Random thoughts on a pale Saturday

1. When advetisers want people to know about the existence of their brand they use print, Tv and outdoor. But when they want people to respond they will use other means. Those means include interactive and mobile. When Voltas has a cherubic kid saying "India ka AC, Korea ka nahi" (India's AC, not from some Korean company) they want to establish their coolness in an overheated market. If a potential buy goes to the consumer durable market to select an AC he or she would most certainly be seduced by the glib talk of the sales guy and will 90% of the time come back with the AC that was not even in their consideration. The last mile battle is won by those companies who promise better margins and deals to their outlets / dealers etc. In this scenario if Voltas wants interested consumers to contact them direct so that they can send their representative to ensure a sale they need to have some sort of contact mechanism in place in their Ads on TV. The best is to put in a call centre number, but then how many people will remember to call - after all expecting people to call in the middle of some Saas Bahu conspiracy or Dhoni's sixes is asking for too much. The next is to get people to SMS so that a call centre voice can call back. Both are call to actions that are mucked up by uncertainities. Now if Voltas just wanted to get people to know that they are around then their objectives are served by having non response advertising.

Suppose we were to have a solution in place where the user gets to call when he is online and browsing for information about how to make payasam on an obscure portal? Can we offer multiple options to contact Voltas? Can we send him an SMS after he has opted in to remind him about buying the AC when he is in the confines of a multiplex?

2. Response advertising will move to the Internet and mobile in the next one year. It will assume and then consume major budgets. The next big players in this space are going to be nimble operators who can take convergence to the next level.

3. Is anyone reading this blog at all?