Tag: Das ka Dum

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Q: The Age of Adaptability is the theme for Goafest. Do you think more ‘adaptability’, it should’ve been Reinvention. Perhaps a tad more proactive and aggressive?

A: The theme of Goafest this year is most appropriate in the context of prevailing BANI ( Brittle, Anxious, Nimble, Incomprehensible) environment. Adaptability is the pertinent attitude for survival and thriving for any corporate setup. Reinvention is one of the outcomes of adaptability/ nimbleness. It’s a permanent beta state of an organisation to navigate the shifting sands of business and environmental vicissitudes.

At the end, may I take the liberty to quote Charles Darwin on the subject: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” That’s pretty proactive and aggressive.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: Goafest starts today. Having been to almost all editions held thus far, your sentiments?

A: I love Goafest. Why? I love its cognitive immersion, hedonistic (food and party) triggers and interacting with great speakers and M&E friends. What else one can expect from the ‘Mahakumbh’ of Marketing and Advertising.  You must not miss it also.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: The standout moment of IPL 2024 for me/many was the booing of Hardik Pandya. Perhaps for the first time ever, a cricketer received much hate from audiences? An indicator of times to come

A: Even if the incident is part of history now (in the context of nano-moment of time now), it was unfortunate to say the least. But mob/ crowd psychology can’t be predicted/ complained about. In the age of social media and consumer activism, no earned media reactions can be controlled. For players, the best route would be to switch off external noise and focus on their craft and respond to situational triggers during a match, keeping in mind the franchise’s priorities. So far as the franchise owners are concerned, one has to proactively manage reputation of the team and its players and avoid any visible trigger to consumer activists.

But as you correctly pointed out that this is an indicator of time. One can’t stop it, but one can navigate it adroitly by strategic thinking.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: Your views on the IPL 2024 final. Any learnings from KKR winning strategy?

A: The strategy for any IPL match in general and IPL final in particular in this case is anybody’s guess. Too many factors affect the pre-planning before the match and during the match. And this influences every decision including shot selections and fielding placement. I can’t exactly pinpoint the micro elements that worked for KKR. Hence I would focus on the macro factors that have revealed KKR’s character as a team:

1. KKR played consistently throughout the tournament, and in every department of the game.
2. The team management (whoever that may be) has focused on selecting a balanced team with batting and bowling skills, all-rounders, pinch-hitters and a skilled captain in his own craft (though he is under punitive measures by the authorities)
3. The main coach and other coaches of various departments of the game do play a significant role in creating competence in every area of a game –individually– thereby creating a multiplicative effect on the overall performance specially in the crunch games and in case of any contingencies (eg when the anticipated performance of a key player goes below par), the other players were in a position to step in those situations.
4. I must mention about the lead coach –Gautam Gambhir– who has had stints twice over in other franchises, but he couldn’t excel. In the case of KKR, he excelled and how! I know it’s a post-game conclusion but if you observe the consistency he brought in each match without any brouhaha is certainly a quality to be appreciated.

This brings me to the culture that the owner could inculcate in the overall environment of managing team spirit – be it victory or loss. It’s not easy to develop such a homogeneous culture where even foreign players were present. In fact three of the foreign players contributed hugely in maintaining the winning streak of the team.

The Badshah of Bollywood didn’t try impose/ extrapolate the same formula in the 22 yards, as in his films. I am sure he gave freedom to Gautam Gambhir and his team to engender a camaraderie amongst all that could give the team members a Zen-like attitude against the two imposters- victory and defeat, so long they could win the third title. Since winning is an attitude, KKR evinced the same throughout the season.

There are micro factors also which could  be decoded —I know hindsight is a precise science- eg it was great toss to lose by KKR. The opponent’s reading of the pitch was erroneous. Secondly, the opponent team applied the same principle of excelling in the final encounter. This formula contributed to showing a stellar performance (vis-a -vis the previous years) in matches they won, even if it didn’t ensure consistent performance during the season. A rigid formula  in micro situations need not be a success. Every match in a T20 game is unique and needs micro response with macro capabilities underpinning it.

