Dream11 - A huge opportunity

With more IPL games, i am falling in love with this jingle from Dream11's new TVC. Did you notice that soft music timed well with the brief emotional story about people who do anything for cricket?

Over the years, the TVC campaigns for Dream11 have moved from explaining the concept (how to play on the app and win money) to now celebrating cricket - India's biggest religion.

And with Dhoni's star power backing the brand and the way Dhoni is performing, its certainly getting larger participation from end customers (reported 50 m users)  and also evident from its newly found Unicorn status.

And i guess, there are huge tailwinds to the platform, given 3 potent factors of  indian cheap data savvy youth population, increasing ecommerce transactions and overall India's Cricket obsession.

There are other me too apps for betting on sports but by far, dream11 has emerged as a leader with right brand ambassador, early mover advantage and spending on advertising. That too, the advertising is moving in the right direction for developing the brand as a leader expanding the user-base by celebrating cricket.

Space to watch out! #dream11 #cricket #dhoni #tvc

Checkout the video here -

https://lnkd.in/fq8gXJz

Book Review - The Everything Store by Brad Stone

This book i picked up to understand the history of Amazon, the company i work for now. Its a fantastic long read for anybody who wants to understand the evolution of this startup into a behemoth of today; it takes the readers through this time travel of 2 decades with detailing and gives a peek into the intriguing mind of its founder - Jeff Bezoz.

The biographer, Brad Stone has done significant research on why Amazon is where it is, and what factors, events and values contributed to this journey and continues to.

For me, as a new-joinee to a company which is know by its peculiar culture; the book really portrays the background on why this culture is like that.

Whether its the leadership principles of Amazon or its peculiar practices of using a 6 pager doc vs a presentation or why meetings start as a study hall where everyone reads silently or why there are PRFAQs made or why 1  empty chair in a meeting...its all answered there!

I personally liked the ways of a founder on how to create a culture that is a photocopy of how he thinks. And like a great learner, he has picked up a few values from the books he read or values from other companies into those leadership principles.

Its a great read for anybody who either wants to know about Amazon or who wants to know how to define the culture of a new company.

Some of the key things i didnt know before i read the book about Amazon -

1. Bezoz is an avid fiction/non fiction reader and has done changes in business strategy once he read a book.
2. Bezoz during tumultuous times of 2001 meltdown wrote something like 'I am not my stock price' on his whiteboard in office.
3. Bezoz tore a reciept of a team meal after paying saying that i am not going to claim it from the company, to stress principle of frugality.
4. Bezoz's way of negotiating while acquiring zappos or Quidsi is quite tough.
5. He is quite driven by future and has taken long term bets on projects which might appear science fiction at start. Thats a stark difference from other companies.
6. How Amazon safeguards the interests of customers by negotiating hard with vendors/partners.
7. How kindle happened and Bezoz delayed the launch till the ebook universe is at least 10000 ebooks.
8. How he saw future and converted Amazon into a technology company from an e-retailer.

Its a great read! Go for it.

Brand Integrations and Bollywood Movies

After a while, seen a movie where brand integration and #product #placement was natural without disturbing the viewers and gells well with the brand thought of #USHA sewing machines. Sui Dhaga.

The story in itself deals with a tailoring and handicraft community and thus makes sense for the brand in the same category to attach with it. The brand thought of enabling people to create what they dream is evidently clear in the storyline of the movie.

And sprinkle the brand name in dialogues or product shots when the lead uses it is very well done.

I dont think, i have seen such a strong integration in recent times in #bollywood.

And the setting of the movie in a small town in my hinterland (MP) add to the appeal to the masses (target #consumer). And with movie's initial good performance, i think its a good investment by the brand.

