Just Thinking...

My tweets from the India Today Conclave 2010

2010-03-14T18:58:00.004+05:30

In Delhi for the India Today Conclave. Lots of good speakers to entertain and educate me. First up Chidambaram & the ruler of Dubai.

Next would be John Chambers of Cisco. Was in the lift with him yesterday.

Aroon Purie starts the conclave with the opening passage from "tale of 2 cities" - "it was the best of times..worst of times..." #ITconclave

Charles Dickens still relevant to describe the first decade of the 21st century. #ITconclave

Chidambaram says Maoists are a bigger threat than Jihadists. #ITconclave

Chidambaram: maoists aren't pro poor. Just interested in seizing power. That's why they blow up schools, roads & rail lines. #ITconclave

In Q&A, Chidambaram very severe on Pakistan but quite soft on China. #ITconclave

Pak High Commissioner to India responded by saying there were no state players who sponsor terrorism and that they want talks. #ITconclave

The ruler of Dubai had come to Delhi but had to leave last night. Sent his cousin to speak instead. #ITconclave

Arabic to English translator so bad that the sheikh has decided to translate his Arabic speech himself. #ITconclave

Don't confuse Dubai World with Dubai state. The former is untroubled because of it's real estate business.Getting restructured. #ITconclave

Kamal Nath made a general political speech. #ITconclave

Brilliant speech by Dayanidhi Maran on how to balance politics and growth. Says he's managed both in his teleom days. #ITconclave

In 2004 it was illegal to have wi fi at home. Maran says he realized he was breaking the law. So he changed the law. #ITconclave

BJP president Nitin Gadkari didn't speak about politics but only of economic needs & ideas for progress. Great. #ITconclave

John Chambers of Cisco talking inspiringly about the big transformations of India and the role of tech in it. #ITconclave

Cisco'a goals for india. $1 doctor visits. $1 month/student. 1 million new jobs. #ITconclave

Interesting ad by Mail Today in it's own paper. http://twitpic.com/182b5l

Nassim Taleb, author of Black Swan, is on next. I feel like a groupie around a star. #ITconclave

Taleb is a old trader but a young philosopher. #ITconclave

You can't predict which technology will do well. So you can't predict history. Taleb. #ITconclave

We live in extremistan but think we live in mediocristan. Taleb. #ITconclave

The banking system collapsed due to the rise in complexity and the rise of fragility. Taleb. #ITconclave

Debt has a 1:1 correspondence with hubris! Taleb. #ITconclave

Must read Taleb's article from FT that is about 10 steps to create robustness. #ITconclave

Taleb: the only thing more fragile than finance is the internet. #ITconclave

End of Taleb's session. Clearly the best session in #ITconclave so far. Great insights with great sense of humour

Nilesh Arora, the 4th President of Google is on next. The other 3 are the two founders and the CEO. #ITconclave

Google asks how can you disrupt the world with technology. Not how they can make money. #ITconclave

Nilesh says he scribbled notes for his speech during the Chambers session. I think that's rude to all of us who are here. #ITconclave

A great session followed by a really lousy one. I guess that's life. The Google guy was really bad. #ITconclave

@Kaj186 chap called Nikesh Arora. president sales & biz Dev.

Kapil Sibal talking about the challenges we face in the education sector. But no vision or strategy offered. #ITconclave

Kapil Sibal is one of our best ministers. Made a boring speech but getting into stride during the Q&A. #ITconclave

Spent time chatting with Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook & CEO of myBarackObama.com. And I thought I was immune to celebs. #ITconclave

Aroon Purie now introducing Sir Salman Rushdie. The others need to learn from Mr Purie how to make introductions interesting. #ITconclave

Rushdie on the MF Hussain issue: are the forces trying to close the universe winning over those trying to open it? #ITconclave

Salman Rushdie's speech proves that not everything can or should be reduced to 140 characters. #ITconclave

Rushdie: what are the limits of freedom? Should we tolerate those who are intolerant & might destroy society? #ITconclave

Rushdie: Pakistan is a country "insufficently imagined". #ITconclave

Prabhu Chawla complaining that he gets to chair the

tough sessions. Yesterday on politics. Today on sex and spirituality. #ITconclave

Swami Vedant of Osho Univ talking philosophically about sex & sexuality. I think the crowd is wishing they'd slept in. #ITconclave

3 layers of sex. Biological. Psychological. Spiritual. Sex is the center of life. Not God: Osho via Swami Vedant. #ITconclave

Sant Ramdev is a good orator who doesn't seem to have much to say. #ITconclave

Did you know Swami Ramdev is worth Rs 500 crores? He says he's not apologetic about his wealth. #ITconclave

Having agreed that sex & spirituality can co-exist, the 2 speakers arguing about whether OK for consenting adults to have sex. #ITconclave

Vedant: men think of sex every 5-7 mins while women think of sex every 13 mins. "they're more conservative". #ITconclave

Rahul Gandhi is here. Not as a speaker. Just as a delegate. Listening to Prof Bloom of Harvard talk about demographic dividend. #ITconclave

Demograhpic dividend is not automatic & may be transitory. But it helped SE Asia grow 2% PA per capita for 30 years. Bloom. #ITconclave

2 breakthrough ideas of demographics: demographic dividend & healthier = wealthier. Bloom. #ITconclave

Bloom: demographic dividends will increase inequality between states and could lead to instability. #ITconclave

Ireland legalized contraception in 1979 & this lead to fetility rates falling & economic growth doubled: Bloom. #ITconclave

Alan Mullaly, Global CEO Ford, reading out a prepared speech. He isn't connecting with the audience. #ITconclave

Alan Mullaly doing a lot better in the Q&A. Says Product information is ubiquitous. The difference is the brand. #ITconclave

Art is under attack by those who don't understand it. So is science. Interesting session on the controversy starting up. #ITconclave

If the first pdt of electricity had been the electric chair, we'd be as against electricity as people are against GM food now. #ITconclave

The only reason that the Malthusian predictions haven't come true is science & tech. Michael Spector, writer. #ITconclave

Michael Spector making a strong case of benefits of green revolution 1.0. Says we now need green revolution 3.0. #ITconclave

Suman Sahai making the opposite case. Says genetic engg is a very random science. She's a genetic engineer herself. #ITconclave

Suman Sahai: you can make the case for BT cotton. But you can't make a case for 35 Crops with the BT gene. #ITconclave

Suman Sahai. This is the century of Biology. But rein in hubris. Since biology gone wrong can cause more damage than phy/chem. #ITconclave

Brilliant session. Both speakers convinced us they were right. And they are totally opposed to each other! #ITconclave

Chris Hughes, co founder of Facebook is talking about the impact on the real world of social media. #ITconclave

Barack Obama did not use social media to be cool or create buzz. But to get votes. : chris hughes. #ITconclave

The Barack Obama site wasn't about the candidate but about the supporters. It showed them & their reasons for supporting Obama. #ITconclave

That made supporters " responsible" for electing Obama. #ITconclave

Stage is crowded. Youth session with Ranbir Kapoor, asin, Tanya Dubash, Roopa Purshottam, Deepender Hooda, #ITconclave

Bunked the session on youth to watch Yousuf Khan hit a 100 in 37 balls. Back now to listen to James Cameron & Amir Khan. #ITconclave

Cameron: any technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic. #ITconclave

I don't know if Amir khan is just acting, but he seems to be spellbound by James Cameron. #ITconclave

Cameron talking about an awesome technique called performance capture invented to shoot Avatar. Amir looking fascinated. Us too #ITconclave

Cameron: He had a problem finding theatres who would show 3D. Now with 3D TV screens, there will be a content gap. #ITconclave

Amir Khan simply not on the same level as Cameron. Maybe this discussion would have gone places if Raju Hirani had been here. #ITconclave

Cammeron & Amir having a great chat with each other. Great eye contact with each other. The audience is totally ignored. #ITconclave

Defining moments: Suman Srivastava: "It was good to learn the science of advertising at Lever"

2010-03-10T05:49:00.002+05:30

A feature on me appeared in the Brand Reporter and now in Afaqs. Click here to see the original article. Text below:

You may take him out of the confines of the planning department, but there's no taking the planner out of Suman Srivastava.

Few may know that Euro RSCG India's CEO, Suman Srivastava, wanted to originally be a journalist. It took an acquaintance who spoke of his disillusionment with journalism and Srivastava's days in the Indian Institute of Management - Ahmedabad, that gave Indian advertising industry an established planner, and one who witnessed the emergence of planning as a separate discipline in India, at that.

Srivastava's first turning point arrived while at Lintas - his first job - when he was deputed at Hindustan Unilever for a year (after working on HUL brands for three years) and was further "Leverised."

"The rigour that Lever's had was great. In those days of the early '90s, there were very few clients who got into the science of advertising. I think it was good to learn that science at Lever's," he says.

Among his key defining moments are shaping two start-ups: Lowe Lintas' second agency SSC&B Lintas in 1994, and Euro RSCG India. "SSC&B was a part of Lintas and at least the infrastructure was right there but Euro RSCG did not even have an office. It was an out-and-out start up. It was great fun of course. Definitely a defining moment," Srivastava grins.

While he admits to have done a lot of "ghost planning" while working in the servicing team at Lowe (Lintas), he recalls his formal entry into the world of planners in 1999 at Euro, as one of the most important moments in his career. With planning then being a relatively new discipline in Indian agencies, there was uncertainty and his move was not considered to be a good one. Yet, Srivastava refers to the four years of undiluted planning as the best phase of his career.

"Planning then was underrated and everybody was suspicious of it," Srivastava explains. "The client servicing guys thought that the planner would do all the 'sexy' parts of their job and there wouldn't be any fun left, while the creative people saw it as yet another layer and another person who could say 'no' and kill an idea."

And despite being the CEO of Euro RSCG, Srivastava says he has not ceased to be a planner, and takes pride in the evolution of planning from a stage when the creative team was sceptic about it to today's theory of 'one planner for one creative'.

Two key men who influenced Srivastava greatly include former bosses Ishan Raina, chief executive officer, OOH Media and Ajay Chandwani, non-executive director, Percept.

"He (Raina) was my first boss when I entered advertising," he recalls. "I was interviewing with Contract Advertising but there was no befitting role for me. So when he started Euro RSCG and wanted to take Contract people with him, I was one of the first ones he took on board. Ishan is an amazing man-manager. He can bring out the best either by needling or encouraging a person."

For Chandwani, Srivastava says, "It is tough working for Ajay but he is brilliant. Our styles were very different, but I learnt a lot from him as a strategy guy," he says.

At Euro RSCG, another key hallmark moment for him was cracking the Set Max Deewana Bana De campaign which was all about the role of television in a person's life. "Our insight was that Max should be a friend you would like to watch movies with. We gave the channel the role of this friend who knows all the stats and is a reference point when you watch movies and cricket," he explains, and thus were born properties like Extraa Innings and Extraa Shots. The second insight was that when one watches great entertainment it stays with you for a while, which led to the words Deewana Bana De.

(Defining Moments is a regular column which talks about the incidents that shaped great advertising, media and marketing careers.)

Comparative Advertising and euphemism

2010-03-08T06:07:00.005+05:30

This generation of youth is not into euphemism. Perhaps every generation of youth tends to use less euphemisms than the generation that has gone before.

So is it surprising that this generation would name the competitive brand in their advertising rather than being content with referring to it as "Brand X" or the "leading brand" or whatever? My only surprise is that there aren't more commercials already that actually name their competitor.

As for being comparative, my view is that all advertising is competitive. The whole idea of Positioning is that you try to create a distinct place in a consumer's mind with respect to all other brands. So that is comparative advertising.

My final point is that when claims are made in advertising, then they need to be backed up by scientific evidence. If not, then there needs to be strong penalties that should be levied. That would ensure greater truth in advertising.

Once that is in place, we should refer to competing brands by name - it will save everybody a lot of time.

The above piece was written for afaqs reporter in the context of the Rin commercial shown below.

Everybody loves a planner

2010-01-14T06:23:00.005+05:30

Clients love planners
Except when agencies charge for their time.

Clients love planners
Except when they are too passionate about their ideas.

Creatives love planners
Except when they suggest that their ideas are off-strategy.

Creatives love planners
Except when they become another layer of approval.

Creatives love planners
Except when they start using jargon.

Servicing loves planners
Except when they are feeling low about their own jobs.

Servicing loves planners
Except when they act like creative divas.

Servicing loves planners
Except when the spotlight moves away from them.

Servicing loves planners
Except when they get promoted ahead of them.

Top management loves planners
Except when times are bad.

Top management loves planners
Except when its time to promote them to general management.

Everyone loves a planner
Except when they act obnoxious & know-it-all.

