“Lets do a seminar” says Vijay and I am wondering a seminar sounds interesting but why in the evolving virtual world a seminar and thats when it struck… Over the past few days we have been wondering how to address everyone and make aware about our brand and the transformation its going through, and just thats when our dear HR says to us about the underutilized potential of our Blog, and we though well why not unveil the evolution for our brand identity here. I am sure of what I am going to write here you would already be aware of and would easily connect with. So without wasting much of our virtual time we start…

Brand is something that is build over a period of time and so is its experience. Most of us connect to our brand on a daily basis, mostly use just a part of it called the logo either in our documentations/presentations, when we enter our office everyday and see the logo at the reception(ignoring it most of the time) and mostly carrying it on our backs(packs), but do we really carry it. You must be thinking “How am I supposed to carry a brand? is this man crazy, is he telling us to carry a olympic torch with One97 written on it and run across the city”. Not really – I do not mean carry in its very literal meaning. You carry a brand when you talk to your client and he forms a view point about the company, its when you tell your buddies about your work and culture at work place. Its carrying a responsibility of perception. And on the other side its equally important for the brand  to clearly create its position so when it talks it communicated rightfully about its value about what it stands for, its about the characteristics of the company, thats what brand positioning is.  How may times do you really feel that the brand is talking, how does it talk, how many time do you feel that when you talk to your client he judges you when you say “I am from One97″ and he says yeah lets get talking! and has a different view point all together – thats when the brand is talking, it when you pick a Gucci from a Levis, its when you watch a movie at PVR not Golcha. The very perception that someone forms of you(as a company) is when the brand talks. Its about the experience its about the satisfaction, the guarantee of the uncompromised quality, its about ethics, its about about how we reach out and what people think of you rather what’s the perception formed.

You must be wondering why all this gyan about brand, Well what I really wanted to make clear was that when you hear the word brand you not only think about the logo but beyond. Ok so enough I guess for this session of gyan and coming to the transformation part which this blog is about. As part of our re-branding we are starting by overhauling out existing logo and some elements of our communication kit. 

Coming to the logo, why are we changing our logo…well let me first say that we are not changing, we are evolving as a company and with the evolution comes a transformation, so we are really transforming our current logo/identity. The current logo which strongly positioned us as a communication player had a swish on the top with two dots – which represents connecting the two ends and hence the communication starts, which we are now changing  - instead we are now add some brand elements – the conversation blobs, which takes the talking part to a much more richer and experiential way of communication – the 2.0 way of life, removing the swish and leaving the logo to be much simpler and clearer, making our position stronger as a company that is transforming the conventional media to a much more engaging and interactive medium of communication. Giving equal importance to our tag line “Lets get talking” we have kept it simply next to our logo striking a balance of what we are and what we want to say. The actual usage and guidelines will come into picture a little later, so please do not let your inhibitions run wild and start using the logo yet. With the change of our logo also comes change in our Visiting cards and Letterheads. If you are eager to see how they look – I will be sharing a glimpse of them soon in my next posting- so watch this space. We are also working on revamping our website and other communication material which I will share with you – once we take a stand on them. As for this post I guess I stop here since the story of brand never stops and its also evolves as we do.

I am looking to get lots of feedback from all of you, bad or good, they are equally important, you think you have some point of view please feel free to share it.

Rahul Saini

Wireless networks are happening. Mobile is the present and the future. Be it First world, Second world or the third world, wireless networks are creating waves and have far surpassed the fixed networks in scale and in capacity. In India every month approximately 10 million wireless subscribers get added and total number of subscribers are arond 250 million which is one-fourth of India’s population. And what we have seen until now is just the tip of the iceberg.

There are many reasons why mobile value added segment is poised to see exponential growth. The first oen is that mobile services today account for roughly 10% of operator revenues and a big chunk of that is P2P SMS. With Voice charges hitting rock bottom the only way operators will make money is thru value added services. And this is the reason we’ll see new and innovative services every day. Second, the consumers are maturing and are becoming more sophisticated and are moving ahead of entertainment and content – they want to use their mobiles for information services and commerce which has immense potential in terms of number and value of services. Third, the 3G technology is now stable and spectrum is getting acquired by operators – soon 3G capabilities will be part of all networks and that means bandwidths of upto 10Mbps per subscriber. That kind of bandwidth turns a mobile into a computer with broadband connection and the information that can be sent on that channel is just enormous.

Investors everywhere are recognizing the potential of wireless services and are investing bigtime into companies in this space. The number of companies entering into this space is also very high and the coming years shall see some M&A activity. Being here can provide enough technical challenges to the young tech-hungry enthusiasts – and being here also means doing something which will contribute in no small way to the nation’s development.

 One97 is one of the major players here and will be in the middle of all this excitement and growth. We are growing like anything and our young and dynamic team will take us to new heights. So guys and gals,if you are not already here, hop on to the bandwagon and enjoy the ride. This space is hot, and being in this space is cool.