Traditional and Social Media

“The best part about a typewriter is when you’re done and you pull that typed page out, it feels like you’ve accomplished something.” ~ Anonymous

Generally, we understand the differences between traditional media and social media. Although both target the same objective - spreading awareness and receiving feedback, the blatant difference is the directionality and response speed.

Traditional methods involve getting the word out and waiting for comments/feedback using posters/flyers, papers, TV/Radio ads. These are unidirectional and don't provide a direct feedback system.  Social methods provide real-time response of an event, the dynamic nature of interaction facilitates immediate feedback.

How does all this affect us? Its all about marketing - even this day we rely on both traditional and social media for advertising our play "8 Ghante". We have used postcards, flyers, emails, radio ads, word-of-mouth, blogs, facebook, twitter, etc.

Watch us perform at San Jose and San Francisco. http://www.naatak.com/current_event.html

A stroke in history....

A friend of mine sent me this link about the news of World's last typewriter factory shutting down. $300 for a piece of history ?!?

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384314,00.asp

"Hi.. I am a PC.. and I am a Typewriter"

PC: "Hi.. I am a PC and Windows 7 was my idea."

TW: "Hi.. I am a typewriter and PC was my idea..."

PC: (interrupting the TW) "What the.."

TW: "Many things you have gotten from me.."

PC: "Oh yeah! Like what..?"

TW: "The QWERTY layout, word processing, page printing, the typewriter font, the jargon - Backspace, linefeed, tab, shift etc"

TW: "Have you heard of tty devices.. like /dev/pts/4 or /dev/tty2 ?"

PC: "No.."

TW: "With the advent of smart phones and pads, the PC is the next typewriter..."

Interesting reads - "The PC is Not a Typewriter" and "Mac is not a typewriter".

Funny Video - "Typewriter and PC"

Curious? Watch us @ "8 Ghante"

Procuring a Typewriter

The play revolves around two typists. Thus, the most prominent prop is a typewriter. There are many places that sell typewriters - some cheap, some as expensive as a MacBook. I am told that some writers still use typewriters ?!?

After a month of hunting around on e-bay and Craigslist, I selected a few for testing. Yes, this was the first time I typed on a typewriter. Strikingly (no pun), the lack of ctrl+z, ctrl+c/v, ... I ended up with linefeeds, wasted real estate on paper; entangled typebars and irritating type noise. 

Eventually, I procured two similar typewriters for a modest sum. The lady showed me the settings to control type speed, paper feed, ribbon, etc. Wicked cool.

Intrigued about our play and the actors using typewriters? Come, watch us perform. http://www.naatak.com

"8 Ghante" Poster: Marketing is an Art.....

Poster for "8 Ghante" is out. After 2 weeks of brainstorming, creativity, negotiating with the artist without hurting her feelings ;-), convincing the Engineering types of your ideas....

It's no different than what I do at work for hi-tech marketing. Exact same steps - just it takes MUCH LONGER as there are several layers of bosses, everyone has to have an opinion (even if they dont deserve to have one ;-), there are things like "putting food on the table" and "career-limiting move" kind of phrases involved....so the marketing guy has to learn things like 'understanding different behaviors', looking at different people's Myers-Briggs profiles, politics, when to stop pushing the limits etc etc.

But I digress....

How is this poster? Does it make you stop - to read further - after the first glance. Every single facet of the poster is carefully designed to make that happen. Then, every word is carefully chosen. Does it make you want to watch the play? Does it create the intrigue? Does it tell you what the play is about? And the litmus test is, you as a customer after buying the product (after seeing this 'ad') feel satisfied or cheated?

Post comments here or send me feedback at rajiv.nema@gmail.com