Absent from blogosphere

At times life can be really hectic. So absolutely no time to blog, even worse, no time to read what others are writing. You get so little time to do so much more and you sit back wondering 'why with me?' Anyway. Been traveling like crazy. Consumer contact program at Chennai one day, Cochin the next day to understand retailer's grievance and so it goes ... Rich experience though.

Meeting people from all over south India to find out what makes them choose, select, buy and buy again a particular product or brand is indeed an enriching experience. They have so much to tell you. You have so much to learn from them. Now I realize why it's not an easy job being a planner. Sure research agencies does their best to enlighten us but meeting people in-person and figuring out how they use a product in real life, the preparation, the process and what the brand actually mean in their lives, honestly, I don't think any research agency actually captures that in-depth. It business for them, not passion (if you know what I mean.) And let me assure you, you'll never find any real depth in a research ppt unless you do it and see it for yourself. The sheer amount of knowledge and learning is mind boggling. Plus you get to try out all the authentic south Indian dishes at their houses. It's like Consumer Couch Surfing. I mean it is fashionable and up-to-date to say Consumer Couch Surfing rather than saying you're doing an anthropology study or an ethnographic study. Isn't it?

This is no bollocks. I think every advertising professional in our industry, be it a creative, planning or servicing - must do a stint in Consumer Couch Surfing. It should be a part of their KRA's. The only reason why am saying this, it will save lot of time and energy of our often worthless endless hours of closed door 'brainstorming session' in the conference room. We honestly don't know a shot about our consumers. The results actually reflects that. Anyway. Just my poor way of thinking. But something inside me tells me, it is a smarter way to work.

So what is Consumer Couch Surfing: To put is very badly, it is surfing the couch of your consumers and spending time with them at their place and living their lives for some days.

How to be an effective Consumer Couch Surfer:
- Understand the requirement of your brand. Why you want to do a study? What you want to study, observe, learn and gain from the exercise? This is the first stepping stone, so be clear in your head.
- Identify a strong market and weak market for your brand. You need to do your study at both this places and compare the same to generate your own hypotheses, theories, deductions etc.
- Understand your audience, demo, psycho and emographics.
- Based on your understanding of your audience and which market (strong or weak), you need to identify a person or family you want to stay with. The most important point to note here is, the person or family has to be a complete stranger. Someone whom you never knew and be living with them for the first time
- Find out a way to communicate with them in case you don't speak their language
- Never bug them with questions, it is a slow process not a rapid fire FGD
- Follow and obey the rules they have in their house
- Be an active part and contribute to their lives each day
- Make sure you win their respect and trust

I think that's what I am doing at the moment. And it is helping me in more ways than I ever thought was possible. This will continue till end of March. Will write another post on my first experience with Consumer Couch Surfing. Hopefully, I'll be able to share my learnings with you in a months time.

Cheers.

shopper's stop

Shopper Marketing is a new area of focus for agency head honchos these days. With organised retailing becoming big in the country and increasingly contributing more to the GDP, Shopper Marketing is seen as the potential growth area for agency business. Yes, after Digital, it's Shopper Marketing now. Agencies are gearing up to set up specialized units and teams to deliver more values for their clients. Paco Underhill's 'Why we buy' is nicely stacked in the bookshelves of most agency heads.

Even big retailers are trying to understand the science behind Shopper Marketing. So the top boss from a client's office calls up and asks if I could spend sometime with his young team and explain them in simple words what is the meaning of shopper marketing. Honestly, with my little knowledge on the subject I did manage to put a quick ppt and presented it to the team. In the process, we had a healthy discussion about the changing face of retailing in Indian metros, future shopping habits and trends to watch out for in the tier II/III cities, dabbled on the eternal debate of kirana store vs organised retailing, how Walmart will bring changes in the existing retail clutter, how futuristic is Future Group, new areas of retailing etc. etc. A long and a hectic day, but a fruitful one because in the process I got to learn lots.

So here are few slides from the presentation. Go ahead and feel free to use them in-case it helps you for similar exercises:

Please do share your thoughts and comments on the same. Let me know what is your take on Shopper Marketing? How will it bring a change in the way retailing is seen in India? What are the things we should look out for? Are there any hidden opportunities that can be explored? Or you can point me to some interesting articles and topics on the same subject. Basically, enlighten me.

