Rank and position has a universal appeal be it in the Commonwealth Games or in the release of new advertising commercials. Every month marketing journals and pullouts come up with their expert ratings. Some award rank based on defined parameters i.e. story element, likeability, memorable, brand recall etc. Other only pronounce the final verdict best or bekaar.
A good advertising commercial is an acid test of a creative mind. Sometimes the challenge is far more difficult than the ones faced by the creative people outside advertising world. Advertising per say operates in the make believe world (aare ye to ad hain) in quarantined time band (switch the channel, now ads are running) and acts as a coitus iterruptus with the main programme the viewers were engaged with; The task becomes more difficult because very rarely the original creative expressions see the light of the day; commercial creatives like courtesans are subject to the assault of itchy palms and reflexive creative erection of the people with power of financial approval.
Therefore a commercial creative needs more sympathetic assessment .Strangely enough the experts of the advertising world when they don the hats of a judge completely forgets the ground reality and penny pinches on issues like angle could have been different, production value should have been better, technical excellence not up to the mark almost ignoring the issue of likeability.
One such best and bekaar verdict of ads recently by experts seem to have baffled not only viewers like me but the editorial team of the publication as well.Maggi vegetable noodles ad has been voted as the best and the one on Tanishq glam gold got the thumbs down.”
Rather than analyzing the best ad which the editorial team finds short on originality and which according to them is bordering on a cliché let me focus on the one declared Bekaar. In the category of jewellery the piece of jewellery takes the centre stage and more often than not the wearer is a carrier albeit a glamorous one .The role of the wearer is secondary..She is like a mannequin –a medium of display. Tanishq seem to turn this trend on its head.
The ad opens with the ending of a book opening ceremony by a young lady. So the context represents an act of evaluation of a cerebral creation. But then it is also the end of the session and the party/ so called socializing is about to start. The young writer of course is going to be the lady of the evening. In came the second lady in gold and the party stopped for a moment. The intruder was not a stranger but a close friend of the writer. They exchanged pleasantries and hugged each other in tight close up camera shots and then on the camera stuck to her .She stole the show. Her jewellery , her looks her colored sari vis. a vis. the black dress of her friend all seemed to have high jacked the attention to a level which almost created annoyance even to the viewers of the commercial. Most fo the so called Jewellery advertising would have ended here. But this one has a twist in the tail. The lady in gold realized what her jewellery had done to her friend’s party and hurriedly left on the pretext of a headache. The pretext was not convincing and it was not meant to be. So when she was questioned by her husband /boyfriend about the silly pretext she said it was far better than ruining somebody’s evening.
Jewellery is hallowed: The instinct of every jewel is to escape its commodity status and become priceless. Moving beyond physical price a jewellery is in quest of its worth beyond money in the world of emotion. The second part of the commercial brings out the story of this ascent. The lady in gold is as much annoyed by the undue attention that her jewellery is demanding as the viewer and her own value system got activated. It is her respect and love for her friend, her culture to control and give proper attention to the values and worth of others that the commercial carries the brand into a different level. The commercial has actually brought into play what is best and what is bekaar in the human value system.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Profile of a Diva –Durga
Distant drumbeats announce the arrival of the Durga idol to the local pandal. Like every year this year too I felt that unmistakable elation at heart, the sense of freedom and celebration which I am sure is a common sentiment shared by millions. Apart from celebration the concept of this female Deity has always fascinated me. She is the primordial mother force, all pervading yet so practical, down to earth,so professonal and probably that's why so contemporary!
Born out of the collective anger and exasperation of gods she is a war goddess; a fierce, fighter against any force that dares to disrupt the cosmic equilibrium. She is an agenda onto herself, an avowed activist against terror, a one woman demolition squad against evil. She is one goddess who has been frozen in the frame of war amidst her family snap. In fact her construct is not complete without the context of evil. Take the Ashura out of the picture the very idea of Mahishasuramaradini would collapse.
She is a strange synthesis of the opposites. Born out of combined male energy she is a female force. In many sense Durga redefines the concept of power. She is not just a fusion of collective power. Gods wanted a power to destroy their enemy; she came out in the form of a power that gave birth through destruction. Power needs to be perpetuated and multiplied. It needs to be recycled, regenerated through the process of creation and not limited and marginalized by the catastrophe of destruction.
There was nothing miraculous about her operations as described in the Chandi.She used no magic,no mesmeric charm with which most of the divine powers are ordained.
She displayed hard work. She fought, She took the beating, she got tired, took refreshing drinks and engaged again in her mission with renewed vigor .She never looked for outside resources,but delved deep within herself and came up with new profiles of power. She not only demonstrated multitasking at its best but also displayed her ability to be a multi entity to rise to the magnitude of the task at hand.
She represented the purest form of governance. The problems she had set to solve were not created by alien forces. They have their origin in the mismanagement of power by the gods themselves. All ashuras were made powerful by some god gifted boon be it from Brahma ,Vishnu or Shiva .Wishes were granted right left and centre by gods with full knowledge that the recipients nursed bigger personal ambitions and there were strong chances of the boons being abused . They would come to their senses when their own boon was used against them. When things had gone out of control big time SOS were sent to Devi.
Devi had to be invoked. She would never appear uninvited.As a crisis manager she would only swing into action when collectively approached by the gods. Once called she would take complete charge, no questions asked, no fault finding commission being set up. She would tame power hungry brutes, terminate the tormentors and then would hand over control to the male gods again to run their show. Once her job was done she simply disappeared.
Even her social visits among the mortals are short and swift –once a year for a few days. She is powerful because she is the eternal provider and would never ask for anything. While other gods fight with each other for their share of offering from the mortals she would never even utter “perform my puja”. She would appear at the end of each battle with a blank cheque of boon to the gods-an unconditional commitment to save and serve.
