Karthik S | beastoftraal.com

“Mujhse Dosti Karoge?” —Indian Terrain

August 26, 2020August 26, 2020 by Karthik S

Back in my agency days, one of my larger clients was a car brand. One of their models was to complete a certain milestone (in terms of the number of cars sold in India) and we were brainstorming on ideas for a…

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The Tata Group Superapp

August 25, 2020August 25, 2020 by Karthik S

The Financial Times got a fantastic scoop yesterday. It was a scoop that the Indian media had no clue about and even the mighty Times of India was forced to report it as a small box item with credit to FT. I’m…

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What more do you want digital voice assistants to do?

August 24, 2020August 24, 2020 by Karthik S

Voice assistants have featured in science-fiction and popular culture in the past too. But now that we have voice assistants with some decent amount of traction among users and the fact that they have become a reality, how does popular culture depict…

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Our new job

August 21, 2020August 21, 2020 by Karthik S

Back in March this year, I had written about BBDO (the ad agency network) using LinkedIn to announce how each employee’s home was now essentially a new branch office for BBDO. It was smart, very-agency’ish creativity of announcing that they are all…

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Pushing the creative limits of selling protection from mosquitos

August 20, 2020August 20, 2020 by Karthik S

How many ways can a brand of mosquito repellant advertise itself? We have had the cream variety like Odomos for a few decades now. Then the coil variety, pioneered by Tortoise. The electric, smoke-free gadget with a ‘mat’ was launched in the…

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The importance of framing in communications

August 19, 2020August 19, 2020 by Karthik S

In Christopher Nolan’s 2010 masterpiece, Inception, Arthur (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) asks Saito (played by Ken Watanabe), “If I say to you, don’t think about elephants what do you think about?”. Saito responds: “Elephants”. That is the easiest explanation of framing in…

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3 taboo-breaking acts around August 15, 2020

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020 by Karthik S

This independence day (74th Indian Independence Day), two taboo products came to the fore in unusual and conventional ways. The conventional one first – adult diapers. I adult diaper brand Friends’ new campaign that utilizes the independence day-centric Azaadi Mubarak theme last…

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