Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Government forces Liquour brands to innovate!

Deprived of promoting liquour products directly, companies had for long taken recourse to surrogate advertising — commercials on soda, packaged water or playing cards with the same brand names. Of late, the government has tightened the screws on this form of advertising as well.

As a result, companies like United Spirits, Diageo and Bacardi have designed innovative packaging to push sales. United Spirits has decided to roll out 180 ml tetrapacks. The new packs have been designed by packaging major TetraPak of Sweden.

Customer Benefit : A tetrapack is unbreakable and is easy to carry and dispose.

Other dizzy innovations :
Diageo has introduced Red Label in an ice tray pack. Its Black Label VMM pack is inspired by the shape of the MP422 Formula 1 car. Bacardi's high-end premium gin brand, Bombay Sapphire, has been introduced in a giant gemstone -shaped bottle. Named ‘Revelation', it is available as five handmade crystal bottles individually decorated with sapphires and diamonds, priced at $200,000 (Rs 86 lakh) each.

Controversial Lovins words can't ring any better now!!

Amory Lovins says:

1) Companies, governments, and consumers around the world are grappling with high energy prices. Amory Lovins, cofounder and chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit, has spent more than three decades searching for innovative ways to boost energy efficiency and alleviate this pressure.

2)In this interview, he offers suggestions to CEOs who want to plump up the bottom line by getting their organizations to use energy more efficiently.

Miss not his interview:

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Obama's famed Communication Tool

Communicators talk about Barack Obama’s use of the Internet as a means of mobilising voters.

It will be interesting to see how(If Barack is voted president)he will use the new-age medium to drive down the policies, slip out of a crisis or motivate people during challenging times.

One thing is for sure. The Internet has a powerful role to play in the shaping of the future of Democratic Nations.

Reverse Outsourcing & Infosys

The most comprehensive client satisfaction survey in the outsourcing industry conducted by the US-based consultancy Brown-Wilson Group, based on client experience responses of nearly 24,000 buyer executives, saw Infosys fall out of the top 50 this year to rank 59.

The Black Book of Outsourcing Survey results attribute the decline of Infosys, which was ranked 10th last year, to ‘rising accounts of client discontent’, the report notes, “ over a dozen major customers cited the fact that Infosys has not melded their consulting and service delivery well. US clients cite a lack of American front-office support with an imbalance of too much delivered from offshore.”

On the other hand, the report notes the rise of ‘reverse outsourcing’, the phenomenon of Indian companies opening offices in USA and hiring locally. The report says that 'reverse outsourcing development is too new for Indian companies to point to actual cost savings yet, but moving front office processes closer to the client is fast attracting buyer interest. Major suppliers are responding to the demand for enhanced, locally delivery customer service.'

American front office support & processes? Is it the real cure??

Celebrating Tamil Creativity - Interesting

Spark, the annual advertising award show of Ad Club Madras, which was not held for the past couple of years due to lack of entries, is all set to return in a brand new format. According to R Seshadri, Managing Director, Anugrah Madison Advertising, and newly elected President of the Advertising Club Madras, the Club, after a series of brainstorming sessions, had zeroed in on a unique format that would celebrate Tamil creativity across the world.

“Yes, we have plans to re-invent the Ad Club awards this year. After a series of ‘brainstorming’ sessions, the Executive Committee came to the conclusion that the Ad Club Madras awards needs to be unique in order to attract participation from not only local agencies, but also some national and international agencies who have stayed away during the last couple of years. Hence, we felt that the need of the hour was a change in format – a format so unique to Ad Club Madras that it cannot be replicated by other Clubs. Thus, the concept of ‘Tamil Advertising Awards’ was frozen,” Seshadri explained.

“There is a huge body of work created in Tamil, not just by agencies but by radio / TV / Internet and feature film companies that is unique and deserves to be celebrated and awarded. Currently, there is no forum which identifies and recognises this kind of work. The Ad Club Madras, with its roots in Chennai, is in a unique position to implement this concept, which the Club hopes will appeal to even other national and international agencies (especially in Sri Lanka and South East Asia), who target Tamilians,” Seshadri added.

Monday, June 30, 2008

'Head-quartered' pressures on Captives

Faced with the reality of mounting 'head-quatered' pressures, Captive Centres / R&D Centres in India are continually searching for ways to decrease their operational cost and increase productivity and profits.

As a means to accomplish these strategic goals some of these captives are analyzing core functions versus peripherial elements of their business and increasingly outsourcing their non-core business processes in order to gain operational efficiencies.

During my sales calls with a few select captives, I get a feeling that some of them recognize the need and the majority of this lot is increasingly moving towards small and medium size outsourcing companies in India to gain superior control.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Non-intrusive !! Really ??

Engage your customers like never before they say !! I think it is a double edged sword, you could disengage your customers with this intrusive medium. Unlike TV, Mobile is considered very private. And hence doubly intrusive. Do customers see value in SMS advertising? What product categories would fit in here?