From me...

Dear all..
I am going through the mental trauma of shifting my job. I will remain in academics but am moving out of SCMS-Cochin which was my life line for the past four years and joining IBS-Cochin. My blogging has got affected as has my normal life.Until I regain the pace, let me with your permission take a break....

I will be back soon, and with a bang...

Sabu

PR and the Stupidity ruling..

One of the things that can harm the image of a company is to let poorly trained staff send out letters to customers, which are breathtaking in their sheer stupidity. The particular example set out below refers to bank, but this quality of output could equally have come from other types of company dealing with consumers.

The customer e-mailed her bank with a simple request for a new book of deposit slips for her account, as her old one was running out.

In response, the bank e-mailed back this amazing waffle:
"We welcome the opportunity to assist you with ordering some deposit books for your account. To assist you further, we will be required to access your account information. We cannot do this without first identifying you as the account holder.As we are unable to identify you via email and to ensure the security of your account information, please call Telephone Banking on the number below. We will be happy to place an order for you, as this facility is not yet available online.
Alternatively, you may visit your nearest branch to place this request. We trust this information is of assistance."

To which the customer was forced to reply:
"It is astonishing that customers can move large sums of money around online, but are not able to order something as harmless as a deposit book. Your systems designers must be woeful and your top management should be advised of how poor an image this creates.

"I cannot see the need to identify recipients of deposit books. If a stranger wants to pay money into a customer's account why not let him?

"But in any case the request was for a book to be sent to the account holder at her registered address. Your reply makes no sense at all."

Characteristically, the bank did not bother to reply.....

an ad a day..

The above banner ad was withdrawn by McDonald's shortly after it appeared in early 2005 following controversy over its use of the phrase "I'd hit it". The company stated in a public apology that it had not been aware that "I'd hit it" was a colloquial expression used to indicate sexual interest, and said it had only learned of this double meaning as a result of complaints. "I'd hit it" was part of the fast food company's "I'm lovin' it" campaign, the global marketing initiative that began in 2003 and that has appeared in over a hundred countries worldwide.

Hila ke rakh de..!!

IIPM and the AD fraud...

See a latest review on the IIPM fraud using Advertising......

an ad a day..

Cant creatives be kept out of such potential bombs..?

Merry Xmas!!!

May this be a funfilled Xmas.. But remember the 4 D's..

Drink

Dont Dope

Dont be Dirty

Dont drive after the Drink

The Fun Gun...

Job Application Form

Customer Care manager

1) The core value of managed health care is to view our jobs
through the consumer's
(a) eyes
(b) file
(c) wallet

2) A good opening to a consumer who has a
complaint is,
(a) I'm sorry
(b) I'm upset
(c) What's your problem?

3) Remember, arguing with the consumer
can only make a bad situation
(a) worse
(b) better
(c) more entertaining

4) Make positive contact with a consumer by
(a) being open and interested
(b) being enthusiastic
(c) clearly demonstrating your
intellectual superiority

5) Using a consumer's first name is an example of being
(a) pushy
(b) friendly
(c) patronizing

6) While working with your present telephone contact,
you get a call from a coworker. You
(a) acknowledge the new individual and quickly
get back to the original caller
(b) turn off your voice mail
(c) become interested in and leave the premises
with the co-worker.

7) Consumers feel you are happy to have their
business when you smile and say
(a) nothing
(b) thank you
(c) feel free to skip your insurance premium this month.
(d) boy, you really need psychiatric help...Sorry we
don't cover that

8) Friendly service is giving the consumer your full attention
and making
(a) eye contact.
(b) hand contact.
(c) felonious intimate contact

9) One way to show consumers full attention is to call them
(a) by phone
(b) by name
(c) obnoxious

10) When communicating with a consumer or
provider, use your speakerphone for
(a) hands-free operation
(b) entertainment
(c) inaudibility
(d) the amusement of your coworkers.

11) A good opening to a complaining provider could be
to tell them you are
(a) excited
(b) pleased
(c) sorry
(d) severely hearing impaired
(e) extremely busy and tired of their whining

12) Providers and Consumers on hold waiting for service should be
(a) patient
(b) ignored
(c) acknowledged
(d) required to listen to self-help tapes
(e) disconnected

13) What kind of telephone service should consumers get?
(a) quick
(b) friendly
(c) professional
(d) all of the above
(e) incomprehensible, arcane, and fear-inducing

14) In managed care, it is our responsibility to ensure
that all medical services are
(a) necessary and appropriate
(b) the least expensive alternative
(c) somebody else's problem

15) If you handle a consumer's complaint according
to our guidelines, you can turn a frustrated
consumer into a
(a) satisfied consumer
(b) psychotic bundle of nerves
(c) statistic

an ad a day..

Protesting to billboards by planting a tree right in front.....

Joy of spoof..!!

I guess this is how Pepsi for ever got entangled in the "only for kids" trap..

lee lo and behold..!!!

The most controversial of Lee advertising..!!!

