Old management, new bottle

I’m part of the new management. Of the Internet, I mean. That’s what Yahoo! India has been telling me over the past couple of weeks. And yes, it even used newspapers to inform me. Nothing says “we’re Net-savvy” like a couple of print ads, see?

It’s not a smart ad, of course. It doesn’t really say anything — what sort of management? what sort of product mix? what does this really mean? will non-techies understand? Then again, there’s an adequately pretty woman taking up 70% of the ad space, so it must be a good one. That’s what advertising companies in India are paid for, aren’t they — to use a celebrity, or a pretty face when faced with smaller budgets, and tack on copy that means very, very little to anyone?

And so, there you have it: Huge jacket ads in The Times Of India, Mint, The Hindustan Times, DNA. A massive out-of-home campaign too: Huge hoardings on crowded flyovers across the country, all informing us about the ‘new management’ of the Internet. Millions of us are, presumably, so excited that we can’t wait to get home and take control. We can change the Google logo, perhaps. Or figure out who really logs on to Indiatimes.com. Or see if we can categorise the 17009932 sites put up by the TV18 Group.

But, no. No massive changes in the way we engage with data. The usual ‘open and social’ elements are in place, obviously, and Yahoo! Messenger gets a couple of bells & whistles. Woohoo! But is this it? The new management?

To be fair, some things make a little sense. There’s a certain amount of thought put into how eyeballs can be kept within the ‘Yahoo! zone’ for just a while longer. It’s what all major portals are doing too, only they haven’t printed their newspaper jacket ads just yet. So, more eyeballs mean better traffic, better ROI for advertisers, and more stuff for users without too much searching. Makes sense. Still can’t see where the management thing comes in though. Things may get better when more partners sign up. Until then, it all looks like the ‘old management’ to me.

According to the management at Yahoo! India — they’re part of the ‘new management’ of the Internet too, of course — the print campaign was meant to achieve what MBA interns call ‘disruptive visibility’, and what veteran marketers call, simply, ‘visibility’.

We noticed. Now what?

Now online: Ministry of Health & Family Welfare

Enough said. Really.

Bringing some logic to tech

Avans University in Netherlands has a communication and multimedia graduate programme. Two of its students — with the unpronounceable names Mathijs Kraal and Bas Uytdenhouwen — recently decided to take on a few biggies of the ad world in spectacular fashion. They, along with friends Hester Naaktgeboren, Jeroen Bijl and Bart van Delft, formed a group called ‘De vijf nan morgen’ and put together a cross media offensive in the form of a hoax. After a certain amount of publicity was generated for the ‘real’ campaign, they intended to step out from the shade and present themselves as the brains behind the act.

The idea was to create a stealth campaign that would create positive publicity for a randomly chosen company. The campaign would be executed independently without notifying the company. After an analysis of all kinds of brands from various countries — some widely known, others local — the group picked peripherals major Logitech. They also had a specific product in mind: The Microgear TM Precision Scroll Wheel, which was patented by Logitech and introduced in 2006.

The mouse offers users a ‘free wheel’ option, removing the clicks after each scroll. The result is precise scrolling, 50 times faster than any other mouse! Taking into account the fact that Logitech frequently aims its products at gamers, the group decided to base their campaign on a ‘record-breaking’ mouse.

They came up with The Scroll Wheel Challenge.

It was simple enough. Challenge people to use their mouse wheel to scroll as fast as possible in 30 seconds. Each click registered as one scroll, which was used to calculate the average scrolls per second. After 30 seconds, players could compare scores with others. As Logitech’s Precision Scroll Wheel was superior, it was assumed users with a Logitech under their palms would win by a large margin. This would cause them to be noticed on the high score list. Of course, players were encouraged to keep playing even without a Logitech mouse.

For those who were more enthusiastic than fast, a second ‘Style’ competition was also created. The ‘Style Award’ was all about scrolling in original ways, filming or photographing this, and uploading the videos. Winners were judged by visitors to the site.

The budget for promotion was obviously minimal. So, the group approached popular blogs and communities, created a video promo and uploaded a few viral videos on YouTube hoping for a snowball effect. It worked — over 50,000 unique visitors from more than 100 countries, with 2.5 million hits!