Idea vs Ideal

Media fragmentation, emergence of new media, clichéd communication message, consumers paying less attention, sea of sameness at retail and finally, the need to stand out; Indian marketers have too many things to fight when it comes to building their brands.

Increasingly, consumer engagement is becoming more relevant and effective in a changing environment. Engagement here doesn’t necessarily mean an activation program or a retail promotion or social networking or fan community etc. It is much beyond that. People willingly come forward to participate when there is something meaningful to do. It is an ‘act of doing’ something good, a larger goal that really connects people with a brand. And if you really look closely, we in India hardly do anything meaningful to keep people truly engaged with a brand.

Am sure you know all those brilliant examples better than I do, but unfortunately there aren’t many examples coming out from India. Where is the Indian equivalent of Real Beauty, Run London, Legoland and Innocent Village Fete…

This is where, I think, agencies have a bigger role to play. It is about Brand Ideal versus an Idea. I mentioned here previously about 'the ideal not the idea' stuff. Ideal is ‘an ultimate object of endeavor, a goal’ while an Idea is 'a concept developed by the mind, a thought or an opinion.'

Honestly, Brand Ideal is something which is truly missing in most brands in India. It is according to me translating a true life insight into a bigger brand goal that eventually brings people together. To give you an over used example - Dove’s championed a cause – Real Beauty. People took notice of these simple life insight and instantly connected and actively participated. In case of Pond’s, “Miracle Happens” is just a communication idea. Pond’s used high media exposure/ carpet bombing to ensure that people get the message and start buying their products. So after sometime they realized the need to move on, hence communicate, "Miracle Happened." Absolutely no connection with people and no reasons as to why they should be a part of Pond’s Age revolution. And you cannot qualify the 7 Days Challenge as a bigger brand ideal. Now they might be extending the idea by setting up Miracle Boutiques which is nothing new. Lakme has it, L’Oreal has it… right? So where is the “ultimate object of endeavor”?

Similarly, when Big Adda says ‘Friends Stay’ is it really doing something to build stronger friendship bonds? Here’s another good example of finding a Brand Ideal that helps in delivering better connection and results.

Brand engagement has the same meaning as an engagement ring - A vow to stay together ever after. Isn’t it something worth spending more time thinking about?

Contagious 2007

Those lovely people at Contagious has published a sum up of all the cool stuffs that happened in the year 2007. Its interesting. Insightful. A ready reckoner. And it gives you a perspective of where we're all heading towards.

Click here and read Most Contagious 2007.

Cheers.

Diwali SMS (Simple Mind Semiotics)

Morning newspaper says, "Average noise level in Bangalore yesterday was 122 Db." Authentic news and I can assure you that because no amount of ear plug, muffler, sound masking or closed window could help me reduce the noise. Isn't Diwali supposed to be a celebration of light not sound? Anyway, "We Are Like This Only."

Around 4 pm, my mobile started beeping continiously, some 70 SMSes in one go. Felt enlightened on the festival of light. SMS is a great subject for semiotic studies.

So here are few observations and my take on the human psyche:

Type 1. "Wsh u vry hppy Diwali n prsprs Nu Yr" or "Thnks wsh u da same" - Good understanding of the medium. Heavy user of the medium. Technophobics. Non Experimental. Boring. Single. Nanominded (believes in short and simple) Less emotive. Individualistic. Schizo. Busy. Talks straight and less. Politically (grammatically) correct. Non-multimedia phone owners. One to one communicator (P2P).

Type 2. "Wish you and your family a very Happy Diwali and Prosperous New Year" or "Our best wishes to you and your family for a most blessed and prosperous diwali...x, y, z1, z2" - Straight. Simple. Happy-go-lucky. Understands the medium but value conscious. Uses the medium on only purpose. Mostly group message senders. Techno-ambivalent. Feature driven. Narrow-minded. Family oriented. Very emotive. Lazy. Fun loving. Talks more. Non Multimedia phone owners. One to many communicator.

