Suresh Dinakaran's Blog

 

Dear Charles Darwin, if you thought humans evolved from apes, wait till you see what WhatsApp forwards have turned us into. Spoiler alert: We’ve gone backwards.

 

They say laughter is infectious. Clearly, they’ve never been added to a family WhatsApp group — that, my dear reader, is full-blown plague.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts — we are about to take a guided tour of the world’s biggest free Ivy League: WhatsApp University. Zero entrance exams, zero attendance required, and 100% guaranteed certificates — in conspiracy theories, half-baked health tips, and breaking news that never broke.

 

All of us have dealt with the Patriotic Uncle who believes that forwarding a flag emoji is synonymous with nationalism. His WhatsApp status is always “Proud to be Indian” with 47 flag emojis. Or the Corporate Warrior who Shares “motivational” quotes that Gandhi never said but are attributed to him anyway. Believes success is just one forward away. And the quintessential Health Guru who has the cure for everything except the forward addiction. Ironically, the only thing that can’t be cured by their remedies.

 

Welcome to the Economics of Absurdity where WhatsApp forwards have created their own economy. Where the GDP(Gullibility Domestic Product) measures how easily a population believes unverified information. And that is where inflation rate is the speed at which nonsense multiplies in group chats. Not to mention the unabashed unemployment as fact-checkers have given up and moved onto organic farming.

 

The international impact of these forwards cannot be under estimated. Rumors are rife that the United Nations is considering adding WhatsApp Forward Pollution to climate change discussions. Experts suggest the hot air generated by fake forwards is contributing to global warming. Several countries are embarking on high-level diplomacy with WhatsApp University. The Vatican is contemplating offering a PhD in Divine Forwards.

 

The WhatsApp University: No entrance exams, no attendance, no tuition fees. Just unlimited free degrees in Medicine, History, Geopolitics, Sports Management and How to Cure Cancer With Turmeric Latte. Forget AI, Blockchain, or Climate Change — the greatest contagion of our times is that cousin-in-law who believes WhatsApp forwards are Nobel-worthy research papers.COVID was a pandemic. WhatsApp forwards? An endemic. Unstoppable, hereditary, and immortal.

 

Your phone is not a phone. Not anymore. It’s a petri dish. A digital incubator for the most virulent, mind-boggling, and occasionally sanity-snatching strain of information ever conceived: The WhatsApp Forward( yes, the same thing that educates, medicates and occasionally eliminates). They are the reason you’ve seen a video of a lizard giving birth to a shivling, a grainy image of a miracle cloud that looks suspiciously like a Photoshop 2.0 filter from 2003, and a 47-minute voice note explaining how eating raisins at 4:17 PM will align your chakras with Elon Musk’s satellite network.

 

If you take a global tour of this contagion, there is lots to unearth. First things first- please note that the virus mutates to suit its host environment. Observe. The Latin American Variant where you get to see  frantic forward about a new mosquito that lays eggs in your laundry if you leave it out after 6 PM. It comes with a picture of a normal mosquito photoshopped to look like it’s wearing tactical gear. Or the North American Strain where a A 5G-tower-causes-COVID-consipracy theory, followed immediately by a forwarded chain mail from 1998 warning that AOL CDs are mind-control devices sent by the Illuminati. The consistency is breathtaking. While The British Mutation comes with a solemn warning that the EU has banned curved bananas and that Her Majesty the Queen (or now, the King) personally drinks a specific brand of tea every day at precisely 4:59 PM, not 5:00 PM. The audacity.

 

The Indian Sub-Species is in a class of its own. Had to be. Home is where the forwards don’t just spread misinformation; they spread with a sense of profound, unshakeable duty. It’s not spam; it’s seva. Where we are privy to The Medical Miracle. ” Good Morning. Do Not Eat Cucumber and Drink Water Within 17.5 Minutes of that. My friend’s nephews’ colleagues’ dog died. Forward to all your groups within 87 seconds “. The urgency is palpable. The grammar, a tragedy. The medical advice, a war crime.

 

Or messages that are Religious Ransomware in disguise( Kaspersky, are you tuned in?). A picture of a glittery Ganesha. The caption reads: “This is not a normal forward. This is a divine test. You will receive good news at 11:47 AM tomorrow only if you forward this to 25 people. I ignored once and my Wi-Fi broke for a week.” This is digital dharma, people. You wouldn’t want to risk your Wi-Fi, would you? And wait, let me not forget the Nostalgia Nano Bot– “1990s kids had real childhood. They played with stones and friendship. 2020 kids only with iPad. Like if you agree. Share to make others remember.” Because nothing says “real childhood” like aggressively forwarding a message on a $1000 smartphone.

 

If you haven’t seen these messages yet, I pity you. Anyway, suggest you wait, your turn will come. ” Forward this to 17 people and Mukesh Ambani will personally top up your Jio balance for Rs 99“. ” UK scientists stunned: applying onion juice to your navel guarantees IIT admission “. ” NASA confirms: chanting Om can recharge your Wi-Fi router.”

 

Global students are no less diligent. Americans get “Bill Gates is giving away $500 if you forward this.” (I always knew that an idle mind is a devil’s workshop). Nigerians specialise in Prince inheritance. (Royalty has to be passed on you see). And somewhere in the Middle East, “If you type Bismillah in Microsoft Word, your laptop becomes halal.” (We are in a consumption economy you bet). And this one is worth the Oscar if ever there was one for WhatsApp forwards. ” Coconut oil cures everything from pimples to Pakistan.” — courtesy of the WhatsApp R&D division.

 

The amount of flexibility that WhatsApp forwards have will put the best gymnast from China to shame. Especially when it comes to motivational forwards and audacious history revisionism. ” If you wake up at 4 a.m., drink hot water, and say ‘I am unstoppable’ ten times, you will become Adani.” (Currently, all we became is constipated.) ” Dalai Lama said this…” (No, sorry to disappoint you, he didn’t. He has better things to do). Shakespeare apparently wrote, “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” Sorry, that was Dr. Seuss, but WhatsApp insists otherwise. Suddenly, everyone from Subhash Chandra Bose to Albert Einstein is misquoted. UK forwards swear Queen Elizabeth once texted LOL to Prince Charles, meaning Lots of Love. Little wonder it is said, love is blind.

 

So, the next time you receive a forward, remember: you are just a sneeze away from being Patient Zero of Digital Typhoid. 

 

Those Good Morning messages( yes, the ones that come at dawn, like clockwork – A blizzard of sunflowers, dewdrops, motivational quotes, kittens doing yoga, and folksy wisdom) are actually weapons of mass distraction.

 

When your phone convulses with the collective anxiety of a hundred forwards, remember: you are not alone. We are all unwilling graduates of WhatsApp University, holding advanced degrees in Applied Nonsense.

 

PS: Forward this blog to ten people, or risk having your charger only work at a specific angle for the next week. You’ve been warned.

