Vartalaap - In Conversation with Mr Manish Harodia || Entrepreneur & Director || DreamWallets.com || Interviewed by - Harsha Daga & Piyush Jain || IIM Shillong || March 2016 edition

 VARTALAAP - In conversation with Mr Manish Harodia, Director, DreamWallets

Interviewed by: Harsha Daga & Piyush Jain 

IIM Shillong

Mr Manish Harodia
Entrepreneur & Director
DreamWallets

An alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, he has over 10 years of experience into multiple areas viz Education, Training, Project management, and Business Consulting. He has created two successful ventures in education, the first being www.genesismentors where he was the founder and www.6piconsultants.com where he is the Chairman and Managing Director. His previous work experience includes Associate Director LBS-CEE and Manger (Project Management Office) at HSBC GR. He is now onto his third and dream project www.dreamwallets.com, which is a crowd-funding platform that they have created to truly democratize the fund-raising and getting the early adapters for the product. He has also been designated the city mayor for Pune chapter @http://www.entrepreneurcafe.org/ . He aims to connect with like-minded individuals and his goal is to develop skill sets of the employable youth of India by providing them access to education - soft and technical based.

Markathon: People have these misconception about crowd funding/crowd sourcing that it is only for money and it’s a last resort for them, what is your view on this?

Crowdfunding is a disruptive funding model as it works on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. What you have mentioned here is the most misplaced perception about the wonderful vehicle of crowdfunding. In India, the markets are majorly dominated by Reward based crowdfunding, wherein contributors are provided value based Rewards. Rules and regulations around the other channels viz. equity based crowdfunding and peer to peer lending are not very clear and water-tight. An effective crowdfunding campaign not only raises the required funds needed by the project creator but also generates validation of their ideas. It has also been proven time and again that successful campaigns improve the prospects for ideas and start-ups when they pitch for external rounds of funding.

Markathon: How difficult is it to promote your start-up given the budget constraints one has to face at this level?

Promotion is another massive challenge that start-ups and ideas face at the initial stage. The ideas that come to www.dreamwallets.com receive tremendous support from our digital reach inturn helping the projects gain wider audience.

Talking about www.dreamwallets.com, we have been using innovative ways to enhance the brand identity. We helped various national level innovation initiatives led by the respective state governments helping us gain tremendous visibility. We have also managed to create an eco system wherein we collaborate with potential multi-baggers.

Markathon: E-commerce in India is in the growth phase while being the most active space for start-ups. What do you think will be the next big idea to come out of this mix?

We are lucky to witness the E-commerce concepts taking shape across India. With

widespread penetration of internet & access to affordable technology they are transforming into mid to large sized organization. However, I would like to caution the readers and start-up enthusiasts against focusing too much on the ‘We want to become the UBER for X’ or ‘ We want to become the Flipkart for Y’.  It looks like a low hanging fruit but may not be the most nutritious or tasty one.

Markathon: Big data is changing the way we do marketing. Where do you think conventional marketing is headed and what is the scope of big data analytics in the near-future?

Consumer behavior has gained a new and enviable dimension. Transformation of consumption habits, preferences, and aspirations are making the data analysis extremely exciting.

50% of marketing cost is always a waste. The irony is no one knows which 50% is the goes gown the drain. Hopefully, putting more numbers around predicting consumer behavior would bring more rationality and less of hitting in the dark mindset for marketing professionals.

As the professionals say, one can’t manage what one can’t measure!

Markathon: Analysis shows that 9 out of 10 start-ups fail to scale up. What is that one successful start-up doing differently?

I would put this number to 99 out of 100.  I always believe in a famous Gujarati saying. If your business can survive for 1000 days from its launch, it will survive for a very long time.

I meet a lot of start-ups on a regular basis. What I have realized as checkpoints for most of them are:

• An A grade team will be able to execute a B grade plan as well. The converse is not true. If the team is a B grade one, they definitely have the potential to screw up even an A grade plan.
• Relentless efforts to avoid being stale and being ahead of the curve. All the startups that have been agile have a higher propensity of being successful.

There is no golden rule of being successful. But avoiding basics such as the above one is definitely a recipe for disaster.

Markathon: Is the idea the most integral component of a start-up? How important is its implementation in today’s world?

