Facebook Studio - Check out the good work

All you digital folks wanting to break the digital barriers, here is Facebook Studio. Watch the great campaigns on Facebook so far and learn from it. They also have a Learning Lab. Enjoy.

Digital Life Study

Digital Life - a very interesting study done by TNS. throws up lots of interesting facts about the Digital Life people lives. An useful resource for understanding and planning your digital strategies.

Sony Ericsson's Product Strategy

The new Xperia Play from Sony Ericsson is another wonderful example of Sony Ericsson's product strategy that I mentioned here in 2007. Sony which realised long back that mobile or handheld devices will be the key driving force for all the gadgets in future, was quick to integrate it's sub-brands with its mobile phones. Walkman, Cybershot, Playstation, Viao, Bravia are all well-established brands from the house of Sony. However, in the mobile phone category, there was no strong differentiation for Sony when compared to Nokia's and Motorola's of the world. iPhone came much later if you remember. So why not integrate and leverage the brand equity created by the sub-brands and create a distinctive competitive advantage in the mobile phone category. Wonderful product differentiation strategy. We saw the birth of Walkman Phone followed by Cyber Shot Phone and now Xperia Play which is Xperia + Playstation.

With 4G in place, personal entertainment and watching video on the go is becoming even more popular, its not too far when we'll see a Bravia Phone soon. The Bravia Phone can even be Sony's answer to Tablets. Unlike iPad, the Bravia Tablet can strongly position itself as an On-the-go Entertainment device with all the goodness of Bravia TV inbuilt in it. Am dead sure as and when mobile computing becoomes mainstream, Viao Phone will be made available too. Anyways. Let Sony do what it does best. Build great brands.

Here's the new Xperia Play commercial.

Cheers.

Coke Studio

Coca Cola is the best brand. I don't care what others think, but they know their marketing skills. Coke created Coke Studio in Pakistan. Such a wonderful property. Their Youtube channel is filled with such great content.

The world however did't know about its existence until their Facebook fan page popped up.

If you notice Coke is still silent and not fast enough to spread the concept of Studio in other countries. This is the flip side of global marketing. Response time to identify and implement cross market learnings is so slow that often the impact is lost. Imagine the impact Coke Studio could have in India especially during Aman ki Asha & World Cup or in Myanmar or in Egypt for that matter. Give the youth a platform to express and the use social media to spread the message, spread the love. Such a simple idea that nicely connects back to Coke's core belief of Open Happiness.

I think 2011 will be an year of consolidation by global brands. We'll see lots of Digital Content aggregation happening this year. Content Optimization to be precise. You should check out the work AKQA has done for Heineken, if you haven't yet. So expect global brands like Coca Cola doing lot of content aggregation and optimization this year. Maybe McDonald, Dove, Pepsi, Cadbury etc will jump the bandwagon too.

Cheers.

Get ready to face the challenges of future.

PHd Worldwide, the Future of Media Agency as they like to call themselves has put this video. It is indeed shocking for marketers and communication professionals. When computers become more intelligent than human beings and everything under the sun is interconnected, the consumers of future will indeed demand more. Not only will they demand but they will in fact guide brands, the way they want it to be. Tough times. Be ready to pull up your sleeves.

Change is always good. but its important to keep a tab on the pace of change and anticipate how it will change. Neuroplanning will become the most essential planning tool in a globally connected world. We hardly understand the functioning of Neuromarketing and Neuroplanning - things that will change the future of marketing. Solution will become easy when you can identify the changes about to take place. Here's an excellent speech from Dr. A. K. Pradeep (CEO - Neurofocus)

Be prepared. Cheers.

Philips make sense again

The ‘My Baby & Me’ app made for Philips’ sub brand Avent can help you keep a log of your baby’s growth, weight, sleep, and feeding. The app also allows moms to upload photos, register milestones – like first time crawling – and gives practical tips. Here you can see the instruction film.

With this newapp, created by Muse and Ice Mobile, Philips is yet another step closer to the simplicity in its own pay-off ‘Sense & Simplicity’. It shows that Philips (finally) understands the importance of intuitive software that enhances the functionality of its hardware. Welcome to the future of consumer electronics.

Via Amsterdam Ad Blog.

Why can't you make the Angels more social

Facebook is indeed amazing. They've just introduced Sponsored Stories as part of their Marketing Solutions. Are agencies and clients in India listening?