Yours in digital delirium,

Suresh Dinakaran (Professor Emeritus of Not Forwarding That Nonsense, WhatsApp University – Honours Dropout)

 

 

Introspect. And the Archaeology of Self  will reveal that your scars are not your story’s punctuation marks. They’re the commas in a sentence that’s still being written.

 

Every wound whispers: I own you. And every healing whispers back louder: Not on my watch.

 

The human condition has this funny way of playing trick-or-treat with us. One minute you are basking in the glow of a promotion, a love confession, or your startup’s first investor cheque… next minute you are punched in the gut by betrayal, rejection, redundancy, or a WhatsApp “seen” without reply.

 

We confuse the hurt for the whole. We stitch our identity to the fracture and forget the rest of the fabric.

 

But here’s the raw truth: There’s always more to you than what hurt you.

 

What if healing isn’t about forgetting what hurt you, but remembering who you were before the hurt tried to define you? What if your story gets better from here? Because, your trauma is not your personality. Your healing is not your brand. Your wholeness is not conditional on your pain being productive.

 

Let’s reconcile to one fact that your hurt wouldn’t want you to know. You are NOT a walking wound. You are not your worst day, your darkest moment, or your most painful chapter. You are not the person who left, the opportunity that slipped away, or the words that cut deep. You are not even your most heroic comeback story.

 

You are something far more extraordinary—you are a universe in motion, constantly creating and recreating yourself.

The culture, as it would have it, told you a story of the crack, but never about the light that got in.

 

Maybe it was a betrayal that left a permanent chill in your bones. A failure that echoes in every quiet moment. A word, a look, a rejection that became the ghost living in your hallway, whispering the same old lies: You are not enough. You are what happened to you.

 

We are not running away from the truth. Your hurt is real. It is valid. It deserves a seat at the table. But here is the revolutionary, earth-shattering, needle-moving truth: it does not get to order for everyone else.

 

This isn’t just fluffy self-help. This is the raw, gritty narrative of the human spirit, from Mumbai to Manhattan.

 

Pushed from a moving train by thieves in 2011, she lost her leg. The world saw a victim. She saw a mountaineer. In 2013, she became the world’s first female amputee to climb Mount Everest. The hurt was a horrific fact. It was not her fate. That is Arunima Sinha for you.

 

A divorced, unemployed, clinically depressed single mother living on state benefits. Society’s definition? A statistic. Her own definition? A writer. She gave the world Harry Potter not in spite of her pain, but by channeling its echoes into a story about love, loss, and the boy who lived. That is your global phenomenon: J K Rowling.

 

Oprah Winfrey, who endured childhood abuse, didn’t let that become her headline — she rewrote it into power, influence, and impact.

 

In Indian mythology, the wounded Karna was constantly denied legitimacy, but his pain sharpened him into one of the most formidable warriors of the Mahabharata.

 

Think of Amitabh Bachchan in the 90s. Bankrupt. Written off. Newspapers calling him a relic. Hurt in ways that would’ve flattened most.
But the man didn’t stop at “failed producer.” He went back, rebuilt, reinvented. Kaun Banega Crorepati wasn’t just a game show. It was his resurrection.

 

AR Rahman turned the grief of losing his father as a child into a lifelong devotion to music that reshaped the cultural landscape.

 

Steve Jobs? Kicked out of the company he founded. The ultimate professional heartbreak. Instead of being defined by exile, he built Pixar, and then returned to Apple to redefine the world.

 

The person who grew up with the searing label of “not good at math” and now runs a successful business, their Excel sheets a quiet middle finger to that old shame. The one who loved and lost so deeply they thought they’d never breathe again, but now uses that capacity for love to nurture profound friendships.

 

The pattern is universal. The hurt is the setting, not the protagonist. The protagonist is you—the you that existed before the hurt, and the you that is being forged, diamond-like, under immense pressure, right now.

 

What hurt you is part of you. But it’s not all of you.

 

And since we live in the Republic of Not Enough and most things in life are centred around ROI, here’s some food for thought: when we over-identify with hurt, we end up smuggling yesterday’s grief into tomorrow’s opportunity. We risk hiding our brilliance behind our bruises, just in case life hits again. And we end up pretending cynicism is maturity.

 

But healing does not mean forgetting. It means re-anchoring. Pain is only a place you visit. So, please don’t go house-hunting there.

 

This matters because right now, someone you know( probably you?) is stuck on repeat, playing their greatest hurt like a broken record. Because leaders who confuse wounds for identities end up building organizations from insecurity. Because you can’t inspire, build, or love fully if you’ve given your hurt the keys to your soul.

 

So, in conclusion, don’t audition for victimhood. The world loves a survivor’s story, not a martyr’s rerun. Rename the scar. Don’t call it failure — call it curriculum.

 

Stop letting trauma hold the pen. Hand it the highlighter, maybe. But the pen? That’s yours.

 

 

 

 

Your attention is prime real estate—and you’re renting it out to clowns for free.

 

We, the so-called smart, upwardly mobile, tech-savvy sapiens, are shockingly liberal with the one currency more valuable than time, money, or even Bitcoin—our attention.

 

Hello, you magnificent, distracted mess.

 

I see you. You’re reading this, but a part of your brain is wondering about that notification that just lit up your phone like a mini Times Square. Another part is replaying that slightly awkward thing you said in the meeting 3 days ago. And a third, more primal part, is debating between ordering a pizza or being “good” and having a salad.

 

We don’t just spend our attention—we spray and pray.

 

We scroll through reels at 2AM, generously tipping algorithms with our focus, binge Open House debates on TV where no one is actually listening, and clap like trained seals at motivational soundbites that dissolve the moment we swipe.

 

In short: we’ve turned our attention into confectionary—free samples, available on every aisle.

 

We are so liberal with this priceless social currency called attention, we’ve made the Weimar Republic look fiscally conservative.

If this makes your morning coffee taste bitter, I am sorry: We are the first generation in human history to be simultaneously the richest and the poorest when it comes to attention—the ultimate social currency.

 

Think about it. Your great-grandmother could sit through a three-hour Carnatic music concert without fidgeting. Your grandfather could read the entire newspaper (yes, the physical one with actual pages) from cover to cover. But you? You can’t watch a 2-minute YouTube video without checking if someone liked your Instagram story about your breakfast.

 

We’ve become attention billionaires and wisdom paupers. And frankly, it’s hilarious if it weren’t so tragic.

 

Let’s think through this to understand what happened.

 

Some very smart people in Silicon Valley figured out that human attention is finite and extremely valuable. So they built machines designed to harvest it. Not metaphorically—literally.

 

Facebook (sorry, “Meta“) has teams of neuroscientists whose job is to make you scroll more. Netflix has algorithms that know you better than your mother. TikTok has cracked the code of the human dopamine system so efficiently that it makes casinos look like amateur operations. We can brand them the Netflix-Meta-TikTok Holy Trinity of Distraction.

 

The result? We’re all running on hamster wheels, thinking we’re racing toward something important, while these companies are the ones actually getting somewhere—to our wallets. And laughing all the way to the bank.

