Say Goodbye to DoubleClick and AdWords–Google is Giving Advertisers the Next Best Thing

Let’s all bid farewell to DoubleClick and AdWords.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is retiring the names, but not their services.

TALK ABOUT RE-BRANDING TAKING PLACE ON A WHOLE NEW LEVEL! After 18 and 22 years, respectively, both the “AdWords” and “DoubleClick” brands will cease to exist. As part of their comprehensive efforts to streamline their advertising offerings, Google’s complex line up of ad products is getting rebranded. 

It’s retiring AdWords and DoubleClick to streamline the admittance points for advertisers and ad sellers; however rebranding is not the only thing Google is focusing on, it is also introducing new solutions that simplify its advertising offerings. Senior Vice President, Sridhar Ramaswamy, who is spearheading Google’s recent ad restructuring, explained how they wanted to broaden their horizon by simply rebranding their current offerings and at the same time, pointing out where they wanted the product to go.

 The new Google ad lineup will encompass three focal pillars, and the rebranded set will roll out in July:  Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords, Google Marketing Platform, formerly known as DoubleClick and Google Analytics 360, and Google Ad Manager, which is a unified form of DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

What lies beneath all these innovations however, remains unchanged: AdWords. What started off as a search-based system more than 17 years ago, AdWords, has been renamed as Google Ads. This will basically act as a “front door” for advertisers enabling them to purchase ad space across all Google platforms, which includes (but is not limited to) displaying ads on YouTube videos, or location listings in Google Maps.

The introduction of Google Ads isn’t the only “next best thing”, because the internet giant is targeting micro businesses as well through its introduction of the new “Smart” campaign; its functionality would allow advertisers to quickly design and unveil the ad campaigns and offer enhanced audience-targeting features than ever before.

Next is the Google Marketing Platform­­–a combination of DoubleClick and Google Analytics 360­­–which is designed specifically for marketers. Under this umbrella, Google looks to launch Display and Video 360, which is a mixture of DoubleClick Bid Manager, Campaign Manager, Studio, and Audience Center; these will provide marketers the opportunity to unify all their Google tools, allowing for collaboration between the agency, creative and media teams.

 Last, but not the least, Google Ad Manager­­–a unified form of DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange­­–is a monetization tool for publishers. Although no technical changes have been made, Alphabet has made cosmetic changes such as the logo and the brand name, DoubleClick.

In conclusion, the only things that have been changed are the look and feel of the ad services; the principal functionality is left untouched. The revamped branding and solutions have been projected at advertisers so they can focus more on the aftermath of their ad campaigns, and less on the product assortment, to maintain stability in the momentum for next 20+ years.

The new ad campaign types and other solutions will be unveiled on the 10^th of July at the Google Marketing Live event. 

Maradona and His Outlandish Statements about Pakistani football – Let’s just say he’s better-off on the pitch.

What does Maradona know about Pakistan’s footballing abilities? Apparently, nothing much. The only knowledge that he might possess is that Pakistan hasn’t featured at a World Cup. He stated that his team is just like Pakistani football team after a devastating loss from Croatia last night.

This gradually leads to his comparison of the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) with the Pakistan Football Federation (PFF). He apparently implied that his country’s federation is as incompetent.

Maradona condemned the Argentinian Football Association (AFA) and those in charge, by saying that they only understood football as much as Pakistan did. His absurd accusations were meant to tarnish the image of Pakistan football, as it would seem; Furthermore, this isn’t the first time that Pakistan has been a target to these accusations led by Maradona.

An icon in the footballing world, Maradona had a fallout with the President of the Argentinian Football Association, Julio Grondona, along with Carlos Bilardo, the Director of the national team, claiming that both Bilardo and Grondona had laid him off.

