Tag: Culture

Can You Pull Off Modesty as a Social Strategy?

‘Modesty’
Modesty is showing restraint in the appreciation of oneself and of one’s qualities.
In literature, modesty is unpretentiousness in the expression of feelings.
Modesty is the color of virtue.
There are several explanations going around but the above is a reasonable summa summarum of what modesty is. We get the message.
Impressions matter in life. Whether it’s a client meeting, an office get together, a first date, a job interview, how others perceive us, can define or destroy our goals. That being said, in a team setting where cooperation and collaboration is the rote, display of luxury items be it watches, bags, shoes, cars or any such could actually be a party pooper. Especially if they are done with the intent to enhance and communicate social status.
Recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ( Deborah Small | Alixandra Barasch | Shalena Srna) says that when an individual uses luxury goods, the person is perceived as someone out to boost his|her own social value and hence selfish and a poor team player. As a result, they are less likely to inspire cooperation or be chosen by others for their teams. By contrast, in competitive situations, the same ostentatious person is often favored over more modest rivals.
Yes, The Devil indeed wears Prada. ‘ Conspicuous consumption ‘ was a term coined by Sociologist Thorstein Veblen in 1899 to describe people acquiring luxury goods and services not just for their superior quality but also as a visible sign of their wealth and status. 
Status is a potent weapon for determining and influencing consumer behavior and the pursuit of status is highly valued in cultures that are characterized by hierarchy and tradition. This is the consumer insight that is leveraged by brands like Louis Vuitton or Burberry and the insignia display of LV or the Plaid is used unabashedly. Ostentatious consumers tend to be seen as more arrogant, less warm, and even less moral. The Devil Wears Prada is fictional but the association between luxury spenders and emotional frostiness is very real.
Context has a big role to play here. Name dropping, fancy clothes etc would be helpful in winning negotiations but where teamwork and cooperation is the call of the hour, modesty is a better approach.

The same Sociologist Veblen also coined the term ” conspicuous compassion “. Status signalling is not just about overtly displaying wealth or career success. It can come in the form of green credentials, altruism, being a rebel or a contrarian, or being cool, depending on which circle you are seen in and want to influence. 

Being sincerely modest is not easy, because there is a great temptation to fall into falsehood. The playwright Prosper Jolyot de Crais-Billon (1707-1777) said: “Of all the virtues, the one which, in the world, always seemed to me to succeed least to the one who practices it, is modesty.” While the poet Pierre Reverdy (1889-1960) added: “The best thing about modesty is the intelligence that must be deployed to stick to it“.
There is a very close link between modesty and humility, but the line is a fine one. It would be tempting to see modesty only as a social convention, while humility would be truth in itself.
So, if status signaling is the intent, pay attention to context. Modesty Blaise anyone?
Tempted to offer a link here to an old article from BrandKnew on “ The Braggart’s Dilemma: How to Promote Yourself Without Being a Jerk “.
ENDS

Margins can be profitable!

Margin is the space between our load and our limits– Robert Swenson

 

Remember, back in the day, when writing on paper was a salve and stylus and laptops were not as omnipresent as they are now, we would fold the foolscap paper from the left by an inch or so and offer it a margin ( I would never get it in a straight line but I always made an effort). It was the signal where to start off from and give our articulation some space before it began. The fold mark remained conspicuous and so did our writing, in most cases.

 

As you play your vinyl, you are happy to hear the reassuring hiss between the end of one song and the beginning of the next. Building expectation. It happens as credits roll as a comforting precursor to the constitution that is the movie that is about to begin. All of our media has margins. A space between what we are consumed with and the rest of the world.

 

As Christa Sterken put it, the best things in life are written in the margins. White space has the calming, soothing effect that a Hoover agnostic mind and life are not letting us. The white space serves us an offering to think outside of the confines of the text. Like a visual and a mental break.

 

Imagine books or magazines or newspapers. Think of how difficult it would be to read if the words were to be taken completely to each edge of the paper. Paintings have a frame, or a wall separating them from the next.

 

Margin is having the pace and space in your day to allow real life to happen. The margins are where you will find yourself. The honesty, the integrity, the real friends, the relationships that last a lifetime through good and bad.

 

As the inimitable Seth Godin puts it ” The self-discipline to see the margin and use it as a tool is a gift we offer the consumer of culture “.

