Renewing My License

Necessity is the mother of invention, Euclid is the father of geometry and marketing is the bastard child of mass production. While relationships may change quicker than Kingfisher Airlines’ fall from grace in this age of social networking, these are some of the age-old ones that have stood the test of time. Apart from this simplistic relationship, however, everything in marketing, like life and fashion, is all about change.

Last week, I renewed my ‘branding/marketing person’s’ license by making a trip to small-town and rural Andhra Pradesh. For those of you not clued in to FMCG marketing, one cannot truly be considered a marketing person until you’ve made a few visits to the rural areas to understand what the real market is all about, feel the pulse of your customers, see the other India, that sort of thing. In the brilliant movie ‘In the Loop’, there is a scene where someone accuses General George Miller of not being a real soldier, on account of the fact that he hasn’t really gone into battle, and only does the strategizing bit in Washington. General George’s indignant reply was “What, just because I haven't shot someone in fifteen years, I'm not a soldier? You know, the Army doesn't make you drag some bullet-ridden bloody corpse into the Pentagon every five years to renew your soldier's license!” It’s a bit like that in marketing – you have to renew your license every few years, else you’re unlikely to be taken very seriously.

A rural visit, then, gives you the required ‘street cred’ that adds weight to your suggestions in one of those meetings that decide what to do with the brand. You may make a perfectly valid observation such as “But surely, consumers are not going to react too well to the fact that you’ve increased your price from Rs 25 to Rs 30, even if you try to put a positive spin to it by heavily advertising the fact that your product is now ‘Rs 30 only’!” But if you haven’t gone to the market, you’ll be accused to talking through your hat, “Listen, I’ve been to the market and spoken to the consumers, and they all wholeheartedly agree that they’d rather pay Rs 30 than Rs 25 – they’ll feel that the product is much more premium that way, and it’ll add to their outward sense of self-expression and projection if they pay more for the same product. They will be the envy of all their neighbors. This is the best thing we could possibly do for them.” At the same time, you’ll have no choice but to accept as fact something that may seem blatantly ludicrous “What do you mean, consumers won’t care if we provide a free clutch plate with their packet of salt? Have you been to the market – everyone wants to own a car, and what better way to get them started than by providing them a free clutch plate? Trust me; this is going to blow the competition out of the water! Free clutch plates – they’ll never know what hit them!”

But cynicism aside, of course there’s a lot to learn from such trips and they’re always interesting. Needless to say, I shall not be getting into all that on account of it being work-related and would therefore be insufferably boring for most people, added to the fact that it’s confidential. Not confidential in a “these are vital state secrets critical for the survival of humanity hence this message will self destruct in five-four-three-two-one” sense, but confidential nonetheless. Thankfully, there are a few other things about the trip worth writing about, so I shall delve straight into that.

The first surprise came with the knowledge that the first place I had to go to, Rajahmundry, actually had an airport! The airport building might have been smaller than some of the posh houses you’d find in the rich localities of most Indian metros, but it was a fully-functional-during-the-daytime sort of airport nonetheless. Realizing my folly of having underestimated Rajahmundry, some quick Google research made me figure that Rajahmundry was:

1. As a matter of fact the 4^th largest city in Andhra Pradesh.
2. A city!!! (see point 1)
3. The ‘cultural capital’ of Andhra Pradesh (no further explanation on this cryptic comment was forthcoming, though)
4. A place of great religious significance on account of being on the banks of the Godavari, another river apart from the Ganga that possesses sin-washing-away properties.
5. Posh enough to have an ISKCON temple and big-time retailers such as Reliance who target the ‘second-tier’ towns, but not posh enough to have fast-food chains.

With myths about Rajahmundry being a quaint little village busted, I was sort of hoping that perhaps the claims of spiciness of Andhra food might also be exaggerated (I’m sort of sissy when it comes to dealing with spicy food) – an Andhra-ite had once told me that actual Andhra food isn’t as spicy as the Andhra restaurants in Bangalore make it out to be, and that the Bangalore restaurants just enjoy playing along with the hype around the spiciness of Andhra cuisine, due to the fact that it has over the years developed into a sort of USP for Andhra food. Sadly, though, this statement turned out to be utterly false, and my downfall was brought about by that most trusted of dishes – French fries. Over the years, French fries had sort of become a bit of a go-to dish for me – no matter how dubious the antecedents of an eatery seemed, French fries always seemed a safe bet. After all, how could one really go wrong with the fairly straightforward task of deep-frying sliced potatoes? Well, one could top it off with an enormously generous sprinkling of chilli powder, that’s how one could go wrong! While the other Andhra food I’d had before the fateful French fries experience could still be overlooked on the grounds of them being traditionally spicy dishes, the French fries episode shattered whatever hopes I’d had about the spiciness of Andhra food being exaggerated. If a person is willing to turn French fries spicy, there is no telling what lengths he could go to if he really sets his heart to the matter of cooking.

Given that I was only there for two days and there really wasn’t any time to go sight-seeing, I cannot come up with awesome travelogue type descriptions of the local scenery such as “As the golden sun gradually descended over the ghats of the Godavari, the shimmering glow of the multi-hued river seemed to cast a spell over the teeming masses that transcended all torment and tribulation and enveloped one and all in its undulating ardor”. But there was one other thing that I did notice during the trip. Now, you may have thought that numerology was largely the preserve of bored film stars who’d play around with the vowels in their name by adding or removing the odd ‘e’ or ‘i’ at periodic intervals, or start the name of their films with a particular alphabet. In Andhra Pradesh, though, every third person that owns a car is clearly a fervent believer in numerology. Every third license plate there would have a special number – a 2345, or a 777, or numbers that add up to total 7, numbers that match your goat’s grandmother’s birthday, and so on. Perhaps the only people more obsessed with numbers would be mathematicians or sales people – although in their defence it’s more of an occupational hazard. In Andhra, though, numerology seemed like a way of life – as regular in the lives of the people as the spice in their food.

