Picnic with the Tiger

Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with the tiger. You might enjoy the meal but the tiger always eats last.

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IPL cumulative viewership declines for the first time

The IPL's fifth season has registered a fall in total viewership and television ratings for the opening six games in comparison to the 2011 season. This includes a decline in cumulative viewership for the first time in the IPL's five-year history.

The cumulative number of people who tuned in to watch the first six games was 90.1 million, down from 101.77 million last year, according to TAM Sports, a division of Tam Media Research, the leading television ratings agency in India. "Cumulative reach" is the number of individuals who watched a channel/programme for at least one minute. The tournament had managed to increase its audience in each successive season till 2011.

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Adieu, decade of turbulence!

They made for much hype, agitation and excitement - the Y2K bug, the dotcom bust, the cell phone, big-buck brand campaigns, middling service notwithstanding ….

Writing a year-end column is challenging enough but to review the decade is a bit like landing up at the Centurion on a damp, murky day straight from the airport and finding Dale Steyn thundering in and suddenly realising that you have walked in to bat without your protector! On the lighter side I was trying to recall just what are the changes that have happened in my own life over the last decade and came up with a sensational discovery.

Ten years ago I used to painstakingly write my column on ruled sheets of paper and my secretary (who is now in Australia perhaps supporting the rejuvenated Aussies) would dutifully key it in. (I used to have a decent handwriting thanks to the plethora of loving and frequent impositions that my old school, Don Bosco Egmore in Chennai, so lavishly bestowed on me.) But today, as I key in my fortnightly 1,500 words religiously on my Apple laptop, my handwriting has gone for a toss. Of course, we could argue endlessly about whether my ability to write columns has improved! But let's move to more dramatic things - the economy, the consumer, brands, communication and life in India over the last decade. What has happened and what seems likely to happen in the near future? Let's take a look at the past before we venture our opinion on the future.

Y2K to Wikileaks

Do you remember the turn of the last century and the excitement, the dread around the Y2k bug and its impact on the software business at least? Well, things have blown over and the winds of change have blown in - something more sensational - Wikileaks. God, has the media gone to town or what, with every politician and statesman making more off-the-cuff remarks than Tendulkar's numerous centuries. The decade witnessed the dotcom boom and consequent bust. I remember (painfully) that our company that was called brand.comm became brand-comm as we went away to lick our wounds after putting all our eggs in the dotcom basket. Speak of the power of brand recall, many of our clients and well-wishers still refer to us as brand.comm. But the World Wide Web has taken over and digital is the medium to be in and everybody and his brother-in-law claims to have a digital strategy.

Of course, while many are denying that digital will actually take over the Indian markets, there is no denying its potential or criticality and the smarter, savvier brands are those that are showing the way rather than following the leaders. In a sense, India had been a follower of Madison Avenue earlier and is following in this medium too, as connectivity and security issues continue to dog us. But make no mistake, India is poised to fly and is just waiting to take off despite the blocks. But India has to discover its own new model which might be a marrying of offline with online. Consider a marriage site such as bharatmatrimony.com which has offline centres where horoscopes are printed and given to anxious and yet technologically challenged parents. India has traversed the mobile space with greater speed than several others and soon there might be a union of the two to move ahead. The future will have to do with harnessing the power of the mobile.

Roti, kapda aur mobile

No analysis of the last decade in India would be complete without the telecom and mobile revolution that has swept through the country. Even small villages in India discovered the pleasures of being in touch with their relatives in far-flung places thanks to the STD booths that littered the length and breadth of this country. Today, thanks to technological innovations it is possible for someone living in the villages to do a video call with family members he has left behind in his quest for employment and livelihood.

But I am getting ahead of myself and missing the mobile services revolutions. This is something India and Indians can be justifiably proud of. Today the mobile population is close to 800 million with 16 million phones being added every month. Mobile phones from China and Taiwan have flooded the market and new brands such as Micromax are giving the leader Nokia a run for its money. Mobile service operators continue to advertise heavily - and often produced outstanding advertising. Brands that readily come to mind are Idea Cellular with their “What an idea, Sirjee!” and the Vodafone campaigns featuring the now famous pug dog and the Zoozoos. There is no doubt, in my mind at least, that mobile services advertising has overtaken the colas in creativity.

The sad reality, though, is that advertising agencies continue to create ads that are independent of the quality of the service. Of course, this strategy is not unique and continues to apply to banks as well. But to return to the mobile services business, while it has continued to be driven by schemes, price offers and tremendous advertising expenditure, there has been a game-changing strategy too. I speak of the Tata Docomo strategy of per second billing which the competitors too had to reluctantly follow, to the delight of the consumer who continues to speak as rapidly and as needlessly as some of our TV commentators.

The retail revolution

It is difficult to discuss the last decade in India without the growth of organised retail as players such as the Future Group.

Trent and Reliance followed the Shoppers Stops and the LifeStyles of the world and went into the smaller towns and realised there was a completely service-starved consumer waiting for them there. Yes, the value format was here to stay and the consumer in the smaller town was growing in confidence and affluence. On October 15, 2010 no less than 150 Mercedes Benzes were sold on a single day at Aurangabad!

After that interesting titbit, let's return to organised retail which, though it may get media attention and interest, accounts for less than 3.5 per cent of the total trade. Not a figure to be sneezed at but nothing to set the Ganga on fire either! Yet, the decade has witnessed the emergence of private labels and the beginning of the tension between brand marketers and large formats, which are pushing brands to be on sale constantly. Brand values are being diluted by each and every sale and hardly anyone visits the company showroom as they find the well-lit, air-conditioned factory outlets a far cry from the factory outlets of yesteryear where you had to check your merchandise and could not exchange it even if it was defective. How times have changed and with it, consumer preferences!

Summing up

The consumers are changing, becoming more affluent and more demanding. They are used to quality, such as the new airports. Service and consumer engagement will be the key. How good is your service offering? Price is important as Big Bazaar has demonstrated. But how well are you positioned? The Nano is struggling as it is seen as a “cheap car”.

Agencies, in their quest to talk about things like “consumer connect”, are forgetting the importance and value of the big idea, fragmenting their resources and trying to achieve too much with too little.

