KAMINEY... !!!

This was the movie; I was desperately waiting for .Reason, interesting trailers and Visual Bharadwaj. He has given movies like Makdi, Maqbool, Omkara and The Blue Umbrella. All have been meaningful, interesting and entertaining.
I always wanted to watch premiere of the movie. Thankfully to CREDAI Karnataka Realty Expo, I wasn't able to watch the movie, whole weekend. Reviews were out, everyone had loved it. Now I have to see it.
Monday after the job, I ensured not to miss the movie. And guess what, it was memorable experience. As rightfully Rajeev Masand says,'Kaminey is imaginative and original’. It made me remembered movie of 70s era, which had everything, fun action thrill drama and romance.
Kaminey was nice blend of all. I had completely forgotten that there was Shahid Kapoor in the movie. I flowed with the story through Guddu, Sweety and Charlie.
I was mesmerized with Shahid's acting and the supporting casts. As per me the movie is "Fuberb". Movie is embraced with catchy and classy music blended with Gulzar Sahab's unmatchable lyrics.
Loved the line... "Ek dil se dosti thi... Ye huzur bhi kaminey...!!!"

My next target... "What's your Rashee" by Ashutosh Gowarikar.

Lemony... "LMN" !!!

Yesterday afternoon, after lunch, I went to my nearby retail shop to buy a soft drink. Generally, I tend to buy Thums Up or Coke. But there I saw a new beverage brand, named “LMN”. I liked the packaging, which attracted me towards that brand. Moreover, I was really impressed by name “LMN” as it sounds cool, young, yet meaningful. In today’s times of fast food and speed dating, the name “LMN” seems to be derived from the SMS version of the word lemon. I bought it. Price was reasonable and competitive, as 200ml. tetra pack was of Rs.10. I really liked its taste as it was a nice surprise to me. Unlike other carbonated drinks, “LMN” was a non-carbonated lemon drink on lines of traditional Indian ‘Nimbu-Pani’.

Being an inquisitive marketer, I tried to look up more about the brand. Interestingly, “LMN” is a brand from the house of Parle Agro. My favorite beverage brand, Parle Agro, has always given tough competitions to MNC giants Pepsi and Coke. As an industry pioneer, Parle Agro was the first to introduce fruit drinks in a Tetra Pak in India, the first to introduce apple nectar and the first to introduce fruit drinks in PET bottles. Its brands like Frooti and Appy are successful and have created their own niche.

“LMN” will interestingly get a direct competition from Pepsi’s “Nimbooz”. But, I believe, “LMN” has got better packaging and brand name than “Nimbooz”. The striking green and yellow color makes the pack noticeable and increases its shelf appeal. In the PET offering, the unique bottle design of “LMN” makes it stand apart from the rest. LMN differentiates its appearance from common carbonated lemon drinks like Limca and Mirinda. As per Nimbooz, it looks like another version of Limca, and thus it seems repetitive. LMN feels new and fresh. “LMN” also takes a refreshingly fresh take on lemon, with a catchy tagline – “The Emergency Lemon Refresher”.
Interestingly, "LMN" was everywhere into the market much before its TV commercial, whereas TV ads of "Nimbooz" is on every TV channel, but diificult to find in stores.

I am yet to taste” Nimbooz”, but personally, even if “Nimbooz” tastes better, I would still buy “LMN”. Reason, it being Indian (you know how nationalist I am).

Watch TV ad here: LMN

OPEN... a weekly mind stimulant...!!!

RPG group is entering into publications by launching its new current affairs magazine named, “OPEN”. It would be launched on 3rd of April. Sandipan Deb is the editor of the magazine, who, in fact, was one of the founder editors of Outlook, more than a decade ago.

The positioning of this magazine is quite interesting. As per the report from afaqs, the target audience would be. 'Individuals who belong to SEC A1, are around 32 years (both male and female) of age, with a monthly household income of Rs 2 lakh, hold senior managerial positions, drive C segment cars, wear branded apparel, use high-end phones or Blackberrys and travel abroad at least once a year.'
It would be available only in top 12 cities of India, with the price of Rs.30. Its competitors India Today, Outlook etc. charges Rs.25 per issue. Open, feels that there is no direct competition with these magazines, which, according to them, are more mass magazines. ‘It will be positioned as an interesting, intelligent and stimulating magazine.’

