A Time To Reflect

charukesi October 13th, 2004

From the adverblog, A cell phone for GrandPa.

The US mobile phone industry is ready to target a “new” generation of consumers: seniors. An article on the The New York Times (free reg. req.) highlights the senior population represents a great opportunity for the market to grow. It won’t be easy, since elder people have a lot of concerns around mobile technologies, but if the industry will meet their expectations, the success will be granted.

This is true. I find that in India, the “seniors” are potentially a huge segment for new products / services. I am thinking of my own parents as I write this…

Typically, they have completed their “responsibilities” in life and are looking for some peace and comfort.

They have a need
- to relax (holidays? restaurants?)
- to be connected (cellphones?)
- for entertainment (media gadgets? - my parents became the proud owners of a VCD player recently, and no child could be happier with his new toy…)
And, they also usually have the money… disposable money…

So far, the aged have only been targeted for insurance and other financial products - sure, they also have a need to be financially secure once they have stopped getting a steady income from work - but is that all ? I am sure it cannot be a pleasant thing to be constantly reminded about how old one is or how old one is going to get… all those ads about savings and insurance…

Why are marketers not thinking more about this segment as potential consumers for a variety of products? However, as the article says, the seniors also are not too comfortable with “technology” (and not just mobile technology), and marketers would do well to develop and target “simplified technology” for this segment… Right now, I cannot think of any brands / products in inda (apart from financial products) specifically targeted at this segment… can you?

• Branding and Marketing
• Comments(2)

charukesi October 12th, 2004

Please update your links to the *new improved* A Time To Reflect at www.indsight.org/blog

• The World of Indsight
• Comments(0)

charukesi October 10th, 2004

Out of the mouths of babes…

(Mommy, what was he called before he was renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji?)

• Don't be funny!
• Comments(0)

charukesi October 8th, 2004

This is one of the most depressing sights one can ever see - a bare tree.

And this tree I saw in Five Gardens is bare - but the leaves just dropped off one day, without going through any of the colour changes associated with autumn.

Fall but not autumn! And for no apparent reason, since the other plants and trees in the same garden are green and glowing…

And if you are interested in knowing what causes these colour changes…

• Pot-pourri
• Comments(0)

charukesi October 7th, 2004

Very interesting piece on how news is spread - the power of social distribution

Link through smartmobs, through god-knows-where-else - talk of social distribution!

From the article in The Feature - Traditionally, news was delivered in an organized fashion. There were newspapers delivered every day, TV and radio news that came on at scheduled times. If something was especially important, a TV or radio station might cut in with “breaking news” or a newspaper (in extraordinary circumstances) might print an “Extra” edition. The Internet and mobile phones have helped to change this. News travels in an instant, and fewer and fewer people wait for the headlines in tomorrow’s paper about what happened yesterday.

Mike Masnick in the article gives the example of how news of the death of Ducth singer Andre Hazes spread rapidly through SMS. Conventional news sources such as newpapers and television cnanot even hope to keep pace with such news agents - considering both the speed at which news gets disseminated and the fact that here the audience themselves are the carriers of news - end readers/listeners/watchers are no longer just passive recipients of news, but active distributors of news, often with additional thoughts or commentary.

This makes me wonder about how advertisers can use the power of the ‘active audience’ to create word of mouth (thumb?) publicity for their product / event / whatever…

Just finished reading The Tipping Point - how can mobile technology be used to create a revolution in conventional marketing? Why has mobile marketing not yet taken off in India in a big way?

• Media Matters , - New media
• Comments(0)

charukesi October 7th, 2004

What Stylish Young Women Are Wearing

No, this is not the sequel to Bertram Wooster’s ‘What the well-dressed man is wearing’.

Further discussion on the age-old hypothesis that the length of hemlines is connected to prevalent social and economic moods… The economics and anthropology of the bare midriff - insights into the midriff and hemline from the perspective of economics and social psychology.

Stock broker Ralph Rotnem observed, rather casually, that the long-term trends of stock prices and of the hemlines on women’s skirts appear to be in concert. Skirt heights rose to mini-skirt brevity in the 1920s and in the 1960s, peaking with stock prices both times. Floor-length fashions appeared in the 1930s and 1970s (the Maxi), bottoming with stock prices. This is not likely a frivolous observation. In my judgment, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that a rise in both hemlines and stock prices reflects a general increase in friskiness and daring among the population, and a decline in both, a decrease. Because skirt lengths have limits (the floor and the upper thigh, respectively), the reaching of a limit would imply that a maximum of positive or negative mood had been achieved. - Robert R. Prechter, Jr., Pioneering Studies in Socionomics

The Socionomics Institute is a delightful site I recently stumbled upon. Socionomics is a strong acknowledgement of the overlap of different social sciences as anthropology, economics, culture studies and psychology - an argument for acknowledging the other stream and working together…

Variously called economic psychology or behavioural economics, socionomics examines and forecasts market and social trends on the basis that the character of social, political, cultural, financial and economic trends are the product of collective human psychology. In simple words, social events do not compel social mood, as is widely supposed; rather, the patterns of social mood impel social events.

