WHAT OTHERS SAY

All the noise today is short-term distrac-tion...We have chosen to be deaf for the time being to stay focusedJitendra GuptaPayU

Our focus is more on what we can do rather than what others are doing Sunil Kulkarni Oxigen

Paytm is largely an ur-ban phenom-enon. The game has just startedPraveen DhabhaiPayworldIndia

BY SHELLEY SINGH

DELHIFor a startup synonymous with mobile wallet pay-ments, it’s surprising when the founder declares, “I confirm mobile wallets will die! But I also confirm that winners will be those brands who own consumers and merchants.” Vijay Shekhar Sharma, 43, who saw the fortunes of Paytm gallop on the night of November 8, when demontisation was announced, believes the brand has to stay the course whatever might be the pay-ment option. To meet that goal, he is trying to build brand Paytm to outlast any technology that enables pay-ments. “People should think of Paytm as a payments plat-form of choice, not just a mo-bile wallet enabler,” he says.

The goal: For his firm to be like Oracle, Microsoft, SAP or Apple — brands that survive technology changes by being part of the next trend. More importantly to be unlike Nokia, for instance, which didn’t re-invent and col-lapsed. Says Sharma, “Some brands are change leaders, some are change followers, some are change laggards and some don’t change and die. I see Paytm continue to change and be relevant for a long time.” Prasoon Joshi, chairman, McCann World Group Asia Pacific adds, “There’s lot of transfer of energy of the founder (Vijay) into the brand. Paytm was in a state of readiness and

that passion reflected when the opportunity came on November 8.”

A high voltage campaign since demonetisation has ensured Paytm is the brand with most mindshare among wallet companies. But it start-ed earlier with a four year `203 crore BCCI title sponsor-ship deal till 2019 which made it a household name in a crick-et crazy country. Partnering with cab app Uber also helped strengthen the brand among corporate travellers.

>Continued on Page 4

BY RAJIV SINGH

DELHI

T20, the pacy and pruned avatar of cricket, is not the best way to judge the qua lity of a batsman. That’s how conventional wisdom goes. And that’s

what Bipin Preet Singh thinks. “We are in the first session of a five-day test match,” contends the cofounder of the second-largest mobile wallet company in India. “So let’s not declare a winner before the game is over,” says Singh, using a cricket analogy to explain the mobile wallet landscape in India after demonetisation. While the biggest and most-funded player in the segment, Paytm, might be in T20 mode with its advertisement and marketing blitzkrieg, Singh claims he will soon topple the leader.

Conceding that Paytm might have a slight lead, Singh maintains that he is gunning for the No 1 slot. “The battle has just be-gun,” he declares, adding that though MobiKwik had underinvested in the perception game, the company has been silently work-ing on expanding its base. Singh points out how: over 9 lakh mer-chants were added on its payment network since November 8. Compare the numbers with what MobiKwik managed to do since September 2009 when it started: a paltry

1 lakh in seven years! Singh avers that

while the rivals might have been fo-

cused on acquiring con-sumers through ‘hefty’

cashbacks, MobiKwik is working on a detailed roadmap to gain as much mar-ket share as possible. Take, for instance, its recent partnership with Amul to help users make payments at 7,000 Amul out-lets and 3 lakh Amul multi-brand stores.

>Continued on Page 4

The digital wallet has become the Xerox of mobile payments. But Paytm wants to karo more

LET’S NOT DECLARE THE WINNER BEFORE THE GAME IS OVER. THE

BATTLE HAS JUST BEGUN

MobiKwik, PayU & The Rest Strap Up INSIDEBE

MANPASAND’S ‘LADDOO’ STRATEGY

WINNING THE DISTRIBUTION

GAMEFull Story on 2

MASTERS OF THE ART OF

“GOING VIRAL” TVF: THE

CONTENT-AGION!IndieVibe 2

+THIS WEEK THAT YEAR

BEST BEKAARBAWDY COPY

on 3 & 4

BY DELSHAD IRANI,

RAVI BALAKRISHNAN

& AMIT BAPNAMUMBAI

One of the most talked about ads of 2016 wasn’t a multi-crore mega blockbuster film star-ring celebrities and shot in

Budapest. It was in fact a print ad for Paytm which appeared in national dailies on the morning after demon-etisation. The ad congratulated Prime

Minster Narendra Modi on taking the “boldest decision in the financial his-tory of independent India.” And ended with #PaytmKaro. Since November 8 Paytm has become one of the most hy-peractive advertisers in the country. Marketing consultant and former man-aging partner at JWT, Tarun Chauhan tells BE he would have done the same: “If someone says ‘grow your business’ why would I say no? It’s the most capi-talistic move ever. When AB Vajpayee announced the golden quadrangle, con-

necting cities through highways, Mr Munjal (of Hero Honda) in an interview said ‘When the roads are good, the sales of motorcycles go up and I’m very hap-py.’ This is the opposite of that. Here, the government is helping create a category instead of a category riding on the back of a government initiative.”

Paytm isn’t the first nor will it be the last brand from India to co-opt a trend-ing government initiative. A record number of brands are associating with several of the current government’s so-cial and economic programs, most no-tably Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Digital India, Make In India and now demon-estisation. It’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. These brands are children of capitalism, says Partha Sinha, vice chairman and managing director, McCann Worldgroup; “The yojanas of the past were fundamentally the result of Nehruvian socialism and it was hard-er for brands to get behind something that was socialist or communist in na-ture.” On the other hand, Sinha adds, “Getting the country clean has noth-ing to do with socialism or capitalism, which makes it easier for brands to join in.” So, it’s quite alright if the only Marx you know is Groucho. Besides unwieldy names like National Rural Employment Guarantee Act are a turn off. And as Future Brands’ Santosh Desai points out how many of us even know what the NREGA logo looks like?

Like packaged ready-to-eat meals, this government has effectively created wide-reaching, apolitical and market-able platforms complete with digestible narratives, catchy taglines, snazzy logos and other brand properties.

>Continued on Page 4

Birla Sun Life is betting on a quick swipe option turning the vast horde of Indian cash hoarders into active investors

BY RAVI BALAKRISHNAN

MUMBAI

In these demonetised times Ajay Kakar, CMO – Aditya Birla Financial Services has a slightly controversial opinion: that vast

numbers of Indians are letting a huge pot of gold lie idle. Before this excites the attention of our more scheming readers and tax officials, Kakar is referring to bank balances. “The attitude is always ‘what if I need it for something?’” he says.

It explains the sluggish attitude Indians have towards investment.

Central bank data reveals aggregate deposits at com-mercial banks stand at `91.32 trillion; about seven times the assets under management of mutual funds. Kakar himself calls financial services a “5%” in-dustry. Among the main rea-sons for the sectoral tardiness are inconvenience and a lack of awareness of inflation which typically out-paces interest rates offered by banks. In other words, money in bank accounts is frequently losing its value.

Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund has decided to go the app

route to tackle both these problems head on. Its Active Account allows for transfer of money from a bank account to a Liquid Fund, an in-strument with no exit load, with

a swipe to the right, a manoeu-vre made popular by apps

like Tinder. A left swipe sends the money back into the bank, reassuring users. The app accesses

information users share about money in bank accounts

and suggests the amount of inter-est it could earn, were it invested more wisely. Here’s where the app has its work cut out: appealing to the over 45 generation — who typi-cally have the cash to invest — via an app that’s more likely to appeal to a younger demographic.

>Continued on Page 4

SWIPE RIGHT TO INVEST

MOBILE WALLET WARS NO PAY-N NO GAIN

GROWTH POST DEMONETISATION(Before Nov 8 & After Nov 8)

Before After

Current Goal

Users

Merchants

Fraud

Ad Spends

Employees

Transactions Per Second

Vijay’s Time Spent

140 mn

5,500

5,300 10,000

EQUALLY IN WALLET, BANK &

ECOMMERCE

100% ON WALLET BUSINESS

13,000

2mn 4 crper month

10 crper month

11 crper month

23 crin Nov; 27 cr in Dec;

173 mn

3.2 mn

PH

OTO

: ASH

WA

NI N

AG

PAL

AND NOW A MESSAGE FROM OUR GOVTBrand involvement in government schemes is at an all-time high: from Swachh Bharat to demonetisation. Is it because these schemes were conceived to be advertising friendly?

SPONSORS

Undaunted by Paytm’s swagger, the ‘others’ in the fray give themselves a fair chance of toppling the leader

Bipin Preet Singh, Mobikwik

Vijay Shekhar Sharma

“We did something

here that we haven’t

even done in China”

Xiaomi’s Donovan Sung

on 3

THE ECONOMIC TIMES JANUARY 04-10, 2017 � MUMBAI

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BY AMIT BAPNA

MUMBAI

A legacy player like Tata Motors and a new age brand like OnePlus, both deployed digital content player — TVF — to find engagement with an evolving younger demographic, watching lesser and lesser TV, and more content. The recently launched Tiago thus played a vital role in the web-series ‘Tripling’ and the currently on-going TVF series ‘Humorously Yours’ has OnePlus playing an integral role, even as some of its features like dash-charging get highlighted in an unobtrusive manner. Previously the TVF show ‘Pitchers’ became the

highest rated Indian web-series and ‘Permanent

Roommates’ earned stripes as the most watched in India. The

three have clocked in over 6 million views.

The USPWhich other Indian company, in the entertainment space, can claim to have over 15 IITians, on its rolls? But then TVF founder Arunabh Kumar describes his firm as a B2C tech and data-led company that is in the con-tent space.

Launched in 2012 by Kumar, (34), an IIT Kharagpur electronics post-grad-uate, TVF is at present a 240-member Mumbai-headquartered firm. In an age where the under-35 demographic is content-deprived, ‘TVF Play’ is among the platforms of choice with a differentiated offering. Earlier in 2016, the global PE firm Tiger Global Management invested $10 million (`65.6 crore) in TVF. Thanks to the high level of engagement with digital-native youth, TVF has established

itself as the go-to place for brands looking to talk to this young and elu-sive audience, in their lingo and on screens native to them.

Nuts & BoltsTo neatly segment the content offer-ing, TVF has launched six verticals bracketed with different mindsets: Qtiyapa (comedy), The Timeliners (news and lifestyle), Girliyapa (women-centric content), Funda-curry (infotainment), Screenpatti (teenage humour) and TVF Drama (softer emotions). Also a step towards making the discovery for brand-fit easier. Says Kumar, “Today we are bigger than MTV, Channel V and Bindaas all put to-gether, but our aspiration is to com-pete with GEC players in reach.”

The Origin StoryIn true Bollywood style, it could have ended as yet another story of an IITian losing his creative streak to the rigours of an engineering edu-cation. In this case, the protagonist, Arunabh Kumar kept his passion go-ing. He continued to research aspects of filmmaking and did an internship at Ogilvy’s erstwhile second agency RMG David under senior ad-man Josy Paul. Since filmmaking was

his passion, he decided to give Bollywood a shot after completing

his engineering. This landed him a stint assisting director Farah Khan on her mega-budget film Om Shanti Om. Kumar freely admits that the year spent working with Khan was practically film-school. He continued parallelly making short films, corpo-rate films, music videos and working on his own scripts.

By 2012, he was convinced the con-tent-gap between the 30 second ads and the 3-hour film was a big opportu-nity, and that once cricket and films were exhausted, there was barely any

original content for the youth in India. Thus, TVF was launched

with its own take on what young India wanted.

Content First, Brands Later

Kumar believed a platform where people will watch the

content needed to be built; he knew brands would eventually follow. Having known Kumar for nearly a decade, BBDO’s Josy Paul feels the team at TVF can create content for an audience that is getting more pull- and more share- focussed be-cause he is not coming from the 30 second mindset.

Not All Old Content SucksI have a lot of respect for old world content and disagree when people say India does not have simple stories that people can enjoy, says Kumar. “We had good content in series like Mulla Nasruddin and Kakaji Kahin many years back and that too on Doordarshan.” Then it got lost somewhere.

Why Humour First?Let it be known that nobody in our office was (or is) a comedian, he says. “The reason we launched with humour is because it is the most sharable form of content.”

Speed-breakersKumar admits the biggest chal-lenge is bandwidth and adds, “It is a good challenge to have. We are adding more limbs to the body. The other one is of course in spite our content showing amazing virality, brand managers are still taking time to bite the bullet.”

amit.bapna@timesgroup.com

BY DELSHAD IRANI

MUMBAI

Four years ago, a dis-tributor of Vadodara-based beverage maker Manpasand wanted to launch its flagship MangoSip in 250 out-

lets in Aurangabad. Sorely lacking in brand recognition and with bare-ly any reputation to speak of in those quarters, the distributor deployed a sweeter strategy. He purchased 250 boxes of laddoos, each weighing 250 grams. He bought a puja thali, 250 red thread bands and hired a sales staff of two women. The distribu-tor instructed them to deliver the boxes to retailers with this message: “We’ve come from Shankar bhai’s, who did a Satyanarayan puja be-cause he has taken the agency for Manpasand.”

T h e c o m p a ny ’s p r o m o t e r Abhishekh Singh tells us, “Just imagine a retailer in Aurangabad, at his counter, with a box of four free laddoos, and not just any laddoosbut prasad! So, now the retailer’s mindset has changed. He’s not ask-ing ‘which company is it’ or ‘what scheme you will offer’. Instead what he says is “koi baat nahi,beti, you can keep your two boxes (of MangoSip, not laddoos) in my shop. If it sells I will pay you and if it doesn’t, take the boxes back.”

