Power cuts are pretty common in this part of the world especially during summers so most days are like an Earth Hour Day for a lot of people here. However, for the rest of us, power cuts don’t really affect work as we are lucky enough to have alternate arrangements in the form of battery inverters and diesel generators.
If you are in the latter category of lucky people, and I am sure you do, please support the Earth Hour day on March 27, 2010 (next week, Saturday).
All you have to do is switch off all the lights at your place for one hour starting 8:30 pm (your local time). That’s it!
Earth Hour 2010 is a WWF initiative and is expected to be the largest climate event in history – let’s make this one a huge success and you’ll feel good about it for sure.
Today newspaper have mention on Anil Kumble's Book "Wide angle", Kumble's display of his s alternative career. The timing is right, as the IPL is hot right now and Deccan Challengers doing really well (The game against Rajasthan Royals was a complete stunner, great strategy and execution).
Amidst Excitement are these small ad breaks; I have no choice but to look at them. Here's my list of Top 5 and Flop 5 of The IPL Ad Campaigns.
Top 5 (in no order of preference)
Idea Cellular In a category which has Airtel and Vodaphone, it is difficult to create another entertaining commercial. The standards itself are so high. In this ad, Abhishek Bachchan with a sidekick and a hot secy invites the viewers to "Ungli Cricket". Quite funny, esp the side kick is hilarious esp the one on drinks. The sidekick gets high and starts slurring.
Airtel "Baat Karne Se Hi Baat Banati Hai". Great script, but could have been complete without Sharman Joshi in it.
Coke Finesse defines this commercial, has no story, but a memorable track and Kalki Koechlin appeal. Imran Khan sizzles. Superb execution!
Havel's This time the "Shock Laga" makes the whole family twist. The other ads are also in a similar league- "Uparwala Bachaye Na Bachaye, Havell Fans will save 40% electricity".
Vodaphone Some of the ads in the series are interesting- the one on Gaming. Masterpiece is created only once. I wonder for how long can they sustain this campaign.
Flop 5 (in the order of preference)
Pepsi Ranbir Kapur is completely wasted. Have no other words. It's long, complicated and the edit version doesn't make any sense. The more I see the more i get convinced of my opinion.
Samsung The one that I'm taking about doesn't have Amir Khan. It has two doors and some arbit action between the two doors. Fast and absolutely incomprehensible! Luckily Samsung does have that version on the net!
Max New York Life The Kid has brilliant expressions, however still haven't understood the relevance of Shiksha Plan in the whole scheme of things.
Thumbs Up Death defying commercial, I wish Akshay Kumar did that. In this new commercial, he is being chased by a woman. Must be a client driven initiative (something on the lines of get woman to drink Thumbs up, or a universal appeal blah blah). I guess the woman folks liked Thumbs up and until this commercial. The track also a drag...
Mountain Dew "Dar ke Age jeet hai" doesn't make a connect (guess the edit version is too rushed). The thrill of adventure and being on the edge is not there in the commercial.
Slice is the only good commercial from Pepsi's stable.
... is what you would see at the entrance of MakeMyTrip office; a hearty thought. There is something special about my former employer, MakeMyTrip, a start-up and the pioneer of travel distribution in India.
My folks would ask twice (on an average), when I told them where I work and what I do there (Mak-My Trip, Make Me Trip some bizarre versions).... E-commerce was new (well in 2004, not that new, as people bought books and cds on Indiatimes), and internet was buzzing. The bunch MakeMyTrip reflected this enthusiasm. Here's my recollection of the spirit, in pictures and worth 1000 words ( roughly 500 words for amateurs photographer such as I)...
1. Productions (Modern Ramayan would certainly feature): A general feature at the makemytrip offsites. We would normally run out of scripts and would finally resort to the good old "Modern Ramayan". The one in picture was staged in the serene locations of Malaysia, and one of our better productions. (featured in the picture from left to right is Deepender Rawat, Jasmeet Singh, Jitu, Mayur Oberoi, Amit Saberwal, Swapnil Gupta & Sidharth Grover).
