Archive for August, 2009

No FEAR

Posted by Saurabh Gupta in Articles, Enter'prize', Mobile Content, Phonethics, Social Media, Visual Alphabets on August 29th, 2009

People pay for content with money OR their time*
From a consumer perspective, ‘paying’ for content has to emerge as a problem solver and not another problem to deal with.
Consider the scenarios in which a consumer pays / is willing to pay for content –

  • to save money
  • to save time
  • to save effort: curated bundles of content along interest based verticals (value addition)
  • unbundling of complex (and expensive) media packages (like selling ‘singles’ in the music business)
  • on the move access
  • language services (translation, text to speech)
  • budgeted institutional media / content purchase

Consider some of the challenges (at least in the Indian context) –
1.    Lack of a digital (monetisable) identity like credit card etc
2.    Language (local language content is in short supply)
3.    Access (awareness and availability)
As a Creative Individual and a mildly puzzled entrepreneur I find myself asking a few key questions:
a.    Creation – why are we creating what we are? Is there a precedent/gap/trend that we’ve identified? Can we collaborate/use online tools to reduce the cost of production? Do we know the target audience well enough? Can we collaborate with other online destinations (where our audience is) to identify and access the audience?

b.    Distribution – are we optimally using ‘free’ platforms we can leverage to increase discovery and impact of the content? How do we separate the discovery and consumption? Is there a regular social media outpost that we can manage to inform and update our loyal customers? Do we allow them to bring their friends to the party?

c.    Billing – have we passed on the benefits of reduced distribution, advertising and delivery costs to the consumer? Is the content ‘cheaper’ because of it? Is it easy to access? Have we hobbled paid content with rights management softwares? (reducing the effective value of the purchase) Is the content bundled? Can the customer pay for smaller bundles of content? (micro-payment friendly)

TWO SECRET WEAPONS (well, not so secret actually but effective all the same)
1.    Mobile phones – we imagine it as a key element in the ‘paid content’ ecosystem both as a payment gateway and a delivery channel. ‘Text to pay’, ‘pre-pay’ and ‘micro-payment’ are only just being used to pay for content but are simple enough and available in a great scaled environment so as to make it (payment through mobile phones) feasible.

2.    People pay for content with money OR their time* – We have to figure how to monetise the latter.  Advertising still remains the best way to monetise the time users spent consuming your content, the question is how innovative can we be about it. At what point does it become feasible to sell your own advertising deals (which maybe smaller and more painful to service) that allow the advertiser to FULLY UTILISE the scope and audience offered by your business?

SUMMARY: Build platforms, ‘ease’ and ‘simplicity’ score big – bigger than we imagine, collaborate to create industry standards with peers: tying up with even one more company like yours is a ‘collaborative’ effort! And the biggest thing – DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHARGE FOR WHAT YOU CREATE

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Shooting stills

Posted by Saurabh Gupta in Uncategorized on August 26th, 2009

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thai m(e)ssage

Posted by Saurabh Gupta in Phonethics on August 26th, 2009

We had the pleasure of shooting an ad film with a Thai crew in and around Bangkok recently.  The quiet efficiency of the the crew amazed me. The one thing that the Thai are concerned about is ’sanuk’ ; losing face and Vikram (my colleague) had to work overtime to ensure they felt comfortable and assured about payments etc (you’d be surprised, or maybe not, at the number of producers from india who’ve defaulted on payments!)

day 1 of the shoot started at 5 am in pattaya at the marina. we’d rented a yacht and the crew was set-up and ready to roll at 5.45 (an hour ahead of schedule). It helped that the director (Ayhan: Smiling Buddhha) and the DOP (SUnil Pillai) were patient, helpful and great fun. The thai crew wears t-shirts to demarcate deptts – lighting, grips, camera etc. this is a practice we’ve been trying to start for the last 5 years! on a boat this saves not only time but potentially lives!! Excitement – So, i missed the boat at the marina and turned up an hour late (6am) by which time the boat had already sailed
(literally). Maew (matronly, superstar Line producer from Thailand) rushed me to the Pattaya beach, bullied someone into handing their speedboat over and we rode into the sea full speed. 10 miutes in and we realised that none of us really knew which way the big boat had gone! Some tracking and locating with frantic calls andwe found the boat. of course i couldn’t get on it immediately since they were ’shooting’. so we trailed behind for a bit before i could hop on!

the same day we travelled back to bangkok and shot a chroma and exterior sequence including a super ambitious shot which involved hauling a jib on top of a bungalow. the shot was completely set-up and ready to roll when we got there. each sequence was ready and the art-work (with options) was done. the only hitch – someone had cancelled the catering. so maew to the rescue again – super noodles and rice in lunch-boxes. the thai crew had a rolling lunch (on job lunch) without any requests from us in the evening the client (Naqash, 25) was embarrassed with a HUGE cake. It was the sweet man’s birthday and we thought it was the least that could be done considering he’d spent the netter part of the day between lights, camera and ACTION. after the shoot a long drive to a hotel somewhere mid-way to the next day’s location.

the next day we turned up at this magnificient 18th century structure in khao sayi. pity we were shooting only interiors here the exterior was framed against rolling green-blue hills with mist gently rolling down the entire day. a lake and a super-fab restaurant completed the experience. by now we’d shot in a heritage location on two days and the sensitivity shown by the crew to the location and it’s material was impressive. i’m talking tennis ball buffers on light stands, card-boards spread across the wooden floor and rubber wheels on ALL equipment.  Specially loved the ‘apple-boxes’ for the director and assts to perch on.

A beer party for the crew at the end of the shoot and a quiet dinner at a river side restaurant made for a splendid ending to the entire trip. Maew, full of super-delicious thai food, talked about her ‘dream’. She’s adopted 10 kids and is buying land to build a hostel and school for them. She asked me if people in India don’t notice the poverty and if it’s mostly about money money money (she did say it 3 times).

i’m still wondering. Will we ever learn to be efficient? on time? respectful? human?

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Letting go..

Posted by Saurabh Gupta in Enter'prize', Phonethics on August 3rd, 2009

We’re producing an ad film and i’m not directing it. This statement means nothing if you don’t know that Phonethics started as ‘Ethics’ a small 3 people production house working out of a small office in Mehrauli, Delhi on top of a banana godown. The ad film in question was won after months of presentations and many rounds of meetings. It doesn’t gel with our current range of products at Phonethics but we decided to do it because of the complex animation and stylish post production involved. We will have to trust an outsider (not really, but then everyone who doesn’t wear the uniform is an ‘outsider’:) with the final execution and most importantly, creative vision. It’s something we haven’t done before. We nearly decided to ‘do it ourselves’. But it’s an exercise in growing up. As an organisation. As Creative people. We’re letting go..

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