Open also thought of interesting form of marketing too. Firstly, magazine would be sold only on its merits and not on the basis of freebies. ‘Therefore, the magazine is actively pursuing an alternate model of acquiring readers. They have a database of their target audience that has passed through stringent filters. Open is sending an exclusive and personalized offer to these cherry-picked consumers, giving them an opportunity to experience the product for four issues free of cost.’

Moreover, Open’s size will be more than an inch wider than the standard A4 size of most of the magazines. Thus, when opened, the magazine gives an additional two inches for the content and also maximizes the ad impact.

Open has planned a 360 degree communication strategy, which includes outdoor in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, multiplexes and the Internet. To start with, television isn't part of the media mix. Ad films will be shown in multiplexes, before movies that are frequented by their target audience. Also, there will be buzz-marketing activities at malls to engage them.

It would be interesting to see, how successful is Open's marketing, once it is out in the market.

Ref. - www.afaqs.com

Limca's... “Haseen Lamho Ko” !!!

Saw the new Limca’s advertisement, “Haseen Lamho Ko”? This ad featuring Niketan Madhok and Sushma Reddy (mine favorite) is a huge hit these days. On Orkut, more often you can see this ad featuring in everyone’s favorite videos list. People are making “Haseen Lamho Ko” as its ringtones and caller tune.

Imagine, showing this 2.30 minutes advertisement at the prime time slot, and paying nothing! Reason, “Haseen Lamho Ko” is been played on the top music channels, over and over again, as a song. Coke is not spending a single penny to these music channels to show the advertisement. Moreover, Music channels are bound to play its music video, due to its popularity.

Srinivas Murthy, GM-marketing (Flavours), Coca-Cola India agrees “When the Limca ad was first aired, it was a 40-second TV commercial for which we had to pay the channels,” he says. “But when we started getting innumerable requests on our toll-free number for the song, we thought why not scale it up.” Murthy feels that music channels are only too happy to play “Haseen Lamho Ko” over and over again because it has all the elements of a music video — great visuals and an engaging background score. “And in the video the Limca brand is not too much in your face either,” adds Murthy. “This doesn’t put off the viewer even if he watches it a number of times.”

That’s called intelligent marketing!!! Three cheers to Limca’s “Haseen Lamho Ko”!!!

See the ad here - "Haseen Lamho Ko"

Ref.- Economic Times

"Music" or "Sound"... !!!

I am a music freak! I love to hear old Hindi songs, classical and folk songs. But, I have been told many times by my friends, "What boring songs do you play!". I reply them with a smile and silence. As per me, one who doesn't know the difference between a small glass piece and a diamond, its better to be silent rather than debating. I believe those who understand music will appreciate any form of music.

Later on, I felt, why do youth (most of them) doesn't like old Hindi songs. And literally hate classical and folk songs. Moreover, they even didn't respect melodious songs of new albums. Similarly, old people, doesn't like present day songs. They are stubborn of the fact, that only those old Hindi songs were gems.
Why there is such an aversion?
Is this what we called a generation gap?

My answer is NO!

There are generally two dimensions to a song, "Music" (tune) and "Lyrics". Where Lyrics is been handled by lyricists and composer are responsible for the Music. I believe old songs were more based on music and lyrics. Composers preferred melodies with meaningful lyrics. In those times, orchestration of the song was not a major issue. Neither did they had the technology to complement with it.

With the advent of technology, a new dimension was figured out, i.e. "Sound". Technology was used to generate different sounds and the major emphasis was given to the orchestration of the song. Various musical instrument were used and computer was there to generate any form of sound. Many new age composers really don't care about music and lyrics of the song.

Old people feel that, the Sound have overshadowed the importance of music and lyrics and the new age feels, that at the end of the day, music is all about sound. Another reason for the emergence of sound as a new dimension is because, today people relate songs with fun and dance only. With the Sound, remixes and dance numbers have also increased. In yester years, songs were a soulful bliss, and a form of art.

Only R. D. Burman and A.R. Rehman are the composers in Hindi cinema who have tried to have all the three dimensions into their songs.

So whom do you support, Music or Sound ???

Know your Customer...!!!

A disappointed salesman of Coca Cola returns from his Middle East assignment.
A friend asked, "Why weren't you successful with the Arabs?"

