Wikipedia definition of Niche -
A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing on; Therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intended to impact.
A micro niche is a much more focused and a smaller component. For example if you take people who listen to Techno music in the Indian market, thats a niche … people who listen to Tiesto only (and he is GOD 
), then that’s a micro-niche.
I gave the music example specifically because I was talking to a good friend of mine about airing Techno. Niharika works for Red FM, and handles their marketing activities and although I am not a listener, I would have been one. Had they played Techno , then I would have been an ardent follower. Then it simply became an MBA-to-MBA talk, and the final answer came out as simply as this – I am not their target segment.
That’s why I have a Worldspaceradio at my home. Thats why I listen to the System channel. They cater to my needs, however small a business I represent.
I actually am willing to pay a premium for that service. What normally was free for Red FM or other channel users, I have to pay something like Rs. 3000 a year. But I get what I want at the end of the day. I think businesses should cater to more and more micro-niches, especially businesses which are planning to enter a red ocean. They need that small group of ardent followers. What say?
There was an incident when I was working in a particular start-up. The company was not used to buying original software licenses for any of its users. One business manager decided to go and register his pirated software. Within a week, the CXOs in this start-up recieve a nicely worded legal notice from you-know-who (Billu bhaiyya and his cronies). The notice said, that the CXOs are liable to go to jail and a penalty of some 3-4 lakhs!! Within days, a software audit was done, and a no. of software licenses were bought. We decided to keep on purchasing licenses till we were completely licensed. It took some months, but it was done!!
75% of the corporates in the country are using pirated software right now. The other 25% are not because either they have taken an ethical stand on this issue, or their clients have taken that stand for them, or they are people who have been caught and are now aware. It’s just a problem of awareness, and of seeing value in buying proprietary licenses. So why not have a hybrid model, where the software firm launches a software for minimal or free of cost, and gives all the killer features for that price. Would that work? Or are Indians just used to getting stuff for free??
Why has it not still rained yet?
My job at Illumine is to make a career enablement platform for individuals. To ensure that users once they come on the website wont get overwhelmed by the enormity and complexity of the task at hand. To keep on coming back to the site, in order to enable their careers. No, not like a Naukri.com or a Monster.com. They have their place in their own regards, but that place is in matching the job seekers to companies, and that’s it. This is why it has to be different. The way the user will engage with the site will be different. In order to understand this “Customer Engagement” thing better, I decided to investigate further.
It is how the user engages with the idea of the portal, and all the ambience surrounding it. Yes we know that, and we also know how to measure it. Often at times great business use Customer Engagement either as a marketing tool or as a metric to measure the success of an initiative. All this gyaan was great, but it did not get me anywhere. I still had a design for the site to be made, and none of the literature around is talking about Customer Engagement as a Design driver , all of them are using it post execution to see the effects of an action/treatment. People talk about user centric design, is this similar to online CE? I am finding out!!
Today after a long discussion with our modelling team, I realized that to use CE as a design driver would mean to completely re-structure the portal that we are developing; and keeping the customer engagement at the center. I am sure that this concept is already there in all design paradigms, but then why do not I see this being practiced in real life? Great products have this built-in them – iPod, Wordpress, TCP/IP, GMail, Books, I could go on. That’s why their fundamental design has not changed much. The way the user engages with the product remains constant, what changes is the technology, the look and the price . What do you think?
Remember I was ranting about Co-ordinate geometry and changing communities? Well, in case you have’nt, here is the link. Well here’s a nice example that is changing the society. And it is being done bit by bit, vector by vector
Today we had gone to my Maami’s place. She gave us this cute little bag which comes nicely packed in a small pouch. The pouch can be attached to a purse or your belt through a metal hook. Pretty nifty, huh!?! The cost, Rs. 100. Nice product, good value as well. The idea of this bag is that it folds out to become a very big shopping bag, eliminating the need for those pesky plastic bags. Its so small that you dont even realize that you are carrying one!! Imagine, slowly but steadily eliminating those plastic bags that vendors give to you to carry subzi. Its a fresh idea, and economical at that. Plus a nice idea for gifts as well!!
And the best part is that these bags are made by women who live in tsunami afflicted regions! The bags come with those cute Tsunamika dolls.
Imagine – the word about these spreading around slowly but surely. Sounds realistic no? Slowly because of a few determined souls, the social norm of using plastic bags has changed to not using them. Thats social transformation through the power of an idea
They are only going to make 10 million of these bags, get yours today!!
