Breaking News…Looper Is Missing…!

One of the checklist items of movie promotions is SMS/online contests, which win you movie merchandize or meet ’n’ greet with the cast or movie tickets or … <placeholder for anything else that one can imagine J>. So the same elements were at play prior to the release of Holly flick Looper on Indian screens on October 12, 2012.

I responded to one of the two options against the question, “Who plays OLD JOE in Looper?” flashed on television channel ABP News, on Thursday October 11, 2012, 11:17 PM. I knew it was Bruce Willis and immediately typed YES A (YES B, if option B was the right answer) and sent it to the short code 5782728. Now came the Looper moment which gave me a jolt, yes it was, the response text from 5782728 read from the past…when Looper was not born!

“Thank you for becoming Star Ananda Privileged Fan! We will keep you informed about important news, breaking news alerts on your mobile. Keep watching Star Ananda.”

Not a single mention about the contest! I wanted to shout out loud that;

·         I DID NOT TEXT to become a Star Ananda Privileged Fan!

·         I don’t want to be kept informed about important news, breaking news alerts ON MY MOBILE

·         Keep watching Star Ananda WHY? FOR WHAT?

It’s true that I engaged with the channel during random surf, but the context of the engagement was a movie contest and nothing else. What I expected was a response aligned to the context of the contest, “Thank you for your participation in the contest. Winners will be announced shortly. Logon to … for terms and conditions…”

A typical condition laid out in the agreement between the Telco and the short code provider for provisioning the short code into Telco’s network is, the short code provider will not push any kind of promotional messages either as add on or stand alone, to a corresponding pull SMS. To de-jargonize, in the present context, what I sent to 5782728 was a pull and the response I received was a push SMS.

The response text from ABP News was nothing but a promotional SMS, albeit a deficient one! It also fell short of aligning the response text to the purpose for which the SMS was sent.

Hi! This Is … and You Are Listening to…

We are all used to hearing station identifiers on radio. Hi this is … and you are listening to … Sometimes these identifiers are station jingles or familiar (celebrity) voices which identify the station. They also come in a slightly different flavor as celebrity omnibus in which more than one voice identifies the station.

Earlier, I never paid attention to these station identifiers, but on Oct 3, 2012 I did, at around 7:17 PM. Not because it was the famous bolly actor Sallu Bhai (Salman Khan) who told me what station I was listening to, but I was more interested in listening to the song that followed this station identifier. The song that followed was Karde Mushkil Jeena Ishq Kameena from the bolly flick Shakti (2002).

After listening to the song, I was wondering what relation the song had with the immediately preceding station identifier in Salman’s voice. The film neither had Salman in its cast nor was the song filmed on him.

Being unaware of the rules/policy employed by the stations in the linear placement of celebrity identifiers on the timeline for the day, I thought whether the identifier has to meet my expectation of confirming to the immediately succeeding song? A mental rewind of identifiers heard in the past, gave me two commonalities.

One, it identifies what the station stands for: In the present case, this radio station primarily stands for bolly music. Having an identifier in a bolly star’s voice, establishes the association.

Two, it identifies what the day part stands for: In the present case, since it was evening, during which contemporary bolly numbers are played by this station, the said identifier came across as appropriate.

Save for few exceptions, celebrity identifiers are not exclusive to a station. Sallu bhai may happily identify other stations as well. As the name implies, the station identifier is meant to identify the station and not a song.

However, if the identifier relates to the immediately succeeding song, this radio station will definitely identify itself amongst its peers for its attention to detail.

Do Holiday Notices Provide Monetization Opportunity to Publishers?

Most of the offices and business establishments in India declared a holiday on September 19, 2012 on account of Ganesh Chaturthi. It was not unusual to spot Holiday Notices on print dailies saying that the press will remain closed on September 19, 2012 and there will be no edition on September 20, 2012.

I also found a holiday notice on one of the daily online media and marketing portal, mxmindia.com, this was unusual for me. Here is the URL for the same.

When I saw the holiday notice on the portal, it struck me, yeah, why not, internet may be 24 X 7, but the content is being fed by real folks and not machines and if the folks are not around, the content won’t be refreshed on a holiday. I should admit, unlike print media, my brain was not trained to see a holiday notice on an online media, and it was a first for me to see it on mxmindia.com.

I thought, is there an opportunity for the media owners to monetize these holiday notices? Maybe these guys were closed on September 19, 2012, but there is a category which has its shop open 24 X 7, for example, online shopping portals.

I thought about the possibility of media owners cutting an annual deal for such ‘no edition days’ with online shopping portals. Think about it, if in a year, they have 10 ‘no edition days’, and on each such occasion they do a floating ad with the imagery of the online shopping portal accompanied with a smart copy, for example, “Our offices are closed today on the occassion of ‘…’ and the news stories will be refreshed tomorrow, but look who’s open today?”, this may not be the best example of a smart copy, but just to give you an idea.

As a media owner one achieves the following:

·         Communicate the new and repeat visitors not to expect the fresh stories today (on a holiday).

·         Monetize the holiday notice which otherwise was just a holiday notice.



Will print and online media monetize the Holiday Notices?

And, as an online shopping portal one gets an opportunity to put their brand for 10 days in a year on one such portal, probably at a price that is lower than the regular price.