And to talk about real #disturbing and #funny product placement, watch this song of a 1991 salman movie (all brands are present here from colgate, old spice, amul and so on..) and its damn funny! Watch it here, dont miss. (https://bit.ly/2NWIi28)

#marketing #brand #integration #suidhaga

Beards and Acquisitions

Colgate-Palmolive buys 14% stake in Bombay Shaving Company

This news caught my eyes, as why #Colgate is taking over a company with 16 cr of annual sales; that too in a company called Bombay Shaving Company. I mean, i see most people sporting beards these days; who shaves?

And then i realized from stats that its true. That the trend of beards is here, the shaving razors vol is growing by 6% vs 18% a few years ago. Though, a new category of beard care products like wax, oils etc is growing by 16%. I guess, even trimmers industry must be growing exponentially.

And that is the reason, most of men FMCG companies are buying or developing porfolio in this space. Be it #Marico buying stake in #Beardo or #Wipro consumer investing in Happily Unmarried (#Ustara).

And why not. Most of popular men in india are in the beard club. Be it Men in blue lead by #kohli (i guess 80%, follow the captain and have beards), bollywood actors (#Ranveer Singh)and models in advertising, all are in sync with this trend. And social media throws at you enough content on beard care, styling and so on.

Its been more than 1.5 yrs now, i havent shaved as well!

#consumer #trends

4 stages of Life - Where r u?

What is #life? A continuous #movement from one #stage to another? Which stage you are in? What are you trying to accomplish? Why are you #running so hard? To get somewhere? Or to run away from somewhere? Whats your life #purpose?

One of my favourite author of 'The subtle art of not giving a f*ck' - Mark Manson puts it interestingly on his blog; that life is composed of 4 stages -

1. #Mimicing - We mimic others to learn from other - parents, teachers to society. Resultant effect is that we discover, we are not good ourselves and keep looking for social approvals. Lasts till early adulthood.

2. #SelfDiscovery - With adulthood, our conquest to discover ourselves begins. And we hit & try, and experience and soak in as much as we can to find a meaning. What we are good at? What is my life's mission? Good or bad learnings. What u should do and  what not & so on. Lasts till late thirties.

3. #Commitment - This is rightly so the golden period. U discovered what u r good at. And realize that time is limited. U focus & build ur life's work there. Lasts till retirement.

4. #Legacy - This is last stage where u realized time is close. And rather than building, u should pass the life's essence to others as legacy.

#Think about it. Hard.
#mustread
Blog - https://markmanson.net/four-stages-of-life

Amazon Prime Vs Flipkart Plus ?

Being a loyalty program creator myself, it is exciting news that one of the best loyalty programs of the world (#Amazon #Prime) is getting some competition from its prime competitor in India, #Flipkart.

Flipkart is now launching Flipkart #Plus wherein they have roped in benefits from #BookMyShow, #Makemytrip and content from #Hotstar. Apart from that, obvious benefits of faster delivery/exciting deals/free shipping etc.

However, its a moot point that whether a consumer will enroll in Plus to get discounts at BMS or MMT? Is this benefit unmatchable or even required? A loyalty program needs to create special experiences for consumers which cant be matched by anybody else.

Amazon Prime with its original content like Breathe or Inside Edge is simply unmatchable (except netflix). A hotstar cant even stand in competition to that.

And Amazon Music with its ad free music also cant be matched even with saavn/gaana (with ads). Thats another unmatchable benefit.

An indian consumer anyways enjoys points/discounts at BMS/MMT, there is nothing new there.

Plus on paper is on a backfoot vs Prime. And thats why its not paid. Its free. How it fares, Time will tell.

#consumer #ecommerce #loyalty #crm #marketing

Book Review 4 - Give & Take by Adam Grant

Just finished my 4th book of 2018 - Give and Take by Adam Grant. This book is an interesting view on relationships in life with people and how patterns emerge in 3 types of people - Takers, Matchers and Givers. Takers are always driven by thier own selfish motives, trying to get to the top by powering  themselves over others. Givers are those people who help, mentor others; who take interest in others' worlds to better and overall pull everybody up. Matchers are people who give and take in equal amounts with a propensity to match. The obvious hypothesis is that Givers are the last ones on the success ladder.

