Jas’ Business Blog

This is the ideal stuff that one would imagine for year 2044 A.D – You are holidaying in Paris and the only French you know is “Bonjour” which you anyway spell with a rustic accent, taking count to zero. You are lost, need directions and communication being a roadblock here, you take out your phone and point to the buildings around you. The phone starts giving you information on the area you are in and maps you on an interactive map. You ask for some nice Italian pizzeria and it gives you a list of options and on selecting one of these, you get choice of routes to the selection. On the way a Greek restaurant catch your attention and you target your mobile, and you get all the reviews of it. You decide to try it out and ask for menu, point your phone on the menu and get the image results of the dishes and decide on your order. Just then you see a friend standing at the far end, you decide to play a prank; point your mobile to her and  voila! Your phone gives you an option to call, SMS him, post message on his Facebook page, blah blah… So what is the story? Just that all this is not 2044 stuff, it has become possible as we speak! May I have the pleasure of introducing you to Google Goggles in case you two haven’t met already!

Background
Image recognition has been attracting lot of R&D efforts since late nineties and biggies like Google, Microsoft and Nokia etc are pouring millions into the research. Google has been focusing on non text objects since 2000; one would remember about patent filed by Larry Page in 2004 titled “Method for searching media“. They bought Neven Vision in 2006, which was into “next generation” face and object recognition technologies, and hence got handful patents too  which were owned by Neven Vision. Google also brought Transformics in 2006 which enabled it to index the pages its Google crawlers were not able to – basically the unstructured information. Google then integrated this technology with its homegrown Picasa, and launched Face detection, though in primitive form, in 2008. With launch of Android phone, Google got the base on which it could bring out its future technologies and capture the feedback in legal and cost effective way. And a look into Google Labs would introduce this next generation image recognition application – Google Goggle.

Google Goggles was developed for use on Google’s Android operating systems for mobile devices. While currently only available in a beta version for Android phones, Google has announced it plans on making the software capable of running on other platforms, notably the Apple iPhone and Blackberry devices. See the video below to get the gist of Google Goggles-

Competition

IBM (Direct competition)
IBM came up with SAPIR (Search in Audio-Visual Content Using Peer-to-peer Information Retrieval) in 2009 which analyzes photos, sound files and even video queries. It has created its database by extracting data from Flickr’s ginormous archive and index features such as color structure, color layout, shape edges and texture. It also allows one to combine text with media to refine down the search.
Demo: Click here for YouTube demo video

Nokia (Can be a direct competition)
Nokia announced its Point and Find app for its handsets in April 2009, which can recognize barcodes and cinema posters.  The software uses the phone’s camera, internet access and GPS to call up pre-programmed tags; that can then bring up local movie times, the ability to book tickets, and – eventually – price comparisons.
Demo: http://pointandfind.nokia.com

Microsoft (Indirect competition)
Microsoft has not come up with something as sensational in image detection as examples listed above as they have been focusing more on gesture recognition and object recognition. I have already blogged about Microsoft Surface, read the post at http://www.jasginder.com/bizblog/2009/12/microsoft_surface. You will also hear about the project Natal which is being used to develop XBox’s next version to challenge Wii. As I mentioned earlier, focus of Microsoft is in enterprise and commercial sector rather than consumer side.

Like.com (from Riya.com, the start-up which introduced the concept of face recognition in personal photos)
Riya was the first website to introduce the feature of tagging friends in photo using face recognition. As Google and Microsoft made the inroads over here, Riya CEO Munjal Shah decided to become niche player by venturing into Like.com. Like.com is image search and takes images and text as inputs which only IBM has been able to replicate as of now. Say a user likes the watch that Megan Fox wore in some party then user can use it as an image query and Like.com will return results showing watches that look very similar. Right now it supports only shoes, jewelry, hand bags and clothing but it plans to expand over time to include other categories.

