DigitalPage

Marriages are made in heaven….and Connections over Internet

2012-02-02T01:13:00.000-08:00

The largest convict Internet is an Angel in disguise: One of the nicest things you can say to your partner, "If I had it to do over again, I'd choose you: Again." In the 21st century it can be easily rephrased as, “If I had it to do over again, I’d never choose the same way: Not Again.” Seema’s would-be in-laws blessed her from Chandigarh, as she touched the edge of the webcam from her Los Angeles flat. Seema Kohli, creative head of a leading advertising company and Kaustav Singh, the LA based entrepreneur have decided to tie-a-knot close to December and hence the formality of introducing Seema to his parents was a mandatory. Well the “saath janam ka rishta”…yes marriage was a real heck for the love birds and a trauma for arranged birds or fowls (they can decide it themselves). ‘Beti tum gaana to gaa leti hona na?’…’Tumhe khana to thik thak banana ata hain na?’…These are a few sample Saas-Bahu questions asked by the in-laws (who appear to be Mr. Amitabh Bachchan of Kaun Banega Crorepati) during their visit to her place. While the bride-to-be sits on the hot seat with immense exasperation amidst many aliens, hoping to counter correctly (only she wishes to get at least 4 options with few life-lines). So for Seema, the internet comes as an angel in disguise. She had two lifelines for immediate help….Google the God of Search & off course her would be: Kaustav to help her answer all those queries like cooking, dancing, singing etc. from her mother-in-law.

Marriages are made in Heaven…But so is thunder and lightning: We surely don’t want to decide that. The only concern is that we are in the digital generation and at the click of a mouse, we can find just about anything, including that elusive marriage affair. It’s the most creative way to find, meet and set the plot for even the most difficult social union. And why not; when we can buy the most expensive gadget by trusting the brand and the portal blindly, we can even do the same for our son and daughter. We can believe what our groom-to-be or bride-to-be has to say about themselves over the webcam (they can also sneak-peek at those elaborate profiles on those networking sites). While they are nicely dressed and well behaved in front of that mini camera, we surely don’t take the guarantee of how he behaves in person or how her food tastes when cooked. But it surely gives them a chance to escape the sheer embarrassment. Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have; as for Seema and Kaustav, it’s all about saving time, but for few others, who stays in various parts of the globe, visiting their in-laws can be an expensive & time consuming affair before the “marriage”. Nevertheless, who wants to meet their in-laws so often?” After-all Indian marriages are an expensive and sometimes real expensive affair.

Well it was just a single outlook how the digital communication & connectivity have made our personal relationship & marriage affairs so simple and smooth; the positive attributes of this digital space cannot be covered in the small space of this blog at a time so I will share more such facets as well in coming days. Hence in today’s generation, it’s rightly said, “Marriages are made in heaven…and Connections over Internet”

Tech Savoir-faire : Let’s keep it Simple

2012-01-16T01:16:00.000-08:00

Keep Talking, While Jogging: The common sight that most jogger’s park walker notices now-a-days is that a corporate honcho dressed into those Nike & Adidas sports gear, all set to take a stroll in the park lane, ends up attending yet another phone call. Round one…..tring tring. The Blackberry buzzed so loudly that it distracted all those passing ramblers. He disconnected and proceeded with the walk. Round two…..tring tring….Disconnected. Round three….. tring tring..With utter disgust he took the call and then the evening walk went for a toss. We have left that generation where your grandparents would think a computer virus is an actual bug or your dad thinks net surfing is a type of sport. The world has evolved a lot and so has the digital space (thanks to Apple and Blackberry). Events happening all around the planet are just a click away.

No Kidding, Only Facebooking: As it’s said, an orchestra full of stars can be a disaster. The same goes for our tech savvy generation. The gadget freak world is breaking the pitch between the digital and personal life. According to recent researches, obesity has reached epidemic proportions in India, with morbid obesity affecting 5% of the country's population and more than 25% of the population is overweight. The sadistic element is, we can spare hours in updating the nitty-gritty’s’ of our daily life (gud mrng frnds, going to brush my teeth now - 27 likes; 15 comments) but don’t have time to exercise to reduce those flab. The demand is pretty less, balance between virtual and real world. Like our protagonist you can always do away with the cell phone of yours while going for a walk.

All’s Well that ends Well: So maintain harmony as we don’t want to disappoint our very own Fathers of Technology Mr. Gates & Mr. Jobs. These techno mobility devices help us to be in touch 24x7 and also at the remotest of destinations across geographies but at times we are so enthralled with these devices that we forget our basics and personal life. There will be instances where you will see people crossing roads with their headphones plugged on and vehicles honking at them to give them way. It’s hilarious but dangerous, as you read reports about rail & road accidents every alternate day in your newspaper due to these techno mobility device usages. So do take risks, but wisely. Jump of the cliff but do build your wings on the way down.

Fly High with Digital

2012-01-02T04:13:00.000-08:00

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly. Today this imagination has led me take a huge leap to the generation I have left behind decades ago. It was not just an outdoor game or galli cricket; it was an excitement, thinking which gives me goose bumps even today. Gone are those days when a bunch of hooligans used to assemble at an under constructed rooftop or at the open stretch of a playground, to set free those colorful birds with gleaming tail. Flying kites was such a boost to youngsters; finding a buddy to help fly the kite, signaling him to release it at the right time, paying attention to the wind direction and releasing the string; all this use to be such a thrill.