 

Living in the margins will not make you marginalized. On the contrary, that probably is where the you-er or even the you-est ( the best version of you) in you will come to the fore.

 

ENDS

 

Distress Sail!

Apparently, there is ” Wisdom of the Crowds “..” A Collective Bias “.

 

Though not sure with wisdom and bias– can the twain meet?

 

Since decades, marketers and politicians have been working to exaggerate cultural distress, a hack on our emotions.

 

Mind you, it’s not about the emotional distress of not having a roof, or not being able to care for your kids or deal with trauma..
..but the manufactured cultural distress of ‘ modern advanced societies ‘.
Like the invented shame of not having the latest smartphone or a new suit for the party..
It’s the dissatisfaction of knowing that something ‘better’ is available, and the invented discontent that comes from the peer pressure of being left out or left behind.
A vocabulary called FOMO(Fear of Missing Out) – like the social shame of not having enough presence on social media..
or the FOMO that watching other people presenting nothing but happiness online can create..
Fear of this sort of cultural distress pushes us to simply spend money to avoid it..Making a budget is hard, paying for not making one is easy.
It turns out that selling an easy and convenient way to avoid social pain is a nearly boundless formula for corporate growth..
We humans are always going to find moments of cultural distress, and it’s up to each of us to decide what to trade (in the short run and the long run) to deal with it.
Perhaps it makes sense simply to acknowledge that it’s present. That would be a good starting point, isn’t it?
People like us do things like this..ready, steady..set sail!

AWEptimism V PAUSEmism

Ideally, conventional phonetics would have called this out as Optimism V Pessimism. That being said, ideal is only wishful thinking. Better get used to shock and awe.

 

A posture. A stance. A position. About what to expect.

 

A response(or reaction) to external events or triggers.

 

Sensing the reality on the ground, an obligation to make a decision based on what to expect.
That does not though explain why different people, similarly informed, adopt an optimistic mood or a pessimistic one.
In fact, that mood is a choice. And it’s one that determines how we will behave.
Optimism is a tool that permits us to solve problems more effectively. If used wisely, it brings enthusiasm, inspiration and hope to projects that benefit from them.
And pessimism(believe it or not) is a tool as well– it can help you with budgeting, scheduling and other projects. If it works for you, that’s great.
Choose your tools wisely. 

That said, either mood will lead to misguided energy and poor decisions.

But if we can be thoughtful about optimism as a tactic, the focus and energy it brings can solve problems that others might simply walk away from. Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

 

Our pessimism might not be an accurate diagnosis of the past. Baggage carried forward. It might simply be a way we’re using to produce a future we’re not happy with.

 

“What people forget is a journey to nowhere starts with a single step, too.”

 

BEGINS

 

 

 

 

 

Branding Matters. Because, Branding Matters!

Branding:  The peculiar art and science of distilling something* down to its essence and giving it physical shape.

( *usually a product, place, service, or person).

Brands continue to shape humanity in ever more fundamental ways- even those who don’t torment ourselves over logos, typography and the message like some of us do.

Brands connect us, just as they drive us apart.

At a time when it seems increasingly difficult to rely on our elected leaders, when virus and violence remind us of our shared mortality and required humility, we need to focus on brands that bring us together.

Branding is a tool.

All of us use it.

Most use it in public.

Many use it for profit.

Some use it for power.

It is rarely used in private.

Humanity is a web.

It is a complex, intricately woven structure of cultures, races, and genders. A patchwork of beliefs, histories, world views and identities. A quilt of sublime beauty and unimaginable horror.

We are all part of one species, sharing one planet. And we inhabit a world in which any of our individual actions- what we buy, what we eat, what news we share, how we travel, what we throw away- affect everything else.

Everyone of us has a place. We all have a role to play. Most of us want to make the world a better place for ourselves, our neighbors, and our children.

In some shape or form, we all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves.

We all want to belong.

Branding used to be about ownership– about what belongs to us. Branding was about marking one’s possessions in public.

At some point, we discovered that the purchase, use, consumption (or even wasting) of a product could serve as a reflection of our worldview- our status.

Caviar | The Automobile | Champagne | Fur Coats | Beaver Hats

We have transitioned from wearing pelts for survival to wearing pelts for status. Attaching value to actions and the consciously public display of labels allows us to seek out the like-minded. People like us. Do things like this. The not so subtle art of clanning. The same class. The same wealth. The same team.

