e Magus

It’s Diwali time, and most brands release festival films that aim to capture the spirit of the festival, their brand essence, and oodles of emotions in their storytelling. One such film I came across is the new Parle G Biscuits Diwali ad (link here ). The film tries to revive cherished memories of traditional Diwali celebrations, which are often lost in today’s ‘instant’ world. Yet, the brand fit feels forced, especially with the image of a boy carrying a pack of biscuits that stands out awkwardly. And somewhat abruptly, the ad transitions into a message about finding happiness in the happiness of others. But, looking at the YouTube comments and the number of views (13+ Million in the last count)…the film seem to pull the right chords. What struck me, however, was an unspoken idea the ad triggered—the idea of waiting. Maybe my recent article on the ‘weight’ of communication subconsciously resurfaced, nudging me to reflect on how we are losing the fine art of waiting. Waiting, once an ...

An ecommerce site design is the ultimate test for UX, because, unlike corporate websites or portals, the entire business model hinges on the ability of the website to sell the products it hosts. Most website designs are built on the basic principles of - categorization, searchability, findability, relevance, cross-sell up-sell opportunities, product information, easy check-out etc. While these principles do hold good for successful design of any ecommerce website and are necessary, I think adding on 2 more components to your UX strategy would make the website design far more effective. One is based on the basic human behaviour and the Second based on experiences in real life Other than the fulfillment of a want or a need, we also shop to possess. Act of possession (for food, security) etc has been one of the earliest occupation of human societies. Some where down the lane, the division of labour happened, where men were predominantly working as Hunters & women as Ga...

When most us read or write about marketing predictions, it generally revolves around the penetration, usage, or suggested innovation and adaptation to existing model/behaviour. But, here, I wanted to focus more on the tec(h)tonic shift in terms of usage and patterns in Digital Marketing. Why I call it tec(h)tonic shift is because there is going to be a large-scale impact as we go along, these shifts are continuous, and these shifts are not overtly visible. The 4 major shifts are: From Information to Emotion From E-commerce to Experience From Email to Mobile From Perennial to the Ephemeral  From Information to Emotion: The Internet has always been about sharing & searching for information. In fact, till about few years ago, Internet was know as Information Superhighway & in most organizations website and other digital properties were in the purview of IT (Information Technology) department. Social media, nay, Facebook has changed the usage of the ...

If people are shifting time from watching television to Facebooking, it has nothing got to do with social interactions and keeping in touch with their network… it is just that they get to replay what they are used to seeing on the television. Mostly I feel, Facebook is nothing but television in a new avatar. Like in television you have various channels and programmes that are categorized into various genres. Similarly you’ll find people in your network who fall into such genres Here are a dozen of media archetypes, I’m sure, you’ll find in your Facebook network too The Newsreader: Breaking News!!! You heard it first here! Be it Qantas grounding their entire fleet worldwide…or the local Metallica concert getting cancelled. They want to the first to make a mention of it. No point of view, or any other description; just the headlines and link to the source news website. Usually, such people have their twitter feeds connected to their Facebook Updates. These types are one of the most ...

Facebook is just not about connecting people who work, study, and live around them. The impact of Facebook is much more than just connecting, or killing time, or increase in data/Internet usage. The best yardstick to understand the importance of Facebook is that every marketer wants Facebook as part of their marketing plan. Trust marketers to know what works and what is impactful or not :-) Broadly, the impact of Facebook on the users and the society can be categorized into 3 types - Material, Behavioural, and Cultural Material: The material impact of Facebook is all about increased consumption and buying. There is an artificial need that is created by the Facebook offerings in terms of its default features or the popular third party applications. Couple of popular consumption/buying pattern that I see amongst my friends on Facebook is in terms of purchase of Cameras (especially high end cameras) and the increase in travel. While there could be various reasons for the increased ...