Kanupriya Sindhu

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, 18^th 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: 10^th 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!

Its all about the right packaging!

July 9, 2008

Same story, same climax, same end but still it was so fresh! There must be 100s of movies on a similar topic but there was something about “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na” that I just loved this movie. Watched it over the weekend and I found it to be a very sweet light hearted romantic movie which I am sure would be liked not only be teenagers and today’s generation kids but also by grown up individuals like me…It just makes you so nostalgic and brings back those sweet memories of school and college days J

It’s a story of Jai Sigh Rathore a.k.a Rats (Imran Khan), and Aditi a.k.a Meow (Genelia D’souza) who are best of friends and think their relationship is just friendship and not Love. Ummm you should have guessed the story by now, yeah you are right – same old saga of confusion between platonic and romantic relationship where the movie starts with a girl and boy who spend most of the time together but still think they are not in love and when they think they have fallen in love with different people then suddenly they start missing each other’s company, feelings like jealousy towards each others partners, anger and misunderstandings crop up and finally after some cute li’ll incidents the movie ends happily like a typical bollywood movie on an airport! Yeah airport, I mean even the end is so typecast but still as I said it’s sweet and different!

So, when everything is same about the movie then how come it’s different? Well the answer is packaging! Yeah, old wine served in a very new and interesting bottle J. Same story but delivered through fresh faces like Imran and Genelia and all other actors who have acted as their friends. They all were simply superb. I must say Imran Khan was very impressive considering this was his debut movie and Genelia fitted perfectly into a college kiddie role. Even artists in small roles like of Meghna (Manjari Fadnis) and Amit (Prateik Babbar) leave a lasting impression on audience. Am wondering if all of them are such super actors or it’s the outcome of director Abbas Tyrewala’s effort. A.R. Rahman’s music was as usual marvelous, songs like “Has de Aditi” and “Pappu can’t dance” are already craze amongst many. As expected from senior actors like Ratna Pathak Shah, Naseeruddin Shah, Anuradha Patel, Jayant Kriplani their performance was excellent…I loved Naseeruddin Shah’s role, though the idea of dead one speaking from photo frame is old but then it was Naseruddin who was performing it this time, so it had to be excellent.

Well, this movie again establishes the fact beautifully that it’s all about the right packaging. Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na is a kind of movie in which you know everything including the end which is too predictable but still when the movie ends it leaves a very sweet smile on your face simply because of the way it has been presented to the audience. It’s a total entertainer and full paisa vasool. It definitely has some nuances like in current era parents fixing marriage of a 21 year old girl(!!!) but guess those can be ignored on overall basis. I would recommend it to everybody who just want to go for some light and fun flick. And take my words, it will surely remind of your good old student life days and suddenly after coming out you will feel like either talking to your friends or talking about your friends 🙂

Bollywood Promotion – Other intersting examples

July 5, 2008

I had written post about bollywood marketing earlier as well, I must say things are getting innovative day by day. The most talked about two recent releases are “Love Story 2050” & “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na”. Both are releasing on today i.e., 4^th July’08 and both these films are marketing their stuff quite aggressively. Though both are quite hyped up movies but guess Jaane Tu…has managed to grab more pre-release attention because of its super aggressive PR plans and 360 degree marketing approach. After observing different promotional strategies of these two movies, I think the two key catchy promotional strategies which I noticed are:

Marketing Tie-ups: Both these movies have managed to get big brands roped in for their movies. “Love Story 2050” has got Lux, Xbox 360, Tata Indicom and Sun Microsystems interested for branding and marketing tie-ups whereas “Jaane Tu…” has secured marketing alliances with Zee and Sony, and is expected to sign Coke and Toyota, brands endorsed by Aamir Khan. Not that tie-ups like these are something new but the fact that now-a-days such tie-ups are covering the overall production cost of even huge budgeted films like “Love Story 2050” is something really fascinating. “We have covered 20% of our production costs through brand and marketing tie-ups. But if we combine the money that we have earned through merchandising and distribution deals, it would cover 100% of the costs. Anything that we will earn from now on would be profits for us,” says Rowena Baweja of Harry Baweja Productions. Love Story 2050’s production cost is an estimated Rs 50 crore (Source: ET online, dated 23^rd June’08). 50 crores getting covered through tie-ups and merchandising, wow, really interesting!

