A Course on Integrated Marketing Communications

It is finally here! A full time course in Integrated Communications! It is really exciting to see that an institute like XIC has decided to launch a course in Integrated Communications. Being a professional in the advertising sector today, one is expected to be conversant with the IMC methods. Although the topic has been covered in various other media courses, the depth of it has never been fully explored in order that students realize its full potential and what they can achieve by the appropriate usage of the communication mix. And this need is even greater in today’s day and age where the average consumer is bombarded with more than a hundred advertisements per day. It is therefore necessary for an organization’s message to be able to penetrate through the noise and reach the appropriate target audience. In my experience it is best achieved when the organization utilizes the communication mix effectively. Horizontal, Vertical, Internal, External and Data integration is necessary so that integration goes beyond just the basic communication tools. And being one of the best in the media field, this is just what I expect the new course at XIC will succeed in doing thus once again being at the forefront of change and creating new levels of excellence in the field of education.

350 cr. For A Statue?? WTF!!

Hi guys.. I am back again after a hiatus. Its been a long while I know. And even before I begin penning my thoughts on one of the most under-rated stories in the media and by the media, let me assure you guys that I have utmost respect for Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj and rate him as one of the reasons for why we are residing in such a prosperous city like Mumbai. But lately our very own Democratic Front Government, led of course by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have decided to build a statue of Maharaj himself right in the middle of the Arabian Sea. And all this just for the sake of appeasing the voters! It is one thing to build a statue and absolutely another to build a statue which would cost our Government a whopping Rs. 350 crore. Now I was just doing my calculations as to what all the Government could have achieved with the same amount, which can lead to 100 times more effective results and following was my inference.

a) Cure 100,000 unfortunate citizens of all their diseases including cancer.

b) Educate 100,000 unfortunate children and build more schools and other educational institutions.

c) Improve the state of all sporting activities in the country apart from Cricket.

d) Remove at least 15,000 slums from Mumbai and rehabilitate their residents in well-off buildings.

e) Generate at least 10,000 jobs in the Government sector.

f) Improve the security apparatus of the city. Bring in better equipments and secure the coast guard of the city so that we do not have to face yet another 26/11.

g) Build more sea-links and fly-overs so that travelling by road doesn't remain a headache for the Mumbaikars and the rush in the local trains during peak hours remain a distant memory.

These are some of the few things that I thought the Government could have invested in instead of building the statue. Sure, the statue might turn out to be a spectacle and would bring in more foreigners to India but it really makes no sense to invest such a huge amount only for making the city look more furnished, which brings us to one question. Is this Government good enough? It has already failed us in the past when it came to security and price rise has been an issue that we are facing day-in and day-out. So then, what do we do?? Where do we go from here?? As for voting for other factions, we are not sure how that would help because we all know that each political party is out there for their own benefit. Politics, like anything else has evolved into being nothing other than business. As for the media, they too have their own interests and as expected, such an important issue has been buried under the carpet for more and more PR stories. Its such a pity that not a single publication or news channel has raised this issue or highlighted it in a big way apart from a mention here and a mention there. I just wonder what the Maharaj himself, from up there must be thinking about the wastage of money that the Government is indulging in. Perhaps, we all just have to live with it and watch the Government put in the first stone for the statue very soon.

Silent Voter Rocks The BJP Boat!

Well, there you have it! I have a feeling of "I told you so" ringing in my mind at the moment. I had predicted about a month before the elections on this very blog that the Congress led UPA will be voted back to power at the centre and that's exactly what transpired. But the one thing I was not sure about was the margin of victory and Congress' comfortable victory, with them alone winning 206 seats stunned me completely. BJP, as expected was the second best party with 116 seats, which is the by the ways a very paltry performance. Post-election, I was amazed at the way the media jumped to conclusion regarding the so-called diminishing influence of the regional parties. Experienced journalists such as Prannoy Roy and Rajdeep Sardesai were up in arms over the victory of the Congress. I have the necessary proof to conclude that regional parties still do exist in the minds of the voters. For instance, the Biju Janata Dal won handsomely in Orissa despite being a former ally of BJP. Mamta Bannerjee's Trinamool Congress also almost swept West Bengal. Janata Dal (United) led by an aggressive Nitish Kumar won Bihar with pragmatic ease. DMK was also more or less brilliant in Tamil Nadu. Samajwadi Party was the single largest party in Uttar Pradesh even though the Congress, led by the smart tactician in Rahul Gandhi powered their way to 21 seats. And as we all know by now, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, led by a resurgent Raj Thackeray spoilt the party for the Sena-BJP combine in Maharashtra by winning lakhs of votes and by almost giving a scare to Milind Deora in the South Mumbai constituency, the MNS has only gained in this election, even though they did not win a single seat. So, we all know that regional parties are still the hot favourites of the locals and the Congress still has plenty to watch out for.

