Owner: INTERACTIVE MARKETING BLOG URL:http://managementchords.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:46:17 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Blueprint on Interactive Marketing, Media, PR and Advertisement trends & strategies in both traditional & online medium Site statistics:Click here
Video: Twitter Simplified 2008-03-06 06:54:39 For all those who just could not figure out what is twitter or explain the use of twitter, CommonCraft guys have come up with a 2 minute explaination. For India specially, Twitter
is populated mostly by techies (not that I have a problem) but would love to see Indian marketers using it to stay connected.In case, you want to add me in your Twitterverse, then just hit the "follow" button.
Product packaging telling a story 2008-03-05 12:57:47 Here a small little story
for all those marketers who believes that only spending millions on advertising does all the trick, which also helps them to rest their right side of the brain."...about a year ago, when Jamie Leventhal was trying to convince big chain stores to stock his new line of shaving gels for young men, a buyer from Target asked a crucial question: How much would he spend on advertising? “I told him we would not spend a single dollar,” Mr. Leventhal said.The buyer was stunned until Mr. Leventhal pulled a prototype out of his briefcase. The product, called NXT (pronounced NEXT), is sold in an arresting triangular container that lights up from the bottom, illuminating air bubbles suspended in the clear gel. The plastic is tinted blue, and when the AAA batteries in i
Why fashion brands never lower their price 2008-03-04 07:04:13 Have you ever wondered why big fashion labels never lower their price
s? Infact, they have consistently raise their prices over the years. According to a research by The Economist, people do not just say they enjoy expensive items more than the cheaper ones but they actually enjoy them more.In the present scenario, there is a thriving market worldwide for fake luxury goods, even in India. Not only for luxury items but also for anything and everything which is catching attention among consumers. Cheap imitations is killing the market. That's why all those advertisements like "Kill Piracy and buy originals CD's & DVD's" for music and blah blah. But still the fashion labels won't budge. They will infact keep their prices high if not keep increasing it.From the above, 3 possibilities come
Is Technology and Innovation overrated? 2008-03-04 02:32:11 Ok. So here is my 100th post. Would have been happy to post it in last month. But due to my excessive traveling, could not post it. So all apologies to my viewers.By and large, we have heard this a million times (if not zillion) that innovation, technology and stuff like that can save a dying company from seeing its doomsday. Matter of fact, today's businesses will agree to my above statement any time of the day. That's why companies started using CRM, latest techie products and what not. But I have a different opinion about this one.I believe that standalone technology or innovation can never save a company from withering away. What technology does is it gives the company a shot at marketing. Marketing to those who want to listen and those who will spread the message around. No wonder cou Read more:Technology
, Innovation
, overrated
Analogy between Human Body & Business 2008-01-31 02:43:49 The picture above says it all; about management, marketing, sales, design, all new social media or SEO etc. By & large, every facet of modern day business can be explained with this model. Drawing inspiration from the human anatomy, it is interesting to watch that every part works in tandem to bring coherence to our development & continued survival.So is business different from the above model? One part is organizations talk about multi-million dollar budgets for their marketing & advertising campaigns whereas overlooking nicher yet multi-faceted dimensions of involving customers through measures of Social Media or Web Development etc. Hence coherence is necessary among different divisions and dimensions of business like all the small parts combine together to form a perfect hu Read more:Business
, Analogy
*This has got to stop* - Where is Social Media heading? 2008-01-30 10:52:14 This week has been quite hectic and the week is not over yet. Yikes..!! So "less blogging is the outcome". So won't be able to post that much. Meanwhile I stumbled-upon this Facebook group which is named "This has got to stop".The group description says:"I DON'T WANT TO BE A VAMPIREI DON'T WANT TO BE A PIRATELEAVE ME ALONEPOINTLESS FACEBOOK APPLICATIONS ARE RUINING FACEBOOK" This group was created by 16 year old guy, Evan Poteet of Hamilton Southeastern High School, class of '09. Infact the group has more than half a million members (503,005 members on 30th January, 08). This proves that "pointless mini-apps are ruining Facebook, if not Social
Media".By the way, I am a proud member of this group and as they say "The rest is History".