Sam Altaman of www.ycombinator.com has mentioned about four aspects of creating a successful start-up. A start-up success is a function of four areas viz. Idea, Product, Team, and Execution. As you observed Idea is just one of them.

Infact, these factors work on multiplier of concepts & not as simply additive. Hence, if there is negligence on only one aspect, it may make the whole equation insignificant. In the current scenario, there is also the fifth parameter to these four above. “Luck” – or as we commonly know it, “Funding”.

To answer the second part of the question, Execution or implementation is surely one of the most important aspect and this is an area that we tend to ignore the most. An idea can get you just this far. Relentless pursuit is the way to go for a success in any field. 

Markathon: Your take on Start-up India and other similar initiatives being taken by the government?

The present government is boosting the spirit of entrepreneurship by way small booster packages. Consider for example releasing a corpse of Rs. 1000 crore managed by the Industrial professionals.  The validation of ideas and guarantee  against risks, these are the two major themes on which the authorities are framing regulations. 

We are hopeful that more and more startups will harness these supportive policies.

Markathon: What advice would you like to give to our readers especially those who want to start their own venture but are apprehensive in taking the first step?

Go for a market that might be small presently but is growing at a better pace, rather than investing in a market that is relatively big but is growing slowly.
For example , Restaurant or In-dining industry is over a Trillion Dollar Industry but is saturating faster viz-a-viz Food Delivery aggregator has started gaining market share with more and more service oriented families.

You can make a mark moving from 0 1o 1 , but not from 1 to 1 to 1.5

Cover Story - Of Modern Advertising & Feminism || Harsha Daga || IIM Shillong || March 2016 edition

Of Modern Advertising & Women

- Harsha Daga

IIM Shillong

“We’re waiting for the day when curvy girls in advertisements won’t make headlines anymore.”

-Anonymous

While we ponder over the subject, the latest ads by brands like Biba and Anouk come to our

mind that instantly light us up. But well, let me ask you rewind a little. Or rather divert your attention a bit because hello, we still live in an era where stereotyping gender and races prevail. Quoting a combined analysis of 60+ studies, researchers tried to establish linkages between types of roles played by women as against their male counterparts over a series of advertisements and products. The results are amusing:

• Women were 4 times more likely than men to not have a speaking role
• Women were 3 times more likely than men to be presented as a product user rather than an authority
• Women were 3.5 times more likely than men to be presented at home or in a domestic environment (vis-à-vis at work)
• Women were 2 times more likely than men to be associated with domestic products like body care and home goods.

So if this is the status quo, what is the harm? The hindrance lies in the quest to look for an answer to the question of whether advertising (and media, so to say) mirrors the society or molds it.  The answer to this varies through the decades. In the past, till say 1980s, veterans believed that the media industry thrived due to the societal representation it held and it received its share of popularity owing to its relatability with the audience’s daily strides. However, now the landscape has changed completely. The kind of reach television has earned over the past three decades has completely overhauled the situation. And this exponential increase has resulted into a plethora of opportunities for marketers and advertisers. They now have the power to bring about a change in the society, to up their game as progressive brands, to differentiate themselves as open and new.

So now there are Type-A advertisements that simply objectify women and in a way shame the feminist. Then there Type-B are commercials that are very boldly supporting the new age independent women of today, and do it very well. And then comes the third kind, Type-C advertisements that really want to break through the norms of advertising and become one of the 

‘Type-B’ but fail in doing so, partly because of the misconstrued meaning of feminism and women empowerment.

Of course we come across a host of Type-A and Type-B adverts and very easily categorize them as one of the two. However, it is this Type-C category that needs our kind attention as they work well only until someone points out flaw in them, which in today’s day and age is as easy as a click of a button. 

So let us see some advertisements of the Type-C category that I would like to call the Disguised Category.

• Amazon - When a Woman Shops

This advertisement by Amazon was to highlight the reasons why women shop. They call it a social experiment. The video ran by a few husbands trying to answer what they expect their wives to buy if given a gift voucher worth Rs.5000, and their responses ranged from clothes to make-up. The revelation came when the husbands were in for a shock after their spouses had bought clothes but for their husbands and kids, and other products that would revive their memories. Hence, trying to change the notion that women shop to indulge.

What went wrong?

