The two main parties are:

1. Indian National Congress (INC, a.ka. ‘The Congress’) – Current ruling party.
2. Bharatiya Janata Party (“Indian People’s Party”, BJP)

Indian elections are monumental by nature. As one of the largest and most populated countries in the world, the numbers involved are staggering:

• Eligible Voters: 714 Million, a ‘slight’ increase of about 40 million voters since the previous elections in 2004
• Elections Budget: 176 Million Euros (approx. $280 Million CAD).
• Number of Seats: 552
• Number of competing candidates in 1st Phase: 1715 candidates (122 women).
• Voting Style: Electronic
• Number of voting machines: 1,368,430 voting machines in 828,804 polling stations across the country

With such a vast election covering vast territories, political ads in India have their own special flavour. How else would you convince the majority of 714 million voters to elect your party? The term ‘Political Song and Dance’ is taken literally here, with parties vying to capture the hearts and minds of India’s diverse population.

INC “Hand Of Congress”

In the ad above, the girl says to her uncle: “Look what I’ve done with my hands”, and afterwards he shows her what the hand of the Congress has achieved.  (Translation found on France 24 Observers web page).

In fact, the Congress party was successful in buying the exclusive rights to the “Jai Ho” song featured at the end credits of internationally acclaimed movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. The song, which translates into ‘Be Victorious’, won the Oscar for Best Song in the 2009 Academy Awards.The party has been using it in elections rallies across the country, along with various other Bollywood-inspired campaigns.

This did not go well with the BJP party, so they created their own anthem to remind people of the grateness of the BJP era, which ruled india from 1999 to 2004 .

BJP “Anthem For Change”

I expect nothing less from such a colourful and diverse country!

[More Indian Election ad videos available here from France 24]

Our discussion was about how an ad agency in another part of Canada has been successful in utilizing effective outsourcing to provide its clients with competitive pricing and shorter delivery times by being able to have people continuously work on projects around the clock due to the advantage of various time zones.

That prompted a larger question of whether ‘creative’ work can be outsourced. Can ‘good creative’ be delivered only by creative talent that exists in the location of the client, and who have natural cultural/geographic ties to the environment where the creative will be used?

In my experience, here are some (not all) of the factors that I would look at when evaluating the option to outsource (to India, for example):

1. Proven Expertise & Reliability

A solid portfolio of projects and talent. References from other outsourcers who worked with the Indian company. In short, the quality of the work has to be at least the same (or even better) compared to local quality in the country of the outsourcing company.

The Indian provider must also have (and be able to demonstrate) a stable market presence. The outsourcing company can not take the risk of accepting a client project and making commitments, then turn around and discover that the Indian partner has closed shop without prior notice and is no longer in business.

This is the basic requirement of vetting and pre-screening the potential partner before starting any serious discussions or negotiations. Quality and reliable delivery can not be jeopardized by the potential advantages of outsourcing the work.

2. Communication

This includes factors like language, technology platform, people, professional practice, and cultural contexts (when applicable).

Communicating effectively is perhaps the single most important factor that affects the quality of the end product. Having an open and reliable channel of communication (between the company outsourcing the work and the company providing the service in India) is the backbone of a successful relationship.

Both sides must be intimately familiar with any technology platform that they agree to use for handling communications, manage document exchanges, event logging, feedback, project timelines, etc. Both must be prepared to invest in training their relative teams.

The assigned person(s) who will handle communication between the two companies have to meet ahead of time and determine if they are able to understand each other and build trust. If the project manager from the Indian side is not a good fit to handle communications with the outsourcer, then a new one must be selected.

In many cases, companies seeking to outsource are concerned with language barriers, and they usually expect that the Indian partner be able to communicate effectively in the language of the outsourcer (e.g. English) and not the other way around (the outsourcing company doesn’t expect to make provisions to communicate in Hindi).

While cultural context does play a factor in communicating creative requirements, this is not necessarily a deterrent. Ensuring that briefs and project requirements are clear and thorough is a shared responsibility between the outsourcing company and the Indian provider.

In fact, some people agree that it is an advantage to have access to creative output that is not bound by local conformity to cultural biases and norms. To some businesses, ‘different’ makes their design/ads stand out, and that is a competitive advantage.

The cultural relevance of a project can be determined on a per-project basis. For example, would/should a local newspaper in Dublin be able to outsource the creation of daily cartoons about local politics? Not likely. Can a Dublin ad agency outsource the creation of ads for a local car dealer? Most certainly.

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There are other factors to consider, but if the above two requirements exist and are satisfactory to both partners, then the rest can be negotiated and agreed upon (including pricing that is fair for the quality of work, and that provides the outsourcer with a competitive advantage they wouldn’t otherwise have).

Click on the image to enlarge and read the story.

While the ad does succeed in enticing the viewer to stop and check the highlighted text to see if it is coherent, I wonder if the objective of the ad is achieved. You can very easily get sucked in to the various elements on the ad and have very little recollection of the actual brand. Four elements compete for attention here: the overall story, the highlighted story, the image created by the highlighted area (Che), and finally the product itself (Luxor Highlighters).

Below is another depicting Hitler.

