Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

How do they do it! It’s simply amazing what Doritos did for the Super Bowl 2010. 116.2 million viewers watched the Doritos – Snack Attack Samurai spot, making it the most watched television commercial of all time!* WOW!

The brilliant thing about this all is that everything is user generated! That’s right! Doritos simply created a platform and the users did the rest. Anyone with an idea could write it, shoot it and submit it. It was that simple. If they became one of six finalists then they got $25,000 each. The six were then put to vote. The Top 3 were aired as Doritos commercials for the Super Bowl 2010.

To top it all, if they got ranked in the Top 3 on the USA Today ad meter as well then the first place would get $1,000,000, the second place $600,000 and the third place $400,000. If all three took the Top 3 slots then everyone would get a $1,000,000. And so they did, the Doritos Underdog spot took the second place. Two 20-something aspiring filmmakers walked away with $600,000!

I found this entire contest very interesting because Doritos got it right at multiple levels. For one, Doritos engaged the filmmaking community by building on the premise that a great idea can come from anyone! Secondly, they engaged America to participate and vote for the best commercial, thereby taking the idea to the masses and creating interaction!

Lastly, the thing that I found most brilliant was the simplicity of the brief. “Go for action-packed. Or go for funny. It’s up to you.” It is all about Originality, Creativity and Appeal! No big ideas, No big strategies. All the commercials have taken a ‘creative leap’ on a simple message – People who love Doritos don’t want to share them with anyone.

As a creative strategy there was nothing new there! The power is in the creative itself. My personal favorite is ‘House Rules’! “Keep you hands off my mama! Keep your hands off my Doritos!” LOL! Check it out!

Doritos – House Rules

Doritos – Underdog

Doritos – Snack Attack Samurai

* According to the Nielsen Company

A much overdue innovation that is going to change the way we talk to each other over the phone. It’s been a while since we heard of something major in the voice arena. It seems all the action these days is happening only in the data space.

So what is the big news about mobile HD voice for the end user? For one you would feel like you are talking to someone in person. The experience is going to be like shifting from an AM radio to a CD player – sharp and crystal clear. Remember the time when you first upgraded your TV set from the standard CRT to a big screen LCD screen – once you have experienced the richness of High Definition voice you would want not go back to the old way of talking. Mobile HD voice is expected to open up a whole new era for voice based services. Conference calls are going to be the big winners here. No more clinging to the speaker phone trying to decipher every word being said. Other voice services like IVR and Speech-to-Text are also going to evolve to a new level.

So what is stopping mobile network operators from moving full speed ahead with the adoption of mobile HD voice? For one, this service is part of an all IP infrastructure that mobile operators are moving towards as they adopt LTE. Although a good HSPA+ network should be able to handle these wideband voice calls, the volume of calls going forward are going to demand a low latency, high bandwidth network to ensure service quality.

The other barrier is going to be interoperability. Today if two operators offer mobile HD voice they are unable to connect their users with each other. Setting up an interconnection between an HD line and a regular line also requires some transcoding. Only once barriers like these get resolved can we expect mobile HD voice to pick up in a big way as a key value-added innovation for the end user. The good news is that some big announcements are expected in Barcelona this week as the Mobile World Congress (MWC) kicks-off tomorrow!

However, taking the lead is Orange. They launched the first commercial mobile HD voice service in Moldova based on their 14.4 mbps 3G network. To support this launch Nokia had made one handset available and now Sony Ericsson too has announced “HD voice ready” phones under their GreenHeart line. Another operator, 3 UK, is also under going trials for mobile HD voice. If some concrete steps are taken at the MWC we can expect mobile HD voice to be the big buzz this year!

Reposted from the Luciola Blog

JWT Mumbai’s Diamond Bride Campaign is a great example of rock-solid strategic thinking. It demonstrates how a deep consumer insight can lead to a major change in behavior. It shows how something as rooted as tradition can be challenged and how a new paradigm can be created. De Beers India came up with a very challenging brief “How to get Indians to use more diamond jewelry instead of gold at their weddings?” A question that had no easy answers. It’s like asking women in America to wear a black dress at their weddings instead of a white one!

This meant that the battle had to be fought on a higher ground. The inherent symbolism of security, well-being, tradition and value that came with gold jewelry was not going to be easy to overcome. To win this cultural battle, the planners decided to explore the modernity, status and glamour of diamonds and give them a whole new context with respect to weddings.

So what is the key learning that we can draw from this as planners? For me I think it is the power of context. If we can put something in an entirely different context and yet be relevant we can uncover some big insights and inspire dramatic changes in behavior. So the next time you want someone to use more of your product or service, I think it would be a good idea to get out of context, experiment with something fresh, bounce it off with consumers and then see where it takes you!