This article provides a rough idea of how much money some of the highest ranking web destinations are making from their users -

Google
April-June 2009 Revenue: $5.5 billion
97% of above revenues are from advertising
April-June Revenue from Google Properties: $3.6 billion
Total US revenue April-June Revenue from Google Properties: $2.6 billion
Number of searches performed by Americans on Google Apr-June: 27.5 billion (approx) (source comscore)
Revenue per search: 9.5 cents
Revenue per 1000 searches: $95

Sources
http://investor.google.com/documents/20090630_google_10Q.html#tx66132_2
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/7/comScore_Releases_June_2009_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings

Ask
IAC total April-June Revenue: $340 million
Revenue from Media and Ads (Ask.com, Citysearch, Dictionary.com etc): $168 million
84% of this is from US: $141
72% of this is proprietary properties => $101 million
Bulk of this can be assumed to come from Ask.com (lets say $90 million)
Number of searches performed by Americans on Google Apr-June: 1.5 billion (approx) (source comscore)
Revenue per search: 6 cents
Revenue per 1000 searches: $60

Sources
http://investor.google.com/documents/20090630_google_10Q.html#tx66132_2
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/7/comScore_Releases_June_2009_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings

Facebook
Dec 2008: 80 billion pageviews
Registered users: 222 million
Page views per user: 360 pageviews per user per month (or 12 pageviews per day avg)
June 2009: 340 million unique visitors (77 million from US)
May 2009: 87 billion page views (20 billion from US)
Expected to generate over $500 million in revenue in 2009
Rough total pageviews in 2009 => 1000 billion
Rough Revenue per 1000 pageviews: 50 cents
Breakup of their $550 million revenue – 125 – brand ads, 150 – deal with Msft, 75 – virtual goods, 200 – self service ads

Sources
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/22/facebook-now-nearly-twice-the-size-of-myspace-worldwide/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/18/myspace-is-in-real-trouble-if-these-page-view-declines-dont-reverse/
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/04/facebook-is-now-the-fourth-largest-site-in-the-world/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-9973826-36.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE56531X20090706
http://www.businessinsider.com/breaking-down-facebooks-revenues-2009-7
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/06/andreessen-facebook-revenues-to-pass-500-million-in-2009-wouldnt-sell-shares-yet/

Baidu
April-June 2009 revenue: $160 million
Revenue per advertising customer: $791
July 2008 Searches: 7.4 billion
July 2008 quarter extrapolated: 22.2 billion searches
Revenue in quarter of July 2008: $135.4 million
Revenue per search: 0.6 cents
Revenue per 1000 searches: $6

Sources
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2008/09/Top_Asia-Pacific_Search_Engines
http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-reportsAnnual

Linkedin
Projected revenues in 2008: $100 million
Revenue from Advertising: 25%
Funding so far: $103 million
Unique users as of 2009: 45 million
March 2008 monthly visitors: 11 million
March 2008 monthly pageviews: 115 million
March 2008 avg minutes per visitor: 7.8 min

Sources
http://www.marketingshift.com/2009/3/linkedins-financial-advantage-over-facebook.cfm
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/05/allen-co-pitching-linkedin-at-1-billion/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/online_business_networking_linkedin_xing.php

Ebay, Skype and Paypal
April-June 2009 Revenue: $2 billion
Marketplaces revenue (ebay.com, shopping.com etc): $1 billion (transaction) + $200 million (advertising)
Marketplace Gross volume: $13.4 billion (ebay made around 10% of this in its revenues which is impressive)
Payments revenue (paypal.com, bill-me-later): $630 million (transaction) + $39 million (advertising)
International component of Payments revenue: $286.2 million (45%)
Payments Total volume: $16.7 billion (ebay made around 3.9% here – which is surprising considering their paypal rates are much lower)
Communications revenue (skype): $155 million (transaction) + $14 million (advertising)
International component of Communications revenue: $128.5 million (83%)
Skype registered users – 480 million
Skypeout minutes – 2.9 billion
Per user revenue – 32 cents per registered user per quarter
Per user minutes – 6 minutes per user per quarter
US revenue: $959 million
International revenue: $1.1 billion
Skype Q3 2007: 10 million concurrent online users at peak. 4 million at trough.

