Are people in Marketing and Communication Industry too egoistic and delusional for their own good?

Work in Progress.

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Social tools making us unsocial?

The other day, at a friend’s party, someone commented that so many people we know twitter about even the smallest ‘experiences’ and have therefore become ‘reporters’ that is it getting a bit uneasy to talk frankly even amongst friends, because you dont know who is sending a tweet at that very moment about what you just said, or how you behaved, when your guards were down. Put extremely, this means ‘we cannot trust friends to keep our innocent secrets confined to them any longer’.

Fascinating aspect of the social tools. If our friends stop being honest foe fear of being ’scooped’, would we eventually become un-social?

Getting attention 101

Today I was on a panel sponsored by Times Private Treaties at the IIJS [India International Jewellery Show]. It was titled CEO Roundtable: “Building a Vibrant Domestic Jewellery Business”. The panel discussed the role of branding in domestic jewellery business. Prasad Kapre, the moderator, made a comment after the discussion that the audience was not only thin, but lacked participation from people who need to think about branding the most – private jewellers with a family name.

Mr. Ashok Minawala said the title should have been something like ‘how to grow revenue of your family brand multifold’ , something like that. He said family businesses dont want to be told they dont have a brand. Period.

I liked it. Simple and powerful thinking.

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Why agencies?

Met the intelligent folks from e4m – Nawal, Amit and Noor – this morning. Told them what I have always felt about agency rankings. Why are agencies evregreen targets for perception surveys and size rankings? Sure, size is important, but then how is 2009 different from 1990?

Why are we clinging on to the measures of the exposure era, as if our lives depended on it? Will our narcisism and introvertedness ever end?

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Amongst the most important buttons every website has to have soon..

important icons of the future

Where did civility go?

The guy sitting next to me on the flight this Wednesday picked up my newspapers without even a simple ‘may I?’, tried solving the crossword, tore the papers with his clumsiness n put it non-chalantly in his own seat pocket…am I just mean or was he wrong?

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At the e4m event in Delhi on June 5th

Srini talked about SIP- Systematic Innovation Plan…Jacob said we must all get disciplined and Shruti argued in favour of going back to the basics..

I like it..

I told Anurag that the next time they have a debate on media accountability and ROI, they should have finance and procurement guys on the stage and marketing guys listening..

I also felt that it will be great to have young planners and buyers talking about serious topics on stage and oldies listening in the audience…why must we listen to experience all the time? Why not the audacity of ideas?

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Chapter 11 is Chapter 1…that’s courage..

Bravo American Express!!

On May 4th, American Express declined to give a pre-approval on my charge card when I was checking in at Ritz Carlton Singapore. On May 8th, the same card got declined again at ITC Grand Central Parel, Mumbai. Both the times the charge would have been for relatively small amounts – INR 20-30K [USD 500-600]. Meanwhile, on  May 7th, the same card got accepted at a restaurant in Mumbai for a similar amount.

When I called AmEx customer service yesterday morning, there was this sweet lady Garima who heard me out, promised to call me back after checking the details and indeed called me back. What she told me, however, was horrifying. She told me I can spend only up to INR 58,000 [USD 1200] on that card and even for that they would need my new financials.

[technical information: a charge card is supposed to be virtually no spend limit, because there is no credit]

Here’s the interesting part. I have been an AmEx cardholder for 14 years, every year I give them  INR 800,000+ business, I have had a credit balance of INR 100,000 sitting with them for the past 2 years or so [used that card sparingly when I was living in Singapore and had overpaid them once] and the card is on auto debit with my bank HSBC.

This is the part that sucks. No one gives a damn to your history as a customer, systems dont throw up your importance to the company, and service reps claim they are trying to help you.

Do I really need that AmEx card that badly? In the era of a dozen cards in your pockets and companies willing to kill each other to offer you a lifetime valid card? Not really.

Is the company trying to help me or would it be helping itself by retaining me? That’s what the lady said – “I am trying to help you”. When they had already lost about INR 70K of my business that went to another bank.

Wake up and smell the coffee guys, and save your  jobs while you still have time. I dont need you, it’s quite the opposite.

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Love this usage of mobile handset as a bodypart…