Jas Technology Concept, Emerging Technology, Google, Microsoft, New Launch, Product Launch

If you have seen the last earnings presentation of Microsoft, you would have seen the biggest optimistic line in that presentation – strong product pipeline. We will see in couple of posts under this series – Emerging Technologies that in which all baskets is Microsoft putting its eggs. One such strong market is the (multi) touch based devices which has been betting on gesture recognition technology. And Microsoft is betting its next few devices, including XBox, on gesture and speech recognition. One such technology which Microsoft announced in 2008 is Surface. Codenamed Milan, Microsoft Surface is a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user(s) to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition and has ability to interact with living as well as non living entities.

To keep things geekly simple, Microsoft Surface is a surface computing platform (where GUI is intuitively placed on a touch-sensitive screen and user interacts directly with it) that responds to natural hand gestures and real world objects. It has a 360-degree user interface, with a projector underneath the surface which projects an image onto its underside, while cameras  record reflections of infrared light from objects and human fingertips on the surface. The surface is capable of object recognition, object/finger orientation recognition and tracking, and is multi-touch and is multi-user. Users can interact with the machine by touching or dragging their fingertips and objects such as paintbrushes across the screen, or by placing and moving placed objects. This paradigm of interaction with computers is known as a natural user interface (NUI).

Enough of geekness, lets see what it can do. Surface lets you literally grab digital content with one’s hands and move information with simple gestures and touches, something which was revolutionized by Apple’s iPhone. Surface also sees and interacts with any object placed on the screen, allowing one to move information between devices or adding or accessing the information on those objects. Say one wants to order a hot cappuccino from 20 odd favors offered by a cafe chain, one can choose between the options using Surface, see calorie or ingredient information as one would see in internet, then place a customized order. Once the order arrives, Surface can understand when waiter places Coffee on it. Now you may want to leisure your time away, creating your play-list of your favorite songs on Surface, and browsing through the historic details of how coffee is made, see the videos of plantations from where your Coffee beans were plucked etc. Or say you just had a trip to Himalayas and want to share your images from camera to the Smartphone you are carrying. All you need to do is place compatible camera and phone on the Surface and it will recognize them giving you an options menu, you can then select to transfer the images to your phone without even touching any of these two, just by placing them on Surface! To be frank, this is one technology product which is still looking for the areas where it can be applied to, opportunities are endless but commercial viability and idea limitation are to play the devil’s advocate. Click here to see the sample applications which Microsoft showcases on its Surface website.

The idea of surface came when Microsoft in 2002 undertook a project to ensure that the company expands its role as a major player in the consumer market by creating, developing and marketing a new software platform. Microsoft hired Cheskin, a …., for ideation and to generate additional concepts. Each member was then issued pretend venture capital dollars to fund the concepts given by Cheskin that most appealed to them. This “VC investor” exercise had each team have only 10 minutes to pitch their concept to “potential investors.” PlayTable (now Surface) was the clear winner.

Microsoft is mainly looking at B2C market for acceptance of this product, hence is all set to woo businesses, and is creating enough noise about the product so as to increase the consumer acceptability once installations are done by businesses. As of now Microsoft has entered into partnerships with Harrah, Starwood Hotels, T-Mobile and International Games Technology (which produces Microsoft games).  T-Mobile is planning to use Surface at its sales terminals. Surface will recognize a phone placed on the tabletop and provide the phone’s characteristics and a price list. Customers will be able to drag icons that represent parts of a service plan onto the phone and place an order for purchase. Starwood explores the possibilities of using the computers for photo sharing, music play-list browsing, food and beverage ordering, games and game-related activities, and as a ‘virtual concierge’. Harrah’s wants to use the Surface tables to let people access maps of its different properties, find out the details about events and venues, as well as create their personal itineraries.

The consumer version of the product is expected to come in 2015, in case the product picks up. So lets see what is in store for Microsoft Surface.

Jas Technology Business, Concept, Emerging Technology, gadget, Launch, Microsoft, New Launch, New Trends, Science

Am starting a new chain of blog posts on the emerging technologies, the ones that have come in at least Alpha phase of development or which have a high probability of being next revolutionary technology. You may have heard about the technology already, in that case bear with me. And in case I have got some thing wrong in explanation or concept, please feel free to comment on it, they are more than welcome.