Read more:Social Media
Marketing & Culture effects on Search Engines 2008-01-25 17:53:46 The ComScore results are out for top-10 global search engines. Interesting results for Chinese search engine major "Baidu". The figure below tells the story.But interestingly local search engines are doing very well w.r.t. their western counterparts, considering the fact that they don't use Roman alphabet.Now the question is, shouldn’t the best search technology win no matter what the language? Yes it should, in a world where people are logical and not exposed to any sort of media. But humans are influenced by all sorts of media and their thinking & rationality is somewhat bounded around its contours.So these figures tell a different story about human "online search" behavior. Marketing
and to some extent culture is playing a big role in selecting an online search medium (unless it' Read more:Search
Bollywood going digital through mobile phones 2008-01-24 18:53:11 The elephant is rising from the slumber. India is innovating ways to deliver content through mobile phones. This month, one of Bollywood’s biggest film names is releasing the first ever serial for the mobile phone in India.Infact, reports say that Indian digital technology has grown to an extent of Rs 44,000-crore ($11 billion) entertainment industry. Catching with this growing trend entrepreneur Rajat Barjatya, the scion of one of Bollywood's biggest film banners, is read to tap the opportunity in a big way.The delivery format has shifted from the traditional norms to more contemporary ways with the likes of handheld devices and also releasing movies online and movie theaters simultaneously. In this case, they are releasing “90-episode series, with three minutes per episode in the hum
Indian companies' response to Blogosphere 2008-01-24 12:18:03 I have been blogging from last year. One of my many observations is the increasing number of hits to my blog from different companies like Google, Cisco, Microsoft, BP, Shell, Bell Labs, O&M etc through searches (E.g. Vodafone, Portugal in the inset picture). Interestingly, many bloggers gave the same feedback that there is a dramatic shift in the number of viewers from different companies of the world.Interestingly, Mark Collier raises an important question regarding companies being vigilant on blogosphere i.e. How many companies monitoring blogosphere take further action when something good/bad is being talked about?Staying with that topic, I'm quite unsure I have seen too many Indian companies coming to my site. Apart from me, talking to many bloggers have revealed the same state i Read more:Blogosphere
Blog, Blog & more Blogs; So where are we heading? 2008-01-23 18:12:59 The trend has been quite clear for us. 2005 was for blogs, 2006 was for Youtube, 2007 was for Facebook (if I may say so) and 2008...keep guessing. Though I have my money on it. The point here I want to talk about is what blogging has been doing in the business circle. Yeah, it has been making headlines, starting from India to US but is it adding value to the traditional business models. Nowadays, newspaper journalists are observing this space for getting relevant insider information or more importantly a different perspective but what about business.The word is advice. Bloggers give a lot of ideas to businesses. But that's where traditional organizations miss the whole point. People have talked a lot about engagement, conversations blah blah but big organizations are too awry to embrace it Read more:Blogs
Seth Godin's video on "Curiosity" 2008-01-22 07:09:49 The video
is about "Curiosity". Now that's a very cool word, not only because it gives you a shot at new stuff around but modern day marketers have realized the fact that whom they want to target i.e. early adopters & innovators who are in the fringes and they do the idea-spreading thing. It's curiosity which attracts them to try out new things and if they like it, they tell their friends. And then the word-of-mouth cycle starts.The short video was shot by Nic Askew.By the way, if you are in good mood, then you should read some of the comments in Seth's post. My fav one is this one called "Insatiable Curiosity" by Hjörtur Smárason (Thank god he won't ask me to pronounce it).Now you know why I posted this video. Yes, I fall into that curious category :) and that's why I like Marketi Read more:Godin
, Seth Godin