The book challenges that hypothesis with real life examples from Startup capital to hollywood; and discusses learnings on how givers excel everywhere. It systematically discusses the benefits of giving and pitfalls to avoid to become a 'successful giver'.

Some key gems from the book -

1. Givers dont network like networkers do at networking events. They have a genuine desire in contributing to others and thus thier networks are stronger. The quality of conversations lead to depth of relationships which they tap at any point of time. And as the interactions are genuine, even dormant ties when reconnected lead to poistive outcomes vs takers who sort of burn bridges. Eg Adam Rifkin, rated as largest networker on linkedin.

2. Givers are so genuinely interested in helping others; when they work in a team they dont have a 'claiming' desire; thus they give collaborate well with others. Takers on the contrary again in a desire to move ahead, do it once and people dont want to work with them again. Thus, the power of collaboration takes them much ahead even in occupations dealing with innovation, creativity or medical surgeries etc. Eg. George Meyers, man behind Simpsons.

3. Givers practice powerless communication at times to connect with audiences vs takers powerful speeches. The audience find them normal human beings with some flaws and somebody who listens more, making them open up well vs a deft speaker delivering speeches like a monologue. The book talks about several examples from sales where givers were top achievers because client felt safe with them. They felt that the salesman has a genuine desire to help rather than powerful fleecers or takers.

4. Despite these huge benefits, where givers fail is that they get 'used' extensively like doormats by takers or they burnout while indulging in selfless service. Its when the author brings about ways to avoid these pitfalls. 

He suggests Reciprocatory Rings as a method to deal with takers or matchers. He says takers avoid ditching people when their reputation is on the line or the act is in public. Takers show helping behavior if they are shown doing it. Thus, author suggests to have open help sessions where a person asks for help and volunteers have to raise hands to help. And as a rule everybody has to help at least one. 

5. Another pitfall is burnout out of excessive giving on account of selfless service character. Here Givers need to be 'Otherish' which means a behavior where you help but also enjoy and take care of your interest as well. This develops when u get driven by something which is good for ur individual success but also is must do for others. Eg. As a giver, you might not want to achieve ur own target in sales but help others as u dont want that much money. Givers switch off and loose out here. However, if u also think about ur family and thier needs, suddenly u dont feel guilty but motivated to achieve ur target. Thats 'otherish' behaviour.

Its a very good book on behavior and people who deal with people on a daily basis, its a must read.

Apple in world's most challenging yet fastest growing economy - India

Given, #Apple is in its difficult moments in India, from the market share numbers becoming half within a yr, its a classic dilemma for a #luxury product to choose between -
1. Higher #volume strategy at cost of discounts on old models and democratise the brand, and in the process of making it affordable, take off its 'inaccessible' luxury tag
2. Higher #profitable low volume strategy with fixation on insane pricing to keep it only for chosen few.

With huge chinese competition from likes of #Oneplus or even #Samsung,  offering near similar specs at one third price; the #marketshare has halved and is declining, though volumes are steadily increasing (though less than market growth rate).

At this juncture, answers might lie in the history and origins of the brand. Is it like an IBM or not? It started with innovation as the centrepiece of its strategy, breaking the conventions.

In recent times, #Apple with its 10 or even 7,8 versions has been incremental changes on the same base level. The brand needs a new breakthrough to surpass competition once again...and with the culture put in by great #SteveJobs, it sure will. But it has to go back to its roots. #Disrupt.

A phone that can be a lot more than a phone? Or less? Why such big screens that dont fit in pocket? Project and work? Less radiation, more life? Its an apple, it gives #life!
#marketing #consumer #apple

Artificial Intelligence going Fashion Street

Watched a movie recently, MoneyBall wherein a baseball manager starts picking his team basis results of a computer algorithm created by a geek. And then the team wins successive matches and sets a record for successive wins in the history. And its a true story.

