8 lessons marketing professionals can learn from Kolaveri

Source :firstpost. : Nishad Ramachandran :Dec 1, 2011

Aye, have you heard this weird song. Kolaveri, Kolaveri?

Is got close to a million views on YouTube.

Is it Malu or what? What does Kolaveri mean?

- Digital Dude Aged 24, 17 November 2011

Screen grab from Youtube

Six years after Bob Garfield provoked the marketing and advertising industry with hisseminal piece in Advertising Age, Digital Dude (quoted above) discovers that Kolaveri Di has gone viral on YouTube. Dude does not know Bob Garfield nor has he read The Chaos Scenario. But he is among the millions who have given Kolaveri another view, helping to further shoot the video on to the centre stage of India’s pop culture and unwittingly endorsing the premise of Bob’s book.
Now clients want agencies to do a Kolaveri like video for their brands. Yes we got two briefs in the last two days and are struggling to explain why we cannot do a Kolaveri. What we do have are some lessons from the said video and similar memes.

Lesson 1:


 You don’t make a Kolaveri. It happens. Amen. Here are, one, two stories from the guys at Jack in the Box, the digital agency behind the viral on how it happened.

Lesson 2:

 You can’t separate marketing and PR from the agency anymore. Being a movie based video Kolaveri has an advantage over traditional marketing content. Yet reading theagency’s POV on this, PR was strategically used to give the video the traction.  Starting now we need to create all kinds of synergies to get people’s attention. Marketing, PR, HR, sales, service working together, in tandem…

Lesson 3:

  Speed is the new element in a marketing person’s arsenal. To read Dhanush’s interview post the success of the song and to believe that the song was written in some 6 minutes. Well that’s as much time it takes to find an empty conference room these days. Speed was on display when W+K decided to bring on the OldSpice Man on to Twitter and YouTube. 180+ videos created in two days. Wow!

Lesson 4:

YouTube is the TV channel for urban Indian youth. Mahesh Murthy (look up his 20 new rules of marketing here) and Reem Syed are some of the prominent voices in India who believe how lopsided marketing budgets are with respect to digital media. The impact of Kolaveri Di should put an end to that discussion. In fact this Google Trends comparisonbetween two recent hits, Airtel’s Har Friend Zaroori Hota Hai and Kolaveri shows you that without a dime spent on TV, Kolaveri has blown past an ad that was heavily promoted on all channels, online included. Even in places like Ludhiana and Chandigarh,  Kolaveri beat out the Airtel ad.

Lesson 5 :

In a low friction world,  we learnt a great idea will have imitators like in the case of Cadbury’s s Gorilla. In India we have struggled to get people to create interesting content that feeds off a rage. Kolaveri is showing us that good ideas will be copied and remixed in real time. What are we agencies and marketers doing to create memes that can be remixed?

Lesson 6 :

Hum-ability counts, not meaning. Cartoonist Hugh McLeod had something fundamental to say  in this cartoon. Most marketing messages are so overloaded that they lose any humanity whatsoever. The lyrics in Kolaveri are so nonlinear that they start a conversation and further its spread.  RIP Link Test?

Lesson 7:

 Ideas like these can spawn real time marketing opportunities. Pepsico’s Digital Marketing Head talks about how the best marketing in the future will need to grab real time opportunities that could come by. A viral the scale of Kolaveri could have spawned many opportunities. A line of Kolaveri Di Tshirts. A promo around the song. A smart entrepreneur could have started a Kolaveri Di FAQs page and made some money from placing Ads on the page. Missed opportunities.

Lesson 8:

 The long tail brings interesting content back into circulation. This one has nothing to do with Kolaveri. But another video that’s been doing the rounds recently, the  flash mob in Mumbai Central has been doing the rounds. The Youtube video has already notched up an impressive 200,000+ views in two days. On the back of this, an older, forgotten one from May this year is getting a second life, for free. The Internet never forgets, but no ad that’s shown on TV can ever have a second coming without the advertiser wanting to rerun it.