As for Rahul Gandhi, I really do believe that a lot is made out by the media over him being the single most influencing factor in Congress winning handsomely. I think he did make an impact but that was limited only to a few northern states such as Uttar Pradesh. I guess in all other states, it was only Dr. Manmohan Singh who ruled the minds and the hearts of the voters. People were smart enough to figure out that in the current climate of recession, it was only the 3 smart men - Manmohan, Chidambaram and Pranab Mukherjee who could bail out the country. All 3 of them are considered to be the shrewdest of minds when it comes to managing finances and with all of them representing a single party, it wasnt difficult to know, which way the tide will go.

Congress' massive victory at the centre also gave me a feeling that people did not have much to choose from. They just did not have enough viable alternatives. Varun Gandhi's hate speech had already alarmed the people and aided them in coming to conclusions about the views of the BJP. In hindsight, the party should have sacked him before the election. BJP is not a bad party. The results may suggest so but don't forget that it was under the Atal Behari Vajpayee led BJP Government that India actually started making credible amount of progress. For instance, the construction of roads, highways and fly-overs and their consequent smooth functioning have to be credited to them. Two factors that really went against them in this elections were as earlier stated, Varun Gandhi's hate speech and projecting Narendra Modi as one of their Prime Ministerial candidate even after having a capable leader in L.K. Advani. All in all, the 2009 Lok Sabha election was a case of lost opportunities for the BJP.

The up-coming Assembly election in Maharashtra is going to be a battle to watch out for. The Congress-NCP combine has to be on its guard since the 3 year old MNS has gained massive popularity and fan following in Maharashtra and it is not restricted to the Marathi speaking population only. Even Gujaratis, Marwaris and South Indians have a liking for the MNS. The same English media who slammed Raj Thackeray for his so-called hate speeches is now following him everywhere. Coming back to Congress, the party's performance in Maharashtra has been appalling to say the least. It was under the Congress regime that 26/11 carnage took place. Power & water supply has been inadequate and unemployment has risen to extreme levels. The lesser I say about the poverty and increase in slums in the state, the better it will be. All I can say for now is that if the Congress-NCP combine wins the Assembly elections under the prevailing circumstances in the state, than I shall again be stunned to say the least. But as we have witnessed this year, the silent voter is capable enough to do that. As they say in Hindi, "Ye Public Hain, Ye Sab Janti Hain".

Law-struck Nation??

Finally the most dreaded terrorist in India, Mohammed Ajmal Aamir alias Kasab is declared as a major. However, the Indian Law and the Government has managed to baffle and stun me once again. It had earlier emerged that Kasab, who the world knows by now as the face of the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai would get away with just 3 years in jail if it would have been established that he is a minor. What that would have meant was that the dreadful killer of our martyrs such as Karkare and Salaskar would have been set free, only to receive a hero’s welcome in our neighbouring nation. What a sad day that would have been for our country! And, how idiotic is the Indian law! Even after having hordes of evidence of Kasab being a major, we still have to prove that he is a major in the court of law. And what difference does it make? The person who turned the lives of several families upside-down on that fateful night and caused mayhem on the streets of Mumbai is currently spending a paid holiday in imprisonment. He is being fed good food and taken care of with the money paid in tax by the same people who were mercilessly killed by the Pakistani terrorist. Although Kasab will eventually be sentenced life imprisonment; the law which states that if a criminal is a minor, he can get away in 3 years is a flawed one in my opinion. In fact, as we speak, the construction of the expensive bomb & chemical proof dungeon is underway in the Arthur Road jail for our newly discovered celebrity. And the latest that we know of Kasab baba is that he has demanded stuff like flavoured toothpaste, an Urdu language newspaper everyday and a perfume bottle. Perhaps, tomorrow he might even request the court to allow him to appear in a B-film opposite any of our hot sirens. I just need to know, why in the world is our Government trying to prove that ours is a fair and law abiding nation? Why are we trying to prove that India is a soft country and that young terrorists can attack us and go scot free?

