Karthik S | beastoftraal.com

Would you pay for email and search?

June 24, 2020 by Karthik S

My answer to that question – I wouldn’t. At least not yet! We are probably seeing very, very early signs of a movement away from advertiser-led business models to a subscribers-led business model. This is already evident in the media industry. There…

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Virtual walkouts by employees

June 23, 2020 by Karthik S

Employee activism has been on the rise in recent times. With large companies, when a small number of employees visibly (digitally) protest, it doesn’t amount too much beyond minor damage in PR creds. In many cases, the employee (or the core group…

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OLPC’s pandemic-induced redux

June 22, 2020 by Karthik S

Back when I was at Text 100 (now called Archetype), my largest client was Lenovo. As part of understanding the client’s context, I had done a lot of reading on the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project by the co-founder and chairman…

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Don’t drink your own kool-aid in the name of personal branding

June 19, 2020 by Karthik S

My ex-colleague from Ogilvy posed an open question on Twitter recently, on personal branding: This is a very fair ask. Most people do connect ‘personal branding’ to self-aggrandizing, or talking about oneself. And that’s mainly because most personal branding proponents have merely…

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Why do Indian-origin dentists practicing in the UK sell toothpaste to Indians?

June 18, 2020 by Karthik S

You may have wondered this many times while watching ads for Sensodyne toothpaste, meant for sensitive teeth, from GlaxoSmithKline. The doctors always have Indian names. They are always practicing in the UK. Never an Indian doctor practicing in India. The second part…

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It’s just stuff. Is it?

June 17, 2020 by Karthik S

Hedvig’s (a Swedish insurance company) new campaign (created in-house) made me think more than the usual. In fact, ever since I saw it last week, I have been mulling over it on and off. That’s a good thing since I have read…

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Santoor soap for hand-wash

June 16, 2020 by Karthik S

Santoor has been using the mother-daughter template for a very, very long time. Their latest ad doesn’t use the ‘Mummy!’ call-out in the template but tries to be topical, in context to the increased attention on hand-wash during the pandemic. But the…

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