Comparative B’advertising

Some classic examples have benchmarked the history of comparative advertising. And leading the fight club is the protagonist of this story, Pepsodent, which, in its advertisements, claimed, “New Pepsodent is 102% better than the leading toothpaste.” The ad showed two boys being asked the name of the toothpaste brand that they used. One happily exclaims Pepsodent, while the other’s disgruntled response, though muted, clearly points cynically towards Colgate (especially as a background jingle similar to the one in Colgate’s ads is used quite appropriately).

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The seat must get hotter

However, equal importance has to be given to investment that is flowing outside India, which is not the case right now. According to Bundeep Singh Rangar, Chairman, IndusView Advisors, “Outward FDI from a country is a true indicator of a global investor, which wants to have a worldwide presence. China, which receives the highest inward FDI amongst emerging economies, is also planning to make it big in outward FDI also.” Outward FDI from China increased from a meagre $400 million in 1980 to $38 billion by the end of 2004.

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Syria still believes in a “Greater Syria”

Syria’s position and interests should make it amenable to a deal. Of course, Syria still believes in a “Greater Syria” and never fully accepted Lebanon’s sovereignty. Syrian intelligence and troops – present in Lebanon since 1976 – were forced out in 2005 only under enormous international pressure and $1 billion were lost in smuggling revenues last year, much of which previously fl owed to the Syrian military. Many of the Hezbollah rockets that rained on Israel bore the markings of Syria’s Defence Ministry.

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“Us-Versus-Them”

We need to reject “us-versus-them” logic, in which Israel is pure and the Arabs are evil (or vice versa). Israel will be unable to avoid territorial withdrawals to the 1967 borders by exercising military might; US will be unable to ensure oil security through continued military occupation in the Middle East; and terrorists will be unable to destroy Israel or foist their fundamentalist ideas by force on moderate societies. In my work throughout the world, as an economist and development practitioner, I find that the vast majority of individuals and political leaders of all religions, races, and creeds are ready to work together to achieve prosperity and well being for their children. The claim by many Israelis that there are “no partners for peace” is absurd. Similarly, the claim that we are headed towards an inevitable clash of civilizations is sheer madness, propounded by people who think the worst of other groups, but don’t really know them personally. What unites us is vastly greater than what divides us.

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Selling equity, eroding liability

The world’s leading mobile telecommunications company, Vodafone Group traded 25% of its stake to Belgium’s prevailing telecom group, Belgacom for $2.55 billion in Proximus. The company found the deal lucrative enough to utilise the sale proceeds in order to lighten its debt burden. The deal will make Belgacom the sole controller of the company’s operations. Earlier this year, Vodafone had also sold part of its besieged Japanese business for $11.36 billion. The company is, however, suppressing demands from its investors to sell-off its stake in Verizon Wireless. The group serves about 186.8 million customers at present.

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No, there is no stock clearance mode... In India

With so many sudden offerings, are they also selling out old stock? Krishna kumar denies the speculation, “No, there is no stock clearance mode... In India, new products are released in September... and the release is timed in such a way so as to coincide with the festival season.” Rao equivocally denies the same for LG. Epson doesn’t hold back either. Says Tushad Talati, Head-Brand and Communication, Epson India Pvt. Ltd., “Our strategy for the festival season revolves around the launch of a whole new range of products targetting the home, SOHO and Photo users. These launches are especially timed to coincide with the peak buying period.” Clearly the festivities and the release of new products have affected the production cycles of many players in the Indian market.

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The World Has Changed Now

Clearly, the world has changed now – awesome gigabytes of storage space is available on the hard disk, floppies are extinct and replaced by a battle between Blu-ray & HDVDs, and life without the Internet is almost impossible! As for the companies, the pioneering IBM PC division spiralled into losses giving it up to Lenovo, Dell has seen sliding market confidence even trying set up new display outlets, Compaq got gobbled by Hewlett Packard, Microsoft is constantly attacked by open source aficionados & anti-trust cases and Steve Jobs is piggy backing on the iPod success to sell his Macs. But biggest change of all is the laptop that has been registering 100% growth, and slowly eating away the PC! Even PDAs & smartphones perform outrageously more functions than the 2.73 kg IBM 5150 could have ever dreamed of! The PC has come full circle and is back to a simple word & spreadsheet processing box of the 1980’s, just with more power. Here is paying tribute to the unknown, but vital faces that got it all together...

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Nooyi has engineered over a dozen acquisitions in 12 years at PepsiCo

But what about the critics who doubt that her success story will run smoothly for long? Well, she has certainly silenced critics in the past. A typical instance was in 2001, when she successfully reduced the asking price for Quaker Oats. Wall Street applauded the manner in which the then CFO of Pepsi saved ‘billions’ on the $14 billion deal. The icing on the cake was the health drink Gatorade that has helped Pepsi dominate the rapidly growing sports drinks market. Nooyi has engineered over a dozen acquisitions in 12 years at PepsiCo including the $3.3 billion takeover of Tropicana. Nooyi also worked on the restructuring that created YUM, the umbrella brand now controlling KFC, Taco Bell & Pizza Hut.

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