Videos

Video

Party De with the Fugay Family

For some reason, this song has just stuck in my mind on a loop this morning! I mean, it’s got a catchy rhythm and all.

However, the term party de is such an intrinsic theme between college friends, especially within Maharashtrians, that creating a cultural meme out of this term makes sense.

I remember as a teenager, most of the times when you would achieve something, rather than celebrating that achievement, there would always be the friends and family haranguing you with the same phrase – party de.

I am not a fan of Swapnil Joshi, however, he manages to catch the nerve of the marathi manus pretty accurately. Thankfully, his manus is most of the times celebrating the good times.

मराठी माणूस इथे कुठे आला?

येणार ना. जिथे पण मराठी समुदाय आणि मराठी रीतींबद्दल चर्चा आहे तिथे मराठी माणूस आहे.

This is the topic of another post, though. Something that I strongly feel. Until then, party on!

Video

Information markets in Third World Economies

One of the great things that attracts investor capital is the ability of third world countries to show double digit growth. This story of almost all developing nations mean a scope for investments for other organizations present world-wide. Various countries have different economic policies, such as the open policy by China to attract huge FDI, and the partially open economy by India which invites FDI but limits the amount which can be withdrawn.

Why is this story selling for the past 5 or so years?

The answer is simple. Third World nations represent an inefficient market. A place where the buyers and sellers do not have access to complete information about the transaction. Since there is hardly any organized sector in such markets, there is virtually no analysis done on the varied types of transactions. This absence of information creates an inefficiency in the market … the simple act of saving each and every market transaction and making it available to the public creates the huge value of wealth maximization for both the buyer and the seller.

Wealth Creation by Information Symmetry

Imagine a scenario where a seller wants to sell a book for five dollars, it’s slightly used but the book is not easily available in the market. But the seller does not know that … the seller implicitly assigns a value of 5 dollars and expects the same amount in return. Now if a buyer who values the book a lot more than that were to find about the book, then he will finish the transaction at five dollars (even if he were ready to pay more). So what just happened back there? A book was exchanged for a lesser amount than what it would have fetched. Had the seller known that it could have fetched more (if he had access to that information), then the seller would have generated more wealth by selling at a higher price.

Information Markets

So in developing countries such as Brazil, Tanzania and India, the one sure shot formula for wealth creation is by creating an information market and making it available to the general public. We can also refer to information markets as Free online Classifieds, a site where people can post information about their buying and selling requirements.

We wanted to sell our six year old car and used a similar service to get the highest price for a used car. Access to such an information market not only ensured that we got the highest bidder, but also reduced the transaction hassles for us.

Conclusion

Any information market (such as an online classified) brings the buyer and the seller on the same platform and ensures that the seller gets a higher price and the buyer gets a chance to purchase the same price at a lower cost.

An information market is hugely successful wherever the market is fragmented and does not have any organized player.

An information market also increases the reach of local organizations.

Video

Sex in Advertising

If you have seen the latest GoDaddy Ads, then you will understand what I am talking about. I had posted this great Ad from BMW which uses sex but pulls it off quite nicely. Having said that, now take a look at the GoDaddy Ads –

How the massage, and the masseuse stripping off to bear the GoDaddy logo really brings out their hosting plans and domain registry services is a mystery to me. What is interesting to note is that the ads typically leave off by saying to view more go to their site. On checking out the full ads, the advertisement goes on to talk about the different features of the GoDaddy offerings.

Effectively, the ads that were shown on television were simply to generate traffic on their site. Again an example of one media relying on another media for it’s business. This really does not bode well with me (despite being a GoDaddy customer for the past 4 years now). This traffic is also assuming that people want to view more of Danica or GoDaddy.

I wonder if some data were obtained on their traffic and conversion data post after the campaign launched. I’d wager that the traffic would increase, but the conversion rate would go down.

What do you good folks think?

On Second thoughts

Since the video in the advertisement keeps changing, I am forced to keep updating this post. Since then, several such ads have been shown. There is a Danica and Shower ad as well, search on YouTube and you will find it.

It would seem that the marketing team at GoDaddy has found some correlation between fans of Danica Patrick, young teenagers and customers who buy website domains. Whereas the ads promise further titillation on the website. There might even be a good correlation.

Video

Why this Kolaveri Di?

I am sure that by now most of you have heard of this song.

If you haven’t yet heard the song, then do give this video a look-see –

There is a huge hype around this song, for a multitude of reasons –

  • It’s written and sung by the son-in-law of Rajnikanth
  • The main keyword of the song, kolaveri actually has no meaning per se. It’s sort of an accepted slang which means rage … murderous rage to be exact
  • The song is half in tamil (no frilly lyrics there), but simple casually strung lyrics, and half in english … in fact I do not understand Tamil, yet I could make out the gist of the song
  • The gist of the song itself, is identifiable by the multitudes of youth
  • The beat of the song is catchy, in fact I can imagine this song being put on full blast on speakers on a lazy afternoon in the locality
  • Is this simply a good song bolstered by viral social media or is this an internet meme ala Rebecca Black’s Friday? Well, it’s a viral phenomenon for sure.
  • Dhanush seems to be enjoying the creation of this video as well, and you can see the support of other stars such as Shruti Hassan in the background
  • The part where the song goes “pa pa pa paan, pa pa pa paan … ” that’s enjoyed by both my daughter and wife :)