The Yaxis Live by Rajesh Kumar

I am not sure this happens anywhere else in the world this way. Every evening(or daytime), a TV channel poses a leading question in the name of opinion poll (I can almost think up this question for the opinion poll -Do you think terrorism should be countered with a heavy hand – Y/N) or asks its viewers to send in their congratulatory messages for popular cricket stars(“Wish Yuvi on his century by typing Yuvi follwed by your message and send to 5XXYY”) which the channel would display on a scrolling bar. Viewers are urged to participate in such opinion polls and those who want can participate only by sms, not by email, nor by submission on the channels website(“If you agree, type Y and send to 5XXYY, if you disagree, type N to 5XXYY”, or, “Type Dhoni followed by your message and send to 5XXYY”). Last evening, a Hindi channel kept running an hourly ‘ win a gold coin’ contest asking extremely silly questions- here’s a gem:

“Which festival is celebrated today – Diwali, Dhanteras or Bhai Duj”. Now, the entire country celebrated Diwali and Dhanteras few days back, so even if you have not heard of Bhai Duj in your region, you would still know the answer. How intelligent. Important to point out that this was a Hindi channel, and all the three festivals are fairly well known in the Hindi speaking areas of India. Love this.

Then there are reality shows where viewers vote for their favourite contestant, like Indian Idol and Big Boss.Votes sent by sms could turn out turn out to be in multiples of hundred thousands(lakh).

Why do Indian TV channels love sms so much? An argument could be that more people have phones than computers. But why only sms, why not email, webpoll as well as sms? The answer it would seem, lies in economics.

Everytime, we send an sms to a TV station, it costs upto 3-6 times more than a regular sms (Rs 3 in my case).My phone company gains, the TV channel’s phone company gains, and in turn, passes on a commission to the TV station. The more smses, the more money the TV channels make. What a cosy arrangement! On the other hand, a web poll, or a Happy Birthday Yuvi message receiving system on the website would not yield them anything other than server costs.

Look at last evening Win-a-Gold-coin contest.

One Gold Coin = INR 15000 ~ USD 300 – winner of the contest will get this.

Viewer spends INR 3 per sms. The lure of Gold in India is so strong that channel would get , say, a hundred thousand messages. Assuming they get a third of the sms cost as commission, the channel would get a hundred thousand rupees. That is the cost of about seven Gold coins. Not sure many other businesses have such a business model!

Diwali is the only time I do some shopping. Last Friday evening we went to StyleOne, the latest store to mushroom up in next door Adyar. My wife actually wanted to go to the real shopping hub of Chennai, simply called T.Nagar.

Unbeknown to my wife, the key factor in in me engineering this silent change of destination was neither some unbound discounts, nor grapevine stories of film actresses being sighted but the knowledge that StyleOne has an exclusive parking arrangement in the basement.

So, for a change, I did not have to hurriedly drop my wife at the doorstep of a T.Nagar shop and while she was busy getting attended to, roam around all the bylanes looking for a parking slot looking beggingly at the parking attendants to get noticed and awarded the coveted p-spot. My T. Nagar routine also includes making calls every few minutes ( My wife says they were actually just a minute apart) just to check with my wife if she was done looking for that green dupatta. But optimism does not always result in good fortune. Every time my phone rings, I would hope to hear my wife say she’s done, and all I need to do is pick her up and we head home for the warm dinner that’s waiting. But this is what I’d hear, “Honey, these guys don’t have  that green. So I am into the next shop 200m away. Just make sure you join me there once you are done with the parking. And after this dupatta, I would also do some pavement shopping, so just look for some ATM and get some cash, these guys on the pavement are real nerds, you see, they don’t accept cards – I just spotted a good pair of chappals that was up on a deal”.

As we headed for StyleOne, I felt this time I was in control. If you are male and married, you would know what a rare feeling that is. Parking was guaranteed, no pavement shopping (though I had some money), some nearby eateries in mind. It all sounded so good. I was looking forward to this shopping trip! 

Mars and Venus rotate around the sun

Now, control is a term that represents a relative and transient state. There was slight change in my comfort level, when upon asking my wife what she wanted to buy, her answer was that there was nothing in particular that she had in mind. Not to give up so easily, I made helpful suggestions, perhaps a salwar suit, or a sari, or pair of jeans is what she wanted. Now if you are an experienced co-shopper like me, you would know that it means danger. I kept my discomfort to myself. The parking was there anyway.

When she wanted to go to the children section that was one floor below the ladies section, I was truly alarmed. It was only a week back that we bought some dresses for our daughter. But patience, as you know, is the middle name of married men.

She selected a piece and wanted a bigger one.  Then she picked up a piece and wanted a smaller one. The attendant could not help locate either one. The exercise repeated itself quite a few times, as I made my long pending call to my friend in Delhi.