Four years later, further backlashing was not surprising, since the 1986 World Cup Winner wanted to be the coach of the Argentinian national team in the upcoming World Cup hosted by Brazil. He openly accused the AFA by stating that it had the audacity to play dirty tricks on him and claimed that he deserved to be Argentina’s coach at 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

The former World Cup Winner still hadn’t buried the hatchet with his former employers, nor did he forgive the AFA, and instead compared them to PFA, who are currently ranked 198^th in the world. He indicted the association leaders of not knowing how to carry out their responsibilities.

It is easy to speculate and be an armchair critic suggesting that football hasn’t grown in Pakistan, but there is a lot that has been going on in the favor of PFA.

For the last ten years, PFA has been led by Faisal Saleh Hayat, who has been running the Pakistan Premier Football League (PPFL) as well. There is not a single season that has been missed in the last decade, despite the shortage of funds.

In addition, KRL (Khan Research Laboratories) have been the undefeated champions for the last three years. They were the first club team to reach the finals of the AFC competition – Asia’s version of the Europa League.

Apart from organizing the league, a large part of PFA’s focus is on women’s and youth football.

Despite the internal mayhem, political unrest in the country, and most of all, lack of sponsorship for a majority of its tournaments, PFA continues to rise above all its hurdles.

The basic truth, however, lies in how football in a country cannot prosper until and unless the local football fans become fans of Pakistan football.

And as for Maradona, Argentina still qualified for the 2014 World Cup under the leadership of Alejandro Sabella. What can I say…it’s a classic case of sour grapes! 

Irrfan Khan and His Sombre Note : A legend on his death bed.

Irrfan Khan has been one of the most versatile actors in Bollywood. Khan made his shining debut in the Academy's Award nominated 1988 drama, Salaam Bombay! Since then Khan has bagged over a 100 movies among which Piku and Paan Singh Tomar were a phenomenal hit. He slowly paved his way into Hollywood making India proud by starring in Slumdog Millionaire, The Amazing Spider-Man, Jurassic World and of course the Academy Award Winning, Life of Pi. However, his deteriorating health has been a genuine concern for the people.

Irrfan Khan was recently diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor, which he revealed a few days after being MIA from the public eye, on his Twitter account. At first, Khan revealed his disease and called it a “rare disease” on the 5^th of March, via social media and concluded that he would reveal the diagnosis in more detail once the medical tests would conclude. After 10 days, this is what Khan had to say,

The real question is, what is a NeuroEndocrine Tumour?

A NeuroEndocrine Tumour is a “rare/special” form of cancer whereby the tumors originate from nerve and gland tissues combined; these are the special cells that are present in either the gastrointestinal tract or in the lungs. An abnormal tissue growth arises in the hormone-producing the neuroendocrine cells of the body. A NET may develop slowly or aggressively, and can develop in the intestines, the lungs, and may spread to the rest of the body. Although there are various types of NET, no reports have arisen stating the type of NET Khan has been battling, and nor has he mentioned anything in his tweets. Meanwhile, when it comes to his professional life, Khan’s new movie is all set to release on 10^th August, titled Karwaan.

People all around the world are praying for his speedy recovery and long and healthy life, and so are we. Get Well Soon Mr. Khan.

A no "Sex" rule : FIFA World cup Russia 2018 . Don't infect us with your sperm.

FIFA world cup Russia 2018 is trending these days where Russia beat Saudia Arabia with a big margin of 5-0. It is the most watched sports on the planet earth is hosted by Russia this time. Approximately 1.5 million people from 31 different countries arrived at Russian to see this prestigious event. Russian people and authorities were advised to be more hospitable and start a campaign known as “ always smile”.

Recently a news was floated all around the world at Russian beauty can’t have sex with any foreign men. This statement was a counter-argument when Argentinian soccer body encouraged their men by giving them tricks and tips that how to seduce Russian women and have sex with them.  According to Tamara Pletnyova, their official lawmaker, a local politician (MP), and one of the close personals to President Putin states that Russia should not be infected with foreign people and that they bring foreign sex virus to our country.

