You may have come across the Pepsi World Cup campaign – Change the Game – via the excellent TVCs (in our rather inconsequential opinion) and outdoors designed by Taproot India.
We’ve been trying to do our bit too, with some online applications/activities/thingmajigs.
The idea is to take the idea of ‘Change the Game’ – the revolutionized and unprecedented form of modern-day cricket – and apply it to celebrations.
The way we saw it, the frenzy around the game and the way it’s cheered and celebrated has changed just as much as the game itself.
This is an attempt to capture that and let people cheer and celebrate online like never before.
Reader: “Hmm. Brilliant gyaan. I’m feeling all enlightened. But what did you actually do?”
We hear ya. Here it is:
In short, there are 3 things you can do here.
The first is called Gear Up where you get a nice, smiling picture of yours from Facebook, your PC or your webcam. You can then deck it up with all sorts of accessories and … well, ‘gear up’ to cheer.
Then, you can use this pic of yours to join the Pepsi Wave with other crazy looking fans – which is an online Mexican Wave. Or, you can start a private Wave just for your friends.
Lastly – and this was the awesome-est part for us – you can become a Desktop Dancer.
Which means that you can create a crazy-ass dancing avatar of yours to cheer every 4, 6 or wicket in real time! (And it shows the score too.)
This can happen online on the site or on your desktop by downloading a widget.
In the widget, you can also have your friends’ dancing avatars cheer and keep the score.
Beats the boring ol’ scorecards on cricket sites, don’t it?
A little something we did for Aircel on their Facebook page.
It’s for their new service which lets you post FB updates in your voice.
Which got us thinking, how would your boring old text updates sound like if they could talk.
They’d sound like a dead snail talking to a depressed tortoise, that’s what.
Oh, and don’t ask about the crows. Really. Nobody knows how they got there.
Posted: January 17, 2011 at 4:24 pm | Tags: general rants
Ah 2011. A new year, a new start, and a new prediction: This will be the year of digital.
Just like every single year was supposed to be, right from, well, 1999 or something.
Seriously, it’s a little silly, isn’t it?
Any more of this, and they’ll start to sound like the 2012 doomsday prophets.
Don’t get us wrong, we love the interwebs (as we well should, considering it pays for our inflating-faster-than-the-universe petrol bills).
And hell, we’re as excited about the new technologies and innovations as the next bespectacled social media guru digital professional.
But let’s all try to keep a little of – whassitcalled – perspective?
Yes, a lot is changing, and yes, it’s all very exciting.
But surely, most of it is just technologies and tools, right?
We still need to think about what we’re using them to say, don’t we?
Maybe, if we spent as much time making the best use of what we have (say, emailers), as we spend on fantasizing over what we could have (say, QR codes), we could make things work a little better?
So, maybe it can be the year when digital teams are involved at the initial briefing, instead of being SMS’ed about the TVC launch date 2 hours in advance.
Maybe it can be the year when a TVC embedded on a YouTube page isn’t front page news as ‘OMG India’s first ever digital launch’.
Maybe it can be the year when, instead of bringing the shiniest new bits from last year’s Cyber Lions to next year’s Goafest, we can look at making banners less annoying, emailers more interesting, microsites more usable, and so on.
Maybe it can be the year when we stop obsessing over the number of likes we get – for Rs. 6/like onwards (well, someone has to say it out in the open) – and paying attention to how we behave with the few people who genuinely do like us.
Or, we can put on our cleverest t-shirts, get together for a massive group hug and sing a song about the year of digital (while simultaneously tweeting about it).
We don’t know about you, but the last one does sound the most tempting to us.
A little something we did for Blyk (pronounced: Blik) – a new mobile service launched in India by Aircel.
Since it’s exclusively for the youth – no, really: you don’t get it if you’re over 24, we think (which also shattered some illusions about ‘youth’ around here, sadly) – we tried to create a unique look and tone for the service and created a video explaining what it is, apart from a demo and the website.
The video went down well and was aired on TV as well. And it stars our very own creative team!
Hope you find the service interesting (and the video too!).
The same look and tone was carried over to the Aircel Facebook page, along with a neat little contest letting people star in the video too.
We hear people complaining all the time that we don’t make good use of our office, especially with the terrace overlooking the lake and all that.
(Well, actually we do. They just don’t seem to realize it.)
So, here was the perfect excuse to silence the ignoramuses – celebrating the victory of good over evil, of light over darkness, the only way we know how to.
Some snapshots of revelry Lord Ram may not quite have approved of:
Backstage - getting ready
Our sparkling, shining awards showcase
Where it begins, and ends.
Incorrigible.
Someone's happy
And someone's not. Maybe it wasn't as exciting as we think?
It's okay. We won't tell anyone who got high on Vitamin C.
Founder and Creative Director; most responsible, mature, rational member
Dunno about you, but we can hardly wait for New Year’s eve.