The decade was easily the decade of crises – whether it was the financial crisis or scam after scam that India unearthed. The media too, which was busy playing judge and jury, suddenly found itself in the dock. Crisis management was key and few of the companies seem to have mastered the fine art of crisis management. And the next decade will see more of this. After all, we live in Kalyug, don't we!

Companies that pay lip service to social media and are experimenting with it without their hearts in it or getting their hands dirty are going to be hit, and soon. Companies that harness the mobile phone's capability will thrive.

Agencies continue to bemoan the lack of talent and yet steadfastly refuse to train their personnel. First we pay peanuts and then refuse to train the monkeys that we have brought into the industry, lest they be poached. Why wouldn't clients be frustrated?

Clients, even as they understand and appreciate the need for good creative, continued to haggle on prices even as they complained about the quality of service.

Brands changed their identities, often because they seemed bereft of other ideas to rejuvenate themselves. When will brand owners realise it is more important to get the essence of the brand right rather than merely tinkering with cosmetic things?

And finally, longevity will be key. Brands that endure will have clarity and consistency. In 1999 I was in England for the best World Cup to date and Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar had to rush back to India for his father's funeral. He came back to thrash bowlers all over the park and dedicate his efforts to his deceased father. Now he has scored his 50th test century and dedicated that too to his father. So that's one factor that has been consistent through the turbulent decade.

Consistency and longevity will continue to be key in the next decade as well. Here is wishing you a great year first and a wonderful decade later!

Ramanujam Sridhar, CEO, brand – comm.
Read my blog @ http://www.brand-comm.com/blog.html
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Why Brand India should not forgive or forget

The glory can obscure the ignominy that dogged the Commonwealth Games, but learn we must from our mistakes..

K. Murali Kumar
Brand India, but at what cost? (Above) The closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2010, at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

It was the 14th of October 2010. As I sat in front of the TV set, my eyes glued to the fantastic closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, I felt a sense of pride. Surely the opening and closing ceremonies that we made happen were comparable to anything that the rest of the world may struggle to put together.

The Commonwealth Games ended in a blaze of glory for India. Our athletes did us proud by winning over a hundred medals including silver for hockey, the national game we seem to have forgotten. (It would be churlish to talk about the margin of defeat to Australia — it is much better to talk about how we brown-washed them in cricket). The visiting dignitaries were impressed with our handling of the Games and a few who mattered did speak of India having the capability to host the Olympics in the not-too-distant future. The media too, which had been extremely critical in the build-up to the Commonwealth Games, has thankfully turned its attention to the performance of the Indian athletes who rose to the occasion.

The spiralling Sensex, the medals, and the phenomenal performance of Sachin Tendulkar have all made Indians and the Indian media forget the heartburn and the embarrassment of the last few weeks. They have worn rose-tinted spectacles as India shines again and Brand India is again something to be respected and deified.

Indians are great examples of the statement that public memory is short. Anything will be forgotten and time will heal any insult or enable one to come out of it. But I believe India and Indians should not be carried away by the moment and not forget what happened or forgive those guilty, which is precisely why I admire social activist and actor Gul Panag for planning a protest on the day after the closing of the Games.

Let me jog your memory about what happened just a few weeks ago as India made a collective ass of itself and invited the scorn of the world. If this column were to have been written on September 27 instead of October 14, what would I have written? Here goes…

Blame it on the time

Have you heard the term ‘ Rahu Kalam'? Let me explain for the benefit of those from other parts of India. It is a dreaded 90 minutes of the day when no Tamilian will undertake anything important or auspicious. Most of us know these timings like the back of our hand and often plan our day taking this frightening time of day into our calculations. I have a sneaking suspicion that the Commonwealth Games, which is as big a disaster as one can imagine, must have commenced at the peak of Rahu Kalam! For everything that could have possibly gone wrong with it went horribly wrong. It has been amplified by the media and a critical Indian middle-class, with uninhibited support from our NRIs, educated at IITs and IIMs, who have used the Net to great effect to vent their ire.

I had resisted the temptation to add another 1,500 words to the megabytes already spewed on the subject till now. But then, I was reminded of what the RBI Governor, D. Subbarao, had to say about learning from crises — that they are too good not to learn from. There is a similar need to talk about the learnings from the CWG fiasco and the implications for Brand India and its image, which has taken a severe beating over the last few weeks, never mind how good the salvage operations turned out to be. So, what are the learnings for Brand India?

Brands need champions

Every brand needs a champion. Someone who is passionate about it and will ensure that it succeeds against all odds. Today, the Delhi Metro is something that we are all proud of and maybe the Commonwealth Games needed a E. Sreedharan to see it through. Who is the face of the Commonwealth Games? Suresh Kalmadi? What a misfit! It is like appointing Harbajan Singh and Andrew Symonds as moral science teachers!

Brands too need leadership in crises and if this was not a crisis, I wonder what is! India losing to Ireland in the cricket World Cup next year maybe? So where was the leadership of India? Where was Manmohan Singh and where was the “new, white hope of India”, Rahul Gandhi? He would have been better served making a few visits to the Games Village than to colleges in Bangalore. The Games and Brand India suffered from a lack of leadership and the absence of a champion and the leadership that finally surfaced was clearly a case of “too little, too late”. Who is Brand India's champion?

What's a minor glitch between friends?

Every student of public relations must analyse the entire CWG fiasco in the context of the need to be honest and come clean instead of attempting to sweep the dirt under the carpet. And clearly, there was a lot of muck that was floating around. When the s**t was literally hitting the roof, what was one to make of the statements about “minor glitches” and “Indian standards of hygiene”? When all eyes were on the debacle and the media was out to magnify even minor issues, the blatant misreading of the mood of the nation smacks of either complete arrogance or blissful ignorance, take your pick. Even a junior brand manager in a large, well-run corporation would have shown a greater understanding of the magnitude of the crisis. I daresay that this comes from the larger Indian malaise of “anything can be fixed”. Most things probably can, but not your image. Even if your image is fixed, it would take time, effort and hopefully some strategic direction. It is important for people in branding to gauge the mood of their target audiences and their consumers.