A study of the rise - reflecting the social angst of the times - unemployment, disillusionment with the system, frustrated youth - and subsequent fall of the angry young man - giving way to the more conventional, orthodox ‘chocolate’ hero is an interesting case in point in India…

Think of any more?

• - Armchair Analysis
• Comments(0)

charukesi October 5th, 2004

I started ranting in the comments section - of my previous post - when I decided to make it public

Let me take a specific industry to illustrate what I mean - advertising
Leo Burnett, JWT, O &M, DDB Needham, Young & Rubicam, Grey… all of these agencies live on long after their founders have passed away…. and their names live on too through the agencies they created…

And market research - my own industry. Even in qualitative research which is purely individual-driven, there is a tendency to shy away from naming one’s business after oneself. For instance, Quantum, one of the top qualitative research agencies in India is not named after the person who is behind it - although she is the sole reason for the ‘popularity’ of the agency.

Thinking about these industries is what set off this thought process in the first place. And I just happen to be reading the book now and mentioned it as a context of sorts! The book, by the way, is an interesting read, completely non condescending and non we(st) versus them in any way…

Dina, any thoughts on this?

• Indiawatch
• Comments(2)

charukesi October 4th, 2004

Reading this book called The Geography of Thought. About how thought processes are different in the East (China and those civilisations influenced by China - Korea, Japan mainly) and the West (the US. Why, is there any other West?). And why.

Nisbett uses Aristotle and Confucius as the two ends of the ‘thought’ spectrum to analyse and understand the differences in the way their descendants make sense of the world around them.

From the blurb:
- Why did the ancient Chinese excel at algebra and arithmetic, but not geometry, the brilliant achievement of such Greeks as Euclid?
- Why do East Asians find it so difficult to disentangle an object from its surroundings?
- Why do Western infants learn nouns more rapidly than verbs, when it is the other way around in East Asia?
- What are the implications of these cognitive differences for the future of international politics? Do they support a Fukuyamaesque “end of history” scenario or a Huntingtonian “clash of civilizations”?

On this note, one random thought :

West - Unilever, Ford, Proctor & Gamble, JWalter Thompson, Leo Burnett, Dun & Bradstreet, ACNielsen - who we are
India - Reliance, Bombay Dyeing, Parle, IMRB, Mudra - what we do

Why are Indian companies rarely named after their founder / promoter (s) - the Tata, Godrej, RKSwamy kinds being an aberration rather than the norm

After all, India as a cultutre, worships what one is rather than what one does - dignity of labour? No way.

Any explanations?

• Indiawatch , On my bookshelf
• Comments(4)

charukesi October 1st, 2004

Does celebrity endorsement make a difference in an ad? I thought not… till I experienced it for myself…

Navratna Oil - is ok if you haven’t even heard of it - moved steadily up my considered set of brands - from Govinda dancing (with starlet Rambha, ugh!) thanda thanda cool cool - yuck! what kind of a brand is this? through Saurav Ganguly playing with the bottle - hey, what is Ganguly doing here? this oil can’t be all that bad…. to Amitabh Bacchan - bye, I am off to buy the oil……. And I am not even in the market for hair-oils!

I am not joking. I suffer from migraines and when The Big B endorsed the oil (ok, ok, this is advertising - no need to get all wide-eyed and naive), I was suddenly ready to give it a shot.

Not to say that a celebrity always lends credibility to a brand or makes it suddenly more attractive… but do they ever?

- One, when the product category is relevant to you as the audience / consumer - you are in a receptive mode (me - anything for relief from this migraine).
- Or sometimes, when you least expect it. Like this case again. Having written off the brand as strongly Govinda-types (if you don’t know what I mean, is ok. Get on with life - you need to chill and watch more meaningless masala movies), seeing the more ‘credible’ faces of Ganguly and Bacchan moved the brand up several notches for me.
- When it is a high-value / lifestyle product or brand, and the right celebrity enhances the aspirational value of the brand. Hmmm… premium liquor? platinum?
- And most obviously, when the ‘celebrity’ is associated with the product category already - this is especially true of social communications - Maneka Gandhi and be-kind-to-animals, for instance. However, the right kind of association, not Salman Khan and be-kind -to-animals - although the association exists and strongly.

However, having said this, I still do not believe having a star / celebrity on an ad is worth all the expense - considering that any celebrity is now available for any brand - for the right price.

What do you think?

• Advertising
• Comments(2)

charukesi October 1st, 2004

Statistics of all kinds on Worldometers

From births this year… to USA’s expenses on perfume ($US millions) this year through erosion of the topsoil (metric tons) this year

No idea about the source or veracity of these figures…

But is fascinating watching the counters move… The significance of some of these figures don’t even hit you till much later…

• Pot-pourri
• Comments(0)