What is true for personal life is true for professional life too. Relationships take time to build. Same is true of Client-agency relationship. They need an investment of time, efforts and a lot of trust and faith. Moreover, yet, in many relationships, there comes a stage when breaking it is more productive than continuing with it.

I believe, no one wants to end relationships nurtured over time. They are full of collective dreams, shared emotions, successes, failures and a sense of accountability.  However, sometimes the relationships truly stagnate. There is nothing much left in it. Then breaking off is the most logical thing to do.

Whenever relationships end or are terminated, stakeholders on both sides feel the impact. Each side believes they never got justified time to react and get their act right. Many think it is too late too little. Some feel guilty for the right or wrong reasons.

Everyone knows a part of the truth. Everyone has a point-of-view that he or she swears by. Old incidents are re-evaluated with hindsight to make a point. The signals are usually there even for the blind to see, yet many fail to read the smoke signals.

There is no SOP for breaking a relationship. Everyone learns it on the job. No one teaches how it needs to be done.  There are no set patterns and advisors to help you do it.

Pic pexel.com/rawpixel.com

EVERYONE HAS THEIR WAYS OF BREAKING A PROFESSIONAL RELATIONSHIP.

Nowadays, most of the client-agency relationships tend to be transactional. People are justified in protecting their turf. When the blame game starts, professionally it is crucial to remain untainted in the post-mortem.

The truth is that every day, the agency gives a client a reason to terminate the relationship. Also, every day the client provides the agency with a reason to hate. The critical question they must ask is; is it a good enough reason to break the alliance.

Getting over the breakup is more natural than the act of breaking up.

Getting into the new alignment, pitching in for more business, taking time off from work are all helpful tips to ease the pain and hurt. Blaming and bad mouthing each, however, is not recommended. Unfortunately, there is more of it.

What is missing is a bit of soul searching and analysing where things went wrong. Life is all about learning and moving on. There is no point living in the past.

In breaking a relationship both the parties lose. There is a considerable loss of collective knowledge and understanding of the business environment.

EASE THE PROCESS BY SETTING SPECIFIC GROUND RULES.

Client-agency relationship is critical for businesses. The client and agency are collectively responsible for the strategic intent. They share the responsibility for executing and execution of co-owned co-created campaigns and marketing initiatives. If the relationship of mutual respect and trust has deteriorated to a vendor-client status, there is no future in it. Unfortunately quite a few relationships are thinly balanced at this edge.

It happens when they fail to define the expectations and the reasons for coming together.  They do not know as to why they are collectively devoting time and energies. There are no measurement matrices to evaluate the efficacy of the relationship. There are no open discussion and reviews from time to time.

In such a situation, where stress is allowed to build up. The conversation breaks up. The relationship appreciation or issues are faked. The tectonic pressure build’s up. The relationships sour the relations.

THE ONLY WAY TO PREVENT THE CLIENT-AGENCY RELATIONSHIP FROM DETERIORATING.

Most of the issues can be ironed out with a discussion. Most of the explanations are acceptable only if someone is willing to share and hear. It is essential that every issue is ironed out at the very beginning.

Learning from such episodes and evolving a system to prevents a repeat of it should be the aim. However, when everything fails, you need to take the hard decision.

Follow these to help to create a long-lasting client-agency relationship.

•    Define the client-agency expectations.
•    Have a quarterly review mechanism in place.
•    Ensure strategic co-creation so that both sides own the process and results.
•    Be professionally open in voicing POV on any subject critical to the job at hand and relationship.
•    Immediately address any issues that emerge. Do not allow tectonic pressure to build up.
•    Be logical, rational and practical with expectation.
•    In a multi-agency set-up ensure that everyone is on-board at the same time.

ACT LIKE A TRUE PROFESSIONAL.  

Don’t hide behind the protective layers of the organisational structure. Whenever the situation demands call the other party, deliver the news face to face.  Teams that worked together deserves a genuine conversation. Do not do that over WhatsApp, a mail or a letter. Don’t protect yourself by isolating the other party. Don’t let them know it from the press or any other third party source. Moreover, please do not start a pitch before you tell the current agency its fate. It is what every client-agency relationship deserves though it may fail to dilute the impact.

Maybe, there is a need to create a process for such a situation. Unfortunately, no SOP or guideline exists for such circumstances. Everyone has their ways to handle such a situation. On the other side, look at it positively.  Maybe it is better to develop an SOP of nurturing relationships and talent that comes along with it. Hopefully, you will not need to terminate the relationship.

…………………………………………………………

In my agency avatar, I have lost few clients in spite of best service and excellent work on the brand. I have retained clients for far longer than what global alignments allowed and have even sacked a client. I may be the rare client who gave a farewell party to the agency.

BLOG/71/2018

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Last week, Indigo, the best on-time performing airline of India, made an announcement. It said it would start charging for any seat selected on web check-in.  Oh, well, it graciously offered the option of free seat check-in at the airport. As expected, it led to loud protests and negative sentiments on social media.

Finally, Indigo watered it down. Now, few seats will be available free on web check-in. For rest (read most) of the seats, the passenger will have to pay on web check-in. Nothing changed.

Other airlines like Vistara cashed in on the situation. They reminded people that web check-in on Vistara is available without paying any charge.

Even Jet has seats with no charges for their Platinum flyers. So what if the lounge is not available to platinum frequent flyers travelling economy. Trust me, customers being customer have a tendency to adapt.

INDIGO REFERENCE PICTURE

THE DECISION MADE NO BUSINESS SENSE.

The revenue expected was too small compared to the dent it makes on customer experience. Maybe it was the case of ‘every drop counts’ with profits nosediving for the airline. Or someone was flying high, well above 35,000 feet when the decision was made. Why would anyone try sabotaging the customer experience?

INDIGO HAS A LOT GOING FOR IT.

Indigo has the largest share of passenger traffic. Its on-time performance has created a preference among frequent flyers.  It has been promoting web check-in and pushing kiosk check-in. The in-flight crew is one of the friendliest. So what if they always run out of items on the menu card.

THERE ARE ISSUES WITH THE INDIGO EXPERIENCE.

It has a non-relenting excess baggage policy. It does not compromise on 25-minute door close policy. The seats are cramped for space. And a pre-booked meal does not guarantee a serving.

TESTING FRUSTRATION ELASTICITY.

Airlines have always been testing FRUSTRATION ELASTICITY of customers. Examining how far the customer is willing to be pushed before a backlash starts. This time maybe Indigo has gone a little too far.

The joke on social hinted at possible next steps. Why not starts a ‘Standing Passenger’ service? Why not charge for the use of loo?  With four trollies of ‘FOOD MART’ in the pathway, it is anyway tough to reach the loo.

CUSTOMERS WILL BE CUSTOMERS. THEY WILL ADAPT.

I think Indigo understands customers. They will adapt to such unbundling of services.

The customer is seeking convenience. Most are willing to pay for these special privileges. With a large part of the traffic being business-led, even the seat charges will soon become a hidden cost for many passengers.

Their internal data must have indicated customer’s willingness for reserving preferred seats. Earlier, one was used to the crew announcing the availability of seats with excess legroom in row 1,12 and 13 at a price. With the flights going full on most sectors, there are no such announcements.

Indigo is fully aware that the decision will overload their limited check-in counters. It will lead to inconvenience. Passengers will have to arrive a wee bit early to check-in and wait in the queue. Maybe they expect such an experience will push passengers to grudgingly pay for the seat on web check-in.

The question remains. Was it the right decision? Unfortunately, only time has the answer.

I do feel if they had stuck to their decision, customers would have soon adapted to the new reality. Just like buying food on a flight or silent airports.

I will not be surprised if airlines try testing customer frustration elasticity further by unbundling their price structure in more ways than one.

Customer will be the customer they will adapt. It is as much of truth as Customer wants the best services at the lowest price. Maybe the airline blinked too soon.

BLOG/73/2018

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The king of Reality Shows, my favourite show ‘Bigg Boss Season 12’ climaxed on December 30, 2018. In the end, there were three types of audiences. One who will never watch Bigg Boss. Two, people who watched Bigg Boss and loved it. Three, the set of people who watched Bigg Boss Season 12 and said it was all over for them. And this is all about the third type of audience.

Another big-ticket popular reality show on the channel ‘Kathron Ke Khiladi’ (KKK) which starts on January 5. And trust me, when it ends there will be these segments of the audience.

It is true for any reality and reality-talent shows. ‘India Got Talent’ (IGT) won hearts with wonderful magician ‘Javed Khan’ winning the show. Deepika winning, Sreesanth reaching finals or Deepak losing made many viewers promise not to watch season thirteen.

Talent and reality show dominate Indian TV screens. Nowadays they also provide huge content for viewers on OTT.

REALITY SHOWS -REALITY CHECK

WE HAVE A REALITY SHOW FOR EVERYTHING.

‘Super Dancer’, ‘Dance Deewane’, ‘Jhalak Dikhla Jaa’, ‘Boogie Woogie’ and ‘Nach Baliye’ for dancing talent. ‘Indian Idol’,  ‘Rising Star’, ‘India Raw Star’, ‘Jammin’, ‘India Raw Star’and ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa’ for music and singing.  ‘Splitsvilla’ and ‘Roadies’ for the new generation with attitude.

‘Bigg Boss’, ‘Survivor India’, ‘Pati Patni or Woh’ ,“Wife Bina Life’, ‘Hear Me Love Me’, ‘Zindagi Ka Crossroads’, ‘Emotional Atyachar’ ‘Saach ka Samana’, ‘Iss Jungle Se Mujhe Bachao’, ‘Raaz Pechale Janam Ka’ and ‘Bindass Beg Borrow and Steal’ for the drama. ‘Ace of Space’, the new reality show by Vikas Gupta on MTV, has found new takers. It is a compressed claustrophobic BiggBoss in many ways.

Kaun Banega Crorepati for the brainy ones. ‘Dus Ka Dum’ for the lucky ones. ‘Master Chef’ for people who take cooking seriously.  ‘India Next Super Star’ and ‘India’s Best Dramebaaz’ for the star power. ‘Comedy Circus’ for the laughter. Not to count the long tail to the list of existing and faded reality shows.

Reality Shows must be good business. Most of them are the leading tent-pole property for the channel. Many times, the channel bottom line is a function of success or failure of these reality shows. So, the TRP, controversies and drama do matter.

The viewer has options nowadays. There are many more ways the content is cut. There is cut-uncut, edited, unedited, behind the scene, repeat telecast, a library of episodes across the years and extra dose all available on click of a button.

That should be good news for both sides. The content is expected to always win. But, is the engagement and involvement of video first viewer guaranteed?

The audience is consuming a lot more content. The accessibility, availability and affordability of data have improved many times. The viewer now has a choice and chance to flirt and fall in love with the other screens.

DECONSTRUCTING A REALITY SHOW

The reality show can be broken down into a few essential elements.

The concept. The pre-show build-up and auditions. The judges or the host. The time slot and day of the telecast. The show duration. The contestant quality and background.  The process of their elimination. The final winner.  The extra content and buzz the season generates during its lifetime. Equally important is the ability of the show to polarise the already segmented audience on the region, language, social class or religion. Most of these have remained unexplained and unmonitored.

REALITY SHOWS VIEWER FEEDBACK.

Viewers appreciate new formats with important differentiation and enhanced audience interaction. However, the format gets jaded with time unless the creative team is able to tweak the format.

Sadly, this is happening to my favourite show Bigg Boss. The commanding personality of Bigg Boss has softened with the season. It no longer shows that strong control of the house. There is a rampant visible bias of the show controllers towards some contestant.