Type 3. "You received a Flash File SMS/ Picture Message/ Emoticons (.flv .swh .jpeg)" - Creative. Expressionists. Confused. Energetic. Image conscious. Heavy user of the medium. Technophile. Experimental. Gizmo freak. High Sociability Quotient. Late adaptor. Possessive. Multimedia phone owners. Many to many communicator.

Type 4. "Bursting cracker in front of the house. Have a blasting Diwali. MMS (.mpg.4)" - Heavy user of medium and features. Creative. Technophile. Experimental. Gizmo freak. Trend setters. Early adaptor. Family oriented. Thrill seeker. Gamer. participator of group activities. P2A, A2P communicator, oops many to many communicator.

Well, this is how I did a quick classification/ segmentation of the 70 SMSes. As a planner, I think this small observations and mental notes help is developing hypothesis that can be later used to validate brand problems. VAS (value added service) is the highest revenue generator ($ 1.2 bn) for service providers yet not many brands are utilizing this medium effectively. So, how can a brand talk to these four types of SMS users. Which brands will talk to whom? Only HSBC, RR City Taxi and Airtel were kind enough to send me a Diwali wish. Where are other brands present in this medium? No one will sue you or get offended when you send a good wish unlike your irritating messages like buy now, discount on immediate purchase, send SMS to 4455 etc. Now, isn't this an interesting hypothesis?

Do discuss.

DIMK, SIMK and a phone

Sachidananda Murthy's article, 'The Precious Hour' on the last page of this week's THE WEEK magazine is really interesting. He wrote about how working couples are finding it increasingly difficult to spend time with their kids. How organizations are dealing with this problem by allowing families and kids of employees to spend time in their campuses. Late working hours and more time spent on commuting has left very little time for parents to spend with their kids.

Enough has been written on the subject of evolving societal changes happening from SIMK (Single Income Many Kids) to DIMK (Double Income Many Kids) to DINK (Double Income No Kids). Murthy writes, "Unlike the adage which says, 'Children should be seen, but not heard', working parents now see, hear and read their children on the screen, thanks to the mobile-internet marriage. Parents can keep in touch with children through mobile phones, though the mobile link can be a source of anxiety, if the child does not respond or if the child calls when one is attending to important work." He also mentions about an informal survey among college students in Delhi recently revealed that the maximum outgoing calls by the student were made to friends while the most incoming calls came from parents. This observation is nothing new, it's a simple relevant universal truth (SURT). Parents worldwide are anxious about their children and wants to keep track of them.

However what surprises me is that not many business tool brands like Nokia E Series, Blackberry or Mobile Services have explored it beyond a point. In the recent past, if I can remember, only "Blackberry from Hutch" and Airtel with it's kid commercial (The kid calls his dad to make him hear the sound of rain drops, who is working on an engineering project in a desert) explored this.

Now here is a bigger insight, "Parents have no time to spend with their kids" which allows you to go beyond a 30 second commercial. There is so much more to explore. A platform that Nokia E Series or Blackberry can own for good, occupy before someone else does it. It gives them the opportunity to explore avenues of bringing parents and kids together beyond communication, branding, advertising. A bigger ideal that create real bonding between real people.

Do discuss, if you have some more thoughts on this.

metaphor, metonymy and belief

We all know why we love our industry, isn't it? The challenge of real time problem, the excitement of finding a solution that will move people, new cross-category learning, knowing more about people and their lives, finding out how and what will make their lives better, cracking a strategy that will shake people and sometime force them to take notice, a 30 seconder that will become talk of town; the list is endless. And we love doing what we do.

As a planner, I try to inspire myself from the everyday life of everyday people. Look around, stare at things, roam about searching for something interesting and keep asking myself why. So while I was busy doing this, it sparked a thought in me and I wanted to validate, if it makes sense. I did write about it here and here, however after exchanging few email with The John Grant, I realized, maybe I was not thinking in the right direction, maybe I wasn't very clear with what I was trying to achieve in the end. John gave a twist (a new direction) to it saying that I was trying to tackle three things at the same time - Metaphor, Metonymy and Belief. I just received his book "After Image" by post from Amazon which makes me immensely happy at the moment.

