Who? Me??

I was checking on my list of target keywords on Google for both SEO and SEM, when I chanced upon “CFA Hyderabad” where we are doing good on both the paid rankings as well as the organic rankings. When I was checking the ad, I noticed that one of the ads was by olx (in case you do not know about this site, do not bother to find out!).

They have recently started advertising in a heavy way (even on TV as well).

Buying advertisements so you could sell your advertising platform? Really? Is that how effective your platform is, that you have to pay to get traffic?

Or are you just trying to siphon off traffic from one of the market leaders?

In fact not quite sure whether they are directly in the advertising space, somewhere between Craigslist and e-Bay. I still wonder, why will anyone pay good money to put advertisements on this site?

If you are in India and watch Television, then you surely must have watched this ad -

The ad is targeted towards working women who take charge of their lives and planning their future on their terms. The ad which is timed brilliantly is launched in sync with the India International Jewelry Week, talks to the right sentiments, however the product itself is questionable.

Tanishq Gold Harvest Offer is a scheme where one has to make 11 monthly payments and at the end of the year, you get the same value in jewelry. At a first glance, I thought that the financial returns amount to roughly 8% of the investment. Turns out that I had valuated it in the wrong way from the start itself, the formula to be used should have been XIRR, and it gives a 15% return.

Jyothi, our resident content creator then pointed out that it’s a loss making investment. Consider the inflation of gold (or the Indian Rupee for that matter) over the period of one year, and you end up with a loss-making product. Average Indian Consumer, beware of this product!

I realize that the ad is using sex to sell itself, but its still brilliant!!

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)?

I have decided to use my fledgling blogging talents (ahem!?! or so to speak ) for making some money. There are quite a few blogs out there which pay good money for guest bloggers to write posts for them. Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 per post. It doesn’t pay as much as our normal job does, but imagine – you can earn this money without any qualification as such!!

Another style of earning money would be google ads. So please do not be pissed if you see those on my blog in some days. Heres to turning a cost center into a revenue center

You must have seen those ads – “What an Idea! Sirji!!” of Abhishek Bachhan and how having a generic phone number ensures that all problems due to differences in caste, sect, religion are removed. Novel way to target and position yourself to the masses indeed.

Come to the streets of Mumbai, there you see a different picture. Idea ads have celebrities declaring proudly, that they have an Idea Mumbai No., and that makes them a Mumbaikar. The niche is well defined and it does have an appeal to it. I consider myself a Mumbaikar, but would I go to the extent of getting an Idea Mumbai No. . But it’s a good ad nonetheless.

So in one case, Idea is seen generalizing their service offering, whereas in the other, the same offering (viz., the phone number that you get) is a way of defining and segregating the masses. Interesting, wouldn’t you say? Kind of like Glocalisation.

Its an expression that Barney, from How I met your Mother (one of my favorite sitcoms) often says. Was going through daily RSS, when I came across this … a jacket for geeks who cant make their own pick-up lines. A small printer is fitted into the jacket along with sensors near the arms and heart to detect that change in the heart rate .

And voila!! You can be a casanova as well. Here’s a video demo of that piece!!

Our recruitment advertisement that we had put in TOI got the Pink Slip Award for best recruitment ad. Kudos Ethames!!