This lab dissects and analyses ads and tells marketers and agencies what is wrong with their commercials’ storyboards. The spots are filtered into buckets of effectiveness. The ad testing assesses what arrests the attention of people and what engages them. It spells out those aspects of the ads which make them unskippable.

The myt has spread that the attention spans are shrinking. In reality, what is shrinking is our ability to tolerate things that we are not interested in. It is an over-communicated society. The decision to skip is a conscious decision. The users today are exposed to richer content.

Netflix and Amazon Prime have created a content revolution. They have understood the pulse of the consumers. They are open to experimentation. There is a change in living room dynamics. Many channels make YouTube specific content. There are online streaming apps. Media platforms are, therefore, not bound by the hourly broadcasting schedules. It gives full freedom to the creative directors to experiment with the scripts. Advertising storytellers must make ads that are at Netflix-and-chill levels. In future, the digital ads will be replayed on TV. That is exactly the reverse of what is happening today. It creates a new canvas for creative directors.

A school of thoughts represents an intellectual tradition collectively espoused by a group of people by sharing a philosophy. There are ten schools of thought, according to Mintzberg, to define a strategy. Let us examine them in brief one by one.

1.Design School

It follows the swot model which seeks a fit between internal capabilities and external potentials. The strategy is developed and executed by the CEO. The design model gets inputs from multiple sources which are subject to emotions, the search process and the consideration given to variables. It could be based on subjective criterion, rather than research.

2.Planning School

It is drawn from system theory and cybernetics. The strategy is planned rigorously to take the firm ahead.

As the plans are made years in advance, if anything happens out of plan, the process gets affected.

3.Positioning School

It is based on industrial economic angle. Michael Porter’s model is particularly important. There are three generic strategies: cost leadership, differentiation and focus or niche market. The school is governed by economics.

It assumes the status quo in the market, and does not consider the new entrants.

4.Entrepreneurial School

It assumes the environment can be influenced. Entrepreneurs bring into the market new products, hitherto unknown.

It is based on a visionary leader who can take the responsibility of the success or failure of the strategies.

5.Cognitive School

It has psyhological roots. It feels that environmental scanning is difficult. They prepare mental maps to develop strategies. The strategy is here incremental and emerging. It relies on surveys and research reports.

This model is not practical beyond a point.

6.Learning School

It is also based on psychology. Human mind is complex and unpredictable. Knowledged is decentralised. So strategies are formulated based on the past. However, in the constantly changing world, strategies cannot be based coolely on the past.

7.Power School

Those in power call the shots. The power centres could be customers, unions or leaders. This is a political school. It responds to the powerful cartel. Sometimes feedback is neglected and there is no improvement.

8.Cultural School

Conducive culture fosters innovations. Strategy formulation is based on company’s unique values, perspectives and style of decision-making. It is based on social interactions. It is useful when there are mergers.

While changes touch the company, there is resistance to change. At times the direction is hazy.

9.Environmental School

It formulates strategy in response to the charging environment. The tool used is situational analysis.

Adaptability is the key.

10.Configuration School

Most preferred school, since it believes in configuring a strategy.

Swiggy’s Vidura

This platform contains all the data. ML models use the data platform to generate time predictions. The optimisation algorithm then analyses all predictions and matches drivers with orders. The app shows this to the customer in real time.

Address Accuracy

In e-commerce and food delivery, delivery in time is the key differentiator. An address is provided by the customer. Companies use data science and ML models to break it down. It is related to the addresses close by. Then a geocode is developed. It is a point on the map. The delivery boy arrives at the location. An app tells what the actual location is against what is geocoded. This feedback to the ML model increases the efficiency levels more and more over a period of time.

ML is used to validate customers’ addresses. Address quality scores are computed. City pin code mismatches are corrected. Suggestions are provided to the users to rectify the address.

Locus

It provides a proprietary geocoding solution based on natural language processing. It reads addresses, categorises them in zones, sorts them for delivery. It offers 95 per cent accuracy in metros.

Warehouse

E-commerce warehouses process lacs of shipments daily. They use AGV or automatic guided vehicles (cobots). They work alongside the employees. It helps to meet the scaled up demand. The efficiency is improved. Algorithms are used to figure out the optimum placement of inventory in and across warehouses to ensure the shortest delivery distances.

Box Sizing Algorithms

Amazon uses box sizing algorithms at fulfilment centres to calculate the right size of box for the order.

Picking Optimisation Software

It determines the most efficient route an employee should take to pick products stocked in shelves to ready them for dispatch.

Blackbuck and IoT

Blackbuck, a logistics start up uses IoT sensors for live vehicle tracking, to suggest the best route and monitor driver behaviour. A dashcam captures driver’s images. A careless or sleepy driver gets an alert.

The fourth industrial revolution is threatening to transform the global supply chains. There would be large job losses and the work would be shaped differently. In the last three decades, manufacturing capacities shifted to developing countries to avail of the low cost of labour. Industry 4.0 and greater robotisation change the cost structure of plants. Export-oriented plants in low-cost countries become much less competitive. Instead automated smaller plants are set up closer to the consumers. The delivery time is also shortened. The plant network will be multi-country. The employment fall due to automation will be compensated by the rise in skilled employment. The definition of plant undergoes a change. It is a high-tec facility that responds to shortening of PLC and customisation. Formerly, plants were low-to medium-tec facilities, labour intensive, mass producing industrial products.

