Roopak Saluja

Bedrock of Trust

Mon, 11 Jan 2016 03:02:13 -0500

Convergence and flux are two general themes that define the business environment we operate in today. And I would argue, both are more pronounced in the media business and spaces adjacent to it than in any other industries. ‘Evolve or die’ is a choice several incumbent media and tech companies are faced with. Which is why you see M&A action going through the roof. The types of deals being done today would have been inconceivable just a couple of years ago- both in size and match. Why? Because when the pace of change accelerates, it’s hard to stand alone and still succeed. But not everyone has the wherewithal or the appetite to grow through M&A. What remains are partnerships.

Having orchestrated and participated in a number of partnerships (some much deeper than others) over the past nine years, I’m convinced that the key to a successful partnership is a bedrock of trust that needs to keep building incrementally and continuously over time. Every little action taken by each side either adds to that trust or takes away from it. Everything else is secondary. Except for one thing- values alignment. Not cultural alignment but values alignment. There’s a difference, to describe which would take me beyond the word scope of this piece. But let’s say that entities that have divergent cultures can still hold certain common things very core to their existence, e.g.- integrity, innovation, conservatism, etc. If two partners don’t share common values, the partnership is a disaster waiting to happen.

In April this year, we launched a digital video network, Sooperfly, as a joint venture between The 120 Media Collective and London-based, Diagonal View. Matt Heiman, the Founder of Diagonal View, and I met and spoke multiple times over nine months before we launched Sooperfly. Those nine months were spent building trust between Matt and me and therefore our two companies. And during that time, we also established implicitly that we shared several common values.

Say that alignment exists at a values level and a partnership is established. Then how do you go about building trust? Two factors that need to function in tandem- communication and transparency. You can never communicate enough and there’s no such thing as too much transparency. Communicate about everything from what you want to gain from the partnership, whether you’re expecting it to be forever or closed-ended and the risks you see associated with it. Be transparent if something goes wrong or mistakes are made.

It’s pretty clear and simple. See this stuff through from intent to action and your partnership is destined to succeed. Or ignore them and it’s dead before it starts. You choose.

As published in IMPACT Magazine’s 11th Anniversary issue on Power of Partnerships.

Branded Content: State & Future

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 08:31:14 -0500

When BMW invested in its short films project, The Hire, back in 2001, it sparked the beginning of the modern Branded Content era, so to speak. It was a grand move, no doubt, with nothing less than US$10M invested. So grand, that little that’s happened since, has beaten its scale. Felix Baumgartner’s jump comes to mind but then Red Bull is in a league of its own. 2001 was still the pre-social era, before virality was a thing. Imagine the impact The Hire would have had, had it happened ten years later.

In the Indian context, brands have been “investing” in content through what’s called the AFP (Advertiser Funded Programming). The inverted commas signify a certain level of disdain with which I view most AFPs, as the vast majority of them have either been nothing more than a nominal presenting sponsorship or one where the content ends up being compromised. It’s quite simple. When it comes to branded entertainment, there are two main elements – brand and entertainment. If you tip the scales in favour of entertainment, you hopefully have compelling content. If it goes the other way, i.e. in favour of the brand, you get compromised content, which ends up being a lose-lose situation for all parties involved brand, producer/creator, platform/broadcaster and audience.

As the audience universe moves increasingly online, that’s where all the action will take place. Display advertising, not the most effective way to engage even at the peak of its effectiveness, is losing relevance faster than people are getting online. And we all know how people feel about YouTube ads. So what’s left? Content, of course. But done right.

If a brand has the wherewithal to turn publisher, it should consider it seriously. Clearly, the long-term benefits of investing in a content platform have started to show. As an advertiser, the only way to reach audiences has traditionally been to pay media owners for the privilege. The fundamental economic rationale driving brands to turn publishers is the potential reduction in media spends. Look at it as a balance sheet capex item that leads to an eventual reduction in opex, possibly to drastic levels. And economics aside, when you ‘own’ the audience, there’s so much more flexibility and scalability.

Hindustan Unilever’s Be Beautiful is among the top beauty and fashion destinations in India, with around 400,000 organic unique visits per month. Shuttling from Venus to Mars, The Label, Louis Philippe’s fashion and lifestyle platform has redefined content quality levels in the men’s lifestyle space. In the interest of full disclosure, both properties are run by Jack in the Box. What makes these two platforms so successful, is the high quality of content. And what’s behind quality content, is a progressive marketer, who dares to think and do like a publisher.

But turning publisher isn’t every brand’s cup of tea. For others, there’s always the option of distributing content on third party platforms. But whom do you turn to for help? My hope is that, as a leading branded entertainment practitioner, The 120 Media Collective has got its fundamentals right with properties like The Tara Sharma Show, where we’ve allowed brands like Johnson’s Baby and Fisher Price to engage with our audience in a meaningful manner. It’s not rocket science. Provide value in the form of entertainment, education, utility or information in exchange for your audience’s time and attention and you’ve got the formula for an engaged community.

The other option, that usually yields better results in today’s scenario, is to get the media themselves to handle the whole thing. If the media knows what they’re doing, they’re your best bet because if all goes well, you’ve got a seamless proposition in play.

I think though, there’s space for a new kind of entity- a media company that builds communities and audiences across platforms and screens, and at the same time, understands brands and their business objectives in the way that an agency does. But most importantly, this hybrid entity must masterfully create meaningful engagement through its content, so the brand’s objectives are met without compromising the content. Stay tuned. It’ll happen soon.

As published in IMPACT Magazine.

Cannes 2015: The Fringe: The Festival’s other side: Roopak Saluja

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 08:12:35 -0500

There’s a whole other side to Cannes that you probably don’t know about. It’s sometimes called “The Fringe”. Around 12,000 people registered for the Lions last year. I suspect the number is around the same this year too. But what a lot of people don’t know is that there are somewhere between five and ten thousand other folks, if not more, who descend on Cannes during festival week each year. And they don’t register. You can be sure the Cannes Lions organizers aren’t so pleased about this. So who are these people and what exactly are they up to?

Let’s flip the question first. Who registers for the Lions? Mostly agency folk, clients and anyone else interested in downloading inspiration from the talks and witnessing the awards. So who else is here at Cannes? There are producers, filmmakers and other film folk of all kinds. Then there are the dealmakers and networkers. What’re they doing here? In some cases they’re meeting the same people they meet back home. I had one exec from a large US media company tell me, “We’ve spent two million dollars to fly a bunch of us over and rent a yacht to do meetings with and throw parties for the same people we meet back in New York. It’s just a lot more fun and relaxed here.”

The parties are a lot more fun on the fringe side. The official Cannes galas are blah, no one really cares about them. Then you have the larger parties on the beaches along the Croisette- Google, Massive Music, Sizzer, Shots and more. But my favourite parties are the daytime pool parties at random villas in the hills. They’re a lot more intimate and relaxed than the massive ones on the beach and there’s often great barbecue. I say this even though Bang Bang sponsored the gigantic shots party for five years. A special mention goes to The Location Guide and Young Directors’ Award parties, which are just the most pleasant rosé-filled sundowners on the beach with a great vibe.

Two random events from this year’s edition come to mind as being worthy of mention- one tragic, the other amusing. Apparently, someone from Google UK was killed a couple of days ago. It’s all very hush-hush, no one really knows what happened other than that it was “a traffic accident”. May he RIP. On the lighter side, a random act of exhibitionism has filled timelines like crazy over the past few days. An anonymous couple was engaged in an act of extreme passion at 4 am on the red carpet outside the Palais. Someone at a party at a nearby apartment took a picture, tweeted it and it’s been trending ever since. Google it for more info…

As published on exchange4media.com

FIVE IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT ADVERTISING IN 2015

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 12:57:25 -0500

THE FIRST RULE OF ADVERTISING- DON’T ADVERTISE!