Spotted on [BestAdsOnTv.com]

Here, virgin girls as young as 13 years of age are paraded on the side of the road to attract attention from buses filled with tourists and businessmen from Agra. The article reported that “The “first time” is a valued commodity for which the middle-class businessmen who pass this way are prepared to pay a premium.“

“The normal rate is 100 rupees (£1.30) but a virgin is sold to the highest bidder for anything over 20,000 rupees. If she is very pretty, the community would hope to get up to 40,000 rupees.“

The girls in questions seem to welcome their chosen destiny. The Telegraph reports that Nita (above) has opted to follow her sisters into the trade. It is her own “choice”, because, she giggled, “I won’t have to do any housework.”

You can read the rest of this expose here.

At the other end of the spectrum, a young girl in Yemen is fighting tradition to escape a gruesome fate brought upon her by her own family. This one did not choose what happened to her.

Earlier this week, an unprecedented act by an 8-year-old in Yemen is bringing much attention to an often criticized practice of some families and tribes. Nojoud Mohammed Nasser is posed to quite possibly become the youngest divorcee in the world.

Photo by Hamed Thabet of the Yemen Times

According to the Yemen Times, this brave child walked into Sanaa’s (Yemen’s Capitol City) West court “by herself on Wednesday, April 2, looking for a judge to handle her case against her father, Muhammed Nasser, who forced her two months ago to marry Faez Ali Thamer, a man 22 years her senior. The child also asked for a divorce, accusing her husband of sexual and domestic abuse.“

Nojoud revealed that her innocence was taken with help from her father. “My father beat me and told me that I must marry this man, and if I did not, I would be raped and no law and no sheikh in this country would help me.” Nojoud’s father is said to be of poor mental health. Her ‘husband’ stated that he was indeed intimate with her, but has done nothing wrong “she is my wife and I have the right and no one can stop me“.

Nasser told the Yemen Times that she was exposed to sexual abuse and domestic violence by her husband. “He used to do bad things to me, and I had no idea as to what a marriage is. I would run from one room to another in order to escape, but in the end he would catch me and beat me and then continued to do what he wanted. I cried so much but no one listened to me. One day I ran away from him and came to the court and talked to them.”

YT noted that according to Yemeni law, Nojoud cannot prosecute, as she is underage. However, court judge Muhammed Al-Qathi heard her complaint and subsequently ordered the arrests of both her father and husband.

“I just want to have a respectful life and divorce him.” said Nojoud.

More details on this story can be found in the Yemen Times article here.

Here are five leads into top business opportunities for businesses seeking to position themselves along growth sectors in the Middle East:

1. Finance and Banking ICT & Software: The Arab banking sector will invest $1.8 Billion in information and communication technologies in 2008, a 15% increase from what they already spent in 2007. Arab banks boast one of the highest rates of growth in technology investment in the world (mainly because they got on the boat a little later than everyone else). Ofcourse, being a late adopter in this sector also means that Arab banks are being fitted with the latest technologies in the industry, giving them an edge compared to banks using archaic systems. Canada has 83 ICT companies that specialize in the Financial industry. Please, at least one of you should go down there and grab a contract or two!

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1. Sharia-Compliant Hospitality Products: Aha! Read that again. It’s not Sharia-compliant Banking. This time, a new Islamic trend is set to launch, and with it a new need for niche products. This May, Dubai-based Al-Mullah Properties will announce plans to invest $2 Billion to develop an Islamically-compliant hotel brand portfolio appealing to lifestyle travelers – both Muslim and non-Muslim. A new chain of up to 90 international hotels (branded as Cliftonwood, Adham and Wings) will operate with universal Islamic codes such as no alcohol and Halal food only. If you are a manufacturer/exporter of luxury and fine food products for the hospitality industry, now is the time to think about new product lines or re-branding existing products.

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1. Cement and Construction Materials/Technologies: Everyone knows it. Dubai is the fastest growing city in the world, with anywhere between 15 to 25% of the world’s cranes working constantly on its towers. The real estate boom in the UAE is about to face a crisis. Cement is on back log! Zawya.com reported that “Companies that provide ready-mix concrete have issued their clients notices that they are not in a position to supply more than 45 percent of the ready-mix orders. In some cases, ready-mix companies have even ceased production.” If any company has a solution, get on the next plane to Dubai and bring home some goat meat! (sorry, no bacon in UAE)

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1. Recycling and Industrial Waste Management Solutions: With all that construction comes much industrial waste. Lots of it. Recycling and Waste Management technologies have an open opportunity here. (Edit July 13 2008: This recommendation has been confirmed here).

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1. Oil, Oil, and Oil: Duh! Oil services are still in high demand. Better, cheaper extraction technologies. Maintenance services for older wells. Training services for labour localization initiatives. It’s all there. This week Bahrain announced plans to add 700 new oil wells to meet increasing energy demands. This summer, Yemen will award its first round of contracts for off-shore operations, prompting a scurry by local firms to find international partners who have much needed expertise in providing offshore services in a market that traditionally relied on on-shore production.

And there you have it. If you are a company that found this advice helpful and was able to capitalize on it in any way, shape, or form… congratulations! You are one of very few smart chicks who found a crack in the shell of Canadian reluctance and broke out successfully!