A Time To Reflect

charukesi March 31st, 2006

AdAge reports on the new to-be-launched Coke campaign - Happiness in a bottle (free registration required to read the article)

After trying a dose of reality, Coca-Cola Co. is turning to the effervescent message that drinking a Coke is “happiness in a bottle” for its new advertising campaign. While TV is a major aspect of the global effort, themed “The Coke side of life,” digital, viral and consumer-created content will dominate the continuous feed of creative during the year.

The happiness angle comes from a huge research (what else?!) that Coke has undertaken, called then”Big Dig” which revealed that consumers had a “deep-down love for the brand, but it wasn’t as top of mind.” They also learned that what loyal Coke drinkers love most about the brand was the physical and emotional uplift they got when drinking the product. (Note : Product, not the brand)

The Coke side of life is certainly not one of their better advertising slogans. Interestingly, happiness (from the bottle straight into the mouth) is not really a new association with Coke. Legend has it that the Coca-Cola name in China initially translated as as “Ko-ka-ko-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”, depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “ko-kou-ko-le”, translating into “happiness in the mouth”.

So, as Coke globally struggles with providing better emotional meaning to consumers, in India the campaign has moved back to. A very tarty Aishwarya Rai making whistle sounds with an empty Coke bottle (and what is with that voice?). Thande ka tadka is as pointless and unimpressive an ad as I have seen in a long time. And coming on the heels of Aamir in Piyo sar uthaake, this ad is a huge let-down. With all of India wilting under the summer sun (peak time for Cola sales), surely Coke needs something cooler than thande ka tadka?

Earlier posts on Coke :

Vanilla Coke and ‘Wakau’

Cola communication and the consumer

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charukesi March 29th, 2006

I have been researching holiday options for end April and every place I think of is either too hot or too far off for a short break or just plain too expensive to consider. I have decided that Delhi is the place to be for people with itchy feet (and with that, I subtly introduce my other blog again - much like the quintessential title song in Hindi movies).

Anyways, here are two pieces from a short holiday in Uttaranchal a couple of years ago for those among us sweltering in the heat. Unimaginatively if unambiguously titled Kumaon journey 1 and Kumaon journey 2.

Just chill chill, just chill…

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charukesi March 29th, 2006

My husband and I were listening to My name is Anthony Gonsalves on FM radio the other night. We got to talking about Manmohan Desai movies and then Laxmikant Pyarelal andother music directors. And I realized I had very little to say about LP - or even knew very little. Inheriting the Raj Kapoor legacy after Shankar Jaikishan. Bobby, at best? Enjoy while they last Manmohan Desai flicks. *nyahhhh*

I tried a quick free word (or phrase? or song?) association in my mind about music directors… whatever I remember from that…

S.D. Burman - blockbuster man. genius. (has the question of who was greater between father-son been resolved yet? me says pop) Chalti ka naam gaadi to Taxi driver and Sujata and then all the way through Guide to Aradhana to Abhimaan…

Hemant kumar - was a better composer than singer. Khamoshi and Woh shaam kuch ajeeb thi. Also Bees saal baad, Saahib biwi aur gulam…

Shankar Jaikishan - Raj Kapoor, nasal nyah-nyah Mukesh, Shailendra… Beyond that, no associations for me?

Salil Choudhry - melody that is dreamy and you can’t stop humming… with that happy smile on your face… Madhumati, O sajna barkha bahaar aayi (Parakh), everything from Anand, especially the lesser appreciated Na jiya laage na, in Malayalam, Chemmeen? And in all that melody, a suprise package - Half ticket - cheel cheel chillake kajri sunaaye… Salilda - definitely among my top favorites…

Khayyam - music that is haunting…. that transports you elsewhere… Ae dil-e-nadaan from Razia Sultana, Umrao Jaan - dil cheez kya hai aap meri jaan lijiye. And grudgingly, Kabhi Kabhi…

RD Burman - many of his films that I have wrongly attributed to SD for a long time - including the superb Amar Prem. (Would Rajesh Khanna have been what he was but for RD?). Sheer brilliance in the seventies… Aandhi and Ghar… Mehbooba mehbooba… Melody, madness, whatever… Rimjhim girey saawan… And he was the saving grace in many many movies during the whacky and often terrible and mediocore eighties.

And to me, RD immediately brings to mind Gulzar - the two together worked sheer magic. *sighhhhhh*. And then a terrible way to end - Kumar Sanu. * blech*

Kalyanji Anandji - er. hmm. ho.

