Kanupriya Sindhu

Enough of friends, movies and 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!

Review sites: Making or breaking the brands?

May 13, 2008

Few months back, I remember referring to a very popular review site for reading some resort review where I was going to stay for a weekend trip. After seeing so many good reviews over there, I felt positive about that resort, the snaps posted were also quite nice and so made my bookings for two nights immediately. Well, the real pleasure came when we landed at the resort. There was a huge difference between the virtual projection and the actual experience. The resort was really shabby with hopeless customer service. Food was bad and unhygienic and the overall cost of stay was nowhere justified by the service. Infact a few kilometers away, there was another resort which looked promising enough but alas I couldn’t shift to this resort as I had already made my payment to this earlier one and at no condition, he was willing to return the same. On my way back I stopped for lunch at this second resort and while talking I asked the manager as to how come they have negative reviews on this review site whereas this other hopeless resort is having so many positive reviews and comments? He immediately replied back, “madam, don’t trust these review sites, the manager of other resort knows that you people in Bangalore refer to review sites and blogs before going ahead for a weekend drive and hence he himself goes ahead and writes lots of positive reviews about his resort and criticizes others through different ids”!

Well, this is not something new which I would have heard recently. Many other companies are facing this issue as well i.e., competitors bad mouthing them in online space through multiple dummy user ids by writing negative reviews or criticizing services and thus creating bad imagery in the market. Marketers are playing around with user generated content to the best of their advantage. There are many companies who have hired professionals to do reputation management (oh yeah now-a-days there is a full fledged profession with this fancy name) for them in online space. To my utmost surprise, there are specialized reputation management agencies these days who contact me for managing the brand reputation of my company in online world and if you ask what all they can do, you get one standard answer – write positive pages about your company and negative about your competitors. I can somewhat understand positive pages about own company but negative pages about others as competitors…hmmm quite a misguiding strategy I must say.

In today’s net addicted era wherein most of the consumers are actually spending majority portion of their lives with laptop and internet, user generated reviews play a huge role in creating an image or perception of any brand. Before making a purchase decision, almost all educated consumers these days check internet to get some reviews or feedback of the product. These review sites act as one of the key influencers in any buying behavior as the general impression is that a sales man will always try to hard sell the product by only highlighting the positives of any product whereas normal consumer feedback will give some genuine views about that product. Considering the trust and faith which a user places in these contents, I think such misguiding strategies are absolute felony. Most importantly it’s not only that particular product but in the long run even those review sites are going to suffer by such acts. If there will be no credibility of content who would like to visit that site again? Not sure if it’s possible to take any step in this regard in India but sites like mouthshut, techtree, indiareview should definitely think of some strategy to counteract the same in future. As far as I as a user am concerned, I now definitely don’t trust the reviews of products on sites like mouthshut etc. esp. if there are only good reviews about any product 🙂

Heights of Craziness

May 9, 2008

I have watched four-five movies in past two months in theater as well as on DVD but didn’t feel this strong urge to express my views for any movie as much as I felt for this movie…I guess this is one of the worst movies I would have ever watched, completely baseless and crazy…yeah I am speaking of Krazzy4. The only right thing about this movie I guess is its name “Krazzy 4”, yes, it’s capable of making you crazy with all its 4 elements – story, acting, direction and dialogues! How can Rakesh Roshan go sooo wrong in this film?

The film is all about 4 mental patients Raja (Arshad Warsi), Mukherjee (Irfan Khan), Gangadhar (Rajpal Yadav), Dabboo (Suresh Menon) and their doctor Suman (Juhi Chawla). The so called story tries to show the emotional sensitiveness of these patients towards their doctor and respective relationships with their partners. I’m just wondering is it worth to go ahead describing the plot of this movie…well honestly speaking there is no plot at all. The story starts with something, then suddenly Juhi Chawla gets kidnapped, then suddenly you see Rakhi Sawant grooving in her typical style on “dekhta hai kya” number…oh the song ends and after few movements here and there on the screen you suddenly see SRK shaking his legs unnecessarily on the much hyped song “krazzy 4”. By the time one keeps on wondering as to why SRK has danced in THIS film, you see these 4 mental patients saving their doctor by god knows what kind of acts! And lo the film comes to an end with the most pathetic speeches by the patients as well as the doctor to the media. Trust me the last dialogues are the worst dialogues ever written in the hindi film industry! And of course the last scene of scrolling star cast is having the tragic misfit of Jr. Roshan wasting his dance talent just like that. It clearly looks like Papa Roshan’s strategy of capitalizing on the best dance talent of the industry.

