Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

In this post I shall talk about brands as I understand them and as they are applicable to digital brands. Please note that this list is still in beta and will evolve with time. Your feedback would be really appreciated.

This is required because we need to stop looking at startups as just startups but serious businesses where branding plays a vital role. Often, the way you look at the business makes a lot of difference to way you work.

Coming to the point, I think there are three principles. Utility, Emotional Connect and Relationship that goes beyond just one product.

A: Utility

• Customers never talk about a brand they are going to use. They talk about the action they will perform. What problem does the brand solves?
  • I need to book and air ticket. I will use Cleartrip.
  • I need to upload slides and show them to friends. Let me use Slideshare.
• The brands that can make themselves synonymous to utility invariable become the leaders.
  • Can you Google the data on number of Internet users in India?
  • Can you Slideshare your presentation please?
• The utility could be functional, mechanical, emotional, psychological or any of those –al things.
  • Using Twitter helps me stay in touch with friends on the go.
  • I use FB because the elite Internet users in India are on FB.

B: Emotional Connect

• A customer will use a brand that he can associate himself with.
  • I like Apple products because they stand for innovation, user interface and simplicity.
  • Google stands for open culture. I am an open source evangelist and hence I will use and promote Google initiatives.
• If possible, the association with the brand should elevate the status of the user.
  • Google could have invited everyone when they launched Gmail. Limited invite was a way to get traction. All limited launches are like that.
  • Alltop gave away batches like “featured on alltop”. People displayed these batches because it was a way to show off that you belonged to the best of the category (as rated by alltop).

C: Relationship extending beyond single product

• The relationship should start with one product and when the company launches more products, I should be aspiring to buy them too. This is very important for creating sustainable businesses that go beyond one time relationship.
  • My relationship with Apple started with an Ipod. I have already bought a MacBook and have pre-ordered the iPhone.
  • I started using Google as a search engine. Then I started using groups. Then it was Gmail. And then calendar. The list continues.

Which one of the three things are valid about your brand? If it does only one, how can it do other things?

Please give your feedback to me at saurabh.garg+digitalbrands@gmail.com

Today India won their first ever Grand Prix Lion at the Cannes Lions. JWT won the award for their work on Lead India campaign for The Times of India Group. The idea was simple yet effective. JWT created a reality TV show to choose an Indian that can become a political leader in times to come. This campaign was executed on print, tv, radio, BTL, Internet, on-ground and almost all the platforms available to reach the consumer.

This Grand Prix is important because it marks the arrival of Indian Advertising on the global scene. Indian advertisers have now proved that they are at par with (if not better than) their counterparts from other markets. It is also important because Lead India was a very visible campaign (compared to other winning ideas that are hardly seen in main stream media).

Congrats to JWT and winning team. Hope this would give inspiration to everyone else in the Indian creative community to create more commercial good work.

UPDATE: JWT also won the Integrated Lion 2008 for the campaign. Two big wins for India in one year. Kudos.

Not caring for literary flowerification and language style critics around here, this is going to be rude post. For people who dont know that specifics, Reliance ADAG is Anil Ambani and Reliance Industries is Mukesh Ambani.

Reliance ADAG has made clear their intentions on getting into organized retail. People might remember that ADAG and Reliance Industries had a non-compete agreement when Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani agreed to split in 2006. Terms of this agreement were not made public but how in the world can Anil Ambani get into organized retail when everyone knows about Reliance Retail and its hazaar different retail formats and more than 500 stores?

And if this was not enough, ADAG’s retail venture is called Reliance Big Bazar. Surprised? Not really. Shocking? Yes. What about Kishore Biyani’s company called Pantaloon Retail and their flagship retail store Big Bazaar?

Perfectly understandable that ADAG calls all their businesses BIG. Big FM, Big Music, Big Flix, Big Entertainment etc. but Big Bazar? I always thought that CGA will not allow you to name your company that confuses customer will an already existing brand. If there was small guy in some class C town in India doing the same thing, he would have been sued for his every penny for corporate lawyers.

If the name was stupid, the reason given by ADAG is even more stupid. They are saying that Kishore Biyani’s company is called Bazaar with two a’s and their’s is called Bazar with a single a. With even bad Photoshop skills, one can very easily make the two logos very similar and rest can be left to anyone’s imagination. They have said that they would not use the word “Bazar” or “Big Bazar” on standalone basis. They will always use “Reliance Big Bazar”. And this saves some grace for them.

