My experience of learning by teaching

Just recently, I realised I have been at 11 different institutes. I started off in 2009, so it's been a long 12 years. Most appearances were as a guest lecturer, but at one institute, I have been consistently teaching a course too.

So here's my attempt to explain the cliche behind my "great learning experience" of teaching.

1: Talk about your passions, and people will seek you out

I started out in marketing research, and every time I met my professors, I told them how the reality was so different from what was being taught to us in the classrooom, and that I would love to add that to the students. This constant interaction was what got me my first teaching assignment.

Once things began and people knew I was interested in this, I just kept getting more invitations.

2: You will fail first, and that's ok. Keep improving.

My first session was to a group of Executive MBA students on a weekend morning. And I was horrible. I was rejected right after the demo session. But thankfully, I gave it another shot, and then another, till I got good at it.

3: Always ask for feedback. Specific, detailed feedback.

The only reason I got better is that I asked for specific feedback. I explained to the class that I will take the feedback seriously, specify the questions, and then, keep time for students to fill up the forms at the end of the session without rushing through it. It helped me tremendously!

The negative pointers helped me improve, while the compliments boosted my confidence. So it worked both ways. Over time, I used this to also test out something new, and see if students picked on it, liked or disliked it.

4: Prepare for the session, and help others too

Like any other presentation, you will notice a marked difference between a prepared one and an unprepared one. You will sense it in the 'moood' of the room too, even though no one is actually speaking. And to get better at the preparation, it helps circulating your notes. In a way, it keeps the pressure on you to refresh the material for the next sesssion even though you are talking to a new crowd.

5: Share your experiences with others

It sounds like a repeat of the 1st point, but it's a bit different. The more you share, the more you will attract like-minded people, share notes, and improve your own work. And it also works because you will get to speak to more interested, more passionate crowds. Just like your regular job talent, this talent too is in high demand and low supply. So you will end up getting a better experience of talking.

Book Review: The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

Cropped book cover. Source: Amazon.in

Just like movies, it's true for books too: sequels are rarely as good as the first. But 'The Upside of Irrationality' by Dan Ariely, is an exception.

Dan Ariely's first book on this topic was 'Predictably Irrational'. It introduced us to irrational human behaviour. And gave a few examples from his researches over the years.

But with 'Upside...', Mr. Ariely gives a more application-based understanding of our irrationality. And with each topic he assesses, he shows the variations within that irrational behaviour of ours. Hence, this book remains as enlightening and fun, but ends up being much more useful than the first book.

Also, it has many more examples and lessons that you will find relatable to your life and your decisions. So it has the added advantage of partly being a self-help book too.

Rating: 4.5 stars of 5
You can buy the 'Upside of Irrationality' on Amazon here

Marketers: Don't be like Thanos

Yes, we have come to that stage in human evolution when we should take lessons from fictional villains in movie-adaptations of comic book stories. Perhaps the only saving grace is that we learn what not to do, rather than what to do, from these villains.

Lesson #1: Look before you snap!
In Endgame, Thanos gets to know that 5 years after his snap, Earth hadn’t flourished in spite of all the reduced competition for resources. And immediately, Thanos invents a new alternative of resource-planning – wiping everything out completely instead of partially.

That makes us think - Thanos had been doing this partial-killing for a long, long time before he got his hands on the Infinity Gauntlet. (Ha, that pun happened nicely!) If we start from the time of Gamora’s adoption and assume her aging process to be same as humans, it would mean Thanos had been doing this for at least a couple of decades (in Earth-time). And yet apparently, this was the very first instance when Thanos was analysing an outcome of his killings.

Does that mean he never went back and did a Return-on-Efforts-Invested analysis for all those years? Assuming he wiped half-a-civilisation every month for the past 20 or so years, he had killed half of about 240 different civilisations and not done any ROEI check! Wow!

Lesson #2: A Tree is not the same as the Forest
Thanos changes his life mission based on data taken only from Earth. But his snap had wiped out half the life in the entire Universe! That means he projected data from ‘sample’ of one, to the ‘population’ of hundreds of thousands. Maybe what happened on Earth was the exception and not the rule. He doesn't consider this. But then, even if he did, he had no way of finding out. (See Lesson 1)

I don’t suggest Thanos should do an MBA or study Market Research, but it seems even some basic knowledge would have helped him a lot!

