What do people think of Direct Marketing & CRM?

I had met a couple of my (very) old friends for lunch over the Dubai weekend. Some of whom I had not met for the last 7 years. It needed a lot of reintroduction from all sides to get familiar with what we are and what we do today. There were two Charted Accountants, a Sales Manager and one from the Airline industry.

As usual when it was my turn I told them proudly that I work for a Direct Marketing and CRM consultancy. They mistook me for someone who sells CRM software, an Oracle, a SAP or a Siebel (now a part of Oracle).

Well this was not an unusual mistake, almost two out of three people I meet don’t know what Direct Marketing is or they mistake CRM for a software package.

Here are a list of FAQs when I say I work for a Direct Marketing & CRM consultancy.

Direct Marketing

1) Oh, OK you are the guys who enable dropping of leaflets and you also do newspaper inserts right?

2) Is it door to door selling?

3) You pack material, stick labels and courier it…

4) Another name for a logistics company

5) You are working for a list rental company?

CRM

1) You sell software related to inventory management & finance

2) Ok, you are a vendor for people like Oracle, SAP etc.

3) Are you a software engineer?

4) You work for the marketing department of a software company?

I am more amused than frustrated listening to the various definitions people offer me about Direct Marketing and CRM. I have decided I should write a small note on what I do for living and carry it along wherever I go. This would help quench the thirst of all those inquisitive human beings who want to dissect the industry I work for.

That is the little I can contribute to this ocean of an industry I work for, Direct Marketing & CRM.

The next post would be the little note I am going to carry with me henceforth, do help me with your inputs to make my endeavor a success.

The lifestyle of a TamBram software engineer

For a better understanding of this post, please read the previous post before proceeding further...

What does he speak?

Tamil obviously, very difficultly anglicized – Trying to be as near as he / she can to the American accent. Overdosed with “Ya kno”, “olrite” and “I mean”

With strangers the conversation mostly veers towards “Ya know back in America, when I was there…”

When it comes to people they know, it is mostly Tamil, difficulty anglicized in the American Accent. Invariably all conversations would have a mention of America, their economy, dollars, the American roads & infrastructure and the Indian behavior.

Mostly he is pretentious, cold in his attitude, I know everything look & smile on his / her face.

To summarize the language and outlook – everything is “plastic”

Things he loves talking about

The Meenakshi temple in Boston, The Saravana Bhavan in London, The cousin who works for Wipro, the last time he played tennis ball cricket, what Sachin scored in the last match & Rajni’s next movie, Oracle 9i, data warehousing, HTML, ODBC and other non recognizable software lingo.

Key people / Places they identify themselves with

When it comes to business / their work

Narayanamurthy, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Sillicon Valley, Steve Jobs

When it comes to their way of life

His senior in class who bought 3 flats in Chennai & 1 in Bangalore, who also owns a huge house and two dogs in Chicago.

His uncles wife’s younger brothers wife’s elder sister’s son who has X amount of Intel shares with him and $ X millions as deposit in a bank in the states.

When it comes to movies

Rajinikant, Kamalhassan, Balachandar, Bharatiraja, Maniratnam…

Thalapathi, Apporva Sahodarargal, Guna, Baasha, Arunachalam, Baba, Pammal K Sambandam…

When it comes to movies (Other than Tamil)

Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Amitabh Bacchan, Aishwarya Rai, Mallika Sherawat…

Enter the dragon, Armor of God, Bobby (Hindi), Sholay (Hindi)

Favorite dialogues from movies

Paadu Shanta Paadu… Unn Paattai Ketkave Oododi Vanthen… (Konjum Salangai, Tamil)

Basanti, Enn Kuuton Ke Saamne Maat Naachna… (Sholay, Hindi)

Favorite Music

Anything Illayaraja, some A R Rehman…

M S Subbalakshmi (this is for the extremely pretentious)

Music other than Indian

Michael Jackson – Dangerous & Bad (not albums, but songs)

What they like about in games & sports

Cricket, Kapil Dev, Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, World cup, next one is in 2007 in West Indies, Viv Richards’ place

Australia is the current holder, India stands a good chance to win this time.

What is their level of general Knowledge?