As more and more Durgas are adorning the positions of power in big houses hitherto managed by their male counterparts Durga remains single most manifestation of a woman in action with full array of feminine roles- a mother, a leader, a manager and a home maker offering unique principles of managing power and taming the tormentors and practicing family codes in the dry corporate world.
Ya devi corporateshu netri rupen samsthita
Namastasmi namantasmai namanstasmai namonamaha.
Born out of the collective anger and exasperation of gods she is a war goddess; a fierce, fighter against any force that dares to disrupt the cosmic equilibrium. She is an agenda onto herself, an avowed activist against terror, a one woman demolition squad against evil. She is one goddess who has been frozen in the frame of war amidst her family snap. In fact her construct is not complete without the context of evil. Take the Ashura out of the picture the very idea of Mahishasuramaradini would collapse.
She is a strange synthesis of the opposites. Born out of combined male energy she is a female force. In many sense Durga redefines the concept of power. She is not just a fusion of collective power. Gods wanted a power to destroy their enemy; she came out in the form of a power that gave birth through destruction. Power needs to be perpetuated and multiplied. It needs to be recycled, regenerated through the process of creation and not limited and marginalized by the catastrophe of destruction.
There was nothing miraculous about her operations as described in the Chandi.She used no magic,no mesmeric charm with which most of the divine powers are ordained.
She displayed hard work. She fought, She took the beating, she got tired, took refreshing drinks and engaged again in her mission with renewed vigor .She never looked for outside resources,but delved deep within herself and came up with new profiles of power. She not only demonstrated multitasking at its best but also displayed her ability to be a multi entity to rise to the magnitude of the task at hand.
She represented the purest form of governance. The problems she had set to solve were not created by alien forces. They have their origin in the mismanagement of power by the gods themselves. All ashuras were made powerful by some god gifted boon be it from Brahma ,Vishnu or Shiva .Wishes were granted right left and centre by gods with full knowledge that the recipients nursed bigger personal ambitions and there were strong chances of the boons being abused . They would come to their senses when their own boon was used against them. When things had gone out of control big time SOS were sent to Devi.
Devi had to be invoked. She would never appear uninvited.As a crisis manager she would only swing into action when collectively approached by the gods. Once called she would take complete charge, no questions asked, no fault finding commission being set up. She would tame power hungry brutes, terminate the tormentors and then would hand over control to the male gods again to run their show. Once her job was done she simply disappeared.
Even her social visits among the mortals are short and swift –once a year for a few days. She is powerful because she is the eternal provider and would never ask for anything. While other gods fight with each other for their share of offering from the mortals she would never even utter “perform my puja”. She would appear at the end of each battle with a blank cheque of boon to the gods-an unconditional commitment to save and serve.
As more and more Durgas are adorning the positions of power in big houses hitherto managed by their male counterparts Durga remains single most manifestation of a woman in action with full array of feminine roles- a mother, a leader, a manager and a home maker offering unique principles of managing power and taming the tormentors and practicing family codes in the dry corporate world.
Ya devi corporateshu netri rupen samsthita
Namastasmi namantasmai namanstasmai namonamaha.
Monday, October 11, 2010
What's Cooking?
Flip through any TV channel- local, national or international, you will unmistakably find a cookery show! Kitchen has come a long way from its primitive, sweaty, sooty, grimy, functional workplace to a stage of performing art. Nor is kitchen any longer the domain of mothers, maids and house mistresses .Kitchen space has become more democratic over the years. Everybody is welcome –young ,old ,male, female ,professional , amateurs, poets, police ,painters, actors ,players, lawyers, singers you name them they have performed in this Broadway of baking and cooking.
All these shows irrespective of their being in local, national or international channels are fairly popular and enjoy respectable TRPs. Kitchens cut across clutter, kitchens connect. Busiest of the housewives, working women, dutiful husbands, accomplished bachelors, bespectacled dadajis and bemused daadis all watch cookery shows with interest. If your product /brand have remotest connection with kitchen put your ads in the cookery show and be assured of a sizeable viewership.
Only a couple of decades back kitchen was out of bounds for everybody else except mothers and home makers. Male members’ duty would end with bringing ingredients at the kitchen door. Nor were they interested to know what was happening inside; they were more interested in what was coming out of it rather than what going on inside it.
Things change, stories evolve, plots take new turns and cookery and kitchen were no exception to this law of evolution. As the joint family structure crumbled, women started taking bolder strides into the male world, managing home and office the old elaborate traditional recipes looked desperately out of sync. So were the proponents of them-mothers, dadimas and mother-in-laws. Brands and gadgets jumped in to fill the gap; media took up the role of the new cooking coach and elevated cooking from a daily chore to an exciting serial.
Cookery shows, as represented through camera eye create a sweat less spectacle of feast for the eyes. Under the cool light and cooler air-conditioned ambience of the studio fire burns without smoke, thanks to efficient chimneys, ferocity of frying have been tamed by the shining, silent ovens. The crude and laborious parts of cooking like cutting and cleaning are carefully photo shopped from the frame. Shots of fresh Vegetables dissolve into pre- peeled, chopped, sized and washed pieces in clean glass bowls and Teflon coated pans. Even the ordinary cooking medium like oil sugar and spices are introduced like the cast of a drama with close up spotlight shots. Cookery show is an attempt to spice up the ordinary, glamorizing the grind.