Branding the Movies!

Here’s the trouble with life – shit happens. And when it doesn’t, there’s constipation, which is probably worse! Ok, now that line has absolutely nothing at all to do with this article – this is neither a philosophical ramble about life, nor does it have anything to do with the fag end of the digestive process. But I just wanted to fit it in somehow – just as the creators of Confident Casanova would’ve reacted when the Confident Group agreed to pump in some money for their new film.

Now, for those of you not aware – well, pretty much most of you, actually, Confident Casanova is the name of a new Mallu film, one that also happens to be the most expensive Mallu film EVER made. It’s the sort of name that stops you in your tracks and makes you wonder “WTF???!!!” Sure, it’s quite likely that the Casanova in question would embody confidence as one of his foremost attributes; but it still seems a little superfluous to say so upfront. It’s a bit like if Rambo was titled as “Strong Rambo”, or if the Godfather were to be named “Powerful Godfather”. After getting over the ridiculousness of the name, it turned out that the word Confident in the movie title was inserted into the name because the movie’s main sponsor was the Confident Group (a Bangalore-based real estate company).

I suppose that this sort of information can set alarm bells ringing for a lot of people and trigger off a chain of apocalyptic thoughts like “Is this what the world is really coming to? Are brands now going to take over our movies? What next – will our textbooks in schools be named after brands as well? Will brands start sponsoring religion as well? Will Leonardo di Caprio plant a brand name in my brain using the technique of inception? Is there any way we can blame this on the BCCI? Can someone please explain to me what on earth the difference between a Llama and an Alpaca is?”

Valid as such apprehensions may be, there is also the prospect of movies with bizarre plot twists that could come about as a result of the marketing chaps climbing into bed and getting cozy with the movie fellows. Rather than risking consumers’ ire by forcing their name onto a movie title, brands could use this as the latest ploy to sully their competitors’ reputations. Here are a couple of twists on some popular movies that I could think of – I’m sure many, far more interesting ideas could come about as a result of further brainstorming and introspection.

The Kingfisher Terminal

The Kingfisher Terminal features Tom Hanks essaying the role of a Bangalore IT professional. Through a strange quirk of circumstances, Hanks is stuck at the Bangalore International Airport for nearly six months, due to the fact that his flight is delayed every single day. Sometimes, just to break the monotony, his flight is overbooked. But the next available flight is never more than 10 hours later. As a result of this, it does not make sense for Tom to venture back home due to the inconvenient fact that he has taken up residence at Electronic City, which is a good 3-hour drive from the airport, and he has to report ridiculously early for an international flight.

The film casts light on the apathy of modern-day airlines towards an ordinary passenger, and how the cut-throat competition in the aviation industry has meant that customer welfare generally ranks somewhere between ‘ethical business practices’ and ‘should we allow polar bears on international flights if they’re willing to travel first-class?’ on their list of priorities.

Despite the hardships faced by Tom, though, the film isn’t one of the all-consuming, depressing sorts that might possibly drive one to the brink of inflicting grave harm upon one’s self or one’s surroundings. Rather, the film poignantly highlights the ability of the human spirit to rise above all adversities as Tom, instead of moping about or going on an abusive rampage against the customer service staff, takes it all in his stride and makes the airport a second home. While at the airport, Tom manages to make friends with the airport staff, learn the entire domestic flight schedule for no apparent reason and even have a fleeting affair with a frequent flyer! Don’t miss out on this heartwarming tale slated for release this coming Friday.

The Airtel Negotiator

A group of crazed terrorists has just taken hostage nearly 200 people in a shopping complex in Mumbai. The whole country has come to a standstill as people watch this saga unfolding live on their TV screens. The city police, the army and the NSG have all been called in as the complex is surrounded on all sides and a strategy to rescue the hostages is being plotted. The Prime Minister himself is monitoring the situation on a lot of fancy TV screens that bring him real-time updates at 7, Race Course Road, a sort of Indian equivalent to all those American disaster movies where Mr. President sits in the Oval Office solemnly surrounded by his generals and advisers and tries to save the world from the impending aliens/mutants/meteorite/nuclear war/etc.

Specially flown in all the way from the US is Samuel L Jackson, who has forged his reputation over the last couple of decades as the toughest negotiator around. BUT…BUT…as soon as Samuel L makes the call to start the negotiations, he runs out of talk time! Despite repeated pleas to his network operator that a crisis situation such as this is worthy of additional talk-time, and that he would happily settle any outstanding amount as soon as he’s done, Samuel L is informed that his request would take 48 hours to be processed. Samuel then puts his negotiating skills, along with his patience, to the ultimate test as he embarks upon a series of calls (interrupted by long spells of instrumental music) with customer service personnel while he tries to figure out a way to convince the network operator to be willing to entertain his plea at such short notice. The swagger with which Samuel had first arrived to begin the negotiations slowly starts receding and Samuel’s confidence visibly drains as the negotiations drag on for hours. Will Samuel finally be able to rescue the hostages? And more importantly, will Samuel be able to negotiate the requisite talk time from his network operator to enable him to get a shot at rescuing the hostages? To find out, catch The Airtel Negotiator, coming soon to a theater near you.