Emotional Benefits and Mighty Hearts

There is this article in today’s Mint that talks about brands owning emotions because functional differentiators don’t exist anymore. Also supposedly, consumers feel before they think. Examples in the article include Benetton, Nike, Disney etc.

But owning emotions is not a simple academic exercise as it is often made out to be. It is not about tagging an emotional payoff to a rational benefit. The classic, this brand will make your child healthier and hence will he will be more confident is old tripe.

I think it’s more important to define a brand as a personality that evokes real emotions and then bring that personality alive. To truly resonate with people, this personality needs to be real, warts and all. In our frequent attempts to treat our brand as a holy grail we often deify the brand to an extent where it becomes an insipid caricature, shorn of all truth. And such smarmy personalities rarely connect – whether they are brands or living people.

Amongst many other things, connection calls for empathy and transparency. Almost all brands that achieve iconic status have a deep understanding of their customers and deliver on their promise. Many of them often reflect the personal passion of the brand’s owner – whether a professional or an entrepreneur. Many of them don’t even advertise in the conventional sense of the term. Iconic brands often show off their idiosyncrasies – and that actually makes them human and we love them all the more for it.

I reckon, owning an emotional benefit is more about courage. Courage to let your brand be human and to let people engage with your brand on their terms. To that extent, it’s not about the size of your budget or even the size of your intellect; it’s about the size of your heart.

What’s your Avatar?

First one that is. In all the brouhaha about virtual second lives, I came across this simple site with its tongue firmly in cheek.

Cricket in Any Language . . .

Watching the first India-England One Day match on the new Star Cricket channel with Hindi commentary was an interesting experience. I had always assumed that the Hindi commentary one used to hear years ago on radio and early DD and which nowadays gets mocked in television commercials was history. But I realized otherwise. The commentary that I heard Tuesday was a throwback to those days. But going beyond language, I also feel the Hindi and English commentaries are one more reflection of the vastly different sensibilities of different sections of Indians.
1. The Hindi commentary was high on statistics and facts (two slips, a leg gully, a sweeper and a long on - a nod to the old “aakhon dekha haal”) whereas English commentaries were more casual and seemed more interested in communicating the feel of the game – there was a discussion on the Barmy Army being made to pay more for a trip to Australia to watch the last Ashes.
2. The Hindi commentary seemed like a series of breathless exclamations; the English one was much more sober and considered.
3. The Hindi commentators seemed to carry on monologues for entire overs; they almost seemed to be afraid of silences (btw, have you noticed how audiences in a Hindi cinema hall start twittering and shifting uncomfortably when there is a silent pause in an emotionally laden scene). The English commentary was more of a dialogue with long pauses, which also gave the viewer time to ponder and form a point of view on the happenings.
4. The Hindi commentary seemed to be high on repetition, saying the same thing again and again (this also reminded me of the way Hindi News Channels play the same news footage looped over and over). On the other hand, the English commentators seemed to be better at building up a story and forming hypotheses.
I think these differences reflect a different idiom of not just speaking, but also feeling – for the game as much as anything else of consequence. That also explains the different type of news coverage in English and Hindi News Channels. That’s also probably why Chak De does well in the metros while Partner is the biggest hit of the year in the rest of the country.

From Sea Shell to New York City

I saw this billboard at Thane, on the extremely hazardous and pothole-ridden road that passes off for the Mumbai-Nashik Eastern Express Highway. Sandwiched between aggressive paan-spewing Indica cab drivers and 14-wheeled monstrosities that precariously straddle giant potholes, the promise of New York City seemed a bit surreal and truly poignant.

It also reminded me that what we choose to call our houses reflect our changing aspirations. The house I grew up in didn’t have a name at all, just a number. Those were quieter, humbler and dare I say more innocent times. In the city where I grew up, either the houses were named after people who owned them (after all there were no apartments), or they had names like Aashirwaad, Tulsi, Sneh Sadan etc. – with all the inventiveness of a Balaji serial. The house that had the first television in the locality where I was growing up was Shalmali. The most exotic one for us used to be quite a fancy looking house named Sea Shell - the owner used to work in merchant navy.