I do not have to mention the response of the U.S. and most recently even Sri Lanka when their nations were attacked by terrorist organisations. In fact, so deadly was the fight back of the U.S. that terror organisations have feared attacking the proud nation after the September 11, 2001 attack. We need to learn a lesson or two from these nations. I mean, for starters, why is the Government delaying the inevitable by providing a lawyer for the accused against whom all evidences are crystal clear? For what reason, do we need to formalize clear-cut cases such as terror attacks? What for are criminals such as Kasab and Afzal Guru (accused for the Parliament attacks of 2001) pampered? I do respect the law and every nation has to abide by it as much as it can. But it has to make an exception for terrorists, no matter what their age, sex, gender, religion or nationality is. How can the law easily forget the tears of people who have lost their loved ones after every terror attack in the country? These are all unanswered questions and would perhaps remain so until the present Government takes a tough stance on terror or until a strong Government is voted to power. This is exactly one of the many reasons for which all of us need to exercise our vote so that the likes of Kasab’s are given the rightful punishment before our own eyes. Unfortunately, Mumbai hasn’t risen to the occasion. I hope the rest of the nation does. For once, I feel that the law is useless. If this is what you call ‘secularism’, than I do not wish to be known as a secular person.

Amen!!

The Curious Case of a Platform Ticket

A few evenings back, I had an interesting experience, one that I was waiting to share with those few people who happen to accidentally visit my blog. The good old friend of ours, MTNL did not allow me to pen in my thoughts on that incident. I had to rush to the railway station to deliver a forgotten baggage of a friend’s friend of mine who was on her way out of Mumbai. Due to a slight miscommunication with respect to the arrival time of the train, I was a bit late to turn up at the station. There was this huge queue for tickets as is obvious in Mumbai and the train was nearing the platform. In this scenario, the only two options left with me were to either enter the station ticketless or request somebody who was already in the queue to get a platform ticket for me. Since I was in a very panicky situation, I called up my friend for his advice on the same. True to his demeanor, he suggested that I enter the station ticketless. However, common sense prevailed and I decided to opt for the other option, that of requesting someone else to acquire the ticket for me. I took out my wallet and to my surprise and shock; I just had 2 bucks in it and I was a rupee short of the actual cost of a platform ticket. My heart sank as the train approached the platform. Realisation had struck me as it was not possible for me to deliver the baggage in the nick of time without the ticket. I was about to break the law in utter disgust & shame and rush at the platform, when a middle-aged person who was co-incidentally in the queue enquired with me, the reason for my wrecked face. After hearing me out, he volunteered to buy that important platform ticket for me. I thanked him a multiple times for his priceless gesture but I am sure no amount of gratitude is enough for his aid. 2 minutes later while I was successfully delivering the baggage to the concerned person, I was reciprocated with the same amount of appreciation that I had given out to the person in the queue. Without revealing what was in the baggage or its importance to that person, let me just say it was very crucial to her career and hence it was a surreal, satisfying experience to help her out. The one lesson that I learnt from it was that the world was not such a bloody bad place after all and there are still some people out there who are breathing to unconditionally help others out. This incident is sure to rank in my memories as one of the best of my lifetime and it will always keep me grounded in my life no matter where I go from here on.

Jai Ho, Lalit Modi!

