Friday, March 28, 2008

HAS entertainment EDGED OUT “SELLING” IN AD-LAND ?

Snowed under with ads hysterically sold on entertaining, MONOJIT LAHIRI wonders whether there’s been a slight confusion in priorities!
Man, its one hulluva time in ad-land! Today’s ads (especially TVCs) are mind blowing… Splendid examples of riveting audience engagement, carefully crafted and designed to woo and impact a promiscuous (and forever) distracted viewer-base with the (ominious) ‘remote’ always at their fingertips. “Our job in these scary competitive times is simple: delight and surprise,” explains a Mumbai based hot-spot maverick (with his drooling, devoted acolytes, nodding energetic approval). “Not bore the pants off them with grim and boring product facts or figures. That will only inspire. zzzzzzz!” Adds another pony-tailed member of thead-frat, “Times have changed. The world is on a perpetual and frenetic fast-forward. To catch the flirtatious eye of the prospective customer, one has to be unique, special and different. In this backdrop, ‘entertainment’ is the acknowledged hot-line, the great leveller… Films, songs, books, events, happenings, news – we borrow and spin-off from any and everything that promises visibility, noticability and stopper value. At the end of the day, in this crazy clutter, grabbing and freezing eyeballs is the name of the game, baby-cake!”

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bottom lines and market shares

The relatively disappointing performance of the Tata and Birla groups is quite strange. Take the example of the Tata group. It sells cars, trucks, mobile phone services, designer jewellery & watches and air-conditioners to name just a few products. Imagine how the group could have leveraged a strong financial services arm the way GE has done consistently done for decades. Even the Aditya Birla group, that sells tyres, cement, fabrics, fertilisers and mobile phone services among other things could have done wonders to its bottom lines and market shares with a strong presence in financial services. The why is neatly summed up by D.K Agarwal, MD of SMC Global, “ In my views, Financial sector is a sector which needs a specialised and truly personallised services. It is a sector where a group is required to have a complete focus and high level of monitoring and involvement. Though large business houses have big infrastructure but a blend of renowned track record, experience and expertise is must for venturing into financial services. The absence of determined and dedicated focus may prove to be a big bottleneck. This may also adversely affect other business as well as goodwill of a big
conglomerate.”

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Monday, March 24, 2008

The leader lives in fear

Airtel prepares for the new challenge
Even the world’s fastest growing economy, China has its share of insecurities. And Bharti Airtel is only a leader who sits on an unstable throne. And when a giant like Vodafone announces plans to introduce ultra-low cost handsets in India, it’s natural for Airtel to take up the cudgels. Airtel plans to launch colour handsets at competitive prices. Sanjay Kapoor, President, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel, stated “We are currently in talks with many mobile phone manufacturers for tailor-made handsets, specific to our requirements.” But he ruled out the possibility of tying up with the Big three – Nokia, Sony Ericsson or Motorola. This is the first time we would see bundling happen in the Indian GSM space. The CDMA majors Reliance Communications and Tata Indicom have already been very aggressive in this field from the very start. An increasing number of branded retailers like m-Bazaar, Future Bazaar, Mobile Store etc., are now offering branded handsets at competitive prices, so task for Airtel is clearly an uphill one. They are branded as service providers, and without the backing of brand baadshahs in handsets arena, they really have to come up with some phenomenal package to make this one click

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Monday, March 17, 2008

A new space for MySpace

MySpace – the social networking site that allows its members to share videos, pictures and other content from profile pages – has launched an instant messaging service ‘MySpaceIM’, that will be customised for users of the teen-oriented social networking website. Last year, the test version of the service was inaugurated (it was called a ‘soft launch’) and it has already spread virally to more than 17 million users. According to MySpace co-founder, Tom Anderson, “MySpaceIM was born out of user feedback and the company had spent the last year listening to its community and tweaking the product to match their needs.” Now, a ‘fully integrated beta service’, MySpaceIM can be downloaded online at http://myspace.com/myspaceim. The countries that can use its customized services include the UK, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Mexico, Canada, the Netherlands and China – other than the United States, of course!

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

They both lack ‘levers’!

Finally, there’s the legacy burden, as HUL’s Anglo-Dutch parent company UniLever is going through a painful reorganization too... with plans of around 20,000 job cuts over the next four years as well as selling off its laundry division in the US, besides sell off or reorganisation of 60 factories in Europe, its biggest market. Uncon- firmed speculations are on about a merger with Colgate Palmolive. And just like Uni- Lever, even Manwani would realise that while HUL’s resurgence has begun, it is far from complete. Organised retailing in India could be the next big threat for HUL to contend with. With respect to the threats posed by organised retail to FMCG players, Neville M. Dumasia, Executive Director, Advisory Services, KPMG India, quoted exclusively to B&E, “Retailers would compete directly with FMCG companies by promoting their own brands which would give them higher margins.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

This ‘F’ is good

... F1 for social sustainability
While most athletes are concerned about their place in the world than about the world around them, few chosen ones have realised their importance in the lives of their millions of fans. With nearly 58 billion viewers glued to their TV screen to experience the F1 motor racing live, the impact on audience just can’t be ignored. This sport not only revolves around the players & fans but equally pioneers in development of technology & then the economy. F1 attracts the brightest minds in engineering design & encourages the use of innovative techniques. Realising the duty towards environment, the Honda F1 team has decided to race to raise awareness about environment issues & has done away with corporate colours & advertisements. Instead, it will portray a picture of Earth on racing cars. To create more audience involvement, Honda will also display names of pledged members, on Honda F1 billboards and then on artwork of the original car. On economic front, F1 brings in annual revenues of over $261.78 million to host nations & created over 28,000 jobs in Australia alone. It also has spin-off effects on tourism and hospitality sector as well. These Gods of Speed can definitely stimulate the present generation towards many social causes besides helping the nations to promote sports tourism.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Indian aviation faces the crude reality

With a sharp increase in global crude oil prices to over $78 a barrel, Indian airfares will see an increase by Rs.50-100 per ticket as fuel surcharge. Fuel cost in Indian aviation comprises of about 42% of the total operating cost and increase in the prices of the same has led companies to ultimately pass it on to the consumers. This is the second time this month that fuel surcharge has been increased. Paramount Airways, a Chennai-based airline, has already increased fuel surcharge by Rs.100, while other airlines including state owned Indian, are yet to decide the exact increment.

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

LG’s three year long jump...

Its jubilation time for Korean chaebol LG Electronics as its net profit for Q2 2007 stands at $420.1 million, highest in the last three years. Last time, the highest profit posted by the company was in Q2, 2004 when the profits were $530 million. The LCD venture and the mobile phone business of the company proved good for the sales but the plasma business was the culprit. As compared to previous quarter, sales of plasma displays witnessed a fall of 16%. Phones sales on the other hand increased from 15.8 million units in Q1 to 19.1 million.

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LG’s three year long jump...

Its jubilation time for Korean chaebol LG Electronics as its net profit for Q2 2007 stands at $420.1 million, highest in the last three years. Last time, the highest profit posted by the company was in Q2, 2004 when the profits were $530 million. The LCD venture and the mobile phone business of the company proved good for the sales but the plasma business was the culprit. As compared to previous quarter, sales of plasma displays witnessed a fall of 16%. Phones sales on the other hand increased from 15.8 million units in Q1 to 19.1 million.

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Monday, March 03, 2008

SONALI KULKARNI

"The 'festival' I enjoy the most is our 'film festivals'. The one I enjoyed the most was last year when I walked the red carpet with Mr. Omar Sharif at the Venice Film Festival where I won the award for best actress for my film Fire At My Heart."

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative

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