Rock till you drop

by Venugopal Ravindranath

On an otherwise lazy Sunday morning, the last thing I expected was to be hanging in mid-air, clutching desperately at a rock at Borivali National Park. My boss had invited the chlorophyll gang to go rock climbing with him and a few other of his experienced friends.

My first experience with rock climbing was at Tableland, Panchgani, when i was thirteen. So I thought, “how hard can it be?”. Boy, was I wrong.

The first rock we attempted to climb looked deceptively small and was christened ‘Nursery’ by the seasoned climbers. Most of us managed to traverse and almost climb Nursery, but it took a toll on us. My instructor told me to imagine the rock to be my girlfriend and romance it. I reckon this made me lose my concentration! In the mean time, the rest of the gang climbed the rock without any serious injuries. So the secret to good rock climbing? Strength, stamina, balance and a rock steady girl.

The second, much trickier rock, was called ’21/42′ after the half and full Mumbai Marathon. This was our downfall, quite literally.

A few hours later, slightly bruised in both body and ego, we headed home with our veins popping out and a totally charged body. Looking forward to another Sunday morning soon, where we spend more time on the rocks and less on the ground.

 

Agent Vinod: LIC or GIC?

This blog first appeared in Campaign magazine on May 7th, 2012

By Kiran Khalap

Sanjay Singh, our chauffeur, dog-walker and man Friday extraordinaire, provides interesting perspectives.
When I asked him whether he was going to watch the rather expensively-produced Agent Vinod, he said, “Kiska agent hain yeh to maalum hona chahiye! Insurance company ka travel company ka?”
I realised whoever named the movie had lost sight of the fact that the word  Agent has lost its connotation of a spy or an employee of a super-qualified secret service and had acquired the connotation of an insurance or travel agent.

Which led me to pose the question: can a wrong brand name affect business?

In the case of Agent Vinod, it clearly had: it had actually failed to attract a customer because its meaning was unclear.

“Come on…” I hear you say, “surely the customer is subject to communication about the brand beyond the brand name?”
Agree.
And yet.

Would we feel comfortable buying designer-wear from Imperial Tobacco Company (which later became Indian Tobacco Company and is now ITC, selling Wills Lifestyle)?

Would Google have been able to diversify into mail and maps if they had named themselves WebSearch which is a brand name that would describe their first service?
On the other hand, so long as a company created the insanely desirable iPhones and iPads would it matter if the company was called Jobs Inc or Apple Inc?

Summary?

A brand is consumed holistically, and the brand name plays a role in the creation of this gestalt in our minds.
How critical the role is depends on the business, category and product.

Lakme means Goddess Lakshmi in French; and yet in the category of cosmetics, this meaning is unlikely to add value.
Nokia is a small furry animal (and a river), but that is not very reassuring for a buyer of high-technology smartphones.
Canon is the Goddess of Compassion Kwanon, and that doesn’t add much to the category they are in either.
IKEA is the acronym formed by the name, surname, village and district name of the founder, and we are better off not knowing the full form, we like the DIY simplicity of the current products and the brand name, thank you;-)

As a rule, brand names that are LATERAL are more flexible.

A company that names itself TOYS R US cannot later be taken seriously if its offers lifesaving equipment.
Same with DUNKING DONUTS offering health food.
But a Virgin can sell everything from bridal wear to space visits to music to banking.

At chlorophyll, we urge our clients to use brand names that reflect the philosophy of the brand: so Meru reflects ‘unshakeable dependability,’ QUANT ‘measurable advice’ and Exactus ‘uncompromising precision.’

To me though, the most interesting observation from Sanjay is that human beings also tend up to live up to their names.

Amitabh in Sanskrut means “amita aabhaa yasya saha” which means “He whose fame/shine/glory knows no bounds” and to a large extent this is true.

Now you know why I have to have a shiny pate;-)

Raat Gayi Baat Gayi?

by Chitresh Sinha

I just watched a 1.5 hour show on a hindi GEC without switching channels even during the break. I haven’t done that since Duck-Tales on Doordarshan.