And to end, the supremely mediocore and arrogant Himesh Reshammaiya (am really sorry about this but I did think of him too - and I must mention this here) - who said in a recent interview - “people criticise me for my nasal voice. So what if I have a nasal voice - so did Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan”.

Right.

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These were just what I have called them - free and immediate associations during a longish car drive with FM in the background. Not a well thought out and googled dissertation. I came back home and remembered Madan Mohan and OP Nayyar - but then the drive was over - and so was the mood…

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charukesi March 23rd, 2006

Anita writes about Marrygold, a new-age matchmaking service. When I got this email, I was tempted to laugh it off. But then I read it once again and it made more sense the second time round. Isn’t it true that many young people today are looking for the man/woman of their dreams but don’t have the time/energy/means to find someone suitable?

This made me think about the time-honoured tradition of matchmaking… A distant aunt realises that you are ready for marriage and so is her sister-in-law’s brother’s nephew… A mother-of-eligible-”boy” spots a “girl” at a family wedding… Families meet, background notes exchanged, financial details discussed, agreements transacted and the wedding is arranged to everyone’s satisfaction…

I remember how disdainful my friends and I used to be about arranged marriages and traditional matchmaking methods (and still are?). And I am not even talking about matrimonial ads in newspapers - don’t even get me started on that one.

And then suddenly, the internet took matchmaking and marriage-arranging to a new dimension. Young people who would refuse to agree to go with traditional means of matchmaking found this acceptable. And even welcome.

So has matchmaking come full circle? This time in a new avtaar? Why are online meeting places like shaadi.com and new-age services like marrygold doing so well?

To begin with, they have clearly sensed a need for such services. There is a market - there are, as Anita says, people with the interest and inclination, but no time…

And more importantly, these services allow the two people concerned to meet first, online and then in person. Before the families barge in with questions about each other’s caste and comunity. Perhaps, this gives the two time to get to know each other and make a decision - even the decision to not go ahead. Which I am guessing (and from I have seen) is tough to make in a conventional boy-meet-girl situation. meet each other twice, and try squirming out after that (especially if you have met alone, i.e. discounting the girl’s brother who was lurking on the next table at the coffee shop pretending not to listen).

Look at this - Marrygold is concerned about the mind and emotional compatibility of people who want to get married. This is where match 2.0 services win - their concern for compatibilty, not only of demographics (traditional arranged matches take care of this too - age, community, education, money, job) but psychographic factors too… persoanlity, values, attitudes, interests…

And this from Dilbert…

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charukesi March 22nd, 2006

Okay, so I am linking again. So?

As Bombay gets hot and hotter, here is a post on cool, green Matheran at Itchy Feet.

Different viewpoint, same view…

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charukesi March 22nd, 2006

This week’s cover story on Time certainly seems to say so. [Link through ‘Putting people first’ - the multitasking generation]

The story focusses on the ability of today’s kids to multitask with respect to technology, and what’s all that digital juggling doing to their brains, family life…

So, are kids too wired for their own good?

And if you think they are not, this should stop you in your tracks - Mobile phones, an effective competitor to cigarettes

I have blogged about this in detail on mindspace. Read Are kids too wired?

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charukesi March 21st, 2006

I saw a comment from Bubby on my earlier post on mobile manners saying that the person behind the campaign Mahesh V of O & M Bangalore has has passed away of a massive heart-attack. And today, I learnt from creative criminal that Mahesh was only 32.

Heart attack at 32.

Last night, I mentioned this to my husband, and we were wondering about how old Mahesh was. And I remembered my friend Satty from MICA. Satpal Singh, Satty to all of us. He was barely 30 when he passed away a couple of years ago. Heart attack. He left behind lots and lots of friends, shocked parents and a sister and a wife of eight months.

I recently met a friend-batchmate at the airport and while we were exchanging news, she told me that another of our batchmates had met Satty’s wife a few months ago… She (my batchmate) was at the supermarket, paying with her credit card which has a MICA, batch of* on it, and Satty’s wife in the line behind her, saw that and struck up a conversation with her…

Much as we tried, none of us friends could buy the stress theory. I still cannot associate stress, especially stress that kills with Satty… That impish smile, that chalega yaar attitude…

His friends, all of us still believe that he was just as stressed as the rest of us in advertsing and marketing jobs… He smoked and drank, but no more than many others from our batch…

Then why a heart attack at 29? What is it about our lifestyles that heart attacks at such a young age are becoming frighteningly common… or is it that we did not realy know Satty at all…?

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charukesi March 20th, 2006

HP Labs, based in Banaglore has announced a pen-based technology that will allow the Kannada script to be recorded and stored directly in the computer without the use of a conventional keyboard.