(Written as an anonymous article for Brand Equity)

Dialogue (with Exchange4Media)

2009-09-03T16:46:00.002+05:30

It’s been two decades for you being a part of advertising industry, according to you how has the industry been shaped since then and now? Any alarming fact to be observed comparatively…

Over the last two decades the advertising industry has evolved for the better. I think the quality of the work we do is much superior to the work done then. Earlier a lot of advertising were derivative of western advertising. Today we can be proud of an Indian school of advertising. Earlier brand propositions didn’t need to work very hard since there was limited competition. Today the reverse is true.

Euro RSCG Worldwide per se undertakes various surveys and studies to understand the trends in advertising. Any recent studies that you have undertaken and that you would like to share with us…

We have a series of papers that are titled “the future of _____”. So we have a study on the “Future of retail”. Another on the “Future of luxury” and the most recent one on the “Future of value”. These studies are shared with clients and potential clients for whom these studies are relevant.

Do you see an increase in mergers and acquisitions by international networks of Indian advertising agencies? And does this mean that the stranglehold of foreign agencies will increase further?

Acquisitions take place because there are strong local agencies available to acquire. So before M&A can happen, you need local entrepreneurs to create strong agencies. We can see around us small boutique agencies opening up – in creative, digital, events, PR, you name it. In due course these agencies will get acquired, but that is not about a stranglehold of foreign agencies. It is more of a tribute to Indian talent.

Please share your views on the new media and digital landscape and what role advertising agencies can play to harness the potential of these mediums.

Our view of new media is the same as our view of old media. We think it is wrong to think of digital or new media agencies as a separate discipline. We don’t have a separate TV division, so why do we have a separate digital division? You may have a production facility for digital that is separate and staffed with specialists.

Please take us through the growth that Euro RSCG has seen on the revenue front in the last three years? (At least in terms of percentage if not the exact figures)

We have grown at more than 30% per annum for the least 3 years.

What is the growth target for 2009?

It all depends on how the slog overs pan out (we have a Jan – Dec year). We are optimistic about the next 4 months and expect to end the year with a small growth over last year.

How much has the current economic slowdown affected the Indian advertising industry?

We have had our share of problems. In general the multinationals (clients and agencies) were more cautious than the Indian companies when the downturn started. That negativism spread through the whole economy. But now things are looking up again.

During the slowdown, many advertisers took extreme steps to brave the recession. When things are back to normal, how do you think these steps would have changed the industry?

It would make us leaner and meaner.

Speaking about talent and the slowdown, there was a sudden hiring freeze. Now as we are seeing some sign of recovery, there is again a buzz of hiring happening across levels. And on what criteria’s are these hirings taking place?

Agencies are now making the most critical hires. In our case we are also hiring some people to accelerate growth.

How is Euro RSCG tackling the problem of talent crunch in the industry and retaining skilled people? Is there any specific strategy for that?

Yes we are doing a bunch of different things to retain people. Covers a wide gamut from better structured salaries, to training programs, to welfare activities. The objective is not to reach 0% attrition. The objective is to ensure that people are happy and contribute at a high level when they are with us.

Lately, many agencies including Euro RSCG have announced internal elevations/promotions. But these promotions have come without any increments. How do you view this development in an agency favour of retaining your talent? It is believed that many have otherwise quit agencies due to this. Is this an advantage or a disadvantage in regards to retaining talent?

Recognition is often as important as rewards in retaining people. When you can’t afford to reward, you can still afford to recognize. Rewards will follow soon.

What are the weak points of the Indian advertising industry today that you feel need to be addressed?

I think we are still very TV centric and need to grow our capabilities in other disciplines. Also while we tend to do great work for theme ads, we treat tactical advertising like step children. That’s not how the consumer sees it. We need to handle those with the same love and affection as the theme ads.

What are the areas that Indian advertising practitioners need focus on to create a wider global impact?

Our people are smart and many have already created a mark on the global scene. But we need to be a little bit more process oriented and much more punctual in our work. If we tighten up on those areas, Indians can dominate the global arena.

What are the two things that you would like to change about the Indian clients?

I don’t want to change anything. I just want more of them.

My Profile - Written for Campaign India's A List

2009-09-03T16:41:00.002+05:30

Current position held (designation and company, official address)
CEO, Euro RSCG India. 1, Brady Gladys Plaza, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013

Office land line number
24952326

Place of birth
Patna, Bihar

Career highlights
Have been at Euro RSCG for the last 13 years. Before this I was at Lintas for 9 years. I joined Lintas straight out of IIMA. During my Lintas stint I spent 2 years in SSC&B Lintas. Behind this high inertia career path lies a lot of interesting assignments. I have been part of two start ups (SSC&B and Euro RSCG), run strategic planning for a region, been on deputation to HLL, worked on a variety of interesting and challenging clients.

Why are you good at what you do? (Answer in 10-15 words)
I fear failure and so I work hard and learn more.

Greatest influence: 15-40 words
My maternal grandmother. She was out of the box in her thinking before the term was invented.

Fantasy business partner
Steve Jobs

Biggest risk taken
None – I play safe.

Best job outside advertising/ media/ marketing
Being a father.

Favourite media
Podcasts.

Favourite gadget
Amazon Kindle

Clubs you are a member of
MCA Bandra, Club Millennium Juhu.

Most admired politician
Barack Obama

Perfect day
Sunday

Fictional hero
Phantom – the ghost who walks.

Who should play you in the film of your life?
Sidney Poitier (some people said he looked like me in “To Sir with love”)

Hidden talent
Making cocktails

Most expensive purchase
An apartment in Bandra

Desert Island favourite objects
Kindle, iPod, Laptop, power for everything.

LEADING AN AD AGENCY

2009-09-03T16:37:00.001+05:30

Every suit thinks he is creative. Especially suits who have risen to the top of an ad agency and therefore no longer considers himself bound by the confines of a department. So most suit CEOs don’t understand what the debate is about – you need to be creative and a suit to be the leader. ☺

Of course, the biggest trait you need to become a leader is to live in a distorted reality world and convince enough other people to believe in that distorted reality. It’s usually called “Vision” which is nothing but an attempt to twist the current reality into a desired one. If you are successful, you are a great leader. If not, you are considered a cracked pot.

The best leaders in every field lived in a distorted reality world. Buddha, Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Steve Jobs, Ratan Tata, Barrack Obama, Piyush Pandey. All of them set out to change their existing realities in ways that perfectly reasonable people thought couldn’t be done. Who thought that India could achieve freedom thorough non-violence or that a black man could become President of the United States or that a stodgy old “people-friendly” advertising agency could become a cutting edge creative shop?

At this point, it would probably be appropriate to list out a set of traits that a good leader should have. I am going to resist the temptation.

I read a book some time ago called “Why should anyone be led by YOU?” This is the best book on leadership that I have ever read. It simply says that you can’t model yourself on any other person and still expect to be a leader. To be a leader you have to be yourself; to be authentic and real. Even have warts and weaknesses. If people like what they see, they will start to follow you.
I found this a really refreshing argument, because so many leaders fall into the trap of trying to be perfect. Leaders try to be this brilliant all rounder who could be in the team just for his batting, bowling or fielding. Not to mention his captaincy. This kind of a leader gets insecure when others appear who are better than him in any discipline. And that puts off a whole lot of followers, who tend to drift away. Thus damaging the organization.

Coming back to the central point of the debate of suit versus creative. The point I am making is that you need to be authentic and have a clear vision. If the suit is a faceless bureaucrat then he is unlikely to get any followers and therefore will not be able to achieve much.

(This piece was written for the 5th anniversary issue of Impact magazine)

Right Sizing The Cabinet

2009-05-30T10:55:00.007+05:30

The voters have given a clear mandate to this government to govern effectively. The people have made it quite clear that we value performance about all else.

In light of this I am dismayed to see the size of our council of ministers and the way it has been put together - with the focus being on pleasing allies and balancing regional interests. In any case, the way the government is structured is hardly conducive to good management.

Management gurus say that a manager should not have more than 7 direct reports into him. Our PM has 40 direct reports just in the council of ministers. This is not including other advisory bodies such as the Planning Commission. Clearly he cannot do justice to supervising all these people.

Several of the ministries exist for legacy reasons. Why do industries like Shipping, Mines, Coal, Textiles, Chemicals and Petroleum have separate ministries when there is anyway an Industries ministry and a labour ministry. Not to mention Finance and Commerce (although the latter is more about Exports, notwithstanding its name).

Clearly, the Cabinet and its performance would improve if we were to issue a few pink slips.

I spent a few minutes playing God (or Sonia) with the ministries and came up with these two diagrams. Figure 1 shows the 10 super ministries that would report directly into the Prime Minister (click on it to see a larger version).

The logic for the above is quite simple. To begin with we need a ministry for internal affairs and a ministry for external affairs. Those are obvious. Given our focus on development, it would be best to have ministries focused on the three main sectors of the economy - agriculture, manufacturing and services.

Next is HRD. Clearly India's big strength is its people and we all talk about the demographic dividend. Clearly there is a need to focus on people. Also I felt that in a large country like ours, transport is important enough to justify its own ministry. And going forward, we will have to find a way to grow without polluting the environment, so we need a ministry to focus on that. And finally, we need a finance ministry to focus on the money.

Those, then are the 10 super ministries.

Figure 2 shows what happened to the various other ministries. You will definitely need to click on it to be able to read it.

Most of the above seems obvious to me. The only one that I debated for a while was whether Defence needed a separate ministry. I decided against it because I feel that war is the last resort for the diplomat, and so I thought it would be best to combine the two into one ministry.

I am quite pleased with my last hour's work. Let me know what you think.

The Importance of Grit

2009-03-21T11:09:00.002+05:30

I have always felt that in order for a brand to sound authentic it is critical to have a little bit of dirt - something that is less than perfect. It is like Betty's sandwiches that Jughead doesn't like until they have a little bit of sand in them!

I follow a blog about fund raising for non profit organisations that found this "commercial" for Trader's Joe that sounds really authentic. Follow the words and you will see my point about grit.

BJP has better orators

2009-03-06T21:17:00.001+05:30

I'm sitting in the India Today Conclave 2009. Just heard a brilliant speech by Shivraj Singh Chouhan (CM of MP).

Last year I was impressed by Narender Modi. Another year. Another BJP Chief Minister.

Congress is represented by Ashok Chavan (CM of Maharashtra). Omar Abdullah (CM of J&K) represented the middle front.

Both spoke well, but read from prepared speeches. Shivraj had no notes but had better turns of phrase & more data.

Notice that the self made politicians speak better than those who are products of dynastic democracy.

Sent on my BlackBerry® from Hutch

Brands need to have social value

2009-02-10T15:14:00.001+05:30

Friday, April 2, 1993 was supposed to be the day that brands died. That was the day when Marlboro cut its price to compete with generic brands that were 50% cheaper. The marketing world reacted with shock and promptly started funeral preparations for brands.

But brands haven’t died. They have just changed character. This article proposes one way in which brands have changed.

The starting point of the argument lies in Internet brands. Arguably the strongest brands in the world today are web brands like Google, Facebook, Second Life etc. Equally strong, perhaps, are brands like BlackBerry and iPod which have a strong web component to back up their physical products. The question arises, what is common between these brands and what can older brands learn from them?

All these brands have a social component to them. They help people connect with each other. They also create communities of users who can bond with each other. Very much like smokers of old, who could bond with each other while smoking, sharing a light etc.

Is this only a phenomenon of on-line brands or can it be taken into the real world too? I think that several brands have shown that the idea of creating social value around brands can be useful in the real world too.

The idea obviously works for Starbuck, Café Coffee Day and the like. But it goes much beyond.
My favourite example in India is the Jaggo Re campaign for Tata Tea. It is creating a community of young people who are concerned about the future of their country and want to influence its course. There is a strong product connect and it is based on a strong insight of how Indian youth thinks. The campaign for Idea is on a similar line.

We at Euro RSCG have experimented with portraying the new “chalta-nahi-hai” attitude of youth in our campaign for Dainik Bhaskar – Zidd karo. Before that we created the “India ka dil, India ka AC” campaign for Voltas.

So what do the success of the above commercials mean? We are used to thinking of the rational value of a brand and the emotional value of a brand. Now we have to think also of the social value of the brand.

This social value helps define the users and fans of the brand into a community. Once the community has been defined the brand needs to provide its “members” (not just consumers) with a platform through which they can communicate with each other and with the brand. This is how the strong brands of the future will be built.

In conclusion, I don’t think that brands are dead. They have just acquired an additional layer – the social layer. Brand handlers now need to be conscious of this new rule in the game.

The above article has been written for the Mint, but they will probably not publish it as it is.

