Beast of Traal - Latest Comments

Re: Dewarists and Dewar’s – was there a bait-and-switch?

Usemeplz — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 03:58:49 -0000

Thanks for the advice. The information is really priceless. It will help me and others think too. Excellent post.

Re: Social business? What Leela Group of hotels did is social business!

Esthetician bed — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:34:46 -0000

Well, social business is business in its original sense. We are aware that many business claims that its objective is to serve the society. Social business reminds us of this objective.

Re: Dewarists and Dewar’s – was there a bait-and-switch?

Prasant Naidu — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:01:55 -0000

and by the way the same case of FB has been replicated at Youtube too.

Re: Dewarists and Dewar’s – was there a bait-and-switch?

Prasant Naidu — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 02:55:33 -0000

interesting thoughts and they are trying to just be cheeky :)

Re: Dewarists and Dewar’s – was there a bait-and-switch?

Karthik Srinivasan — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:58:37 -0000

Valid point!

Re: Dewarists and Dewar’s – was there a bait-and-switch?

Param Arunachalam — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 23:50:41 -0000

Karthik - Another point - I can't prove it but I don't believe that big, fat bottle was there on the page when I liked it. Some have persistently pointed out that the page name hasn't changed and I believe them. However, has the branding of the Dewar's India page not changed? I am pretty sure it used to have Dewarists branding and has since changed to Dewar's branding. I may have not noticed the page name when I liked it but it's hard to ignore that bottle!
My issue is not that they got me to like an alcohol page, my issue is that they either deliberately blurred the lines between the Dewar's and Dewarists page or just did a bad job to distinguish between them.
Anyway, like you said, the music was good and while I have unliked the Dewar's page, I still like the Dewarists page.

Re: How much knowledge does one need to be knowledgeable?

Mugdha Win — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:08:11 -0000

Is this not a case of facts versus interpretation of facts.

Of course, one may get various interpretations too. But finally only one projection of it fits onto our memory. The one which we further project. It is our assessment of the entire data we went through, which reflects our intellect.

Knowledge is always restricted by scopes and one cant keep on overlapping scopes forever. Final assessment should be with respect to current periphery and when further influenced by other scopes, they should be assimilated to refine that instant onwards assessment.
So, I believe it is fine to be confident in expressing your thoughts and 'say' on a subject and further be flexible to refine it, if one come across a convincing cross-argument.

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Karthik Srinivasan — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:47:34 -0000

I totally agree. Just that the disclosure didn't come across as clearly as it should have. For example, if they had said, 'We understand 'I Feel UP' is 7UP's new tagline, but consider the actual meaning of the phrase! Can we list the reasons why we Indians should feel UP about being in India and what it will be in the future...blah, blah".

That is a direct and simple reference that discloses and seeks to involve people honestly.

But of course, the actual phrase itself is a terrible idea!

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Param Arunachalam — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:45:02 -0000

Not commenting on the rights/wrongs but the campaign is certainly an attempt to project 7UP in good light. I think the intent was more to make the message subliminal than to conceal the brand behind the campaign (the two are different in my mind). Like Coke's messaging that eventually turned Santa red and made people associate Coke with Christmas/Holiday season.

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Srinivas Kulkarni — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:29:32 -0000

Great dissection of the whole saga... I had the same opinion especially when they announced their new tagline

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Bhai Fawkes — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:20:59 -0000

Karthik, you crack me up!
Kick ass post! Finally someone's done it!I wonder if they actually thought it was like a physical event, where they can just call it "7UP & The Viewpaper Tweetathon" and that would be all.

A friend & I were trying to dissect the data behind the 41 hour trending and he did point out that we were assuming it was a social media campaign for 7UP and the paper got paid buckets of money, acting as an agency.

Wonder if that was the case, or the guys at Viewspaper actually mistook the branding like it was a real-world event, which a still born twitterati could have told them.

Anyway, My 2 paisa.

Re: What is Shekhar Kapur really doing on Twitter?

Prasant Naidu — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:15:02 -0000

Hope Shekhar is reading this and won't repeat them again :)

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Karthik Srinivasan — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:56:59 -0000

Couldn't resist, when 3 specific points are constantly buzzing in my head. In a way, I think I write for myself! :)

Re: Feeling UP and Feeling cheated – The Viewspaper and 7UP

Prasant Naidu — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:55:09 -0000

So you finally did :)

Re: What is Shekhar Kapur really doing on Twitter?

deepa — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:09:00 -0000

Good observation..........
rosesandgifts.com

Re: Noticed the Facebook Like widget ‘Insights’ link?

Social Network Design — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 07:26:27 -0000

Thats another fantastic widget by the company to satisfy the customers.I'll try to have it on my blog as well.Thanks

Re: Waiting for Samsung Galaxy S2

USB 3G Viettel — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:14:36 -0000

I am really glad I read this article! With this it has really helped me with my decision.