It’s like “why repair what is not broken”. Amazon was hinting at changing a notion which was never wrong. Obviously not all women love to shop, but the advertisement is in a way trying to demean the ones that do. It is disrespectful for women who believe in shopping for themselves, and indulging into it. Come on Amazon, you can’t ask the shopaholics to be apologetic about it. That’s where you get your revenues from.

• Saffola

So this is not the first time that Saffola depicts a homemaker (always a married woman)

purchasing their newest product available. The advertisement features these ladies dawning western clothes having a sense of independence as it depicts them taking daily decisions for their household which shape the health of the family as against the earlier researches that concluded that women are rarely shown possessing the ability to take purchase decisions.

What went wrong?

This particular advertisement is flawed in so many ways. To begin with, the series of advertisements always show a woman only in the role of a homemaker. Is it because a majority of society believes that household is a woman’s job or are men incapable of taking it up? Then, is it that problems of the heart, including high cholesterol and risk of heart attack, are faced by men alone? I ask this because the commercial never highlights the need of protecting the women from such cardiac diseases. According to them, women are only supposed to care for their husband/family and not think of their own health, which in today’s lifestyle does need a lot of attention. To end with, dear advertiser, you could have at least added a daughter to the family to be realistic.

• Titan Raga

Well to begin with, of course this is one of the best femvertisements we have seen so far. Featuring Nimrat Kaur, the commercial shows how the women of today set their own priorities and make their own choices. The protagonist is a successful women who broke her relationship when the man tried to bind her by asking her to quit her job. And we love her for the decision she took

What went wrong?

The advertisement indicates that a person (be it a woman or a man) can have only one of the two: a successful career or a functional relationship. There is a middle-way which a majority of the people take. And being in a relationship while focusing on your career is not multitasking. As much as we love the empowered woman of Titan Raga, we would like you know that had you depicted the lead being single out of choice rather than because of work pressure, we would have celebrated it all the more.

• The Superfone Ninja with Aisha

The video beautifully shows Aisha as a progressive modern woman who is past the

insecurities of her boyfriend leaving her. She is not only attractive but an extremely smart girl who very well knows how to respond to sexual innuendos gracefully.

What went wrong?

One would think where Micromax went wrong. Well, the hit came when the marketers tried to project Aisha, the voice app on Superfone Ninja, as the ideal girlfriend that any guy would wish for. The advert not only tries to stereotype women as being the ‘jealous’ one but also attempts at strengthening the notion that ‘men only think of sex’.

• Fair & Lovely

Now how can a talk on feminism and modern advertising be complete without the mention

of Fair & Lovely. However, if you carefully analyze, this commercial has all the elements needed in a successful Indian advertisement. A father-daughter relationship with a healthy discussion between them. The protagonist desiring a nice job and an own house. A trusted friend who is ready with a solution to all the problems in this world.

What went wrong?

The answer is EVERYTHING. Well yeas it was a healthy discussion but surrounding the topic of marriage. The fathers of today think beyond the wedding bells and guide their daughters through the difficulties they face. The fail happened when the protagonist became ambitious after she became fair. The marketers would not have even realized how easily they projected that women who have darker skin colors are not worthy of self-enlightenment and can be enthusiastic about their careers only after applying their master product. Here I also pity the advertisers because come on, no amount of marketing can ever make a fairness cream an inclusive product.

And the list can go on. However, with 2014 being established as the year of feminist

advertising, or femvertising, we have seen some great work emerging in 2015 and 2016 so far. With campaigns like ‘Share The Load’ by Ariel, ‘You Can Be Anything’ by Barbie, and Microsoft’s International Women’s Day special ‘Make Whats Next’, the landscape has never been better. Throughout the past decade, marketers have raised quite a lot of questions such as what is the position of women in decision making, are men incapable of being emotional, is it only the women who are objectified by the media and so on. Whereas, now it’s time we start providing for solutions. It’s time that the advertisements become more proactive and encourage the audience to take things in their control.

So in the era of feminism and change, here is the mantra for successful branding and marketing:

• Be consistent, clear and genuine

While you try to shift your brand from an anti-feminism or a neutral one to a pro-feminism one, of course the consistency is bound to break. But remember, once you have reached the desired spot, you not only need to be true to your words but also need to stay clear of any confusion that your target customer may have in perceiving you.

