Article in The Economic Times, Oct 23, 07
Facebook and the informal-isation of corporate networking
A few days ago I put in a very urgent request to a small group of “Facebook Friends” – fellow JWT Planners from across the world - people who I have never met and indeed may never meet. It was a loud cry for help, for an overnight paper on a knotty problem. Responses poured in within hours from Japan, Bangkok, London, Brazil, with further forwards to others in some other countries. More than the material we actually exchanged, the war cry of delight that went around the group was to celebrate that NETWORKING WORKS! And more: SOCIAL networking works – OFFICIALLY!
Would it have been the same on an intranet? Would N have responded quite this way if we hadn’t exchanged flowers and bunny rabbits for our Gardens? Would C have responded quite this way if we had not compared Pet Peeves? Would it have been the same, if we didn’t know what we looked like, what we’d done the last weekend, what our Mood Histories were? If we hadn’t Spanked, Poked and Super Poked each other?
As I started googling to understand the Facebook phenomenon, I found an interesting statistic that explained my success the other day: a 2006 Pew Internet survey reports that internet users are more likely than non-users to receive help from core network members!
So what really are the factors at work here?
The first is about increasing the size of your groups: as the Titan Fastrack ad asks, “How many you have?” Columnist Michael Rogers, talking of what evolutionary psychology says about social networking, quotes from Robin Dunbar’s Gossip, Grooming and the Evolution of Language. Apparently, “mutual grooming behaviour of primates was the first social networking application because it was a way to establish and maintain friendships, determine the hierarchy within the tribe and signal one’s social connections to other tribe members”. The tribe got too big and language emerged to replace grooming. With language, humans managed to increase their group size significantly. But even that hit a ceiling. So the obvious question about Internet-based social networking, he says, is “whether we humans are once again increasing the size of our effective groups”. By the time we are all done with these phenomena we will know how many “friends” we are each capable of “collecting” – rather like stamps, Pokemon cards or Ganeshas.
The second is to do with “Social Capital”. After economic capital, human capital, knowledge capital and whatever else, there is now “social capital”. Social capital suggests that ties between friends and neighbours and the capacity to organize and belong to groups increases psychological well being. It is about the ability of groups to get together to improve their collective lives by sharing useful information and personal relationships.
The sub-text here, (Ellison/Steinfield/Lampe, Michigan State University) is the concept of “bridging social capital” and "weak ties", which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support. (As against “bonding social capital” which means emotional support, through face-to-face friendships). “ Weak ties” explains the number of friends who are not really friends but who are there on your page because you want to reach out, develop, rekindle or just stay in touch. You may not nominate them for a Superlative or send them a flippant Sticker, but they remain in your friends list.
The third relates to how these friendships are kept alive – the amazing news-worthiness of the trivia in peoples lives! Your Status, your Mood, which application you added, who you became friends with… Somebody joined a group called “Whoever takes bath with OK soap blooms like a lotus” and someone recruited someone else to Party Animals Inc. The News Feed application may have drawn protests about privacy, but this appearance of your friends names every time you log on makes you feel you are in touch on a daily basis. (Not very different from primates gossiping huh?). If you think about it, this is the kind of everyday stuff that neighbours, colleagues and friends talk about in the real world – the driver, the cook, the fever, the hair cut, the house guests.
Lastly what makes all this possible is the “Persuasive Technology”. To make it all seem truly friend-driven, the applications are cleverly designed and worded to force you to invite more friends to use them. “R would like to play Blackjack with you. If you join, R will receive 500 chips. Help out a friend and install Blackjack’. (Like your friend really needed the 500 chips for her next meal). When you are told “Seven of your friends have added the Shakespearean Insult Generator” you can’t help but click on it–and Persuasive Technology will ensure that you have to insult someone to successfully add the application! The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab now has a course on Facebook that focuses on metrics and user feedback to help creators gather and respond to user data, thereby generating improved applications.
But before all that happens, before Facebook sells out, before brands get in and advertisers take over, before privacy, stalking and identity theft take over, before everyone migrates to the next big thing… let us just enjoy Facebook for what it allows you to do: Throw a Sheep, get Poked, send Booze Mail and find out who’s more Likely to be a Multimillionaire – you or your boss. (As if you didn’t know. But now you can Karate Chop him if you are not happy with the bonus). The most eloquent comment came from a colleague of ten years who, on his last day in my organisation, added me as a “Friend” on Facebook. Now I see his Status says he “is loving it”. He is obviously settling down in his new job, and I am happy for him. Should I send him a drink? “Sex on the beach”, “Bottled Water” or a “Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster”?
Read the article as it originally appeared http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Internet_/Facebook_and_the_informal-isation_of_corporate_networking/articleshow/msid-2481831,curpg-1.cms
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Friday, August 10, 2007
What does MS Subbulakshmi have to do with trendspotting?: Published articles/Business Line 3
Review of a Business Creativity Workshop based on Voices Within, a coffee tabel book on the maestros of Carnatic music (Voices Within, Carnatic Music - Passing on an inheritance, Bombay Jayashri and TM Krishna with Mythili Chandrasekar, Matrka, Rs 1900)
What does MS Subbulakshmi have to do with trendspotting?
Article in Business Line, June27, 07
What does MS Subbulakshmi have to do with Carnatic music? Or GN Balasubramaniam with panneer pizza? Or Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer with Narayanamurthy? What possibly could carnatic music maestros who started blazing trails in the first half of the 20th century have to do with modern day business practices? Or better still, how could they help us with stimulus to brainstorm in our office cubicles to solve market problems that we are faced with every day?
Surprisingly, quite a bit. And that’s what business innovation coach R Sridhar of IdeasRS discovered when he first picked up Voices Within, the coffee table book on carnatic music maestros that was released a few months ago. Reading it at one stretch, he realised within hours that here was a treasure house of entrepreneurial behaviour, way beyond music. A couple of weeks ago, that discovery took the shape of the Voices Within Business Creativity Workshop at the Grand Hyatt in Mumbai, which was attended by over 150 senior business professionals across industries.
“The essence of what the maestros practiced is a combination of certain attitudes and principles,” says Sridhar. “They never articulated them clearly or explicitly. They were implicit in whatever they did – in their beliefs, attitude and action.”
Like Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar who sensed the time was right to bring concerts out from the temples and durbars to the sabhas that still exist today – realsing the mood was shifting from reverence to entertainment he changed the concert format, taking it from very few pieces sung over six hours to many short pieces over three hours, packed with variety to satisfy the shorter attention spans.