The power of the Net

Some old-timers talk of how the much touted Asian Games too was in complete shambles till the inauguration, of how public memory is short and how soon all will be forgiven and forgotten.

There is a difference. Today we have the Net, where errors of this magnitude are cast in stone and preserved for posterity, unlike 28 years ago. Also India's situation in the world has changed. It is no longer a country that no one cares or writes about. People are watching it and, if I may add, waiting for it to fail. And boy, have we given our critics enough fodder!

A time for action

Let me cut back to the present from the sordid past. I think whatever we have done now in terms of retrieving the situation has been more in the nature of fire-fighting. The damage has been done to Brand India, both in India and globally. Instead of trying to wish it away, I think the sensible option is to learn.

Yes, the focus has shifted to our performances on the field and on the glitz and glamour of the opening and closing ceremonies. But those concerned with India must introspect. If we still keep saying this is a minor glitch then we deserve every bit of criticism coming our way and forget any aspirations of being a brand that the world will look up to. What is more likely is that we will be a brand that constantly provides learning on “what not to do”.

So, where do we go from here? Brand India, learn and move on! And what about the rest of India that is watching from the sidelines? Remember how we almost made a mess of our opportunity to take a place in the sun. If nothing changes, change the custodians of Brand India to someone who truly will care for it, when we still have the chance!

(Ramanujam Sridhar CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.
Find me on Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar & Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri .)

Look who's talking!

And just as it got everyone else talking, so does our columnist about the pros and cons of Volkswagen's experiment with a talking print ad..

Ch. Vijaya Bhaskar
A buyer with the Vento.
Did they ever consider putting in a response device, a number, a Web site? I am certain that while the talking newspaper ad will win an award for media innovation, it is not my idea of a creative ad – and when so much was being spent on the media delivery, should not a little more effort have gone into the creative product?

The 21st of September 2010 started more sleepily than it usually does for me. The previous night I had been watching another meaningless Champions League game late into the night and as is common for me, had difficulty waking up the next morning. (Of course, most people in Bangalore wake up late and blame the weather!) As I made my way groggily downstairs I was greeted by great excitement and loud voices from the elders of the family. The delivery of the newspaper, which itself is a major achievement in Bangalore, could not have created such a tizzy, surely? Yes, it was the newspaper, but with one important difference. The newspaper was talking!

It did not take me long to figure out that the alien voice coming over the black box was exhorting the virtues of the Volkswagen Vento, the new luxury sedan, positioned against the Honda City and incidentally, rated as a superb car by my local car expert. After the excitement died down and we figured out the message after listening to it a couple of times and also with great dexterity figured out how to switch the darn thing off, I started to think. (While thinking may be an automatic process for most people, for me it is a bit like starting the old Standard Herald that we used to have. I need time and effort.)

Enough of me and more of the talking newspaper. Was the talking newspaper the greatest technological and media innovation that India had ever seen as a few humble gentlemen (who were behind it) were claiming? Would it guarantee ‘thought leadership' which Volkswagen wants, as it is quite some distance away from market leadership? Will the phenomenal costs (estimates vary) bring in comparable benefits?

Media the “other creative department”

Creativity is the core competence of the advertising agency, or at least, so it should be. Having said that traditional wisdom suggests that creativity is the sole prerogative of the guys with ponytails and earrings and those young things in torn jeans who nonchalantly blow smoke rings in the pub but who also produce brilliant TV commercials. The media department, however, conjures up images of guys sitting in front of computer terminals, a bevy of spreadsheets in front of them, constantly speaking on the phone. These guys also have the admirable quality of being able to arm-twist the poor guys who sell space. But the media department is not supposed to be creative. They are brilliant backroom boys who will get you fantastic positions, mouth-watering deals and work with crazy deadlines.

It was this perception and role that DDB Needham was trying to counter in the Nineties by exhorting media to be the “other creative department” and come up with pathbreaking innovations. And the Volkswagen Vento ad is just that. A fantastic media innovation, a logistical masterpiece involving two of India's most dominant newspapers, The Hindu and The Times of India, reaching out to a small matter of 22 lakh people whose reactions ranged from complete surprise to total shock and anger. (I am ignoring the few who dutifully called the cops.) You could love the innovation or hate it, but you could not ignore it, at least till you figured out how to shut it off!

The creative/ media divide

While people in advertising are in the communications business, they are very poor communicators internally. Historically media would get in at the last stage, after the creative had been done, and tell the client service that there was only money for a half-page ad in magazines, not the four-colour spread that the creative guys had conceptualised! While I am exaggerating to make a point, I must state that my example is from the days of the full-service agency where client servicing, media and creative used to work in adjoining cubicles in the same agency and yet not talk to each other. Today with “unbundling” the task has become even more complex as creative and strategy are being done by one agency whilst media are being bought by a media house. When people have difficulty in communicating within the same agency then imagine the confusion likely to arise when they work for different agencies!

It is in this context that I am intrigued by the Vento ad. Whose idea was it? Was the creative agency part of the whole process? Given the current scenario, I have no hesitation in commending the process of innovation. I wish it shows the way to a whole host of others who are continuing to do mundane, mechanical work, day after day.

What about the message?

R. Ravindran
The talking Volkswagen ad in The Hindu

It has often been said that the message is the medium and there is no doubt that the medium has been used to great effect in this case. The message itself is fairly straightforward. It says the car has the best-in-class German engineering, so much so that the engineers who designed the car feel bad when they watch the car being driven away.

Of course, this is integration, in the sense that it is the same message that is being used across media, whether it is TV or print. But could it have been done more aesthetically? Maybe with music? And did they ever consider putting in a response device, a number, a Web site? I am certain that while the talking newspaper ad will win an award for media innovation, it is not my idea of a creative ad – and when so much was being spent on the media delivery, should not a little more effort have gone into the creative product?

Some more questions

Even though I have been in advertising for as long as I can remember and even if I love (some) car advertising, I must confess that advertising has limited relevance to the buyer. Speaking from the experience of one who has bought several cars in the last two decades (my friend says I change cars like some people change clothes) it does seem obvious to me that it is all about ‘word of mouth' and user experience. But car manufacturers spend millions of rupees on advertising like this and very little on the online space which is becoming increasingly important. And how many people in India can afford a luxury sedan? Mind you, this is not a corporate message or a message about the small car, but about a luxury car!

