>idle browsing through the internet prompted me to start this. Small snippets of the interesting (to me!) happenings in and around out little world.
Sorry if most of these are marketing related events, but can’t help. You can’t expect a chocolate salesman to write about Rocket launches and underground sewage system right!
Lazy people, and insomniacs demand an apology from karan johar. The movie’s title has hurt their sentiments. Why should someone force me to wake up. This is a free country, and I have all the right to keep sleeping, with anyone er! I mean anytime.
Two months here in delhi has made me literally fall in love with the city. Everything out here is amazing. Especially the food. There are so many eateries, offering a wide range of options to satisfy every pocket. In fact, my favourite part in MINT is their weekend mid page where they have a tie up with TIME OUT, listing all the happenings in the metro. The food section there gets the most time share.
One more addition to the same is PlanForMe.com, a one-stop solution for all planning needs related to the food and hospitality industry, with its new print avatar of the website, in the form of a magazine called Food and Nightlife.
It is being positioned as a Delhi-centric magazine. With a cover price of Rs 30, the 60-page magazine will have an initial print run of 50,000 copies. Editorial content will form 70 per cent of the pages, while the remaining 30 per cent will be advertisements.
An the best part, By the end of this financial year, PlanForMe will be operational in Mumbai and Pune. By 2010, the company hopes to expand its reach to all the metros.
Though I am not all that a big foodie, who does not like good food?
Coming to the basic needs of life – mobile phones. no hello! it is no more the luxury it was a couple of years back. Now everyone holds a mobile. infact, a recent article in ET states that many indians actually have more than a single connection. trust india on extracting the maximum of schemes. i work for an MNC, selling chocoltes, and deal with distributors and retailers on a daily basis. trust me, even a 1% scheme, which might ammount to less than a few hundreds in a transaction of about a lakh matters a lot.
Anyways, coming back to the core issue – mobile phones. How many of you feel you are addicted to your mobile?. 99 out of 100 would refuse and claim that it is just another thing. But well, I firmly believe that 99 of 100 are actually addicted! Okay. Debatable.
Okay, chuck that. How many of you actually sleep with the mobile phone next to you?. A vast majority I am sure. A study says, “more than four in 10 Americans say they “can’t live” without their mobile phone and and nearly half sleep with it nearby”, according to a global mobile-phone survey from Synovate, which found that cellphones are increasingly becoming consumers’ “remote controls for life.”
This issue is something I have been working on for the past couple of months. Diwali gifting.
With the festive season well underway, people are gradually loosening their purse strings. Freebies, gift packs, discounts – FMCG players have pulled out all stops to attract customers. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dabur and Parle are some players that have come up with attractive schemes as in the previous years. All major players are eyeing 25-30 per cent growth in sales during the festive season. And well, my company is aiming much more than that. A never before seen spectacle.
Coca-Cola with its ‘Coca-Cola Khushiyan Replay’ consumer promotion campaign, a computer generated lucky draw would provide consumers with a chance to win Camcorders every hour for the next 40 days
Not to be left behind, PepsiCo India has come up with no less than eight different kinds of beverage gift packs consisting of its brands – Pepsi, 7Up, Mirinda and Tropicana, along with gift packs of snacks brands like Kurkure, Lays and Leher Namkeen. Damn! Direct competition. “Chitta, yeh teri boundary hai.. aur yeh meri. Mere area mein aake maal mat bechna!”
Can Dabur remain far? They have started selling gift packs with health as the selling point. Along with the real juice packs, the ‘Gift of good living’ – a container consisting Chyawanprash, Honey and Squeezy Honey would try to further the basic brand appeal – health.
Parle is also participating in the race, giving away free gift packs of Hide & Seek, Milano and assorted biscuits.
And who creates this category? Who shifts the consumer from the traditiona mithai and the dry fruits gifting of Diwali? more on that soon.
Last summer, during my stay at home, I was filled with nostalgia when I spoted a young cousin of mine reading the latest issue of Tinkle. I, like many of my age, have grown with Tinkle, chacha choudhary and the likes. And now Suppandi – the funny simpleton character from the magazine, is set to jump out from comic strips to the silver screen. ACK Media is producing a stereoscopic three-dimensional animation film, with Suppandi as the main character. The film would hit cinema halls in November 2010.
So these are small random items to keep you occupied before you read the rest of my weekend. I have already written it, and it has gone seven seas across for proof reading and editing. Will post it once it is approved!