Someone has rightly said, “Don’t be afraid of opposition, a kite rises against, not with the wind.” Far beyond being afraid we used to enjoy the opposition. It was a unique way of competing with our associates; for a game we couldn’t afford to make our ally turn into a foe. That compelled us to change the rule of taking over and cutting other kites; instead we used to compete as to how far one can take the kite. The ladder of success is best climbed when you levitate together. The impact of this in my life was immense and holds good for me till date.

The world has transformed digitally a lot ever since. With ever increasing nuisance like global warming, population exploits, natural calamity and so on, the world can only be salvaged by being united and the world of digital connectivity helps to do that smoothly. Competition, rivalry, conflicts and misuse of power will direct into nothing but destruction. Taking this small act of flying kite into consideration why can’t we all co-operate with one another to climb up the success steps to make this world a better place to live in.

Long live this world of "Digitized Communication" and "Social Media", which is enabling to connect people across the globe to build one global community and live in harmony!!!

The New Taste of Life - Blackberry & Apple

2011-11-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

As she gets back from office, Sneha is greeted by her maid while all other members are engrossed in their virtual world. As she passes by the drawing room, Sneha finds her spouse Vikram updating his status from his Laptop. Her 9 year old daughter is peering into the LCD TV screen, whereas her 11 years old son is busy with his PlayStation.

The picturesque was to be quite different 5 years back, when people was not so tech pro. Not only the grown ups but also the kids are becoming so gadget friendly these days. Gone are the days wherein the kids would be craving to go to the adjacent park or play area to get into outdoor activities and spending hours in the open air. Today, this is how technology is driving our needs more than we drive them.

Living digital is the trend of the new school in town where the LCD TV screen is replacing the old school black-boards. The crowd in the joggers park is lessening day by day (thanks to the motorized treadmills). Everything is turning out in a mobile state, with the number of mobile phones in the country is growing more than the number of private toilets available for use. Scenario have also changed for the book readers, they no more prefer printed books, instead they have turned E-readers. The entire generation cannot think a life without the Blackberry and Apple iPods/iPads. But life was much simpler and easy going when they were just considered as fruits.

Going for the Winning Game

2011-10-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

What makes you win over your competitors' - "Your Undivided attention on your Goal". You have to decide from the very beginning at what you want to achieve for your Brand. What your client want out of the media investment they are planning for? Hence it will be crystal clear what to expect and how to achieve your goal.
There needs to be a strategic approach towards achieving your objectives. Simple rules can be followed in a sequential manner.
1) Formulate two different options with the top two strategic approaches to achieve the Brand's desired objectives.
2) Evaluate each option with the results that can be made tangible and choose the best option to go ahead with.
3) Never keep all your eggs in the same basket....you never know the risk could be very high.
4) Keep track and monitor results on a regular basis.
5) Keep your client posted about the benefits of the efforts taken by you.
Happy Reading!!

No Social Media, Back to Basics

2010-11-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

Today, everyone is talking about social media strategy, hence decided not to talk about the same as of now. What I will try and do is give less of Gyan and share more of Experience led digital media insights, which will help the Brand marketers to learn and utilize this piece of information, if they find it relevant for their brands. This will be the key to what I plan to communicate with the universe of readers.
To start with, will tell you how various Brand categories have benefited by the use of digital media. But would like to share what basic rules any Brand Marketer should follow, when a Brand is ready to think of trying this new medium which is actually not so new.
Healthy Media Investment: Any marketer should have a healthy budget to try out, ranging from INR 3,500,000 to 6,000,000 for a month long digital marketing campaign to be excuted in the Indian subcontinent. This will give the brand a decent exposure as well as reach in the digital space and the budget will also allow to try various permutations and combinations of reaching out to their audience through various relevant touch points. Another point any marketer should always keep in mind is that the media budget allocated will not be wasted at any point of time. This medium being dynamic in nature and accurately measurable, media money not delivering the estimated results, can be optimised with the help of creative changes to achieved the desired results.
Scientific Strategy Planning: The brand team and the agency, which has strong capabilities of working out a brand favourable digital marketing strategy, should be designing a comprehensive strategy to best fit the objectives decided for the brand both in short as well as in the long term. The designed strategy needs to be implemented flawlessly and within the decided time frame. The basics like a Website or a WAP site of the brand should be in place before going live with a digital media campaign.
Digital Friendly Creative: One should not think that this medium is going to work like any other medium, it surely does not due to the dynamic nature of this medium and secondly this medium can be measured accurately to the last point of a dollar or rupee spent. But generally most marketers does the mistake of using the same offline creative assets like the Print or the TV assets for digital media, hence they fail to achieve the desired results. Digital creatives should be more in tune with, what the audience in the digital space is looking out for, like communicating the compelling reason to interact with the brand's marketing stimulus.
Tools for Measurement: Before planning and executing any digital media campaign, one should make sure that the planned campaign can be measured in terms of keeping a track of media deliverables as well as how the response of the campaign is helping the brand in achieving the desired objectives. Say for example one should be able to say by checking the dashboard, how many people became aware of the brand message during the course of the campaign or how many people landed on the brand's website during a month long web campaign. There should be mechanics to track the basics like IP addresses of users, so that one can analyse the authenticity of the clicks generated during the campaign.
Pre and Post Campaign Evaluation: This aspect helps to evaluate the executed campaign in terms of what was planned or estimated as deliverables and results vs what is actually achieved. Experienced digital experts can often over deliver in terms of the planned deliverables and results, this always comes from a scientific digital marketing strategy and media planning approach for any brand, supported by data and consumer insights. Hence it is imperative to know waht the brand stands for and what the target audience is looking from the brand in the digital space.
Happy Reading!!!