License to harrass

2009-02-07T18:53:00.002+05:30

There are numerous road blocks in the city which slow down traffic and cause huge traffic jams, but which are not manned by any human beings! So why are they there?

The one I see most often is the one at the airport just as you come out of the Terminal 1A. 4 lanes of traffic has to slow down to squeeze through the road block one vehicle at a time. While the cops who are supposed to be checking the cars are presumably having tea somewhere.

Of course, everyone has often wondered what they are checking for anyway. But we'll talk about that another day. For now, I just wish that the cops would open up the roads at least when they are not on duty there.

Warren Buffet's Thoughts for 2009:

2009-02-07T16:25:00.001+05:30

We begin this New Year with dampened enthusiasm and dented optimism. Our happiness is diluted and our peace is threatened by the financial illness that has infected our families, organisations and nations. Everyone is desperate to find a remedy that will cure their financial illness and help them recover their financial health. They expect the financial experts to provide them with remedies, forgetting the fact that it is these experts who created this financial mess.

Every new year, I adopt a couple of old maxims as my beacons to guide my future. This self-prescribed therapy has ensured that with each passing year, I grow wiser and not older. This year, I invite you to tap into the financial wisdom of our elders along with me, and become financially wiser.

Hard work: All hard work brings profit; but mere talk leads only to poverty.

Laziness: A sleeping lobster is carried away by the water current.

Earnings: Never depend on a single source of income.

Spending: If you buy things you don't need, you'll soon sell things you need.

Savings: Don't save what is left after spending; Spend what is left after saving.

Borrowings: The borrower becomes the lender's slave.

Accounting: It's no use carrying an umbrella, if your shoes are leaking.

Auditing: Beware of little expenses; a small leak can sink a large ship.

Risk-taking: Never test the depth of the river with both feet.

Investment: Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

I'm certain that those who have already been practicing these principles remain financially healthy. I'm equally confident that those who resolve to start practicing these principles will quickly regain their financial health.

Let us become wiser and lead a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful life.

Late-comers are from Venus

2009-01-18T20:06:00.001+05:30

I think too much has been made out of this men are from mars and women
from venus thing. I think if you really want to study two different
species, you ought to look at people who are habitually on time and
those who are always late.

I belong to the first species and have been surrounded by people who
are habitual late-comers. At home, in office, among my friends – this
other species dominates the population nearly as much as right handers
do.

In order to further the cause of science, I offer below a few
characteristics of this species. To begin with let's give them a
name. I like to call them Homo Latiens to distinguish them from the
rest of us Home Sapiens.

1. Home Latiens always make you wait, but hate to wait themselves.
They make sure that they find something else to do that takes a little
longer than what you are doing, so that you end up waiting.

2. You can't out-late a Homo Latien. This is a corollary of the first
statement. If you think you can be later than them, all I can say to
you is "Ha!"

3. Homo Latiens are amazing at multi-tasking. See picture above.

4. Homo Latiens are absent minded. They always forget the most
important things. Their wallets. The projector. The file. The
gift. The keys. Then they have to go back and get it while you wait.

5. Homo Latiens think they are super efficient. They think everything
will get done in 5 minutes. Or in a jiffy. Whichever takes less
time. Home Sapiens tend to think in much longer time segments.

6. Homo Latiens think the last lap takes the most amount of time.
Having delayed themselves and everybody else, a typical Homo Latien
will sprint the last lap to the car, the door, down the steps or
whatever. Thus making up for lost time.

7. Homo Latiens are emergency prone. Somehow emergencies always seem
to crop up in their lives. That's actually what makes them late.
Somehow Homo Sapiens don't have so many emergencies. Please note that
going to the loo at the last minute counts as an emergency.

I would welcome further study into this species and in how the two
species – homo sapiens and homo latiens - interact with each other.

Trousers take over the dhoti

2008-12-09T15:32:00.001+05:30

The Economic Times of December 6, 2008 reported that 55% of all
readymade trousers sold in India were sold in rural areas. This is
good news. It shows the depth of our retail market, the increased
prosperity of the rural areas and a welcome spread of modernization.

Some may bemoan the erosion of our ethnic culture. But since most of
the people who will so crib, will do so while wearing western clothes,
we needn't take them seriously.

Now the only people wearing dhotis would be the smart set. Like
friend Amir!

Professionalize politics

2008-11-29T13:40:00.005+05:30

Right now we are all angry. We want something to be done. Something that will protect us in future. That will prevent a recurrence of what has happened.

And then we look at the people that we have elected to do something. That sends us into a new bout of despair. How can these people be expected to perform? These people are the dregs of our society. Remember that someone said that "politics was the last refuge of the scoundrel". That someone was right. Just look at them, their backgrounds and their track records.

So what is to be done? Clearly better people need to join politics. But why would better people join politics? What's in it for them?

Today politics is a career that does not pay if you are honest. The assumption is that you already have a career and having achieved all that you wanted to, you are now willing to work for the good of the country. Or that you are so selfless that you are willing to work for society without worrying about your own comfort.

This is clearly not working. This idealistic model is precisely what has led to the scoundrels ruling us. And that leads to the kind of disastrous situations that we have gone through.

So are there any better models that we can think of?

Plato said that the ruling elite were a different kind of a breed and suggested that they be identified when young and bred separately. They would be educated in a special kind of a way to ensure that they were good leaders. They would not marry, not would they need to earn a living, but their needs would be taken care of by the state.

Plato has been condemned as being idealistic and impractical. So his idea has never been seriously considered.

But is there something in there somewhere? Can we modify it to suit modern needs?

I think we could easily evolve an aptitude test that tests competence of people to be national leaders. Every politician should be required to take such a test before he can file his election papers.

Having identified a core set of people who have the interest and aptitude to rule, we need to find a way to ensure that they can make a living without being corrupt. Each politician who has passed the exam must get a salary that enables them to live comfortably while focusing on social work. There must be incentives to make these people rise up the hierarchy and ultimately become national leaders.

That way we would ensure that the country is ruled by a set of competent and professional people. People who we can trust to do a good job.

This idea is simplistic at this stage. But I think there are elements that are interesting and deserves to be developed into a workable system. Clearly the country needs it.

What A Cry Baby

2008-11-08T14:33:00.003+05:30

Australians can dish it out, but can't take it. This has been proven several times on the cricket field. Here is the latest instance.

Ian Chappell is on air complaining about India bowling with 8 fielders on the off and using "over rates as a tactic". If Australia had been using these same tactics, he would have been praising their professionalism especially if the tactics had paid off. Well the tactics have paid off for India and Australia is in some trouble (at tea time on day 3).

Come on Ian. Don't be such a cry baby just because you guys are in danger of losing the series. Remember that last ball bowled under arm by your brother Trevor, on instructions from your other brother, Greg?

Insights into the young Indian

2008-10-18T10:33:00.000+05:30

Everyone born before 1980 in India is a foreigner in his own country. The current generation thinks and behaves so differently from its predecessors, that it is OK to feel bewildered. Here are a few commonly held myths and the reality as captured by repeated studies done by Euro RSCG in India.

Before we get into the myths, a few words about the source of our data. We have interviewed over 4000 people in 20 cities over the last two years. We have a technique that predicts trends by studying what opinion spreaders think today. The "reality" below are not universal realities yet, but reflect the trends that we have spotted in the Indian market.

Myth: Young people always rebel against their parents.

That is so 1960s. Flower power and all that. Today's youth thinks that the most important role models for them are their parents. Parents rank way higher than iconic figures like Shahrukh Khan, Mahender Singh Dhoni and Barkha Dutt.

Dhoni and Barkha Dutt. Keep those two names in mind as you read further.

Myth: Trends trickle down from the big cities like Mumbai and Delhi.

Don't even mention this to Dhoni. Or to Sunil Mittal. Or the champion boxers from Bhiwani. These stars of today are not learning from their big city colleagues - they are teaching them. Teaching them the softer skills of winning. Teaching them values and a new work ethic. It is for this reason that we believe today's trends are not trickling down, but bubbling up.

Myth: Young people in India need help to succeed.

The stars we spoke of earlier, back themselves with an extremely high level of self belief. They are confident, almost arrogantly so. And they know that they will make their dreams come true. No matter what.

Today's youngster believes that she doesn't need to be born into a privileged family to achieve greatness. Apart from the usual sporting heroes, they point to a Barkha Dutt who has already had a movie made on her life. And she is still young!

Myth: Youth dream of America.

No longer. Even before the sub prime crisis and the economic meltdown, Indian youth had cooled off on the great American dream. They would still like to visit Firangland, but they don't want to go and live there. They are proud to be Indian and want to raise their families here.

Not only that, they no longer want to pay premiums for the "Foreign made" label. They actually believe that products made in India are more suited to local conditions and local hair and skin types. Quite a far cry from the days when even "export reject" products commanded a premium.

Myth: Indian women are either doormats or militant feminists.

For societies to change, women have to change first. Indian women are experiencing really dramatic changes. All the above insights apply to her, of course. But in addition we have to understand here new balanced approach to life.

Earlier women defined themselves by their roles. She was somebody's wife, mother, daughter or daughter in law. On the other extreme, she became a militant feminist like Rajani or Lalitaji. Today's women have developed a whole new approach. They have strong views on everything and a pretty clear set of objectives to achieve. However they are flexible in the route to achieving those objectives. They try to take others along rather than just bulldoze through the system. This "strategic" approach can be seen in movies and TV serials. Jassi in "Jassi jaisi koi nahin" was a good example.

So why are these dramatic changes taking place? Why is it that older people have become foreigners in their own land? Our belief is that there is a violent cultural remixing taking place in India and some other emerging markets. Global culture is colliding quite suddenly and dramatically with a strong entrenched local culture. The resultant is a hybrid that is as new and exciting as the culture of the flower power years.

But why now? There are a few reasons why the remixing is happening more now than ever before.

Older people are used to thinking of India as an agrarian economy. Jai Jawan Jai Kisan has been a slogan from the mid 1960s at least. Today that is no longer true. Only 21% of our GDP comes from agriculture and around one third of our people derive their incomes from it. India is today a service economy and people haven't quite got their heads around that fact.

The second big change is the rise of the backward castes in India's economic and political life. This is a politically incorrect subject to discuss, but I believe that today's business leaders all have a brahmanical view of the world, which is out of sorts with the current reality.

Aside from the two big changes, there are several smaller changes taking place. This is the third generation of nuclear families and so the ties of the joint family system are all gone. And with it are gone the old traditions and customs. Indians are seeing the world more - either through travel or through the media coming into their homes. This is broadening their minds and extending their horizons.

All these changes have taken place in a very quick time. Just a little more than a decade. In the context of cultural changes, that is a mere instant.

No wonder, us old fogies are feeling disoriented.

Sad

2008-10-12T09:57:00.000+05:30

JP, who? Today is Big B's birthday
11 Oct 2008, 0311 hrs IST, Sanjeev Kumar Verma,TNN

Jayaprakash Narayan, or JP as he was widely known, gave the historic call for Sampoorna Kranti or Total Revolution from Patna's Gandhi Maidan in 1974. However, Sampoorna Kranti is today known more as a Patna-Delhi train and JP's birthday, October 11, is revered more as cine star Amitabh Bachchan's date of birth by most of Patna's sophomores.

Ask Abhimanyu Kumar Singh, a Class XI student, what does he know about Sampoorna Kranti, and pat comes the reply, "It's an express train between Patna and Delhi." His classmate, albeit in another school, Mausam Shreshta offered a similar answer.

Even clues couldn't help Abhimanyu and Mausam come up with any knowledge about JP. Ironically, even college students TOI spoke to were no less ignorant.

"Sampoorna Kranti is a train but there is something more about it which I don't know," candidly confessed Brajesh, who is doing honours in History from a local college. "October 11 is the day when Big B was born," was how most of the city youths described the import of the day. Only a few could recall it also happened to be JP's birth anniversary, but only after they were given clues.

"Big B immediately hits your mind as his birthday is widely covered by the media," one of them thus explained his ignorance.

Student leader Ramashanker Sinha is not amused. "The state has been ruled by JP's disciples for so many years, but none of them bothered to do anything concrete for making the young ones understand the importance of the leader who is credited with ushering in a new era in Indian politics," Sinha said.

Agreed state's public health and engineering department (PHED) minister Ashwini Kumar Choubey, himself a product of JP movement. "While the previous governments having JP's disciples at the helm did nothing to educate the young ones about JP and his ideas, even our government in the first three years of its rule has not been able to do much on this front," he said.

Choubey said there is a need to organise special programmes in schools and colleges at least four times in a year — on the birth and death anniversaries of JP; on March 18, the day he led a silent procession in Patna in 1974 and on June 5, when he coined the concept of Total Revolution the same year. "Our youngsters would thus know JP," he said.