What Cricket Umpires teach Marketers 2008-01-21 07:53:24 Nowadays, India-Australia cricket test match series is going on. Barring from the fact that the test series has been surrounded by many controversies, still we can't deny the fact that role of umpires on the field is of utmost importance.But why the hell am I writing it in a marketing blog, u may ask?It's the silent nature of umpires and then delivering the judgment which fascinates me so much. The whole game surrounds around their call. They just keep quiet and observe the game like an avid onlooker. Now that's where a marketer comes into play. Few days back CK wrote a nice little post on how "Shutting up is such a great strategy for marketers".I too agree that for any marketer, be it offline or online; B2B or B2C or whatever, listening is one skill which marketers need to develop. Why?"Y Read more:Cricket
, Marketers
Social Media may save our lives 2008-01-18 16:07:46 Our world is changing. Now that's very cliched, you may say. But if you look around a bit, then our way of information gathering to idea spreading has changed over time. Much due to the advent of internet. Internet is shaping our culture in way which we wanted to. Web 1.0 era is over as we have seen much discussion about it and the new world order of Web 2.0 is here. And with the introduction of Web 2.0, came the concept of Social
Media. And this very revolution has changed a lot of things: For us and the business models of the world. You can frame it largely as we are in "SPECS Economy" i.e. Sharing, Peering, Engaging, Collaborating and Socializing culture.In the world where we are using tools like Twitter, Facebook etc to connect people across the boundaries, so why can't we use these ma Read more:Social Media
Slidepost: MacWorld 2008 - Steve Jobs Keynote 2008-01-15 20:22:33 These slides (Link) are the step by step coverage of Apple in "Macworld 2008: Steve
Jobs Keynote
". I have tried to put the event in a slide in form of pictures of the key developments in "Macworld 2008".As stated in one of my earlier posts about Tata Nano and its similarity with Apple's iPhone, now it will be more than clear that the amount of enthusiasm and euphoria surrounding this event is immense. Modern day marketing is going through a phase of metamorphosis where PR is acting as a catalyst to modern marketing.So before even talking about Apple's latest "MacBook Air" being successful or not, it has raised the aspiration of customers to an exalted state. So Well done again Mr Jobs. Good show!Check out the photos in Flickr Slideshow.
Read more:Steve Jobs
What Tata's Nano & Apple's iPhone have in common 2008-01-15 16:30:52 Today is one of the glorious day in the history of Indian business. The much talked about Tata's 1-lakh ($2700) car was launched today in the Auto Expo Show at New Delhi.I won't go much into the details of the car or the euphoria surrounding the launch, since it will be all over the media tomorrow. But I want to share some thoughts about the launch. Actually I came to know about the launch details from Twitter (thanks to Gaurav Mishra). He actually twittered the news while Mr. Tata was announcing it.Few things happened while this development was taking place. First, Tata's Nano featured among the top most search in Technorati on 10th Jan, 2008 i.e. the world was searching for more information about Tata's Nano and secondly, the blogosphere was buzzing about Tata Nano.It's very rare to see Read more:Apple
, iPhone
How to increase traffic for your blog 2008-01-15 02:28:06 Once in a while, people ask me this question i.e. How to build traffic
to my blog? The other day a friend of mine popped this question to me. I was far from surprised since I'm not a SEO guru or a internet traffic wizard. But yeah, I have been pulling some decent (trying to be humble) amount of traffic to my blog. So here are my 50 small tidbits for those who are interested or in a mood to have some fun:1. Write which people will be interested in.2. Don't write about your ex-girlfriend or how your mom keeps pestering you.3. Make love to Search Engines. Remember that Google is your new best friend.4. Learn to be an expert in your field; At least try to be..5. Be the first to break or announce news.6. Long post sucks; believe in KISS (Keep it short & simple) philosophy.7. Write timeless Read more:increase traffic
Google Trends, Revisited..Goof Up 2008-01-14 15:00:11 Wallah!This is the first result you get in Google
for "Google Future Trends
". Now this is amazing. Infact GigaOM, SearchEngineGuide and even Google itself features after my post.I am far more sure that someone else must have done a better job than me in predicting Google Trends
. The point here is that the GoogleBot (Google's page indexing mechanism) has to go a long way than this.
