Saurabh Garg on The New New Thing

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Time for another Friday Update. Its not even funny how soon a Friday came. I was in Delhi for two days visiting markets for a client. The trip was more exhausting than exciting. No new highlights so to speak of. However the Delhi trip gave quite a few ideas on interesting things that can be done in the Indian market. I will list few of them here.

To start with, a business idea.

• Background: While in market, I saw that Coke has a water brand called BonAqua apart from Kinley (that they recently relaunched). Wondering why would Coke have two brands in packaged drinking water category. I also saw that Frito Lays has launched a brand called Desi Beats - in direct competition to ITC’s Bingo.
• Idea: How about a market intelligence company? Not a market research company but a market intelligence company. The difference being that market researchers would try and collect data when demanded by the clients and on the other hand, market intelligence company would gather intelligence and help companies and brands take proactive decisions.
• Business Case: As a brand it is very difficult for me to keep track of things that are happening in the market. I would readily pay for a company that monitors the market on my behalf and gives me weekly or monthly dossiers on what is happening in the market. Further, this is better than market research because I am not paying for data that is mostly fudged and has lots of biases built it. In fact more and more clients I meet as part of my work for Creativeland Asia dont want to believe in traditional market research methodologies.
• How would I do this? If I had volunteers or part-timers whose only job is to go and click pictures at retail shelves across the country, I can have reams of data. And with advent of personal technology, its cheap and convenient to click pictures and send it to a centralized location. I can then have another team analyze this data for information and patterns. For example if suddenly all pics from Delhi show that Red Bull is now visible at even the juice stores, that would mean that Red Bull is trying to revamp their distribution and has ambitious plans.
• Probable roadblocks: Quite a few. Including things like <retailers not allowing you to click pictures>, <motivation and remuneration of volunteers>, <team of analysts>, <no competitive advantage> etc. Need to think lot more on this.
• Future of this idea. I think I will post this on VentureWoods and see if I get some feedback. And once I put things in shape, will try to take it further.

Apart from this, other notable things are

• A tee shirt shop that is very close to my n00b.in tees idea. Have to check these people out.
• Learned more about LeagueOne. Rather than opening new stores, they are just aggregating traditional retail stores and selling non-FMCG products/services like insurance, mobile recharges, OOH screens, movie tickets etc. there. Very interesting concept with lots of potential. More on this later. Probably a new blog post all together.

There was I time when I would boot my blog editor on Blogger and post about every small leaf moving with every strand of wind. And then there came a time when I would post things that are truly monumental.

As we increasingly live in a digital world where every bit of data and information you put anywhere on the Internet can be searched and indexed and retrieved easily. And moving with the times, I need to change the way I blog.

I will no longer create a new post on every small update. Now its about one place for everything related to a particular topic.

• This might mean several edits on the same post.
• This would mean trouble for people reading my blog from RSS readers.
• This would also mean comments going out of context. This would mean more trouble.

But I think the trouble is worth it. A post would no longer remain a small rant on things. It will, over a period of time, become a long page with lots of details on a particular topic. It will become Saurabh’s personal Wikipedia. In fact I had realized this long back and hence the pbWiki.

Also I have realized that juggling multiple blogs is very difficult. Apart from contributions to mutiny.in, pluggd.in, venturewoods, I manage quite a few blogs. My photoblog, personal blog, new new thing, Friends from Creativeland, value investing and probably a lot more blogs that I am forgetting (yes unofficial MDI blog, MML blog etc.). It is very difficult to juggle between all these. You tend to put a lot of effort on creating one and promoting it and as a result you ignore the other ones to die their natural, slow and painful death.

What do you think? Should I post on every small think? Or one large post with lots of data and information works?

I dont have to make more evident that I am a huge fan of Mr. Omar Abdullah. I posted this on Mutiny.in about five minutes ago. I am reproducing it here. The context is that Omar Abdullah used to write this blog here and he has decided to shut it down.

I dont know how many are even aware of Mr. Abdullah’s blog (Chacko posted about it on Mutiny), but as on yesterday he decided to shut down his blog (via this post). I tried posting comments but they are not being either approved or responded to.

Omar Abdullah says that he is shutting down his blog because

[QUOTE]Last night as I finished my last post I realised that I was filled with dread at the heap of personal abuse I was expecting when I logged on this morning and I was not wrong. We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one.[UNQUOTE]

Can we @ mutiny do something about it? I know the regular signature campaigns are just another way to show you care and not do anything. What if we as Mutiny Media (a publication starting 15th Aug) talk to him and try to give him more reasons why to blog? What if we show him that there are enough people who care about his blog and respect his opinion? Any media specialists hanging out on Mutiny?

I think a politician blogging is a very good idea because.

• It makes him more human and approachable.
• He gets timely and honest feedback. People can write back without fearing bureaucracy and lashback.
• People get to know what he really thinks (and not just the excerpts from media - media that can be biased).
• He sets a precedent for other politicians and public figures to follow suit and start writing.

Shutting a blog just because it attracts a lot of hate comments is simply not done. Blogging as a medium has its pros and cons and what we see in Omar Abdullah’s case is just one bad example.

Can we come up with ideas? Can mutiny finally make a difference and be counted as the “New Media”? Someone?

I also posted a comment on his blog. It is yet to be approved. If they approve it, I will reproduce it here. If anyone can give any ideas, please leave a comment.

Thank You.

If everyone is evangelizing new media and social media, then how come the same “evangelists” get excited about even a small and insignificant mention of their name in the most obscure of the newspapers and TV channels that no one bothers to read/see?

Dichotomy at its very best.

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