Archive for the ‘Public Relations’ Category

There’s a lot of buzz around twitter and how its the next big thing in marketing… here’s a comprehensive and useful piece by Ann Handley “AdAge calles twitter assinine. Is it for everyone? No. But twitter has real use for media companies and social-media-savvy brands” 7 Ways Marketers Can Use Twitter > And when you are done [...]

Contrary to popular perception (and current brand behaviour all around) you don’t pussy-foot around communication when you’re in the middle of hard times. In Hindi there’s a phrase ‘bolti-bandh’ which is quite like the English one ‘the cat got your tongue’. Which leads me to say brands that lie low in tough times, stand the risk of [...]

Okay, I see Breaking News on CNN that the organisers of IPL have decided to hold the tournament outside India. Simultaneously, I see Narendra Modi slamming the government on the security reasons that have led to this decision. Of course, Modi is not alone with his vulture-like behaviour, as I see the rest of the [...]

I have always been fascinated by my own Google results. Call it narcissist, but I am concerned about what I am linked to, and who is linked to me (pun totally intended). My results (all 184 of them at this moment) vary from positive, vague, to totally misleading. My postive results throw up my LinkedIn [...]

The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America is landmark in many ways. In fact, Obama’s slogan of “change” holds true in many more ways than perhaps even the man and his spin doctors would have imagined. But that’s not the point of this post. Enough has, and will be written about what [...]

The other day I was in small electrical shop in Shakarpur market, and was looking for an power extension board – “give me the best quality” I requested.  The shopkeeper smiled with pride, and then with great flourish revealed to me his “best quality” extension board. No it wasn’t Philips, Bajaj, or any such familiar [...]

Somewhere towards the end of my career as an “advertising professional” I realised the business of advertising had become more about “getting billing” and less about “adding value” and it was the key reason I switched to being an independent consultant. I don’t blame them really, because most ad agencies are reeling under the double-whammy [...]

In the battle for mindshare and market share, some companies in India have gone out of their way (way, way out sometimes) and hired celebrities to endorse their brands. While some celebrities have done a fantastic job (as actors and as endorsers), the rest have just ended up wasting a lot of money, and insulting [...]

Last Saturday evening, I spent around four hours with some of the friendliest, most unassuming bunch of people I have met in a long time. Which is surprising, considering I was at the IndiBloggers offline meet in Delhi. And Bloggers, as their reputation suggests, are a volatile and unpredictable bunch of people. “True, Bloggers around [...]