Zee News' faulty scoreboard scores a home run

The news channel's OOH campaign, executed during the India-Pak match, confused spectators with the wrong scores and then delivered a powerful message.

Usually, outdoor campaigns convey the message directly and quickly to the target audience, via text and images, as there is not much time for people to comprehend, analyse and then come to a conculsion. Brevity is the key, in these cases. But, Zee News took a different route in its recent OOH campaign, implemented across Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi, Lahore and Karachi, on the day of the ICC World Cup India-Pakistan match, held on February 15. 

The channel installed manual scoreboards of a different kind. While spectators thought they were the ordinary, run-of-the-mill scoreboards, to keep on-lookers updated on the match, they were caught off-guard as the numbers didn't tally. 

As India started to bat and the first wicket fell, the Indian wickets column displayed '1'. Within minutes, the wickets column read 2. People standing in front of the billboards in Lahore and Karachi celebrated. The Indians, on the other hand, checked the score on their mobile phones and realised the second wicket hadn't fallen. A few minutes later, the wickets column said 3. Before long, onlookers on either side of the border were convinced that the scoreboard was faulty. 

To their surprise, no one came to rectify the faulty boards, instead the wickets column seemed to be in a hurry. It moved briskly from tens to thousands to tens of thousands, in no time. A similar pattern followed when Pakistan batted. The scoreboard at the end of the match read: India 0 for the loss of 546,030, Pakistan 0 for the loss of 546,228

After India won the match, the copy on the scoreboard changed to 'When Lives are lost, No One Wins'. The numbers kept increasing and stopped at 547,290 for India and 546,228 for Pakistan. 

These numbers indicated the number of lives lost at the border, since 1947, during the battles fought between the two countries; thus, depicting that neither country won anything by losing their soldiers.

The message was loud, clear and well-presented. It had the right effect on people as many came forward to light candles at the site, in memory of the fallen. The message from the 'Misunderstood Scoreboard' was indeed well received. 

The campaign was executed by DDB MudraMax.

Reblogged via AFAQs

Flipkart to stop Payment Services Payzippy!

Flipkart launched Payzippy last year. They are shutting down the Payzippy Payment Services.

BIS hallmark : benefits & shortcomings

BIS hallmark, long slated as a saviour of customers when buying gold jewelry in India. Read the complete post to really grasp the point I am trying to put forward.

I think most of us know the benefits of the hallmark, from both the jeweler & the customer's point of view.

1. Assurance of gold purity.

Okay, so I cannot think of any other benefit, to be frank.

There are a lot of shortcomings that I can think of, though. 

1. Why does a jeweler need a license for getting a piece of jewelry hallmarked? The very point of hallmarking is that anyone should be able to go to the assaying centre & get a piece hallmarked. Not just a licensed jeweler.

2. The documentation required! There are so many documents required for the jeweler's license that it feels like one is applying for a personal arms license not a jeweler's license for getting a piece hallmarked.

3. The risk. This is one aspect that is most easily neglected by jewelers & consumers alike. To get a jewelry piece hallmarked, the Jewelry has to be left at the assaying centre for a few hours. Which is risky! Especially with high value items such as solitaire rings etc. 

4. The new proposed certificates are cumbersome! Recently bis proposed a certification for hallmarked pieces. This is absurd! It adds no value to the piece or the customer because it will say the same thing as the hallmark does but the certificates will occupy a lot of space & whenever a piece is sold a jeweler will have to through hundreds (or maybe thousands in case of even slightly large retailers) to find that one certificate! It is absolutely crazy! The hallmark is sufficient. The certificate is unnecessary.

5. The more things provided to a customer at the time of sale = the more things required at the time of return. Generally, everything, the certificate etc. given to a customer at the time of sale are required back at the time of return. Some corporate jewelers clearly state that a return will not be processed in case the original certificates & packing material are not returned. Which in simple terms means that if you lost that certificate you will lose the return policy! Which may sound absurd, but the Jeweler has spent time & money on getting those certificates made for customer satisfaction & it is a tedious process to get it done all over again.

So, actually hallmarking would be very simple if it was a more open & convenient process. Licensed hallmark centres where anyone can go & get a jewelry item hallmarked. 

