Economy of Social - Social Media Tips, Marketing and Business

Marketers and advertisers who've respected and admired David Ogilvy and tried to get into social media marketing especially through Facebook pages should know one thing upfront - Till now their success in getting a million plus fans on their Facebook pages has not worked out as planned. It has been like a failed series of dates. To begin the explanation I'd like to pull a quote from the famous book, " Confessions of an Advertising Man " " The consumer is not a moron. She is your wife. Don't insult her intelligence" We have a habit of following numbers to give us an indicator of our performance. The number of likes on Facebook gave marketers the perfect fodder. They acted like unintelligible creatures that simply grazed on the green pastures of social media to get those "likes". I might sound critical or even cynical of these creatures (including being a part of the tribe) but I have my reasons. Let's understand the dynamics of Facebo...

Our education system breeds competition through things like relative grading, percentages, rewarding the best, and giving the toppers a chance to get into better institutions. If we look into this system from a Darwinian lens , the individuals best suited to their environments will survive and prosper. The only problem is that this system has a focus on survival rather than knowledge and development. If we study the human history it has evolved from sharing of expertise, knowledge and resources. This evolution wouldn't have happened if the doors of sharing were closed. Our system is competitive. It does not breed an educated individual, rather it breeds dogs and a dog never shares his bone. This system thus can never create true value. In the past century those that have created value are the ones who got a chance to be out of the system or in a system which fostered sharing and a degree of openness. Consider Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, Dhirubhai Ambani etc. Present ...

A wise man has said, luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Successful people are those who make the most of opportunities. But what is preparation? How do you know what kind of preparation is suitable for the opportunity that might come your way? The head of Harley Davidson India, Anoop Prakash gives us a good example of holistic preparation. In the last post on moving beyond education , I talked about experimenting with experiences. Anoop did the same. Annop's parents emigrated to the US in 1968. He completed his under-graduate studies from Stanford University. Then he joined the US marines and became an officer. In the marines he was one deployed to Kosovo (South eastern Europe) at a day's notice. Later on he went on to do an MBA from Harvard and later  joined McKinsey & Co. as a consultant. He then worked with George Bush administration at a time when the government was trying to recover from the housing crash. In 2009 a classmate from Harvard to...

The problem with an MBA degree/diploma today is serious and grave. Most B-schools have become a training camp that treats students like a military unit. It is giving them very little time to think and learn. The only output of an MBA program is a degree for the student. Moreover career choices after the completion of the course depends on the luck of a student to make it to a good organization. The students willing to learn are restricted by culture of the institute, a regimental schedule and a loan. I highly doubt this tradition. To top this is the new breed of B-schools treating education like a business. Will such a culture help in making leaders and effective managers ? Have they learned to think differently ?

The new Cadbury Bournville advertisement features a white man checking cocoa seeds in front of a African family that supposedly produced it. On rejection the seed starts crying. And well his imperialist buyer (The English guy) says, " He is nothing...Please tell him I am sorry ". An old African man in the family looks perplexed, and a young man in the African family simply throws the seed away from the table. The ad ends with " Only the best Cocoa from Ghana goes into making a Bournville ... Maybe that's why you have to earn it... ". This British mumbo-jumbo is a reflection into past era of imperialism that was characterized by economic dominance and exploitation. The economy of Ghana is primarily sustained by Cocoa and gold. By projecting "English dominance" and an advertisement that portrays a rich English middle aged person, a crying cocoa seed, and a poor African family, What are you trying to project? It's a complete recipe for disaster...

Can a university degree guarantee financial security? A re-look at the correlation between financial security and education. A recent popular article at The Economist prompted me to write this entry. The article bluntly says "A university degree no longer guarantees financial security". It gives the following two arguments: 1. Improvements in technology and the evolution of computers have reduced the demand in mid-level jobs 2. Jobs in medicine, law, academia that earlier guaranteed a secure future no longer continue to do so. Their point of view is correct to a certain extent. My opinion of the current educated class is no different from the popular view - "They are following a herd". And this herd is slowly being destroyed through a simple demand-supply mismatch. When the herd gets more than what is required many have to be culled or left behind. Recession and the dip following it have fomented this reduction of requirement. With growth in number of univ...

Double jeopardy is an empirical law in marketing where, with few exceptions, the lower market share brands in a market have both far fewer buyers in a time period and also lower brand loyalty. Dr. Kucuk, a researcher in marketing has come out with a new concept that probably might give the brands with a lower market share a reason to smile. In his concept of negative double jeopardy he proves that the most valuable brands attract more anti-brand sites. You can read his work here . I did my small study on Indian telecom brands and their anti content following the methodology used in his studies.Based on the data regarding anti-brand content I calculated anti-brand content per-million users for the top brands. Idea Cellular was excluded since it was not possible to get exact anti-brand activity. Brand Market Share Anti Brand Content Bharti 19.99% 33.11% Reliance 16.72% 5.96% Vodafone 16.58% 1.79% BSNL 11.31% 15.27% ...

Top 500 Chinese companies reported profits of 2.08 trillion yuan. Most of these are State-Owned . This post looks at how these big 5 Chinese enterprises that make the Great Economic Dragon create a barrier that ends up isolating them.