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Where it is now?

Towns like Jalandhar, Ludhiana in Punjab, Jaipur and Agra on the Golden Triangle and such state capitals, heritage and business towns like Ahmedabad, Surat and Nagpur present a unique opportunity for Indian hospitality business to scale up, esp as Indian railways, india's aviation footprint and the road infrastructure will follow in step with the boom.

Note: The Indian Maharaja with TC, Maharajas Express with Cox & Kings, and the other two luxury trains have started first season bookings quite well and money is being spendt to add gym and pool to the Palace on wheels as well ( More here ) Golden Palace started from Bangalore is not doing so well apparently. The Maharajas Express for example is 84 persons at an average of $1000 per night for a 7 day- 8 night tour between Mumbai and Delhi

Cox & Kings is raising an unprecedented 600 crores from the market in a current IPO at absurd valuations despite 10 months receivables as the listed TC is doing so well, other follow up articles on Marriott, Fortune also at http://india.advantages.us

The Cox & Kings IPO opened at a good premium, there is a huge gap..don't bother about the word absurd..i would say it is the hope that Indian tourism will succeed..again if one were to just treble tourist arrivals ( it is not that large a base) and keep the Maharaja's at near complete capacity bookings ( 75%-80% for at least 6 months out of 12) we will all be super rich.

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Posted 13 hours ago by zyaada

The Top Ad spenders

The Adage 100 is out. No, this one is not a listing of marketing blogs. It is that paid list I do not have access to this year. The top global marketers. Coke is pretty high on the list with $2.6 spend on it by it. China is pretty high too, in fact higher than one coke or the #1 P&G , most probably I am bang on there because the sneak blurb on the subscription is 62% of the top 100 spend was outside the US and a lot of it in China. IBM is the other culprit. As a corporate marketer caught in a mostly suds and soda campaign they were mostly in print and their TV ads never appealed to the same audience. We were going somewhere when I was with IBM, now I am not so sure.

CBS has sold off all its Superbowl inventory - almost all of it, with money going after a recessionary rate card and most marketers opting to roll last years budget spends. Hyundai is added to that count. Citi, ING and HSBC made it to the Top 100 list but considerably lower ranked. Especially as they can count less of the sports sponsorships from here. GM and J&J both may not come back to the Top 10 in 2010, but I have a feeling Reckitt Benckiser will only make it bigger. I haven't seen many people talk about spending on their creative/design houses this year but hopefully 2010 will see a lot of them coming back with niche houses bagging the $1 billion plus accounts. MCD and Buurger King need to take over war cries from Pepsi and Coke, that one is a definite #1 wish onmy list and no video games from Coke please..or the elves in the machine second life stuff, which is much the same. The European and Latam campaigns are now being pushed to Asia, i think bad deal.

This year will see even more from HSBC as they are going to find the time and energy to capitalise on their strengths and continue on the 'Think Global, Act Local' vector and maybe General Mills will get together with Kraft and get a joint campaign..that one would be for the wish list. I guess one of these properties like NFL, Superbowl and more would easily outdo any of these individual networks if it comes to higher yields but it won't happen in a hurry. The Olympics would have got on to the Top 100 by themselves though and IPL would be competing for some of that $200 million the Superbowl will again outdo in Feb. In all, a insipid much the same 2010 awaits this list. It's a boring world, I can already see everyone having shifted to electric cars.

Social Media spends, all said and done are unlikely to be more than 2% for any of these brands..

[Tags Marketing, Brands, Adage, Ad Spenders, Ad Spending, Coke, P&G, IBM]
[Categories Branding, Superbowl, Ad spending]

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Posted 2 days ago by zyaada

Social Gaming - The only good option

Advantage zyaada notes: Early mid year estimates had indicated $100 million for Zynga of “Farmville”, Texas Hold’em and Mafia Wars across facebook and myspace. Now this is likely to be revised up by a few percentage points for zynga alone…Now you know why Tweetmeme and Twitterfeed are so conjoined with Twitter. Let’s hope this pans out ’socially’. Other animation/gaming players like Rock you and Zynga and Playdom all have $100m each in funding and by current engagement rates are likely to fare equally well for the PE involved in each case…long time to go before natural selection burns a few holes..

Even if the Virtual world envisaged with Dubai World comes to a nought, facebook and twitter are not doing so badly after all. Tweetmeme and Twitterfeed to name a few would have an even more significant overlap with the base ‘platform’ of twitter than the seemingly conjoined but really technology independent gaming networks and they are also on spinal tap.