Abdul Kalam, Manmohan Singh, Chidambaram, Karunanidhi, Jayalalitha, Sonia Gandhi, Italy, Bofors, Rajiv Gandhi, LTTE, America, Bush, Rice, Iraq & Aishwarya Rai might marry Abishek Bacchan

Newspaper / Magazines read

The Hindu (from sports page on), Kumudam, Ananda Vikatan, All other Tamil newspapers and supplements & magazines when he goes for a haircut.

Favorite book

The 12th standard mathematics book, Chemistry practical records book

Favorite television / program

Sun TV, NDTV (an Indian news channel), BBC, Discovery Channel (occasionally), ESPN, Star Sports, TEN Sports (especially when an India cricket match is on)

50% of the soaps that come in the evening (Sun TV, Tamil), 9pm news in NDTV and any cricket match live on TV when India is playing

Food preferences

Vegetarian in public, but wouldn’t mind a Chicken BigMac when nobody’s watching (occasionally)

Saravana Bhavan (anywhere in the world)

Thair Saadam, Idly, Masala Dosai, Sambar (in copious quantities), Thenga Chutney, Appalam, Vadam

Only bottled water, preferably Aquafina or Kinley

Favorite drink

Fresh fruit juices (Mango). Pepsi or Coke if juice not available

Sweet Lassi

Filter Coffee. The tea from vending machine in copious quantities if in office

Favorite biscuit

Britannia Milk Bikies, Good Day and Marie

Dressing & Styling

Brylcream (two tubs an year)

Any perfume will do, as long as the packaging is attractive

Hushpuppies for formal shoes, Quadies for the casual footwear

A pair of rubber slippers (Hawaii) to go to the temple

All bought from the nearest BATA store

Dressing – Mostly the mother or wife buys it or he gets it stitched with his family tailor (for the last 20 years!!). With fabric from Vimal, Dinesh or Madura Coats.

Prefers a dhoti / shorts (2 years and older) and a sleeveless vest in private.

If not in software, where would you have been?

In a nationalized bank in India as an officer, as a mathematics teacher in a school / college, in some government department

Nicknames

Maths Tiger, Cool Calculus Clan (CCC), Ramayan, Black & White, Fruit Face, Angry Ganesan

Strengths

Software coding, Mathematics

Weakness

Food – Indian, Tamil movies & music

My try on ethnography

In the next post you would see my efforts trying to (re)construct the lifestyle of an Indian, TamBram Software engineer.

Who is a TamBram?

In the Indian state of Tamilnadu, there live many communities. One of the communities in that Indian state are the Brahmins. The Tamil Brahmin is affectionately called TamBram by the Indian diaspora.

The Brahmins are a notified Forward community in India. They are known for their sharp intellectual capabilities, mostly analytical. The Brahmin community in Tamilnadu is supposed to be one of the most educated and well off communities in India. There was a time in the Indian administrative services history when the TamBrams dominated the Indian Administrative & Police Services roll of honour.

The political equations today have made the Brahmin community a virtual pariah in the Indian politico social map. They have moved paces ahead in search of greener pastures and have found refuge in the silicon valley, thanks to their intellect and their razor sharp analytical capabilities.

Three out of five TamBram’s today work in the software industry. If you have a glance at the matrimonial advertisements in the top Tamilnadu based newspapers, you will find that 3 out of 4 are software men looking out for a bride and 1 of that 3 is based at the USA. Such is the impact of the software industry on the TamBram life.

Ps: I apologise to those who don't have an idea / understanding about India, Tamilnadu, TamBram's and their culture. The next post would be a little more than difficult for you to understand. If you still do want to understand and appreciate the post, do leave your message / questions, I would have them answered.

The difference between a creative and reproduction

This is a nice creative that stems from a simple thought, an ants affinity towards sugar. It is a faboulous thought and a very creative ad the first time this was done was somewhere in India, I don't even remember who did it. It was done for some pharma major in the diabates cure vertical (if I remember right).

When you do the same ad, at a different place, using a different media vehicle, in a different size or specification, if it is the same agency which is doing the work it becomes an adaptation.

But this piece I suppose was done (reproduced) by a different agency in the UAE market, for a different client.

So what do we call it?

An eye for an eye...

That was the "Code of Hammurabi".

A monkey for a monkey, that seems the new "Code of Delhi Metro".

Monkeys are a major problem in parts of Delhi, the Indian capital. Now that seems to be the major problem the metro railway system in Delhi is facing.

With monkeys scaring passengers away from boarding the trains, the Delhi Metro has hired trained monkeys to frighten and chase away the wild monkeys.