On a scale of 5, I would love to give this film a rating of -5 but for Rajpal Yadav’s acting sake I can still reconsider my thoughts and I guess I will give it a 0.5 rating on 5. Very poor plot, hopelessly bad dialogues, even very good acting talents like Juhi, Irfan, Arshad and Rajpal Yadav have been completely wasted and the songs are…I guess I’m running short of critical adjectives. The much hyped item numbers are the best examples of oddity! I will not recommend this movie to anybody at all for watching, oh yeah but if you want to take revenge with someone, just buy a ticket of this movie and lock the person to watch this movie in a room J, make sure the person doesn’t come out without watching this movie completely, LOL!

BTW of all the movies which I watched in last two months, I liked Jodha Akbar and U, Me aur Hum a lot…lovely movies with beautiful direction. I missed out on writing reviews for these movies because of paucity of time but do watch both these movies. Hrithik is outstanding as Akbar and Ajay Devgan is simply superb considering that U, Me aur Hum is his first directorial debut. Hey I also watched When Harry met Sally (oh yeah I watched it after sooo many years) on DVD, a very sweet movie with a cute love story. Must watch for those who like to watch light romantic flicks.

Season of makeovers

April 29, 2008

Well, looks like it’s a season of makeovers going on currently. Oh, I mentioned makeover and you are already thinking of some new style statement for women? Hmmm, I’m, sure most of you must be, but nah I’m not speaking of some new hair coloring trend or new apparel style in vogue…I’m speaking of the latest trend in Indian Marketing Industry – the trend of Indian brand makeovers.
Two weeks ago, I saw the new logo and communication of Godrej, then last week it was Shoppers’ Stop and now it’s CEAT which has gone for a hip & happening colored logo.

Honestly speaking I was just shocked to see the 112 year old Godrej logo changed. Having worked in their brand management team earlier, I know how rigid Godrej rules were as far as changing corporate logo was concerned. They strictly wanted to adhere to only traditional color (earlier it was blue then it became red) and despite every new brand manager convincing about a funky logo, the top management never allowed to experiment with it. So, suddenly a bright colored nice looking new logo was a very pleasant sight for my eyes. Here is the official statement of Godrej which states that the re-branding exercise was undertaken as it felt the old brand was not as relevant to young India.(source: moneycontrol.com). As a consumer as well as marketing professional, my take on this – I liked this change J. Estimated money (mentioned in official releases) to be spent by the company in communicating this makeover: Rs. 100 crore!
Now speaking about Shoppers Stop logo change…I am absolutely confused as to why this logo change and what major difference will this new logo design bring to the company? I mean its same black & white color except that it’s rectangular in shape as compared to the earlier elliptical one. Well, from brand perspective I understand that it has been done keeping so called international designs in mind but well, but to a normal consumer I’m sure it must not be looking like any major change as such. And they are spending huge money in communicating this change by advertisements, hoarding etc. Here is the official statement available on agencyfaqs, for this makeover: “Change is essential. Our consumers are changing, their preferences are constantly evolving. They are getting younger. And so, we have to change along with them.” — B S Nagesh, Customer Care Associate & Managing Director, Shoppers’ Stop. “The simple but classic new logo without the old elliptic ring, which has an international look and a timeless appeal, carrying the new baseline ‘Start something new’ prods customers into taking a step ahead to upgrade themselves to the next level in life.(source: indiaretailbiz.com). Well, well doesn’t it look like somehow fitting in a justification for this change? As a consumer as well as marketing professional, my take on this – It looks almost similar to me as in no major change at all as compared to the previous one. Estimated money (mentioned in official releases) to be spent by the company in communicating this makeover: Rs. 20 crore ($5 million)!
And the latest one in race, CEAT logo change? Oh why did they do this? The logo was created in 1958 & this is the first time since then that the company has changed its logo. But do they really needed to change their earlier logo? Here is the official statement for this change: Paras K Chowdhary, chief executive officer, Ceat, says, “The new logo symbolises the strategic transformation at Ceat. It also reflects the fact that though Ceat has a long and proud heritage, the attributes that bring it to life for our customers are as fresh and new as ever. It represents the company’s vision of leading the industry in delivering best in class products, innovations and services to consumers.” (source: agencyfaqs.com). Well, even if they decided to change the logo thinking to bring in some freshness and strategic transformation, they can’t go this wrong in deciding the creative representation of it. I think the earlier logo was very expressive and clear about the message which CEAT wanted to communicate for its tyre brand – born tough. New one just looks like another “me too” logo. As a consumer as well as marketing professional, my take on this – The new logo is NOT good, new font and color are ok, but please bring back that rhino and “born tough” line. No info available on money to be spent on communicating this makeover but year lots of TV ads are airing on prime time television.

