CNN-IBN a new breed!

Can a NEWS channel be creative? Yes, example CNN-IBN. Their program SUMMER SHOW DOWN is one such example. A reality program concentrating on real issues and how civic bodies react to public’s request.

More than the result of the program, I am happy that this program would expose the inefficiency & reluctance of these bodies.

I am all praise for CNN-IBN (as of now!). Their website www.ibnlive.com is also good. Keep it up CNN-IBN!

NDTV better watch out; in the process of making your channel / network an entertainment network, do not lose ground on your core competence!

Ads Again!

ICICI Prudential: Good ad. Instead of talking about the -ve part of insurance (as LIC did before) this ad concentrates of the +ve side. The conversation between the husband & the wife is well thought out. Good job!

HCL Technologies: The latest one – CAR DRIVE with an Investment banker – well thought out and decently executed. Though they could have been careful with their words like “STOCK MARKET JUST CRASHED” it can be looked in both ways (+ve & -ve)…Ibanker pulled over…that may be a -ve sign! Even after all this my rating would be OKAY JOB!

McDonalds: The AD is just BS! There could have been something new!

Top blog!!! 32nd / 100

Friends – My blog katabaticwind.wordpress.com has become one of the TOP blogs in wordpress.com.

The current rank is 32nd/100 Top blogs! Thanks for your support and continue to read and give suggestions!

http://botd.wordpress.com/2007/05/27/growing-blogs-396/

Who will guard the guards?

“In a country where the majority of the people cannot get two square meals a day, a single officer cannot be permitted to have the luxury of three air-conditioned cars at his disposal. We are not ‘Mughals’ .We have to serve the society.”

– Interim order passed by the
Punjab and Haryana High Court on September 17, directing the governments of the two states to enforce the ‘one officer, one car’ rule.

It was an innocuous petition filed by two lowly employees……..

…..an embarrassed Punjab Government is finding it hard to come up with credible explanations to justify the splurge at the expense of the tax payer — expenses incurred on police vehicles alone are said to account for Rs 25 crore annually.

…….Arguably among the most protected chief ministers in the country, with his security rated Z plus, Badal faces grave threat of terrorist attacks. He thus has nine AC cars allotted to him, seven of which are bullet-proof while another is fitted with a frequency jammer that counters remote-controlled detonations. Similarly, Bitta, who is said to have survived at least half a dozen terrorist attacks, has four bullet-proof cars provided by the state Government for his and his family’s use. And even after his retirement, former Punjab Police chief K.P.S. Gill has eight bullet-proof cars at his disposal. “The recent terrorist strikes have increased the threat perception,” says Punjab Police chief P.C. Dogra.

….by the Government’s own admission, it has 435 official cars fitted with ACs and 271 are used by state government officers — only 85 of whom are eligible for AC cars — and departments. The rest are owned by the 45 state sector corporations and boards, more than two-thirds of which are in the red. As far back as 1979, the government had set up a Motor Vehicles Board with an eye to cutting down the misuse of official vehicles and expenses on petrol and maintenance. The board has been defunct for long.

………………………………………………………………………………………………

You may read the full story from the given link. Guys, this would be happening in other states too and the body which is to oversee this would be sleeping somewhere.

A million dollar question – WHO WILL GUARD THE GUARDS?

Reference: http://www.india-today.com/itoday/06101997/punjab.html

Poverty eradication

In one of the editorials of Hindu, there was a line (paraphrased) “
India’s y-o-y growth should be more than 8% for the next 25 years to eradicate poverty” – by whom of course by Governments!  

Any planning commission or poverty eradication team or any team concerned, argues that they can accomplish their stated objective of ‘ERADICATION OF POVERTY’ only if there is economic boom – they don’t state this blatantly; they phrase it as in the first para. 

First this mentality of able to achieve a result only if the picture is rosy should be deleted – especially with government bodies. If only funds were allocated on time; if only the World Bank had given more; if only it had rained in Bangladesh; blah, blah, blah…. 