Coming back to the example of the print ad pictured above, I don’t know whether print publications or even for that matter mxmindia will monetize holiday notices, and even if they do, will the advertisers go for it? Have they (both advertisers and media owners) overlooked this media property? Doesn’t seem so..., not sure!

They say, “There’s a butt for every seat”. For an advertiser who can’t afford an expensive media, it can be a dream proposition. Do you agree?

I’ll look forward to hear your thoughts on this one, please leave your kind comments on this post.

PowerPoint for Kids!

Three triggers contributed to this post:

First, ‘Monica Tata on 6 reasons why running a kids’ channel is no child’s play’*. In this article Ms. Tata opined that 48% of parents exercise control on the content watched by their kids and one of the ways to expand the viewership is by creating content that appeals to the adults as well.

*Source: MxMIndia.com , Monica Tata is General Manager, Entertainment Networks, South Asia, Turner International India Pvt Ltd.

Second, M.A.D., a popular program, telecast on POGO, a channel owned by Turner, in this show, the program anchor, Rob, takes the audience, which I believe are both kids and adults, on a creative trip. The show is about art and craft.

Third, Inclusion of MS Office Application suite in school syllabus, this underscores the importance of such software, as most of our adult lives revolve around working with Office Application Software, be it presenting a topic given as a group-work to the class by the instructor, or making presentations as a part of the B-School curriculum, or as a professional making the PowerPoint presentations for internal or external stakeholders.

So what’s the big deal? Is there a programming opportunity?

If Office Application Suite has become so integral to our lives, why aren’t we starting early on this journey? Can someone like Rob (or Rob himself) create the same magic on the PowerPoint canvas? I am sure, like me, there are many others whose job involves loads of PowerPoint. Be it presenting a cause and effect relationship of a business process or just putting together a graphical representation of an arcane concept. Sometimes, one feels stymied by the lack of the creative genius in themselves in creating original images using the basic shapes and tools available in PowerPoint. 

Do the programming honchos of kids channel feel that teaching creativity on television using this ubiquitous software will make for a good show? No prizes for guessing the sponsors who can be roped for such a program (no…it’s not just the software vendor, it could even be the computer or printer manufacturers…or even the nutrition supplements containing BHA, PXT or whatever). Such a show makes for a good repeat value with syndication opportunities in other markets as well as episodes available on DVDs as a learning aid.

Will adults approve their kids to see such a program? I’m not gonna miss even a single episode!

Disclaimer: All company, brand and product name/logos mentioned/depicted in this post are trademarks of their respective holders/individual parent companies.

Which car engine makes that sound?

The idea for this post came about today morning, when I was half asleep in the office bus, on my way to work.

While being driven to work in a bus, sleep happens in short sprints. Sitting next to the window seat and upon realizing that the morning breeze is no longer sweeping across your face it dawns upon you that the bus is not moving, you keep your eyes closed for some time and then half opening them, you look out from the corner of your eyes to see why the bus is not moving, where you’ve reached and the time you still have on your hand for another quick nap in the bus. Usual interruptions are the sounds of traffic on the signal or in a traffic jam. Sometimes it is just the whooshing sound of vehicles whizzing past yours or someone suddenly breaking to a screeching halt which wakes you up.

During these occurrences, while your visual faculties are overpowered by the urge to take a nap, somehow your aural faculties are still ticking. One may have earplugs plugged in to their ears listening to local radio or music from their mobile phone/portable music player, or the music is being played out from the loudspeakers in the bus (this option does not apply to me, as we have a very spartan bus service), the ambient sounds in the bus, of folks boarding at designated pick up points (sounds of their backpacks rubbing against the backrest of the seats while moving down the aisle and looking for vacant seats or ‘excuse me’, ‘can you shift’ etc.), sound of the bus engine or lastly the sounds on the road from, hawkers, honking from the vehicles, vehicles whizzing past your bus, folks revving the engine on traffic signals, etc…

Though your nasal senses also absorb the environment around you…let’s leave it out for now J

But how does all this lends itself to a business opportunity?

I’ll regress to my earlier post, Pappu Pass Ho Gaya!, where I mentioned about the contest ‘Who said to whom’. In this contest a short dialogue is played from a bollywood movie and the listeners have to text, who said this dialogue to whom and the name of the movie. Taking a spin on this contest on radio, what if who and whom are vehicle sounds instead of bollywood celebrities! The vehicle sounds could be sounds of their engines or the car horn and the listeners have to identify the make of the vehicle.

Another spin to the contest can be two sounds of the same vehicle make…one that is brand new and another which is, say 03 years old. In fact the core idea is the vehicle sound, irrespective of whether it is a two wheeler or a four wheeler. How the concept is packaged and presented is up to the creative discretion of the radio station.

Ideal sponsors of this contest could be engine oil/auto lubricant manufacturers, auto service providers, auto dealerships, etc.

The idea is not outlandish…a quick Google search with the search string ‘engine sound application’, returns umpteen results of mobile phone applications which playback engine sounds and facts/trivia about engine sounds. There is also a mobile app which produces official Ferrari engine sound!

Even as kids, on our way to school, it was a common amongst us to quiz our pals to identify the vehicle coming behind us by just listening to its sound…!

I believe every one of us have developed auditory discrimination skills at a sub-conscious level during our growing years or as part of our daily experiences…isn’t it time that this human capability is leveraged by radio stations, thus generating a better recall for their clients!