AT&T and Verizon - Shut up!

Posted on March 2, 2010
Filed Under Marketing | 2 Comments

If you’ve seen an hour straight of television, you’ve seen the following AT&T and Verizon ads.

These companies seem to have gotten into a battle similar to what a third grade student would do. I’m better than you. No! I’m better than you. It’s cute up to a point and after that it’s just annoying.

So, AT&T and Verizon or any other network carrier out there - I ask you these questions.

Q1) Imagine a young girl walking home after an exhausting day. Its cold outside and the only other sound on the street is from the swaying leaves. She thinks she is being followed, but checks it off to her paranoia. She is however, being followed. What do you think she does next?

Q2) Imagine a family  caught in the midst of a disaster. A flood. A terrorist attack in the city. Worse, a rumor of a terrorist attack in the city. What is the first thing they do to make sure their loved ones are ok?

I’ll tell you want they don’t do. Log on to the internet with their acclaimed 3G or3gs service. They call. The first thing they do is dial a number.

So to cut to the point. Yes, I do care if you have great 3g coverage. But, yes I care more about having actual network. I, an AT&T user, struggle to get network coverage in so many locations in New Jersey and New York. God forbid, I land myself in a disaster and my only source of communication, my phone, dies on me cause I have no network.

Think about it. If you were ever walking on a road, alone, getting back home late and you didn’t have coverage. It does make you feel insecure. It makes me feel disconnected and vulnerable.

AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone and the other out there. The question you should ask yourself in these times when an snow storm is followed by an earthquake, which is followed by a tsunami warning - Are you what you should be to a consumer?

Give us the basic connection first — then add your bells and whistles.

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HAPPO, Hire me.

Posted on February 19, 2010
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Happo you should hire me because

You can get more information about me on my LinkedIn profile, Blog and twitter.

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Barcodes for the win

Posted on February 15, 2010
Filed Under Ideas | 4 Comments

Train rides in India can be fun, especially if you’re a kid. If you’re the kid’s mother ,however , not so much. Why? Food on a 18 - 20 hour train ride is a night mare. What is authentic, what is not? Worse, what about milk and about the fake packaging that look so real you can’t make out. Here is my solution.

If your company products were sold on a trains, you should ask yourself two question: What is the one thing you can be equipped with that is financially not feasible to the fake market? And will that one thing have an impact on the quality and reputation of your brand.

My solution answers both of those questions: integrate barcoding and mobile application. Increase quality and assurance of your product.

The idea is simple.

Step 1: Smart barcode your packages

Step 2: Make a mobile application that recognizes the barcode, either by barcode recognition, taking a picture or entering a number.

Step 3: Application will recognize barcode, give infomation such as manufacturing and expiry date and ways to see if the package has been hampered with.

Step 4 :  Hire me :)

Advantages: It will assure customers that you care about their health and hence the quality of your product. This idea is not limited to just trains, It even applies to your local grocery story. Mothers will love you. So will all those conscious school and college goers who at least go on annual educational trips. International tourist will advantage too.

Verticals: This can be used across products such as bottled mineral water, milk cartons, Indian beverage brands such as Frooti.

Disadvantages: Financial budget to carry this idea. Loss of spontaneity. Time delay in buying product.  However, the question to be answered is, can the advantages outweighs the financial disadvantages?

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Setting The Bar High

Posted on February 12, 2010
Filed Under Political Communication In India | 3 Comments

If there is one politician that clearly gets it, it is Rahul Gandhi. He has been described as young, dynamic, smart and even cute. What he has not been described as, is a strategist and an opportunist (in a good way, obviously). Here is what he is doing right :

1) Continuing to campaign: It takes time to build relationships and Mr Gandhi gets that. He has over the past few months visited Orrisa, Allahabad, Bhinar and Mumbai to name a few.

2) Understanding your audience: Visiting students in universities has become Mr. Gandhi’s staple diet. These students also happen to be part of the largest voter demographic. In college most students are politically neutral, worried more about their report cards and relationships rather than policies and politicians. His student visits do two things. One - He gets a vibe of what the students are thinking, their concerns and their eagerness to be politically involved. Two - He distinguishes himself as someone who cares enough to visit and talk to them.

3) From Crisis to Conquest - Everywhere Rahul Gandhi, goes he creates news. In a news environment where even a fly could make breaking news, Rahul Gandhi’s every move is super analyzed and criticized. However, Mr Gandhi holds to his core values. He tells them what he wants to tells them, tells them again and tells them some more. He sticks to his message. His wit is one of his greatest weapons and the Mumbai visit stood witness to the same.