Browsing

2008-09-27T14:10:00.004+05:30

The good thing about blogs is that there are no editors around. Editors are the natural enemies of writers. Magazine editors are the worst of the lot because they have a space constraint in addition to their natural instinct to "improve" the piece.

Anyway, Business World magazine asked me to write about books I was reading and, in general, about my reading habits. My responses are given below. They then published an "edited" version that is shown in the picture alongside. You judge whether the editor did a good job.

Q: Which book are you reading at the moment and why did you pick it up?

A: I am reading “The last lecture” by Randy Pausch. I watched the video of the lecture just after Randy Pausch died. I found the lecture absolutely fascinating. I have therefore bought the book to read in greater detail.

Q: What you have learned so far from the book?

A: Fascinating book about the values that helped him achieve his childhood dreams. These are the lessons that he wants to tell his children about, but had no other way of communicating since the author was dying of cancer. I find such books inspiring and uplifting.

Q: Is it the kind of book you normally read? If not, what is your preferred reading (fiction, management, self-help, spiritual etc)?

A: I normally read non fiction books that cover a wide range of topics from physics to philosophy, from Indian culture to management, from biographies to humour. I firmly believe in the dictum that facts are stranger than fiction. If you want to know more about the books I read or recommend, go to my blog (sumansrivastava.blogspot.com) and look at the “Favourite books” box on the left hand side. I have a list of books that I have read with my ratings for them. Among my all time favourites:

May you be the mother of a hundred sons by Elisabeth Bumiller

What should I do with my life? By Po Bronson

The Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham

Q: How do you buy your books (based on reviews, browsing on the Net, favourite bookstore etc)?

A: I buy books almost indiscriminately much to the despair of my wife. I enter book stores whenever I can - there is a Crossword very close to my house in Bandra, and I also go into book shops in airports. I buy whatever catches my fancy. I also read a lot about books in magazines and hear podcasts about them. One of my favourite book reviewers is NPR (National Public Radio). I listen to their book reviews via podcasts.

Q: What are some of the other books on your reading list at the moment.

A: I get nervous if my “to read” shelf at home is empty. So I always keep it stocked. Currently among the books bought and waiting to be read are:

Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Billions of Entrepreneurs by Tarun Khanna

Myth = Mithya by Devdutt Pattanaik

Rap your way to knowledge

2008-09-24T12:21:00.002+05:30

Education is getting more fun all the time. My son is in an IB school and I marvel at the teaching techniques that they use. So much more interesting than the rote method that people of my generation had to ingest.

Here is a rap video about the new CERN collider. A lot of nonsensical stuff has appeared in the media about this, but the video talks about what they are really looking for. It is probably over simplified, but it is still not easy. But turning it into a rap song may help the scientists connect with a lot more people in the younger generation than scholarly articles.

Enjoy.

The Last Lecture

2008-09-03T12:41:00.004+05:30

I have been hugely impressed and inspired by "The Last Lecture" of Randy Pausch. It is funny in parts, entertaining and educational. I have seen the video and am currently reading the book. If you haven't seen the entire lecture yet, please do see it here.

Randy died last month. I wish I could talk as well as he does.

Resist the two year itch

2008-07-29T21:14:00.003+05:30

I sound like a stuck record when I tell young people that frequent shifts in jobs may get short term gains, but is not a wise long term career strategy. I point out as evidence the number of agency heads, creative heads and office heads who have been with their current agencies for a long time.

Now there's a study done by a global research and analytics firm that supports my statement. An article on this was published in today's Business Standard (click here) The study shows that across industries, senior executives look warily at people who change jobs too often. It also shows that people who have changed jobs very quickly don't get sufficient training and other developmental inputs from their companies and hence suffer in the long term.

I wonder if young people would heed advice such as this or just dismiss them as typical rants from old people. I know that my own young relatives often look at me as a creature to be pitied rather than censored. I am equally sure that saying "I told you so" is not going to improve my image.

I guess the only way young people will learn is by making mistakes themselves. It may well be too late.

Let's not talk ourselves into bad times

2008-07-15T09:27:00.002+05:30

For the last few weeks the media is full of stories about the bad times coming to India. There is data to show lower growth rates in many sectors, the stock market indices are going down, the real estate boom seems to have plateaued and there are features about how consumers are buying less than before.

I am not quite sure whether all this is media hype or a reality. I have tended to think that it is hype. When growth rates fall from 9% to 7.8% that is not a recession. Especially when you consider that in a previous decade a growth rate of 7.8% would have been a huge cause for celebration.

Today, there is a comment from the Chairman of ICICI Bank, KV Kamath, which points out that it is too early to talk of a slowdown (click here). I am so happy to see this statement - even though it is a little half hearted.

Slowdowns are about human sentiment and therefore if we all believe that there is a going to be bad times, then there will be. The secret is to stay positive.

Cheers

Alternative. Entrepreneurial. Community service.

2008-06-28T09:43:00.002+05:30

I just read about this IIMA graduate from Bihar who has gone back to his village in Nalanda to sell vegetables. He has designed an ice-cooled pushcart in order to market them and hopes to do so across the country. Read the whole article here.

Wow.

Our studies at Euro RSCG India have been looking at some trends among Indian youth. We keep talking about Indian youth looking for alternative career options. We believe that Indians are entrepreneurial (jugaadu). And we believe that today's youth wants to serve society if he can (Rang de basanti, Munnabhai).

This one story highlights all the three trends. Its the sweet spot of the three trends.

I was attracted to this story because it is so different, but also because of my IIMA and Bihar connections. So that's another sweet spot!

Indian are like a chest of drawers

2008-06-14T15:48:00.003+05:30

Pawan Varma said that Indians were like a chest of drawers. Different aspects of their personality are kept separate and do not conflict with each other. What better way to prove this than this piece from The Economic Times. Scientists offer prayers before they launch rockets. If you think there is no contradiction in that, then Congratulate yourself. You are still an Indian in spite of your education!

Here is the full Eco Times article.

Indian scientists secular, but firm believers in god
14 Jun, 2008, 1304 hrs IST, IANS

NEW DELHI: Indian scientists are very much secular but that doesn't go against their belief in god. A survey has found that many of them seek divine blessings before embarking on major scientific missions.

The study, "Worldviews and Opinions of Scientists in India", carried out by the Trinity College of the US with help from Centre for Inquiry (CFI) India, a non-profit organisation, has found that 49 per cent of scientists believe prayer is "efficacious as therapy".

Though most of the 1,100 Indian scientists surveyed described themselves as "secular", they refused to be called irreligious. The survey came out last week.

"In 2005, space scientists went to Tirupati to seek the blessings of Lord Venkateswara before launching the rocket and satellite," the study reveals.

It also found that only eight percent of the scientists said they would refuse to work on stem cell research because of moral or religious beliefs.

Nearly 83 per cent of respondents described secularism as the "separation of religion from state and government" and 93 per cent termed it as "tolerance for religions and philosophies." Only 20 per cent considered that secularism means atheism.

"Indians are by nature god believing people. They don't put spirituality versus science. Our ethos is broad - while we are rooted to our belief we are also open to new ideas, knowledge and innovations," renowned scientist Y.S. Rajan said.

"There is broadly no conflict as we are for religious plurality. Let me be clear, there is no basic dichotomy between science and god," he added.

The study found that a majority of scientists believe in the existence of god or "some higher power". Some even said that they don't know whether there is god or not. "The majority of scientists think they are spiritual," the study found.

Placid Rodriguez, former director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, said religion or belief in god is a part of the Indian value system. "It's a part of our family value and social need."

"I as a Christian have broken coconuts at the beginning of some programme (though it's a Hindu practice). God or religion is an inbuilt belief," Rodriguez, who is currently a Raja Raman Fellow and distinguished professor at IIT Madras, said over phone from Chennai.

The study found nearly 75 per cent of these top scientists - whom the survey termed as "elite" - said they believe in the Hindu cycle of life. At least 29 per cent believe in karma, 26 per cent in life after birth and 20 percent in reincarnation. Similarly, 38 percent said god performs miracles.

"I don't think, we can call the karma and rebirth theory unscientific. The belief helps us do good work and leads us towards ultimate equality. It's a beautiful imagination to improve yourself," Rajan explained.

The study sampled participants from 130 universities and research institutes in India between July 2007 and January 2008.

Barry A. Kosmin, the lead researcher of the study, said, India was chosen because of its increasing scientific and economic importance on the global scene."

Family run businesses - A good perspective

2008-06-14T06:50:00.002+05:30

I just read this very interesting article by T N Ninan in the Business Standard on the Ranbaxy deal. I liked it so much, that I am reproducing it in full below. Before you go, here is one thought from me: Why is corporate India / Indian media so upset that a good Indian company has been bought by a foreigner? Is that we can only dish it out (buy other's companies) and not take it?

Here is T N Ninan:

A friend commented that it must be nice for Malvinder Singh of Ranbaxy to pocket Rs 10,000 crore and also get nice things said about him by the media. Perhaps, but it is instructive to look at all the families that did not sell out when the going was good. Many of them are still in control of their companies and groups, but these are pale shadows of what they used to be at the height of their glory—and many of them live and work in the same city as the Ranbaxy chief executive. There are the Nandas, for instance: two brothers who have had their differences, who have parted ways, and whose companies are a far cry from their father's Escorts that Swraj Paul raided a quarter century ago because it was (among other things) the country's leading tractor manufacturer and also its leading motor-cycle company. Escorts no longer makes motor-cycles. It has got into a series of other businesses, none of which have done particularly well, and it finally resorted to converting a charitable trust (which ran the Escorts hospital) into a company in order to sell it and make some money.

There is the other company that Paul raided: DCM. The brothers who ran it had squabbled for years, and the company was split into many parts, some of which have done quite well and others have not; one even defaulted big-time on deposits taken from the public. The combined sum of the parts today is a far cry from the DCM that used to be the country's fourth or fifth largest company. At its core, the company's decline was a failure to recognise that all the members of the third generation were not equally endowed and therefore fit for business responsibility.

There is also the saga of the Modis, nine brothers and cousins who once moved ambitiously into an impressive array of businesses, most of which have fallen by the wayside. Modi Rubber used to be the king of the truck tyre business, Xerox was a Modi partner in India and so was Blue Circle, once the world's leading cement manufacturer. You don't hear much about the Modi businesses any more, other than for BK Modi wanting to sell his stake in Spice and Lalit Modi organizing cricket's Indian Premier League.

These Delhi examples can be multiplied in other parts of the country, almost ad infinitum. Ahmedabad's Sarabhais, for instance, were among the country's premier business families, so were Mumbai's Mafatlal and many of Kolkata's Marwari clans. None of this is to argue that there is something wrong with family-run businesses, because the evidence is that they often do better than the ‘professionally' managed companies. The issue therefore is to recognize that the interests of a business and those of its controlling family are not identical. Also, whose interests do you put first: that of the family, or of the business that has other stake-holders? If the operating principle is that all members of a family must be given an equal role in the business and that they will not make way for better managers who are not members of the family (in other words, the feudal principle), it is hard to see such a company prospering for long in a competitive market.

The vindication of Malvinder Singh's action is that the new owner of Ranbaxy wants him to continue as the chief executive. If all the businessmen who have presided over the decline of their companies had asked themselves whether they would be able to retain their corner suites even if the company passed into other hands, the history of Corporate India would have been different.

Evolution of our business model

2008-06-12T15:00:00.002+05:30

The biggest change in the communications industry over the next 4 years is going to be in our business model itself. I think it is going to look very different from the way it is today. In this piece, I shall examine the factors that are causing the change and the possible direction that the change may take.

The biggest challenge facing the industry is getting good talent. The challenge in getting good talent is that we are not paying them enough especially when you compare our pay scales with that in media, retail, IT and other sectors. The reason we are not able to compete is because our clients have squeezed our margins. Our margins will only improve if we add dramatically new value to clients. So that is one set of factors that will force our business model to change.

The second set of factors relates to our client’s business needs. Their business models have evolved rapidly as well and most marketers are faced with new challenges that do not have enough precedents. So they need to have trusted advisors who will help them in navigating through these storms and air pockets.

The third set of factors relates to technology. The internet, video conferencing technology, the mobile phone (including the Blackberry) and the laptop have dramatically changed the supply side of the industry. The effects of all this on our industry is only just beginning. In future, agencies will be able to have larger catchments than simply their own cities, regions or countries. Also it will be easier and cheaper to set up agencies than ever before and so agencies will face greater competition than ever before.

To summarize, we have to increase our margins by adding value to clients. Clients need more and better advice. And technology will change the scope of our markets as well as bring in new competition.