Our people. Where we belong.

Was this the moment where we surrendered to the brand?

Brands are the ultimate gatekeepers, trendsetters, and mass mind-shapers. They determine who and what we love, who and what we hate, what gets visibility, and what gets marginalized and buried.

Brands are the foundation of the attention economy; without them, we wouldn’t be debating how much information the human species can realistically process. We wouldn’t be deliberating about how to divide our attention between all the things that require it. Without brands, we would be hopelessly lost.

Without brands, would we be free?

Brands mark our status, signify our value, and let us broadcast to the world:

” This is who I Am “.

Consciously, unconsciously- possibly in permanent denial- we are living in a mega-branded reality in which the gestures, messages, imagery and actions of brands influence us more than we realize. They touch every facet of human life.

” I shop, therefore I am “.

This is how I dress.

This is how I speak.

This is what I do.

This is how I play.

This is how I pray.

This is who I love.

This is what I believe.

” This is who I am “.

Brands have a way of teasing out the best in us. They help us feel attractive, prosperous, and together. They make us feel part of a group, like we belong. They help us maintain optimism about ourselves and the world. Whether it’s flashy new pair of kicks, a new car or a motivating app, brands can dramatically alter our moods, our energy levels, and how we see ourselves.

Caveat: This power though is a double-edged sword.

It is to our benefit that we’re drawn to offerings that help us thrive, succeed, understand ourselves better, and achieve more happiness.

But are we just flaunting what we have got? Living a life of empty materialism and compensating for our insecurities? Or are the brands in our lives serving a deeper purpose, supporting our best possible selves, our strongest relationships, our most viable society?

” Choose your self-presentations carefully, for what starts off as a mask may become your face .”- ERVING GOFFMAN

 

To be continued..

The HURRY Cane in our lives!

Caveat Emptor

I am not making a compelling emotional and spiritual case against hurry and in favor of a slower, simpler way of life- but writing as someone all too familiar with ‘ hurry sickness ‘, I desperately needed this salve. Some of you may as well. Hence taking the liberty.

” Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished “- Unknownymous

” Don’t worry about losing. If it is right, it happens – The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away “— John Steinbeck

Everything which you can conceive and accept is yours! Entertain no doubt.

Most of us seem to miss the wood for the trees in our pursuit of pleasure because of the breathless haste in which we go about, we hurry past it. Irony! As Lily Tomlin beautifully articulated ” The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat”.

Burnout is not a badge of honor. 

 When Marcus Aurelius( Stoic philosopher and Great Roman Emperor from 161 AD to 180 AD) spoke of his own impending and inevitable death, it wasn’t to remind himself to squeeze in as much crap as possible–it wasn’t about picking up the pace. It was to remind himself of what was important, of the standard to which he needed to hold himself. He said, “Do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your life.” That is: Do it right. Not do it as quickly as possible so you can say it’s complete.

Yes, it’s true, we will die. It could be tomorrow, or it could be fifty years from now. Which is why this very moment is so important. And why we can’t let anyone rush us through it.

You’re in a hurry. To get to the office. To get through this meeting. To get to the restaurant. To get the kids in bed. To get to go on your vacation. We rush because we have somewhere to go, something we want to do more, stuff we want to get over with.

But it’s worth asking, as the Stoics did, what were we really rushing through? And what we are doing it at the expense of the present moment. We tell ourselves that the future—the thing we are after—will be better. But the truth is, it’s not guaranteed. The only thing for sure is now. What is lived we never get back. We are dying every minute, every second. When we hurry we are speeding that along.

That’s the purpose of memento mori—”remember that you will die.” It’s purpose is to make you slow down. To not rush through this moment but to exist in it. To be present for it. Even if it is mundane. Even if there is something else you’d rather be doing, even if what may come next is likely better.

The practice of memento mori has the profound potential to wake us up and breathe more life into our lives. The whole culture is telling us to hurry while the art tells us take your time. Listen to the art. And the heart.

Patience doesn’t mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that’s unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with— Sharon Salzberg

Time for us to slow down. Or the other option is to Hurry up and wait 😄 !

Sorry got to go. The next ‘ shiny object ‘ beckons. And I am all taken in by the ‘ thrill of the chase ‘ and the potential ‘ after glow ‘.

It’s worrying..or hurrying???