Increasing online promotions: Next important thing which caught my immediate attention today was promotion of these films in online world…most of the popular sites are splashed with “Jaane Tu…” promo today, not sure if they had started their online promo earlier but it struck to my eyes today only and more so because of this very catchy ad on msn India homepage today.

(Brief description for the benefit of those who have missed out this ad: As soon as you go to msn India home page, suddenly you see Imran Khan walking all over the screen very coolly and then he suddenly knocks the screen and goes back to that Jane Tu Box). I have seen some other ads earlier as well like this but somehow the presentation and background score of this ad was too good! Apart from this they have other interesting banners on facebook, AOL bollywood etc and a very trendy website as well. It’s cool, vibrant and think can establish a good connect with their youth TG. Hmmm, movies are seriously investing in websites these days!

Well, the fate of these movies as well as the return on investment will be decided today but one thing is sure – movie marketing is definitely becoming an interesting field in itself.

Bollywood promotions – other interesting examples

July 3, 2008

I had written post about bollywood marketing earlier as well, I must say things are getting innovative day by day. The most talked about two recent releases are “Love Story 2050” & “Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na”. Both are releasing on 4^th July’08 and both these films are marketing their stuff quite aggressively. Though both are quite hyped up movies but guess Jaane Tu…has managed to grab more pre-release attention because of its super aggressive PR plans and 360 degree marketing approach. After observing different promotional strategies of these two movies, I think the two key catchy promotional strategies which I noticed are:

Marketing Tie-ups: Both these movies have managed to get big brands roped in for their movies. “Love Story 2050” has got Lux, Xbox 360, Tata Indicom and Sun Microsystems interested for branding and marketing tie-ups whereas “Jaane Tu…” has secured marketing alliances with Zee and Sony, and is expected to sign Coke and Toyota, brands endorsed by Aamir Khan. Not that tie-ups like these are something new but the fact that now-a-days such tie-ups are covering the overall production cost of even huge budgeted films like “Love Story 2050” is something really fascinating. “We have covered 20% of our production costs through brand and marketing tie-ups. But if we combine the money that we have earned through merchandising and distribution deals, it would cover 100% of the costs. Anything that we will earn from now on would be profits for us,” says Rowena Baweja of Harry Baweja Productions. Love Story 2050’s production cost is an estimated Rs 50 crore (Source: ET online, dated 23^rd June’08). 50 crores getting covered through tie-ups and merchandising, wow, really interesting!

Increasing online promotions: Next important thing which caught my immediate attention today was promotion of these films in online world…most of the popular sites are splashed with “Jaane Tu…” promo today, not sure if they had started their online promo earlier but it struck to my eyes today only and more so because of this very catchy ad on msn India homepage today.

Well, the fate of these movies as well as the return on investment will be decided tomorrow but one thing is sure – movie marketing is definitely becoming an interesting field in itself.

Aside: I watched Jaane Tu last weekend…loved it. Same old story, same old climax, same end but still it was so fresh! I would recommend it to everybody who just want to go for some light and fun flick. And take my words, it will surely remind of your good old student life days and suddenly after coming out you will feel like either talking to your friends or talking about your friends 🙂

Death of Hindi Literature!

July 3, 2008

Recently my mom had come to visit my place for few days and unfortunately some days out of those three weeks were very hectic professionally for both me and my husband. So, we were not able to take her out or spend much time with her during weekdays. I thought of arranging some entertainment activities for my mom so that she doesn’t get bored at home and considering my mom’s hobbies, the two most obvious choices were movies and books, with books having higher preference. Well, books and movies by term look so simple to arrange but nah it’s not that easy to arrange these stuffs for my mom. Well, she definitely loves to read but not the kind of books which me or my husband read, rather she likes to read those very old classics of Hindi and English literature. I thought of ordering some books of her choice from some popular online shops as generally they offer good discounts on books. Well, my mom’s wish-list consisted of some very old hindi classics by writers like Shivani, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Jayashankar Prasad etc. And when I told her the benefits of ordering online, she was all excited and gave me a list of 7 names to be order immediately.