 

To know more about what actually happens when you pay attention, it is worthwhile to segue back to a Swedish experiment conducted some time ago. In that, they asked a group of office workers to do just one task at a time for one week. Just one. No email checking during meetings. No phone scrolling during conversations. No background music during focused work.

 

The results were shocking: Productivity increased by 40% | Stress levels dropped dramatically | People reported feeling more human | One guy said it was like waking up from a dream

 

But here’s the kicker—most participants said it felt uncomfortably slow at first. We’ve literally trained ourselves to be uncomfortable with peace.

 

We seem to have outsourced our boredom. And that’s NOT good news. Boredom is not the enemy—it’s the birthplace of creativity. Every great idea in history was born from someone being sufficiently bored to actually think. Silicon Valley figured out how to monetize your boredom. You’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.

 

But now? The moment we feel the slightest hint of mental quiet, we reach for our phones like they’re oxygen masks. We’ve eliminated boredom so successfully that we’ve accidentally eliminated wonder.

 

We seem to be in a state of empathy recession. When you’re constantly switching between 47 different inputs, you lose the ability to deeply connect with any one thing—including other humans. We’re creating a generation of people who can manage 15 group chats but can’t have one meaningful conversation.

 

We’re so busy documenting our life that we forget to live it. Instagram can wait; our actual existence cannot.

 

The typical refrain when asked why so much attention on meaningless distraction is ” I want to keep up “- leaves you wondering, keep up with what exactly? They will quote verbatim every political scandal doing the rounds but I can bet my last cent that most are clueless about their own nervous system. They will wax eloquent on the global economy but will be totally clueless about whats happening in their own backyard.

 

With no exaggeration, let me tell you that if attention was cash, most of us would be declaring bankruptcy daily.

 

We are the first generation in human history to be simultaneously the richest and the poorest when it comes to attention—the ultimate social currency.

 

Your attention is not renewable. You get approximately 700,000 hours of consciousness in your lifetime. How you spend those hours is how you spend your life.

 

The choice is yours: Stay a broke billionaire in the attention economy, or become truly wealthy by investing your most precious resource wisely.

 

Globally, attention has been commodified faster than avocado toast. Entire industries profit from hijacking your eyeballs. Silicon Valley doesn’t sell tech—it sells your distraction.

 

We’re forever busy yet perpetually restless. Our stress warehouses are so full, we’d need GST | VAT numbers to inventory what we’ve stacked up inside.

 

Because attention is not neutral. It is like magnifying glass. Wherever it goes, that thing grows, amplifies. Feed gossip and outrage? Anxiety expands. Feed comparison reels? Insecurity mushrooms. Feed doomscrolling ? Congrats, you’ve invested in a flourishing stock listed on most of the world’s stock exchanges called Existential Dread Ltd.

 

Like water finding cracks, attention shapes our daily experience. And we’re busy watering weeds, not the oak trees.

 

Thought I am not encouraging you to be a rebel, I reckon it might be worth it. What is it that we could do to reclaim the territory that we have willingly bequeathed. Can we quarantine our notifications? Let me tell you that if the world is coming to an end, you will not hear it on WhatsApp or Insta first. Please add some sacred zero notice zones in your space. Morning coffee without devices. Dinner table without screens. Commute without doomscroll. It’s rebellion disguised as self-care. Single-tasking like a samurai. Responding to important emails? Then honor that task. Forget everything else. Audit your stress inventory once a week. Ask “What did I pay attention to that left me lighter?” If the list is shorter than a government queue, you know where the leaks are. Budget attention like money. Would you throw $100 notes at strangers? Then why litter your minutes mindlessly?

 

A gentle knock on the head to remember that every scroll is a loan. Every notification is interest. And, your mind is bankrupt.

 

Want less stress? Stop fertilizing it with your attention.

 

In closing: We’re not short on time or energy. We’re short on focus.
So, the rebellious thing today isn’t to do more. It’s to starve what doesn’t deserve your attention. Hunter-gatherer upgrade: become a selective-attention carnivore.

 

 

 

We live in an age where decibels are mistaken for dialogue. Too many shouts, not enough signals. Everyone is talking. Few are transmitting.
Take a stroll through LinkedIn. It’s an Olympic stadium of “noise-athletes”—smooth adjectives, polished jargon, lattes in the background. But behind the vocabulary? Hollow vacuums.

 

Without intent, communication is noise. With it, its leadership.

 

Picture this: A 23-year-old engineering dropout in Bengaluru, armed with nothing but a smartphone and an unshakeable belief that period poverty shouldn’t exist. Arunachalam Muruganantham(nicknamed the Padman) didn’t craft PowerPoint presentations or hire PR agencies. He simply spoke one truth, repeatedly, in every village square he could find: “A woman’s dignity shouldn’t depend on her economic status.”

 

That “noise” became a symphony that reached Bollywood, the UN, and millions of Indian homes. And earned him a Padma Shri. But here’s the kicker – hundreds of social workers had been saying similar things for decades. What made Muruganantham different? Intent so sharp it could cut through centuries of taboo.

 

Meanwhile, in corporate boardrooms across the world, executives deliver beautifully crafted quarterly presentations that say absolutely nothing. Slides shimmer with data visualization, voices project with MBA-trained confidence, yet teams walk away more confused than when they entered.

 

The difference? One spoke to change the world. The others spoke to fill the silence.

 

Anand Mahindra has mastered something most CEOs struggle with: turning corporate communication into human connection. His Monday motivation posts aren’t crafted by PR teams. They are personal observations, often from his weekend experiences, shared with genuine intent to inspire.

 

When he posted about a young innovator from rural Karnataka who built a water purification system from discarded materials, it wasn’t brand promotion. It was intent in action – using his platform to amplify voices that deserved to be heard. That post led to the innovator getting funding, recognition, and a chance to scale his solution.

 

The lesson? When communication serves a purpose beyond self-promotion, it transforms from noise into silence.

 

Let me be brutally honest. Most presentations in the corporate world  are glorified sleep therapy sessions. Not because the speakers lack intelligence, but because they lack intent. They start with “Good morning, everyone” instead of “By the end of this conversation, you’ll understand why our current approach is costing us $XXX monthly.” They say “Let me take you through our journey” instead of “Here’s the one decision that will determine if we lead or follow in the next quarter.” They conclude with “Thank you for your time” instead of “Here’s exactly what we’re doing tomorrow, and here’s who’s accountable for what.”

Intent transforms every element of communication:

 

Without intent: ” We need to improve customer satisfaction “.

 

With intent: “We’re implementing this specific feedback loop by Friday because losing one more customer to our competitor costs us more than fixing the root cause”.

 

In 2018, Dr. Robert Jensen published groundbreaking research about Kerala fishermen who started using mobile phones to check market prices before bringing their catch to shore. These barely literate fishermen achieved something Fortune 500 companies struggle with – perfect communication efficiency.

 

Their calls were never longer than two minutes. Every conversation had one purpose: maximize value from the day’s catch. No small talk. No relationship building. Pure, intentional information exchange that increased their profits by 8% and reduced waste by 25%.

