainment: Considering the kind of movie buff we both are, all weekends used to be movie outings for us in some or other multiplex. It didn’t matter which movie and what star-cast, we had to see some movie in multiplexes. But then we started wondering, do we really need to see Yuvraaj in theater by spending X amount of money…nah not worth it. Let it get released on DVD. Now not every weekend is spent at multiplexes 🙂, some of it is at home with DVDs and books.
- Accessories / Apparel: Since, I am the only woman consumer in my household and hence this one is more applicable to me and not my husband. I used to go for this sudden splurge on accessories like bags, shoes etc. but now this has come down to a large extent, thanks to my “save cash” mission.
- Air Travel: Yeah this one has really-really come down – ours and our families’ personal trips through flights. Now either it’s low cost flights or if it’s not much of a distance then trains!
- Household: Oh yes, now we do look at those newspaper inserts announcing sale on monthly groceries or those freebies at A,B,C retail stores!
Hmmm, so at least we have become conscious of our expenses because of the economic environmental effect. I think we have definitely managed to come down by 10-15% in our regular expenses. How about you as a consumer? Do you think your spending behavior has undergone some change and if yes, which are the key ones? Any experience / suggestion as a consumer to save cash is more than welcome on this space 🙂.
Recession and Consumer Spending Behavior
December 12, 2008Aren’t we obsessed with dieting?
December 9, 2008I was sort of shocked. Not that I am not aware of craziness for hourglass figure and picture perfect look amongst youngsters but dieting at that age and for no good reason left me amazed! If you ask me, that gal really needed to put on some weight and here she was surviving on juices and soups. One quick flash back at what I was doing at her age and all I could think of was board exams and my braided look! In our times, in fact our mothers used to force us with all nutritious and home cooked food so that we can have good health and concentrate more on studies. Size Zero and hourglass figure were unheard kind of terms. Well, I know time has changed a lot but so much? It’s not that I am myself not conscious about my weight or dieting etc but then I don’t think I have ever been obsessed about the same. To me a healthy body is more important than a thin body, a fit figure is more important than a slim figure and it’s ok to sometimes have those few extra kgs for the sake of ice-cream or chocolates :-). After all I don’t need to walk the ramp tomorrow and I know that those can be shed if I put in some healthy effort like exercise and walk. Who doesn’t want to have a model like figure but starving oneself to achieve that or dieting in an unhealthy way is nothing less than madness. There are many ways to maintain that “oh so perfect body” but guess most of us esp. teenage girls are just not willing to put in those effort. And this gal is just another example of soooo many people around me who speak nothing but DIETING and WEIGHT LOSS! Aren’t we obsessed with these two terms now? Probably Fashion ka hai yeh Jalwa… 🙂
“Let’s pool in”: Car pooling campaign in Bangalore
December 3, 2008I was aware of Commute Easy since long but thanks to Radio One campaign that this came back to my mind again. I have sort of become a very regular listener of Radio One because of it being the only Bollywood fm channel in Bangalore as of now and of late I have been hearing this “Let’s pool in’ campaign quite a lot on this channel. It’s a public service initiative launched by Radio One in association with Commute Easy and Bangalore Traffic Police to address the traffic woes of the city. www.commuteeasy.com is a car pooling website wherein one can register and search for people travelling to same destinations / route. You can search and register for pool depending upon the start and end destination as well as time of your commuting. One has the option to go by his own vehicle or any other vehicle in case you don’t possess one of your own. Apart from the site being very user friendly, it has got an interesting etiquette section as well, which chalks out the Dos and Donts neatly and helps to answer some questions regarding fee share etc which you might have in mind esp. when car pool concept is not so common in India.
I must say it’s a very nice initiative by Radio One and Bangalore Traffic Police. Traffic situation currently in Bangalore is nothing less than a nightmare and in fact it is getting worse day by day. As per statistics revealed by Praveen Sood, additional commissioner of police (traffic & security) – Bangalore has 32 lakh vehicles vis-a-vis a 60-lakh population as against Mumbai with 18 lakh vehicles in a population of 1.2 crore (Source: Times of India dated 28th Nov’08). Oh no wonder our traffic congestion is sooo bad and deadlier than any other metropolitan city in India. We always crib about traffic and all that, now at least here is an opportunity for us to do our bit to solve the traffic issues to some extent. I have personally tried this service last year for travelling from my home to work and for few days and I did find some good car pooling options that time. I had informed about Commute Easy to some people as well but then with passing time I had almost forgotten about this website. Good to be reminded about this service again through this campaign of Radio One! And not only Radio One is spreading the awareness rather they are giving some extra benefits like free movie tickets, invitation to some hip parties, song requests etc to all commute easy users. Well those are definitely some cool incentives to motivate people for using this service. I am personally all for this campaign and I will encourage all Bangaloreans out there to definitely go and check out www.commuteeasy.com once.
“Let’s pool in”: Car pooling campaign in Bangalore
December 3, 2008I have sort of become a very regular listener of Radio One because of it being the only Bollywood fm channel in Bangalore as of now and of late I have been hearing this “Let’s pool in’ campaign quite a lot on this channel. It’s a public service initiative launched by Radio One in association with Commute Easy and Bangalore Traffic Police to address the traffic woes of the city. Read More At Marketing Chit-Chat…
Yet Again??? Mumbai terrorized…
November 27, 2008Well, it’s no less than a movie! Like some real-life Hollywood thriller or some Bollywood action flick. But very unfortunately this time it’s not fiction or reel, rather it is TRUE & REAL. And I always thought pirates coming down through sea by hijacking some ship or boat and then entering a city, running like crazy in the mid of main markets and streets with guns up in their hand and shoulder bag full of explosives, open gun firing, capturing the main buildings on gun point, hostages caught inside those buildings day and night, police fighting with goondas, firing, continuous rattling of AK 47, sudden blasts of granades, heavy smoke and fire in the air, good cops dying in such battles and masses losing their lives like that can happen only in either Johny Depp / Sunny Deol movies or in those pirates stories which we used to read as kids! The realization that it can happen in real life and somewhere so close to us in Mumbai and that its going on for more than 26 hours now is heart wrenching, terrifying and so shocking!!! It’s frightening to realize that these pics are not of any Bollywood set rather these are true stills of our very famous Taj hotel in Mumbai:
Thank god that my brother down there in Mumbai finally reached home safely last night and thank God that my mom who was going to my brother’s place in Mumbai boarded off that train today. What if she would have started one day before and reached CST last night??? Oh God, when such thoughts are so scary then how would those have felt who would have faced an open gun fire at CST? How are those feeling who are still trapped inside Oberoi for more than 26 hours now? And how must be the families of those feeling who lost their family members in this horrific attack? I can’t move myself away from television since last night, it is so depressing to see all this but then I’m just observing it on screen…out there are hundreds like us who are facing it in real life…I pray and can only pray for them!
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