Facebook Games Maker Zynga To Make $100 Million This YearNicholas Carlson|May. 1, 2009, 3:12 PM |

Mark Pincuss social gaming startup Zynga, which makes multiplayer games like the popular Texas Holdem for social networks Facebook and MySpace, is growing faster than you think.We reported in January that it closed $50 million in sales during 2008. Now BusinessWeeks Sarah Lacy says the startup has “annual sales of about $100 million, according to several people close to the company.”Most of that money comes from “the 2% to 10% of users who pay $1 an hour to play premium games or buy virtual goods.”Sarah says the other hot startup in social gaming is Playdom, which generates about $50 million a year in sales.

via

Facebook Games Maker Zynga To Make $100 Million This Year.

</blockquote>

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Posted 14 days ago by zyaada

IPL's new revenue streams | Hotshots at Advantage zyaada

If you follow the brand valuations for the IPL here, you would note the vertical cliff between revenues after season 1 and season 2. Also, the same is likely to repeat again in season 3. However, most of us would find the pricing for outdoor/theatrical rights for IPL coverage which in fact may not cover public radio and is unclear about use of team logos etc, seems to have been a cheap affair for ESD. OR, if Lalit Modi has done his job right, then there is as of now a very minimal revenue share for the TV network, the teams and the On ground sponsors are also getting away scotfree..it probably would be a very tightly monitored roll out as all the stakeholders would want to be visible and / or paid for the game in action and the real brand value would probably factor in this roll out of IPL at even 10 times the bid of INR 3300 crores at the very least.

Apart from this, team revenues would also need to rise vertically again for season 3 as time for rebidding is close at hand and some voices will already be contemplating new team mates in the pits. If not, trading is likely to get very ham handed despite the adding teams in during seasons 3 and 4

Here are the few tweets about the rights being granted and what has been happening:

What are the revenue share arrangements for ESD? and ESD with Mall/Theatre operators? MSM pays 80% to IPL till season 5, 60% till season 10

As per GoI broadcast Ministry rules all DTH providers have to get the channels from MSM, now if ESD uses at theater?

Big TV had earlier pulled out of a on ground sponsorship whn Airtel earned on-air DTH rights from MSM, Coke has on-air rights, Pepsi on grnd

MSM had earlier paid $1.79 billion to IPL for telecast rights for 10 years and the 160 cr settlement later for season 2

ESD would thus control IPl coverage in cinema, stadia and other public places for 10 years..they should pay the TV ntwrk used for broadcast?

Entertainment Sports Direct wins IPL ‘theatrical’ rights for $71.7mln till 2019 from Season 3 on, That means TV networks would now bid again

Lakers shining the Suns! At least NBA fans in India are happier with the new ESPN India imports

The Sales numbers from Apple $AAPL though their self congratulatory notes don’t sound too polished http://ping.fm/DESi9

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Posted 28 days ago by zyaada

MLB joins in with Twitter analytics

MLB.com just joined the social media revolution in a way that is still as obvious, but probably hasn’t found its way into public domain. The quetion is if sharing the brand with Twitter officially makes it business-friendly for the sport, ( or consumer brand and advertiser like P&G, Sprint ) In fact as one might feel to be important , does this spread of ‘co branded’ Twitter and MLB/NFL/IPL/NDTV/BofA count for more than the reputation management and the catching up?

Before we move on with the discussion, let’s give the @mashable it’s due

MLB.com Shows You How Twitter Reacts Inning-by-Inning to Playoff Games

With the MLB playoffs in full swing, it’s been hard to miss the chatter on Twitter during pivotal moments during games. MLB.com is now tracking all of that action, and compiling it in an interactive inning-by-inning timeline of each game that compiles Twitter buzz alongside video highlights.

The result is MLB’s “Pulse” feature which now accompanies the Wrap Up of each game. In addition to the graph for each team’s tweet volume and highlights, you can also see all of the tweets that MLB pulled in, so you can see specifically what people were saying at any point during the game.

Unfortunately, Pulse is only available after games, though the team that worked on the project tells me that real-time is in the works for next season. Nonetheless, during games, MLB.com has added a Twitterfeature to its GameDay view where you can both watch a pitch-by-pitch description of what’s happening, and also see all the tweets coming in about the game. There’s also an option to login and post your own updates.