 

Silicon Valley took note. WhatsApp Business was born from studying how these fishermen communicated with intent. Meanwhile, in corporate offices worldwide, employees attend three-hour meetings that could have been three-minute phone calls. The fishermen understood something we’ve forgotten – communication isn’t about being polite or comprehensive. It’s about achieving specific outcomes.

 

Here’s what they don’t teach you in communication workshops: Sometimes the most powerful leaders are the ones who know when NOT to speak. In 1955, when Rosa Parks was arrested, the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn’t begin with a fiery speech. It started with E.D. Nixon, the local NAACP chapter president, making one strategic phone call to fifty other leaders with a simple, intentional message: “We don’t ride tomorrow.” No grand rhetoric. No emotional manipulation. Just crystalline intent wrapped in four words.

 

Contrast this with our modern affliction – the LinkedIn post epidemic. Scroll through your feed right now. Count how many “thought leaders” are pontificating about “authentic leadership” and “disruptive innovation” without saying anything remotely useful. They’re not communicating; they’re performing. And performance, without intent, is just sophisticated noise.

 

Even closer home, consider the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. When he addressed schoolchildren, he didn’t deliver complex speeches about aerospace engineering. He asked them to dream, then gave them one actionable step to take when they went home. Every word had a job to do.

 

Here’s some hard truth that nobody wants to hear. You have been trained to communicate wrong. School taught you to fill word counts. Corporate training taught you to “manage stakeholder expectations.” Social media taught you to optimize for engagement.

 

Nobody taught you the most important lesson: Communication without clear intent is just emotional pollution.

 

Every email you send without specific purpose clutters someone’s mind. Every meeting you attend without clear outcomes wastes collective intelligence. Every social media post you share without intentional value adds to the world’s noise problem.

 

We’re drowning in communication and starving for leadership.

 

We are drowning. Drowning in a cacophonous ocean of communication. We have more channels, more tools, more platforms than ever before, and yet, we have never been less heard. The signal is lost. All that remains is the relentless, soul-crushing static of noise.

 

Think about it. A foghorn blares with immense power, but it’s just a warning; it doesn’t steer the ship. A nightingale’s song, however, is gentle, but it’s sung with the intent to attract, to create, to perpetuate life. One is a sound; the other is a symphony. Leadership is not about the decibel level; it’s about the destination your words create in the listener’s mind.

 

In the late 1990s, as the Swiss-Swedish engineering behemoth ABB was grappling with a sprawling, inefficient matrix structure, its new CEO, Percy Barnevik, didn’t launch a flashy rebrand or a loud change management program. He wrote a memo. But this wasn’t just any memo. It was a 3-page document called “The Policy Bible.” Its intent was crystalline: to decentralize power, instill accountability, and kill bureaucracy. Every word was chosen not to inform, but to empower. He gave managers permission to act. That memo, driven by fierce, clarifying intent, didn’t just communicate a new policy; it communicated a new culture. It turned a sluggish giant into a nimble champion. The memo was the leadership.

 

In a quiet university in Japan, a professor of Ikebana (the art of flower arrangement) was teaching Western students. They were fidgety, focused on the technicalities—angle of cut, choice of vase. After minutes of observing their frantic activity, he posed a single question, laden with intent: “Before you cut, have you asked the flower for permission?” The room fell silent. The room fell silent. The intent wasn’t to shame, but to shift perspective entirely—from domination to collaboration, from technique to reverence. That one question, communicated with deep philosophical intent, did more to teach leadership (of oneself, of one’s craft) than a thousand instructional manuals.

 

Leadership is a granted authority. People grant it to those who make them feel seen, understood, and purposeful. Noise ignores them. Intent includes them.

 

Your words are either building a monument or adding to the landfill. The choice, and the intent, is always yours.

Choose wisely. The world is listening for a signal, and it’s waiting for you to lead.

 

Let’s start with a confession. I, like you, have often fallen for the seductive lie of a packed calendar.

The 8-back-to-back-meetings day. The inbox zero triumph (a fleeting, hollow victory). The frantic pinging on Slack and other DM channels that could easily be an email. That satisfying swish of dragging a task to the “Done” column, even if the task was as monumental as “Reply to Ramesh about the lunch plan.”

 

Feel that? That’s the adrenaline rush of Motion. It’s the modern professional’s drug of choice. It feels like productivity. It smells like dedication. It looks like progress.

But here’s the sucker punch we didn’t see coming: Motion is the devil’s counterfeit for Progress.

Motion is running on a treadmill – you sweat, you pant, you burn calories, but you haven’t moved an inch from that spot in your expensive gym. Progress, on the other hand, is putting on your shoes and walking to the actual market. One is performance. The other is outcome.

 

There’s a hamster somewhere on a wheel laughing at us. Because we, the supposedly evolved human race, have perfected the art of moving furiously… while standing still.

 

Look around. Airports buzzing with people hustling, phones pinging with emails at 3:00 am, CEOs declaring “We’re in transformation mode.” All very busy, all very kinetic. But motion is not progress. Never was. Never will be.

 

Progress is movement with meaning. Motion is just noise with sneakers on.

 

We are either spectators or participants in this Global Circus of Aimless Motion. Look around. The world is a masterclass in this. The Corporate Jogger: The executive who proudly announces a “100-day cross-country listening tour” to “feel the pulse of the market.” They rack up insane air miles, do 50 city presentations, and collect a mountain of business cards. They come back to headquarters, exhausted, and… nothing changes. The motion was flawless. The progress? Nil. The pulse was felt, but no medicine was prescribed.

 

The Silicon Valley Hustle-Porn Artist:The startup founder whose LinkedIn feed is a barrage of #HustleCulture posts: “Pulled an all-nighter!” “Coding with the team!” “Disrupting the paradigm!” Meanwhile, their user base is plummeting, and the burn rate is hotter than a vindaloo. The motion of looking like a disruptor has completely overshadowed the actual progress of building a sustainable business.

 

Indians have elevated this to an art form. We don’t just do motion; we add masala, drama, and a heavy dose of “Main kitna vyast hoon!” (See how busy I am!).

The Endless Chai-Pani Meeting:We’ve all been in them. Three hours. Four cups of cutting chai. A packet of Glucose biscuits. Fervent discussions on “strategy,” “synergy,” and “low-hanging fruit.” The motion is the vigorous nodding, the elaborate PowerPoint deck with 50 slides. The progress? The decision to have…another meeting next week to finalize the agenda for the actual decision-making meeting. We mastered Jio’s 4G network but are still stuck on 2G decision-making speeds.

 

Look at the Educational Rat Race: Students moving from school to tuition to coding class to personality development workshop. The motion is frantic, parent-driven, and fueled by FOMO. The progress in actual, deep, conceptual learning? Often sacrificed at the altar of “completing the syllabus” and “test performance.” We’re creating magnificent test-takers, but are we nurturing critical thinkers?

 

Remember Kodak? They had more motion than a Bollywood dance number in the ’90s. Meetings, R&D, film launches. Yet, they slept through digital photography and paid the price. Motion in abundance. Progress? Missing reel.

