I want to become really famous. Does anyone know of a reality show that I can take part? Preferably someone where you can add a few racial slurs...oh..i can vow to give gaali..i dont mind it at all...
Its just crazy how the world is going gaga over a stupid TV show. Its amazing how hypocritical Indians are....we have probably one of the most complex societies that has a lot of foundations on casteist and completely racist lines. We are a society where we still fight against discrimination by gender...female infanticide...we have still dalits being persecuted...we have state-sponsored religious cleansing...
Yet we take the righteous route as if we were the symbol of equality...
Its turning out to be the biggest comedy event that I have seen in recent times. External Affairs Ministry making public statements and Tony Blair condemning the racial slur in the British parliament...
What is wrong with this world????
oh...by the way, I wonder how many of these righteous people actually saw the slur...Until yesterday, Shilpa Shetty was becoming a largely forgotten actress with no special talents to really speak of...now she represents an entire nation...
Seriously, something wrong with the world....
Maybe we should request Shilpa Shetty to become the PM of UK...its time we took on the imperialists.... :-)
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
No..not a retrospect on 2006
IBNLive Sagarika Ghose's Blog calls it a new baby....Count on her to hyperbole it by a notch. While it is indeed good to see a lot of citizen activism, I think this lady takes too much credit for doing it. I think we did have some good things going on the last year. The most important of them, to me, would be the Right To Information act being actually used by quite a few folks....a lot of factors, not just CNN-IBN... (but to their credit, they have managed to create a mark in their short lifespan....)
While this all augurs well and it is great to be all happy and gay, I just hope the Indian media does not become the trash that American media has become...(and I am afraid that's where we are heading).
As I have observed in many of my previous posts, we are all happy about all the good things happening and are generally optimistic....and I know it is inevitable but it would be sad to see us all aping the American way of doing things and 50-60 years down the line, the next generation starts thinking about the 'good old days'.....
On a completely different note, her imagery of a new baby brings to my mind Rushdie's 'Midnight Children'. The first time, it happened when India was being born....Now are we looking at the next generation of Midnight Children? I have no idea when they were born or whether they are yet to arrive....but definitely something significant is happening around us......and it is indeed a fortunate yet challenging time for us to be in India when this transformation is happening around us....
While this all augurs well and it is great to be all happy and gay, I just hope the Indian media does not become the trash that American media has become...(and I am afraid that's where we are heading).
As I have observed in many of my previous posts, we are all happy about all the good things happening and are generally optimistic....and I know it is inevitable but it would be sad to see us all aping the American way of doing things and 50-60 years down the line, the next generation starts thinking about the 'good old days'.....
On a completely different note, her imagery of a new baby brings to my mind Rushdie's 'Midnight Children'. The first time, it happened when India was being born....Now are we looking at the next generation of Midnight Children? I have no idea when they were born or whether they are yet to arrive....but definitely something significant is happening around us......and it is indeed a fortunate yet challenging time for us to be in India when this transformation is happening around us....
Monday, November 27, 2006
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)
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...
Sunday, November 12, 2006
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...
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...
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Infy Epic
Infy is on a roll again. If there needed to be one example of using the media to the best of its advantage, look no further than Infy.
We have had so many firms in the country who have passed the 25 yrs. We have quite a number of firms that are more than $2 billion in size. We have TCS, the grand daddy of Indian IT doing a lot of things. But yet, no one remembers them as much as Infy.
The Infy way of media management probably had different agendas at different points of time. When Infy was this new kid on the block, they stayed low profile. Then they embarked on this strategy of under promising every quarter and then over shooting it always thus becoming the darling of the shareholders. That got it the visibility it desired in the markets.
Then came the days of the Global Branding. They did Nasdaq and did a lot of road shows in the US. By the time, the competitors had wisened up and the war for talent had become hot. Then Infy did that big $1 billion bash again telling the world, we love our employees ensuring that there are enough people still wanting to get into Infosys.
Now if you need to get into consulting, you need to again build that kind of visibility. To align with the international vision, they started the first ever widely publicized Global Internship program to brand themselves in campuses abroad.
Again the 25 yr bash and the 126 crores are all part of 'we love our employees' message. Today Infy realizes that the biggest challenge is again talent. So here you have all the directors of Infy sitting for television and talking in their own inimitable style again putting the desire in so many more young people to want to join Infosys.
But make no mistake. I dont think Infy is any evil corporation. In fact I think this media management is itself worth a case study...the changing faces of Infosys. I think Infy's success has been that they have been doing this before anyone even realized that you had to manage the media.
We have had so many firms in the country who have passed the 25 yrs. We have quite a number of firms that are more than $2 billion in size. We have TCS, the grand daddy of Indian IT doing a lot of things. But yet, no one remembers them as much as Infy.
The Infy way of media management probably had different agendas at different points of time. When Infy was this new kid on the block, they stayed low profile. Then they embarked on this strategy of under promising every quarter and then over shooting it always thus becoming the darling of the shareholders. That got it the visibility it desired in the markets.
Then came the days of the Global Branding. They did Nasdaq and did a lot of road shows in the US. By the time, the competitors had wisened up and the war for talent had become hot. Then Infy did that big $1 billion bash again telling the world, we love our employees ensuring that there are enough people still wanting to get into Infosys.
Now if you need to get into consulting, you need to again build that kind of visibility. To align with the international vision, they started the first ever widely publicized Global Internship program to brand themselves in campuses abroad.
Again the 25 yr bash and the 126 crores are all part of 'we love our employees' message. Today Infy realizes that the biggest challenge is again talent. So here you have all the directors of Infy sitting for television and talking in their own inimitable style again putting the desire in so many more young people to want to join Infosys.
But make no mistake. I dont think Infy is any evil corporation. In fact I think this media management is itself worth a case study...the changing faces of Infosys. I think Infy's success has been that they have been doing this before anyone even realized that you had to manage the media.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
An Appeal to the Cable Operator
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...
UPDATE: It gets worse before it gets worse. Today it is the PM's residence and a bunch of rogue kids....
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...
UPDATE: It gets worse before it gets worse. Today it is the PM's residence and a bunch of rogue kids....
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