Source :Money Control :Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 13:26 

Public sector lender Union Bank of India (UBI) is tightening its belt to check the rise of non-performing assets. According to S S Mundra, executive director of the bank, it has stopped lending to troubled sectors like power, aviation, and commercial real estate in the last 6-7 months. The bank has recently set up a pilot collection centre for recovery of loans in Bangalore. It has appointed two general mangers who are overseeing recovery process, categorised into parts: ticket sizes of below Rs 10 lakh and above Rs 10 lakh.

“We have around Rs 6,042 crore loan exposure to state electricity boards (SEBs).  Most of those SEBs are running in profits. So far, we do not have any concern. Till March, we do not have any repayment due with them. Going forward, however, if some of them need realignment of their loans, then we may look at it,” he told Moneycontrol.com in an audio interview.

The lender plans to expand its loan book at 16-17% year-on-year in FY12, revised from 22% Y-o-Y, a target set at the beginning of the year. During the second quarter, net non-performing asset (NPAs) ratio shot up from 1.32% to 2.04% sequentially. The lender had also registered slippages of Rs 1,821 crore.

The government of India, the bank's major stake holder (57.07%), is expected to infuse fresh capital to increase its holding to 58% by March, 2012, he said.

Rating agency - Fitch has recenlty affirmed UBI's long term ratings at 'Fitch AA+(ind)', with a stable outlook.

In China, wealth does not mean happiness as suicides and unnatural deaths among rich on rise

Source  : ET :27 NOV, 2011, 04.00AM IST, 
By: Yu Ran (China Times) 





For Jiang Jie, 34, wealth did not mean happiness. He attempted suicide about six years ago after he went from being a millionaire to penniless over the course of a month.


 "I never felt so depressed," Jiang said. "I seemed to lose my faith in life after a huge investment failure left me with almost no money." 

Recent decades have brought wealth within the grasp of a greater proportion of the population than ever before. 
According to the Hurun Wealth Report 2011, one out of every 1,400 Chinese residents, or 960,000 individuals, have assets worth at least 10 million yuan ($1.57 million), a number that has increased by 9.7% since 2010. 

Of these, 55% are business owners, 20% property speculators, 15% stock advisers and 10% salaried executives. 

China is also home to 60,000 of the "super-rich", who have 100 million yuan or more, a number that has increased by 9% since 2010. 

That new-found wealth has undoubtedly brought many blessings. But not necessarily longevity, statistics show. 

The past eight years have seen the deaths of 72 millionaires and billionaires who had a net worth of more than 100 million yuan. Nineteen died from illnesses and 53 from unnatural causes such as suicide, accident and murder, according to an analysis of media reports conducted by the Changchun-based metropolitan newspaperNew Culture Daily. 

That death rate was similar to the police, the job with the highest risk factor in the country. From 2008 to 2010, three out of every 10,000 police officers died on duty. 

What is the cause of the high death rate among the extremely rich? Jiang's case offers at least a partial answer. 

Jiang was born to a well-to-do family that ran a steel company in Anshan, Liaoning province. When he was 16, he dropped out of senior high school and took over his father's company. Four years later he had made his first million yuan. 

Although many people undoubtedly envied him for his good fortunes, getting rich wasn't the best thing that could have happened to him. By his own admission he became arrogant and acquisitive. Against his parents' advice, he put all of his money into land that was eventually to be turned into a holiday resort, an investment he said he considered to be "very promising". A month later, the organiser of the project declared bankruptcy. 

Learning of his misstep, Jiang took a bottle of sleeping pills with the goal of killing himself. He was only saved through the intervention of his parents. 

Looking back on his brush with death, Jiang said it was just what he needed to gain a new lust for life. 

"Even though I'm now just an ordinary white-collar worker at a company, I'm happier and no longer feel the need to make so much money, " he said. 
Other Cases 

One example of an extremely rich man who died before his time can be seen in Li Haicang, the founder of the Highsee Iron and Steel Group Co Ltd in Shanxi province. Li was shot in the back of the head in 2003 by a friend who then killed himself. The police later ruled that the slaying had been the result of a commercial dispute. 