There is an element of discovery and surprise in these shows; the shows bring to limelight the unsung culinary skill of the ordinary or that of the people who are successful or famous in fields other than cooking .As a show it is a complete dish by itself. It neither demands continuity from the archive of our memory space as to what has happened before nor does it leave anything in the “to be continued” format .It is free of the past legacy and future expectations. It narrates, educates, demonstrates and finally rewards the viewer in flat 20 minutes. There is a cogent transaction of skills between the performer and the spectators; recipe empowers the recipients.
No wonder the reality shows based on cooking have grown in popularity across the world. The most popular one - The Master Chef has broken ratings records in two of the world’s biggest markets. It has been successfully running in UK since 1990 and the Australian version became third most watched Australian TV program since 2001. Master Chef is not just a TV show, it has become a cultural phenomena. The soon to come Indian version is even more dramatic because it goes a step further. The show will offer to set the winner for life. The grand prize will be a restaurant in winner’s name. Which the winner will run and make an occupation out of his talent and thus change his/her life forever.
Cookery shows have already made waves in the bigger screen. A Meryl Streep and Amy Adams starrer Julie &Julia went on to receive 27 awards and nominations in different film festivals including nomination for Academy Awards. The screen play was based on two true stories ; My Life in France, Julia Child's autobiography and a memoir by Julie Powell documenting online her daily experiences of cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
A culinary legend (Julia Child) provides a frustrated office worker (Julie Powell) with a new recipe for life in Julie and Julia. That’s where probably lies the power of cookery shows. It not only tells you how to make you food taste better it also says, that if you have the passion for cooking you can add a new flavor to your life and to the world around. And that’s a recipe worth talking about!
All these shows irrespective of their being in local, national or international channels are fairly popular and enjoy respectable TRPs. Kitchens cut across clutter, kitchens connect. Busiest of the housewives, working women, dutiful husbands, accomplished bachelors, bespectacled dadajis and bemused daadis all watch cookery shows with interest. If your product /brand have remotest connection with kitchen put your ads in the cookery show and be assured of a sizeable viewership.
Only a couple of decades back kitchen was out of bounds for everybody else except mothers and home makers. Male members’ duty would end with bringing ingredients at the kitchen door. Nor were they interested to know what was happening inside; they were more interested in what was coming out of it rather than what going on inside it.
Things change, stories evolve, plots take new turns and cookery and kitchen were no exception to this law of evolution. As the joint family structure crumbled, women started taking bolder strides into the male world, managing home and office the old elaborate traditional recipes looked desperately out of sync. So were the proponents of them-mothers, dadimas and mother-in-laws. Brands and gadgets jumped in to fill the gap; media took up the role of the new cooking coach and elevated cooking from a daily chore to an exciting serial.
Cookery shows, as represented through camera eye create a sweat less spectacle of feast for the eyes. Under the cool light and cooler air-conditioned ambience of the studio fire burns without smoke, thanks to efficient chimneys, ferocity of frying have been tamed by the shining, silent ovens. The crude and laborious parts of cooking like cutting and cleaning are carefully photo shopped from the frame. Shots of fresh Vegetables dissolve into pre- peeled, chopped, sized and washed pieces in clean glass bowls and Teflon coated pans. Even the ordinary cooking medium like oil sugar and spices are introduced like the cast of a drama with close up spotlight shots. Cookery show is an attempt to spice up the ordinary, glamorizing the grind.
There is an element of discovery and surprise in these shows; the shows bring to limelight the unsung culinary skill of the ordinary or that of the people who are successful or famous in fields other than cooking .As a show it is a complete dish by itself. It neither demands continuity from the archive of our memory space as to what has happened before nor does it leave anything in the “to be continued” format .It is free of the past legacy and future expectations. It narrates, educates, demonstrates and finally rewards the viewer in flat 20 minutes. There is a cogent transaction of skills between the performer and the spectators; recipe empowers the recipients.
No wonder the reality shows based on cooking have grown in popularity across the world. The most popular one - The Master Chef has broken ratings records in two of the world’s biggest markets. It has been successfully running in UK since 1990 and the Australian version became third most watched Australian TV program since 2001. Master Chef is not just a TV show, it has become a cultural phenomena. The soon to come Indian version is even more dramatic because it goes a step further. The show will offer to set the winner for life. The grand prize will be a restaurant in winner’s name. Which the winner will run and make an occupation out of his talent and thus change his/her life forever.
Cookery shows have already made waves in the bigger screen. A Meryl Streep and Amy Adams starrer Julie &Julia went on to receive 27 awards and nominations in different film festivals including nomination for Academy Awards. The screen play was based on two true stories ; My Life in France, Julia Child's autobiography and a memoir by Julie Powell documenting online her daily experiences of cooking each of the 524 recipes in Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
A culinary legend (Julia Child) provides a frustrated office worker (Julie Powell) with a new recipe for life in Julie and Julia. That’s where probably lies the power of cookery shows. It not only tells you how to make you food taste better it also says, that if you have the passion for cooking you can add a new flavor to your life and to the world around. And that’s a recipe worth talking about!
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Biking and bragging
Bikes have an inherent problem of managing the “I” factor. It kick starts a big ego ; an ego which is embedded in its DNA. Distinctly differentiated from the docile domesticated scooter bikes are born to defy all codes of control and restraint. In its compact entity it is stuffed with power that can match four wheelers in speed and acceleration. What it loses in size it compensates in sound, be it in the boom of the engine or in the unusually loud horn. If a scooter purrs, a bike blares.
The bike and the biker complement each other in this ego trip. Sitting on his sleek bike and covering his head inside a space–suit designed helmet ,the known family man transforms himself into an cold mechanical entity .His family on the pillion looks in contrast extremely fragile ,vulnerable and far removed from his steely cocooned world. His behavior also highlights this change. Ask any motorist they dread a biker more than an autowala . The biker would dodge, dribble, defy all traffic rules. His ego lies in his acceleration, defying gravitation; speed creates a blurred sphere around him where his only audience is he himself. In his mental amphitheatre he is the performer and he is the only viewer.