Sighting many such principles, articulating them imaginatively in music lingo, and compiling them into a Business Creativity Workbook, Sridhar pointed out that there was enough inspiration in Voices Within to apply to any business problem that one chose to think about.
In a unique lecture-demonstration, TM Krishna and Bombay Jayashri, the musician-authors behind Voices Within brought alive the principles with great depth of sincerity and passion.
Setting the stage first is sadhana - contemplation and willingness to change the self. Intense Sadhana is a penance that seeks to change the self. It is the yearning for a different state beyond mediocrity. What are you willing to change about yourself to achieve your objective is the first question one needs to ask, when faced with a challenge.
The principles span sa-re-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni.
Sruthi – connectedness with the psychology of the audience and an understanding of value as in MS Subbulakshmi’s spirituality. Which business today can hope to survive without a basic level of connection with its target audience? Based on its own attribute and ability, every business needs to find a specific life need that it can fulfill.
Ritu - defining and defying seasons/trends and an intuitive ability to sense change as in the talkies that the musicians acted/sang in. Talking about the talkies, perhaps there is no better example of this than Bollywood itself, which seems to have found the ability to catch social trends just as it begins to happen and reflect it, even better than marketers. Think the return of patriotism in Rang De, think changing marriage rules in KANK, think living-in in Salaam Namaste, and so many more. In business, think of all those who got into the right industry at the right time… be it manufacturing polyester, building residential complexes or something as simple as providing lunch boxes.
Guru - a desire to be a complete master and raise the bar to a totally unexpected and dramatic level as in TR Mahalingam who redesigned the flute itself or TN Rajarathnam Pillai who redesigned the nadaswaram. No better example here, than the film of the same name, Guru, which illustrated the story of Dhirubhai Ambani.
Misram - combining apparently irreconcilable opposites as many of them did with their music, specially GN Balasubraminam. Examples abound of products, services and ideas in this space today… from mobile phones that are also video cameras to spirituality that can be combined with exercising; from Cindrella pavadais to sarees with pockets!
Prasna - asking audacious, uncomfortable questions, some of these musicians made unimaginable demands of themselves, their voices, and their instruments – a unique example being Palghat Mani Iyer who could make a mridangam sing. Surely every great business success started with an audacious question: Why can’t we put a computer in every home?
Druva - standing apart from the crowd and achieving iconic status like Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer who went beyond just singing to innumerable other activities surrounding music to increase his circle of relevance and influence. Many of our business leaders today are going beyond just growing their businesses to playing evangelists for their industry, and aiming to contribute to social transformation.
And Nava-Akanksha – wishful thinking, day dreaming, sheer positivism and relentless determination that drove each and every one of the seven maestros. Something Indians in different fields are doing today… from why can’t I create India’s largest corporation to why can’t I create the world’s largest corporation?
What is amazing is that these maestros, all those years ago, had intuitively applied such strong and enduring business principles.
Responding to the fact that many of the participants felt the music was divine, but felt there was not enough time to think through the business problems and really come up with solutions within the space and time of the workshop, Sridhar says “We will be re-desigining the workshop to include more business examples, and lengthening the duration so as to enable more problem solving.”
A by product of the workshop was that many went away surprised that Carnatic music was after all not as inaccessible as they thought it might be and charmed by the two musicians who opened their eyes to a whole new world of thinking!
Adding to the delight was the fact that every one got a copy of the book, as well as a matching Business Creativity Workbook. The take away flute, and the south Indian lunch rounded it off with flair.
Voices Within was an unusual venture to start with, in that it had musicians collaborating with an advertising professional. With Sridhar, a business innovation consultant now turning it into a workshop, Voices Within takes on a life way beyond where it started.
For a sample chapter from Voices Within, try http://www.hindu.com/mag/2007/01/14/stories/2007011400040100.htm
For a review of the book Voices Within,
For related new items,
Saturday, August 4, 2007
What's you brand's chakra reading?: Published articles/exchange4media 2
Article in exchange4media, July 07
What's Your Brand's Chakra Reading?
HOW INDIA CAN GIVE THE WORLD THE MOST HOLISTIC WAY TO REALIZE A BRAND'S FULL POTENTIAL: DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM A 2,000-YEAR-OLD SYSTEM.
Move over, need states, archetype researches, equity studies. Move over Jung, Haylen, Kapferer! Here comes Patanjali.
It has been around for 2,000 years. It's in Chinese medicine. In Tibetan Buddhism. In the Jewish Kabbalah. Even in Sufism. And it's used in modern-day pranic healing. But it's first mentioned in the Upanishads, laid out by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
The chakra theory. It is psychology that is based on physiology and encompasses spirituality. The seven basic energy centers in our bodies, the chakras—the base of the spine, the abdomen, the solar plexus, the heart, up to the throat, the third eye, the crown—correlate not only to levels of consciousness but also to archetypes and personality dimensions that shape everything from our fundamental values and beliefs to fears, desires, motivations, habits and day-to-day behavior. From the physical and the emotional, through the social and the creative, right up to the universal.
Seven overriding themes: survival; pleasure; power; love; creativity; transcendence; surrender.
Seven orientations to the self: self-preservation; self-gratification; self-definition; self-acceptance; self-expression; self-reflection; self-knowledge.
Seven rights that preoccupy us: the right to be here; the right to feel and want; the right to act; the right to love and be loved; the right to speak and be heard; the right to see; the right to know.
The simple theory is that even though every person experiences all of these energy centers to some degree, certain chakras will tend to be more dominant for some than for others. So a more artistic person may have the fourth chakra emphasized, an intellectual or innovator and visionary may have the fifth chakra emphasized, a power-seeker may have the third chakra dominant, and so on.
Since the chakras are about understanding yourself, your strengths, your problems, finding balances and solutions, and realizing your potential, and since we have always looked at brands as people, why not use the chakra system to look at brands? After all, with every brand struggling in different ways, and old rules getting rewritten every other day, marketers are, more than ever before, looking for new tools to approach brands.
Besides, India has always followed Western ways of thinking on brands. At a time when the Indian way is finding its voice in all spheres, it's time the advertising, market research and brand management fraternity dug into Indian philosophy and psychology, and tapped into uniquely Indian approaches to holistic brand health.
So, what is your brand's dominating chakra?