 

They were once the tuxedo-clad darling of Wall Street bros. Emails, BBM, the works. They kept moving… in the wrong direction. While Apple whispered, “Think different,” BlackBerry shouted, “We’re secure!” until they secured themselves into oblivion.

 

The King of Good Times Kingfisher Airlines had planes in the sky, advertisements in every IPL break, and motion enough to make a Formula 1 team jealous. Where did it all land? Nowhere. Because motion ≠ progress.

 

Okay, enough diagnosis. Let’s talk prescription. How do you stop being a headless chicken and start being a guided missile?

 

The Daily “So What?” Interrogation: At the end of every task, every meeting, ask this brutal question: “So what?” What changed because of the last hour I spent? If the answer is “I answered emails,” that’s motion. If the answer is “I clarified the project deadline with the client, unblocking my team,”that’s progress.

 

Outcome-First Planning:  Don’t start your day by asking, “What do I need to do today?” Start by asking, “What do I need to accomplish today?” The first question generates a to-do list (motion). The second defines a destination (progress). Plan your day backwards from that outcome.

 

Embrace Strategic Stillness: This is the ultimate power move. Schedule 30-60 minutes of absolute nothingness in your calendar. No meetings, no emails. Just thinking. Staring out the window. Connecting dots. This isn’t inactivity; it’s the highest form of strategic activity. It’s the silence between the musical notes that creates the symphony. Motion is noise. Progress often comes from the quiet.

 

As some wise soul remarked “the best ideas come during periods of slack, not during the tyranny of a hustle “ .

The world will never stop rewarding motion. It’s visible, it’s easy to praise, and it makes for great storytelling.

But progress is a quieter, more brutal master. It doesn’t care how busy you were. It doesn’t care how many meetings you attended. It only asks one question: Did you move the needle?

You can spend a lifetime perfecting the motion of swimming—the perfect stroke, the branded goggles, the high-tech swimsuit—while never actually jumping into the water.

Stop swimming in the shallow end of activity. Dive into the deep end of achievement.

The treadmill is waiting. Will you get off and actually go somewhere?

 

Progress is when your motion has direction, design, and discernment. It’s Apple taking the iPod and evolving it into the iPhone (that little pocket monster ate entire industries). It’s Infosys shifting from coding coolie work to being a trusted global partner for transformation. It’s Amul making farmers millionaires while selling butter with wit. Progress wrapped in dairy brilliance.

 

Some actionable intelligence( might be worth taking to the bank?😊):

 

Stop mistaking activity for achievement. A calendar full of Zoom calls is not proof of impact. It’s proof of bad calendar hygiene.

 

Ask the Kodak Question: Are we working hard on something the world has already moved past?

 

Design friction with intention: Progress doesn’t come from endless speed. Sometimes stopping, thinking, and questioning is the real accelerator.

 

Measure outcomes, not output: If your campaign gets 10 million impressions but nobody remembers your brand tomorrow, congratulations—you’ve just sprinted on a treadmill.

 

The world doesn’t remember the people who ran around in circles. It remembers those who chose a direction, moved with meaning, and redefined the game.

 

So, step off the wheel. Aim, then move. Because running nowhere fast is still going nowhere.

 

First, a walkthrough to understand why yesterday’s revolutionary breakthroughs( well, most) are today’s expensive paperweight.

 

Hype is the business world’s equivalent of a sugar rush. It’s loud, it’s immediate, and it makes everyone feel invincible—until the inevitable crash. Hype thrives on:

 

• FOMO (Fear of Missing Out): Everyone’s doing it, so it must be right!
• Complexity masquerading as innovation: More buzzwords = more revolutionary, right?
• Short-term thinking: Quarter-to-quarter hustling with no long-term vision
• Social proof over substance: A million followers can’t be wrong…or can they?

 

Quality, on the other hand, is like compound interest for your reputation. It’s quiet, consistent, and seemingly boring—until one day you wake up and realize you’re unstoppable. Quality is built on:

 

• Solving real problems: Not creating solutions looking for problems
• Consistency over time: Showing up every single day, especially when no one’s watching
• Substance over style: Making things work better, not just look better
• Long-term thinking: Building for decades, not just the next earnings call

Throwback in time to quarter of a century ago( 2000-2001) when every company with “.com” in its name was automatically worth billions? Pets.com had a Super Bowl ad and burned through $300 million in 2 years. Webvan promised to revolutionize grocery delivery and collapsed with $1.2 billion in losses.

 

But who survived? Amazon. While everyone mocked Jeff Bezos for not turning a profit, he was obsessively focused on customer experience and long-term infrastructure. Today? Amazon is worth over $1 trillion.

 

The lesson: While others were busy explaining why traditional business metrics didn’t apply to the “new economy,” Amazon was quietly building the foundation that would outlast every hype cycle.

 

India was minting unicorns faster than the RBI could print rupees. Byju’s was valued at $22 billion, promising to revolutionize education. Paytm had the largest IPO in Indian history. Everyone was a startup guru, and funding rounds were announced like cricket scores.

 

The reckoning: Byju’s is now struggling with investigations and massive layoffs. Paytm’s stock price? Let’s just say early investors learned some expensive lessons about the difference between hype and fundamentals.

 

But what thrived? Companies like Zoho, which quietly built world-class software without external funding drama. Infosys and TCS, which focused on consistent delivery and client satisfaction over flashy valuations.

 

Hype peaks and crashes. Quality compounds. Every day you choose quality over shortcuts, you’re making a deposit in a bank account that pays exponential interest. So, what is the CTA: Create a Quality Calendar. Every day, do one small thing that improves your product, service, or process—even if no one notices. Document it. Review after 90 days.

 

Hype focuses on getting customers. Quality focuses on keeping them. If your customers would genuinely miss you if you disappeared tomorrow, you’ve built something of quality. So, what is the CTA: Survey your customers with one question: “If we shut down tomorrow, what would you miss most?” If the answers are generic or focused on price, you have work to do.

 

Can your business thrive without media coverage, influencer endorsements, or viral moments? Quality businesses can. They grow through word-of-mouth, referrals, and results—not press releases. So, what is the CTA: Go 30 days without any promotional content. Focus entirely on improving your core offering. Measure what happens to your metrics.

 

Every generation thinks they’ve discovered the secret shortcut to success. The truth? The only shortcut is to stop looking for shortcuts and start building something people actually need.

 

We have some stunning examples to look at. WeWork taught us that “community” can’t paper over terrible unit economics. Theranos showed us that charisma can’t replace actual science. FTX proved that “disruption” without integrity is just fraud with better marketing. The Satyam scandal in India proved that financial engineering can’t replace operational excellence. Multiple startup failures showed that burning investor money isn’t a business model.

 

Quality is the muscle that never atrophies. After a 2011 earthquake, Toyota evolved. They didn’t just make cars faster; they started prepping for unforeseen disasters, keeping quality at the core, constantly learning and improving, empowering every floor worker. Their Kaizen philosophy is now a global religion for manufacturers.