The main problem an emerging technology faces is the tough task of making followers out of people who sample it. If an early adopter finds the technology useless or lacking,then the technology has lost a string of customers already from that one single person. And even if the technology appeals with Early adopters, the visionaries will pass the judgment on whether the technology can be utilized fully (see Product Life Cycle diagram below). Hence the crucial area called Chasm, which is the make or break phase for a technology. Emerging technology markets often stall when they reach this phase. It is too late to attract new Visionaries , who are not interested because they can’t be the first to adopt the technology, and too early to attract Pragmatists, who are too risk averse to invest in solutions from anyone but established market leaders that have been referred by a trusted source. (Pragmatists invest in solutions, not technology, and consider Visionaries to be risk takers. Therefore, they are not inclined to consider them trusted references.)

I shall discuss the technologies which are yet to pass through the Chasm phase.

The first technology that I will be blogging about is Microsoft Surface.

Jas Technology Brand Endorsement, Concept, Emerging Technology, Microsoft, New Trends, Science

A month’s ordeal and here am back with my blogs. My both blogs had been down thanks to a virus which infected the server and left me perplexed as I tried few options from my understanding, which only worsened the situation. That was the reason some of you would have noticed a 404 error on one of my blog.

For WP Geeks: Where all complex ways of copying database, creating new installation, dropping tables from new database and inserting old tables in it left me with a scratched down versions of my blogs but still with issues, a simple reinstall on same location and updation of wp-config file made the day (night infact, its 1:02AM right now!) for me.

Well, all is well that ends well. So I will look forward to be in touch with you again through this channel.

Aloha!

~Jas

Jas Uncategorized Blog Maintenance

The story of Phoenix may be a myth, but its alter ego reflections in brands is not. State Bank of India (SBI) is one such rare brands which have come back to life from its ashes. Though many may counter that SBI was never facing extinction, but nevertheless one has to agree that five years back the SBI brand was looking at the last leg of evolution cycle, desperately in need for some fresh idea or a fresh vision or pure luck. Well as luck would have it (no pun intended) the latter two happened for this massive amalgamation of nationalized banks cluster. The fresh vision came in form of Om Prakash Bhatt and the luck came in form of 2008-09 world recession triggered by the collapse of financial system worldwide.

Bhatt started off as a probationary officer in the State Bank of Indian in 1972 and worked his way up the ladder. Ironically, banking was not his first choice for a career. He joined the bank only after he proved to be “underage” to appear for the Indian Administrative Service. After that it was a dance of his skills, within an year of taking over as chief general manager of the bottom-ranked north-eastern circle of SBI, Bhatt lifted the circle to the No. 1 position. In his next assignment as the managing director of the State Bank of Travancore, Bhatt changed the profile of a traditional traders’ bank into a retail bank and aggressively sold mutual fund and insurance products.

Bhatt was later elevated to chairman in July 2006 . The first thing he did was to stop the roll-out of core banking solutions in SBI branches. TCS was implementing the computerization of SBI banks and Bhatt made them do about 700 changes to the project they were already rolling out as he felt it was just a “mechanical roll out of technology without checking of it was benefiting customers”, which seems to true for image of SBI at that time! Bringing a new word AUDACITY to SBI he opened about 955 branches in just 5 months. He plans to use ATMs for issuing cheque books and bill payments apart from cash dispensing. Results? “Our home loan portfolio has grown 27% this year, higher than the competition. Similarly, the auto loan portfolio’s growth has been 30%. You can’t call SBI a sleeping elephant any more,” said Bhatt with a wide grin in his interview in May 2008.