Clearly therefore agencies have to move from earning most of our revenue from execution to earning most of our money from consultancy and ideas. This seems obvious, but I would like to outline some of the deeper issues involved.

As an industry we think we earn on the basis of ideas just because we may have moved from a commission based remuneration model to a fee based one. But that is not true. We still justify our fee based on the number of people and man-hours that we will spend on the business or on the basis of the output these people will create. We never base it on the quality of our ideas. How then are we really in the ideas business?

Our processes were created in an era where we earned commissions and we haven’t changed them after we moved to a fee based structure. We still wait for client briefs and tend to be reactive. Consultants are more self driven and work according to well defined deliverables and milestones. We have yet to learn how to do that.

Also, while at a top management level, we talk about integration and 360 communications, we don’t actually walk the talk. We still have divisions based on our specializations and each of them have business targets. Thus their advice tends to be highly skewed towards their own disciplines. This makes the client suspicious of our recommendations.

Given all this, here is what I think the business model of the future would be.

Agencies will organize themselves around industry verticals – rather like the practices that consultants have, rather than around their service offering. Thus we will have divisions like retail, technology, healthcare, consumer goods, durables etc. Each of these divisions will develop proprietary knowledge into their industries. This knowledge will enable them to provide advice with confidence to their clients and actually command their respect.

Our remuneration will grow to much higher levels but will carry more risk. We will no longer get assured fees at low levels, but high fees that are indexed to the outcomes for the client. A kind of pay by results model that the internet has taught us.

Agencies will then need to plan their portfolios well. They will need some clients who will perform steadily with low risk, others who will perform brilliantly but with high risk. Each agency will have to balance these types of clients according to their own risk appetites.

Very few clients will be able to afford the integrated service model that agencies will offer. Only the really large clients or clients in complex competitive situations will sign on as integrated clients. Most clients will focus on specific areas where they need high quality help. For every thing else, they will be able to access commoditized services off the net. So in effect, our industry will evolve into two – a customized, high price model and a mass produced, low price one.

I am really looking forward to the next few years as these changes unfold. Advertising is still the activity where you can have the “most fun with your clothes on”. Only now it is going to evolve into a slightly different kind of fun.

Put your seat belts on.

THE SECRET INDIA TODAY CONCLAVE

2008-03-16T21:41:00.004+05:30

I have spent the last 2 and a half days at the India Today Conclave in Delhi. It was a superb event with lots of very interesting speakers. Unfortunately this conference not been covered widely in our media, because media groups do not allow coverage of each other's events. Its really petty when you think that the news media in India covers such inane news most of the time, and yet couldn't (or didn't) cover excellent speeches by a glittering array of speakers. So much so that just now when I searched for "India Today Conclave" on Google, it didn't show up any results! Of course, the India Today group does have very extensive coverage of the event - you can read the reports, watch the videos and look at the pictures by clicking here.

So in my own small way, I shall now fill the breach and tell the two and a half people who read my blog, all about the conclave. Or at least, the bits that impressed me the most.

Space tourism is here. We got to see a model of the plane that will launch the space vehicle, a model of the space vehicle, a video of the first test flight and an animation video of what it will be like when the space vehicle goes up with passengers. All this was presented to us by Stephen Attenborough, commercial director, Virgin Galactic. The most amazing bits about the space travel are the two breakthrough innovations that are going to make space travel cheaper and safer at the same time. One is the idea of launching the "rocket" from the air rather than the ground. It requires less energy and is safer because if something goes wrong, the rocket can simply glide down to earth. The second idea is to have rotating wings that turn to slow down the vehicle's re-entry into the atmosphere and ensures that it is not as stressful an event as it has been for the space shuttles. Difficult to explain in a few words, but you might like to go to Virgin Galactic's site and watch the flash videos about the technology.

Sunil Mittal and Wim Elfrink, Chief Global Officer of Cisco, made excellent presentations on the future of communications. Not just about what technology is going to do, but how it will affect human beings. Sunil spoke about empowerment of people the mobile phone will be the identity card and the credit card for the poor. He also made a fervent appeal to not have any more regulators for his industry. Mr. Elfrink showed us the benefits of "Tele-presence" and how that would change the way we live and work.

Now that I have revealed my fascination for technology by opening this piece with the most techy bits, let me move on to the other people were fascinating.

Narendra Modi, Vikram Akula, Yasin Malik and Peter Roebuck were the speakers who made the biggest impression on me. That is saying something since the other speakers included Bill Clinton, Al Gore, L K Advani, Chidambaram, Mukesh Ambani, Adam Gilchrist, Amir Khan, Preity Zinta, Sachin Pilot, Farookh Abdullah, Digvijay Singh, Bishen Bedi, Ashok Amritraj and Craig Venter.

I must also mention in this context that some of the moderators were brilliant too. Aron Purie, Anand Mahindra, Shekhar Kapur and Prabhu Chawla excelled in this role. I have never seen such high quality moderation at any panel discussion before.

Narendra Modi & Yasin Malik (the Kashmir Liberation Front leader who is fighting for an independent Kashmir) were the two anti-heroes who came to the conclave. I think everyone was very curious about these two people and we were not disappointed. They both put forward their views in a very forceful and convincing manner. After the session where Mr Modi spoke, I asked many people who they would vote for between him, Digvijay Singh and Farooq Abdullah. Mr Modi was the clear people's choice.

I didn't dare do a similar exercise after Yasin Malik's speech. I did put my foot in my mouth by saying that I was impressed by him to a person who, I later discovered, was a Kashmiri Pandit. This gentleman was already seething and he just let me have it. He called Malik a murderer, a rapist and a terrorist and criticized the India Today people for having him at the conclave. He was not alone. A few people were demonstrating outside the hotel and one person actually entered the hall and shouted to have the event stopped. He was escorted out by the security people.

Mr. Al Gore’s speech was billed as the highlight of the conclave. The turnout for this absolutely amazing. Half the Indian cabinet (including Mr. Chidambaram) were present. All the speakers stayed on to listen to him – this included film stars like Preity Zinta and Amir Khan. All the industrialists came back from their meetings. (I even noticed Mr. & Mrs Adi Godrej, who seemed to have flown in from Bombay just for this.) The décor of the hall was changed to reflect the “green” look, and the who’s who of Delhi turned out in their most designer clothes.

In the end, the speech was a little disappointing. I guess it is tough to live up to such hype. Especially when you have just one theme to talk about and everyone has seen the movie where you said it all. Still, he did very well in the Q&A. I noticed that Mr. Aroon Purie only allowed the high and mighty to ask questions of Mr. Gore.

The conclave was exceptional in the wide range of topics that it covered. The theme was “Leadership in the 21^st century”. Sessions were ear marked to study leadership issues in communication, ethics, spirituality, sports, entertainment, the environment etc. There was even a youth forum where speakers spoke on what they would do if they could change the world. This is where Vikram Akula, who is India’s answer to Mohammad Yunus, said he would like everyone of the top 20% of India’s population to spend one day living the life of the bottom 80%. He believes that will generate empathy and create the conditions for real change to take place.

Its tiring sitting in those uncomfortable chairs all day for two and a half days. One eats a lot and doesn’t exercise at all. But in this conference, the mind got good food and good exercise. Thank you India Today for that.

OF FASHION SHOWS & CREATIVE AWARDS

2008-03-08T13:19:00.001+05:30

Scam ads.

Two short words that stir up a lot of debate and strong feelings. Clients & competitors snigger at them. Creative people hate the term and fiercely defend the concept. Journalists ask award show organizers their stance on scam ads. Award juries spend more time debating whether an ad was a scam than its intrinsic merits.

Fashion shows.

A ceremony where designers show off clothes that nobody would wear in normal life. Where celebrities, critics, journalists and the public go into raptures about the relative merits and talents of the designers. Where only the most naïve and forthright people question the need for creating those dresses. So why aren’t those clothes called Scam dresses?

Formula 1.

A car race for cars that can’t be driven on normal roads with normal traffic. Where car, tyre, fuel and lubricant manufacturers jostle to create cutting edge products that aren’t for the lay public. Another place which generates a lot of passion and excitement but where nobody talks of scams.

I could go on with examples from other industries and other walks of life. But let’s now address the key question. Why is it that only advertising gets the label of “scam” and why is it that only we talk about it so much?

The answer probably emanates from a misunderstanding about the nature and purpose of creative awards.

Creative awards are meant to recognize work that has pushed the boundaries of communication. Effectiveness awards recognize work that has pushed sales or other results for the client. In the context of cars, Formula 1 races are creative awards, while car rallies are effectiveness awards. Get the difference?

I think juries of creative awards should be looking for unique insights, creative expressions and execution techniques. These insights, expressions and techniques could be demonstrated in the form of scam ads. That’s fine. What is important is their brilliance, their creativity.

Perhaps creative awards should drop the criteria that an entry needs to have been done for a real client and released. Why is that essential? If I have a brilliant insight for selling cars, then I should be allowed to use that insight in an ad that I create for a fictitious car and enter it for awards. If the idea is really great, then I should get an award.

Dropping these two criteria (or real client and release) would release ad agencies from a huge moral dilemma and also save the industry a lot of money. We all know that scam ads get released either at agency expense or by culling favours. Shouldn’t we just abandon this hypocrisy?

The advertising industry doesn’t have much of a R&D budget. We may do the occasional research, but that is usually to get PR for our companies rather than to genuinely unearth new insights. But there is a huge opportunity for turning creative awards into an engine for industry wide R&D.

This is where we can develop path breaking insights, expressions and techniques that would then be used (perhaps in a modified or watered down manner) for normal everyday work. Insisting that path breaking work be released is like asking Albert Einstein the practical uses of the theory of relativity. There are uses, but not all of them are apparent when the theory is first propounded.

Once we make it clear that creative awards do not need to be done for a real client, we are free from the constraints of that brand’s guidelines. We are out into the scary green fields of pure creativity. If we can then create something that makes the whole industry gasp – a show stopper in a fashion show – then we really do deserve all the accolades that we can get.

Gold jewellery no more Indian bride's best friend

2008-02-25T20:20:00.002+05:30

That's the title of an article that I read just now (click here to read the original article). A couple of thoughts about this "trend"?

My first thought was to feel happy that finally we are letting go of our irrational love for the yellow metal. Although I think we are so much in the lead as the biggest hoarders of gold, that it will take a long time for us to fall from the top slot.

The second thought is happiness again that the Indian woman is feeling so economically liberated and secure that she doesn't feel the need to hoard gold. I don't think the price of gold has anything to do with her not buying more (as this article suggests). In fact quite the contrary. If the price of gold goes up then that is so much more reason to buy gold and keep as an insurance.

Clearly she doesn't need the insurance that much. That is why she would rather have a laptop and that plasma TV. And what of the future? Well, that's what the mutual funds are for!

Dialogue@Exchange4media.com

2007-12-14T22:03:00.000+05:30

"The Indian consumer and culture have changed. They have become more remixed, where we are taking some aspects of Anglo-Saxon and mixing it with Indian culture. I believe there isn't any other agency that is doing brilliant work of consistently talking to this new remixed consumer. Our opportunity is to be this agency that talks to this remixed consumer in the most relevant way and offer creative solutions based on the insights that we get from the remixed generation." Suman Srivastava, CEO, Euro RSCG



Suman Srivastava, a graduate from IIM Ahmedabad, is the CEO of Euro RSCG India. He joined Lowe in 1987 where he spent eight years. In 1994, Srivastava moved to SSC&B Lintas and was instrumental in building the agency. He left SSC&B Lintas to join Euro RSCG in 1996. Since then, he has been spearheading the agency's India operations. In conversation with Rishi Vora of exchange4media, Srivastava talks about the challenges facing the advertising industry. Excerpts:

Q.	You have been in the advertising industry since 1987. How do you think has the industry evolved since the days you started your career in advertising?

A.	The biggest change that has taken place in the industry is that we have moved from the commission-based revenue model to one that is fee-based. Today we have more focus on integrated communication rather than purely advertising. Plus, unlike the earlier days, there are a lot of young people today who want to get into the industry, and thus the position of advertising as an industry has changed, in terms of scouting talent. Today talent is available and you just have to recogise, groom and retain. Another big change is that Indian agencies now have integrated with their global counterparts, unlike before, when a local branch of an international agency had nothing to do with the operations of its parent company. There is much more equity ownership today; we see a lot of interaction with global network CEOs who are now visiting their India offices on a regular basis. To put it precisely, I think the importance of India in the global network has increased.

Q.	I understand that the market in the early 1990s was emerging, and since then there has been a lot of changes in the industry. Has the industry matured to some extent? Where do you see the revenue curve of the industry going?