As physical facilities and digital merge, the nature of product sold to customers changes too. The service component of products becomes prominent. These are manufactured services or industrialised services. It changes the definition of industry itself.

India now has close to 900 private TV channels. Apart from this, there is mushroom growth of OTT platforms recently. In this crowded place, DD has to hold its own. It is India’s public broadcaster. As we have observed, DD used to be part time channel, but only in the late 1990s, it became a full-fledged 24-hour channel. Most of the DD channels since than have been revamped. Some of the channels have been renamed.

Prasar Bharati now runs DD and All India Radio. DD has a three-tier programming service — national, regional and local. DD covers the whole country, and should now focus on enhancing its quality of content. It does not figure in the top 10 Hindi GEC channels. ( BARC ). DD competes with FTA ( free-to-air ) channels. Then it has to compete with DTH channels. DD has been used to reach the rural markets.

Creative Shop at Facebook tries to acclimatise clients and agencies towards advertising on Facebook. The advertising agency may have big ideas which could be adopted to other platforms. Facebook comes in here. They extend that thought beyond the TV commercial. They tell the clients how the idea can work on Instagram or Messenger. Or how the idea can work on Facebook Live. Creative Shop does not want to replace the agencies. They would work in collaboration. Creative Shop is not a revenue generating department for Facebook. It actually costs money to run it Facebook earns by selling media. A 30-second TVC could be compared to the ad optimised for Facebook. It could be seen the optimised ad shows better results.

The phrare ‘artificial intelligence’ is highly misleading. The state-of-the-art today is mere statistical modelling applied to large and high quality datasets. The new-age systems are merely statistical models. There is no intelligence there.

The phrase ‘ deep learning ‘ suggests deep insights veering on wisdom. It is a highly misleading phrase. The term ‘deep’ here merely denotes multiple layers in a certain kind of mathematical model. There is no suggestion of insight or knowledge or wisdom. All that is going on is that statistical models are being estimated, using large-scale datasets of high quality.

We should have principles that govern AI. Microsoft chief Satya Nadella is in favour of some principles that govern AI, since we are the creators of AI. The trouble is the ‘black box’. AI is largely data driven today. However, new breakthroughs will help us explain the black box, so that ethically and in terms of regulation we can control it. As AI algorithms get smarter, they also become more incomprehensible, and humans cannot always understand how a given machine learning algorithm makes decisions. This opaque process is referred to as black box.

Data protection is expected of the tech companies. The leaders of the tech companies are facing techlash. However, the whole world is becoming tech sector — every retail company, every health company. Facial recognition has 10 virtuous uses that improve life and 10 other uses which are worrying. Technology should be put to fair uses. Self-regulation goes some way. Then outside regulation takes over.

General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) is fantastic to protect privacy as a human right. The US can think of something similar. The world should converse on a common standard.

The consumption of content in India moves towards digital formats. Cheaper internet tariff and the broadband facilitates the higher investment in digital content. There is increased production of digital videos, and FMCG companies show a tilt towards the video. The ad spend on digital video is 33 per cent of the total digital budget ( DAN Digital Report, 2019 ). The FMCG brands spend the rest of their digital budget on social media ( 28 per cent ) and display. ( 24 per cent ). E-commerce spends the largest share on search advertising ( 43 % of its digital budget ) closely followed by BFSI sector ( at 38 per cent ).

FMCG spends heavily on TV. Thus its digital spending becomes interesting. Younger generation is targeted through Instagram and SnapChat and the middle-aged audience through Facebook. Advertisers also look at the OTT platforms where they have the opportunity to connect with the buyers who match the mindset they are looking for. YouTube too is an option, but it is a giant and a brand could get lost there.

The issue of RoI on digital remains. How could it be calculated ? It cannot be used as a substitute for TV. When the objective is to build awareness, it can be measured by the number of views / clicks that the brand receives.

Subtractive or Traditional Manufacturing

In the traditional method of manufacturing, one has to take a big piece of metal which goes through CNC machines or cutters to give it the requisite shape and dimension. This is substractive method because it consists of subtracting from a big piece and even welding it in case of a complex design. This affects durability and restricts the ability to implement complex designs.

Additive or 3-D Printing Manufacturing

The machine adds layer after layer, using metal powder through laser or electron beam, which is connected to the digital model of a component, to give the product the requisite shape.

If the design is not complicated, the traditional method is economical. If sophistication is added to the design, there comes an inflection point when additive is more economical.

3 D printing is also called Additive Manufacturing. Here a 3D object is assembled ( printed ) layer by layer, where each layer is like a thinly sliced cross-section of the object being made. The energy source used could be a laser or electron beam. The materials could be metal, polymer or resin. In a regulated environment, a 3D design is converted into an object one micro-layer at a time.

Traditional manufacturing is subtractive manufacturing. Here a piece of metal is cut hollow or polymer is cut.

3D printing is suitable for mass customisation. We can experiment with designs. Designs could be altered.