Manpasand started operations in 2001 around Varanasi, the owner’s hometown. The company is head-quartered in Gujarat though, as the Singhs moved there years ago when Dhirendra Singh, a government of-ficial at the time, was transferred to Vadodara. Singh recalls how a Gujarat address on his father’s business card played a crucial role in winning favour with local busi-nesses; “For anyone in a small town in Uttar Pradesh, someone flashing a card of a Gujarat based firm was a

very big thing at that time.”When one lacks the funds, man-

power, and marketing might of a Coca-Cola, Pepsi or Parle Agro, makers of Maaza, Slice and Frooti, respectively, you turn to puja and laddoos, literally and figuratively. That’s the strategy Manpasand has used to turn semi-urban and rural North into its stronghold by build-ing a network of over 2400 distribu-tors and over 2 lakh retailers. Today, MangoSip is the country’s fourth largest selling mango drink. For the year ended March 31, 2016, the com-pany reported sales of 557 crore.

“We are managing the entire busi-ness very personally,” Singh tells BE, “On a daily basis we host 10 of our distributors with their families at our main plant where we’ve built an apart-ment for them. Other companies don’t do that. Instead they have huge global conferences where distribu-tors feel uncomfortable and awkward. Like I felt when I entered Shopper’s Stop. When I go to my provision store, the person will ask me ‘saab aap kaise ho’ but at Shopper’s Stop I have to tell him ‘saab, mera bill bana do’.”

What also helped was the fact that its flagship product MangoSip was designed to look and feel like Frooti. Says Singh, “It made life easier. We didn’t have to explain the product. All we said was ‘this is like Frooti but costs less, so you’re getting more margin’.”

Marketing consultant Jagdeep Kapoor, who was instrumental in build-ing Frooti, says being a me-too is limit-

ing. Especially now since Manpasand and MangoSip need to shed the “rural” tag. According to Kapoor, so far the brand has been catering to the “per-spirational segment”. But in order to reach the “aspirational segment”

it will need to do the following: 1) Turn up its perceived value. “It’s like Balaji wafers versus Lay’s”, he says,

Balaji is an over 1000 crore brand but Lay’s is higher up on the percep-tion ladder. 2) Not just focus on dis-tribution but retail with classier visibility in general and modern

trade. 3) While brand ambassa-dor Sunny Deol has worked well for the audience it has been ad-dressing, the company will have to rethink its choice of ambassador

for MangoSip. (It recently hired actor Tapsee Pannu for the Fruits Up range, a ‘Make In India’ prod-uct) 4) Strengthen its positioning in segments it already has a sturdy foothold in, like railways, which contribute 20% to its business, and fill in some gaps. For instance hotels, restaurants and caterers, canteens, schools, colleges, etc. Kapoor says, “If you want to be a complete na-tional brand you have to be sipped by the entire nation. Otherwise it’s not MangoSip, it’s MangoTip.”

delshad.irani@timesgroup.com

PRESENTING THE BRAND ENGAGEMENT INDEX AS ON DECEMBER 28, 2016

the twitterindex

Here are the brands that sent off 2016 with a tweet and a bang. The weekly Twitter

Advertiser Index lists the brands which have generated most engagement with users on

the platform

The index looks at the live list of all advertisers on the platform and measures the total number

of user engagements with all the tweets that they sent out that week - specifically this is a sum of

all the replies, retweets and favourites across all tweets that week.

BY RAJIV SINGH | DELHI

Can a bootstrapped startup be one of biggest clients of Google from India, feature in the top 300 (formerly top 200) websites in the world by California-based web traffic and data analyt-ics firm Alexa, have 120 million unique visitors every month and more than 400 million monthly page views? This is what WittyFeed claims. “It is the world’s second largest viral con-tent company after BuzzFeed in terms of traffic,” claims Vinay Singhal, cofounder and CEO of the Indore-based startup. It posted revenue of 26 crores in the last financial year and is likely to double its numbers this fiscal. No bad by any reck-oning, especially for a startup that began in a small hostel room in 2014. “We have been profitable since April 2015,” says Singhal, adding that further expansion to the US and EU is imminent, as they contribute over 50% of traffic.

More Than Just A CloneSinghal flat out denies modelling his firm on Buzzfeed. While

they may be similar, he concedes, from an outsider’s perspec-tive, BuzzFeed produces content and distributes it on social media through its channels, while WittyFeed is a platform for publishers, distributors and consumers of content. “We are more like the Uber of content,” he says. Singhal’s foray into content began with a Facebook page ‘Amazing Things In The World,’ which garnered 4.2 million followers. On real-ising he could monetise the audience, he built everystry.com in mid-2013, adding Google’s AdSense. But he faced a few problems: not hav-ing enough content as well as not being scalable in terms of audi-ence, as it was confined to just one Facebook page. “This gave birth to WittyFeed,” he says.

How & Why It Works

Its revenue model is built around display inventory. WittyFeed works with major global ad exchanges, networks and trading desks. The second source of revenue is content marketing and branded content. Brands share their messaging, target group, audience and budget, and the startup takes care of the rest, ensuring the intended messages go viral. “We operate at a frac-tion of BuzzFeed’s manpower, infrastructure and funds,” he asserts. But then why has it escaped VC attention? “Very few VCs in India understand the content business,” says Singhal. A global market as target audience — WittyFeed is available in English, Hindi and Spanish — puts it even further beyond their comfort zone.

But then, there are also a few chinks in its armour. Nearly 40% of traffic flow seems to be from India, says Jessie Paul, founder of marketing advisory firm Paul Writer. There are also some unexplained crashes in its global ranking in August. The number of subscribers for its categories run only in the 100s; surprising given traffic in millions, she adds.

The Road AheadPaul reckons comparing WittyFeed and Buzzfeed is inac-

curate. To be viewed as a content generation site, it needs to hike its revenue from clients using its service to create content. Buzzfeed not only uses clickbait listicles to drive traffic, but also creates hard-working content for the likes of IBM, she points out. Singhal is aware of the challenges. “60% of the traf-fic is not from India,” he contends, adding it means 60 million traffic from countries like the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Mexico and Argentina. As for the dip in Alexa rankings in August, Singhal maintains it happened due to a technical glitch: the Alexa tag being accidentally removed during a code push to production servers. While the error was rectified in three days, it takes Alexa 21 days to re-evaluate and update its rank. “Since then our ranking has been consistently higher,” he says, adding that WittyFeed has shown that a venture of global appeal can be undertaken even from a small city like Indore. “The Number 2 tag would soon turn into Numero Uno,” he signs off.

rajiv.singh@timesgroup.com

2) @waiwaiindia@waiwaiindia had a highly engag-ing activity for its followers using #WaiWaiCrossword, where participants who got all answers right stood a chance to win Amazon e-vouchers worth `1,000 each. In #WaiWaiCrossword, each word in the crossword was related to food and noodles.

