Chevrolet Cruze - Hunter (2012)

Of all the ads that are on TV, because of the sheer number and the frequency with which they bombard you, very few catch you eye, your attention and make you take note of what is happening on the screen. The new TVC for Chevrolet Cruze is one such commercial.

Unlike most great ads, its not a one minuter and there are no powerful characters or dialogues. Its a very simple ad that has just one hero - the product itself. And unlike all car ads, there are no cliched stories and it does not talk overtly about the power, mileage, young adult protagonist or the awesome looks of the car.

Have a look, if you haven't seen already.



The lyrics go as follow...

Run boy run there's a storm on the run... dust... rising!
There's a beast on the prowl, there's a roar, there's a growl... thunder and lightning! 

Wow! Beautiful visuals, amazing lyrics, awesome voice and great music. A brilliant package. There is no way that the target audience for Cruze will not like it.

Talking about the target audience, for any car company, typically the key sets of audience are...

1. Potential customers - the ones who are actually considering buying a sedan that is high on comfort, value for money and stylish enough for them to buy it. The car must elevate their status within their heads and more importantly, in their peer group. For a prospective Cruze customer, I am assuming, from the commercial, that they are looking at selling it to fast rising corporate kinds rather than the old businessmen. These young men want to play, rather than just commute in comfort. For "play", the hunter and prowl is a brilliant place to be at. 
2. The automotive fanatics - the kind of people who know what horsepower the engine is, what is the turning radius, the clearance and other such things that are Greek and Latin to people like us. These people participate in forums and post their opinion on portals. These are the people that potential customers actually turn towards for their buy decision. Even though, the commercial has zero stats or numbers, it has everything that would make a car fanatic take note. The drifts and looks will make one search for more. The Cruze website does an ok job at it. 
3. Dealers/sales team etc - the ones who will actually sell the car. These people are often oblivious to  the content of the ad but need the gratification that the "company" is advertising on TV and is spending money to help sell easier. 
4. Competitors - merely to take a jab at em ;P

The ad clearly does a good job at appealing at all 4. Even though, it would be tough to get the sales data just for Cruze but it would be interesting to see. At least in this category, premium sedan category, there must be a direct correlation between advertisement and sales. Since in India, a car is a very very high involvement product, its really important for a car commercial to appeal to emotions.

In terms of how a planner would have approached this TVC, a typical planner is trained to think in two dimensions - rational and emotional. Rational - you talk of the benefits that are apparent, measurable and verifiable. Examples could be better mileage, superior looks, impeccable build quality or extra space. Emotional - you talk of benefits that a customer will perceive after they are exposed to your communication and hence are non-quantifiable, subjective and open to interpretation. The examples could be "makes you a hero", "takes you home", "your first car" etc. The rational ones are easy to make and the emotional ones are difficult to pull off.  This commercial is definitely not rational and slightly evolved for classifying as purely emotional.

For the category, the commercial is spot on. Easily breaks the clutter and makes the audience take a note. Take a note of the hunter on prowl! In the end, its a #win commercial for Chevrolet. Kudos to the agency that came up with the insight and wrote this commercial (who?). And to the client that approved the concept and is actually spending money to air it.

I'd rate the commercial a 4 on 5. Go see it. And yes, it makes me want to go and buy the car. Just that I dont have the money to do so. Sigh! 

Disclaimer: Personal, opinion, only. 

The cost of a short fuse

I have to have the shortest fuse that anyone has ever had in the entire universe. I love what I do and I put in a  lot of effort and heart in my work. I am not the greatest in what I do but I more often than not I do good work. And I have been able to create a reputation, atleast in my office, if not in the market. And as a result I have things going easy for me.

But once in a while, there comes a client who is a total moron and has no respect or regard for things. The client assumes that he is no less than the God himself and loves to assert his God like status. But forgets that God is God for a reason. Today one such thing happened. For no fault of mine, I was dragged into a melee. I hate such skirmishes and I refuse to get into an argument. This guy was persistent and got me into it.