• Promote self-worth and internal empowerment

More than anything, to strike the right chord with your target and eventually convert their attraction and appreciation towards your brand into purchases, the brand must focus of empowerment of the mind and soul and not of the body. And when I say empowerment, not only by way of advertisement of promotions. All the four/seven Ps of the marketing strategy need to be altered to be inclusive not only of the sexes but of races, religion and distinguished human behavior.

• Build an emotional connect

Tell your consumers that you not only understand their struggle but stand with them while they face those hurdles. No this is not sympathizing, but empathizing with the target market to induce a pull effect towards brand connect and loyalty.

So all you marketers out there; buck-up, because the audience is waiting for revamped, renewed and real Modern Advertisement which breaks the barriers not only for creativity but for the community, society and world at large

Cover Story - Of Modern Advertising & Feminism || Harsha Daga || IIM Shillong || March 2016 edition

Of Modern Advertising & Women

- Harsha Daga

IIM Shillong

“We’re waiting for the day when curvy girls in advertisements won’t make headlines anymore.”

-Anonymous

While we ponder over the subject, the latest ads by brands like Biba and Anouk come to our

mind that instantly light us up. But well, let me ask you rewind a little. Or rather divert your attention a bit because hello, we still live in an era where stereotyping gender and races prevail. Quoting a combined analysis of 60+ studies, researchers tried to establish linkages between types of roles played by women as against their male counterparts over a series of advertisements and products. The results are amusing:

• Women were 4 times more likely than men to not have a speaking role
• Women were 3 times more likely than men to be presented as a product user rather than an authority
• Women were 3.5 times more likely than men to be presented at home or in a domestic environment (vis-à-vis at work)
• Women were 2 times more likely than men to be associated with domestic products like body care and home goods.

So if this is the status quo, what is the harm? The hindrance lies in the quest to look for an answer to the question of whether advertising (and media, so to say) mirrors the society or molds it.  The answer to this varies through the decades. In the past, till say 1980s, veterans believed that the media industry thrived due to the societal representation it held and it received its share of popularity owing to its relatability with the audience’s daily strides. However, now the landscape has changed completely. The kind of reach television has earned over the past three decades has completely overhauled the situation. And this exponential increase has resulted into a plethora of opportunities for marketers and advertisers. They now have the power to bring about a change in the society, to up their game as progressive brands, to differentiate themselves as open and new.

So now there are Type-A advertisements that simply objectify women and in a way shame the feminist. Then there Type-B are commercials that are very boldly supporting the new age independent women of today, and do it very well. And then comes the third kind, Type-C advertisements that really want to break through the norms of advertising and become one of the 

‘Type-B’ but fail in doing so, partly because of the misconstrued meaning of feminism and women empowerment.

Of course we come across a host of Type-A and Type-B adverts and very easily categorize them as one of the two. However, it is this Type-C category that needs our kind attention as they work well only until someone points out flaw in them, which in today’s day and age is as easy as a click of a button. 

So let us see some advertisements of the Type-C category that I would like to call the Disguised Category.

• Amazon - When a Woman Shops

This advertisement by Amazon was to highlight the reasons why women shop. They call it a social experiment. The video ran by a few husbands trying to answer what they expect their wives to buy if given a gift voucher worth Rs.5000, and their responses ranged from clothes to make-up. The revelation came when the husbands were in for a shock after their spouses had bought clothes but for their husbands and kids, and other products that would revive their memories. Hence, trying to change the notion that women shop to indulge.

What went wrong?

It’s like “why repair what is not broken”. Amazon was hinting at changing a notion which was never wrong. Obviously not all women love to shop, but the advertisement is in a way trying to demean the ones that do. It is disrespectful for women who believe in shopping for themselves, and indulging into it. Come on Amazon, you can’t ask the shopaholics to be apologetic about it. That’s where you get your revenues from.

• Saffola

So this is not the first time that Saffola depicts a homemaker (always a married woman)

purchasing their newest product available. The advertisement features these ladies dawning western clothes having a sense of independence as it depicts them taking daily decisions for their household which shape the health of the family as against the earlier researches that concluded that women are rarely shown possessing the ability to take purchase decisions.

What went wrong?