Sources
http://ikeelliott.typepad.com/telecosm/2008/03/what-are-skypes.html
http://investor.ebay.com/sec.cfm
http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/04/skype-free-business-model-drives-revenue.html
http://skypenumerology.blogspot.com/2007/10/skype-revenue.html

Apple
Apr-June 2009 sales: $8.3 billion
Geo distribution – America – 3.8, Europe – 2, others – remaining
Product distribution – Mac – 3.3, ipod – 1.5, other music products – 1, iphone and related services – 1.6
Units of product sold – Desktops – 0.8m, Portables – 1.7m, ipod – 10.2m, iphone – 5.2m

Sources
http://www.apple.com/investor/

I just returned from NYC and a couple of strange things I realised about my behaviour towards brands and loyalty thereof, which is why this post.

In a city like New York, it is impossible to control one’s desire with so much of availability to choose from when it comes to shopping. I had gone on a spree the last couple of times while in NY and dented my credit card enough to pay back over 3months and so it was very clear that Iam going to say “no” to everything thats tempting for me to go and buy. I have this huge fettish for sports shoes and I have lost count on how many Nikes I have and how many I am yet to wear.

Everytime there is a sale upto 40% or more my feet automatically went towards those sign boards and then inside to those shops. I kept going to various shops and dint buy anything till the last day when I just couldnt control anymore when I saw another Nike sale sign board. I went and got myself a 65$ shoes, which offcourse is not available at that price in India and nor is the model ever seen in this part of the world.

Once I got them, I was feeling mightily thrilled on having got myself the best deal for shoe like that. I came back to the hotel finished my packing and while I was headed to JFK, I was thinking about this topic of brand loyalty.

Why on earth dint I get attracted to any other brand of shoes? Why on earth did I not control myself from buying it? Why on earth did I even spend 65$ when I have little or no money to actually afford one now :-)? Why on earth did I not buy anything else but a sport shoe? and several other questions related to purchase intent of any other consumer and in this case me being one.

Answer was straight and simple - Brand Loyalty.

Brand loyalty is a measure of the attachment that a customer has to a brand. It reflects how likely a customer will be to switch to another brand, especially when that brand makes a change, either in price or in product features.

A Brand Loyalty pyramid is typically as under:

1) Committed buyer
2) Likes the brand
3) Satisfied buyer with switching costs
4) Habitual buyer with no reason to change
5) Brand switchers (price sensitive)
6) Indifferent buyer - basically no brand loyalty

I figured out that points 2, 3 and 4 are very typical to a consumer like me and even in these, I am part of a subset called “a habitual buyer”. Reasons could be umpteen, Nike has been a cult brand for sports people like me, could be because of the Agassi factor (in his initial days he was Nike Air’s chief patron) or could be because of my childhood when I was always exposed to the brand through friends and dint have one when I wanted most or maybe because of the tag line - “just do it”. I think the last part of the maybes is what attracted me to the brand the most and it built up so much so that I have a huge loyalty towards this brand like millions of others worldwide, “just do it” reflects my personality best and so the fettish I guess.

Brand Loyalty is such an important parameter of marketing that even the biggies like Coke or a Pepsi continue striving hard addressing this bit of marketing that they still dont have an answer as to why in a market like India, Coke and Pepsi are more of alternatives for each other. I havent seen a single consumer in a restaurant say no to a Pepsi when a Coke wasnt available or vice versa.

But the same doesnt hold true when in a super market where the choices are available but that is not the case in the West, if the choice of brand isnt there then the consumer just dosent buy it. The reasons are multiple but to me its more of channel of point of sale than anything else, there are vending machines of these brands in every nook and corner of a city in West thus by being close to the consumer at all times, which is a very very important aspect for being successful on brand loyalty counts.

Nike - you just did it to me for 65 USD, I hate you

Imagine putting together a cricket team. If I put together one, I will make sure that there is a safety kit (helmets, gloves, et al) in place and I will also keep a medical unit at hand just in case something does go wrong. What I will NOT do is ignore one or more of these factors and then if, god forbid, some of them are injured, make do with the balance. If I start with eleven, I would need to make sure I have eleven in the end. Plus in my capacity, I will ensure that I know every little detail I need to know about my players to enable them to play to their strengths and overcome the weaknesses.

Plus, I will have back up in case someone is incapacitated mid-way during a match. I will not go to play a match with only say 7 players.

