22nd April, 2010
It entered into the public space as a humble notice board, made inroads into our private space with the hook of fan followers, gradually made its presence felt with occasional scoops posted by the celebrities, started spreading its tentacles into the neo-techy masses and before we realised it had driven the otherwise largely technophobic nation into its tweet zone. From politicians to cricketers, film stars to media professionals; it seems everybody wants to tweet and be followed. Many have become addicted to the social media site and can’t seem to stay away from it. So, what is Twitter?
Is it the new face of expression in a society groping for recognition beyond mere identity of “We the Nation”? Has India readily accepted twitter as the new face of tangible recognition? More the followers the better standing you have in the society, so it seems. Facts suggest more than what twitter is supposed to stay for. In a developing society like India one may have to run from pillar to post to get a ration card or any other identity card, something that is not worthy of flaunting. But for the twitter exposed lot a twitter id is much easier to get and more fancy to flaunt.
When you first look at Twitter, it seems as though it is just a large bunch of random thoughts. It is actually much more than that. It is over hyped, over exposed and over estimated channel of communication. Twitter is being used and abused like no other media vehicle. It is true that one of the biggest scams of the era involving Cricket, Politics, Money and Sex has been exposed on twitter only. But twitter can’t take the credit of any worthy contribution to this. Had the mainstream media not followed it up, this twitter post would have gone as unnoticed as thousands of others in the day.
After all, everybody is tweeting. It seems twitter is the new public address system in the country and every one is busy twitting good, bad and ugly without any censorship-legal, ethical or whatever. However, this is India and definitely the soci0-political spectrum is not as tweety as France where the President asks for public opinion on political and personal agenda through his tweets.
Twitter, as a matter of fact, has been snowballing into the political spectrum of the nation ever since a Union Minister with a fair degree of international exposure during his stint with the United Nations started tweeting his not-so-politically-correct views on various issues. Nobody had then imagined that twitter posts are going to be his nemesis in the days ahead. The accusation against Union Minister Shashi Tharoor by the IPL Commissioner and Mastermind of Gambling Racket called IPL Cricket is just the precursor of the emerging trends of Indian politics. The victim of tweets, Indian politics has added a new vocabulary in its lexicon and vendetta politics will be henceforth referred as Twitter Politics.
The first high-profile casualty of twitter posts is not just the resignation of a Union Minister, or the surfacing of what seems to be the biggest betting racket of India thus far, called the IPL Cricket. The inherent dangers are deep rooted. If tweets are the way to go, I am afraid life in the public space will be less respectful, lesser trustworthy, and even lesser accountable to the democratic institutions. Imagine a minister making policy announcements on twitter rather than in the Parliament. Can a twitter mandate replace the trouble of conducting an exhaustive election procedure?
Probably those who conceptualised the idea of twitter first had no idea as to how BIG IDEA they had been working on. The cost of running a country like India can be brought to almost negligible if twitter has its way. The law makers would not have the trouble of travelling all their way to Parliament from respective constituencies in the remote areas. The easiest possible public address system called twitter is there to take care of the causes and grievances of the nation. Union Budgets will also be tweeted and law makers along with the common man on the streets can retweet their opinion on it.
Twitter was actually meant for interaction limited to commercial and personal reasons. It is now also being used for political and other vested interest purposes. Now that Twitter is in the mainstream, with all of its tentacles reaching as far into society as it does, it is not going anywhere anytime soon. The advocates of tweet politics will soon suggest taking the advantages of twitter and seeing how it can contribute to transform the democratic and institutional fabric of a developing nation like India. Of course, there is a price tag to this universal public address system that demands a thorough cost-benefit analysis. The question is whether the Indian society in its collective consciousness is ready to pay the price of “We the Twitter”?
11:05 PM
11:04 PM
Out-of-Box Strategy or Case Study
12th April, 2010
Recently a prospective client asked me to present a case study of my agency credentials on the given industry. The client was surprised that how come an agency made a pitch without presenting a case study of the work done. I suppose mine was probably the only presentation in a multi-agency pitch that did not expect to get the communication mandate on the strength of the work done thus far. However, the idea to not to present the case study was a deliberate one. I had given it a serious thought and taken a conscious decision to not boast of the track record and instead focus on the SWOT analysis of the project and work out deliverables with tangible metrics.
