Media with the mojo

Media with the mojo

With media of every kind burgeoning in its reach, which is the one I need to back if I am in the mobile handsets space?

Swapnil Sharma, Mumbai

Swapnil, a tough-tough question. In many ways, despite everything the best media gurus will tell you, we are still groping in the dark. And even as we try to understand the media, its reach, efficacy and story-value, there are competing forces with vested interests that want you to look their way. We are still trying to understand which 20 per cent of our spend is working and where.

Having said that, society is today the super-set. Reaching out to it is the super-set media that is multiple in format, limited and niche in reach, but nevertheless desperate to reach out. The largest reach should be that of the Internet and social media. It is non-physical, non-intrusive, pull-led and consumer/user centric. But that’s only in theory, as only 163 million people in India reach out to the medium when they want to. Further, the depth of time spent on the medium varies. And the Internet is still the medium of the privileged few. A sub-set of the virtual Internet is the more physical, but nevertheless digital, medium of television. Its reach is large, but then again segmented across language, region, programme vehicle and more.

A further sub-set of the Internet (in theory) is print, the even more physical media, which needs physical delivery and patience to go through. Print remains a large option. And then follow radio and outdoor. Radio again is dependent on the waves that reach out. But then, the problem is with the number of receivers. Radio on the mobile phone is yet to catch on, and when it does, things will be different.

And there are the hoardings and outdoor digital mediums that stare back at us. There is street furniture, and stuff of that kind. Now, that’s a lot to grapple with.

The numbers in every space are contentious, and the qualitative aspect of appreciation is left to the imagination of the buyer, spurred on by the even greater imagination and evangelism of the medium’s seller. In such a situation, the best thing to do is hedge. Buy a bit of everything if you can afford it. Front-load it all with TV, as this is a medium that builds moods. Add a bit of local English print, some regional, garnish it all with an outdoor plan, and top it off with digital and social media, and voila, you have a plan!

Sorry, Swapnil, we are still to understand the media we use to reach out to consumers with the finesse we must.

How does an event such as last week’s Malaysian Airlines tragedy affect the aviation industry at large? And how does it affect a flyer?

PK Ramanathan, Chennai

Ramanathan sir, crashes of this kind raise the levels of consumer worry, for sure. Each time you board an airplane, expect worry somewhere in the psyche, till your aircraft has landed safely. To an extent, the first thing such an incident does is sensitise the traveller to the risk of air travel. The most paranoid of the lot will even cancel air tickets and try to travel by train maybe, if that’s possible.

On a secondary note, the airline brand, Malaysian Airlines, will be the most affected. Travellers with tickets will always want to rethink. But then, thankfully, public memory is proverbially short. As the days go by, and as more and more flights take off all over the world and land safely, this rather sharp memory is going to be blunted. As the days go by, the brand too will recover.

Flyers the world over will, however, wait to see how transparently the real issue will be discussed. The reality is that there is risk in everything we do. With such incidents, consumers consciously assess risk. The flyer in general pushes risk to the background when flying looks safe, and drags it to the foreground in the wake of an accident such as this. This is a yo-yo process by and large.

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