Hats off to Star, Aamir, Svati Bhatkal and the entire team for creating Satyamev Jayate.
That being said, this post is not about what a great show Satyamev Jayate is. It is not about what a great strategy it is by Star Plus. It is not about Aamir Khan’s star power.

It is about what can be done (other than advertising) to ensure that the show continues generating great TRP’s and the social message does not just remain a message.

I am sure Star and Aamir Khan productions must have thought of most of these but these were my first thoughts after watching the show.

1.Real-time updates:
“Jab dil pe lagegi tabhi to baat banegi!”
Lekin, Yeh India hai jahan. We tend to forget dil-dukhane wali baatein quite easily.
So can people be motivated to react, to discuss, to take action when the nerve is still raw?

-Can the live streaming links and live updates me made available on the website as the episode airs and not four hours later?
-Can a hashtag be created for twitter and can this be displayed on-air? Can questions be asked and can people be motivated to respond real time on social media streams? Can tweet-ups be organized by enterprising twitterati?

2.The power of the inquisitive mind
I am sure a lot of us were moved by the interviews and the sting operation. No doctor has been penalized for female feticide till date in India!
Do we not want to find out more about this?

-Can videos on the official channels be interactive (click-able links like youtube ads which take you to the source of the information or to the sting operation or the petition page)
-Can the sting operation video be made available online on the official website? Can the reports (from which the data was used) be made available in a simple manner for students, teachers and other educated people to read and share?
-Can additional content (in-depth unedited videos, a debate with the audience or a post show discussion) be made available online?

3. Celebrate the real heroes
Don’t we all want to know the interviewees better as people? Wasn’t there that one moment where you wanted to give them a hug or just congratulate them? How about making it happen?
Aren’t there lakhs of people with similar experiences who want to share their stories?

-Can the interviewees be given dedicated space on the official pages for the coming week? (A short video saluting them for their struggle, allow people to have direct conversations with them, let them share their experiences and feelings)
-Can official blogs/channels be created where doctors, lawyers or relevant authorities be
allowed to have real-time conversations with them?
-Can the aam junta have a dedicated space on the official website to share their stories? Can they be contacted by a support group to help them? Can this not be crowd-moderated?

4. The youth is going to shape the future
We keep hearing the the youth of India has the power to change. Can this youth be addressed specifically?

-Can we create a platform for people to take charge? Let people post their ideas online on the official facebook page and based on the number of likes, can these be showcased on the official web channels? Can student bodies take charge of these initiatives and spread the message at the grass-root level?
-Can people do more than just talk to Aamir Khan using chat or videos? Can we create a platform for citizen reporters? Can people post 5-10 minute chats with someone who has been through the same ordeal? Can youngsters interview their maids and share this simple experience online?

5. Entertainment with a cause : crowd-sourced
Hungama is going to sell digital downloads of the songs telecast in each episode. But can we do more to market them?

-Can the chords and lyrics be made available in real time on the social media channels?
-Can users be asked to record their own renditions of the songs and share them online?
-Can specific crowd-sourced new compositions be showcased on the facebook page? The most liked ones can be offered as free digital downloads.
-Mother’s day is coming up in a week. Even if it wasn’t then don’t you think every daughter wants to just say thank you to their mother after watching the show? Can we allow people to share customized messages using templates created by Star on the facebook channel? -Can Junglee (the online retail partner) create special themes to make the retail association more meaningful?

What more do you think can be done to ensure that the show really brings about a lasting change?

chlorophyll’s Anand Halve authors third book, Darwin’s Brands

‘Darwin’s Brands – Adapting for Success’, the book is a compilation of the stories of 12 brands that adapted their way to success in the face of changing marketing and consumer environments.