Sponsored Stories from Facebook can open a floodgate of opportunities, if only marketers are willing to invest and involve themselves in this platform. Social Media is an essential part of the marketing mix but most brands from India who have a Facebook fan page for some reason restricted themselves to stupid status updates. Here's an example:

Axe started Axe Angel Club with more than 1,117,965 people liking the initiative. But when you look at the activities, you just cant stop and laugh. Mindless trivia and questions to get people to respond. That's hardly involving people to start a conversation. On the other hand if Axe started recruiting Angels among the 1117965 fans, it would have created more buzz than the brand could ever imagine. Now thats Return on Involvement. A great example of right brand, right medium but wrong message or maybe the digital agency of Axe India is too naive to think of better ways to engage their fans. Anyways. Facebook page of a brand is not to send stupid status updates but engage fans in a more meaningful way. Especially when you've created such a wonderful property called Angel Club.

Good Luck. Cheers.

BMW activates the future

BMW Films brought a paradigm shift to brand communication. Now BMW Documentaries will usher another change upon us. They're are back with another series. Perfect execution of a perfect strategy. 'Activate the future' is all about the Future of Mobility for the all new electric BMW ActiveE. Four new films - The New City, The future just isn't what it used to be, reinventing mobility and Stop worrying and love the future.

The website says, " From the minds of some of the most influential scientists, academics, pioneers, and entrepreneurs of our times, this four-part documentary paints a unique picture of technology, culture, cities, our past, present and how it all relates to the future of mobility.

BMW Activatethefuture.com is created to get users actively involved in the ever-evolving conversation on the future of mobility. Over the coming months, this site will continue to explore new ways to shape the future of mobility and encourage users' opinions and participation along the way.

So go ahead. Check out the website and start sharing your opinions or become a fan of their Facebook profile

Go ahead. Explore yourself and spread the joy. Cheers.

Social Shopping - Will it be big in India?

After having worked with one of India's largest retail chain clients are often techno-phobic. Especially when it comes to incorporating technology and social media within the marketing mix. Marketers in India always tread with caution when it comes to using social media, user generated content etc though there are exceptions. But that old mindset of open shop, advertise, announce sale and you'll be flooded with footfalls haven't changed at all. Neither have retailers haven't changed their marketing approach to attract the techno-savvy, more discerning, experience seeking, global Indian shoppers.

My counter argument to the client has often been - its New Media, unless you experiment with it, you'll never know what's working and what's not working. The debate continued with endless hours of meetings without any consensus. After much deliberation, finally they agreed to have their own Facebook fan page. I kid you not. After one year of debate, discussion, yay, we have a Facebook fan page with more than 170470 fans. The fastest growing Facebook fan page according to AllFacebook.

The client was so excited that we were invited to a champagne party. Lol. In the party I was blunt enough to ask the client, what about engagement and involvement with these fans. Are we generating enough Return of Involvement? Obviously it wasn't a pretty question to ask in between merry making. But hey, I'm what I am. (I just made this up, anyway. Parties have stopped long back.)

Anyways. The world has moved beyond. Social Shopping and Social Commerce is the next frontier of growth and driving business for all retailers across the world. Groupon is the new lover boy of Social Media. Thousands of other Social Shopping pages are cropping up every day all over the world. So how will Indian Retailers cope with this new phenomenon? And how can retailers like Shopper Stop provide unmatched Social Shopping experience to tech savvy consumers?

"Social shopping attempts use of technology to mimic the social interactions found in physical malls and stores." Well, I maybe way ahead of the curve given urban consumers in India have just started to experience shopping in malls and spending leisurely hours hanging around in malls. Social shopping/ online shopping/ m-commerce/ e-commerce is much ahead of its time for implementation at the moment by most marketers in India. It's true however that many marketing organizations have already started experimentation but the numbers are really small. Personally I think as a marketer, I should always remain knowledgeable and aware of the changing consumer environment and be in a position to anticipate those changes about to happen. I might sound very geeky when say things like this in meetings, getting reactions hard to describe in words. The responsibility lies on the planners to inform their clients about these change points. Implementation of Social Shopping in the marketing mix depends on several other factors beyond a marketers control. Advent of 3G, increasing usage of mobile internet, increasing numbers of smart phone users, VAS and Apps, security issues, banking policies and finally Govt. of India's policy towards m-commerce etc. will together help create a conducive platform that enables the usage of social technologies as an effective marketing tool . Young India jumped on the social media platform much much later compared to the rest of the world. Computer illiteracy and low penetration were two key factors. However, things have changed now. 3G will indeed make internet access more easy and addressable in India, a very good sign. Therefore, social shopping will take its own time, exactly how Orkut & Facebook started its journey in India - slow and steady in the beginning and sudden spike afterwards. So it's important to keep tab on things about to hit us soon. Especially true for retailers who can enable these technologies in their marketing mix. They will stay ahead, desirable, driving imagery while generating more footfalls and making healthy revenues.

