October 17th, 2008
Anjali Ramachandran’s Brain Tap Interview Series
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Planner and marketer Anjali Ramachandram is sharing some interesting ideas about marketing and social media, both on her own blog and on PSFK’s Marktd.
Anjali has been doing a series of interesting interviews with marketing thinkers and practitioners like Faris Yakob, Noah Brier and yours truly in the Brain Tap Interview series.
Here’s the transcript of an interview Anjali did with me way back in May —
1. Which is your all-time favorite ad and what do you think makes it work?
I’m not particularly turned on by ads per se. I think the value is not in thinking of an interesting idea that works for 30 seconds. I think that the real value is in thinking of a truly compelling idea that works over the brand’s lifecycle, that becomes an ongoing conversation between the brand and its audience, and becomes the lens through which the brand’s audience interprets culture and life itself. Amul in India and Absolut internationally are two brands that have done it well.
2. What do you think the Next Big Thing in media is going to be?
The next big thing in media is going to be social media measurement. ‘Listening to the customer’ has always been the holy grail of marketing, but it has always remained elusive. Now, customers are talking about brands in social media and the increasingly sophisticated social media measurement tools (ranging from the free Buzz Monitor to the very comprehensive and very costly Nielsen Buzzmetrics) not only allow brands to make sense of such conversations but also to use them to understand consumer needs, develop new products, develop communication messages, and track the buzz around launches, events and campaigns. Brands are only beginning to become aware of this opportunity, and none of the present players offer the full suite of solutions, but in the next three years, I see social media measurement maturing into the next big thing. Also see two posts I wrote about how social media outsourcing will be the next big business opportunity for India (1 and 2).
3. If your life could be described by a colour, what colour would that be and why?
Ah! I can’t believe you are making me do this! OK, if I were to describe myself by a colour, I would say black because black is classy, timeless, versatile, mysterious, understated and minimalistic at the same time. These are some of the values I aim for in whatever I do, even though my success rate is a little suspect.
Do check out Anjali’s blog and connect with her on Linkedin or Twitter.
Hey Gaurav - thanks for the shout-out! I hope things in DC are going well. I've been following your thoughts as a Yahoo! Fellow. The idea of using technology for good that you've been mentioning on Twitter is one that I think will naturally take over more of your time as you spend time studying/ doing research. It's important to think about it, but also, think about getting into the field full-time only after you are confident you have the financial back-up for it.
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