I wondered how come computer algorithms can predict success so much that coaches/selectors who have played the game for years start becoming irrelevant. People who have been there and have gathered that knack of identifying the hidden potential, can be replaced for the better, efficient and faster Artificial Intelligence driven programs.

However, this is getting real and real today. In my industry of fashion too. Yes, an industry which runs on WGSN trends and worldwide fashion walks trends with hordes of designers and fashion pundits and critics giving thier magical crystal ball predictions of future trends and fads. And all the fashion magazine editors, and retailer feedbacks and planners' output will get replaced with what a piece of code can do. And its here. Now. I digged a little on this and found its happening in India as well.

Closer to home in India, ecommerce companies are having a huge gold mine of data of consumer purchase as well as browsing before purchase. Myntra for example has launched multiple brands like Moda Rapido and Here&Now where the design are predicted basis software's suggestions after mining thier database (together as Myntra, Jabong & Flipkart, they claim 70% online fashion market share) as well as crwaling some thousands of fashion blogs and feeds of social media platforms like instagram. Called as Rapid, this technology would come up with a list of attributes: types of collars, sleeves, cuts, colours and other features currently popular with customers and suggest designs to make.

And they claim huge improvements in sell thru(s), so much so that bulk of thier private labels will start working on AI based trends now.

And then there are global players like Amazon using AI-fashion integration by developing an AI fashion designer. The algorithm learns about a particular style of fashion from images, and can then generate new items in similar styles from scratch.

As per online news articles, i found that an Indian designer brand is using IBM’s cognitive tool Watson to map the future of Bollywood fashion by combining analysis of over 600,000 images of fashion runway shows and Indian couture.

In US, a fashion brand called StitchFix, is solely created out of AI predicted designs for different kinds of customer. The styling service has algorithms to predict what styles people of which profile prefer.

Wow! And imagine the impact in terms of how AI can help brands and retailers with predictive forecasting, capacity planning and merchandising. Issues of unsold inventories, deep discounting, 4-6 months of design to inventory cycle, all getting solved by AI.

How paradoxical it is now. Something as creative as fashion is now predicted by a machine! Is it like a victory of geeks over the fashion pundits? Time will tell.

I am an engineer by the way!

Sources - https://www.livemint.com/AI/tdxtlGYRklB16h8rWj7A2H/How-Artificial-Intelligence-is-empowering-designers-in-India.html

https://www.livemint.com/Companies/tchtq74FOkMM43szMIHh0M/At-Myntra-machines-tell-designers-how-to-make-clothes.html

https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/how-algorithms-are-threatening-fashions-white-collar-jobs

Mobile Wallets - A source of valuable data for e-Retailers

Movement towards Mobile #wallets and complete digitization is on its way. Post #Demonetization, now there is month on month drop in ATM transactions and cash withdrawl while usage of wallets and card transactions are growing.

Consolidation is on cards in wallets space as biggies jostle for acquistions of fintech players. From #paytm, #freecharge, #mobiqwik to #amazonpay and #phonepe. Post consumer acquistion thru cashbacks, now players are pumping money into offline retail space where paytm's reach is unmatchable.

And to acquire large number of merchant POS to enable forced adoption of a wallet; there will be more partnerships of the likes of #zopper. May be partnerships in space of loyalty aggreggators like capillary, quicksilver, easyrewards which have large POS reach with these wallet players will pave the way for next chunk of transactions acquisition.

And its evident with monies being  pumped in India by likes of #Flipkart/#Amazon. Why not? #Payment is key to #Purchase as well as #POSdata leading to insights in buying behaviour and patterns to create better #selection making the commerce efficient and profitable.

No wonder why wallets space is so hot; and ATMs are dying. See all 3 news in one place; telling the #story of #money getting #digital.