Nisadas

January 12th saw the launch of Bharthi Airtel in Sri Lanka. That tune which was so familiar on Dialog TV (ironic, I guess) began to feature on the local TV channels as well, with Sharuk Khan greeting Sri Lankans with a cheerful “Hello Sri Lanka”.

It was not long after this that another ad did the rounds – it features our very own Kumar Sangakkara talking about being shushed all throughout his life and now wondering why complicated mobile plans should stop him. Then those words (Unicode Sinhala required):

?? Airtel ??? ???? ????. ?? ???? Simple plan ????.

(Translation: I switched to Airtel. It’s a very simple plan). This was apparently considered by many as a betrayal, since Kumar had been prominently featured on the hoardings, advertisements of Hutch – one of the smaller players in the mobile telecommunications market.

Soon afterwards, my inbox received emails which features Sanga’s face and various products and that infamous tagline;

?? Nestomalt ??? ???? ????. ?? ???? Simple plan ????.

(Translation: I switched to Nestomalt. It’s a very simple plan). This played on Sanga’s present status of appearing in ads endorsing the malt drink “Viva” (which led not so long ago to the whole “??? ????? ??????????  Viva” fiasco) and the fact that Nestomalt is the competing brand.

?? Eva ??? ???? ????. ?? ???? Simple pad ????.

Translation:I switched to Eva (sanitary pads). It’s a very simple pad.  Some wordplay involved here.

Then there was the email about Sanga switching to being vegetarian and how that’s a simple plan, while there also were various photoshopped images of him pondering the Dialog logo on his T-shirt during the match.

In addition to this sudden influx of anti-Sanga sentiment was our own office colleague who quipped (after hearing that Sanga had lost his wicket);

?? Pavilion ??? ???? ????. ?? ???? Simple place ????.

Translation: I switched to the pavilion. It’s a very simple place.

Ah… poor Sangakkara.

What seems to have gotten the goat (goats?) of some of Sri Lanka’s netizens is not so much the fact that the guy switched his endorsements from one provider to another, but the fact that he had the cheek to actually say so on national television. After hailing the guy for his forthrightness, I think it’s pretty unfair to criticise him for being forthright about changing his endorsements. After all, endorsements are surely a major source of income for professional cricketers in Sri Lanka.

That said, this has caused some negative publicity for both Sangakkara (for switching sides, so to speak) and Airtel (for poaching Sangakkara).

I just hope that this undue criticism has had nothing to do with his recent performance at Dambulla.

On a completely different note, this is my first post to include Sinhala. Although it makes me cringe to see the kombuwa follow letters in unicode Sinhala, it was the easiest way to express these sentiments online (plus, my limited requirement didn’t involve much opportunity for the attack on Sinhala). Hat tip to Shaakunthala for having the Real Time Font converter from UCSC and the Local Language Resource Portal links on his blog, without which this post wouldn’t have been possible.

UPDATE: Sangakkara has a short and sweet reply on this issue at this blog, here. (thanks Don!)

Not so long ago, a number of people fell for a clever prank. An email did the rounds, promising its forwarders the opportunity to win an Apple iPhone along with the launch of AirTel. Of course, everyone wants an iPhone, so Thomas, Richard and Harold’s local counterparts were sending out the email with some obscure gmail account on copy. I managed to dig out the one I got:

AirTell Launch in Sri Lanka

Date: 13 ^th November 2008
Venue & Time : To be notified via public media.


As part of our launch, we have decided to give away THREE Apple iPhones and TWO Life Time Connections to FIVE lucky winners.
These prizes will be give away as part of our promotional campaign and winners will be unanimously selected based on the most number of times this mail has been forwarded.

What will you have to do ?
To be eligible to win the above mentioned prizes, all you are required to do is to forward this mail to as many people as you can and make sure you copy it airtell.lk.launch@gmail.com . The winner will be selected on the 9 ^th of November 2008, and details on how to claim the prize will be notified via email.

DISCLAMER:
.Apple iPhone is a registered product of Apple Inc.


Best Regards Sanjaya Weerakkody
Senior Public Relations Manager
AirTell Sri Lanka

I’m not even sure that there is such a person as Mr. Weerakkody, or even if his name was added later by someone editing the email with the intention of forwarding it.

The general response to the email was very simple – at least 95% (a guesstimate of mine) of the people who got that email forwarded it to their friends and everyone else in their address book. Not many stopped to consider the validity of the offer or even wonder why, when it’d cost no more than sixty dollars (on average) to own a domain and email address, a massive company like AirTel would have to resort to using Gmail accounts. That’s where the true genius of the email lay = the company being launched was “AirTell”, so in any case no one could really blame the real AirTel if no one won or something unethical was going on.

I wrote back to some of the people who forwarded this email to me and kept everyone else on copy when I pointed these things out. Not everyone felt good after seeing the issues I pointed out and there was an initial period of unpleasantness until I’d explained my intentions in using the “Reply-to-all” function. All I was trying to do was reduce the spread of false information.

However, it’s been no big surprise that as of late my office email address will report at least one email advertisement per week in the Junk email folder. This ad will have the unsubscribe address as “RemoveAds@gmail.com” which leads me to suspect that whoever sent out the initial email has stepped out into the world of Email Marketing and is probably charging someone for the facility to intrude on my mailbox with their message.

As this is not the first time I’ve had my email address shared with a third party without my knowledge, I’m thinking that Email Marketing seems to follow a process like this;

• Create Gmail or similar disposable account. Let’s call it the deposit account (DA).
• Compile email with details of fake competition. This should ideally play on the news of an upcoming event or on basic greed.
• Send out the email, asking people to keep the DA on copy.
• Collect the email addresses that flow into the DA and compile a “comprehensive database of email contacts” with which you can “deliver advertisements to the right crowd” or some similar market-speak.
• Charge people for the Email Marketing campaign and earn money while doing so.

The way I see it, this kind of marketing is bad for both the advertiser and the person doing the mail address harvesting.

Why it’s bad for the advertiser

Pretty simple really – I’m (in this case the user/recipient of the email) being interrupted/having my privacy intruded by someone without my permission. I’m also probably not interested in what the advertisement is all about, so that’s money wasted. Online, most people are unlikely to welcome advertisements that are forced on them. When it tends to land in their inbox, it’s pretty likely going to end up being deleted without even being read.

Why it’s bad for the Address Harvester

For starters, you’re not quite as anonymous as you think you are. If I call up the advertiser and casually ask about who he’s paying in order to bother me, I’d be able to find you. Then I can easily tell the world about how you resort to unethical practices in order to earn money… not a pleasant situation. A bit of the proverbial dung drop in the milk pail, I think. Add to this the possible legal issues – I’m not sure if there’s much legal recourse for fake advertising victims, but if the party has enough clout I’d not want to be on the receiving end…

Permission marketing

So called for its “opt-in” approach to marketing of products and services, Permission Marketing is a concept that needs to be popularised in Sri Lanka. Given that many people still don’t have proper internet access, other internet based marketing methods might not have the same user access as email; many companies will give their employees email, but not internet access. When this is the case, building a sense of trust and respect from the target market is what will set the email marketer apart from the rest of the crowd, IMHO. There’s no point in setting out to make money when you are sabotaging your chances of continuing to make money.