At the end of the day

Having gone on a bit about the negative side of the ad, I do realise that it is important to have a sense of perspective. There is no denying the impact of the new advertisement for the Vento. It was unexpected and caught a few of us napping in more ways than one. It must have certainly made the other car manufacturers sit up and take notice, for deep down they must know that their own efforts in the marketing innovation space have been nothing to write home about. As it is said correctly, the true leaders will compete for share of mind and thought leadership rather than mere market leadership. Volkswagen, through its earlier ad for the Polo, had also created waves, so it has continued to do things differently in India. And it is not merely a case of innovative advertising, for Volkswagen historically makes damn good cars and I am certain that the Vento is just that and the advertising has certainly worked in my case as my next car will most certainly be a Vento!

Here is hoping that my wife who is the decision-maker in our house (as in most houses) is reading this column!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.

Find me on Facebook: facebook.com/RamanujamSridhar & Twitter: twitter.com/RamanujamSri .)

Crisis? Stay cool!

We live in difficult times and the survivors need to have a strategy in place and, more importantly, keep their cool..

Everything is ‘breaking news' even if it does not qualify as news - forget the fact that the only thing it breaks is poor victims' hearts.

In the eye of the storm: Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag.

In the Sixties when I was a young kid, I had the onerous responsibility of reading the newspaper to my grandmother or telling her the highlights of the day as depicted in the Tamil newspaper of that day and age.

The headlines were graphic and everyday there were delightful headlines (to me, at least) with sound effects and gory details of how a person was stabbed or how another man's wife was abducted. I must confess that because of my lack of interest in politics, I would never read out the stuff to her. In fact, if I was to believe the newspaper, there was never a dull moment in a Madrasi's life!

My imagination would go bonkers at all the stuff that I was reading out to her and I would look anxiously at my grandmother, wondering what her reaction might be to all the “sax and violins” that was the order of the day. She would look at me calmly and say, “All this is bound to happen. We live in Kalyug.” Of course, this sounded quite dramatic and ominous when it was spoken in Tamil. I have neither the earthy wisdom of my grandmother nor her stoicism, yet, when I see some of the news from the world of business, politics and sports that is making the headlines today, I am reminded of her prophetic words.

Here is a sample of the news that is rocking the world. BP, a once revered company, has suddenly found its reputation rocked by the oil spill and its image completely tarnished by its harried CEO telling journalists that he “just wanted his life back”. He got it back alright as he lost his job. The charismatic and successful CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd, had to resign over a sexual harassment investigation.

Closer home in Karnataka, an Infosys employee was accused of murdering his wife and promptly invited suspension from the company. The State's Labour Minister beat up a common man who overtook him on the road and obstinately refused to apologise, even as the hapless Chief Minister intervened and did so.

The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah

Up North, the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, had a finely polished shoe thrown at him. As the Commonwealth Games continues to break new records in corruption every day, it has moved from the front pages, replaced by more exciting stuff that is happening every day all around the country and the world. In cricket, Virender Sehwag was denied his century in a one-day match against Sri Lanka thanks to an overzealous bowler bowling a huge no ball (he almost tread on the batsman's toes). The bowler was given a one-match ban with everyone and his mother-in-law getting into the act and offering sanctimonious statements about the ‘spirit of the game'. The only spirit that one can associate with modern day cricket is being provided by the sponsors, but that is a different story.

Is public memory short?

When I see all the mayhem and chaos that seems to follow our lives so easily, I am reminded of that comedian of old who used to jump up and down and ask “ Yeh kya ho raha hai?”, though I wonder if there is anything even vaguely comical about all that is happening around us and is assaulting us from every possible media vehicle. It must be conceded though that life of yesteryear was hardly as complex as it has become in today's day and age.

People doing the darkest deeds were still secure in the knowledge that they would quickly get a ‘second life', which would begin soon enough as public memory continued to be short, and sooner rather than later one of their contemporaries would outdo them in villainy and, thankfully, make their current misdemeanour pale in comparison. Not today, as thanks to the Internet, everything, if not carved in stone, is at least preserved for posterity, coming back to haunt the poor perpetrator (if one can be described that way) at the unlikeliest of times.

If I needed to find out what happened to the CEO of BP in 2010 in the year 2060, I would not have to visit the dusty archives of a newspaper office but just surf the Net. Yes, today's crisis will not go away easily but, perhaps, return to haunt companies and individuals long after their deeds are done and dusted.

Picnic with the tiger

In my cub years in communication, I read with interest what the renowned columnist Maureen Dowd said: “Wooing the press is an exercise roughly akin to picnicking with a tiger. You might enjoy the meal but the tiger always eats last.” I thought that India was different and in any case the tiger was an animal that was facing extinction, so why worry about the media that was out to get you. But the rules have changed with so many newspapers, magazines and television channels vying for attention. Everything is ‘breaking news', even if it does not qualify as news, forget the fact that the only thing it breaks is poor victims' hearts.

So what do some of today's editors do? They twist news around, put words into people's mouths, sentence the accused even before the slow arm of the law has a single hearing, attribute motives where none exist and either glorify or deify people. Liberalisation has reared its ugly head as far as reporting is concerned as most people will do anything for rating points and readership (this newspaper excluded) and journalistic ethics is banked with the same ease as politicians bank their ill-gotten gains in Swiss banks.

So it is hardly surprising that crises happen readily, multiply like the Indian population of old and stay permanently in the public memory thanks to the Net. So what should individuals and corporations do? Can they escape the noose they have created for themselves and that the media has so carefully and painstakingly tightened?

Preparedness the key

Tylenol, the over-the-counter drug that Johnson & Johnson had to recall several years ago.

Even today, when people discuss crises that hits companies, there is a reference to Tylenol and to Johnson & Johnson, the company once under siege, which actually turned the crisis around, if not to come out smelling like roses, at least with its image intact as a concerned corporate citizen willing to accept the problem, face it head-on and climb the slow, arduous way to the top. I wonder how many more case studies we could talk of with regard to companies that have ridden crises with a comparable degree of success and most certainly not in the Internet age. Is there a method to this madness? What must companies do? Can they do anything at all? Yes, I strongly believe they can. Here's how.

