Bangalore Bus Branding

Big 10: New routes introduced by BMTC in Bangalore, with ultra new branding

The Big 10 branding is refreshing! For a change someone took the bold step of coming up with something really different. I am surprised on how the branding might have slipped through the babus in the government - whoever convinced the govt. that we should go with this did an awesome job!

Talking about branding, many buses in Bangalore have the following red 'strokes' on the sides and back- I am not sure what they signify, but at first, second and few more instances they look a bit silly to me! Definitely a bold step, but could have been done better? The bus is an insect with legs and wings, or it is an organism with red blood in its veins, signifies the chaos the buses have to go through each day - what could the inspiration have been?

Ogilvy on ROI

Ogilvy said this decades ago: "When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you find it 'creative'. I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product."

As in my earlier post, finally advertisers are catching up!

I think Ogilvy would have simply loved the online medium, with it's immense possibility of almost real-time measurement. The articles they (O&M) wrote to promote themselves (again, decades ago) were ROI oriented - here are some examples: "How to create corporate advertising that get results", "How to make your sales promotions more profitable", "How to create food advertising that sells" - could have translated very well into modern day webinars.

Moving Ads: Advertising on Train Exteriors

Above is an image of Rajdhani train from Delhi to Bangalore, at Bangalore station.

The first three bogies had wall to wall advertising on the outside - of Airtel and if I remember correctly of another brand or so.

Looks impressive! and must be quite a sight for watchers as it moves through villages and towns!

Mass consumer brands should definitely go for it - phone companies, middle-class soap brands, chocolate & ice-cream brands, etc could be good candidates.

Buses and aircrafts have taken similar initiatives - let me look around :-)

Pay for Performance Mainstream Advertising?

"Coke, HUL Moving To Pay-For-Performance Advertising"
http://in.reuters.com/article/paidmediaAtoms/idIN16055381620090721

Cool! Finally the advertisers are getting real and soon the competition might too!!

Would love to see the creative folks of TV and print who move around in shorts and pony tails (confession: I was like that long time ago) turn to words like ROI, sales impact, revenue share, variable payments!!

While people should not stop making coooool ads, it takes a leap of faith to realize (based on hard data) that a pure text ad can generate a higher response than a neat looking image with a celebrity.

About time that advertisers and advertising agencies (and production houses and directors and cameramen) start looking at data. Else of course they are welcome to create pieces for museums and personal collections (another confession: as I will do at some point in time :-))

Do Coaching Posters work? Would Word-of-Mouth Work Better?

Ironical that there are so many coaching posters near the Allahabad university!











In any case would these posters really be working for the advertisers? For a community that is as connected as the students, I think word-of-mouth is the only thing that might be working.

To make their service different and 'remarkable', the professors or coachers could try some of the following:

• Put up a blog with generic advice - e.g., how to approach an exam, how exam patterns are changing; if of value, this will get forwarded in mail
• Put up at least one question each week, as a blog - something that students can crack their heads on (more word-of-mouth), and post answers as comments
• Setup communities and fan pages on Orkut, Facebook - existing students will become part of this, and their friends will see this too. Focus of Facebook fan page could be to answer questions from students

Of course it would be easy for others to replicate. Good content (teaching) would definitely help!

Colleges Can Leverage Word of Mouth

Recently a relative of mine was asking me about which engineering college should her son opt for. The son had got a decent all India rank (CET?), and stood a good chance of getting into a good college.

I thought a bit and amazingly I thought of the same things I was under the impression some 20 years ago! CS at REC (now NIT) Trichy is good. Suratkal is good (Chemical?). Mechanical at NIT Rourkela is good. In general computer science is good. All impressions I had formed decades ago!

Has the world really changed, or am I woefully out of tune? Well I guess both might be true!

One thing is for sure, of course – word of mouth sticks! The impressions I formed, for right or for wrong, have stuck a very long time.

I guess most colleges would love to leverage such impressions, and influence impressions in the first place.

Here is what colleges ought to do:

• Create information newsletters and mailing lists, department and domain specific if possible
• Create successes – journal papers, seminar participation, conduct seminars in college
• Industry consulting – projects, lectures
• Leverage alumni – have strong linkages with alumni through hiring, consulting, mailing lists, seminars, guest lectures, etc
• Reach out to wider audiences through in-campus summer workshops thrown open to public
• Create domain specific portals of general and academic interest
• Participate in Top-10 kind of lists, or create one of one’s own on portals, etc

Providing something of value, to a wider audience, and creating a positive impression – the beginning of word of mouth.

Infosys: A Branding Oppotunity Lost

I was recently at Infosys's training facility in Mysore to drop my niece who was joining Infosys. Having heard a lot about the world's largest training facility, and expecting warm hospitality, and a dekko around the campus for a few tips, I was rudely surprised when we had to stand outside the campus gate for about 3.5 hours in a rough line, in the rain and sun.

With so many parents who had come to drop their kids from different parts of the country, it was a big opportunity of word of mouth lost by Infosys, by not providing even the most sparse hospitality. Even more unpardonable with Indians known for their hospitality, and Infy considered an Indian company to the core!

No facility to eat or drink in the walkable and visible vicinity, no roof to hide from the rain or sun, and no loo! What else could have gone wrong with their planning?