Lesson #3: Don’t put all your Stones in one Gauntlet
To avoid getting killed, Thanos goes to a point in the past, where the Infinity Stones are with his enemy - the Avengers. Interestingly, in the original timeline, he was killed by these Avengers even when they didn’t have the Stones with them. Moreover, in the original timeline, Thanos was anyway able to get all the Stones, defeat the Avengers, and fulfill his life mission before he gets killed.

Thus, rather than just figuring out how to stay alive in his original timeline, Thanos goes to a battlefield where his enemy is not only stronger than him, but also more informed (Thanos knew nothing about time travel). And he does at the dual risk of dying and his life mission remaining unfulfilled. Why ruin an already earned achievement this way?

That’s why, marketers, don’t be like Thanos!
(And Thanos, if you are alive in any timeline, please study some research and strategy.)

Demonetisation - an assessment using the Effectiveness Approach

For a few years, my job involved working on tracking advertising effectiveness, and I co-authored an entry that won a Gold at the IPA Effectiveness Awards. This is only to establish that while the below analysis is way out of my league, the logic behind it has been well thought of. Do feel free to poke loopholes, and I will try to reassess accordingly.

On 8 Nov. 2016, India demonetized Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes with immediate effect. It has been widely proclaimed as a great step in curbing black money in the country. Now, while the move is bold and brave no doubt, I invite you to consider a possibility that the impact may not be as big as it is thought out to be.

Estimating cost of printing new notes At its press conference, the RBI said that it estimates 16.5 billion Rs. 500 notes, and 6.7 billion Rs. 1000 notes to be in circulation. This doesn’t add up according to my calculations.
As mentioned in an article by the RBI, the currency in circulation in recent years is roughly 10% of GDP. Thus, based on the IMF estimate of USD 2.25 trillion for India’s 2016 GDP, and exchange rate of Rs. 66.5 to a dollar, the currency in circulation would be Rs. 14,963 trillion in 2016.

Again, according to the same RBI article, Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 are total 47% and 32% of value of money respectively in circulation. Then, total no. of currency notes to be replaced will be:






Anyway, let’s go with the RBI-quoted figure of 16.5 billion and 6.7 billion notes respectively.
In one day, roughly 23.2 billion currency notes stopped being legal tender! Take some time to process that number.

For cost of printing, a Mint analysis (which is brilliant, by the way!) quotes RBI information that cost of printing new currency notes are Rs. 2.5 for a 50-rupee note and Rs. 3.17 for a 1,000-rupee note. The new notes will be more expensive to print due to costs of designing and adding new security features. But since the volume to be printed would be large too, let’s go only a little higher for pegging the cost of printing –Rs. 2.6 for a 50-rupee note and Rs. 3.5 for a 2,000-rupee note.

Let’s say we replace all old Rs. 50 notes with new Rs. 50 notes, and all Rs. 1,000 notes with Rs. 2,000 in equivalent value. The cost of printing these many notes will be:

We would spend Rs. 54.63 billion to print the new currency notes only for replacing old currency!

Before we look at other costs of this massive decision, let’s look at the benefits arising from this. The two big benefits expected from this move are curbing black money and curbing funding of terrorist activities.

Estimating impact on Black Money: The press release of the announcement puts the value of the black economy in India at 23.2% of GDP in 2007. Considering that same ratio for 2016, while highly unlikely, gives us a figure of Rs. 34,713 Trillion. However, not all of it is cash. In fact, a huge proportion of it will be in the form of real estate, gold jewellery and investments. Replacing currency notes doesn’t affect this at all.

So how much of black economy does it affect?
The black economy would have limited financial services as its disposal, but it would also have fewer participants, hence, fewer hands to exchange. Therefore, purely as a guess, let’s say the currency required for the black economy to operate is half of what is required for the white economy. Thus, 5% or Rs. 1,736 trillion will have to be replaced by black marketers in the event of replacement of currency notes.

Note that this Rs. 1,736 trillion turns out to be only 15% of the total currency in circulation in 2016 – Rs. 14,963 trillion. Doesn’t feel good, right? Ok, let’s push our original guess of 5% to 10%, so that this ratio goes up to 30%.

So does all of this cash become “white money”?
Not really, since black marketers can continue exploiting all existing loopholes to plough this same cash back into the black economy. But let’s still consider that this becomes white.

Reversing the Currency-to-GDP ratio, this will grow India’s GDP by Rs. 34,720 trillion in the first year. Converting black money to white by itself doesn’t matter much, what really matters to the government and to us, is the tax income generated from it.

