As I write this, it is now 14 hours since news of terrorist attacks in Mumbai started trickling in and the situation remains both volatile and confusing. Since then, George W Bush, US President-elect Barack Obama, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd have found time to speak out, condemning the attacks and offering all the support India needs.

And who have we heard from in India?

Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has held a press conference. The leader of India’s opposition LK Advani has gone on national television talking of a national crisis and telling viewers that he had spoken to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and that they both plan to visit Mumbai. India’s many business leaders–KV Kamath of ICICI Bank Ltd, Rahul Bajaj of Bajaj Auto, Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher–have all talked on national television about the impact on business and assuring audiences that they intend to do everything they can to restore normalcy in their spheres.

And where are India’s government leaders so far?

President Pratibha Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Singh have issued statements but are yet to be seen or heard. Congress President and Chairperson of the ruling United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi has apparently spoken to Deshmukh but is also yet to be seen or heard. And CNBC is reporting Finance Minister P Chidambaram, who found time to speak about Reliance Power Ltd IPO on its debut and is constantly speaking about India’s stock markets, apparently has refused to comment on the terrorist attacks.

Indeed, it is important for leaders to let the police and security forces do their job in such a volatile situation. But leaders can’t go AWOL in a national crisis as Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and P Chidambaram have done so far. To this Romantic Realist, it is a combination of character and competence that makes people trust leaders. And character is first among equals, especially in a crisis. And so far both courage and character have been invisible.

30 November 2008 Post Script: When the PM speaks it is often like an OpEd writer anyway. Here is a new blog post:

((Postscript on 27 November morning: That pre-poll surveys can be fickle and advertising messages go by the wayside with the mood of voters likely to shift instantly was sharply reinforced with the Mumbai terrorist attacks targeting the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels by a new group that calls itself Deccan Mujahideen, which were clearly aimed at creating widespread havoc and mayhem. As stock markets stay shut and television coverage of the still evolving situation in Mumbai saturates airwaves, voters going to polls in Madhya Pradesh on 27th morning and Delhi voters set to vote on 29th November could easily be rethinking their decisions. Even if the BJP takes the high road and doesn’t explicitly articulate the fears, the attacks could very well put the Congress party on the mat as inability to stop terrorists has been a simmering though backburner issue in these state elections. Raju))

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Sitting in New Delhi, where state assembly polls are scheduled for 29 November, you can’t escape the ad bombardment in print, radio and via billboards, especially ads on the fancy bus shelters that have been built in India’s capital recent years.

Most of the print and outdoor advertisements have been quite predictable with the ruling Congress Party spreading relentless cheer and positive messages about progress, with a hint of the woes that might befall Delhi if it is not reelected, even though, as Mint wrote in a Page 1 article on 26 November, some of the Green Delhi claims in the Congress ads are rather hyped (read the story “Cong claims on green cover in Delhi looks highly inflated” here).

The Bharatiya Janata Party, until the tailend of the campaign, has been relentlessly negative, simply harping on all the real and imagined problems during the Congress administration led by Sheila Dikshit. With one exception, I haven’t yet seen–at least in the ads–what the BJP and its chief ministerial candidate VK Malhotra will really do if the BJP is voted into power, beyond presumably undoing what the Congress has done badly, such as the much maligned BRTS transport system that gives daily commuting heartburn to many editors and journalists and then shows up in multiple stories in many papers in the city. Most BJP election ads simply predict dire consequences for Delhi and its citizens if the Congress party retains power.

All the print ads have been rather boring as well, though, relatively speaking, the BJP seems to have slightly better copywriters. Typically the print ads have looked like this:

BJP print advertisement in Delhi

Congress Party print ad in Delhi

It is another matter when it comes to radio ads, where for the first time, polical parties have been allowed to go at each other. But who has time to listen to much radio these days.

