Ameen Ahsan: Business Strategist
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The Business of “Sharing Time” 

6/11/2013

4 Comments

 
I just came across an interesting business model. A model that has been around for some time, but this is of “new age” type. It’s a website that gives you the chance to have dinner with celebrities. Now this is interesting for many reasons. As students of the ever growing complex business world, I feel there are some insights and tit bits that we can learn, and perhaps apply in a different way in our businesses.

Its called IfOnly (www.ifonly.com), a website whose caption is “Extra Ordinary Experiences For Good”. In short, in this website, you get the chance of life time to be with celebrities on a very important event (like the launch of a movie) or a private one (like have a one to one dinner, etc), for a price. The site features, westerns actors, musician, sportsmen- and interestingly even Bollywood stars, as well- like Amitabh Bachan and Salman Khan!

Now the point I am making is not that you have a site, where you can pay to dine or celebrate with a star. But how new business models are evolving. In this case, its about next encashment of the celebrity status of some people.

Why Celebrities? Proximity to celebrities (actors, artists, businessmen etc), is seen to add significant “satisfaction” to the customers. In fact, I read in a report, that is olden times, it was an honor to the Celebrity when powerful people (like Kings) gave them an audience. Like when Charles Dickens visited the United States in the nineteenth century, the President, John Tyler, hosted a reception for him at the White House; or when the famous Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind visited Vienna, in the same era, the imperial family invited her to give private concerts. But today, its kinda reversed. Today, we admire the people, who hang out with the celebrities, envying the power and accessibility that they have. For example, a reporter once told Barak Obama that her daughter probably imagined that the coolest aspect of Obama’s position was hanging out with Beyoncé and Jay Z. To this Obama replied that, that was what his own daughters too thought “cool” about his job!

The Opportunity? Well, I see many opportunities. Sharing the time of celebrities with others not only brings opportunities for making profits, but also supporting social causes, branding your business, learning & interaction opportunities and sometimes, even help create a strong customer loyalty- by buying that time for your customers!

I would love to hear your views on this. If you agree or disagree? What are the new models that can be introduced on similar lines? What are the ethical concerns that can arise? How it can be used for the societies benefit? Where can this go wrong? Possibilities of such initiatives in India? Who can be defined as “celebrities” in this kind of model? Your shot…

4 Comments
Mohammed Ameen
10/11/2013 01:48:46 am

It was a really good read. More innovative models need to be tested and brought into the business arena. Appreciate for bringing it up.

Reply
Ameen Ahsan link
10/11/2013 05:16:11 am

Thank you Mohammed Ameen. Hope to introduce new business models in the future. Stay tuned!

Reply
Mufeed link
12/11/2013 07:23:03 am

This reminds me of a picture of Sabir Bhatia plating golf with Aishwarya rai, i saw almost 12 years back. But i thinks its only until recently that the brands started evolving this as a marketing and business model. while there are less instances for One on One dinner and personal experiences, the brands using this to reward their customers has been in practice for a while.Recently, two of my friends got access to Qatar Grandprix and even got to ride with the Ducati riders two laps !! this is like a once in a life time experience. I have seen Roger Federer and nadal playing with the kids between their matches in qatar. These kids were selected from Qatar tennis Federations, who were students there.

i hear from a friend in bollywood that 'jet-setting' is also a trend in the film industry, where you flu with your family to watch a bollywood movie being shot in US or EU and spend a week in the shooting sets and with the stars.

I find a real opportunity in passing on the celebrity experience to the community as a part of growing the fans or rewarding your fans, As a stakeholder in Doha Tweetups (www.dohatweetups.com , facebook.com/dohatweetup , @dohatweetups on twitter) we get invited to various events. (Like lunch / dinner with Guy Kawasaki, kevin rose, robin sharma, Calire Diaz-Ortiz, various abassadors to name a few). these are mostly dinners with not more than 20 attendeed. So we reward our fan following of 12,000 on twitter by asking them to give us a shoutout if they want to join and selecting them and taking them along. While this is not a directly profitable practice, it always increases the activities on our social media accounts as well as increase then fan following, which in turn helps us to firm our feets as a Social Enterprise and as a Social media Consultancy.

This can also be copied in various cities where each 'host' can provide his own unique experience to the clients. it can be someone with a Yatch, a private roof top pool or a private farm house. The authenticity of these can be done thru various rating systems. This would be like a airBnb but for unique experiences.

Reply
Ameen Ahsan link
13/11/2013 09:36:35 am

Dear Mufeed, thanks for the excellent reply. I am sure it will be of great value to my readers. I would really like to know more about your Doha Tweetup, and about your social media consulting firm.

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