Paradigm Shift

Industry: Circus Industry

Myth: The end-users of circus are children, and circuses can be run only according to fixed norms.


16th June, 2009 marked the 25th anniversary of a company that managed to reinvent an entire industry. With one time accordion player, stilt-walker and fire-eater, Guy Laliberte as the CEO, Cirque du Soleil managed to bring about a paradigm shift in the circus industry. From a group of 20 street performers at its beginnings in 1984, Cirque du Soleil is now a major Quebec-based organization providing high-quality artistic entertainment. The company has more than 4,000 employees from over 40 different countries, including 1,000 artists.

However, when Cirque first made its debut in 1984, the circus industry was already in a decline. Most circuses focused solely on children and followed the model set by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1919. But with other forms of entertainment being readily available, children were no longer interested in visiting the circus, which had the same old acts. There was also an increasing sentiment against the use of animals in circuses by animal rights groups. With decreasing audiences and poor revenue and profits circus industry appeared unattractive.

Laliberte and Guy Caron, the artistic director of cirque, had a different vision for their circus. Their idea was to create a circus with neither a ring nor animals. The rationale was that the lack of both of these things draws the audience more into the performance. They shifted the spotlight from the traditional end-user to an adult buyer group who were prepared to pay a price that is several times as expensive as traditional circuses for their unprecedented entertainment experience. Their competition was no longer the shrinking circus market. Using the concept of "circus for adults", Cirque du Soleil managed to reinvent circus.

The reason for Cirque du Soleil’s success is that they managed to change their frame of thinking. After identifying that the three core elements of any circus were the tent, the clowns and the acrobatic acts, they did away with the expensive animal acts and launched shows based on unique themes, soundtracks, costumes and sets. Cirque's 'one of a kind' shows resembled theatric and ballet performances rather than the traditional circus shows. With their shows ‘Reinvent the Circus’ and ‘Nouvelle Expérience’, Cirque shattered all previous records for ticket sales. It took the concept of circus from the big top tent to the theater. Cirque du Soleil forced other circuses to shift from carrying out acts to delivering performances and bringing about changes in their mental attitude.

Till date Cirque du Soleil has not stopped breaking mental models. Currently Cirque has 19 different shows running across the world and each one offers something that has never been seen before. For example its show ‘O’, which broke the myth that circus performances take place only on solid ground. ‘O’ is centered around a 1.5 million-gallon tank of water built inside the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. World-class acrobats, synchronized swimmers, divers and characters perform in, on, and above water to create a breathtaking experience.

In the past few years Cirque du Soleil has been developing new business models. Cirque now creates original and innovative content for television and DVDs. It also organizes private gatherings and is making forays into the hospitality sector. Thus Cirque du Soleil is trying to expand its boundaries to span across the entire entertainment spectrum.

Cirque du Soleil succeeded because it realized that to win in the future, companies must stop competing with each other. It decided to rework the rules of the industry and focus on a new segment of users. And most importantly it catered to exactly what that group of customers needed.

Reference:
Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim , Renée Mauborgne

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com

Art Deco Tours in Mumbai

Concept

Bombay has the second largest number of art deco buildings after Miami. However, unlike Miami where an entire precinct was restored making it an international tourist attraction, here we do little to preserve our heritage. But there is a lot of interest amongst tourists to visit and learn more about these beautiful buildings. This is an existing need gap that is not currently being tapped. There is a scope for tour operators to start dedicated art deco tours.


What is Art Deco.

The style we now call Art Deco originated in Europe in the early years of the 20th Century, and its heyday was from 1920 to 1940. It became widely known following the great Exposition des Arts Modernes Decoratifs et Industriels, held in Paris in 1925 and from which its name was ultimately derived. By the late 1930s it was in its streamlined phase and after World War 2, the International Style, devoid of all decoration, held sway. Not until the late 1960s did people begin to rediscover it and take it seriously.

Art Deco expressed all the vigor and optimism of the roaring twenties, and the idealism and escapism of the grim thirties.