I would encourage the Sales Team to look at each of their prospects as a trainee cricketer. I would encourage them to ensure that they have their safety kits and medical kits well in place so that the prospects don’t fall out. I would encourage them to have all eleven cricketers playing out at the end of every quarter and not just a subset of them. I would encourage them to have relevant information for all aspects of each prospect that would affect performance. And I would encourage them to have backups ready.

That’s the only way to win the match.

Media planning today is more focused on CPM than on the quality of the media one is buying. I’d like to take this opportunity to dig a little deeper into this phenomenon and point out the pitfall inherent in the practice.
The many media planners who get unduly focused on the CPMs of their plans are not to blame. Clients increasingly feature downward cost pressure as their goal when buying media, even if the primary goal is to communicate a value proposition and capture market share.
But today’s media planner and buyer — most often the same person — is not given the time nor incentive to focus his or her energy, instead, on creating a strategy that, when put into media plan form, will accomplish a client’s business objectives. Planners and buyers are given the directive to buy media as efficiently as possible, the end.
It is certainly not wrong to want to get the best deal you feel you can get for the media you are purchasing. But an overemphasis on the CPM means overlooking other aspects of a buy that are at least as important as that buy being efficient — the media’s effectiveness, for one. This goes to the heart of efficiency and how the definition of efficiency isn’t fully understood by the typical online media planner.
What is the likelihood of a particular placement moving the client close to realizing its objective? That’s effectiveness. But the meaning of efficiency is not a definition dependent solely on cost. Efficiency is where cost and effectiveness intersect. Can I buy media that will yield me a new customer for a dollar per? Yes. But if I only get one customer, what sort of business can I build on that? And what is that customer worth? What if I get a new customer for $3 per, but I’m getting 100 new customers? The efficiency of the media yielding these results is determined by more than just the cost of the media.
But today’s planner has neither the time nor inclination to consider factors other than the CPM on a proposal to judge that proposal’s merit.
The CPM is an attractive determining factor for choosing one site over another because it is A) tangible and B) easy to justify as a rationale for selecting one site over another.
When I started in traditional media, way back, every plan had to have rationale written up for a given media vehicle’s selection. These days, a lot of plans are just spreadsheets filled with numbers.
Media and marketing are human endeavors, and what distinguishes the success of one media plan from another is not its CPM, but rather the thought and creativity that went into the strategy and its realization.
What then should determine this selection
1. Relevance: How closely do the placements on the proposal from the publisher align with my target, my product, and my objective?
2. Creativity: Do the creative units being proposed allow my creative team enough canvas to message? Are they the units I’ve asked for?
3. Price: Where does the package cost or CPM come in on average relative to all of the proposals I’ve received?
4. Research: Does the available research support the choice of the site under consideration? Does the audience index high or low versus the target universe?

Swine Flu – What’s that???? Ask me..

I’ve had sleepless nights since I landed in Pune from Delhi on the evening of 07/08.

Just when I was about to land in Pune, my nose choked up and I started feeling feverish with an aching body. This got me worrying and the only thing that came to my mind was “Swine Flu”. Thanks to my blackberry, I got on surfing mode to check on the symptoms for this disease. I was relieved then since most of the symptoms mentioned were not matching mine. However, later in the night the temperature increased which got me restless again.

I rushed to the doc next morning and he advised me to monitor it for the next 3 days before I opt for the so called H1N1 test. The worry was not about fighting this virus but thinking about the government hospitals from where we are supposed to test it. TOI had carried enough reports in the last 2-3 weeks about the way these hospitals are maintained to get me worrying. Luckily for me, the temperature subsided and I felt better on the third day though having to tackle cold and cough.

But the scenes in Pune are pretty bad. I’ve never seen Puneites being so frightful in my life. Schools, malls and theatres are closed, not much traffic on the roads, childrens indoor, every alternate person you come across is masked and so on.

I wonder when will I be able to move freely in Pune again? When will life come back to normal here? I don’t see this happening in the near future though. I am sure, as always, people will start living with H1N1 menace and it will be listed as one among other viruses like malaria, dengue, chikenguniya, etc., soon…

I think, instead of just grappling with various measures to curb such foreign viruses, the government needs to take corrective measures to ensure such viruses are not allowed to land in our space in the first place.