Read more:Revisited
Links for 2008-01-10 2008-01-11 08:46:22 CBS News│Starbucks replaces CEO with Chairman - Coffee Giant replaces CEO, Jim Donald with Chairman, Howard Schultz. Read the inside story here (Tags: Business, Starbucks, Howard Schultz)IBN Live│Tata unveils Rs-1 lakh People's Car 'Nano' - After a long wait, TATA launched the 1lakh ($2700) car at the Auto Expo show in New Delhi. Click here for exclusive pictures of "Nano" (Tags: TATA, Nano, 1-Lakh Car, India)Greg Verdino│A framework for measuring blog success - Captures all of the key metrics for gauging blog success and put those metrics in context (Tags: Blogs, Social Media, Web 2.0, Community)CNet│Best of Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2008 - Covers "The Best in Show"; "People's Voice"; "Best of CES Winners in each category" (Tags: CES 2008, Electronics Show, Gadget)
Links for 2008-01-08 2008-01-11 08:43:26 Steve Rubel│The Lazysphere and the Decline of Deep Blogging - He talks about how Bloggers in general have become so lazy to post original work pieces and value addition in real time has decreased (Tags: Weblogs)TechCrunch│Google Enabled Televisions Coming Soon - Japanese manufacturer Matsushita (Panasonic) has signed a deal with Google that will see the company launch flat panel television sets that allow users to access YouTube and other Google services such as Picasa Web Albums (Tags: Google, Panasonic, Matsushita, Television)GoogleBlog│The flow of Information at the Googleplex - Using prediction markets to show how organizations process information and respond to external events ::Download the article:: (Tags: Google)Gaurav Agarwal│How Techmeme homepage changes over time (video)
What Businesses can learn from Seth's Books 2008-01-09 06:35:14 If you have read last few books by Seth Godin, 3 things are the basic take-aways:You somehow know about the content before you have read the book.You know, how important is an "Authentic story".Unique content worth talking about.If you talk about business in that measure, it's not different. The above 3 points can be summed up in two words. "Idea spreading" or "Idea diffusion". Basically, we all are living in the "Century of Idea diffusion". The business which was able to spread their idea, won the customers and which didn't kept producing "Average products for Average customers" i.e Mass Market. So no wonder, chances of failure for mass market products increases since these customers most of the time IGNORE you as they have more choices and less time.So how to spread the "IdeaVirus" to su Read more:learn
, Books
Slidepost: Branding 2.0 & Social Media 2008-01-08 20:30:27 | View | Upload your ownThese are the slides which I presented in the 5th AIMS International Conference on Management & Technology @ Hyderabad on 29th Dec, 2007.The slides broadly talks about how in the modern era, Branding
has shifted to more engagement orientated due to the advent of Web 2.0 and Social
Media. The presentation aims at how, where and when aspects of it...Comments are invited!!
Read more:Social Media
Mozilla launches Viral Campaign against IE 2008-01-07 12:50:11 Mozilla launched a viral campaign secretly supporting Firefox with the name "Fight Against Boredom" targetting Internet Explorer (IE) (According to TC). Apparently, the message is "Don't use IE, instead use Firefox". The message is in the form of a song with statistics which I can't help but its damn funny. I hope Microsoft takes it in the best spirits. Even there is a fake blog supporting the viral campaign.Even I'm posting this on my firefox app, so my thumbs-up for them!!
Read more:Mozilla
, Viral
, Campaign
, against
The thing called "Marketing" 2008-01-04 16:34:51 Yes, the thing called "Marketing
". So many words can be used to define it and redefine it. It's not that we don't have good marketers in the country but still company's balance sheets are bleeding due to crappy advertisements, PR activities, promotions and all that crap. Hell with all those.So what is exactly "Marketing" that we all make so much fuss about?It's about commitments. My personal belief in life has always been "Commit & Deliver, if not F**k it!". And here with the thing called "Marketing" your customers will say those last two words since for them, choices has increased and time has decreased. So they better ignore your false promises.So as the old maxim goes, Commitment is the base of every relationship. That isn't different from keeping your customers happy, I guess. But
Blekko: David versus Goliath in SearchLand 2008-01-03 17:34:37 Got this piece of information from TechCrunch. Rick Skrenta (a very media savvy guy) who is known more for first computer virus and stuff like that is coming with a bang by starting up something which intends to take on Google...Yeah, on Search.This is what he said in this blog post:...But I get asked - why do search? Simple - the idea that the current state-of-the-art in search is what we'll all be using, essentially unchanged, in 5 or 10 years, is absurd to me. The web is big. Really, really big. It's literally billions and billions of pages. It's Carl Sagan big. And it's doubling in size every year or two. So the idea that what you can see in positions 1-3 above the fold on Google are the sum of what the web has to say about every possible query is crazy...The guys are still work Read more:David