The experience left me wondering as to whether it is the Case Study that is the differentiator between the agencies or it is your understanding about the needs of the clients and the given project. In my opinion it is the understanding of the clients’ brief and your suggested communication solution that gives the agency a cutting edge. However, what I find as a practice in the industry is to over emphasise the past track record called Case Study.
If an agency has handled two real estate companies, they are supposed to be an expert on the sector. The same goes true with other sectors, like health or education. I often fail to understand as to whether such agencies are really experts in terms of knowledge about the industry, or it is by default that they are in the right place at the right time. If they are really experts on the given industry, then how come their presentations and suggested communication solutions fail to reflect that?
Conceptually I am not against the idea of presenting the case studies, which does reflect your credentials in the given industry. However, my understanding of the industry is that such case studies are more often over rated and over projected. Say for instance, if an agency is pitching for communication mandate of a company going public with an IPO, a past track record of successful IPOs in the same industry is seen as an asset. However, what makes an IPO successful is a combination of various teams including the PR, Merchant Bankers, Finance Officers, Legal and Marketing team. Within the PR too, it is the agency and the in-house corporate communication team that works in tandem.
Ideally a successful case study like the above mentioned has very many claimants who have their share to make the campaign a success. If a product launch is successful, it is not just the PR that can make a bad product good or can substitute the marketing initiatives and dealership network. Just because an agency has been there at the right time in the right place (performance could have been good, bad or indifferent), is it logical to assume that they are an expert in the given domain?
I feel the Case Study and the so-called expertise in the media space is an over rated commodity in the communication business. It is the out-of-the-box strategy that should be the criterion of evaluation, and not the past track record which may look impressive by default.
Recently a prospective client asked me to present a case study of my agency credentials on the given industry. The client was surprised that how come an agency made a pitch without presenting a case study of the work done. I suppose mine was probably the only presentation in a multi-agency pitch that did not expect to get the communication mandate on the strength of the work done thus far. However, the idea to not to present the case study was a deliberate one. I had given it a serious thought and taken a conscious decision to not boast of the track record and instead focus on the SWOT analysis of the project and work out deliverables with tangible metrics.
The experience left me wondering as to whether it is the Case Study that is the differentiator between the agencies or it is your understanding about the needs of the clients and the given project. In my opinion it is the understanding of the clients’ brief and your suggested communication solution that gives the agency a cutting edge. However, what I find as a practice in the industry is to over emphasise the past track record called Case Study.
If an agency has handled two real estate companies, they are supposed to be an expert on the sector. The same goes true with other sectors, like health or education. I often fail to understand as to whether such agencies are really experts in terms of knowledge about the industry, or it is by default that they are in the right place at the right time. If they are really experts on the given industry, then how come their presentations and suggested communication solutions fail to reflect that?
Conceptually I am not against the idea of presenting the case studies, which does reflect your credentials in the given industry. However, my understanding of the industry is that such case studies are more often over rated and over projected. Say for instance, if an agency is pitching for communication mandate of a company going public with an IPO, a past track record of successful IPOs in the same industry is seen as an asset. However, what makes an IPO successful is a combination of various teams including the PR, Merchant Bankers, Finance Officers, Legal and Marketing team. Within the PR too, it is the agency and the in-house corporate communication team that works in tandem.
Ideally a successful case study like the above mentioned has very many claimants who have their share to make the campaign a success. If a product launch is successful, it is not just the PR that can make a bad product good or can substitute the marketing initiatives and dealership network. Just because an agency has been there at the right time in the right place (performance could have been good, bad or indifferent), is it logical to assume that they are an expert in the given domain?
I feel the Case Study and the so-called expertise in the media space is an over rated commodity in the communication business. It is the out-of-the-box strategy that should be the criterion of evaluation, and not the past track record which may look impressive by default.
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