Season of makeovers

April 29, 2008

Two weeks ago, I saw the new logo and communication of Godrej, then last week it was Shoppers’ Stop and now it’s CEAT which has gone for a hip & happening colored logo.

Now speaking about Shoppers Stop logo change…I am absolutely confused as to why this logo change and what major difference will this new logo design bring to the company? I mean its same black & white color except that it’s rectangular in shape as compared to the earlier elliptical one. Well, from brand perspective I understand that it has been done keeping so called international designs in mind but well, but to a normal consumer I’m sure it must not be looking like any major change as such. And they are spending huge money in communicating this change by advertisements, hoarding etc. Here is the official statement available on agencyfaqs, for this makeover: “Change is essential. Our consumers are changing, their preferences are constantly evolving. They are getting younger. And so, we have to change along with them.” — B S Nagesh, Customer Care Associate & Managing Director, Shoppers’ Stop. “The simple but classic new logo without the old elliptic ring, which has an international look and a timeless appeal, carrying the new baseline ‘Start something new’ prods customers into taking a step ahead to upgrade themselves to the next level in life.(source: indiaretailbiz.com). Well, well doesn’t it look like somehow fitting in a justification for this change? As a consumer as well as marketing professional, my take on this – It looks almost similar to me as in no major change at all as compared to the previous one. Estimated money (mentioned in official releases) to be spent by the company in communicating this makeover: Rs. 20 crore ($5 million)!

And the latest one in race, CEAT logo change? Oh why did they do this? The logo was created in 1958 & this is the first time since then that the company has changed its logo. But do they really needed to change their earlier logo? Here is the official statement for this change: Paras K Chowdhary, chief executive officer, Ceat, says, “The new logo symbolises the strategic transformation at Ceat. It also reflects the fact that though Ceat has a long and proud heritage, the attributes that bring it to life for our customers are as fresh and new as ever. It represents the company’s vision of leading the industry in delivering best in class products, innovations and services to consumers.” (source: agencyfaqs.com). Well, even if they decided to change the logo thinking to bring in some freshness and strategic transformation, they can’t go this wrong in deciding the creative representation of it. I think the earlier logo was very expressive and clear about the message which CEAT wanted to communicate for its tyre brand – born tough. New one just looks like another “me too” logo. As a consumer as well as marketing professional, my take on this – The new logo is NOT good, new font and color are ok, but please bring back that rhino and “born tough” line. No info available on money to be spent on communicating this makeover but year lots of TV ads are airing on prime time television.

Big B n blogging, another marketing gimmick?

April 24, 2008

The news is everywhere across media, and almost every channel and website is speaking of this new entrant in blogosphere. Big B has taken to blogging now!!! Well, we were aware of Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Aamir Khan being pro bloggers but now Amitabh Bachchan too. This is really surprising but what’s more surprising is the blog site which Mr. Bachchan has selected. Umm, his selection surely doesn’t look natural. Doesn’t a thought come naturally to our minds as to why BigAdda? Now come on, don’t ask why not a wordpress or a blogspot or his own personal URL and why www.bigadda.com ? I think it’s pretty simple to guess. Arrey still didn’t get it…after all bigadda is a reliance entertainment company yaar & we all know the strong connection between Big B & ….!

Looks like BigAdda’s cores & crores of money on advertising with hoardings (yes they actually took huge hoardings across cities for promotion of an online social networking site, LOL) & on TV (ROLF, yep there were long television commercials too reminding of friends and networking ?) etc have not worked at all and now they have decided to take one final shot at one of their products viz., blogs. With Big B endorsing their blog and each posts of Mr. Bachchan having comment counter close to 400+, I’m sure atleast one of BigAdda’s categories will surely get noticed now. And the kind of effort which bigadda team is taking for this, there is no second thought that this looks like a planned promotion strategy of BigAdda. Here is an excerpt from Big B’s blog which can make things clearer further:

“The bigadda.com team came over. I educated myself more on blogging and its ‘finer qualities’. As per the advice of some of the fans and ‘co bloggers’ we got into the process of setting up a team to assist me in working my blog more efficiently”.

