It is some variation or the other of “Digital agencies aren’t doing enough to educate clients”.

The thing is, if they haven’t succeeded till now, there is something wrong. It could be any of the following:

- Agencies don’t want to educate clients.

- Clients don’t want to be educated by agencies.

- Agencies don’t know jack about anything themselves.

- It’s a meaningless, slightly condescending and probably irrelevant objective in the first place.

Or, they may all be true. (Though as you may have detected, we lean slightly towards the last point.)

What is hard to understand is, what exactly do clients need to be educated about?

Media properties? Effectiveness for those properties? Facebook insights? Relevance of Facebook insights? How to create viral videos?

Almost all aspects of digital advertising, perhaps advertising itself, have been obfuscated beyond the grasp of a normal person.

It probably suites some people well, if clients don’t understand what goes on behind the servers and clouds, in the magical ecosystem of socially empowered consumers engaging in interactive experiences and conversations.

But the point is, why do clients need to be educated at all?

The role of an agency should be pretty simple. You do try to understand and solve a client’s problems. You show the client how well (or badly) you did it. And you repeat, until you win awards or get fired.

How you solve it, what strategies and platforms you use, how much time and money you devote to any aspect, is up to you.

It sounds a bit condescending to say to a client that we can’t really account for your money, or measure ourselves against a clear objective, so we’re going to make up words and educate you about them.

Granted, clients may sometimes come across as utterly clueless about even the basics of the medium.

But it’s 2012! Everyone should know by now what a website is for and what’s cool on the internets.

Apart from that, it’s not that complicated, is it?

You create something interesting that communicates a message and persuades people to act. And you try and reach the right people wherever they are.

The clients don’t need to be educated about much else. They have their own job to do.

Agencies, on the other hand, could probably do with some education.

About what the client exactly does. About how their products or services are created and used. About the real business problems they face, and if they can be solved by us.

Or, we could all just get MBAs!

–

PS:

This is not to say that we’ve got it all right. Probably the opposite, if anything. But we usually like asking questions and wondering aloud.

At least unless a client tells us they want their own Facebook :P

How to save the forests.

How to save the tigers.

How to save the children.

Your company’s logo. (Yes, it was big.)

URLs to your LinkedIn, Twitter and corporate blog.

Your fax number.

Your email ID (within your email – emailception!).

The awards won by your company.

Your company’s no. 1 ranking in something.

Your disclaimer about something.

Your warning about not stealing any of the above.

And, that all of the above was sent from your super-awesome gadget.

Thing we struggled to find:

Respect for the English language.

Any evidence of serious deliberation.

Meaning.

Well. Not sure if that’s really true. In fact, the internet, esp. social media (we’re looking at you, Facebook), seems to be making everyone increasingly uniform in thoughts and behaviours. It is slowly erasing the quirks of individuality and spreading a web of conformity across its population, where people who like cats and tag holiday pictures from Goa are ‘cool’, and the ones who dislike cute animals or the DSLR disease are just weird.

Of course, the web lets us indulge in every possible hobby or interest, from philately to light-saber fighting, which is great. But the uniqueness is becoming increasingly confined to the niches, and the masses are becoming more closed to new ideas or challenging thoughts.

Perhaps the best example is the online matrimony business – one of the few which have been wildly successful since the beginning of the internet era in India.

A quick glance at the matrimony websites will show you how they work. They positively encourage you to choose people from your own caste. Whatever caste you can dream of has its own yourcastematrimony.com. Not just the obvious ones like jat matrimony, gupta matrimony, brahmin matrimony, etc. Even the most obscure ones. Do the Khandelwals really only want to marry other Khandelwals?

Perhaps it merely reflects the way Indians work. But the internet here is not helping anyone be more open. If anything, it’s manipulating the caste-focused culture to help us be more inbred. Without it, if your options were limited to relatives and neighbourhood aunties, you may still have had to find someone different. But now you can search for people with the same surname from across the country, even the world.

Google also throws up sites claiming ‘caste no bar’ in their URL. The first thing they tell you is that they have “18 different community channels to choose your life partner from your own caste”.  Then there’s a little link at the bottom for ‘caste non-oriented people’. Clicking on it opens a woman’s profile, where the 5th word in her description is, well, her sub-caste.

Maybe, as a capitalistic enterprise, you have to give people what they want. But don’t you also have a social responsibility to encourage ideas and behaviours that could help our societies be more open and free-minded?

On the bright side, there is also a dog matrimony site. They offer Arabian Nights-themed weddings for your dogs, followed by “We are against animal cruelty”. I don’t know about you, but to the male author of this blog, it sure sounds cruel to be dressed (against your will) as Aladdin on your wedding day.