Is it a Muladhara brand? Does it enhance the will to live, offer energy, fearlessness, stability, freedom from drudgery, bring abundance and physical strength, and support the urge to survive? Or is it a Swaddisthana, catering to anxiety about attractiveness, need for escape, adding positivism, magnetism, joy of living, and partnering in the pursuit of pleasure? A Manipura? Does it reflect courage, self-esteem, persistence, leadership, goodwill and right actions, or is it compensating for a lack of self-confidence and empowerment? Perhaps it's an Anahata brand, bringing harmony, calmness, generosity, grace, cooperation, unconditional love. Or is your brand all about higher creativity, the embodiment of Vishuddha, the search for truth, clear thinking, accuracy and perceptiveness and artistic expression? Or, if it's higher up in the great Indian spiral, it could be Ajna, in the territory of active intelligence, wisdom, willpower, the ability to direct. Or is it Sahasara, enlightenment, wholeness, positive transformation, inner peace, enthusiasm and fulfillment?
But beyond that, can we build our brands’ essences by defining its every chakra, its total chakra profile? What does your brand's heart say? Its throat, its third eye? What is your brand’s idea of pleasure and sexuality? What is its view of spirituality? Given the rumblings today that brands need not stand for just one thing, but perhaps can be multi faceted… given that the Indian way has always advised balance, the chakra system can actually allow brand teams to delve deeper and define the brand much more holistically, going on to help design brand conversations at different levels. Since charkas are about “aura” and “energy” and so are brands, is there something to learn there?
What is your brand's chakra reading according to your core users or your lapsed users? Is it what you want it to be? What about your target group? What are their driving life themes? Which chakra are they in? Are they balanced or deficient or excessive? How can you correct your brand's chakras—which dimension should you strengthen or lighten—to answer your target group's needs best and play a better role in their lives? Are there life themes that your brand is not satisfying and therefore new product and portfolio opportunities?
Unlike conventional tools, which are largely diagnostic, the chakra system is analytical and prescriptive, and can enable brands to chart out actionable paths. It's a system that could potentially offer a far more cohesive, integrated solution, so that marketers will not have to look at different and disparate pieces of research—leaving us with a lot of information, sometimes in silos, which we often cannot fuse and use.
A single system of analysis that can be applied to target types, need states, brand essence, holistic brand profiling, even societal trends. A system of analysis we could use to map India as a whole. Are power definitions and pleasure points and love expressions changing? Going further, how does the pursuit of pleasure in India compare with the pursuit of pleasure in China? If you are in eight countries, how does the chakra reading of your target group and brand vary from market to market? How do brands in different categories operate in a particular chakra? How do people in different chakra states connect with brands?
So fundamental. So Indian. So universal. So all-encompassing.
Like only an Indian idea can be.
For related news items on application of Brand Chakras,
http://www.exchange4media.com/e4m/news/newfullstory_band.asp?news_id=26599&tag=21495
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzA2LzMwI0FyMDIyMDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom
What's Your Brand's Chakra Reading?
HOW INDIA CAN GIVE THE WORLD THE MOST HOLISTIC WAY TO REALIZE A BRAND'S FULL POTENTIAL: DRAWING INSPIRATION FROM A 2,000-YEAR-OLD SYSTEM.
Move over, need states, archetype researches, equity studies. Move over Jung, Haylen, Kapferer! Here comes Patanjali.
It has been around for 2,000 years. It's in Chinese medicine. In Tibetan Buddhism. In the Jewish Kabbalah. Even in Sufism. And it's used in modern-day pranic healing. But it's first mentioned in the Upanishads, laid out by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
The chakra theory. It is psychology that is based on physiology and encompasses spirituality. The seven basic energy centers in our bodies, the chakras—the base of the spine, the abdomen, the solar plexus, the heart, up to the throat, the third eye, the crown—correlate not only to levels of consciousness but also to archetypes and personality dimensions that shape everything from our fundamental values and beliefs to fears, desires, motivations, habits and day-to-day behavior. From the physical and the emotional, through the social and the creative, right up to the universal.
Seven overriding themes: survival; pleasure; power; love; creativity; transcendence; surrender.
Seven orientations to the self: self-preservation; self-gratification; self-definition; self-acceptance; self-expression; self-reflection; self-knowledge.
Seven rights that preoccupy us: the right to be here; the right to feel and want; the right to act; the right to love and be loved; the right to speak and be heard; the right to see; the right to know.
The simple theory is that even though every person experiences all of these energy centers to some degree, certain chakras will tend to be more dominant for some than for others. So a more artistic person may have the fourth chakra emphasized, an intellectual or innovator and visionary may have the fifth chakra emphasized, a power-seeker may have the third chakra dominant, and so on.
Since the chakras are about understanding yourself, your strengths, your problems, finding balances and solutions, and realizing your potential, and since we have always looked at brands as people, why not use the chakra system to look at brands? After all, with every brand struggling in different ways, and old rules getting rewritten every other day, marketers are, more than ever before, looking for new tools to approach brands.
Besides, India has always followed Western ways of thinking on brands. At a time when the Indian way is finding its voice in all spheres, it's time the advertising, market research and brand management fraternity dug into Indian philosophy and psychology, and tapped into uniquely Indian approaches to holistic brand health.
So, what is your brand's dominating chakra?
Is it a Muladhara brand? Does it enhance the will to live, offer energy, fearlessness, stability, freedom from drudgery, bring abundance and physical strength, and support the urge to survive? Or is it a Swaddisthana, catering to anxiety about attractiveness, need for escape, adding positivism, magnetism, joy of living, and partnering in the pursuit of pleasure? A Manipura? Does it reflect courage, self-esteem, persistence, leadership, goodwill and right actions, or is it compensating for a lack of self-confidence and empowerment? Perhaps it's an Anahata brand, bringing harmony, calmness, generosity, grace, cooperation, unconditional love. Or is your brand all about higher creativity, the embodiment of Vishuddha, the search for truth, clear thinking, accuracy and perceptiveness and artistic expression? Or, if it's higher up in the great Indian spiral, it could be Ajna, in the territory of active intelligence, wisdom, willpower, the ability to direct. Or is it Sahasara, enlightenment, wholeness, positive transformation, inner peace, enthusiasm and fulfillment?
