Even Better….Indian Media is just the thing to savour…

Air Deccan refutes CNN-IBN allegations…thank god we dont have to depend on Seinfeld alone for the laughs….

The page (available as of Mar 27th)

When all is lost, count on the media to add to the colors…

More amusing than drama queen journalists are drama queen journalists who believe they are actually important in the scheme of things…

Just look at the American media today and the argument Sagarika puts forward could almost be applied for them……so just wait a while when people lose complete faith in the Indian media too…we are getting there quickly enough…

So Yada Yada…

I want to become really famous. Does anyone know of a reality show that I can take part? Preferably someone where you can add a few racial slurs…oh..i can vow to give gaali..i dont mind it at all…

Its just crazy how the world is going gaga over a stupid TV show. Its amazing how hypocritical Indians are….we have probably one of the most complex societies that has a lot of foundations on casteist and completely racist lines. We are a society where we still fight against discrimination by gender…female infanticide…we have still dalits being persecuted…we have state-sponsored religious cleansing…

Yet we take the righteous route as if we were the symbol of equality…

Its turning out to be the biggest comedy event that I have seen in recent times. External Affairs Ministry making public statements and Tony Blair condemning the racial slur in the British parliament…
What is wrong with this world????

oh…by the way, I wonder how many of these righteous people actually saw the slur…Until yesterday, Shilpa Shetty was becoming a largely forgotten actress with no special talents to really speak of…now she represents an entire nation…
Seriously, something wrong with the world….

Maybe we should request Shilpa Shetty to become the PM of UK…its time we took on the imperialists….

Since I have been brilliantly been busy doing nothing, the blog seems all desolate and lonely where there has been nothing new growing….

But then the world is the same, so why should I not have the same post again? Well now that I know Aishwarya and Baby B (as NDTV calls Abhishek) went to Banaras together (oh..my god…how can they go to a holy town together…chee..chee..) Well..too lazy to write anything..so here goes…

An Appeal to a Cable Operator (written in July)

Seriously, cant we have a holiday for one news channel a day? Maybe Monday, CNN-IBN, Tuesday:TimesNow, Wednesday: NDTV… you get the drift…its disgusting how unimaginative television has become…

These guys are spoiling the one enjoyable thing of television…channel surfing….I mean, an orgy over a 5-yr old boy falling into a well and now everyone has Mumbai, one year later…

If there is one thing where the cable operator should exercise his right of autocratic customer service,it should be in not screening one news channel a day…

Thank God for Seinfeld…

There are different viewpoints on advertising. Supposedly the biggest challenge to advertisers is that with the latest technology (TiVo) and pay-per-view etc, consumers are now being given more and more the choice to NOT see ads. That creates a huge problem since the number of consumable items demanding the attention of the consumer is infinite while the ‘attention pie’ is just going on shrinking. So what does that translate into? How do advertisers hold attention…but this post is not about the challenges there..

The most recent ad that made me sit up was this one from Sony Ericsson for their Walkman series of phones (Low Bandwidth link). I think this was brilliantly executed and really would touch a chord with those groups of people for whom music is an integral part of life. But what struck me more was the images that they convey. All of the images in the ad are of individuals who are just enjoying the moment, their private moment with their own music even if they are surrounded by a huge sea of people. These people could be having huge problems but here they are at this moment, just immersed in the music and the only important thing being ‘I’. Do we all not go through these moments or at least crave for these moments when we just can be what we want to be not thinking about what the next moment will bring?

I am quite sure, when they put the storyboard they probably did not think of it in so much detail. But I guess that is what makes a good ad. It should connect to people in different ways.

So if I look at it, what works for me in this ad is:
1. The images of ‘ordinary’ people in their daily setting
2. The music score for the ad, unobtrusive but still very much the soul
3. Most importantly, the concept of the music being their liberator…

I think Sony Ericsson is really getting this piece right…..

(Well, I guess I must also add that I am a die-hard Sony Ericsson fan all my mobile phones having been from this stable)

The other ad I do like from the recent ones on TV is the Ponds one showing these women all in a introspective kind of mood..have been trying to get a link to it online…even there it works because there are no gimmicks..its just ordinary people.I like all of these ads for displaying the importance of ‘I’…People just tend to forget the ‘I’ in their daily dose of existing….

Kudos to the ad agencies…

Infy is on a roll again. If there needed to be one example of using the media to the best of its advantage, look no further than Infy.

We have had so many firms in the country who have passed the 25 yrs. We have quite a number of firms that are more than $2 billion in size. We have TCS, the grand daddy of Indian IT doing a lot of things. But yet, no one remembers them as much as Infy.

The Infy way of media management probably had different agendas at different points of time. When Infy was this new kid on the block, they stayed low profile. Then they embarked on this strategy of under promising every quarter and then over shooting it always thus becoming the darling of the shareholders. That got it the visibility it desired in the markets.

