Digging for Meaning

Men in air-conditioned glass boxes often feel the need to powerpoint. This might be because what they want to say (or what their counterparts want to hear) is not well formed enough. And saying it simply will unravel the artifice. Powerpoint in that sense is a tool that holds together the artifice. The red ribbon on top of a decorated gift package which possibly holds junk inside. Or the shiny credit rating that hides the shitty credit quality of CDOs.  You might now say that - "No no, it is only a tool. It depends on who uses it for what purpose." Wrong. The medium is the message. And the message is 'suspension of disbelief'. Here the medium necessitates one speaker who often is standing to deliver the message and as such gets into an authoritative position and the listeners have to hold their horses and give their attention to the presenter for a period of time. It gives enough space and time for the con to take effect. The medium of powerpoint intrinsical...

 This was written in response to a Quora question .  The question was " Why trend to purchase bullet bikes increased in India? " I think bikes (as most other things) are bought not only for its functional relevance but for its psychological relevance. (If you can commute ably with a 35k bike, why would you spend a lakh more on a bike which essentially is a bulkier, less advanced machine?) The purchase of bullet is purely a matter of fulfilling a psychological need. So the question is - what is the psychological need being met by Bullets and why are more people in India feeling that particular need? Bullet is uniquely manly. While Pulsar is 'definitely male', it is also immature. Pulsar is boyish, bullet is manly. Most fared bikes are positioned to younger audiences. They answer the need of adrenaline rush.. what we call 'potency needs'. Its the quintessential teenage need to feel on the edge. Bullet is not for these men (boys). Bullet has been t...

Just saw this campaign from Unicef done by JWT. It is called Poo2Loo. Apparently its been running for more than a year now with major focus on digital media. Who is it aimed at? It is in English. the styling in international. The setting is urban. probably Mumbai. The nearly 3 minute long video does not tell you anything new - why is it still a problem? why do people defecate in open? How can one help? All it does in those three entertaining minutes is elicit a nod from the upper class Indian who feels disgusted living in Indian cities. It reinforces disgust, without telling what is to be done about it. ' take the poo to the loo ' doesn't count because it doesn't mean anything. It does not feature the people who defecate at all. Leave alone empathy, there is no recognition of the other class. It is from a point of view of a class which does not see the other class of people, only their shit. The video merely bolsters cynicism towards India. It talks to the g...

Myntra is asking us to 'live for likes'. But should it? and should we? I will come to that in a bit, but first the ok enough parts. Imagery. The imagery seems alright for a fashion brand (myntra = fashion brand?). Beautiful young people shot in various circumstances. The operating insight for the imagery was 'selfies'. Sure the brand world has discovered that insight now.. at least 2 years late. Error #1. Missed the zeitgeist bus.   This is a lazy interpretation of a powerful insight. If it is late, it at least should be powerfully executed or reinterpreted in a new way.Why are people taking selfies? How does it relate to their self esteem? How can Myntra inspire consumers through selfies? ok. so it was just an ártistic device'. But why have divergence in device and tagline. Error #2. Misunderstanding the function of branding  I want to talk about the misplaced insight behind 'live for likes'. My assumption is fashion advertising is aspir...

Recently, an academic researcher asked me a few questions about the challenges and problems faced by agencies while working on Integrated marketing campaigns. Well, my reply was a rather long and unstructured list of complaints. So here's the disclaimer, I am not a pessimist. :) But i am good at comprehensive exploration of shit gone wrong. These lists are useful in making things better. I am sharing my reply here because it might be a good starting point to complete the picture. My reply choses the negatives - someone can add positive anecdotes, someone can add experiences from other geographies. I have largely written from experiences I have heard from fellow planners I know and my own experiences, which is not a good research design. :P So in a way.. here's the hypothesis and I am asking any planner out there to validate, improve upon or point out the bullshit. Title in bold were questions asked by the researcher. Text in italics are my hypothesis' which are large...

1. What is it all about? A few risque ads were released on a showcase website that features ads from across the world. I won't get into details here as it has been amply dissected everywhere else already. (this one reading might help get you up to speed.) Lets get the obvious out of the way - Of course the ad is appalling. (and of course scam culture must die.) Perhaps its existence is unwarranted. But the reactions to it were confused. What I am interested in the curious collective response: It is a mix of regression, repression and pandering to powers that be. 2. What are they exactly reacting to? God knows. Some people read the ad as 'condoning of rape culture'. Some were reacting to 'Berlusconi'. Some to existence of 'scam ads' and quite a few others to the fact that it came from Ford. In the absence of context, all readings are fair. But the absence of context itself is unfair.  The context in which the ad was created is this one - The ad ...

Note: This is from a series of posts that I would be writing about Marketing's assault on our language. (AOL) ______ Sometimes, weird vowel-less sounds (?) stumble out of busyfolks' mouth. When they utter these sounds among themselves, there is an implicit expectation that the meaning is understood. Its amazing really, a fence made of sounds. Recently, I was confronted with this particular sound -"FMOT". It took me  a while to hear sideways and decipher the words hiding behind the capital letters. "First moment of Truth". Most marketing students, including me, would know this as legacy of the store shelf Gladiator - P&G .Its an elegant concept really from a marketer's perspective - it is that decisive time frame when a customer first sees a product in the store shelf and gets sufficiently curious about it to buy it or not. It's a crucial time for the product - 'it's showtime!'  But is it a "moment of truth"? err.. i w...