But beyond that, can we build our brands’ essences by defining its every chakra, its total chakra profile? What does your brand's heart say? Its throat, its third eye? What is your brand’s idea of pleasure and sexuality? What is its view of spirituality? Given the rumblings today that brands need not stand for just one thing, but perhaps can be multi faceted… given that the Indian way has always advised balance, the chakra system can actually allow brand teams to delve deeper and define the brand much more holistically, going on to help design brand conversations at different levels. Since charkas are about “aura” and “energy” and so are brands, is there something to learn there?
What is your brand's chakra reading according to your core users or your lapsed users? Is it what you want it to be? What about your target group? What are their driving life themes? Which chakra are they in? Are they balanced or deficient or excessive? How can you correct your brand's chakras—which dimension should you strengthen or lighten—to answer your target group's needs best and play a better role in their lives? Are there life themes that your brand is not satisfying and therefore new product and portfolio opportunities?
Unlike conventional tools, which are largely diagnostic, the chakra system is analytical and prescriptive, and can enable brands to chart out actionable paths. It's a system that could potentially offer a far more cohesive, integrated solution, so that marketers will not have to look at different and disparate pieces of research—leaving us with a lot of information, sometimes in silos, which we often cannot fuse and use.
A single system of analysis that can be applied to target types, need states, brand essence, holistic brand profiling, even societal trends. A system of analysis we could use to map India as a whole. Are power definitions and pleasure points and love expressions changing? Going further, how does the pursuit of pleasure in India compare with the pursuit of pleasure in China? If you are in eight countries, how does the chakra reading of your target group and brand vary from market to market? How do brands in different categories operate in a particular chakra? How do people in different chakra states connect with brands?
So fundamental. So Indian. So universal. So all-encompassing.
Like only an Indian idea can be.
For related news items on application of Brand Chakras,
http://www.exchange4media.com/e4m/news/newfullstory_band.asp?news_id=26599&tag=21495
http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzA2LzMwI0FyMDIyMDA=&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom
The Un-boxing of India: Published articles/TOI 2
Article in the Times of India, Mar 7, 07
The Un-boxing of India
Branding, news and entertainment merge
as we open many Windows in our daily lives and live with multiple ids
There was a question in KBC the other day on the name of the cow that features in a Cadburys ad – and a majority of the audience got it right. As a man in a focus group said a few days later, “yeh kya hai, general knowledge hai ya Cadburys ke liye ad hai - sab jagah ghusa dethe hain”. A lively discussion followed on whether advertising and brand messages were becoming intrusive, or a more integral part of our lives and therefore unavoidable. While Amitabh Bachchan as a father releases an ad for Guru, an engagement is announced on the day of the premier… “personal life ko publicity bana dethe hain” they said, with all due respect to the great man.
A news channel went hoarse selling Parzania – was that a genuine interest in Gujarat, good advertising and a “media partner” deal for Parzania or the heroine’s PR consultant at work? One role, and she is recast as a reinvented activist. Did KANK really raise issues in public consciousness, or was it just “good PR”? As Shah Rukh Khan himself pointed out in a recent interview on television, the celebrities get the publicity, the TV channel gets its viewership, news and entertainment blend in and out, you don’t know when one ends and the other begins. Content becomes advertising, advertising becomes content.
Just look at a few more examples of all kinds of “un-boxing” all around us.
* Beyond celebrities, we’ve now seen media becomes judge and jury, citizens become media.
* Look at the world of products and services. Health is now not just health and hospitals, but health and spirituality, health and tourism, health and psychology, health and music, health and beauty, health and dance, health and sports. Health, fitness, spirituality and tourism get into each other’s boxes. Spiritual plus music is another box, music and mobiles is a whole new box. There’s tourism and adventure, tourism and HR (corporate outbound tours), tourism and spirituality, tourism and sports, besides plain good old tourism – holiday and sight seeing. Television and telecom create a new box together on the sms front, turning audience participation into nationwide news.
* Take brand benefits and Corporate Social Responsibility. ITC’s Sunfeast ad and the Ashirwad atta ad implies that a responsible company makes it, and you’ll be helping somebody if you bought the product, rather than urging you to buy the product because it is differentiated and delivers on a benefit. Different from the Surf Save Water and the Lifebuoy street cleaning ad which had strong Corporate Social Responsibility overtones, but were still rooted in a product attribute.
* Take the world of art and music. Artists combine painting with photography, cartoons, sculpture, industrial junk and kitsch. Art is corporatised, art is investment. Music, dance and drama merge to deliver new entertainment forms. Musicians are going beyond the concert platform into research, education, talent hunt, and even writing. A recent music book launch included a film on music, a reading of excerpts by theater professionals and auctioning of the first copy for a cause.
* Companies are now having to train employees not just in their area of operation, but language and culture - Wipro’s Shimpo programme teaches cultural codes, social conduct, business etiquette, and night life in Japan. HR, PR, and CSR are un-boxing themselves to build the corporate brand, as much as takeovers, CEO hobbies, Page 3 and the corporate wife.
All this is both cause and effect of many key aspects of brand building today –particularly segmentation, payoffs and media choice.
Take as just one example, the blurring of segments in cars. It is no more just hatches, sedans, SUVs and so on… but hatches, hot hatches, premium hatches, city SUVs, look-like SUVs and real SUVs.
With pricing, and value propositions going criss-cross across segments - and the consequent overlapping of payoffs – economy brands promising class, classy brands promising economy, who’ll-buy-what-when-and-why will soon be anybody’s guess.
Media plans therefore stretch from advertisements to placement of questions in quizzes, and everything in between.
Perhaps all this unboxing is nowhere more evident than in our personal lives - reflective of the multiple roles, and the increasing juggling that we are all trying to cope with - the many Windows of our individual lives as it were. Multiple ids are driving the personalities of both brands and people today.
The Un-boxing of India
Branding, news and entertainment merge
as we open many Windows in our daily lives and live with multiple ids
There was a question in KBC the other day on the name of the cow that features in a Cadburys ad – and a majority of the audience got it right. As a man in a focus group said a few days later, “yeh kya hai, general knowledge hai ya Cadburys ke liye ad hai - sab jagah ghusa dethe hain”. A lively discussion followed on whether advertising and brand messages were becoming intrusive, or a more integral part of our lives and therefore unavoidable. While Amitabh Bachchan as a father releases an ad for Guru, an engagement is announced on the day of the premier… “personal life ko publicity bana dethe hain” they said, with all due respect to the great man.