A.	I don't think the market has matured. I think we are in the early growth stage of our development. If you look at any parameter that gives you an idea of ad revenues, we are way lower than even our neighbouring countries like South East Asia or the Middle East. Plus, if you compare the industry with other emerging markets, you would see that our spends are comparatively lower. I think the industry is growing pretty rapidly if you look at the ad spends of last two years. I think our industry has a lot more years of growth left before we can call it a matured one. The industry is more multi-dimensional, and I think we are only getting more professional in our approaches. The quality of our work over the years has improved dramatically. Most importantly, we now have an Indian way of advertising that is not a derivative of an American or Anglo-Saxon way. But there's so much more to understand, like the insights into the Indian consumers. I am saying this because there have been a few examples, which are not really Indian insights but are adaptations from the West. I would argue that most advertising professionals are not bothered to go out and meet consumers to get insights.

Q.	As you say that ad spends are less, do you indicate that ad rates are lower in the industry as compared to international standards?

A.	That's true. The rates are much way lower. Forget the US, the ad spends that we have in India are lower than even the Middle East. Also, the reach of our media is inadequate and low. The rates are lower, the compensation agencies get is lower, and hence the overall spending is also low. These are early days of development of the Indian economy, and as the economy develops and competition increases, the Indian communication industry will get larger and professional in approach.

Q.	What is the average agency compensation in the industry? How much is yours?

A.	For us, more than 70 per cent of the total earnings come from fees, while the remaining comes from production. The media commission and the share of creative agencies have become very small. Also, media agencies are working on flat fees rather than commission. This is the change that has taken place in the industry, and I think it's a good change.

Q.	There is a rift between media and creative. Do you think the two should merge? What do you think is good for the industry?

A.	I think this rift will continue to exist for a long time. But if you ask me what is good, I certainly believe that both media and the creative have to merge, and there is no other way out. We keep on saying that integration is a big story. But the biggest integration that clients want is that of media and creative. When will this happen is a difficult question to answer. But I am sure this will happen with some changes. Let's say that Euro RSCG in New York has a designation such as 'Creative Director-Media' and his job is to think of innovation in media. So clearly if you break up the media function, there is a strategy part of media, a creative part, a trading and negotiating part, and then the operations part. I think strategy and creative parts of media is something that creative agencies have to offer their clients.

Q.	Do you think the buying pattern of media will change over a period of time?

A.	The buying aspects of the media, whether that too comes back or goes to a client, is what we have to see. For instance, when clients start buying from media channels, transactions become cleaner. You may never know that we may have a completely different set of model in future.

Q.	What do you think are the major loopholes for a media agency in India?

A.	One of the big issues for a media agency is the amount of 'outstandings' we have in the industry today. If one client defaults, then there is complete chaos for the media agency. So may be in the future there will be some way to ensure that there are no losses from the outstandings. Would there be brokers, financial companies or insurance agencies that would step in to ensure media owners and media agencies against non-payment? One doesn't know how things would evolve. I think it is naïve to think that we will go back to the kind of an integrated agency that existed 10 years ago. However, I don't think the agency structures have ceased to evolve and there will be more changes as we go forward.

Q.	How have you seen Euro evolve and grow under your leadership since 1996?

A.	Euro has done very well. From 1995 to 1997, we doubled; and when I took over, I had informed the media that my target was 2x3y, which was to double the revenue in three years. We have actually done it 2x2y –we have doubled in two years. Now whether we can keep this momentum on is something we really don't know. But frankly, we have been lucky that we have grown while there was tremendous growth in the industry and in the economy. On the side of the creative products, I think we have done well in the last year and half. We have done several pieces of work that I am proud of, like the Voltas campaign, our works for Red FM and Cobra, the ongoing Mac Lubricants campaign with Dhoni. We have just released a campaign on Volvo, which again is very interesting. At Euro, we have also changed the way we practice. We now have only one P&L for each of our regions –Mumbai, Delhi and South – and all services now report to the Director of the respective regions. The marketing and PR services offer true integration to clients. Moreover, our 'Bunty Syndrome' is an example of how new things create thought leadership in their respective category.

Q.	What was your vision for Euro RSCG when you joined the agency? How far have you reached in achieving this vision?

A.	This thing called vision scares me a little bit. I don't think I took this job to change things. Euro RSCG was performing well those days and it was a question of just continuing the good work. But there were a several things we needed to do. We had to grow and improve our creative product. We set ourselves short-term targets and we have achieved some. The biggest thing that we have done is improved the image of the agency. Our reality is much better than our perception. I think this is good in a way, but that is one area we are working on.

Q.	Euro RSCG is big internationally, but not so in India. Your comments...

A.	While we are one of the largest agencies, we actually have an image problem in many parts of the world. The reason is that in many of the developed markets, we were not known as Euro RSCG since we grew by acquisitions in countries like South East Asia, New York and some others. It is only a few yeas ago that we made the transition of being known as the Euro RSCG network. We are still a teenage brand with 16 years of international presence and having completed 12 years in India. If you compare this with other big agencies in India, most of them have been in existence since 50-60 years. Euro started in France and Europe, and is very strong there. But in the US, we are slowly and gradually moving towards being one of the best agencies there.

Q.	What is the Euro India philosophy?

A.	We are trying to evolve what I like to call 'remixed philosophy'. Twenty years ago when I started my career in advertising, good advertising was a derivative of the Anglo-Saxon and the very English kind. Subsequently, Indian advertising has developed what I would like to call 'Hindi idiom', which at least becomes our own medium. The Indian consumer and culture have changed. They have become more remixed, where we are taking some aspects of Anglo-Saxon and mixing it with Indian culture. I believe there isn't any other agency that is doing brilliant work of consistently talking to this new remixed consumer. Our opportunity is to be this agency that talks to this remixed consumer in the most relevant way and offer creative solutions based on the insights that we get from the remixed generation.

Q.	Euro positions itself to be different internationally. How do you differentiate from your Indian counterparts?

A.	Globally, our philosophy is 'future first'. We can predict the future and because of our tools like 'Prosumer' and other such studies, and because these tools tend to predict the behaviour of consumers in future, we can help our clients in targeting their consumers in a better way. We are taking this same philosophy forward in India, and this is how we are differentiating with our Indian counterparts.

Q.	We have not seen a star rising from Euro RSCG India like we have a few in the industry. Your comments...

A.	Stars take some time in making. Prasoon took 20 years, so as Piyush and others. Ogilvy took many years in order to change itself from a middle-of-the-road agency into being the creative machine that it is. Lowe was certainly not considered as a creative hot shop as it is considered today. All the big agencies that we see today have evolved over a period of years. I am sure that our stars will come from within, just the way Piyush and Balki were born from within their respective agency structures. I am sure we would be able to reach a position, say after a few years, when people would say that the best stars are produced from within Euro RSCG.

Q.	Please give your comments on the trend of creative people taking the top position...

A.	I don't think that it is about saying that the top job needs to be for someone who is in creative, a media planner or anybody else. Finally when you get to the top, you need to be everything. You need to have the respect of everyone in the agency, and be able to motivate employees. There is a set of leadership skills, and the best person would be the one who has the ability to perform in all the roles.

Q.	There is a lack of creative talent in the industry. How do you ensure retaining your employees?

A.	We are doing a lot to attract and retain. Finally, people blossom when you train them, give them responsibilities and more opportunities. Euro people are valued in the industry and people pick them on for higher salaries in terms of both strategic and creative abilities.

Q.	Please give your views on the new media and the digital landscape...

A.	To me, new media is not just Internet and mobile. For me, malls and multiplexes are the most exciting new media that India has seen recently. The Internet is important for prosumers, and for the mass, mobile and mediums like malls are more important. The way Indian consumers would react to new media is different from the way other markets have. We would continue to be on traditional media like print and TV, but at the same time we would also look at the other new media.

Q.	What are your contributions going to be to ‘Leap’ and ‘Life’?

A.	There are people who want strategic recommendations, who at this point are not interested in integrated solutions; they may be looking at brand architecture, corporate identity and solutions. 'Leap' does all this very well. Similarly, 'Life' looks at the healthcare industry and other opportunities that it can create within the healthcare industry. There are various sectors like retail that are growing in India. On a broader note, the idea is to identify these sectors and offer specialist solutions for those who are looking for it. This is an interview that I gave to Exchange4media.com. This appeared in the week of December 8, 2007.

There is something about these small towns

2007-10-04T22:21:00.000+05:30

Here is the video that we showed in the launch conference of the Bunty Syndrome study. Enjoy!

For those of you who don't know, Bunty Symdrome is Euro RSCG's study of attitudes, behaviour and trends in Tier 2 cities of India. The study interviewed 2400 young people in 12 non-metro cities of India.

Some of the insights in this blog come out of this study.

How To Say "I am Different, I am Cool"

2007-10-04T20:22:00.000+05:30

Did you read the article in the Times of India about a guy who nearly got sent to jail because of a raunchy ring tone? This article says that the magistrate in an Australian court had warned visitors to switch off their phones, but this guy didn't. His ring tone was the sound of a woman having orgasm and when it went off everyone in court was both embarrassed and amused.

But the interesting thing about this episode is why the man had such a ring tone to begin with. What is he trying to convey to the people around him?

Yesterday young people conveyed their attitudes through the messages on their T-shirts. Sania Mirza is a good example. Today they convey their coolness quotient through their ring tones.

It all started with simple musical ring tones, but they are now getting more and more bizarre. And if you don't have a cool ring tone, you are so 20th century.

Ring tones are fast becoming a good way to communicate with young people. But brands seem to want their customers to download tones that remind them of the brand's ads. That is pretty uncool in an era when the ring tone is meant to talk about the person. Interesting challenge this. Do you have any examples of anyone doing well with this medium?

Chak de (small town) India

2007-09-25T20:30:00.000+05:30

I just did a Blog search for the phrase "Chak de India" and found there were 385 results in the last 24 hours. In other words, since India won the T20 World Cup. So here is the 386th, unless of course, others beat me to the post.

The big news is that India won. But what is interesting to me is how small town India is grabbing center stage. Opportunity is not knocking only on the doors of people in the metros, but also those in towns like Ranchi, Rae Bareilly and Rohtak. So the world is getting more flat.

Here is a list of home towns of the players in the Indian team. The conclusions are for you to draw.

MS Dhoni	Ranchi
Yuvraj Singh	Chandigarh
Ajit Agarkar	Bombay
Gautam Gambhir	Delhi
Harbhajan Singh	Jullundher
Joginder Sharma	Rohtak
Dinesh Karthik	Chennai
Irfan Pathan	Baroda
Yusuf Pathan	Baroda
Piyush Chawla	Aligarh
Virender Sehwag	Nazafgarh
Rohit Sharma	Bombay
Rudra Pratap Singh	Rae Bareilly
S Sreesanth	Kothamangalam
Robin Uthappa	Coorg

A question that has been asked of me is whether this small town person wants to be talked to in a different language. I think that is missing the point. I don't think it is about whether that person wants to be talked to differently. The point is that his world-view is very different and so you cannot connect with him unless you have the same view. Let me illustrate this.

The metro guy has more to lose and therefore plays safe. The small town guy has more to win and so is willing to take the bigger risk. I guess this is just one way in which Bunty's world is different.

At any rate, Bollywood and cricket continues to unite us and make us one country.

Chak de India.

Rolling stones don't become CEO!

2007-09-20T21:02:00.000+05:30

Just saw this interesting news item about the new CEO of Nestle (click here).

The board has chosen a guy who has been with the company for 28 years over the "front runner" who has been in the company for 2.

This confirms what I have long believed. That rolling stones finally reach a glass ceiling that they're unable to pierce.

I probably sound terribly old fashioned to my younger colleagues. But I couldn't resist the temptation to say "see I told you so"!

The World Is Really Getting Flat

2007-09-09T09:49:00.000+05:30

Today's DNA has an article that says 50% of online shoppers in India are from small towns. A couple of months ago, the Times of India had an article about e-tickets in India which said that 73% of air tickets in India are booked through the internet. Which is amazing since the internet penetration in our country is 3.7%. Also in the same article is the story of farmers in a village near Tirupati buying e-tickets through an enterprising jeweler who had quickly become a travel agent.

So suddenly the big story all around us is about the various Buntys and Bablis of the world who no longer have the patience for the trickle down effect to work. They are keen to grab that new mobile phone, travel to that new destination, live the new dream, as quickly as the Sids, Akashs & Samirs (remember Dil Chahta Hai?).

This much is quite obvious. What is not obvious is how we are going to appeal to these people. What vocabulary will we use to talk to them?

It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon style of communication with the understated elegant humour does not appeal to this lot. Even when expressed in Indian languages. So advertising has gone to the other extreme and is using, so called, "small talk" language to talk to them.