So, it is refreshing to see that the most interesting ads are coming from so-called third parties, ones that won’t win a lot of seats but could likely become kingmakers if the elections result in the BJP and the Congress winning a similar number of seats in the 70-member Assembly. (While there are still a few days left, Mint’s often accurate political columnist GVL Narasimha Rao had this prediction to make in his Bottom Line column that ran on 24 November on Page 1 headlined “BJP all set to win again in Madhya Pradesh; Delhi remains a dead heat” (Read it here)

I, for one, couldn’t stop chuckling over this ad flyer from Braham Singh, the president of the Bahujan Samaj Party of UP Chief Minister Mayawati. The ad gives ratings measures for Mr Singh and his rivals that range from the Earnest (”Behaviour”), Creative (”Winnability factor”), Imaginary (”Acceptability factor”), Serious (”Dealing with cow, dogs, mosquito…menace”) and downright Amusing (”I am Delhi Pradesh BSP, which you know itself is a great honour of Sarita Vihar people by becoming a party president of whole state.”)

This Romantic Realist doesn’t get to vote in Delhi, or anywhere else in India for that matter, but if all else fails, Mr Singh would have received my nod for cutting through the ad clutter! You got to love a man whose ad notes he has contested and lost three elections so far, saying he “came close 3rd.”

As the election season gets underway, tell me know if you spotted any creative poll pitches.

With predictable regularity, one can spot a label headline in Indian newspapers that says “Woman on Top.” It could run on a story about Pepsico CEO Indra Nooyi, a chess team, a CEO appointment, any award for any woman…you get the drift. Examples of such a headline are all over including in this story I spotted over the weekend about a Sikh woman winning a workplace suit in the US:

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I don’t know about you, to this Romatic Realist at least, it seems a lazy way (even within the tight limitations of headline space) to resort to what has become a cliche, but what bothers me more is that it feels like a very sexist and perhaps prurient way of labeling many such stories.

A Google keyword search for “woman on top” pulls up 104,000,000 hits. Of the top Google listings within this, 3 are about sex, 1 is for a game and the remaining 5 are for the 2000 Hollywood movie Woman on Top, which stars Penelope Cruz as a cook in Brazil who suffers from motion sickness and so must do the driving and be on top during sex, which drives her macho husband to infidelities.

A Factiva search of Indian newspapers in the past year doesn’t show a lot of these headlines though it feels like one sees this label a lot more on captions and as headers for text/graphics boxes, such as the one from Times of India above. Strangely, a lot of the 21 headlines that Factiva brought up are from one paper, The Statesman.

As I was mulling over whether we are being sexist or just lazy, I asked one of the women in my office, a non-journalist whose opinion I find useful, whether repeated use of the headline bothers her. She said: “No, not at all.”

Still, it bothers me every time I see such a headline because the context often feels forced, more prurient than relevant. Could very well be me I suppose.

Apart from what will probably be comments on my sexual preferences, wondering if any of you have serious thoughts on this issue or have found other such labels annoying let alone offensive.

Regular readers of this Romantic Realist know he is a bit of an equal opportunity offender when it comes to the hand that feeds him. Still, in the face of smart creativity, one has give credit where credit is clearly due.

The latest November 16-20 2008 issue of The Brand Reporter, the fortnightly trade publication that is widely read by Indian media executives and is often full of testostorene-laden advertising claims that scream than speak, has this front-page wraparound ad from HT Media Ltd about how its flagship, Hindustan Times, fared in the latest round of the Indian Readership Survey Round 2 (a subject of this previous blog post by yours truly dubbed I am No 1. No, I am No. 1):

Most readers of Times of India (and many non readers as well) will likely immediately recognize what HT Media’s marketing department did in this ad, irrespective of our views on who is No. 1 or not.

To me, it was a very clever way to use one of the strongest associations of a rival brand, in this case a cartoon that mimics, fairly accurately, the iconic style used by R.K. Laxman, to drive home HT Media’s advertising message.

Clever, subtle and fun. And what good (and good natured) advertising ought to be.

Ps: Speaking of RK Laxman, does anyone out there know how this 1924-born Indian icon is doing these days?

Ps2: In terms of full disclosure, and just in the off chance someone reading this doesn’t know it, Mint is also published by HT Media.