The salesman explained, "When I got posted in the Middle East, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch as Cola is virtually unknown there. But, I had a problem I didn't know to speak Arabic. So, I planned to convey the message through three posters...



First poster - A man lying in the hot desert sand...totally exhausted and fainting.
Second poster - man is drinking our Cola.
Third poster- Our man is now totally refreshed.

Then these posters were pasted all over the place"

"That should have worked," said the friend.

The salesman replied "I also didn't realize that Arabs go from right to left" !!!

World going GungHo... on "Jai Ho"

Congratulations to Mr.Rehman, Mr.Resul, Slumdog's Team!
Also, congratulations to the team of "Smile Pinki".
India rocked at the Oscars!!!

What if, this movie have been produced and directed by Indians?
I guess, there would have been no oscars!
Is this irony, tragedy, racism or what?
You Decide!

Nevertheless, I am proud of you Rehman!

And as Amitabh Bachchan says,'Rehman doesn't need an Oscar to prove that he is the best.He is better than the best!'

Virgin Mobile.... "Honeymoon is over" !!!

Tata's and Virgin Corporation came together in 2008, to launch GSM mobile services in India, as Virgin Mobile. It was launched with heavy fanfare, with new innovating schemes and youthful advertising. It came up with "Hatke" schemes like "Earn 10paise on incoming" and "Free SMS". But it seems, that even after lot of path-breaking marketing efforts, and even being backed by huge corporations, it couldn't find its space in consumer's evoked set. One of the major reasons could be huge competition in telecom sector, leaded by brands like Airtel, Reliance and Vodafone. Its been an year after the launch. Let's analyze its shortcomings from the customer's perspective.

1) New Users : Virgin mobile targeted youth, who could be the first time buyers of mobile in urban areas. Consumers enjoyed their fun-filled advertisements, but this liking never turned to purchase. Reason, Virgin being new! Consumers doubted quality and availability of their services, throughout India. Virgin couldn't break this perception of consumers, that even being new, it has good service all over India. Virgin never used brand Tata to promote itself. Brand Tata would have added credibility to its service, as it being already into industry as strong CDMA player.

2) Existing Users : Virgin Mobile failed to convince consumers to switch their services from Airtel, Vodafone, etc. to Virgin Mobile. Even being switching cost not so high, there is some sought of loyalty seen in telecom industry. A Vodafone user usually doesn't switches its service to some other service, until he/she is extremely dissatisfied by the brand. Or some other telecom player gives him/her enough good reasons, to change.

3) New Markets : Players like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance and Tata Indicom are trying to expand their customer base by entering into rural markets of India, as huge potential is hidden there. But Virgin Mobile, targeted itself to urban youth, which is already been captured by existing players. Moreover, being new, it didn't have infrastructure to support rural market needs, i.e. lower calling rates, low priced handsets, better service.

To grow organically, either Virgin Mobile should add more content to its advertising or use the brand Tata to add its credibility.

What's your take on it???

Oops... !!!

Sorry to say, but I get totally irritated with Hindi News channels especially like Aajtak TEZ, India TV, Zee News and STAR News. Their news stories are so dumb and funny that sometimes it makes me feel, as if there are no more important issues left in India.

A friend of mine posted this picture in his Orkut profile. See what a co-ordination between the news and the forthcoming news.
I just couldn't imagine what would be the news with the tagline "इस कुत्ते से सीखिए" ("Learn from this Dog").
And does this news has enough relevance.
I guess its better to keep our brains shut, and laugh our hearts out at this blooper.

Sorry Advaniji and BJP fans!

KFC -- "Kentucky Fried Cruelty"

As soon as you enter Forum Mall, our taste buds gets flooded with a yummy feeling. Reason? KFC !!! Many of my friends, love to eat at KFC. Those who love chicken dishes, prepared in american style, can't resist KFC.But PETA has started an advertisement campaign against KFC. They have come up with very interesting billboards, print ads, posters, leaflets, stickers to spread awareness to boycott KFC globally.
PETA says,"KFC suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can’t even walk, and often break their wings and legs. At slaughter, the birds’ throats are slit and they are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water—often while they are still conscious."
They raised this issue in 2001 and soon when they found that KFC is coming up with false promises to improve,they went a step ahead by using advetisement campaign. Here are some interesting ads by PETA.





source : PETA