The concept for the book is ‘the lifetime value of brands’. Essentially, two ideas laid the foundation for this book. The first aspect was the fact that the most valued brands are invariably age old brands. Secondly, the market valuation of most brands is a function of their standing in the stock market, which is a rather transient valuation that evaporates quickly. It was the combination of these two realities that led Anand Halve to arrive at the Darwinian analogy of – not the survival of the fittest – rather, the survival of the most adaptable brands.

Priced at Rs 395, ‘Darwin’s Brands’ is available in stores such as Reliance, Oxford, Crossword, Landmark, Bookzone, Kitabkhana and Strand.

You can order your copy online from http://www.sagepub.in/Web2012/halvefb.htm or from Flipkart, Infibeam, Landmarkonline and AmazonIndia.

The world’s greatest communicator uses breath as a scalpel

by Kiran Khalap

First appeared in Campaign blog April 2, 2012

“Advertising is a weak force,” said Samit Sinha famously, one of the finest account planners in advertising I have had the privilege of working with.
That used to be his opening salvo when we were engaged in creating the inviolate processes for a brand named Clarion. Yes, you are right, India’s first homegrown agency brand Clarion is dead; it exists in tattered non-corrected references on indiapages and suchlike:-(
His remark began with the Latin root of the word advertising, advertere, which means ‘turning towards.’

That’s all advertising can do: turn the target’s mind towards something.
That’s why, when advertising not only turns minds towards brands and products and services, but also changes behaviour, it gets classified as great advertising.
One single release of the ‘1984’ ad for Apple at the SuperBowl led to the sale of 100,000 computers: even though the ad never showed the product.

But to truly understand the power of communicators who instinctively have excelled at communicating and therefore, have changed behaviour of human beings around the world, we must step out of advertising and PR and all other forms of paid-for communication.
Meet Mr Satya Narayan Goenka.
He has been teaching the art of vipassana and communicating about it since 1969.  He has personally guided over 41,000 students and every year, over 100, 000 human beings undertake the ten-day course in over 180 centres around the world.
What are the communication basics we can learn from him?

1. “Laugh…but at yourself first.”
Mr Goenka uses self-deprecatory humour: “Hey, I don’t have long hair and beard nor a shaven head, I’m no freak, are you sure I can even be your teacher/guru?”
How many advertising speakers, or clients, and even worse, brands, have so much confidence to laugh at themselves?
Brand Diesel used to laugh at itself, now it is trying to become an ‘universal edgy brand’, which is a contradiction in terms.

Clients laughing at themselves publicly? Hmmm;-)
Advertising gurus laughing at themselves? Hmmmmm…;-)
2. “Fall in step with your target’s beliefs…and only then, present a new viewpoint.”
Naked truth is almost always excommunicated; but when dressed in stories and parables it is welcomed home.
Mr Goenka draws upon India’s inexhaustible storehouse of culture to make us laugh at our own unquestioned beliefs, and then, when our guard is down, explains that personal experience is the key to change, not intellectual ideas.
I must admit our Indian creative gurus are very good at this precept: most Indian advertising now truly draws upon India’s culture.
3. “Lead by example”
In a business world where everybody preaches values, but most practice creation of value for themselves (Creative Directors accepting commissions from TVC producers; brand managers accepting favours from event managers; clients stealing from their own organization is apparently the ‘way of the pragmatism’), a leader who practises what he preaches even when confined to a wheelchair is great inspiration indeed.

Even today, he uses breath as a means to focus the mind, and having done so, uses it as a scalpel to perform surgery on the unconscious.
What did the last piece of communication we sent out achieve?
Did it change minds, or hearts, or behaviour?
Do we even know?

(PS: in case you haven’t experienced this rigorously scientific technique, I recommend it strongly (www.dhamma.org) Ten days is nothing to learn an explosive new way of communicating with the person most critical to your life. Yourself.)

Advertising awards as nipples on men

by Kiran Khalap

First appeared in Campaign magazine on March 7, 2012

The Effies, the Clios, the D&ADs have been talking about their deadlines this month.

That got me thinking.

