Let me start off this edition of the newsletter with my Twitter experiment from few days ago. May be you’ll find these numbers interesting?
So I ran an ad promoting this newsletter for three days, spending 20$ per day. How many new subscribers did I get? I had less than 250 subscribers (earned over the years) before the promotion kicked in. That went upto ~380 in three days, once the entire sixty dollars was exhausted.
So 60 dollars got me more than 120 subs - effectively 2 subscriber for 1 dollar. Not bad, huh? I don’t know, but sounds pretty reasonable.
Some of you reading this newsletter, perhaps subscribed via Twitter. I just hope you are not a bot. :) And if not, may you enjoy reading what I write.
Let me throw in another chart now, and one that’s a lot more dramatic than the previous one.
Here’s the relative size of all bank failures in the USA since 2000 - source.
I love beautiful visualizations like these. I also just saw that John Harris put out a video explaining the SVB bank failure and why it’s a big deal and all that. I haven’t watched it. But if this story fascinates you, I can trust that Harris must have done a good job. See it, if you want to.
I have a video too. Or two.
In an ad, should product and model be visually close together?
The answer is not as straightforward as you may think! Watch me share findings from a marketing research paper in the 8th Episode of #CoreInsights
Because some of you are new here, here’s a quick intro of who I am.
I am an IIT Madras graduate (2003-08), who worked as a management consultant for 4 years, then dabbled with wedding photography (went on for a decade), picked up and established a short documentary film-making brand in 2014 and started a story-led marketing & brand consultancy in 2021, where we primarily help tech startups. We are a ~20 people team now. Here’s a short video where I explain my life-journey briefly.
Is there a word that encapsulates everything about me? Storytelling!
Talking about storytelling, and advertisement, when we think of ads, we often think of celebrities. Ambi (an ad / marketing guru, who also mentors me and Amrut, my co-founder at CoreVoice) shared an interesting framework for looking at celebrity-led ads on one hand and influencer based, on the other. In a Business Standard article, he talks about the concept of hot & cold media. I found it hot. :D
More around ads…
If you want to go through a curated list of top 100 ad campaigns from last year, here is a fantastic list!
Enjoy binge watching! This is clearly a list worth saving and bookmarking and so is another one - although of a different kind.
If you fancy economics (like me), you may want to bookmark this summary of A-Z of Economics keywords published recently by The Economist. And irrespective of how much you care about economics, there is one finding from this week that will surely amuse you.
Did you know that the total market value of all the goodies that go inside an Oscar gift-hamper is a whopping 126,000 dollars?
What the flying duck!
Oh by the way, we all know that India won two oscars this year, but I just want to quickly share that one of the wins also has an IIT Madras connection! So, cool!
And since we are talking about IIT, let’s talk tech? Can you guess the right answer for the question below?
Answer - here.
Talking about old tech, I was amused to find out that Floppy-discs are still not completely dead! Like, really?
And before I move on from the old tech nostalgia - one last drop. It’s pretty cool.
If you have ever used a real old-school typewriter (like me), you will love using this simulator.
Try it out, it’s pretty cool. Trust me.
Alright, let’s move from old to new tech now? This trippy AR app (see the Tweet below) definitely blew my mind! What do you think? Very trippy no?
Continuing on the AR trip, I found this AR ring thingie by Cartier pretty cute - link.
Rich people buy costly rings. But are rich people also happier than poor? There is some fresh light being shed in this area by Kahneman himself. In a new research where he is a co-author, this has been the finding…
Money buys happiness even at high income levels, but if you are decently rich and miserable, then getting even richer won’t help.
Where on this scale do you see yourself? Should you be trying to make more money? If yes, all the best. May you get to buy Cartier rings. :D
Even when you can’t gift a ring to your sweetheart, you can probably write to her/him a love-letter? And if you do so, you will need an envelope. Enjoy watching some sweet photographs capturing the envelope makers of Ahmedabad - link - pretty delightful. And after that, go write that letter. With love.
Before I wrap up today’s newsletter, here’s the next video of mine.
I have been loving doing this weekly VC/PE deals review thing. If you are into this sort of stuff, would really like to know what you think about my new show “It’s a Big Deal”. Let me know in comments?
Alright, so that was it. See you, when I see you. So much to discover about this world! Take care, get rich and be happy! Yes, you can.