e Magus

About 8 years back, I wrote an analogical article about Kung Fu Panda and digital marketing (you can read it here ). That time my kid was 3 years. Now my kid is 11 years old. As all growing kids do, he too has out-grown the Kung Fu Panda-The Lion King phase. His current fascination is The Star Wars. I guess, by now, he must have finished watching at-least 3-4 times….The Star Wars Saga - the original, sequel, and prequel trilogies, animated series, The book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, and even the Thrawn trilogy books. The next on his wish list is to own an original lightsaber… Kids are demanding! Well, this article is not about my kid or his love for Star Wars. Working from home and watching these movies along with my kid, this is about my thoughts on what Star Wars can teach us about marketing, or more importantly what marketing tips Yoda can teach “Do or do not. There is no try.” We all know that planning is very important when it comes to any campaign/project. But every great pl...

I’ve this habit of re-reading books - classics in fiction/novels, etc; or books on fundamentals when it comes to business/marketing/management. The wonderful thing about re-reading such ‘classics’ are that you will unearth something new or you’ll start looking at the known things in a different perspective, because the context might have changed since the last time you read. One of the recent books I revisited was the JWT Planning Cycle Fundamentals (?) By Stephen King - The 70’s printed bible for all strategists and planners in advertising & communication agencies. While the Stephen King book would have laid the fundamentals of modern day planning when it comes to branding, I think the seed for this thought was sown around 4th century B.C by the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle. I came to know about the similarities while reading a Harvard Business Review article on Aristotle and the art of persuasion. In his treatise, Rhetoric, Aristotle, goes on to give an overview and then de...

I’ll never get tired of saying this - writing is tough but getting into the mood to write is tougher, and what to write is toughest. Today, after a long time, I’ve decided to address the tough, tougher, and toughest. I’ve been working on a lot of data related stuff the past few months. I can safely assume basis the data analysis, that Mr. X from Company A is interested in Product/Solution M & N. Also, looking at the frequency, recency, and additional time spent on the website, I think Mr. X from Company A is looking to buy this or similar solution at the earliest. Superimpose this data with data from other sources, I can closely guess his potential budget, the competitors he is reviewing, etc. This made me wonder, why do people like Mr. X (and I too) leave our digital footprint around, some times unknowingly but mostly knowingly.   I keep coming across tons of articles about data privacy and how easily we share personal data or how easily there is inter-portability of personal...

Well, everyone has their own experience and realisations during the 2020 lockdown. I have mine too. They are basic stuff. Hopefully they are useful too. Your hair does not grow as fast or as bad as you think There is more your home needs than what you want Your kids are way smarter than you think There is more junk in your house than you realise Washing hands frequently is actually a good habit - pandemic or not Don’t overwater your plants You can live without your morning newspaper It takes 3 months to build a routine Don’t let the kitchen sink pile up The songs in your iPod/tapes/CDs/LPs are far better than the songs in any streaming playlist.  You needn’t stop smiling just because you are wearing a mask. Life still goes on Cheers! Santosh

Few months back during the pandemic lockdown, a new colleague joined us. The entire on-boarding and introduction happened online. In fact, even today the regular interactions are happening virtually. The more I keep thinking about this new way of working, the more I’m convinced about the importance of internal marketing & employee branding. The stuff neither the marketing folks at client side and the agency folks are least interested in.   The future of work will change due to Covid19 pandemic. Whilst many offices may go back to normal way of working, many others will shift towards a new way of working. Some will still continue to work remotely (Home), some will go back to working from office, while practicing social distancing (work bubbles)… In short, EX ( Employee Experience ) will no longer be about close proximity working, but rather about Distributed Working . Traditionally, employee branding involved lot of high touch activities. Being in the office physically, exposure...

Internet, they said, was an ocean (or cloud) of knowledge. The Net was invented for free and smooth transfer of information, thoughts and ideas. But somewhere along the way came algorithms, data collection, & AI and now we are being served information conforming to our likes, interests and digital behaviours. The more we use the Net, instead of swimming in an ocean of knowledge, we sit inside an echo chamber confirming our own biases. Let’s take the 3 common use cases we engage on the Net - reading news, social media, and search (for information) engine Discovery of news on the Net happens mostly through aggregator platforms like Google News or through the home pages of the news portals. Apart from the top/latest News, have you ever noticed sections that mention - News for you, top picks, etc? These are News articles that is shown to you basis the past content that you’ve consumed. Ah! Social Media, the favourite waste of time for most of the digital natives. We spends hours chatti...

source: rappler.com Many brands are joining the ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign, against advertising on Facebook, until the social media platform does something substantial to stop the spread of hate speeches, racial abuse, and fake news. As of last count there were more than  1000 marketers  who signed up for the boycott, including news-worthy brands like The North Face, Patagonia, Coca-Cola, Verizon, Starbucks, Microsoft, Unilever, Ford, etc.  But, is there more to it apart from the hate speeches and racial abuses that brands are concerned about?  Here are few of my thoughts: Shooting the messenger syndrome Perception Management The (in)effectiveness of advertising on social media Firstly, I think the issue is similar to proverbial, shooting the messenger. Facebook is not the content creator. It is the users. Facebook is only a platform where different people voice different opinions. Yes, some of these opinions are false, decisive, and da...