It was good to see a fat one-year-old show up at my house on 16 November morning in the form of a 96-page Mail Today, the slimline (a slightly longer tabloid) daily newspaper in New Delhi from the India Today group that turned 1. The 96-pager had a lot of ads, testimony to the special anniversary occasion perhaps, as well as that predominantly magazine group’s ability to sell space. I have been a subscriber as well as a regular reader of the paper all year (in a household that gets nine newspapers every morning, getting a paper and reading aren’t always related), having looking forward in anticipation to its arrival (I like small format papers for starters) and because of its attempt to offer a content-based alternative to resident heavyweights, Times of India and Hindustan Times.

I don’t know how the paper is doing financially–given stubbornly high newsprint costs, a recently slowing economy, difficulties in getting distribution traction in a market where I suspect both its larger rivals have immense clout and aren’t shy of using it to stymie upstarts. I suspect it isn’t doing so great. But year one of any newspaper (or year two or three as well) is never easy on the profit & loss account. But from a reader perspective, at least this Romantic Realist believes Mail Today has been able to offer a newspaper that isn’t me-too, tries to take risks and, in New Delhi, has the best Sunday metro newspaper offering in terms of consistent quality and eclectic offerings, surprising me with content and stories, not with unexpected design or confounding story selections as is the case with the Times of India and Hindustan Times, especially on weekends. I believe, perhaps naively, that ultimately, if readers find a product sticky, advertisers will have to follow.

Which is why I was also quite depressed to come across this subscription offer in the paper:

Call me old fashioned but it is frustrating to see how the newspaper industry in India has actively promoted the notion that an offering that is 100% new every day (a newspaper) is not worth the cost of the paper on which it is printed. Readers of the Romantic Realist know his pet peeve about a 24-page, all-color newspaper costing Rs10 just for ink and newsprint (not counting any other content generation costs including staff) and being so heavily subsidised by the industry itself.

A Mail Today costs Rs3.50 on the newsstand. So, for 365 days, its face value is about Rs1,275. And for two years, about Rs2,500. I suspect it costs about Rs6,200 in ink and paper costs for two years worth of the paper, taking very conservative costs of Rs8.50 a day. Yet the paper is being offered for Rs999 and, on top of it, you get coupons for Reebok shoes (depending on newspaper and offer, you can substitute this freebie for coffee makers, blankets, DVD players) worth Rs2,690. Essentially the signal that is being sent is that, without counting the resale value of the recycled paper on which it is printed, the paper is not only free but they are actually willing to pay me for simply telling them I am willing to get it for two years. What a deal! And what a sorry state of affairs for our entire industry.

I am sure there will be plenty of quibbles with my math and also with my reasoning. After all, if newspapers can use gimmicks and tactics–including so-called invitation prices–to drive down newspaper subscription costs to unreasonably low levels, circulation will soar. And in a game of volume, isn’t it better for the industry to have much larger sales this way? And, if you are taking the social responsibility high ground, what better than to have more and more Indians access papers that are cheaper than free?

Fair enough. And, before anyone starts saying why doesn’t Mint do it differently, let me add that as Editor, I don’t make business decisions and, left up to me, I would have rather had 60,000 clearly identified readers who are able, willing and wanting to pay Rs10 a day for a quality read than 219,000 readers (Mint’s Total Teadership according to the latest Indian Readership Survey data) or the 139,000 readers (Mint’s Daily Readership according to the latest Indian Readership Survey data), including several thousand who bought it only because it was sold for Rs299 for a full year and then tell market researchers they rarely look at it.

My larger point is that if, as an industry, we have convinced readers that this useful product (any newspaper) that costs, at the very minimum, between Rs8-Rs10 to “manufacture” is not worth paying even 50% of what a cup of coffee costs from a street vendor in New Delhi, we have done incredible long-term damage to the business of newspapers and to journalism. Little wonder then that advertisers, who know how dependent newspapers will always be on ads for survival, are becoming more and more intrusive and brazen, often in active collusion with the ad sales departments of newspaper companies. After all, the thinking seems to go, if readers don’t want to pay even a fraction of what a product costs, or get it for free, what right do they have to complain about the intrusion of advertising and paid-for content?