Our First Commercial..

The product was ready, the launch was done and now it was time to explore the advertising options. We checked a range of options – Newspapers, Magazines, Billboards, TV, Radio, Online, Movie and a few more, only to realize that ALL OF THEM COST A TON OF MONEY…AT LEAST. We couldn’t waste our money on advertising, we needed the money to make our product faster, sharper and better. But then we were itching to send out our first commercial, I mean, can’t we have a commercial of ours, sure we can..we should..we must. The tempo was running high for everyone except Gaurav, our acting CFO, but eventually he agreed to shell out a princely sum of a few thousand rupees for the “experiment”. A few thousand rupees could let us print a few flyers and just that!! What? just a few flyers, that’s it!! Some bit of research and we discovered another option – “Movie Advertising”.

We chose the PVR multiplex in Bangalore as a lab for our experiment. All that we could show was a “Slide” that would be displayed for a few seconds during the interval. And this is what we came up with –

Our Other Options were - (the rest were too bad to be posted here..)

So, if you happened to go to the Bangalore PVR in November please do let us know if you could indeed see us there (We seriously hope you did). Let us know if we used the “corpus” in the right way. Gaurav still maintains that we didn’t…

Comments

[arun]

Hmm.. Good start. Although, I think these nobody cares about slides in the movies. The only ppl who remain inside the movie hall during interval are mostly families and families are not mostly tech savvy esp in India. So, your best target are younger and/or tech savvy ppl. Also ,it wud be great if u think of some cool(with some humor) flyer instead of a plain one.

[Aditya]

I agree with with what arun says and please use viral medium like YOutube. Its the age of videos and any regular Desi surfer knows that. Embed a youtube video in your blog. Hire a PR if need be.

Thanks,

Aditya

[Kapil Ohri]

I have a doubt, The tag line for Guruji.com is -The Indian search engine. But the tag line is not making it very clear that - Is it an Indian content specific search engine or a search engine originated in India? I think you need to convey more precisely "what local search engine means? How Guruji is of help to them? Do advertise..either go for heavy copy ads ..but be more precise and communicate these messages clearly. The message that Guruji is more an Indian specific content search engine has to come across your target audience.

And I think lot of youngsters do stay back during intermission of movie, but how Internet search savvy they are...thats a good question to be answered, as we know what local search engine means, but do a common student/professional know it and if yes...does he know that Guruji is their answer for local area info search needs...?

[sagar]

ON BEHALF OF GURUJI.COM -

Dear Kapil, Aditya, Arun,

Thanks for your brilliant points. You will soon see your suggestions implemented in some form or the other. Please keep more of them coming.

Thanks once again and have a great day.

[Rajeeva Kant Garg]

Hi Gaurav

Came to know alte about your venture.
good show man. great ideas.
all the best.
forward your mail id, cell no. to make able to be in touch with you

regards
Rajeeva Garg

[Sanmathi]

Hi Guruji Team,

I wish you a very Happy and Prosperous new year to your team. Great job friends. We are very proud of you about this "Gurji.com" being an Indian Search Engine. Keep the tempo high.

Regards,
Sanmathi S.

[Rahul]

Your USP is INDIA.For that you have the right name GURUJI which is very much an Indian name.But you need to give an Indian feel to your engine.You can do this by using the colours of Indian flag and also by using the Indian map for city search.Differentiate yourself from others else you will be lost in the crowd of many search engines.
All the best.

[Sachin]

In the book, Crossing The Chasm, Geoffrey Moore describes one of the biggest challenges facing an entrepreneur, especially in the initial innovator or ”bleeding edge” stage, is gaining insights and product validation from the target audiences. Too often the entrepreneur leans on their family, friends, and co-workers for feedback and base decisions on it.

• It already exists (Google, AltaVista, Ask.com, Dogpile.com, Wikipedia, and Yahoo). So - Where is the QPA (Quantum Physic’s Applicability) to generate third wave i.e. uniqueness?

• What’s in it for me (WIIFM), i.e., for each company that allows you to post their information? Why would they want you to post it?

Patriotism is not uniqueness. Patriotism can’t be the objective/vision. Internet Business doesn’t run on the wheel of physical boundaries. So, inspite of having questions, I appreciate Mohit’s (Sequoia Capital’s) vote of confidence for Guruji.com. Is it jus’ based on “acquisition exit”? I ‘m doubtful.

Media want lines, Lines are needed – media is not needed. No thanks to media.

Best wishes,

Sachin

[Sanjana Z Antony]

Hi,

I want to enter Guruji.com as my nomination in the contest 'Indian Start-up Companies' being held by another start-up chillibreeze.com.

I do not know whether you'll have the time to explain to me all this but I would like to know how do search engines make money and if at all they do and if so is it thru ads to include in my write-up.

Thanks and Regards,
Sanjana Z Antony.

[Gaurav Singh]

Hi Guruji Team,

I had won Mp3 player on 18 september,2007 and i had also updated my address details and mobile number to the URL link sent by GURUJi team,but still,i haven't got Mp3 Player.Can you look into the issue?..I had sent a number of mails to the team but didn't get any response yet.

Please refer the link below to verify that i had won the Mp3 player.
http://contest.guruji.com/?action=winners_archive&d=2007-09-18

Hope this time,i will get some response.