Competitiveness & Effectiveness (I am not talking about efficiency) will come only if the concerned bodies are mandated to work on ZERO BUDGET. (I would be very much interested to know their side of story in detail) 

(If at all a study is done to understand the correlation between budget allocated & effectiveness of the team, we would understand the impact. Until then notional budgets would be allocated & notionally the team would work!)

Limited Edition CSR!

Today in papers we would have come across the Government wants more CSR and also asked the corporates to check the amount of profits they are generating (I have paraphrased and this is my understanding). Corporates are established to do business and generate profits – they do so by being competitive (I addressing only Private corporations). Their main focus is to please customers & investors through quality products / service and good returns, respectively. A corporation’s core competence is to run their business profitably and they should concentrate only on that. Taking care of society at any given point of time is the Government’s job. Just because the other party is doing well in their field we cannot expect or thrust them to share the responsibility to care for the society.  

What is wrong if Top executives get exorbitant amount of salary or benefits? Is there anything wrong in getting benefits for doing a good job? Won’t the Government or party expect itself to be re-elected for the next term if it does a good job in the present term? If this is not wrong, then giving exorbitant amount of salary to top executives is not wrong. 

It seems someone has to be clear about the collective job description!

 

Just a thought in H.O.T!

 

P.S:- Be careful my dear said a policy maker to his understudy “Ambiguous words have a nature of becoming policies”

A creeper’s attitude

When we were kids in school, our teacher taught us about different kinds of plants – creepers and trees were some of them. A creeper is one which has all the qualities of a tree but has to creep on to something to grow tall. This article is about such attitude in humans – A creeper’s attitude i.e. lack of self-reliance!

Now-a-days, we are looking for the AWE in the eyes of people who hear where we work – it could be Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Infy, Intel, Honda, Microsoft, Northrop etc. This is not only with whom you work but also what clothes we were, what watch we wear for the evening party and the list goes on – instead of what we are from inside! This has become the trend.

We have started attaching so much importance to the brands with whom we are associated with, that over a period of time we have lost the one important thing called ‘I’ or the individuality. [We are not we are through associations – period]

We hesitate to be an individual and don’t want to show those qualities. The herd mentality is too heavily etched in our mind. We want to be perceived to be someone based on association and we don’t want to be perceived as what we are!

Where has this lead to? No reliance on the SELF, no awareness about oneself, too much of dependency and Beggar’s Attitude. We seek something we like, we beg for it and we don’t earn it with our worthiness for it!

[We want a luxurious life (we cry for a Dollar job or a soul selling job), we want a great career growth (we beg for the booming project in the company) - we want a great night after a tough day (we beg the spouse!) just kidding – we want to win the love of a girl or a guy (we beg and plead or even worse!)]

One of the important reasons for this Creeper’s attitude & Beggar’s attitude is that we have been trained or CONDITIONED by the society to be reactive to the environment and not be the environment on our own. If we learn to be the environment on our own, in my opinion one would see much greater heights!

People, we are TREES from within and we can stand tall on our own and don’t have to depend on other things to LIVE ON. We are not CREEPERS!

Toothpaste for girls!

I have been paying more attention to advertisement now-a-days and it is quiet interesting! In the process I have become an ‘Adophile’ (Ad-O-Phile’)!  

This wacky idea of ‘Toothpaste for girls’ came up when I was watching Clinic Plus Shampoo ad for MEN! Before I pen down this wacky idea, I wanted to check if there had been any such product (crazy man!). Yup, there had been a product from Colgate in 1999; a toothpaste for young girls. It was branded or co-branded with Barbie – COLGATE BARBIE toothpaste! 

But apart from this product, I could not locate any product which was meant for girls. I think the days are not far – we have every segment tailored to girls from health care to skin care so why not dental care! 