ENDS

BEYOND ADVERTISING-3

This is the last part of the ” Beyond Advertising ” trilogy. The previous two can be accessed @

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business-technology-review/beyond-advertising

https://www.khaleejtimes.com/business-technology-review/beyond-advertising-2

A Compelling Picture: Our Intended Audience of The Present | Future

As Alicia prepares for bed, she surveys her apartment. She is very conscious of what she buys and why. She buys things with meaning. While she sees less traditional advertising than she used to, she is more engaged with the ads she views. She can connect her purchases to strong creative content created by brands or co-created by brand fans. Though she is exposed to a lot of targeted ads, she feels she is in control of what content she sees. She accepts new brands warily and rarely with a direct entreaty from the advertiser. Instead, she relies on peers and trusted sources for her introductions. She wants brands to challenge her, understand her, inspire her through their content. She seeks stories that move her, excite her, delight her.

Given this scenario, all brands should be asking ” How can we engage Alicia and others like her today?”. When consumers have endless choices of content and screens, plus endless access to information and insights, why should they stop to listen to your message? For every technology designed to interrupt a media experience or a search for information, people will find a way to block, skip or ignore it. And if the interruption is egregious, be prepared to hear it from empowered customers.

Geography is History

I believe that great brands are ” business strategy brought to life “, and deliver a seamless experience across product and service, physical spaces and places, internal culture and communications. Brands like Apple have already set customer expectations and it doesn’t matter if you are a bank, a business consultancy, a retailer or a hotel chain, the message is simple: join up!

A continued focus on a narrow notion of what is currently within the purview of advertising and marketing will threaten the life of a brand and the organisation. Brands are expected to provide the seamless experience that people are taught to expect by each day’s new technology-enabled and insight inspired pace setters. Even the notion of ‘ omnichannel ‘, which is currently limited more to the realm of retail, will work within a larger ecosystem as retail and advertising undergo a fusion.

Divergence to Convergence

In order to reach, serve and stay connected with people in comprehensive, effective ways, advertising’s scope must go beyond its traditional reach to encompass the entire firm. The boundaries between external and internal touchpoints are blurring and will continue to do so. In a convergent world, no person or no touchpoint exists in isolation. Everything is interconnected and interdependent.

Consider the many different ways we now encounter brands on a daily basis- tv, radio, print, online searches, mobile apps, websites, billboards, DOOH ads, branded social media posts, offline and online conversations, personal interactions, web browsing, store design and displays, package design and packaging, conversations with salespeople, in-store promotions. All this is just the ‘ before purchase ‘ exposure followed by interactions with customer service, online help features, surveys, loyalty programs, etc. ‘ post purchase ‘. It is less common for people to encounter advertising head-on. Conversations have become the pathways by which people encounter advertising. 

Something to RAVE(S) about

Most people today think of advertising as an interruption, a distraction, a nuisance, a waste of time. If we could skip or ignore it all, we would. And the lack of creativity is certainly not helping. Advertising as an interruptive act should be gone. Period. As I have been advocating, ” beyond advertising ” could and should be a narrative content that is entertaining, informative, actionable, valuable, value generating and provides an exceptional experience, being a shareworthy story delivered through all touchpoints. It could and should be something to RAVE(S)about:

R: Relevant and Respectful (to Individuals and of Individuals)

A: Actionable (Intuitive & Frictionless)

V: Valuable & Value Generating (Wanted, Needed, Effective)

E: Exceptional Experience (Delight & Inspire)

S: Shareworthy Story (Authentic & Authoritative)

Knock, Knock, the Digital Door

Beyond advertising could and should be something people want and seek out because it provides value. The trouble is nobody opens their digital door to receive an ad. They will, however, invite information across their threshold, if it promises to be of value to them. In the near and not so distant future, the successful advertisers would be those who have stopped treating consumers as many targets, marks, and stats. In an online universe, populated by consumers armed with the desire, the regulatory support, and the technology to be aggressively selective in the choices they make, advertisers will be obliged to treat consumers as decision makers.