The host is still able to hold attention on the weekend. But the teams must think of alternate. Akshay Kumar and Ranveer Singh could be the top replacement choice.

The tasks are so repetitive that the audience gets disengaged. The partiality of propping up only the celebrities in promo has alienated many viewers.

In cases like Khatron Ke Khiladi, it’s simple for the viewers to see the winner emerge. It’s as per the performance in the task. In others like India’s Got Talent audition round, it’s transparent as only judges are pushing the lever. It’s different that the audience still has not understood how does Kiron Kher define talent!

‘REALITY TV’ IS A SPORT AND SPORT IS A REALITY TV.

The problem comes with audience voting.

The channels may not be ready, but the audience definitely wants to see data on votes pooled in. There is a huge potential to suddenly changing the shape of the genre.

Think about getting data on the screen like any other sports. It could do wonders for viewer’s engagement.

What if like the count of Sixes and Fours in cricket, there was a live count of the number of times Sreesanth says ‘I want to leave’ in Bigg Boss. And maybe the viewers could be asked to predict the final tally?

What if there was an exciting ‘Extraa Innings’. If and only if we could see what was the lead or margin of defeat for the nominated contestants. And know how Deepika was performing.

What if the ‘Weekend Ka Vaar’ was the real battle and not dominantly skewed film promotion?

The reality shows need to be recharged after some seasons.

How far the channels will go to rejuvenate them depends upon how the audience is interacting and engaging. But it’s time that every format needs a makeover.

………………………………………….

The above is the result of discussion with viewers across the nation and is no reflection of BARC weekly results. And though the examples refer to Bigg Boss, please see them as representing the genre on screens.

BLOG/1/2019

The post REALITY SHOWS MUST RETHINK ENGAGEMENT appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

HARDIK PANDYA KOFFEE WITH KARAN EPISODE

Pushed by the media pressure, I managed to watch the Hardik Pandya-K L Rahul episode of Koffee with Karan just before Star took it off from its OTT platform. It was just another episode but with a minor difference. The guests were young cricketers. Unlike Bollywood stars, not accustomed to avoid or fend profound, probing questions thrown at them by the gossip hunter rumour-loving anchors and journalists. They just went with the format and in an attempt to play the Casanova Cool Dude forgetting silence is golden at times. They forgot they had right to not answer or not say anything that could backfire.

Poor Hardik and Rahul fell for Karan Johar’s questions. They said things that self-appointed media jurists did not like. Things that were not right to say in a public platform. Not expected from people of reputation. It is different that our politicians can make worse remarks and no one says anything. I know the operative word is ‘profession of repute’.

Maybe they needed to fake till they make, just like the other celebrities.

People fuelling the media pressure would have loved a fake persona projected as per their expectation. Hardik and Rahul answering the questions on expected lines defined by the moral police would have been just right.

Maybe honesty is no more a virtue.

HARDIK KARAN and RAHUL- PIC INDIA TODAY

MILLENNIALS THINK WE ARE MAKING A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A MOLEHILL

The young millennial of today thinks otherwise. Millennials do not pay attention to the armchair twitter moralists jury that is always wanting to insist on actions and reactions and at times unending unnecessary debate.

The young millennial believe it is an era of learning. It is an integral part of professional and personal life.  If needed, give them a dressing down. Surely make them realise the enormity of the situation. Expect them to take the learning. Kill the episode and move forward.

Millennials agree everyone does not need to make a mistake to learn. One can learn from others’ mistakes. Just like a lot of them will learn from Hardik and Rahul’s mistake.

They are not a community of intolerants. Millennials don’t wait to pick, every cause-effect relationship. They don’t like too many fixed coordinates, freedom being curbed, expectations being defined in strict tones and guidelines that make life seem like an army camp.

Millennials do not want to be undifferentiated fake clones. They want to live life on their terms and hate life when actions and reactions are pre-coded. What you say between friends or family on WhatsApp or Koffee With Karan. Where they are expected to operate within six-sigma tolerance. Where honesty, transparency, divergence and maybe creativity is being suppressed.

They appreciate the duality of life, the greyness of morality and life. The hate this recalibrated meters of sensitivity. Mistakes do happen.

What’s happening.

Are we encouraging the life of deceit and dishonesty? Jab tak Pakda nahi gaya Chor nahi. Not a thief till caught.  So it’s okay to be whatever within the closed doors but you dare not say it publically. You dare not expose yourself. You dare not be caught.

The media court has announced its verdict and found Hardik and Rahul guilty. The truth remains that each of the argument can be sliced, defended, re-examined and attacked. Even within the boundaries of accepting what they said was entirely wrong. In net, it all comes down to your personal belief.

Some Learning And Good From The Hardik Pandya Koffee With Karan Episode.

CAN’T BLAME KARAN JOHAR

Karan Johar did what as the host of a show like Koffee With Karan was expected to do. He is media savvy and knows how his audience will react. Karan could have warned the young cricketers. He still went ahead. No issues. Most of the audience liked the show till the media raised its head questioning the answers. I don’t think he will be more cautious next time unless the Network reframes its guidelines.

STAR TV CAUGHT NAPPING.

Hopefully, it’s a case of SOP violation than lack of guidelines. It may just be a rare lethargic moment due to a false zone of comfort.  Believing Koffee with Karan will never do anything wrong. The Star network is technically and morally responsible. However, they will escape the backlash. Don’t think anyone including I&B ministry is asking them questions.

BCCI IN SELF-CREATED CHAKRAVYUH.

Definitely, they have failed to groom the new lads in the art and science of PR. They have not really read them the rulebook. Delayed confused reactions point out to lack of anticipation and policies on the subject. New contracts will be better drafted. Many still feel they are exceeding their brief.

Knowing that their statement, remark and association will in many ways define their Brand-I, cricketers have reacted as per expectation. They have distanced themselves from the two victims of blood rush. No one has even commented on the action.

The cricket-loving audience is polarised in their opinion. But, most are not really looking for a harsh penalty or suspension. The audience wants Hardik and Rahul back in the filed.

A good outcome is that HR heads across corporates are busy rewriting and updating their contract to reflect these new expectations.

HARDIK PANDYA AND RAHUL.

The young dude Hardik wanting to be honest transparent without an understanding with fame comes responsibility and accountability. Forgetting it is better to fake it – till the time you make it.

Think of what wonderful thing he has done. He has stripped morally before all. Now he walks with a neon sign over his head. Every woman knows what kind of person he is.

He has apologised. He said: “I would like to apologise to everyone concerned who I may have hurt in any way. Honestly, I got a bit carried away with the nature of the show. In no way did I mean to disrespect or hurt anyone’s sentiments. Respect”. Baccha hai- chance toh banta hai. He has learnt his lesson. An unconditional apology has been given.

K L Rahul seems to be an unfortunate victim. Really. Not objecting to the conversation shows him as supporting the discussion. He had the option to stop the show and react. Not majorly at fault.

VIEWERS OF KOFFEE WITH KARAN

I believe they lapped it up, enjoyed the episode not seeing the social tsunami unleashing. Channel delivers what the audience wants. Truth is that the TRP will improve and loyal audience is not going to boycott the show. Conflicting learning.

THE BRANDS.

Brands cannot play favourites. Many celebrities like Tiger Woods, Sharon Stone, Whoopi Goldberg, Ray Rice, Manny Pacquiao, Lance Armstrong; Oscar Pistorius know the cost of such misconduct.

Brands have to protect their consumers and hence act according to their understanding of the consumer’s expectations. Gillette has been the first one to drop Hardik. Other brands are yet to respond. However, I personally don’t see more brands taking a harsh action.

THINK BEFORE YOU RECOMMEND.

It is wrong what the two cricketers did. But, we must ask a simple question. Is this not a simple lapse in judgment? Is it drug abuse or ball tampering or hurting someone?

Maybe it’s the best thing that could’ve happened. They have learnt the lesson. An example has been made. Hardik, Rahul and Karan should now be counselled and let off with a warning?.

CLOSING REMARK.

As one of my friends puts it, Redemption, Repentance, apologetic remains, as the past should not define your future. Let’s get on with the game. I know Hardik Pandya and K L Rahul will survive this fiasco. And let us just wish that their tomorrow is better than today.

Woh Pahela Pathar Maare, Jisney Paap Na Kiya Ho, Joh Paapi Na Ho.
Every saint is a sinner and every sinner a possible saint. ONE WHO HAS NEVER SINNED SHOULD HIT FIRST

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First published in MXMINDIA.COM under KOTMARTIAL the Wednesday column

BLOG/4/2019

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The recently released film ‘Uri-The Surgical Strike’ has won many hearts and has been a reasonable success. Made with just Rs 28 crore, it has more than recovered the cost in its first week of theatrical release.  I loved the film and recommend it in my review.

Meanwhile, many movie watchers were waiting for the pirated version on Torrent. To their delight, it was soon available as a 3.8GB download.

THE URI SURGICAL STRIKE ON TORRENT

The fun started when the viewer opened the downloaded file.

True to its title ‘Uri- The Surgical strike’ working with Dentsu Webchutney, did a surgical strike on ‘online piracy’ in India. All the downloaders got on Torrent was a spoof planted by the Uri team. They knew that the only way to cover up anything wrong unwanted on digital is to bury it under the deluge of good and desired items.

They made the viewers believe they were watching the movie. It started with the right censor certificate and the hall conversation thrown in to make it like it was recorded in a movie hall.  They trapped the viewers and then prompt them to go and watch it in the theatre. It was a brilliant creative strategy,  well-executed..  They rightly understood that the only way to cover up anything wrong unwanted on digital is to bury it under the deluge of good and desired items.

THE FAKE RELEASE OF URI THE SURGICAL STRIKE

I like the treatment. The lead team seem to have separately shot for the fake release. I loved it when Yami Gautam says “Surgical strikes 0400-hours pe hongi. Unhe pata bhi nahi chalega ki kya hua” if followed by Vicky Kaushal looking at the viewers and saying, “Theek usi tarah, jaise iss waqt hum aapke screen mein ghus gaye hai. Aur aapko pata bhi nahi chala.”  (Surgical-strikes will start from 0400-hours. They won’t even know what happened. Just like how we’ve entered your screen and you didn’t even realise)

The logic is strong. Most likely the viewers trapped with a 3.8 GB download will not try to get the movie from other sources. Moreover, one would appreciate the treatment of this leaked version, it enhances the desire to watch the film on theatre.

WILL THE YOUNG PIRATES TAKE THE URI CHALLENGE?

I will not be surprised that the young brigade sees this fake release as a challenge. The task is simple. Can they get a pirated full movie?

The truth remains that whenever the young brigade tries to find the link to download the film, the page will be cluttered and crowded with this fake digital release. (I did the test)

A DETAILED VERSION OF URI-THE SURGICAL STRIKE

The above version gives the game away too soon. Here is another release by MARVEL PAKISTAN with the EROS NOW logo. It shows the video duration of 2 hours 10 minutes, is a compilation of stunning footage and screenshots from the actual movie and songs. You can watch it long before saying there is something wrong. And up pops up Yami Gautam on screen giving out the secret.

I personally like the approach and the execution. Would want to see this ‘act’ by URI team and Denstu Webchutney won awards. It is a classic example of understanding the media and the enemy and turning the weakness of the system to its advantage. Well done.

BLOG/5/2019

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SHARE THE LOAD – Gender equality one step at a time.