After all that he has done and continues to do, here is my question. What is your local politicians excuse to not interact with you ? Do you know what they spend their time doing ? Worse, do you only see and hear from them during elections?

My local politicians is Milind Deora. He may be young and bla, but interactive, he is not. So , I wonder, what’s his excuse?

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Political Communication In India.

Posted on February 6, 2010
Filed Under Political Communication In India | Leave a Comment

I’m writing this post with two intentions in mind. One, I need help with my capstone paper and two, I need your input. Given that I am not a political pundit, I am, however, fascinated with the complexities it functions with in India. I have therefore decided to pick political communication in India as my capstone topic. The capstone, as my univeristy puts it, requires students to produce a major paper (approximately 50 pages) that makes a contribution to the field of public relations and is deemed “publishable” by our faculty.

My paper will examine political communication in India through three categories: Time, Trends and Technology. India as a country has changed dramatically in the past decade with significant socio-economical, cultural and demographic changes. Besides being the largest democracy in the world, it now entertains close to 35% of first time, educated, technology-savvy, politically unaware voters.

The Paper will review the culture changes that India has seen in the past decade and the effect it has had on political campaigns and communication. It will devote a section of the paper to examine past political communication trends and evolution starting from the 1998 elections to the most recent 2009.  The third and major section of the paper will be devoted to the use of technology in political communication in India. Due to diversity both in terms of culture and language is a huge challenge in India. This third section will look at how political parties have adapted and use technology. It will all briefly examine other countries who have successfully used technology as a tool in political campaigns.

I will examine if technology is a potent tool in a country that is buried in poverty. I will, in addition, offer best practices for the use of technology and other traditional means in political communication.

I would appreciate if you could recommend books or people I should talk to. It would be even better if you could help me get in touch with people.  Your opinions and thoughts are highly appreciated.

Thanks

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Augmented Reality finds itself in a mall.

Posted on February 3, 2010
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You don’t have to sit in front of a computer with a printed paper and witness augmented reality. All you now need to do is take a product you want to buy, flash it in front of the augmented reality kiosk and magic.  I , personally, think that this will be one of the most potent uses of augmented reality. Have a look at this post by Mashable, it points out the top ten marketing campaigns that use augmented reality.

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Chetan Bhagat’s Twitter Controversy

Posted on February 2, 2010
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Chetan Bhagat, is considered India’s fastest selling Indian author by NYTimes. He has in the past few months successfully become India’s publicity drag queen. I’d say he is giving Rakhi Sawant close competition.

First, I am a huge fan of his books.  I think he is smart, sharp and humorous. However, lately he hasn’t been able to portray any of these qualities. His first big controversy broke out on twitter when a simple argument on piracy in India ended up in being a block war. Mr Bhagat, threatened to block his followers if they continued to make smart comments about his view on piracy. His latest controversy broke out after he believed that he was not credited appropriately for a movie that was adapted from his book.

All in all he had a good point to make in both the cases, but instead he chose the wrong words to do so. As part of my Strategic Communication class at NYU, I assessed his twitter controversy and recommended a post crisis communication plan.

You can view or download my presentation here. Make sure, however, that you view the speaker notes while going through the presentation.

My recommendation find their core in 1) sticking to what the message is about

2) Not just apologizing, but mentioning the specific incident he is apologizing for.

3) Spearhead an initiative on piracy in India (Considering he fought with his fans about the matter, the least that he could do is try and make a difference. )

Do let me know what your thoughts on my assessments and recommendations are.

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Indian Brands That Get Twitter.

Posted on January 27, 2010
Filed Under Twitter | 2 Comments

Everyone is gaga over twitter, including lady gaga herself. The value that twitter holds is unmistakable. What is, however, mistakable is the subjective meaning the word ‘value’ carries. Let’s look at a few Indian brands that have worked with the underlying principles of twitter and created value for their brands.

Kingfisher: Even though the handle does say @kingfisherworld, this twitter handle is strictly for Kingfisher Beer. Part of its initial strategy was to monitor what tweople were saying about Kingfisher (which for the most part was always positive). They then started retweeting these positive tweets, the kind of endorsements no money can buy. Now @kingfisherworld has an active community online. It is well integrated and has a high response rate. It has sponsored tweetups, (nothing like some free beer, eh!) and held a contest for the sexy Kingfisher Calendar launch. Most important, it has stuck to its core brand value: King of good times.