Open the Vent: To Relevant

Forrester Research has termed the next few years as ” The Great Race for Relevancy “. New social data with clearer content marking will be interrogated with powerful new algorithms. The movement is from link-based to answers that are algorithmically based, where search engines are computing the right answer. We are already at a point where Google can give direct and accurate answers to questions like: What time is Guess Guess Guess on? Who plays in goal for Manchester City? Who is the favorite to win the next US Presidential election?  What black suits are on sale at Zara?…

Google’s algorithm has improved to the point where it can answer questions that are nuanced, and geo- and time-based. Is the stimulus package working for the economy? Which is Arijit Singh’s best song now? When should I leave to reach Ritz Carlton DIFC by 8 pm?

And very soon, the internet will become an intelligence that will make its current guise seem incredibly dumb and disorganised. We don’t know how we lived without it.

The goal of relevance is to reach specific individuals. General demographics and television time slots no longer cut it when trying to communicate with people who juggle multiple screens and identities (family, work, social roles). Advertisers must get to the basics: Who are you? What are you doing? Where are you? What time is it? Why are you doing it? And how?

Messages relevant to time, location and preferences can be very effective, but they are not sufficient for optimal effectiveness: mood and state of mind must also be taken into consideration, just like the human interaction ” Is this a good time to talk to you about…?”.

Digital media drove a shift in marketers’ budget to ‘ always-on ‘, such as search, display and social. The marketing on-demand world of now and the near future has evolved to be ‘ always relevant ‘. For brands and their agencies, that will require a much more sophisticated and targeted approach to address the ubiquity of touch points so that they can be there at a consumer’s point of need-no matter where or when it is. Massive analytical capabilities invested will help support a brand’s stewardship of their customers information. In short, ads need to answer questions, any time, all the time. 

Don’t find Customers for your Products; Find Products for your Customers

The only asset that gets built online is permission. Permission to talk to people who want to be talked to, delivering, and anticipating personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them and connecting them to one another. That’s all we can build and what we should measure. Not how many people thumbed up some video we made, but instead how many people want to hear from us.

Brands that want to thrive in this space must earn their welcome through the continually refreshed offer of social currency: ideas that people want to share with others.

Next STEPPS

Wharton Professor Jonah Berger in his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, suggests six principles for developing contagious or shareable, ideas based on his research findings using the acronym STEPPS:

S: Social Currency (make it cool to talk about)

T: Triggers (make it top of mind)

E: Emotion (make them feel something)

P: Public (make it visible)

P: Practical Value (make it useful)

S: Stories (make it tell-able)

The worlds of logic and emotions must be married with all the senses and the muses from music to scents, visuals to touch, virtual to reality. Monetary value motivates consumers to purchase, but it won’t necessarily be enough to motivate them to repeat that purchase, or to recommend an object or service to peers.

Questions

What would happen if authentic and creative stories opened channels of communication with people?

How would people feel about brands and advertising?

What financial and social benefits would be afforded employees and shareholders?

How could advertising be ‘ re-defined ‘?

What if advertisers were named POY (Person of the Year) by TIME Magazine for these transformations?

What if we question the intentionality of our choices, the depth of our kindness and our very belonging as a species on this planet?

Creating RAVES advertising through every touchpoint has the potential for achieving this transformation.

Most positively, we are headed inexorably towards a new era of truth. Truth in what products do, truth in how and by who they are made, truth in the opportunity cost of their manufacturer, truth in performance and yes, truth in advertising.

ENDS

Suresh Dinakaran is the Chief Storyteller at branding agency ISD Global, Managing Editor of BrandKnew and Founder, Weeklileaks. Feedback welcome at suresh@groupisd.com

ADVerbatim: Some micro and macro outlooks

The caption of this article is a bit of soft pedaling. I am quite uncomfortable with the word ‘ trends ‘ because it is in more ways than one camouflaging what is called ‘ herd mentality ‘ which leads to the inevitable SOS(Sea of Sameness). And in an increasingly commoditized world, you may be birds of the same feather, but..flocking together ??
Amidst the tempest of pandemic driven uncertainty and disorientation, here’s a crystal ball gaze at some obvious and not so obvious landscapes that the advertising industry could be witness to in the coming months.
– The biggest boycott in history to continue- I am referring to ad blocking– with over 600 million devices in its universe and growing, the wake up alarm has long been sounded for brands, agencies and advertisers. According to Hootsuite, the UAE has close to 40% of ad blocking( countries like Indonesia, India are at over 50%). Research states that one of the primary reasons for ad blocking is too many ads that are irrelevant, annoying and have nothing to do with creativity. Creativity is future proof and the sooner brand guardians get re-sensitized to that, in a pull and engage scenario(as against the widely practiced push and control), the better.
– Unless something dramatic happens, online programmatic advertising is writing its own obituary. Advertisers are being abused blind by adtech ferrets. Research from Media Post concludes that out of the US$200 billion global spend, 70% of advertising dollars spent on online programmatic advertising never touch a human being. In effect, $140 billion disappears in “ad fees, fraud, non-viewable impressions, non-brand-safe placements, and unknown allocations” (by “unknown allocations” you can read “shit that no one can figure out”).
 
