Archive for April, 2015
GOOD, BETTER AND WORST
Pepsiads1
Advertisement is a method of communication used to inform the public about ideas or goods or services. Advertisements have become very important for the marketing of products since it is through this form of communication that the target consumers are influenced and their demand are directed towards the intended products or away from the products by other sellers or producers. It is advertisement that influences the desires of the consumers for products that are extremely closely related to one another.
There have been instances where our purchases have been completely decided by the advertisements featuring our favourite celebrity-be it from the world of entertainment or from the world of sports. It is not uncommon to find children of today able to identify products on the basis of the celebrity who endorses it-ranging from the bar of chocolate to the bottle of the soft drink and up to the four wheeler and everything in between.
When television started to appear in homes near ours, there was on advertisement that was definitely above the rest. I am talking about the devil featured one for the ONIDA television. The tagline “Owner’s Pride, Neighbour’s Envy” was really one for the ages. For the first time, the Devil became the symbol of something good and better !
Then in the college I dreamed about having a four stroke bike heavily influenced by the “Fill It, Shut It and Forget It” tagline of Hero Honda . Over the years, many better bikes have been traversing the Indian roads, but this original genius of the tagline still helps Hero to be the market leader.
One soft drink major was the ‘official’ sponsor of the 1996 ICC Cricket World Cup organised jointly by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In a classic case of ambush marketing, the rival major came out with a series of advertisements featuring some famous cricketers with the tagline “Nothing Official About It”. So much for the great ice-cola wars!
Then there was the Pepsi tagline “Yeh Dil Maange More” that went on to become a rage so much so that a brave Indian soldier gave that cry during the Kargil war inspiring his colleagues even as he was badly injured .The tagline went beyond the market place and into the hearts of many an Indian.
Then there the advertisements that do not make any sense and some are pretty obnoxious to say the least. The various creams and lotions that promised to make girls fairer in order to make them marriageable have are pretty sick. The same can be said of the fairness creams that claim to make men successful in life.
There are advertisements from a particular manufacturer that feature great looking beauties and also a girl in a bikini on a beach. Wonder about the connection between cement and the sand, water and the girl in the bikini!
Then there are those that features celebrities for products like hair oils or vests for men. The producers should concentrate on providing better goods for the consumers and not waste money on celebrities. No one in the right mind is going to believe that Amitabh Bachchan uses the hair oil endorsed by him.
Advertisement is not always a good but it is something that is necessary. After all, one must be able to sell ice cream in the polar regions.
I am joining in on all the Pepsi IPL action in my own style with the #CrashThePepsiIPL activity at BlogAdda
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )TRULY REDEFINING THE SMARTPHONE-THE ZEN EXPERIENCE
ASUS is known for making some of the better motherboards and graphic cards for quite a while. Asus also has a presence in the laptop and desktop arena and is involved in the making of various devices and peripherals in the world of computing.
ASUS has expanded its product portfolio by making an entry into the world of mobile phones and tablets. I can vouch for the quality of the products on the basis of the ownership of the Nexus 7 tablet (2013) made by Asus for Google. If the quality of that device is anything to go by, then there can be no looking back for ASUS when it comes to mobile phones and more specifically, smartphones.
My first true smartphone was the Nokia XpressMusic 5800. It put the internet in my palms and for that I had to touch the screen. The camera quality was good and the audio quality was simply outstanding. But the touch was something that was iffy thanks to the resistive display.
Then came the Windows phone from Micromax which appealed to me since I use Windows to power up my laptop. The quality of the touch screen was not impressive and the camera was not really upto the mark.
Then came into my life one of the better smartphones of its time-the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc. The display was outstanding and so was the camera. The touch experience was a revelation. The audio quality as expected from Sony was great. But the phone lagged when it came to multitasking on account of the processor and the low amount of RAM. Also, the phone does not have a front camera for the selfies and for applications like Skype.
The first editions from the line-up of ZenFone(s) from ASUS were received with a lot of interest. The reviews of the products were encouraging and the response from the users motivated Asus to go to the next level and offer better phones.
