World class ad

Recently there was an advertising seminar at the Jain Group's Centre for Management Studies in city. Prakash Pillai, Creative Director of Brand-Comm spoke about the difference between the Indian and the international advertising scene. Speaking about the budget allocated to mass media advertising, he said "Clients regularly approach us with a single line brief for a world class ad and a limited budget."

"A reputed kid's departmental store asked us to do a TV commercial for Rs.25, 000.
I said for that price you can hire a marriage videographer and tell him to pan the camera across your showroom. We will do the voiceover and the titles and telecast it!" Mr.Prakash, you shouldn't be giving out ideas like that, some marketers might actually implement them!

Take Home Value

The Pitch Brainstorm seminar, an initiative by exchange4media.com and its print magazine Pitch, brought together the who's who of advertising and marketing. The topic "Turning marketing expenses into investment" was strong enough to provoke many a debates. Marketing stalwarts from top brands like IBM, Intel and others spoke on how they optimally spend their marketing budget and still get the results.

Eminent gurus like Harish Bijoor and Ramesh Jude Thomas presented their thoughts on how they can measure the brand value despite the innumerable factors connected to it. During the Q&A session the panel faced a barrage of questions by the audience. At the fag end, one IT marketing manager, stood up and said, "I don't think I have got any ideas in optimising my marketing spends. I don't see any take home value from this seminar." Do you really think that the panellists will let go of their trade secrets earned with years of experience, all in one seminar!

Thankfully not Taxable!

So finally April 1st 2005 happened and the Indian economy moved into the VAT regime. The Dept of Commercial Taxes of Government of Karnataka gave a notification in all media to enlighten us about the new tax structure. The notification clearly demarcated taxable goods and tax exempted goods. The finer details given in the list had lot of interesting stuff: rectified spirit, denatured spirit and ethyl alcohol are all in the exempt list, while denatured ethyl alcohol of any strength is mentioned in the taxable list. Oops! Is that a printer's devil or some bureaucratic smartness on display! Item no.32 is semen including frozen semen, thank goodness, it is under tax exempt list!

Life's a Remix!

Recently Seagrams Royalstag organised ‘Corporate Carnival', a novel contest for professionals to exhibit their dance talents. This might become a happening event in future with youngsters joining professional stream quite early in their life. Though numerous teams participated enthusiastically, Metro Cash & Carry was the only non-IT/BPO company seen on stage. It also made it to the winner's podium along with the teams from HP and Inknowtech.

Barring a few dazzling performances, the rest of the teams were pathetic due to their lack of dancing skills or basic practice. Since each team was given 15-20 minutes on stage, they tried to mix as many dance numbers in that space presenting a disconcerting and jarring scene for the audience. Some spectators commented, "These BPO employees are jumping jobs so fast that they can't stay long enough to have a good dance practice. The way they have cut and pasted songs show their ability to switch jobs!"

Is there money outside IT/BPO?

There is a small pharmacy contract research firm engaged in drug bioequivalence studies and clinical trials. Established by a team of doctors and scientists in 2001, it began with a revenue of Rs.2.2 crore and grew to Rs.14 crore by 2003-04. Employing around 230 personnel, it has completed about 500 bio studies till date and has started Phase III operations.

Yes, it is just another decently growing tech based SME in Bangalore; so what's the big deal here... The big deal is Actavis Group, a European generic drug manufacturer, has acquired Lotus Laboratories in a Euro 20 million (US $25.52 million) deal to expand its presence in the Indian pharmaceutical market. To think that the promoters had to deal with the police and NGO activists who mistook their activities for illegal kidney and blood extraction lab in their early days, this is a welcome change! 

 Issue BG49 Apr05

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