Youth trend & technology.(Get Sesy Electronically)

Electronically get sexy

Move over Vijay Sales, Croma is here. The new electronics megastore from the Tata group is doing to electronics what hypermarts did to vegetables. Taking the buying experience several notches higher.How?

Well,to begin with the showroom is huge. And thank God, because on a Sunday evening at an obscure location like Sector 15, Palm Beach Road, Belapur (a km or so down from Seawood estate), the place was packed. Mostly gawkers (like myself), but a fair number of shoppers as well. And yet, you did not feel claustrophobic.The store is really well planned, well lit and well labelled. And the single most important difference: all that cool stuff is not locked away inside a glass case. With a stern / disinterested/ harried salesmen holding the key.At Croma, it's what you might call 'auto display'. The gadgets are mounted on a stand of sorts. They can't be yanked off but you can touch and feel them, even operate the piece (except for the low end mobile phonee, which are dummies).But digital cameras, mp3 players, PDAs - all have batteries. Can be switched on and 'experienced'. There is, of course, a Croma guy standing there, if you need help. And the amazing thing is the store actually lives up to its slogan: "We don't sell, we help you buy". The staff is friendly and knowledgable but not pushy. Which is a difficult mix to achieve! We took a full download of the Dopod PR 818 and walked away saying 'sochenge.' No dirty looks or sighs from the sales guy. The 'khareedna nahin tha to itna inquiry kyun kiya' scowl you'll encounter at Vijay Sales.Of course I don't know for sure how good the deals are. Certainly the extreme value conscious types will only browse at Croma and then go buy their stuff at say, an Alfa. The Sony Ericsson P990i was retailing at Rs 19800 at Croma - you can get it for Rs 14000 odd at Alfa. But for many products like LCD TVs I am sure Croma prices are very competitive.The other thing is they don't have a 'full range' in products like digital cameras or laptops. But they have adequate choice. Lastly, here some cool accessories on sale. Again, some may be cheaper in the grey market but if you're buying a digital camera which does not come with a case you may as well pick one up from here. Cause by the time you get to doing that from elsewhere your LCD screen would already be scratched.Croma is definitely international in look, feel and its approach towards selling. The store treats the Indian customer like a responsible adult, not a kid in a candy store who needs to be supervised and eyed suspiciously all the time.At the end of the day, when the Tatas enter any new business, they do it with class. Where they sometimes lack is speed of expansion. If they take care of that - it's a winning proposition.

Hindustan Lever(HLL)Unilever's new logo - so?

Dunno if you've noticed but Hindustan Lever (HLL) is now Hindustan Unilever (HUL). And the familiar green logo is now a blue 'U' made of little bits floating in the air.And each of those bits apparently represents the company's new mission: adding vitality to life. 25 different icons which stand for - 'our brands, our people, our values'. Not that I would have known, really. Until, as an HUL shareholder, I received this enlightening piece of communication (please click on pics to see enlarged image).On the one hand, you have general symbols like:Sun: All life begins with the sun - our primary source of vitalityAnd specific ones like:Palm Tree: It produces palm oil as well as many fruits - coconuts and dates - and also symbolises paradise. There are icons for 'Sauces or spreads', 'Lips', 'Ice cream', 'Tea', 'Fish' and even 'Container'...!Now I am no design expert but my first thought was - should a logo require a two page note to be understood? An ad agency whiz I showed it to remarked,"This looks like a logo designed by a committee... Sab ko khush rakhne ke liye ek ek icon daal diya."Of course there are some who feel the new identity communicates a 'fresh energy and wonderful texture'. For the ordinary customer, who identifies more with 'Lux' or 'Surf' than the parent brand 'Unilever' I suppose it hardly matters anyways.Incidentally, the makeover has taken 3 years and over 7 million pounds.While I do appreciate the need for a behemoth like Unilever to be seen as more 'open and 'friendly' I also think some of the dilemmas facing the company are due to the product categories it operates in. Soap, detergent, sauce and tea are an important part of our lives. But these aren't categories people are passionate about any more.Simply put, there is a divide between companies in the digital and non-digital space. “We are used to the idea of a world where change happens in long cycles,” Santosh Desai said to me when I interviewed him for this piece on the role mobile phones play in the lives of young people. “The Internet, and more so, the mobile, give us a sense that the world needs to update itself constantly.”Companies rooted in real world products can't keep up with that pace. But they will need to. How? Through constant reinvention - even redefinition - of product and purpose. The logo, I hope, is just a start.