2. Offsites: At least twice in a year. The best part of the offsites were the interesting stories after offsites...
3. Visiting Cards: People could find our names (Oh I see your email ID, but where is your name) and didn't read the personalised interests. This would be one of the best B-Cards that I have seen till date...
4. "Trip with us" Wall Collage: is right at the entrance (I'm placed in Ethiopia)...
5. Meeting Rooms: Nicely adorned with the sign "Trip in Progress", where we "aimed" and "shot down" our competitors.
6. Festival celebrations: Colorful and full of zest. Not to forget the fountain in front of the office which was used extensively for Holi.
7. Painting and Wall Hangings: Some of these done by us at MakeMyTrip (the one on the LHS)...
8. "365 Days to Visit when you are alive" Notebook: True to it's name, took almost 365 days to finally print, but worth the effort. Each page had esoteric destination. Featured in the photograph is the Co-founder and CMO, Sachin Bhatia...
The only thing more important than the bottomline at makemytrip was celebration. It was a good trip!
The genesis is interesting. During one a gyan loaded knowledge session with an agency, I realised that some of the points are worth considering. And so did I, after 3 days, started thinking on social media, community, travel application et al and collected some of these threads (at the fear of loosing them).
First some usual stuff about the social marketing buzz. It is fashionable to be on Facebook (the no of fans decides the success) and twitter ("how many followers you have dude"). Undoubtably, Social media marketing is the most potent jargon to get attention in seminars these days. Truly, there isn't a dearth of social media evangelists.
Also some and fact (as a marketer)- there are handful of successful case study on the subject of social marketing. Social Media does gives an opportunity to interact and engage with the consumers (for the first time in history of marketing real time) but will you as a marketer consider as an arsenal to drive your campaign. How much time is required, is the next question and "no" is decisive answer for this question as well. And the performance benchmark? Social Media doesn't have all the answers as of now.
Evangelist would differ, and are hopeful, they would say (Starbucks has 3.7 mln & Coca Cola has 3.5 mln & Facebook 4.4 mln fans on Facebook as we speak). Is the number of Fan the only performance benchmark?
Well all that is ok, but where does social media feature in online travel, where the bread and butter (for majority of vc funded travel site) is traffic acquisition and its performance. Online traffic needs to have a healthy ROI. Each channel is measured. So, where does the social media fit in with limited credentials as a case study and with no estimate of time and resources.
So coming to core of my thoughts. If I were to have an objective for social media plan around travel what will it be? To be on facebook and get million fans, to be on twitter and get million follower or to start a blog and get zillions of people to recommend...
Nice start, but not enough. The objective should be derieved out of the service offering, business goal and brand gene/goal. It may sound simple, however difficult to execute. Starting conversations is not easy.
At the cost of being repetitive, the idea should be to get the social media flywheel going (Dave Evan's). This is the magic of social media, where for the first time marketers can actualy work in complete circle. Unlike earlier, as in tradional marketing, the cycle doesn't stop with campaign and stimulus. The responsiblity of marketing goes overlaps with operations, encourages recommendations by the users and in process creates brand advocates. The vetran social media strategist Chris Bogan, calls them as trust agents. His mantra is to use web to create influence, improve reputation and earn trust.
Travel is no different from this global approach. Ideally, if the brand can convert more and more people into ambassadors, the brand will witness positive effect on conversions. There has been some activity around this...
2. Cleatrip: Innovative in social marketing sphere. Quite active on twitter and facebook. The Kiruba incidence has put their recognition right there.
3. Travelocity: is driving the social media through "The Roaming Gnome". (He was in San Diago yesterday with an interesting video)
4. Expedia: Some presence here and there, but the focus is not as pointed as cleartrip or travelocity.
There is also example of Cleatrip is clearly the thought leader in the travel vertical and is doing a commendable job from marketing perspective. Right from the corporate blog, to twitter presence and the interacting with the fans, Cleatrip has it act in place. The updates are regular, informative and entertaining. Cleartrip is setting a great precidence and creating a web of social interactions through conversations, leading to relationships.
Maybe a lot of thinking and now a time for to act!
I love digital space, internet mobile, applications et al. Technology and Marketing are the areas which I embrace. I was associated with advertising and media before I was "Digitised" ;).
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