Thursday, June 19, 2003

BTW, Martin Sorrell bought over a sister (our host) agency Bates. Which means our host will probably cease to exist ina few months time... which makes me wonder as to what happens to my agency? 25% of which is now owned by WPP, and the rest is owned by WPP's arch (and bigger) rival Publicis... the word that comes to mind is B...... :|

that the agency parentages are somewhat complicated is an understatement...
I now have to check all the billing figures over the past 4 months to see how much more money is left for spending on TV... boring is not even beginning to say it...
I'm pretty pleased with myself... I learnt how to make a channel recommendation all by myself... and all in one night... :D
it is 4:45 AM and I'm still at work... there is a lesson in this for everyone...

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Monsoon seems to have finally hit delhi... to celebrate I drove through driving rain (on my scooter) from home to office (about 10Km's)...

Friday, June 13, 2003

More on Cellular data in India,

No. of Cellular Subscribers by Circle & by Providers
Have been doing some work on cellular service providers in the country (India), Click here to have a look at the various brands available in the various circles...

More stuff coming up on this...

Thursday, June 12, 2003

I could have been Newton...

It is said that if Newton had not discovered the principles of Gravity, somebody else surely would have. This has been proved time and again, Ramanujam reputedly singlehandedly calculated all the mathematical principles that the world had done in the for the past 100 years or so, because nobody told him that someone had already done so...

Why am I talking about this?

I thought it might be neat idea to use WiFi as a third standard for 3rd gen mobile telephony (apart from GSM, CDMA), by piggybacking VoIP on WiFi. simpe isn't it.

It turns out that half the world is already working on it... Not only working on it but a search for it tells that it is talking about it like crazy. And not only working on it & talking about it, but also taking steps to counter/co-opt it, as last month's (sorry can't lcoate it online) issue of wired reports...
I thought mega retail outlets were not making money, apparently they are, because RPG is spending a lot of moeny...
Dettol is not an antiseptic soap... gosh!! I would have never known... I remember my branding prof back in college saying "Dettol means *protection*"... Hee Hee :D
I'm a marketeers delight, I'm also on the market for an mp3 player, this SlimX 550 is one of the ones that made the shortlist. A review of the same.

More models that were considered... SlimX 400, SlimX 350

Though I'm tending towards a Hard Drive Player...

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

So you thought economics was a nutty subject... In
What's the difference between working for money and playing for money? Kottke comments on virtual economies interacting with the one in the real world...
More on CAS Chaos, this time the research focuses on consumers rather than the commercial interests.

It's a research report, so one can't comment, but one guesses that far more people will go in for the boxes than the research suggests, even at the higher prices mentioned. TV is too much of a basic necessity for families to ignore. What will they do in spare time? go and take a walk in the park or hit the football field, like the old days? not bloody likely.
Found this awesome piece of code here. which allows you to convert any summary sheet/table into a database list!!! cool... eases work so much. aahhh...

There is a slight error in the code, but if you are familiar with Excel VBA, you should be able to fix it in a snap... :)
Nice quote for the day...

"There's a warder who's fond of me. I don't ask why, I've learnt to take what's there without questioning the source. When he sees me on all fours scrabbling at the earth in a random-looking way that is quite scientific, he gets upset and hurries over with the spade and offers to help me. Especially, he wants me to use the spade.
He doesn't understand I want the freedom to make my own mistakes."

~from "The Passion", by Jeannette Winterson
Matrix Reloaded here I come... I get to see the preview release this Thursday... :D

Monday, June 09, 2003

Does advertising have variations across the year? was a question asked.

Of course. and it varies differently for different categories. As a broad and general statement for print, advertising peaks in October, with an immediate fall in November. For the rest of the year it is more or less at a stable level, except for a slight dip in Feb, April and July.

Of course there is also the fact that there will be individual variations for different categories... woollens, cars, computers for obvious reasons.

Then there are special events like the world cup, which would bring about huge swells in spends. This last world cup showed a monitored swell of 50% on print... amazing is the only word I can think of
CAS (Conditional Access System) was supposed to be a boon for the viewer, with the promise of cheaper cable. Option of choosing only the pay channels one wants to watch. More accountability of the cable operator towards the braodcaster.

Instead it has brought uncertainity... worst case being talked about is that the four cities just drop of the Satellite TV map of the country on July 14th (the date of implementation in the four metros). Bah!

Thank God I never bought a TV...

More on CAS from agencyfaqs.com
exchange4media reports that there might be a shift of ad revenues from TV to print due to CAS (Condional Access System)...

Nonsense.

I think (like the other Media Planners quoted in the story) nothing of the sort is going to happen. Silly to assume, that post CAS viewership and readership patterns will change... In fact if the promise of cheaper cable comes through. one might have more people opting for a cable connection.
My most favourite quote for today...

In between goals there is something called life, which has to be lived and enjoyed...

:)
It's Monday morning and I'm blue...

Saturday, June 07, 2003

Drew's Blog comments on something I've been looking for, for quite some time... He mentions Radio. I've heard of Radio... Expensive... sigh!
Saturday Morning! Work... Bah!

Friday, June 06, 2003

ETC Punjabi is throwing a party on their 3rd Anniversary today at The Ashok... yay. I'm off straight to the party from Office...
Some people commented that this was a new thing and they had read about it in the magazines...

Not True!

Look up my archives, they date back to 2000. (I just kinda dropped out of the scene.) and there were people blogging years before I was...
For the people who are visiting this place and have no idea about what is a blog... here is a brief intro...

A Blog is short for WebLog. It is nothing but a personal online journal. In my case as the description on the side says, it is "The Ramblings and Rants of somebody in particular about everything in general..." :).

If you need pointers on how to get one for yourself, do drop me a mail...
The Website of my college, The Times School of Marketing.

I Did it :)
My Favourite Quote for Today...

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better...to know even one life has breathes easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have to sit and enter the readership and circulation data for all the publications in India over the past 5 years... this is slowwww and painfull...
I think I may have finally figured how to get this working again...