Sunil has over 13 years of experience in Media Sales and has a 360 degree exposure with stints in Print with Indian Express, TV with UTV, OOH with Future Media (which he was responsible for setting up the nuts and bolts of) and Internet with Microland, Mediaturf and Yahoo. At Microland and Mediaturf he handled Sales for a part of the Western and Eastern markets and was responsible for evangelizing the medium at a time when awareness of the medium was very low. He managed to get a string of skeptical advertisers like Duncan’s Tea and HDFC on board. His last stint was with Yahoo India handling National Sales for the Display side of the performance business. At Networkplay.in, Sunil is responsible for driving advertising sales nationally.

Q. You have over 13 years of experience in Media Sales and have a 360 degree exposure w1ith stints in Print- Indian Express, TV with UTV, and OOH with Future Media and Internet with Microland, Mediaturf and Yahoo. How has your journey been so far?

A. The experience has been truly wonderful. The Sales function unlike any other function is a revenue generating function (while the others are Revenue Managing functions) which is what attracted me to Sales, to begin with. I also felt at that time that for my overall growth, gaining knowledge and experience of various forms of media was important. The only advertising medium I haven’t worked for is radio. After OOH at Future Media I moved to Yahoo! where I was part of Rammohan Sundaram’s team. (Sundaram, is the CEO of networkplay). At Yahoo!, we were responsible for revenue generation from the ‘performance side of the business.’ But shortly thereafter, having realized the limitations of the performance business, we decided to quit the place and form Networkplay.in. All in all, the experience and the journey so far have been phenomenal.

Q. Networkplay.in was launched towards the end of 2008, could you share with us what were the challenges you faced at the time of the launch? When do you plan to break- even? Tentatively, what kind of plans do you have in mind?

A. There were no earth-shattering challenges that we faced. Sure, there were a few teething troubles. One of them was getting the right people for the job, which was easily handled since it was the entire team at Yahoo! who decided to quit Yahoo! and form networkplay.in. This was due to the belief that ‘performance’ is not really the way to go and brand advertising is what will give an impetus to the growth of Internet in India. And to our pleasant surprise, we are seeing a lot of movement in that direction by other horizontal ad- networks as well, thereby reinforcing our conviction in the Sales Model.

The other challenge was to ensure that we get seed funding. We were sure that this is the way to go forward and this is the business model we want to follow but, starting off on your own is never easy. But sure enough, even funding happened and Capital 18 came in as the seed investor.

Once we entered the market, getting first few advertisers on board was another small milestone because India is still a CPL/CPC/CPA dominated market. From that point of view, we were moving against the tide by offering CPM and only CPM. We faced all the usual challenges that a brand marketer will face. But we have managed very well in the three quarters that we have been in existence. We have constantly grown and have achieved a 79% growth in AMJ 09 over JFM 09.

We know that we are able to provide a lot more value to publishers than others. However getting them to exclusively sign up with us, without having given any minimum guarantees or without any commitment on revenues, literally, just on the face of it was itself a challenge again. This too, under the management of Rajesh Nair, our VP for Publisher Networks, we have overcome with success.

So challenges yes, but none insurmountable. We will break-even very soon. On the plans, we have only two short term plans. Grow our publisher network and generate more revenues. Slightly long term plan is to invest in a product of our own, which would be a strong growth driver.

Q. In the last couple of months especially in the month of April itself we have seen Networkplay.in in strategic alliance to expand its advertising sales in India- Makemytrip.com and Linkedln. How have things changed post these partnerships?

A. It is a testimony to our capability that so many publishers like Makemytrip.com, Travelguru.com, Bookmyshow.com, LinkedIn.com, etc. have signed up exclusively with us. We see a lot of value on signing them exclusively with us because that eliminates undercutting in the market. There are therefore, efforts being made to ensure that we have exclusivity with more sites. Plus, we are also aiming to include a lot more sites that are on a non- exclusive basis to ensure that we scale up on inventory. How this has changed the game for us is that we have been growing quarter on quarter in revenues. The upward curve may not have been so sharp if we did not have these relationships in place.

Q. As the Co- Founder and Vice President- sales of Networkplay.in what are your priorities for 2009 and 10? What are the growth targets set for networkplay for 2009/ 10?

A. In the first quarter itself we grew by almost 40 per cent, the second quarter too was around the same figure and in the third quarter we grew by around 79 per cent over the second quarter numbers. So, in terms of the revenues we are meeting our challenges and surpassing them. The greatest corroboration of our mettle came with the signing of LinkedIn for the exclusive representation of India. LinkedIn had approached / was approached by five other players in the market as well. All five have been in existence for over two years. We were the only company who were in existence for six months at that point of time and we still bagged the contract.