– The pandemic brought first-time advertisers to many platforms, especially OOH and DOOH, 2022 will be no different. New categories like Fintech, NFTs, Crypto (with their supporting companies), and Online/E Sports, Wellbeing,EdTech, FoodTech categories will continue to flourish. After the dash for Expo 2020 attention, big opportunities will come to the fore for advertisers courtesy the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
– Advertisers and marketers will need to be as nimble as consumers. The pandemic not only accelerated omnichannel retail but also created hybrid behaviours beyond how we shop. From a mix of virtual and in-person fitness to IRL experiences with digital extensions, how we work, play and live is fluid and consumers expect brands to keep up with the rapid pace. For marketers, that means mapping every consumer touchpoint and applying a collection of insights – location, identity, cross-device, in-person, in-stream, etc. – to creative concepts that earn consumers’ attention while respecting privacy. The agility of marketers to behave as nimbly as consumers will translate into brand loyalty in a rapidly growing hybrid world.
– A largely ignored, under served imperative will come to the fore for marketers and advertisers- Building company culture: The industry never had attrition rates as high as it had in 2021, and we’ve never had as many remote employees either. The Great Resignation continues unabated. Last year, the better organisations focused on retention and put a hyper-focus on recognition. Without in-person interactivity, you have to be so deliberate about your culture, especially during remote work. In the coming times, brands and businesses will put a lot of focus on how they create a culture of retention, diversity and recognition. Creativity will have to make a serious comeback.
 
– For better or for(commerce)verse- Last year we saw a continued acceleration of social with e commerce and sowing of the seeds of ‘ community commerce ‘ glued together by community, creators, shopping and entertainment like never before. In 2022, we’ll see social commerce give way to the “commerceverse” as people begin to move from entertainment to purchase. And as consumers look to build out their environment with virtual goods and experiences, brands will have the opportunity to connect with consumers in a surround-sound way.
 
– Agency In-Housing: The in-housing trend at brands will not go away, but it is in reverse — to a point. Turns out, it’s too expensive, too complicated and too political for many brands to do at any real scale. Especially when so many businesses are trying to wrangle costs, not inflate them, during a global economic downturn. The pandemic’s knock on the economy forced many marketers to live hand-to-mouth and the flexibility offered by agencies proved to be critical to survival.
– Artificial Intelligence will find a greater say in services like copywriting and content generation– especially with tools like GPT 3(Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3) -an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text. It helps instantly generate high quality copy for Email, Ads, Websites, Listings, Blogs & More. Save Time And Money Writing Clever, Original Content And End Writer’s Block Forever is the pitch.
 
– One should have heeded this as a premonition- sometime back the Meaningful Brands study conducted by Havas told us that most people would not care if 74% of all brands disappeared for good. How can brands bridge the gap between apathy and action, particularly with that all-important millennial audience – the biggest generation and the leaders of tomorrow as we collectively take responsibility for getting closer to the UN SDG(Sustainable Development Goals).If we want to change the world, we all have to be involved. All people, of all ages, every brand, no exceptions. Bridging that gap means recognising that brands can be citizens too, with a responsibility to promote, share, create exposure and help to make change. Most importantly, brands can help people to connect to a political process that will make an impact on the world they live in – and that their children will inherit – to act as citizens themselves and not simply as consumers. That is a brand’s role as a citizen – to help consumers be citizens too.
 
To quote Woody Allen, ” 80% of success is just showing up “. There is no better time to create a bright future.
 
– Playing it by ear: While our eyes may be ‘maxxed’ after more than a year of relentless screen time, our ears have bandwidth. Our ears are more reliable curators, opting for human connection and unscripted conversations that podcasts and radio provide. A recent WARC Lion’s Intelligence study showed consumers now spend a third of their media time with audio, but most brands spend less than 10% of their media budget with audio. There is no question brands need to right-size their audio investment. But, getting beyond the spreadsheet and learning how to create a real human conversation with the consumer is the secret to winning with audio. Here’s to more conversations about how brands can get heard and get growth with audio in 2022.
 
