On the occasion of the birthday, I was transported back to memories.. of my childhood.
My mom has this tremendous capacity to squeeze paste out of the empty toothpaste tube day after day after day. As a boy, to prove my strength, I always took the first attempt. But failed. I am confident the tube cannot get flatter, there is no paste left. But she effortlessly squeezes paste out of the tube. And the next day, to prove I have learnt how to squeeze the tube intelligently, I would try it first. But I would fail again. Again she would do that with the least effort. This continued day after day. As more paste came out of the tube, my depression levels too increased.
But now thinking back about this, I realize it was not the Mom’s strength at work. It was the acute shortage of money to buy a new tooth paste tube. Penury has made her realize that the tooth paste has to go longer if her kids have to brush their teeth every day. The strength came from an unknown source.
Now, when I hear jargons like ‘squeezing the best out your investment’ or ‘financial muscle’, I know exactly what it means.
Santy
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
How I learnt life from marketing?
It is actually funny… you ought to learn marketing from life. But you can learn life from marketing too.
Just a humble request... the key point in the journey is 'be unegoistic'.
1) Understand the customer – his pain points and desires, motivations. This, believe me, works in all circumstances in life and marketing. Emotional intelligence underlines the effect of empathy in human interactions and incidentally contributes to making a person successful.
2) Be respectful – You need to respect your customer, you need to respect any human being – be it your boss, your spouse, your colleague or your milk man. They will give you more than you have asked for.
3) Never say they are wrong – It works perhaps only in schools, though the revolution against autocratic teaching methods is brewing. Not to your customers, not even to your kids. Positivise your message
4) Humor – It pays to create a happy humorous atmosphere be it in your ads, or in your personal life or your professional life. Many of the most acclaimed advertisements are humorous. Create fun, excitement in your life too…Be a rockstar.
5) Be simple – It has been said before many times, but I have no shame to repeat it. In communications, be simple. In corporate environment, be simple. In personal life, be simple. No BS.
Just a humble request... the key point in the journey is 'be unegoistic'.
1) Understand the customer – his pain points and desires, motivations. This, believe me, works in all circumstances in life and marketing. Emotional intelligence underlines the effect of empathy in human interactions and incidentally contributes to making a person successful.
2) Be respectful – You need to respect your customer, you need to respect any human being – be it your boss, your spouse, your colleague or your milk man. They will give you more than you have asked for.
3) Never say they are wrong – It works perhaps only in schools, though the revolution against autocratic teaching methods is brewing. Not to your customers, not even to your kids. Positivise your message
4) Humor – It pays to create a happy humorous atmosphere be it in your ads, or in your personal life or your professional life. Many of the most acclaimed advertisements are humorous. Create fun, excitement in your life too…Be a rockstar.
5) Be simple – It has been said before many times, but I have no shame to repeat it. In communications, be simple. In corporate environment, be simple. In personal life, be simple. No BS.
Brand identity is not your identity
I was contemplating about the significance of the brand in our real identity.
Let us examine what branding does. It caters to 2 primary emotions – 1) dissolves fear eg. Horlicks dissolves the fear of your children turning dumb, fear of losing your loved one etc and 2) caters to your desires eg. Shoes make you the desirable one for the other species; Laptop makes you successful in your job etc.
Now let us look at spirituality. It talks about collective consciousness which means, what you think of yourselves and others are rather maya. We all are one and the same. The same consciousness lives inside you and me. This mindset removes fear and desires from individuals.
Summary is, the same emotions of fear and desires that branding tries to invoke and cater to, ceases to exist when one lives by holistic thinking. Therefore branding treats the disease as against Spirituality prevents the disease from occurring.
Then why am I in branding? As someone famously said, ‘we are in the business of selling hope, not soap’. This segment is still 99% of the world’s population
Let us examine what branding does. It caters to 2 primary emotions – 1) dissolves fear eg. Horlicks dissolves the fear of your children turning dumb, fear of losing your loved one etc and 2) caters to your desires eg. Shoes make you the desirable one for the other species; Laptop makes you successful in your job etc.