This sums up where the industryis headed these days. With theincessant bombardment of messages we urban folk experience (estimates range from 5,000 - 20,000 a day) it’s obvious that the average person can only take in so much. So a decade or more ago, brands got smart. Branded content started to emerge in the form of TV shows, online video, advertorials, even film. And today the mantra is simple: don’t bore people into buying your brand! Inform, educate or entertain them and they will love you. You may even weave in some subtle brand messaging if you’re lucky. For the uninitiated, it’s called ‘content marketing’. Advertising is telling the world you’re a rockstar, ‘content marketing’ is showing them you are one.

The toy industry seems to have mastered the branded content game. Their model is pretty simple. Hook kids in with a blockbuster film with a compelling narrative and loveable characters and reap the benefits in toy and merchandise sales for along time to come. Whether it’s The Lego Movie, Transformers or any of the dozens of Disney films, they’re all just vehicles for merchandise.

IT BEGINS WHEN IT ENDS

It used to be that you’d get briefed by the client, come up with a great, mediocre or pathetic idea and work your butt off to execute it in time for a launch. The campaign would release on TV, print, outdoor, radio or all of the above; you’d heave a sigh of relief, have a few drinks with your colleagues and come in to work the next day to move on to the next thing.

God, that’s so 2002! No more.

Now all the action begins where it previously ended. Social media plays such a huge role in our lives that no major brand exists on the planet without a serious digital strategy. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and all the other suspects (even WhatsApp) are used to amplify campaigns, create buzz and engagement, get feedback and even seal the deal (read ‘induce purchase’). So once the campaign is out the door, it’s battle stations at the agency. I’m sure you are familiar with the Old Spice Man (Milind Soman tried to emulate the hilarity of his US counterpart in India – Ed.) recognized for doing the amazing job of rejuvenating a male grooming brand on the decline. Meant for middle-aged fathers, the campaign brought Old Spice back into the bathrooms of young males across America. The original ad ran during the 2010 Superbowl and quickly became a sharing sensation online. Realizing they were onto something, the agency, Wieden + Kennedy, took it to the next level. They gave the campaign new life online by inviting audiences to participate on social platforms with the Old Spice Man. People asked questions and he would respond in under 30 minutes on YouTube. That’s realtime marketing at its best.

SO MANY SCREENS, SO LITTLE TIME

We’re living in the era of the four screen paradigm: TV, desktop, tablet and mobile. I’ll skip the tablet because I’m beginning to lose sight of the difference between phones and tablet (just hold the iPhone 6+ and the iPad Mini side-by-side to see what I’m talking about). But the mobile is a very special little thing. Never before has a device (pacemakers aside) been so surgically attached to people. A Harvard study says 68 percent of mobile usage happens in-home, which means it’s not just about mobility, it’s about convenience. Go on, admit it, how many of us don’t love to use our phones on the pot?

Smart marketing in 2015 is about creating immersive experiences that leverage each device according to behaviour. If you really want to push the envelope, you can throw in an additional device to up the ante, like Nike did with the Fuelband.

Perhaps the most brilliant mobile campaign I’ve come across is one from Unilever, India’s largest marketer by volume, value, reach and budget. They were faced with the problem of connecting with potential consumers in pockets of rural Bihar and Jharkhand that are known to be ‘media-dark’. So a little over a year ago, they decided to create their own media called Kaan Khajura Tesan. By giving a missed call to a number, mobile users got a call back giving them fifteen minute segments of music and other entertainment on their phones. In exchange, all they had to do was bear with a few ads and brand messages. It continues to be a roaring success with lakhs of people calling in several times a day leading to tremendous incremental sales for Unilever.

BLURRED LINES

Convergence is in, purism is out.Innovation happens with the mixing of ideas at the nexus of disciplines just as new art forms and musical genres result from the mélange of two or more existing ones. Communications is going through very exciting times with the influence of technology. Throw in entertainment and you’ve got a beast that’s a classification challenge.

My personal favourite example that transcends communications, marketing, product, engagement strategy, technology, movement and more, is the Nike Fuelband. Conceptualized by RGA, the Fuel band that uses the Nike Plus platform, basically evolved Nike from sports gear company to tech company by gamifying fitness and making it social. I’m a big fan personally and it succeeded in creating in me as much brand love for Nike as I have for Apple.

My company, The 120 Media Collective, is a multi-platform content company that’s pushing the boundaries and blurring the lines between communications, entertainment and technology. Together with its subsidiaries, Bang Bang Films and Jack in the Box Worldwide, we produce TV commercials and handle digital marketing for several large brands and create, distribute, monetize, promote and create engagement around content. Bang Bang Films is now India’s largest TV commercials production company.

See what I did there? I just turned my Rose Bowl article into branded content. Hopefully, you’ve found this somewhat informative, educational or entertaining and thanks to the little brand plug I’ve slipped in, you now also feel more positively about my brand.

FAIL FAST. ITERATE.

The digital space is fluid. Production costs are low and everything’s changing so fast that the shelf life of most content is pretty short. The digital world and everything influenced by it gives us permission for experimentation. Not everything has to work. If you think it might work, go ahead and try. If it doesn’t work then no big deal. Try something else!

Take YouTube content as an example. Single channel creators and multi-channel networks are behind most of what you see there, that you can’t see elsewhere. Unlike the costly development process of big budget cinema and television, on YouTube there’s very little that doesn’t see the light of day. If something fails, kill it. Or maybe tweak it and see what happens. One of the big plusses of digital is that it gives you feedback. There’s a good chance you’ll be able to figure where you went wrong and it’s quite possible you’ll be good to go again with a few tweaks.

Roopak Saluja is a Bombay-based media entrepreneur and angel investor. While working at ad agencies, Young & Rubicam in Budapest and Ogilvy & Mather in Paris, he was also a professional trance DJ and ran a European label that he co-founded called Procyon records. An MBA at INSEAD later, he moved to Bombay in 2005 to found and run the 120 Media Collective. Follow him on Twitter @roopaksaluja and contacted at roopak@the120mediacollective.com

I wrote this piece for the January 2015 issue of The Rosebowl, the magazine of The Doon School Old Boys’ Society. The Doon School is my alma mater.

Content is finally King at Spikes Asia 2014

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 00:15:00 -0400

It’s been a good three years since I blogged for Campaign and the man responsible for once again subjecting readers to my ramblings is none other than Raahil Chopra. He had talked about me blogging and I had mumbled a tentative ‘yes’ while we happened to be boarding the same flight to Singapore, along with Josy Paul (who then ended up being my seat buddy). I thought it was just something mentioned in passing that would be swept under the carpet of life’s casual forgotten statements.

But no! This morning, as I stepped off the treadmill (I’m writing this on Thursday night), I found a DM from Raahil seeking confirmation of my commitment. In a moment of weakness, I confirmed and here I am writing this blog. But unlike other blow-by-blow accounts of events I’ve done in the past, I’m going to be a lot more macro than usual, mainly because of the paucity of time.

Spikes was somehow different this year. Being my sixth Spikes in a row, I feel terribly well qualified to pass judgment.

Different? How?

Well, for starters, for the first time in five years, Spikes is post F1- the Singapore Grand Prix was done and over with. Spikes regulars will be quite familiar with the nightmare of making your way around the southern part of the island around F1 time. Everything just takes longer and some times several times longer. Cabs are in short supply too. I remember one episode back in 2010 when I had to get a South African visa while in Singapore as I had to make my way to a shoot in the Kalahari pretty much as soon as I would land back in Bombay. Because of the congestion around the Mandarin Oriental and the general Spikes zone, I missed my appointment because it took me a good hour plus to get to the High Commission instead of twenty minutes. I eventually did get the visa but that’s another story. Anyway, it’s a pain and I’m glad we steered completely clear of it this year.