Estimating incremental tax income Last year, the income from Central Taxes to the government was about 0.01% of GDP (Rs. 14.6 trillion on Rs. 1,37,855 trillion), thus, this new white money will give the govt. Rs. 3.47 Trillion more money.

Note that we will spend only 2% of that amount in printing new currency! Cool!!

But then, we have calculated only first year tax income, that too, only for Central Taxes. What about additional tax income to states, and also the multiplier effect of tax income spent as government's capital expenditure over the years? That will increase the benefit. But, for sake of ease, I assume that this impact gets balanced off by the fact that this tax income to government also takes it away from the hands of people who would have spent it, and that the original amount spent by the government on printing new currency would also have a similar multiplier effect over the years.

Let’s look at the second big benefit – lesser fake money for terrorists.

Fake money estimates An Indiatimes article says that ISI makes a profit of Rs. 500 crore a year by printing fake money and smuggling it into India. Cancelling old notes makes all that money worth nothing, but ISI has already made its profit on that money, so it hardly makes a difference.

Let’s say it takes ISI or its partners a full year to figure out how to make counterfeit new currency notes. Then, it loses Rs. 500 crore in this one year. Now what matters is... how much of ISI’s income comes from printing fake money. We wouldn’t know this.

But what we can estimate is that ISI will earn higher profits right from the moment it figures out how to print fake currency notes of Rs. 2,000.

Makes the whole step seem pointless, no?

Let’s assess the third factor now – removing corruption We keep forgetting that the black economy is an economy – meaning it already has figured out the loopholes of the official system, and has been exploiting it for years, perhaps decades! A change in currency notes is nothing more than a speed breaker in the journey.

Will replacing currency notes stop people from asking for dowry, paying ‘donation’ for school admissions and college degrees, escaping tax assessments, asking for undue promotions in government jobs, etc.? No way!

Let’s now come back to the additional costs involved in replacing currency notes in a knee-jerk manner like this.

The biggest cost is of transporting this money all over the country to bank branches and ATMs. It’s difficult to put a number to it.

The next cost is a nominal one – Business lost during this time. A recent nationwide strike of trade unions estimated losses to be in the range of Rs. 180 billion. That’s for a single day, for a section of the entire economy.

In our present case, nearly 80% of all currency notes, Rs. 14,950 billion in value, are rendered useless overnight, and are replaced over 50 days. This is in an economy where 2/3rd of transactions are in cash as per a Hindustan Times article.

During this 50-day period, even if we consider that the impact is equivalent of lost business of only 5 days, it totals to a massive Rs. 0.9 Trillion loss.

In other words, we would have lost 26% of our incremental tax income expected over the next one year, at the beginning of the exercise itself.

Impact on poor This cost, while not nominal, will be hidden and difficult to estimate too.

According to a 2015 study, while 53% of Indian population has a bank account, it is with a 43% dormancy rate – no deposits or withdrawals in a 12-month period. Again, go back to the previous mentioned cash becoming illegal overnight.

The timing makes it worse too - first week of the month, and just a week after Diwali, when quite a lot of them receive their festival bonus.

Now imagine 125 crore Indians, only 10% of them with an active bank account, scrambling to replace 80% of their cash.

Theoretically, it should affect only black money. But we already know black money in cash is only 15-30% of all cash in the economy. Be my guest in estimating the losses Indians will occur!

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Disclaimer: This analysis has been done using all openly available figures and study reports. This massive move will undoubtedly have far-reaching effects in terms of scale and time. I have made an attempt at calculating a short-term impact using my skills from another field. It does not reflect the views of my present or past employers.

Using Big Data for Strategic Communications

Once upon a time, the marketing department was data-starved and decision-making was largely about following the Marketing Head's gut-feel which in turn was influenced by 'trends' of the time.

Now, as the tsunami of Big Data shifts this decision-making to led-by-data and further to overloaded-by-data, strategy seems to take a backseat. But it doesn't have to be that way.

1. Find the Highest Common Factor, not the Least Common DenominatorMost upselling and cross-selling is based on what was searched and bought recently. This is standard data analysis and cross-tabulation at play. While that is good for incremental sales, it does little to grow large-scale business.

Instead, in a market like India, where the potential to grow the pie is still big, we can use data to solve larger business problems - to go beyond sales pitches, and find behavioural triggers.