More and more CEOs are going to be in the firing line of media and activists. They need to be prepared and, more crucially, prepare for crisis. I often think CEOs are so full of themselves that they frequently shoot their mouths off and themselves in the foot in the bargain. The CEO of BP is a case in point.

In my opinion PR agencies have a role to play and must get into the CEO chambers more often than they are in the cubicles of corporate communication managers. The question remains, however, whether PR companies are ready for this challenge. If they are not, then they must get ready to assert themselves with clients, who need to be led in crisis, but often enough are not. I do know that companies prepare for crises too and the better-run companies have programmes in place for eventualities of all sizes and shapes.

So how prepared is your company? How open is your CEO to listen and how ready is your PR company to handle the crisis? How good are their relations with the media? Can they bank their goodwill to defuse the crisis? Can companies that are at fault own up when they are wrong? Can the PR companies advise their clients to come clean? It helps to be honest. BP might have learnt a thing or two from Johnson & Johnson.

My vote goes to Abdullah

It is easy to clutch at straws but I did feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel amidst this entire crisis and some learning for us. I admired Abdullah for saying he was glad that it was not a stone that was thrown and just a shoe. He had the good sense and if I may add, patience, to call the shoe thrower for a private meeting, spent an hour with him and sent him back to his native village in his private aircraft or was it helicopter. Clearly, he had won over the aggrieved man with his charm. Now how many CEOs would have done that?

Yes, we live in difficult times and the media will ensure that the difficulties continue. The survivors will have a strategy in place and more importantly keep their cool.

So how cool are you?

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf. He blogs at www.ramanujamsridhar.blogspot.com.)

The young lady from Boribunder

I grew up in the sixties in Madras (as it used to be called in those days) and I like everyone else in the city grew up on “The Hindu”. It was said half jokingly and half seriously that the easiest way to create chaos in the lives of Tamils like me, was to replace our morning cup of coffee (that we drank in steel tumblers] with a mug of tea, and replace our morning paper with something else! Our whole day would go for a six, or so we believed. I am certain too that Bengalis were similarly attached to ‘The Statesman’, people from Delhi to ‘The Hindustan Times’ and people from Bombay were avid readers of the ‘Times of India’. While all these newspapers continue to attract readers and be important in their lives, the Times of India has moved to a completely new orbit. It has become a brand that has become the envy of not only the rest of India, but the world as well. What makes the old lady from Boribunder” as the paper used to be referred to the dominant force that it has become? Let me try to analyze its success as someone who is passionate about brands and branding.

150 years young

The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce as it was originally called, was renamed the Times of India in 1861. Even as brands struggle to remain young and contemporary. The newspaper, like Coke and Pepsi has managed to remain relevant to generation of readers, and perhaps its greatest strength has been its ability to attract young readers. Of course, at the risk of boring you to death, I can tell you that India is a young country and the brands that crack the youth market will rake in the big bucks as the newspaper has done with desperate ease, year after year. The Times of India is a brand for the young and if one may add, for the young at heart. And let me tell you, that it is not easy to achieve this as many brands have stumbled in their endeavours to remain young, and later generations have ruthlessly rejected brands that they feel are dated or old with comments like “fuddy duddy” and “my father’s brand”. The simple test of the brand’s success would be to just observe how the family reaches out to a choice of papers. My sons who are in their twenties normally reach out to grab the Times of India first amongst the five newspapers that we subscribe to. I am sure too that this is a phenomenon that operates in many households through the length and breadth of this country. And what about the corporate world, how do they view the Times of India? A few days ago we organized a press conference for a large client at Delhi. There were no less than 67 personnel from the media for the Press Conference. While we were delighted at the attendance, the client still had a problem, for the representative from the Times of India was not present for the conference (as he was taken ill). I have heard enough clients focus only on the Times of India to the exclusion of all other newspapers. Clearly the paper has value.

Engaging the local reader

The Times of India might be the largest national newspaper in India but to me it is a truly regional newspaper with a national masthead. Let me explain .The paper might have its strongest presence and origin in Mumbai but it has managed to make waves in every part of India and is being seen as a local paper in that market as it has involved itself totally and actively with local, regional issues. Take the case of Chennai, the latest market where it has made its foray - it encouraged a lively debate on “jallikattu” a controversial subject in Tamil Nadu in a manner in which even local newspapers too might not have been able to conceptualize.

Product or newspaper?

There is a human side to the paper as well and some of its initiatives like teach India and Lead India have resonated strongly with its readers as its recent initiative to bring the people of India and Pakistan together. Clearly the brand has done things that have made it a thought leader and an opinion leader. Yet I must end with a slight sense of regret. The brand is a newspaper after all and to me a newspaper is not just a product to be marketed, but a product that has to be guided by editorial policy. It is here that I have a reservation with ideas like Private treaties and Media net. I am sure the paper has its reasons for what it is doing and after all “who is perfect”?

Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of “Googly-branding on Indian turf.”

The human side of branding

There is a lot more to branding than identity, advertising and public relations. Brands also need to get in touch with their human face.

I want to build my brand.”

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard this statement in the 11 years since we started brand-comm, a consulting company dedicated to building brands. And yet, as is to be expected, people have different expectations from branding and the entire process of branding. The next steps to these statements usually follow one of the following courses of action. ‘I think our identity is dated and today's consumers are young, so let's change it, and shouldn't we be thinking global?' This is good news for international brand consultants and design experts as they instantly see (million) $$ signs. The identity change is announced with great fanfare and it usually goes down like the Indian team went down in Zimbabwe — with scarcely a whimper — as nothing except the identity has changed and the brand is still the same boring brand.

Another alternative is to try to build corporate image through a high-profile TV commercial, probably shot in New Zealand, but without the benefit of a core idea that defines the essence of the brand. “The execution will be clutter-breaking” says the agency Creative Director. The brand promise is not delivered, after all “Yuvarajs” exist in corporate life too!

Another way forward is to hire a public relations firm which goes hammer and tongs at the media — organises one-on-ones, speaker and photo opportunities — all of which generate intense interest about the MD in cocktail parties and amidst head-hunting firms but nothing much happens to the brand. And today there is another option as well.