Now let us look at spirituality. It talks about collective consciousness which means, what you think of yourselves and others are rather maya. We all are one and the same. The same consciousness lives inside you and me. This mindset removes fear and desires from individuals.
Summary is, the same emotions of fear and desires that branding tries to invoke and cater to, ceases to exist when one lives by holistic thinking. Therefore branding treats the disease as against Spirituality prevents the disease from occurring.
Then why am I in branding? As someone famously said, ‘we are in the business of selling hope, not soap’. This segment is still 99% of the world’s population
Friday, October 1, 2010
CMOs...listen
When you thought Google is awesome, there they go again..I mean the Google guys. They have launched yet another innovation…Google Instant. With this, they show the web page results even as you type enabling you to change or narrow the searches. Because, people can read fatser than they type..Phew. Wow, Brin and Page.
On the other hand, all CMOs wake up at the call of mobile advertising only after Mr. Jobs does a little jig with his I AD and Google discusses the admob. Why do they need any endorsements from celebrities or otherwise to go for what their team has been telling them?
On the other hand, all CMOs wake up at the call of mobile advertising only after Mr. Jobs does a little jig with his I AD and Google discusses the admob. Why do they need any endorsements from celebrities or otherwise to go for what their team has been telling them?
We’ve all heard about Pyramids and Mummies. Here is something new…about Pyramids and babies
This happened some time ago....
As a proud new age father, I engage in some daily struggle to teach beginnings of academics to Manasi (my daughter). We both learnt - she about shapes and colors and I, about the difficulties.
Whenever I watch CNBC, she too sits on my lap and calls out ‘red pyramid’ ‘green pyramid’ etc. She is excited about the stock scroller for some reason. I encourage her and she proudly accepts my appreciation of ‘very good’ and achante sundarikkutty’ etc. with a coyish smile.
I was watching CNBC after US slipped into red and recession word became the beginning of a gloomy discussion. Manasi as usual, was calling out ‘red pyramid’ red pyramid’ and she started crying. I was not paying attention to her till then, but asked her what the matter was out of genuine concern. She said ‘there are only red pyramids. I cannot see the green pyramid’..
As a proud new age father, I engage in some daily struggle to teach beginnings of academics to Manasi (my daughter). We both learnt - she about shapes and colors and I, about the difficulties.
Whenever I watch CNBC, she too sits on my lap and calls out ‘red pyramid’ ‘green pyramid’ etc. She is excited about the stock scroller for some reason. I encourage her and she proudly accepts my appreciation of ‘very good’ and achante sundarikkutty’ etc. with a coyish smile.
I was watching CNBC after US slipped into red and recession word became the beginning of a gloomy discussion. Manasi as usual, was calling out ‘red pyramid’ red pyramid’ and she started crying. I was not paying attention to her till then, but asked her what the matter was out of genuine concern. She said ‘there are only red pyramids. I cannot see the green pyramid’..
Who says traffic jams do not contribute to the economy?
I thought I was powerful. But I realized I am not when I was charged Rs. 180 by an auto driver from Whitefield to Marathahalli which should not have costed me more than Rs. 50. And what was the reason given? There is a jam on the way… I managed to smile when 3 times the auto fare was drained from my pocket. Let us somehow help others!!!
Brand identity is not your identity
I was contemplating about the significance of the brand in our real identity.
Let us examine what branding does. It caters to 2 primary emotions – 1) dissolves fear eg. Horlicks dissolves the fear of your children turning dumb, fear of losing your loved one etc and 2) caters to your desires eg. Shoes make you the desirable one for the other species; Laptop makes you successful in your job etc.
Now let us look at spirituality. It talks about collective consciousness which means, what you think of yourselves and others are rather maya. We all are one and the same. The same consciousness lives inside you and me. This mindset removes fear and desires from individuals.