With him at center-stage of aggression, SBI has managed to come up with campaigns such as Surprisingly SBI. Although this campaign caught people unaware and many wondered why such an old and reputed bank went for “surprising” campaign, but it did a huge publicity of banking facilities to the younger generation. Thanks to great execution, some of the ads like “Chiman lal Charlie“, guy with no pants etc made a strong mark in mind of customers. The brand recall of SBI shot through the roof! It had just to connect old  faith with new customer and these ads did brilliantly. It was backed with elderly couple ads. Stage was set for the luck to come and make the party louder for SBI.

Sep 2008 saw the unimaginable sublimation of Lehman Bros empire, and with it eroded the reputation of and trust in the financial world. Suddenly the private banks saw their liquidity drying up. The strongest competitor and the only other bank apart from SBI in world’s top 500 financial services brands, ICICI, suddenly was again caught in bankruptcy rumors which erodrd the trust to great extent. People were now chanting PSU banks and running there. And with high brand recall guess who came to the mind? Yes, the war was won by SBI.

Bhatt has become businessman of the year, 2009 and is now in race for the Indian of the Year award instituted by CNN-IBN. HDFC chairman and member of the jury Deepak Parekh said of Bhatt: “OP Bhatt has proved that given the constraints of working in the public sector one can move forward….he has improved the results of the bank and has put State Bank of India on the global map.”

Since he took charge at India’s largest public sector bank in 2006, he has raised the banks market share and loans from 15% to 16.5% and deposits from 15% to 17.5%. He has also regained the top slot for market capitalisation, a position it lost to ICICI in 2007. And SBI has also taken over HDFC  in home loans. The State bank of India is now 29th most reputable company in the world according to Forbes.

Some stories make much great read once completed, you just read one of them. All the best SBI!

Jas Advertisement, Finance, Marketing

This one is a real puller from Shanghai J&J Advertising Co. The idea is brilliant and it may not compel a buy decision but it surely will result in better brand recall. In logistics business, the majority of the money is spent to assure the timely delivery and with zero damages; basically translating to two words – fast and reliable.

DHL hits the nail right on the head with this creative advertisement insert in a magazine. The advertisement includes a piece of transparent PVC paper placed into a magazine and having a DHL worker printed on it showing on both sides. This PVC paper is placed between the other two pages showing a guy on one side with Japanese backdrop and a lady on other page with Chinese backdrop. Therefore, when one turns the paper, the worker delivers the express mail between a guy (in Japan) and a lady (in China) effortlessly. Only a sentence is printed on top of a page reading, “International courier service express delivery guaranteed.” (see ad below)

And not only this, we have been witnessing many more such creative activities in paper magazines. Marketing is like creating a noise which right consumer can hear, and there is no point shouting in a fish market.

Magazine advertising is a definitely a different ball game as compared to other offline media. Just check how much time do you spend on reading a newspaper and a magazine. With television media, the problem is that the advert will be shown as per timing and the targeted customer does not have any control on this. The magazine medium’s essential strength lies in the active way in which readers choose and use their magazines. Magazines are an active medium, with the reader in control. Readers become deeply engaged with their magazines. As a result a strong relationship, a bond of trust, grows up between the reader and his or her chosen magazines. The time spent reading is substantial, and the copies are read thoroughly. Copies tend to be read repeatedly, often picked up more than once during a day and on more than one day. Then research has shown (and common sense strengthens it) that people are more likely to remember and recognize advertiser if they have repeated impressions from a regularly appearing ad. And as always, too much advertising leads to clutter.

With these points, I can now tell you why I really liked this ad! The ad involves two senses of consumer rather than one – sight and touch, which makes it stand apart. The use of plastic instead of paper has added to the novelty of the idea. It builds a small excitement in the mind of consumer and hence ensures a brand recall tomorrow when consumer has to use some logistics service. The magazine as a medium made sure that the consumer has all the time needed by him/her to relish the idea and absorb it. Remember one doesnt need to impress all, just the targeted audience. So over here there is nothing in advert which makes the right consumer to be pulled specifically. It people who will get excited by the idea would have no correlation with the intent to buy. Hence the success of advert will depend a lot on the kind of magazines DHL chooses to advertise.