The 90’s were truly depressing times; Disasters like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Khuda Gawah happened, Sooraj Barjatiyya made super-duper hits and Govinda sang Sarkhailyo Khatiya. I remember buildings with names like Highway Darshan (I am not joking) and Lake View which used to overlook a mosquito infested swampland.

Now, as the front-pages of newspapers never tire of reminding us, we are living the India story. The world is ours and the names of our abodes should obviously reflect that. So we have buildings named Phoenix, Dreamz, Englewood and Wellington and roads named Central Avenue and Forest Avenue which cut through 14-storied buildings. Seen in that light New York City (which I learn is a housing complex coming up at Kasarvadavli in Thane) is one more leap of imagination, hope and stubborn optimism – the potholes be damned.

Song of the Open Road

The debate on making parts of Mumbai hoardings-free, though contentious reminded me of this Ogden Nash poem:
I think I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

That was in the nineteen thirties.

Gorby's New Bags

Mikhail Gorbhachev is one the latest faces of Louis Vuitton luggage. He is supposed to have agreed reluctantly in return for a donation the brand made to Green Cross International, his environmental charity.

I found the use of Gorbachev very interesting because firstly it’s refreshing to see a face that is not associated with sports or movies. Secondly by using him, the brand is also making a statement about fashion by moving away from flash and glitz. In a way, it is showcasing its credentials on other dimensions of fashion – wealth, understated class, exotic travel etc.

Thinking aloud – who could be an equivalent for Louis Vuitton in India. Any retired politicians?

What is the meaning of Jugaad - Part 2

This story on IBN about “Jugaar” – rural India’s new hot wheels, makes for interesting reading.

“Jugaar” is a cross-over vehicle made with Kirloskar irrigation pump, Mahindra Jeep tyres, and a steering wheel and moving at a constant speed of 30 km/h. It’s also another example of the common Indian’s vibrant mix of entrepreneurial instinct and make-shift engineering which meets a real consumer need and makes a decent profit for the owner.
Not that this is new. I believe that two of the most fundamental changes in India over the last fifteen years – the cable TV revolution and the ubiquitous PCO - have been driven by thousands of small entrepreneurs scattered across the country.

There is a huge potential for bigger, more organised companies to tap into this. But it calls for a new business model and a lot of patience and energy to manage the vast multitude of people and partnerships. One company that is doing an admirable job of attempting this, I think is Tata Motors. Though Mr. Ratan Tata now feels that they haven’t done enough to reinvent the business processes, they are making brave attempts with their sub-One Lakh Rupee car. Wonder how long it will be before more organizations start to look at this as viable opportunity.

Knock Knock

My friend, Ram forwarded me this new ebook by Seth Godin on making websites more effective. It’s a succinct, commonsense-filled approach; made me wonder why more online outfits didn’t think of it – especially the ones I interacted with during my mobile phone purchase. Read it for yourself by downloading it from here.

Googled

Business Week has stirred up a debate by carrying a piece questioning if Google was killing intellect.

The article went on to talk about how the mammoth engine who promised to “never be evil” delivers facts, information and nowadays, even references– check scholar.google.com –makes us intellectually lazy. Who will wade through arcane sources trying to know about Virgil, when Google does that for you in flat 0.28 seconds (and by the way, also tells you about Virgil’s Root Beer, brewed in the north of England)

I have personally witnessed people digging out reams of information and data on all kinds of subjects without much corresponding insights or understanding. So I have some sympathy for the view that very often collation of information becomes a surrogate for intellectual rigour; that making so much available so easily results in reducing knowledge to the trivial. In the process, it reduces our respect for knowledge. It also, so goes a point of view, turns users away from more considered sources of learning and knowledge like books, classes etc.

But in today’s context, this perspective seems dated. It also seems rooted in a certain kind of misplaced class consciousness. It smacks of arguments that were put forth in feudal times for not translating works of classics in the commoners’ language. The argument went that making the work more accessible makes it less of a classic and reduces the “gravitas” of the work.