Secondly, Spikes 2014 is smaller. Not the schedule or the programming. That’s longer and richer than ever before. Spike was always a two and a half day affair. This year we have four full days. But there seem to be less people. In fact, I’m positive there are less people. And I’m not the only one. Several people I met have commented on the fact. I wonder why. If anything, you’d think the numbers would be up from last year. But I’m not complaining. Less people means shorter queues at Din Tai Fung and other places for lunch. And you can always get a seat up front for sessions you’re really interested in. It’s not sparse or anything. More like optimal. Oh and there are fewer parties. I can’t comment on the numbers at the parties because the only one I went for was the Campaign Brief/Sweet Shop party on Tuesday night at Club Street. Unfortunately, I had to stay in last night as I had a series of calls. But I bet there were fewer people at the parties. Sounds kind of obvious- fewer attendees, so fewer parties. But worth mentioning nonetheless.

And third and most importantly, content is finally king. As someone who’s been blabla-ing about seeing things “through the lens of content” for four years now and runs a company that describes itself as a multi-platform content company, it makes me really happy that there are at least ten sessions with the words “story” or “content” in their title. And if you count the other ones that have something to do with content, the number goes past a dozen. When I spoke about Content Marketing and Content Platforms at Dubai Lynx last year in a session entitled “Content is King, Distribution is God” (which I then shamelessly proceeded to repurpose twice over the following day at separate sessions organised by JWT and Du), I seemed to be saying something quite new to most. But here we are a year and some later and it’s the leitmotif at a sibling festival. So there you have it, content has arrived.

And while we’re discussing content, it’s time to discuss one of my pet peeves. The number of people in India who mispronounce the word just boggles my mind. Even some well-educated people in senior positions in large companies. There are even a large number of people at The 120 Media Collective who do it and every time I hear it, it kills me. Content is supposed to be our business and we use the damn word twenty times a day but it happens so often that I’ve given up correcting people.

So here goes, once and for all…and for those who don’t need the lesson, I truly apologize…please bear with me. There are two different pronunciations of the word and each has a different meaning. The ‘con’ in the content you consume is the same as in “continental”, while the ‘con’ in content that means satisfied or happy is the same as in “condition”. Please note!

And just as I’m done, I receive a timely DM from Raahil reminding me of my promise….

A version of this post was published in Campaign India on Sep 29, 2014

Sovereignty is so overrated. Get over it, Scotland!

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:41:00 -0400

Sovereignty is so overrated. Especially when it comes to the OECD. Since founding my own business eight years ago, I’ve really managed to neglect my passion for World Affairs and International Politics. As a result, sovereignty isn’t really a topic that’s top of mind for me. But I have thought about it occasionally, each time a new nation graces us with their presence- Kosovo, Eritrea, Timor-Leste and most recently, South Sudan.

A couple of days ago, I read a Facebook post by Andrew Nairn, a Scottish classmate of mine from INSEAD:

Amused by his sarcasm, I began to ponder sovereignty for a bit more than I had ever done over the past eight years. And honestly, the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t get my head around it.

The quest for sovereignty or the right/authority of a state to govern itself is such an outdated concept if you’re already part of a prosperous liberal democracy. Why is being an independent country really all that important? Significantly more important are equal opportunity, peace and stability, economic freedom and all that other good stuff that’s available by the kilo in most of the developed world. If you have all of that, why would you want to be bothered with the hassles of administration and perhaps risk losing some of the good stuff in the bargain? I find the Flemish flummoxing, the Québécois quizzical and the Basques baffling. Ok, maybe the Basques had a case under Franco. Eritrea I get. They felt the rest of Ethiopia wasn’t pulling its weight. And South Sudan was the product of a devastating civil war.

But if the people of the Land of Deep-Fried Mars Bars aka Scotland would care to hear my humble opinion- Don’t do it! Don’t vote for independence. It’s of little use to you.

If you really want to assert yourselves, why don’t you get yourselves another timezone or something? Nepal is 15 minutes ahead of India (don’t ask!).

Spotlight | Flipkart.com

Mon, 09 Sep 2013 21:40:00 -0400

The campaign breaks through the clutter

Hits the sweet spot

Founder and chief executive officer of The 120 Media Collective, a Mumbai-based multi-platform content company, Saluja has made television commercials and other content for Unilever, Nokia, L’Oréal, Pepsi, Sony, Johnson & Johnson and Volkswagen.

CAMPAIGN

The new ad for online retailer Flipkart.com titled, “India Wants to Know”, by Happy Creative Services, extends the children-as-adults concept. The ad spoofs the format of news TV debate shows. The question and answer format is used to address consumer concerns about online shopping. Tag line: Ab sirf shopping nahin, Flipkart karo (Don’t just shop, do Flipkart).

1. What did you think of the ad, production, casting, concept, etc?

Talk about tapping into the zeitgeist. Who isn’t sick and weary of the crap that our news channels subject us to? And who better to take potshots at than good old Arnab? Juxtaposing the news setting with the Flipkart Kid World just dials up the amusement quotient to another level. People always seem tickled by the Flipkart Kid World that’s existed on television for a few years now. I have to say, while it’s brought a smile to my face, I’ve been a tad less enthusiastic about the campaigns than the average person. That is, until now. This iteration hits the sweet spot and judging from my Facebook newsfeed, they’ve definitely scored big across the board this time around. Well done Happy (the agency) and well done, Ayappa (the Director). And the production (Early Man Film) is pretty damn perfect too.

2. To your mind, does their decision to use children in their ads work?

Of course it does. It’s allowed them to break through the clutter (more on that below) and to create an ownable world that’s limitlessly extendable. It’s probably a casting nightmare but well worth the effort.

3. What must e-commerce sites keep in mind while planning their campaigns for this market?

Cost per Customer Acquisition is a key success metric for startup and e-commerce players. As a result, production costs and media spend need to be kept to a minimum. On the other hand, e-commerce is such a crowded space that it’s clearly a case of ‘differentiate or die’. Even for a niche space like online baby retail, there are five players I can think of off top of my head. While online media spend is far more efficient, one player spending heavily online compels the competition to do the same to not fall behind in the awareness and top-of-mind recall battle. At the end of the day, he who has deeper pockets has a greater chance of success. That’s where creativity can be a trump card in helping bring down that acquisition cost number. Apparently, Flipkart badly needs it.

4. Any other ad that you think is cool in this category? Could be local or international, please describe it briefly for our readers.

E*TRADE’s “Monkey” from Superbowl 2000 that features an old man and his odd looking younger companion sitting still, then joined by a monkey who puts on some music and starts to dance on a chair. His human cohorts accompany him by clapping in the most ridiculous manner you’ve ever seen. It ends with a super that says, “Well, we just wasted $2,000,000. What are you doing with your money?”, referring to the exorbitant ad rates during the Superbowl. Gutsy. Cheeky. Brilliant.

Pretty much as published in Mint.

My brother's Andy Warhol moment in global business media today

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 16:13:00 -0400

I think this is good reason to break my six month silence…I’m driven to do this even though it’s 3am and I have to sit on a jury at Adfest at 9am AND I’m running on a sleep deficit.

We arrived in Pattaya yesterday for jury duty, which started at 9am today. I’m here with the family…Tara, Zen, Kai, Tara’s mum, our nanny, Lizzie, and Peti. Though we have a room overlooking the ocean, you can’t really call it a holiday. I’ve got three intense days of judging, while Tara has started to shoot the beginning of season 2 of the Tara Sharma Show, which is why we have Peti here with us. Peti is the Hungarian Creative Director/DOP/Visualizer, etc, etc…of the show, who often accompanies us on our travel with his Canon 5D, as the mostly-one-man-crew behind the show.

Anyway, so I wake up this (Thursday) morning just a bit before I have to report for the jury briefing, having overslept, so I rush through my morning routine (details withheld for obvious reasons). I find this iMessage message on my iPad from my brother, Avneesh..

