Marketing Ganga

Author: Shabbir Chunawalla

  • Radio Ceylone

    Marconi transmitted voice in 1820 from a small lab in England. The 2MT studio was shifted to Marconi House in two years time. It became 2LO or BBC (British Broadcasing Corporation). Following this, Ceylone became the first country in Asia and second in the world to have a radio station. BBC was established in Europe. The Very nextyear Edward Harper, a skilled technologist, was deputed to Ceylone to head Colombo Telegraph. He utilised the freedom he had productively.He used equipment confiscated from a German submarine to develop radio transmission. His efforts led to successful testing of a make-shift transmitter of 1KW. The small room of central telegraph office in Welikada, Colombo was used in 1923 to transmit gramophone music across half a kilometre. It was historic, and Edward Harper became father of broadcasting in Ceylone. He set up Colombo Wireless Club immediately. It was on 16th December, 1925 that Colombo radio went on air, and was adopted by the British Governor Sir Huge Clifford. Ceylone became a broadcasting nation along with Britain, Germany and the US. The allies took over the radio station on the eve of the second World War and was renamed as SEAC — South Eastern Asian Command. The entartainment programmes for the Jawans in India and South Asia were broadcast by SEAC. After the War, the Radio station was handed back to the Ceylone Government. It became Radio Ceylone on 1st January, 1950.

    The Colombo Plan was mooted by Nehru, Jaywardhanr and Gulam Mohammed. Under the plan, the financing came mainly from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Britain and the US. Cilifford Dode from Australia who went to Ceylone as a tourist later participated in the Colombo Plan.He came to the rescue of Radio Ceylone.He allowed Indian advertises to use Radio Ceylone as a medium. The service became commercial on 30th September, 1950. Radio Ceylone received good revenues from advertising. The programming was made more entertaining.Radio Ceylone was a popular medium in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Radio Ceylone paid tributes to artstes from India and Pakistan.K L Sehgal’s voice woke up many Indians in the morning. Kishor Dubey and Gopal Sharma contributed a great deal to sustain its poularity. The tradition is continued today by Padmini Pereira and Jyoti Parmar.

    Ceylone became republic on 22nd May, 1972. Radio Ceylone was christened as Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC). SLBC has a treasure trove of Indian music. Radio Ceylone is crossing 89 years of its existence. We are reminded of one of their title songs sung by Lata Abhi Toh Main Jawan Hoo.

  • Animation Education

    In animation education, it is not enough to learn the tools of animation, say mastering software like Maya and 3D Max for 3D animation and Flash, Toon and Boom for 2D animation. It is also necessary to understand the whole process starting from an idea, which is nurtured to a concept, creating characters, planning a layout, scripting and a lot more. A person who wants to master animation must have good drawing skills, imagination and a basic understanding of motion mechanics. A qualification in fine arts is an added advantage.

    Too many Indian animators come from IT background, and do not understand the basics of art, drawing, film making, camera work, animation or lighting. According to Ram Mohan, the father of Indian animation, it is an advantage if you can draw.

  • Signalling Value of Products

    Geoffery Miller in his recent book Spent-Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behaviour proposes that consumerism is an evolutionary concept. All animals have a tendency to show to show off and try to attract the opposite sex for mating by doing so. The same tendency is displayed by the human beings when they buy the most expensive and impressive consumer goods they can afford. That is extension of the show off tendency. In social groups in the evolution process, image and status mattered. That was necessary for survival as well as for attracting mates, impressing friends, and rearing children.

    According to Geoffery Miller, many products are signals first, and material objects later. A Hummer H 1 Alpha sport utility vehicle is not a good rational buy for the price paid. Yet, some people feel the need to buy it, and biology offers an answer.

    In experiments, it was seen that men went in for conspicuous consumption when interested in mating whereas women think of conspicuous charity.

    Physical appearance, especially facial appearance, is used as indicator of fertility in most primate species. Cosmetics do extend this fertility even while ageing. Later, after meeting people, we judge them on other traits, e.g. intelli -gence, kindness, faithfulness etc. We then consider products such as an IIT or IIM degree, and donations to animal welfare funds.

    If a company wants to make a decent profit, its product must have special signalling value beyond its nominal function.

  • A Flop 3D Movie — Mars Needs Mom

    Disney’s Mars Needs Mom with an investment of $ 175 million to make and market failed at the box office. It is the story of a 9-year old boy whose mother is abducted by Martians. The ticket prices were high and the story-line not interesting. It puts an end to the Zemeckis technique. In this technique, the actors perform on bare sets while wearing uniforms fitted with sensors to record their movements. Those movements are transferred into a digital model that the computer animators use to create a movie. Such a technique may lead to unnatural facial expressions. The Zemickis technique is called motion-capture film making. Spielberg uses this technology in his big budget movie Adventures of Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn. It will be the test of this technology. Mr Zemeckis pioneered the technique, but he was leapfrogged by James Cameron who made Avatar.

  • The Broadcasting Audience Research Council (BARC)

    The Broadcasting Audience Research Council (BARC) has been entrusted with the task of bringing a new rating mechanism for broadcasting industry.