There are many cases of brands running campaigns with a social cause that they don’t really imbibe or believe it. Many of them are to tick the CSR box. Then there are brands that find their mojo and run with the cause as a philosophy, a belief. There is a commitment and willingness to at least an attempt going long distance with it. Tata Tea ‘JaagoRe’ and Ariel ‘#ShareTheLoad’ are two such examples.

I love brand Ariel continuing with its ‘Share The Load’ initiative. It is a small but definitive positive contribution to remove the stains of Gender Inequality!

Domestic chores and the resultant workload is an accepted norm for women in many countries. The foundation of this stereotyping is laid from childhood and is reinforced at every stage of growing up. From the games girls are expected to play or not play, the colour they must prefer, the jobs that they should take up and the societal expectation from the bride. The behaviour of their parents, their roles and sharing of responsibilities reinforces it.

Unfortunately, women are an equal party to the crime and have been helping propagate the cause. At every stage, women are told they have a specific role. The acceptable definition of a good wife has all the ingredients of ‘Taking the load’. It does not matter if she works, how much she works or who has the time in the home.

Change takes time. You have to keep attacking it.

The 2015 Ariel film ‘Husband’ first raised the question. It had just one possible answer that most families refuse to acknowledge. The DAD film placed the issue in the spotlight, and the next film ‘SON’ continues to take it further.

The brand continues to explore the arena and direct our attention to possibilities. Maybe it made a difference in homes of millions of males who pledged to ‘Share The Load’. The question will remain valid for many more years to come. Nudging the audience is a valid approach.

WHY ‘SHARE THE LOAD’.

One can argue if the approach ‘Share The Load’ is bold enough. One can question if this is the definition of progressive thinking. Why not say ‘Do Your Part’ instead of ‘Share The Load’. The concept still pins the household chore as a women’s area of work. Is it not a case of built-in inequality?

THERE IS CHANGE.

It’s no denying that centuries of conditioning has made even the most progressive thinking and educated women accept laundry as their responsibility. Men believe it is not something they are expected to do.

There is a change in attitude. My discussion with many young ladies suggests that in spite of them expecting their mother to do the laundry, the new generation girls see their future husband contributing in household chores. And they are willing to bridge the gap of inequality by sharing the husband’s workload and responsibilities. The next film may address the daughter of the house to make the point.

The Ariel film has surely been contributing to this mind change. It reinforces the belief that its ‘Acts not Ads’ that can nudge the society towards a positive change.

………………………………………………………………

Here are the other two films of the campaign.

And here is the case film explaining the cause and the initiative.

BLOG/07/2019

First published in mxmindia.com under weekly column KotMartial

The post Ariel Nudging Gender Inequality with Share the load appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

Three years back ‘Make My Trip’ (MMT) signed Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt as Brand Ambassador in a strategic move to connect with younger customers. The audience was intrigued, as the two have not done a movie together. Gully Boy will be the first movie for the pair. The audience has seen some brilliant, interesting, engaging and straightforward advertising.

Ranveer – Alia: a Perfect MMT Choice.

The duo of Ranveer and Alia with their versatility and on-screen chemistry did justice to every possible freaky character the advertising agency served to them. The talented duo enacted a spectrum of roles with equal expertise. Each of the TVCs has an experimentative, adventurous, confident yet concerned and doubtful traveller as its mainstay.

‘Make My Trip’ MAGICAL Engaging Creative

All the films represent a ‘Get to the point and present the advantage loud & clear in a memorable episode’ strategy by setting up a believable contextual situation. Be it about the awesome room, helpline, discount, pay at the hotel, zero cancelling, international food or reminding the audience that’Make My Trip’ also makes hotel bookings.

Each of the’Make My Trip’ TVC scripts is fantastic. The script leverages the brand ambassador pair chemistry and does justice to the crazy Ranveer and the big smiling, playful innocence of Alia Bhatt.

There has been no slag or hint of complacency in creative output even after so many episodic TVC. The client-agency team must be complimented for it.  Here is the client-agency combination that knows how tough it is to deliver a higher degree of engagement once the benchmark is set. More importantly, a focussed client team has ensured a seamless migration of account from one agency to another, retaining the magic and playfulness.

The films have a template approach. There is a problem or a doubt followed by a smart solution ending with one-upmanship delivering the MMT advantage and an unforgettable lesson to the viewer.

How cool it would have been if the reel life could deliver on the real-life promise.

Ranveer Alia Can’t Solve ‘Make My Trip’ Service Delivery Issues.

Brand MMT must watch social media chatter.  In the last few months, there has been a marked increase in consumer complaints about  MMT on social media. Most of them deal with broken promises, missed reservations and non-transparent pricing. The overactive bots and resultant thread of communication have shaken the confidence and image of a caring company with consumers.

It’s a reality that very few travellers compliment excellent service delivery whereas the errors are over-amplified. A reality every service provider including ‘Make My Trip’ must face.

It does not matter if the ratio of service delivered and complaints are the same across service providers. The complaints consumers see and react-to are important. Being one of the largest in the field, the expectations are much higher. MMT needs to be the benchmark. It seems something is definitely slipping.

I personally had no problem with bookings and travel on Make My Trip ( MMT). But the recent hike in social chatter has shaken the confidence in even loyalist like me.

Meeting customer expectation is a hygiene requirement in a service brand. Frustrated customers have no option but to shift loyalties.  Saying sorry serves no purpose.  The urge to check other travel-hotel portals is too powerful, and Trivago has been fuelling it big-time. Something the client cannot leave on Ranveer-Alia team to playfully address.

On a lighter note, maybe social media can do with a compliment for excellent service delivery and not just crib. And that is not about MMT only.

BLOG/8/2019

First Published on MXMINDIA.com under weekly column KotMartial.

The post Make My Trip – needs more than Magical advertising. appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

IAA WORLD CONGRESS starts tomorrow. It’s a two-day of jam-packed sessions with the evening parties helping you to unwind. There may be exceptions, but it’s impossible for a delegate to attend all the sessions.

To get the best out of the conference, including networking, one must choose and pick the sessions of their like, interest and relevance.

Before you question how, here is a tip, don’t treat IST as Indian Stretchable time. If one was to go by the last IAA event at Kochi, IAA events and sessions start and almost finish on time. And the sessions for their content and quality of speakers are jam-packed. This time, I think IAA have packed too much in three days. Most of the sessions are 30-minute duration. Few like the inaugural session is longer with more speakers. And we know how the panel discussions or one-on-one discussion can overrun time.   This potentially can lead to a cascading effect on timelines. I am waiting to be pleasantly surprised by IAA if they keep time!

Note the dress code. For conference sessions wear business casuals. For evening parties wear Smart Casuals. The Temperature is expected to be Between 23°C to 30°C, so don’t be overdressed.

Now back to what I was suggesting. Taking a page from recent TRAI attempt on giving customers to select the channels they want to watch. Here are SESSION PACKS specially curated for you.

Look at what you want to get out of the Global Conference and pick the pack that suits your need. Hopefully, it will make your task easy. Sorry, this is not going to impact your delegation fee. However, you may gain extra time and space to get more out of your trip to Kochi and the IAA GLOBAL CONFERENCE.

The pack names and the sessions listed do not reflect on the content of the session or the speakers. It is based on best fit and expectations. Do check the time with the official site.

Here are the IAA WORLD CONFERENCE SESSION PACKS I have picked for you. I have tried keeping each of the packs limited to max six to seven sessions each. And you can always add to it.

THE IAA WORLD CONGRESS TECHNOLOGY PACK.

Day 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1345 hrs. Nandan Nilekani, Co-Founder & Non-Executive Chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd. He will be speaking on Adhar Leapfrog. 1415 hrs. Hans Paul Burkner. Chairman, Boston Consulting Group on ‘Who Really Owns the Data? The Privacy Vs. Personalization Debate’. 1700 Hrs Munish Varma. Partner, Softbank Investment Advisers will be in conversation with Mini Menon. Talk centres around Investing at the forefront of the information revolution. Day 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1000 Hrs. Simon Kahn. Chief Marketing Officer, Google APAC. The Future of Digital Immersion. Day 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 930 Hrs. Scott Bedbury. CEO, Brandstream Inc. ‘Building Superhuman Brands for the Digital Age’. 1500 Hrs. Sanjay Podder. MD, Accenture Labs. Tech4Good: Scaling Societal Transformation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

THE IAA WORLD CONGRESS CELEBRITY PACK.

Day 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1000 Hrs. Catch the tri-murti of Money, Art and Spirituality at the Inaugural ceremony Mukesh Ambani, Amitabh, Bachchan and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1215 hrs. Chris Tung. Chief Marketing Officer, Alibaba. A unique Alibaba model for brand growth. DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 1415 hrs. 1000 Hrs. Robot Sophia. A social humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics.‘Robots & Humans – Friends or Foes?’. 1600 Hrs. Andrew Keen. Entrepreneur, author & broadcaster. Director, SalonFutureCast. ‘Repairing a Broken World: Fix the Future’. 1630 Hrs. Andre Agassi. Former World No. 1 Tennis Player in conversation with Vijay Amritraj. 1700 Hrs. Deepika Padukone, Actor & Social Influencer in conversation with Anuradha Sengupta.

THE IIA WORLD CONGRESS DEEP INSIGHT PACK.

DAY 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1000 Hrs. Catch the tri-murti of Money, Art and Spirituality at the Inaugural ceremony.  Mukesh Ambani, Amitabh, Bachchan and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1000 Hrs. Simon Kahn. Chief Marketing Officer, Google APAC on The Future of Digital Immersion. 1030 Hrs. Michael McQueen, Trend forecaster and Author, and Tim Reid Comedy Writer and Innovation Expert. A panel discussion De-risk the Future. Preparing Now for What’s Next, moderated by Tom Doctoroff. 1215 hrs. Chris Tung. Chief Marketing Officer, Alibaba. On A unique Alibaba model for brand growth. 1445 Hrs. Prof. Byron Sharp. Professor of Marketing Science and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. How Brands Grow in a Digital World.DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 1430 hrs. Robot Sophia. A social humanoid robot developed by Hanson Robotics. Hear her on ‘Robots & Humans – Friends or Foes’?

THE IAA WORLD CONGRESS GOOD FEEL PACK.

DAY 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1345 Hrs. Nandan Nilekani. Co-Founder & Non-Executive Chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd. on Adhar Leapfrog. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1730 Hrs. Piyush Pandey. Global Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy & Mather. Brand Communication for Social Change DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 1230 Hrs. Rumman Chowdhury. Global Lead for Responsible AI, Accenture Applied Intelligence. Responsible artificial intelligence for humanity. 1500 Hrs. Sanjay Podder. Managing Director, Accenture Labs. Tech4Good: Scaling Societal Transformation in Fourth Industrial Revolution. 1630 Hrs. Andre Agassi. Former World No. 1 Tennis Player in conversation with Vijay Amritraj. 1700 Hrs. Deepika Padukone. Actor & Social Influencer will be in conversation with Anuradha Sengupta.

THE IAA WORLD CONGRESS MARKETING PACK.

DAY 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1445 Hrs. Penny Baldwin. Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, Qualcomm Technologies Inc. on ‘Accelerating the Mobile Revolution’. 1600 Hrs. D. Shivakumar. Group Executive President-Strategy & Business Development, Aditya Birla Group on Brand Trust in a Digital World. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1145 Hrs. Marc Pritchard. Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble. Leading Disruption to Drive Growth. 1445 Hrs. Prof. Byron Sharp. Professor of Marketing Science and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. How Brands Grow in a Digital World. DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 0930 Hrs. Scott Bedbury. CEO, Brandstream Inc. Building superhuman brands for the Digital Age. 1030 Hrs. Jean David. Pioneer & Builder, Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil – Lessons in Innovation

IAA WORLD CONGRESS ENTREPRENEUR MONEY PACK.

