A Call of Change

I remember my grandfather telling a the story of Ramayana (Hindu Mythology) and how Diwali is celebrated by Hindus as a festival of triumph of good over evil.As a kid i remember asking my grandfather "Why did it take 21 days for the celebration to begin and my grandfather replying that it took people that much time to spread the news".

Well that would have been a way by my grandfather to wriggle out of my silly questions but it was true when information took forever to reach people.

But today the way we create ,consume and share information has made a tech tonic shift from a classed based slow dissemination to a free for all real time messages.The single biggest factor that triggered this shift has been the advent of wireless hand held device popularly known as the “Mobile Phone” something  even Martin Cooper the creator wouldn't have imagined.Today mobile phones have evolved from being just a calling device to a revolution agent

Lets look at the 7 Big ways how Mobile has transformed the world.

1. Information:
2. Education:
3. Entertainment
4. Health
5. Disaster Management 
6. Banking
7. Activism

All of us remember the Arab Spring or the Anna Movement closer home in India one of the key factor in the success of these movements have been mobile, as it suddenly transformed ordinary citizens disenchanted , into resistance fighters.

Programs like Kilkari that seeks to take basic child health care to the remotest part of the country rides on a simple voice call as the agent.

People in rural India use mobile as a key entertainment source,The youth are taking up to FB & Whats App as a medium to stay connected. From weekly update on content (Songs, movie clips and soft porn) via SD card to online content download mobile is fast breaking the regional /cultural barriers.

A Mobile device has become a symbol of empowerment , democracy breaking the barriers of class and geography and giving voice to the invisible. 

In order to reach to the masses mobile needs to be central to any communication plan, be it Govt led / NGO led or Brand led. Mobile can enable not just for empowerment but also for bringing the behavioral & social change.

Author Speaks:

A Mobile can be different things to different people, but it sure is an agent of change that can trigger a massive Socio – economic re engineering among the neglected communities. It’s not the end but sure is the means to delivering a sustainable socio-economic development.

aryanomics.blogspot.in

Sweet Spot Marketing

"Marketing Master" yes that's what some of my batch mates call me, A a lot of my friends had started something of their own or were in the process but i was few of those who still believed in being a do oer than a creator.

Last week a friend of mine called me saying that he had decided to start something of his own and wanted to meet up to discuss this , so we agreed to meet on the weekend.

We met at a coffee shop near my house as it was easy to discuss outside without any distraction. I entered the coffee shop at 11:30am and my friend Saurab was brimming with excitement, wanting share his great entrepreneur idea.

His idea was a new Health Bar that would offer healthy snacks at great price targeting the youth ,he kept talking about how he would be different , his bar would be different etc etc

He kept talking for over a hour until he got tired hearing his own voice and finally asked me "So what do you think". I looked at him and shared his excitement but i also knew that i had to be conscious that i not only advised him as a friend but also as a marketing partner.

I said the ideas great as the youth of today is out and about and flushed with cash. But whats the "Sweet spot" that would make them asking for more. While youth might like something new but what after the monotony wears off after all they are spoilt for choice. He looked at me puzzled like a child getting scolded who knows something is wrong but not the reason.

The consumer is constantly evolving and to capture his/her mindshare we need to connect with his passion/aspiration and not just need.

Well Sweet spot is the point where your business goals meet the consumer aspiration.Most of the times we miss one of the two. We either focus completely on the business part or completely on the consumer part which result in short term gain but might not result in long term success.

A sweet spot helps us connect with our consumer that helps build a long term partnership with them.

Lets take saurabh's case to understand the Sweet spot for his business.He could very well start with his Health Bar and Iam sure it would succeed as the youth is always looking for something new. As much as it would excite us ,it can also be a trigger for failure in case we don't connect with the sweet spot.
Lets understand with is business plan,He mentioned the youth is his core consumer group so lets identify their passion. My experience supported by some study has led me to arrive at these passion points.

• Music 
• Sports
• Fitness 
• Networking

These might not be sacrosanct for all but i believe it would hold true with most of them. So if were to take fitness as the passion then how can we convert it to our sweet spot.

Fitness is about what you eat and how you burn , what you eat can be addressed with Menu that we have ( healthy / organic/fresh) etc well there are quite a few options but can we also be part of how we burn.

One of the key reasons people give up on their fitness regime are due to high expectation ,lack of fun and monotony. Well fun and monotony are factors to do with the friends and partners we work out with and its said better the company , the better the work out.

So how can we connect their passion to create our passion point. 

Healthy Menu + Fit Life = H Bar

Sweet Spot for H Bar will be to create a community of fitness seekers through not just diet but fun ways of recreation.A simple idea of connecting like minded people walking into your bar by creating local fitness community.A community of joggers , Gym goers or just walker i mean who doesn't need a like minded company.