Here's a great example from Levi's

This is a serious subject, needs a holistic understanding and a new approach to marketing. Watch out this space for more. I would love to hear your feedback and comments though. Especially given the whole shopping environment around us is changing. Kirana stores to hypermarkets to malls to online stores to discount coupons to online shopping to social shopping. Ha.

To be continued...

Intel going all out

Intel - The Sponsors of Tomorrow is buzzing with fresh ideas. Be it their product, marketing or communication. The recent ads of Intel on TV shows how refreshing and entertaining their advertising can be. Some really great communications out there. The best part - Intel Employees are the biggest spokesperson for their company.

But here's the most bizarre marketing I've come across. The new marketing campaign takes a comical twist release of an online video of the world’s largest Intel chime. The Bass Jump video aims to engage with new audiences and demonstrate Intel’s creative and open approach to marketing.

Bass Jump will further build upon the success of Intel’s popular Cannonbells video. Launched in 2009, Cannonbells reached over 1.6 million views globally and showed five Finnish employees being fired out of a cannon at giant wind chimes that mimic the Intel chime. Bass Jump will feature five Romanian Intel employees diving from a rooftop onto inflatable cushions. Each will in turn create gusts of air that trigger a series of comical horn blasts which will replicate the well-known Intel chime sequence.

The campaign highlights the humorous side of the company’s marketing strategy which is often left concealed, and shows Intel in a different light. This is one company to watch out for. They make technology simpler and communication really entertaining by consistently leveraging the strength of their own employees and bring a change in culture.

Wonder when Indian technology companies will start taking lesson from these great examples. Enjoy.

Cadbury - Confused or Creative?

Sometimes reputed global brands end up making big mistakes. Mostly when it comes to their localisation strategies. I use the word 'Mistake' beacause for some reason I think they have a complete lack of understanding between message and medium, sometime the digital behaviour of netizens (ok consumers who spend lot of time in the digital world) or integration methods or they are just being lazy. Now, I'm not being critical to the good work global marketing team does sitting in their HQ but rather trying to understand where things go wrong. Or maybe it just me thinking in this way.

Let's take an odd example of Cadbury.

Firstly, their corporate worldwide website looks completely different from other country specific websites. Absolutely no similarity amongst each other except the purple colour. Why? Ok, I do understand every region has its own priorities, marketing goals, business objectives, targets etc. Why such inconsistency? And this is something true for most global brands.

Secondly, its confusing to everyone, be it a loyal brand fan...consumer...shareholder...potential investor or just a casual surfer.

Thirdly, what purpose does fancy phrases like 'creating brands people love,' 'performance driven, values led' serve? Instead why don't you just simply mention your corporate core values and beliefs in an entertaining way.

Fourthly, more inconsistency when it comes to localisation of creative thoughts and execution. Best explained by this two examples below...

Scenario 1:

Country - UK, Client - Cadbury UK, Agency - Fallon

Idea: Glass and a Half Full Productions

( I don't need to explain anything here and you all know the story and the awards and how it spread in the digital media etc.)

Scenario 2:

Country - Canada, Client - Cadbury Canada, Agency - The Hive

Idea: Bicycle Factory

Same brand. Two different country. Two complete different message. As a 7 year old internet surfer, who has seen the Gorilla ad on TV, likes it very much decides to go to Cadbury.com will have a complete different perspective. He lives in the digital world, he's too young to understand the difference between cadbury.co.uk and cadbury.ca and might end up being very disappointed. This is where I think most global brands mess up in their digital strategy. Though this is an odd example but there are several brands which ends up doing the same mistake, time and again. Trying to load too much information in the front page, ending up distracting people who visits for fun in the first place. At least, thats how I feel. Maybe am completely wrong. Which means, there is lot of space for improvement. And this is not about social media or digital media strategy. Its about making sure that the corporate website is in sync with its overall communication. Incase you find other examples, please do let me know.