She further clarified on the basis of statistics that foreign fathers abandoned their children and flew back to their own country. She said the exact same case happened in 1980’s summer Olympics in Russia. These children become the responsibility of the Russian government.

This statement put a fire all around the world and  Russians themselves, did not support this statement. She was asked on twitter to leave the Duma “Russian parliament” because Russia is made up of 185 different ethnicities and various different cultures. But few of the nationalist did support her by posting “we should support our own children, Russian women are not a toy for a one-night stand”. She further clarified that if they want to have sex, marry them and love them.

On her ironic statement which totally negates the official tagline of Fifa world cup “Say no to Racism”. FIFA did not respond to this statement and putting up a hold regarding her statement.

8 Simple rules to get the right job instantly. A case of students profile building and mistakes done by them.

In Pakistan, we are suffering from the scarcity of jobs in different parts and region of Pakistan. According to Pakistan today, approximately 5.3 million students both graduates and undergraduates from very well-known Universities are jobless. The major reason behind that is student's jump and say I want good paycheck job and other perks and privileges. Trust me you are not mature enough to demand that!!!!

 If you are in an age bracket of 25 and below, focus on the learning part and experimenting part, after 30 focus on selecting your favorite field and expand your horizon in it. If you are a fresh graduate, don’t expect you will start minting money. Good things come to those who wait for the right time.

Due to political reasons and economic depreciation, no foreign investor is willing to come here and do some business. Whichever jobs are opened, they are secured by graduates of Lahore University of management sciences and Institute of business administration.

Here are some tips which can help your CV to land on the employer’s desk. The common mistakes which is done by almost every student is that:

•    Try to create a CV which is NOT more than one page.
•    Never ever float the same CV to different organizations. By the end of their last semester, most of the students had developed their CV or a Resume and mistakenly they float the same CV to FMCG as well as the Telecommunication sector.
•    Employers now use keywords and tag words to securitize all the CV. So first thing first, customize your CV according to the company and the sector which you want to get in.
•    The objective section in your CV should not be regarding that you are superman and you can work 24 hours a day. This is a primary part because it creates a good image once your CV is filtered. Focus on thing which are realistic, what is your strength, what roles you have done previously, your experience and talk about your skill set.
•    Majority of your good employers are using LinkedIn. Focus on improving your LinkedIn profile and start connecting people. Don’t use LinkedIn as your dating profile, start connecting right people and direct message them about an opening in their department. Put as many pictorial qualification as you can. Put your updated CV on LinkedIn so that employer can easily reach out to you. Don’t ever put your Wedding or Rishta picture as your profile picture.
•    Don’t focus on using Rozee.pk or Mustakbil.com as your primary source. It’s better to invest in yourself by getting premium services of LinkedIn.
•    Don’t ever lie on your CV or on your LinkedIn profile. If your employer caught you, which he will, he will blacklist you from his company.
•    Be precise and confident, don’t worry if you haven’t done anything. If your CV is blank, focus on getting the internships leading to jobs.

Uber, Netflix, Careem, Airbnb and Facebook : A case of Shared and Gig Economy and their limitations.

A famous quote by an Entrepreneur is “Never do business with your own money, do business with someone else money”.  This quote has changed the case of doing business all around the world. In today’s era, we have been doing business like Banks. This concept is known as the Shared economy or Peer to Peer commerce or Gig economy, which have its roots embedded in Collaborative Consumption. A concept where companies do not own a single asset and do business with consumer’s assets.

Their business model was to capitalize those assets which are underutilized by consumers. Due to the advancement in technologies, everything is automated. World largest taxi fleet, Uber doesn’t own a single car. World’s largest subletting company Airbnb, doesn’t own a single real estate. World largest social media company Facebook doesn’t own a single content of its own.

