Can't 'imagine' the logic behind this

Finally some respite for people who like watching good comedy shows on TV as I do. I am talking about the new show that has just started on NDTV Imagine: 'Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega'. The other day I was watching one of its episodes where more than a dozen girls (wannabes) coming from all parts of India were trying hard to woo Rahul in order to make him desire them! I could be tried and imprisoned for sacrilege by the aesthetics society of India if I referred to all of them as ‘girls’ as some of them seem to have been gracing the earth since an eternity at least! Apart from this, one more observation made was that whenever there was a break during the programme (the funniest programme I mean), a countdown would begin on the left-top of the screen. This countdown indicated the time remaining for the ads to get over and the show to start. One more thing to be noted here is that this countdown doesn't begin as soon as the ads start, it starts only when about 3 minutes are remaining. May be their thinking behind this is that it would take a few moments before people would start getting irritated with ads and switch to other channel and before they do so, the timer will appear and make them remain on the same channel as no one would like to miss out on their favorite shows. But I have a different story to tell and I am sure you would agree with this. While I was watching this show and there was a break, quickly my brother switched to some other channel without waiting even for a second and even if he had managed to stay with the same channel till the timer appeared I am sure that warning (i.e. only 2 minutes to go) wouldn’t have stopped him from switching to other channels as we all know that it only takes few moments for us to browse through all the channels that our Cablewala has to offer! In fact I feel this may go against them as I experienced yesterday when I was watching the same show and ads came, my brother snatched the remote from me and switched to some news channel (one more source of comedy nowadays) where one reporter was speaking confidently about the place where he thought Laden was hiding (as if he only booked the ticket for him). When I told my brother to not change the channel as only two minutes were remaining he said two minutes is a lot of time and that he would switch to this channel before it starts and that he can’t wait for two long minutes as there are others channels to be explored! People consider themselves fortunate if they are able get daily dose of their favorite show for two continuous minutes without any ads in between them. As sometimes it feels like we are watching ads and in between some show is being telecast!

Irreplaceable is nothing

I remember studying one article 'Marketing Myopia' by Theodore Levitt while I was in college. It explained how parochialism on part of the companies or the industries could eventually lead to their destruction. It also talked about industries which defined their business scope narrowly and didn't give a thought to what future could have in store for them. Article gives examples of some industries which went out of business and some others which almost suffered the same fate due to their narrow outlook: take railroad industry which believed it was in railroad business instead of transportation, Hollywood thought it was in movie making business instead of entertainment business and how incandescent lamp replaced kerosene light. Levitt emphasized that companies should be customer oriented rather than product oriented.
Recently I came across one such example though on a much smaller scale i.e. manufacturing of LPG cylinders. There was an article in one newspaper which mentioned as to how the bulky LPG cylinders that we are using now could get replaced by cylinders made of fiberglass and polymer. These cylinders will be non-corrosive and more stylish though there will be no subsidy and they will be more expensive than the regular ones (Regular Cylinders cost The Oil Marketing companies (OMCs) around Rs.1050 but the new ones will cost around Rs.3200). They are planning to import around one lakh cylinders on a trial basis for metros. Secondly, at many places these cylinders have already been replaced by gas pipelines so some business is lost there too. I don't know whether the companies which have been making the conventional cylinders have the technology or the manpower to switch to making this new type of cylinders (I have no idea whether the new cylinders will do well or not) but this development certainly provides a reason to give it a serious thought. One more aspect to this could be the Steel companies which supply steel to these manufacturers. Agreed Steel companies cater to a number of sectors but LPG business is relatively more consistent compared to other sectors accounting for reasonably good sales for them.
However it is too early to jump to any conclusion at this stage but if things go well for the new cylinders then the B-School students could have one more case study to discuss when they study ‘Marketing Myopia’!