Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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Limca has come up with a new ad for the second season. It has an interesting concept, a very shot video and one of the best jingles. Probably as good as Mohit Chauhan’s Gorgeous Hamesha for Parachute. Here is the ad for Limca that I really enjoyed …

Interesting Tidbits

• Nokia has come up with yet another awesome concept. This time it is 5 Dollar Comparison. Idea is fairly simple. You upload pictures and images of things that you could buy for USD 5. Nice experiment. Go ahead and upload things that you have bought within $5. Jan Chipchase and his team at Nokia (Design) is redefining the way market researches are conducted and the profession is percieved as.
• Korean Mobile and Internet Market. I need to understand Korean mobile phone and Internet market. Simply becuase of them being a step ahead than the rest of the world in terms of adoption and usage. Please help me understand the market. Please point at resources. I am making a comprehensive list here.
• UrbanDictionary.com. For work, i was looking for something when I stumbled onto UrbanDictionary.com. One of the best user generated websites ever. People from all walks of life can write what their slangs are and the lingo that they come up with. I am assuming that most of my readers would know about it. But if you don’t, its worth your time.

Advertising

• Dr. Pepper is giving away one free drink to everyone in US of A. In March this year, they had said that if Guns and Roses released their new album before end of 2008, they will give every American a free drink. And they are doing it. Now this is what advertising + experience mean to me. Kudos to the brains behind the idea.

Business

• Sensex breaches 8500.
• Citi Group to cut 50, 000 jobs. Yes. 50, 000 people would loose their jobs. Scary. And no comments.

A very busy week, did not have a lot of time to actually read and write. n00b has taken the back seat and I am contemplating selling the domain name. Any bidders .. ?

Its that time of the year again - third Sunday of November - when anxiety runs high amongst management education aspirants in India. Its time for Common Admission Test. CAT is the qualifying exam for all post graduate studies in management in India (including obviously the IIMs and MDI). They say it is the most difficult competitive exam to crack in India. I have taken it on two previous occasions (in 2004 and 2005) and I got 97 odd percentile. I am taking it again on Sunday and I am hoping that I cross 50 percentile this time. Pagalguy.com is an awesome resource in case someone is keen on taking these tests.

Coming on to other things,

Politics

• Taking a cue outta Mr. Obama’s book, our own L.K. Advani has launched his own portal. Yes, a portal. I have no clue how efficient is the portal going to be in terms of reaching the audience and more importantly getting them all the be a part of a larger cause. I think Mr. Advani needs someone to advice on Internet and Social Media strategy.
• John Elliott has this interesting article on his blog that highlights the folley of Telecom Minister A. Raja for selling spectrum at dirt cheap prices to companies that had no experience or expertise in telecom. He specifically talks about Unitech, a real estate company. Unitech got the spectrum and licenses at dirt cheap prices and sold off about 60% stake to Telenor for five times the license fee that it paid. We definitely need more people like John Elliott to highlight these gaffes.

Sports

• Saurav Ganguly retires from International Cricket. From his debut in 1996 against England to his last match against Australia, he has been a class act. One of the best openers to have played for the country, he is renowned for his awesome cover drives and off-side play. May his future pursuits are as fruitful as his cricketing times were. You will be missed Saurav.

Interesting Things

• Twitter crossesd the 1 billionth tweet mark (reports Mashable). Yet another milestone in the popular micro-blogging service that I openly admit to be a fan-boy of.
• Forbes came with their annual list of richest people in the world. Mukesh Ambani is now the richest Indian. Other notables in the list are Anil Ambani (Reliance ADAG), Sunil Mittal (Bharti), KP Singh (DLF) etc. There were quite a few surprises as well. Vijay Mallya dropped out and one Mrs. Indu Jain is in. Google revealed that she is the owner of Bennett Coleman and Company Ltd. (see my detailed coverage on BCCL here). Also not to forget, this is the official list. If this list could include hidden and hoarded money, it would be lot more interesting, so say the least :D
• Mumbai to Leh. Finally I have decided that I am doing Mumbai to Leh on a bike (an Enfield - have been saving for 3 months now). Obviously the biggest constraint is a bike and Rohtang Pass, I can only do it between May and October. Apart from my commitment to the travel, I am not sure of anything. I dont know who I will eventually travel with. I dont know where all will I take the pit-stops. I dont know what would I do once I reach Leh. For me its more about the journey rather than the destination. Over these next few months, I will collect information and hopefully co-travelers I for th adventure. I have created a FB group for the the same. Please spread the word if you believe in travel and journeys.

A not so interesting week. Look forward to the next one.

Barack Obama has to take the limelight this week. He is now officially the President-elect for the USA. In the process he defeated John McCain by an unexpectedly high margin. Apart from being the youngest, he will also be the first African-American US President when he takes oath in Jan 2009. I dont know a lot about him and his policies but he can sure speak well. Also, his election speaks volumes about the kind of change that is sweeping America. Americans have elected a colored man with a middle name Hussein as their President. Who would have imagined? Hope Barack Obama lives up to the expectations of HOPE and CHANGE. All the best to him as he gears up to lead America.

