Selective Amnesia

A few thoughts on Interactive Marketing

For over a year now, I’ve been pitching the idea of advertising online to my clients. I’ve been pushing them to look at blogs, flickr and other sites that I am familiar with as possible media outlets, as well as a great way to tell their side of the story. I even set up a client’s blog, and I am happy to see that they have taken it up in earnest and are writing some fantastic posts there.

I’ve also been begging agencies that I have worked in (and am working in now) to look at interactive media as an integral part of advertising and not just as a residual medium. I see some fantastic, really mind blowing work done exclusively for the internet by agencies in the western hemisphere, and have smacked my head in frustration, because some of those ideas were ideas I had myself. And a long before I saw them executed.

Not long ago, I’d told a colleague that Indian agencies would never ‘get’ Interactive. Thankfully, I’ve been proved wrong.
Sunsilk Gang Of Girls
Ponds’ I-Blushed
Kwality Walls – Spill ur dil.
and
Tata Indicom’s Institute for Poor Mobile Network Syndrome.

First thoughts:
3 of the 4 sites are HLL’s brands. Hmmmm.
Ponds’ I-Blushed is so fucking slow. It might put some people off.
Spill Ur Dil is a tad difficult to use – the mouse pointer morphs into something that is hard to locate against the pink background.
Tata Indicom – PMS problem had me ROTFL.

I am going to hold passing judgement on these sites for a little while more. Especially because I am not sure how much these sites are an extension of the brand’s mainline advertising. To my mind, a good interactive site/idea is a replacement for your brand’s MSM campaign, with perhaps press and TV acting as just pointers to the site.

Of the four above, I think Tata Indicom has one of the best ideas, and the fact that I landed there almost accidentally, via a well-placed Google Text Ad, leads me to believe that they are well worth watching.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with a fantastic site. Can you guess what brand this one’s for? (No peeking!)
Let The Game Continue.

interactive marketing | advertising | microsites | viral marketing