3) @JabongIndia@JabongIndia gave its fans and followers a chance to win Louis Philippe vouchers worth up to 1,000 redeemable on the Louis Philippe catalog at the Jabong.com website. To win the vouchers, participants had to answer the 10 #LouisPhilippeOnJabong questions. Some of the answers to the questions were available on the website.

MADE IN INDIA 2

Can Manpasand, maker of the fourth largest selling mango drink MangoSip, take on beverage giants like Coke, Pepsi and Parle Agro in their backyard?

“There were lots of innovative names on the list of ce-lebrities we got. Ranbir Kapoor,

Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, among others. But for our market which is north India we required someone who can connect with that market, not a one, two or three year phenom-ena popular right now but who knows in three years (where they’ll be). We need-ed a single screen hero.” Abhishek Singh

How Manpasand Won The Distribution Game:

The ‘Laddoo’ Strategy

Feed Of The Hour

Indore-based startup WittyFeed is ranked the second-best content generator in the world

after BuzzFeed. Can it keep up the buzz?

indigenous

1) @NestleIndiaTo support the #EducateTheGirlChild campaign, @NestleIndia along with Indian musical trio Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy recreated the classic and iconic song by Indian film director Bharat Bala “School Chale Hum”.

5) @policybazaar_inIn the spirit of giving, @policybazaar_in held a #XmasWithPolicyBazaar

quiz on Christmas Eve with 10 ques-tions related to insurance and poli-cies. Participants had to get all answers right. Plus after answering the questions they had to get their friends to mention them as many times as pos-sible in order to win prizes.

ANIRBAN BORA

The Content-agion!

indievibe

How a bunch of IIT-ians cracked the art and science of “going viral”

TVF CLAIMS THE BIGGEST FAN-BASED COMMUNITY OF OVER 5.1 MILLION ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS PHOTOS: BHARAT CHANDA

(L-R): TVF’s core management team: Jikku Abraham, Amit Golani, Dhawal Singh Gusain and Arunabh Kumar

(L-R): Members of the creative team - Sameer Saxena, Anand Dwivedi, Vaibhav Bundhoo and Anant Singh

Devendra Singh (R), chairman and MD, Manpasand Beverages with Sunny Deol

4) @TheOfficialSBI@TheOfficialSBI has been encouraging a more digital India and to keep up the ef-fort, the brand launched MobiCash Digital Wallet, a Mobile Wallet in association with BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited).

I made the first ever Indian ad with a photograph. – Mohammed Khan

ON CELEBRITY ENDORSERS

Arunabh KumarFounder, TVF

(Centre) Vinay Singhal, co-founder

THE ECONOMIC TIMES JANUARY 4-10, 2017

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 04-01-2017 Zone: BrandEquity Edition: 1 Page: BEPER1 User: sandeep.dutta Time: 12-31-2016 00:37 Color: CMYK

You’ve worked with a lot of tech driven companies. Was there a pattern to your choices or was it the best job at any given time?

When I interviewed at all these places including Xiaomi, one thing that struck me was they were run by founders who were very product focused. At Google, they’d talk about how if you make a good product, users will follow. They wanted to make a good product and then do interesting mar-keting and sales. That’s the common thread.

Why did you leave Spotify for Xiaomi when it’s been doing quite well?

It was on a roll, and still is. When I joined, we were just explaining the freemium model. Now Spotify has announced over a 100 million monthly active users. It was hard to leave but as clichéd as it sounds, one of the reasons was because I truly felt Xiaomi was a once in a lifetime experience. It’s playing in a big field doing not just streaming but internet services and changing the way we think about hardware. I felt there was a true chance to build the next great consumer electronics and technology brand.

Any learning from your previous stint that has helped here?

At Spotify, I used nostalgia that was actually a product feature but became a cool marketing tool. We were wondering ‘how can we give better music to users?’ And I thought maybe if you are born in

a certain year, we could serve up something you heard in high school. That’s when a lot of our mu-sic tastes are formed and after that, we never have time for it anymore and are stuck with whatever was popular then. Things like that have been very helpful here especially since we have a vibrant internet ecosystem.

What’s the most innovative thing you’ve done at Xiaomi this year?

We did something we haven’t even done in China. We decided to pass out the Redmi Note 3 before it was even launched to 100 Mi Explorers. We used forums and social media to pick 100 of the most hardcore fans, gave them the device and created

all sorts of interesting activities and contests. For instance, who could get on top of a coconut tree and take a selfie? Or take pictures at the remotest part of India? It was one of our first phones with a fingerprint scanner on the back; so how many times could it be unlocked in a minute? This created a lot of interesting content on Facebook. It went on for two and a half months before we launched on March 3rd.

What have you learned from the competition?That it’s important to focus on what you believe

in and do your own thing. There was a rise of music streaming services when I was at Spotify. We just doubled down, did what we had been

doing: make the product really good, grow the student segment and expand to other countries. We acquired Echo Nest, a machine learning and data recommendations company. It was an area none of the competitors invested in to the extent that Spotify did. The results speak for themselves. Even at Xiaomi, we’ve continued to do what we believe in: amazing products at amazing prices and selling directly to consumers where possible to keep prices low. To do interesting marketing events that don’t rely on big spends. We notice what competition is doing but don’t necessarily copy one aspect or the other.

As someone who worked at Spotify, could the music industry have handled the changes it faced better?

Technology changes so fast sometimes even us in the tech industry don’t know where it will end up next. But content is still king. People want good

content and don’t necessarily care how it gets to them. One thing that Spotify proved is that people were willing to pay if it’s convenient. One of our big selling points was it was more conve-nient than piracy. 30 million people now pay $10

a month for the convenience of music without ads. That’s $120 a year which surpasses the amount of money most people would spend on CDs! And after that, they still don’t own the music. They are paying for hearing it in a convenient way. For more people, time is more important than money. If media companies pay attention to their strengths and where they fit in that would be very interesting.

ravi.balakrishnan@timesgroup.com

GLOCAL BUZZ 3The face of the Buzzfeed CEO is like Buzzfeed itself. Successful, appealing, and yet somehow you want to punch it – John Oliver

CMO slambook

‘We notice what the competition is doing but don’t copy them’BE quizzes the brightest minds in global and local marketing. Ravi Balakrishnan talks to Xiaomi’s Donovan Sung, director – product management & marketing

2016 proved it: Brexit, Trump, Europe’s rising right wing. Uber & Airbnb are targets of industries they

disrupted. Salzman says, “People are more energised to act against what they don’t want than to act for what

they do want.”

Havas PR had fl agged people getting

“mad as hell—& only getting madder.”

As early as 2010,

Contrary to the idealistic view of the internet as aspace for people to share different ideas, similarpeople huddle together to share identical ideas.

GOING ETHNOGRAPHIC Surveys &predictionstook a battering through muchof 2016.