Since we have no past year records to go by our sole aim right now is to better our quarter on quarter growth. My priorities clearly are to ensure that we do not lose the momentum that we have built for ourselves. This will need a great deal of hard work – building stronger relationships in the market, strategizing and offering solutions to brands for them to spend an extra rupee with us, ensuring that we promise what we can deliver and we deliver what we promise.

Q. As a vertical ad network, your objective is building and evangelizing the Indian Internet Advertising Market for brand advertisers. The 6 offerings that you offer are Travel, Women, News and Business, Middle East and Youth verticals and LinkedIn. Could you share with us your sales model, the importance of ad networks today and how is the Indian market embracing it? Which are the other sectors that you are eyeing?

A. Networkplay completely follows pay per impressions i.e. CPM (Cost per thousand). We do not believe in (and do not offer) clicks, leads or acquisitions. As an advertising medium the internet industry is currently Rs. 350 crore which is poised to grow to 1000 crore industry in a couple of years’ time according to industry estimates. And this growth cannot be achieved through performance advertising alone. I believe that this growth can only be achieved if internet is given back its place as an advertising medium (as against a sales medium, which is what it is being used as now), something that it started off with originally. That will happen only if non-advertisers (on the internet) can be converted to internet advertisers and performance advertisers realize the value of branding and spend with that objective. This, in turn, will only happen through evangelization of the medium as an advertising medium. Against the tide, as I mentioned right at the beginning but that is what pumps adrenaline in all of us at networkplay.

Our endeavor is to increase the advertising pie itself and not really try to eat into performance advertising. In this process we have got new advertisers like Videocon, Venetian Macau, VIP Industries, Godrej Ezee, etc. to advertise with us – these are traditional non advertisers coming on board with us.

Ad networks as a model is an extremely need-of-the-hour solution for advertisers who want to go beyond the top 5 or 6 portals. In India, roughly 10 per cent of the Internet Advertising revenues are contributed by Ad Networks, which is not a small number at all. And it is only poised to grow.

We would be consolidating our existing verticals in the near future as we think we have the right vertical mix.

Q. What has vertical ad networks to offer different as compared to horizontal ad networks?

A. World over it has been observed that it is better to advertise on vertical ad networks than on a horizontal ad network if the objective is to create brand awareness. This is because on a horizontal ad network one is not sure which sites the ads are being served on. This leads to spillover, which is money down the drain. If a person seeks brand engagement from a user from a specific audience thereby ensuring that there is zero or minimal spill over, then vertical ad networks are the best.

Q. Internet has undoubtedly come a long way since the inception and the medium has enormous potential today. What fuels the growth of online ad-networks in India, be it horizontal or verticals?

A. Currently ad networks are about 10 per cent of the total internet advertising space. Unlike before, what’s happening today is that the client increasingly understands that there is a need to reach out to people beyond just Google and the top few portals. That understanding and knowledge I believe is propelling the growth of ad networks in India.

Q. If I may also ask, which sectors have contributed to the growth of ad networks business?

A. Our revenues are largely made up of IT and Telecom, Media and Travel and Tourism clients.

Q. How would you assess the performance of Networkplay.in? What are your core propositions and what kind of strategies have you adopted to counter competition?

A. The performance is there to be seen. We are growing faster than any other network in the country today.

We operate in the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’- i.e. we do not regard anyone in the current space as direct competition. We are creating our own space, beyond the realm of the existing players. Our main focus is to give a brand the kind of audience it wants, which is why we are signing up on an exclusive basis with a lot of such publishers. For instance, if you want professional networking in India you would go to no other site but LinkedIn. We want to ensure that whichever vertical we are operating in, we are able to offer the right kind of audience to the advertiser.

Q. How would you differentiate ad network scenario in India versus that of the international scenario? Where do you see this industry headed?

A. World over the percentage of spends online in comparison to other media is significantly higher than what it is in India. The online market in India is heading to touch the Rs. 1000 crore mark. In the same period, spends on the ad networks would probably be in the range of 15 per cent of total internet spends. The rationale of this is very simple. The cost of reaching a person on the internet is significantly lower than the cost of reaching the same person on television. Even right now a lot of money has been moved from other media to the internet. This trend will keep growing and that is what we are acting as catalysts to.

http://www.exchange4media.com/e4m/izone1/guru.asp

Motivation - A psychological feature which arouses an organism to action towards a desired goal. “A compelling reason to action”.

