Seeing Things

There has been a lot of press about how big tech companies are handling privacy & personalization. And now, Apple’s iOS 14.5 is launched along with the long-awaited privacy feature, App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Apple's ATT feature highlights who is tracking you on your iPhone and gives you the option to stop it. Here is their ad:  https://lnkd.in/eSz6dfz   Here are some of the things I am considering: Will this end opaque data collection systems? Which was the main reason why you were hounded by real estate ads for months after looking online for a house to rent.   What this means for customers: Transparency. We know who can and cannot keep info about us because they do so with our permission.   What this means for advertisers: Greater reliance on first-party data. We need to create avenues for customers to see value in sharing their info with us. E.g if I am a biker, I would happily share my info with a company if I know it increases their chances ...

Through the 2010s I kept gaping at the gap between the traditional marketing approach at the agencies I worked at and this seemingly separate, fascinating discipline called digital marketing.  I noticed how the rate at which this gap diminished was massively slower that the rate at which customer behavior was transforming.    The 2020s, I imagine will be the decade when this gap will completely vanish. The very definition of “mainstream advertising” is changing and more importantly being acknowledged as changed.  Today we refer to the two groups as traditional marketers/strategists and digital marketer/strategists. This split will disappear.    New digital advertising channels continue to impact how we reach out to our customers. Here are a few ways I think our industry will be impacted by digital marketing, and two things that will stay the same.    A few things that have changed:   1) The number and nature of customer touchpoints and the in...

My views on "the new normal" got published in Campaign India. Available to read  here   

Glasses have been a part of my face since I was 7. My mom meticulously wrote the multiplication tables from 1 to 10 on a big chart paper in bold colored sketch pens and pinned it up on the wall to help me memorize them. One time when she was making me read it from a bit of a distance, she discovered her sight was better than mine! That's how I got glasses at the age of 7. At that age, it is natural for anything that a kid owns to be subjected to accidents. My glasses got dropped, sat on and randomly picked up by my baby brother to experiment with - what would happen if he ..say..scraped it on the concrete floor of our back porch? Also, glasses were fragile back then. The lens were made of glass. I remember this because this one time, when I was the same age, while frolicking about, I came too close to the corner of the bed. The lens shattered while I was still wearing them. And I started to bleed on my face. My mother who witnessed this - her heart stopped for a moment because s...

A heart that knows of betrayals and broken dreams Is seldom free of weight But you stay light - you know how   And yes, you are right   Everything will be alright    It’s a nice feeling    We know how – we stay light    It will be alright.   Yes, you are right.  26 Mar 2020 Last time I wrote a poem was at least 15 years ago!

It's change. The only constant. But this is not just change. This is a jolt. We are witnessing a very quick unfurling of what everyone is humbly surrendering to as "the new normal". The landscape has never been more challenging.   Even Bob Dylan, when he sang, "you better start swimming or you will sink like a stone" was referring to the inter-generational transitions that slowly creep in on us when we are not looking. Nonetheless, this statement rung true then. It undeniably rings true now. We better start swimming.   And we all are. Like a 6 month old baby in water - yes they automatically swim and stay afloat.   The auto instinctive swimming will help us stay alive, but what we need to do now is to understand the nature of the water and develop technique to get ahead.   What is the nature of the new normal? Let's look at two aspects of it - business and people   The new normal Business:   1) Leveraging technolog...