Tweets from the tub -The here and now of our Digital environment

“The weirdest place I have tweeted from is my bathtub., Sejal, 20, Delhi. “I once took out my laptop in the middle of the jungle and checked my FB account during a hike!”, Anumita, 23, Mumbai.

These are not extreme cases of addictive behaviour among India’s ‘I’ generation. ‘I’, instant, Internet, and i-phone’ or any other smart phone that keeps them connected to the world. No, keeps them ‘in’ their world. Because to be connected, implies that you are ‘outside’ that world. This IS their world.

Welcome to generation ‘I’.

This is the generation that has taken every possible technology to heart and made it a part of their lives. They are the big spenders and sharp bargainers of tomorrow. They are the ones who are most likely to respond to a message while walking past a Pizza Parlour or a restaurant. But there is more to digital marketing and the digital environment than this generation.

The biggest difference between digital marketing and traditional marketing is that the consumer is not just an audience. He/ she is a producer too. That is the ‘prosumer’

So, here are my thoughts on how technology is already changing the game and will continue to do so in the immediate future.

1. Smart phones are becoming cheaper and smarter

Today, Smart phones or phones with Internet Capability and cameras have dropped prices to become affordable to a wide range of customers. So what does this mean?

- More and more people across various strata of society and geographies will shoot, share and upload material from their phones

- Mobile blogging will increase and suddenly the number of people with a public opinion will explode

- India already has one of the highest densities of mobile phone users in the world – and it’s growing fast

- Instances like the Mumbai Police Face Book page, encouraging people to capture offenders in the act and complain using their mobiles is only the beginning of a trend… the truly empowered consumer and friend (or enemy)

- Mobiles with high speed connectivity can replace video cameras for sting operations

2. All hail 3G

- 3G enabled phones will encourage high speed downloads of freebies from companies and sharing of music and videos with friends

- Sponsored cricket highlights/ sporting highlights can be beamed directly to phones

- Google TV beamed the IPL last year. This year you could see it on your phone!

- Huge potential for mobile advertising, as the mobile becomes a personal OPT-in audio / video delivery mechanism


3. The mobile becomes even more indispensable

- The possibilities for mobiles adding value to a person’s life are limited only by the imagination. And this is beyond metros, right into the heartland.

- Illiterate farmers are receiving Voice Messages about weather, crop sowing, seeding, harvesting, and the status of their produce, on its way to the market. Now you can see agri-companies lining up.

- Alerts for everything from medicines to movie timings are on the rise. They can be tagged with the name of the product and sponsored by the relevant company and delivered for free/ or a price.

- Free advice on cosmetics and hair care, timely alerts on baby care depending on the bay’s age…the list is endless.

- Mobile wallets let you do away with credit cards and carrying plastic. Now, you can check flight schedules and buy a ticket from the beach!

- Mobile Groups (like BBM) groups are living online. They are common interest groups and the perfect option for targeted, value added communication and commerce. E.G. Offer members of a biking group with accessories, gear etc., at a special rate Give them special information, invitations – the trick is to get them to WANT you in…

- Deliver M coupons and enable redemption from the phone – without a physical terminal anywhere. The browse and buy happens on the phone!


4. We seek him here, we seek him there… that dammned elusive consumer

GPS and Geo tagging have changed the rules of the game. Now, instead of hunting for the consumer, let him come towards you and then spring the honey trap.

- Geo tagging and locational tagging now allow you to push out a message to people in a particular area at a particular time. So a Pizza chain can send out a special lunch offer to those people in the vicinity at lunch time

- People who are driving in an area using GPS can receive a voice prompt through the GPS or a spoken special offer – if they wish (opt –in). A single button acceptance delivers an M- coupon directly to the phone.

- Digital/ Interactive signs enable communication with wi-fi/ bluetooth enabled phones. So, you can push out special offers in a mall or enclosed area and encourage interactivity, downloads, uploads, offers - just about anything.

- The phone acts as a unique identifier for customer interaction.
Make me feel special and make my life easier – NOW!

- Most mobile users use regular FM radio on their handsets. With digital radio, the mobile allows instant response, purchase and rewards. So now, you can enter and win a contest while jogging at the race course and have the reward coupon delivered to you! Imagine a reminder to take your health drink, after a run – while you are running at the race course.

5. Welcome to our world, if we let you in…

Yes. There’s a world of opportunity out there in the digital world. The big difference is that you need to make yourself feel welcome.

- ‘Opt-in’ is the key to a digital consumer’s life. Privacy rules are becoming increasingly tough. So don’t think you can barge through the digital divide.