Let’s give us a thought to the universally unknown fact- negativity also leads to motivation. Confused?? Let’s make it more clear. Negativity has twin characteristics of action. Stopping and forcing/pushing to act, it’s now our perception which of the either is faced by us. Let’s see how it works.

It’s an age old habit passed on by our ancestors, I would say the negative one. Instead of blessing our children with right direction to succeed, we always frighten them telling, if you fail to study you will be passed to live a jobless miserable life. Further to that, Instead of showing the way to do it, they end up saying harsh notes on fear of unemployment and failure due to lack of responsibility. Does one actually want their children in miseries?? The answer would be no but the fact is, we are being nurtured in negative motivation and It has become part of our daily routine. You are forced to do an action.

Let’s take this a step further, on the work front; the senior’s tag line is, if you Do Not Perform you will soon lose your job. They say it because they too are in the same vicious circle of negative motivation from their higher management and the management from their board of directors / investors. And so, you start running directionless, even forgetting about the objective with which you started your career and your goals of life.

To add more, any kind of financial aid taken, either to start own business, buy a property, for education, for repayment of earlier debts and the endless liabilities, you enter into a vicious web of EMIs and Interests. You are hereby thrown in the network of actions post these legally financial thefts. These all are negative aspects of life which leads to forced actions known to me as negative motivation.

If you ask any street passers of having work satisfaction, a huge % of people will qualify for “NO”. Then what encourages them to do it?? The answer is as simple as been said before. Few of them because of above mentioned forceful facts and others due to peer pressure, personal / social responsibilities, no directions in life and a lot other nightmares.

Every growing child has a ‘Dream’ – to become a doctor, lawyer, an actor, etc. In fact, all of us have seen students taking up commerce/science/arts streams based on their decided goals. I am sure you also had a dream. So, where did all these vanish?

Its because. WE GUYS HAVE STOPPED DREAMING.

A True Dream or a Goal holds utmost Positive Motivation.

They say “IF DREAMS ARE BIG ENOUGH, FACTS DON’T COUNT”. You achieve desired results come what may. Here FACTS means losing your job on non-performance, your properties on non-payment of loans, not achieving committed business profits etc.

One of the very important things which differentiates a Human from a Robot is “Dreams”, Robot needs directions; it can’t move an inch without it. We humans are born with infinite energy to dream and can give and take directions to achieve it.

Ask any street passer about his/her dreams and I bet you will either get a very obscure answer or you will have a completely confused Kodak moment kind of an expression, click it

People still do not understand importance of a Dream. But those who understood have become the MOVERS and SHAKERS of the world and the rest is history as they say.

Let us now give a thought to it. It is also very important to write down your dreams and revise it frequently. If you have not noted them, then you are not serious about your life and if you think you are intelligent enough to remember then you are sure to go through that negative motivation route.

Dreams, no matter how much personal they are, every person shares it with someone close to him/her. Humans loves to share, it’s just a bridge that is required. Create that bridge and see the miracle. You can actually change people’s lives.

Talk to people, help them remember their dream/goal and show them the directions to achieve it. Communicate and spread. If they do not have any, make them understand the importance of it and help them to create it.

I would say dreams/goal should be a part of every person’s self improvement format. Even organization should have it in their employee induction and appraisal format.

Dream- A positive motivation is a highly powerful and invaluable tool in today’s hypercompetitive world where there are high possibilities of losing track on dream/goal in a flick of an eye.

Do whatever it takes to create a true dream and see the difference.

TO DREAM or TO DRAIN – Choice is yours

Sometimes when I sit back and wonder…. When I was a young kid… hell when all of us were young kids, we always thought we will end up doing something that will influence society, lives, business, science & technology… and so careers interests like politician, medicine, businessmen and astronaut respectively cropped into our minds… today my topic is about, how well are we influencing these streams in our own small way…

Today the Indian internet is facing this dilemma to an extent of how are we influencing an offline business model through advertising channels on the internet… Some say performance is the ultimate answer… get what you spend… but do we?

Its an endless debate, where all of us prioritize a short term success over a long term one..unless off course we are visionaries and see the long term benefit than just 100 more people visiting my site, increasing my maintenance cost and in return not giving me any business… Is that the right way to market an offline product?

