Sunday, December 22, 2013

Let your fears be you’re Secret Santa

I am sure it’s the time when most of you’ll are playing Secret Santa with your family, friends & colleges. This game brings in lots of excitement & unbelievable surprises each time I play it!

My team at work decided to play this game in a slightly different style. We asked all the team members to write their name along with one of the fear which they want to overcome in the coming year of 2014.
The game goes like this: The Secret Santa will surprise his or her angle with gifts, acts and messages every day & will also assure that they will help in overcoming their fear. To my surprise this tweak in the game brought in some unusual realizations, fun, positivity, energy & bonding in the team.

This week was when the Secret Santa game was played. We all gathered at Pinxx, amazing dishes surrounded us. As we all 13 members were sited around a high dinner table…the fun evening was just about to begin.
We started off the game by letting members guess each other’s fears. Few guess were:
-       Fear of Manager
-       Fear of bad health
-       Fear of Girlfriends anger
-       Fear of going late home
-       Fear of talking about their age
-       Fear of expression
The thing that amazed me about this guessing game was as members went on guessing each others fear – for the first time not one but almost all were laughing over the fears. Generally we have seen people scared, shy, embarrassed when it comes to talking about fears..but this was something different. Could you believe that here was this table with bunch of young professional LOL on the topic of fear?

After all the laughter and tasting yummy deserts it was time to get serious & play the secret santa game. Each one had to talk about the angel for whom he/she is the santa..let the team guess the name, gift their angel, read out their angels fear-give a suggestion & assure that they will be around for the rest of the year helping overcome the fear.
The kind of fears that were read out:
-       Fear of losing the one they love
-       Fear of water
-       Fear of being extrovert & talking to people
-       Fear of Obesity
-       Fear of Drinking & Driving
-       Fear of Performing 

My Gift from Secret Santa
Fear is an emotion which is permanently embedded into the mind of a human being. If we remove this emotion from this world, then there would be total chaos in the society. It’s a protective instinct which shields us from dangers. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. My thought is becoming fearless isn't the point. It’s learning to control your fear, and how to be free from it.

Fear is already a part of you. Declare it and celebrate it. Infact, use it.
Inspiring: Entrepreneurs, the artists, the risk takers live with fears and make better use of it. They accept the fact that there is a danger and risk, and moving further ahead may result in crisis. But guess what? They absolutely love it! They accept failure as a part of life, and play with fears. They use this fear to conquer more ground. They are not afraid of this primitive emotion, but make it their closest friend.

Let your fear be your Secret Santa, let it surprise you each day, Embrace it! At the end you have a beautiful gift waiting for you.
Embrace the fear and feel lucky about it. If you fear something, then trust your mind, and be assured that you are onto something exciting. All you need to do is, divert the flow of energy. At the end, you will feel good about it. Give it a try, and see what happens!
Merry Christmas & Wish you all a Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 14, 2013

UnMetro – The Markets driving India

It was my absolute please to attend Dainik Bhaskar UnMetro Conference on 13th Dec. A platform where I got to hear some inspiring UnMetro Case Studies from Marketers, incredible panel discussing the future of India being the UnMetros. 

Some take away & quotes from the event:
People nowadays are migrating from smaller towns to cities like Pune, Lucknow and Ahmedabad to earn their livelihood, whereas the rate of people migrating to the so-called metros has fallen sharply.

The non-metro customer today, demands the same luxury packages such as spas, five stars & international vacations that any of his affluent metro counterparts demand.

Trust is the key to success in the unMetros markets and people are open to talk and learn about new things.

The trend of e-commerce players partnering with retail brands is yet to evolve in unMetros
Consumer in future will reject a user inappropriate product. Affordability is no longer an issue for unMetros

5 reasons for the change in nonMetros – increasing awareness for education, health & wellness, growing need for personal grooming, improving hygiene & increasingly eating out & experimenting with food.

60% of my brands revenue comes from non-metro India
Women & Children in UnMetros India have become powerful as far as purchase decisions go.

The advantage in a small town is that the news spreads very fast, brands need to spend money in cultivating loyalty

Products must be hackable & customizable. Customers are getting smarter. They will not buy products just because their favorite celebrity is endorsing it.


Puma – “We have closed 7 stores due to unprofitably, all from Metros

DHFL – “We target lower middle income group. We have differentiated Business Model to cater to different segments in Market

CCD- “We are not in the coffee business; we are in the Time pass business. CCD is a place where people want to spend time with their loved ones, beverages accidentally surround them

Toyota – “By the year 2015, non-metros will account for more than 60% of our sales!

Puma – “e-Commerce allows us to reach 800 towns that we would have never had reached. It serves a long tail of towns

Titan – “In the coming 5 years, e-Commerce will be big, Localization will be critical & technology will help us identifying customers with their name & purchase history”.
We at Huawei have always believed that making a common man a brand ambassador & word of mouth is the best marketing strategy. Thus Huawei Club where we are building an eco-system, engaging with Students, Developers, Designers to enrich our customers experiences.  

A brand essence doesn't and will not change, from market the way the message is communicated at times need to be tweaked accordingly to be effective. After the end of the conference, for it’s really difficult to distinguish metros & unMetros into separate categories.
In fact India outside the metros seems to be the emerging India.