    The current TV Audience Measurement  (TAM) system is flawed. To correct the matters, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting set up Amit Mitra Commitee. Its key suggestion was to set up BARC. Anually, about RS 16000 crore of advertising money rides on broadcasting industry. It is, therefore, necessary to know the rating of a particular TV programme to help media planners to decide about brand advertising on it. Even channel allocations depend upon the viewership of the channel.

    In BARC, the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) have come together with a shareholding of 60:20:20.

    BARC will not conduct research but will sponsor independent vendors. The four legs of this exercise are : survey, meters, technology and analysis.

    TAM has just 7500 meters. BARC proposes 25000 meters in 25000 households. It is a three-time jump.

    The Surveys will be manged by Media Research Users Council. The technology tie up will be with international players. The panels have been identified. They will have the right people for data analytics.

    For the time being, TAM continues to conduct the ratings but its survival is doubtful.

  • Disability Films

    Many filmmakers choose the central theme of either physical or mental disability of the main character and build a story around it.For instance, the main character can be shown as deaf and dumb or blind. A wheel chair bound paralytic can be chosen as the character. A learning disability suffering child or dyslexic can be made the hero of the film. Here the film becomes a vehicle for the disabled actor to demonstrate the acting talent. And by default, such a character earns the sympathy of the audience. Of course, there are dissenting voices here which say that this is exploitation for commercial purpose. It is all manipulative and unfair too.The film gets a moral halo.Hollywood undestands the potential of the disability films and has produced several such films and these have received Oscars too.It is remarked in a lighter vein that there are two short cuts to Oscar, one to show the disability and the other to create a celebrity biopic. Recently I witnessed Imitation Game on the life of Alan Turing where Benedict who plays Turing exaggerates his awkwardness to such an extent that it appears like the Asperger’s Syndrome.

  • Promotion of Start Ups

    Advertising is very expensive for any start up.Instead, the start up may generate relevant content that educates the customers and creates an awareness about the activities of the start up amongst the consumers.It is thus a process of sharing the information. This is the way they engage the customers.The information that is shared must be useful to the customers. Stories are spun to which the customers can connect. Such content is more likely to be shared further. It thus spreads.And it has recall value.They also allow customers to generate content.For instance, a start up selling rings can ask the customers the way they proposed to their partner. The best story can be rewarded. A nail polish company can ask its customers to indicate those shades which they would prefer to put on their nails.

  • Rentrak — Tracking of Films in Real Time

    Rentrak allow tracking of films in real time. It is a US research company that tracks 100,000 screens across 36 countries. It entered India in October, 2014. Amir Khan signed on Rentrak to track PK prior to its release on Dec. 19, 2014. According to Rantrak, PK’s box office collections crossed Rs300 crore,grossing  Rs 340 crore till January, 2015 domestically and Rs. 160 crore overseas. Rentrak provides online reports to clients from anywhere around the world. It brings transparency in box office data and that enables the researchers to use the box office analytics.

  • Celebrity Journalism

    Celebrity journalism covers every area of life where wealth and fame can be found — movies, fashion, politics, sports and corporates. Afsana Ahmed learnt seven things in celebrity journalism.

    Cut-throat business : It is a fiercely competitive environment. There are few ethical practices and these are used selectively. It is possible to connect with genuine sincerity and honesty immediately.

    Hard work pays : Start  small, and work your way up. That is the way to achieve success.

    Publicists are not friends : Celebrity PR works for celebrities. Its job is completely different. A celebrity journalist is in the opposite side of the business.

    Style matters : In the glamour world, the style matters. It is to be cultivated.

    Lonely stars : Stars are surrounded by their entourage. Still essentially, they are lonely souls. They should be reached out on a human level.

    Never be star-struck : Show them respect. But don’t be star-struck. Or else you will not be taken seriously.

    Be fearless : While communicating, be courteous, but do not be intimidated be them.

  • Faster Internet with HTTP 2.0

    As we know, the World Wide Web was invented by Sir Tim Bernes-Lee in the 1980s. He also contributed in developing HTTP 1.1. HTTP is hyper-text transfer protocol. This versionwas developed in 1999. After 16 years it is being upgraded to HTTP 2.0 The Working Group under the aegis of Internet Engineering Task Force has worked on HTTP 2.0 This version will have two closely spaced protocols — HTTP 2.0 and HPACK for headers.

    HTTP 2.0  will be introduced in the browsers soon to improve dramatically the speed of page loading with connections lasting longer and server responsiveness being better. HTTP 1.1 sent out more page requests resulting into congestion in network and duplication of data.In other words it made the browser work harder.HTTP 2.0 overcomes this to accelerate the speed and reduce the latency.HTTP 1.1 had multiple connections approach, whereas HTTP 2.0 avoids it.

    HTTP 2.0 mimics Google’s SPDY protocol and Google Chrome proposes to abandon SPDY in favour of HTTP 2.0.HTTP 2.0 does not support Transport Layer Security or TLS which is for privacy and security. HTTP 2.0 keeps this optional. Consumers can opt for it or can use the old TCP.

    HTTP 2.0 is compatible with both HTTP 1.0 and HTTP 1.1. Chrome and Firefox 39 will be supporting HTTP 2.0 Windows 10 has made an early build document draft 14 in its technical preview.