Coming onto other important things that have happened all this while, I think I will put them in categories for easy readability and aesthetics. Without further ado …

Advertising

• Pepsi Logo gets a redesign (after 1998). I cant say I am impressed with the new design (pictures of new Pepsi logo design over at PSFK). It is a good looking visual but it is not something that I would consume or associate myself with. The client team at the design agency have done an awesome job of selling it to Pepsi. Probably people at Pepsi have forgotten than customers buy products but they consume brands. Also, if they have done just about average work on the new logo, they surely have used a wonderful way to showcase this new logo to the world. They sent a set of logos containing every logo that Pepsi has used since 1898 to 25 influential bloggers. And they just did not send images or card boards or paper or stickers. They printed Pepsi cans with each of the older logos and created a collectible set to be sent out to bloggers.
• Closer home, Bharti Enterprises got a redesign too (new logo). The new logo is far far better than the old one. If I can take the liberties of comparing Pepsi and Bharti, unlike Pepsi, Bharti used PR, news releases and full page advertisements to talk about the new logo. Shows stark differences in the way Indians and Americans dissipate and consume information. Blogs vs Mainstream Media. What do Social Media enthusiasts in India think of the same? Can a brand be built entirely by using Social Media? Are we mature enough as a market?

Business

• Kishore Biyani’s Future Group has now decided to foray into education and recruitment space (reports DNA). As is typical with every KB company, a lot of details arent really available but over a period of time, he will make his presence felt. Beware Naukri’s and Shine’s of the world.

People

• It was SRK’s turned 43 on 2nd Nov. I absolutely adore him and wish him all the success in years to come. I wish to be friends with him at some point in life. He is all about persistence and hard work.
• Anil Kumble decided to retire from International Cricket. With about 1000 wickets in international matches, Anil Kumble is arguably the finest bowler India have ever seen and his services would be missed.

Other tidbits

• Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi finally goes off-air on Nov 6 (reports e4m). Not because all the characters suddenly died or the writers ran out of dope to base the story on but becuase Star TV and Balaji are fighting over ratings and monies. Kyonki for me is one of the landmark moments in the history of Indian television. This epic saga, probably longer than Mahabharata, Ramayana and The Bible combined, unleashed zillion shows hovering around kitchen politics, magnanimous weddings, sibling rivalries, divorces and remarriages etc. Although, I am not sure if Kyonki will be missed, its contribution to Indian television would be remembered for a long time to come. I guess this momentous occasion calls for a longer post on Mutiny.in :D

I am really ejoying compiling these friday updates. It keeps in touch with reality, does not clog my blog with zillion small useless updates and more importantly this is developing into an awesome archive for things happening around me. I am sure this can be further improved. If you have any suggestions, please help. BTW I will be off to Goa with my team when you get this delivered in your feed readers.

I will skip this week’s Friday Update as I have limited access to internet. This entire week I haven’t logged on to gtalk, Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Linkedin, Google Reader or replied to any emails or comments on my blogs. My online activity has been limited to checking my primary email account and trading in stocks.

The coming week looks real tough with all these mammoth tasks pending.

P.S.: Looking forward to it.

India has finally launched Chandrayaan amidst a lot of fan fare. Its India’s first mission to moon - though unmanned, it still is a giant leap for India. We can now boast of indigenous technology at par with at least some of the other developed nations. Thank you team at ISRO. You have made all of us proud.

Business

• Rupee hit 50 to a dollar for the first time ever. ET reports. Implications are going to be huge for Indian companies. Only advantage that we brought to the table was cost (I refuse to believe that we bring intellectual capital to the table - especially in IT and ITES space). With dwindling economies in Europe and US and falling rupee, I am not sure how will we sustain businesses in India.
• Sensex dipped below 9000 after a long long time. Everyone is scared and its an awesome feeling to be amongst all this.  Lots of lessons to be taken back home. Probably will write another blog post on this.

Advertising

• Recession hits advertising business. There have been unconfirmed news that major advertising networks have frozen recruitments. Campaign India published this story and made it official. Bad news for all the aspiring advertising rockstars. I guess the really good ones are left with a couple of options only. Either start on your own (remember David Ogilvy started one when he dint have an option?) or help us make our clients and their brands famous. Creativeland is still hiring. Do let us know if you think you can lend a hand.
• Sony Bravia: After Balls, Bunnies and Colors, Bravia is back with Domino City. Not as good as balls or bunnies, it still is a much watch. A question (and a tough one at that)… do these ads make you want to own a Bravia?
• Mac vs PC: Unlike most of the people on Internet, I liked the Microsoft ads. And yes, I respect both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Apple came up with this spot to take on the $300 mn ad-spend that Microsoft is embarking upon.

Other things

• Bill Gates and his new company. TechFlash says that Bill Gates has created a new company called bgC3 and is most likely to be a think-tank and would try to coordinate Bill Gates’ personal, philanthrpic and professional efforts.
• Jeff Bezos at TED. In 2003, Jeff spoke at TED about the next web innovation (Thanks Gaurav for the link). In this talk, he draws parallels between the Gold Rush and Internet and then Electricity Industry and Internet and concludes that we have just invented electricity and applicances are yet to made. In simpler language, we have just laid the framework and created environment for innovation. Transformational uses of the same are yet to be seen. For the record, I admire Jeff Bezos and hope to pick his brains some day. This is an old post where Jeff is talking about future of publishing business.

Interesting tidbits

• GrassRoutes.in. Simply put, you travel to the grassroots, see the problem for yourself and be the change. Please visit the website and participate. Honestly, nothing is better than travel and getting to know things first hand. Grassroutes is an YOFA initiative and the honestly I am humbled by the kind of ideas and more importantly execution of the ideas.
• Over a last few days, for n00b.in, I have been checking design stores that cater to Indian customers. Some brilliant stores that I have found are People Tree, playclan, play-asia, thinkgeek. And yes, n00b.in would actually have a store.
• I am on tumblr. A very very good service for sharing things. Its like Blogs > Twitter > Tumblr. Easy, fast, interesting, fun. Am loving it. Please follow me here.

Overall a very very interesting and exciting week. Oh yea, I am in Delhi. If anyone wants to meet, please drop a line.