POST 7:TIMES OF INDIA: Leading Newspaper of India Victimizing Celebs

Hello Friends,

  This week I am gonna talk about a premier news organisation in India that has used Social media as a playground for manifesting stories which victimizes vulnerable individuals. 

The TIMES OF INDIA (aka TOI) is a major brand of 'THE TIMES GROUP (also known as Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd.)'. This company was founded centuries ago on 3rd November,1838 as The Bombay Times and Journal during British rule in INDIA. After the independence of India, the ownership of the paper was passed on to then famous Industrial family of Dalmiyas and then later on it was overtook by Sahu Jain family. 

 After almost 172 years, the company has successfully acquired following assets:

• 16 Publishing Centers
• 15 Printing centers
• 55 sales offices
• 5 dailies including two of the largest in the country with approx 4.3 million copies circulated daily
• 2 lead magazines
• 29 niche magazines reaching 2468 cities and towns
• 32 Radio Stations

 In addition to this, it has almost 11,000 employees with over $1.5 billion+ revenue. TOI is the largest India's daily selling Newspaper and besides this it is also the world's highest selling English newspaper in terms of circulation.

Being the top selling newspaper in INDIA, it covers and supports all the major changes going on in the country. One of the recent one is Women Empowerment. TOI has supported this matter on all of its  social websites ( twitter, Facebook, TOI app and blog). But since last few weeks, the always good quality newspaper has lost a huge number of readers and subscribers because of its hippocratic comment on two leading actress of Bollywood in India. 

TOI has badly spoiled their No. 1 newspaper of nation reputation by making headline like: 

                           "OMG: DEEPIKA PADUKONE CLEAVAGE SHOW"

The anger and disappointment of readers from such a top quality daily is clearly visible in their following comments:

Following video shows the view point from both TOI and the leading actress:

TOI hits back on Deepika Padukone cleavage controversy

TOI thinks the former Miss World has ugly legs and she should cover it up

There are lots of comments and insults pouring for TOI on their Facebook page and thousands of tweets regarding such a comment and their support for women empowerment. The above videos clearly shows that TOI continuously tries to defend their point in spite of apologizing of changing mindset. There tweets and comments on Facebook not only affects the reader of TOI but it affects the NATION as well. This embraces lots of intangible dis-benefits like increase of women disrespect, forbidding women to live their life, creating stress for women, overlooking their capabilities and talent at the cost of their clothes, etc.

SO these contradicting articles are flourishing the multimedia stage. With magazines and newspapers posting pics of celebs privates or dressing sense, which reach the more backward minded individuals of society compared to the women empowerment messages uploaded onto twitter and Facebook that's aimed at a forward thinking India. This is CLEAR misuse of social media for the purpose of cheap attention by such a reputable brand in a country where people are starving. 

I clearly feel TOI should apologize and in future not publish such news as headlines, as there's lot other things happening in a country which is worth becoming a headline. Also they shouldn't misuse the benefits of social sites by avoiding to tweet in way that can affect someone's personal space.

What do you guys think, Is this really a publicity stunt? If yes then of movie stars or the Newspaper publishers?

Reference:

Bollywoodlife.com. (2014a, 25 September 2014). Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is a 'hot babe with ugly legs', says Times of India.   Retrieved 5, from http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/aishwarya-rai-bachchan-is-a-hot-babe-with-ugly-legs-says-times-of-india/#!1/3_233/

Bollywoodlife.com. (2014b, 22 Spetember 2014). Times of India’s answer to Deepika Padukone open letter over cleavage controversy.   Retrieved 25 September 2014, 2014, from http://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/times-of-indias-answer-to-deepika-padukone-open-letter-over-cleavage-controversy/

INDIA, T. T. O. (2008). REVIEWS.   Retrieved 25TH sEPTEMBER, 2014, from https://www.facebook.com/TimesofIndia?sk=reviews

INDIA, T. T. O. (Producer). (2014, 25 September 2014). Cleavage controversy: TOI hits back at Deepika Padukone. Retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/videos/celebs/Cleavage-controversy-TOI-hits-back-at-Deepika-Padukone/videoshow/43158971.cms

Tellychakkar.com. (2014). Deepikapadukone.   Retrieved 25th September 2014, 2014, from https://twitter.com/search?q=%23deepikapadukone&src=tyah

POST 6: The Fresh Food People return for the people...

Hey guys,

  For post 6, I am bringing to you good old WOOLIES and their determination to utilize social media as a tool for growth of the organization and for supporting the working class people of Australia.

 Firstly lets start off with the brief overview of implementation of social media by Woolworths Ltd. to expand their business. As it was tough to attain an financial documentation which represented the company's exact benefit from utilization of social media, we will assume certain parameters such as the benefit and profitability gain from the online sale recorded in years 2010-2011. Reasons behind a choice of these two particular years is that during the year 2011 Woolworths Ltd. was freshly rolling out the online sale portal for BIG W, their largest online merchandise retailer.

 Woolworths has initiated different avenues of virtual media to get the recognition of the market through Facebook, Twitter ( still under construction), Youtube, Pinterest and Instagram.

 From the FY 2010 to the FY 2011, there is a significance of E2.0 being implemented in the organisation. These results in tangible benefits like mentioned below:

• A 63% increase in the online sales of Woolworths Ltd. products in FY11

• The large wholesale liquor giant Dan Murphy going online in March 2011  

• 'Cellarmasters' acquisition expanding the already strong liquor sector of the organisation

• Woolworths online geographical capacity to exceed 85% of the Australian population

• Incredible growth within BIG W's online sales from the initial launch of the site in May 2010

• The Indian online branch also netting in a cool 26% sales rise

• BIG W’s ‘Big Catch’ and ‘Daily Deal' becoming major trending aspects online for e-shoppers

• The Dick Smith Electronics revamped with the new  ‘Click & Collect’ service being available to Australian consumer

In addition to this there are intangible benefits in the company's future share price through added value in the strong recent performance of the company. This falls on the back of the satisfied customers.