- Make yourself welcome. Offer freebies, information, specials, personalisation and recognition.

- Twitter groups and Face Book groups are groups of real people who also meet offline. So your online interaction gives you a chance to be a part of their offline world too.

- Monitor their behaviour and make offers that are relevant

- Be seen as a friend, not a commercial entity and then invite your friends for a special premier, pre–sale viewing, an opportunity to experience a product before anyone else does.

- Ask for an honest opinion, respect it and respond appropriately.

- Our world is everywhere. In India, surprisingly, much more Internet based shopping (everything including some pretty upmarket brands) happens in tier II and tier III towns.

- Encourage instant responses. For example, SMS or brief reviews of a hotel and restaurant an be uploaded immediately on a travel website or restaurant review site and receive instant rewards.

- Present contextual advertising on Face Book pages depending on the person’s profile, likes, or even status updates.

- Twitterati – Twitter celebrities who are heroes in their own right. Twitter has become a world of its own. People tweet to find information (instead of using a search engine) and get information from people who know. It’s faster, more focussed and more personal.

- Twitter Helplines/ connections for everything from travel to blood donation have changed the way people connect for information or to help – or reach out for help!

- Twitter communities help each other find business partners anywhere in the world, suggestions in foreign cities, and much more. Need a cosy restaurant in NY? Tweet from your tub!

- Facebook has a huge marketplace where people can meet and buy and sell stuff, without ever stepping into a shop.

- And virtual worlds are literally that. Virtual worlds where people and companies can interact as in the real world. The big difference is that the opportunity to enhance an experience, add value and grow loyalty is huge in the virtual world.

- Make me feel welcome, even if I can’t see too well or hear too well.If you go out of your way, to make your website accessible to me, chances are that I will buy your product over someone else. In the UK and other countries, it’s a legal necessity.

- Instant communication, connectivity and consumerism are a heady cocktail that can backfire very badly on a company that does not provide good service. All it takes is one SMS or tweet about a bad experience or a warning about getting ripped off to spread like wild fire. The company will have a major damage control activity on their hands. Mobile videos and images, quickly uploaded on YouTube of Facebook make a very compelling argument against using a company’s products/ services.


6. The future is not out there. It’s right here… in your tub!

From computer devices that let you smell perfume remotely to mobile apps that let you translate signs across the world … the list is endless. It’s up to us to make the most relevant and engaging experience every day… no matter where our consumer may be, or what they may be doing!
Finally, it’s up to him or her to let you in or shut you out.

Do let me have your opinions on or links to ….
a) Outstanding outreach activities that you think have taken digital marketing to the next level or
b) Technological opportunities that allow you to do so….

Tweet or drop me a line….

Email: gypsycy@gmail.com
Linked – In: http://in.linkedin.com/pub/cyrus-dadachanji/0/30b/216
Twitter: www.twitter.com/gypsycy
Website: www.gypsytales.com

Looking fowrard to hearing from you
Cyrus Dadachanji aka Vagabondis Perenialis Digitalis

Buddy Guy, BBM and Badnam Munni bring on the blues!

The recently concluded Mahindra Blues Fest was a treat or the senses, an eye-opener, a laugh riot and an utter rip off (in parts), all rolled in to one rocking weekend!

Two days, six acts, three thousand Rupees. A fair equation if each of the acts was as good as the other or even somewhere close to the Legend, Buddy Guy himself.

Let’s go in reverse and start with the rip off. Ex DJ and TV presenter Luke Kenny singing the Blues? You know just what to expect when he comes on stage and says ‘Blues and Rock N Roll’ in the same breath. It pretty much stretches all six strings to breaking point. For the next hour or so (one of those very, very long hours) one wondered what on earth he was doing up there, with no pretensions of being a Blues singer. Since when does ‘ Roll Over Beethoven’ feature on a Blues line Up. Oops. I forgot about the Rock n’ Roll bit, mentioned earlier. There goes 500 bucks.

Next!! Now we’re talking some down n dirty feminist, ballsy, guy bashing stuff. Welcome Shemeika Copeland, all five feet of power packed dynamite. And boy could she sing and strut her stuff!

Mississippi, Memphis, New York, New Orleans and her grandma Jessie’s Church. This was one roller coaster ride that had as many curves as Ms. Copeland and then some more. Shemeika bared her soul and through her music and left us wondering which poor sod messed around with her. He was in almost every song – in spirit at least. Thankfully, Shemeika showed her true Blue roots, and lived up to her ole daddy Copeland’s name, all right. Now, there’s hope….