Two weeks after launching the game, it was time for branding to come into the picture. Players with the new Logitech mouse occupied 8 out of the top 10 positions, confirming the company’s claims. On Tuesday, April 7, 2009, the winners were to be presented and a new season of gaming announced. Or so everyone thought. The rabbit was finally out of the hat on April 10, when loyal gamers returned for the new season. They were greeted by a new home page, introducing De vijf van morgen. Over the last couple of weeks, their site had been tracked by a whole lot of people.

Here’s the kicker though: Logitech has yet to contact them. Maybe that’s a good thing!

— Contributed by Atin Dasgupta @ Beanbag Media, Bombay.

Going by the book

Dickens. They must have Dickens. That is usually my first tool to evaluate any site masquerading as an e-bookstore. It’s what I use to separate the serious sellers from travellers on the enthusiastic ‘Let’s All Embrace E-commerce’ bandwagon. The truth online is, after all, much the same as it is offline: You’re not a great bookstore if you don’t have the books your customers want.

Hence, Charles Dickens — an author no bookstore can ignore; rather, someone no bookstore ought to ignore. I used the Dickens Test on CoralHub, a new entrant offering ‘more than 3 million books to choose from.’ My first 20 results were the same: A Child’s History of England. No Great Expectations, no David Copperfield, no Pickwick Papers. They started to appear by the third page, by which point I had moved to another e-store.

To be fair, the site scored when asked to locate books related to Shakespeare. Its search algorithm sifted through prices effectively, and didn’t take ages to do it either. Another thing I liked was the relatively uncluttered interface. The downside: None of the books I selected boasted even the bare bones of a synopsis. Why would I rely on recommendations from a site that had no real reasons for making those recommendations?

What CoralHub.com also claimed to offer, apart from the ‘dedicated marketplace for books’ spiel, was the ability to let ‘sellers become buyers and vice versa’. ‘Sign Up’ for more information, it said. So I did. And waited for confirmation by email. Three hours later, I was still waiting.

Ultimately, what any shopping experience boils down to is the ease with which you get it done. CoralHub processes orders in much the way most other online bookstores do. For me, the inventory is all that matters. Until it gets a better selection, I’m sticking to Amazon.com.

There’s more to Sbuying and Sselling

Sachin Sharma, for the millions who don’t know him, is an actor. His words, not mine. He is also an actor who, unlike most other actors, has ‘observed and understood the importance of fans.’ Other actors are, presumably, issuing millions of restraining orders even as you read this. Not our Sachin. He wants his fans to ‘formally come closer’ to their favourite celebrities.

So, Sachin Sharma is also founder and CEO of sbuy.in, a quasi-shopping portal for small-time celebrities. Said small-timers can use SBuy (the ‘S’ presumably an intelligent reference to Sachin) to sell ‘anything and everything’. By selling ‘anything and everything’, the aforementioned small-timers can help their fans ‘formally come closer.’

An admirable venture, Sachin. Who among us can claim to not want to ‘formally come close’ to the celebrities we adore? An informal chat would simply not do, no sir.

Now here’s the funny thing — Sachin has a fabulous idea, coupled with the worst team in history to help him pull it off. His site claims to offer ‘authentic merchandise’ owned by celebrities, that can be sold, auctioned or donated. The merchandise in question includes everything from mobile phones to cars; even furniture, apparently [I can see it now — ‘For sale: Sallu’s Sofas’].

With a bit of thought, and some careful marketing, he might actually have a business plan that works. Unfortunately, Sachin has decided to throw professionalism to the winds. He has, from the looks of it, given the project to school-children who have, understandably, given Photoshop, Flash and Dreamweaver a bad name.

Still, an admirable effort that could, one day, be saved. Sachin, if you get time off from smiling at a heavily made-up woman on some set somewhere, consider a professional digital agency. Then send me a Thank You note.

How much would you pay?

Here are two questions you should soon prepare yourself for before logging on to your favourite website: How badly do you want to read this? How much can you pay?

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering media mogul Rupert Murdoch has been warning us for a while now. The wait period just got shorter after his empire recorded losses, forcing him to insist on charging for access to all his news websites within the next year.