Long ago, when I was young (yes, you are right, it was long ago;-)), in an interview, I suggested that advertising awards are like nipples on men: you can neither deny nor substantiate their existence.
Of course, they are there, but what function do they serve?
Do ads that win more awards win more customers?
Do ad agencies that win more awards charge a premium?
Other detractors had several arguments: “They are not about effectiveness; rarely about big brands; never chosen by unbiased judges, give no clue about advertising Return On Investment (ROI).
The only guys who get nice ROI are owners of the ‘property’ like Roger Hatchuel who owned Cannes Awards!” (who apparently made 10 million pounds or INR 84 crore in 2000!)”
Then in 2007 I read that men can lactate and their nipples do have a function!
In fact, Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize (There we go again! If journalism can have awards, why can’t advertising?) winning author had suggested that starvation led to spontaneous lactation, as observed in Nazi concentration camps.
I realized if one part of my quote was proven false, maybe there is data to suggest that the other part is too!
To my pleasant surprise (you must understand I have been far from advertising agencies since 1999), I realized that the other part has been proven false too!
Almost all data suggests that:
Creativity and effectiveness metrics are merging: I remembered that in UK, BBH, AMV and BMP, used to be in the Top Three of both Effectiveness and Creativity leagues (1990s?).
Apparently, the share price of Winner Clients of the Year at Cannes for the past 10 years has been the highest when the clients have been producing their most creative work. (http://epaper.livemint.com/ArticleImage.aspx?article=15_10_2011_004_001&mode=1)
In simple words it means when advertising is meant to contribute to business, ‘creative’ advertising contributes more!
(Remember of course, there are more and more businesses being built without advertising, leave alone advertising awards! Zara is Euro 7 billion, Body Shop 3 billion without any advertising.)
Clients are participating more and more in award functions: the same article suggests it rose from 200 to 500
Most of the awards are now owned by professional media companies, not individuals, who have to have aims beyond profitability
So the only argument by the detractors that is left unanswered is that the awards are not judged by unbiased judges from outside the industry.
(For example, cars awards are judged not by manufacturers but by independent experts.)
I guess it is a non-question: if the result of the awards matches the performance in the market, how does it matter who judged?
I mean, how does it matter to the child whether it is the father or the mother who is providing milk through the nipple it sucks?
No?

The Emperor’s New Clothes: an outsider’s view of design in communication

 

This write up first appeared in Kyoorius Magazine, Edition Ten


I am a confused brand consultant. (“Is there any other type?” I hear somebody wink.)

This is not my normal mental state: I am clear about what I know and what I don’t.

I don’t understand chess, cryptic crossword puzzles, balance sheets, post-modern literature…and now, design-thinking!

What I don’t understand, I leave alone.

But when it becomes a matter of survival, I ask for help.

Which is what I am doing now. From those who practise design thinking and therefore, read this magazine.

In 1999, when I started chlorophyll, it was meant to be, as a species, a brand consultancy, as different from a species called advertising agency.

What exactly is the value a brand consultancy must deliver?

The science and art of defining and articulating the unchanging idea (isn’t that what a brand is?) that drives business.

For example, Sam Walton decided in the 1950s that Walmart would always deliver day-to-day items at lower cost than any competitor (thus bringing down the cost of living).

This idea must be first discovered, then defined, then articulated well so every employee understands it, and it comes alive in logistics, HR processes, customer relations…even the company logo.

For this, a brand consultancy would have a process and/or a perspective to understand complex distinctions between different categories of brands (corporate versus service) or brands operating with different business models (B2B versus B2C) or different levels of evolution (new brand versus old brand versus unknown brand).

On the other hand, an advertising agency would specialize in the changing aspect of communicating a brand: awareness change versus behaviour change;  TV advertising versus web advertising; emotional appeal versus rational appeals and so on.

There are overlaps, but by and large, the specialization is clear.

Then I discovered that there was another species of specialists overlapping the area of communication: design thinkers.

So I studied the great product designers: Philippe Starck designing an iconic juicer.