Here are another two fine pieces of magazine adverts breaking the clutter of the noise and making a dent in reader’s mind.

Eye donation, by National Association for the blind
Advertising Agency: DDB Mudra, India

Styx Underwear, Czech Republic

Jas Advertisement, Concept, Marketing

‘Below the Line’ (BTL) campaigns are always dear to my heart as they show how innovative the brand manager can get. With so many virals, TVC, print media blasts, the idea of a fresh campaign surely makes one notice the brand with a concentrated attention. And compared to an advertisement, a campaign is based largely on a strategy and needs more planning and prediction.

Baci Perugina, an Italian chocolate brand, has been branding itself on love and romance to make its offering get associated with sweet, romantic and tempting (word Baci means ‘kisses’ in Italian). In its integrated campaign, the chocolate brand decided to sell some sentiments, unleashing an unusual love story. Target of the campaign was to capitalize on Baci Perugina’s awareness during Valentine day period. The company spun a story of one shy Giovanni who has fallen in love with his beautiful neighbor Gaia and went to its target audience – youth, via social media and then SMS.

On 4th Feb, a YouTube video came online uploaded by a guy called Giovanni telling viewers that he is in love with his neighbor, Gaia. He explains that he keeps asking her out but she is not interested. Now finally she has presented a yummy, unique offer to Giovanni- she will kiss him, if 50,000 people would ask her to do so. So that is why Giovanni has made the video, loaded it on YouTube and even then he opens a group on Facebook asking for help. Two days later on 6th Feb, the brand Baci Perugina comes into the scene  as an “independent supporter” of Giovanni’s initiative. They create a page on their website  where people can mail their request.

9th Feb – 3rd video is uploaded on YouTube where Gia tells audience that 20,000 mails have arrived and in case 50,000 mails come, she would kiss this guy.

Meanwhile outdoor campaign starts, videos are plated in a busy plazza asking for people to help the guy by SMSing their request.

On 12 Feb – Giovanni uploads a video thanking people for the 20,000 mails and says if 50,000 mails come he can kiss on Valentine Day (and public goes bersek). Finally on 13th Gia uploads a video saying the guy got 50,000 mails so she will kiss the guy the next day.

On 14th Februaru there is a big event in Piazza Duomo (italy) where the campaign details are unvieled. A video is uploaded on website showing the kiss being ‘delivered’. People realise it was an advertising campaign.

Performance/ Results:

The campaign was planned on different media: viral videos, the community engagement through YouTube, Facebook and the Perugina community, an interactive outdoor and a local event. People soon became fond of the story. In 10 days it recorded more than 50,000 mails; 151,841 visitors to the Baci Perugina site; 26,678 contacts on YouTube and 5,400,000 impressions on MSN. Sales went up by 11% in an A-8 market. Giovanni’s story was spontaneously talked about on TG1, the most important national TV news (italy).

Credits:

Advertising Agency: ARMANDO TESTA Turin, ITALY

Media Agency: MAXUS Milan, ITALY

About Company/Brand : Baci Perugina is one of the most important brands of chocolate in Italy, belonging to the Nestlè Group. It is also famous gift on Vday.

Jas Marketing BTL, Business, Concept, Marketing, Viral

A good piece of technology and a bad piece of branding – that is my view on Adobe Acrobat Connect.

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced the Adobe® Acrobat® Connect™ software product line, the first web conferencing and collaboration solution to offer “always-on” personal meeting rooms. The product line, consisting of Adobe Acrobat Connect and Adobe Acrobat Connect Professional, enables knowledge workers to instantly connect online with nothing more than a web browser and the ubiquitous Flash® Player software.

Source: Adobe press release

With Connect, Adobe had introduced a new (re-branded) product line: Adobe Connect (hosted) and Adobe Connect Professional (hosted and on-premise). This product was part of Macromedia paraphernalia when it was acquired by Adobe in 2005-06 with the name Macromedia Breeze, which further was acquired as Breeze technology by Macromedia from Presidia. The product is based on Flash technology which has already made a mark and commands high availability paving way for higher acceptability.