DAY 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1630 Hrs. Jonas Kjellberg. Lecturer, Author, Venture Investor & Co-Creator, Skype. Generating Game Changer Ideas That Attract Venture Capital. 1700 Hrs Munish Varma. Partner, Softbank Investment Advisers in conversation with Mini Menon. Talk centres around Investing at the forefront of the information revolution. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1145 hrs. Marc Pritchard. Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble. Leading Disruption to Drive Growth. 1245 Hrs. Mark D’Arcy. VP, Global Business Marketing and Chief Creative Officer, Facebook will be in conversation with Neeraj Roy. The Crowd Sings Back – The Best Ideas Shaping Culture Are Shaped By Culture. DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 1000 Hrs. Sheena Iyengar. Professor, Columbia Business School. The Art of Making Choices. 1030 Hrs. Jean David. Pioneer & Builder, Cirque du Soleil. Cirque du Soleil – Lessons in Innovation

IAA WORLD CONGRESS ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING PACK.

DAY 1. WEDNESDAY. 20TH FEB 2019. 1545 Hrs. Boris Eremin. President, IAA Russia Chapter sharing details on the World Congress 2020, Russia. 1730 Hrs. Sir Martin Sorrell. Executive Chairman, S4Capital. Who will be in discussion with Anant Rangaswami on The New Reality? Something only the two of them may know. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1515 Hrs. Rahul Welde. EVP Digital Transformation, Unilever. Lindsay Pattison. Chief Client Officer, WPP. A Panel discussion on Getting Future Ready. Moderated by Ralph Simon. DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22ND FEB. 1000 Hrs. Sheena Iyengar. Professor, Columbia Business School. The Art of Making Choices. 1600 Hrs. Andrew Keen. Entrepreneur, author & broadcaster. Director, salonFutureCast. Repairing a Broken World: Fix the Future.

THE GOD’S OWN COUNTRY PACK.

Day time explore KOCHIN fort, toddy shop, sunset views, Kathakali dance show, private ayurvedic massage, visit the 400-year-old synagogue, see the distinctive sight of the giant Chinese fishing nets, go for a history ride into Dutch, Portuguese & British colonial area. DAY 1. WEDNESDAY 20^TH FEB. 1900 Hrs. Music & Flavours of Kerala. Indian Actress & Social Influencer, Kajol Devgan is the guest of honour. DAY 2. THURSDAY. 21ST FEB. 1930 Hrs. Its Party Time and you will be exposed to Indian fashion and flavours. Guest of Honor is Dr. Shashi Tharoor, the Diplomat, Parliamentarian and former Under Secretary General of the United Nations. And people on twitter will know him for the POV and the language he is known to use. DAY 3. FRIDAY. 22^ND FEB 1900 Hrs. Farewell dinner. I know, few of you have planned to skip it, but then this could be really fun.

Do tell me, if this helped you in any way.

BLOG/10/2019

The post WHICH IAA WORLD CONGRESS PACK SUITS YOU? appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

Magazines losing circulation is no longer news. They can’t think of cover price increase is a reality. Advertisers no longer consider magazines as an integral part of their campaign. And digital content monetisation has not been easy.

ReDiscover Yourself- Workshop at Cottage Nirvana. 31 Aug – 3 Sep 2018

Magazines must seek fresher perspectives.

The argument that goes against magazines is simple. We are living in a digital era of instant gratification. Some instant notifications and updates give you more than you may want to know on a subject. The reader’s attention span in video dominant world is dropping alarmingly. The inference is direct and straightforward. Magazines have no role to play.

Hopefully, they are only partially right and making a grave error in over generalisation.

It will be false to presume that the new generation do not read magazine content. The truth remains that they are looking for relevant, original and impactful content to engage with. Their life is all about seeking engagement and social affection. Maybe to hide their sense of insecurity and at the same times make a mark for themselves.

One cannot deny the information overflow. There is enhanced accessibility, affordability and availability of digital content. There is content overload trying to find their communities and set of audiences. It makes you question if the content is really the king.

No one wants to pay for what is available for free. Audiences are deeply engaged with Facebook, Whatsapp and OTT platforms. The lines are drawn. If audience interest needs to be rejuvenated, they need to wean away from these to devote time to magazines.

In the new scenario, magazines are seen as time-filler, time-killer. Most magazines with their template non-differentiated content are not adding to reader’s knowledge. Its Time-pass Singdana. There is nothing to add or look forward to.

The downward spiral seems unstoppable in the absence of proactive action. Hopefully, there is still time.

Magazines must rationally answer the questions.

Magazines must first seriously investigate and interrogate their readers. Look at the changes in their lifestyle and new realities to answer the most crucial question. Why read me? And then try answering another critical issue, ‘Why advertise in it?

The first step is content re-orientation. The content must be exclusive in some way and not freely available. Being niche is now better than being general. Being selective and limited may be better than being mass.

Magazines post-re-orientation, re-evaluation of their relationship with the need to provide content the readers are actively seeking. Magazines need not only speak from the point of expertise, trust and respect but must be perceived so. The days of being a tailor who the customer guided with requirements and instruction are over. It’s time for the magazine to be a doctor. An expert knows the pulse and the prescription remains open for a second opinion but not questioning.

It is not surprising that most women, fashion and celebrity-centric magazines continue to show a drop in circulation and engagement. Even the digital avatar fails to engage the reader.

Globally, the reader still turns to news and current affairs titles in an attempt to make sense of the geopolitical and economic chaos. Something everyone has an opinion on but fails in more in-depth understanding and insight.

The learning is simple, and there is nothing new in it. Readers chase a title, when they find the content unique, not easily accessible and relevant to their lives.

Some of the real powerful magazine brands have tried native & branded content, video, paid products, merchandising,  special analytical services, and brand extensions. In the absence of real re-evaluation and deeper internalisation, they are merely buying time. They continue to believe that tweaking is the way forward. When what is needed is a disruption.

‘Why read me’ or ‘why access me’ still need to be answered first. Once you sort this typical tough question, everything else will be easy. Advertising will be a natural outcome.

It is far easier to write and comment on the situation than to really weave a network of future actions.

Will co-creation work for magazine brands?

To re-power and rejuvenating the titles, magazines must re-evaluate their reason for existence. They should be willing to re-address their content basket. Look to co-create the magazine with their desired, current and potential readers, issue by issue. Magazines must be buzzier with unique content differentiation between the physical and digital avatar.

On the other side, magazines can attempt to experiment. The objective remains to create a win-win solution. Maybe co-creating relevant, original and impactful communication solutions with stakeholders is one such answer. Involving brand custodians, advertisers with an open mind and innovative approaches, editors, sales and other stakeholders to engage the readers. All of it must benefit the ultimate consumer for both magazine and advertiser. It will be great if the reader in addition to curated content is chasing something more in the magazines.

Stop milking the Golden Goose of Innovation and co-creation.

Magazines can do everything that the newspaper does, and a lot better. However, they have like the newspapers remained greedy for an immediate return. Innovation and co-created solutions have always been overpriced. This led to advertisers moving away and not considering these exciting possibilities.

Print (magazines and newspapers), should reconsider their pricing structure for innovation and co-creation. They should charge for the extra effort and a minor mark-up and maybe nothing more.

The objective should be to demonstrate the capabilities, impact and effectiveness, To create a buzz going for both the title and the advertiser. And to engage the new generation to read, experience and share. Maybe, in that case, these co-created brand solutions could be the window to their positive experience and impression.

Still, it cannot be a tactical solution. Only a sustained effort with frequent surprises can deliver the desired positive effect.

Will, it actually happen, is merely a theoretical question. There is no answer other than attempting to co-create.

Co-creation is simple.

Co-creation just needs a willing set of minds to investigate and interrogate the brand. State precisely the constraints and benefits. Be prepared to question the Probortunity before them. Use the ideation tools and co-create a range of solutions with direct stakeholders. Such IdeaHARVEST can lead to a final co-owned co-created co-evaluated viable option. Driving buzz and excitement.

Can such an experiment along with the magazine’s sincere effort to redefined content and raison d’être flip its fortune?

BLOG/11/2019

The post CO-CREATION TO REVIVE MAGAZINES appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

The IAA World Congress held at Lulu Bolgatty International Convention Centre (LBICC), Kochi from February 20 to 22 was a grand success.  Most of the delegates I met were satisfied with the sessions, set-up and infrastructure.

Time to congratulate Srinivasan Swamy, Ramesh Narayan, Pradeep Guha, and the extended team of IAA India, sponsors, delegates and speakers.

The event will most probably be remembered for Sophia, Andre Agassi, maybe Amitabh Bachchan and the grand parties in the evening. But, the session ‘Tech Without Affect is the Death of Advertising’ by Havas’s Jacques Seguela will be remembered the most. Seguela, also the author of “Don’t tell my mother I’m in Advertising, She thinks I’m pianist in a Brothel”, spoke on Day Two and received a genuine standing ovation. It was a class in presentation, idea delivery, stage coverage, voice modulation and connecting with the audience. Though it was tough following the Frenchman’s English, there was no communication gap. In brief, remember your advertising should not be Brain-to-Heart or Heart-to-Brain, or Brain/heart –to-wallet but Heart-to-Heart. Have the idea and then leverage it with technology and not necessarily the other way around.

FINDING FAULTS IS ALWAYS EASY.

A Congress of this size with around 2000-plus delegates from a diverse sphere of the industry is like an Indian wedding. No matter what you do, there is always Dal Mein Namak Kum. Delays and minor issues over dramatised. Now, look at the positive side. You may forget the bride and bridegroom. However, such incidents become memory hubs.

It is natural for IAA World Congress not to meet everyone’s expectations. Remember our ads and strategies also cater to the majority.  IAA World Congress ticked almost all boxes. Knowledge sessions followed the bell curve, so you got a spectrum covering the good, the bad and the ugly. Speaker sessions did not majorly overrun the allotted time.  The evening parties gave ample networking opportunities. The IAA World Congress app was helpful.  The area for question-answer and to jotting down your notes was appreciated. The three evening parties were engaging enough. There were hardly any technology glitches. The buses more or less maintained departure schedule from designated hotels.  The PR agency took good care of media in their movement, schedule, interviews and inputs. However, there was a visible absence of Marketers and brand owners.

FEEDBACK HELPS.

In case you attended the Congress, do share the experience. Constructive feedback will always help to narrow the gap between reality, and the myth perfection is.

Before you say I am biased, let me be clear, there were moments when you wondered what was happening. But, then, they are bound to happen in a three-day event and Indian Barat.

OVERALL IMPRESSION – IAA WORLD CONGRESS.

Day One was slow, and even Amitabh Bachchan’s speech did not help. The Congress warmed up on Day Two and finished on a high note with the Andre Agassi – Vijay Amritraj double volley and the Bollywood night. I am purposely avoiding any mention of the Deepika Padukone session which was the last session on Day Three, as it was going nowhere. I walked off the session, and so it is not first-hand experience. However, whoever, I met has the same expression.

There were two sessions where the speakers got a standing ovation. It was proof that the delegates were willing to appreciate when they were served something really fantastic. I do not include Piyush Pandey’s session in it, as the ovation was more of respect for the perfect brand ambassador of Indian creativity and the creatives shown as part of his presentation…

The Andre Agassi- Vijay Amritraj session was a class on how to engage the audience, pace the conversation and to face the camera. Agassi was very transparent, open and emotional in his answers and it helped the cause. He was not hesitant to add tadka-wala statements that resonated with the audience.