But overall a very bad move. And Isn’t this piggybacking on someone who has put in time and effort to create a huge brand? What about customers? Isn’t this a cheap way to get customers?

India asks Y.

Image Credits: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/142/349070891_d279d63b80.jpg

Cast Away is an awesome movie. You see it and you come back with two things.  One, Tom Hanks survives the lonely island. And Two, he is a FedEx employee and he delivers that Wilson ball in the end.

Then there is a book called How Starbucks saved my life. You read the book and you again remember two things. One is making tough decisions. And two how Starbucks helped a guy discover what he wanted in life.

Both these, the movie and the book are awesome pieces of entertainment. People have seen these, talked about these and recommended these to their friends. On a standalone basis both of them are pieces of art. And most probably, both were original productions created by individuals without any influence by the company they talk about. And this is where the idea comes. What if both of them were sponsored and paid by the company they talk about?

I have been thinking about a company that creates these branded entertainment products for money. Obviously there are limitations and issues but none that stops the company from flourishing. Please note that this is very different from product placements in media. This is creating the product first and then inserting the brand.

Business Need: Advertising as we know it, would be dead very soon. People would start filtering advertisements automatically and recommendations from influences would start loosing meaning. then what? The solution lies in creating media around brand. Think of The Truman Show done at a smaller scale.

Possible Entertainment Options: This could be a very very long list. Starting with movies, television shows, radio shows to print media (newspaper, magazines, books, travelogues etc.) to interactive media (Internet, blogs, websites), others (computer games, hotspots, retail). The list is long.

Problem Areas: There are quite a few. Biggest one is obsolescence. Once an entertainment outlet is used for a brand, it becomes difficult to innovate and use the same medium for another brand. Then there are other petty issues like it being very expensive for brands. We are talking about professional book writers, movie makers, gaming companies working on the brand. We can explore cheaper options like blogs and websites but how many consumers of a brand like say Rin, be on Internet? They would be on TV for sure.

A lot more thought needs to go in place. I have about 4 more pages of random thoughts and comments. If anyone is interesting in talking more about it, please let me know and I shall share those docs.

Any opinions? thoughts?

Even after all these years of the so-called IT revolution, India is still struggling for a business/company that has created intellectual capital and has thus created a true enterprise with roots in research and development. I think its about time to take stock and figure out why.

No one would dispute that India has all it takes to create sustainable, world-class IP businesses. We have the requisite manpower. We have the intellectual prowess. We have the infrastructure (at least at few places). And we have people who can be effective leaders and mentors. All the pieces of jigsaw puzzles are there. Someone just needs to put all of them at one place at the same time.

This is where the story becomes interesting. People are scattered across geography and time. And these pieces don’t know that they are parts of something bigger and they all can play a role. Even if they realize that they can take their ideas to fruition, they don’t know where and how to find complementary skill-sets. We need something, a system probably to help these people come together.

Reminds me of classical markets. Every buyer knows that they will find the best sellers at the market place and every seller knows that they will find the most generous and knowledgeable buyers at the market. Everyone converges to the market and everyone goes back happy.

A look at all great places to work would reveal that people thrive in presence of great minds around them. Everyone learns off each other and collectively the tribe becomes stronger. Starting with Microsoft, moving on to Google and now Facebook, most technology people want to be at a place where they can be pushed and challenged by their peers and they can enrich their experiences. Microsoft, Google and Facebook are like above-mentioned markets. Programmers, Coders, Managers and even Chefs are jumping the gun and looking for better place. A place where all great minds converge and learn off each other and grow individually (and obviously to a place that gives them stock options).

India today needs someone to create such markets that enables people with complementary skills to come together and get them start talking to each other. Events like barCamps, OCC, MOMO and websites like VentureWoods, pluggd.In are doing it to some extent.

And now the questions. Are they really sufficient? Are they enabling people spread across geographies to come together? More importantly so these people have complementary skill sets? Any critics? Thoughts? Opinions?

P.S.: The title might be an misnomer …

I was reading this presentation made by Axis Holding’s Kuntal Shah at VCCircle’s event at Pune.

One of the slides had this quote …

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon…if I can. I seek opportunity…not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole; I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of Utopia. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations and to face the world boldly and say: This, with God’s help, I have done. All this is what it means to be an entrepreneur.

Although I dont agree with God part but I couldn’t have said this better. And re-affirmed my belief in entrepreneurship. Something to cheer up post reservation news.