Re: Noticed the Facebook Like widget ‘Insights’ link?

Rakesh Kumar — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:26:07 -0000

I have the Facebook like widget for my blogs but I don't see the 'insights' when i am logged into Facebook.

May be it's not rolled out to everybody yet.

Re: Dear readers…please search for our social properties, will you?

Vista Internet Security 2012 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 07:52:12 -0000

Enjoy reading your post! Keep going!

Re: What is Shekhar Kapur really doing on Twitter?

Sabharish — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:32:59 -0000

interesting observation... RTing with smiley dats fine... but adding link 2 RTs dats impish..or mayb its 'The Directorial touch'!

Re: Why don’t PR agencies publish clients’ news releases in an online platform owned by them?

Karthik Srinivasan — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:05:28 -0000

Yes, I did consider that. The only counter argument to that could be the fact that crawling multiple client newsrooms online is going to be cumbersome for media. Media folks (like everybody else) are already under a mountain of links and news sources and making them go to each individual news rooms online may not be the best thing to do. It'd be like sending a LOT of emails every day.

As against that, if you let them subscribe (in any form - email or RSS or even Tweets!) to an agency's multi-client newsroom, that may work as a passive news dissemination system, where the agency doesn't need to push each release individually and media doesn't have to complain that PR agencies push every single release out to them.

Re: Why don’t PR agencies publish clients’ news releases in an online platform owned by them?

Steven Spenser — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:25:39 -0000

Given that most clients want their
press release to generate visits to their Web site, to forego posting their
news release on their own site in favor of having it appear on their PR
agency's site makes little sense.

Journalists are used to sourcing news and other
research at clients' own Web sites, where a press release can be presumed to be
the official word straight from the organization's mouth, as it were. Releases
posted at a PR agency's site would not have that same presumption of official
credibility, as you have noted in your blog post.

Any PR practitioner's publicity goals normally will
include attempting to maximize the impact, and perceived credibility, of a
client's news by disseminating it via, and to, as many third-party sources as
possible. A practitioner or agency who is content to let the client disseminate
their press release only via the client's Web site is not demonstrating very
much effort--or tactical smarts--on the client's behalf.

Sending a release (or an e-mail tease with a link) to
a variety of online targets, and/or tweeting it and distributing it to other
sites where it will be noticed, is standard procedure nowadays. Those targets,
whether online or not, are used to being the recipients of announcements and
information because they don't have the staff or resources to source such news
themselves.

For a PR agency to attempt, instead, to train such
online (and traditional media) targets to regularly visit the agency's own
client-news portal will be problematic. Because they are paid by clients to
manipulate the press, PR agencies cannot be presumed to have sufficient
third-party credibility to be trusted as sources of (client) news at their own
agency site.

The cost of setting up and maintaining such agency
portals might not be prohibitive, but trying to create a brand around such a
portal will be an expensive and time-consuming proposition for many agencies
and individuals. The press will be suspicious, since PR practitioners are
traditionally viewed as disseminators of information to the news media, and not
as competitors. But, more importantly, why would any reporter, blogger or
private individual want to visit a PR firm's site for original client news,
when they could go to the client's site instead?

Re: Why don’t PR agencies publish clients’ news releases in an online platform owned by them?

kerolic — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 12:00:53 -0000

Hey Karthik, very nice article with very good insights. The benefit of the platform you describe perfectly makes sense. But don't you fear that it's duplicate the point of client's newsroom? Shouldn't we focus all our PR effort in promoting our client and its property (newsroom, website), and not the agency?
A scenario where I think it would definitely make sense is if the client doesn't have yet a press room or a newsroom difficult to update for any reason, where content can't easily be hosted. Then, as a one shot solution, you can offer to host the content ...

Transforming PR firms into media and replace the wire at some point seems me a bit tricky, because of the question of interest conflict and credibility ... don't you think ?

Re: Why don’t PR agencies publish clients’ news releases in an online platform owned by them?

Mschanuel — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:22:22 -0000

We do provide RSS feeds but frankly, I don't think RSS ever really caught on among journalists. We still depend on email to get the release in the hands of reporters. But the Media Center makes the process much smoother and creates an online media kit for clients. Building it from scratch has been an investment over time but it's been well worth it.

Re: Why don’t PR agencies publish clients’ news releases in an online platform owned by them?

Karthik Srinivasan — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:18:59 -0000

Mary: That's
fantastic - just the model I had in mind.Considering it may be
cumbersome for media folks to subscribe to and track multiple client
newsrooms, it may be easier if the PR agency that handles multiple
clients own the online resource that shares these news pieces. The
assumption is that media is not going to paraphrase the releases
(obviously), but report news based on the releases. So, a PR agency
owning the release platform for multiple clients may not be seen as
rivals to media themselves.

As you note, agencies not doing this is rather strange!!