SOME SUGGESTIONS.

I think those panel discussions could very well be done away with. Or we must be willing to give more time for the sessions. That reminds me: these Ted Talk-inspired 30-minutes sessions do not do justice to the speaker or the audience. Time to experiment with 45 minutes or even a 60-minute session. Comparatively the earlier IAA India Chapter Summit at Kochi was better time managed.

I was surprised with few speakers (even in such global event) crib about the shortage of time as an excuse of them not being able to complete the session. It speaks more about the speaker than the organisers. And if something could be done to avoid blatant plugs by a few speakers, the audience will definitely appreciate.

Loved the media seating. They were provided table seating to help them in filing stories. However, non-media delegates occupied a few of the media seats. It required better monitoring and control.

As always, we could have done with more bar counters. That reminds me to add: with such a large gathering the number of live counters during evening parties were too few, adding to the wait.

I loved the small act of lucky draw for the audience who returned from breaks on time. Maybe a higher valued price would have done the trick.

IMPORTANT SHIFT OBSERVED AT IAA WORLD CONGRESS.

IAA World Congress also shifted the focus from digital that was becoming a cacophony in every event to Artificial Intelligence, which is where the future lies. Maybe, it is easy to predict that we are going to hear a lot more about AI and IOT this year.

NOT TO MISS. The master of ceremonies the beautiful host KUBBRA SAIT, who through the three days controlled the proceeding and engaged the audience. The trust that she has and her familiarity with the organising team allows her width and freedom to make the event that livelier. No doubt she considers IAA events more than just a Paid-to-Talk assignment.

…………………………………………………….

PASSING THOUGHTS:

1. Since the IAA World Congress happened just 50 days before Goafest, will registrations there get impacted?

2. Surprised that most people I spoke with advised wait-and-watch the situation, before taking a call on attending or boycotting AdAsia 2019, that is scheduled to be held from December 2 to 5  in Lahore.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? DO SHARE YOUR VIEWS ON THIS at editor@mxmindia.comwith the subject AdAsia2019.

BLOG/ 12/2019

The post What Made IAA WORLD CONGRESS a grand success appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

I was speaking with someone in brand-marketing consultancy and was not surprised at how myopically media can operate. She was excited when she shared the idea with me last month. It was a smart radio innovation. I told her, why it will not work. But she wouldn’t accept the reality. We ended up with a simple bet.

She took the challenge and yesterday, she paid up.

I feel bad winning the bet. A spark has died.

Another smart thinker has learnt her lesson. Innovations are tricky business.

The Insight.

The idea sure was wacky. It was not new. It took its inspiration from sporadic rare events when the channels have come together on a CSR cause. However, to my knowledge, in its current format, it has never been tried before.

The initial resistance and excuses from the channel stakeholder made her that more determined to push. The more the opposition, the more potential she saw in it.

It was based on the insight that the medium owners accept. Radio is predominantly an impulse listenership medium. It is at best a background medium. The listeners rarely say, ‘it’s 9 PM, switch on the Radio. I desperately want to listen to Malishka, DaDa or Priyanka.’

They change the channel the moment the song or what the RJ is speaking is not of their interest.

Radio Innovation Idea.

What if on changing the channel, they were treated to the same feed. Find no difference other than the channel frequency reference.

So, in a non-metro city, she shared the idea with a client who saw merit in it.  To reach to all the radio listeners in the city at one go. Not by creating roadblocks across all the frequencies in the city, but by getting Appointment Listening?

The brand wanted to push a campaign targeted to generate curiosity among the target audience. Pull them for the appointed time listenership. The brand was considering deploying additional funds on OOH, Radio and Digital to push appointment listenership.

From the radio stations, it requires acceptance and willingness to co-create in the era of co-optition or cooperative competition. It required the channels to run the same feed. So, if and when a listener changed the channel, he/she would end up catching the same feed across frequencies.

The brand would virtually be guaranteed maximum possible reach by the medium. The channels get an innovative solution, a brilliant case study.

What Holds The Radio Innovation From Being A Reality?  

Running the same feed sounds easy. Yes, there are practical issues but nothing that cannot be resolved with an open mind.  It needed the acceptance of possibilities under Cooperative competition.

Every channel has a frequency ID that it wants to promote. This is easily tackled in the feed.

The channels have positioning and addressing the audience. This is a slightly tougher one. However, if the appointment listening hour is positioning agnostic and does not promote a particular attitude, it could be fine.

Allotting equal time to every channel in this initiative may not work. It amounts to one channel promoting the other channel on their frequency. Maybe that is a solution worth considering, as every channel gets supported on every other channel. A zero-sum game.  Everyone is a winner. Though it may lead to confusion among the listeners.

All the channels are Bollywood-based. The similarity ends here. They have their own commitments and list of songs they want to promote or play. In a curated programme, the song list could be sorted out to everyone’s requirement.

More importantly, the self-imposed guidelines, myopic reading of the situation and professional ego come in the way. These are the toughest one to crack. I wonder if a collective meeting of the channels could have resolved it.

 Twist To The Radio Innovation Idea.

Forget the RJs and the channel restrictions. What if the characters of the radio stations were to host this hour.

The Mawali, Babua or Damodars of the channels hosting the shared feed.

The well-known characters of the channel, like the character that dials the wrong number or makes a Murga, this time gets the taste their medicine. They get the wrong number call and someone pakao them. The Murga maker is made Murga of the day. The Babua gets someone to talk and give his kind of suggestions to life.

Radio Just Lost A Chance To Bring The City To Standstill.

The ambition was not too high. The results could have been surprising. Maybe the town could have come to a standstill. Curious listeners tuning to their preferred channel. All getting the same feed even on changing the frequency. It would have been a buzz-creating moment for the brand and channels. And, if it won an award, for the first time in history, competitive media would have walked together to receive it.

Radio Innovation. You Could Use The Idea.

I present the idea here. I have won the bet but here I present the idea. Anyone can use it. And if someone really brings it to life, I will be most happy to give the money back to the original idea propagator.

The post Radio innovation- appointment hour listening! appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

Times have changed. The filters have changed. The way one interacts with advertising itself is changing. The country’s cultural fabric and tolerance levels are changing. In this scenario, one can understand the trolling of some of the brand’s cause marketing-led communication on social media. Case in point HUL Surf Excel (Daag Acche Hai –Holi) and the Brooke Bond Red Label Kumbh (Hindus abandon elders here).

At one level there is nothing wrong in the communication. We have seen such communication from brands leveraging festivities. But the comments on social media suggest that the brand has acted out of sync. It has offended the large population of click-charged jurists. They are suggesting to boycott the company’s products. The religious zealots wanting to go to any length to get their argument accepted. And an equally large (or larger segment) appreciating this honest communication un-intently reflecting upon some uncomfortable sentiments prevalent in the society.

This is a perfect example to explain the NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) meta-model of communication. How the same stimuli generate differential interpretation and reactions. How the rigid filters of personal experiences, expectations, learnings, inclinations and beliefs make people see things differently. And once you realise perception is projection and the world is a mere reflection of inner self, it becomes easy to understand. But let’s leave that for another time.

Cause Marketing, it is here to stay.

To remain socially relevant, brands are rightly hitching their future on to cause marketing or higher-level purpose marketing.

Brands have always been digging for cultural insight, emotions and relationships they could leverage. Today, brands and agencies are sieving through the environment for a cause to overtly associate with. In fact, as my dear friend Vikas Mehta is bang on target when he says, ‘Cause Marketing is the new Celebrity endorsement’.

The right ones pick a cause in sync with organisational culture and philosophy. The successful cause is always relevant and has a unique representation/ expression to be able to create the desired impact among the Target group.

Most brands fail to get it right. A classic recent example is Close-up (#FreeToLove) and All Out (Strong Mother, #StandByHer) communication.

Few brands find the sweet spot of a relevant impactful uniquely positioned cause for their product, brand or service. However, we are talking of emotions, relationships, social causes and impact. Sometimes even the larger brands in fail to read the signals right and time the communication wrong.

The current Brooke Bond Red Label-Kumbh abandoning of elders communication and Surf Excel, Holi DVC are perfect examples of getting the timing wrong and misreading the pitch. The case in point, an earlier Brooke Bond Red Label ( taste of togetherness) ad, which did not get an adverse reaction.

Cause Marketing is risky.

The brands have a right to choose the cause, expression and execution. They then weave their magic in the apt social environment. Such efforts are appreciated.

This time,  it seems that an organisation like HUL has failed to read the pulse.

I am not going to discuss why a Hindu Girl, why not a Hindu Boy and a Muslim girl and the conspiracy theory of Love Jihad. Neither will I venture into the area of what close-up has to do with #freeToFindLove and how a mosquito repellent propagates standing by a tough mother. To me, these brand communications are just examples.

Taking on religion and festivals to leverage the brand’s equity and association comes with its own expectation. Once the brand decides to move along this path, it must be ready for trial by fire because every act will be suitably scrutinised.

Cause Marketing Needs You To Act Like The Indian Constitution If Not Like Indian Justice And Law.

Do not discriminate or get overtly polarised or take freedom of speech to mean freedom of cultural commentary.

Brands know about India’s rich cultural and religious diversity. Why not explore a bit of every colour. To be unique and appreciated, it may help to go beyond the Hindu religion.

Explore it at your own risk. Similar opportunities exist in Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism and Muslim cultural-religious heritage. Show the audience and this social media-trolling police how strongly you are rooted with cause marketing. Continue to be brave enough to reflect the uncomfortable sentiments.

Otherwise, a revision of the Meta Model of Communication and a better understanding of the national mood may help.

BLOG/ 14/2019- first published in MXMINDIA.COM under weekly column KotMARTIAL.

The post Cause Marketing – at your own risk. appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

Recently one of the top newspapers published a corrigendum on its circulation claim. Another newspaper hinted that the competition was lying. And a few others’ claims went unchallenged.

When claims happen, you know the IRS (Indian Readership Survey) or ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulation) reports have been released. Reacting to competition,  calling them ‘liars’ and ‘unethical’ is very polite for the season.

It’s not the first time and definitely not the last time when claimed circulation or readership data has an error or is disputed. Surprisingly these originate from prominent publications fully aware of the rules and regulations guiding the research report usage. They know, what is allowed and what is not. Yet human errors creep in.

Behind The Scene. Getting Ready.

The release date and timing of the research reports is one of the worst kept secrets in the newspaper industry. Everyone seems to know it in advance.

Just before the expected release, the marketing executives are stressed out. The anxiety level is high. The external interest is low. A few trade portals are still interested in the press conference, to report the change in hierarchy.

Inside newspaper offices, predictions are made. The conspiracy and corruption theories are discussed over coffee and beer. Soon, the wait is over, the data is released.

Readership And Circulation Data are Like the Board exams for Newspaper Industry.

‘IRS/ ABC data swing ki kimat tum media planners aur client kya jano.

The swing in readership or circulation data can result in psychological metamorphosis within the newspaper taskforces. The employee’s confidence may get strengthened or be shattered beyond repair.

The wait is agonising. The fears are not unfounded. The ‘Number One’ tag may fly away. ‘Largest’ may need a new definition. The gaps between rival newspapers may get widened or narrowed. Being second maybe reason enough to celebrate. The advantage in few strategically placed editions could be lost.

These are like the Board exams for the newspaper industry. The data is expected to reflect the impact of all the efforts on Ground Zero. Hence, many unanswerable questions arise with every data release. Some questions get buried temporarily.

That’s the power of readership and circulation data.

You Have To Be Part Of The System To Know How It Feels.