Since these books were quite popular titles and so I very conveniently assumed that these would be available in almost all book stores. And then my hunt started, first site, second site, third site…ohhh little did I know then that it’s gonna be such a difficult task to find those famous old hindi classics online. Well, none of the popular stores were having those titles…so tired of net surfing, I thought I will stop at landmark (a very popular book store at Bangalore) tomorrow while coming back from office as it would be easier to find it there. With all hopes I reached Landmark next day only to be disappointed to find that only 1 of those titles were available…having no other option, I took that one book and with lots of difficulties managed to find another one in an online store. Mom was ok to get atleast two books of her choice but was damn amazed to realize that these books are not available in most of the stores online as well as offline, she surprisingly said, “lagta hai logo ne hindi ki kitabein padhni band kar di hai, tabhi itni famous kitabein bhi nahi mil rahi hai”.

I also felt the same that maybe people in India have stopped reading hindi novels and books and hence its not easy to find those in regular shops or e-stores. But well my hypothesis didn’t last for long as last weekend I was surfing some US specific e-commerce sites. One of the popular sites was having section of books by Indian writers. Out of curiosity I entered the titles suggested by my mom and lo’ all the books were available in that book store with even reviews and author profiles completed! Felt surprised as well as sad – I was not getting those books here and all these are available in a US site as best rated classics! Stunning!

Though Hindi is our mother tongue but I hardly know of anyone from today’s generation who reads hindi books these days. Honestly speaking even I have not read lots of hindi books but yes I have definitely read some of the very popular ones and have really liked those a lot. Reading as a habit was seeded in me by my mom and she used to suggest me all good novels irrespective of the language be it English, Hindi or translated version of very famous regional books. So, as a child I have read variety of books including real good hindi classics as well. But guess with lots of other things getting lost in rut of life, I lost touch with hindi literature as well…Though I love books by Indian writers but almost all the current books released by Indian writers are written originally in English and so that’s what I read mostly these days. I wonder about current generation as in younger people who are currently in schools, I doubt if most of them are even aware of hindi classics or treasure hidden in our own literature…Do they even know that these books are rated as best classics from India globally? I wonder if Hindi literature is on its way to extinction in India!

Internet Spend in India

June 20, 2008

Was going through the “Indian media forecasts” report released by GroupM recently, the report has covered trends of different media quite comprehensively. Well, I will write my view-point and analysis of that report separately as I still need to go through some of the figures in details. Call it my special personal interest in this space or the nature of my job, but one thing which immediately caught my attention in that report was trend of internet media. Spend on internet media was Rs. 390 crore in 2007 as against Rs. 204 crore in 2006. And this spend is expected to become Rs. 624 crore in 2008. Here is the table which I have made out of GroupM April’08 report for internet spends.

Well, the good thing is that internet spend has increased by 91% since last year, a very commendable growth so to say and is further expected to grow by 60% in 2008, but the sad part is that the % share of media is just 2%!!! Now this is an abysmally low share of the total media spend considering the internet penetration amongst the urban India now-a-days. Had read it in last year report that on an average, Indians in metros and category A towns spend 9 hours a week on internet. And if I think of myself and me like lakhs of consumers who are working professionals and their life revolve around internet, I think this average time will surely go high. On an average most of us must be spending 5+ hours daily on internet and this is far more than time spent on TV or newspaper. Television for sure is restricted to few minutes on weekdays and few hours on weekends. Despite such high internet reach in most of the metros, A and B category towns, why is this % share of overall media so low?