Intriguing enough to call him, I’m sure you’ll agree…

A bit about Avneesh…he’s ten years younger than me, making him 26, and a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon (in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), studying Machine Learning & Computational Linguistics. That’s geek-speak for Artificial Intelligence, though he’s quick to point out the differences between AI and what’s he’s studying, at every opportunity he gets (I still don’t know what they are). But as I’ve explained to him, in my world, buzzwords rule. So, tough!. Though we’re as different as chalk and cheese, we share some passions like trivia, Japanese food, single malt and Tintin, and are actually quite close. Aside from being an academic, he’s also a former Goldman banker and Stanford alum. I’m telling you this not because I want to brag about my brother but because these facts are directly relevant to my story.

So here’s what happened…

On March 14, some guy named Greg Smith decided to write an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times entitled Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs. He basically slags them for being a morally corrupt organization more focussed on making money for themselves than for their clients. The byline says “Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”

His piece starts to create a bit of a shit-storm on Wall Street and by the afternoon Eastern Standard Time, a lot of people have either read it or heard of it. At some point, Avneesh reads it and goes, “Hey, it’s Greg! How cool!”. Not only was Avneesh at Goldman at the same time as Greg, he actually knew him somewhat (relatively) well, as they were both Stanford alumni and Greg was sort of like a mentor to all the Stanford kids who’d join the Equities Desk at ‘The Firm’. I read today that Avneesh referred to him as “the Stanford Equities Captain”.

Anyway, so once Avneesh reads the article, he decides to share it on Facebook.

As you can see, soon after, his friend Fahad Saud (yes, that Saud family!) tells him that someone named Linette Lopez, who writes for Business Insider, wants to talk to him to get to Greg. Avneesh obliges. He obviously has no contact for Greg, who was just a colleague/acquaintance from a few years ago but Lopez asks him what it was like to work with him, etc. She then asks if he wants to go anonymous or would be ok with being quoted. Being as far removed from Wall Street as I am (or perhaps even more), he has no qualms being quoted and consents without a problem. Shortly after, her piece in Business Insider is up. That was just the beginning. Soon after NY Times’ Dealbook mentions Avneesh, though mispelling his name.

Greg Smith, who’s South African, conveniently disappeared off the face of the planet, shortly after mailing in his resignation and his Op-Ed. And Avneesh seems to have become the only link the media could find to him. So for the next six hours, his phone didn’t stop ringing. From CNN to CNBC to Bloomberg to whoever else, they all wanted a piece of him. By 8:30 am Bangkok time, I think he’s had enough, telling me how he’s had to repeatedly refuse television phone interviews on all of these channels. It’s not hard to find his number from his Carnegie Mellon bio page, though he seems to have removed it now.

I also just discovered an FT piece about Avneesh (and Greg). And there’s a slew of others but mostly cut-paste jobs from the ones already mentioned.

I find this whole saga terribly amusing. So does Greg, I’m sure.

Spotlight | The tune we’re humming

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 10:09:00 -0400

Not everyone may like it, but everyone’s singing it—this new campaign is a roaring success

Campaign

The new campaign for Bharti Airtel Ltd by Taproot India showcases a classroom of college students singing a jingle about why every friend is important.

What did you think of the advertisement?

The core concept itself, of depicting the importance of friends, their networks and how a mobile operator ties it all together, is old hat in the mobile sector space across various markets for more than a decade now. What sets this one apart, though, is the manner in which the idea was fleshed out. The newly appointed agency on Airtel’s roster, independent hot shop Taproot India, seems to have brought back on track an otherwise iconic advertising brand that I feel was losing its way.

Talking of execution per se, ad film-maker Ram Madhvani (of the Happydent ad fame) has skillfully tied all the elements together to deliver a very memorable film. Though I should mention that I find the casting to be a bit of a missed opportunity.

The other Ram in the mix (no pun intended), music director Ram Sampath, fresh off the success of (Bhaag DK Bose )and the rest of the Delhi Belly soundtrack, has come through with flying colours. I don’t watch much TV, funnily enough, so I haven’t seen it on air yet. But I’ve watched it online three times to write this review, and it has been going on in my head almost non-stop for 24 hours.

And most importantly, the spot really works. Not everyone likes it, but everyone’s humming it. Today, an accomplished adman from the agency that handles Airtel’s biggest competitor told me how people at his office are even slotting their friends into “ghadi-ghadi kaam aaye” and “ghadi-ghadi call kare”.

Do you think this campaign works for the brand?

It does. As I was saying before, the brand seemed to have lost its way. From playing chess with dadaji while enjoying the hospitality of Indian Railways, we suddenly found ourselves on the romantic streets of Prague with a very international vibe. Don’t get me wrong, what JWT did as their opening piece to address what was probably a brief to project the brand as ultra-global (post-Zain acquisition and all) was a beautiful feat of film-making, award-winningly executed by Independent Films’ Philippe Andre. But I really did find the leap difficult to digest. And I’m not even an Airtel consumer.

The same happened back in the summer of 2009, if I remember correctly, when their previous agency, Rediffusion Y&R, aired a campaign with little kids playing outdoors, again with a very international vibe that screamed to have the Airtel logo replaced with Vodafone’s.

So what Taproot and Ram Madhvani have done here is create a very memorable, fun spot that seems to really be in sync with the brand, even though Vodafone, Virgin Mobile and even Aircel come to mind as having barked up the same tree of friends and networking, etc.

What must brands keep in mind when planning a campaign for an extremely crowded category such as telecom?

Distinctiveness and consistency. Of the top few brands in this space, only Vodafone—along with its various antecedents—and Airtel have achieved a distinct brand voice. Idea deserves massive credit for breaking into the distinctive space more recently with their often annoying yet very entertaining What an idea, Sirji. And even more props to (Tata) Docomo for leapfrogging on to the high table within their very short existence, pretty much thanks to that sticky whistle-able jingle. The rest, honestly, are a little behind.

Pugs, Zoozoos, “You and I”, et al, make for a pretty unique Vodaworld. As an aside, I should say that I find Vodafone in other markets to be far less distinctive than we have it here in India. Though Airtel too has a combination of certain elements that define its world, chief among which is its audio mnemonic signature tune, it scores lower on distinctiveness.

And I have to say that—rather counter-intuitively for me—Aircel has managed to create some amount of distinctiveness, purely through (M.S.) Dhoni, even though their advertising is really just same old, same old.

In the age of social networking sites, Twitter and new media, how important is it for the brand campaign to be viral or adaptable?

Very. Because if you’re not ticking those boxes, you can be sure your competitor is. Especially in a young and tech category, being in sync with the zeitgeist and the latest cool thing is all the more important. How you deliver has now become as important as what you deliver.

How integral is the media plan to the success of a good campaign? In this case, it seems to be everywhere—on TV and radio. Does that work well?

Extremely. With such a powerful track, it’s kind of a no-brainer to go on to radio. Whether you tweak your media to suit the idea or you plan it to reach a target audience or fulfil certain objectives, there’s no doubt that the media plan is almost as important, if not as important, as the idea. In several cases, rather too often in our market, we’ve seen that might is right (read: crap ideas that do the job just because they’ve been supported with a pile of cash).

As published in Mint

ITC & Jet Airways #fail

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 01:27:49 -0400

This week, I stayed at an ITC property for the fist time in ages. In fact it’s probably been over twenty years. I was in Bangalore to drop in on a very long shoot that we’re doing there…so long in fact, that this was the second time I was “dropping in”. So I planned a two day trip and padded the visit with a few agency and client meetings, having Prashanth @Jack in the Box fly in on one day and Payal, the Bang Bang Producer who’s running the “very long” job join me on the other. All in all a very productive 36 hours.