More on this here

Too much monkey business...

Salvage Garden

That is the salsa disco /pub I have just come back from. It has been quite long since I pubbed. And hence it gave me a strange feeling being in one. It took me more than 45 minutes for that whole feeling of "You are in a disco / pub" to sink in on me.

The summary...

Salsa, Music, Movisque moves, Women, Chisled, Cold, Chilled, Beer, Bravehearts, Smoking-out, Fogged, Fotos, Fantastic moves, Dance floor, Close, Caressing. Kissing

And we were kidding, 6 of us... Ravi and four of his friends from Dubai

What else would I do with a kid waiting back home?

I love this life when I am lying, pretentious.

House hunting – The real estate scene in UAE

Real estate is one of the booming sectors in this part of the world. The real estate prices are ridiculously high, soaring by the day. But still the demand has not dipped.

The amount of development I see around me makes me wonder, how do all these buildings get filled up? And that too at a cost so exorbitant that it eats up at least one fourth of your salaries.

Some facts about the real estate scene in Dubai

1) Large scale construction has made Dubai one of the worlds fastest growing cities, a feat only equaled by large Chinese cities till date (Wikipedia)
2) More than 25% of the worlds mechanical crane population is concentrated in and around Dubai (Wikipedia)
3) In 2005 alone, more than 13,000 residential developments have come up. (buildings completed in 2005, Dubai Municipality 12.04.2006)
4) Average rent per month of a single room residence (decent studio) is approximately Dh. 2,000 upwards
5) Approved increase on rent on an yearly basis is 15% (Dubai Municipality)

Dubai is completely out of reach for people like me, a one bed room kitchen house here costs more than Dh. 50,000 an year. And this, in one obscure corner of the city.

So people started moving to the other emirates near Dubai, like Sharjah and Ajman. Now the costs in these emirates have soared, they would stand up to Dubai any day now. One of my friends is moving to a place in another emirate about 90 kms from his office. More than this distance is the mad Dubai traffic that kills you.

House hunting – Genesis 1.0

The hunt begins today.

The friend with whom I was (am) staying with has decided to move. So I am also forced to move, to a smaller place suiting my needs and most importantly my wallet.

I can’t move to Dubai because of the soaring real estate costs there, I have to stay put in Sharjah. That is at least till a benevolent employer would present me a bonanza.

This makes my hunt focused. I need a house in Sharjah, a single bedroom that can accommodate three of us – Roopa, Anirudhha and me.

Thank you Russell Davies

Russell Davies, the big daddy of account planning has a section called “HIRE THESE PEOPLE” on his blog.

As of today evening (DST) I also occupy that space, sharing it with a bright bunch of wannabe account planners. Russell has been kind enough to have my blog tagged there in that space.

Thank you very much Russell Davies.

Visit Russell here

Circumventing

After three days, YouTube is back for me. I can now access YouTube using www3. But www.youtube.com is still inaccessible due to the government regulations here in Dubai.

I would have access to YouTube till someone in the government figures this out!!

Ask Dr. Z

This is the latest campaign run by automobile major DaimlerChrysler featuring its chairman Dr. Dieter Zetsche. Zetsche talks about the benefits of the company's German engineering capabilities.

To me this campaign seems a little surrealistic. I can't for one, relate to what is being said here. Surely the loser here is the Employee Discount Program, the whole purpose of this campaign. I think that is sidelined to a 3-4 second super in the end.

Secondly when you have the Chairman of a company talking about the technology, performance, fuel saving, safety etc. which is the value proposition of the brand, I don't think it would be a good idea to combine discount and a return if not satisfied message with that.

May be this ad would have been better off without the discount window. Or they must have made an ad for the discount program without Dr. Z.

For more on this read a report from Adage here

Zila Khan

That is the name of the singer who’s caught my fancy these days. She is an Indian classical singer coming from a family of great singers. Her father is Ustad Vilayat Khan, one of the greats playing Sitar (You will for sure know the other, Pandit Ravi Shankar).

I was amazed to know that her family, for the past 4 generations have been recording or recorded artists. A seventh generation artist from the Imdad Khani Gharana or the “House / School of Imdad Khan”.