Its decorative themes are:
• Sunbursts and fountains - representing the dawn of a new modern age.
• The Skyscraper shape - symbolic of the 20th century.
• Symbols of speed, power and flight - the exiting new developments in transport and communications.
• Geometric shapes - representing the machine and technology which it was thought would solve all our problems.
• The new woman - reveling in her recently won social freedoms.
• Breaking the rules - cacophonous jazz, short skirts and hair, shocking dances.
• Ancient cultures - for oddly enough, there was a fascination with the civilizations of Egypt and Central America.
All of these themes are represented on the buildings of Mumbai.


Art Deco & Mumbai

During the Art Deco era, Bombay grew into an existing and vibrant commercial hub, not unlike New York. Posed between past and future, the city emerged internationally while still the crown of the British Raj.

Art Deco appeared in India when Indian royal families and entrepreneurs and merchants of the widely travelled educated upper middle class, eager to adopt contemporary trends in western culture, began to assume its sophistication in dress, furnishings, and architectural design.
When the new land was created under the Backbay Land Reclamation scheme, the modern style of architecture precisely expressed the requisite optimism.

The city’s first Art Deco districts of Churchgate and Marine Drive have the densest concentrations of Art Deco architecture in the city. The architectural design borrowed imagery from the new age, incorporating nautical details of steamship lines, aerodynamic designs of the car, train, and airplane, influences from Egyptian and Classical art, Cubism, industrialism and Hollywood films.


Primary Survey

A qualitative primary survey of 50 foreign tourists showed that 70% were interested in the history of the city. Most of them were interested in the city’s architecture, but knew of only the major architectural structures like Gateway, CST Terminus and Eros Cinema.
The survey also revealed that foreign tourists especially the backpackers were averse to the run off the mill packaged tour but were really interested in tours that could be customized. Also 30 respondents said that they liked walking around the city, however many said that the crowd on the roads was a problem.


Art Deco tours in other parts of the World

Miami
Miami Beach's Art Deco District is the first 20th-century neighborhood to be recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, with 800 structures of historical significance, most built between 1923 and 1943. Over the last twenty five years, Miami Beach has regenerated itself into an economically thriving cultural urban nexus through its historic preservation of Art Deco architecture.
The Miami Design Preservation League (MDPL) offer a wide variety of tours, including guided walking tours, guided bike tours, self-guided tours on an iPod or cell phone, and private tours as well.

Napier
Napier, New Zealand, was rebuilt in the early 1930s following a massive Richter 7.8 Earthquake. Subsequent fires destroyed most of its commercial heart. By the end of the decade, Napier was the newest city on the globe.
The city has a variety of buildings in the styles of the 1930s - Stripped Classical, Spanish Mission, and above all Art Deco, the style of the 20th Century. And Napier's Art Deco is unique, with Maori motifs and the buildings of Louis Hay, admirer of the great Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Art Deco trust operates Walking tours, Bus tours, Self guided tours and self drive tours.

New York
In New York, the Art Deco style evolved through a series of Manhattan skyscrapers into the city’s chief architectural language. Following a massive reawakening of interest in them during the 1970s, New York’s Deco buildings today survive as prized remnants of a distant yet modern past that still help define the city’s visual identity.
New York like Mumbai does not have a quality tour dedicated towards its Art Deco Architecture.

Mumbai
THE BOMBAY HERITAGE WALKS group has been organising walking tours around the city since April 1999. The heritage walks aim to raise the awareness of the people of Mumbai and visitors, about the city’s architecture and heritage monuments.

Business Plan
Based on the primary survey and after analyzing the tours offered by other cities, I propose that for Mumbai a self guided art deco tour would makes good business sense.

SELF-GUIDED AUDIO TOURS
The tourist can take a tour at their own pace with an iPod-based audio tour and map. They can choose from four languages: English, German, French and Spanish. The tour can be offered daily from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. The tour should not take more than about 90 minutes, but the tourists can go at their own pace.