Little did he know that I am the kinds with total disregard for rules and I dont give two hoots about authority. I know I am correct and I refuse to budge. And its come to a point where I think we would lose his employer as a client. Thankfully my office understands the stand I am taking and they are with me on this. But it sucks to be a part of such a stupid thing. Need to quickly find a way out. May be its time to bring back Cyntax. And my hunt for a boss has drawn nil :(

Yes, I am a corporate bitch and this is one of those posts that I wanted to share with my boss and client but dont have the balls to do so. Blame me.

Untitled 2012 Nov 08

Some kind of unnamed, unknown restlessness has set in. Its just beneath the surface, ready to explode. The kinds that makes you scream out loud. Where you yell so loud that your lungs are about to explode and you are left gasping for air. And yet, all that the world around you seems to hear, is pin drop silence. The silence of lambs that are about to be slaughtered. And you are left wondering. Like that kid in a war zone who can see and touch that long shiny metal object but cant comprehend its purpose, its impact or the destruction that the mere trigger could unleash. That kind of restlessness.

Now in my experience, that restlessness is typically is a good thing. It breaks the monotony of life. It afterall is a harbinger to drastic changes. You may or may not have asked for those changes. But like most things in life, change happens and you can merely react to it. Most of us succumb to these changes. Some live with it. And a handful emerge out on top. I typically have been the kinds to try and survive. And while I am at the survival game, I hope like hell that another change would happen, ofcourse without my control, and hope that the next one would be easy on me. At least easier than the one I am suffering under the weight of at the time being.

There have been times when I have actually tried to scratch the surface and see what the restlessness is all about. For someone like me, it has to be either about growing old, money or a relationship. I am not a narcissist but I am very sure that I hate the process of growing up. Its the inevitable end that all of us drifting towards, one second at a time. Wish I could stop it altogether. Slowing it, delaying it will be of no use. Its a just a game of numbers and units. Then I am not rich by any yardstick that I may evaluate myself on. And it sucks to know that there is so much money to be made in the world and I am poor. Money to me, let me explain, is not really an end. But is a means to be able to do things that I ought to be doing. And finally, the relationships. For me, more have gone sour than they have worked out. And hence the restlessness.

But the funny bit is that this time, the unnamed, unknown restlessness that has set in, has nothing to do with any of the three I just spoke about. It is something else. Something that I cant comprehend right now. I would love to know about it ofcourse. Men fear the unknown more than they fear the known. With known dangers, however mortal they are, the entire gamut of outcomes is on the table for everyone to see. And on one extreme of the possible outcomes is a fleeting chance, a flickering hope, of getting away with without a scratch. However, with the unknown, there is no list of outcomes and thus there is no hope. And once there is no hope, there is nothing left to fight for. And most men give up, without even trying to fight. Their will leaves them alone, probably when they need it the most. Me for example.

Recruiting a Boss. Applications anyone?

Today, I logged onto my dreamhost account after ages (read few months). It has more than 20 domains that I have booked over the years. These include saurabhgarg.com, cyntax.in, the entire DIY line, madewith, klpd, ODID, offbeat etc. Each domain corresponds to an idea that I had wanted to work on. And each domain corresponds to an idea that I did not work on. Am not too sure if any idea was a winner per se but the sad part is that I did not even try. And to put things in perspective, there are ideas that I dont have a domain for but they are idling in my dropbox, desktop and evernote. (Side note to self - work on consolidating all the information and put in place a information management plan.)

Apart from everything else, this long list is a painful reminder of the fact that I suck at execution. I may take pride in my ability to conjure ideas every minute of my waking time but I have realized that mere popping up of these light bulbs will not take me anywhere. Need to put pen to paper. Here is a quote. I dont know who said it. It just popped into my head, like all those ideas...

An idea, not executed, is not an idea!