The management waits for the analytics team to truthfully present a favourable picture. The marketing department time and again crosschecks strategies and alternate presentations. The Excel sheets are verified at many levels. They are now ready to face anything other than a glitch in data.

The sales guys are eager to get some good news. It can ease sales target pressure. It’s known that the good news comes with revised sales targets. But for the pride, they are willing to live with it. They will take even the bad news. It will make their life a lot tougher. However, they will get a new excuse.

The circulation team is tense. Whatever may be the new data, circulation is involved and responsible. The earlier unconcerned editorial department is also stressed. The debate ‘circulation from readership’ or ‘readership from circulation’ is not yet settled.

The numbers define power equations. They create new relationships. The newspaper’s perceptual positioning is validated, strengthened or destroyed. It has the potential of defining the order in which a media buyer or planner will meet the media sellers on a hectic day.

The Claim League.

The moment data is out; the analyst’s fingers start moving n the keyboards with the practised smoothness. The fingers run with the rehearsed flow. The matrices and cross-references start whispering to each other. The colourful graphs are conceived with alarming speed.

The marketing head, revenue heads and the top management keep their fingers crossed. There is an unheard prayer in their lips. They are like the expectant father outside the operation theatre, waiting for ‘the’ news.

The instructions are unambiguous. The SOP for the situation is well-defined.  No slip is allowed. Only the top management must have access to the first cut data. They will in their strategic business huddle debate and define the new strategic implementations. No delay is allowed.

Everyone is racing against time. It’s like the next sequel to Mission Impossible. Or like the Wild West, where the first mover and the fastest draw would survive to live another day.

Before the close of the day, rightly slaughtered and supremely cut acceptable data is released. It will feature in the next day edition. The position of this news will depend upon how the newspaper edition or group has performed. It could be anywhere from the front page, back page, city page, business page or tucked in some unmentionable corner.

You can’t blame any newspaper title for it. It’s a league of claims out there. If they don’t publish their interpretation and skewed impressions, the competition will. It is a necessity. They have to present their point-of-view.

No one can risk being branded by default. The readers and the advertising industry must not only get what the competition publishes.

Some are in the race to catch the next morning e-mailers. They know most of the e-mailers land in the spam folder or are trashed without being opened. But, the tradition and internal SOP demands action.

It is complicated. It is a multi-dimensional race. The numbers have to be interpreted differently for the readers, advertisers, employees, and trade partners, competition and in some cases investors and share market. After all, they have different expectations from the newspaper title.

In A Premeditated Surgical Strike, Collateral Damage Is Acceptable.

It will be foolish to believe that stakeholders are unaware of what is going out in the public domain. How the data has been tweaked? What new interpretations have been unearthed? How the numbers are stacking? And what is the hue of communication?

Printing corrigendum is not a problem. Corrigendums don’t reverse the gained advantage.

ASCI can be ‘handled’. Saying sorry, giving a newer explanation and temporarily abandoning the campaign is an acceptable practice. The process of interrogation and explanations gives enough time for small battles to be won. The art of self-regulation and ethical practices is not discussed in such forums.

The pressure to meet timelines is a star excuse for the errors in data interpretation. The wiser ones know this game of self-congratulatory chest thumping news is of no real value. But, the serious players must play the league.

The ABC rules are clear and the penalty for violation is high. Hence, the trade-off call always involves top management.

No Surprise for Repeated Errors.

In time, everything is forgotten. The new claims and presentation lose their sheen.

The newspaper sales and marketing comes back to the position it deserves. Dominance, arrogance, humility, relationship, negotiation and commoditisation become the norm. Everything is forgotten over field trips, parties, 3-D mailers, discounts, freebies and such facilitation tools.

The wait for the next round of results begins. The essential steps in brand building are forgotten. The newspaper marketing with new found determination focuses on client and media-agencies. The sales team is back to its revenue mining activities.

All forget that the results are a mere reflection and directional in nature.

The Fastest finger First Claim league must stop.

No one wants to be left behind. No newspaper title will allow the competition even a 24-hour advantage in presenting the result. It’s a jungle out there. And to survive you must draw the gun first.

Here is what can be done.

A) Create a Gap Between Data Release And Its Usage.

It’s a fallacy that this readership and circulation data is a critical release. A few days or even a week’s delay has no consequences.

What if such data was released on a Monday morning with 72 or 84 hours embargo? What if the newspapers are forbidden from releasing it in the public domain for some time? Even the trade portals are not allowed to release the story. The leading pink paper signs the Non-disclosure-agreement and honours it.

The hurried analysis and a race for the data are removed from the system. Everyone gets the real breathing time to analyse and decide the course of action. No one plays ‘Fastest Finger First’. The chances of Fat-finger or surveyors error is removed. Stress decreases.

B) Wrong Data Usage And Interpretation Is Severely Penalised.

There should be a strict no-tolerance policy on data usage and interpretation error.  It becomes totally unacceptable. Any violation debars the title, edition or group from further using the data, even if they have subscribed and paid for it. Repeat offenders are no longer covered. And to get back has a lag of two rounds!

C) Facilitate And Educate.

To ensure no-tolerance policy additional steps need to be taken.

Every subscriber of these circulation survey and readership researches must have one person trained by the research body. It is like a certification programme leading to chief interpretation officer.

Moreover, for the initial month, the research body should provide a free-facility to crosscheck interpretation. Promise and deliver a response within 4-6 hours. Maybe that will help.

No one is afraid of a paper tiger. The bite must be felt if the industry has to stop playing the fastest finger first.

BLOG/ 16/2019

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Will GOAFEST 2019 finally change everything.

Unfinished stories have an uncanny feeling. Expectations and imaginations play havoc with the sense of directions. They leave you starving for that last chapter that will wrap the things as per your thread.

So, I am going to share one such story seeking an end. It started some years back at GoaFest.

There is no guarantee that the unfinished story will find in GoaFest 2019, the end it is seeking. And I am willing to live with it. 

Unfinished Story; Part 1- 2016.

It is at 2 am., the last night of Goafest 2016. The after-hours party is in full swing at Grand Hyatt, Goa. I am a bit tipsy like every other night and was chatting with a few friends at the reception area. Then magic happened.

This young lady, who is short on cigarettes, asks me if she could borrow one. Young me, feeling alone in the crowd obliges. Who can refuse a young lady a cigarette?

We start talking. The conversation meanders across topics of interest.  And I don’t remember what all we discussed that night. It must be the after-hours Vodka confusing the evening beer.

I never ask her name. And if she did share, I don’t recall. I am sure; she too does not remember me. What I know is that she is working in digital space and planning to pursue an MBA from one of the IIMs preferably IIM Ahmedabad.

All I have is a faint memory of a slightly tipsy lady in her mid-20s wearing a light-pastel-coloured dress sharing a smoke with me. She has a small dimple on her left cheek. Or was it the right cheek. Maybe my confused mind is making up images.

Unfinished Story; Part II- 2017

I am banking on Twitter. I send out a cryptic tweet. ‘Dear young lady, if you are attending the Goafest this year too, do connect. And yes, you can find me around 1230, you know where’.

Few noble gentlemen support me by re-tweeting it. I have declared my intent on my blog and the weekly column on mxmindia.com. I am hoping for a miracle, for the message to reach the intended person. I think it will do the trick.

It is  ‘Mission Impossible’.

On the first night at Goafest 2017, I wait, and I wait. Nothing happens. Next day I tweet an update ‘Woh Nahi Aayi’.

Unfinished Story; Twist In The Tale.

On Day 2, two cryptic emails land in my box.  Both emails suggest a meeting. I am confused. Is someone playing a prank on innocent Kotnala? I have no option but to follow the instructions and wait.

I am waiting at the designated area slowly sipping my beer. I lazily smoke while my eyes continue to scan the area for a clue.

Late night, I give up. I stroll down to my room.

As I am swiping the room key, my phone beeps with SMS notification.

There is a short SMS. ‘Meet me tomorrow the same place. Do not reply or call. Have left for my hotel’. I check the number on ‘True Caller’. It is in the name of some ‘Priyanka’. There is another email with a similar message but a different name. I am in two minds. I decide to play along. There is nothing to lose.

At the designated hour, I move to the reception area. There is a PYT sitting at one corner. I hesitate. Meanwhile, she walks up to me and asks if she can borrow a cigarette.

To me, it is some sort of code. My eyes light up. I know she (Meeta) is not my Miss2016. We chat. I am feeling it is going to be a waste of time.

Unfinished Story, Abhi Baaki Hai Dost.

From the corner of my eyes, I catch another girl coming out of the party area. She stands next to the door and scans the arena. She approaches us and with superb confidence says, ‘Finally, so do you have a smoke to spare’.

I smile and push the pack forward.

Priyanka, Meeta and I are meeting for the first time.

The girls were bored with the party and being with the same set of colleagues for the last two days. They were seeking a change. And they knew about the tweet. Both of them have independently sent me cryptic emails and SMSes. Surprisingly, I believe them and smile.

Last night, my focus and dedication to the cause impressed them. They have seen me waiting, smoking and drinking at the registration area. ‘Aapki Talash Ke Fan Ho Gaye Hum’ Priyanka had commented.

We end up in my room. I have enough stock of cigarettes and beer.

We finally call it a night at 2:30 a.m. they have an early flight to Mumbai.

Unfinished Story. My Belief.

I believe my original Miss2016 with the dimple on her left cheek did not attend Goafest 2017.

Unfinished Story. 2018.

Hope is a silly feeling. I again shared my expectations in 2018. But neither Miss2016 nor Priyanka or Meeta showed up.

Unfinished Story Still Seeking A Happy End In GoaFest 2019.

Life cannot be so ruthless. Miss2016, you have to connect.

Come-on, connect with this person, who is young at heart. I am dying to know if Miss2016 has a dimple on the left or the right cheek.

Few of my friends (you know who you are) who were with me on that fateful night in 2016, tell me whatever you remember.

I was sitting low on the ground, looking at her, while she stood in a white dress. Wow, I remember this much. Vodka and beer combination is right for retrieving memories.

Do You Have A Story From Goafest?

If you have a story from Goafest or you want to just catch up, tweet at S_Kotnala or connect on Facebook. Miss2016, if you get to read this, do connect at Goafest or otherwise.

Unfinished Story. Disclaimer.

This is a true story but not necessarily the complete truth.
God promise, the desire to meet again is sincere and innocent.
Come to GoaFest 2019, prove that Unfinished stories too have a happy ending.

Don’t worry. I can differentiate between fantasy and realistic fantasy and I believe ‘Life is Perception adulterated with reality’.
I am a winner either way. If I meet Miss 2016 so much better, but If I don’t, I have my imagination to help me finish the story.

BLOG/19/2019

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I was recently telling someone that I am one of the few who has attended every season of Goafest since inception.  I was stumped when she asked, what has changed and what should change at Goafest. Moreover, she wanted to know, why should someone attend Goafest? In spite of my being a loyalist, the questions pushed me to rethink. It would have been a different thing if Miss2016 was to ask me the same questions.

I have been part of Goafest in all possible avatars. As a delegate, sponsor, disrupter, award-winner, jury and PPress Have witnessed it morph from the Special-Invitees-only-Conclave on Day One to a three-day festival where delegates have the choice of days they want to attend.

I felt the pain of a few classical Goafest properties slowly vanishing from the festival radar. I remember the days when beer was freely available. I also remember the year when delegates were given coupons restricting the number of pints they could get, to now when with sporadic availability of beer.

There used to be small shops lining your way to the knowledge hangers on the beach. Now we have replaced them with technology activation ports in the corridor and lobby area.