The (re)branding though is a concern for many factors. First of all the product had already a decent acceptance in market as ‘Breeze’ so may confuse current users or people who know about it. Secondly the product has come out as an extension of Adobe Acrobat, a product which is widely known and has a very clear keywords attached to it – static page, non modifiable, preview file etc. All these keywords are not even closely related to this product. The very idea of a meeting or a discussion results in a document either modified or created, which is not possible with Acrobat. So it can be only used for plain discussion or presentation. If Adobe can integrate the solution with Photoshop or Illustrator like products of its, it may help production and print houses. Also Adobe may like to extend the Connect link to applications like Microsoft Office and browsers rather than just Acrobat.

For some brighter side points, unlike traditional web conferencing solutions, the Acrobat Connect products enable users to choose a simple and easy-to-remember web address for their online personal meeting room that is unique to them, much like a phone number or e-mail address . Accessing a personal meeting room is easy and instant, requiring little more than a web browser. Because there is no cumbersome software to download, knowledge workers can easily hold spontaneous, ad-hoc meetings that are virtually hassle-free to join.

Connect will have to fight for market share with products like webex and live meeting. According to Frost & Sullivan, Breeze had a 0.3% market share in 2007.

Below is the snapshot preview of Connect with various menus expanded to show case its features (which I have photoshopped to reflect features in single pic).

Though a nice product with great features, I must admit that though am a fan of Adobe’s thought process on the products, innovation and branding, the Acrobat -Connect combo doesn’t go down very well in synergy.

Jas Marketing, Technology Brand Check, Business, New Launch, Product LookUp, Rebranding

Most of the ads are supposed to lure the customer or a decision maker towards the product. But then there are other advertisements where the intended effect is negative, the intended recipient of advertisement need to be taken away from a product. Mostly these will be done by the social groups and non profitable associations. An example would be adverts warning people against use of tobacco or urging women to not ignore the symptoms of breast cancer.

After skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in women. Although the shocking death of Jade Goody has had an impact with many women taking notice from their slumber about the silent arrival of cancer in their lives even at the young age. But still most of the women remain oblivious of the danger. Hence the need for adverts that should not only communicate the dangers, but should also kick them out of the slumber by introducing the feeling of fear or concern in them.

About ninety percent of the women in the world suffer from this ailment and  still ignore it due to sheer negligence. I am very sure no woman would want to face this trauma at any age. The thing with this ailment is that age is not a factor. It can happen at any age and as for the causes; research is still on. An estimated more than 1 million cases will be identified this year, and about 510,000 new and existing patients will die from the disease. In the U.S., breast cancer will be diagnosed in 1 in 8 women. in most other emerging economies, breast cancer is a relatively new concern, something that both patients and doctors are only haltingly learning how to treat. Previously a malady that mostly afflicted white, affluent women in the industrial hubs of North America and Western Europe, breast cancer is everywhere. Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America have all seen their caseloads spike. By 2020, 70% of all breast-cancer cases worldwide will be in developing countries. The incidence of breast cancer in India is on the rise and is rapidly becoming the number one cancer in females pushing the cervical cancer to the second spot. It is reported that one in 22 women in India is likely to suffer from breast cancer during her lifetime.

As the challenge remains to make women keep checking regularly using self examination, most of adverts are only successful in making women getting concerned but do not evoke a self responsibility to do self examination regularly. This particular ad campaign is worth showering accolades for raising awareness about importance of self-exams.

Anti Stress Balls
You don’t see breast cancer. You feel it

Stress balls have been used as a marketing tool for quite some time now, but this was very innovative campaign. The briefing for the ad agency (and the challenge) was to create a simple low-cost action to raise  awareness among women about the importance of self-exams and thus help them detect breast nodules or lumps. Simple and revealing, just like the self-exam.

