Dense commentary on social media, PR, marketing, advertising and branding.
In the past 2 days, I got alerts about 5 of my phone contacts joining Telegram. That’s a very tiny anecdotal signal (pun unintended) that there is some interest in looking at alternatives to WhatsApp even in India, a WhatsApp-stronghold. A front-page…
There was a time when we used to see a lot of TV ads for laptops and home computers. Those were the days! And almost all of them began with the now-famous ‘Ting… ting-ting-ting-ting’ with the Intel Inside logo. And then the…
On September 9th, I received an email from ICICI Bank. Now, ICICI sends me tons of promotional emails, across the bank and ICICI Prudential, and fearing that some important email might land in the spam box if I mark one as spam,…
The comic strip format has long been associated with fun and entertainment. If a serious topic is communicated via this format, the assumption generally is that it is meant for younger audiences, or it is toning down the seriousness of the content….
In communications, we could use ‘easter eggs’ as a way to convey a second, almost hidden-in-plain-sight level something else besides the crux. Puns are one example – the sentence could read in a normal way but the puns add a second context…
As a vegetarian—born into a vegetarian family—I find it is too late to develop new tastes after 4 decades in this planet. I have considered ‘trying’ non-vegetarian food a few times, but these kinds of wiring goes beyond the mouth and tongue…
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…