Articulate urbanites proved a limited barometer to predict out-comes or shape events. There’s going to be a greater focus on getting opinions of people off the digital radar or reluctant to share their actual thoughts with opinion-makers & surveys.

CELLPHONE HEALTH SCARE Little is known about the safety of cell-phones. Radiation scares, using phones while

driving, accidents due to selfi es, ‘texting thumb’ & cellphone neck are hazards. A market for fi nding &

treating these ailments will emerge.

CONFUSED MEN

The metrosexual trend was fl agged by Salzman thirteen years ago. Around 2010, she points to “two schools of yesteryear-revisited retrosexuality—the clean-cut sharp-suited “Mad Men” look and the fl annel-shirted urban lumberjack stylings of hipsters.” What’s the big trend, you ask? An underlying anxiety about what is manly and who the heck decides, says Salzman. “From man buns and beards to the retro-sexist re-turn of traditional gender roles, the malleability of manhood is being put to the test.”

HUGE HYGGE Salzman says, “As the world turns

threatening, consumers crave the warmth and comfort of food, friends and connec-tion that the Danish call hygge.” However a more disturbing meaning: longing for a state where relationships are harmonious and living is easy. “One reason why ‘Make America Great Again’ resonated,” she says.

ECHO CHAMBERS

BOILING POINTS

BE picks six trends from Havas PR’s annual list compiled by ace trendspotter Marian

Salzman, CEO, Havas PR North America

TRENDS6THAT WILLSHAPE

2017

AS SALZMAN POINTS OUT,“Though diversity & plurality of

insights and opinions are only a click away, nobody is listening.”

These echo chambers & bubbles are likely to get stronger and more infl uential.

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BY SHEPHALI BHATTMUMBAI

A shift in domain is not unheard of in the communication business. Admen become clients and less frequently, some marketers drive headlong into advertising.

A less famous shift is the one K Ramakrishnan (Ramki) made less than two years ago. After over 25 years in marketing, he crossed over to join global research agency IMRB Kantar, as GM and country head of the household panel in India. His last major stint was with Cafe Coffee Day.

Ctrl Alt DelThe reason for the shift was the de-sire to learn new things about the

business of brands, he tells us. “You can call it a Control+Alt+Del.” Ramki was a CMO for nine years. “Thanks to this new role, now I know a little bit about 90 categories. That’s a high point.” His current assignment helps Ramki see brands in a new light. “I used to rank brands from a sales or market share or awareness perspec-tive.” At IMRB he has learnt to rank brands basis their footprint: how they reach consumers. “Distance helps make a neutral assessment of brands because now you’re not too close to be influenced by internal factors while making a decision.”

Self-realisation much? These are interesting times for re-search firms what with the verdicts of Brexit and US Presidential elections

questioning their very relevance. Scepticism is at an all-time high. A few creative and media houses have openly started expressing their con-tempt towards all things focus group and LINK tests. Many marketers are betting big on in-house research. In such a scenario, it must get dif-ficult to defend something you were cynical about when you mere a mar-keter yourself : which puts Ramki in a tough spot. Are there moments when

he goes, ‘What a typical client,’ only to realise he had been there and done that too? “It’s very difficult for me to answer that,” he admits. “It does hap-pen but then I quickly try and put my-self in the shoes of the marketer. I can relate to their pressure so I don’t often get put off by the situation.”

‘I never cared about the dif-ficulties of research

as a marketer’Ramki now knows how tough it is to get information from a panel. “It’s not the respondent’s business to give you infor-mation.” He has a life that you end up interrupting with your questionnaire

and schedule. “That difficulty I could never care much about as a marketer. Now I am able to realise you have to get closer to a person so that they are will-ing to give you the desired information. How do I use tech to help achieve my objective? What do I do so I don’t have to directly ask the question and yet am able to deduce the answer?”

Research agencies need to be better marketers

From a marketing stand-point, Ramki realises where research agencies need to up their game:

“Research firms would like to have a way of saying: this is data, this is the in-terpretation of it, this is how it should be used. That communication needs to become the norm. I’m trying to use my transition to bring that conversation into picture.” Will Ramki change the story of research agencies in India or will he give up and revert to market-ing? No polls can provide this informa-tion so we’ll just have to wait and watch.

shephali.bhatt@timesgroup.com

BY DEL SH A D IR A NIA fortnightly showcase of print ads from the past

The common thread in all the places I’ve worked be it Xiaomi, Google or Spotify is they are run by founders who are very prod-uct focused

In just eight months from

4th January 1939, the

world would be at war

with each other. The year

was a turning point in his-

tory, dragging mankind into

one of our darkest times.

But within the pages of The

Times of India on this day that

year, advertising provided a

semblance of normality with

its pitches for everything from

tonics and typewriters to malts

and mustard.

Much has changed in print

advertising since, for instance

we use fewer words now and sometimes ads

talk or change colour. But some things we are

still familiar with. For example, bad puns.

Today the front pages of national dailies are

usually full-page ads for one or all ecom-

merce sites. Back then it was Classifieds only.

Missing the trick of contextual advertising,

we can’t help but think this ad for LC Smith

Typewriters would have been better served

on the page dedicated to women, just a few

Spot the brand.

From the school of turning brand names into verbs

“These are not mere words. We have in our possession full facts and figures...” the copy reassures

THE OTHER SIDE How has a change of lens affected coffee marketer turned researcher Ramki’s perceptions of the business?

From Coffee Sampling to Consumer Sampling

GRAPHICS: JAYEETA

turns away. The range of stories covers ev-

erything from the women who made news

in 1938 including Nobel Prize winner for

literature Pearl S Buck and a story about

girls outnumbering and showing up boys

in Turkish schools to Norma Shearers’

hairstyle, the Mary-Tonette

taking America by storm

and the false eyebrow fad.

Most of the brands that

advertised in the edition

don’t exist today. Even

so, this is the history of

advertising.

Take a look at this

smattering of print

ads from the past

and watch this space

every fortnight to

see how advertising

has evolved over the

decades.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

thisweek

thatyear{ {

AD AGENCIES IN THE US ARE UN-DER INCREASING SCRUTINY from the Department of Justice over “pro-

duction practices and potential bid-rigging”. One more woe in a long list. “When the feds start issuing subpoenas, it’s pretty damn serious,” a source told Ad Age. Last year, the reputation of many major agencies took a serious blow over rampant institutionalised sexism following the case of former-JWT chief Gustavo Martinez and Saatchi’s chair-man Kevin Roberts’ careless comments.

THE BOTTOMLINE: Advertising just can’t catch a break.

AI SYSTEMS MAKE MOVIE TRAILERS, BEAT WORLD-CLASS (HUMAN) champions at the most complex game known to mankind, and help marketers

personalise their messages and offers to an almost invasive degree. There even robots which fulfi l a human’s carnal desires. Now, experts are saying that by 2050 humans and robots could very well have real rela-tionships much like those depicted in fi lms like Bicentennial Man. Experts also predict that human-robot marriages will be legal by 2050.

