Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reviving an old blog

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I have been thinking about reviving my old blog for a long time, and procrastination always got the better of me.

This blog was started as a placeholder for my work in grad school at IE and you will find some interesting stuff( which is still very very relevant) related to that from the older posts, but then it died off after that.  I recently realised that it is very difficult today for me to write down any of my thoughts, as my writing these days are nothing beyond client RFI’s and proposals, and working in the digital media agency business also does not help a lot as all you are expected to do is basically manage meetings :). It gives you lots to write about, but you never do.

So this is my second attempt at blogging and hopefully will get good at it as I write more. I am hoping to cover a lot of things about my industry and loads of random rumblings, but most importantly it will be about the age we are living in- The Digital age.

Today we are living in a world without any secrets. In a world, where information  is open, transparent and ubiquitous.  This blog is a culmination of a lot of recent thoughts which I have been observing in my life and of people around me, people in business, people in my family, people living in streets, people in government.  The digital age is changing a lot of the essential ways of business, living and communication. This blog is just small attempt at putting my thoughts together on this.

There a good read on this by Eric Schmidt, http://www.amazon.com/New-Digital-Age-Reshaping-Business/dp/1480542288, which I got hold of recently and you will definitely find tit bits from there here. The book starts off very well with a picture of the world we are going to live in the future:

“Picture this rosy scenario for your high-tech future: You awaken because your curtains open automatically, your coffee maker starts brewing and your bed administers a subtle hint in the form of a back massage. Your closet, having scanned your calendar, coughs up a freshly cleaned suit for the big meeting today. You head for the kitchen while reading the day’s news as a translucent holographic display. Thanks to motion detection, it stays right in front of you as you walk.

And when you stub your toe — because you will, pal, if you wander around scanning eye-level holograms — you can use a diagnostics app on your mobile device to see whether it’s broken. Speaking of your feet, you will have a smartshoe that pinches you to keep you from lingering over breakfast and being late for your meeting. Neither human error nor human nature will interfere with your gratingly perfect morning.“
This world is not far off.
Welcome to The Digital Age. 

Dove Campaign for Beauty – a 59’ Slide Cast

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As a part of the course, I was working on a 59 second podcast on a successful Viral Marketing Campaign. Chose the Dove Campaign for Beauty.

Some of the things that struck me about this “Successful” campaign:

  • Very High views for videos over 2 million per video but fewer ratings, only around 0.1% of viewers rated the videos
  • Youtube videos were not managed by the unilever team!
  • No Social media connect at all
  • Loads of sporadic groups not maintained properly in Facebook,
  • The green peace organization video was simple awesome, think this was more successful – it got Unilever to take action in April 2008 on the palm oil usage by the company

Dove Onslaught by Green Peace Organization

Well, I thought using the Slidecast feature in Slideshare would be a good idea, and yes it indeed was.

Here is my first Slidecast:

Everyone should try the slide cast feature, it is fun and easy.

PS:Did not spend a lot of time on synchronization but the tool works really well. Wish I had a better Microphone to record, may be next time 🙂

Microsoft Kumo and the $100 Million Ad Budget

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We all know Microsoft is big, but is the web strategy for MS actually working especially with a disastrous result for the last quarter which they say is mainly because of the dip in PC sales. But I expect them to be back not with PC sales but may be with the online strategy especially when they are putting so much money on the latest rebranding of the Live Search “Kumo”. With 8.3% of the whole search market as per comscore report on US searches, How much will MS expect to actually gain out of the re christening of Live Search and Kumo( or whatever they want to call it). Will this strategy work work especially when Google is simply leading the way with 63.3% and Yahoo also going up to 20.6%, does it really make sense or rather when will it make sense for Microsoft, What is that MS wants to achieve with this huge push its trying to gain, I think it missed the Search bus right from the Google  went hard with the AOL deal back in 2005.

I was just trying to imagine how will a company like JWT market search. How much of an online strategy will they use, What will be the cut between offline and online spends. I think it will be more like a 5% online budget because I don’t expect them to place ads in Google network 🙂 and it will be surrounded more in the MSN network.  For me its not an intelligent way to market products especially in the search category where you really need to acquire from outside your network, but will be cool to watch out for what JWT comes up with as its unlikely that they will use Twitter or FB or Google. I don’t want them to keep using the usual Blind banner ads at least and feel they should seriously consider some sort of community building exercise to at least get the right feelers and may be also give the world the right feelers on Kumo.

May be they should first get 4/5th of their employees use their search before making the $100 Million investment!http://www.newsamericanow.com/2009/04/13/45-of-microsoft-employees-using-google-over-microsoft-search/

You sometimes feel bad for MS as they are definitely trying every trick in the book and nothing seems to be actually working as far as online strategy is concerned. May be Kumo will help to bring a change in that especially after the Vista disaster, and I will not agree to anyone who tells me vista was a success as I am using vista and its definitely not my next OS.

So lets see what happens in the coming months.

Comments welcome..

References:

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-q-a-microsofts-live-search-gm-offers-a-mea-culpa-and-promises-a-fresh-s

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=135722

http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090302/a-sneak-peek-look-at-microsofts-new-kumo/

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-to-spend-100-million-on-kumo-or-whatever-2009-4

PS: A post after a long time, just learning how to manage time between 10-12 hrs work and 3-4 hours study everyday. Slowly, getting into effective time management. So you will definitely see more posts