For geographical convenience, I chose to stay at the ITC Royal Gardenia and I have to say I was very thoroughly impressed. Lovely hotel, really modern, well designed, phenomenally good Japanese restaurant, complimentary fresh cut fruit, hyper-fast wi-fi, sensational array of single malts, etc, etc…I could go on. Anyway, once I check in, the Guest Relations Exec escorts me to my room. More of the same. Perhaps one of the nicest, modern rooms I’ve seen in India. I say “in India” not because we’re not capable of having lovely modern rooms here. It’s just that most five star rooms have a classical sense of beauty as opposed to a highly designed, ultra-modern look. So, beautiful room, ample and well located sockets and ports (pet peeve alert) and a lot of other niceties. The TV’s on; and given I’m a practitioner of our noble trade, my antlers immediately take in the Fiama spot playing. It also strikes me instantly that there’s gotta be an ITC thing happening here, which is immediately confirmed once the Essenza di Wills spot plays right after. Ok, so they’ve got a showreel of ITC ads on auto-play. Nothing wrong with that.

Cut to a few minutes later. I’m in the loo and suddenly subjected to utter shock and horror in finding the soap in the bathroom is none other than Fiama di Wills. You have got to be kidding me! What are they thinking???!? I can understand wanting to leverage existing platforms to cross-promote one’s brands. But for the love of god, give some thought to positioning. Kahaan ITC Hotels aur kahaan Fiama? It’s ok for HUL to serve only Bru coffee throughout their megapolis in Andheri but do you think the Taj sends Nanos or Indicas for their airport transfers? Ok I’m being extreme to prove a point but it’s not like all their cars are Jaguars either. I believe their fleet is dominated by Benzes and Beemers. And they don’t just serve Himalaya, they also stock Aquafina.

Kaya Kalp is the ITC’s award-winning spa brand. I can’t be sure but it would be a no-brainer for them to have a Forest Essentials-type line of products. And if this line does indeed exist, then THAT’s what they should have in their accommodation bathrooms and not a very off-puttingly ordinary and cheaply fragrant brand that competes at a rather mass level. What percentage of their clientele are existing Fiama users? Or how many do they hope to convert? I said it before but I have to say it again….what are they thinking?

While I’m in the mood for a rant, here’s a pet peeve that I’ve vented about to the perpetrators in the past but to no avail. So I’m going to go public with it. Like many frequent business travellers, I am a regular on both Jet and Kingfisher. The comparisons between the two will be the subject of another blog at another time. But for now I just want to ask Mr. Goyal and the other good people at Jet Airways….why do you not give your Premier passengers salt & pepper with their meal? Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like you won’t be given any if you ask for it. But if you happen to be sitting in the first row, they’ll serve all four or six rows their meal before they get to your humble seasonings. By which time of course, the omelette or dinner or whatever else has cooled down to a slightly less enjoyable level. Sounds trivial? My point exactly. I’d be interested to know how much money they’re actually saving in exchange for a handful of pissed off frequent flyers like me. Honestly, I fly a lot. And I’ve flown some pretty, obscure carriers in my life but not a single one had me requesting salt & pepper. Of course I’m not counting the ones where you have ask for your food in the first place and pay for it. And the really weird thing is that they do serve it in economy.

Anyway, I’ve written this in the hope that I can get “Mr. Goyal and the other good people at Jet Airways” to take notice of this important issue and take remedial action. And perhaps I can go down in the annals of history as the man who made Jet serve salt & pepper in Business.

As published on campaignindia.in

Tara & Zen in Zen’s debut commercial for Mahindra...

Mon, 11 Jul 2011 13:43:51 -0400

Tara & Zen in Zen’s debut commercial for Mahindra Retail’s Mom & Me. Directed by Bosco. Produced by Bang Bang. Now on air across major channels in India.

Ad Industry Limericks

Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:57:43 -0400

This time I won’t write in prose
Some limericks I shall compose
They’ll amuse you I hope
They do have the scope
But some will just hate them, I suppose

The young writer slogged away the most
Without any credit, kudos, praise or toast
Her boss hogged the glory
was the moral of the story
The ECD wants an NCD post

An agency once upon a time
was generally regarded as sublime
A victim of attrition
Their stars joined competition
Now the agency’s way past its prime

“Doesn’t work for me” a CD was told.
He could never get his ideas sold.
He swore that one day,
he’d be as big as Pandey
Then his ideas would become like gold.

There was once a job we lost.
Best director and even best cost.
Sleek new ride
the CD earned on the side
And that was the reason we lost.

Mobile operator up for pitch
Agency CEOs start to itch
If they land this baby
Big bonus just maybe
If not, then life’s a bitch.

The PPM goes on for hours
Client hates the choice of flowers
The color of the dress
will cause even more stress
It’s the agency’s idea, not ours.

Film opens in European city
“If we can’t travel it’ll be a pity!”
Budget’s really low
But they really want to go
“On your reel it will look so pretty!”

The client wants everything yesterday
They pay the bills so they get to have it their way
If we want this to stop
Our places we should swap
Who knows? The problem might just go away

I hope they made you smile
It’s really been quite a while
since I tried to rhyme
as I don’t find the time
I’m sorry if you thought they were vile

As published on campaignindia.in

Did I just go to Cannes?

Sat, 25 Jun 2011 07:25:00 -0400

Or was it just a dream? I’m not sure. My passport tells me I did. As, I’m sure, will my roaming bill in a few weeks. But in many ways, being in Cannes for 21 hours almost feels like I wasn’t there at all. I’m starting to type this Friday afternoon on my Emirates flight to Dubai, as we taxi along the tarmac at Nice airport (they’re going to ask me to turn off my iPad any moment now) though I’ll probably do the bulk of it in Dubai or when I get home.

Why just 21 hours? I’ll tell you in a bit but first let me give you a quick account of what I squeezed into my time on French soil.

It’s a beautiful, sunny Thursday afternoon as I walk out of the terminal at Nice airport to be greeted by my driver (and car). I love you, Emirates! Thirty minutes later I’m at my hotel. Turns out the Palais Stéphanie has become the JW Marriott though there’s still a big “Palais Stéphanie” sign on one side of building. I suspect the Marriott name is to the hotel what “Mumbai” is to Bombay. Not sure how many people will actually use the official moniker. One hour to go before my first meeting at five. Shower, change, phone time with home and office. It’s a pain in the ass that two gigantic bids need to be turned in Friday. Not surprisingly, most of the cast of characters, from director to agency, are all at Cannes too. But that won’t make it any easier given everyone’s priorities when here. So we’ll do our very best but let’s see what happens.

In three hours I manage six meetings between the Carlton Hotel and La Plage Courage, which is just a stone’s throw away. Mostly other producers from various markets. Then I head to the other side of town, beyond the Palais, where I’ve been invited to dinner by the Joint Chairmen of the APA (Advertising Producers Association of the UK), John Hackney and Lewis More O’Ferrall. Around 12 people in all. Cozy affair. My scallops and steak are divine. Everyone else raves about their choices too. Great food, good wine, lovely company. An evening well spent. Now I have a new Cannes restaurant reco: Gaston Gastounette. I excuse myself before desert arrives because I’m late for the shots party. Given that Bang Bang are sponsoring the party again this year, Kirk and I are expected to have been there for drinks half an hour before anyone else arrives. I’m hoping Kirk’s done that bit because I’m almost an hour late.

Anyway, great night. Rocking party and all that. There’s a pretty solid turnout from the Indian contingent although the fact that Ogilvy and Grey are throwing parties on the same night accounts for some of their Indian agency folk not showing up at all. I’m not sure how many there are at the party (didn’t manage to connect with the shots team before leaving) but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say around 1800, like last year. As a good sponsor, I’d usually stay till the very end but given how little time I have on my hands, I ditch the party as it draws closer to 2am, which is when the beach parties are supposed to close anyway and head east along the Croisette. BTW, the Croisette is lined with this interesting modern art series of various national flags in the shape of wrapped sweets. Not sure if it’s a Lions thing or more permanent than that.