What about the bike ads . Do they mirror this to motivate consumer or engage with hardcore feature selling like any other machine ads?
A good number of the bike advertising are built around ego trip. Why the biker lifts the front wheel or jumps the terrains or negotiates the hair raising turns and to what end? His megalomania takes different forms .When he is in the deluxe mode he thinks he is the harbinger of change and lives a larger than life existence; he changes everything from spotted shirts to dotted dogs; in his world Tommy bhi deluxe. In his more enlightened mood he rises above petty clashes and glitches of life. His magnanimity makes him forgive his father or a teacher who chastised him, or the boss who humiliated him. In his euphoria he soars above all failures.
Another set of ads portray his ego in quixotic absurdity. A Ritwik Roshan fights with a tornado to retrieve his cap; in another occasion he engages literally into mudslinging with what looks like a band of outlaws. There is no damsel in distress no oppressed soul to be protected from the oppressor; no fires exchanged no bad words; tit for tat mud for mud. Is it a very male thing to do? Are these commercials really connecting with teen age fancy?
Leaving aside the ego portrayal the rest of the bike advertising are hardcore feature selling. Fuel economy, durability, trendy looks and switch start and the latest auto transmission system. Why should bike advertising need to stick to the speed, power, glamour, fuel efficiency or technical superiority. In order to be a brand a product needs to be more than a bike / machine. Have we, as communicators, really looked into life and tried to understand the role a two wheeler plays in our lives. Out on the street dramas being enacted every day. I was a witness to one such around two bikers.
I was driving along a road which had a little stretch of climb. The pushcart on the left side of the road dumped with cement bags was being pushed up by a profusely sweating laborer. His stamina was first draining out and very soon the cart started rolling back slowly threatening to crush the puller under its weight .In came from nowhere two bikers with all the filmy trappings- leather gloves, eye gear et al and positioned themselves on either side of the rolling cart;firmly positioning themselves on their bikes each one propped one leg on to the cart and throttled their bike engines. Within seconds the rolling reversed and the cart with combined man and machine power started negotiating the climb. The sweating cart puller looked gratefully to the young bikers who gave him a smile and thumps up and then once the cart got into level road they disappeared.
Imagine the sequence as a TV commmercial!It's sad we dont look around and make every communication so formula and so straight jacketed. what do you think?
The bike and the biker complement each other in this ego trip. Sitting on his sleek bike and covering his head inside a space–suit designed helmet ,the known family man transforms himself into an cold mechanical entity .His family on the pillion looks in contrast extremely fragile ,vulnerable and far removed from his steely cocooned world. His behavior also highlights this change. Ask any motorist they dread a biker more than an autowala . The biker would dodge, dribble, defy all traffic rules. His ego lies in his acceleration, defying gravitation; speed creates a blurred sphere around him where his only audience is he himself. In his mental amphitheatre he is the performer and he is the only viewer.
What about the bike ads . Do they mirror this to motivate consumer or engage with hardcore feature selling like any other machine ads?
A good number of the bike advertising are built around ego trip. Why the biker lifts the front wheel or jumps the terrains or negotiates the hair raising turns and to what end? His megalomania takes different forms .When he is in the deluxe mode he thinks he is the harbinger of change and lives a larger than life existence; he changes everything from spotted shirts to dotted dogs; in his world Tommy bhi deluxe. In his more enlightened mood he rises above petty clashes and glitches of life. His magnanimity makes him forgive his father or a teacher who chastised him, or the boss who humiliated him. In his euphoria he soars above all failures.
Another set of ads portray his ego in quixotic absurdity. A Ritwik Roshan fights with a tornado to retrieve his cap; in another occasion he engages literally into mudslinging with what looks like a band of outlaws. There is no damsel in distress no oppressed soul to be protected from the oppressor; no fires exchanged no bad words; tit for tat mud for mud. Is it a very male thing to do? Are these commercials really connecting with teen age fancy?
Leaving aside the ego portrayal the rest of the bike advertising are hardcore feature selling. Fuel economy, durability, trendy looks and switch start and the latest auto transmission system. Why should bike advertising need to stick to the speed, power, glamour, fuel efficiency or technical superiority. In order to be a brand a product needs to be more than a bike / machine. Have we, as communicators, really looked into life and tried to understand the role a two wheeler plays in our lives. Out on the street dramas being enacted every day. I was a witness to one such around two bikers.
I was driving along a road which had a little stretch of climb. The pushcart on the left side of the road dumped with cement bags was being pushed up by a profusely sweating laborer. His stamina was first draining out and very soon the cart started rolling back slowly threatening to crush the puller under its weight .In came from nowhere two bikers with all the filmy trappings- leather gloves, eye gear et al and positioned themselves on either side of the rolling cart;firmly positioning themselves on their bikes each one propped one leg on to the cart and throttled their bike engines. Within seconds the rolling reversed and the cart with combined man and machine power started negotiating the climb. The sweating cart puller looked gratefully to the young bikers who gave him a smile and thumps up and then once the cart got into level road they disappeared.
Imagine the sequence as a TV commmercial!It's sad we dont look around and make every communication so formula and so straight jacketed. what do you think?
