Back to education..Life at IIM Indore, some random thoughts

Mountains or the so called mountains, The hillock that never sleeps, and never lets people on it sleep too, the randomness of the place, that began with random interviews at the GDPI process, to random registrations (which pissed almost everybody off), there seems to be something different about this place, something random, something very exciting and something totally unexpected. The Bakra days brought a lot of analogies for Planet-I. Were we a part of some military camp? Waking up at 430 in the morning would be an exaggeration, as we hardly slept, or maybe a concentration camp, as a Prof had very visually described in the beginning few days, and then a question came whether we were at a b-school, or we were here to be at school writing about our Yoga experiences. One thought even wondered that maybe we were aliens into this Planet-I, and were being tested if we are capable of citizenship. Though the welcome we got, was no doubt magnanimous, though when it did unfold, another random thought followed – how come seniors were so dedicated, sleeping less than we did, just to make a Bakra out of us, guess that’s what Planet-I does to its citizens. As if the randomness wasn’t sufficient, some Profs talked nothing but random thoughts and even quizzes have random questions. So just wondering, what all can be termed non-random about IIM - Indore – maybe the weather, its stays beautiful all along, the infrastructure, which is very well built up, the faculty and support staff (it’s all good enough with a few, or maybe more than a few names, which don’t come under the ‘good enough’ category…am sure each one of you reading this can relate already within a week of classes and would feel very strongly about this). Just a thought here that blocks my train of thought, am I also turning RANDOM within a week itself, asking random questions to Profs (Am not CP hungry, just that they teach weird things, if they do teach that is), studying random subjects, and now even my friends says that I talk random. But then is it all negative, not really, this is what a friend/IIMI outsider feels about my future – IIM Alumni, a glamorous Investment Banker or a consultant, a millionaire in 2 years(at least in Rupee terms) and is working damn hard to crack the CAT and be here at any cost. It feels great to be looked up to, this is what Planet-I does to you. It feels awesome to see how you are realizing your potential, bettering yourself and your expectations each passing day. And as I pre-read at 2 AM for tomorrow’s Micro-Economics class, the indifference curve can be felt to what I am going through at Planet-I, it’s a trade-off for quitting earning and partying for 2 years, for staying away from our home-town, from commanding and managing a team of people to being taught Stats. It’s only a week into IIMI, and I am sure IIMI indifference curve is miles ahead (to the right to be economically correct) of the rest. And as we take off on our journey of transforming the planet-I to “MY Planet-I”, am sure it rocks….it surely rocks.

Social Networking - The Misunderstood advertising medium

It began with Internet Advertising in general, marketers found it a tough cookie to accept, and some marketers still do, and now as we are finally seeing a rise in online ad-spends proportions, this step-motherly treatment is bound to come up again – Social Networking being the victim. India has been witnessing a steep rise in online ad-spends across all genres, with FMCG being amongst the last ones to join in, with the likes of Clearasil also jumping on the Internet advertising platforms. Consider this - Alexa suggests that 3 in top 10 websites worldwide are social networking sites. Also, 90% users visit their profile everyday on these social networking sites and these sites reach out to more than 40% users online. This is one place where users login when they have time in abundance and hence, are most receptive to advertising. A marketer can target users by Gender, Age, Occupation, Interests providing one of the most accurate mapping of a consumer’s behavior. Couple this, with the availability to create virals, applications etc. On paper, this seems to be the best available option for all advertisers, and money should be pouring onto this inventory left, right and center. Now comes the reality check –
• Click through ratess are very low, so Cost per Impressions deals go entirely against the advertiser.
• How does the advertiser know whether people have actually noticed the ad?
• How can one gauze the success of the campaign?
These are only some of the apprehensions that agencies/ad-networks today are facing from marketers on social networking campaigns. Pilot campaigns have been carried out for advertisers of all kinds – Apparels, Sportswear, Cosmetics, Laptops, Jobs and others, but very few advertisers have adopted this channel as a branding medium as a Yahoo!, Rediff or an MSN homepage has been. With Internet advertising becoming extremely RoI focused, it has been a completely unfair treatment on the Social Networking Sites as a medium of brand building. “Internet is the medium to generate RoI while TV is best utilized for branding” – that’s what the CMO of a leading job portal in India suggested, with all their campaigns targeting maximum resume acquisitions. Social Networking as a medium has been dropped mostly because of the lack of advertising RoI obtained. A very fundamental error here being made is that while marketers trust TAM measurements, which is a rough approximation at best, a potential marketing goldmine, in these social networking sites is being ignored. This is inspite of the fact that it’s measured and targeted much better than how TV ad-effectiveness is. Also, what needs to be understood is the variety that each social networking site offers - Facebook users are more affluent and qualified to convert. MySpace attracts so many more viewers that “there's no way marketers are going to leave”. And Hi5 leads the race in the younger age group. Facebook proudly offers the healthiest female: male ratio attributed to the privacy and safety feature associated with it.
A key aspect here is also the impatience of advertisers with social networking medium. Virals, and even banner ad campaigns are run best on a long-term horizon so as to build communities on this extremely open medium to connect to the audiences. As people see the virals, and experience it, they trust it and as an inherent aspect of all social networking sites, people will listen and spread the word themselves. Brand advertisers like Auto, Apparels, Sportswear, Personal Technology, Portals, FMCG, Personal Care, Education and even classifieds should have social networking as a must have medium of all their marketing plans. If the medium is given more time and understood better as regards to the branding opportunities it provides, we can hope that perennial under-achieving inventory makes a come-back very soon and rules the dollars the way Spain ruled the Euro.