Like it or not, Google and its Wiki cousins have democratized information.
They have become the language of today’s commoner. They are as much of tools as pen or paper. (By the way I just realized that I have been forgetting my pen at home for a couple of days and have not missed it at all – can’t say the same about my computer or mobile). Today, and more so in the future, just giving somebody information will make him / her as smart as giving them a pen. They’ll have a useful tool but that’s pretty much it. What they do with that information, how well they internalise it, play with it and give it new dimensions; that’s what will make will them winners. And that puts a greater onus on the rest of society; to evaluate the quality of ideas and concepts a person comes up with based on all the freely available information. Tougher on all of us? Yes. But eventually it’s also a step towards creating a richer, more evolved bunch of people.

God of Small Things

I bought a new mobile phone over the weekend. Here are a few random observations about the purchase:

1. I spent over four hours searching the net and comparing different handsets, features, price etc. Not once did I get a relevant banner telling me anything relevant about the models or anything exciting to make the purchase more enticing. Wonder why mobile manufacturers or their dealers can’t make better use of the much vaunted “digital space”.

2. There are a lot of blogs and community sites which rave and rant about various phone models (they are very democratic – all major brands are berated equally). Unfortunately, none of the big brands participate or engage with these blogs. Could there be an opportunity for brands to play a constructive role.

3. Nokia Europe hosts a community site for comments about their products. But they don’t seem to have any constructive things to offer about product problems that users post on the site. The moderator simply directs irate users to a corporate site which in turn has fancy flash videos but doesn’t solve consumers’ problems with the phones. But at least it’s a start – maybe they’ll upgrade to being more specific soon.

4. Even now the most impressive part of the purchase was an old fashioned store at which a young Sardar answered questions, came across as more or less transparent and assured me he was always around if I had problems – the old neighbourhood “Hum Hain Na" retailer who finally sold me the phone. So much for online marketing.

If all this seems too small or trivial, maybe that’s what marketing in the digital space will be about. It’s not about one big bang piece of communication but many small things which aggregate into something big and meaningful. That could be the new nature of things and it fits in perfectly with the nature of “online”. So I wonder if we are ready to be the God of Small Things; to focus on doing all the seemingly "trivial" stuff because they make a difference while selling; to talk to the masses, one person at a time.

Bhiku Ban Gaya Socialite

Returned to Mumbai after three weeks. Among other things, the society pages inform me that Manoj Bajpai is the latest addition to the Page 3 regulars lists.

Whose Space is it Anyway

Cities, like people need to breathe. Cities, like people need space to be fallow. Some societies allow these to their cities.
Some people believe in maximizing returns from an urban place – which means building up every square metre, inhabit it with people and generate more taxes. Others believe in optimizing returns from urban space – which means giving the city dwellers space to love and grow with the place they stay in and hence draw better people and better industries thus generating greater tax revenues.
Some people believe that a piece of open space in an urban area is a hallowed place that allows the people to loosen up and take time outs. Hence there are a lot of these spaces spread out over a large area. The spaces are hospitable and they have facilities which make it an attractive breather for people in between their urban madness. In turn, people who use it are expected to keep it that way. It sure beats taking a breather at Phoenix Mills.

Some societies are also very particular about not letting these public spaces be used for private purposes – even if earns a lot of money by way of rentals or taxes. Because by definition, a public space is meant for everybody and not a select few.

Some civil societies go to great lengths to maintain the sanctity of these public spaces. Maybe it’s a matter of affluence. When you are busy trying to figure out where you are going to be sleeping tonight, sunlight shimmering off a pond in a park may not exactly catch your fancy. But somehow, I believe that’s not the case. You don’t have to particularly well-off to carry your empty bag of Lays chips back with you. I think it finally boils down to this – some people believe a public space belongs to everybody; some believe it belongs to nobody. What do you think we believe?

My Films

User generated content has been experimented with for quite some time now. Here's a big promotion that is currently on here in the US for Heinz ketchup inviting consumers to make their own TV films for Heinz and submit it online. The winners would get to see their films on national TV and also win over $50,000.

So will the next metal winner be John Doe from Suburbanville, or will Geeta from Gorakhpur beat him to it.

Those Long Lines

Saw an interview with Bill Aitkinson, Apple employee 51 who was standing in a line outside an Apple store in Cupertino, California last Friday evening to buy his iPhone. He believes an year from now the number of people on the internet would double because they’ll be logging in through the iPhone.

