The abused Advertisement

Consumers are bombarded with a lot of advertisement involving every possible media - The billboards, radio, TV, newspapers, mobiles, movie screens and web. We don’t care whether the ad was for detergent or chocolate. I remember seeing a new ad by Act II popcorn, some quick-cook popcorn product available in the market these days. The ad was without any background music, without any famous personality, forget famous it was without any human, It was only 4 messages one after another. What was the message then, well the message was ‘why do companies make ads’ ‘it is to help you take a break from watching tv’ ‘and go and make a Act II popcorn in two minutes’ ‘come back and enjoy the tv with Act II popcorn’.

Let me ask you 1 question, are we the consumers of advertisement. Do we consume advertisement, yes please refer the book for the definition of consumption.

Imagine a world devoid of any advertisements, also assume that people are completely aware of the brands available in the market so that I do not need to give the trivial answer that advertisements are to teach the consumers and make them aware of the brand or product. How will you feel, nothing to distract you. Moreover you are not required to pay a premium on products as whatever companies are spending on Ads is in-turn collected by consumers by marking up the price.

Nothing will disturb you when you are watching your favourite program on TV but what if you want to take a comfort break, you do not want to miss a part of the program on TV? What if you want to see whether other channels are airing more interesting program at this time? What if you pay Rs 40 for your daily newspaper instead of Rs 4 and Rs 2,000 to your cable operator instead of Rs 300. Shocked! well you shouldn’t be.

Advertisements do more than just subsidising the newspapers and TV costs, in general cost associated with entertainment and communications media. Let me try to put down some (not so thought) utility of advertisements.

• They make you feel important, you know there are companies wooing you everytime, and you easily tell your friends “these marketers do not know how to advertisement, they make such a terrible ads, they do not have any brains”.
• Not only they make you feel important, they provide you a constant source of ‘abuse object’ that you can abuse whenever you want to or whenever you do not have anything to discuss with your friends.
• While you are travelling the billboards alongside the road gives you a hint that a city is nearby, the size and shine will also tell how developed the city will be. Just imagine you are in a complete new city, unknown people and then you see a lot of billboards of known brands (Titan, Nokia, Coke, Adidas etc.), suddenly you feel connected (did you read my previous post on 'shades of journey').
• They decorate your roads, make it interesting, they are a proof that when you are in a city centre, it is indeed a city centre.
• They provide parents with options to show their small child different objects that are used in the advertisements like dog (hutch), leopard (Mountain Dew), jungle (Cadbury perk), stars (Airtel Ad); the child is ofcourse not able to see these things frequently in concrete jungle (yes our housing societies).
• Sometimes they provide you with new ideas, funny moments where you do not have to scratch your head to understand every bit of it. They are some of the simple things you watch on tv.
• Billboards also decorate the big walls of Malls, Cinema Halls and they appeal to your eyes. The actresses/models in those big posters beautify the surroundings.

In all these sorts of exposures, I am not consuming the product but consuming the Ad. And I am paying for this consumption, by purchasing those marked-up products of the companies that use these ads. Tell me, do you consume advertisements?

Popularity of your blog

How do you increase the popularity of your blog? Well I am not probably the right person to ask to, but I am the right person to ask you.

It’s been almost a year and a half since I started blogging and barring a couple of unknown visitors (of course who have commented) all were my friends. Well, your blog can act as one of the means to add to your popularity among the acquaintances but also gives you a chance to remain connected with your dear friends. So how do you increase the traffic to your blog. Certainly I am not able to do a good job, not yet.

But before I try to find the solution(s) to the problem I need to first define the problem itself. No, don’t get me wrong, it’s not a consultant’s approach; it’s the only approach I can think of. I seriously need to find what kind of people I want to visit my blog. Whether I want the marketers, philosophers, technical, freelancers, leisure readers or just my friends to come and read my blogs.

Well, one can write a professional blog, let’s say a opinion blog, travel diary, feedback blog on mobile technologies or a critic on films and blah blah blah. Even if I try to write it will be of no use as I have a little idea about these things. So far my blog entries are limited to random thoughts that I have pertaining to certain events that appear in our social or economic life. So the readers’ profile (please let me take the privilege of trying to profile the typical readers who come to my blog, I know the numbers are not in support of this analysis) is very generic with my friends who are pursuing their post graduate studies in technical field to management, some of the my other friends and few (highly valuable) people who have reached to my blog by “Google Search”, isn’t it amazing.

But still there are no clear indications as to what type of people are interested in my posts (yes if someone unknown comments on my blog posts I do go and check out his blogs). Could this be one of the ways to increase the traffic on my blog site, I should also go and comment on peoples’ posts and this would prompt them to come and see my blog. But this would not ensure the return visits………. he he the marketer in me has started speaking….. sounds like return purchase.

So how do you actually improve the popularity of you blog. Say use those terms in your posts that are frequently searched on internet and keep posting using the generally prevalent terms. So if you were to ask me what these terms would be as of today, I will say that IPL, Twenty20, UPA, Obama, LTTE, the terms that you encounter on your daily newspaper. So should one keep writing about the current affairs on a regular basis. Still, this will not solve the problem, this will attract the leisure reader, which unlike in the months of May and June you will not find (find the reason for May and June and you will be surprised).

One other option that seems a little feasible is linking your blog to other bloggers in and around you. Develop a blog network where the bloggers are following your blog and you in turn are doing the same. Google has recently made available such functionality in blogspot where you know who are the people following your blog. Once that list is builds up, you know the people who are interested in your writing and then you can write on interesting topics to suit the audience.

If you really want that only your friends should come and visit your blog the task becomes easy, just write on your personal experiences that you friends can easily associate with.