THE BOTTOMLINE: Not the fi rst time reel may become real

KEN SEGALL, ONE OF THE CREATIVES CRED-ITED WITH WRITING APPLE’S ICONIC com-mercial ‘Think Different’ wrote on his blog that Apple’s ad for MacBook Pro called ‘Bulbs’ is “the new-century version of Think different”. Though

it uses one of the oldest tricks in the ad playbook, a montage. “I love that the images representing civilization’s greatest ideas are not the “usual suspects.” Depicting a range of great ideas allows the ad to weave in a sense of humor — thus toilet paper can share the stage with space exploration.” What wasn’t a great idea though was Apple Music’s ‘Drake vs. Bench Press’ ad from last year. Segall calls it a “clunker”, “unfunny” and “amateurish”.

THE BOTTOMLINE: When it ain’t broke...

A summary of some of the most interesting sto-ries in marketing and marketing communications world from across the globe

thebottomline

THE ECONOMIC TIMES JANUARY 4-10, 2017

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CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 04-01-2017 Zone: BrandEquity Edition: 1 Page: BEPER2 User: sandeep.dutta Time: 12-31-2016 00:36 Color: CMYK

Continued from Page 1 >>

Pan BaharErstwhile Bond-man Pierce Brosnan’s returned to Indian advertising (after Reid & Taylor many years ago). The choice of brand was surprising, and the film incredibly bizarre, with the age-ing star defeating ninjas and bouncers, while affectionately smooching a tin of Pan Bahar. What followed was a furore: Brosnan being trolled far and wide for agreeing to endorse such a brand, and the star himself coming up with a weak explanation accusing the brand of “un-authorised use of his image” claiming he thought it was for “a breath freshner/tooth whitener”. Whether the amount of publicity this evoked and the rub off on Pan Bahar consumption was greater or lesser than the presumably astronomical sum paid to Brosnan is probably the true measure of this ad’s success or failure.

BESTBEKAAR FOR OUR FIRST EDITION OF THE NEW YEAR, WE BRING YOU THE BEST AND THE BEKAAR OF LAST YEAR ACCORDING TO THE BE EDIT TEAM. READ ON FOR SOME SHOCKS AND SURPRISES

SWIPE RIGHT TO INVESTAnd so, Kakar and his team first opted to drive a #PaiseKoJagao across social channels, talk-ing about idle money, without highlighting the brand behind the message. After five days of it gaining social currency, the brand quickly stepped in, seeing its rivals start to piggyback on the hashtag. Kakar admits he knew the category would duplicate the idea right down to the app but is okay with it as long as it increases the quantum of investment.

The blitz phase of the cam-paign has seen everything from a TV commercial to a strong digital leg via native advertising sites and posts on social media. Bira Sun Life hopes to get youngsters to make their parents aware of and start transacting via the app. The results are encour-aging 4.2 lakh installs as of the 18th of December accord-ing to Kakar, with 2.2 lakh registereing their phones via an OTP, which indicates seri-ous interest. An interesting learning in the journey has been the role of mass media in pushing a digitally driven product. Kakar admits, “Installations and reg-istrations happened very well with digital. But actual trials with money began once we started mass media which brings trust, recall, visibility and the urge to try.”

It’s a long slog though for a campaign that claims as its audience, every one with a savings account. Kakar signs off, “For those who have the app, every SMS alert about bank balance should be a wake up call to swipe right.”.

ravi.balakrishnan@timesgroup.com

Continued from Page 1 >>

CLASSIC BE 4

BAWDY COPY Brand Equity takes a look at all the Who’s who and what’s what of all that is Bawdy in the industry

We hear the head of this media agency conglomerate will soon be making way for his successor. He’s had, by all accounts, a remarkable reign, bolstering the core media business and even making inroads into closely guarded creative territory. However, it’s apparently group policy to rotate leaders every four years, and by that reckoning, his time at the top is up, say our industry moles. No news on whether he will move to a role within the network or outside, but his successor is someone who has risen up from the ranks, and will be pulled back home from manning a global outpost. We expect to hear more on this sooner than later.

A Pitch Perfect FeeThe quest for a pitch fee is something like the legend of El Dorado when it comes to ad agencies. Some claim to have seen fleeting glimpses of it, others claim to know someone who certainly got paid. So we are regard-ing this news from one of our moles with a healthy side of scepticism. Apparently this former indie that got acquired a while back but which has still resisted the bloated trap-pings of larger networks, charges as much as 30 lakhs as project fee for its ideas. The fee is waived should the client sign the dot-ted line. Assuming this to be true, maybe the question should shift from ‘What am I getting as a pitch fee?’ to ‘Is what we are pre-senting worth a pitch fee?’

Musical Thrones

Let’s Grab A (Health) Drink Sometime

Our ever vigilant in-dustry moles inform us there’s a concerted attempt being made by a (relatively) freshly minted team heading an ad agency

to bag a key chunk of business from their former employer. This is a brand that many of the team members earned their spurs on. Making this a tough ask is the health food drink’s longstanding legacy and relationship with its current agency. However in a world where “project” is no longer a dirty word and where sup-posed “one-offs” get more visibility, mileage and internal plau-dits than workaday ads, perhaps the former dream team is on to something. It will be a coup if this fructifies, since the agency, long reputed to be a quiet and understated shop, has lapsed into what feels a lot like deathly silence of late, with little to write home about even after a high profile change of guard.

A tie-up with National Association of Street Vendors to train over 30 lakh ven-dors is another step to gain currency across 25 states, says MobiKwik’s Singh, who has rolled out 10,000 offline staff to activate merchants across India.

“The real business is not go-ing to happen in the world of recharges or Domino’s,” he says, adding that it’s the heart of India’s economy, retail, brick and mortar and thousands of small cities and towns where the real action will play out. That explains the reason why MobiKwik launched a lighter version of its app which can even work in the areas where internet connectivity is patchy.

Less than 1 MB in size, MobiKwik Lite can be down-loaded even on smartphones with low net speed or by ones without a Google Play store ac-count. The app is available in English, Hindi and Gujarati, and will soon be rolled out in 10 more regional languages for widespread adoption.

Jitendra Gupta too is not bothered by the din around Paytm. “All the noise today is short-term distraction,” says the managing director of PayU India, a digital payments pro-vider. “We have chosen to be deaf for the time being to stay focused,” he adds.

Gupta, for his part, believes in building long-term business and focusing on something which most of the so-called big players have been convenient-ly ignoring: security. “We have been constantly focusing on ensuring world-class security standards while ensuring 100% uptime,” he says, adding that digital payment is a marathon and not a race. Unfortunately, he lets on, what is happening in India is a race where the winner is the one who spends most and gets consumer attention.