Though more number of brands are advertising on internet now but still internet as a medium is taken in most of the cases just to complete the 360 degree circle. Also whichever company I have worked for, one key factor which I have personally experienced in planning an internet campaign is the fact that most of the media planners present internet as a lead generation medium wherein a small ad click will take you to a landing page asking you to submit your details! No freshness or uniqueness at all! One can hardly observe any innovative and engaging campaign on internet these days which is for brand building and not only for lead generation. Well, working for a company where leads play a critical role for sales team, I agree that lead generation is a very critical objective for any campaign but just spending few grands or max lakhs on internet only for lead generation and not for brand building is not at all justified for this medium.

When most of the big budget campaigns have advertising money spent in crores on traditional medium like television or newspaper why can’t there be money spent on internet as well? When money can be spent on hoardings or television where there is so less accountability, why on internet everything needs to be justified by CPL or CPA? I think a good internet strategy should have both angle – brand building followed by lead generation and marketers as well as decision makers should realize the importance of internet now. Internet as a medium is not only having high reach these days but it is also one of the most quantifiable medium. As compared to any other medium, internet can measure the performance of any campaign more accurately and precisely. Well, its time now that this medium should definitely be given its due!

Death – so callous, so brutal

June 18, 2008

I was out on an official tour to Mumbai and suddenly I get this call at 3 am in the morning…in that darkness of hotel room I further got psyched to see my mom’s name displayed on my cell! Zillion thoughts flashed through my mind in that fraction of second. Mom was not keeping well for past so many days, she was having very high BP and we all were insisting her so much to come and stay with any one of us. One thing which I really feel guilty about my job and career is leaving my mom all alone in that small city. Many times me and my brothers have asked my parents to shift with any of us, but they are not at all convinced about leaving everything in our hometown and coping up with a hectic lifestyle like us in metros. And for last few days I was just so restless about my family that this call at 3 am totally shook me up. Muttering prayers and gathering courage I picked up the phone, and it was my mom who said “hello”….thank god, she is fine! But something else had definitely happened, she was crying hysterically…I kept on asking her “kya hua, mumma bolo plzzzz”…and finally what she said totally shook me up…this was never expected by me even in my dreams. How could this be possible, Amitesh Bhaiya is no more!!! I couldn’t believe my ears and told there might have been some misunderstanding, but no, the news was correct and he died in a flash of seconds in a road accident that night. Police had called from the highway where his bike was hit by truck to confirm the news! Out of sheer shock and numbness, I just packed my bags and reached airport to take the next flight at 4:30 am to my hometown. I can’t describe how I managed to control my outburst throughout the flight and then the scene after that was just toooo heartbreaking and devastating! Couldn’t believe my eyes that a person who was just like us was now lying lifeless drenched in blood on the floor. Though Amitesh Bhaiya was not my own brother but he was nothing less than that. Since his own mother had died when he was hardly 10, so he had literally grown up in our house with my mom taking care of him as her own son. And then the age factor, he was just 1 year elder to me, so he was not only my closest cousin but one of my closest friends as well.

I have experienced few deaths earlier also in my family but they were all of elderly people who died after some sort of illness…not that those were less painful but this sudden death of somebody so close and almost my age is one of the worst and most painful experiences life could have given me. I had never imagined that death can be so brutal, so callous and life can be so short. We all are running after some or other thing, career, money, physical luxuries, happiness, success etc…but anything and everything can just come to an end in a fraction of second by this superpower known as death. And then you keep on thinking, “wish I could have spoken last night to this person” or “wish I could have done this for him” or “wish, I can see this person again in life”…but you can’t as the person has gone forever now! You are left with only those sweet moments of togetherness and beautiful memories to reminisce for your whole life…After this accident, all I want to do is spend as much time as possible with my loved ones as you never know when someone will go away! Loss of my friend can never be fulfilled by anything in life and I will miss him forever now. But I believe that death can only end a life and never a relationship! He will be in my memories & thoughts eternally.

Fate of SMS Marketing???