Thus to qualify as an ideas person, I need to execute some idea and take it to completion. Over the next few weeks, I would be single mindedly focussed on execution. And I will put deadlines and tasks and goals in place and I will take one idea and take it to closure. Any idea. Even if its bad. Just to see if I have it in me to take an idea from beginning and finish it.

Another unrelated observation. One of my ex-employers told me once upon a time that I am brilliant employee to have and yet I would make a really bad owner. That time I dismissed it as yet another pep talk to get me to work harder. Now, the writing on the wall looks so much clearer. I now know what he meant.

But being the stubborn and overconfident fuck I am, I refuse to yield till I give things one more shot. This time till 31 Mar 13. However to help me expedite things, I want to recruit someone, to be my boss. Someone who constantly nudges me and forces me to do. And like all recruitment offers, I can put some kind of compensation on the table. Can telecommute and just need to give about 5 minutes of your time, everyday. Apart from compensation and awesome working hours, perks include, boasting rights, if I manage to do something. Any takers? Application shall be considered with strictest of confidence.

Thats it for the time being. Over to you, Execution.

Thank You Nilam

Forget Sandy. India, we have our own hurricane. And like all hurricanes in the US of A are named after women (why? can someone tell me please?), someone aped the big brother and our hurricane is called Nilam (with an I). Not very creative if you ask me. We had better options in Priyanka, Aishwarya, Sunita, Babli etc. Anyways so here I am in Chennai where I know exactly one person, apart from my office peeps. When I was coming here, I thought I would extend the day and hustle around for a business idea that I have been working on for last few weeks.

So I got over with my meeting, which went rather bad, and promptly decided to visit someone that I thought I could partner with. Little did I know that A, those guys are American and hence they shut down by 5 and B, there was Nilam, wrecking havoc in Chennai. I mean the impact of Nilam has been far from adverse - at max, we have had a few fallen trees, really wild winds and incessant showers. But we live in the era where media loves to exaggerate things and everyone I know plays it safe. I mean I asked atleast 5 people if they want to goto the beach and experience the true might of Nilam first hand but all of them chickened out. Guess not everyone is as frivolous as I am.

Made me realize that a city, a place is all about people. The fact that I thought I know enough people there and yet I couldnt get company, sucked! If I was prepared, I would have planned for something - I would have read about it, I would have carried a camera, I would have seen something that needs seen. Or I would have idled time, seeping in scenes and smells from the new city, like I do when I travel. But this time I was caught off guard and it sucked. There was nothing at all to do.

And this is when the idea man in me said, why not look for a place where I could sit and write. I immediately ruled out my hotel. Not a lot of reasons, but this time, I was booked into a hotel where the tiny 15" wall mounted TV was two miles away from the bed and there was a wash basin in the room. Ok I am painting a far worse picture but I think TV was indeed larger than 15" but I am not kidding about the washbasin in the room - I did use it to dry my shoes afterall. So my room was not really inspiring as a place and there was no table and I thought I could goto a coffee shop and write, the way I do when I am in Mumbai or Delhi. So I set course for a known and famous coffee shop. I think I left my office at 6 and by 8 the driver was still trying to find his way! Google maps was acting weird and all I could see around me was traffic. And when I did reach the shopping mall that housed the coffee shop, it was shut! Why? because someone had issued some advisory about Nilam!

By this time, I had lost it and I was yelling at everything that moved, including the cow munching onto I dont know what. The I-yelled-at-following list could boast of fancy names like the KFC till-man, the driver of my car, the policeman that was trying to man the traffic, the security guard, the gatekeeper at the mall.

I realized that I was pissed off for no reason. May be because I dint get to name the Hurricane or something! The thought about cities and what gives them life and what makes them important, endearing, mesmerizing, popular, safe, grand etc kept swirling in my head. And I had no answer. May be this is why I was angry. I tried to reason with myself and discover the reason for my anger.

And then like lightening, it dawned onto me. I was hungry! I had to eat! And thats what I did. I promptly went to a Simran's, had awesome Appams and went off to sleep, next to the wash basin that is.

