Thursday, October 8, 2009

GATE TOWER BUILDING


Gate Tower Building is a 16-story office building in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Japan. And what makes it notable is the highway that passes through the 5th-7th floors of this building. The highway is part of the Hanshin Expressway, a network (239.3 km) of expressways surrounding Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, Japan. The Gate Tower Building is Japan's first building to have a highway pass through it.
And it had been nicknamed "beehive" referring to its appearance as a "bustling place".

Monday, August 17, 2009

Ad War In Affordable Housing Begins

All of a sudden, in the world of realty, affordable housing has become hot - and true to that proposition the segment has triggered informal marketing blitz. I had mentioned about the affordable housing of TATA's in my previous post. Just two days after Purvankara Group's subsidiary Provident Housing Limited announced the launch of Welworth City on Doddabalapur road, another firm has launched an advertisement (ad) campaign - which seems to target the prospective buyers of Welworth. Confident Group, a well known, realtor in City, has made statements like: 'an affordable home must also be in an affordable location', and said Sarjapur is a better location than an area 30 kilometres from Bangalore, hinting at the distance of the Provident project. The ad said your home (for the middle class) needs to be close to your day-to-day requirements. 'Will you change your office or your children's school just to accomodate into an affordable home?' it asked. These days, most of the big names in the real estate sector are eyeing affordable housing business and have woken up to the potential of the middle class in the middle of a slowdown. By using such marketing gimmicks, they aim to attract potential buyers.

To read What males affordable homes affordable Click here.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Value of Time

"Yesterday is a cancelled cheque; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have-so spend it wisely" - Kay Lyons

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with Rs.86,400=00. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.
What would you do? Draw every Rupee right.

Each of us has such bank. Its name is "TIME". Every morning it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.
It carries over no balance, no overdraft.

Each morning it opens a new account for you. Folks, there is no tomorrow, you must live in the present on today's deposit. Invest it to get maximum happiness, Success and health. The clock is running. Make the most of it.
  • To realize the value of one year ask a student who had to repeat his class again because he couldn't put in efforts to clear his exam.
  • To realize the value of one month, as a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
  • To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly.
  • To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet each other.
  • To realize the value of a minute, ask the person who missed the train.
  • To realize the value of a second, ask the person who barely avoided an accident.
  • To realize the value of one thousands of a second, ask that Olympic athlete who just missed out on his gold medal.

Time waits for no one. Treasure each and every moment.

Monday, June 15, 2009

The rise, fall and the road ahead of Rasna……..

I am sure most of those who watched DD in the 80’s and early 90’s remember a series of ads (Vicco Turmeric Ayurvedic Cream, Pan Parag, Nirma Washing powder /soap bar, Dabur ka lal dantmanjan, Glucon-D, Tata Namak, Gold spot, Amul Chocolate, Vicks Action 500, Brooke Bond Red Label Chai etc.) that preceded the programmes and many of us have a strong recall value of those ads which bring nostalgic memories.

One among those was the RASNA ad (an ad that sent kids scampering to parents, demanding a glassful too) which had a cute and chubby girl saying before the ad ended: I love you Rasna!

In the mid 80’s and early 90’s, the Rasna ad was a huge hit. The ad showed a lot of kids drinking Rasna, and included one fat uncle who drank a huge jug of Rasna. The jingle went like “Ras ki rachna Rasna Tarah tarah ke swaad ki rachna rasna RASNA!”

Everytime they added some new flavour, the ad and the jingle would be modified. The ad showed a cute girl saying: I love you Rasna! (She was one more reason for the ad being a hit.)

Time changes everything. Sometimes, the changes are so drastic that it makes you feel uneasy. So is the case with Rasna. Rasna ruled the market and had a huge market share during that time. But slowly it lost its market share to its direct and indirect competitors.

Rasna has also included many others products in its product line and today when i was reading the news paper i saw this article which said that Rasna is lauching a new health drink and spending Rs.25 crore for various promotional activities this year.

Will this be helpful to Rasna and can it gain back its market share is the big question mark still?

Must read of what the chairman and MD of Rasna has to say.


Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Is Ethics class needed? Is Ethics needed in life?

I just finished a course on Business Ethics and I felt like writing this post as there was so many questions tickling in the minds of people like: Does Ethics class really makes sense? Why should we study ethics in this unethical world? Will ethics class change us? Will it tell us what is wrong and what is right? Why is Business ethics important? And so on.


First of let me tell you that Business ethics is the study of business situations, activities, and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed. But what is right and what is wrong has not been addressed. What may be right for me may be wrong for you.


Is it that business schools include this subject in the curriculum so that they do not want to take the blame if the students are not ethical in the future or are caught publically doing something wrong?


While business schools are not entirely responsible for the unethical behavior of their graduates – nor can they take full credit for students' ethical actions either.


Ethics classes, sermons, exhortations, and appeals to our better natures cannot cure cheating, but it always tells us how we should proceed in a right path.


The implication of not following ethical standards is most serious for finance and to a lesser extent for Marketing or other intellectual activities. In case of manufacturing, distribution or other physical and material functions, it is generally not possible to get around the truth. It will get caught sooner rather than later.