I agree. At some point, I think exponential growth in internet penetration in less developed countries like India will come about because of mobile phone devices which are more intuitive and less dependant on “literacy”. Though I doubt iPhone will be that phone – they’ll simply not be able to deliver a value proposition to the mass even in the US, let alone a less developed country like India.

I also had an opportunity to try out the iPhone. Though the phone felt robust, sleek and everything one expected it to be, surfing was Stone-Age due to the slow network speed. I waited for three minutes for agencyfaqs page to open up and then gave up. But the phone itself deserves two thumbs up.

BTW, Steve Jobs was the first in that line outside the Apple store. Talk about great marketing. We in advertising have a lot to learn from him.

What Happened to US?

This is a project by Dan Perjovschi, a Romanian visual artist who mixes drawing, cartoons and graffiti. As his first solo exhibition in the US, he has covered a huge wall at the MoMA with graffiti and cartoons. It’s a humourous, poignant and scathing commentary on our times.

The best one to my mind was a dialogue between a figure saying “free speech” and another facing him saying “nice shoes”.

Iconography

Book from the Ground, an installation by Chinese-American Xu Bing is an on going compilation of icons used in modern society. As he says, icon traditionally meant objects of worship. Today, it’s come to mean company logos and instruction symbols. He’s doing a “Book from the Ground” which tells short stories using only icons. Extremely interesting – check it at his website xubing.com

What is the meaning of Jugad?

That was my four cents worth addition to a very interesting exhibit that’s been put up at the Museum of Modern Arts (or MoMA, as it’s commonly called). The exhibition titled “Automatic Update” reflects on the confluence of design art and technology. One of the installations called “33 questions per minute” put up by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, invites all visitors to type out a question which it first flashes on an LCD display. Then a computer algorithm takes random words from different questions and combines them to form new questions which are perfect syntax but complete nonsense. I saw some like “How hot is the speed of pumpkin?” or a beautiful “Why is sex faster than dreams?”

As the write up to the installation said, the installation adds more dimensions to the age old question of how long will it take for a chimpanzee randomly hitting at a keyboard churn out Hamlet. Maybe because of my question now, hamlet will jugad his way through his foes in the Automatic Update version of Hamlet being written out the MoMA

! India Everywhere !

Edison, New Jersey is about 60 km from New York. Feels more like 60 km from Ahmedabad.

The Sound of Music

Last year all the casinos here changed from using coins to dollar bills on their slot machines. But they ensured that the recorded sound of coins keep playing on the machines. It seems people get enthused listening to that sound. A soundless game with dollar bills is an emasculated version of the real thrill – that of a constant promise of winning a pocketful of money. And coins jingling are the strongest signal of that thrill.

The Great Gamblers

Atlantic City in South New Jersey was the capital of the gambling world until the mob decided to move a large chunk their business to Las Vegas, then a desolate desert town in Nevada. But Atlantic City has made a come back of sorts. I am given to understand that there are about 15 casinos here today, drawing over 100,000 people on an average summer weekday.

Old, retired empty nesters jostle with young compulsive gamblers on slot machines, and on poker and blackjack tables. Ostensibly they are all there to have a good time – spend a day or two at some of the plush casinos, eat, drink and gamble some money. The casinos are only too happy. They offer fancy rooms at heavily discounted rates and put on great food. They also keep rates for their movies-on-demand on TV very high and don’t have swimming pools or any other typical five star luxuries. This essentially ensures that customers spend a large part of their time at the playing table.

The playing area itself is always lit up in neon and bright spotlights with a constant night time feel and comfortable temperature. It is the same 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It lulls one into a state of timelessness; sitting at a table you won’t know the difference between 1 pm and 1 am and 7 am. You are just focused on getting the right hand or hoping that your slot machine combination wins you a jackpot. And you keep playing one more game after one more game. The drinks keep coming, the bonhomie is infectious the sound of coins jingling in the slot machines keeps you feeling good about yourself and it’s very easy to forget that nobody ever wins against the house - Harrahs Entertainment, one of the largest casino operators in the US has seen its stock shoot up and is now being traded at an all time high.