Oh, & by the way, I have a jewelry store Suranas Jewelove (also, shop online at http://www.SuranasJewelove.com)

I think Hallmarking & assaying is a noble concept but the licensing etc. is just unnecessary.

Send a greeting card to the Soldiers on the Border

www.21fools.com - Send a greeting card to Soldiers on the border

Business and Busy-ness

Lately, I have been very busy. I have never been Vella (idle) for most of my life anyway, but lately its been just too hectic. Waking up at 6, going to Office, coming back around, working on the website, that it really made me think, is it just me or there is a reason why

Business sounds so much like Busy-ness?

What is your opinion?

The Best Startup to intern with

YOUR OWN STARTUP!

Seriously, the best startup to intern with is your own, none other can teach you as much as that.

Paypal is such a nightmare for Indian businesses

Paypal I used to love it. It was such a convenient way to accept payments from my international customers. They could pay me without disclosing their credit card details, they were comfortable with it & I could auto withdraw funds to my bank account in India, without any hassle.

That was a long time ago.

Now, the scenario is completely different. Now, Paypal tells me my PAN No. is invalid! The same PAN No. which can be verified on the Income Tax Department website, the same PAN that I have used for over 4 years to pay my taxes & as an photo ID for numerous train journeys & many other purposes, Paypal refuses to accept it.
That is sad, because Customers still ask me if they can pay via Paypal, but now I cannot accept their payments, because of no fault of mine or theirs, but a fault of Paypal in their PAN verification.

Moreover the issue is not simply just with me but numerous businesses in the country. If you google Paypal says Invalid Pan, you see a lot of search results.

One big reason for this could be, sole proprietorship businesses in India, no sole proprietorship businesses in India have a separate PAN, they work under the PAN of their proprietor but they may have a separate name (eg. my company name is Jewelove but my name is Sambhav Karnawat) & it might be so, that Paypal is trying to verify the name of the company with the name of the PAN Card. Whatever the issue, Paypal should try to rectify it so that it can earn from Indian businesses again & so that Indian e-commerce business can receive payments from their international customers peacefully once again.

Junglee.com Amazon.com's India Venture

Amazon.com finally plans to enter e-commerce in India (wildly), via
www.Junglee.com
What is Amazon upto?
Amazon is planning to launch an E-commerce marketplace in India,
Junglee.com, which would be like an aggregation & comparison shopping
network between various E-commerce brands already working in India,
for example, flipkart.com, jewelove.in, letsbuy.com etc.

There are 2 important questions that arise,
1. Why does Amazon need the Indian E-commerce merchants as partners?
2. Why would the Indian E-commerce merchants be interested in partnering with Amazon 's Junglee.com rather than compete with it?

The second one is simpler to answer, so let's get to that first.
WEBSITE TRAFFIC. plain & simple, amazon.com receives more daily
traffic from India than any Indian E-commerce merchant & if it is able
to redirect all that traffic to its Indian counterpart, Junglee.com,
that could mean a lot of extra sales for the Indian E-commerce
merchants.

For the fist question, why does Amazon.com need Indian E-commerce
businesses as partners, the law says so. 100% FDI (foreign direct
investment) is not allowed in multi brand retail sector in India.

Will we see a very popular Junglee.com pretty soon, what do you think?

Further Information : What is Junglee.com?

Why you SHOULD sweat the small stuff

"Our own sense of self-aggrandizement feels that big, important problems need to have big, important, and above all expensive solutions attached to them," he argues. But in our perpetual egotism and haste to manage the humongous project, we often miss the small, cheap and completely effective solution. What companies need, he concludes, is a Chief Detail Officer with lots of power and very little money.

Pretty much what I am in my company, owner with no money! Teaches you how to survive on less!

Here's the talk by Rory Sutherland, reblogged via TED

Overcoming Choice Overload - Key to Success?

 

Video by TED

Paypal India : Good News

Effective October 13, 2011, the RBI has raised the limit on international payments to be received in India to $3000 from the meager $500. Though a lot of industries (including gem & jewelry industry, fine handicrafts, painters, artists etc.) are still not so happy. But Neils Armstrong said, "It is a big step for e-commerce in India".