Hope which was quickly squashed like a bug under a guitar distorter. Along came L’il Johny Lang and God alone knows what he sang. Whatever it was, it wasn’t the Blues. Which just reaffirmed the thought that no matter how hard he may try, a White man just can’t sing the blues.

It had nothing to do with the origin, but everything to do with hundreds of years of pain borne by a race, purely because of their colour. For when those
‘coloured’ guys sing the blues, the Gods could weep.

Li'l Jhonny shredded his guitar and our ear rums along with it. He screeched and hollered and sent us all running towards the bar. Where of course, the rip off continued unabated. Three hundred bucks for a small peg of whisky in a plastic glass? Have a few and you’re looking at one more concert ticket over the weekend!

Day One. Strike two. Strike three and you’re out, Mahindra Blues.

On day two, I realised that there is a God above. And he sent down an Angel from Shillong.

The band was Soul Mate, but I’m sure every hot blooded guy at Stage 1 wanted that Blues singing angel as a ‘soul mate’. The band knew their stuff and their lead signer could charm the devil himself. Now we’re talking!
Soul mate belted out one blues riff after another and had everyone screaming or more. A good beginning.

The next act for the day, just before the legend, was the Matt Scofield trio. One look at this tall blond guitarist with a wicked grin placed him right up there in Hollywood, an Axe murderer or serial killer in a B grade movie. But if there was an ounce of boredom in the room, this guitar toting ‘ axeman’
killed that too. Matt is a very talented blues guitarist and kept the audience going for an hour or so, with blues from various parts of America.

For a Blues Lover like me, this was a real treat unfolding. The disasters of day one were now a distant memory. As Matt skipped from one city to another, changing his bluesy riffs as he went along, my eyes wandered amongst the audience.

There were all the usual suspects. People I’ve been seeing year after year at innumerable Blues and Jazz festivals. But there were many people who seemed to be attending a blues festival for the first time in their lives. Pretty women in their chic black dresses, happily swaying to the beat, trying to figure out what the fuss was all about.

Then there were the BBMers – Black Berry Maniacs, frantically texting, BBMing and uploading pix throughout the concert. It just goes to show that the average person’s attention span and threshold to ‘not connect’ has gone down to about 30 seconds.

I also encountered the ‘record the whole concert’ monster lurking ominously behind me. Arm outstretched in a state of rigor mortis, clutching a mobile camera for 2 hours, he did not flinch an inch. One false move and that mobile would have gone flying intro the audience. And believe me, I was tempted to make a few of them…. Our man fearlessly followed his calling, probably missing every bit of music and the real energy around him. Well I hope he enjoys his 3000 rupee video clip!

Every once in a while a ‘whoo hooo’ would pierce the air, followed by a loud round of applause. As my eyes skipped across the audience like a languorous slow hand strum, I spotted him.

For a minute, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was this portly chap, possibly a bit tanked up, but high spirited for sure. I have no idea what he’d been smoking, but he was burning up the floor all right. It did not matter what tempo the music was at, he was like an old 45 going on 78 RPM. I couldn’t help laughing as I saw him gyrate to that blues guitar. He would have given Munni an inferiority complex and made her truly ‘ badnaaam’.

At 9.00 p.m, the moment we had all been waiting for was upon us. The man, the legend, Buddy Guy walked on stage. For anyone who knows anything about the Blues, Buddy Guy needs no mention. Suffice to say that he is not just way up there with the greats he is one of them!

For then next two hours, the youngest man in the room was 74 years young, which also happens to be the first track on his latest CD. Old Buddy showed ‘em how it should be done. H strutted, whistled, clucked, cussed, played and charmed the pants ( and skirts) of every one in the room. It’s one thing to play the blues guitar like he can – it’s another to pay it with a drumstick, tongue, teeth an even a duster cloth. This was guitar fireworks at its best, without missing a riff.

Buddy’s band was a league apart from anything that we had heard in the last two days. He threatened never to leave the stage and we would have been happy if he would have fulfilled his threat. The finale came with Buddy calling Shemeika, Matt and Johnny back on stage for a crazy jam. Buddy gave us ‘fever’ but Shemeika was the sweetest antidote to it, and the chemistry between them had to be seen to be ‘believed’.

I think our dancing ‘Munni’ caught the ‘fever’ too, as he over heated and simply melted away. Thank heaven for small mercies. A bolt of lightning struck the raised arm of ‘rigor mortis recorder’ and he let go of his mobile to applaud!!

It was a night of red hot blues all right. And now that it’s all over, I guess I’ll have to listen to my free Buddy Guy CD, and wait for next year…..


Bombed, bluesed, but not busted…
Gypsycy