June 12, 2008

Now this is the 6^th SMS in last 5 minutes! As usual, SMS starts from WIN blah blah blah and here goes my immediate reflex reaction, Press DELETE! This is the fate of most of the SMSes which I receive these days. In 99.99% of the cases, I delete the SMS without even reading the second line as the first three words itself tell that this is yet another stupid promo SMS. Almost every SMS promises me XYZ Car, 1 Kg of gold, 1 lakh cash price, Holiday in Switzerland or dinner date with Kareena Kapoor! And to the pain of those SMSes are the pre-recorded advertisement calls which suddenly comes in esp. when you are in the mid of something important. Even after opting for those do not disturb services, there is just no respite from those WIN, WIN, WIN SMSes and “Hi, I am Ram Gopal Verma…” kinda pre-recorded messages”.

Mobile advertising is really hot these days in India simply because of the penetration factor. For every internet user there are 5+ mobile users in India. SMS marketing is relatively a nascent concept but still it has taken off in a big way. I had read it somewhere few days back that of about 30 million short messages exchanged in India every day, an estimated 7 million SMSes are exchanged between short-code operators and consumers every day. (Don’t remember the exact source of info for this data). There is no dearth of SMS marketing companies in India now and suddenly we see lots of players jumping into this game.

Though the SMS advertising industry seems promising enough in India but one very big drawback which I am observing in this industry is the lack of right and attractive content. Almost every other ad by any brand just looks like another “me too” offer. Everyone is using this WIN WIN WIN funda with absolutely zero creativity in content. Now com’on, today’s consumer is not fool enough to believe on promises like 1 kg gold or 1 lakh cash prize. Most importantly if every other SMS is promising the same thing then you know how credible these offers are! Next key deterrent is the timing & frequency of these SMSes. In the mid of an important meeting if you receive 6 SMSes in 5 minutes then you know what will be the fate of those SMSes! Considering the mobile phone usage in India, SMS marketing is definitely one of the brilliant promotional mediums to reach masses these day but even very powerful marketing tools can have a very early fatality if not used properly Remember what rage email marketing was and what doom it had because of the abusive over-usage of this medium by promoters and service providers. I am wondering if SMS marketing is also trailing the same path.

Enough of friends, movies & music, now its turn for ghosts!

May 22, 2008

I still can’t believe this 🙂, quite interesting I must say. Initially when I had read this news in March, I just couldn’t believe that someone was actually thinking on this line and I was almost sure that it would be some sort of media rumor, but no I was wrong. It actually is true that now there will be a social networking site for ghosts and aliens! Oh yes, Steven Spielberg is actually launching a ghost / UFO centric social networking website which will be for people who would like to share and discuss paranormal and extraterrestrial experiences.

Speculations are still on about the name of the portal. Some say it will be called “Ghosts”, some call it as “Ghost Town”, latest update being that the site is perhaps going to be called “The Rising” or “Rising”. Apart from networking angle, the site will also have original video content focusing on alleged ghost and UFO stories. Now we all know the connection between Steven Spielberg and paranormal experiences. Who can forget movies like E.T The Extra Terrestrial, Close Encounter of the third world, Jurrasic Park etc which are one of the highest grosser of all times at box office! Steven at many occasions has also narrated some real life chilling experiences about his encounter with ghosts and supernatural forces. Well, don’t know to what extent his experiences are real but he definitely claims that ghosts and aliens do exist and because of some real life experiences, he got inspired to make movies on this subject.

After general networking, vertical specific networking was definitely slated to be the next big trend in community industry but being niche to this level following a specific vertical is definitely some disruption I must say. And though I don’t believe in such phenomenon (rather I don’t want to believe I guess 🙂) but still there is a large chunk of people who believe in such clairvoyant experiences. And for such TG this kind of open forum will be definitely great wherein they can discuss and share their views with like minded people and know more about it. Hmmm, so looks like enough of networking sites for friends, dating, movies, music, college reunion etc etc, well now it’s the turn of ghosts and bhoooot!

Women Gamers to double by 2010

Jhingalala’s counter strategy

Its all about the right packaging!

Bollywood Promotion – Other intersting examples

Bollywood promotions – other interesting examples

Death of Hindi Literature!

Death – so callous, so brutal

Fate of SMS Marketing???

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