"We have created an experience where passion and purpose come together to create business success and consumer delight"

So next time we are looking at a business idea lets ask our self what the Sweet Spot and iam sure the answer will lead you to a success full business model.

  

Cheers

www.aryanomics.blogspot.com

Law of Scarcity

"Necessity is the mother of all Innovation" 

Well this is one line that i graduated listening and believing to, we were always told that and product or service sold to a consumer has to have a unique offering and only then it would be a success. 

Well it was a simple enough a bargain and rightly so you a create something new that people want and bingo people lap it up. 

But when was the last time we were exposed to a real good innovation .. Mobile Phone i guess. Innovation is not something that we churn out everyday (although we all do have a great track record on innovative excuses to take a day off). So what marketers do.

Marketers in the new age depend heavily on the power of marketing as someone rightly said "Marketing is a art of selling a comb to a bald guy" well that's really true and most of the brands today are a ME TOO yet they are successfully. So life is good business is successfully and we are all happy.

But in today's day and age where the consumer is cluttered with messaging thru multiple media how do we stand out and get noticed .

But what if success is just not good enough and what you seek is BLOCKBUSTER.

Well the latest marketing trick to move from hit to blockbuster is "Law of Scarcity"

When the category is new/few and demand is high its innovation but when category is old yet the product is few its called scarcity. 

Yes Scarcity, remember the time when you had just got comfortable with your first email id (i still remember mine was a yahoo id) Well it was a great service provider with its own messenger where you could chat with your friends anytime anywhere then what happened suddenly when GMAIL was launched.

It was new hardly people knew about it and most of all the entry was by INVITATION only and guess what that was the trick everyone i knew wanted to know if we had a invitation or not and if yes we really begged that we could be 1 among the 50 invites. Today 8 years after its launch it has the largest user base , not taking away anything from the product itself but that had something to do with it.

Recently i met a friend who was proud owner of Xiaomi Mi3 and he said it was a proud owner and rightly so he was 1 of the lucky 25000 out of over a billion people to have had a chance to hold that.

From a not known Chinese company to a sought after brand the transition was overnight.

So from Paper boat selling exclusively on Indigo to Exclusive product preview for P&G Moms to One Plus phone by invite only it works every time so Scarcity or Exclusive the way marketers would put it is the new mantra of today.    

So if you are one of me who so AIB roast or the BBC documentary on YouTube you would agree that fact it was banned and scare to find added to the mystry of experiencing.

So if Necessity is the mother of all innovation it can be safely said that Scarcity could be the mother of all Blockbusters.

Cheers,

aryanomics.blogspot.in
  

Evolution of the 4th Screen

It was a lovely Sunday morning and not just any Sunday but today was the day when we would play our first world cup match with our arch rivals Pakistan. 

The stage was set for a penultimate fight so i decided have some friends over to enjoy the kill.

We were all charged up wearing the Indian jersey , tricolor on face and beer for company ,just then my young nephew Ahaan gets up to leave it was his math class preparing for the impending class. A cricket enthusiast stuck between passion and education started to leave just them my bhabhi packs him a snack and says come straight i'll make your favorite Rajma - Chawal for lunch and call me before you leave.

Well the champ had to do what he had to do but we went back to enjoying the match. Kohli was at his best scoring a century and setting a target of 300 for the Pakistanis.

It was a fun first half and we were looking for a kill , it would have been great had Ahaan been hear he would have loved to see his favorite Kohli bat never mind will watch the repeat.

Just then Ahaan reaches home all excited saying Chachu did you see how Kohli hit the century and how shikhar made that silly mistake and got run out. I was shocked how did he know all that i said aaj kya tuition ki chutti thi ya bunk mara. He said looking at me chachu what are you talking about the smartphone you gave me came in handy we kept checking the score on crick-info and my friend carried a tab we were watching it during the break. I thought to myself well this generation has moved into a new age the digital age.

Today Mobile devices have an exponential reach in India , with over 900 million mobile users as per TRAI and over 400 million internet users (PC+Device) its the screen of today               

Well the case in point is the India - Pakistan match that my nephew missed garnered the highest viewership creating history with over 25 million views on their site.

My nephew like all his friends is most of the time either on whatsapp or FB messenger even his school home work is available on the Whatsapp group. 

at times i feel his Mobile has become more important that his family when that could be to dramatic but the point is that its here and growing.

With the increasing internet penetration and rapid drop in the smartphone prices it sure is the media of tomorrow.

Be its the urban high rise of Colaba to a Rural farm in bhiwani mobile is fast catching up to be the device of choice.

4th Device is fast changing the way we create , consume and share content and that's something every marketer needs to stand up and take notice.

The future clearly is the 4th device and going forward its highly possible that the 4th screen will transform into the first screen. 

Cheers

aryanomics.blogspot.in