Similar to the iPod-based audio tour, the tourist can call in and listen to the audio on their own cell phone, along with a map they can print from the operators’ web site. The price for the tour could be around Rs 200 to 300. The only cost of this tour would be the development cost of the software. Information regarding the Art Deco buildings is available from the Mumbai Heritage Council for free. Thus the tour is a profit generating one.

The tour could also target other segments like architecture students, architect’s associations, school students, photographers.
The tours while being profitable to the operator would continue in the efforts to raise the awareness about the architectural marvels of the city.

The tour would have to be marketed aggressively on the tour operator’s website, on the lonely planet guide book and websites referred by tourists. The tour could also be integrated into the Mumbai festival.

Swan Song

My Post from ByChance Blog:

This is my swan song. The story starts like this....

In a kingdom in a far off land a prince ruled. His was not the largest of kingdoms nor was he the most powerful ruler. But he ruled over his people in a just manner and was loved by his subjects. But like most stories that have a happy beginning, the storm started to gather on our prince’s kingdom too. His kingdom was attacked by an evil warlord!! The war that ensued lasted many a years. The kingdom was ravaged, but our prince fought on. And so the skies cleared and victory was achieved by the prince.

Happy days were back again. But the king heard that some of his neighbors were being attacked by other rough warlords. And so with his small battalion, the prince went to war again and helped many of his neighboring kingdoms He thought of his neighbors as his friends and allies. So a prosperous period followed where people from all the kingdoms flourished.

But just as the people of our prince’s kingdom started enjoying the good life, they were attacked again by the same dark warlord. This time around he attacked with a large army. The prince’s army crumbled in front of the enemy. The prince was forced to retreat to his fort, the only remaining stronghold. The dark warlord surrounded the fort from all sides and thus the long siege began. For many months the fort was attacked. The sound of cannons echoed through the countryside. Part of the fort caught fire and the flames leapt high in the sky. Our prince sent pleas of help to his neighbors but no one came to his rescue.

Finally the night arrived when the final assault was mounted by the dark war lord. In his agony of seeing his empire crumble the prince screamed out loud. So loud were his screeches that they reached the neighboring king. This was the very king the prince had rushed to help. But the king did not think of riding his horse to the princes’ help. All he thought was that the prince had disturbed him.” Oh damn the prince!” ,he said,” It was not enough that the sounds of cannons should pound my ears and the flames of his castle falling down sear my eyes. Now he has to scream and prick my ears too.” And he issued a command for his guards to kill the prince.

The prince was watching his last guard fall down when he noticed the neighbors guard riding towards him. He was overjoyed. At last there is someone to fight on my side. But his joy was short lived when he saw these very guards fighting against him. The final gate came crashing down and the enemy streamed into the fort. The prince looked down at his hands. They were red. His heart had been pierced. He sat down at his table and started writing.

“This is my swan song. The story starts like this…..

Looking Mirror

It is said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. But in this day and age how true is this adage? In my opinion it still holds true. Everyone has their own take on what is beautiful and this is why terms like good looks are very hard to generalize.Are skeletal, size zero models beautiful? Kareena thinks so, but the organizers of fashion show in Paris would disagree.

That is the reason that if asked to comment on how I look, I am bound to get a variety of answers. But how do I perceive my own looks? What do I see looking back at me from the mirror?

I see a tall, shy guy, with smiling mischievous eyes. Not the most handsome lad in town perhaps, but with looks to kill! And not because people are frightened to death by looking at me!!!

One of the most important things to notice is that description of ones looks sometimes goes beyond what lies just on the surface. Your personality usually counts and plays a significant role.

So in the time of six pack abs and bulging biceps where do I stand? Well thankfully far away from SRK. I feel that it is more important to be healthy than to have a six pack.In fact going through extreme diets and surgery can be detrimental to a healthy good looking body.According to me the modern fad of plastic surgery will lead only to people who are plastic, without and within.

So in conclusion, How Do I describe my looks?? Well considering I have been called both "tall, dark and handsome" and ugly from "ugly and pagli", I think its fair to state that I lie comfortably between the two extremes. A regular joe. But that is not my answer to the question. I think there is no need to describe my looks for to me it makes more sense to try & describe who I am!