The open-air after-parties on beach Cavelossim used to end early and continued in hotels, shacks, casinos and restaurants. Now they stretch to early mornings in closed halls.

I know the delegates enjoyed the rain dance. It is no longer a part of the fest.

The knowledge seminars have moved out of humid hangers to air-conditioned halls. The knowledge seminar mix slowly morphing to spirituality, celebrities and authors, they say, everything swad anusar.

Goafest, Not Everything Has Changed.

Everything has not changed. Few things have retained their historical perspective.

The association with Goa and festivity has further strengthened without any efforts.  The ticket counters have the same standardised looks. You still have to come back to collect the conference kit.

Even with some large agencies deciding against participating in the awards, the enthusiasm and excitement along with the noise levels have not decreased. It’s best to stop asking such questions of award participation and just celebrate Abby.

The lucky draws along with other promotions have failed to increase visitors in the display area.

The core teams organising the event has remained well-represented by dedicated industry people with a very low infusion of fresh blood.

The delegate mix has moved towards smaller and digital agencies. However, marketers are still trying to find the answer to the big question; why attend Goafest? And while things were finding their coordinates in this flux, the media owners and brands continued to sponsor Goafest.

Changes, I Wish To See At Goafest.

This will not be the first time I am sharing my wishlist. I have been contributing my suggestions through my blog and my column. I am thankful that a few of them have even implemented.

I will start with time management. There have been tremendous efforts on this agenda. And the results are apparent. However, we have a long way to go.

I wish the organisers were strict with the speaker I wish they were blunt and if necessary rude enough to end the session if it was exceeding the time limit. Personally, I will respect them more if they are bold enough to start the morning sessions irrespective of the attendance. Why should the delegates who wake up early so that they are on time for the session be penalised?

I wish Goafest introduce extra premium chairs and seat reservation for the session(s) or the day. I know many will be more than willing to check them out. Maybe introduced exclusive seating (with table) for the press to help them file their stories and cover the event better. If you do so, make sure there are enough seats.  More essential, ensure that these are occupied by media people accredited for the event and not people from media.

I wish that the moderators are better prepared for discussion with the speakers and don’t sleepwalk through the proceeding. Someone trains the panellist on how to face the audience and not show them the shoulder.

I wish the question-answer sessions are not cancelled because of the speaker over-running his or her schedule. And, if possible, the panel that selects the questions for the speaker does not know the identity of the persons raising the question. There have been some low-level mummers of selection panel bias.

If it’s Goafest, add some local flavour in food, welcome kit, side tours, entertainment and games. Goafest hardly has any Goa in it, and everyone has to make his or her own efforts to add Goa to the festivity. So, don’t be surprised that many continue to wear extra wide cane caps and floral shirts to the event.

It will be great if the speakers do not overtly plug their services. If possibly a team should vet the presentations before the session to see the delegates are getting their dues.

Hopefully, we will not have any speaker known to question advertising associations ethics and self-regulation. You know how touchy I am on this subject.

Why Attend Goafest?

Some questions should be left unanswered. Attending Goafest cannot have a logical answer. You like it, you attend Goafest. It’s that simple.  It got nothing to do with Goa, beaches, Feni, parties and festivity. Goafest almost always met expectations and promised to deliver more. It is still evolving!

The jam-packed schedule of interesting knowledge sessions, the evening entertainment and the after parties at Grand Hyatt leave not much time for you to explore anything else. In fact, I will not be surprised if you think it was GrandHyattFest and not Goafest.

On the other hand, I can suggest that you attend Goafest for precisely five reasons:

(1) Knowledge seminars. And if you get just three seminars that work for you, you are done.

(2) Networking. It all depends upon you, how you work it out

(3) The After-parties. Best enjoyed with a group of friends and they go late at night

(4) Work Display. Go through the shortlisted entries. Maybe you will pick some idea subliminally, expand on it, improvise it and morph it into something even better.

(5) Relax and if you have an unfinished story– just wait for it to find its ending.

Blog/21/2019
FIRST PUBLISHED IN MXMINDIA.COM

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GOAFEST 2019, the collective event by AAAi and AdClub. It used to be really fun when it was held at the Cavasillium beach. Oh! It was hot and humid. You needed sunglasses, a hat and suntan lotion as standard accessories to navigate the venue.

I have been one of those stupid’s who questioned the relevance of some of the fun activities including rain-dance, and I regret it.

Certain limitations, cost, security, liabilities and other management issues, moved GOAFEST to a hotel venue. The AC is excellent and sessions mighty comfortable. There is sundowner, after-hours party and enough beer to go around. But, in the process, GOAFEST misses out on both GOA and FEST. The fun element has taken a beating.

It still holds its charm. It provides ample opportunities for ice breaking, networking, training, knowledge sharing, deal closure and even informal business commitments.

GoaFest is quite fun when you are a part of a group.

Its pure fun, when you are part of a group nominated by your organisation to attend GoaFest. However, there is another subset of delegates. Independent individuals. These are start-up guys, entrepreneurs, small agency owners, media representatives and consultants. For them, it is a challenge to be a part of a group for long. And that includes the group from your ex-organisation.

Whatever may be the subset you belong to, GOAFEST becomes chaotic by day 2. It does not matter how big your group is. People by day 3 are bored of being with the same colleagues. The conversations dry up. At this stage, Zombies takes over. You find delegates missing knowledge sessions and relaxing in their rooms. Sometimes it is just late night partying and stressed out socialising / networking that is the culprit. Sometimes the sequencing of the session.

So, what can you do at GoaFest 2019!

Get up early. Take a walk along the beach. Many of you may not be near the beach. It’s okay, catching early morning soft flowing Goa breeze is a fabulous experience.

Spend some time watching the shortlisted entries. Move to the display area early in the morning when the rest of the delegates are still deciding what to do. Now that you are there don’t just glance over them, invest time. Study and understand them. If you find something that stuns you, compliment that agency or people when you meet. Sometimes this is the best way to network. And trust everyone wants more appreciation.

Pick the 2-5 sessions you definitely want to attend. Now use your fingers and check about the author and the subject. Priming dry land before showers always helps. You will find that your interest in the subject and session gets enhanced. Maybe you already have the question you want to ask. Draft it and save it in your SMS. Don’t forget to timely raise it by plugging in the GoaFest 2019 app.

Avoid the sessions you do not want to attend. Don’t get pulled into them for any reason. This time is better utilised at the display area, networking outside, having drinks or just relaxing. There is nothing more tiring than playacting listening with resourcefulness to something you are not interested in.

Remember, networking and introductions happen in less crowded situations. So, create opportunities by being early at the start of the day, post lunch session and awards night. A wee bit earlier than the hall doors open up and you may find it rewarding in term of connects you make. Do work like a homing pigeon. Make the networking worth for the other person too. So be ready with your deeply researched true networking opening conversation.

Find the missing GOA in Goafest 2019. Step out. Go to another beach. Eat at Shacks. Have outside street food with friends. Find that lovely seafood joint or just land up at a casino for the adventure. Do something beyond GoaFest.

Most importantly, switch-off your e-mail and social media notifications. Do continue to post from the fest. People must know you are there. And respect the speaker, organisers and delegates by putting your phone on silent when you are attending any session.

Find out the free Wi-Fi spots and passwords at the hotel. Check the connectivity. And at night update all your apps.

Place three-alarms on your phone. Slot 15-20 minutes for an unhurried clean-up and replies of your inbox. Maybe at 0830, 1330 and 1830 Hrs. Practice upward delegation. Check up how you can stop playing e-mail ping-pong and kill it with a phone call.

Trust me, if there is fire, right people have your number to reach you. Use your mobile camera to capture the moods, selfies and groupies. Select the picture you want to keep, delete all others and post the images ( if you’re going to) then and there. Timing is everything.

May this GoaFest, you get what you deserve from it. May it create new benchmark and reference of what to do in future. And may I meet Miss2016.

BLOG/22/2019

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On day-2 of Goafest 2019, I Tweeted ‘This is best GOAFEST DAY’ ever’. Few have asked me as to what made me say so? Honestly, it has nothing to do freely availability of cold beer, lovely breakfast at Grand Hyatt or that the unfinished story had a new beginning. I will answer it at the end of this article.

What was important was something entirely different.

BLURRING OF LINES AT GOAFEST 2019.

Goafest2019 awards reflected reality. The lines defining the roles and expectations in the industry are blurring. The only relevant definition is being ‘creative solution contributor to growth’. The pseudo-line of controls like digital, creative, craft, print, traditional are no longer relevant.

It surprises me when some Industry stalwart fails to recognise the new reality.

What is there to be shocked of, if a digital agency wins PR Agency of the Year a digital agency is the Direct Marketing Agency of the Year A TV station is the Creative Agency of the Year. If you look at the 2nd row of awards, you will find more such surprises.

You can’t limit the scope of any organisation by the charter and contract. The festival itself has moved away from a sharply focussed singularly stated theme (Like Brand Dharma) to a broader eclectic mix of sessions.

However, when ViaCom18 won the top creative award, there was no point in rechristening it as ‘Company of the Year’. The era of brand purpose and growth, instead of relooking at redefining who can enter or who is an agency or a company, we should move to purpose agnostic ‘Organisation’ terminology.

MORE REAL WORK WINNING AT GOAFEST2019.

The scam quotient is under control. The awards jury have been phenomenal. ‘More Real Work Is Winning’ as said Shashi Sinha, Chairman Awards Governing Council GoaFest2019.

The displaying of Abby Shortlist for people to file objection seem to be working. I wish they displayed not just a list but also the complete entry. For example, How would anyone know what is the creative associated with ‘Meri Doosri Country’ campaign by Sony Ten 2’s for the FIFA World Cup 2018, until it is accessible?

If the full entry is displayed at SHORTLIST level, it will solve my second demand automatically. I have voiced it many times. At GoaFest2019, I personally spoke with people managing the show. We must make available FULL WINNING ENTRIES for the public. It can quickly be done digitally.

It will help demonstrate that genuine creative is winning at the festival. And students and practitioners who could not make to Goafest2019 will have access to this precious information.

SCAM PREVENTION IS NOT JUST GOAFEST RESPONSIBILITY.

No awards body can control and check a scam winner. They rely on the client and the agency collectively signing an undertaking about creation, inspiration, originality and exposure.

If a scam does happen after this, we must look inwards and question our inaction. To stop scam winners, we have to act like professional vigilance team. Just like citizen vigilance helps stop terrorism, professional vigilance can only stop scam entrant.

So, for a moment think about how you can contribute. Pledge that next time when anyone seeks help to stop such scams, you will find the time to raise objections if any.

KNOWING EVERYTHING DOES NOT COUNT.

Day 1- started with Dr A Velumani of Thyrocare shaking up delegates. Presenting his story of struggle and hardship, dedication, passion and nothing to lose approach. Ravi Desai of AMAZON followed it with ‘7 seminal shifts’ in marketing.

I sat through Ravi’s presentation with a bored expression. I know all this. What are you adding to my knowledge?

Later at night, I was discussing it with dear friend Sumit Roy of ‘Univ Brands’ he questioned my reaction. I realised where my bias was creeping in. There is a huge gap between ‘I know Vs. I think Vs. I act’. Our knowledge has changed, but the behaviour has not seen a shift. There is a need for individual behavioural change and attitude re-referencing before we can expect industry level shift.

By the time we had Phil Kemish, Co-Founder, Disrupt Marketing & Brandtrepreneur, speaking about the four Ps (Purpose, People, Passion and Physical- bringing the brand to life) of marketing attitude. I was a different listener a different delegate.