A news channel went hoarse selling Parzania – was that a genuine interest in Gujarat, good advertising and a “media partner” deal for Parzania or the heroine’s PR consultant at work? One role, and she is recast as a reinvented activist. Did KANK really raise issues in public consciousness, or was it just “good PR”? As Shah Rukh Khan himself pointed out in a recent interview on television, the celebrities get the publicity, the TV channel gets its viewership, news and entertainment blend in and out, you don’t know when one ends and the other begins. Content becomes advertising, advertising becomes content.
Just look at a few more examples of all kinds of “un-boxing” all around us.
* Beyond celebrities, we’ve now seen media becomes judge and jury, citizens become media.
* Look at the world of products and services. Health is now not just health and hospitals, but health and spirituality, health and tourism, health and psychology, health and music, health and beauty, health and dance, health and sports. Health, fitness, spirituality and tourism get into each other’s boxes. Spiritual plus music is another box, music and mobiles is a whole new box. There’s tourism and adventure, tourism and HR (corporate outbound tours), tourism and spirituality, tourism and sports, besides plain good old tourism – holiday and sight seeing. Television and telecom create a new box together on the sms front, turning audience participation into nationwide news.
* Take brand benefits and Corporate Social Responsibility. ITC’s Sunfeast ad and the Ashirwad atta ad implies that a responsible company makes it, and you’ll be helping somebody if you bought the product, rather than urging you to buy the product because it is differentiated and delivers on a benefit. Different from the Surf Save Water and the Lifebuoy street cleaning ad which had strong Corporate Social Responsibility overtones, but were still rooted in a product attribute.
* Take the world of art and music. Artists combine painting with photography, cartoons, sculpture, industrial junk and kitsch. Art is corporatised, art is investment. Music, dance and drama merge to deliver new entertainment forms. Musicians are going beyond the concert platform into research, education, talent hunt, and even writing. A recent music book launch included a film on music, a reading of excerpts by theater professionals and auctioning of the first copy for a cause.
* Companies are now having to train employees not just in their area of operation, but language and culture - Wipro’s Shimpo programme teaches cultural codes, social conduct, business etiquette, and night life in Japan. HR, PR, and CSR are un-boxing themselves to build the corporate brand, as much as takeovers, CEO hobbies, Page 3 and the corporate wife.
All this is both cause and effect of many key aspects of brand building today –particularly segmentation, payoffs and media choice.
Take as just one example, the blurring of segments in cars. It is no more just hatches, sedans, SUVs and so on… but hatches, hot hatches, premium hatches, city SUVs, look-like SUVs and real SUVs.
With pricing, and value propositions going criss-cross across segments - and the consequent overlapping of payoffs – economy brands promising class, classy brands promising economy, who’ll-buy-what-when-and-why will soon be anybody’s guess.
Media plans therefore stretch from advertisements to placement of questions in quizzes, and everything in between.
Perhaps all this unboxing is nowhere more evident than in our personal lives - reflective of the multiple roles, and the increasing juggling that we are all trying to cope with - the many Windows of our individual lives as it were. Multiple ids are driving the personalities of both brands and people today.
The more global the Indian, the more national the Indian?: Published articles/TOI 1
Article in the Times of India, Feb 24 07
The more global the Indian,
the more national the Indian?
Have you noticed the ad on TV where the Indian boatman leaves the West Indian couple high and dry, mid waters, demonstrating that it is “tough being a West Indian in India”? And another one on similar lines where an Indian tiger – if tigers have nationalities – makes it difficult for traveling Sri Lankans? A far cry from the Indian hospitality theory of Athithi Devo Bhavah - both the ads have run into some trouble with the authorities. But given that advertising always mirrors socio-cultural change, these ads clearly reflect new-found Indian aggression.
In contrast, the unassuming, unlikely Indian who is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Wall Street but does not have a Parker pen - much to Amitabh Bachchan’s affectionate distress - is warm and funny, telling us that we can still laugh at ourselves. As also the ad where Yuvraj Singh has taught West Indians all there is to teach about Indian food and song and dance.
To be fair, it is not so much the ads, but the newspaper headlines that set the tone: Indra Nooyi does not just become CEO of Pepsi, she “unfurls the Indian tricolour in Pepsi headquarters”. NIIT does not just grow to 160 centers in China, it “teaches China a lesson”. It is not just that Shilpa Shetty wins, “chicken curry rules”. Tatas don’t just acquire Corus, they “land the killer punch”. They don’t just outbid CSN, “bhangra knocks samba off the floor”. B Muthuraman and team are not just the top management team, they are “knights of the roundtable”. And it’s not just in the headlines, it creeps into every other paragraph too. So the Tata Steel balance sheet does not just have space for loans – they “have a lever from which they can move the earth.” Clear proof that the more western our lifestyle gets and the more global we become, the greater the arousal of cultural nationalism too.
Gone is the quiet charm of the Pond’s girl who learnt to speak English but chose to speak in Hindi even as she won the international beauty contest. It was all about how India could absorb the new without displacing the old. We seem to have traveled quite some distance from the whole world chanting the gayatri, as in the Videocon ad, or the whole world saying namaste, as in the British Airways commercial. A long way indeed from cartoons on Santa being outsourced and articles titled “White House Bangalored”.
It was one thing to feel mildly pleased that the world was picking up bits of Indian values and images, but quite something else to aggressively say that India can teach the world a lesson or two. Is there something happening here that is changing our character fundamentally? Is it really happening, or is it just the flavour of the day, of the English speaking corporate world and elite media?
A Research International Observer study classifies countries on global/national - individualist/collectivist axes and identifies four types. 1) The Cultural Individualist - such as France, Australia and the USA, who combine a great deal of national/ cultural pride with strong individualistic values. 2) The Global Individualist - Scandinavian nations, the Netherlands and Belgium, with a relatively low interest or pride in their own culture, and correspondingly an openness to the world. 3) The Global Sensitives - Argentina, Zimbabwe and Chile open to the world in a collectivist way, where making connections through global brands is often more important than pride in their own culture. 4) The Cultural Sensitives - collectivist markets such as Mexico or India – where consumers expect global brands to understand and respect their culture, and when possible, adapt to local situations in both product and communication.
At the risk of sounding like an amateur sociologist, are we going from Cultural Sensitive to Cultural Individualist? Or are we moving bang to the center point of the map, combining global desires with strong cultural nationalism, collective spirit that also celebrates individualism? Combining like only India can, “Like this, Like that’ as the KitKat ad said.