The efforts of ASUS have resulted in the launch of ZenFone 2 (ZE551ML). The specifications of the phone are really awesome. In many ways, this phone is an evolutionary progression.
The first thing that attracts me is the mind boggling 4GB RAM on board the phone. Is this amount of RAM necessary or is this some overkill or some gimmick? My first computer came with 128 MB of RAM and until a couple of years ago, it served me. The 4 GB of RAM is needed for multitasking and to make the phone run applications without any lags or stutters. I like to browse with music playing in the background and also have social networks in the running.
The second thing is the processor that is provided by Intel, The 64 bit Atom 2.3 Ghz Quad core processor has the muscle to put to shame many of the computers some of us use. The processor and the RAM provide the juice to make the phone an all-rounder- a combination of speed and efficiency.
The third feature for me is the charging technology that is provided by ASUS called Boost Master that claims to charge upto 60% of the battery in just 39 minutes. With smartphones constantly connected to the internet, there is a big demand on the battery. Moreover, we are not in a position to wait for hours on end to get the phones charged. This is where the ZenFone 2 is offering something radical.
The fourth feature is the camera on the phone that uses the Pixel Master technology developed by ASUS which promises to shoot images that are 400% brighter in low light conditions using the low light mode. The super HDR mode further enhances the camera experience. Now, my wife shall not be unhappy over the bad quality images of her taken by me in low light conditions.
The fifth feature is the rear controls that make the experience different and also better. It may take time getting used to the rear controls with regard to the volume rocker etc, but certainly worth the effort.
The smartphone is not a phone-it is a great device that combines many devices into one small but powerful package and the ZenFone 2 fits the bill nicely. If only I had the money !
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )FOLLOW DIL FOR A GREAT DEAL
All deals with or without the use of money, involve Dil or the heart. Of course, there are some deals that may make a very big hole in our wallets or there are some that break the heart. There are also a few deals or atleast one deal that we all have or might make in our lives where the deal is made with the devil and the consequences might be unpleasant or something that makes us regret the deal.
In this blog post of mine, the deals are about the ones where I gifted something that I believed were dear to the recipients. The online shopping portals have made gifting easier and at the sametime the element of surprise is very high.
My younger brother wanted to have the DVD of a much talked about movie but he couldn’t. While browsing a shopping portal I chanced upon the preorder for the movie and without any hesitation, I paid for it. Me and my brother are both fans of the fantastic music created by J J Cale. After his sad demise, Eric Clapton, his friend and a great musician paid a tribute with help from some big names of the music world, including the likes of Mark Knopfler. I preordered the CD for my brother and he was extremely happy with the gifts. His delight more than made up for the money that I spent.
I wanted to gift my father a t-shirt on his birthday and ordered one online. But due to reasons beyond comprehension the order was cancelled. Then I decided to go to another shopping portal for the t-shirt. My wife suggested that I should also give something to my mother. So after a long deliberation, I ordered the t-shirt for my father and a saree for my mother alongwith a t-shirt for my brother. The young fellows-my parents had no inkling of the surprise and they were delighted. Again, I was proud of listening to my heart.
My wife is extremely fond of things golden and shiny. I am not sure about the quality of gold jewellery in my town. With the tablet in her hand, my wife spends some time everyday browsing through shopping portals dedicated to the sale of jewellery. I decided to give her a surprise and went online for a pair of earrings. When the earrings arrived, my wife was kind of shocked and uttered something that did not make any sense.Even as I could not understand any of the gibberish, I was quite sure of the deal making the mark on her dil.
As a student of Economics, I am constantly required to make an objective comparison between the costs and benefits while making any decision to purchase something. All I can say is that the benefits in terms of the happiness and delight on the faces of the people I love and care for always has exceeded the costs in terms of the money spent.
This post is my entry in the contest put up by Blogadda and Snapdeal
I am participating in the #DilKiDealOnSnapdeal activity at BlogAdda in association with SnapDeal.
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Y V SAI MADHAV 