What makes these above-mentioned companies expand themselves into a billion dollar corporations. The answer lies in Bad customer service. Amazon did not finish the book and retail industry; bad customer service did. World largest online watching portal Netflix did not kill the giant Blockbuster, worst customer dealing and service did. Uber and Careem did not kill taxi business, harassment, non-automated fairs, and bad customer service did. Spotify did not kill the music industry, non-customized and bad value music did. World largest accommodation company, Airbnb did not kill the hotel industry, upscale pricing and limited availability of rooms did.
People talk about blaming technology for closing down their industry. But it was not the technology or innovation, it was basically customer service and not being customer-centric.

The next step for these companies is global expansion. Uber in Spain provides food delivery in different parts of the cities. Airbnb will be focusing on creating their own hospitality chain and compete with Hilton and Marriott. Netflix is moving towards their own production business by the name of “Netflix originals”.

Yet, the shared economy is the fastest growing economy in the world but it has its own drawbacks and limitation. The most important drawback is breaking the law and regulations. Governments are putting a microscope on these issues. Since hotel industry gives a lot of taxes, but when you go for Airbnb, you don’t have to pay a single dime in terms of taxes. Secondly, in terms of Uber and Careem, their cars don’t meet safety standards plus the majority of the cars are not insured or their insurance is expired. Recently in Pakistan, few of the cases were highlighted were the Uber driver was shot dead or Careem driver sexually harassed a girl. Focusing on these issues should be the most important part of these shared economies.

Become a #Makeupreneur and start earning money through YouTube and Instagram. A case of cosmetic Industry and duplicate products.

The cosmetic and make-up industry is growing exponentially throughout the world. An annual revenue of $62.6 billion, shows this market is going to be the next hit. Social media especially YouTube has given them a set platform where they can earn money by showing tutorials and also through YouTube AdSense program. This has given rise to make-up entrepreneurs or I call them #makeupreneur. These #makeupreneurs are also called beauty vloggers, where they provide information about new brands and give them tips and tricks regarding how to use it.

The pioneer of beauty vlogger was Huda Kattan, an American based online beautician, and a successful entrepreneur.  She started the concept of DIY (do it yourself) in the make-up industry, where you don’t need to spend a good amount of money to someone to give you a make-up which you can do it yourself. She was the nightmare for beauty salons as their market plummets to a great extent.

The cosmetic industry has changed their marketing strategies. They know that advertisement and billboard promotions are not the best solution to get to the right target market. What they do, is they send free newly launched samples to these vloggers. But again, they just don’t randomly select these beauty artists, they study them and see their following. Farah Dhukai, a 2.1 million subscriber base has recently become one of the top beauty vloggers. These bloggers and vloggers with substantial followers and excellent content are recruited on their PR package list and give them some monetary incentive to write content for them. Companies like Too Faced, Kylie Jenner, Tarte and Fenty beauty by Rihanna give them free samples to advertise their product. So eventually their core marketing strategy is to hire an opinion leader or an influencer and make them advertise your product to your actual target market.

These cosmetic products are very expensive, so people have created duplicates or in Instagram lingo we call it dupes, to reach that target market who cannot afford expensive make-up. Instagram is the vital source where you can do cosmetic business. Pages like “999rupeesonly” and “makeupshakeup.com.pk” are using this technique of selling duplicate make-up for the non-affording class. They sell the 1st copy make-up with a good quality. But selling dupes with a bad quality is something which you can easily see on Instagram as well. Lately, Instagram banned many pages who sell bad quality dupes and people have reported them.

Don’t waste your time to become a follower, be someone to whom people follow. Cosmetic industry will never be in demise, so make yourself an #makeupreneur, make your Instagram page, write excellent and niche content and start endorsing brands.

Destruction of Education in Pakistan. Make a right decision!!

What is education? According to the Oxford dictionary, it’s a process gaining knowledge, skills, values, beliefs, and habits. But yet, the education system in Pakistan is dwindling with a passage of time. Parents pour tons of money into their children’s future. The education sector earns 80.1 billion rupees per year from the students, yet they do not learn any skills or value which they can practice in their daily lives.

