Fave Rants and Raves in Advertising

Fellow employees of EmPower Research!
This is the place to list down your favorite commercials, as well as the ones you hate most - with, ofcourse the reasons why.
I will kick start with my picks:
Fave Rave: Not quite advertising, but I just LOVE the 'fillers' on Radio City (Waddey fun!) - specially Appukuttan Ungle, Miss Lingoleela, and Babbar Sher - I think for sheer brilliance of content and execution, as well as the right amount of humor - these deserve high marks. Both my driver and I look forward to these with great interest!
Fave Rant: One I heard this morning - on the Chevrolet Spark - says NOTHING - obviously making a point about its compact size, but, they have to remember - this is India! Here, the car penetration concept started with the Maruti! Every second car on the road - maybe more - is a small compact Maruti...doesn't do anything for me!

They Say "Customer is King" - I would say "Clients will be Clients, and as human as you or me"

OK, So this thread is intended to document some of the more interesting "quirks" of our clients - EmPower Research as everyone knows is a KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) firm, and by very definition, serves a client base in the U.S.
Part of our Mission/ Vision/ Values statement says "We hold clients needs above all else" (http://www.empowerresearch.com/EmPowerValues.html). In the three years of our existence, we have I think really lived this tenet well. But along the way, we have also seen many funny, heartening, sometimes even frustrating incidents, arising mainly out of the cultural differences between the geography of our clients and that of our delivery centre.
I would encourage my colleagues at EmPower to share here all these instances - the intention is not to hurt anyone - just maybe agree with Thomas Friedman when he says - the world is really 'flat'!
My favorite one to start off this thread is the one where the head of one of our practices, a very correct gentleman, called one of our clients "Ma'am", and got the response from this (presumedly youngish) client - "Pleeeeease do not call me ma'am - it makes me feel like a grandmother!"

The Indian Retail Scenario – The Charm of Novelty battles it out with the Charm of Simplicity

So now our metros are definitely getting overcrowded with new retail formats. If all of India has a 3-4% organized retail percentage figure – in metros, its probably close to 30-40% (or more).

Grocery, Apparel, Books & Music, now even Medicines, are now all seeing huge sales via the spanking new “stores” (they used to be called “shops” when they were mom and pop – now you can’t call them anything but “stores” J ). But I think the phenomenon that has overwhelmed us Indians is the ‘mallification’ of our metros.

In the beginning, it was hugely exciting – I think the average metro citizen found his/ her ideal ‘hang-out’ joint – these were nice Air-Conditioned places, with escalators to take free rides on, bright showrooms – where you didn’t need to buy anything – you could just ogle, entertainment centers – where you could play a few video games, good and not-too-expensive selection of food in the food courts, clean loos (aah, what a relief!) and, best of all, some or the other promotional event with a lot of audience participation going on all the while. Most malls also offer a multiplex/ cinema theatre – so, footfalls get increased manifold

In fact, when Crossroads, one of the very first malls in Mumbai, India; was opened, the crowds became so unmanageable that they had to restrict entry --- only people with cell phones (in those days, mobile penetration was much lower than it is now) were allowed in!

I actually love these malls – I like to window shop as much as the next person, I think the lesser crowded malls make for nice weekend jaunts for the kids where you combine your necessity shopping with fun and food.

However, I was reminded of simpler/ older times the other day when I – after a long time – visited my neighborhood market. I first saw a wagon-cart vendor of bangles and hairclips – and my two daughters pretty much cleaned her out of all finery (all at a price that I would have paid for ONE pair of bangles at the malls). I then picked up two dresses for them - for the ridiculous price of 40/- (1 USD) each – that, incidentally, is less than the price I would pay at the parking lot of the malls – I bought vegetables that actually SMELT of fresh earth (hmmmm….I had forgotten that such a smell exists!) – I bought some plastic pots and pans – again, 5 for the price of one….made the lives of many vendors that evening that much happier, and came home with 3 bags full of goodies……

On thinking back, I realized that mallification was all right in its own place, but the bulk of the Indian consumer actually shops at moms and pops – and very happily/ cheaply too! Makes you think, doesn’t it?