What nonsense do you guys keep reading Myra, parallel worlds and witches and wizards?” questioned my bespectacled nephew Manu about his sister Myra’s absorption in Harry Potter’s sojourns. “Don’t you know this is absolute hogwash?” “Hogwart bro, not hogwash, I pity your ignorance, you poor Muggle,” retorted Myra nonchalantly. As I laughed out loud at the banter, I had to pay the price for my temerity as I was accorded the seat of judgement about the there/not there controversy. As I was racking my brains about the verdict to be delivered I heard a ping! from my nephew’s Facebook account, and Eureka! I had the answer.
I gestured towards his open iPad and comprehension struck with Manu as well. JK Rowling and JR Tolkien’s fantastical Hog-wart and Hobbit land might be an artist’s impression. However, the virtual world that the huge urban majority across the globe lives in — whether through the phone, tablet or computer — at all waking moments of the day is truly a force to be reckoned with.
In a technology-driven world where the Indian economy is moving from a service economy to a knowledge economy, the consumer’s interface with the e-medium to seek information, make decisions and socialise makes it an extremely powerful tool with which to reach the buyer.
Interestingly, there are different tactics used by the marketeer depending on what the agenda is.
Bare necessities: One might categorise web search engines like Yahoo, MSN, and Google and the web knowledge key: Wikipedia, as the bare essentials and as commoditised entities which have no scope for creativity and customer engagement, as the customer indiscriminately uses them. But when Google came along with its doodles and Bing images, searching within the search engines took on a whole new dimension. So Michael Jackson’s posthumous birthday saw his trademark twinkle toes instead of the double O’s in the Google logo. For the thirtieth anniversary of Pacman, the entire logo was encased as a pacman track. The interactive logo which sometimes strums a guitar and sometimes sings the birthday song (Google’s 13th birthday) has the doodle explanation and link displayed over the logo for that day. Bing on the other hand, has new exotic photographs every day, along with information that is a click away. One can but marvel at this amazing amalgamation of unrestrained creativity and prosaic knowledge.
One stop shops: Here again the service provider has been innovative as what was once a single e-service outlet has now transformed into a market place. Examples abound, as there is magicbricks. com which was once a buy and sell site and has now become a property haat with pop-ups that take you to explore Jaypee Kassia and Parsvnath Exotica and Bestech Ananda and even energy-saving solutions from Anchor. Makemytrip.com is no longer a travel portal, as it provides links to travel and lodging solutions and even unrelated products like test driving a Sunny from Nissan. Similar is the case with matrimonial portals like Jeevan-sathi.com and Bharatmat-rimony.com, as once you reach here the band baaja baraat arrangement is just a click away.
Brand abodes: What started as an information provider through brand portals has slowly em-erged as an interactive two-way forum between the e-visitor and the brand and this was a logically justified spill-over for fun brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi where there were gaming and entertainment zones. However, it took on a new meaning with the Sunsilk Gang of Girls and the most recent and innovative move by Das Auto, in their amazing Planet Volkswagen — creative engagement at its best —whether it invites you for a test drive or to be environmental friendly and think blue or simply go on a Volkswagen gaming track. And if you thought it all ended there, we have the Badshah of Bollywood enticing you with a Ra.one experience on the cinematic e-platform where there are gaming and movie reviews and of course chamak chalo. Websites are thus no longer barren squares but are personalised addresses: to steal a line from Asian Paints, Ab har e-ghar kuch kahta hai, is ghar me kaun sa brand rahta hai.
As most of us move in and out of this surreal world, the e-Monet’s, Van Gough’s and Husain’s create masterpieces in this new e-space. However, these artworks have a transient life as the technology-jaded consumer is always hungering for more and constant evolution seems to be the only rule. Some lone rangers like Bing and Google explore and create their own terrains, others like makemytrip and carwale have a variegated patch where the myriad pop-ups are engaging only when viewed together. And it does not end here as on the distant horizon I can see a new canvas, courtesy cloud computing…

The writer is professor, marketing, IMI, Delhi