One must first put some of the facts already in place. Twitter chatter has created its own distinctive brand and brand pull for the social maven, the sport and the consumer brand – as Steve Jobs might have once done to Microsoft, It’s hard to ignore. Twitter chatter is fun only real-time for the sports brands, NFL, IPL, NBA or F1 – you can set the watch by the tweets that come, for the game, the plays, the controversial moments or some real tweets as well! – The chatter dies away in twitter gloop soon after the last hit of the game..FACT!

The most important for marketers right now is to get into Twitter and stop getting shredded by opinion makers, twitterati and the cognoscenti or just common folk and similarly capitalize on the happy moments for the brand and the game. However, Twitter hasn’t sold the Healthcare bill to anyone. Twitter isn’t getting paid. None of the Twitter tools are. Lastly, I believe, in most cases above you can easily substitute Twitter for Facebook. Only that Facebook has advertising and Twitter has more content per second than you would ever think possible and you cannot ignore it! People love to ignore Facebook

Also important to remember, a lot of celebrity mistakes are already floating around. Bad spats in public domain, recorded in history

So, what does it mean? Well, for one thing the marketers seem to be doing it right. Only there are not enough of them. As usual I find only the Giants of the business game taking notice and spending bucks on Twitter. That is where we are and we are repeating the mistake we made last time as well. This is the crowdsourcing moments that need capturing, revolutions by the moment that can give tremendous leverage to the game.

There is beginning of the rudiments of policy for social media from the NFLs, IPLs and MLB. There is a lot of intelligent analysis real-time that makes my game day much more interactive and me more responsive to the word play and the brand fabric. There is the immediate impact on the brand’s visibility. There has to be now a commercial framework that does not overcharge the premium but also that sheds unresponsible engagement. It does not have to be a discouragement to new users, because any paying mode could be a big discouragement for millions of students, but apart from the crowd’s sway in making you add value there has to be a firm style from each sport brand that keeps tweeters that well tweet great and those that just ride. There has to be encouragement for the millions of listeners who are not there to ruffle any feathers but curious to read on twitter and see where the trend is for the game going on. And there has to be measurable incentive for brand owners and influencers to provide that culture.

Maybe we are the infomediaries of this Invisible Continent. But, maybe there is another revolution around the corner..The consumer’s ‘infrastructure’ requests have changed irrevocably, however.

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Filed under // Branding Crowdsourcing Facebook IPL NFL Reputation Management Social Media social media marketing Sports Sports Brands Sports Marketing Twitter

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Posted 1 month ago by zyaada

A leg of tweets ...with IPL n between - Distraction or Brands?

Barack Obama is learning testimonial marketing on the ground for healthcare, clunkers are away and superbowl is already 2/3rds sold with Red Sox and Cardinals falling away to give a sticky brand even with fat expenses for Yankees, Phillies and both the LA franchises ( Dodgers - NLCS and Angels - ALCS, for the newbies) In Asia, IPL has taken root, Champions League has shown the other Cricket brands in the Commonwealth and probably US has a couple of teams switching from Soccer to T20 Cricket this time :) Closer to where it hurts, Apple is redesigning Disney retail ( one last time?) IBM is riding god knows what hopscotch strategy, and Amazon and Walmart are getting ready for the holidays - some more would be shutting down this time in the face of retail discount wars...

Funding new infrastructure..a global imperative The new USA with new infrastructure « Obamanomics http://bit.ly/3kSJ2k about 3 hours ago from HootSuite

Apple is not going to ruffle anyone as Windows 7 brings $MSFT back into the game (by the by, just to wake up your senses before dinner ..) about 5 hours ago from HootSuite

Two-thirds of Superbowl AD inventory was sold/booked even before Week 1 of NFL..and there is six more months for the "new" network CBS about 6 hours ago from HootSuite

If the Chargers win today, they will likely meet the Blues for the next KITA motivation #clt20 about 20 hours ago from HootSuite

Welcome @hotshotsin to the Advantage zyaada fold @zyakaira @zyaada 8:13 AM Oct 14th from web

Gyancafe follows http://advantages.us/brands for updates on Sports Marketing, IPL and social media #clt20 7:48 AM Oct 14th from HootSuite

By @zyakaira Cape Cobras meet Victoria Bushrangers in the Super League Kickoff #CLT20 Sad day for Wayamba and Sussex #clt20 7:48 AM Oct 14th from HootSuite

By @boutred :ask for analysis CIT debt swap struggles, bankruptcy looms: NEW YORK (Reuters) - CIT .. http://bit.ly/9hApR @zyaada 7:47 AM Oct 14th from HootSuite

Wonder how soon we can extend the IPL club brands to Cape Cobras and the Sydney Blues ( sponsor the SA/CA teams) #CLT20 #ipl

a selection of other tweets in the inbetween ( Advantage zyaada )