From the article in Business Standard,

The technology, which is also called the gesture-based keyboard (GKB), has been developed by researchers at HP Labs India in Bangalore and holds similar potential for other Indian languages derived from the Devanagari and Tamil scripts, according to HP officials.

The HP GKB technology was easy to use through its pen-based interface. In addition to the text, GKB, which could also be used as a mouse, allowed the capture of signatures, pictures and visual elements.

Gupta said the simple gesture-based data entry method could make it easier to communicate for those who neither understand English nor know how to type.

Read about it here.

My earlier post was on Microsoft’s efforts in bridging the demand-supply divide between illiterate domestic workers and potential employers. There are many many exciting initiatives happening in India right now - I am going to watch out for the ones that do work, and on a large scale…

[Cross-posted on mindspace]

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charukesi March 13th, 2006

Can someone who doesn’t even know how to read or write use a computer? Microsoft Corp. is probing that question at a research lab in India.

Microsoft seeking ways to help illiterate. That is promising.

And then this…

Working with a local advocacy group, Microsoft has developed a prototype of a system that would connect illiterate domestic workers in India with families seeking their services. The system uses pictures, video and voice commands to tell women what jobs are available, how much the jobs pay and where they are.

Read the full report.

I have mixed feelings about this one, most of them not so good. I am very excited about the possibilities that such systems could open up - bringing those with less access (illiterate or otherwise) closer to information in some way. echoupal does that now (although that is not a project aimed at the illiterate).

Here are some of my reasons for the not-so-good feelings :

Willingness to learn

The fantastic hole-in-the-wall experiment has shown that it is indeed possible for someone who does not know how to read or write to use a computer. But they in this experiment are children, they are naturally curious about the world around them, they are willing to experiment and to make fools of themselves in the process.

Human interaction v/s machine gobbledygook

But why domestic workers? In a country like India, the word-of-mouth system works best - I need a maid, I tell the watchman in my building, he tells others and the next morning three women are at the door-step. I do not have a fixed idea about how much I will pay for the job, not a series of tasks that I can put up on a computer.

Is there a need?

And in most places, there is a decent, well-balanced demand-supply system in place, unlike perhaps the larger employment market. Given that, I do not understand why either a potential employer or employee will need to or want to use such a system.

What is the benefit?

echoupal benefits the farmer by eliminating the middleman, the farmer has updated knowledge about prices and market trends and makes beter money for his produce. In case of domestic workers, there are no middlepeople(?)

Where does the twain meet?

The researchers say they are now trying to figure out how to implement the system, since most women who do domestic work don’t own computers. One option is to put up a kiosk in a community center, Toyama said. Er, most women, meaning some of them do? And what about those wishing to employ them - do they all own computers? If not, do they also go to a kiosk? How does communication work if both sender-receiver are not on a shared platform - any kind of platform?

I think the concept is interesting and powerful, but fraught with all the questions and that leapfroggers tend to evoke in those watching. As a confimed leapfrogger-cheerer, I’d be very happy to read somewhere the answers to these questions. In the meanwhile, here is a blasphemous suggestion - can time at Microsoft research be perhaps put to better use?

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charukesi March 11th, 2006

There is a saying in Tamil… roughly translated means, to first pinch the child and then rock the cradle… or - the troubleshooter is the troublemaker…

And that is what Hutch, soon to be followed by other mobile phone operators are doing with their Mobile Manners communication campaign. Hutch now, Airtel and others soon.

I like the ads - great concept and executed very well. This TV commercial shows a man (dad?) playng with his little kid, he takes a picture of the kid, the kid snatches the mobile phone and throws it away. Super : bina izazat photo na kheechein - do not take photographs without permission.

The one I like even better is where the dad (again?) is trying to put the kid to sleep - so ja rajkumari so ja - and the kid bawls till he stops. Is your ringtone disturbing someone? Yes, yes. Let’s hear it for - against, I mean - obnoxious loud ring tones. (It is bad enough to have to hear some new Hindi movie songs on FM radio, but to have them ring in the next seat at work, NO)

And the hoardings which didn’t make any sense to me at first - Ali Baba and the forty tring trings (will try to get a photograph). And Hum aapke hain tring tring.

Libraries, cinema halls, work places, even schools and colleges - no place is safe from these tring trings.

Great campaign. But the cynic in me whispers - why? Did cellphone operators wake up one morning and realize that their corporate social responsibility quota for the year had not been fulfilled? Just wondering… (Reminded me of the statutory warning on cigarette packs, but that is another story altogether)

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Speaking of mobile phones, and on, here is Always on, always good? at Mindspace. Do read it and leave your thoughts.

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