DABBA WALAS or MBAWALLAS

today morning I was watching a program on tv about Mumbai Dabbawalas. Their penchant for accuracy and customer service. Much has talked about and written about them. They are a case of reverse take on MNCs like HSBC claiming to be the world's local bank. Here is a home grown institution that is showing way to world about logistics, customer management and six sigma etc....stressing that local insights can work on a global platform.

Another example that comes to my mind is our good old laloo, who turned a white elephant of indian railways into a proud,profit making jumbo and is taking classes for management students.

as Gandhiji said India does (also) lives in its villages: my reading -the true potential of our country is just not the big minds of corporate world, it can be the home grown talent without management degrees...be it laloo or the dabbawallas

Anti Valentine

As it is said for every trend there is a counter trend. The valentine's day has been exploited to the guilt.Now there is an anti valentine sentiment in the market, where in people feel that they don't need a valentine day for their partner to express their love, as true love doesn't need special days. All the singles in town have also been rallying in favour of this anti valentine trend...where in they feel its normal to be single and not have a valentine....

In fact greeting card companies have started cash in on this trend and as am writing my friend tells me there is anti valentine party In AUH

Insights

Insight is the most tangible product of a planner's thinking process.If you have a strong insight on hand, it will definitely lead to a impactful creative rendition.I do believe that insights can come from come from any part of the branding triangle of market, target and brand. An insight could come from a chat with salesman at the store or having lunch with target themselves.To be an insightful person one need to be passionate about the search of insights. As without a good insight a planner doesn't add value to business....more on insights

Brand You

Today a colleague of mine was talking about how some people get promotions as they deserve it, some get it even if they dont and some dont get it even if they deserve it. My reply was that the promotion thing is a two way street between the employee and the management. Even though you may deserve a promotion sometimes,you have not made your candidature relevant to the management and hence you become a blind spot.Probably the solution to this problem could be,about branding and positioning yourself within the organisation.The following post is an interesting read

Elevator Spiel

As it is often said, if you can't express a thought in few words, it lacks clarity in thinking. this is what is so special about those elevator speech exercises where one is given 30 secs to make a point to the other person.Advertising practitioners need to master this skill and be precise and succinct in these 30 sec to get their point across... be it servicing, creative or a planning guy. Came across an interesting post in this context which stresses the importance of being simple and succinct, the ground rule for all briefs......

Brand Egos

Do brands have egos??? Yes they do...if you recall in the early nineties when Coke entered India, they bought the brand ThumsUP( a well established indian soft drink brand) to get a foothold in the market. Soon they wanted to kill this home grown brand to convert all its franchise into Coke.But some times Brand equities overcome Brand egos. Coke realized the fact that it is very hard to kill ThumsUp and instead invested more into ThumsUP brand and rest is history.

I was reading an interesting story of how AT&T after the buy out of the Cingular brand, AT&T is planning to kill the Cingular brand. Another episode of Brand Ego. While AT&T is a well estblished brand, it is seen to very old and monolithic. While Cingular is more young, with it and has a geeky feel to it. Hope somebody in AT&T will give a call to Coke India to learn from their ThumsUP experience.

INDIA :Prosperity at one hand and poverty at the other.

When India recently celebrated its 58Th republic day. India is being making news as the new aggressive economy to be watched and bet ted on.While this was happening NDTV ran a campaign, India, The Republic of Hunger of highlighting the lopsided growth India has where in the shadows of this so called prosperity still many children don't get a square meal a day. Working in the same direction Everest Y&R India ran an ambient campaign in restaurants across over 50 outlets. A tent card was placed at the tables. people who visited these places were shocked to find a small cut out of a child inside this tent card. this prompted them to read more. this campaign struck an immediate chord with people and over 2 lac Indian rupees were collected. Social marketing though in infant stages in India, created a lot of focused impact.