“Dad, I want a TOFY”.
“Which one do you want: Orange or Red?”.
“No Dad, I am not talking about toffee. I want TOFY on my laptop and my phone.”
A similar conversation taking place in an organisation:
Employee to the IT Guy: “Hey please give me TOFY. It is important for my work.”
IT Guy: “Sorry Sir, we cannot give it to you.”
Employee: “Dude, in this age, if I do not have TOFY I will lose out as all my competitors are using TOFY to their advantage. Please understand.”
So what is this new age TOFY that I am talking about, which is creating buzz all around across age groups? Actually, it is something you and I use regularly, but I just thought that if four of them decided to come together and do a joint venture or a package for users, this is how they would possibly brand themselves or call their company: TOFY
Without keeping the suspense any longer, I am talking about Twitter, Orkut, Facebook and Youtube (TOFY). These four social networking/video sharing sites are ruling our worlds to a large extent and in today’s time there is not too many people who are not using atleast one of these four. In fact, in most cases the average would be two and for people like me it is all four.
I got a sense of the strength of this when one fine day I got a request of wanting to become a friend and it was from none other than my mother, who stays in a different city. I was shocked, surprised but happy that not only had she become a part of this TOFY culture but had also managed to understand this phenomenon and seen its relevance to connect with people. Within a week of that, I got requests from two other aunts staying in other cities who had never ever used a computer before that in their lives. Now I was convinced that the power of this is unmatchable as it got three women, who had not bothered to ever know that there is a Mouse in our lives other than the one they get scared of were now connecting with their relatives and also their long lost friends. What was also pleasant to know was that in all the three cases, it was one of their kids who had got them onto the site, made them understand what it can do for them and get them over the fear of this monster called a Computer. It clearly also showed that with the TOFY culture, kids are now open and accepting their parents into their world without any inhibitions. Comments like “Proud to have you here Mom” strengthen this hypothesis further.
So why do I think that it should be called TOFY and not something else. If I were to draw parallels between the toffee that we used to relish as kids and this TOFY, you will surprised to know that there are many similarities:
1. Toffees and TOFY allow us to form special bonds with our friends
2. While it was parents who got toffees for their kids, it is the kids who are now getting parents into TOFY
3. The experience of both kinds is sweet.
4. You never get tired of having one more. In fact, it is like an addiction.
5. Both come in all sizes, colours and flavours (of life).
6. Companies use both to their advantage. Branding, selling and consumer promotion of toffees and using TOFY is the digital marketing medium.
7. There are lot of options available. You need to choose your pick.
So if the founders of any one of the four are reading this and do take this forward, please remember where the royalty for this thought and the brand name needs to go :)
I am off as I have got another task at hand. Dad has never enjoyed toffees. It will be a tough task to get him to enjoy this TOFY as well….