PayU India, which has over 26.5 million us-

ers and operates over 10,500 PoS terminals, has seen its offline business grow 6 times

on a monthly basis. The online business too has grown twice claims Gupta.

“We want to stay away from this race,” proclaims Gupta, quickly adding that his compa-ny — owned by South African media and internet giant Naspers — has huge financial muscle to play the burn game but doesn’t believe in the futile strategy of cash back. “I don’t believe in cash back as a way to engage consumers,” he says.

Recently Citrus Pay, which is owned by PayU, partnered with HPCL to drive cashless payments for LPG gas cylin-ders. The users get an SMS the day their cylinder is out for de-livery, and can follow the link in the text message to make the payment via credit and debit cards, net banking or Citrus Pay wallet.

Other wallet players are also focusing on their strengths rather than get bogged down by the aggression of Paytm. For instance, India’s first mobile wallet Oxigen. With over 30 million wallet users and a retail reach of 150 million merchants, Oxigen claims to be only wal-let player to offer payment solution including Aadhaar Enabled Payment, Rupay and other cards, UPI, recharges/bill payments under Bharat Bill Payment System. “Our focus is more on what we can do rather than what others are doing,” says Sunil Kulkarni, deputy managing director of Oxigen.

Payworld, with a presence in 630 cities, and 80,000 villages

across 23 states, has been tapping merchants in tier II, III towns, cities and rural areas. “Paytm is largely an urban phenomenon,” says Praveen Dhabhai, chief operating offi-cer of Payworld. “The game has just started.”

It seems, picture abhi baaki hai…rajiv.singh@timesgroup.com

Anant Bhagwati, partner, Bain & Company says, “Any company that reaches 10% of the population benefits from network effect. We expect to see the same network effect play out in the case of Paytm and other wallets.” Growth has been unstoppable, with demon-etisation acting as a steroid. Paytm has clocked 173 million users by December, growing at half-a-million per month. And it has been used across 350 districts, 1,000 small and big cities across the country. Since November 8, Paytm has surpassed its metrics — tri-pling transactions per day to 7.5 million, more than doubling employees to 13,000, tripling ad spends. Frauds have spiked almost three fold to `11 crore a month. Available in 11 lan-guages, it claims to have sold `18 crore worth of tickets (out of a box office collection of 106 crore) in the opening weekend for Bollywood hit Dangal. “We clock 78 million active users a month (Facebook India does 140 million) and could overtake social media at our current growth rate,” says Sharma.

When Paytm started, mobile re-charge was the biggest use

case and continues to be so. Transport and energy (paying for rides like Uber, Delhi Metro etc and utility bills) round out the top three. But in last 50 days, Paytm has been used to buy milk and other daily con-sumption items.

The hockey stick growth curve is the envy of companies — big, small or startup — and its brand building exercise even before demonetisation was a game changer. Sreedhar Prasad, partner, e-commerce and startups, KPMG India says, “When there’s confusion, whoever reaches out first, gets the business.” The ad cam-paigns only reinforced the mes-sage — you don’t have a choice but Paytm karo.

There have also been hurdles. Marketing consultant Harish Bijoor questions, “Can Paytm go deep into hinterlands and offer fraud free transactions?” While new users have come in truckloads, merchants and users have abandoned the plat-form as well due to glitches , technical and regulatory.

On a few occasions, during peak times, users have been left stranded, unable to con-firm payments made to the merchants. Users have found queries sent to update passbook to track transactions taking inordiantely long. Apart from the spike in fraud, some users reported money disappearing at the time of loading wallets.

“There were glitches,” admits Sharma, and adds, “We spotted flaws and fixed them. System security is far more important for us than scale. We are now

prepared for New Year week-end peaks and beyond.” Paytm traced some of the flaws in its iOS app, used by less than 10% of its users, which impacted the platform at large. A new bug-free app has been released.

The problem at the retail end is mainly with small mer-chants: corner cigarette shops, fruit vendors, kirana stores. Regulations don’t allow mer-chants to take out more than ` 20,000 per month, while they need money to manage daily cash flows. Says one merchant

in Bajrang market, Greater Noida, “I sold 2 lakh worth of goods in one week. But I can withdraw only 20,000 a month. And that after standing hours in long queues. It’s impacted my business and now I don’t ac-cept Paytm.”

Sharma says regulations put a withdrawal limit on mer-chants who don’t have VAT, TIN. For verified merchant accounts, there’s no limit. He is now 100% focused on the wal-let, which incidentally is still loss making, thanks to carrots like cash backs. Besides if he aims to take Paytm to the same league as brands that survive tech changes like Microsoft or Apple, “Vijay will have to move out of harvesting the wind and innovate. Paytm should be careful not to get into a growth trap,” cautions Bijoor. As of now, Paytm is riding high. Sharma says, “We will make money once the payment bank starts in March. People have started calling us like Xerox for photo copying or Google for search. We want to ensure we don’t lose that. What the brand means to merchants and users is the key.”

shelley.singh@timesgroup.com

Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, says “The cur-rent government has been far ahead of the curve in a mar-keting blitzkrieg of its various initiatives: Swachh Bharat, Digital India, Make in India, Financial Inclusion in the form of Jan Dhan, Girl Child Education – Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao and many more beyond only an Incredible India. Not surprisingly then government ad spending has been at an all-time high.” Adding a dash of glamour to the expense list are the celebrity brand ambassa-dors from Amitabh Bachchan to Priyanka Chopra.

All brands need to do is add advertising to taste. “Any wise

government initiative should co-opt varied stakeholders and beneficiaries,” says Dr. Renuka Kamath, professor, marketing, SP Jain Institute of Management & Research.

“Brands are closer to people’s lives and if the relevance of par-ticipation is established, it is a win-win both for the initiative and the brand(s).”

In 2015, Hindustan Unilever

launched one of its biggest programs, ‘Swachh Aadat, Swachh Bharat’ with a cam-paign called ‘Haath, Munh

aur Bum’ for its leading brands like Lifebuoy, Domex and Pureit. Sanjiv Mehta, manag-ing director and CEO, HUL, said in a statement: “We believe that companies like HUL have a key role in helping the coun-try achieve ‘Swachh Bharat’… This gives us both an opportu-nity and responsibility to make a meaningful difference.” But it was Lifebuoy’s rival and early bird Dettol from RB’s stable that made the most of its as-sociation with the Clean India mission and successfully em-bedded the brand.

Chauhan suspects most ini-tiatives of this nature are just preaching though. On the other hand there are initiatives like Tata Tea’s Jaago Re (2005-06) with its message of ‘If you don’t vote, you are sleeping. Please wake up’. He says, “It integrat-ed the brand idea and appro-priated the election. This on the other hand is because ev-eryone wants to be close to the establishment. They use com-mercial money to establish to the government that we are on your side. Do any of the brands actively support causes that the government is not backing like wildlife and the environ-ment?”

delshad.irani@timesgroup.com

MOBILE WALLET WARS...