Monday, March 1, 2010
building brand from scratch
I was one of the speakers in the Entrepreneurship Summit organized by the Entrepreneurship Development Cell, IIT Delhi . It was so inspiring to see a hall full of young budding and potential entrepreneurs eagerly waiting to get some tip which they are going to use in their scheme of things. This is no routine class lecture nor is a forum where you get away making some intelligent points. This is a battle field and you are in the midst of generals who genuinely believe that you can talk something meaningful and share some tip which will make difference in their ventures. I shifted uneasily in my chair; I have not built any brand from scratch nor have I dared to wear the mantle of an entrepreneur; what was I going to talk. Arjun saved me. The story of Arjun made me look like some sort of an expert to those fifty staring eyes in the Summit room.
This is the story of Arjun. Arjun is no important figure. He is a fisherman in a small town of West Bengal who used to and still sells fish in the local fish market in the evening. He was like any one of the twenty other fish sellers in tattered clothes in that poorly lit fish market squatting in front of his heap of fishes and shouting at the top of his voice trying to draw attention of the cautious customers to buy Hilsa from him. But Arjun decided to be different and he did that successfully.
One fine evening all of us rediscovered a new Arjun. Arjun has stopped squatting. He got an wooden packing box and placed his Hilsa fish on a bamboo trey covered with green shining plantain leaves on top of it , organized a dedicated electric bulb connection to lit up his propped up stall and that was not all . He had changed into a clean kurta and payjama. A young teenager, most probably his nephew was seen by his side organizing the pile of fishes, sprinkling water and cutting and dressing them when a customer had ordered some quantity.
Conspicuous by its presence was also an electronic weighing machine .People were looking at hi fishes and also at his weighing machine. Greeting every customer with folded hands Arjun engaged himself into an animated conversation with them about the types and varieties of hilsa, their respective tastes and recipes. The nephew shouted – “buy the best, buy Arjun’s Hilsa”. Arjun’s Hilsa was demanding a premium of Rs 5 per KG but everybody was buying them. In a fortnight Arjun’s became the best seller in that market .Before we could fully realize we heard ourselves talking to our guests -please have one more piece of Hilsa; this was from Arjun’s. Arjun did not stop there. He went on to do things which only an entrepreneur could have done but more about it later.
So far whatever Arjun had done is itself a perfect brand building exercise from the scratch. Here is a guy who has put his thinking cap on and have tried to understand his customer, their needs and desire, his category and competition, the market place - which for him was the fish market itself; his own strength and weakness, his core competence and what value he can add to his commodity, how can he brand his value and communicate it meaningfully to the customers and charge a premium.
Arjun demonstrated a model of how to build a brand; two things helped him in this effort- his intense desire to succeed and his intelligent application of common sense. No brand building exercise can start unless the road map is clear. Where am I and where do I want to go. The travel itself is not anywhere else but in the landscape of the consumers ‘mind. Where are we in the consumer’s mind today – what is the position of the brand in their mind. Does it exist or not; if it is then in what form? Having answered that query the next vital question is the destination question. Where do we want to be in their mind? That is the brand objective. Since all these search is in the mind space of the consumer a thorough knowledge of the mind of the consumer – their hopes and fears, need and desires – is a precondition to this quest.
Arjun knew that to his consumers he was just another fish seller- , and he is a victim of the perception that the fishermen in that market had already created in the minds of the consumers; all fisher men are thugs -big or small. There was no escape from it .If the price was more he was a chor (cut throat) if the price was reasonable then the perception was he must have tampered with the scale. If there was nothing wrong with either of them there definitely would be something fishy about quality.
Quality was always questioned because for a customer it was difficult to bend down in that filthy, poorly lit market and select the best fish. Nor was it possible to judge the quality from touch and feel as every piece of fish was stuffed in ice dust. “Another Fishy fish seller “that’s how Arjun was position in his consumers’ mind. Having understood his perception in the consumers’ mind Arjun refused to stay in that position. He wanted to be the most sought after fish seller .A journey from the position of suspicion to the position of pride. How did he do that?
Arjun had quite a few things to fix. The central one was to change the perception about himself. He understood that in this commodity market he was the brand and not his fish. Therefore the way he used to sell his fish had to change. The rituals around his selling needed to change dramatically but in a credible way. This led Arjun to focus on a cluster of activities which involved – clearing suspicion from the minds of his consumer, bringing ease and transparency in transaction, creating an ambience of freshness .Simultaneously he started repackaging himself to create customer confidence by showing his core competence. Arjun believed that the combined effect of these changes would create value in the minds of his consumer about him and his product. If people see value they would pay for it
How did he achieve them?
Lifting his fishes from floor – ease of choice and accessibility between the product and customer
Light – focus and clarity of perception; nothing is hidden therefore transparency
Trey with green leaves - freshness cues ; contrast enhancing display of the fish
Electronic weighing machine – tamperproof – Carat -o-meter in fish quality?
Squatting to stand up- shift from begging posture to being at par
Dressing up – respectability, standing on the same platform with the customer
Educating – tips on how to choose the fresh fish, discussion on different variety of Hilsa, their relative taste and quality, tips about other fishes. Arjun leveraged his core competence. Only Arjun had the required expertise to talk about fish. Arjun was not just a fish seller but also an expert on fish.
Assistant – the physical activity transferred to the assistant. Arjun is not the worker but the owner of his fish stall
Arjun’s Hilsa Branding- the assurance of differential quality
Premium pricing –Polite refusal to go down, sensible people don’t bargain
Arjun had not read books of marketing but he had read the market, customer and his own abilities well. Arjun went ahead in life. In a year’s time he moved out of the clutter of the fish market, set up a small shop outside the market place. Arjun started home delivery on phone call, started his fish dressing which included marinating. Arjun also knew that he continued to add value to his trade. He got hold of a team of local cooks and trained them in some specialty fish dishes .A local spice trader found Arjun enterprising and joined hands to promote his spice. A recipe book was printed and distributed to the loyal customers. Arjun found to his surprise one morning that a microwave brand was interested in a joint promo; A Chef hosted a hilsa cooking show for a local TV channel ;Arjun’s shop was extensively covered .Road has a wonderful way of opening up once you dare to walk on it. Arjun now a days is dreaming of opening up a chain of Hilsa restaurants a la Only Fish!