The call was abruptly cut short by a roar. Another man, on phone standing almost next to me, was yelling to what appeared to his workplace subordinate. Then, his wife waved him from almost the other side of the hall, and before he cut the call and ran, all he said was, I-will-throw-you-out. To the guy on the phone, that is.

Soon, my wife declared that the shop was no good and started looking at the watch. I could say it was real soon because the Singapore GP rerun was not even over, only almost. Yes, it took only about an hour to know that the shop was no good.

The next day was a Saturday, and as soon as it was time for my afternoon nap, my wife had an idea. Would parking in T-Nagar not be a little easier if we go during the non-peak hour. It meant getting up right then. She wanted to shop for ‘nothing in particular’. On the way, I told her I would try parking a little to the north. “You mean near the camera shop?”, she asked as a matter of fact. I said yes, and explained that I would also spend a few minutes checking out the camera models, since our circa 2000 1.3 Megapixel camera looked a little outdated. “Common, it works”, I was almost slapping myself for considering wasting my millions on something so worthless as a camera!

Encounter by the Counter

Now if you consider yourself capable shopper husband, you would know exactly how to prepare in advance for the real shopping. That includes, of course, charging yours and your wife’s mobile phone completely before you go to the market, and pleasantly minding your time for indeterminate periods in the shop without mindlessly whining at the end of every hour. So, if you get nervous at the sight of 65 sarees on display on the table and still your wife seems looking for that elusive one piece, you better stand next to her with a straight face.

Now examine this situation very carefully, she puts her hand on one, indicating that one has been shortlisted, rejects the next five, shortlists two more, reject the next seven, shortlists the next three, till the point that the shortlist is about seventeen or eighteen strong. Then among those just rejected, shortlists two more. That makes it about twenty. By now the salesman gets extremely excited, and hopeful that he would achieve his days sales quota by this one customer, starts showing some more. By now the shortlist is about 31-32. The soft-drinks arrive in no time. So sorry you don’t like Coke that much, perhaps Limca, Mirinda? You are certain that the any moment your wife make a pronouncement on the final selection. The suspense is killing. From the shortlist, she keeps the blue one aside, indicating rejection, then the green one, then orange one till about seven are left. Then she asks for those seven to be spread on the table, the salesman complies, and does so one by one, uttering every time the virtues of that particular piece. And then the lady looks at the salesman and utters, “You don’t have anything good?”. Now, the salesman is not like an impatient husband who gives up so easily. He points to the next collection, a few feet away, and still appears so excited to make a sale. My wife does not even look at him and moves on.

That’s when the fully charged mobile phones come in handy. I tell my wife to carry on and call me on my phone when she is finished shopping, and head off to the computer accessories shop nearby – the laptop mouse’s not behaving smooth. Who knows, I may like the laptop itself- when I stole a look at the shop on my way in, they had some new banners reading ‘festival offers and new arrivals’. That’s some excitement finally.

The girl in the computer shop is, just by the way, very attractive. So I end up buying an 8GB thumb drive which I never felt the need of, and feel very very good. It would be foolhardy to miss such a good deal. I can think about the uses of this thumb drive once I reach home.

By then my wife calls. She finished her buys too. I help her with the packages containing ‘nothing in particular’ and head home.

Happy Diwali to you all.

(This post is dedicated to all of us who have grown up looking at the Chandamama, as well as my daughter who is all excited about Chandrayaan)

To the uninitiated, Chandrayaan is India’s first space mission to moon. And no, it is not manned.

On 22nd Oct 2008, Indian Space Research Organisation will light up a 316 ton launch vehicle, that will  travel to the moon which is, about 3,84,000 km away. In other words, if you travel on the equator, one circle is just 40,000 kms. A flight to moon, even if traveling on a straight line is more than nine times that distance. Unfortunately, the flight is not a straight line. And no, the entire rocket would not reach the moon. Read on.

The rocket will go only a few hundred kms up and leave the Chandrayaan in an elliptical orbit of earth. Only the 1304 kg ‘spacecraft’ a.k.a Chandrayaan would make the rest of the journey. At specific points in the orbit, a rocket would be fired to change the direction and altitude towards the moon. Recall that it takes a minimum speed of 11.2 km/second to escape from earth’s gravity. Finally, the Chandrayaan would reach to an orbit of 100 km above moon surface and release the payloads.Here’s an interesting graphic depicting this flight path. The journey could take 5 and a half days.

One of the payloads would actually impact the surface of the moon.

Should the launch go wrong and the rocket appear to endanger life or  property, ISRO has authorized an officer to destroy the rocket. (In fact, he has used this authority to destroy a rocket in an earlier launch)

What’s the big deal about Chandrayaan? The big deal is because it is not everyday that someone can fly a rocket to moon. It distinguishes the men from the boys.