The Noida Agra Expressway

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This weekend A few weekends ago, I was in Agra for work. While going and coming back, I used the new Yamuna Expressway - the latest in the additions of expressways in India. Here are few quick comments.

1. Boring scenery - compared to Mumbai Pune expressway, this one is really boring. For 150 odd kilometers, all you see is flat lands with an occasional green patch. Most of these flatlands are so similar to each other that you may think that you are going around in circles, in an infinite loop! And since the scenery is boring and there is nothing to do on the road, except hold the steering straight and stare at the road ahead. There is no pleasure in driving. If I was given an option, I would not go on this road for the drive atleast. But yes, if I need to goto Agra, this has to be the preferred route! 
2. Lack of amenities along the way. There are three places where you stop to pay the toll. And when I went, late August, none of the three were operational. This means that there is no fuel along the way, nothing to eat, no place to pee and no place to throw garbage. Hopefully this would have changed by now by its definitely scary to not have anything, if you get stuck. Yes I did spot escort vehicles, patrol cars and ambulances but I am not sure if they would come when I called for them. 
3. Bumpy roads. For an expressway, the roads are very bumpy. There are no potholes per se but the road is not flat. Imagine a roller coaster and flatten the crests. Its like that. Like a wave. I dunno why did they do it but I am sure there must have been some pressing need to do so!
4. Too many stray dogs and other stray animals. Though they have fenced the entire stretch with barbed wires on either side but there are just too many stray animals on the expressway for comfort. I have no clue how they got in because they barbed wire seems taut and high enough for a dog to jump over but there are so many of them that you are forced to drive on the right lane, lest some animal comes in front of your vehicle suddenly.

Having mentioned all these things, it does take exactly two hours from Greater Noida to reach Agra and if someone asked me if I would recommend it, I would say Hell Yeah!

Seeking Contributors for Offbeat Mag

I dont think if I have ever posted something like this in the past but here it goes. 

I have started working on a side project (not to make money to be honest) where I would write, feature and highlight stories, anecdotes, people, incidents and things that are offbeat. I call the project Offbeat Magazine. It would be a web based community blog and it may eventually evolve into something great or may fizzle down into yet another piece of junk on the web. I am not sure. But I will give it an honest attempt.

For the same, I am seeking contributors, people who can help me identify offbeatness and other such quirks that I can feature on the magazine. And designers and photographers and writers and handymen. I am looking for anyone and everyone who can help me pull it off. And once upon a time, someone said something about standing on the shoulders of giants, I want to invite such giants and hope that they help me see further.

Would you want to be that giant?

To give you an idea, the first few set of articles that I am working on for OffbeatMag are...

• How life has changed for a mango wo/man after s/he became a twitter celeb (I define twitter celeb with someone who's got more than 9999 followers). For the same I want to interview these guys and write an article. 
• How poker is changing the way kids in engineering colleges are re-evaluating their career options. If you are tuned in the poker scene in India, you'd know what I mean. 
• How people are re-defining the way they travel by hacking their way into premium lounges, getting free tickets and how international holidays is no longer a big deal.

Ocourse, all these articles have come from my understanding of the world around me. With more contributors, we can look at a broader horizon and hopefully cover more things. 

Thats it for the time being. Do you want to help? Get involved? Its easy! Just leave a comment on this post. Or write into me here.

Long Time!

Its been well over 15 days I think that I have written something. Not here, not on sandbox, not on that secret blog that I write for sgMS and not on Facebook. And no wonder its been taking a toll on me. Writing gives me extreme satisfaction and despite having a combined readership of zero (even I dont read what I have written), I get lot of contentment when I write.

Ofcourse writing is a tough job. Most days I cant write. And even when I write, I always have great beginnings but after a couple of dozen words, I am left high and dry. But writing is probably the best thing to have happened to me since sgMS. This one from Peanuts talks about how I feel about writing!

via This Isnt Happiness

When I started writing this, I dint know that I would carry on with it for so long and writing would become such a large part of my happiness. I mean I know for a fact that just a handful of people read this. And a even smaller fraction of those who read, actually care about what I write. Or why I write what I write. All ofcourse this blog essentially does, is to merely add to all the digital gibberish that us netizens produce every second that we spend on the Internet.