I think the KKR team has inculcated the right character of a winner, consistently, which ultimately differentiated a winner from a loser.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: Who from the Indian A&M ecosystem do you think would make a good influencer? Name any five people

A: Are you a well-wisher of mine or do you want to put me in a spot, like you often like to do. I surely don’t want to make enemies in the industry by not naming someone. Having said that, there are many people from my perspective who have impressed me in the past and even now. These are people who I would like to hear just as a young adult would go to experience an Ed Sheeran or Arijit Singh concept.

So who are these people? In no random order, five each in three categories of people who are part of the A&M ecosystem:

Corporates:

Nitin Paranjpe

Sanjiv Mehta

Suresh Narayanan

Aditya Puri

Deepak Parekh

 

Advertising:

Piyush Pandey

R Balki

Prasoon Joshi

Sam Balsara

CVL Srinivas

 

Films & Sports:

Amitabh Bachchan

MS Dhoni

Virat Kohli

Zeenat Aman

Sharmila Tagore

 

There are many other names that come to my mind. Also, each one of us, in a big or small way, is an influencer. But that would be boring for you, right?

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: Do you see influencer marketing just a passing fad or a gamechanger for the Indian advertising industry?

A: In recent years, Influencer Marketing (IM) has become a significant part of marketing strategies of many brands. While it’s early to predict its future with conviction, it seems likely that influencer marketing will continue to be a dominant culture for marketers. With the rise of social media and the increasing influence of online personalities, it’s quite possible that influencer marketing will be an effective way for brands to reach their addressable market. However, like any element of marketing strategy, its credibility and effectiveness (third party metrics are yet to evolve) may take some time to evolve as consumer behaviour and their contexts of various cohorts change over time.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: With AI taking centerstage, would you say it can be goodbye to learning and upgrading oneself on AR, VR, voice etc?

A: An emphatic: NO, NO!

Artificial intelligence (AI) is surely brewing a revolution of a different kind, akin to the industrial revolution, the green revolution and or the internet-led digital revolution. Whenever it has taken a leap, technology has injected efficiency from a legacy operating practice and its concurrent inefficiencies. In short, it acts as a conduit for availability of superior intelligence and judgement support system for a qualitatively higher order outcome for every organisation and individual.

Having said that, AI may not be able to excel in all human tasks, as of now (after the launch of GPT-4o, I don’t have full glimmer of a so-called amazing future and can’t imagine the pace of development through AI), but many tasks are still outside the domain of AI. For example, competition-level mathematics or visual common sense reasoning etc. But the day AI can excel in this might not be far off.

So, superior level of learning can happen with AI for sure and those who bid goodbye to learning because of AI would miss the bus of opportunities of leveraging its potential. If one considers AI as an adversary, one would face a different consequence, compared to those who would consider it as an empowerment opportunity.

I am not denying that businesses across the globe are getting aware of the risks emanating from AI. Even deep fakes or manufactured content for spreading disinformation and misinformation have become a matter of concern for all concerned, be it brand custodians or politicians.

But it’s too late to reverse the click. Regulations would certainly be there to regulate it but I wonder how they will achieve the desired goal.

I know my answer has gone beyond the ambit of your question but the answer tried cover a larger space to look at both the sides of AI —positives in the form of improving lives and creating superior form of intelligence and negatives in the form of misuse by the dark forces of society.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: In less than a month from now, we will have a new government in Delhi. Is there reason for the A&M trade to be uncertain of the future, in case there is a disruption?

A: So what’s new? Every five years there is a new government in India, either a new incumbent or a previous government with new sets of leadership. So there is no surprise in it. Secondly, from when has the Future been CERTAIN? Uncertainties are a built-in feature of any future-based scenario, specially in today’s world of tectonic changes across the spectrum.