When I first saw the image, I said, okay, whether everybody sees it as iconic or no, it will certainly squeeze oranges and make juice.

Form will deliver function. Elegance will be the bonus.

But when I started studying design thinking in communication, confusion reared its ugly head.

Here’s a recent explanation of design in communication:

“The colour red in the logo depicts continuity and change. It also depicts conflicts. There is an ‘H’ formed in the logo. The angular formation of ‘H’ symbolizes that Hero is no longer dependent on foreign expertise for its brands. It will be focussing on its own engineering capabilities.’ (http://www.afaqs.com/news/story.html?sid=31347_Hero+Motocorp+unveils+new+brand+identity+post+its+split+with+Honda)

When I emailed to find out whether colour could be interpreted by a viewer as explained, my designer friend Neena Gupta mailed me this diagram.

“Obviously, you poor wordsmith”, she tut-tutted, “you don’t know that colour means different things in different cultures.”

Does that mean in Indian culture red stands for ‘continuity and change’?

And an angular formation symbolizes ‘not dependent on foreign expertise’?

To my simple mind, the function of design in communication is communication.

But this design language is obviously one that does not communicate with me, I said to myself.

Finally, another designer mailed me what she refers to as ‘the mother of all logos’.

“The Rainbow flower consists of four basic values of Integrity , Innovative Solutions, Human Values and Value for Money and stands as our brand identity.” (http://www.wipro.com/newsroom/Pages/press-kit.aspx)

I have not been able to connect “rainbow colours” (seven) and the four basic values.

Have you?

So will someone who is trained in design thinking and believes in it, please help?

Are clients demanding these complicated explanations for their logos or design thinkers themselves believe the logos cannot communicate without these explanations?

(PS: The Emperor’s New Clothes is a story by Hans Christian Anderson).

How to translate a brand from one culture to another: the story of Ignighter

Kiran Khalap

In 2008, three friends Kevin Owocki, Dan Osit, and Adam Sachs created an idea that won them the TechStars award in New York. Their idea was to find a way of meeting new  people with similar interests: they called it Group Dating, probably because they felt the need for the three of them to meet three more interesting dates on Friday nights!

Sounds like the offspring of Father FaceBook and Mother Match.com?

Whatever the species,  youngsters from India made it quite clear that they loved the idea. Lakhs of them were registering, making India the highest source of traffic!

After punching the calculator,  the founders realized the brand would get even higher traction if any barriers that existed were removed for the friend-starved Indians.

Enter chlorophyll. chlorophyll has been helping brand translations from one culture to another: Sesame Street and Galli Galli Sim Sim, Top Gear UK to Top Gear India, Unilever to Hindustan Unilever, Splenda US and Splenda India and so on.

Some razor-sharp creative research among first-jobbers in multiple cities led to several startling insights that called for radical changes in the brand for India.

The first and the bravest decision accepted by the ignighter team was to change the brand name from Ignighter to ‘StepOut’. It became the rallying cry for the shy Indian in the smaller cities wanting to break boundaries and try something new.

Then came a brand line that lent a delicate twist to the invitation: ‘StepOut…and join in’.
Join in the family of like-minded individuals.

And finally, an ideantity™, a visual idea that together with the brand name and brand line, communicates, within a moment,  what the brand stands for.

A colourful kite with one part about to join the rest.

A symbol of exploring the unexplored, of tasting new skies while being grounded in the reality of one’s social structure.

(Now you realise why we call brand ideantity™ a one-second advertising campaign…it communicates the meaning of the brand in a snapshot.)

Okay. Translation over.

Hands up those who want to join the surfing or gardening or hiking or drinking (or branding!) group on Step Out?

StepOut Ideantity

Is democracy at office unintelligent?

First appeared as a blog in Campaign India magazine on February 5, 2012
by Kiran Khalap

Last week, a news item suggested that India’s per capita income is now INR 53,000,
a number obtained by dividing the GDP by population.