A team to assist on working on his blog more efficiently!!!!!! Whoa blogging is becoming really serious man! Hmmm quite a strong promo hook by BigAdda team, lets see what mileage they get out of it in future.

Now speaking of Big B’s blog http://bigb.bigadda.com, honestly speaking I liked the content of this blog and the way Mr. Bachchan has written it till now. Though I’m not a die-hard fan of Mr. Bachchan & not sure if he is himself writing the posts or somebody on his behalf is doing it but if he is himself writing it then I must say good effort! The way he has highlighted the contribution of Anil Dharker for his book Icons or the way he has pulled Headlines Today for telecasting Abhi-Ash for 15 mins and still criticizing them or they way he has responded to some of the comments on his posts is quite noticeable & praiseworthy. I just love the poems of Mr. Harivansh Rai Bachchan and the beautiful usage of those poems in Big B’s posts is another highlight of his blog.

Though the idea of Big B blogging on www.bigadda.com looks very artificial and definitely some sort of marketing gimmick but the content of the blog looks natural. So, hope Big B continues expressing his thoughts like this on his blog and BigAdda gets at least one product right amongst all its failed ventures!

Big B n blogging – another marketing gimmick?

April 23, 2008

The news is everywhere across media, and almost every channel and website is speaking of this, Big B has taken to blogging now!!! Well, we were aware of Rahul Bose, Shekhar Kapur and Aamir Khan being pro bloggers but now Amitabh Bachchan too. This is really surprising but what’s more surprising is the blog site whicb Mr. Bachchan has selected. Umm, his selection surely doesn’t look natural. Doesn’t a thought come naturally to our minds as to why BigAdda? Now come on, don’t ask why not a wordpress or a blogspot or his own personal URL and why www.bigadda.com ? I think it’s pretty simple to guess. Arrey still didn’t get it…after all bigadda is a reliance entertainment company yaar!

Looks like BigAdda’s cores & crores of money on advertising with hoardings (yes they actually took huge hoardings across cities for promotion of an online social networking site, LOL) & on TV (ROLF, yep there were long television commercials too reminding of friends and networking 🙂 ) etc have not worked at all and now they have decided to take one final shot at one of their products viz., blogs. With Big B endorsing their blog and each posts of Mr. Bachchan having comment counter close to 400+, I’m sure atleast one of BigAdda’s categories will surely get noticed now. And the kind of effort which bigadda team is taking for this, there is no second thought that this looks like a planned promotion strategy of BigAdda. Here is an excerpt from Big B’s blog which can make things clearer further:

A team to assist on working on his blog more efficiently!!!!!! Whoa blogging is becoming really serious man! Quite a strong promo hook by BigAdda team, lets see what mileage they get out of it in future.

Though the idea of Big B blogging on www.bigadda.com looks very artificial and definitely some sort of marketing gimmick but the content of the blog looks natural. So, hope Big B continues expressing his thoughts like this on his blog and BigAdda gets atleast one product right amongst all its failed ventures J.

Yahoomail or Gmail?

April 16, 2008

I’ve been using the new Yahoo mail for quite sometime now and initially I used to think that it’s because of some initial glitches that the performance is so slow and bad. But it’s been months since I’m using the same and I don’t see any improvement in their performance. Somehow the moment you open that in-mail chat window my laptop goes for a toss. It becomes so damn slow. Though I think it has got nothing to do with my laptop as the same machine is being used for so many things including the in-mail chat service of gmail and there it works absolutely wonderful.

My first email id happens to be a yahoo id and when I had opened up my first email id more than a decade back, I used to be thrilled with Yahoo messenger and other services of Yahoo as compared to Rediff / Indiatimes mail and chat services. I used to love those cute li’ll smileys so much and everything about Yahoo used to be so cool…I would say, I was quite a hard-core Yahoo loyal user but slowly their product started getting deteriorating. Then came gmail and for most of the practical purposes, gmail proved to be a better option than Yahoo. Many people like me very soon migrated to Gmail for most of their regular email interactions.

