Coming Soon….

Cars :

Fiat is launching Avventura, a compact cross over vehicle. It will come in both petrol and diesel versions, with petrol 1.4 litre engine and diesel1.3 litre engine.

With Etios cross already launched by Toyota, we will have to wait and see if the Indian customers buy into the new compact crossover vehicle segment.

Mobile:

Chinese mobile maker Xiaomi partners with Flipkart to launch a range of products in India. Armed with a new website for Indian market, Xiaomi hopes to make quite a splash with its stylish phones and other accessories.

Robot Newscaster – Ushering in new age in automation

Automated processes can help deliver news — as demonstrated by the LA Times earthquake reporting algorithm — but sitting in front of a camera or audience to read it aloud is traditionally the job of a human. That may be changing — at least in Japan.

At an exhibition called Android: What is a Human? at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at the Osaka University Graduate School of Engineering Science, has unveiled his latest project: a pair of android newscasters.

The two androids take the uncanny valley form of a girl called Kodomoroid (kodomo meaning “child”) and a woman called Otonaroid (otona meaning “adult”), who can interact with humans, read the news and read Tweets in several different voices — although their silicon skin and limited facial movement makes them appear somewhat strange.

Kodomoroid and Otonaroid will become part of the museum’s collection, interacting with visitors to help collect data for Professor Ishiguro’s research into human-robot interactions. Professor Ishiguro, who has been developing robots for over 20 years, hopes that his research will help develop more intelligent robots to be used in a large range of potential roles.

Professor Ishiguro also has a robot built in his own image, which he sends overseas to give lectures, and had previously developed the Telenoid R1, a robot designed for telepresence communications, which is also on display at the exhibition.

Check out the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGaBQZ195tA#t=56

Cheers!

News courtesy : Cnet.com

 

Real Time marketing – Suarez controversy

                                                      

 

Brands showed once again that they’re hungry for any real-time marketing opportunity.

Luis Suarez, the star forward for Uruguay’s soccer team, is believed to have bitten a defender on Italy’s team during the 79th minute of their match on Tuesday. Uruguay went on to win the match, but Suarez quickly became the brunt of many jokes on social media.

Shortly after the incident, the official Twitter account for McDonald’s in Uruguay tweeted at Suarez to “take a bite” of a Big Mac if he’s hungry.

Several other brands quickly chimed in as well:

Suarez has bit players on two others occasions and could face repercussions from FIFA if it’s determined that he did it a third time.

Grace Choi – Change the world of makeup

 

                                       

3D printers have been used to create customized clothing, sneakers, and even prosthetics, but the latest innovation can be applied right to your face.

Harvard Business School graduate Grace Choi is seeking to change the way the world buys makeup via her 3D printer, Mink, which allows users to create and print any color and type of makeup using FDA-approved ink. “The inkjet handles the pigment, and the same raw material substrates can create any type of makeup, from powders to cream to lipstick,” Choi told TIME. 

Mink allows users to go head to head with the $55 billion makeup industry by having the power to harness an unlimited color palette right in their own home. Choi found that 70 percent of makeup is purchased in outlets like Walmart where mass-volume drives price but also limits color selection. For more unique colors, customers have to pay premium prices at prestige makeup stores like Sephora and MAC.

Colors can be pulled from virtually anywhere on the internet or from real life—Pinterest, YouTube videos, photos and more—via a color picker that obtains the hex code. The printer works in tandem with basic image-editing software offering users a mix of DIY and convenience. 

Choi, who debuted the printer at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York, is planning on targeting young women ages 13 to 21 with the printer, which is expected to retail for less than $200. Find out more in the video below, and let us know what you think of the potential for Mink to disrupt the beauty industry—and your beauty routine.

Click the link to see the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZHFUQiP8Q#t=374

 

Cheers ! 

 

Changing landscape for marketers.

What started as conversational tools, today Facebook, twitter, blogging and other Digital & Social Media ( D&SM)  tools have become a marketers nightmare. Nightmare I say, because from a fairly simple media planning metrics of Print, TV and radio, the media planning landscape has grown multifold with social and digital media coming into picture. Marketers have to fast adapt to this truth or perish.

If last 3-4 years were baby steps for D&SM, next 5 years are gonna make this baby suddenly into a giant. With organization re-calibrating their marketing plans to include D&SM, the role of marketing managers is going to change from “information disseminators to conversationists.”  There is also a need to re-calibrate the way marketing department itself functions. PR and Corporate communication cannot be just looked at “press release” departments. They will have a very big role to play within the marketing department.