So working on a problem which is quiet similar to Fair & Lovely or Fairever, though a different category, I was observing the few 'Change Points' taking place in rural or semi-urban India. At a cultural level the old assumptions of Accepting Destiny giving way to Changing Destiny. The insight for "fairness" cream category is deeply rooted in these cultural/societal change. Whether it is the groom coming to impress the bride (Fairever's role reversal communication) or the daughter getting a job as an air hostess due to her fair skin (Fair & Lovely's beti is the new beta), it is these metaphors and beliefs that will give a new meaning to brand communication.

So here is a great example of user generated content to the fairness concept and a new meaning to it.

I love the insight - Your complexion is your legacy. Immediately it gives you wings to do interesting stuff.

power of dreams

So I spend the last few days talking to young car enthusiasts in Bangalore about cars. Why they like cars, why do they like or dislike about cars, why they think one brand is better than the other, why, why, why why....

In the end it was an enriching and insightful experience. After all they are the guys who spread the word (you know what I mean) and people at times blindly believe in what they say before picking up a car. So I thought I'll spend few hours with them and pick up their brains.

Issue of the Week

Do you think "Planned Obsolesce" is great strategic tool for electronics & white good manufacturers to increase consumer demand for increased functionality? Is it a part of their long term game plan to ensure repeat purchase? Is it the main reason why you keep changing your mobile phone every six months or change all your household durables every five years to keep abreasted with the latest technology or replace your laptop every twenty four months? Do you think consumer are getting increasingly clever to understand this 'planned obsolesce' strategy of companies?

Do write back with your feedback and comments. It will only help all of us understand how consumers will deal with future consumer technologies.

food conscious

The last few days kept me busy with a new project for a food brand, err, packaged breakfast stuff to be precise. Now, don't ask for more at this stage since I cannot reveal who he is. Anyway, the client's brief was simple, "I want people to eat more of my stuff and want them do so regularly."

Targeted at the new age consumer residing in urban areas of India, the product in question is wholesome, nutritious and a healthy option in a bar format. So we spend our time thinking how we can achieve it. After all it is a pitch and we're fighting against some of the biggest network agencies down south. As you know, in India we don't have a pitch fee and the client has the liberty to walk out with all our good thinking, so we decided to think bold. Let our thinking and only our thinking help the client decide which agency deserves to handle his brand. Leave the rest on the hands of the devil. First week, we spend time with consumers, having breakfast with them at their home. Let me tell you, it was an amazing-early-morning-gastronomic-experience. Yummy breakfasts; Gujju, Carnatic, Tamil, Keralite, Bengali, Marathi, Rajasthani breakfast in seven days. Hot homemade stuff that housewives prepare early morning for their kids and husband , boring stuff that you buy off the shelf which busy working wives prepare for their kids and husbands, stuff that you buy off the shelf and add your own bit to make it interesting at houses of single working women or men. We conducted our research over the table. Why this, why that, why, why why why; in order to understand how important is 'the most important meal of the day' in their lives. By the end of it, there was enough understanding and material to prove a point that was hovering over my head. Phew. Moreover, I enjoyed what I was doing.

So here are few observations:
1. Hectic lifestyle is giving way to smaller, more frequent snacking occasions
2. People are spending lot of time on traveling, food on-the-go is becoming more prevalent, having just an apple while driving makes more sense than a full plate of breakfast
3. Main meal and snack occasions are becoming interchangeable
4. Healthy eating is on the rise. Be it home cooked or bought from the shelf, healthy it should be. But not many consumers understand what is healthy in terms of dietary intake
5. Women (even traditional housewives) are seeking knowledge and expertise in hassle free cooking methods
6. Time of day is one of the main reason to help decide what kind of snacks and beverages should be consumed. As the day proceeds, indulgence takes over health consciousness

Also with more media proliferation, Indian consumers now understand three basic pillars of healthy eating. The diagram below explains it best. And if you notice, food brands in India are trying to latch on any one of them to communicate the end benefits.
Few years back it was food products enriched with minerals like Vitamins, Zinc, Iron, Calcium etc. Brands like Boost, Maltova, Kellogg's Iron Shakti made good use of those properties to communicate to consumers.