 

When was the last time a viral TikTok hotel upstart dethroned Ritz-Carlton’s tourist royalty or customer loyalty? Never. Because Ritz Carlton doesn’t just optimize service speeds or metrics. They tattoo Gold Standards into every employee and continuously iterate service excellence. The result: insane customer loyalty and industry benchmarks everyone else just dreams of matching.

 

Iconic Indian brand Amul  didn’t win by churning more butter. They won hearts by injecting imagination into every ad, every product twist — turning a commodity into a cultural movement.

 

Apple didn’t outdo the market with a better phone. They reimagined communication. Tesla? Not obsessed with output. They redefined mobility, persistence married to bold imagination.

 

These Indian brands viz boAt, Phool.co, Paper Boat turned everyday products — earphones, temple waste, nostalgia drinks respectively— into lifestyle assets. Quality, persistence, and provocative imagination outlasted every imitation and hype-fueled copycat.

 

True competitive advantage comes from imagination, not mere R&D budgets. Ask ” Are you stuck measuring outputs, or are you catalyzing breakthroughs?” If your innovation is more PowerPoint than product, you’re powerpointing, not innovating.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, gather ’round for the greatest show on earth: The Technology Hype Cycle! It’s more predictable than a Bollywood movie plot and more entertaining than watching your uncle explain NFTs at family dinner.

 

Act 1: “This will change EVERYTHING!” (Peak of Inflated Expectations)
Act 2: “Wait, this is harder than we thought…” (Trough of Disillusionment)
Act 3: “Oh, this actually works when we use it properly.” (Plateau of Productivity)

 

The Gartner Hype Cycle isn’t just a business framework—it’s a mirror reflecting our collective inability to learn from the last time we got excited about the next big thing. It’s like watching the same movie over and over, except the actors change costumes and we pretend it’s a sequel.

 

Hype is like candy floss—looks voluminous, tastes sweet, disappears in a gulp. Quality? That’s the granite rock your grandchildren will still stumble on 50 years later.

 

We live in an age where hype has more hashtags than common sense. Influencers scream limited edition! and suddenly, we’re fighting over sneakers as if Nike will stop making shoes tomorrow. Tech bros pitch world-changing apps that end up changing… precisely nothing.

 

But here’s the truth: Hype erodes. Quality persists. Hype may get you noticed. Quality keeps you remembered.

 

Albert Einstein allegedly called compound interest the eighth wonder of the world. Quality works the same way. Every day you choose substance over style, you’re making a deposit that will pay dividends for decades.

 

Some ground rules if you may as I sign off:

 

1. Build for longevity, not virality.
2. Let quality do the marketing.
3. Consistency > campaigns.
4. Hype = side dish. Quality = main course.

 

Brands that confuse the two end up like one-hit Bollywood wonders—great for that wedding DJ playlist, but forgotten when the lights go off.
Think PSLV from ISRO—no chest-thumping PR, no firework ads. Just quiet launches, mission after mission, success after success. Try competing with that credibility.

 

If hype is oxygen, quality is gravity. Guess which one will keep you grounded? So, Don’t chase the noise. Create the echo.

 

Hemingway wrote stories in 6 words. Your business model should be equally clear. If you need buzzwords, jargon, and 20-slide decks to explain why you matter, you probably don’t. Quality speaks for itself. Usually in whispers that last decades.

 

Here’s to the companies that never went viral but never went away. To the businesses that chose customers over coverage, substance over spectacle, and results over rhetoric.

 

Here’s to understanding that the Gartner Hype Cycle isn’t a ladder to climb—it’s a warning system to heed.

 

In a world where yesterday’s revolution becomes tomorrow’s reminder of our gullibility, quality is the only revolution that never gets overthrown.

 

So raise your vintage glass (probably made by a company that’s been around for 100 years) and toast to this eternal truth: Hype erodes. Quality persists. And wisdom never goes out of style.

 

 

Tired of brands screaming “BUY NOW” with forced smiles and cringe-worthy jingles? What if the real magic happens when marketing makes you feel—not just feel good?

 

Feeling bombarded by emotional ads? Ever wondered why some commercials tug at your heartstrings while others just make you roll your eyes?

 

In a world where consumers smell inauthenticity from three time zones away, SADvertising could be bad marketing – or it can be brand suicide in slow motion. But here’s the plot twist: understanding what makes advertising emotionally bankrupt is your secret weapon to creating campaigns that actually connect.

 

From award-chasing tearjerkers to campaigns that mistake “viral” for “valuable,” we’re decoding how brands can go from sad to soulful.

 

This issue of SOHB (State of the Heart Branding) Story👇, the Knewsletter by ISD Global, is where we dissect #SADVERTISING—the art of stirring souls, sparking brains, and (yes) selling smarter with a dash of melancholy, wit, and raw human truth.

 

For Marketers:Insight that’s actually insightful.

For Storytellers:Proof that drama = dollars (when done right).

For Everyone Else: A guilty pleasure that’s slightly more intellectual than binge-watching soap operas.

 

Read. React. Repeat(Or just forward to your CMO and take credit).

 

Why just watch ads when you can decode their emotional playbook? Whether you’re a marketer, brand strategist, or just love a good laugh about how brands mess with our feelings, this edition of SOHB Story 👆 will spark your imagination and brighten your feed.

 

If you know a marketer who still thinks “edgy” means “offensive” or believes demographics are more important than human decency, do them (and the world) a favor – share this newsletter. Their future campaigns will thank you.

 

Ready to turn SADvertising into GLADvertising in your mind?

 

At one of our recent C Suite Leaders Meet that our organisation ISD Global curates every three to four months both in Dubai and India, a very accomplished and senior leader came up to me and whispered ” Everything here is optimised for output. But nothing here is designed for imagination “. She sounded more than a bit disappointed at the mindset prevalent in her organisation. This came at the end of my fireside chat that I had with brand guru Harish Bijoor where we tossed the conversation around Unmarketable is the New Unforgettable for brands and the need for today’s CEO to be actually a Chief Emotion Officer, at home delivering goosebumps for his customers as much as being on the slippery slope of stakeholder inquiry.

 

Odd as it might sound, but let me tell you there is some science behind this and where it gets scientifically fascinating: companies, like brains, can rewire themselves. But optimisation thinking creates neural pathways that strengthen existing connections. Imagination thinking creates entirely new neural networks.

 

Optimization asks: “How can we do this 10% better?” Imagination asks: “What if this didn’t need to exist at all?”

 

Consider Zoom’s approach during the pandemic. While other video conferencing platforms optimized for enterprise features and security protocols, Zoom imagined a world where a grandmother could host her birthday party with family across six continents—and make it as simple as clicking a link.

 

Result: Zoom became a verb.

 

And why this matters more than ever is because in a world where AI algorithms can churn out mass content, factories can spit out identical products by the million, and quarterly targets devour creativity—output obsession is a disease. Brands that confine themselves to rigid metrics inevitably trade soul for spreadsheets. Meanwhile, those who dare to design for imagination unlock new realms of innovation, emotional connection, and long-term growth.