It was dragged into tribunals and furore was created saying that No advertiser has the right to place such sexually explicit pictures in public. The ad is semi pornographic. The shorts supposedly being advertised can hardly be seen. The lollipop being sucked is obviously analogous to oral sex. The t-shirt is open and the breast half exposed. The legs are spread and the immediate focus of the eyes are on the thigh and thus the woman’s crotch (read vagina). It teaches young girls that women are simply there for their bodies and it teaches young boys the same thing- woman (sic) are to be used and seen as sexual objects. The clothes can hardly be seen. We all must play a role in reducing violence including sexual violence in our society. This type of ad demeans women. Portraying women as just sex objects also contributes to women being abused, objectified and treated violently.

The ruling of course went in Lee's favour and the tribunals didnt find anything annoying here...

Did you know?

Did you know that the new microsoft office outlook has come up with a very interesting and hilarious piece of communication to drive home the point that it is fast...?

Have your speakers on and see it here

Suraj..thank u dear

amul ....eternally delicious!!

On specific demand..!!!

pervertion perfected

pervertion unlimited

the paradigm shit...

A man checked into a hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally typed wrong e-mail address, and without realizing his error, he sent the e-mail.

Meanwhile.....somewhere , a widow had just returned home from her husband's funeral. The widow decided to check her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she fainted.The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've reached
Date: 16 June 2005

Darling,

I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now, and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just reached and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow.
Looking forward to Seeing you then!
Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
Love u dear...!!!

Get your TG right and talk to them in their and right language.......Ever since Advertising has evolved, this is one lesson that the"learned" has been telling everyone and yet it seems the old dictum is yet to take off. There are a large section of advertisers who seem to beleive in "I dont care who you are, I will talk what I want".....

It seems simple to get to know the people whom you are going to talk to, but it is not so....to come out the temptations of your intellect, verbal and semantic abilities and talk to them in their language.... not to miss match......a group of college students may like a different lingua as compared with a group of software professionals, who unlike housewives would differ in their language-both what they speak and what they like to listen to....

It is basic funda, you say and I accept it ,but it seems to be a forgotten funda, when I see advertising from a neutral perspective- Too much of ado, mostly about nothing. Some ads directly talks to competetors.....

some, worse ,talks to the competetors Ad agency....

some even more worse (eventhough the scope for being further worse doesnt exist) talks to, God knows whom.....

Recent past I was watching couple of Ads which fit into the above said flop strata...Cadburys bytes with the Dog (it seems the caninophilic ad community never gets tired..) doing miraculous feat... a candy ad where the hero at the end thunders..yeh Idea pahle kyom nahim socha ?..(I dont remember which candy..see the effect of advertising..?).....the SBI print ad series which is an alarming case of stupidity celebrated....and more, but everyone looks the same, macro idiotic excuses of advertising....

As they say...Brains aren't everything..... In fact in some cases they're nothing.....

Funny? For me it is not...

It sounds like a virtual death bell for the Industry... looks like a last nail in the coffin.......

rolo ..have more fun

The world is flat...

for those who love to see classic car commercials...

http://www.tvparty.com/vaultcomm.html

The Fun Gun...

An Arab was admitted in the Lilavati Hospital at Mumbai for a heart transplant. Prior to the surgery the doctors needed to store his blood incase the need arose. The gentleman had a rare blood type because of which a match couldn't be found within the city. The call, therefore, went out countrywide. ....Finally, a Gujarati in Ahmedabad was located who had a similar blood type.The Gujarati willingly donated his blood for the Arab. After the surgery, as a token of his appreciation, the Arab sent the Gujarati a brand new Toyota Prado, a box of diamonds and one million US dollars.
Some years later, the Arab found himself in need of corrective surgery yet again. His doctor immediately contacted the Gujarati who was more than happy to donate his blood.This time, after the surgery, the Arab sent the Gujarati a thank you card and a jar of Almond hallway sweets. The Gujarati was shocked to see the Arab's gift. He immediately called the Arab up and asked him why his gifts were so lavish the first time but so mediocre this time.

The Arab replied "Bapu.....now I have Gujju blood flowing through my veins!"

an ad a day..

Big Idea..for Big Bazaar !!!

rolo..have fun

an ad a day..

The faster you go ,the bigger is the mess....

amazing....simply amazing..!!!

Did you know?

Did you know how "The Oprah Winfrey Show" is so successful when it comes to product placements in the programme content?
The secret lies in Harriet Seitler, executive VP-marketing and program development for Ms. Winfrey's Harpo Communications. She's been involved in some of the show's biggest brand-placement efforts, including last year's Pontiac giveaways....

She is mine...

That is why they say " observation is the key to good creatives"....

an ad a day..

When u r right--shut up!!

One day, while a woodcutter was cutting a branch of a tree above a river,his axe fell into the river.

When he cried out, the Lord appeared and asked, "Why are you crying?"

The woodcutter replied that his axe has fallen into water, and he needed the axe to make his living.

The Lord went down into the water and reappeared with a golden axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord again went down and came up with a silver Axe. "Is this your axe?" the Lord asked.

Again, the woodcutter replied, "No."

The Lord went down again and came up with an iron Axe. "Is this your axe?"the Lord asked.