Barkha Dutt: After the rift between a blogger and Ms Dutt, her reputation amongst bloggers and others was, well, not pleasant. She was looked upon as a creature that did not only understand the freedom web2.0 had provided but she also despised it. That impression no longer holds true. Ms Dutt has arrived and how. Using the twitter handle @BDUTT she actively engages and facilitates conversations and debates on twitter. Even her mentions about programs on NDTV seem to part of the flow and not preplanned publicity blips. Her twitter presence has lead tweople from Delhi to attend her show ‘We the People’. The only thing she now needs is tweetup presence.

Shashi Tharoor: Who knew Minister of State for External Affair travels so much? Who knew that an Indian politician would actually communicate to the public even when elections are over? Mr. Tharoor, has essential broken all barriers and (if I may say so) humanized the image of politicians. So we now know he likes Mangos, cricket and walking in New York. He also talks about the places he goes too and their connection with India. In 140 characters he has, transformed the notion of transparency to reality. This transformation has not come easy. In the past few months he has taken a lot of flak for his tweets, but he has gained much more respect for his transparency and active engagement on twitter. His engagements have landed in offline meetings – what better way to know your audience than to meet, greet and converse.

Other brands that have done a commendable job are @MTVIndia , @the_hindu and @Cleartrip . What all these brands hold in common and can credit to their success is something simple, something human. Engage, be transparent, be sensible and still be you.

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American news and twitter

Posted on June 14, 2009
Filed Under Mainstream Media v/s Online | Leave a Comment

There is a reason I like Scoble. It’s the way he converses in his writing, an absolute delight to read. Either way, he recently shared this note on Facebook. Briefly, he talks about how Twitter kicked CNN’s behind. He briefly mentions his accidental meet with THE twitter founder @ev (I am as green as the hulk ). He emphasis on the lack of news coverage on the issues taking place in Iran.( His wife is an Iranian.)

I am going to back track a bit here. Lets go back to the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The American media did a half hearted almost ignorant job of covering the event. Consedering Indians comprise 16.4 percent of the Asian-American community in USA, it does account for the “newsworthy” tag, does it not? (Source) .

Located at the center of that terrorist attack is my parents house. The land on which the attacks took place is my childhood playground. The gush of emotions at that time were chaotic in their own dimensions. The only point of contact ,however, was twitter. I remember I stayed up for most part of the 4 day ordeal deliberately , almost obsessively twittering from my safe heaven in New Jersey. Co-ordinating with my parents, friends and most important with my virtual Tworld (Twitter +World) that was updating every second.

So the question comes down to this: Is Iran newsworthy enough for America to drop a Larry King show ? May be not. But the fun part is, may be you dont need CNN. All you need now is a device that connects you to the world and a platform that lets you do so. Twitter did magic for me during the Mumbai attacks. So, you bet I am happy with the knockout mainstream news channels get everytime something big happens.

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Domino’s Pizza Manages Crisis Swiftly.

Posted on April 16, 2009
Filed Under Crisis Communication | 1 Comment

Im not a Domino’s Pizza (or sandwhiches for that matter) fan. A source on twitter yesterday (April 14, 2009) brought the following video to my notice.

Today (April 15th - Terrible Tax Day :P) Domino’s Pizza was swift to respond to the crisis.

Their response was posted on their website.

Furthermore Domino’s Pizza opened a twitter account.

A few lessons that can be learned thanks to Domino’s Pizza swift response.

Golden Hours Matter: Domino’s Pizza swiftly responded to its crisis. Moreover they responded via the same medium that caused the crisis. They titled their response “Disgusting Dominos People - Domino’s Response.” From an SEO perspective, this is genius. Twitter was instrumental in spreading the video that caused the crisis. Recognizing its value as a two edged sword ( forgive the cliche) Domino’s Pizza opened a twitter account and is actively participating on it.

Lead with Humanity: The video response oozed of humanity. Though It would be a tad bit better if he faced the camera or the camera was placed right behind the cue cards that he was reading out of.

Fead the Beast: They did not only identify the location of the incident but they also mentioned what steps they were taking in the future. The outflow of information from Domino’s Pizza should help decrease assumption.

Were they quick enough is a matter of perception. Adage was quick to post a story. Relatively Domino’s Pizza was swift and thorough in its response. They have my thumps up. Does it mean I will eat at Domino’s Pizza ? Not for a while atleast (I can still vidily picture the guy putting cheese in his nose …. Yuck!)

Update: Have a look at this article by USA Today. It clearly states the issue and gives an indept lesson for marketers.

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