Finally, after weeks of speculation surrounding the safety of players in India, Cricket’s biggest extravaganza, the Indian Premier League has been shifted out of India in only its second season. There was no way BCCI could have postponed the tournament as ICC’s Future Tours Progamme is choc-a-bloc for almost the entire year and there was no way that they would have managed the tournament without the Central Paramilitary forces. I am definitely not amongst those who are disappointed to see our premier domestic tournament being temporarily played out on foreign shores. There are plenty of reasons for me to justify my statement. It’s easy for us to sit on the fence and say that terrorism won and that we have been cowed down under pressure from the infiltrators or let us not be too defensive about our current security situation and say that one clichéd line that ‘India is no Pakistan’. Let us all face the truth and say that we are not a safe & secure nation anymore, not for the foreigners at least. We have all had nightmares and jitters with respect to terrorism. We all know how easily we were attacked by terrorists from across the border and I am not talking about the 26/11 carnage alone. There is no guarantee that in the future, there will be no such attacks on us (at least our Babus are not giving us any assurances). In fact, I would go ahead and say that with elections on the anvil, it is one of the wisest decisions taken by the Central Government by not providing security forces to the league and thereby forcing it to move abroad, especially in the wake of the recent terror attacks on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore. A tournament as big as the IPL is in its duration, is just not feasible at this stage. Moreover, the security of the players is not the only concern. The safety of the paying public is of paramount importance as well. I cannot speak for others but I personally would not venture out to watch a cricket match live in a stadium after watching the Lahore attack which made one thing crystal clear that no amount of security can guarantee the spectator's safety. Ours is the most passionate nation when it comes to cricket and one ghastly incident can easily change that. Lakhs of supporters will be sitting ducks for the terrorists if they were to repeat the 26/11 massacre on any of the stadiums in India. So, it is always better to keep the trust & faith of the cricket fanatics intact instead of taking the risk to jeopardize it. However, I am not convinced that security is the only issue here. I can smell some politics involved in denying the BCCI the go-ahead for staging the event.

Incapable hosts?

The failure to host IPL and General Elections simultaneously, raises some serious questions about the country’s capability to provide fool proof security to sporting events and there will undoubtedly be a lot of dented faces in the political circles after such a major failure. We are scheduled to host the Commonwealth Games next year and co-host the Cricket World Cup in 2011 and it shall come as a body blow for us as a nation if going by our inability to host a tournament of our own, both those major International competitions are also taken away from us by their respective governing bodies. So, it definitely serves as a dangerous precedent. The change in venue will also allow the opposition political parties to lash out at the Government and set their party agendas accordingly to get the voter to vote in their favour in the elections. But what comes as a relief for franchisees is that all non-Asian players who were scared of travelling to India will now participate in the tournament. It could also mean that some Pakistani players who were barred from participating in the IPL post 26/11 could also now look forward to take part in the league and the BCCI might actually allow them to participate so as to get even with the Government.

Finances hurt

Shifting the league to a foreign country would definitely force the BCCI to dig deep in their pockets and chances are that they could even incur losses as they just do not have enough time to market the event to the paying public abroad. But credit should be given to the BCCI for taking that gamble and ensuring that the league goes on. With a number of cricket playing nations vying to host the league, the BCCI has once again proven its might and the popularity of the league across the globe is sky high and we should all be proud of that. And if you ask me, an IPL at a different location is always better than No IPL given that it was such a roaring success in its debut year.

Club loyalty lost?

Unlike others, I do not feel that a sense of cricket club loyalty has been formed in India (akin to the EPL), in spite of the enormous success of the first season of the IPL. So, on that account, I am not of the view that club loyalty will be lost by watching the matches only on television. I guess it will take a few more years for franchisees to form their respective fan loyalty bases because in Mumbai last year, I saw people cheering for almost all the teams, more so the winners - Rajasthan Royals.

England or South Africa?

England and South Africa have emerged as the front runners for hosting the IPL this year. England should be the feasible option at this stage given that there is this huge sub-continental population that resides in England & Wales, particularly the NRI’s and it doesn’t require an intelligent man to say that almost all of them will be out there to support the teams. Moreover, the Twenty 20 format of the game itself was introduced by the English Cricket Board and every cricket lover out there enjoys & supports this format in their domestic competition, which is staged with lesser fanfare and modest budgets. Also, the franchisees can easily save a lot of travelling money as almost all cricket playing venues in England are close to each other, which would mean that players can travel by road rather than by air. England is also due to host the T20 World Cup, later in June and that would mean that the officials would already be geared up to host a tournament of this magnitude. And let’s just say that if U.K. can give us global recognition through Slumdog Millionaire, this is our turn to return the favour by hosting the IPL there.