It would be really interesting to see the ads for this product! Will it be in the same lines as “GUYS FALLING FOR THESE GIRLS ONCE THEY TALK….” – most of the ads are based on this theme only!  

Let me wait and watch! (There should be some reason why HLL and P & G are waiting!)

Ads & positioning

DERMI KOOL SOAP 

We have seen line extensions, brand extensions and this Dermi Kool is one such thing. I guess people want to replicate J & J’s success in their companies. I appreciate the wishful thinking but what about the results! Dermi kool powder is a popular brand in prickly heat segment and this soap has also been positioned in the same line. If they had wanted to position it as a seasonal product, then they have done an OK job!Further comments in future columns!

HONDA UNICORN 

This new advertisement is a serious waste of money for two reasons 1) the ad is very bad 2) the so called NEW UNICORN is a mere sticker job and for that the company wasting several lakhs! Instead they could have spent this money in PD!

Hero Honda Karizma – Please refer to the case of UNICORN – same sticker job and money wasted on ad!

BAJAJ Discover & Pulsar

BAJAJ bike stable is getting crowded not with bikes of different characters but with variants of same bike. I don’t know at this point of time whether it is good or bad to have this strategy. Also from the amount / kind of ads they are doing, I understand they are concentrating strongly on more profitable segment of POWER BIKES. It is quite understandable but should they have bikes clustered like this – Discover 125, 135. Pulsar 150, 180, 200 and the upcoming 220.

Will post my comments soon!

SUN TV lost something!

Is SUN TV losing it’s sheen as a creative entertainment channel? And has Start network’s VIJAY TV taken over young people’s mind?

Ok, let us look at the kind of programs SUN TV would telecast today [Tuesday]

Hrs       Program                  Genre [~ - break]

~

0930     Raja Rajeswari       Mega serial

1000    Comedy time           Comedy

1030    Ninaivugal               Mega serial

1100    Surya                       Mega serial 

1130    Bandham                 Mega serial

1200    Naanayam               Mega serial

1230    Chellam….              Mega serial

1300   Paasam                     Mega serial

~         Movies

1700   Kutties Choice         For kids

1730   My dear bootham    Mega serial – for kids

1800   Muthurtam               Mega serial

1830   Kasthoori                 Mega serial

1900   Anandham               Mega serial

1930   Malargal                  Mega serial

2000   News                       Mostly political

2030   Anjali                      Mega serial

2100   Kolangal                 Mega serial

2130  Arasi                       Mega serial

2200  Lakshmi                  Mega serial

2230  Suryaa                     Mega serial

2300  Music

There are approximately 17 mega serials that are being telecasted. A whopping 17 mega serials in a day! Sun TV had gained popularity (when it was launched) because of its unique quality programs which were different from Doordharsan programs. It was this spirit that helped Sun TV gain No. 1 position but look what it is doing now – it is coming out with program after program for people above 35 or 40 years! It is fine if this is want Sun TV wants to be known for!

K TV is also not a channel with creative programs – dominated by movies it is more of SUN Movies!

Sun Music – Just OK!

Whereas when we look into Star network, they are coming out with more reality shows which are appealing to all ages. Though Star Vijay takes-up everything from parent network, it is doing a good job. Its programs are gaining popularity like anything especially among young viewers and also among other age groups!

In my opinion, what happened to Doordharsan might be in the offing for Sun TV – if it doesn’t take necessary action! May be this time the fight may be fiercer! It would be interesting to watch how things proceed!

In Tamil we have a saying “Alavuku meerinal amirdhamum nanju” meaning “Too much of Amrudh can become poison”. A lesson which I want to gather is, a company could have striked success with its product, but for it to keep growing it is not supposed to exploit the same product (or formula) for a long time whereas it should be continuously innovating itself – a good example would be APPLE (not APPLE COMPUTERS any more). [MBA guys, you may relate this to STARS, COWS, DOGS & Question mark]

Cheers guys! Jus a thought in H.O.T.!