Where would we be without change? If it weren't for change we would still be playing time-less tests with an eye on the boat which is waiting to depart and I would still be wearing those enormously flared bell bottom pants like Amitabh Bachchan used to wear in Deewar ! So change has hit the Third Umpire too! Here is a small attempt at change where I will try to speak on two subjects in the same column.

The reason for this is fairly straightforward. People are changing, their attention span is dwindling and their suggestion is “can you be quick, be friendly and be gone?” And this is precisely what I am attempting in this piece which has two subjects. So here is my gentle suggestion to you, dear reader. Read one and enjoy the second one free! More importantly, tell me what you feel about this change.

A brand called Software

Brands make waves, headlines and more often than not, profits. Not so long ago, software was king and it took Bangalore along with it. Bangalore preened, without really doing too much, on the spawning of words like ‘Bangalored'. When Infosys was listed on Nasdaq it certainly and deservedly made it to the front pages. When Narayana Murthy's driver was declared a crorepathi the news made waves as did a host of other bits of news which, in hindsight, are no more than trivia – such as the Murthys not using domestic help.

Then hipper sectors such as retail, infrastructure and venture capital pushed software off the front pages and often, even off the business sections of the newspaper. It was no longer ‘breaking news' - after all, there were not too many scams there! N. R. Narayana Murthy, whom the media loves, moved out of an active role in Infosys and Nandan Nilekani moved on to handle the prestigious UID project.

Suddenly the brand did not seem to have high-profile spokespersons. Students of engineering colleges held appointment orders which had everything except a precise date of joining. The detractors and the cynics kept reminding us about the inability of Indian software to move up the value chain and the recession saw a number of people being laid off though PR companies working like beavers kept the bad news out of the media.

Back with a bang

The last fortnight has arguably been the worst for Indian software, at least from an image perspective. It started with a fairly negative story on MindTree. Now MindTree is a company that I admire, a great place to work, with several unique things to it, including a logo created by a spastic child. But thankfully for MindTree there was worse news to follow the very next day as two Wipro co-CEOs, Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjape, lost their jobs in a dramatic announcement. While the attention shifted from MindTree it certainly sent Bangalore into a tizzy.

Barely had people time to digest this dramatic development before another wicket fell. Ashok Soota, a well-respected doyen of the IT industry, announced he was leaving MindTree, a company he founded in 1999 with nine others. Not long after there were reports that S. D. Shibulal would take over as the CEO of Infosys sooner rather than later. Mind you, Infosys has always managed its leadership transitions in an exemplary manner and there is nothing negative about this; perhaps the only worrying thing would be the timing, given whatever is happening in the software environment.

A few good men

I have neither the competence nor the wisdom to tell Indian software the way forward but have a few half-thoughts which I am sure could be a good starting point for the many wise men to build on. Many years ago, the army had a campaign that spoke about the need for a “few good men”. Clearly the industry needs a new set of leaders who will soon find that the shoes they have to fill are size 13 (like that of a Glenn McGrath)! It needs to revisit some of its tried and tested principles; “Who needs advertising?” for one! It should probably focus less on the investor and the stock market and more on market development and branding issues. It would need a new breed of start-ups developing high-value products based on intellectual property.

There has to be a surge of fresh enterprise and new blood at the top. There is a need for more down-to-earth appreciation and understanding within the industry that software is no longer king but just another industry with its own ups and downs. But I, for one, would like Bangalore to remember what it owes to software.

Software was singularly responsible for putting Bangalore on the global map. It would certainly help if the confused government in Karnataka realises the value of this industry too and tries to focus a little on helping it, instead of spending all its time on survival. Maybe take a leaf out of “Vibrant Gujarat”?

So cute!

People have an unreasonable liking for children and dogs and nowhere else does that liking make itself apparent more than in television commercials. Remember the McDonald's “swing' commercial where the child smiles and cries with every movement of the swing as the signage keeps appearing and disappearing? Kid appeal is certainly not a new ploy, nor is it something Indian advertising has discovered. Yet whilst there are a bevy of TV commercials I will talk about two that caught my fancy.

The first is the one made for the ICC Cricket World Cup. The scene is a dressing room of a cricket ground and instead of a collection of sweaty, swearing men one finds a collection of chubby cheeks, rosy lips, dimple chins and curly locks all busy doing multiple things. One is checking the bat, the other is ironing the T shirt, one secures the pads of a player, another fastens his batting glove, a third hands him the envelope and the camera opens on the player who is getting all the attention and for whom the frenetic activity is happening - Sachin Tendulkar. “Best of luck, Sachin!” says the cutest of them all to a delighted Sachin and the entire bevy of cuties pose for a photograph with the caption “Best of luck, India” and I felt secretly relieved that thankfully the producer and the agency at least, if not the rest of India, remembered that it is not only Sachin's World Cup but India's as well. I am tempted to go in support of Kapil Dev but will not, and stay with the subject of children in advertising.

Say cheese

The next commercial I am going to talk about is the new Vodafone commercial which is a subtle reminder about number portability and how others are welcome to join. The commercial starts with a photographer shooting a young boy on a stationary scooter with our inevitable pug staring phlegmatically at the camera from the pillion. The photographer asks the boy to rev up the stationary scooter to complete the picture.

Soon, other kids join the party and as it is not a two-wheeler commercial the group moves to a dilapidated bus. Hardly enough to accommodate the sudden influx of more good-looking kids who now take their places in an airplane with the dog strategically placed as always. The commercial ends with the caption “Welcome to join”.

Here is number portability with a difference - a subtle, a polite invitation to join the network using a continuing character, the dog which has been a feature of Vodafone's advertising over the years. Of course, it would be interesting to debate which is a better strategy - the more direct one from Idea that tells you simply and directly to “get Idea” or the more subtle one of Vodafone.

That debate can wait as it is early days yet for number portability. But there is no debate about the value of having video hooks which serve as memory hooks. I am sure in day-after recall tests, consumers will recall the kids and hopefully the brands in question. I certainly can. Though as someone who grew up reading the Malthusian theory, I often wonder whether commercials such as these with adorable kids actually end up increasing India's population!

So if you are still there after my experiment let me ask you a couple of questions – after all it is easier to ask questions than to answer them!

What would you do if you were the custodian of the brand called software? First, do you think it has a problem? (Sometimes living in denial is the biggest problem.)

How do you ensure that any attention-getting devices, such as children, do not take away from your main message? Who wants a great commercial if you cannot remember the brand?

Have fun and remember that the World Cup is just a week away!

(Ramanujam Sridhar is the CEO of brand-comm. You can read his blog Third Umpire on Branding at www.ramanujam-sridhar.blogspot.com. )

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