Posted by kissece at 1:02 AM 0 comments
This is the story of Arjun. Arjun is no important figure. He is a fisherman in a small town of West Bengal who used to and still sells fish in the local fish market in the evening. He was like any one of the twenty other fish sellers in tattered clothes in that poorly lit fish market squatting in front of his heap of fishes and shouting at the top of his voice trying to draw attention of the cautious customers to buy Hilsa from him. But Arjun decided to be different and he did that successfully.
One fine evening all of us rediscovered a new Arjun. Arjun has stopped squatting. He got an wooden packing box and placed his Hilsa fish on a bamboo trey covered with green shining plantain leaves on top of it , organized a dedicated electric bulb connection to lit up his propped up stall and that was not all . He had changed into a clean kurta and payjama. A young teenager, most probably his nephew was seen by his side organizing the pile of fishes, sprinkling water and cutting and dressing them when a customer had ordered some quantity.
Conspicuous by its presence was also an electronic weighing machine .People were looking at hi fishes and also at his weighing machine. Greeting every customer with folded hands Arjun engaged himself into an animated conversation with them about the types and varieties of hilsa, their respective tastes and recipes. The nephew shouted – “buy the best, buy Arjun’s Hilsa”. Arjun’s Hilsa was demanding a premium of Rs 5 per KG but everybody was buying them. In a fortnight Arjun’s became the best seller in that market .Before we could fully realize we heard ourselves talking to our guests -please have one more piece of Hilsa; this was from Arjun’s. Arjun did not stop there. He went on to do things which only an entrepreneur could have done but more about it later.
So far whatever Arjun had done is itself a perfect brand building exercise from the scratch. Here is a guy who has put his thinking cap on and have tried to understand his customer, their needs and desire, his category and competition, the market place - which for him was the fish market itself; his own strength and weakness, his core competence and what value he can add to his commodity, how can he brand his value and communicate it meaningfully to the customers and charge a premium.
Arjun demonstrated a model of how to build a brand; two things helped him in this effort- his intense desire to succeed and his intelligent application of common sense. No brand building exercise can start unless the road map is clear. Where am I and where do I want to go. The travel itself is not anywhere else but in the landscape of the consumers ‘mind. Where are we in the consumer’s mind today – what is the position of the brand in their mind. Does it exist or not; if it is then in what form? Having answered that query the next vital question is the destination question. Where do we want to be in their mind? That is the brand objective. Since all these search is in the mind space of the consumer a thorough knowledge of the mind of the consumer – their hopes and fears, need and desires – is a precondition to this quest.
Arjun knew that to his consumers he was just another fish seller- , and he is a victim of the perception that the fishermen in that market had already created in the minds of the consumers; all fisher men are thugs -big or small. There was no escape from it .If the price was more he was a chor (cut throat) if the price was reasonable then the perception was he must have tampered with the scale. If there was nothing wrong with either of them there definitely would be something fishy about quality.
Quality was always questioned because for a customer it was difficult to bend down in that filthy, poorly lit market and select the best fish. Nor was it possible to judge the quality from touch and feel as every piece of fish was stuffed in ice dust. “Another Fishy fish seller “that’s how Arjun was position in his consumers’ mind. Having understood his perception in the consumers’ mind Arjun refused to stay in that position. He wanted to be the most sought after fish seller .A journey from the position of suspicion to the position of pride. How did he do that?
Arjun had quite a few things to fix. The central one was to change the perception about himself. He understood that in this commodity market he was the brand and not his fish. Therefore the way he used to sell his fish had to change. The rituals around his selling needed to change dramatically but in a credible way. This led Arjun to focus on a cluster of activities which involved – clearing suspicion from the minds of his consumer, bringing ease and transparency in transaction, creating an ambience of freshness .Simultaneously he started repackaging himself to create customer confidence by showing his core competence. Arjun believed that the combined effect of these changes would create value in the minds of his consumer about him and his product. If people see value they would pay for it
How did he achieve them?
Lifting his fishes from floor – ease of choice and accessibility between the product and customer
Light – focus and clarity of perception; nothing is hidden therefore transparency
Trey with green leaves - freshness cues ; contrast enhancing display of the fish
Electronic weighing machine – tamperproof – Carat -o-meter in fish quality?
Squatting to stand up- shift from begging posture to being at par
Dressing up – respectability, standing on the same platform with the customer
Educating – tips on how to choose the fresh fish, discussion on different variety of Hilsa, their relative taste and quality, tips about other fishes. Arjun leveraged his core competence. Only Arjun had the required expertise to talk about fish. Arjun was not just a fish seller but also an expert on fish.
Assistant – the physical activity transferred to the assistant. Arjun is not the worker but the owner of his fish stall
Arjun’s Hilsa Branding- the assurance of differential quality
Premium pricing –Polite refusal to go down, sensible people don’t bargain
Arjun had not read books of marketing but he had read the market, customer and his own abilities well. Arjun went ahead in life. In a year’s time he moved out of the clutter of the fish market, set up a small shop outside the market place. Arjun started home delivery on phone call, started his fish dressing which included marinating. Arjun also knew that he continued to add value to his trade. He got hold of a team of local cooks and trained them in some specialty fish dishes .A local spice trader found Arjun enterprising and joined hands to promote his spice. A recipe book was printed and distributed to the loyal customers. Arjun found to his surprise one morning that a microwave brand was interested in a joint promo; A Chef hosted a hilsa cooking show for a local TV channel ;Arjun’s shop was extensively covered .Road has a wonderful way of opening up once you dare to walk on it. Arjun now a days is dreaming of opening up a chain of Hilsa restaurants a la Only Fish!