And finally, kudos to Lalit Modi. He has once again proved himself as an excellent administrator and the rightful choice to lead the IPL. Way to go, Mr. Modi!

Anurag Kashyap, The Future of Indian Cinema!

I watched Gulaal, the recently released Hindi flick and was amazed to see Anurag Kashyap's depth as a filmmaker. He really has come a long way after an outstanding debut film that we all know by the title - Black Friday. Till date, I haven't seen any debut director coming out with such a fantastic first film and once for a fleeting second thought had seen the best of Kashyap. But that was not to be. Dev.D was an outstanding portrayal of the behavioural patterns of today's youth and so supremely casted and Gulaal is his best work so far. Most of us know Kashyap as a director but for those who do not know, he started off as a screen writer and wrote some of the best movies that I have seen such as Satya, Shool, Yuva, Nayak and even the under rated suspense thriller Kaun. Coming back to Gulaal, its once again very well written by Kashyap. The movie, I felt was more of an angry statement on regionalism and regional politics in India rather than a story. Also, the film tries to convey the message that although ours is a free, democratic nation, it is still ruled by a few regional Hitlers and Kashyap convincingly portrays this through Kay Kay Menon's character Dukey Bana who thrives on the 'Son-of-the-soil' campaign in the movie. I somehow, couldn't help but feel that Dukey Bana was none other than the MNS chief Raj Thackeray. To think back, Omkara, directed by Vishal Bharadwaj was a pretty similar film with regional politics as its theme, but clearly the overemphasis on Langda Tyagi took a lot of sheen out of that movie and the focus on the main plot point just wasn't there. Why Gulaal worked for me is because, even though there are many sub-plots in the movie, they are still integrally connected with the movie. Like Omkara, Gulaal too is interlaced with humorous dialogues with the choicest use of abusive words thrown in for good measure. Looking back, Anurag could have easily focused on Rananjay Singh, a very powerful character in the movie to garner box office success, but he followed his instincts and used him only as a spring board to move the story forward. He chose to give the plot more importance because the film demanded it. That is for me, the hallmark of an intelligent director.

I was dissapointed with Kashyap's No Smoking. Unlike many others, I wouldn't really abuse the movie as I felt that while the movie was a bit too over the top, his intentions in making it were sincere. Moreover, I wasn't impressed with his choice of the main lead in that movie. To expect a star like John Abraham to carry off a tough role like that was too much. It was a huge mistake and it cost Kashyap dearly because a character driven movie like No Smoking required a far better character actor. Secondly, he should have waited for a few more years before releasing the movie as I really felt it was a bit ahead of its time. Perhaps, a more simpler narrative could have worked in India at the time of its release. But what it did was it made people sit up and take notice of Kashyap's fearless directorial abilities. He is somebody who wants to tread his own path without having the fear of failure. The fact that UTV co-produced his next project Dev.D even after the disaster of No Smoking spoke volumes about Kashyap's abilities. Most of Kashyap's films apart from Dev.D have run into censor trouble but each time, he has picked himself up and has gone onto successfully bring his work on to the big screen. Another striking factor about Kashyap's movies is that almost all his films have had strong female characters, which is something that we don't often see in mainstream Hindi movies where we are used to watching females either as sacrifical lambs or as beauty queens. Be it Ayesha Mohan's character in Gulaal or Mahie Gill's character in Dev.D or be it even Ayesha Takia's character in No Smoking.

I am eagerly looking forward to watching his much awaited film Paanch, a film which has been locked up again because of its run-ins with the censor board since 2003. I hope it sees the light of the day very soon. Indian Cinema would do with some more Anurag Kashyap's because I seriously feel that commercial films do no good to us when it comes to competing with World cinema. Times are changing rapidly and so are people's tastes. I hope that all the young, aspiring filmmakers chose to make films with their own hearts and minds like Kashyap does, even if it means they have to make do with low budgets and no stars. It is far better to do that rather than keeping market interests or big banners in mind because that is how, Indian cinema would progress. Meanwhile, let us enjoy and celebrate Anurag Kashyap's work because he definitely is a top director with an inventive, innovative mind and a heart that tells him to make films that he wants to.