The rest of the night pans out across the Carlton and Gutter Bar. Conversation, beer and Croque Monsieur or all three of the above are shared with Sonal Dabral & wife, Beverley, Satbir Singh, Ajay Gahlaut, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Hozefa Alibhai and Sushant Panda. There were others but I can’t remember.

I entered my room at a few minutes past three and the next thing I know, it’s 8:45 am. Shit, I’m late! Unfortunately, I have to cancel the Facetime video call I’ve scheduled with Tara and the boys. I’ll be home in less than 24 hours, so I don’t feel so bad. Fifteen minutes later, I’m rushing to the Carlton, where I’m meeting Stephen Mead and Holly Hartley from Short Films. Stephen’s the man responsible for that spectacular Lux spot we did with Ash and Abhishek a couple of years ago and Holly’s his Super-Producer. Short Films and Bang Bang have a co-production agreement and we’re in the middle of a massive bid. If we want to have a fighting chance, the cost really needs to come down. An efficient 45 minutes yields a good breakfast AND a lower cost. Karishma, the Bang Bang producer on the job, is on the phone with us for most of that time.

Back to the Palais Stéphanie for three more meetings, two of which I can’t talk about. The last one is with the Unusuals team. Check http://unusuals.net. It’s going to have quite an impact on the global commercials production industry in the years to come.

By 1:30pm, I’m back on my way to Nice Airport in the courtesy vehicle. Thank you again, Emirates! When I board a couple of hours later, I find the cabin manned by the same crew that brought me to Nice. They’re as surprised to see me as I am to see them. I guess that’s what happens when you go somewhere for 21 hours.
So coming back to why I was only there for 21 hours….As some of you might know, our second son, Kai, arrived less than two weeks ago. And it’s his brother, Zen’s second birthday this Sunday. I could’ve just been a good dad and husband and stayed home this year. But being sponsors of what’s regarded as one of the most happening parties in Cannes on an annual basis, I had to be there. You can’t really throw a party and not be there yourself, now can you?

So yes, I’ve managed to do it all- baby, birthday, party and all. It is really possible to have your cake and eat it too. But be careful you don’t get a case of indigestion. I’m so tired I could sleep till Monday.

As published on campaignindia.in

The launch of ROOPAKSALUJA.COM

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:23:00 -0400

Back in February 2010, I decided to start my blog. Running a communications outfit, of which one half counts social media and digital marketing at the core of its competencies, I figured it’d be cinch. Man, I was so wrong! Internal delays galore…people committed, then reneged; client projects took obvious precedence; bandwidth at Jack in the Box became used to being permanently stretched; and most of all, I was just plain lazy. Well lazy in the sense that I was lazy about the blog because I had too much else going on. In fact, my blog became somewhat of an internal joke at the company, something that wasn’t ever going to happen.

But then, some time in April, the cause gained unexpected momentum. And now, thanks to a very competent and dedicated group of people at Bang Bang & Jack in the Box, I finally have my blog. And it looks the way I want it to. Thanks so much, Krishnaa Artisto, Salik, Dhiraj, Tanu and Divya! I love it.

What you’ll find below is stuff I’ve written in the pre-roopaksaluja.com era, i.e.- before right now. It’s been artificially populated to make it seem like there’s a lot going on here.

OK, I have a flight to catch. I’m off to Cannes for a jet-setty 20 hour trip. Bang Bang is a major sponsor of the annual shots party on the Majestic Beach pier. It’s tomorrow night and it would be kinda weird if I weren’t there in person. If this were a regular year, Tara and I would be there the whole week but since Kai just arrived 11 days ago, I had this 48 hour absence pre-planned, negotiated, agreed to and booked way in advance. Thanks, Tara, for being an understanding wife! Also, it’s Zen’s second birthday Sunday, so I have to be back in time. Now…about that flight….

ET Now’s Starting Up did a fabulous piece on Bang Bang a...

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:55:00 -0400

ET Now’s Starting Up did a fabulous piece on Bang Bang a couple of weeks ago.

Brand that country!

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0400

India is a brand, perhaps one of the world’s most underleveraged ones up until 2004. Then ‘India Shining’ happened, which, in many ways, was quite the case of the image being brighter than the object. Kill me, patriots! But remember that I too am one.

China is a brand. And so are the United States, Britain, Japan, Brazil, Australia, France and even obscure nations like Vanuatu, The Gambia and Burundi. And just like consumer and B2B brands, some are more valuable than others.

There’s a chap named Simon Anholt, who is the undisputed nation- branding guru. Simon says (that was unintentional, I promise) that a country has a positive brand image if other people in the world are happy that it exists.

But why is branding important for countries in the first place? To quote Anholt,“In this era of globalization, people take decisions every day as to where to go on vacations, what music to listen to, what books to read. This impacts the future of countries. In such a situation the country’s reputation is very important, because people make these choices based on prejudices which may have nothing to do with reality.”

I’m fairly certain Italy is the world’s most popular nation. The world loves them…their food, clothes, wine, cars, women and even, men. Quite frankly, it would seem that Mussolini, Fascism, the Mafia and any other not-so-positive stuff couldn’t put a dent in their image. Then there’s the curious case of Argentina. How is it that in spite of decades of military dictatorship, a random territorial war against Britain, defaulting on international debt and a recent economic crisis, the world still thinks pretty positively of them? It can’t be thanks to just football and tango.

Switching tracks to the evolution of nation brands…time has a great effect on them. Post-war Japan was considered to be a source of cheap goods- both cars and electronics. By the early eighties most of the world had forgotten that stigma, passing it onto the Koreans, who also managed to shake it off fifteen odd years later. Samsung is now in the same league as Sony, in case you haven’t noticed. And now China has to do battle with Haier, HTC, Huawei, ZTE and Lenovo. Watch that situation change by 2020. Coming back to Japan, even though by 1985, the world was snapping up Hondas, Toyotas and Sony, cars and electronics were it. But by the mid-90s, Issey Miyake, Kenzo and Yohji Yamamoto climbed into the upper echelons of global haute couture. And with Japanese food taking the world by storm in the past decade, Japan has transcended most categories. Today, I would buy Japanese chocolate, icecream or vodka. And my favorite single malts are Japanese too. The concept would have been laughable thirty years ago.

The point I’m making is that the shape of nation brands can evolve very distinctly and quite rapidly based on a range of inputs, both deliberate and unintentional. I’m putting all my money on Brazil and India to be the fastest growing brands in the next two decades. They’re quite a similar pair in many ways- giant democracies with pretty unequally distributed wealth, robust manufacturing and service sectors, rapidly growing economies and oodles and oodles of soft power in the form of music, dance, varying traditions of sensuality (Kamasutra vs samba sexiness), capoeira, yoga and more. If we (us and them) play our cards well, we have the potential to be success stories to the level of Japan.

There are a million ways to play our cards right including curbing corruption, cleaning the streets, being nice to tourists, praying for a charismatic PM, winning Olympic medals and more. But just for a moment, I want to focus on tourism in the broader sense of the term because it’s the type of area that has a very strong link to national equity, especially for India. Taj and Oberoi, two of my favorite Indian brands across all sectors are doing us very proud. The Leela isn’t far behind. We’re getting the hotel bit right for sure. A decade from now, all three are destined to be far ahead of where they currently are. At a global level. The airports are kicking ass (although Bombay’s international arrivals is beginning to remind me of eighties India). But the airline front needs rapid action. Dissolve Air India before we lose more taxpayer money. It’s a lost cause, sunk ship, black hole, etc, etc. And Jet and Kingfisher (and IndiGo when it starts flying internationally) really need to dial up the fact that they’re Indian. I don’t mean behave more Indian. I mean the world really needs to know they’re Indian. If we get this right, throw in the proliferation of yoga and Ayurveda, and we’ve got most of what comprises a very powerful strategy in place to ride our way to the brand equity high table.

By the way, talking of Simon Anholt, I remembered a story about how, as a young Account Executive in Europe, I was secretly recruited to recruit for Cave Anholt Jonason, an international agency launched in 2000 by Anholt along with two others. I have to rush for dinner though, so I’ll have to save it for next time. Sorry!