Sponsor some high-profile IPL team and even if the team does not win a single match, the players dutifully land up at post-IPL parties wearing your brand on their sleeves (if not their hearts) on them.

I know that I am perhaps sounding cynical, a not unexpected reaction from someone my age, but that is hardly the impression I wish to convey or the point I wish to make. There is a whole lot more to branding than identity, colours, TV advertising, sponsorship, events and public relations. While I am not denying the importance or value of these, I think there is something more basic, more obvious and yet, perhaps, more difficult to manage, which is why companies seem to spend so little time on this and that is what I would call the “human side of branding”. Here are a few examples of how companies, however big, get this important aspect of their functioning woefully wrong.

The first impression …

… has the potential of being the worst impression. You enter an impressive building, exquisitely designed, wonderfully architected with a façade that could make you stop in your tracks. You cross the manicured gardens and enter the plush reception. And whom do you meet? A security guard in place of the young, efficient, smiling, helpful receptionists that people of my age were used to seeing earlier, but then this is perhaps the order of the day in most companies.

Of course, some of these security guards are smart, even speak good English and can be courteous enough, as was the security guard at the Oberoi in Bangalore last week. He welcomed me in the traditional Indian way. But many are not the way they ought to be and you can easily imagine the impact on the brand when they are found wanting. Of course, I am fond of repeating my experiences of having been welcomed in a company by a security guard whose company name tag read “Doberman”. Obviously, you can understand my nervousness! Did the Chairman of the company ever walk past this, I wonder, or does he have his own private elevator that enables him to bypass this welcoming committee?

You don't call me,

I will call you

Another quick reality check for a brand is the way the company answers, or should I say does not answer, the phone. How often do we get the impression that the phone is ringing and the operators are having a good time, when the phone is actually busy?

Let's assume that you have achieved the holy grail of actually getting through to the company and to an operator who puts you on hold. Of course, you may be calling the company not because you are in love with it, but probably because it has goofed and you want to give it a piece of your mind.

What happens then? You are put on hold and the company's jingle of how it is God's gift to the human race goes on endlessly like the maiden overs that Nadkarni used to reel off and you are seething. So what is your view of the brand at that particular point in time? Top-of-mind for all the wrong reasons is probably your reaction.

Let's move on to a slightly more sensitive topic of company or brand culture. Have you ever tried getting in touch with the CEO of a large company? Life seems to be one long meeting; senior people are constantly in meetings, unreachable despite being online 24 x 7. They never take calls, respond to text messages or answer mails. After all, they are busy. I remember my first boss telling me “you are paid to be busy”.

But are these captains of industry so busy as to be completely unresponsive, sometimes to calls even from their friends and former colleagues? But what happens then? The company takes its cue from the CEO and soon you have a company that is completely, totally inaccessible, at times even to the media.

If, for whatever reason, the company needs you, it will call you a few hundred times! Do these companies ever bother to assess what the rest of the world has to say about them? Do they even care?

And this is precisely how the brand comes across to the rest of the world and I cannot imagine the ignored parties being quiet about the company and its total lack of response. Surely there has to be a better, more sensitive, more humane way of doing business that can impact the brand and the corporate image positively?

A better way to recruit?

Bangalore is the software capital of India, if not the world, and if you were to believe everything that you read about these companies then you would be convinced they are the greatest places to work in. They probably are.

Make no mistake about this, I am a great admirer of Indian software companies and yet here is an incident that made a profound impression on me, even if it had me a bit concerned about how the brand was getting it wrong.

I am going to talk about one of the top software companies in India if not the world. They needed a director for their brand and I had with great difficulty organised one of my juniors from IIM for this; she was the head of a large advertising agency and went for the meeting at my insistence.

There were many calls reminding her of the meeting. She went to the complex and found herself with hundreds of engineers looking for a job. She also found herself at the venue much earlier because the company wanted her to fill up a form! She was hopping mad, and to add insult to injury, it was not the HR head that she met but her lackey.

Clearly, the company was better suited to recruit thousands of engineer trainees but was probably not geared to deal with a senior employee, particularly someone who needed to be wooed. Luckily the lady in question did not have a blog or she could have told the world about the company and its manner of recruitment.

There is nothing wrong with the company, its financial results or even its image. It is still admired and will continue to be admired but such incidents can and will hurt the brand. But then someone has to be aware of the implications of the acts of commission and omission of each and every one of its employees and we are not talking of CEOs here.

Let me end this piece with a quote by Lee Clow: “Managing brands is going to be more about trying to manage everything that your company does.” Yes, everything that your company does! Every action that every employee or your outsourced partner does or does not do continues to impact your brand.

Let's continue this discussion next fortnight. But in the meanwhile can you think about how good your brand's human side is? Think about it and write to me about it at brandline@thehindu.co.in.

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.)

Not a memorable year for advertising

The advertising industry seems to no longer have an affinity for storytelling. As advertising moves down the value chain, inventive marketing is taking charge..

On a wintry morning in Bangalore as I sit wondering how advertising and marketing were in the year gone by, my mind wanders as it usually seems to do on wintry mornings (and just about any time). This time my undisciplined mind went to a commercial of the early Nineties for Band Aid, made by Johnson & Johnson. A kid has hurt himself playing football and his father who is a doctor (incidentally the model looks amazingly like Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director of Titan Industries) tells him of the need to use Band Aid and how the injury should not be left open and the boy repeats the messages mechanically, his mind obviously on something else. Both of them leave the frame and as we expect the commercial to end the boy comes darting back into the frame and shouts, ‘ Bhoolna math match jeet gaya!' (‘Don't forget we won the match!').

Strikingly, perhaps the most significant recall factor of 2009 for me is the fact that India is the No. 1 test team in the world and was also the one-day leader for approximately 24 hours! Of course, being the karma yogi that I am, I shall resist the temptation to talk about the BCCI and its enormous capability to botch up anything and its phenomenal foresight in scheduling a colossal number of two test matches in the next 12 months for our all-conquering team. I shall stay with the yearly review that you are so patently and ardently (!) waiting for!

The mother of all crises!