Now, this is kind of tricky territory for us, because some clients have been known to find us too thick or too non-serious when it comes to the wonders of social media. (Maybe they’re right?)

But every time we’re in a meeting, or a pitch or something, with people talking about how a “strong, engaged community” is the single most important objective for the brand, we’re just waiting.

Waiting to utter the simple question that instantly transforms the atmosphere and provokes a reaction from every single person.

“Why do we need a community?”

But seriously. We sometimes really don’t understand. And community mostly means a Facebook page.

Maybe it’s a good idea if you’re, say, an ecommerce business (promos, CRM). Or a bookstore (passionate, niche, local audience). But what if you sell bluetooth headsets? Or washing machines? Now we don’t have any research, but we just wonder if people out there are dying to have conversations about washing machines.

“It’s an excellent way of keeping people engaged with the brand over a long term.”

Is it?
In May 2011, Eminem had over 41 million fans. Which is about 41 million more than most brands do.
But the core fans – who interact with the page more than the average (which is usually once) – were 575.

That’s 0.001%.

And that’s Eminem. People generally tend to love him a bit more than their washing machines.

Also, the way Facebook works is poorly understood. Most people consider the million or so fans they have as a captive audience of minions waiting to hear the brand’s message and scream ‘Wah-wah, wah-wah’.

In reality, it’s nothing but an illusion. Unless you have actively interacted with a page – continuously over time – Old Zuck’s secret (dubiously acquired?) algorithm will make sure you never see its updates again.

In reality, about 96% of fans will never visit the page again, after liking.

In reality, links posted by pages get 0.00093 clicks per fan. That’s roughly 1 click for every 1000 fans.

It all comes down to how different, interesting, relevant and creative you can be. And how meaningful your message is.

For an average page, there’s hardly any point.

But let’s just forget all about it. Let’s assume we did have a community of a million people, eager to listen to what a brand had to say. What will we say then? How will it help? Even if we post cat videos and pictures of Aishwarya’s baby and keep a million fans hooked, will they buy our product because of it? Will it have any effect at all?

And then comes the big one. The one that clears the fog of confusion and lets in a bright ray of light to illuminate our befuddled faces.

“Let’e be clear about our objectives here. It is not sales. It’s brand salience, consumer engagement and long-term relationships.”

Ah. Why didn’t you say that earlier? Of course, it all makes sense now.

As usual, we apologize for the silly questions.

–

*Sources:

http://mweigel.typepad.com/canalside-view/2011/09/fashionable-yet-bankrupt.html

http://www.marketsentinel.com/blog/2011/08/can-facebook-work-for-brands/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/14/page-post-ctr/

Wonders of Web

This one’s a NASSCOM initiative with some of the biggest online companies in India, and we’ve been bloody proud working on it.

It aims to spread awareness about the many, many ways the internet can help us in our daily lives.

While it may be common knowledge to some of us, you’ll be surprised to know how many folks don’t realize it.

The campaign kicks off with a basic website and 3 videos covering online travel, matrimony and ecommerce. The videos are not your regular animated fare; we had to impart a lot of gyaan without sounding too boring so we’ve tried a new style here.

Check them out on the YouTube channel and the website. A lot more coming soon.

Why do an online campaign to raise awareness about online stuff, you ask? We did too. But we realized that heavy internet users today are not necessarily evolved users. They may spend half their work hours on Facebook, but they may not know how easily they can pay their bills online.

Center Fresh

Besides the noble pursuits mentioned above, we’ve also been up to some good old wackiness for good old Perfetti.

Center Fresh needed to build on its latest TV campaign and do something ‘fun’.

So we created a series of animated episodes called “Bajrangi Ke Karnaame” (making the TVC’s protagonist a ‘hero’) and a simple little game called “Zubaan Sambhaal Ke” which challenges you to test your tongue.

For the game, we tried a new representation for the famous ‘Zubaan pe lagaam’ proposition. Some say it looks a bit, umm, gross. Pah, what do those girls know. We’re sure you’ll love it. Plus, it has a bunch of those social bells and whistles you kids like these days.

Hop over to the website to check out both.

The campaigns have just begun and we’ll be doing a lot more, so any feedback at all is sincerely appreciated.

Whatever you love or hate, do drop a comment and let us know. (You can even be anonymous if you want to!)

Well, we’ve used a lot of them and without naming names (in part because most of them are neither memorable nor exactly poetic), we have found them all to be online versions of a wholesale store in Yousuf Sarai. Sure, you might find a good deal on something you’re looking for. But by themselves, they won’t make you want something.

And that’s where Flipkart changes things. They make you want to buy more stuff. On Flipkart.