The agency created an anti-stress ball with a deformed stone inside (see pic below), simulating a tumor. On squeezing the ball, the women feels a foreign object which raises her curiosity. The ball has the text that reads, “You don’t see breast cancer. You feel it. Do the self-exam”. 50,000 balls and a flyer – explaining the correct way of doing the self-exam were produced and distributed to women on the street, at companies, hospitals and at theme-related events.

Result was that during the action period, records showed a 22% increase in mammography exams and a 28% rise in hospital consultations. Bravo!

Advertising Agency: McCann Erickson,

Jas Marketing BTL, Concept, Marketing, Marketing Practices

If you are an Indian with access to television or internet or have seen any IPL match then I do not need to tell you what the heck is Zoo Zoo. The ad campaign that has suddenly taken over the any god damn media and has become the talk over lunch, coffee, tea, date, time pass talk and even office conversations! So what is this zoozoo and how is it made, are they actual people, dummies, animations or what? If you ask me, that particular query itself has a lot of hand in the advertisement’s success as television commercial and internet viral.

First of all what is this ZooZoo? zoozoo is the new brand endorsor for Vodafone India. In 2008, Vodafone had unveiled the ‘Happy to Help’ series during the first season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). With the launch of the second season, Vodafone has given birth to the Zoozoo: a special character created specifically to convey a value added service (VAS) offering in each of the newly released commercials.

What’s interesting is that there are some 25-29 such commercials planned under this campaign, some of which are already on air. The aim is to release approximately one ad a day, to sustain interest till the end of the IPL.

Success of this campaign has been humongous! It’s fan club at Facebook already has 188,822 fans base!!

What need does zoozoo like campaign caters to, apart from publicity of the brand? Explains Harit Nagpal, chief marketing officer, Vodafone India, “We’re acquiring customers at a very fast pace, but a large number of them are unaware of the range of services we offer. I mean, ‘phone backup’, which we’re advertising now, was launched two years ago, for instance!”(well this a news to me too!- Jas)

Behind Camera – Making of zoozoo

No, they aren’t animated characters. They are human beings who were made to wear body suits. “The design of the characters is such that one gets fooled into thinking it is animation,” shrugs Rao, which was indeed the very illusion that had to be created. “In a sense, it is ‘live’ animation!” he quips, referring to the fact that it was all shot live. The films shot at 20 frames per second has made the Zoozoo’s movements hurried and comical. See the images below to know how these ads were made from people.

Ogilvy experimented with several characters and finally took its love for the term ‘egghead’ one step too far, creating characters that don the colour white (with black dots for eyes and a mouth), have heads resembling eggs, and disproportionately thin bodies.

The idea is to tell the VAS stories in a world akin to, yet different, from humans. The creatures were then given a characterisation: they are to lead simple lives, speak a language of their own (something that sounds like gibberish), move in a certain way, and even emote like human beings, with big frowns or big grins to do the trick. The execution is almost like emoticons. “We even limited the number of emotions to be used, to keep things easy,” says Rajiv Rao, executive creative director, South Asia, Ogilvy India.

If one wishes to understand the size of this head, here’s a fact: a human head would typically reach up to the mouth level of this giant Zoozoo head. “We kept the hands and legs thin, which is why we cast women – and occasionally children – wearing the costumes,” says Prakash Varma, ad filmmaker, Nirvana Films, who has directed the commercials. The thin limbs, contrasted with big bellies and a bulbous head, all add to the illusion that these creatures are ‘smaller’ than humans. Sets were created to suit the size of the Zoozoos.

The films were shot by Nirvana in Cape Town, South Africa, with the help of a local production house there, called Platypus. Incidentally, the same combination of people also worked on the ‘Happy to Help’ series last year. When asked whether Cape Town is fast becoming a tourist spot for Vodafone and Nirvana, Varma laughs, saying, “Oh no! It’s just that we are very comfortable with the team there and know what sort of work to expect from them.”

Jas Marketing Brand Endorsement, Brands, Concept, Launch, Marketing, Marketing Practices, Print Ad, TVC, Viral