This particular advertisement is flawed in so many ways. To begin with, the series of advertisements always show a woman only in the role of a homemaker. Is it because a majority of society believes that household is a woman’s job or are men incapable of taking it up? Then, is it that problems of the heart, including high cholesterol and risk of heart attack, are faced by men alone? I ask this because the commercial never highlights the need of protecting the women from such cardiac diseases. According to them, women are only supposed to care for their husband/family and not think of their own health, which in today’s lifestyle does need a lot of attention. To end with, dear advertiser, you could have at least added a daughter to the family to be realistic.

• Titan Raga

Well to begin with, of course this is one of the best femvertisements we have seen so far. Featuring Nimrat Kaur, the commercial shows how the women of today set their own priorities and make their own choices. The protagonist is a successful women who broke her relationship when the man tried to bind her by asking her to quit her job. And we love her for the decision she took

What went wrong?

The advertisement indicates that a person (be it a woman or a man) can have only one of the two: a successful career or a functional relationship. There is a middle-way which a majority of the people take. And being in a relationship while focusing on your career is not multitasking. As much as we love the empowered woman of Titan Raga, we would like you know that had you depicted the lead being single out of choice rather than because of work pressure, we would have celebrated it all the more.

• The Superfone Ninja with Aisha

The video beautifully shows Aisha as a progressive modern woman who is past the

insecurities of her boyfriend leaving her. She is not only attractive but an extremely smart girl who very well knows how to respond to sexual innuendos gracefully.

What went wrong?

One would think where Micromax went wrong. Well, the hit came when the marketers tried to project Aisha, the voice app on Superfone Ninja, as the ideal girlfriend that any guy would wish for. The advert not only tries to stereotype women as being the ‘jealous’ one but also attempts at strengthening the notion that ‘men only think of sex’.

• Fair & Lovely

Now how can a talk on feminism and modern advertising be complete without the mention

of Fair & Lovely. However, if you carefully analyze, this commercial has all the elements needed in a successful Indian advertisement. A father-daughter relationship with a healthy discussion between them. The protagonist desiring a nice job and an own house. A trusted friend who is ready with a solution to all the problems in this world.

What went wrong?

The answer is EVERYTHING. Well yeas it was a healthy discussion but surrounding the topic of marriage. The fathers of today think beyond the wedding bells and guide their daughters through the difficulties they face. The fail happened when the protagonist became ambitious after she became fair. The marketers would not have even realized how easily they projected that women who have darker skin colors are not worthy of self-enlightenment and can be enthusiastic about their careers only after applying their master product. Here I also pity the advertisers because come on, no amount of marketing can ever make a fairness cream an inclusive product.

And the list can go on. However, with 2014 being established as the year of feminist

advertising, or femvertising, we have seen some great work emerging in 2015 and 2016 so far. With campaigns like ‘Share The Load’ by Ariel, ‘You Can Be Anything’ by Barbie, and Microsoft’s International Women’s Day special ‘Make Whats Next’, the landscape has never been better. Throughout the past decade, marketers have raised quite a lot of questions such as what is the position of women in decision making, are men incapable of being emotional, is it only the women who are objectified by the media and so on. Whereas, now it’s time we start providing for solutions. It’s time that the advertisements become more proactive and encourage the audience to take things in their control.

So in the era of feminism and change, here is the mantra for successful branding and marketing:

• Be consistent, clear and genuine

While you try to shift your brand from an anti-feminism or a neutral one to a pro-feminism one, of course the consistency is bound to break. But remember, once you have reached the desired spot, you not only need to be true to your words but also need to stay clear of any confusion that your target customer may have in perceiving you.

• Promote self-worth and internal empowerment

More than anything, to strike the right chord with your target and eventually convert their attraction and appreciation towards your brand into purchases, the brand must focus of empowerment of the mind and soul and not of the body. And when I say empowerment, not only by way of advertisement of promotions. All the four/seven Ps of the marketing strategy need to be altered to be inclusive not only of the sexes but of races, religion and distinguished human behavior.

• Build an emotional connect

Tell your consumers that you not only understand their struggle but stand with them while they face those hurdles. No this is not sympathizing, but empathizing with the target market to induce a pull effect towards brand connect and loyalty.

So all you marketers out there; buck-up, because the audience is waiting for revamped, renewed and real Modern Advertisement which breaks the barriers not only for creativity but for the community, society and world at large