Then low fat become the trend. Consumers in India now understands low fat means less cholesterol, which means good for the heart. Brand Saffola is build on this.
Last year it was less sugar, which means no diabetes. Look at the shelf and you'll find brands with bright blurbs shouting Lite, Sugar Free etc on their packaging. Did you know Dabur Chyawanprakash has gone sugar free? It was news for me. Anyway.
The latest, I mean, the prevailing trend that most food brands are riding upon now is high fiber. Let's keep our eyes open and see how many brands actually start riding upon this high fiber trend to gain share of mouth. It'll be fun.

Expectation from food is changing for the new enlightened food conscious consumers of India. Be it functional, sensory or experiential, the new 20 something knows what goes in directly reflects on the outside. Food for the 24x7 life will see a change in consumption pattern. And it is in our own interest that an open eye will help us crack the code for food brands trying to serve these new enlightened consumers in India.

Burp.

When dads and sons fight for attention

Wilkinson has a launched a new campaign which I found quiet bizarre. Making dads and sons fight for attention and kisses of their wives and moms. As Richard put the insight as, "The new dads can feel neglected, even feel jealous about their offsprings" seems interesting, the execution remains poor. Maybe they've given a movie trailer like look and feel on purpose.

And then they created this site which has some cool stuff to download. Seems like all experimentation is only possible in the digital space.

Via Adliterate

Simplifying maintenance

Noticed this ad in Business Today the other day. Club One Air is an Aircraft Maintenance and Management Program offered to the nouveau riches of the society. You can buy a jet and hand over the same to Club One Air to manage and maintain it for you.

This also seems like a great platform for the automobile industry too. Atleast that's what I feel. I had a similar solution for Rob@Cynic's last APSotW assignment. The insights that I came up with was "Men love spending money on machines that reflect their status, but don't like spending additional money on maintenance." Yes, maintenance is a bigger issue for car owners. If companies can consciously help reduce these cost, customers will actually remain loyal to your brand. Given the fact that frequency of car change is now reduced to 24 months, clubbing your service offering with a similar maintenance program can go a long way in building your brand. Asian Paints Home Solutions is a good example from another product category doing a similar maintenance program that takes away consumer's headache. And it's getting all the good responses.

Probably, brands as part of their extension (or marketing plan) should consider setting up similar ventures that they can leverage upon in the long run.

Evolution of self

In my previous post I mentioned my dissatisfaction on an article written by a noted trend spotter in India. As I kept thinking about individualism, independence and liberation that young India is looking for, I tried to delve deeper and find out the reason "How the Self Expression is Evolving."I feel what's happening in India at the moment is a gradual shift from traditional roles defined by the culture to a self defined role defined by the world and it's mother. As we keep growing as a nation with more experience (our past downturns which is the basic building blocks of traditional ethos and values), better education (rate of literacy increasing every year), economic development, young Indian are seeking to be different. From Inconspicuous Consumption to Expressive Consumption. These expressive consumption can be in any form of technology, fashion, luxury goods, cars or anything that allows young Indians to stand up. Young India is getting ready to reclaim the future.

It is this 'evolution of self' which most others are confusing as Extreme Individualism.

Indian ishtyle individualism, wot crap?

I was reading an article by Hamsini Shivakumar in today's ET . She raises an issue on how increasing globalization and consumerism is helping Individualism grow in India. She uses cultural difference in parental upbringing as a basis of her hypothesis. Parents force kids in America to do it themselves whereas in India parents teach how others do it for you.

Somewhere I found a huge disconnect while I was reading the article. Is young India really looking for individualism? India will be celebrating its 60th year of independence not liberation. Mind you not liberation. Young India is looking for liberation. Liberation of mindset. Liberation of social stigmas. Liberation of traditional values which has no meaning. And technology is the biggest weapon that they have found - they are using gadget as tool and fashion as the image of that liberation they are seeking.

The secret lies in understanding why young Indians are operating the way they are rather than drawing a stupid hypothesis on individualism from growing consumerism, growing affluence, high disposable income, media dominance, expansion of fashion and glamour industry, media driven activities and hectic work life.