The Rajnigandha ad where the hero wants to buy the East India Company because “they ruled us for 200 years, now it is our turn” seemed an over-statement for a paan masala. But today a newspaper headline could well declare “Chaba ke dekho: Ratan and Shilpa make the English chew their hat”.
The more global the Indian,
the more national the Indian?
Have you noticed the ad on TV where the Indian boatman leaves the West Indian couple high and dry, mid waters, demonstrating that it is “tough being a West Indian in India”? And another one on similar lines where an Indian tiger – if tigers have nationalities – makes it difficult for traveling Sri Lankans? A far cry from the Indian hospitality theory of Athithi Devo Bhavah - both the ads have run into some trouble with the authorities. But given that advertising always mirrors socio-cultural change, these ads clearly reflect new-found Indian aggression.
In contrast, the unassuming, unlikely Indian who is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Wall Street but does not have a Parker pen - much to Amitabh Bachchan’s affectionate distress - is warm and funny, telling us that we can still laugh at ourselves. As also the ad where Yuvraj Singh has taught West Indians all there is to teach about Indian food and song and dance.
To be fair, it is not so much the ads, but the newspaper headlines that set the tone: Indra Nooyi does not just become CEO of Pepsi, she “unfurls the Indian tricolour in Pepsi headquarters”. NIIT does not just grow to 160 centers in China, it “teaches China a lesson”. It is not just that Shilpa Shetty wins, “chicken curry rules”. Tatas don’t just acquire Corus, they “land the killer punch”. They don’t just outbid CSN, “bhangra knocks samba off the floor”. B Muthuraman and team are not just the top management team, they are “knights of the roundtable”. And it’s not just in the headlines, it creeps into every other paragraph too. So the Tata Steel balance sheet does not just have space for loans – they “have a lever from which they can move the earth.” Clear proof that the more western our lifestyle gets and the more global we become, the greater the arousal of cultural nationalism too.
Gone is the quiet charm of the Pond’s girl who learnt to speak English but chose to speak in Hindi even as she won the international beauty contest. It was all about how India could absorb the new without displacing the old. We seem to have traveled quite some distance from the whole world chanting the gayatri, as in the Videocon ad, or the whole world saying namaste, as in the British Airways commercial. A long way indeed from cartoons on Santa being outsourced and articles titled “White House Bangalored”.
It was one thing to feel mildly pleased that the world was picking up bits of Indian values and images, but quite something else to aggressively say that India can teach the world a lesson or two. Is there something happening here that is changing our character fundamentally? Is it really happening, or is it just the flavour of the day, of the English speaking corporate world and elite media?
A Research International Observer study classifies countries on global/national - individualist/collectivist axes and identifies four types. 1) The Cultural Individualist - such as France, Australia and the USA, who combine a great deal of national/ cultural pride with strong individualistic values. 2) The Global Individualist - Scandinavian nations, the Netherlands and Belgium, with a relatively low interest or pride in their own culture, and correspondingly an openness to the world. 3) The Global Sensitives - Argentina, Zimbabwe and Chile open to the world in a collectivist way, where making connections through global brands is often more important than pride in their own culture. 4) The Cultural Sensitives - collectivist markets such as Mexico or India – where consumers expect global brands to understand and respect their culture, and when possible, adapt to local situations in both product and communication.
At the risk of sounding like an amateur sociologist, are we going from Cultural Sensitive to Cultural Individualist? Or are we moving bang to the center point of the map, combining global desires with strong cultural nationalism, collective spirit that also celebrates individualism? Combining like only India can, “Like this, Like that’ as the KitKat ad said.
The Rajnigandha ad where the hero wants to buy the East India Company because “they ruled us for 200 years, now it is our turn” seemed an over-statement for a paan masala. But today a newspaper headline could well declare “Chaba ke dekho: Ratan and Shilpa make the English chew their hat”.
The Future of Strategic Planning: Published articles/USP Age 1
Article in USP Age
The Future of Strategic Planning:
Separate with a bang or die with a whimper
What has happened to the advertising industry as a whole and to servicing as a function will happen to planning too: its role will get steadily reduced as new fangled experts chip away more and more at its pie.
The rose bushes in planning’s vineyard: Heeding the danger signals
They say vine growers plant rose bushes every few yards or so, because potential pest infestations show up early in the rose bushes – and the vineyard can be saved.
The rose bushes in planning’s vineyards are already showing signs of danger.
Consultants have been mushrooming for quite some time now. Trend spotters are arriving by every train. Journalists and magazines are doing a great job of tracking and reporting trends in social psychology much faster than agencies ever can. There’s enough and more available on the net – marketing websites and blogs are throwing up ideas and models faster than you can say google. Understanding media behaviour, shopper behaviour and the like has traditionally not been an area of expertise of agency planners. It doesn’t help that market research agencies are not adapting fast either.
With brand messaging converging with news, content and entertainment, the relay race where planning partners the client from conception and then passes on the baton to creative for delivery is no more relevant. Worse, the agency planner is no more the sole and best source of consumer behaviour and insights, or positioning strategies. Leave alone having their own insight mining divisions, marketing companies are beginning to blog on the net directly with consumers – hunting not just for insights but product ideas and even business plans. The increasing pressure on creative to push forward on its own steam further decreases planning’s role.
Strategic planning could learn from the Indian woman.
Always used to being some one else’s daughter, wife and mother the Indian woman suddenly started asking the question: “What about me?” Not satisfied with just “role” she started searching for “soul’. And when she stepped out and started earning on her own and became her own person as it were, she not only gained more respect but also became an economic force to reckon with.
It’s time strategic planners in advertising agencies started asking the very same question: “What about me?” Planners should go beyond being servicing’s backroom boy, or the client’s sounding board, or creative’s partner or the agency’s pitch leader. Their portfolio should go beyond creative briefs and strategy and pitch presentations. They should have a body of work that belongs to them - a portfolio of their own, which has a reason to be, independently.
Why? For the simple reason that first as individual professionals it will raise their level of perceived expertise and self worth, and second, as an agency offering, it will help raise the quality and scope of contribution, thus commanding a higher price.
Re-skill, re-structure, recruit differently
Besides fresh methods to play the traditional roles, (the Indian woman does housekeep and cook more imaginatively today!) planners need to pick areas of interest and expand their skill sets to include trend analysis, strategic content creation, media behaviour analyses, business ideation/consulting, work-shopping and brainstorming, net scrounging, 360 degree research and channel planning.