 

Some of the wake-up calls most of us would instantly identify with include – Remember Kodak? Optimizing output meant cranking out film rolls at scale—but they ignored the imaginative leap into digital photography. Result? Extinction.

 

Or think of Nokia—masters of efficiency and output, they missed the smartphone imagination wave and lost billions.

 

These are cautionary tales screaming: Output without imagination kills relevance.

 

The output trap is where efficiency eats into your soul. Look around. The corporate world is drowning in a sea of sameness. Which is the reason why we get generic mission statements that sound like AI calibrated horoscopes. ” Disruptive” campaigns that disrupt nothing but attention spans. Vanilla branding that blends into the background like elevator music

 

Amul succeeded not because they churned out more butter faster but by injecting imagination into every ad, every product tweak, every community initiative—turning a brand into a cultural ethos.

 

Apple famously trades incremental output for revolutionary products. The iPhone wasn’t about producing a better phone faster; it was about reimagining communication itself.

 

Tesla does not obsess over conventional car production volumes; it fuels imagination to redefine electric mobility and energy storage.

 

Zomato evolved from being a delivery app optimized for output to a lifestyle ecosystem designed with imaginative user experiences and hyper-personalization.

 

Let us not overlook the fact that mediocrity is fully booked.

 

If the word “innovation” shows up more on your PowerPoint than it does in your product or process — you’re not innovating. You’re powerpointing.

 

And if your team spends more time measuring performance than imagining possibility, then congratulations — you’re in the business of producing outputs, not creating breakthroughs.

 

Imagination doesn’t need a massive R&D budget. It needs audacity, permission, and a healthy disrespect for “the way things have always been done.”

 

Output is Linear. Imagination is Liminal.

 

Zerodha reimagined stockbroking from a geek’s garage. boAt turned earphones into fashion statements. Phool.co turns temple waste into luxury incense and leather substitutes. Paper Boat imagined nostalgia as a drinkable asset class. Netflix designed for imagination. Airbnb imagined homes without hospitality degrees. Patagonia imagines capitalism with conscience.

 

Permit me a bit of purposeful provocation here. As a brand or organisation do you punish failures or reward bold hypothesis?  Are your processes designed to sustain status quo or provoke surprise?

 

Imagination is a strategy and dare I add, the next big competitive advantage.

 

In a world where AI can optimise faster than any human, your only unfair advantage is imagination. You don’t outspend your competition. You out-dream them. You don’t outproduce the market. You outimagine it.

 

In the see-saw between output and imagination, imagine what the iconic management guru Tom Peters would have asked us to accomplish: KPIs & OKRs to Wild Cards and What Ifs; ROI(Return on Investment) to ROE(Return on Enchantment); Design Thinking Workshops to Design Thinking Retreats; Customer Feedback to Customer Daydreams; Market Fit to Meaning Fit; Productivity tools to Possibilities Jam.

 

Cross-Pollinate Ideas aka Borrow from other industries, cultures, even failures, to spark imagination.

 

Some food for torque to unleash imagination. Do Nothing, Pause for Thoughtlessness. If your calendar has no white space, your mind has no blue sky. Accept that fact that the boardroom can accommodate fiction. Let leaders read and pitch sci-fi ideas. Do you think Metaverse was born from an Excel Sheet? Turn hierarchy on its head. Let interns and juniors break your business model. Calibrate an imagination budget– no ROI expected. Only ROFL| WTF & OMG.

 

 

We should forever be asking: What’s Your Brand’s ROE – Return on Enchantment? Because while you are busy measuring output, the world is actually seeking awe.  Because the question isn’t how much output you can produce. It’s how much wonder you can unleash.

 

And as we conclude, some truth be told, inconvenient as it may seem:

 

If you’re hiring only for skill, not for curiosity, you’re building a robot farm.

 

If your brainstorms are just “action items in disguise,” call them what they are: meetathons.

 

If your brand decks use more words like “scale” than “soul,” you’re scaling sameness.

 

In conclusion, here’s the core provocation: “Are you Optimising for Output or Designing for Imagination?” Ready to torch some tired templates? Let’s go.

 

 

 

It is said that the more confused a brand’s positioning, the bigger the star on the payroll. Some marketers use celebrities the way bad students use last-minute tutors: hoping to pass without learning anything. A lot of brands today don’t build trust — they borrow it from celebrities, hoping the glitter will cover up the rot. You might as well be asking “If your brand needs a celebrity to speak for it, maybe your brand has nothing to say “.

 

It would appear that Celebrity Brand Endorsements are the ultimate Cop-Out? And many marketers treat celebrities like Swiss Army knives: a one-size-fits-all shortcut to awareness, aspiration, and acceptance. That said, what gets overlooked are the kickers: It doesn’t guarantee sales.(Ask Pepsi when they lost to Coke in blind tests — with more stars in their ads.). It doesn’t build loyalty. (Fans of Alia Bhatt don’t become loyal to every shampoo she endorses). It doesn’t replace strategy. (Bad product? Bad experience? Even Big B or George Clooney can’t save you).

 

So why do we do it? Because insecurity sells. Because boardrooms love celebrity selfies. Because marketers are often too scared to let the product speak. Or worse — the product has nothing worth saying.

 

From Brylcreem riding the wave of erstwhile England cricketer Dennis Compton’s suave in the 1950s to Tide Pods needing no celebrity because stupidity went viral organically, the use of celebrity brand endorsers is as old as the advertising game itself.

 

India’s tryst with this madness began earnestly with the likes of Kapil Dev for Palmolive (“Palmolive da jawab nahin”), and Hema Malini for Kent RO. Globally, Michael Jordan was Nike. Until Tiger Woods wasn’t anymore.

 

The idea? Fame is transferable. If people love them, they’ll love us.
The reality? They might love them so much, they’ll forget you were even in the ad.

 

Quite a few brands have tasted the Slam Dunk of Celebrity Branding success. Namely: Nike + Michael Jordan = Air Royalty . Not just an endorsement. A co-creation. A mythology. Jordan didn’t just sell shoes — he launched a culture. When Nike signed a rookie basketball player named Michael Jordan in 1984 for what seemed like an astronomical $500,000 plus equity deal, competitors laughed. Today, Jordan Brand generates over $5 billion annually for Nike. Sometimes the suits get it spectacularly right.

 

George Foreman & His Grill: The Knockout That Kept Giving : The former heavyweight champion turned his post-boxing career into a $200 million payday by lending his name to a countertop grill. Foreman reportedly earned more from his grill endorsement than his entire boxing career. Now that’s what you call a comeback story.

 

David Beckham: The Man Who Made Everything Golden: From Pepsi to H&M, Beckham’s endorsement portfolio reads like a masterclass in personal branding. His lifetime deal with Adidas reportedly exceeds $160 million, proving that sometimes pretty faces come with pretty impressive price tags.