The US and the Western world would like to forget 2009 in a hurry and wish it would end soon but the happenings in September 2008 spilled over for most of the year and had far-reaching implications for many countries, including India. Let me stay with the impact on advertising during the year that is chugging to a painful close. I think the year served more than ever to remind us of the fact that the truly Indian agency is a rarity and every second agency is part of a global network. The headquarters of global agencies panicked, and how! It is fair to say that India in real terms was not as badly affected as the rest of the world. But this did not prevent extreme reactions.

Many years ago I went to Hong Kong for a DDB Needham global conference and country after country presented. The order was usually North America, UK, France, and Germany and somewhere towards the end was India. India was not in the picture. Thankfully that has changed; India is much higher in terms of importance and visibility. But I wonder how many of the agencies' heads here in India realise that or, more critically, have the courage and the will to take on their global bosses? Although it seems a bit outspoken, I wonder if many of the agency bosses in India are in the last stages of their advertising careers and do not wish to assert themselves or take the trouble to educate their network partners on how we were not as badly off as the rest of the world and why the same cost-cutting strategy should not be adopted here.
India was administered the same medicine as the rest of the world, never mind the fact that it did not have the same degree of sickness. There was a ban on recruitment, travel, training … you get the drift? Agencies for once took their eyes off the headline and focused on the bottom line.
I daresay agencies treated talent in a harsh manner, to put it mildly, and let a number of people go. It is perhaps correct to say that the industry has alienated a whole lot of talent which was unable to understand or appreciate the steps being taken. In a sense it has been beneficial as it has spawned a few start-ups of disenchanted creative people who quite rightly want to do their own thing. Of course, agency heads, like their clients in the IT industry, kept parroting that they were only asking non-performers to leave and were improving the quality of their talent. I did feel sorry for the people in the advertising business, some of whom lost their jobs, forgot about raises and were not even trained during the year as all budgets were frozen.

The media struggles too

If advertising is ailing can media be far behind? Media has become the truly lowest common denominator and television is the primary offender as media woos eyeballs and revenue. Television seems to be going the David Dhawan way and we seem to revel in the era of ‘manufactured reality'. The Raakhi Sawant show is a case in point. People, it seems, are avidly switching on to things that you love to hate.
Thankfully, cinema, which people used to castigate readily, is moving up in creativity, technique and a lot of young talent is moving into it. What about news channels and their enormous capability at branding non-events as ‘breaking news?' I guess one of the commercials for the Hindustan Times where an anguished mother has a child in hospital thanks to defective medicine while an intrusive reporter asks her obnoxious questions best sums up the pathetic state of the channels.

About newspapers, the distressing trend of ‘paid editorial' is spreading like the AIDS virus. Recently when we were speaking about possible PR coverage for one of our clients, a prominent challenger newspaper, not the leader as one would suspect, asked “Why do you want PR coverage for this client? In any case they are not advertising in our paper, surely our readers are not the target audience?” I think the newspaper industry needs to step back for just a moment and consider its very reason for being. The world has enough products and services that are marketed mindlessly, often without the slightest consideration for truth, honesty and the consumer. Must the newspaper be just another product like these or must it stand for truth and fairness?

What about creativity?

The advertising industry seems to have lost its penchant for storytelling. Of course, the Zoozoos were a beacon of light in an otherwise dark and often depressing creative environment.
Mind you, this is not to ignore some isolated campaigns which still stood out from the clutter. But this has been a lean year for creativity as perhaps it has been for Ishant Sharma who was the greatest thing that happened to Indian fast bowling not so long ago.

There were very few campaigns that made one stand up and cheer as David Ogilvy would say, or make one wistfully say, “I wish I had written that.” There was the trend of some brands such as Idea Cellular and Tata Tea trying to tap into the social consciousness of the country, particularly of youth which may have some implications in terms of future possibility.

Some of the digital agencies used the freedom of the medium to provide outstanding creatives.
If one were to sum up the mass media creative, we probably delivered a plateful of advertising that one did not want. There was too much advertising and too little engagement, as an expert said, and advertising runs the risk of killing the reason why we are watching the media.
I think this is affecting the customer adversely. Have you ever tried to watch an interesting Hindi or Tamil movie on TV on Sunday? More than ever advertising needs to remind itself that at the best of times it is an interruption. People do not switch on the TV to watch the ads or buy a newspaper to see the ads, unless, of course, they want a job or wish to sell their apartment.

The advertising of today which tries so hard to be different is actually getting commoditised. While a good trend is that people from advertising have moved to films and are directing noticeable, popular films - the most visible of them being Balki and his second film Paa – clients too must realise that unless they give their agencies elbow room, the best of them will drift away to pastures where their creativity is recognised and rewarded and that will be disastrous for the industry as a whole.

Innovation the name of the game

Obviously advertising is moving down the value chain and is becoming more low-involvement as a career, which is in fact affecting the overall perception of the industry. Tata DoCoMo revolutionised the mobile services market with its per-second billing. Where is the innovation from advertising? I know that agencies will talk about roadblocks that they have created for Volkswagen and Hindustan Unilever. My take on this is slightly different. Are agencies being self-indulgent or are customers noticing these innovations that agencies are so proud about?
And as a prospective customer I am taken aback at the advertising for the Volkswagen Beetle here in India.

Will I pay over Rs 22 lakh after seeing this ad or even ask for a test drive? Is this aspirational? What a fantastic opportunity to work on an iconic brand! Has the opportunity been seized? I wonder. I remember seeing the room that Bill Bernbach used to work from in Madison Avenue.
It was like entering a shrine, so much was the aura of creativity around the man. The key question in DDB in those days whenever a campaign was being designed was to ask themselves the question on the lines of ‘What would Bill say?'
We have no way of knowing what Bill would have to say about the creativity of Indian advertising in 2009, but something tells me that the advertising legend who created campaigns which conformed to the 3 Ss of ‘simplicity, surprise, smile' might have for once been ‘stumped' for an answer!

(The writer is the CEO of brand-comm and the author of ‘Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.')

Image Source: NorthMediaHigh

Keep smiling, things can’t get worse!

The advertising industry is going through tough times. But it’s important to take the mind off the gloom..