7 alternatives of iPhone 4S: A head on comparison

Source  : ET  :28 NOV, 2011, 05.54AM IST, KARAN BAJAJ & HITESH RAJ BHAGAT


The iPhone 4S is finally available in India, but the steep price is ruffling quite a few feathers. You don't have to spend a bomb to get similar features, explains ET: 
Nokia Lumia 800 

Nokia's latest and greatest, the Lumia 800 is their current flagship powered by Windows Phone 7.5. The 800 has a 3.7-inch amoled screen, tough polycarbonate construction, 1.4Ghz processor, 16GB storage and high-quality 8MP camera. It is also the only device in this bunch to include worldwide, turn-by-turn GPS navigation and unlimited free music downloads from the Nokia music store. 
Apple iPhone 4 

The iPhone 4 still competes with the 4S. Not only does it look identical, it's cheaper, available in black or white, offers the same 'retina' display and has a good camera too. The biggest feature of the 4S is Siri - but after testing it out, we feel that it's a feature that most people will get quickly bored with. iPhone 4 users should upgrade only for the faster performance and better camera. 
Samsung Omnia W 

This is the cheapest phone in this lot, but it sure does't look it. A brushed aluminium back plate, svelte design, bright and vivid 3.7-inch super amoled display and excellent performance make the Omnia W great value. Thanks to the 1.4Ghz processor, Windows Phone 7.5 runs along smoothly and you get built in GPS, Wi-Fi with hotspot, a decent 5MP camera and voice control too. 
Samsung Galaxy S II 

It's hard to find fault with the Galaxy S II - it does everything well. It has one of the most dazzling screens to ever grace a smartphone, the camera quality is superlative, performance is excellent and the device itself is sleek and unbelievably lightweight. Probably the only downside is the extensive use of plastic - a little brushed metal would have worked wonders (but would have made the device heavier). 
LG Optimus 2X 

The dual core Optimus 2X is now available at an affordable `19,999 - a huge price drop from the initial `30,000 plus. It may not have a jaw-dropping super amoled display, but it makes up for that with solid performance, a very bright, highquality IPS LCD screen, great camera and good battery life. 

Motorola RAZR XT910 

Motorola has revived the Razr name with the XT910, and not without good reason. Like the clamshell Razr, the new Razr is one of the thinnest handsets of its time. It uses premium materials like Kevlar fiber and stainless steel - plus it offers excellent performance, an 8MP camera that also takes full HD video and a brilliant super amoled advanced screen. 

HTC Sensation XE 

The only device here with a 1.5Ghz dual core processor, the Sensation XE is an update to the existing Sensation - apart from the smart new colour highlights, the device basically looks the same and has the same 4.3-inch S-LCD touchscreen. The main upgrade apart from the processor is the Beats Audio technology and the bundled high-quality Beats earphones. 

Cautious banks block 1 crore credit cards

source : ET :18 NOV, 2011, 02.22AM IST, GAYATRI NAYAK & ANITA BHOIR

MUMBAI: About one crore credit cards have been blocked or withdrawn from the Indian banking system since the global financial crisis of 2008 as lenders become increasingly cautious to protect against potential delinquencies. At the same time, the total number of transactions through debit cards has outpaced the number of credit card swipes, though in value terms credit cards account for larger spend. 

According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India, the number of credit cards in the system has fallen nearly 36% to 1.76 crore as on September 2011, from 2.75 crore as on March 2008. 

"They (banks) have increasingly become more stringent and have started undertaking more rigorous credit checks," said Kadambi Narahari, chief executive officer, SBI Cards, one of the leading credit card players in the country. 

Also, lenders have started seeking additional credit information through credit bureaus before issuing new cards, he said. The stringent checks and balances have led to a decline in outstanding payment on credit cards, which stood at 24% of total card spend at end of fiscal 2010-11, against 43% in fiscal 2008-09. 

"Post 2008 crisis, banks have turned cautious in sourcing new business to avoid huge delinquencies erode their profit and loss," said Parag Rao, head - credit cards, HDFC Bank, the largest issuer of credit cards in India.