She failed to explain the reasons why young Indians are trying so hard to control their destiny...oops...exhibit their individuality. No offense, this is my personal point of view on a topic which I've working hard for sometime now. It is important to understand the origin of a trend first and then rationalise what would be the implication of that trend in the market place.

Cheers.

In business of insight...

Crafted for fantasy

My boss called me today to ask my honest feedback/opinion about this ad of Amul Macho. When I told him, I actually like it, it came as a shock to him. Well, the category in question is male underwear. I ask them what is harm in showing a woman's fantasy for male underwear? Don't we, the creative folks, in advertising speak about sexy, raunchy ads for women lingerie?

Moreover, 'Crafted for fantasies' is a brilliant strategic thought. It elevates Amul underwear to a different level. Is male underwear communication all about well-built-bare-bodied-hunks wearing a red brief standing with their groin' bulged? I say what harm in turning it around and making women feel nice about their man's machine? ha!

Mama knows best

Observing my mother’s TV watching habit closely for over a month threw some good pointers. She is quiet a professional when it comes to handling the TV remote. Close observation will reveal she uses the sleep, mute and the swap button frequently. She doesn’t surf but remembers which number to press for what channel. At any point, she remembers seven to eight channels. NDTV on 24, DD Bangla on 64, 43 is Sony, 49 is Zee Cinema, 23 is Star Plus and 28 for Set Max, 39 for Travel and Living and something like that. Of course she was disappointed with India’s loss at the World Cup but that hasn’t restricted her from keeping a tab on what’s going on. The reason is simple, she’s doesn’t want to be left out in any cricket related discussion with my father or with some guests at home.
Seven pm news on DD Bangla is a must that’s because she is at Bangalore and wants to know what’s happening back at home. Maybe because of the Singur, Nandigram issue but that’s a must every evening with a cup of tea. Between 8.30pm to 10 pm it’s Zee, Sony, T&L or Star Plus. That means it either a K serial or a Bollywood flick depending on the content. Barkha Dutt’s show on NDTV ‘we the people’ is something she never misses. In the afternoon she prefers watching DD National, Bangla or Zee/Sony depending on the movie. Apparently, she sometime finds Malayalam channel like Asianet interesting because of the quality of movies they air. She doesn’t understand the language but makes a serious effort to understand the basic emotions from the moving visuals. If she sees something interesting, dinner time is when she clears her doubt or tells me the essence of the story.

So out of 75 channels that our cablewala provides us, she devours only 7. Okay 8.

Observation 1: Her viewership depends on the time of the day, likings and nature of relaxation. Afternoon is nap time. Sleep and swap button comes handy. Therefore she makes the most out of movies. If content is not good she’ll swap orelse sleep. Post her nap in the evening, its refreshing with tea, therefore news that too news about home. Later in the evening its light watching, so a K serial, movie or travel around the globe. At her age – She wants to relax, keep herself updated and travel. Her TV habits are skewed towards that.

Observation 2: She likes advertising (maybe because her son is into advertising) and tries to understand the meaning. She keeps asking me ‘what did they mean by that ad?’ That means most advertising in their bid to be creative don’t communicate in a language simple enough for people to understand.

She probably may not be the TG of most advertising but remember she makes most purchase decisions at home, at least when it comes to her domain - the kitchen.

Observation 3: Content drives her. Give her shit and she’ll swap. Content is her source of knowledge, topic of discussion. As long as she gets that she’s happy. ‘We the people’, ‘Foodie’, ‘Floyd's Cooking Show’ etc. proves that point.

Did you observe any interesting media habits recently? Share it, am waiting.

Snack'em up

Yes, Yes! It's hot and happening. The snacking category in India is a hot new subject of discussion among marketers at the moment. ITC Foods is all set to storm the Indian snacking market with it's new launch Bingo.

Switch-on any TV channel, you're bound to find at least two-three commercials of different brands trying to grab your attention. Leading the pack is Pepsico's Lays and Kurkure. While Bingo is the new challenger.