Universities in Pakistan are minting money yet very little is produced which we can attribute to quality education. All they are giving is a 6-inch rule and have a dress code. Their vision is micro, not macro. The best motivation quote I want to publish here is " Learning is voluntary" you cannot force someone to learn. The reason behind that is education has been commercialized, resulting in students losing their respect for learning.

When we see the educational model of Harvard or MIT, one thing is very common in both of them, they produce excellent graduates who can become entrepreneurs. In Pakistani culture, we design students in a way to get a job and work 5 times a week and 9 hours a day. This needs to be changed.
Faculty in major universities are not investing time on their students because the university is not investing a dime on them. One question which needs to be asked, If Allah has praised teaching profession as the most respectful one, why are teachers all over Pakistan still struggling to make ends meet. For me, the most important job in this world is teaching. Because teachers create future CEO’s and politicians and working professionals. One wrong suggestion can destroy their student’s future. Yet again, the faculty and teachers are underpaid and their perks are as low as a low-level employee.

Universities are producing low-level Ph.D.’s just because if you are a Ph.D. your salary will be double and you get a title. No one is actually doing Ph.D. for the real reason like social welfare, making research strong for the society. Many of the head of departments and university professional have done a plagiarized Ph.D. just to have good money and a position. Across the world, Academics do Ph.D. when they think they can change something or when they are ready. They are not forced by their Universities to undertake Ph.D.'s as a requirement for a promotion. One thing which needs to be understood is that there is a big difference between a lecturer and a researcher.
But in Pakistan, we make lecturers to do research and we force the researcher to teach. In Scandinavian countries especially in Sweden, the salary package for the teachers is as equal to a company CEO. Because they know the importance of teaching in their national growth. But hello! We live in Pakistan, we do corruption in any way we want and desire.

Students and teachers have a similar bond just as between their parents and Children. Students are undermined with their capabilities and follow a rule which their teacher wants. The concept of open learning is defeated when teachers are forced by their administration to follow a rigid structure. Bookish knowledge should not be the criteria of teaching. Faculty should focus on problem-solving skills that need to be developed in their students.

Chapter 7 : Importance of secondary association for enhancing brand equity.

Creating a strong brand is not enough for the companies, but at the same time companies need to leverage it with some external associations. The possible outcome of secondary association is that they generate greater loyalty. Companies can create a substantial competitive advantage through these strategies. The main purpose of using these associations is to create a new brand association.

The first kind of association is people where you endorse your brand through celebrities and sports personalities. The best example is Rolex and Roger Federer. Since an elite watch company is endorsed by a sports person, as Wimbledon is an elite event where top-notch celebrity and royal families come to see this sports. So  Rolex has created an association with this sport.

 The second type of association is through things, events are the first type where you do public relation and organize events like charities. The second type is the third-party endorsements. Where you get yourself endorsed by an external third party to gain more trust, for example, Bahria University is endorsed by Higher education commission of Pakistan.

The third type is Places, where we endorse our product by using the name of the country or the origin of that product. For example, Loreal Paris, the major emphasis is on Paris because of its fashion and cosmetic heritage. Plus you can advertise a country by endorsing its place or a monument. When I talk about Eiffel tower, the first place comes to your mind is Paris and same goes with Statue of Liberty, we can easily recall New York.

One of the most common ways to endorse your brand is co-branding. This concept holds a good position in today's market as well. In this concept, we actually make a small duration partnership with two companies. Sony and Ericson, two different companies combined there resources and expertise for some amount of time and developed a new product, Sony Ericson. Why companies do Co-branding?. The main reasons are they needed some expertise from the other brand. More market expansion, Reduce the cost of production and combined marketing with both names combined create a huge impact. But it is not that easy as it sounds, co-branding has their de-merits as well, for example, loss of control of the power between both entities or the ambiguities of profit sharing

A special case of co-branding is the ingredient branding where a certain part is installed and is marketed with the brand. For example, Intel and Centrino created a mobile technology which was installed in PCs.