– This is how the cookie crumbles:The impending demise of third-party cookies has drastically altered the digital advertising world while simultaneously highlighting how vital first-party data is and will be into the future. For now, first-party and third-party data will continue to exist, and advertisers can maximise this opportunity to run various experiments to ensure they are ready for when third-party cookies are no longer a source of targeting data. Brands that embrace first-party data, contextual advertising, and other third-party data alternatives today will be the industry leaders tomorrow.
– RIP to RFP? : The RFP(Request for Proposal) bandwagon indulged in by enterprises from agencies to extract the cheapest possible price for their services. This comes with scant regard to competence, expertise, empirical evidence and worse who contributes the original idea which is now happily being sacrificed at the ‘ cheapest pricing altar ‘. And we are all aware that ‘ insider trading ‘ is not just restricted to the stock market. Time to cremate this archaic, merit agnostic practice.
 
– Measurement will be back as the next frontier in 2022 — fueled by the unprecedented rise of CTV, the uncertain future of cookies and identity transactions in digital, and the disruption of Nielsen ratings. As we build for an ever-interconnected digital future, the ‘measurement reset’ is an opportunity to build the relationships between consumers, content creators, publishers and their advertising partners.
 
– Meta will emerge as part of brand experience and communication conversations and NFTs(Non Fungible Tokens) will begin to come into the brand ecosphere but we are still some time away from these becoming right, front and centre.
 
I remain conscious of brevity and hence would come to a halt here though there are quite a few more that I would have liked to list as we telescope into the emerging future of the advertising and marketing industry. Maybe in a separate piece.
 
ENDS
Suresh Dinakaran – Chief Storyteller at ISD ISD Global, a Dubai based branding and ideas hotshop and the Managing Editor of BrandKnew, a multifaceted media asset, published across print, digital and web versions.

Don’t Leave Home WIT(hout) it!

If I recall right, AMEX Credit Cards used to have this seminal tagline ‘ Don’t Leave Home Without It ‘ coined by advertising great David Ogilvy. But your visa to a perfect quip or comeback after it didn’t matter—a minute, hour, or day after one of your conversations has ended? Yes, you got it. The best master card up your sleeve – WIT.

No need for WIThdrawal symptoms. You’re not doomed to sit by as ‘clever’ companions exchange sharp banter. You can practice being wittier, improving your reaction times and ability to land a jab or joke at just the right moment. Jokes don’t warrant social distancing. That was CoWIT talking.

Unlike perceived, WIT isn’t just for some gifted linguists. Playing with language—elevating mundane communication from mere talk into a creative process—is a form of innovation that sheds new light on old ideas. Plus, vitally, it makes life less boring and more fun for you and others. So, in short, we can all get better at being ‘ clever ‘.

Just as those highly skilled auto drivers on Bombay roads, if you can turn around (just like they do on a 6 cm radius!) words and phrases in the mind and present new juxtapositions, one can change the way we and other people see. Yes, it’s the road less travelled. But worth taking. So, get on WIT(h) it!

The wittiest among us are simply people who make unusual connections between words and ideas. And never verse off for it. Observations- Refreshed. Surprised!

In cognitive terms, the brain of the wit is less inhibited than that of a linguistic dullard. In other words, fairly, well ventilated shall we say? Are you WIT(h) me? Unabashed, uncensored access to associations, conscious and unconscious, is essential to wit. Apologies, people with brain damage don’t qualify!

The caudate nucleus is one area( 2 kms south of Mira Road..just kidding) of the brain implicated in associative learning and control of inhibitions that may explain how wit is generated. Likewise, the frontotemporal region( east of Kandahar..by now you know!) influences personality, language, and emotional development. Knowing precisely how these areas of the brain interact and regulate thinking will lead to better ‘ scientific comprehension of wit ‘. That is if you really are bothered about all of this in the first place.

So, if you are looking at a guide to ‘ advanced banter ‘, don’t wait for a breakthrough in brain science to cultiWEIGHT wit. (W)It’s reasonably simple. Just knowing that wit is a kind of associative process already makes you better equipped to be a verbal gymnast. The variety of the play of wit manifests through—puns( tumhee pun na!!), rhyme, metaphor, slang, rap(chick), to name a few.