New age planners should be able to hit the ground running with frameworks and models for new age categories like retail, medical, education, entertainment, commodities, travel, technology/internet, as well as be able to play a consulting role in areas like internal/employee branding, and even CEO branding.
The planner of the future must shift gears today – if he or she hasn’t already - to go from being thinker to creator, from insights to ideas, from creative brief as predominant output to content creation and tool building.
Advertising agencies should restructure and break the traditional format of having dedicated planners per client, to creating a hub of planners with varied new age skills for all clients to access.
The straight, tough, soul searching question to ask is: will clients continue to pay for someone just to oversee the research agency, hold the brand manager’s hand on positioning and write the creative brief?
The opportunity: from a department to an AOR
If the AOR for creative and media can be different, a separate AOR for (integrated) strategic planning is but a short step away. When you pay for something separately, the buyer demands more and the seller is forced to deliver greater value. For all the debate on whether or not it was a good idea to pull media out of the advertising agency, there is no denying that the client has got greater value.
The opportunity for strategic planning is to pull itself out, expand its definition, collect varied expertise, and actually be the gateway between the marketer and all other agencies – advertising, media, activation, PR, DM, digital and whatever else that springs up.
To string a few clichés together… as it stands, strategic planning is going nowhere, fast. In the long term, we are all dead. Only the paranoid survive.
The Future of Strategic Planning:
Separate with a bang or die with a whimper
What has happened to the advertising industry as a whole and to servicing as a function will happen to planning too: its role will get steadily reduced as new fangled experts chip away more and more at its pie.
The rose bushes in planning’s vineyard: Heeding the danger signals
They say vine growers plant rose bushes every few yards or so, because potential pest infestations show up early in the rose bushes – and the vineyard can be saved.
The rose bushes in planning’s vineyards are already showing signs of danger.
Consultants have been mushrooming for quite some time now. Trend spotters are arriving by every train. Journalists and magazines are doing a great job of tracking and reporting trends in social psychology much faster than agencies ever can. There’s enough and more available on the net – marketing websites and blogs are throwing up ideas and models faster than you can say google. Understanding media behaviour, shopper behaviour and the like has traditionally not been an area of expertise of agency planners. It doesn’t help that market research agencies are not adapting fast either.
With brand messaging converging with news, content and entertainment, the relay race where planning partners the client from conception and then passes on the baton to creative for delivery is no more relevant. Worse, the agency planner is no more the sole and best source of consumer behaviour and insights, or positioning strategies. Leave alone having their own insight mining divisions, marketing companies are beginning to blog on the net directly with consumers – hunting not just for insights but product ideas and even business plans. The increasing pressure on creative to push forward on its own steam further decreases planning’s role.
Strategic planning could learn from the Indian woman.
Always used to being some one else’s daughter, wife and mother the Indian woman suddenly started asking the question: “What about me?” Not satisfied with just “role” she started searching for “soul’. And when she stepped out and started earning on her own and became her own person as it were, she not only gained more respect but also became an economic force to reckon with.
It’s time strategic planners in advertising agencies started asking the very same question: “What about me?” Planners should go beyond being servicing’s backroom boy, or the client’s sounding board, or creative’s partner or the agency’s pitch leader. Their portfolio should go beyond creative briefs and strategy and pitch presentations. They should have a body of work that belongs to them - a portfolio of their own, which has a reason to be, independently.
Why? For the simple reason that first as individual professionals it will raise their level of perceived expertise and self worth, and second, as an agency offering, it will help raise the quality and scope of contribution, thus commanding a higher price.
Re-skill, re-structure, recruit differently
Besides fresh methods to play the traditional roles, (the Indian woman does housekeep and cook more imaginatively today!) planners need to pick areas of interest and expand their skill sets to include trend analysis, strategic content creation, media behaviour analyses, business ideation/consulting, work-shopping and brainstorming, net scrounging, 360 degree research and channel planning.
New age planners should be able to hit the ground running with frameworks and models for new age categories like retail, medical, education, entertainment, commodities, travel, technology/internet, as well as be able to play a consulting role in areas like internal/employee branding, and even CEO branding.
The planner of the future must shift gears today – if he or she hasn’t already - to go from being thinker to creator, from insights to ideas, from creative brief as predominant output to content creation and tool building.
Advertising agencies should restructure and break the traditional format of having dedicated planners per client, to creating a hub of planners with varied new age skills for all clients to access.
The straight, tough, soul searching question to ask is: will clients continue to pay for someone just to oversee the research agency, hold the brand manager’s hand on positioning and write the creative brief?
The opportunity: from a department to an AOR
If the AOR for creative and media can be different, a separate AOR for (integrated) strategic planning is but a short step away. When you pay for something separately, the buyer demands more and the seller is forced to deliver greater value. For all the debate on whether or not it was a good idea to pull media out of the advertising agency, there is no denying that the client has got greater value.
The opportunity for strategic planning is to pull itself out, expand its definition, collect varied expertise, and actually be the gateway between the marketer and all other agencies – advertising, media, activation, PR, DM, digital and whatever else that springs up.
To string a few clichés together… as it stands, strategic planning is going nowhere, fast. In the long term, we are all dead. Only the paranoid survive.
Gentlemen, the brief is showing!: Published articles/agencyfaqs 4
Article in agencyfaqs, feb20, 07
GENTLEMEN, THE BRIEF IS SHOWING!
As far as ad agency Planners are concerned, there are five kinds of ads.
1) Those that are clearly for the awards. You had nothing to do with it. Worse, when you first heard it, you probably said that it goes against the core brand proposition. You are now biting your tongue and wishing you had cheered it along, or found a strategy to fit. At least the creative whiz kid won’t be thinking of you as a wet blanket and tagging you as “Planner type”!
2) The second, and according to me, the best, are those that are so captivating in thought that your heart does a little blip, and so watch-able in execution that you want to see them again and again. You really don’t think about the strategy behind it. You are too busy wondering whose idea it was, how on earth they thought of it, and wishing you had done it. Somewhere you’ll see the name of the creative team that worked on it, but you’ll always be left wondering who the Planner was, till his or her CV reaches you one day. And even then you’ll ask him, “Did the idea really come FROM the brief, and AFTER the brief?” And then you’ll get to know the inside stories that are always so nice to get to know, “Actually what happened was…!” A few months later, there are conflicting reports and you may hear that “actually” it didn’t make that big a difference in the market. But a year later you hear it’s actually got an Effie!