 Lets have a look at impact of getting social in business on ROI (Return of Investment) of Woolworth. From the anuual report of Woolworth for FY 2010 - FY 2011, we got following numbers:

ONLINE SALES = $34,675m

COST of OPERATIONS(the total cost of employees)= $6,262m

GROSS MARGIN (24%) , specified by annual reports has increased from 21% (2010) to 24% (2011)

This increase has clearly shown the value of social media impact on the sales of the products. 

Net Revenue= 0.24*34675=%=$8,322m

Net Cost=$6,262m

   ROI= (8322-6262)/6262*100 = 32.9%

With a return of 32.9% the future of Social media as a source to maximal the profits of Woolworths looks very bright and flourishing. The Company has looked to invest more into the risk of implementing future cash flow into the social media channels in order to attain a greater market share. Currently in Australia Woolworths is the largest and most successful supermarket giant. However in order to keep the online customers it has enlisted social media to keep the online consumers happy by providing delivery services and "click and collect" facilities. 

The risk associated with introducing an online supermarket was no so major as most other major leading supermarkets such as Coles had already initiated their own campaigns. It was mandatory that Woolworths meet the demand and enter a level playing field with Coles. The Risks associated with the initial adaption of the idea to promote more online shopping paid of well for the multi million dollar giant. 

Woolworths has many dispatch facilities and warehouses around Australia which are used to house the goods for the supermarkets. With the increased online demand it has not put any further burden on the supermarkets but become a smooth transition with effective supply-chain management solutions being put into place. 

That's all for this week friends...I will be happy to receive your feedback and suggestions incase I have missed out some part of calculations... :)

Reference:

LIMITED, W. (2014). Response to Competition Review Issues Paper.

LIMITIED, W. (2014). WOOLWORTHS LIMITED PRELIMINARY FINAL REPORT -LISTING RULE 4.3A. Sydney, NSW.

Supermarkets, W. (1997- 2013). The fresh food peoples Woolworths. from http://www.woolworths.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/webSite/Woolworths/

POST 5:Awesome mixture of RETAIL and SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY

Hello friends, while researching about retail companies that have used social technologies in their business, I have come across one awesome example that not only uses social technology but is actually existing because of social technology. 

Yes I am talking about 'THREADLESS'.  Threadless is basically an apparel company, a company that makes it fuzzy to decide who's the company and who's the customer. This company was started in 2000 by Jack Nickell and Jacob Dehart (no longer with the company) with just $1,000 of their own, based in Chicago, Illinois. 

This company has an online community of artists that creates designs. All the artists are welcomed to enter into contest and submit their design. These designs are then made public for public vote. The designs with most number of votes and community feedback is selected and printed on clothes, phone cover cases, mugs and other products and sold worldwide through the online store and their retail store in Chicago. The artist is whose work is selected for printing is rewarded with $2,000 in cash and $500 in Threadless giftcards that can be exchanged for $200 cash. Each time a design is reprinted, the respective artist will receive $500 cash.

This company has beautifully used many Mckinsey organisational functions like Product Development, Business Support, Marketing and Sales. The company has   account in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Google+ and Flickr. Facebook has 866,838 likes and is regularly updated with the new contest, promotions, sales, winners and request from subscribers for reprinting of some T-shirts. The core success of this company lies behind its blog and Facebook page which attract more artists to submit their design and attract more customer to fund the artists. Most of the people visiting Threadless are willing buyers. To keep them coming back, company devised few incentive schemes like upload a photo of yourself wearing Threadless T-shirt and you will receive store credit if $1.50. Such marketing strategies resulted in sales of 1,550 T-shirts on a typical day. On a one day sale in this spring, company sold 35,000 T-shirts that gave company a  good number of new visitors on a long term scale. The new visitors are encouraged to start blogs, upload their photos, leave flirty comments and also signup for Threadless newsletter. Every week the newsletter is delivered to 370,000 email addresses and 75% are actually opened to check the new designs available. 

In 2000, Threadless printed t-shirts every few months. By 2004, the company started printing new t-shirts every week. Soon in 2006, the company that was started with $1,000 jumped to $6.5 million revenue. Soon the company was associated with crowdsourcing term. In 2008, the company got listed on the cover page on Inc. as 'THE MOST INNOVATIVE SMALL COMPANY IS AMERICA'. Customer play a very critical role in the operations of company including idea generation, marketing, sales forecasting and all that has been distributed.

In 2010, a book was published named "Threadless: Ten years of T-shirts from the World's Most Inspiring Online Design Community" by Jack Nickell that throws light on the decade of Threadless designs, their artists, interviews with many of the designers and detailed story on how company achieved such heights and success.

Below video shows few funny designs of Threadless T-shirt:

Wow...I got one more site for my shopping....Studying E2.0 is so fun...I feel like lets start my own company with friends...lol...

Reference:

Baer, J. (2008-2014). Threadless Shares 10 Years of Insights and Inspiration.

CIHLAR, R. (2010). 4 Reasons Threadless Owns Social Media and Community.  MAY 27, 2010 from http://www.trada.com/blog/threadless-social-media-marketing/

Threadless. (2014a).  Retrieved from http://blog.threadless.com/tagged/news

Threadless. (2014b). from https://twitter.com/threadless

Threadless. (2014c). Threadless Clothing. from https://www.facebook.com/threadless