The A&M industry, or for that matter any industry, doesn’t have the luxury of considering business-as-usual attitude anymore. All businesses have to be forearmed with nimbleness and adaptability to adjust their organisation to an alternative gear. This is true of A&M industry too. Economics and politics are intricately linked and hence one needn’t wait for an eventual disruption. If it is so, the concerned organisation/ sector should get ready to get surprised.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: Any lessons from Mumbai Indians not making it to the playoffs? Should the MI team management have at least staged some pictures of Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya camaraderie? A PR disaster?

A: It’s really unfortunate that a five-time IPL champion Team like Mumbai Indians couldn’t qualify for this edition’s IPL, despite a star-studded cricketers, almost.  As they say, hindsight is a great science as it’s a post-event wisdom when the ponderables and imponderables collide seamlessly with all the biases of the analyst. And more often that not, the analysts are from the commentary box or armchair critics.

None of us know what exactly happens in the 22 yards and in the minds of the players with the glorious uncertainty of T20 are very difficult to predict in advance or post event except for the pseudo-experts.

Hence I shall try to shun both the paths and put forward a separate perspective on the subject focusing on what is wrong , rather than who is wrong.

To begin with, I believe that a culture of winning a tournament is very different from winning a tournament at any cost. Unlike a reasonably large corporate operation, there are so many players and inefficiencies can remain hidden successfully. But for a team sport – whichever it is, team spirit is a must. Team spirit involves complete alignment of superordinate goal of the team which the team members share and help them look in the same direction. Secondly, each member will have their demarcated respective strategies linked to individual capabilities. Besides, the strategic focus should be changed dynamically as a team’s success can’t be dependent on past successes.

At a macro level, the leadership team – management and leaders – has to own the responsibilities for sub-par performance of the team. They are the best persons to introspect about what has gone wrong. There should be openness from the leaders to listen to all the players to decode the reasons for this debacle. No outsiders, armchair critics or social media specialists can comment on that. Players have to switch off all such noise from their operating environment. One thing is clear is that they can never be achieved by a corporate type of fiat.

Could a high blitzkreig PR campaign counter this negative perception of the team’s performance. It’s not so easy. A PR campaign can complement what I mentioned in the previous point.  But it can’t root the ailments that plague a demotivated team.

My observations are true for any sports team, individual or a team sports as meta points. In no way it purports to undermine the other skills that take a player from an average to a great player.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: If you have to make a pitch to marketers (as in clients) to attend Goafest 2024 since this edition is in Mumbai, what would it be?

A: Oh! There are so many points that I can talk till the cows come home. Let me summarise a few in the interest of brevity:

1. Goafest, which is taking place in Mumbai during the end of May, is not just an event. We shall trivialise the gravitas of the programme as it’s evolutionary in its core tonality. This image has evolved over the last 16 years.
2. The theme – The Age of Adaptability – itself sets the tone of the conference—the key to success for any organisation or individual to continuously adopt to the ever-changing, never-before world
3. The content of the conference will be thought-provoking sessions, delivered through captivating Masterclasses, divergent viewpoints and cutting edge strategies for for thriving in a world of unknown unknowns

Do you need more stimulation- let me try— network with cognitively-diffentiated minds, party hard to celebrate creative excellence, and act as cheerleaders for brilliant minds.

I am panting for breath😃😃

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q: In Mumbai, the Free Press Journal claims it’s the only English paper whose circulation has been ABC-certified? What does this speak for other English papers and the ABC?

A: The ABC certification certainly adds to the credibility of the publication in terms of actual copies being subscribed by the readers. Unfortunately, advertisers/ media planners and buyers go by reach in terms of readership. So while ABC confirms penetration of copies in the household, it doesn’t reveal the quality of the reach which is sine qua non for any media planning and buying process and of course with the complementarity of OTS, the circle of media optimisation is achieved.