Posted by kissece at 1:02 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
youth vs Youthful
In the Mahabharata King Yayati swapped his old age with the youth of his son Bharat and enjoyed his youth for cool 100 years. Epics are full of instances of how the elders time and again gate crashed into the life of younger generation because of their own selfish enjoyment. Pitamaha Vishma was left stranded for life in the marriage market because of his father’s fatal attraction of a fisher woman, Lord Ram wandered around in wilderness best years of his post married life because of his dad’s faux passé with another young woman. Today when the elderly generation is again making an extra effort to be youthful and merge in the world of youth it may be an interesting idea to study how youth of today are coping up with this intrusion and are trying to differentiate themselves from the youthful old.
How are they different from the senior youth; what ritual, trend, culture they follow to preserve the rightful, youthful stamp of their own community? What strategies they imbibe to put this adventurous old lot in their rightful place? The answer to these questions has more than academic interest especially for the marketers who want to cater to a specific segment of youth through their products
One simple formula of showing more youthfulness is to run extra yard on some trend and raise the bar. Fashion and look is one visible differentiator of the youth community. And face is the mirror. And hair is the primary zone of creating novelty and variety. No wonder hair color, hair styles are doing overtime in the youth zone. Experts giving multi expressions to crowning glory of the young generation; along with traditional variations of shortcut ,long cut, bald, crew are hundred other variations of half bald , curl, half curl, straightened , spiky , sleepy , wavy variety. The world is your palette chose any wonky variety and you look cool. A new wave of beautification has lashed into hitherto restricted world of male grooming. Aamir in Gajni showed even scar can be converted into style. Bit and pieces of beards create interesting frescoes on the faces of male through innovative latitudinal and longitudinal shapes of beards and whiskers. In unisex saloons and beauty parlors young boys and girls are seen exchanging beauty and waxing tips. A whole range of male toiletries have made their appearance in the beauty world. Gels moose, fairness cream.
Displays of slim supple, packful bodies become the bedrock of fashion and youth. Bare body, see-through shirts, knots of ties around naked necks , colorful tattoos leaping out of the skimpy coverings of inner wears-all seem to celebrate a new canvas of young skin. Youth shows. Male body is shouting for attention across media be it glamorous bathing scene of Sharukh from the depths of a bath tub in the Lux commercial or the mirror image of the fairness cream smeared dude in Emami fairness cream ad or the peeping derriere of John in Dostana. As 50 plus heroes and other aged silver screen idols start challenging the youth with sculpted body youth value add their appearance with elaborate tattoos and painful body pierce. The idea as if is to tell the world that Mard ho to aisa. The challenge is more daring in dress codes-low raised jeans demanding full body waxing, straps of bra complementing the off shoulder top briefs and bikinis showcasing the youthful excess. Steamy scenes and intimate body contacts are almost a ritual of all brand communications targeting to the youth. Perfumes ,deodorants, even mundane toothpaste ads are replete with images of high voltage sensuality; youth getting intimate in all conceivable and inconceivable places-- on bikes, inside lifts, around revolving glass doors of shopping arcades. Ten years back Humara Bajaj ad displayed Indian restraint as hugging couples separated themselves at the sight of an elderly person today the woman indulged in love bite on the back of a speeding bike in full public view shocking the traditional sensibilities.
Extremity revels in the growing popularity of TV programmes on extreme sports and reality shows. Fear Factor when it first appeared a couple of years ago had a lukewarm response but Khatron ka khilari is gaining in popularity year by year pushing the boundaries in dare devilry. Protagonists are no stuntmen but girls and some of them are popular actresses of hitherto sob serials of saas & bahu . Till yesterday they all screamed at the sight of a cockroach today they are sleeping with bagful of creepy crawlies. The question is how long this superficial differentiation sustains itself. Considering that the elderly are increasingly becoming part of these shows the boundaries will again blur. The American reality shows like Fear Factor and I Am a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, have already quite a few senior adults. Rocky Sylvester Stallone still wants to rock on the boxing arena.
One way of countering these advances is to treat these efforts as childish and laugh at them indulgently as the NRI son in MasterCard ad laughs at the childish mirth of his parents at Disney Land or shrugging at the sight of a dadji dancing to glory in a chewing gum ad; The close encounter where the youth and youthful are negotiating each other on the platform of fatal attraction are still painted with smoke and mystery. In Dil chahata hai the relation between young man and middle aged women was more in the mind and remained inconclusive. In Nishsabd Amitabh finally came out of his infatuation for the teen age girl when his daughter put her foot down. In the Virgin Mobile commercial the teen aged boy got into mock flirting with attractive Dimple aunty more to buy pass her veto to meet her daughter and to take her to a movie before impending exam time.
Sexual advances and tendencies of youthful old are still subjects of fun and prank. Young boys made a mockery of middle aged Mr Mahalingam in another Virgin Mobile ad as they impersonated the role of a phirang telephone sex provider. There is a fresh galore of dada, dadi hugging, doing Namaste and touching fee, following religious rituals in the world of youth as reflected in the entertainment and mass communication arena be it in a TVC, film, serial or a soap.
