Tim Bernes-Lee pretty much created the Web. He built a Web Index, a list of countries using the Internet. It is an attempt to know how the Web is helpful to people and how to get others who are not using it on board. Sweden was ranked No. 1. Iceland has the highest number of people online: 95 per cent. The UK lags behind that, and the US is a long way behind that at 78 per cent. However, it is not just connectivity. Is the Web useful ? Internet monopolies are something we should be concerned about as they tend to limit innovation. Tim likes that he has not become a household name, and is anonymous on the street. He built his first computer when he was in college with a soldering iron, transistor-transistor logic gates, an M6800 processor and an old TV.
Author: Shabbir Chunawalla
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Google + — Virtual Town Halls
Google+ hangouts are akin to virtual town halls. It is an application for group video chat.The interaction can be broadcast on YouTube and your own Google+ page.The session can be beamed on TV channels. It is an example of media convergence.Though similar to TV debates, the format is exciting. The Hangouts interview is more structured. Questioners have the time to raise an issue, and the same can be answered without being interrupted. It is a new medium that is interactive.
There is a lot of back-end orchestration. Face-book has a similar video chat service called Livestream. This medium can be used by politicians to take their message across through the social media.Rajneil Kamath, Adwords Associate, Google got a chance to dabble in his special interest when he began hosting Google’s popular Hangout events. -
Low Budget Films
The success of low budget films has prompted big studios and production houses to take a new look at their business models. Some studios make at least 50 per cent of their entire film portfolio as low budget films of Rs 5-10 crore. In 2013, Viacom 18 made almost 80 per cent of its films low budget.There is ami of star-driven big budget movies and content-driven low budget movies. Low budget films are good risk hedgers. Losses can be absorbed if the film does not perform. It is also true that really big money comes from movies featuring big stars. Digital revolution has set in. More than 70 per cent of films are shot digitally. It becomes time saving. Editing is done immediately on location. The crew size is reduced. It saves costs and salaries. There is no need to process the film in the lab after shooting. The film exhibition has gone digital. Digital trnsmission has cut costs. A digital print costs Rs 20000, as against Rs 70000 for an anlogue print. Even low budget films have a success rate of 10 per cent. To cut the risks from low budget movies, most studios prfer doing end-to-end production, marketing and distribution. There is no co-production.
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Radio Organisation
FM is entering phase III — 839 new FM channels in 294 more cities. There are great career opportunities in this field.
A typical radio station is divided into four parts :
- Creative
- activation
- marketing
- sales
The creative side deals with programme content. It has radio jockeys ( RJs ), producers and scriptwriters.
RJs interact directly with the audience. They have skills to handle the console with its numerous buttons. There is a constant inflow of phone calls and messages. It is so engaging. An RJ must be alert, articulate and spontaneous.
The producer comes with the ideas for programmes. He often collaborates with the scriptwriter who writes the copy for different promotions, ads and mini-plays.
Music plays a key role in radio. Those with a keen ear for music and melody become music managers or sound engineers.
In radio, there are jobs for researchers. Some market the radio station as a brand. Some procure ads and jingles for the radio.
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Mentoring a Consumer
Mentoring is the process of shaping consumer beliefs and desires directly. Marketing works subliminally making the consumer like the product and creating a desire to buy it. In direct selling, there is an offer. In marketing, there is acceptance. Mentoring leads to product experience and a little encouragement to create a lasting impression on consumer mind.
Many products are marketed by mentoring. Wines, spirits, microwave oven, olive oil — all these are being sold by mentoring. J0hnnie Walker scotch in India has been launched by calling select invitees to a journey of taste in five star hotels. These are mentoring sessions involving 12300 people. J0hnnie Walker had to justify its premium nature against brands such as Teacher’s Whisky.
The mentor model has been practised in the US. It is necessary to change the image of Scotch as a drink for ‘ oldies ‘ to one meant for youngsters. Leo Burnett could register 1000 attendees per month in the first year of implementation.
Customer mentoring is best option when advertising is not allowed legally.
Mentoring may not be target-specific and it is a big risk. Freebies at the mentoring session also affects its effectiveness. Despite this, wines have been successfully mentored to women by approaching women’s clubs and ladies wings of chambers of commerce.
Mentoring is helpful in introducing new or unique products. Marico opted for mentoring while introducing olive oil. A food expert conducted cooking sessions for prospective customers.
Mentoring has long been used by cosmetics companies. Mentoring is not only useful for niche products but also for concept selling. Bajaj Electricals used mentoring to sell microwave ovens by targeting housing societies inviting 20-25 housewives for product briefing and demos. The sessions were guided by cooking experts.
Mentoring has still to assume a structured form. It is still a hit or miss affair.
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Against the Journalism
There are people who object to journalists serving news to us, they wish that people should go out and hunt for news. In fact, journalists create content that sells good advertising and builds up circulation. This acts as a filter for some news. Rolf Dobelli, a Swiss writer, is known for his aversion to news. Nassim Taleb, the writer of the Black Swan functions without news. News does not make you a better decision maker. It does not give a competitive advantage to you. Rolf is no worse off without consuming news. According to him, news is to the mind what sugar is to the body. It is not good. However, people are addicted to news. It takes a lot of effort to break off the addiction. News is not knowledge. How can you get knowledge from events ? You have to read detailed articles, which perhaps are built on disaggregated pieces of news. One has to connect the dots. News is the dots.