As published on campaignindia.in

Cheesy execution

Fri, 27 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

The new ad for Matrix forex debit cards by Equus/Red Cell features actor Shah Rukh Khan and cricketers from Kolkata Knight Riders—Yusuf Pathan, Brett Leeand Jacques Kallis. The campaign essentially shows them being questioned by the authorities for the “death of cash”

Campaign

The new ad for Matrix forex debit cards by Equus/Red Cell features actor Shah Rukh Khan, and cricketers from Kolkata Knight Riders—Yusuf Pathan, Brett Lee and Jacques Kallis. The campaign essentially shows them being questioned by the authorities for the “death of cash”. It highlights the fact that the Matrix forex debit card is a more convenient option than carrying cash.

What did you think of the campaign?

At a conceptual level, it’s a decently amusing idea: Matrix Forex Card users kill cash. Can’t say the same about the execution. It’s a terribly cheesy pastiche of Mission Impossible-meets-The Usual Suspects-meets-Don-meets something else type of hodgepodge that is a series of economy framed shots with mostly clichéd or flat performances (even SRK was just okay). Can I leave it at that? To be fair to whoever is behind the ad, it’s highly likely there were a number of constraints they had to work within—from juggling SRK and player schedules (I don’t think they were at the same place at the same time) to trying to work in a restrictive budget.

Does it help the brand cut through the clutter?

Lacklustre: The ad is a series of clichéd shots and flat performances.

It’s different, I’ll give it that. But it took me four viewings to realize the ad wasn’t for an international SIM card. The spot does break through the clutter for a variety of reasons, most of them not too positive. Does it work for the brand? I haven’t been watching too much of IPL 4, but if the frequency has been high enough, I suppose it does the job.

What should one keep in mind when picking a cricketer to endorse a brand?

Acting prowess is a significant plus, almost mandatory today. Sachin (Tendulkar) is just about managing to cut it after 22 years of practice, but the learning curve seems to be a lot steeper today. My money’s on Virat Kohli. The boy is cool, good-looking and has enough attitude on camera and on field to match his sporting performance. Two years on, he’ll have the biggest endorsement kitty in Indian sport.

Which is your favourite ad featuring sportspersons?

The lifetime achievement award goes to Nike…and there’s no second prize. Within the Nike universe, it’s a toss-up between Airport ’98 and last year’sWrite the Future. The former features the Brazilian soccer team messing around with the ball while waiting at an airport. With Mas Que Nada as the background track, (Eric) Cantona’s cameo and (the original) Ronaldo’s missed goal ending, it’s a brilliantly crafted spot that inspired several clones around the world for years to come. The latter is simply a cinematic masterpiece by (Alejandro González) Iñárritu. The less said the better. YouTube it!

As published in Mint

Tech Check

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 -0400

I love my iPad just as much as the next guy. I love my iPad2 even more. This, in spite of the fact that I ordered it to my brother’s place in Mountain View (Googlepur) and had it FedEx’d here only to have FedEx ask for Rs.12,000 in cash to pay for the customs duty they had just cleared on my behalf. Pissed I was, no doubt. But what really rubbed salt in my wounds was that the iPad2 was launched in India three days later at a cost of Rs. 6,000 less (for the same version) than what I paid for mine including customs and courier. The price one pays for gadget greed, I guess.

BTW, in the two instances above where I use “Rs.” for ‘the-symbol-formerlyknown-as Rs’, it’s because our lawyer told me yesterday that you can’t use the font if you haven’t paid for the license. Bizarre! But I digress…

Coming back to the point, I love my iPad, iPhone, Macbook Pro and BlackBerry for the empowerment and efficiency they bring to my life. But these are obvious contenders for the “Best Pieces of Everyday Technology” awards. They’re superstars. I want to focus on the supporting cast, the unsung heroes.

Let’s start with my Bluetooth headset. It’s a Plantronics Voyager Pro Plus. Firstly, why do I use one? I’d say I’m pretty much in the 99th percentile of heavy phone usage, so if I didn’t use one, I’d either feel one-armed or have a serious neck problem. I’ve been through about five different types of headsets and they’ve all had audio clarity issues, either for me or for the person on the other end of the line. Then I discovered Plantronics. You must believe me when I say the clarity is better than a conversation between two people standing face to face. I’m on my fourth piece because I’ve lost one and snapped two. But it’s all worth it because it keeps my two hands free to type, scroll, hold, drive, etc. while I’m talking. In fact, I’ve even converted those around me. Prashanth from Jack in the Box and my Assistant, Divya, use it. And I’ve even got my eight-month pregnant wife, Tara (better not to have the mobile near the tummy apparently) and my Dad to be Plantronics users. Talk about a movement!

Next up is the Tata Photon Wi-Fi router. How cool is this thing? Thanks to it, I now have a wi-fi enabled car. And that, I assure you, is not a very normal thing to have anywhere in the world. I find it rather impressive that one can have one in India for a pretty reasonable price. I guess that would depend on the price of your car of course. I even carry one in my bag for domestic day trips. And every Bang Bang shoot that’s within an urban area has three of these routers spread across the set to keep the area wi-fi enabled. Thank you, Tata Indicom. While on the subject, I should add that wi-fi in my car meant more to me when I had the wi-fi only iPad. Now that I have the 3G iPad2, I use it with a Vodafone 3G connection. I’m not sure why there’s so much ranting against it on twitter. As far as I’m concerned it downloads like a cheetah on steroids.

A quick honourable mention must be made to recognize the value of a portable charge pack that allows me to refill the juice on my phones. It comes in especially handy for day trips to Delhi and Bangalore for PPMs, presentations or other meetings. Remember, I talk a lot. And neither the Bold 3 nor the iPhone 4 have the greatest batteries.

And finally…the star in the best supporting technology category, perhaps ready to be bumped up to the superstar category at some not-too-distant point in the future….yet another Tata initiative…. Tata Sky+ HD and its trusted companion (more on that ahead). Let me begin by setting the context here. I live in a building in Breach Candy that doesn’t allow you to put up a dish so we’ve had to bear with Hathaway until recently. I’ve been forced to feel like we’re back in nineties India. After longingly admiring the clarity on friends’ HD sets during World Cup matches, a few weeks ago, I found a way. It’s a boring story, so never mind how. Cut to us getting the Tata Sky+ HD at home. Granted there are less than ten HD channels available in India right now. But if you haven’t watched one already, it’s a sight to see. The clarity is so piercing that it’s disturbing. You almost feel like TV shouldn’t be that clear. But the real icing on the cake that I’ve been dying to get to and now we’re here…is the Tata Sky+ iPhone app. You can actually program your DVR from wherever you are. So let’s say the Cricket World Cup final is on and you happen to be in Brazil, Bali or Boston (all places that aren’t likely to show cricket on TV), all you have to do is reach for your phone to ensure the match is ready and waiting for you to watch when you get home.

I could carry on but I think the folks at Campaign are expecting me to mail this in…

As published on campaignindia.in

Just say NO!

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Why can’t we say no? What is it that scares us about being the bearer of bad news? Actually, “bad” is too strong a word. If there’s anything that we have to say that we feel could be anything less than pleasant for the listener, we just can’t bring ourselves to say it. We’re all guilty of it. You are, Mr. Marketing Director! So are you, Ms. ECD! You’re no less, Madam Media Buyer! And you, Mr. Producer, are just as bad as everyone else!