Once, you realise and want to bridge the gap between ‘I know Vs. I think Vs. I act’, your reaction as a delegate will change.

THINGS REDEFINED AT GOAFEST 2019.

Overall, there is a tremendous change. We are getting better at time management. I still do not subscribe to Chairman or anyone extending ANY SESSION. It happened during UNPLUGGED and few knowledge sessions.

The shifting of live entertainment to just after lunch slot worked. It eased the pressure on the evening schedule. It helped in starting post-lunch sessions and the evening awards on time. It also ensured that in the after-party, there was enough time to serve drinks before the 1 a.m. closure deadline.

The festival delegate average age is sharply falling. There is a shift towards smaller organisations and digital companies participating. Suddenly, it felt as if I was in some other industry do.

However, there is a significant change in the number of delegates visiting display areas. I am sure they are interested, but the tight schedule of sessions and awards leave no time. Maybe we can make them available on a pen drive as part of the festival kit. I am not sure how does this impact sponsorship, or it opens space for further activities.

One understands and appreciates the magical sponsor slot. However, it needs to be monitored and curated in term of straight plugging and content. The way Google launched Google Creative was absolutely understandable and appreciated. However, everyone was not like Google. Some brands overtly pushed their agenda masquerading as knowledge.

GOAFEST 2019. DAY-2. THE BEST DAY EVER.

The day-2 had an absolutely fantastic set of speakers in the knowledge session. Madonna Badger opened the day with talking about ‘Women are not objects’. She made her case with examples – Women are equal, but their objectification makes them less than equal. Gorden Bowen made a strong case for creativity. He pointed out the need to be Creativity Lead, data-driven and tech supported way of working. Barry Wacksman empathised on the need to be proactively being a disruptor.

Harshvardansinh Zala, Founder and CEO Aerobotics topped this with an exciting session. He is just 16. His inspiring talk made the delegates look inward. It at least made me re-evaluate my journey. Lt Gen Hooda spoke of training and values defining the work ecosystem in armed forces. More than talking of URI ATTACK, he sensitised the delegates sitting in the comfort of an AC, the hardship front line soldiers face at the border in extreme positions.

Virender Sehwag batted all questions upping the run rate. Part of the leadership series, he differentiated three leadership styles with relatable examples. Saurav Ganguly; creating the team, Anil Kumble; setting the target and keeping focus, and MSD- getting work done by the team.

The only blip on Day-2 was Sidhant Chaturvedi and Kalki Koechlin talk. It went nowhere in spite of the interviewer Kubbra Sait trying her best. Jonita Gandhi unplugged session was nice. She got the crowd involved and moving with her.

GOAFEST 2019. CHANGE AND STRUGGLE THE NEW CONSTANTS.

Change is a constant. The struggle is another constant in life. Without it, even the change does not make sense. Struggle in life happens at multiple fronts. In a multi-dimensional festival like GoaFest, it’s a churn towards better.

This time around there was so much learning in what is loosely called celebrity slots. Harshwardansinh Zala, Lt Gen Hooda, Virender Sehwag, Pankaj Tripathi and Mary Kom. You could hear them as entertainment and/or as an inspiration. The choice is yours. But do put your filter through the test of the filter of ‘I know Vs. I think Vs. I act’

Unlike the Mumbai roads that are repaired just before the monsoon, I hope GoaFest management committee will visit the challenges now, much in advance. And we will have a brilliant Goafest 2020 on 10-11-12 April, the second Thursday-Friday-Saturday of April.

Blog/23/2019

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In the article yesterday, I discussed ‘what you missed, and they messed?’ with reference to the advertising industry’s biggest festival of creativity and ideas. Goafest2019 finished on April 13, 2019. Like always, it had its own moments of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  There has been tremendous change as the festival keep evolving.

Here I am sharing few inputs, that may help the Goafest Managing Committee see things differently and make GoaFest 2020 much better:

1. REALIGN. Do meet the absentee agencies now. Show them the new picture and help to get them positively polarised towards the fest.

2. RESEARCH. Launch a Goafest2019 survey among delegates. Provide a platform for free, honest expression and suggestions. Run it with all delegates and all sponsor and organisations on the corporate level.

3. ENHANCED TRANSPARENCY. STOP SCAMS. Share all entries in their totality at the time of Shortlist. Give it enough time for people to check and raise an objection. Make the association protocol, SOP for objection resolution public.

4. ENHANCE EFFICIENCY AND FESTIVAL CONSTRUCT. Capture data to make more sense of priorities and preferences. Track people movement. Record entry and exit details from different zones.

5. TRANSPARENCY. Include a session where jury members express and share what they were looking at, what kind of discussion happened, and what favoured the significant winners.

6. SESSIONS OF IMMEDIATE RELEVANCE. The festival needs more sessions like the one by Ambarish Mitra, CEO & Founder, Blippar who spoke about augmented reality, virtual reality and its rapid evolution in the marketing and advertising realm.

7. SCHEDULE SHARING. Speaker schedules should be shared much in advance along with the title and synopsis for every speaker activity. Stop hiding timeline inefficiencies by creating a block of activities. Restrict evening dinner timing. Force discipline and movement to the after-party.

8. HELPING GETTING SPONSOR THE DUE. (A) Once after-party starts, stop all ports serving drinks. Helps maximise sponsor return from parties. (B) Rightsize and re-position the sponsor logo on stage panels to ensure they are part of the picture frame.

9. DELEGATE COMFORT. (A) Introduce premium seats that one can pre-book by session or by day. (B) Include a section in the app where the participants can see the complete list of questions asked to a speaker. (C) Let the speakers choose the question, or the moderator choose the question. Or a third panel to select the question to be raised.

10. GOA QUOTIENT. Think about somehow increasing the missing Goa quotient in GoaFest 2020, else we may as well call it the ‘Hyatt Advertising Fest’. Even if that means adding a feni stall. Floral-print-T-shirts, food items. May offer some discounts.

Like every piece of unsolicited advice, I hold no liability if it does not give the desired results. So act on your own risk.

BLOG/24/2019

The post Unsolicited advice to help make Goafest 2020 better. appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.

I always knew that ‘The Internet Is NOT the Answer’. It is a milestone in the chaotic river of evolution. Life and future will find its own way to correct the follies of technological advancement and misuse. No there is nothing to worry about.

Andrew Keen as an author of ‘The Internet Is NOT The Answer’. has placed a highly polarised viewpoint supported by some proper research and inferences.

His arguments and approach to the proposition is very logical, is supported by data and observations. He readily borrows from various authors, speakers, anecdotes and news items and then collectively presents them in a way, that it is hard not to agree. No doubt that Andrew Keen is seen as one of the net’s early contrarians

He has on his crosswire companies of repute and respect. The Amazon, FaceBook, Google and Instagrams of the world. His argues that Internet not really democratising the world by the accessible, available and many times affordable version of product and services, and is not the cooperative new utopianism, it is a ‘Winner Takes All’  economy of monolith polarised power silos.

There is a lot of pages devoted to the development of the web itself. Other than making his point of classical divergence, for what it was conceived for to where it is now, these pages do not hold much of an interest and at times are an overdo.

In Andrew keen’s world, The internet has ruined markets. Killed jobs. Squeezed jobs. Created billionaires who masquerade their greed under the disguise of misguided vision of ‘making the world better’. He keeps on pushing the argument, that the internet is actually generating the new ecosystem of inequality. And he wisely used the available data points to frame your thinking.

In fact his opening ‘The Question’ sets the tone. He questions the promise of the internet as democratising the good and disrupting the bad and thus creating a more open and egalitarian world. Its evangelists say that more people join the net, more wealth it creates- an infinitely positive loop, an economic and cultural win-win for all its users. However, today when it connects everything and everyone, the promise seems hollow and fake. Internet is, in fact, more of a negative feedback loop in which the network users are ts victims rather than being the beneficiaries. The more we use it, the less economic value it brings. It is the cause of growing polarity between rich and poor and the hollowing out of the middle class.

I love his summarization of Social networks as “Advertisements for Myself.” And honestly Instagram, Facebook and Twitter suddenly seem like it. I share so I exist. I have a point of view, so I exist. And in the process, we end up strengthing the same organisations that are willingly creating a divide.

“Google’s power is increased every time we use it. As a symbiosis of human and computer intelligence, the google search engine becomes more knowledgeable and thus more useful the more it is used. So every time we make a Google search we are, in a sense, ‘working” on improving the product. Even more valuable from Google’s point of view, is what Google learns about us each time we make that search. Like Vannevar Bush’s Memex the google trails beer ‘fade’ and Google for better or worse never forget. … The problem, of course, is that er all are working for Facebook and Google, for free, manufacturing the very personal data that makes these companies so valuable.”

Keen tries to open your eyes to the massive damage the new technology has done. He takes you to Rochester, New York, and present the post-nuclear type environment. It is the company town of Eastman Kodak, which employed 1,45,000 people worldwide. It is the company that has been destroyed by digital technology. People livelihood and future became dark. He warns of many new Rochester. And it is not hard to see the picture.

THE DEBATE

The debate is open, whether the Internet has answers to our problems or it has been creating more problems. It will be simplifying the scene if one was to propose that the Internet is not bad, but the way it is exploited or evolved with not much control is what makes it worse. Frankly, the world has somewhat started to see through the fog and is questioning these giants.

“We think we are using Instagram to look at the world, but actually we are the ones who are being watched. And the more we reveal about ourselves, the more valuable we become to advertisers.” …. “And it’s here that we find the most disturbing flaw in the data factory economy. “Free”, you see, is anything but free. Instagram’s greatest deceit is taking our self-love to its darkest and most twisted economic end…. It creates a surreal economy in which we are not only the creator of the networked product but also the product itself…. The data factory’s core economic value is all the personal information extracted from its free labourers. … It’s you- the innocent bystander, the everyman- who is the victim of something that we neither understand nor control.”

I found ‘The Internet Is Not The Answer’  an exciting presentation of case fact. An emotional triggering of questions in mainspace. But, too much of ranting and raving pushing an evident polarised agenda seems to start bothering the reader after some time

NET TAKE ON ‘THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER’.

Having experienced ‘The Internet Is Not The Answer’, I am now favourably inclined and maybe mentally ready to push myself to read his earlier book ‘The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture’.

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THE CONFUSION:

I picked up the author signed copy of the book ‘The Internet is not the answer’ at the IAA World Congress held at Cxochi in February. Andrew was a speaker there. I am unable to decide if it is his signature on the book or someone has played a prank. Somehow I can’t come to terms with the fact that his sign could be so disorganised.

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THE REALITY.

But, something I must share. When we were growing what the dad said or was written in a book was absolute truth. There were nothing and no-one to question it. Nowadays, when I tell something to my kids, they will invariably ask their Google Uncle is it is right. So I wonder, what happens if Google ever needs to Google.

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ON A LIGHTER NOTE:

Thinking Aloud, ‘The internet is not the answer’ but Papu (RAGA) may have the answer to some questions. Is it time to break Google and Apple and Facebook? Should we stop Amazon journey to become the everything store? Should they be penalised for making things too cheap? Should you have a part of their income paid back as a reward of your labour?

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‘The Internet is NOT the ANSWER’ by Andrew Keen is sometimes engrossing and at times full of data and inferences drowning you in a debate that has no answer. Published by Atlantic Book Company,. 234 pages excluding 50 odd pages of references and endnotes.

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Blog/25/Book/4/2019

The post ‘The Internet is NOT the Answer’, Andrew keen. Book Review. appeared first on Sanjeev Kotnala.