Dow 10K definitely took its time coming! G'night all about 13 hours ago from HootSuite Gas sales ( At pump) down 25% from last year ( US, September 2009) about 16 hours ago from HootSuite

car sales dropped 10% in september "After Clunkers" shock, October shd indicate holiday season about 16 hours ago from HootSuite

$GLD up above $107..can it cross $115? about 16 hours ago from HootSuite

Why is $CI getting such a great buy rating? One can't believe the industry's whitepaper of all things! The fool's in goop http://ow.ly/un4a about 16 hours ago from HootSuite

Will $GS follow $JPM into the emerging markets, and expand globally? $GS earnings could far exceed expectations of $4.24, JPM likewise about 18 hours ago from HootSuite

Sign here! RT @barackobama Health reform just took a huge step—but the insurance lobby is.. Urge Congress to pass reform: http://u.nu/6jhi3 about 19 hours ago from HootSuite

$JPM Treasury and Custody Portfolio of $16 trillion likely to grow along with fee services of investment bank.. Buy to USD 60-65 in 2009 about 19 hours ago from HootSuite

And after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize! RT @barackobama humbled. about 19 hours ago from HootSuite
$JPM reports restructuring with Jes Staley taking over as CEO at the $1.9 billion richer investment bank, Mary C Erdoes takes over at AMC
about 20 hours ago from HootSuite

$JPM reported a further $2 billion added to loan reserves and $3.7 billion in extra charge offs in retail, Credit card losses of $700 m about 20 hours ago from HootSuite

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Posted 1 month ago by zyaada

Bidding for the Olympics - The new marketing gig

Borrowed from the Washington Post for good effect

zyaada notes: The Chicago, Rio and Tokyo competition ('16 Olympics bid) is to be a secret ballot of 106 members of the IOC on October 2nd at Copenhagen

In the wake of a bribery scandal that caused the IOC to revamp its selection process 10 years ago, IOC members are no longer allowed to visit the bidding cities. Each instead receives a dense technical report on all of the bids, which seems decidedly overshadowed by the big-picture geopolitical issues in play when the election takes place, and what occurs in hotel ballrooms and on red carpets in the days leading up to the vote.

Added Mallon: "The IOC sees itself in a more hallowed position than U.S. people do. . . . The IOC thinks heads of state should come and, if not beg, at least plead their case that their city should host the Olympic Games. If heads of state don't do that now, I think the IOC is a little bit offended.""If it's anything like U.S. Congress, they're not going to read it anyway," Olympic historian Bill Mallon said. "If that's the case, it really is very much, 'Hey, the prime minister of Japan came; obviously they really want the Games, and the U.S. sent [Obama senior adviser] Valerie Jarrett -- who the hell is that?' It matters a lot" that President Obama decided to attend.

Before the Obama announcement, Chicago had said Jarrett, first lady Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey would campaign in Copenhagen with other dignitaries; Rio is sending soccer legend Pele, Olympic swimmer Cesar Cielo and President Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva. Tokyo has a prince, a princess and a prime minister. Madrid will roll out King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

Does it really matter? London upset the heavily favored Paris for the 2012 Summer Games after then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, showed up in Singapore, chatting up IOC members for hours.

"I'm convinced London would not have won if Tony and Cherie Blair had not gone out to Singapore," Pound said.

Borrowed from the Washington Post for good effect

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Filed under // Chicago Cities Copenhagen Lifestyle London Obama Olympics Retail Lifestyle Singapore Sports Sports Marketing

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Posted 2 months ago by zyaada

Is NFL the most twitterised brand?

A lot of NFL gets on Twitter too. Apart from the fact that NFL Network has exclusive high quality coverage online with 100% video support and lots of fantasy games for the fans, most NFL players incl Chris Johnson are alive and 'speakalot' on Twitter. Featured here is how one of the better known teams of the NFL, the New England Patriots have made a distinctive interactive app for Facebook..going into grapping the attention and mindshare of a 100 million odd users..it's great to see something as entrenched as the NFL going out to bat with the invisible continent and get more touchdowns,! Fire away. (mixed metaphors!, maybe just the Dallas Cowboys losing their hold on the game after not making the playoffs)

Also, Superbowl, F1 and even IPL take a lot of Twitter space during the 'active season' window of a few hours alongwith NBA, Baseball and NASCAR showing the affinity of the new social media with sports and retail brands ('pizza')

Below is the news snippet of interest:

New England Patriots Choose Facebook as Primary Social Media Hub You know how bands often tend to put more importance on their MySpace page than on their dot com website? Well, the New England Patriots are now doing something similar on Facebook. They’ve partnered with Buddy Media to create a new section of their Facebook page, dubbed the “Fan Zone“, where fans can check out a calendar of Patriots-related events, play a Fantasy Forecast game, test their Patriots knowledge in the Patriots Trivia Challenge, send virtual Patriots gifts to their friends and more. What’s interesting about this new initiative is the fact that none of this is available on the official Patriots website. True, some parts of the Facebook Fan Zone still link to that website, but for the most part, fans would do better to visit the Facebook page than the official, dot com page. As the importance of social media increases, I reckon that more and more big brands will put emphasis on their presence on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter instead on their official websites. Patriots’ Director of Interactive Media Fred Kirsch explains the move: “We really weren’t anywhere [before] as it relates to social media. We had to get into the game, and to have that kind of audience we have on Facebook, you can’t get that kind of immediate impact on [Patriots.com].” For more on this topic, check out this article: Is Social Media Making Corporate Websites Irrelevant? Tags: facebook, New England Patriots, social media via New England Patriots Choose Facebook as Primary Social Media Hub.

via Is NFL the most twitterised brand?

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Posted 2 months ago by zyaada

The British sense of twisting facts..(easy to do on Twitter?)

FACEBOOK vs. TWITTER series 17/800

The Brits are at it again, looking at their tea cup and making up the stats..

zyakaira notes: USA, India and Brazil remain the largest and most active twitter users, high mobile and broadband penetration remain bullwarks of the Chinese and Indian economies growth, but I guess the British must also get ahead :)

London is staking its claim as the Twitter capital of the world (duh!) as a flock of local start-ups ride the communications network’s huge wave of growth.

While Twitter is the toast of its native Silicon Valley in California, London boasts more users than any other city in the world. Twitter allows its 40m users to post 140 character updates or “tweets” on the web or via mobile phones.

Even though Twitter itself is yet to generate any revenue, early-stage investors are pouring millions of pounds into small companies in the Twitter “ecosystem” in the London area.

London has produced the most popular of the many third-party tools used to post to Twitter, called Tweetdeck. Reading’s Tweetmeme, which tracks the most popular news stories discussed on Twitter, is attracting millions of visitors a month while Twitterfeed, based in Tooting, is used by thousands of publishers to post their latest headlines on to the site.

“In the UK we’ve got a real phenomenon going on,” says John Borthwick, the British-born chief executive of Betaworks, a New York company that has invested in Tweetdeck, Twitterfeed and Twitter itself. Just as Scandinavia took an early lead in mobile technology, “the UK has become fast-forward in terms of social” (duh again!, can i have a spot of tea in my milk..) , thanks to high broadband penetration.

via FT.com / Media - Twitter branches out as London’s ‘ecosystem’ flies.

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Posted 3 months ago by zyaada

Social Media Wars: Digg gets going again

zr4bthw3sm (Duh, Technorati, again)

The irreverent founders of Digg have been a bit snowed by Twitter's rise as it is now doing 53 million users a day and is still going to rise by almost 400-500% in 3 months. But Digg has been around for long and its platform has caused lots of 'social success' and some heartburn with its traffic redirects , it has put together an institution that predated Web 2.0 and will survive it seemingly.

Of course all of this Digg stuff is for journalists and authors selling their ware and readers reading tons on the web daily. For many, the web remains distant because of this lack of interactive web that actually plays and works with them, as 9 out of 10 browsing 'afficionadi' would not bother with too much reading. Let me also cut the dialogue short and introduce the new Digg feature after the Presidential debates and quasi debates earlier.

No they have not bought up Predictify or got into the race for other social media sites ( not to my knowledge at Advantage 'zyaada') They have just scheduled another of their fine web discourses with Timothy Geithner taking flak and clarifying the US administration's position on the stimulus, the stock markets, the banks and may be the tax bill

The latest on Digg:

Dialogg: Timothy Geithner

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Travel, Leisure and Lifestyle

The Top Ad spenders

Social Gaming - The only good option

IPL's new revenue streams | Hotshots at Advantage zyaada

MLB joins in with Twitter analytics

A leg of tweets ...with IPL n between - Distraction or Brands?

Bidding for the Olympics - The new marketing gig

Is NFL the most twitterised brand?

The British sense of twisting facts..(easy to do on Twitter?)

Social Media Wars: Digg gets going again