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In the 80s, it was a runaway success.
But the campaign 'I love you, Rasna' and the girl who was seen as cute and lovable have been eclipsed.
The rise of the colas and their deep pockets shifted consumption habits.
The soft drink concentrate powder had to be mixed into drinks - and the flavour seemed artificial to a new generation that was moving to 'real' fruit juices.
Even though they were just as sweet as the colas were
The 2-liter cola bottles could be stored in the fridges and brought out anytime. Cool, inviting and bubbly.
The birthday parties also evolved. They no longer revolved around light snacks and soft drinks. Event managers were hired to conduct games and keep the festivities going.
They were organised around themes and had lavish gifts in addition to layered cakes and pastries. And moved out of homes and into restaurants as guest lists expanded
Rasna got stuck in the middle. Competing with massive advertising budgets and changing middle-class aspirations.
When the market repositions a product, it's a much bigger issue - no easy solutions.
The kids of the 80s had grown up. And their kids weren't singing the same old song
The fish are knocking at the gate
Can fish get caught up in a traffic jam?
They can in the Netherlands - a country with the most sophisticated network of connected canals.
The water depth differs over stretches. To help boats navigating through the canals, lock gates were built underwater to maintain water levels steady, balancing flow and depth with the tides.
The fish swimming in the canals come up against the gates and for them, it's like hitting a wall.
A technical solution would have been to set up sensors to determine the number of fish waiting to get past the lock gates and then alert the person responsible for operating the gate.
Instead, the council placed underwater cameras to capture the flow of fish in real time and broadcast them to walkers along the canal.
When large numbers of fish crowd around the lock, anyone can ring the 'doorbell' to signal that fish are waiting.
When the gates are opened, the traffic jam eases.
The council decided that people participating in notifying the gatekeepers would drive higher awareness of marine species, get children and locals involved and be interwoven with life rhythms along the canal.
Ringing the doorbell for fish becomes a star attraction every day!
Did you miss a viral opportunity?
When the ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, what did you do?
Created a meme?
Scanned news sites and Twitter to get updates?
Wrote a post about it, like I am doing now?
Tom built a website - Is the ship still stuck?
He found the domain was available and had the single page up and running in a day.
In the 5 days that it made headlines around the world, he was getting as many as 8000 plus hits a minute.
He got 50 million views in that period, the equivalent of traffic to the New York Times
There were any number of shipping and logistics companies who could have created a website and got the traffic themselves.
But they didn't
There's nothing on the site beyond updates from Twitter and news sites.
All it required for the traffic to take off was one post on Hacker News.
There were thousands of comments on how the ship could have been unblocked.
The window for these opportunities is small - and one web developer found a way to put the whole thing together.
This opportunity is gone - but maybe when the next viral news breaks, who knows?
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it with friends. Or Tweeting the link. The more people we can get to tune in every week, the merrier. Thank you.
By Connecting the not-so-obvious branding dotsIn the 80s, it was a runaway success.
But the campaign 'I love you, Rasna' and the girl who was seen as cute and lovable have been eclipsed.
The rise of the colas and their deep pockets shifted consumption habits.
The soft drink concentrate powder had to be mixed into drinks - and the flavour seemed artificial to a new generation that was moving to 'real' fruit juices.
Even though they were just as sweet as the colas were
The 2-liter cola bottles could be stored in the fridges and brought out anytime. Cool, inviting and bubbly.
The birthday parties also evolved. They no longer revolved around light snacks and soft drinks. Event managers were hired to conduct games and keep the festivities going.
They were organised around themes and had lavish gifts in addition to layered cakes and pastries. And moved out of homes and into restaurants as guest lists expanded
Rasna got stuck in the middle. Competing with massive advertising budgets and changing middle-class aspirations.
When the market repositions a product, it's a much bigger issue - no easy solutions.
The kids of the 80s had grown up. And their kids weren't singing the same old song
The fish are knocking at the gate
Can fish get caught up in a traffic jam?
They can in the Netherlands - a country with the most sophisticated network of connected canals.
The water depth differs over stretches. To help boats navigating through the canals, lock gates were built underwater to maintain water levels steady, balancing flow and depth with the tides.
The fish swimming in the canals come up against the gates and for them, it's like hitting a wall.
A technical solution would have been to set up sensors to determine the number of fish waiting to get past the lock gates and then alert the person responsible for operating the gate.
Instead, the council placed underwater cameras to capture the flow of fish in real time and broadcast them to walkers along the canal.
When large numbers of fish crowd around the lock, anyone can ring the 'doorbell' to signal that fish are waiting.
When the gates are opened, the traffic jam eases.
The council decided that people participating in notifying the gatekeepers would drive higher awareness of marine species, get children and locals involved and be interwoven with life rhythms along the canal.
Ringing the doorbell for fish becomes a star attraction every day!
Did you miss a viral opportunity?
When the ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, what did you do?
Created a meme?
Scanned news sites and Twitter to get updates?
Wrote a post about it, like I am doing now?
Tom built a website - Is the ship still stuck?
He found the domain was available and had the single page up and running in a day.
In the 5 days that it made headlines around the world, he was getting as many as 8000 plus hits a minute.
He got 50 million views in that period, the equivalent of traffic to the New York Times
There were any number of shipping and logistics companies who could have created a website and got the traffic themselves.
But they didn't
There's nothing on the site beyond updates from Twitter and news sites.
All it required for the traffic to take off was one post on Hacker News.
There were thousands of comments on how the ship could have been unblocked.
The window for these opportunities is small - and one web developer found a way to put the whole thing together.
This opportunity is gone - but maybe when the next viral news breaks, who knows?
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it with friends. Or Tweeting the link. The more people we can get to tune in every week, the merrier. Thank you.