Then came the days of the Global Branding. They did Nasdaq and did a lot of road shows in the US. By the time, the competitors had wisened up and the war for talent had become hot. Then Infy did that big $1 billion bash again telling the world, we love our employees ensuring that there are enough people still wanting to get into Infosys.

Now if you need to get into consulting, you need to again build that kind of visibility. To align with the international vision, they started the first ever widely publicized Global Internship program to brand themselves in campuses abroad.

Again the 25 yr bash and the 126 crores are all part of ‘we love our employees’ message. Today Infy realizes that the biggest challenge is again talent. So here you have all the directors of Infy sitting for television and talking in their own inimitable style again putting the desire in so many more young people to want to join Infosys.

But make no mistake. I dont think Infy is any evil corporation. In fact I think this media management is itself worth a case study…the changing faces of Infosys. I think Infy’s success has been that they have been doing this before anyone even realized that you had to manage the media.

Seriously, cant we have a holiday for one news channel a day? Maybe Monday, CNN-IBN, Tuesday:TimesNow, Wednesday: NDTV… you get the drift…its disgusting how unimaginative television has become…

These guys are spoiling the one enjoyable thing of television…channel surfing….I mean, an orgy over a 5-yr old boy falling into a well and now everyone has Mumbai, one year later…

If there is one thing where the cable operator should exercise his right of autocratic customer service,it should be in not screening one news channel a day…

Thank God for Seinfeld…

UPDATE: It gets worse before it gets worse. Today it is the PM’s residence and a bunch of rogue kids….

Since I have no pearls of wisdom to offer the world now, I thought I’ll put down some from Seinfeld, the show.

I have never been able to decide which was funnier, Friends or Seinfeld…

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Telemarketer: Hi. Would you be interested in switching over to TMI Long Distance service?
Jerry: Oh, gee, I can’t talk right now. Why don’t you give me your home number and I’ll call you later.
Telemarketer: Uh, sorry, we’re not allowed to do that.
Jerry: Oh, I guess you don’t want people calling you at home.
Telemarketer: No.
Jerry: Well, now you know how I feel.
[hangs up]

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Jerry: Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don’t stare at it. It’s too risky. Ya get a sense of it and then you look away.

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George Costanza: I just don’t see what purpose is it going to serve your going? I mean, you think dead people care who’s at the funeral? They don’t even know they’re having a funeral. It’s not like she’s hanging out in the back going, “I can’t believe Jerry didn’t show up”.
Elaine: Maybe she’s there in spirit. How about that?
George Costanza: If you’re a spirit, and you can travel to other dimensions and galaxies, and find out the mysteries of the universe, you think she’s going to want to hang around Drexler’s funeral home on Ocean Parkway?

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George Costanza: Someday, before I die, mark my words… I’m gonna tell that woman exactly what I think of her. I’ll never be able to forgive myself until I do.
Jerry: And if you do?
George Costanza: Well, I still won’t be able to forgive myself, but at least it won’t be about this.

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“I thought you were happy-go-lucky.”
“No, no, no, I’m not happy, I’m not lucky, and I don’t go. If anything, I’m sad-stop-unlucky.”
- Naomi and Jerry, in “The Bubble Boy”

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What would the world be like if people said whatever they were thinking, all the time, whenever it came to them? How long would a blind date last? About 13 seconds, I think. “Oh, sorry, your rear end is too big.” “That’s ok, your breath stinks anyway. See you later.”
- Jerry

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“It’s amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper.”

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“Now they show you how detergents take out bloodstains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash.”

One of my earlier posts was about energy levels of people where I mentioned how these rock concerts are such peaks of energy. I think one of the toughest jobs on hand requiring sustained energy levels is that of a RJ. Like any other Bangalorean who spends enough time on the roads (for more details, just keep watching CNN-IBN with its ‘Eye on Bangalore’ series), Sunaina, Darius and Vasanthi have become household names. The thing about these folks is the sheer energy that they carry in their voices.

Be it scripted or otherwise, it still is amazing just trying to pump in ‘josh’ in people through their voices. I am sure the millions of Radio City listeners are thankful to these folks. Darius with his dry wit, Vasanthi for her cheerful Good Mornings and Sunaina with all the josh in the evenings. (Not really a great fan of the others)

Just wondering if these folks would have been as good on television. Radio with its facelessness has its charms and really depends so much more on the personality of the RJ. But Television, I guess doesnt allow so much of that ‘naturalness’ that we hear from RJs…but then I have no clue about it really…

RC with all its ‘Appukuttan Nair’ and ‘One and half Altaf’ is good fun. But sometimes I do miss the music. I remember in 2001 and 2002 period, RC used to put such great English music especially Retro. Well, that I guess is another post…..