A lot of this boils down to a couple of things… a good marketing manager, an internet marketing manager (who is trying to build a reason for existence in an offline model) and a online agency flooded with lot of demand and too little conversion…

A good marketing manager is one who invests in “Demand generation”. Sees the potential of the medium as a conversational medium and invests in being a part of that conversations in times to come….

An online marketing manager invests in “Demand harvesting”. Quick fix, shows incremental site traffic, hit and miss mechanism like the innumerable “funded” sites that cropped up and disappeared as soon as you heard about their funding. Having said that, there are a few OMMs in India who believe in a mix, depending on his offline business model and his appetite to “wait and watch”

An bad online agency, says yes to either options. He is facing a topline pressure under which he cracks. A good agency on the other hand, looks at the size of the deal and advises accordingly. However, both in the back of their minds do understand that Demand generation is something that will grow the brand online and not the latter…

So, then who will bite the bullet. That in my next blog

p.s: I love using these terms, demand generation and demand harvesting but have to be honest. They arent mine. The credit goes to the Global CMO of this company called Sapient, whose blog I used to frequent

Idea has been fighting the telecom battle with the bigwigs and has finally been able to create some mind space after its “What an Idea” campaign with Abhishek Bachchan. Idea has done it again. In a recent top of mind recall advertisement, Idea’s new idea of ‘Walk when you talk‘has the highest brand recall factor.

Social messages are not new in Idea’s Ad-Bouquet. Rural Education and Empowerment was endorsed by Abhishek Bachhan last year. But unlike last year this Ad is not overshadowed by Bachhan’s Star Image and he did not play himself but the character of the doctor.

Many of us have watched the ad but I am not sure how many actually went a step further and have visited the website which is substantiating the TVC.

Please take a look at website here:-

The website is prepared on Flash and the waiting icon is a man walking while talking. Three distinctive and innovative features I could find on the website were:

1) Sending ‘Walk when you talk’ reminders on friends mobile with your name on Idea’s expense. (And they don’t have to be Idea subscriber necessarily)

2) One can upload and watch hilarious videos of people walking while talking in response to the ad.

3) With a given calorie meter you can gauge number of calories you reduced through walking by entering the time you talked on the telephone.

This is purely a mind engaging idea and proving the brand essence “An Idea Can Change Your Life”.

Despite the popularity this time the ad is not controversy free. It is attracting lot of criticism as many believe that road/traffic sense is not very common in India and the ad can invite accidents. However no such case has been reported so far. And people are enjoying the ad.

By making the web-reminders freely available over all networks Idea has surely tried to break in other network subscribers. This approach can prove to be effective when Brand Loyalty is more or less absent in the dominant prepaid market.

Only Time will tell if this idea changes company’s life:)

Was thinking about ‘Taare Zameen Par’, a superb movie with Aamir Khan in it. As everyone knows, it is the story of a dyslexic boy and his troubles because of the problem. And since this is not a pedantic forum, I am not going to talk about dyslexia but about a particular shot in the movie where Aamir Khan explains to the boy’s father about his son’s problem. He picks up a toy box, which has something written in a South East Asian language and asks the man to read it. The boy’s father can’t and that is when he understands his son’s plight.

The title of my blog is something like that. As are the following few statements:

Sunt bine multumesc!
Tusen takk!
Mukava tavata sinut!

All of these make perfect sense to someone else but do any of these make sense to you? If not, here’s another question: All your Sales Pitches make complete sense to you but do your clients and agencies feel the same? Or are you leaving a communication gap somewhere?

Effective communication is so important that it can’t be emphasised enough. Use the right words, use punctuation, modulate your voice and tone and don’t be verbose. Effective communication does not mean using big words. It means making the opposite person understand what you want to say. Effective communication involves asking the opposite person relevant questions and providing relevant answers to his questions. Effective communication also involves asking the opposite person if YOU have been articulate enough in answering his queries or explaining your standpoint.

If any part of your communication sounds like the title, or any of the three foreign language statements above, rework your pitch.

PS: Translations
Ni Hao Ma? - ‘How are you?’ in Chinese
Sunt bine multumesc! - ‘I am fine, thank you’ in Romanian
Tusen takk! - ‘Thank you so much’ in Norwegian
Mukava tavata sinut! - Nice to meet you in Finnish