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Extreme Effort Ads for Consumer Products
Many products do not have much to say about them. They are familiar products such as cold drink or milk. Here the Extreme Effort tool is used to keep the product in the mind of the audience and make it stand out in the clutter. A milk brand is seen on an inflight trolley and the pilot feels a strong urge to get it. The trolley is unattended, with no steward in sight. The pilot manoeuvres the plane downwards to make the trolley roll into his direction. However, a nut thrown in the passage carelessly obstructs its flow. The plane is again turned down dangerously to overcome the obstruction. The trolley approaches the pilot. The object of desire — the milk brand — is just within his reach. That very moment the loo door opens and the trolley bangs against the man emerging out.
The Thums Up ad with Akshay Kumar where he goes great lengths to obtain a bottle of beverage falls into Extreme Effort category. It allows a free play of imagination. A bride whose hands are henna-dyed tries to get a bar of chocolate by making movements of her body and using her mouth to lift up the bar. A service product such as financial paper can show an advisor chasing clients everywhere — from business meetings to vacation destinations. A courier company delivers a packet to a person trying to commit suicide from a high rise building.
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Projector Operators
Projector operators were familiar with the celluloid reels, arc lights and carbon rods which created magic on the screen. They were on their toes for the whole day to get the perfect print for screening. They changed the carbon rods and rewound the reels and mounted the next reel. They kept an eye on the projector and the screen. They mended portions of the torn celluloid. Soon the role of the projector operator would be redundant. The screens are fast converting to digital format. The days of 35 mm celluloid prints are numbered. Till a decade ago, the operators were considered the soul of a movie theatre. They started young and learnt on the job. Some operated Westrex projection machine which is a 50-years old technology to play 35 mm celluloid reels. The print was shared by four-five theatres. The reels were carried on a bicycle from theatre to theatre. While handling the reel, they took care not to touch the print. The things were manual. They spent hours in the ‘re-wind room’ where reels were re-winded for the next show. They cut them and joined the ads and sealed the reels by an adhesive. At least 6 operators worked in the projection room at a given time . Operators played with the sound and adjusted the volume according to the scenes. The digital 2 K projector system have engineers to fix the problem. The transition is still in progress, and manual projection would be obsolete in a couple of years.
A theatre’s projection room is the key site.It has the projection equipment and the opreator who is sometimes called projectionist.He receives hard prints or digital prints. Hard prints are traditional cellulois rolls and digital prints are on hard disks. There are generally 12-16 reels of 10-12 minutes each. A multiplex gets one print which is shared by several screens. A hard print could be shared by three or four single screen theatres.
After receiving the print, there is a check of all the reels for quality — sound, picture, blank spots, order of scenes etc. A digital print is first downloaded into the projector, with the licence key obtained by email. After inspection, the prints are kept ready for the first show. Quality checks are exercised either at mid-night or in the morning.
The prints are scheduled for different shows. If a show starts at 10.00 AM on screen 1, second at 10.20 AM at screen 2, third at 10.40 AM at screen 3 and fourth at 11.05 AM at screen 4, the projectionist will project reel 1 at 10 AM and keep reel 2 ready. By 10.15, the first reel is about to end on projector 1, and is removed and rewound. It is then put on projector 2 to start the show on screen 2 at 10.20 AM. The same procedure is repeated for all the projectors. In a single screen theatre, the shows are schedules, say at 10.00 AM in theatre 1, 10.45 AM in theatre 2, and 11.30 AM in theatre 3, the projectionists of all these three theatres work out the schedule. There are shuttlers who carry reels from one theatre to another theatre.
In yester years, the projectors were imported from abroad. The brands were Westrex, Photophone, Monee, Cinecita, Cinesales, Strong, Cine Mechanica and Christie, Christie and Photophone have stopped manufacturing projectors. In the 1980s, there was a market of Rs 100 crore for these products. In the early 2000s, it was Rs worth Rs 500 crore. The sales since then have started declining.
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Extreme Consequence in Message Creation
In advertising we do find cliches, say a piggy bank symbol in banking ads to promote savings. Such cliches are banal. Sometimes the cliche consists of an extreme promise — a person using a deo becomes so desirable. However, cliches are not credible. Instead, one can use the other extreme called Extreme Consequence. It shows the absurd results of having a product or using it. A toothbrush promises sparkling teeth — in a group photo the head is converted into a sparkling lamp. Here the product benefit is exaggerated. A car chase between the police and the criminal shows him to get out of the car to take his favourite coffee from a cafe and then get into the car again so as to resume the chase. Extreme Consequence is ironic and tongue-in-cheek. It can be both positive and negative. It could also focus on minor trait. A ‘twist-to-open’ instruction can lead to a dance of the consumer.
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Inversion in Message Creation
While selling insurance, a family is shown in trouble after the death of the insured bread winner. There is some vulgarity in this. Instead, we can use inversion. It is an exaggeration that is not credible.Its very incredibility reduces the resistance. A flower wreath with a label ‘they will not forget you’ , even if you do not leave them anything is shown.Sometimes non-realism is used to make the message more realistic. The reader should feel that this would not happen to me. The more exaggerated, absurd and non-realistic the message is, the more positively the message is taken. A couple on a beach indulges in kissing and the body of the boy convulses and becomes lifeless. At this point the medicine for nasal congestion is advertised. Negativity is avoided by focussing on a relatively a minor trait. Hindi coaching can be advertised by pointing out how the lack og knowledge of Hindi affects the social life, say interactions with a north Indian girl. A gym could be a place to watch TV without any disturbance, or a place to make friends. Minor benefit is focussed upon when primary benefits are too well-known. Inversion also shows generosity and empathy towards the non-user. Advertisements using inversion do not feature a product but emphasise the benefits. It would not suit for a product with undifferentiated benefits. It does not focus on the brand, and hence suitable for market leaders.