I think this is insulting to them. It is like New Yorkers doing advertising to Indians and using a "Peter Sellers" type language and visual imagery full of Taj Mahals and snake charmers. We would be insulted and so, I believe, are todays Buntys and Bablis.

What we need to develop is a new remixed vocabulary to talk to them. A vocabulary of words & images but also a new vocabulary of dreams, aspirations, humour and relationships.

This flat world is quite challenging. But the rewards are so much greater.

Fathers are parents too

2007-09-08T11:15:00.000+05:30

Did you see the article by Madhukar Sabnavis in Agency FAQs titled "Of parenting and children"? If not, do read it. Very interesting and insightful.

I have a few related points to make.

There are a bunch of human relationships that exist all around us that we never reflect in advertising. One example that I have spoken of to my colleagues is the relationship between a married woman and her mother. Now Madhukar has raised the point about a father and his children.

All father-kid interactions are meant to be about playing. Presumably that is all he does, while the mother focuses on the kid's homework, discipline and other essentials. Hard to believe this. Especially since I am a teaching parent and I know a few others who are.
Conversely I know a few indulgent mothers too. So why do we propagate this myth?

And how many other types of relationships can we think of that are not reflected in advertising?

Talking of myths, I also like the way that Madhukar has spoken of the four types of mothers using characters from Indian mythology. Isn't it amazing that we can neatly capture the most modern and latest trends using characters from an epic written a few thousand years ago? Shows the importance of mythology in our lives. We learn it while we were babies and so never quite forget it.

So are there good stereotypes for fathers in our mythology? It seems difficult to think of any young fathers. It seems that men are too busy being heroes while they are in their youth or middle age. Only when they become old do they become proud fathers. Can any of you think of a good role model of younger fathers?

What they don't teach at B School

2007-06-14T17:25:00.000+05:30

I have a two word answer to this question. Street smartness. That’s what they don’t teach in business school.

Business school taught me how to read balance sheets. But didn’t tell me how to motivate people to give off their best. Business school taught me how to structure the organization for maximum productivity. But not how to deal with a person who thinks her boss is a creep. Business school taught me how to create a good marketing strategy. But not how to sell it to a client who is insecure about his job.

Business schools tend to be very left brained. Very analytical. Very quantitative. Very structured. Which is a good thing because the Indian education system is not very good at teaching us to be analytical, quantitative or structured. The school system basically teaches us to learn by rote. The best business schools force you to unlearn that.

In the process, they tend to put the quantitative approach to a problem on a pedestal. Ignoring the qualitative and feel aspects of managing people. If management is both a science and an art, then business schools teach the science but ignore the art.

Life, unfortunately, is all about art. Success comes to those who learn to deal with people best. Those who learn to understand the fears and motivations that people have. Understand their joys & sorrows. The job of a leader is to inspire, provide direction and keep people motivated. Other professional skills are taken for granted.

One can argue that nobody can teach the art. That may be true, but where the business schools tend to make a mistake is to leave their students with a feeling that the art doesn’t really matter.

I had to wait until my hair turned grey before I understood that the art does matter. Maybe I am just a slow learner.

This article was published in the Strategist supplement of Business Standard on June 12, 2007

Death Of A Formula

2007-05-31T09:05:00.001+05:30

It is a cliché that in India, cricket is a religion and players like Sachin Tendulkar, its Gods. This “truth” has been taken to ridiculous levels recently with nearly 50 brands being endorsed by the top 6 Indian cricketers – Sachin, Rahul Dravid, M S Dhoni, Saurav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag.

The big talking point in the Indian marketing and advertising world is the likely fallout of the Indian cricket board’s decision to allow each cricketer to only endorse 3 brands each. This is a reaction to the hysteria in the country because of the dismal performance by the Indian team at the World Cup.

All the talk has been around whether the Board is within its legal rights in imposing such a ban, and whether the power of money will ultimately force the authorities to rescind this order. There is also talk about whether or not all this money from endorsements is distracting players from their primary task of playing cricket. I think all this is beside the point.

My view is that regulation or not, clients and agencies should really welcome the death of the “cricket formula” and see in it the opportunity to come up with more cost effective and cutting edge ways of building brands.

It’s like this. Over the past few years, more and more brands have started using cricketers to endorse their brands. It has become a sort of bidding war with each brand trying to trump its competitor by signing on a more popular cricketer. The talk on the cocktail circuit is about people who signed on a Dhoni or a Yuvraj to a long term contract before they became major superstars. These are the latest toys of the country’s marketers and they are busy proving that mine is bigger than yours. Quite entertaining, were it not such a colossal waste of money.

Several marketers would admit in private that cricketer endorsements were a waste of money for them. The fit with the brand was often very poor, and the cricketers were extremely poor actors. Plus there were constraints on when you could and couldn’t air the commercials. However just as nobody got fired for buying IBM, nobody gets fired for hiring Sachin or Dravid either.

Cricketer endorsements took the place of differentiating strategy. It was far easier to execute and also easier to explain to the board. It sounded like the Marketing department was working hard and being really aggressive. Perfect. Cricketer endorsements were even more crucial when your competitors were using one too.

But now the Board has said that each cricketer can only endorse a maximum of 3 brands. This will mean that the fees that the players charge will go up sharply. And the returns aren’t likely to improve in proportion. So what are marketers to do now?

One way is to fight the Board. This is definitely a viable strategy. The Board has repeatedly shown itself to be totally lacking in principles and only concerned with making money. Hence even the slightest threat to its purse and it can be confidently expected to come to heel and do exactly what the master bids.

The other way is to zag when the market zigs. This is the heroic route. The untested route which can lead to the making of new heroes on the marketing firmament. But could also lead to some big mistakes. The route that says my brand is more important than the cricketer’s brand and can stand up without a crutch. On the strength of its own brilliant idea.

This is the time for all brilliant marketers and their agencies to stand up and be counted. Now is the time for you to justify your fat pay packets, laptops and those glossy hard cover books on the book shelves. Now is the time to come up with those Big Hairy Audacious Ideas that you had to put into cold storage in order to pursue the hard to get cricketer and his harder to get time slots.

Game on?

This article was written for Campaign UK & published in its issue dated June 1, 2007

The future of advertising is democratic advertainment

2007-05-30T09:43:00.000+05:30

Every article written on the future of advertising speaks about technology. And every article on advertising and technology speaks essentially about media issues of targeting, reach and interactivity. Well, I am not going to talk about those issues. I’m going to assume that my readers already know about all that and are planning to throw up the next time somebody mentions the interactivity word again.

So let me focus on two other issues that technology will pose instead. One is the democratization of advertising. And the other is the challenge of creating short form entertainment for an increasingly impatient and marketing savvy customer.

Advertising will make markets more democratic

I think the biggest difference that technology will bring to advertising is that it will reduce the advantage that large advertisers have in the mass media world. Today Levers, Proctor, Coke, Pepsi etc have a competitive advantage because they can pour large monies into building brands. They have made the price of entry in their categories so high that it is beyond the means of small companies even if they have an exciting and innovative new product.

In the future, small advertisers will proliferate. The media of the future will be so fragmented that no advertiser can afford to dominate it. In fact no advertiser will be able to ram their communication down the throat of their audience. It will be the audience that will determine what advertising they want to see and this will mean that they will gravitate to work that is entertaining or adds value to them. Or both. In this, the large advertiser will have no natural advantage over the small guy.

In fact, consumers will not be able to determine very easily if the advertiser is small or large. Today the production values of a TV commercial and the frequency of it gives you a pretty good idea of how deep the marketer’s pockets are. But if you watch a video on You Tube or get a message on your mobile, then it is more difficult to assess the financial capabilities of the backers of that message.

This is a good thing. Economists talk about an utopian state of “perfect competition” where there are large numbers of buyers and sellers and where the market forces determine prices. Market forces also determine which products will survive and which won’t. Today this situation is a pipe dream. The reality is that most markets are characterized by Oligopoly – a state where a few large players dominate every major industry.

But democratization of advertising will push the global economy more towards the state of perfect competition. Thus advertising will help make the global economy more efficient.

Advertising agencies will be the source of entertainment

Everyone talks about the crisis of advertising. But let’s for a moment focus more on the crisis of the entertainment industry. People are getting increasingly impatient with long form entertainment. People are watching less TV – and cribbing more about it. They are also reading less of newspapers and getting overwhelmed with the proliferation of outdoor media.

On the other hand, they are gravitating to short form content. They’re playing more games (the gaming industry turnover now exceeds the turnover of Hollywood!), they’re making friends at social networking sites and they’re enjoying video and audio content from sources like You Tube, iTunes and so on.

The question is – who is creating this new content? Hollywood and Bollywood are good at making long form content and are out of their depth in creating entertainment which is just couple of minutes long. The technology companies are good at creating the means of creating entertainment, but don’t know how to populate it.

And what of the famous, user generated content? This is a much over hyped phrase. At first glance it seems that users are creating all this fantastic content on You Tube that other people can go and watch. But this way of thinking does not hold up on closer scrutiny. The most watched videos on You Tube were the video diaries of LonelyGirl15. For months people thought that they were watching the unscripted & web-camera produced videos of an ordinary 15 year old. Turns out that the 15 year old was actually a model and the whole show was scripted and produced by a TV production house as an advertisement for itself. They have certainly succeeded in getting themselves noticed by lots of people.

Let’s look at other content on the same site. Euro RSCG London made a great commercial for Citroen (Alive with technology). This is one of the most parodied videos on You Tube. Similarly, the great work done for Dove (Evolution – the making of real beauty) has spawned a lot of wonderful videos (Slob Evolution).

So the picture you now get is that the best of the user generated content is actually generated by professionals – often from the advertising industry. And the rest of the compelling stuff are copies and parodies of stuff created by professionals.

This is a huge opportunity for the advertising industry. For us 30 seconds is a necessity, 2 minutes is a luxury and 7 minutes is a crime. For movie and TV content producers, 7 minutes is a segment, 23 minutes is an episode and 120 minutes is the least you need to make something decent. The consumer is tending more towards 7 minutes and less.

However there is a change that we need to make. We need to move from being brand and message focused to being customer and entertainment focused. That way our messages are more likely to hit home.

Conclusion

It is obvious that the future of advertising lies in new ways of connecting with customers. What becomes obvious after just a little bit of introspection is that these new ways of connecting will lead to new opportunities for new kinds of agencies and for a new breed of clients. Let’s drink to that.

This article was written on invitation for USP Age and was published in that magazine in the May 2007 issue.

Me Within We

2007-03-12T06:05:00.000+05:30

Do you first think about yourself or about your family?
Do you think being selfish is natural or mean?
Do you usually consider the consequence of your actions mainly on yourself or also on others?

Sociologists have tended to believe that most Indians would give the latter answer to each of the above questions. And that most people from the West would give the former answer. Hence the considered view has been that the West is Individualistic in their thinking, while the East has been Collectivist. Those are long words. So let us just say that the belief is that the West thinks about “Me”, while the East thinks about “We”.

But now the East is getting Westernized. So are we now thinking of Me rather than We?

This is one of the questions that we wanted to investigate in the Remixed Generation study that we had done a year and a half ago. And the conclusion that we had reached then was that Indians haven’t quite got to the Me side of spectrum, though they have moved away from the We side. We labeled the phenomenon as “Me within We”.

That sounds good on a PowerPoint slide, but isn’t that helpful when you are thinking in the context of a brand. How exactly do you appeal to the Me within the We?

One way is to think that people have a long Me rope that gives them freedom of movement within a given radius, but after that We concerns take over. This rope has become longer over time and so younger generations are more Me oriented than older ones. Also the same person may be Me oriented in some cases and We oriented in others.

Traditionally we have had Me categories and We categories. So motor cycles, jeans and colas have been Me categories, in that they have appealed to the individual sides of us. Meanwhile, household products, consumer durables etc have often appealed to the home maker in us and thus have been We categories. In that way we have avoided the issue rather than addressed it head on.

At first sight that sounds like the nature of categories. But a moment’s thought would lead us to a different conclusion. If you are promoting a household cleaning product, do you focus on the convenience of using it (a Me appeal) or on how it makes your family love the home (a We appeal)? Today more and more brands are crossing the floor and focusing on non-traditional appeals.

The computer has been one of the most individual oriented product categories. After all there is always been a one to one correspondence between the PC and the user. Yet, we did a campaign for Intel where we focused on how a PC could change the fortune of an entire family. This is arguably one of the most effective campaigns from Intel in India.

Now I think there may be another way to think of the We versus Me issue. The clue for this came from movies like “Rang de Basanti” and “Munnabhai Lagey Raho”. Both movies were spectacular hits with the youth of the country. So perhaps there are lessons to be learnt for those of us who want super hit brands.