Well, I know market share wise, Yahoo still dominates the email market but I think service of Yahoo is getting more and more hopeless day by day. They have got one of the worst spam guards…on any normal day my spam counts are anytime thrice or four times than my normal email count in my yahoo inbox! I don’t know what spam guard gmail has adopted but it works wonderfully atleast for me. Also host of other benefits like security, size of the mail box, archiving options, convenience of smooth in-mail chat facility etc are just few of out of the whole gamut of benefits which gmail offers to a consumer. So for me as a consumer despite Yahoo mail launching new features everyday, its Gmail which rocks and serves my purpose anyday better than Yahoo.

Ad zara hat ke

April 13, 2008

Few years back when I was a student, I remember the first mobile phone which I used to have…I guess I used to pay Rs. 4/- per minute for an incoming call to the service provider Essar and approx Rs. 8/- per min for an outgoing call! Mobile phones were absolute luxury that time and were used only in case of utmost urgencies. Slowly mobile phones started getting accepted in India but when Reliance entered the telecom market with its phenomenally low price offerings, the whole of telecom industry dynamics changed & mobile phones became a revolution in India. Then came Tata Indicom’s price challenge and very soon almost all service providers joined the bandwagon and were fighting the same price war. Mobile phones became the commodity of basic necessity instead of absolute luxury for majority of Indians.

Now since last 1 year telecom service providers have gone super aggressive in their selling. A consumer is now literally tired of everyday a new price plan communication, bombardment of ads offering free lifetime incoming, free mobile handsets with every new connection, almost nil kind of price plan promotions etc etc. I remember chatting with a friend just few months back wherein I had said, looks like a day will come in next 2 to 3 years when instead of charging us telecom service providers will actually pay us for talking on phone. Well, the day has come & whoa it has come pretty soon than expected with Sir Richard Branson deciding to capture the exponentially booming Indian mobile market as well. Yeah, we all know the new telecom service provider in India now…Virgin mobile which thinks “Zara hat Ke”.

Instead of debiting money from your balance, this company is actually crediting money for every minute you talk on phone. Though the money credited is not something great but still I would say it’s different and Hat ke J…The best part is the commercial which is being aired across mediums…no more communication with 999 plan and free lifetime incoming calls…rather quite unique and creative advertisements so to say. Of all the different advertisements on air these days, I particularly liked this one the best:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROFaEycLs_0]

Here’s hoping that this hat ke telecom giant really lives upto its name and gives some “hak ke” good experience and customer service to Indian Consumer as well.

Vernacular web content in India

April 8, 2008

Another vernacular content in India. Yahoo has launched its maps in local Indian languages and walking directions, for the first time in India. Yahoo! India Maps is now available in nine local languages. Apart from English, users can also experience it in Hindi, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Punjabi.

Of late, vernacular content in India has become a rising trend. After the biggies like Google, Yahoo, AOL etc. adding content in local languages, even channels like Animal Planet and search engines like Guruji are adding local language content now. As per Juxt report, although various players are trying to pull traffic by coming up with local language sites – including Yahoo!, Google News, Blogger and Webduniya – it is Google that has captured the throne when it comes to vernacular content. Out of the three million local language content users, 12 per cent prefer Google for searching local language content and 8 per cent local language users log on to Yahoo! for local language content. South Indians constitute 52 per cent of the entire vernacular user base. Some 19 per cent of the three million vernacular content users prefer Tamil and 19 per cent prefer Hindi. Malayalam is preferred by 15 per cent of the users.

But when it comes to vernacular content, I do have my doubts over there. What I’ve observed is that by vernacular content, most of the sites in India mean translating English content in local languages. Does translation itself classify the content credible enough for local language TG? I mean do you think that the target audience for Hindi or Tamil content will be similar to their English translated content? Have we ever pondered on the fact that despite lots of local language portals coming up in India, why haven’t we still got the desired traffic for those portals? Of course internet penetration and computer literacy are two important reasons but one very strong reason I guess is the missing local or regional flavor from these content. While translation of national / international content is good but if the publishers won’t give that regional tadka to the content, they will never be able to get those traffic and hit counts on vernacular portals!

Review sites: Making or breaking the brands?

Heights of Craziness

Season of makeovers

Season of makeovers

Big B n blogging, another marketing gimmick?

Big B n blogging – another marketing gimmick?

Yahoomail or Gmail?

Ad zara hat ke

Vernacular web content in India

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