This is how Indian law defines Pornographic Content -
“Any content that is lascivious and that will appeal to prurient interest or the effect of which is to tend to deprave or corrupt the minds of those who are likely to see, read or hear the same.”
Who are they kidding? The lascivious and prurient I can still buy, corrupting minds?? Really?? So if it does not corrupt my mind (as if you can tell!!) then it is not porn?? Do we need to re-look at our IT Act and policies?
I say yes.
Buzz behind Zoozoos – Everyone is talking about Zoozoo these days. Even me for that matter!! And you know what this is creating my friends? Its creating a buzz … a buzz unlike any other in the market these days. People love it, people hate it … but people definitely talk about it. Vodafone has a winner here – or so one might think.
Industry situation – With mobile penetration in India going to touch around 90% by 2014 (thats 1 billion mobile phones!!!), the revenues from simply voice based services are going to trickle down. What were considered to be luxury services on mobiles (missed call alerts, caller ring back tunes, et al) are now considered necessary services. Living in a country which has multiple mobile service provider also means that all these service providers have to invest for customer acquisition. Which means even lesser charges from voice based services.
Jumping the gun – The only way voice based revenues could be increased is to increase the Value Added Services (VAS) part. Before we go any further, What do you mean by VAS?? Don’t worry, even I didn’t know about them a few months back, I worked in an IT firm making solutions for Telecom Operators and I had no clue what they meant by VAS!! Thanks to those beautiful ads, now I do!! But why will people buy these services, how can they buy them if they do not even know what they means?!? Hence the need for awareness for these VAS was recognized by Harit Nagpal (Chief Marketing Officer, Vodafone India). Ogilvy was given the charge of creating the buzz for Vodafone.
The Buzz Explained – A good buzz can be dissected to have these elements
- Clarity of message – Each ad ends with the particular VAS feature. The message is clear.
- Simplicity – Ogilvy’s Rajiv Rao, in charge of this promotion knew that the entire idea had to be simple and yet stupefying to cut across all ages and convey the idea. All the ads depict this minimalistic approach.
- Stand out – The egg shaped head; it stands out. The cute shape of those zoozoos; it stands out.
- Variety – A single idea can also cause a buzz, but over a period of time it dies down, simply because people cannot keep on talking about the same thing again and again. e.g – pink chaddi campaign. You need fodder for people to talk during train journeys!!
- Right time, Right medium – IPL for TV, Youtube for online. Zoozoo is everywhere. An nice article by Sushrut Bidwai can be found here.
It’s a great campaign, and I would not be surprised if this turns out to be a case study in a few years. As I finish this post, a question still remains in my head – what will happen if the Zoozoo’s buzz transcends Vodafone VAS and moves on to something totally different (e.g I saw a political ad with the zoozoo theme)?
Since the day I got into an engineering college, my mother has been proudly saying “Majha mulga computer engineer ahe!” . I used to get amused by her pride, and it still makes me smile that she is happy for me (love you Aai ). As days went by and I graduated to become a software developer, the “Computer engineer ahe” line was still there. Even when I got admission into one of the better known b-schools in the country, Aai would still tag me with Computer engineer.
The point is that sometimes you feel stereo-typed with the tag. People still ask me to troubleshoot their Windows. I dont mind doing that, but to expect me to visit their place at Borivali just because something is wrong with their Internet Explorer?? Sometimes I think I need a tag which defines my work and competency space better than “Computer Engineer”.
When I started working in a start-up, explaining to my family what I do became slightly more difficult. I was in charge of handling and building the technology on an entire organization. A lot of work which required a considerable bandwidth of know-how across the tech domain – a CTO in a nutshell. Whenever someone would ask, prompt would come the reply “Majha mulga computer engineer ahe!” . I kind of prefer IIM grad, but I dont think many people know about them – with people I mean the old aunty types, who ask your mother (in a nasal twang) “Kaay karto tumcha mulga?” The ones that sometimes do know about then quip “Oohh! Ahemadabad hoy?”, mother then simply says “To computer engineer ahe!!”” . Then I would butt in to say – “I sell shirts” rather than the oft repeated computer engineer tag.
These days I am working in a knowledge lab. We work on designing knowledge interventions and designing models which can change communities to become more productive and human oriented. I hope I got it right in this one line. My specific job entails a mini-CTO who is in charge of taking care of all technology details. Now what?!? I think “Majha mulga computer engineer ahe!” is there to stay
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