, versus
, Goliath
Blogs : The Flip side of Narcissism 2008-01-02 17:09:23 I have always liked Seth Godin starting from his books to his blog about anything under the sun. He has this immense talent to take minutest thing on this earth and making it easier to comprehend in his own way. So when Seth comes up with latest post about "Blogs
& Self Promotion", one thing becomes crystal: People talking about you is far more effective than talking about yourself in world wide web (Thanks Seth).So two things are to be done after reading this post. First, get a copy of "Meatball Sundae" (Seth's latest book) and secondly if you have a business then put these proactive thinking (not reactive) in your marketing messages and avoid the plight of getting vanquished.Also, the thing about "New Age Marketing" is word of mouth. You are in or out is very much proportional to the
Indian Motorbike goes Viral with "Pulsar Mania" 2008-03-12 14:12:39 Now this is what I call biking is all about (though parental guidance is necessary). Still Bajaj Auto has done it, I must say. Tagged as "PulsarMania
", the campaign demonstrates the Pulsar's power, aggression and grace in a never seen before manner. Shot in Cape Town, the stunt team comprises the best riders across the world including AC Farias (World No.2), Matte Griffin etc.Though, the video is there in the television but it's the power of the viral that is turning heads. I would agree with WatBlog who thinks that it has the basic elements to be viral.The WOW Factor of putting the best bike riders of the world into a sleekly designed power machine (if I'm not going overboard).It’s got the shareable factor - Every Pulsar bike owner is going to love this video and is going to become a p Read more:Motorbike
, Viral
Size of Indian Web 2.0 industry: An inconvenient truth 2008-03-11 14:56:53 According to a report , Indian web 2.0 industry
excluding the established, large global players like Orkut, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia et al, Indian 2.0 start-ups have a combined user base of about 1.5 million users.Now a blogger has an interesting take on this abysmal data. After some amount of number crunching, it says:Assuming an average of 10 pageviews per user (a random guess) at 1$ CPM (5$ for an American user parity adjusted), the Indian Web 2.0 industry generates a not-so-whooping 15,000$ per month combined. At 10X revenues, the entire industry would be valued at an abysmal $1.8mn. But still I'm kind of optimistic about the future of web 2.0 in India due to following 5 reasons:A huge domestic market (Oh I heard India's middle class is infact bigger than US's total population)Access
Demystifying Influencers: From Pyramid to Diamond Model 2008-03-10 17:19:26 CNET Networks conducted a three-part study called "Understanding Influence, and making it work for you" (Download here). It explored the structure of social networks, methods of acquiring information and the motivations for giving/sharing/influencing others. Guy Kawasaki explains the basic tenets of the study in his blog post.But what I was interested in is the marketing or advertising takeaways from the white paper.The study provides three key marketing takeaways: Two unique characteristics of information that influencers value are that the information is unique and trusted. Shape your marketing messages for the larger network of moderately connected users, not just the few highly connected individuals at the top. Make content actionable for users.But these theories ma Read more:Pyramid
Marketing Overdose: Secrets Revealed 2008-03-13 06:09:49 Though, I generally don't write about any industry specific news (though from now on I will), but this one shook me. Pharmaceutical companies spend about US $60 billion every year marketing drugs which is about twice the amount spend on research & development (R&D). Yet we know next to nothing about where this money is going.To expose where pharma companies spend this money, how it increases drugs sales, and why this irresponsible behaviour is putting consumer health at risk, Consumers International has produced a series of short films for the MarketingOverdose
campaign.To tell you the truth, I understood only 3 ways (though there can be many as such) by which they are maximizing profits:Doctors working as active word-of-mouth agents since customers believe that doctors are only c Read more:Secrets
Screenshot of the Day 2008-03-15 20:41:25 When was the last time you saw "Customize your homepage" tab in a website. BBC has got into the action it seems. Now this is what I call leveraging the "Power of Web 2.0": True sense of engaging, collaborating and making the viewers a part of the BBC community. And I surely don't know about the future of this new move, but sure it made me free from crappy news clutter.So what's next, huh?? "Herd behavior" from other players!!!
Read more:Screenshot
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