GO India!


Reference : https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2011/10/great-news-for-our-merchants-in-india/

Redundancies in Life

Another picture depicting what I always tell my juniors, do not fall into the sheep-walk trap. Do what you think is right even if it is not the norm, because being right is more important than being accepted.

5 Tips for Filtering Sales Resumes for a Startup

Most entrepreneurs & founders will admit that hiring for startups tends to be among the top 3 most challenging tasks. The problem of hiring sales people is more acute in India given that “startup ready” and “risk ready” employees are far and few between. In the initial stages of most startups you tend to hire people with some experience or connections, because they need to get up and running quickly.
The most difficult part of the hiring process I have personally seen in India is the resume (CV) screening process.
Our process at Jivity is similar to most companies. We aggressively try to hire from our network, but that’s often insufficient. I personally believe that most (if not all) resumes are written by only one person in India. After that they are all “copy and paste” or “R&D” – rob and duplicate.
The most important part of the resume filtering process first is to understand the type of sales person you want to hire. Depending on the stage of your company, hire the right person for the role.
There are 3 types of sales people according to me: hustlers, relationship sellers, and process junkies.
Hustlers will get you deals, but not necessarily ones that fit your product or service 100%.
Relationship sales professionals have a good rolodex, but will need a “technical sales consultant” to explain the “details”.
Process junkies are best when you have figured out your sales process, but not great at coming up with new types of customers or new uses of your solution for adjacent markets.
Most companies need to hire hustlers early, then hire relationship sellers and finally at a more mature level, hire process folks.
Here are some of my quick tips for filtering sales resumes if you are hiring for technology startups:

India at Harvard Business School : Titan

Three Innovation Lessons From India's Titan Watches

"We were too busy being strategic to do something obvious," said Mr. Harish Bhat, the COO of the Time Products division of Titan Industries Limited.

That was just one of many choice lines I heard when listening to Bhat talk about Titan's efforts to create new growth businesses, including two new and successful watch lines: RAGA, for women, and Fastrack, for younger consumers.

Titan is about a $1.5 billion unit of The Tata Group, a massive Indian conglomerate. The world's fifth largest watchmaker, it owns 60% of the Indian market, and has been growing robustly. As Bhat went through his presentation, I wrote down the following lessons:

IITians contribute half-a trillion USD to the Economy

Specially for those who think that IITians don't giveback to the country or that we IITians just go to abroad & make money there. Please read this & you'll know, 7 out of 10 IITians live & work in India! (in simple terms, that is 70%)


The Article :

Every one rupee invested in an IIT has had an economic impact of Rs 15 and each IIT graduate created 100 new jobs, says a study commissioned by PanIIT, an umbrella organisation of IIT alumni from the 7 IITs. (Correction : There used to be time when there were just 7 IITs, nowadays, I am sure there is an IIT somewhere in your neighbourhood)

New Venture coming up!

I had so much of work to do over this weekend, but the whole Saturday went into an important designing session with Shubham. I am not the type who pass time uselessly, & I certainly did not pass time today. Had a straight on 5 hour session, right after Nuclear Engineering class with Prof. Prabhat Munshi (those are classes I won't miss for a 100 bucks!), with Shubham on our new venture, Vuelta!

P.S., my new venture is not about Nuclear Engineering, not just yet, wait till I take over GE, then hopefully I will launch some Nuclear Power venture! :D

Anyway, enough of wishful thinking, back to the present, me & Shubham, the 2 of us  are launching a new venture & we sat down for 5 straight hours to design the brochures & posters of Vuelta!

Will keep you updated on it in the upcoming blog posts!

P.S. : If you own/run a school or have a contact in the senior management of a school, please drop in the details in the comments or drop us an email at MailVuelta@gmail.com or sambhavk@iitk.ac.in

Indian CEO's Inner Strength!

The HayGroup's leadership survey includes an inner-strength category, examining how morals and values affect leadership. The only groups that scored as high on inner strength as Indian CEOs did? Catholic nuns and monks.

Go India!