What also changes largely is the role of CRM department. There is merit to look at customer loyalty and customer service as part of marketing instead of sales. With many a customers giving their opinions on the products/service used, through review sites and personal social media channels, the CRM department will have gear up to D&SM. So going forward at the end of any print or TV ad, the line instead of saying ” we are just one phone call away” it will say ” we are just one tweet away”. The cost reduction this can have for companies can be humongous, because they can do away from investing into call centers. This will also be a delight factor to customers as response can be immediate.

If, terms like CC, RODP, TRP has already got marketers flummoxed, D&SM has all the capacity to unnerve marketers. But, what the heck! These new challenges make a marketers life interesting.

Cheers!

Leak Marketing – Start the Buzz

 

 

 

So many of the iconic brands today are result of great products with even better marketing. Apple, Samsung, Coke, Nike. The list is long. Some of them shine post launch, but a few are exceptional, like Apple, that shine even before the launch.

From the days of Steve Jobs, Apple has used ” pre launch” phase as its best marketing tool. This kind of strategy not only reduces cost post the launch, but also creates a considerable buzz by the time the launch happens. That is why you see hoards of people queuing up at the store and lap up the product. Normally, before every launch of an Apple product, we normally see “leaked ” photos or ” leaked ” specs of the product. The most recent one being the leaked photo of Apple IPhone 6. The amount of buzz these leaks have already created for the product is phenomenal.  Here is one of the leaks of iPhone 6. http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/iphone/iphone-6-release-date-rumours-pictures-specs-features-3414914/. If these leaks are done on purpose by the marketing guys at Apple then they are geniuses.

Leveraging the power of social media, with the help of influential bloggers and twitteratis, even smaller brands can use this new marketing tool to create a buzz around their brands.

Cheers !

 

Tradigital Marketing – Bringing Digital and Traditional together.

Recently, I had the privilege of learning the basics of Fusion marketing from Lon Safko, a practitioner and teacher of Fusion Marketing. In simple terms it is fusing of the traditional marketing tools with digital marketing tools to achieve a common marketing goal. But is it really that simple? One of the key takeaways of the session was to understand how actually we can use one of the traditional marketing tools to enrich the efficacy of a digital tool. 

Lets take an example. Recently Lavasa had put up a full page ad in the newspaper about their new project. At the bottom of the ad in one corner, there was a QR code, which when scanned gave a 3D view of one of the areas of the project. This was done by linking the QR code to google street view. This is a simplest was of fusion and how one tool can be used increase efficacy of other. Similarly, we can create QR codes as links to websites, ecom sites and any other digital property that the brand has. The other trend that we are seeing is use of augmented reality (AR) to create a virtual 3D view. A simple poster, can turn into a 3D model. These are especially used by property developers in India to give a 360 degree view of their projects. Here is an example – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhLSxuQAd7w. 

So, there is no longer a dividing line today between traditional and digital marketing. Its the age of Tradigital marketing. 

Image courtesy : the socialinnovation.com

Facebook marketing – There is more to social and digital media than that.

8 out 10 marketing managers when asked about their digital media strategy, answer that they have a campaign running on FB and that they have thousands of likes on their page. With the analysis that FB provides, they also justify the cost V/s like analysis, and more often than not it really turns out to be a good ROI. But what they are missing by employing this is the real purpose of Social Media Marketing – cost v/s conversation relation.

Social media, by the virtue of its name, is meant to be social, meant to be talked about, meant to create conversations. There are many many tools that a marketer can use to create this conversation. A neatly done video highlighting the product benefit is just one of them. It  can not only help garner new audience but also help in creating a good PR opportunity for the brand. Look at this example for WestJet Airlines – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIEIvi2MuEk. Twitter is another example of hyper engagement, especially for senior pros of the company. It gives them platform to listen to their customers and involve in feedback cycle. Anand Mahindra of Mahindra is a great example of how he uses his twitter account ( @anandmahindra) to engage with customers. This also brings down the time of reaching to the relevant audiences. These are just two examples of smart engagement.

Its time for us, marketing managers, to look beyond the FB marketing, and create conversations on social media that are effective and efficient in creating a buzz about the brand.

Cheers !