If I said that the net effect of this blog on humankind is actually negative, I wont be wrong. And yet this blog and process of writing is important to me. I can now relate to people who write diaries and I totally understand why are they so attached to the diaries. Ofcourse those diaries are logs of private affairs and other such non-public events for most people. Thankfully I dont really have any skeletons in my closet. Do I?  May be... may be not!

Anyways, before we move on, here is a song. And yes, there is a reason why I am putting it here. Can you guess?

 

And here is why I havent been writing for these many days.

Last few days have been quiet different what a typical day in life for me is. I am on a break from work. I mean not a real break, but I only work on things that no one else can work on in office and that too, from home. Time spent on meetings and travel has reduced considerably and that means my mind is lot more unoccupied and I have even more time on my hands. And like all idle men, I have no clue as to what could I do with all this time. I mean, I do have a million things that I could potentially work on, but if I do, the list of my vices would look really small!

Apart from this, I have moved to a different city and I have plans to explore yet another city before I am back to the grind. Thanks to my friends for letting me sleep on their floors and using the AC, which in my opinion is the best thing to have happened to mankind. Thankfully, I am being paid for this, so that takes care of grocery, travel and other such things. Thank you guys for that.

I am hoping to be back after Diwali btw, in case someone is curious. In the meanwhile I am spending less and less time online (read lesser interactions on twitter/fb), working towards developing new hobbies and trying to get fit. Oh, must mention, Rr gave me this amazing book by Rujuta Diwekar that talks about losing weight in a nice and easy manner. I like what she says in her book and I think I will try to follow her advice. Apart from fitness, Project rstlf continues to stay at the back of my head. And then there are all those confused thoughts that I dont know know who to share with and who to talk about. The world looks like a stupid place right now and the intent to work on it and fix it is getting stronger by the day. I remain hungry and some day I would fix it for sure. That nagging little voice at the back of my head keeps telling me that its almost time and good things are within reach.

Guess that's it for the update. There are so many more things that I want to talk about but this is not the forum. May be some other day. But yes, exciting times are ahead (I must have said this like a hazaar times since 1982) and there will be quite a few changes on how I spend my time and kind of things I write about. Sounds alien, coming from someone like me who has always been frivolous with life and all worldly matters. But guess its an age thing...

Stay tuned. And in the meanwhile, here is something that I will do as soon as I publish this post...

via This Isnt Happiness

Good night guys.

Back!

The regular readers of my blog may have noticed this interesting item that I posted a few days back. In there, I said that I was going incognito for a few days and I would not be connected with the world. I had planned to stay like that for a month at least and I had charted out all the things that I would do in that time.

From a planned 30 day hiatus, I am back in mere 3. Ofcourse I havent done any of the things that I had planned but I would continue working on those while I go on and off from the map of the world.

More updates (on hiatus and other things) to come soon. Stay tuned.

Gone Fishing!

If you are reading this, I am on the month long hiatus that I have been planning for almost two years. I should be back sometime towards the end of October.

I know you would miss the awesome little blog that I maintain here. Yes I am talking to both of you - my regular readers. In my absence, you may want to read TIH everyday. It's one of those things that I would donate all my wealth to, if I end up with some wealth in life.

I want to stay away from everyone I know. No, my phone is not working and I will not have access to email/twitter/facebook/linkedin/quora etc. Whats the point of a holiday if you are constantly checking your email, tweeting what you ate for dinner, putting pictures of that club on your facebook, checking for available jobs on linkedin or trolling on things on quora? 

However if the world decides to self destruct before the impending December deadline, you know how to reach me and warn me about it. Apart from that, I dont think you would need to speak to me. If you want to, just email me. I promise that once I am back, I would make it up. 

Thats about it.

Wish me luck!