3) At the other end of the spectrum are those that you can never fathom what on earth they are up to. And you don’t try because by then you have switched channels. The Brand Manager wrote the brand window, the technical person rewrote it, and the film star and her daughter are mouthing it. Or the client wanted Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan. Anyway, the creative guy heard his aunt-in-law discuss it with the cook, and they are the target audience, not you and I. And the Planner reports that awareness and salience have increased. It really is OK. Every ad can’t win a Cannes or an Effie. You have to be in business before you can be creative!
4) The fourth type are the ads with the SO…THAT.
The original Vivid Metaphor or Vivid Demo ads that we were taught when I entered advertising two decades ago! And which still work.
Sambar that smells SO GOOD THAT your husband will think your south Indian friend sent it. Hair styling SO QUICK THAT she will reach the restaurant before him. FM radio music SO GOOD THAT you’ll be singing even from inside a manhole. Mobile service SO CHEAP THAT you don’t have to give missed calls. Chimneys that take away the smell SO WELL THAT you can’t smell even fried fish.
Now fill in the blanks… Cream that makes you look SO YOUNG THAT… Chips SO AUTHENTIC IN TASTE THAT… Milk biscuits with SO MUCH STRENGTH THAT… Tea with SO MUCH TWIST IN THE TASTE THAT…
The Planner (hopefully!) was the one who identified the proposition. The client was willing to make one clear claim. Creative found a good demo. It sailed through research. It’s working. Everyone is happy… and screaming HOW’S THAT?!
5) But this is the one that’s most fun for Planners. Because, ah ha, you know what they are trying to do! These are the ones that you talk about the next morning at work… “Did you see the new so and so? They are trying to do x,y, zee!” “ What ya… Creative just put the brief in the ad!”
Thousands of men are using fairness creams, but fairness creams are seen to be a woman’s product - our fairness cream is specially formulated for men, you don’t have to use a girl’s cream. Men’s hair is different from women’s hair - let’s create a new segment in the hair dye market. This car has multiple benefits, so it is for the multiple roles of a man. That car is for small car upgraders, and children - a huge emotional driver - love the arrival of a big car. That bike on the other hand, is targeted at a younger age group - it’s for bachelors. Women seem to know cleansing/ toning/ moisturizing, but they don’t necessarily know about scrubbing - we have to make them see it as part of that routine. Mothers stop using baby soaps on their babies after they are two - they must be told to use it till their babies are three or more; we need to extend usage.
The strategy shows, or the insight shows, or the target group definition shows… in other words gentlemen, the brief shows. Brand Manager and Planner have cracked it together!
But don’t knock it, because even Superman lets it show!
GENTLEMEN, THE BRIEF IS SHOWING!
As far as ad agency Planners are concerned, there are five kinds of ads.
1) Those that are clearly for the awards. You had nothing to do with it. Worse, when you first heard it, you probably said that it goes against the core brand proposition. You are now biting your tongue and wishing you had cheered it along, or found a strategy to fit. At least the creative whiz kid won’t be thinking of you as a wet blanket and tagging you as “Planner type”!
2) The second, and according to me, the best, are those that are so captivating in thought that your heart does a little blip, and so watch-able in execution that you want to see them again and again. You really don’t think about the strategy behind it. You are too busy wondering whose idea it was, how on earth they thought of it, and wishing you had done it. Somewhere you’ll see the name of the creative team that worked on it, but you’ll always be left wondering who the Planner was, till his or her CV reaches you one day. And even then you’ll ask him, “Did the idea really come FROM the brief, and AFTER the brief?” And then you’ll get to know the inside stories that are always so nice to get to know, “Actually what happened was…!” A few months later, there are conflicting reports and you may hear that “actually” it didn’t make that big a difference in the market. But a year later you hear it’s actually got an Effie!
3) At the other end of the spectrum are those that you can never fathom what on earth they are up to. And you don’t try because by then you have switched channels. The Brand Manager wrote the brand window, the technical person rewrote it, and the film star and her daughter are mouthing it. Or the client wanted Amitabh Bachchan or Shah Rukh Khan. Anyway, the creative guy heard his aunt-in-law discuss it with the cook, and they are the target audience, not you and I. And the Planner reports that awareness and salience have increased. It really is OK. Every ad can’t win a Cannes or an Effie. You have to be in business before you can be creative!
4) The fourth type are the ads with the SO…THAT.
The original Vivid Metaphor or Vivid Demo ads that we were taught when I entered advertising two decades ago! And which still work.
Sambar that smells SO GOOD THAT your husband will think your south Indian friend sent it. Hair styling SO QUICK THAT she will reach the restaurant before him. FM radio music SO GOOD THAT you’ll be singing even from inside a manhole. Mobile service SO CHEAP THAT you don’t have to give missed calls. Chimneys that take away the smell SO WELL THAT you can’t smell even fried fish.
Now fill in the blanks… Cream that makes you look SO YOUNG THAT… Chips SO AUTHENTIC IN TASTE THAT… Milk biscuits with SO MUCH STRENGTH THAT… Tea with SO MUCH TWIST IN THE TASTE THAT…
The Planner (hopefully!) was the one who identified the proposition. The client was willing to make one clear claim. Creative found a good demo. It sailed through research. It’s working. Everyone is happy… and screaming HOW’S THAT?!
5) But this is the one that’s most fun for Planners. Because, ah ha, you know what they are trying to do! These are the ones that you talk about the next morning at work… “Did you see the new so and so? They are trying to do x,y, zee!” “ What ya… Creative just put the brief in the ad!”
Thousands of men are using fairness creams, but fairness creams are seen to be a woman’s product - our fairness cream is specially formulated for men, you don’t have to use a girl’s cream. Men’s hair is different from women’s hair - let’s create a new segment in the hair dye market. This car has multiple benefits, so it is for the multiple roles of a man. That car is for small car upgraders, and children - a huge emotional driver - love the arrival of a big car. That bike on the other hand, is targeted at a younger age group - it’s for bachelors. Women seem to know cleansing/ toning/ moisturizing, but they don’t necessarily know about scrubbing - we have to make them see it as part of that routine. Mothers stop using baby soaps on their babies after they are two - they must be told to use it till their babies are three or more; we need to extend usage.
The strategy shows, or the insight shows, or the target group definition shows… in other words gentlemen, the brief shows. Brand Manager and Planner have cracked it together!
But don’t knock it, because even Superman lets it show!
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