As Murdoch is undoubtedly aware, of course, this won’t be easy. After all, the Internet is full of freeloaders, file-sharers, pirates, as well as folk like you and me — all pretty used to getting what they want without paying a rupee. Two major news sites that have successfully managed to charge for access are The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, presumably because their users feel that content can’t be found elsewhere. Can Indian news sites attract such paying customers?

Let’s take a step back to where this notion of free content came from. What content creators initially bet on, rightly, was that free content would attract more eyeballs. They assumed — again, rightly — eyeballs would attract advertisers. The flaw: when online ad budgets dropped, websites dropped out of sight.

Sameer Pitalwalla, Head, Times Audience Network, digital video arm of The Times Group, believes news no longer needs a newspaper or website. When pop star Michael Jackson died earlier this year, CNN.com was the only traditional media outlet among the top 10 sites attracting traffic. Pitalwalla believes Murdoch’s strategy will have converts, but only a few. “It will not replace print dollars,” he says. “In fact, it will cripple viewership on heavily trafficked ‘plateau destination’ sites, eroding ad dollars as well.” He refers to this as a transition phase. “If a revenue model besides advertising hasn’t been figured out yet, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Nor does it mean the only way out is straight-jacketing what worked on another medium onto a new one, without fully understanding it.”

Content is still pretty much what keeps the Web afloat. Also, consumers already pay for content on television and mobile, which is why the lack of a viable online model is so hard to fathom. Content from bloggers and independent publishers, coupled with better Search Engine Optimization, has only compounded the issue.

Zaki Ansari, Vice President (Product Development) at Rediff.com says, “As a personal opinion, I think the paid content model will work — but with Internet access through mobile devices, rather than PCs. Users already pay small amounts for mobile content; this is inevitably the way to go. Also, Internet access from handheld and other devices is only set to increase, which makes it a viable market.”

Free or paid, the outcome will certainly affect how media planners go about their business too. Rammohan Sundaram, CEO and Managing Director, Networkplay.in, an audience-focused vertical ad network, says his job becomes easier, “because affluence in the paid content category of users will only mean we can position a property in the premium category to get the desired throughput for publishers on brands that don’t worry about cost to reach the right audience.”

Irrespective of how this debate pans out, many believe there will be valuable lessons taught. Chris George, CEO, global marketing services major EBS Worldwide, is intrigued by paid content because it will test the belief of publishers in what they choose to put out. “It will also be a huge opportunity to review what readers consider to be worthy of their money,” he says. “And that kind of data is always valuable for anyone interested in marketing.”

What everyone agrees upon, for now, is that content is still king. Do customers still bow in homage — that’s a whole other story.

— This story appeared in the Mid-Day on August 25, 2009.

A shot in the dark

Ah, Cadbury’s. So many great campaigns, so many terrible ones. The latest modest-budget offering is for the re-launch of the brand’s dark chocolate product, Bournville. A re-launch makes sense, considering this is a fast-growing segment outside India — all thanks to anti-oxidants or something, according to fatties who probably just need an excuse for their cocoa-fix.

Now, here’s the teeny problem I seem to have. The microsite dedicated to the product is great — it re-introduces the product well, answers all questions, and showcases the benefits of dark chocolate. The problem: No one knows it exists. Why go through all the trouble of creating something this labour-intensive — as it obviously is — without doing a little more to drive traffic to your great microsite?

Maybe all I can see, from where I stand, is part of the big picture. Maybe the massive promotions are just around the corner, in which case I must respectfully withdraw. Maybe the company doesn’t feel the need for more promotions, considering it already has a 70% market share and no real competitors in the bitter chocolate segment.

What I would do, if given a chance, is concentrate on the benefits a little more. Health foods are a huge market, so tweaking the campaign to focus on this aspect of ‘chocolate that’s good for you’ could get more people interested. The whole ‘You Have To Earn It’ spiel simply doesn’t work. It’s just not compelling enough, although the premise is great on paper. If it did work, I would have felt like earning a Bourneville by now. I’m just uninterested.

