Big Brother is watching

Forget cookies on your machine that track your online behavior. Google is out to track your physical visits. While marketers are going to love this, privacy advocates are probably going to be up in arms.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20140411-709370.html

A new take on the coffee or the cup - Article for the day 23 Sept

There is an Aesop fable like story of the professor offering alumni coffee in different mugs and people fighting over the mug when they should actually be worried about how the coffee tastes. It is the coffee that counts is what the "moral of the story" is. However, I came across a post that made some very good arguments on how the coffee cup also matters.

http://happysmarts.com/the-coffee-or-the-cup-which-is-more-important/

In essence this is what every marketer talks about. Packaging is necessary. However, if the final product sucks, no amount of marketing can save you. :D

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Real-Life 'Iron Man' - Article for the day 28 August

I have written about Elon Musk in the past. However, this headline just merited a full post to itself. I mean who can resist a title like

Here's More Proof that Elon Musk Is a Real-Life 'Iron Man'

The next one that came up was

Tesla outsells Porsche, Jaguar, others in Calif

Interestingly these seem more like marketing campaigns. At sometimes you are comparing brands
The swoopy electric sedan outsold all models from other luxury brands Porsche, Volvo, Lincoln, Land Rover and Jaguar

and at other times specific models
With 4,714 new Teslas registered over the six months, it even topped some established conventional luxury models like Lexus GS, at 2,298, and Audi A6, at 1,619

I haven't done a lot of research but in a state like California which enjoys sunshine through out the year and the Toyota Prius is the best selling car, this doesn't seem like as big a win as it is being made out to be. It seems more like a case of keeping the company and its founder in the media to build awareness.

I guess, there is no point building the best product in the world, unless you know how to market it. Given the number of things that clamor for our attention on a daily basis, good products might not just sell themselves.

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

One "Diamond" ring to rule them all - Article for the day 21 August

Sorry for the long gap between previous posts. I have been having trouble with my service provider as well as sudden trips due to family issues. 

Anyway, so this is a topic that is talked about in many a Bschool. How do you create a market? How do you advertise to your target segment? How do you create a campaign? etc. But as a consumer maybe we should be paying more attention?

 

http://www.policymic.com/articles/51981/how-a-clear-worthless-stone-with-a-brilliant-marketing-campaign-conquered-the-world

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

 

Is big data headed towards the minority report? - Article for the day 20 July

So I came across this article in the Economist that talks about how predictive policing is becoming a part of various city policy tools. It is a very balanced article which also talks about how this should not end up in the future depicted in the movie "Minority Report". It also has a few words of caution for the overzealous social media folks.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21582042-it-getting-easier-foresee-wrongdoing-and-spot-likely-wrongdoers-dont-even-think-about-it

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post

Bonus - More "Minority Report" gadgets coming out in marketing too http://mashable.com/2013/07/09/face-detection-ads/

The Hindu Vs TOI Ad Wars - Article for the day 19 July

Getting into the weekend and a little more humorous article given all the heavy reading in the past week.

The Hindu Vs TOI ad war was pretty interesting about two years ago. A quick YouTube search will show you all of them. Linking a few at the end of the article.

Whoever came up with this idea of a Hot Model on the front page of the Times of India being planted by the Hindu is a genius. Read the Unreal Times article for more.

Warning - NSFW

http://www.theunrealtimes.com/2012/01/28/times1-of-india-publishes-front-page-ad-of-the-hindu-mocking-times-of-india/

Hindu takes on the TOI as people knowing useless info
TOI takes on Hindu as news that wakes people up rather than putting them to sleep

P.S. The logic behind these posts can be found in this post