It’s a figure that hides as much as it reveals, and that got me thinking about economists.

Like account planners in advertising agencies, they keep looking for patterns.

For instance, one interesting pattern links per capita GDP of city and its ability to host the Olympics: it should be above US $4000 (Google Angus Maddison if you are the curious type!)

The other interesting pattern links economic development and urbanisation.

In urban  centres, once the per capita incomes cross US$ 4000, citizens start demanding better services at local level (Google Kuznets’ Curve if still curious;-)).

What that means is that once the citizens have gotten over the day-to-day struggle of making ends meet and paid taxes as required by the law, they start become civic-minded, and demand their rights as well.

That’s what democracy is all about isn’t it?

The balance of rights and responsibilities.

That got me thinking about democracy at the office.

If it’s the intelligent way of managing nations, why are organisations not managed democratically? (A thought first sown in my mind by old friend Aditya Jha, ex-Infosys.)

Surely most of the havoc we saw in the US would have been avoided?

For instance, if the employees of Lehman Brothers (who filed the largest bankruptcy in US history in 2008) had the power to vote out their leaders, wouldn’t they have done so?

And if they had, wouldn’t we have been spared a global financial disaster that destroyed lives around the world?

After all, several of us believe that the 20th century was ruined because corporations became more powerful than governments across the world!

Why don’t employees of corporations vote for a high-performance CEO or vote out a self-aggrandising CEO?

Why can’t the creative team in an advertising agency vote out a nepotistic or gender-biased or credit-hogging Creative Director?

Why can’t the employees ‘file a PIL,’ as it were, to find out why the CEO’s best friend’s spouse got the contract to change the interiors of the office or why the Chairperson paid for his new bungalow under the guise of building a guest house for the corporation?

It makes sense doesn’t it?

If the CEO demands your responsibility to perform at your peak, day in and day out, surely you have a democratic right to question how the wealth you generated got utilised?

One good news is here: http://www.worldblu.com/awardee-profiles/2011.php

There are at least one billion employees who work in such democratic organisations   (including some in India).

The bad news?

I don’t know if any advertising agency/media agency/brand consultancy is part of that list.

That got me thinking…if communication professionals are so intelligent, why don’t they choose this form of corporate governance? (After all, most of them have a per capita way higher than US $4000;-))

Maybe there is something I don’t know.

Maybe Winston Churchill knew: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Do you?

Watch your head!

Sandesh Parkar

The exterior emulsions market in Kerala is dominated by Asian Paints. So much so that painters and dealers believe their credibility will be questioned if they were to recommend any other brand to the customer.

For a smaller player to survive in such challenging market conditions needs ingenuity and boldness. Indigo Paints began by identifying a radical niche for itself.

Roof Tiles. It then created a new segment within the exterior paints category. Roof Tile Paints. Indigo Roof Tile Paints are available in over 50 vibrant shades, in Glossy and Metallic finish.

Indigo Paints now needed a partner who could devise a sharp communication campaign to help promote the Roof Tile Paints.

Enter chlorophyll.

chlorophyll’s research threw up an intriguing insight. A Keralite is extremely conscious about the way his house looks on the outside. He wants it to stand out. Hence, he pays a lot of attention to the exterior. He uses the best paint for the walls. Curiously enough, he completely ignores the roof!

Therein lay the opening!

Now all that was needed was a disruptive idea, which would convince him that by ignoring the roof of his house he was doing an incomplete job. That an unpainted roof was ruining the entire beautification effort!

chlorophyll hit upon a brilliant metaphor. A Malayalee woman, perfectly decked-up in a rich, traditional saree and stunning gold jewellery, with shockingly unkempt hair!

The arresting visual was complemented by a tongue-in-cheek phrase that was part of the local folklore. Interestingly enough, this phrase referred to a woman’s head and a house’s roof at the same time!

Clearly, we had a winner on our hands.

Our apologies for the pun, but, last heard, sales of Indigo Roof Tile Paints were going through the roof!

Indigo Hoarding