Summary is, the same emotions of fear and desires that branding tries to invoke and cater to, ceases to exist when one lives by holistic thinking. Therefore branding treats the disease as against Spirituality prevents the disease from occurring.
Then why am I in branding? As someone famously said, ‘we are in the business of selling hope, not soap’. This segment is still 99% of the world’s population.
Let us examine what branding does. It caters to 2 primary emotions – 1) dissolves fear eg. Horlicks dissolves the fear of your children turning dumb, fear of losing your loved one etc and 2) caters to your desires eg. Shoes make you the desirable one for the other species; Laptop makes you successful in your job etc.
Now let us look at spirituality. It talks about collective consciousness which means, what you think of yourselves and others are rather maya. We all are one and the same. The same consciousness lives inside you and me. This mindset removes fear and desires from individuals.
Summary is, the same emotions of fear and desires that branding tries to invoke and cater to, ceases to exist when one lives by holistic thinking. Therefore branding treats the disease as against Spirituality prevents the disease from occurring.
Then why am I in branding? As someone famously said, ‘we are in the business of selling hope, not soap’. This segment is still 99% of the world’s population.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Who’s the killer?
I know what is going to happen… Vento’s newspaper surprised us at sunrise. We were kicked. A brand supporter like me was floored. Awesome..The questions on how much money would they have spent on the device and the amount of flesh media must have extracted from Volkswagen reduced the feeling of my personal ineptness.
But let us think about it… you got excited… checked the website… found out the features…wow, great. The price was a pleasant shocker. Only 8 lakhs!!!! I am going for it.
But then, you check with people. They tell you “How can you trust a new multi-national? They don’t even know what India is”. And then comes the question of dealership. It is too far. Service? I am not sure if you get prompt service as they would be in the process of setting up service centres.. Spare parts? Not only would they be costly, it might be unavailable. And finally after the initial excitement, you settle for the tried and tested Honda City or SX4.
And that is what we call ‘begin with a spark, end in a whimper’
But let us think about it… you got excited… checked the website… found out the features…wow, great. The price was a pleasant shocker. Only 8 lakhs!!!! I am going for it.
But then, you check with people. They tell you “How can you trust a new multi-national? They don’t even know what India is”. And then comes the question of dealership. It is too far. Service? I am not sure if you get prompt service as they would be in the process of setting up service centres.. Spare parts? Not only would they be costly, it might be unavailable. And finally after the initial excitement, you settle for the tried and tested Honda City or SX4.
And that is what we call ‘begin with a spark, end in a whimper’
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Who’s the killer?
I know what is going to happen… Vento’s newspaper surprised us at sunrise. We were kicked. A brand supporter like me was floored. Awesome..The questions on how much money would they have spent on the device and the amount of flesh media must have extracted from Volkswagen reduced the feeling of my personal ineptness.
But let us think about it… you got excited… checked the website… found out the features…wow, great. The price was a pleasant shocker. Only 8 lakhs!!!! I am going for it.
But then, you check with people. They tell you “How can you trust a new multi-national? They don’t even know what India is”. And then comes the question of dealership. It is too far. Service? I am not sure if you get prompt service as they would be in the process of setting up service centres.. Spare parts? Not only would they be costly, it might be unavailable. And finally after the initial excitement, you settle for the tried and tested Honda City or SX4.
And that is what we call ‘begin with a spark, end in a whimper’
But let us think about it… you got excited… checked the website… found out the features…wow, great. The price was a pleasant shocker. Only 8 lakhs!!!! I am going for it.
But then, you check with people. They tell you “How can you trust a new multi-national? They don’t even know what India is”. And then comes the question of dealership. It is too far. Service? I am not sure if you get prompt service as they would be in the process of setting up service centres.. Spare parts? Not only would they be costly, it might be unavailable. And finally after the initial excitement, you settle for the tried and tested Honda City or SX4.
And that is what we call ‘begin with a spark, end in a whimper’
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