Living the Ads in India

Reviving this blog after a long time, thanks to Digital Vidya.

Living and breathing Indian media for a couple of months, I have this usdden burst of emotions that need to pour out now. Sick of hearing "let's do innovations" (guys, innovations is NOT a strategy, it's the key to survival), it feels heartening to see gamechangers like Volkswagen Automobiles come out with a master blaster.

The past week, Hindustan Times carried on the back page for VW talking (literally) about their German engineering. A small motion sensored voice box attached to the flimsy paper triggered a mechanical European voice that informed readers (now turned into listeners as well) of the benefits of this classic crafted car.

Hats off to the VW team for dishing out this chunk of money.

5 Things To Bring Over From the Indian Mobile Industry...continued

Last but not least...
5. m-Governance
In an exemplary move, the state of Kerala is setting up 20 services offered by the government on mobile phones instead of having the rural populace physically go to local government offices. See the details at the Kerala Govt. Site.

5 Things To Bring Over From the Indian Mobile Industry...continued

3. Positioning by the mobile operators: ex. IDEA mobile with the mass appeal
Idea cellular launched a campaign in 2008 with the messaging “for the people, by the people”, highlighting how the mobile medium can be used to empower the masses of india (eg. Aid in policy decision-making by democratic voting, rural education, etc.). In comparison, the cellular services in the U.S. advertise high-end applications of phones (eg. Apple iPhone, Google Android) that are more for an affluent consumer rather than the average Joe. The mass-appeal function not only expands the market, but opens up avenues to make a larger impact on society. (From a marketer’s perspective, the PR prospects are immense)



4. SMS Culture
Just like the micro-blogging culture in the U.S., the texting culture in India is a phenomenon that has changed the way people communicate in the country. The popularity isn’t just within teen users (as in the U.S.), but transcends all ages. The interesting this is that the short hand used for SMS, somewhat of a slang-English, has become the normal way of written communication, especially within the younger users.

5 Things To Bring Over From the Indian Mobile Industry

Hi readers,

I am reviving my blog after almost a year of it being defunct. But now I'm back at doing some research and shall be posting plenty of trends and musings here. So stay tuned and please comment!
For the first few posts, I will be focusing on the new media trends that I observed/documented in India during my trip over the winter.

Read a blog post stating that successful brands have changed consumer behaviors. Advanced mobile phone usage has been a long time coming so I’ve enumerated a few things below that might influence how consumers interact with their cellphones--

1. Radio on Mobile
It is flabbergasting how such an obvious technology to translate into mobile as has not seen the light of the 2x2 screen in the U.S. yet. The smartphones carry only web radio as most of the handsets are not equipped with radio frequency receivers. Even the iPod needs a special add-on receiver.
Implications for marketers: In India, people listen to their fav radio stations on mobile phones as well even though regular radio has a high level of penetration. In the U.S. this technology might help buoy the declining radio industry and have the dollar spent on radio spots go a little further.

2. Idle Screen ads (GroupM + Celltick)
Not too intrusive, as you just check the time on your mobile and see a scrolling text ad to get your horoscope sent to your phone. Airtel and Vodafone are currently serving such ads in partnership with Celltick (www.celltick.com). This has immense potential for the future – users can create their own dashboard out of their idle screen.
Another playground for content creators and an arena for marketers to sponsor!

more to follow shortly...

SXSW conference: Sat sessions

Talk: Back of the Napkin
1. Black Pen people - enthusiasts who illustrate every idea
2. Yellow Pen people – those who sit back, observe and identify the key points
3. Red Pen people – erase everything and redraw – the most analytical people.

Business Strategies have been sketched on a napkin. Hey, even Southwest Airlines chalked out their initial route chart on a napkin.
"Rough drawings are an invitation for dialogue."

Panel: Location Based Entertainment
Location –based entertainment has been one of the up and coming trends and in 2008 is becoming an essential part of emerging media. Statistics show that North America is the leader in GPS-enabled devices. Western EU and Asia are slowly catching on. The main technologies in use for LBS are GPS systems, wifi and CellID.

Examples of LBS seen/conducted:
• Manage workout on your phone – running, training, fitness schedule tracker.
• ULocate: location based mobile widget application.
• Undergound 2: Location-based game that enables creation of groups of clans that conquered territories. (In conjunction with Nokia)
• Lexferrum – developed for Nokia for the launch of Ngage in Portugal. Using Bluetooth – in a controlled environ at a hotel in S. Portugal.
• Adidas Eyeball – Adidas created an interactive playground by installing what looks like can eyeball that was voice and motion activated.

Presenter Carolyn from AVW-TELAV, an A/V solutions company, also organizes the “Come Out and Play Festival” (http://www.comeoutandplay.org/), one of the largest outdoor gaming fests in the country which will be taking place in NYC June 6-8.

Carolyn states that gaming has to fit within each brand’s strategy. The key questions to ask during planning are “Where is going to be and what is it going to be”, “Technology to be used”, “Who to target? That is, are you going for the tech savvy audience, or do want the layman to interact as well?” and “How is it going to be executed?” Being highly interactive, it is important that the user get feedback from the game.
Bottomline: The experience has to be compelling enough to attract and engage users.

Carrier Barrier – the main problem is getting past the carriers. To get around this issue, some initiatives hand out compatible cell phones, which is ridiculous as it is extra investment in the hardware. Europe and Asia have more of a retail market, thus making it easier to bypass the networks. But new technologies like WiMAX and 4G network will enable easier execution.

Another agency that develops games inspired by and mimicking real scenarios is Area/Code NYC

During the question-answer session, the scalability for mass gaming was brought up – for the future, finding solutions for nationwide permanent structures would be the route to take in order to have the maximum impact. Creating very simple interactions is the key. The gurus’ last words: Killer app for location-based services – navigation.

Political Advocacy on the Brooklyn Bridge

On the way back to Manahattan, we got distracted by these blinking lights! ;-)





Brooklyn Bridge: Platform for Advocacy from radhikarai on Vimeo

Mobile - as in movable, advertising in Brooklyn

Being out of the corporate world, I found myself with a lot of time on my hand. So I decided to do the touristy thing - a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge wiht a dear friend. At the Brooklyn end, right near the famous pizza place, we saw a small crowd gathered watching this.





Close-up on Driptext Graffiti from radhikarai on Vimeo

A laser pointer connected to a laptop that generates the drip text graffitti, connected to a large projector to display on a building. Paul Notzold's work in this realm is fantastic. Would be fun to extend that to India where such a visual medium would be extremely popular in physycal spaces such as malls.