Cafes - NetCarrots continued its catalystic run with several brands enjoying the ambient media at Barista and Cafe Coffee Day outlets through the year. The activities began with Lee during the Valentine month as ‘Phoney Love’. March saw the launch of Nokia’s teaser campaign for N95 with teaser messages placed on Espresso Mail Boards. Accenture held a promotional activity across several outlets. The month of August saw intellectual stimulation the 'experiential' way with Economist while Ipod held a promotional activity with branding in the form of wall visuals. Samsung launched its Slick phone using this platform as did Allen Solly with the launch of its new product - Youth - using various collaterals. Cafes were also the platform for Airtel with promotional wall visuals.

Music Retail - With Music World and Planet M anchoring this platform, the year began with NetCarrots enabling the launch of Nokia 5300 music phone. This event was followed by demos of Hewlett Packard's IPAQ rx 4000 - a mobile media companion. This platform also saw the promotion of Airtel's automated song recognition service, Songcatcher. The month of May witnessed the launch of an awareness campaign for The History Channel for its new televised series, 'History Rocks'. HP also held a promotional activity using this platform with its Pavilion Juke Box activity. This activity was followed by a one-month promotional activity by Bru, which entailed sampling of its cold coffee while Nokia held a promotional activity of the launch of N81 and N 95.

Airlines - NetCarrots enabled a SugarFree campaign on board Kingfisher airlines using in-flight entertainment and sampling. Continuing to help our clients connect with high fliers, NetCarrots crowned 2007 with an innovative solution by bringing two platforms together – Simplify Deccan and Coffee Day. ‘Friendships brew when people talk' is the Airtel campaign, recently launched 30,000 feet above sea level!

The year 2007 has been full of activity, to say the least. Reflecting on the year gone by, I couldn't help but think of some of the responses I have received concerning NetCarrots.

"How is NetCarrots different from its competition?" "You guys have some great brands as your clients… why doesn't NetCarrots do something really big?"

These questions have been asked of me many a time in the past and each time I thought I gave the right answer. That was till yesterday when I met a friend from school who is an extremely successful architect and another dear family friend who is a gifted eye surgeon. Their take on a similar question about their practice resonated in me. So here is the inspired reply to the two questions above.

There are three types of competition: a) The Facilitators: companies or consultants who help get the job done. The client knows exactly what is needed in a Program and just needs someone to take it to market. b) The Egoists: companies or consultants whose brand name helps sell a concept internally. The client needs a big (being of foreign origin also helps) name to support the case for a Program and also stokes a few egos along the way. c) The Partners: companies or consultants who chip in right from structuring the business problem to crafting the most appropriate solution set.

NetCarrots belongs to Tribe C. We love and enjoy what we do and bring some world class domain knowledge to the table. We therefore take on work that not only brings out the best in us but also ensures co-ownership of the Program. Thinking through the past engagements with my associates recently, we came to the conclusion that brands that benefited the maximum from us were those who followed a partner model with us and as a corollary to that, we enjoyed delivering to our partners as well.

So next time when someone asks me what business we're in, my reply is going to be, "we are in the happiness business…we help our clients keep their customers happy…so that they keep coming back for more". This then defines our competitive positioning very clearly - Partners. The growth though relatively slow, is surely steady.

On that positive note, I wish all our friends a Merry Christmas and best wishes for a great New Year ahead!