Anyway, it’s 4 pm. Time for a Snickers break.

No thanks, Microsoft

A hunt for India’s ‘top 8’ explorers — that’s what the landing page says, garishly, in a font last used by 11-year-olds on their craft projects.

Here’s what visitors are promised: 8 of us will, apparently, ‘Win a Trip to Explore the top 8 Destinations India votes for.’ 8 of us will, apparently, ‘explore unknown territories and have the most unusual experiences.’ As far as I was concerned, an unusual experience had already begun. How unusual that a brand so entrenched online would pay someone money to create something so tacky. How unusual that no one at Microsoft stopped for a minute to think — ‘Is this the most net-savvy way to convince users to try IE8?’ How unusual that none of the featured videos — on automatic crash recovery, private browsing and web slices — were videos I would ever consider downloading in this lifetime.

And yet, because this was Microsoft, I persevered. Let me try the quiz, I told myself. And then, things just got worse: ‘Do you explore your way? Ever wondered why you like to sweat out on a mountain trek than chill out on a beach? That might explain why you like to browse your own way on the web. It’s simple. You are a certain kind of explorer. And therefore, different!’

Clearly, a semi-literate copywriter had conned an advertising agency into hiring him, before then conning Microsoft into paying for this piece of puerile rubbish. With every click, my unusual experience morphed from shock to horror. Is this what little Bill Gates had struggled for all those years ago, putting aside dating and dentist appointments so some moron would one day unleash this campaign upon an unsuspecting world?

There were ridiculous questions asked at every level, with worse answers, tacky Flash effects, and absolutely no attempt to engage with me as a consumer at any point. What the exercise left me with most was fear: Going by this promo, IE8 was probably downright awful. And even if it turned out to be a Chrome-killer, I’d be the last to find out because nothing would convince me to download it now.

And so, I continue to use Firefox in my ongoing search for well-executed campaigns. IE8 will have to wait.

Get your T-shirts here

Being rewarded for being on Twitter: So, THAT’S what we’ve been missing. It had to happen, of course. Create anything that brings in eyeballs, and there’s a smart marketing department with a placement idea. This one’s rather interesting though, if only as a precursor to what may happen next.

It comes from Channel V — they’re changing again, apparently, although I’m pretty sure it will take us a few months to figure out how. Soon, all ‘music channels’ may merge into something called MT[V]1, but that’s another story.

So, what the soon-to-be-brand-new channel has done, is bribe poor college students who happen to be on Twitter. They sign up, let Channel V change their Twitter profile pic to the channel logo at random, and win a couple of T-shirts. Five ‘grand’ (all winners must be Grand, according to rules filed by the Indian Copywriters Association) winners win not-so-grand iPod Nanos.

Will it work? Probably not. The buzz may not translate into better TRPs. Still, 5 ‘grand’ points for the effort. And, when I’m in charge, I’ll offer better prizes. Promise.

That perfect match

A simple, well-executed Flash banner — is it really so hard to find one? You’d be surprised. Let’s leave aside the notion of what’s creative and what isn’t, for a start, considering the subjective nature of that beast. Let’s also leave aside the idea of whether the banner ad in question serves the product or service in terms of its marketing plan. Let’s just look, for once, at pure execution.

Here’s a Flash banner for shaadi.com — that ubiquitous little URL that means so many things to so many people across India. I found this particular ad on the home page of MSN India earlier this morning, and the first thing I noticed: The designers had paid attention to how the HOST site was designed. They clearly hadn’t created this ad in a vacuum, like agencies often tend to do. They had clearly put in a bit of homework. Then again, maybe they just got lucky. Either way, it’s amazing how something that ought to take a couple of minutes at best can make such a difference.

By using contrasting colours — and in a good way, praise God — the ad lifts itself from the background. The visitor’s eye is drawn to it almost instantly. In a mere 30 seconds, with a simple message and perfect tag-line, you know exactly what shaadi.com is all about. The agency may owe match.com a minor debt, of course, but this is still a great example of what a rudimentary Flash banner can accomplish without much fuss.

Keep that in mind the next time you tell your designers, ‘Zyaada colour dalo, aur thoda special effect bhi dena.’