Posted: August 9, 2010 at 10:54 am | Tags: general rants
We’re proud to unveil our latest strategic innovation: our unique social media roadmap to help your brand connect with consumers like never before!
The revolutionary new strategy is based on the 3 pillars of the social ecosystem: Widecasting of content Transformation of media Friendly social connections
Yes, it’s a joke.
But believe us, with a little work, it won’t be impossible to pass this off as serious document.
It would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad.
***********
It’s hard to escape the hoopla around it.
Depending on who’s on the other end of table (and often their hairstyles and spectacle frames) it’s either the most overrated, useless piece of junk or the future of marketing, hell, of mankind itself.
In such a scenario, for a digital agency to say that they don’t ‘get’ it may be seen as the ultimate faux pas.
Well, being uninformed might just be better than being misinformed here.
So, yeah … we’re no social media gurus (Although we’d love to be … watch the video below).
Our social media strategy, approach, or whatever it’s called, can probably be described in a single sentence.
Use common sense, and a bit of creativity.
The way we see it, it’s just talking to people (even if they’re called tweeple, or some such travesty of the Queen’s language).
So, common sense mostly involves respecting those people and saying something meaningful.
And of course, saying it in a different, interesting way (that’s where that old-fashioned creativity kicks in).
What also confuses us is why social media is defined as facebook and twitter these days.
You know something is wrong when meetings begin with ‘What are we doing on facebook?’ and, ‘We can’t ignore twitter any longer’.
Well, we’re looking at our friends’ friends’ Thailand holiday albums on facebook, and we believe twitter is coping just fine with our continued cold-shouldering.
Don’t get us wrong. We’re not dissing anything here, nor are we trying to look like smart-asses.
It’s just that even with our limited knowledge of the wonders of social media magic, we can tell you that Your-Product-Ville is not always the right answer. Just like nothing else is.
Maybe it all sounds like a load of uninformed blabbering (which it may very well be), but hey, we’re learning.
But if you secretly admit you don’t know jack about it either, don’t let it stop you from creating super-awesome presentations to impress your clients/bosses.
Posted: May 19, 2010 at 3:57 pm | Tags: general rants
So, May 31st has apparently been ‘declared’ the Quit Facebook Day. Wonder if they have a Facebook page (They do. With thousands of fans. Ah, the sweet irony … but anyway.)
Now, we’re no Facebook fanboys. In fact, we don’t even have a page of our own yet. Partly because we don’t see any great benefit at this point, and partly because we’re busy doing some actual work.
However, we do individually spend tons of time over there, keep up with the much-maligned changes and Open Graph thingies, and even occasionally develop applications on it. And everyone seems to think it’s fun, right?
Apparently not. It seems that Facebook has suddenly become all evil and taken over all our embarrassing pictures and not-so-wise status updates. So, horror of horrors, anyone who cares to search for the said embarrassing pictures will find them! It’s the end of civilization as we know it! We must burn down the ugly, slyly slithering, blue-white page.
Or. We could try not putting up the embarrassing pictures up. ‘Oh, but what if we don’t put them up, but other people tag us in embarrassing pictures, then what?’, some might say. Well, even better: let’s not get embarrassing pictures taken in the first place. And if you are the kind of person who lets people write ‘witty’ tit-bits with markers on your torso and go around flashing it in bars, be proud of who you are. And if you still want to share the love with all your friends, may we suggest … e-mailing them?
And it’s not just about facebook. People love googling other people (second only to googling themselves – and the video below shows how to use that to your advantage with sheer brilliance). The search fields can change but the inherent voyeuristic nature won’t. So if you’re consciously putting things online which you don’t want people to see, stop now.
But the bigger issue here, we think, is the self-importance we attach to ourselves. Seriously, we doubt anybody’s out there searching desperately to find incriminating material to ridicule you. And if someone really is, you may have a bigger problem on your hands anyway.
How to use elementary human (or esp. advertising-CD) behaviour to your advantage. Simply brilliant.
Posted: April 13, 2010 at 11:14 am | Tags: general rants
For most of the people there, or should I say ‘delegates’, it was the most fun they’re going to have until April 2011.
And that’s the problem.
It’s not that I have anything against general merriment. I love my King’s beer as much as (probably a lot more than) the next bald guy in low-slung shorts and a clever t-shirt.
I just think the source should be a little closer to the lecture halls and showcase rooms than the silly little insulated bubbles that are the agency shacks.
No matter how hard you try, you can’t fight the feeling that it’s no more than a paid holiday for the people who’ve just joined the industry, and the seminar halls tucked away in the corner are simply the excuse given to justify the astronomical costs.
And it’s sad because you can see where this is going. The skirts will keep getting shorter, the tattoos and facial hairstyles will keep getting more creative, and the work will keep going down the toilet.