That is no small achievement. We bet a large part of their customers are repeat users. We sure are (despite a loyalty program conspicuous by its absence).

It’s not just that they’ve worked well on branding and design. They surely have. The site looks and works great, they’re one of the few brands whose web banners actually want to make you click, and their cute little bookmarks are wonderful.

But besides all that, it just works. You order something and you get it. When it’s promised. In a package that could probably withstand armageddon. And even if there’s a glitch, or you contact them for something, you don’t have to wait 2 days for a response or struggle with misspelled tweets and emails (very common with most sites, we assure you).



Packaging ho toh aisi. Warna na ho.

They’ve done the one thing most businesses (or brands) seem to ignore. Focus on the product. So, the whole process – every interaction – leaves you feeling good. Or at least not pissed off. Which is more than you can say for most others. We won’t be surprised if Flipkart alone is responsible for growing the Indian e-commerce market considerably.

By now you’re probably wondering about our hidden motives for this embarrassing fanboy-ism. Well, we don’t have any. We’re just happy to see an Indian internet company get it right.

But as much as we love it, we do think lately they’ve been a bit strained. Maybe it’s just growing pangs and usual problems that come with scaling, but the delays are happening slightly more often and requests are being granted and then ignored.

Still, the fact that we’re disappointed with small things are in part because of the great expectations built by Flipkart itself. We just hope they don’t lose that image of a lovely little online bookshop as they start selling ‘mixies’ and whatnot in the online megastore. For now, we’re staying hooked, and loving it. And waiting for that loyalty program!

Oh, and won’t it be awesome if they surprised you by sending you something from your wishlist for free?

Anybody listening? ;)

But as with all great ideas, there were thousands of bad executions, wasting clients’ money with little to show in scale or engagement as a result … If you make something great, they will come (or watch). Otherwise, they won’t.

The latter part of the latter sentence really is the key. Everyone seems to be convinced these days that nobody will ever visit their microsite and every idea should be based entirely where the “fans” are.  So what are your top 5 favourite branded Facebook apps, by the way?

The same kind of blanket rejections extend to “virals” these days. Sadly, amongst our marketers and agencies, there seems to be a firm belief that what they themselves like to refer as ‘virals’ don’t work anymore. It’s all too common to hear something like , “Oh those Sholay-type virals? People are not interested in those now.” We often succumb to the urge to ask which research study they are quoting. We owe this attitude to the ‘thousands of bad executions’ too, each with a horrific, banal Rajnikant parody.

Anyway, the point of course remains the same. Create something truly excellent, and people will watch. With or without Gabbar Singh.

(Thakur, on the other hand, is a 100% guarantee for success.)

Must admit, it bears a striking resemblance to the man himself.

If you see him, you are advised to immediately hide any edible items in your possession.

And the perfect coincidental Birthday gift for him, the latest addition to our library: the all new Copy Book!

It’s thrice as fat as the old one and has a section on our favourite blogger, Dave Trott.

Sorry for the terrible image, but as Homer Simpson would say, ‘Thank God it’s laminated.’

We were recently covered in HT Mint – one of India’s best newspapers which does not only provide extensive news about stocks and stuff, but also gives balanced, in-depth analyses about important things like insurance and all. And it has graphs and pie charts. And it looks great.

Yes, yes. They’re one of our clients. So? We swear this wasn’t a plug. Would we make it sound like we’re sitting in Abbotabad? Read it here and see for yourself!

At the Digivaasi office, accessible only via a dark, winding staircase*, Sachdeva and creative director Prabhat Bhatnagar explains why that term [viral] is a misnomer.

*Emphasis ours

Picture courtesy HT Mint

That’s Prabhat Bhatnagar in red. Founder and Chief Creative Officer. Who was specifically asked to shave for the occasion and pretend to work seriously. And look, he’s still on Facebook!

Sigh. What can you do with these celebrities, really.

Kid: Booooorrrriiiinngggg

You see the problem? There’s no way you can talk to these darned kids. Without using a monkey.

So, if that’s what it takes, that’s exactly what we did.

Here’s a peek into ‘Trapped’- our first Facebook game created for Topper Learning.

It’s a story about a nutty old professor who traps kids in his physics-defying dungeon.

To escape, they must answer his syllabus-related questions quickly (sly, eh? :P) or be trapped forever.

The catch? If you get a question wrong (which those little buggers definitely will, considering they’re playing games instead of studying!), you must trap a friend to balance the hill and save yourself.

Hence spreading the word on their news feeds.

It’s meant mainly for school kids, but you can give it a shot too.

Hop on to http://apps.facebook.com/topper-trapped/

A word of warning though:

Do you really want to know how many class 6 questions you can answer correctly?