In India people are still defined by not what they are but what role they play. It is a reality even the glamour world accepts .In Dus ka Dum Salman Khan tells his teen age fan, who had a crush on him, that she could well be his daughter’s age had he got married in time. Parenthood still is such an all encompassing high pressure role that everything else gets swept out in front of it. Media is continuously beaming this message and getting popularity. Pati Patni aur woh is more than soap; it is a modern day crash course in parenthood for young couples who almost are made to go through a workshop of how to handle a baby, tackle a toddler, manage a brat, adjust to a teenager and accommodate elders. One wonders why a film like Paa is being released at this juncture. Are these sheer co incidences or the reflections of a traditional society trying to correct and reset the age old equation between youth and old youthful unsettled by the forces of unbridled consumption culture?
How are they different from the senior youth; what ritual, trend, culture they follow to preserve the rightful, youthful stamp of their own community? What strategies they imbibe to put this adventurous old lot in their rightful place? The answer to these questions has more than academic interest especially for the marketers who want to cater to a specific segment of youth through their products
One simple formula of showing more youthfulness is to run extra yard on some trend and raise the bar. Fashion and look is one visible differentiator of the youth community. And face is the mirror. And hair is the primary zone of creating novelty and variety. No wonder hair color, hair styles are doing overtime in the youth zone. Experts giving multi expressions to crowning glory of the young generation; along with traditional variations of shortcut ,long cut, bald, crew are hundred other variations of half bald , curl, half curl, straightened , spiky , sleepy , wavy variety. The world is your palette chose any wonky variety and you look cool. A new wave of beautification has lashed into hitherto restricted world of male grooming. Aamir in Gajni showed even scar can be converted into style. Bit and pieces of beards create interesting frescoes on the faces of male through innovative latitudinal and longitudinal shapes of beards and whiskers. In unisex saloons and beauty parlors young boys and girls are seen exchanging beauty and waxing tips. A whole range of male toiletries have made their appearance in the beauty world. Gels moose, fairness cream.
Displays of slim supple, packful bodies become the bedrock of fashion and youth. Bare body, see-through shirts, knots of ties around naked necks , colorful tattoos leaping out of the skimpy coverings of inner wears-all seem to celebrate a new canvas of young skin. Youth shows. Male body is shouting for attention across media be it glamorous bathing scene of Sharukh from the depths of a bath tub in the Lux commercial or the mirror image of the fairness cream smeared dude in Emami fairness cream ad or the peeping derriere of John in Dostana. As 50 plus heroes and other aged silver screen idols start challenging the youth with sculpted body youth value add their appearance with elaborate tattoos and painful body pierce. The idea as if is to tell the world that Mard ho to aisa. The challenge is more daring in dress codes-low raised jeans demanding full body waxing, straps of bra complementing the off shoulder top briefs and bikinis showcasing the youthful excess. Steamy scenes and intimate body contacts are almost a ritual of all brand communications targeting to the youth. Perfumes ,deodorants, even mundane toothpaste ads are replete with images of high voltage sensuality; youth getting intimate in all conceivable and inconceivable places-- on bikes, inside lifts, around revolving glass doors of shopping arcades. Ten years back Humara Bajaj ad displayed Indian restraint as hugging couples separated themselves at the sight of an elderly person today the woman indulged in love bite on the back of a speeding bike in full public view shocking the traditional sensibilities.
Extremity revels in the growing popularity of TV programmes on extreme sports and reality shows. Fear Factor when it first appeared a couple of years ago had a lukewarm response but Khatron ka khilari is gaining in popularity year by year pushing the boundaries in dare devilry. Protagonists are no stuntmen but girls and some of them are popular actresses of hitherto sob serials of saas & bahu . Till yesterday they all screamed at the sight of a cockroach today they are sleeping with bagful of creepy crawlies. The question is how long this superficial differentiation sustains itself. Considering that the elderly are increasingly becoming part of these shows the boundaries will again blur. The American reality shows like Fear Factor and I Am a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, have already quite a few senior adults. Rocky Sylvester Stallone still wants to rock on the boxing arena.
One way of countering these advances is to treat these efforts as childish and laugh at them indulgently as the NRI son in MasterCard ad laughs at the childish mirth of his parents at Disney Land or shrugging at the sight of a dadji dancing to glory in a chewing gum ad; The close encounter where the youth and youthful are negotiating each other on the platform of fatal attraction are still painted with smoke and mystery. In Dil chahata hai the relation between young man and middle aged women was more in the mind and remained inconclusive. In Nishsabd Amitabh finally came out of his infatuation for the teen age girl when his daughter put her foot down. In the Virgin Mobile commercial the teen aged boy got into mock flirting with attractive Dimple aunty more to buy pass her veto to meet her daughter and to take her to a movie before impending exam time.
Sexual advances and tendencies of youthful old are still subjects of fun and prank. Young boys made a mockery of middle aged Mr Mahalingam in another Virgin Mobile ad as they impersonated the role of a phirang telephone sex provider. There is a fresh galore of dada, dadi hugging, doing Namaste and touching fee, following religious rituals in the world of youth as reflected in the entertainment and mass communication arena be it in a TVC, film, serial or a soap.
In India people are still defined by not what they are but what role they play. It is a reality even the glamour world accepts .In Dus ka Dum Salman Khan tells his teen age fan, who had a crush on him, that she could well be his daughter’s age had he got married in time. Parenthood still is such an all encompassing high pressure role that everything else gets swept out in front of it. Media is continuously beaming this message and getting popularity. Pati Patni aur woh is more than soap; it is a modern day crash course in parenthood for young couples who almost are made to go through a workshop of how to handle a baby, tackle a toddler, manage a brat, adjust to a teenager and accommodate elders. One wonders why a film like Paa is being released at this juncture. Are these sheer co incidences or the reflections of a traditional society trying to correct and reset the age old equation between youth and old youthful unsettled by the forces of unbridled consumption culture?
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