It’s a terrible affliction that plagues our nation and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s actually responsible for shaving at least one whole percentage point off our GDP growth rate each year. All-pervading as the scourge may be, I’ll focus though on what happens around me. Let’s say Bang Bang loses around 20 bids a month on Indian jobs. Of these 20, we get transparent and timely feedback in less than five cases. Oftentimes, we never hear back because the agency stops taking calls or responding to mails. Sometimes we’re told the job’s on hold because the client hasn’t decided yet. And it’s not very uncommon to have to wipe the duster (what do you call the duster-like thing you use on a whiteboard?) across the job board because one of the producers saw it on air. These agency people are the same ones who give you that smiling look saying, “Definitely, we’ll work together,” as you leave their office, having suffered their bad coffee. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen with agencies outside India. In fact, the Regional Head of Broadcast & Content at a major Singapore agency is yet to return five calls and respond to as many mails from almost a year ago telling us we never got the job. And this after our director spent days writing a great treatment. He did actually take my call once saying he was at a shoot and would call me back. And then? Nothing! Passion Pictures from Malaysia, who did the spot, did an excellent job, perhaps better than we would’ve done. But I still can’t understand why the agency producer couldn’t just respond to a mail saying “Thanks but no thanks.” Or something to that effect. I hope to see him at Adfest and give him a piece of my mind. Anyway, I digress… The point is that it does happen outside India but it’s a lot rarer. People have a lot more respect for other people’s time and effort. Moreover, they’re cognizant of the fact that by not doing the other party the courtesy of polite rejection they would in fact be making them waste more time and bandwidth. In my reasonably extensive international experience, perhaps the only nationmore frightened of the N word than us Indian are the Egyptians. People will say yes to each and every thing you ask of them when they actually mean, “No!”, “Not sure.”, “I’ll try.”, “Who knows?” or even “Forget it!” I guess a major part of cultural acclimatization in Egypt is the process of becoming discerning at spotting the nos in the yeses.

It’s one of the hardest parts of working in India (or with Indians) that outsiders experience. The No factor should be listed right up there with corruption, redtapism and political inertia, as impediments to the country’s development. Something happened yesterday that actually prompted me to write about the no factor today. Something concerning a particular production services job that we bid on last month and lost. A Turkish production company wanted to shoot a spot here in India for one of their regular clients and the Istanbul office of a major network agency. They were asking for a significantly elaborate production but, and this is a constant the world over, they didn’t have the budget. We worked hard to bring down the quote but we were still way over what they had. We eventually lost the job and they shot with a company that agreed to their budget. Total disaster! Everything that could go wrong went wrong. Halfway through the shoot they called us to help salvage the situation. The Owner/Executive Producer of the company sat in my office last night explaining how the main problem she found was that in India people say yes to everything. That seemed to be her experience at least: overpromise and underdelivery. Everything they asked for was promised and very little actually happened the way it was supposed to. They’re now going to be shooting with us for two days starting tomorrow.

I’m not trying to make an “I told you so!” moment out of it but if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys (As an aside, don’t most of us in advertising attribute the quote to David Ogilvy? When I googled to get the quote verbatim, I found it attributed to Sir James Goldsmith, Imran Khan’s ex-father-in-law. The cricketer, not the Coke guy.). I hope we can salvage the damage done to their production but I can assure you that if we feel there’s something that can’t be done, we’ll let them know right away.

What amazes me is the extent to which the phenomenon pervades. The kind of people who you consider to be frank, straight talking, standup people end up disappointing you time and time again. Clients who just don’t get back to you to give you answers like, “The cost isn’t working out” or “we decided to go with someone else.” Reasonably close ‘friends’ who stop taking your calls when it’s time to say no. The Marketing Director who awarded the business to another agency last week but still has you on tenterhooks with the fate of several employees in limbo. The production house who’ll make you cancel your trip home for Diwali because you’re on the shortlist as one of the main cast (meanwhile the PPM happened four days ago, the shoot’s tomorrow and you’re not invited). It’s actually a vicious circle. Everyone’s doing it to everyone else and so it becomes the norm. If it’s yes, things will move. If it’s no, you’ll eventually figure it out weeks or months later when no one’s bothered to get back to you. I for one am a strong believer in karma. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What goes around comes around….and all that kind of stuff. I am guilty of not getting back to people when I owe them an answer. But I try really hard to keep my lapses to a minimum. It’s tough but you need to do it. Start by thinking of three people you should have gotten back to instead of leaving them hanging and let them know.

Let’s start saying NO!

As published on campaignindia.in

Roopak Saluja’s Blog: Insular India and how competition is a wonderful thing…

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

When we set up Bang Bang back in 2006, Asia-Pacific was (and still is) a very heavily cross-pollinated region when it came to commercials production. So when, say, an Ogilvy Singapore put a job out to bid, they’d talk to companies in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, etc. but no one was talking to India. And the converse was true as well: Indian agencies were barely talking to directors or producers from outside the country. Main culprit: the large domestic market syndrome, an affliction we suffer from in the feature film industry as well. Although we at Bang Bang operate on a slightly different trajectory (and I’ll stop talking about Bang Bang now as I’m sure that’s not why Campaign asked me to write this piece), this is largely still the case.

A couple of years ago, I had a reporter ask why we needed to bring in international directors. “Our directors are just as good”, is what she told me, “why are you trying to spoil the industry?” I’m sure several of you reading this are thinking along the same vein. I have a strong point of view on this. Art, in the broadest sense of the word, has always benefited from external influences. And more competition is always a good thing for any industry. So whether you look at advertising as art or commerce, insularity is simply a regressive concept.

A delegation of the APA – Advertising Producers Association (of the UK), visited Bombay last week to familiarize themselves with the market and obviously with the ultimate aim of getting more business out of it. India is hot. Yes, Directors & Producers! Be worried, be very worried. Someone is coming to eat up our lunch. I’m being facetious. But only slightly. Not that the MJZs, RSAs and Independents of the world are going to be vying for the mid budget band of 50 to 80 Lac budget films that typify the industry. It’s the larger among us that need to be wary of a whole new subset of competition in our own backyard. And competition is a wonderful thing. You now have a reason to up your game.
Here’s a few thoughts on how…and some of this is stuff that some of us are already practicing…

Spread your wings. I say it again: India is hot! Go to Cannes, Pattaya (it’s Phuket this year), Singapore or any other place where global adfolk congregate periodically and see how cool it is to be Indian right now. Go reach out to the world. If the APA can come here, why can’t we go elsewhere? Hold on! When I say “we”, who am I really talking about? We don’t even have an industry body. How embarrassing! More on that later… But as I was saying, completely at the risk of increasing competition, which, as we’ve established, is a wonderful thing, we should reach out and connect more with the world at large. Take your directors to other markets, give them a larger playing field.

Build a brand. For a bunch of people operating in the advertising industry, we Indian producers do a pretty pathetic job of branding our companies. The real brands so far have been the directors. And that’s not a bad thing. But they do manage to strike a balance in other markets.Superstar directors like Tarsem, Gondry, Budgen and Ridley Scott have long shared the limelight with Radical, Partizan, Gorgeous and RSA. Make sure you share credit with the agency for the great work that you do WITH them. Far too often, I see credits for a commercial here in Campaign or in rival media, which don’t even mention the director or production company. Spend money on marketing. Buy media here in Campaign and in global media as well like shots, The Location Guide, Cannes Lions Daily, etc. and make sure your potential stakeholders know what you stand for.

Increase transparency. Meritocracy is a good thing. Stop greasing palms and stop paying kickbacks. I believe the majority of this industry –clients, agencies, and production companies- doesn’t indulge in the stuff. But we also know that there’s definitely a section that runs on ‘alternative finance’. I know. I’ve been asked for money more than once. Mail me if you’re curious to know by whom. Do we need our own Raja and Kalmadi before it stops? The difference here is that a job being awarded on the back of relationships is perfectly fine. At the end of the day, there needs to be a comfort level between the parties involved.

And most of all, let’s unite. We need an industry body like the APA or the AICP (Association of Independent Commercials Producers) in the US. And it needs to be staffed by experienced and decently paid professionals. But that’s a topic for another day.

Till then, VIVA LA COMPETICIÓN!

As published on campaignindia.in