Interestingly, a sign inside the toilet read: ‘If it takes too long, it’s not worth it.’ I don’t know if that’s meant to be funny, but it sounded like a fairly good reflection on a few things.
And then there are the awards themselves.
(Full disclosure: We were nominated in 5 categories and were disappointed to not have won in any. However, this is not about being a sore loser. I respect the jury’s decision and judgment. I just disagree with the way things were done, which would have stood even if we had won.)
That said, I still found the childish absurdity hard to believe. Cheering and hooting is one thing, sending cheerleaders on stage and acting like a bunch of drunk college freshers just takes whatever dignity is left in the ceremony and chokes it do death with a pair of blood red pom-poms.
And like a friend tweeted: What if the Oscars jury was also ‘strict’ and decided there were no good movies made this year, or that nobody cares about ‘best cinematographers’ so there’s no need to call them on stage, or Katheryn Bigelow came to pick up her Oscar with a bunch of cheerleaders… and so on.
Again, I don’t have anything against having fun. But doesn’t the value and stature of this event depend on how the ‘delegates’ treat it?
If we all want it to be an excuse for a paid, drunken holiday, that’s all it will ever be.
Being in digital, I’ve never really felt a sense of belonging to this community. But seeing the show at Goafest 2010, I have lost whatever desire I had for it. People wearing checkered shirts and normal hairstyles simply don’t cut it at the festival of cool. The fits, it seems, have become the misfits.
So, after spending this one at the opposite end of Cavelossim beach, peacefully distant from the party zone, next April, I’m going to shave my head, grow a goatee, get a Chinese tattoo and yell ‘What the fuck, dude?’ at the top of my voice, all the fucking time.
That’s probably the only way this circus can be enjoyed.
Disclaimer: This post is by abhishek prasad, copywriter at digiVaasi. The views and opinions expressed by this author may not represent or be endorsed by digiVaasi in any way. Well, maybe in some ways. It’s a bit tricky … we’ll have to ask our lawyers.
On a random google search for Shineshah (yes, like we’re the only self-obsessed ones out here), found this on a nice blog called ‘Day in and Day out‘.
This post is Perfetti and Digivaasi’s fault.
To cut a long story short ( the longer version is available on AlooTechie) is that Perfetti and Digivaasi have launched a game called Shineshah Challenge as a social media activity.
What i find very odd is the use of the term VIRAL while describing the game. I find it a bit difficult to comprehend that digitally active clients such as Perfetti and an agency like Digivaasi would be so careless in the usage of the word.
A viral is something which is created not by the people developing it but through a massive cascading effect owing to the attractiveness of the content that is being shown. In essence it is a stamp a particular item will get if its gets popular enough such as in the case of Evolution of Dance , Star Wars Kid and so forth, or the latest video doing the rounds in connection to United Airlines.
There is nothing wrong ofcourse is promoting a viral either , though personally i believe that pure virals are ones which are promoted through word of mouth and not an advertising push , but in the context it sounds like an Oxymoron unfortunately for both parties involved , in essence its saying :-
We have a viral video which we will promote through a banner campaign – If you had a viral video , there would be no need to promote it.
Well, we must say, we agree with most of what this blogger is saying.
While it may be true that some pieces of web advertising fall in the ‘viral marketing’ category, the misuse of this certain adjective has started to go too far these days. As the blogger points out, both the clients and the agencies are at fault here, distorting the meaning of the term and generally roasting their chickens before the eggs are hatched.
Although we make an effort not to indulge in this, we do plead guilty too because the bloody word has become so entrenched in our language that it’s easy to just use it. And it doesn’t help that it makes people feel good.
Anyway, we shall take extra care before using the v-word without proper justification. And we shall certainly not be using it as a noun. The next time someone tells us they want a ‘viral’ made, we’ll just say ‘Why what? We’ll make you some shit so funny, your target audience will go bonkers laughing!’.
Unfortunately, something tells us people won’t like to hear that.
But then, that’s what makes it fun, right?
P.S.
For the record, ‘ShineShah’ has been around for a couple of months before the media promotion and contest began (the need for which is another debate altogether). And although we can’t provide metrics at the moment, and the benchmarks of course differ, but we think we can probably risk using the v-word for this one :)
After months spent fixing the ‘last round of feedback’, tweaking the animation ‘just a bit’, listening to people say ‘Next week pakka live’, and almost losing hope of ever seeing it shine, we finally released it a couple of weeks ago.
Ladies and gents, it’s ‘ShineShah’, the conqueror of evil, the vanquisher of darkness, it’s … the sh*t.
Do have a look for the sake of the 3 million man-hours put into it, if nothing else.
We’re planning to hold off the promotion for the time being to see how far we can go without it, and tweak it further based on the responses we get.
You see, after so many long nights spent staring at the bloody thing, we’ve kinda lost the perspective here.
So please do tell us what you think, and how we can make this better. We promise we’ll give you due credit and send you a customized thank you e-mailer too.