My view is that both movies created an alignment of Me and We goals and thus removed the conflict between the two. They offered to youth a higher order goal to work towards that was cool, modern and today. Once that happens, youth is quite happy to work towards this higher order goal in their own Me way.

Perhaps therein lies the secret. Most youth brands tend to be about rebellion. Think of Levis, Pepsi or Harley Davidson. Or think of Amitabh Bachchan. They appeal to youth by becoming badges that prove how anti-establishment the user is. Indian youth have adopted these brands, though they are no longer in rebellion mode. They are all busy enjoying the new life that economic prosperity has brought, and working towards the new goals that a flat world has brought. So, in many ways, the old paradigm of youth being about rebellion doesn’t work.

So offering a higher order goal works at two levels. One it provides youth a mission that is different from the old anti-establishment mission. And two it allows them to be individual while working towards the collectivist goals.

A good – though old – example of how this was done is provided by “The Body Shop”. The owner, Anita Roddick, is a cool youth icon who fought against animal testing and other environmental issues. The brand has done well without any “beauty” oriented communication because it allowed youth to focus on Me issues like looking good, while also contributing to a We issue like the environment.

Now if only we could come up with more such cool missions, we would have big block buster brand hits.

The Dream Run Is Not A Race

2007-01-23T12:54:00.000+05:30

On Sunday, my wife, son and I took part in the Dream Run which is part of the Mumbai Marathon. Armed with the yellow and white number bibs, the white Kingfisher sipping bottles and the shoulder sling bags, we marched along with thousands of others for 6kms of the actual race plus a few more just to get to the start line and then back home.

This is the first time I have taken part in a sporting event where the objective was not to win, but merely to take part. Made me wonder why we were all there in the first place.

The Dream Run seems to be designed to make us feel good about ourselves. We are happy that we were able to complete the Dream Run. Of course, don’t tell anybody that the Run was more of a slow walk than a real run. In fact, you couldn’t run even if you wanted to.

Then there were the spectators to cheer you on. When was the last time you had hundreds of people cheering you on. Strangers. I guess Sachin Tendulkar is used to this. For most of us this was a new experience or a long forgotten experience. It didn’t really matter that they weren’t cheering specifically for you or even knew your name. People were cheering and waving from the road side, from balconies and roof tops. As if we were the next big Olympic hopes for India.

Many of us were running for a cause. Now you may ask how we were helping any cause by burning a few calories. Well the relevant calories are burnt before and after the actual event when you sign some cheques and also request your friends and relatives to sign more cheques. All these are pledges made to the charity of your choice because you have completed the Herculean task of walking 6 kms. It’s quite a silly and roundabout way to give to charity if you ask me. But still, it makes you feel good about yourself and that, as I said, is the primary reason for having the Dream Run.

The Dream Run is also meant to help you belong to a small tribe. Typically your work tribe. Several companies had fielded company teams for the run. Each team had a uniform that they all wore. The teams consisted of employees and their families. Some people had even brought along babies and small children. Many carried placards that announced who they were or their attitudes to life. Some had banners that simply advertised their company or brand. The Air India team had a couple of people dressed as Maharajas, while their rival airline, Jet Airways, had people carrying inflated airplane shaped balloons. I guess the people who walked in their corporate groups, felt happy that they belonged. The team that runs together works together.

The Maharaja wasn’t the only one in the fancy dress. There were so many others. More than one Gandhiji. One of them accompanied by a Circuit! Throw in a Tilak, a few brides in traditional outfits and some in outlandish costumes that defy description or tags. All of them getting their fair share of attention and photographs. Sure made them feel good. Though it must have been hot too.

There were some real heroes too. People in wheel chairs. People on crutches. One woman carrying her baby on her back. All of them got a lot of admiring looks and cheers. From spectators and participants alike.

That summed up the spirit of the Dream Run. An event designed to make you feel good about yourself, your fellow humans, your city. And hopefully the organizers and advertisers. That is why Standard Chartered has stayed with this event over the last four years. Quite a Dream Run, they are having.

For more pictures of the Dream Run, please click here.

Indian Stretchable Time Is About To Snap

2006-12-10T11:43:00.001+05:30

Remember the days when inviting a politician meant that your function would be delayed by many hours because they would always be late? Well, it’s gone forever. I was at the India Economic Summit in Delhi last month and it was amazing to see how punctual all the ministers and bureaucrats were. Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi, Chidabmbaram, Kamal Nath, Kapil Sibal, Nitish Kumar, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Sheila Dixit, Montek Singh Ahluwalia. All were on the stage at the precise moment that they were meant to be. Not just once, but across all functions spread over three days. Of course, the sundry bureaucrats who were also at the event had no choice once their bosses were so punctual.

It made me think. Whatever happened to Indian Stretchable Time?

Is this just a stray incident, meant to impress the foreigners who were at this conference? Is this the effect of the globalization of India? Or is this a far more fundamental change in Indians?

Then another incident caught my eye. My son is 14 years old. His day consists of going to school, attending tuitions, going for tennis coaching, watching TV. All these activities happen at precise times. His school bus arrives at 6.20 AM. His tuition is at 2 PM. His tennis coaching is from 4 PM. There is not a moment to lose. If he is late in one activity, then it affects the next. No time to waste. No time to be late.

My son may not grow to be a politician. But clearly he is going to be as punctual as our ministers are today. Happiness!

This business of ministers being punctual has another special significance. India is a hierarchical country and one way to show that you are more important than the others is to be more late than everyone else. Therefore the minister had to be really late since it showed he is the most important.

But in the new India, ministers are no longer the undisputed bosses that they used to be. These ministers today wine and dine and fuss over industrialists to invest in their state. So suddenly the old hierarchies are breaking down and there is much greater equality than there used to be.

I am a Virgo who has a bee in his bonnet about being punctual. For a long time this has been considered a major flaw in my character. I have arrived at parties only to get glares from my host which softened only when I offered to help them set up for the party. I have had colleagues wonder if I had no work at all – how else could I be so punctual? I have suffered ulcers when my bosses (this term includes my wife) have made me late.

And I have always despaired about this thing they call Indian Stretchable Time.

But now I have hope. Suddenly things seem to be changing. We have all begun to cram our lives more. We all have much tighter schedules. So we can’t afford to be late. This attitude is starting at a young age.

Does this mean that everyone is being punctual? Of course not. Nothing ever changes so quickly. But the trend is clear. More and more people are demanding punctuality. Because they are busy. Because they are more equal. Because that is just the new way. Those who don’t fall in line are suddenly going to discover that they are outdated – a part of the “old guard”. People who didn’t quite get it. Sort of like someone who still uses a typewriter and doesn’t know what a blog is.

Hallelujah!

Pictures versus words

2006-10-30T16:55:00.001+05:30

Nobody reads anymore.

That’s a common lament from virtually everybody. Clients say that as they ask you to reduce the number of words in an ad. Teachers and parents say that about children. We say that about ourselves as an excuse for not reading that new non-fiction best seller that everyone is talking about.

But that is simply not true. Young people today read more than ever before. And they write much more than previous generations.

If that sounds like a startling statement, think of all the websites, instant messages, emails, blogs and sms messages that a typical teenager goes through in a single day. A group of Professors in the US did that recently and found that young people there are actually reading more than their parents did. How’s that for shutting up the oldie complainers?

Think of the implication for advertising. If we write interesting stuff and place the material in interesting places, then our audience is willing to read it. The problem is that we still insist on putting all our writing in old fashioned ads, leaflets and brochures – dead trees basically – when our audience is moving on to reading on the screen.

Then again, why do words have to be written? I have recently acquired an addiction to Podcasts and I can’t think of a better way to “read” an article quickly. On my iPod right now are podcasts from Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Economist, Scientific American and Comedy Central. And that’s because I have only just started. Give me some time and my library will grow.

That makes life even more interesting. Now you can get consumers to interact deeply with your words. At a pace of your choosing. But with a level of concentration that radio or TV could never even dream of.

All that remains is for us to write something that is really interesting. And find a way of putting those words in a place where our audience wants to read it. Simple!!

Conflict - what conflict?

2006-10-18T11:49:00.000+05:30

Consultants routinely have many clients in the same industry, because they have expertise in that vertical. Ditto for lawyers, accountants, researchers and even models. But when it comes to advertising agencies, the whole issue of conflict crops up. Why is that?

On the one hand, clients want domain knowledge and experience. On the other they don't want you to work for the competition. Why is that? Confidentiality reasons did you say? Are you telling me that advertising agencies know more about their clients' business than management consultants, lawyers, auditors and tax specialists? Or are we saying that clients don't trust advertising agencies to keep their mouths shut?

The focus on confidentiality is all wrong. Insiders in each industry routinely know everything important that there is to know about others in their industry, long before the client gets around to briefing their advertising partners. If there is something they don't know, all they need to do is to invite an employee from their competition for an interview and then give him or her a gentle grilling. You don't even need to hire the person.

Although people are changing jobs all the time anyway. Both at client end and the agency end. So how do you keep things confidential from your own people?

So perhaps it is not confidentiality. Perhaps clients want their agencies exclusive because they want the best ideas for themselves and not have to share them with others in their industry. There may be something in this. However, even this thesis breaks down when you consider that clients are today shopping around for ideas from so many different places. From their celebrity models, their event agencies, their PR firms and so on. Most of them are not bound to exclusive contracts like ad agencies are.

In fact there is a lot to learn from model contracts. There are two kinds of model contracts. One which prevents the model from appearing in any competing ads, and the other which does not. The first is a lot more expensive than the second, for the same amount of time.

Perhaps ad agencies need to codify such an arrangement with its clients. If you want exclusivity, it will cost more. Then we will know how many clients seriously worry about their agencies leaking information.

Remixed Diwali

2006-10-16T16:23:00.000+05:30

{This article was written last Diwali and published in The Times of India. Just saving it here for the record and for eliciting comments from others)

The other day I read a news report about an Indian company that had invented a device to explode crackers from a distance – using an ordinary TV remote!

That got me thinking once again about how young Indians are combining the modern and the traditional in all new ways to create a whole new culture. At Euro RSCG we did a study earlier this year that found that the youth of the country is no longer either traditional or blindly western. The youth has found new ways of remixing the two. That is why we are calling this generation the Remixed Generation.

Teen patti on the internet. How much more remixed can you get? A group of friends who are no longer in the same city, have decided to get together on Diwali night and play with each other long distance. They will chat online and will presumably settle their bets through their credit cards.

My generation found it hip to be anti religion and anti rituals when we were young. We thought the way of the future was the western way – supposedly a scientific attitude to life. The new generation, however, has become ritualistic with a vengeance. This generation is not necessarily religious, but is very keen on all rituals and celebrating all festivals.

Perhaps it has to do with the pride they feel in being Indians. All previous generations of Indians have been a little ashamed about the colour of their skin and have tried hard to adopt the language and the culture of the West. Everyone knows of people who get an American accent just because their brothers live in that country. Well, today’s youth is aggressive about maintaining their Indian accents even after they have lived in the US for several years.

Last week we were inundated on prime time soaps with characters observing Karwa Chauth. In office, I found several young women who were observing the fast. At first I was surprised. I thought advertising people were meant to be modern and progressive. Then I realized that this is the new modern and progressive attitude. An attitude that wants to observe traditional festivals in whole new ways.

Husbands fasting with their wives. That is a remixed way of observing Karwa Chauth. An act made famous by Shahrukh Khan in DDLJ exactly a decade ago. But now metro-sexual men do not think it infra dig to show their love for their wives by fasting along with them.

A popular radio jockey who is also an actress was talking on air about having a lot of sweets on the sets. Why? Because everyone had started receiving sweets at home. But they were too conscious of their figures to eat too much. So what’s better than to share it with your friends? This is a remixed attitude again. Have your sweets and keep your figure too.

The biggest change that we have observed is in the attitude of children to crackers. Time was when as kids we would beg our parents to buy us more crackers – the louder the better. Now one feels so passé when you talk to today’s children. If you so much as suggest crackers, they give you that “you philistine!” look.

There are many changes in the gifts that are being exchanged too. For one thing, there is a lot more of them. Diwali is to India what Christmas is to the west. Complete with gifts for everyone.

Also the nature of gifts has changed. Cadburys is already selling chocolate covered dry fruits. What else can we expect? Mithai with bhang – a la Holi? Or perhaps Vodka Rasgullas.

Expect the youth to dance all night on Diwali night. They will dance because they like dancing. They will dance because they need to work off the extra calories. They will dance because the latest remixed hit is playing and they can’t resist.

Happy Remixed Diwali.