See these ads -> Bisleri500 Angry bride , Bisleri500 Casanova , Bisleri500 Superhero Tell me you didn't find them disturbing. If you did, stop drinking this irresponsible brand, and if it can be helped, bottled water altogether .   Story of the bottled water If not, let me shepherd out the outrage. What do you think is the brand trying to do through these ads? Its a classic advertising attack on your current behavior. Not all behavior change objectives are bad, but they always have a big responsibility - In your quest for increased usage/ preference, you don't want to bring harm to a culture or people. I believe Bisleri has been tremendously irresponsible in multiple ways. The behavior shift sought here is that from shared drinking to individualistic drinking. While traveling you would often see us Indians sharing a bottle, sharing food. Sharing is a big part of how Indians define themselves. However, sharing is perhaps a newer value that India tried to ...

I am reading Kudera's 'Immortality'. (and for the first time, I am pissed off with his writing. it seems to be too whimsical - paul, laura, goethe, bettina, laura, ruben! where the fuck did he come from? where's immortality now? where did goethe go? wh y did her death c o me after Paul's life after her death? multiple strands woven together irregularly, whimsically. this book is almost a " modern art " (said disdainfully) with its whimsical (but intelligent) movements playing in a private symphony without a thought to audience's public nature. ) Anywa y, Kundera makes a beautiful revelation (as he always does ) ab out laughte r ( surprisin gly in this book. instead of his ' laughter and forgetting ' . perhaps a post scri pt - a draft piece that had to find a place 'somewhere '. )  He compares modern photographic images to classical paintings and sculptures - the key difference illuminated here being that of the countenance...

Someone just 'liked' an old photo of mine on Facebook. And I was wondering why/how would anyone do that? I mean what makes them either seek out someone else's profiles or more probably go scroll down tens of times, down the rabbit hole of their facebook timeline. Don't get me wrong, I do not dislike it. As a matter of fact, I can't help keeping an eager lookout on the notification from Facebook like those rats in the lab who are made to learn to respond to electric pleasure signals. And I understand that the act of 'liking' is a delicate matter. A like is a badge that one carefully chooses. Every like contributes to one's own sense of self, a carefully constructed persona. 'Am I close enough to the person to react to his/her updates?' 'Hope I do not come across as someone naive/ over eager/ un cool' 'Will it send wrong signal if I like this?' My limited curiosity came up with only these questions/thoughts that possibly ...

"The world will grow!" The word will grow. surfing on a speed boat in the sea of words, corporate predictions of economy & industries dash against reality ineffectually, withering away like soap suds. Those smooth upward curves promised by the analysts need to wear the wrinkles of human condition. The modern day charlatans, safely tied to a tie and behind glass skyscrapers, let the excel sheets do their legwork. They exercise the columns and rows, stretching the formula here & there. where's the variable of ineffective leadership? where's the variable of the will of the young? where's the variable of the villages burnt down by hatred? where's the variable of the dreamer's dreams? In the least, where's the rear view mirror? If you must let a quack exist, teach him to be entertaining at least. 

Levi's has come with another commercial from their 'Go forth' campaign. Here's an embedded video of the same. It instigated me to write what I felt about such advertisements, in the form of a poem. It follows the video, please scroll down. An empty shell of decaf coffee and air conditioned adventures. Running in the city streets stamping out mindlessly images of its own. All the running flattening the world into a 2D image-nerium from a living breathing 3D world of yesterday. 'You are a kid' & 'you are the next living leader of the world' and all that lies in between is a piece of cloth that drapes beautifully and consequentially. The 21st century gods in jeans and T-shirts and shades smile their blessings on you - you whose image is now as big as those very god's. And smiling sideways, the gods bestow powers on the soles of your designer shoes and the threads of the Made-in-Bangladesh shirts. The global dreams ...

If I show you picture of kids and the word 'growth' in large letters next to it.. what does that tell you? ' What do you think?' I am not saying anything. maybe they will grow to be giants jumping on those letters sponsored by Aquaguard.. maybe , while jumping on those letters, a centimetre will be added per limb per jump...   maybe  it will lead to a sudden spurt in Indian's presence in World wrestling federation..  so how does it work? Do you have to apply the Aquaguard water at the sole of your feet? Does it work 'holistically' with your body? If we keep drinking Aquaguard water, how many centimetres will be added to my height/ biceps/ etc per month?  No? no such benefits? then why write growth -shoth kind of bakwaas? oh, so it is supposed to be your RTB (Reason to believe). Its really an acronym for something..  Global. Reverse osmosis. ultra violet. taste heightener.  So its really a machine that heightens the taste of the globe through...

A colleague sent an ad that recently came out. Its for Wildstone talc and it aims for making men feel ashamed for using the normal talc which had traditionally been targeted to women. Its very humorous and does a good work of accentuating men's anxiety about their manliness. Perhaps, a sustained effort on this front with a few more players joining in would certainly create enough anxiety amongst men not to use 'women's talc'. It has already happened in a lot of other categories. The reportage and analysis about matters of creation of sub-segments is peppered with words such as 'progress' 'maturity of market'. They are not wrong.. creation of segments is symptomatic of growing purchasing power, increased nucleation of needs.. a movement to western style first-worldliness if you will. But it is also symptomatic of a greater humanistic and social malaise. Sonal talks at her blog about the collective conscience that brands of yesteryears built is non...