I would have loved to see some more content available via the ISRO website to keep the excitement going. Maybe a frequently updated blog, a mailing list, some interviews, some photos and videos, an RSS feed, a Facebook community and perhaps frequents Tweets!

The Isro page on Chandrayaan -1 is apparently last updated in Jan 2007. I find it difficult to believe nothing significant about the project was considered worth getting added in the last eighteen months. Contrast that with NASA website, where any mission page has a huge build-up, with live coverage in text and video form. In fact, Nasa has a picture rich page dedicated to Apollo Program Program which took astronauts to moon.

PS:

Few imaginary Tweets  from Chandrayaan 1:

1. At lift-off: Good riddance from mankind!
2. Hurrah, I figured it out- the sky’s black and not blue.
3. Been flying two full days and still circling earth. No variety in life!
4. Midway but damn excited. 
5. Just woke up after a sleep, the moon is BIG!
6. Looks like we have reached, I am so damn spacelagged!
7. Whose footmark is this, Neil who?

(Photo Courtesy: Shrinidhi Hande’s photo blog)

I never ever imagined to see a BMW ad talking about money. That too in such big letters right in the center of the ad.

 

The conventional wisdom has been not to talk about price in the context of premium brands. That too on quarter page space on the the front page. Next what? A luxury LearJet advertised as being sold by redeeming supermarket discount coupons?!

PS: Either way, I want one of those head-turner beauties being advertised above!!

Behind every crisis is a position of fame called the man who predicted it. And when they find the man, all journals of the world ( including blogs) begin self slapping and then giving undue coverage to the newly discovered predictor. Even me and you feel like big idiots for not having followed the man, who knew something that we didn’t.

In the last international crisis, that fame went to ‘Oil Bull’ Arjun Murti, who is rumored to have known that the oil prices would rise and had spoken about it, and before the oil prices actually rose to USD 150, his words were treated as gas. There was an added aura too, saying Arjun Murti does not do photographs. Nadeem Walayat of Market Oracle ‘predicted’ the 1987 stock market crash. Read his account here.With current current financial crisis, it is only a matter of time when an authentic looking messiah would appear in TV studios all over the world and declare he-told-us-so. Newspapers would fall at his feet for a two minute interaction, which in print would appear in no less than sixty cc interaction, added helpfully be a KBK graphic. The subject of his PhD thesis would suddenly appear so relevant that his PhD advisor would  feel absolutely dumb for not having read student’s thesis and as a consequence, sold of his shares in favour of Gold. I mean it will all appear so logical that in a matter of days his book would appear in bookshelves at all airport bookshops.

Meanwhile, I am just waiting in ambush to slap myself.  And mark my words.

First the similarities:

• Both hail from the state of West Bengal .
• Both have a connection with the masses.
• Sourav floored the Lords, Mamata floored the Lords too.
• Both are all over TV.
• Both are in and out of the team.
• Both have the grit to take the opponents head on.

But then there are differences:

• Sourav is a sportsman, Mamata is a politician.
• One brought laurels to the country, the other brought, well, how do you spell s-h-a-m-e?
• People switch channels to see one and switch channels to avoid the other.
• You buy ticket to watch one, and buy (train) ticket to escape seeing another.
• Both are winners. But one led an Indian team against foreign teams, the other led a team against Indians.
• One feels slighted, the other slights others. 
• When Sourav wins, India wins. When Mamta wins, well, you guessed it right.

Ganguly dada has announced his retirement. Is Mamta didi taking any hints here? Wish some people could give their country this small little precious gift.

There is nothing unusual about an Olympic Gold Medallist becoming brand ambassadors of all things that are sold in a festival and shopping season. So what about the full page Samsung LCD TV featuring Abhinav Bindra? Just take a look at the endorsement line attributed to the brand ambassador. Below the text is a half page picture of Abhinav Bindra with  Samsung TVs. Below the picture are the product details such as variants available and prices.

The ad ends with the tagline ‘Design that performs”.

My curiosity is merely what an ace shooter has to do with the design of the TV. Is he impressed by the product attributes, such as performance or looks?

When Aishwarya Rai does jewelry ad, the connection is beauty. Sachin Tendulkar comes in Boost energy drink and talks about the secret of his energy. M.S.Dhoni comes in Pepsi Youngistan ad and again the connection is the youth. Tiger Woods’ appearance in Accenture ad is clearly to demonstrate expertise and learnability.

But design in the context of a shooter such as Bindra ? That too an Olympic Gold medallist saying “Design is a passion”?! Do you mean the process of design, or the style element of design? How does performance come in?

Wish those incharge of the brand had made better use of this expensive brand asset.

While working on a training assignment, I decided to include this matrix. Not sure how many of you agree.