Her repertoire includes classical Indian, the semi classical genre, folk, gazhal & the Sufi styles of music (and many more). She is blessed with one of the most powerful voices in the subcontinent. Well, the voice would be nothing if the singer doesn’t have control over it. Hear Zila and then you would know what control means. A very well trained voice from one of the great families of Indian music.

If you are looking at enjoying an hour of good Indian music (anytime in a day), then Zila would be a good bet. She has got about 3 albums till date and has also performed a number in the movie “99.9FM” called Kesaria”.

Grab a copy of one of them and I’m sure you wouldn’t be disappointed.

More about Zila Khan here

YouTube is past tense

The government of UAE has restricted access to YouTube. This is mainly due to the concerns the government has about people using YouTube for viewing restricted or inappropriate stuff.

With this decision of the government, from now on there wouldn’t be any video posts on this blog. May be I would save all my videoblog ideas for later and have them posted whenever I get access to YouTube.

So for now, YouTube has become past tense for me.

An interesting piece of communication

I had been to a place called Umm Al Quwain, another emirate about 60 Kms from Dubai. We went to a flat where one of my friends is moving in shortly. This piece of communication was stuck at the entrance of the flat.



As you could see this is for a beauty parlour meant for ladies.

So what is so special about this typographically marvellous poster printed in single color (ink-jet printer)?

1. Saloon (su'loon) is a a room or establishment where alcoholic drinks are served over a counter.

Anyone who knows about the Middle East knows how serious this typographic blunder is. So what should this have been?

It must have been Salon ('salòn ), a shop where hairdressers and beauticians work

2. Read the headline "Woman and beauty are like life and consciousness"

This for me is a great, deeply thought provoking, amazing line (can anyone please tell me what exactly it means?).

3. Now the for the best of copy. They also have this poster done in Arabic and pasted just above this masterpiece in English. Though I don't know to read or understand Arabic, the small addendum using pen on top of the Arabic poster is brilliant.



This reads, "We take orders also"

Let me know what this "orders" must be in case you understand.

Wonderful piece of communication. One should appreciate the courage of the people who designed this marvel.

God Bless!!

I am also reading and would continue to

I landed a copy of Stephen King's 1974 JWT Planning Guide, along with a 1972 Jeremy Bullmore’s speech to Kraft. Thanks to Russell Davies.

It has been two months since I landed these invaluable piece of work by two towering personalities through another. I have just finished reading Jeremy Bullmore’s speech and am going to finish reading the Planning Guide.

Reading these masterpieces you would find whatever you are doing / learning now (in terms of planning) has already been experimented and done about 2-3 decades back. It also makes you enjoy this “from the horses mouth” feeling.

Let me know if you are seriously interested in reading these masterpieces I would have them sent to you or direct you to a place where you could get a copy.

Thank you very much Russell Davies, the big daddy of planning.

Lost and sold

There was this interesting question about sales that a person had asked Tim Harford on one of his “Dear Economist” columns.

The question “I want to sell my lost bicycle in its lost state and I couldn’t. How do I do it?”

Well it is a bicycle lost, meaning you don’t anymore own possession of. So how on earth would you want to transfer ownership of something you don’t own (at least at the moment) to another person?

Now, for Tim’s answer…

“Economists are always looking for new ways to broaden and deepen the world of markets and there is no doubt that this market should create value by shifting ownership of the missing bike to someone willing to bear the risks.

You presumably need one bike with certainty, and only one, and so are unlikely to value ownership of a contingent bike. On the other hand, some investors might well welcome the opportunity to buy the right to a thousand missing bicycles for just ₤30.

So - if eBay will not support your sale, what is the appropriate market? Perhaps you should try to sell the bicycle to the police. They are well placed to increase the possibility that the bike is found, and so they should be willing to pay a decent price...”

I was reminded of the independent debt collectors for the multinational banks back in India.

In India the multinational banks appoint independent agencies (normally the thug or ruffian types) to collect their bad debts (before they are declared so in their account books) or to simply put it, collect their debt from the rouge customers who don’t pay-up. These agencies get paid a commission every time they collect monies from these rouge customers. This model / concept is pretty similar to what has been spoken about by Tim in the bicycle case.

Here you transfer the risk to another entity, if at all he overcomes the risk factors and manages to gain possession of the bicycle it is his. So if you have independent entities (a quasi-police) who take ownership of lost items, find it and do whatever they want (sell, gift or use the object found).