Just one course on Business ethics cannot change a person completely. A lot depends on the values which are imbibed to him and the environment in which he is living and bought up.


Let me tell you ethics in a broader prospective:


One must always maintain quality standards and benchmarks in either business or in life. I will explain you this with a very short story where there was 75 years old women with two grocery bags in her hand and a young boy who were waiting for a bus at a bus stop. When the bus came the old lady climbed the bus first and the lady started moving towards the only seat which was empty in the bus. The boy behind took big steps and sat on the seat. The old lady fell down in the bus with her grocery getting scattered. The old lady told herself that what etiquettes that boy had. In the same bus there was a lawyer and said that there must be a law to protect the same. The other person in the bus was a surgeon who taught that the old lady must have broken her three ribs and the psychiatrist said the boy had some mental problem. Here we can see that four different people thought in four different angles, but no one thought was the behavior of the boy right or wrong.


Looking at the situation was the boy right? No

Should anyone do like this to anyone else? No. This is called as Universal benchmarks.


Children are born innocent and some of them are spoilt by their parents only. Suppose a small 6 years old child picks up a call which is for his dad and his dad instructs him to tell the other person that dad is not at home. The innocent child is mystified. Here they are thought “Do wrong but don’t get caught”.


One more common instance is that when a child of 6 years is accompanied by his parents to go to a park or cinema hall, some parents try to reduce their child’s age to take them free along with them inside.


These things will have a negative effect on the child and right from that young age he is thought of unethical practice which is telling lies here.


It’s not Practice what makes a man perfect, but its perfect practice what makes a man perfect. If we do good and ethical stuff we rise in our own eyes and we can feel the magic of self esteem or else we fall in our own eyes. I guess you must have also observed this.


It is very essential that our value system should be clear, and then the decision making becomes much clearer. It’s easy to take decisions about what is right and what is wrong but it’s difficult to take decisions about what is right and what is more right.


Success is a progressive realization of a worthy goal.

Success is a journey and not destination.

Worthiness determines the quality of journey.


Your views regarding the same is most welcome and will be highly appreciated.

Amazing Advertising & Heights of Creativity











Saturday, May 23, 2009

Interactive Floor


TouchMagix Preview


Indian advertising industry is being driven by rising consumerism and the entry of global brands. There has been Digital and Graphic Innovation in Outdoor (out-of-home advertising) and In Mall Advertising. Yesterday I happened to visit one of the famous malls of Bangalore, where I saw this type of advertising. This was once again one of the unique things seen by me, which made me to explore it.

Interactive floor is a next generation digital media that engages consumers in a whole new brand experience that involves interaction. It is a stunning interactive visual display system for show-stopping interactive advertising and entertainment in public spaces. This can be used on floors, walls or any surface where dynamic multimedia interactive visual displays! It engages patrons with an interactive floor, interactive table, interactive wall, interactive bar, interactive counter, interactive screen or interactive window. In this type of advertising projector, motion sensor and software are used. Whenever the user’s passerby, the motion sensor detects them and interacts with them.

This medium is ideal for In Mall/ Airport Advertising. The mall goers generally are in leisure during their visit to the mall; hence anything innovative and digital would attract their attention and help in registering the brand in the minds of the consumers (high brand recall levels).

This also creates memorable interactive experiences in retail stores, hotels, restaurants, casinos, trade shows, museums, science centers, sports arenas, launch party event or any public space. Anything is possible, from an interactive floor projection, to an interactive wall map to interactive video games. One can choose from various templates and it actually depends on how creative one wants to get.

Various companies have used Interactive floors and some of the big names include Microsoft, Coke, BMW, Kingfisher first and Nokia.

The various advantages of Interactive floors are:

1. Attracts customers
2. Ensures customer engagement
3. Better brand retention in the minds of customers
4. Top of the mind recall
5. Opportunity to innovate
6. Enhance perceived value of the brand

In short I would say Drive Interactivity and engage with target consumers using the platform of Digital Media.

Click here to visit Company website.

To watch another video click here.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Bell of satisfaction


Surprised as to what is this? Think……

There has been a lot of impact of western culture to India and one of them is Pizzas, which is a world popular dish of Italian Origin and Pizza hut which is one of the flagship brands of Yum! Brands, Inc., is the world’s largest pizza chain which is spread across 91 countries.

Long time back I had been to one of the Pizza Hut’s dine in restaurant in Bangalore and saw that they have this system, going of a bell that you are supposed to ring, on your way out, if you liked the food. So then all those eloquently-speaking-English Pizza Hut guys in red say out loud, 'Thank You', which like reverberates as much, if not more, than the bell that preceded it. They might be taking an order from you, but they will turn round in the direction of the bell and take a second to enthusiastically-shout-out-loud Thank You.

When the customer sits in the restaurant and looks at the other person ringing the bell, he might also feel like ringing the bell if he is satisfied of the food and service. When the customer rings the bell, he gets the centre of attraction which actually makes him feel momentous and he carries great experiences of Pizza Hut with him.

I liked this system of Pizza Hut very much which not only satisfies the customers, but also attracts the customers towards it. The best part of this is that the investment here is only a bell and one second of those Pizza Hut guys, but the returns to Pizza Hut is much more than its investment.