What Can Virat Learn From Prague?

Business Booster Newsletter - Issue #369

Yo!

This week has seen Virat and Anushka yell at some hapless litterbug for throwing rubbish on the road. I’ve wished to do this often - the yelling, not the littering - but was too timid. Using their massive celebrity clout on him was unfair, but it may have impressed on their fans that littering is a bad thing. It may not make a big difference in practical terms, though. I’m travelling back from Prague today, and at least the older parts where the tourists stay are spotlessly clean. Not because people don’t just drop stuff but because they have bins every six feet and garbage vans whizzing around collecting rubbish through the day. There are trash cans placed near everywhere a person may need one - wherever they sell tickets, food, souvenirs. Behavioral change has to be made easy. I’d be very happy for Virat to use his influence to get this going - asking the government to place trash cans.

In an interesting development, Google has said it would stop assisting the US military on AI for weapons - following an outcry by employees. It’s an interesting development - knowledge workers organizing to say what a company can or cannot do. What would happen if the shareholders differ? Will the government mandate that companies must help? Once software is considered a defence asset, countries will want to control the best. And invest in it. There should be more interesting developments in this space.

At the CIO Roundtable we co-hosted last week with Barracuda Networks, Comparex and GAVS technologies, there was one recurring idea: “Many people and organisations hate change”. They have to be jolted into action. Even the acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart could have been prompted by Walmart thinking that it was easier to acquire than to change its DNA and build an Ecommerce business from scratch. What do you think?

In advertising, we learned that the word “Free” is very powerful. At the hotel where we are staying we were offered two beer cans, a Coke, and a bag of biscotti for “free” from the room minibar. My mind kept reminding me that I was still paying rent, but my heart just kept saying “free beer” and doing a jig. I think as marketers this is a tool we could use more of if we are creative about its structure. We all have things we can give away. We just have to price it correctly. I hope you’re enjoying this free newsletter :) 

So what are we doing next week? Here’s a list of upcoming programs I’m looking forward to hosting: a webinar in partnership with TorcAI on the 27th of June, discussing GDPR compliance and what it means for publishers and advertisers. The day after, on the 28th of June, I'll be hosting a CMO Roundtable in association with censhare where we'll be talking about simplifying a realtime, multilingual, omnichannel content strategy. Mail me, if you are interested to join these.