Use your life to animate your copy. If something moves you, chances are, it will touch someone else too – David Abbott

The Blue Screen of DebtThe wheels are coming off the wagon, if industry sources are to be believed, for this technology driven firm that arrived in India with a bang and a multi-screen product portfolio, led by a range of phones. Unlike many of its countrymen who opted to enter this market relying heavily on buzz and fans to spread the message, the tech contender went in for a good old fashioned ad blitz. With troubled times being reported at the global HQ, the tremors are being felt even by the Indian ops. From what we hear, the media agency of the brand is owed around 40 crore; which can’t be good news considering the shop has lost several big chunks of business over the last few years.

ILLUSTRATIONS: ANIRBAN BORA

AND NOW A...

MobiKwik45 million

Wallet users across India10 million

Wallet users added in November and December

this year10 lakh

Overall merchants/retailers using MobiKwik

9 lakhMerchants/retailers added in

November and December30 lakh

Street vendors across 25 states to be trained

7,000Amul outlets accepting

MobiKwik payment

PayU India26.5 million

Users across India1 million

Users added after November 8 this year10,500

PoS (point of sales) terminals operated by PayU

Oxigen150 million

Retailers on Oxigen network30 million

Mobile wallet users in India5 million

Mobile wallet users added since November 8

IDFC BankFate and demonetisation just made IDFC’s cam-paign #BankingNibhao “rishteydari nahi” all the more relevant and somewhat prescient. The cam-paign for IDFC’s 4-minute account activation took a dig at all the ponderous and overly sentimental bank ads we’ve been subjected to over the past few years. This one, however, cuts to the sell. It’s not the first time an ad has taken a dig at other ads, an old trick in the marketing playbook of the Davids going up against the Goliaths. But it’s a point that had to be made. Stick to banking not bonding.

AmazonAmazon managed to cut through the festive clutter — no mean task — balancing the warmth and fuzz with discounts and offers. Simple as it may sound; most play-

ers dropped the ball on this. Some took a bizarrely esoteric stance that left most viewers confounded. But Amazon’s festive campaign did an overall neat job of good casting, crisp direction and just the right amount of identifiable emotions. The entire communication was pegged around the theme of ‘tyohaar bade dilwala’and resisted the temptation to transform into a hard-core sales-pitch. It had us saying ‘aur dikhao.’

#LastWords2016 has not been the best year for Indian advertising, even though some December work may well prove us wrong through award season. One campaign that stood out for its pure intent and neat execution was: #LastWords by Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC). An over two-minute long video featured working and retired nurses from across the country

sharing the last words of terminally ill patients. Nine out of ten pined for their families, people who weren’t with them at that time. It felt like an honest effort to sensitise us to the ordeal of nurses and patients. And established the need for palliative care so patients can spend their last few precious moments with loved ones. A tear-jerker, yes, but one with its heart and soul in the right place.

SavlonIf you’d told us one of our favourite ads from 2016 (technically very late 2015) would feature a product window, we’d have laughed you right out of the room. But Savlon proved you can push the creative envelope even while hardsel-ling product benefits. A man looking for something in the house, bumps his head against furniture and his wife rushes to his assistance, smacking him in the face with a catapult. The point: why add the sting of an antisep-tic to the pain you are already dealing with? A man in a labcoat prattles on for a bit, and the product window we allud-ed to also puts in an appearance. But in an age of ‘skip in 5 seconds’, this kept us hooked for a lot longer. Savlon moved on to a more purpose driven plank later last year, but this odd little ad remains a favourite.

JioNewlyweds taking a selfie, a monk chatting on his phone, auntyji in rollers swiping right, a woman Skyping on her bed, another Facetiming; where did all those

people go? When last seen, all of them were launching into the stratosphere powered by Jio balloons. Will the next lot of space explorers or Baumgartner bump into our Jio floaters? Or are they destined to go round and round the earth like aimless human satellites? And what happens when their devices run out of juice? All pertinent questions, if you ask us. Almost as much as this commercial for what was one of the biggest stories and launches of the year.

#Doobara PoochoWe half suspect this ad emerged as an in joke, consider-ing it came from the same agency that gave us the hi-larious Doobara Math Poochna for Chlormint. While depression is a poorly understood, seriously underdi-agnosed ailment, we were not fans of this ad; where (it seemed to us) a bunch of compulsive do-gooders badger their friends till they start feeling bad about themselves and their lives. The worst offender is the morose car driver who drags his buddy (who starts off the ad on a road trip, laughing without a care in the world) into whatever slough of despond he is currently wallowing in himself. Besides, there are often no pat solutions to depression. It sometimes involves counselling by a trained professional and a drug regimen, and not just talking to friends, no matter how well intentioned.

eBay: eBay came up with a moving positioning statement this year: Things don’t judge. Oh! You don’t say? It called to mind the old man from the SBI Life Insurance ad gently remonstrating with his wife saying, “Arre, heere ko kya pata tumhari umar?” (The diamond doesn’t care how old you are). The eBay ad showcases several such diamond-like objects and beautifully at that. The only place it goes wrong is that it becomes didactic. Not everything needs to be romanticised all the time. Watching this, we feel like the guy who shows up at the end of a memorable Ikea ad from the early 2000s about a castaway table lamp who says “Many of you feel bad for this lamp. That’s because you are crazy. It has no feelings! And the new one is much better.” How about #ThingsThatDon’tDisappoint?

THE ECONOMIC TIMES JANUARY 4-10, 2017

NO PAY-N NO GAIN

Installations and registra-tions hap-pened very well with digital. But actual tri-als with money began once we started mass media which brings trust, recall, visibility and the urge to try Ajay Kakar

Regn.No.MAHENG/2002/6711Volume 16 Issue No. 1Published for the Proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Company Ltd. by R. Krishnamurthyat The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400 001Tel. No. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax- (022)-2273 1144 and printed by him at (1) The Times of India SuburbanPress, Akurli Road, Western Express Highway, Kandivili (E), Mumbai 400 101. Tel. No. (022) 28872324, 28872930, Fax- (022) 28874230 (2) The Times of India Print City, Plot No. 4, T.T.C. Industrial Area, Thane Belapur Road, Airoli, Navi Mumbai-400708 and (3) TIMES PRESS, Plot No. 5A, Road No. 1, IDA Nacharam Ranga

Reddy District, Hyderabad-500076. Editor: Ravi Balakrishnan(Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act). © All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.

CCI NG 3.5 Product: ETMumbaiBS PubDate: 04-01-2017 Zone: BrandEquity Edition: 1 Page: BEPER3 User: sandeep.dutta Time: 12-31-2016 00:35 Color: CMYK