Yes, the time is ripe for some cheer. Today I am able to talk about some of my experiences and actually laugh about them. It is time perhaps to recall what my first boss in advertising said: “Keep your sense of humour, otherwise you will go mad in this industry.”

Times are bad! How often have we heard this in recent times? Throw in the media adding their two bit, talk of layoffs, salary cuts, increasing client cribs and reduced retainers, and it seems advertising’s cup of woe is brimming over. I know that other industries too have their own horror stories but let me stay with the advertising industry as I spend so much of my time in this industry and am confronted by so many gloomy faces around me, I thought that I need to try to entertain them and you too, dear reader, for your patience over the years, with a few of the things that have happened to me in my long (there I go again) life in advertising.

It seems now that it is not only the industry that is going through doom and gloom but the whole country! The Indian cricket fan too has joined the depressed bandwagon, for as I write Australia has just scraped past a rampaging Pakistan to throw India out of the champion’s trophy and the TV media is going hammer and tongs at yesterday’s darling, M. S. Dhoni. Yes, the time is ripe for some cheer. Today I am able to talk about some of my experiences and actually laugh about them; as time, they say, heals everything. It is time perhaps to recall what my first boss in advertising said: “Keep your sense of humour, otherwise you will go mad in this industry.” Though lots of people might consider me a bit potty, to put it mildly, I have, I believe, managed to retain my sanity, if not my hair. Today many of the people I am writing about are no longer my clients, which probably explains their prosperity and my penury, but I remember them fondly and thank them for bringing laughter into my life and also teaching me a few lessons in life.

Bring on the music!

When I started the Bangalore office of Mudra in 1987, I used to go around on my TVS Suzuki motorcycle, thereby bringing disrepute to the advertising profession as I must have been the only branch manager of a large agency who was zipping around on a motorcycle, or so I believed. Of course, I need to slip in the reason why I was using it. The reason was simple. I could not afford a car; but more critically I used to handle the account of TVS Suzuki in my earlier agency and to me what David Ogilvy said was gospel truth: “You’d better use your client’s products!” he would thunder. On the lighter side I used to wonder if the agency which handles the client does not use the product then who else will! But less of me and my asides and more of what happened.
The two client service personnel in the agency at that time, my account supervisor and I, would go spinning around on my motorcycle with our bag full of layouts and our hearts full of hope. Business was scarce and we spent a lot of time knocking on doors with scant success. But we did get the odd, small assignment. One such was being asked to do a radio spot for one of our clients — a local cement manufacturer in Bangalore, who belonged to one of the largest business families in India.

The greatest claim to fame of the managing director of the company was that he had married into the illustrious family and I must confess that it was difficult for me and my colleague to keep a straight face as the client briefed us about the project on hand. “The mugic must be good,” he gushed. “People like mugic,” he pronounced “Do you have someone who will compose the mugic?” he asked. Both my colleague (who is today the COO of a large marketing company) and I were IIM products, and we were probably a bit vain about our management qualifications not to mention our English accents. We went down the lift laughing at the poor man’s accent and even as we were getting ready to start our trusted steed our client came down, entourage et al, with two people ready to open the lift door, and the car door of the latest Mercedes Benz of that time! Yes, we learnt an important lesson that day: “It is not your accent that matters as much as the family you marry into!” I would have cheerfully traded my accent for a Benz if anyone wanted it, but life is not always as simple as it seems, is it?

Just play the commercial!

My clients came in all sizes, shapes and hues. Some spoke with clipped British accents to the utterly desi ones whose lack of knowledge of English was more than compensated by their earthy wisdom and unerring knowledge of the consumer and the market. We were to produce a commercial for this client and came out with what I thought was a pretty good commercial.
I was to present the commercial and like all good client service people of that time I got my trusted slide projector out. I need to quickly tell you that in those days we used to rely on the 35 mm slide projector for support (just like the drunkard who leans against the lamppost more for support than illumination). Today, of course, we rely on the PowerPoint for precisely the same reasons, but back to the presentation. I got ready to play my regulation 40 slides with the background, the target audience, the creative strategy ... Sounds familiar? I launched into my pitch with all the eloquence of a passionate account executive who is not allowed to speak at home.

Barely was I on to slide three when the client got up ... “Mr Shiridhar, please stop,” he said. I stopped, confused and bewildered and looked at him, waiting for direction like all good client servicing people do. “Tell me, Mr Shiridhar,” he said, “are you going to stand in front of every television set in the country and make this presentation before our commercial comes on air? Nahi na, so just play the commercial.” He was absolutely right as clients usually are and I saw the wisdom of what he was saying. How often do we get carried away by the power of our own rhetoric and the colour of our slides and forget that it is all about the commercial that the consumer gets to see eventually. Yes, “show and tell’ is the name of the game. Your commercial must entertain and sell without all the bells and whistles that precede it when you are presenting to the client.

Presentation for dessert!

The late Eighties were the days of the great Indian IPO. Everyone and his brother-in-law were going public. The big cons were granite and aquaculture and the hotbed was Hyderabad where rumour had it that the moment the company went public the first capital investment the company would make would be buying a Mercedes for the MD! But back to our own travails! We were chasing one such IPO and the company did not even have an office. So we were asked to present at the client’s house.

Shamelessly we went and the joint family was having dinner. My favourite image of the ad agency is like that of my retriever with its tongue hanging out longingly, so much does new business mean to us agency people! There were only 50 people, children running around, and mayhem, a bit like the Fortune cooking oil commercial that one sees on TV.

Before the dessert we set up our projectors for the entertainment! I got ready to present, only to realise that I was the odd man out as my client probably spoke only a few words of English. The daughter-in-law was the smartest one and she was quietly managing the show and the company. So my colleague, who is the president of one of India’s top three agencies today, bailed me out by presenting our great advertising strategy and the creative in chaste Hindi (or so I presumed as I did not understand a word of what he said). I personally believe the presentation was too good for the client as we did not get the business and boy, was I glad about that as the company went under a little later! Sometimes we do get some things right, even by accident!

I am not sure if you are feeling as good as I am after reading this, but at least I am sure I have gotten your mind off the gloom, and never mind, we will beat Australia 7-0 when they come here!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of Googly: Branding on Indian Turf.)