 

Virat Kohli & MRF: When Cricket Meets Commerce : Kohli’s MRF deal reportedly fetches him ₹8 crores annually, making him one of the highest-paid cricket endorsers globally. The bat sticker that launched a thousand brand partnerships.

 

Pepsi + Every Pop Star Ever. Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, SRK, Beyoncé — Pepsi didn’t just sell cola, they sold cool. For a while, at least. Ranveer Singh + Thums Up. Kinetic energy meets an effervescent brand. The match felt like a wrestling tag team, not a forced arranged marriage.

 

Is Celebrity Brand Endorsement Worth It? Yes, if:  The star actually aligns with the brand (Roger Federer + Rolex = class).  And, the campaign is creative, not just a famous face reading a script.

 

For all those basking in glory cases, let’s take a look at some of the high stakes’ mishaps to have traveled on the Celebrity Endorsement gravy train.

 

Tiger Woods: The $22 Million Meltdown: When Tiger’s personal life imploded in 2009, brands fled faster than golf balls off his driver. Nike stuck around, but others like Gatorade, AT&T, and Accenture cut ties immediately. Total estimated losses? Over $22 million in endorsement deals.

 

Lance Armstrong: The Lie That Kept Cycling:  Armstrong’s doping scandal didn’t just strip him of Tour de France titles; it obliterated endorsement deals worth over $75 million. Nike alone lost an estimated $30 million when they terminated his contract.

 

Kanye West: The Tweet That Broke the Bank :Kanyye’s anti-Semitic comments in 2022 cost him deals with Adidas (worth $1.5 billion), Gap, and Balenciaga faster than you can say “canceled.” Sometimes, even billions can’t buy you back from brand toxicity.

 

The Maggi-Amitabh Bachchan Controversy: When Maggi faced the lead contamination crisis, even the Big B’s legendary status couldn’t save the noodles from a nationwide ban. Sometimes, not even megastars can digest a PR disaster.

 

Pierce Brosnan + Pan Bahar: Bond. Mouth Bond. When 007 endorsed a chewing tobacco brand and later claimed he was duped. So were we, Brosnan. So were we.

 

MS Dhoni + Amrapali Realty: The cricketer’s image was soiled by a real estate scam. Lesson: If your house isn’t in order, don’t be in housing.

 

The assumption is this: if a star is seen with your brand, visibility shoots up. Sure. But what about believability?

 

Would you trust Virat Kohli pitching for an SUV when he’s never spotted without a Range Rover and a personal driver?

Do we really think Katrina Kaif uses Veet herself?

 

Great celebrity brand endorsements aren’t just about visibility. They’re about fit. Authenticity. Brand DNA alignment.

 

But that takes effort. So we go lazy. And expensive. Here’s the hard truth: it’s often a shortcut, but not always an easy one. Mass brands—under pressure to stand out in overcrowded categories—crave the dopamine shot of a celebrity handshake. Yet, relying on celebrity sizzle without a solid brand proposition? That’s lazy marketing. Instead of sweating over creative differentiation, some marketers just write a big cheque hoping fame will fix flaws.

 

“Endorsement is tempting because it’s easy to buy attention, but you can’t buy authenticity—or consumer trust—so easily “.

 

So, next time you see a celeb waxing eloquent about breakfast cereals or cement, ask yourself: is the brand making a smart move—or just riding celebrity coattails down the yellow-brick road of lazy marketing? Shine on, but watch your step—the spotlight is always burning.

 

In summary, some food for thought?

 

Fame is rented. Brand equity is earned. A great product doesn’t need a godfather. Just a story worth telling. If the celebrity outshines the brand, you’re paying for their brand building, not yours. Don’t mistake recall for relevance. Believability is the new celebrity. Authenticity is the new aspiration. Co-creation > Endorsement. Jordan didn’t just promote Nike, he became it.

 

And before we sign off, what could be the solid alternatives to Celebrity Worship by brands? Lets explore:

 

Creators with authentic clout(Real influence > star power). Customers as ambassadors(Nothing sells like shared experience). Founders with story & soul (Think Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, or even Byju until reality struck). Staff with purpose(Patagonia’s staff stories are more powerful than any celebrity).

 

So, if you really want people to stay with your brand? Build with story, furnish with emotion, and light it with truth.

 

Because when the spotlight moves on, the only thing left standing… is your brand’s soul.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember when cavemen gathered around fires, sharing stories that bonded them for life? That wasn’t just happy social hour—that was the world’s first branding masterclass.

 

If your brand makes sense, great. If your brand makes believers, unstoppable.

 

Forget eyeballs. Find soulmates.

 

Brands are out there playing the dating(bribing?)game with consumers—swiping right with offers, winks, jingles, and discounts. But here’s the deal: People don’t want to be “targeted.” They want to belong.

 

Enter Tribal Branding.

 

This isn’t about demographics. It’s about psychographics. It’s not about how your product looks. It’s about what your tribe feels when they see it, touch it, wear it, scream it, tattoo it.

 

From Apple to Harley, Starbucks to Nike, Patagonia to Manchester United, Beyonce to SRK— Tribes don’t follow brands. They carry them on their backs.

 

In this edition of SOHB Story👇 by ISD Global, we decode why brands built on communities crush those built on commodities. How tribal rituals, language, myths, enemies, and symbols create irrational love and eternal loyalty.

And why if you’re not building a tribe, you’re just building traffic. Because, there’s no middle ground in the attention economy.

 

This is your brand’s new religion. And no, this one won’t need an ad budget to go viral.

 

This edition of SOHB Story (State of the Heart Branding)👆 by ISD Global isn’t another marketing playbook gathering digital dust. It’s your tribal manifesto—a deep dive into why Harley riders would rather walk than drive a Honda, why Apple users defend their choice with religious fervor, and why Nike customers don’t just wear shoes—they wear battle armor.

 

Because in a world of infinite choices( or the Sea of Sameness), belonging isn’t just powerful—it’s profitable.

 

Nike spends $3.2 billion annually on marketing. But their most powerful advertisement? The unpaid testimonials from customers who’d rather run barefoot than wear Adidas or any other competing brand. That’s not marketing—that’s tribal warfare.

 

Every marketing guru tells you to ‘know your customer.’ Here’s what they don’t tell you: Your customer doesn’t want to be known. They want to belong. There’s a difference that’s worth billions. Probably trillions.

 

In the early 90’s, owning a computer made you a geek. In 2005, owning an iPhone made you an early adopter. In 2025, building a tribe makes you a category king. The question is: Are you building one?

 

Our team at ISD Global after analyzing 500+ global brands, distilled one one pattern that emerged front and centre: The most profitable companies aren’t the best at marketing—they’re the best at meaning-making.

 

Brand loyalty isn’t about satisfaction scores anymore. It’s about tribal affiliation.

 

Let’s understand what Tribal Branding is NOT : Ads | Offers | Outreach

 

What Tribal Branding IS: Rites | Rituals | Symbols | Enemies | And yes, a reason to belong

 

Build temples, not billboards. Create chants, not campaigns. Spark fire, not frequency. Stand for something. Loudly.

 

You must tribe before you vibe.