Oh..how can they do this...

Since I have been brilliantly been busy doing nothing, the blog seems all desolate and lonely where there has been nothing new growing....

But then the world is the same, so why should I not have the same post again? Well now that I know Aishwarya and Baby B (as NDTV calls Abhishek) went to Banaras together (oh..my god...how can they go to a holy town together...chee..chee..) Well..too lazy to write anything..so here goes...

An Appeal to a Cable Operator (written in July)

Seriously, cant we have a holiday for one news channel a day? Maybe Monday, CNN-IBN, Tuesday:TimesNow, Wednesday: NDTV... you get the drift...its disgusting how unimaginative television has become...

These guys are spoiling the one enjoyable thing of television...channel surfing....I mean, an orgy over a 5-yr old boy falling into a well and now everyone has Mumbai, one year later...

If there is one thing where the cable operator should exercise his right of autocratic customer service,it should be in not screening one news channel a day...

Thank God for Seinfeld...

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish

~ From Steve Job's Convocation Speech at Stanford....

It's 'I' all the way....

There are different viewpoints on advertising. Supposedly the biggest challenge to advertisers is that with the latest technology (TiVo) and pay-per-view etc, consumers are now being given more and more the choice to NOT see ads. That creates a huge problem since the number of consumable items demanding the attention of the consumer is infinite while the 'attention pie' is just going on shrinking. So what does that translate into? How do advertisers hold attention...but this post is not about the challenges there..

The most recent ad that made me sit up was this one from Sony Ericsson for their Walkman series of phones (Low Bandwidth link). I think this was brilliantly executed and really would touch a chord with those groups of people for whom music is an integral part of life. But what struck me more was the images that they convey. All of the images in the ad are of individuals who are just enjoying the moment, their private moment with their own music even if they are surrounded by a huge sea of people. These people could be having huge problems but here they are at this moment, just immersed in the music and the only important thing being 'I'. Do we all not go through these moments or at least crave for these moments when we just can be what we want to be not thinking about what the next moment will bring?

I am quite sure, when they put the storyboard they probably did not think of it in so much detail. But I guess that is what makes a good ad. It should connect to people in different ways.

So if I look at it, what works for me in this ad is:
1. The images of 'ordinary' people in their daily setting
2. The music score for the ad, unobtrusive but still very much the soul
3. Most importantly, the concept of the music being their liberator...

I think Sony Ericsson is really getting this piece right.....

(Well, I guess I must also add that I am a die-hard Sony Ericsson fan all my mobile phones having been from this stable)

The other ad I do like from the recent ones on TV is the Ponds one showing these women all in a introspective kind of mood..have been trying to get a link to it online...even there it works because there are no gimmicks..its just ordinary people.I like all of these ads for displaying the importance of 'I'...People just tend to forget the 'I' in their daily dose of existing....

Kudos to the ad agencies...