Monday, February 27, 2006

Friday, February 24, 2006

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Monday, February 20, 2006

Saturday, February 18, 2006

It pays to advertise..

The fish, it never cackles

'bout it's million eggs or so,

The hen is quite a different bird,

one egg-and hear her crow.

The fish we spurn,

but crown the hen,

which leads me to surmise:

Don't hide your light, but blow your horn.

it pays to advertise

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Why should I advertise?

Can you do business without advertising?

It looks familiar, often asked questions ,considering the fact that advertising money is spend on a virtually immeasurable platform.

See this story....

"A man lived by the side of the road and sold roasted chicken.

He was hard of hearing so he had no radio. He had trouble with his eyes so he watched no television and read no newspaper, but he sold good roasted chicken. He did however, advertise in the local newspaper telling people how good they were. He stood by the side of the road and cried, 'Buy roasted chocken sirrrrr 'and people bought. He increased his orders and bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.

Then his son came home with am MBA from a city college to help him in trade and then something happened.

His son said, "Father, haven't you been listening to what people are saying? If money stays tight, we are bound to have bad business. There is a big recession coming on, you had better prepare for poor trade, if we stay on only with this business".

The old man thought..... "Well, my son has been to college. He listens to the radio, watches television and reads the newspaper and he ought to know".

So, he cut down on chicken orders given to the supplier. He cut out his advertising and took the money thus saved to venture into new areas like dealing with a local wine his sons friends made, and his sales fell almost over night. After a week it was completely gone and the old man couldnt win anything back..

"You're right son", the father said to the boy. "We are certainly headed for a recession".


Every one in business realise the necessity of advertising, which is the main reason we are carpet bombed with so many messages(The MAD [Message A Day] index in many Indian cities equals that of the west)....... The various ways a business can advertise its products is limitless, and today we no longer call it advertising but Integrated Marketing Communications. In booming business most of them do booming advertising too and when slump appears advertising is the first victim. shouldnt it be be the other way round?.

Shouldnt business spend most of its advertising budget when business is slow and cut back or retain only that level to be heard, when business is good?.

Again it depends on the type of relation the Ad agency and their corporate client enjoys..

it depends on how far the client trusts the agency during the fall..

it depends on how far the agency was also the reason for the fall

it depends on how far they could convince the client about why certain level of advertising should be maintained..

Boom or slump, it pays to advertise...Pulsar didnt look male and masculine until they started saying so.. they said and said and the otherwise front fat, ugly looks encompassed masculinity , suddenly.

Even B2B brands like Intel have made it big by careful branding and ,as part of it careful advertising... most of us havent seen an integrated chip which goes in a PC and yet the world believes that without an 'Intel Inside' mark on their PC ,it aint complete....

It is not only necessary that we do, it also is necessary that we tell it that we have done it...



"The man who fails to advertise just because conditions are a little uncertain is on par with the farmer who refuses to feed his cows because the price of butter has gone down."

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Bedrooms and hidden cams...

It is about CAR.. the much discussed client agency relationship imbroglio... now in India we have a new phase to enter in client agency relationship..The launch of independent relationship experts with their 360 degree tools and cameras ..

These experts will take money from the client and agency to be with them, study them and tell them that they are bad in their relation.Considering that CAR resembles ,Husband and Wife relation such independent relationship experts who will be behind both the partners to judge their relation seems a bit too far away from common sense for me to comprehend.

Sunil Gupta, country head, Aprais India and Sri Lanka (the main expert agency as of now)explains that "Aprais is not an audit firm; it facilitates smooth agency-client partnerships with an honest, unbiased evaluation system in place".

But excuse me gentlemen.......

Isnt it pathetic, to say the least, that I have to hire an external expert and his questionarre to know the strengths,weaknessess ,oppurtunities and threats in my relationship with my partner?

Isnt it tragic ,to say the least ,that I need an outsider to peep into my board room and my bed room to tell me the depth and width of our relationship ?

Isnt it idiotic,to say the least ,that I pay money to an onlooker and so do my client ,to know how good or bad I am in the most strategic of relations in my business?

Aprais they say will "help communication partners to review and compare their performance across brands, geographies and categories using consistent criteria"

But excuse me gentlemen....

Can they not do it themselves?

Or rather shouldnt they be doing it themselves and not allowing an intruder with his camera to record their relation and apparaise it?

Isnt it a shame for you agencies and clients..??

And in any case, if my relation with my partner is not healthy, if it is in the drain, and I dont know the reasons, either I am an ignorant ass or I am pretending sleepy and no god damn apprasier can wake me up with his 360 degrees and tabular sheets...

Excuse me gentle men.....

Have you heard of the proverbial fox who mediated the dispute between two poor goats .....

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

an ad a day..


should I say something?

Welcome Monkeys....

"The first signs of Indian advertising agencies taking a talent shortage seriously are visible. Leo Burnett India, belonging to the Publicis group, has indicated that it will raise entry-level salaries by nearly 50% for all personnel in non-creative functions".

Again... this is a media report, this time from agency faqs. I ,when joined advertising, years back , it was not the highest paying profession but wasnt bad compared to many others like FMCG..Software virtually didnt exist...I remember myself as the only guy who wanted to join advertising from my MBA batch .Now I find many of my students interested ,PASSIONATE as the industry calls it in joining advertising as a profession. They specialise in advertising , do all the ad papers, do summer internships in front line agencies, get the feeling of the industry and come back hoping to get into the dream profession.

But reality bites. A starter , be it clients service or media planning, is offered not more than a paltry sum of 8000 to 8500 per month even by the big daddies of advertising76.. for all the dogs work that beginers are made to do, for all the burden that these poor young lads are made to undergo in the name of induction and familiarising with the industry, the peanuts that the industry throw will not even get monkeys these days, they prefer call centers.

Ad industry have to wake up to the reality that, to attract talent it will have to be competitive with the rest of the world, simply because the rest of the world gives what the talent wants .. ICICI from our campus choose people for 18000 per month and more.. TCS comes with 27000 per month..Advertising cannot match them I know, but simply because the young generation has passion for advertising ,how long will the industry expect them to compromise? How long?

Between all the crocodile tears that the industry honchos shed over non availability of talents, between the blame game between the agency and the client the ultimate loss is for the industry...

in the meantime let the Monkeys smile..

Thursday, February 09, 2006

i will be back

Dear all,

I will be back from tuesday after the gap which my officialdom has imposed on me..

Sabu

Monday, February 06, 2006

Friday, February 03, 2006

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