The dynamics of the Rs. 2500 Crores snack food market in India is fast changing. 85% of this market constitutes of salty Potato Chips. The market is growing at 25% per annum and that's a healthy sign. In India around 12 million tonnes of potato is grown which is about 4% of the total world production. However, the per capita consumption of potatoes in India is low. And surely there are many more opportunities for brands to tap in this segment. We Indians love our snacks. Jhal Muri, Batata Puri, Pani Puri, Bhel Puri, Delhi Chaat, Kolkata Chaat, Mumbai Chaat, Aloo Bhajji, Dal Puri, Bada Samosa, Chota Samosa, Kachori ...man, snacking itself is a gastronomic delight in India.

Pepsico was the first branded player to offer various products under its Lays, Kurkure, Cheetos, Uncle Chipps brand names. Haldirams, once a small time Halawai (sweet maker) saw huge opportunity and entered the branded packaged snack food market. And they are reaping the benefits of their past effort. P&G's Pringle is a niche brand in this segment. ITC is the latest entrant and am sure they will become a highly successful brand in no time. Remember ITC is one of the most admired companies in India which loves and has the reputation to build successful brands in whichever segment they enter.

Kurkure's Cricket Campaign - 'Jupp for Cup' was withdrawn after India dismal performance in the World Cup. So Kurkure decided to bank on the family summer holiday trips by creating 'Kurkure Express.' Pepsico's train thought started with the 'Blue Billion Express' for Pepsi to support the IndianCricket Team. Since it could not make much hay, Kurkure Express is the new avatar with a little twist. Manish has written a good article on this topic. I kinda share his sentiments too - Visual corruption. As if we don't have much and need another new one. Well, I understand that 50% of Indians travel on Indian Railways and long distance/local trains as an advertising medium is too good to resist. But why make so fuss about it. I would have given a thumbs-up if they were doing some innovative promotion in the platforms and train compartments. But slapping the logo on everything just don't make any sense.

To me Kurkure could have used those 'Garam Chaiwalas' and 'Bhelpuriwalas' effectively. They are the real competition, if you know what I mean, so why not bring them under your fold rather than spend huge money to colour code train compartments.

Well, is Kurkure also taking care to do the cleaning act of left over pouches within the train premise??

Immobilised

It had to happen one day. Unfortunately that day was yesterday evening. Vanished just like that. Stolen right under my nose. Well, I am speaking about my 5 years old Nokia 1100 'Made in India' phone.

My fault to leave it on the window near the entrance of my apartment in sheer excitement of the India/SL match. By the time I realised, it was gone. That lil black Nokia indeed stood for me (I changed the phone jacket twice in five years) It waked me up diligently at 6.30 every morning. Allowed me to be in touch with the world and listen to the voice of my loved ones. Though recently the battery was creating some nuisance, I must admit it was a tough toy. It survived several fall and Choco's bite. My real loss is my phone book. I don't have a backup. What a fool I am. So, I guess you understand the trauma and pain I'm going through at the moment.

Infact, this phone was performing so well and given my technophobic nature, I actually never had the desire or aspiration for any of those fancy gadgets out in the market. Mobile phone is just another phone, the analogy I always gave to my peers. Mine was a basic device which allowed me to make and receive calls, send and receive message and I was happy. It also allowed me to keep my monthly rental, nominal. Now do I sound like a laggard in the chasm curve?

The good news - I gifted myself a Nokia 6270 this morning. Don't know why. As I am writing I'm trying to justify my purchase decision as a consumer. Why did I buy this phone? Firstly, few of my friends recommended me this phone before. Word of mouth. Secondly, I'm loyal to brand Nokia. Checked out all that is available (even though I am loyal to Nokia) in the market and settled for 6270 at a discount of 10% from a friends shop. Loyalist but a value seeker. Thirdly, I wanted a phone with a decent camera to shoot all odd things on the street. Upgradation.

If any of you had to ask me what was that one reason that made me buy this phone, my answer would be, becoming techno-progressive from being a technophobic.

Since I don't have a backup of my old numbers (my itemized bill helped me in recovering some numbers though), I would be grateful if you can mail me your contacts once again. And I promise to keep a backup this time onward.

Ok, I'm off to fondle my new phone.