The woodcutter replied, "Yes."

The Lord was pleased with the man's honesty and gave him all three axes to keep, and the woodcutter went home happy.

Some time later the woodcutter was walking with his wife along the river bank, and his wife fell into the river. When he cried out, the Lord again appeared and asked him, "Why are you crying?"

"Oh Lord, my wife has fallen into the water!"

The Lord went down into the water and came up with ANGELINA JOLIE "Is this your wife?" the Lord asked.

"Yes," cried the woodcutter.

The Lord was furious. "You lied! That is an untruth!"

The woodcutter replied, "Oh, forgive me, my Lord. It is a misunderstanding. You see,if I had said 'no' to ANGELINA JOLIE , You would have come up with CAMERON DIAZ .Then if I said 'no' to her, you would have come up with my wife. And I would have to go home with all the three...!!!!

The moral of this story : Whenever a man lies, it is for a good and honourable reason, and for the benefit of others.......

A gentle man named Rajiv Sabharwal of a frontline advertising agency(then and even now) told me this story some years back. ( now dont ask me.... if he was a gentleman ,what the hell was he doing in advertising...)

Rajiv was an excellent story teller and Im not, still I have to tell you this...

The client was an egoist ( I bet you knew this..) and an IKE type ....... Rajiv and his team in the Account management/CS , wasnt too happy with the type of client they had had but had to cling on for want of a better choice...Their Agency in that city had only one major client worth to be called as a client, and so it went on. The agency did a study(almost a life threatening excercise) on the feasibility of the clients produce, which was a ready to eat stuff, mostly vegetarian and traditional. The packaging was archaic, the logo was close to primitive, the mascot belonged to the stone age......

Study ..you ask.......? with so much of clear reason what is there to study?

Advertising is where clear reason has no place according to Rajiv.....and hence the study went on to find out the obvious...to unravel secrets which even the tea boy at the agency knew...to discover insights with which street kids across the agency played....

And the finding... nothing great and everything as expected...the city had grown ,it said and people have all become modern..the garb of tradition and filter coffee mania has dissappeared...The young lot has taken over and old things are out.....old images......old culture......old habits... including (sigh!!!)the clients primeval produce...

The client refused to accept it..the agency was vociferous..was argumentative ( for a change..!!) Spat and squabble followed and the client won..as in marriages it is always the other party who has the last laugh finally....
The findings were replaced by something new-fangled......since the client and his primordial products couldnt be touched,and since the agency couldnt also blame itself for the quandary that they were in, what left was to be blamed was the consumer..it was the paradigm shift in the consumer attitudes that they got to blame...

Every one was happy.....
The client -for his football size..oops..stadium sized ego remaining untouched, even glorified...
The agency- for the extended lease of life,until the next campaign also flops and people still refusing to buy ....

It went on...

Rajiv says ...There was a hanging in the walls of the agency which after this incident he thought was the synonym for the ultimate irony in the business of advertising...

It read so...

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee to ever-widening thought and action......

Rajiv says that the best lesson that the agency learnt (in a hard way of course) was that the client is always right..and when you are wrong admit it..when you are not wrong also admit that you are wrong, and if at all you are right,shut up...

Tail piece:-
Patient: Doctor! You've got to help me! Nobody ever listens to me. No one ever pays any attention to what I have to say.
Doctor: Next please!

The world is flat...

It is all marketing baby.......

http://www.durexdickorations.com

The Fun Gun...

It's a Girl's World.....

If he is late for class,he's told,"Time and Tide wait for none".
If she is late,then the bus was late.

If a girl is dressed as a boy,she is modern,says the world.
But if a boy is dressed as a girl,"Has he escaped from the Zoo?"

If a boy talks with a girl,"I think he is trying for her"
But if a girl talks with a boy,then she is trying to be friendly.

When a girl cries,the world is convinced of her
But when a boy cries,"Come on man:Don't be a girl".

If a girl meets with an accident,then it's the mistake of others.
And if a boy meets with an accident,"I think you should learn to drive".

If a boy sits in front of a city bus,he is mannerless and cultureless brute.
But if a girl sits in the back seat,"Try to respect ladies,man!".

If a boy gets a big rank in an entrance exam,"You've to work hard".
But if a girl gets a big rank,... still got to have 33% reservation.

If there are girls in a class,the professor gives an interesting lecture,
And if there are no girls,he says,there is no class today.(This is really cool man)

If a girl does not answer,during a viva,then atleast 'smile' says the examiner.
But when a boy does not answer,"better luck next time".

Have a funfilled week end dearones....

Sensoa the video

talk sex...

"Talk about sex"

Shocking..amusing...irritating...mouthwatering....the series of ads that you are seeing today ,are made for the Belgian sex education& rehabilitation firm Sensoa.... Translated, one of the ads read... "Oral, vaginal, anal. How about verbal? Say what you like, what you expect, how far you will go. And expect the same from your partner. Because good agreements makes good sex."
Blogs celebrated these ads for obvious reasons....

It has sexual content and if you are the type who would like to see all that and still get offended kindly dont see them...