For example, online retail seems to be battling slow growth beyond cash-on-delivery. Here, big data can help collate first gifting items purchased for delivery to other addresses - these purchases would automatically push consumers to go for some mode of pre-payment, instead of cash-on-delivery. And once they have experienced this mode, they are ripe for a complete shift away from COD.

Once these ideas are discovered, the appropriate ones can be elevated for ad campaigns too. For example: what if in this ad for Amazon, big data could provide the most correct item to purchase? Perhaps sales growth can see a steeper trajectory.

2. Redefine your segmentation criteriaIn absence of data, segmentation is usually done with geography and demographic variables - age, gender, etc. But with big data, these very factors can be challenged. What if, more than geography (small town / large town / metro), the 'life-stage' of the customer (single / married / married with kids) defined his / her purchase behaviour?

3. Redefine your competitionIn MBA classes, we were told of Coca-Cola's big growth story that came from redefining competition as 'all beverages'. Similarly, using big data, we can redefine our brand's competition based on time and money - instead of just product category. As brands move from mere products to experience (and want to charge a premium for it), this becomes interesting as well as critical.

What do you think?
Any stories to share on Big Data?

When are research scores comparable (and when are they not)?

"Let's not compare apples and oranges"
This phrase has led many a meeting astray. But it isn't completely misused. Before we compare any research findings, we need to agree on whether those findings are indeed comparable.

But, as we have seen earlier, whether we accept or reject findings depends as much on our prejudices as on our understanding of research. And if we disagree with the findings, we are more likely to believe the comparison itself is invalid.

So, how then, can we be sure that we are making like-to-like comparisons?

The guiding principle here comes from the way laws of economics are written - 'ceteris paribus'. Latin for 'All other things being the same', it sets the condition right at the beginning - that all variables other than the ones being compared are either constant, or their impact has been identified and accounted for.

Example 1: Comparing impact of an ad campaign across 2 bursts
If we see Burst 2 result in better sales than Burst 1, we need to first check if the distribution was already in place when Burst 1 was launched. Alternatively, when Burst 1 performed better, it could be a result of a retailer incentive program that didn't get rolled out along with Burst 2.

Example 2: Comparing an ad campaign across multiple geographies
Competition and Culture vary greatly across geographies. If a campaign for breakfast cereals does well in City 1 versus City 2, it could be a result of different breakfast habits, and different competing breakfast foods and not so much the ad itself.

Example 3: Comparing brand growth over long term using tracking studies
While working on evaluating a brand's long term ad campaign, we saw that while overall the ad had a positive impact, the sales actually dropped in some years when the ad was on air. A little digging revealed that the industry itself went through a slump during that time, and thanks to the ad campaign, this brand performed better than industry. Quite revealing how 'success' and 'failure' got redefined with just one additional factor included in the analysis!

What about your data?
Any interesting comparisons?

Why we still need research...

Our professor of business strategy used to ridicule research. He would say, "BMW doesn't go around carrying questionnaires, asking customers what want." Over the years, the standard example has shifted from automobiles to mobiles (specifically iPhone), but the argument has remained more or less the same.

But there's another point of view too. And it puts forward some very critical reasons why research is helpful.

1. Your customers live in all kinds of un-imaginable infrastructures
If you are reading this on LinkedIn, it is very likely that people in your city don't face problems with electricity and water supply. So, would you be able to understand if your consumers live with 4 hours of daily power-cuts, or get water for only a couple of hours a day? Would you be able to truly appreciate all the tricks and jugaad employed every 'day in the life of' your consumers?

2. You can't un-learn certain ways of life
For the longest part of my life, I would use public transport and auto-rickshaws for all travel, everywhere. But within a few months of buying a bike, I would feel odd about using public transport. Suddenly, travelling by auto-rickshaws felt ridiculously expensive. My outlook to money changed after I started earning. These are changes that you can't undo to imagine life without them. Can you imagine people of your age not owning a smartphone?

3. Everyone has their own unique combination of attitudes, values, and morals
What would you say about a mother who buys branded diapers for the son, and locally made stuff for her daughter? Or about a hospital that charges you 1.5% extra for paying through credit card?

Yes, perhaps the professor was right about questionnaires. We don't need to use them in every situation. But, research is a much larger, and wider field than just questionnaires. And it offers many tools that enlighten the world around us. Why stay in the dark!