But again this sounds good as long as the item you have lost is something you wanted to sell-off for long and you couldn’t. What if you loose your degree certificate or something else that might be of some use to you.

So don’t be shocked. Just in the near future you might be asked to sell the mobile phone you had lost for a negative premium (less than face value). And the person who bought the lost phone from you would take the pains of finding the phone for him.

About Tim Harford

Tim Harford's is the author of the best-selling title ‘The Undercover Economist'. He writes the 'Dear Economist' column for the Financial Times, in which readers' personal problems are answered, tongue-in-cheek, with the latest economic theory.

For more on Tim Harford go here

What I am going to read from today

I am going to start reading All Consumers Are Not Created Equal: The Differential Marketing Strategy for Brand Loyalty and Profits by Garth Hallberg.

I would post a review once I am through.

In case you want to buy this book go here

Brands in my life

Continuing with what I had started a couple of days ago, I find suffocated by brands all around. Once I leave home for office there are brands everywhere, surrounded by a sea of brands. I tried putting them in order, in vain. There must be easily over 250 brands, a combination of those voluntarily consumed, consumed out of compulsions, those that spam me or ambush me from over various quarters.

Given below is a small list of those brands that bother me in my daily life.

Eppco petrol pump
24+ car brands ranging from Corvette to Corolla
Hoards of hoardings, may be around 40+
Gulf News
Bottle of Masafi water
Sony CD-R
Casio calculator
Pelikan markers
Edding whiteboard marker
DaimlerChrysler
Chrysler
Jeep
Dodge
Mercedes
Hansgrohe
3M stationery
Advertising Age
CNN.com
Agencyfaqs.com
Yahoo.com
Gmail.com
Google.com
Mcdonalds
24X7 utility store
Coca-cola
Grohe bathroom fittings
Lexmark printer
Microsoft Office
Lipton Tea
Cisco telephones

The dynamics of today dictates that I as a consumer take what I want and leave others. The irony is that I don't even have the freedom and control I have over my mailbox, where I mark a mail spam, it would be automatically filtered the next time it reaches my inbox.

Here the only way is to try closing your eyes, ears and nose. You might avoid, but you will in all probability still get the spam you wanted to avoid.

The time mess

I have been noticing for long that I had to manually change the time to DST everytime I post something.

It was just now I discovered that my blog setting was configured to somewhere in the Americas. I dutifully reset the time to DST to notice that the time setting on all blogs till date have gone for a toss.

This means that the timestamps you see on all the blogs are a farce.

From this post on, you will get to see the REAL timestamp.

Brands in My daily life till I left home for office

Being on the bed for a couple of days gave me time to think about some fascinating stuff. One of those was to list the number of brands I consume on a daily basis. It turned out to be a very long list, so I decided to break it into capsules, this is the first of those. Just see how many brands I consume in my first 1 1/2 hrs of every day.

Three unbranded things I could think off (which I see in the morning) are Roopa, Anirudhha and the mirrors in my bathroom and on my wardrobe. Except for these everything else is branded.

I wake up in the morning to my Nokia 9500’s (1) alarm.

2) Tenby switch fitting
3) GE light bulbs
4) Dynair exhaust
5) Oral B brush
6) Close-Up
7) Ideal Standard bath fittings
8) Gillette shaving foam
9) Gillette Mach 3 Turbo
10) Old Spice aftershave
11) Rapetti water jet fittings
12) Dettol soap
13) Head & Shoulders shampoo
14) Westside Towel
15) Dermi Cool prickly heat powder
16) Jockey inner wear
17) Dockers trouser
18) Louis Philippe shirt
19) Sonia Rykiel’s Rykiel Homme “Grey” perfume
20) Maggi noodles
21) Oasis water
22) In an Arwa bottle
23) Horlicks
24) Panasonic TV
25) NDTV
26) CNN
27) BBC
28) Citizen “Blue Angels” Navihawk
29) Emirates Air Wallet
30) Ray Ban sunglasses
31) Marlboro Lights
32) BIC lighter
33) DaimlerChrysler Pen
34) Hushpuppies shoes
35) Fujitsu Siemens laptop
36) Hyundai elevator
37) Nissan Pathfinder

Thirty Eight brands consumed within a span of an hour and a half. This is mindboggling. Then imagine the amount one would consume in a day (today).

My next exercise would be to list down the brands I consume till lunch break on a working day. Let’s see how many.