Karthik S | beastoftraal.com

The wrong years – Honda vs. Hyundai

January 16, 2019 by Karthik S

There is an interesting similarity of ideas, here. The Honda ad was discussed widely for the so-called ‘typo’ till a lot of people pointed to those who called out the typo that it was entirely intentional. 1. Both are in the auto…

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The Weather Channel treats its users differently in US vs. Europe. So does Xiaomi?

January 15, 2019 by Karthik S

I stumbled on the news of the city of Los Angeles suing IBM-owned The Weather Channel of covertly mining user data. Now, given the amount of time we spend online and the variety of services we use without paying a fee, we…

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Tinda’s ‘Uber Eats moment’

January 14, 2019 by Karthik S

UPDATE – January 25, 2019: Uber Eats seems to have listened and understood the context for localizing this communication. Today’s Times of India city ‘Times’ editions have local equivalents of tinda for at least 3 cities – Kochi, Chennai and Kolkata. Bengaluru…

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Huawei vs. Cathay Pacific

January 11, 2019 by Karthik S

News no. 1: News no. 2: What a contrast! The Cathay Pacific blunder is attributed to a glitch (I’m assuming it is not a human error), while the Huawei tweet was human error (though a very common error; blunder nonetheless). I don’t…

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Space To Pray – a bold, contextual idea in Sri Lanka

January 10, 2019 by Karthik S

Given the dwindling sales of printed newspapers across the world (except in countries in India, of course), there is already a running joke on using newspapers for additional purposes besides reading news. So, using them to wrap things in shops, as a…

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Leaders talking about competition: Flipkart vs. Walmart

January 9, 2019 by Karthik S

I know I have said something on this topic earlier, on LinkedIn, but another piece of update prompted me to revisit this. Here is Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon, in the Tim Ferriss Show podcast. Beyond what I said earlier about…

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A warm Badhaai Ho to Godrej’s personal locker!

January 8, 2019 by Karthik S

If you ask me to name my favorite Hindi film of 2018, I’d name Badhaai Ho very easily. At least in the top 5, along with AndhaDhun. But, beyond enjoying the film thoroughly, there was something else that I really wanted to…

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