The encouraging thing to understand here is that being creative about language can be mastered with practice. It’s not all natural talent. If you make peace with history and take a piece of it, in analyzing how wit arises or why we might rely on it, the oldest and most revered texts in the world, from the Tao Te Ching(nothing to do with what Neena Gupta endorses) to the Bible to the plays of William Shakespeare are replete with language play. When all the world is a rage, wit has a role to play. Perhaps on centre stage?

With linguistic gymnastics, we can reach people who might not otherwise think they’re interested in certain ideas and break down barriers. Hip-hop and rap, for example, exposed generations of music listeners of all classes and races to black culture they didn’t encounter in their own lives. (And Shakira has taught us that hips don’t lie). Wit’s an efficient way to say more with less, as in the case of a metaphor, or to expose unexpected mean ink, alternately meaning.

Wit is the antidote for a culture being dulled by communication overload—it’s a kind of wisdom. In Aristotle’s words, it is a form of “ educated insolence. ” If we were cracking wise, rather than vice versa ie reacting angrily, and being wittier(or Twittier?) on Twitter, we might all have a much better time.The rate of exchange between strangers and acquaintances online has never been so high(BSE/NASDAQ/FTSE etc please take note). But internet chatter is often toxic and commonly resorts to vitriolic retorts( would have preferred witriolic), angry declarations, and unnecessary observations. Wish that closed minds came with closed mouths. Hence, so many of us feel we are at our wit’s end.

You too can be a master of verbal jousting. Take the WITness stand. It is time to unleash the power WIThin!
Be at home WIT(h) it. But, don’t leave home WIT(hout) it.
(WIT’s) END
WIT AL PART ILL
Dubai

Present Forward or Future Back: Strategy or Vision?

The future happens slowly..and then all of a sudden. In his fabulous 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway famously wrote that bankruptcy happens in two ways:  “gradually and then suddenly”.

Some years back Andy Grove( ex-CEO, Intel) had introduced the concept of strategic inflection points in his seminal book Only the Paranoid Survive where he explained that a strategic inflection point is ” a time in the life of a business when it’s fundamentals are about to change “.

A change in the business environment that dramatically shifts some elements of your activities, throwing certain taken-for-granted assumptions into question is an inflection point. Someone, somewhere, sees the implications, but all too often they are not heard. That someone might be you!

Whether you are a powerful CEO or someone far lower down in the pecking order, not seeing the unfolding inflection points(or blind spots ) are dangerous.

What is the case we are making here? Too many managers develop strategy while focusing on problems in the present and that is especially true in the times of a crisis(like the Covid 19 pandemic that we are presently pulverised by). Lets call it ‘ missing the wood for the trees ‘. What I am trying to argue here is that leaders instead should imagine the future and work backward so that they build their organisations and brands for the new(emerging) reality.

Even during a crisis, developing a ” future-back ” mindset can spur innovation and growth.

So, in order to build strategy, start with the future.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of brands and organisations that have used the ” future-back ” approach to stunning effect.

Back in the late 90’s and the turn of the millennium, Intel was ruling the roost. With a market share well over 70%, the brand was well and truly in the driver’s seat(apart from being inside millions of computers) with the Pentium Processor going from strength to strength. At the height of that market dominance, Andy Grove took a visionary punt and launched a brand to compete against its very own Pentium– that was the Celeron range of Processors. What he did was to see the future being dominated by cheaper, faster processors( Moore’s Law ) and he did not want Intel to lose out on the potential opportunity that lay ahead of them. That saying Andy Grove was visionary would be an understatement and how prescient the observation in his book ” When spring comes, snow melts first at the periphery, because that is where it is most exposed “, bears testimony.  Intel Inside. Meets Intelligence and Insight!

Take another example of the ” future-back ” approach that Reed Hastings, Founder/CEO of Netflix adopted to reach where it is today. At the height of their DVD rental business success, they ventured into streaming(encouraging both cannibalization and migration of their existing subscriber base) anticipating that the medium to long term future of in home entertainment will hinge on that. Not just that, look at their understanding of the competitive landscape- it went well beyond the typical television broadcast networks and cable TV of the day. They distilled the big picture into getting their prospect’s time and attention. Broadened the eco system significantly. Rather made it a category by itself. So, in effect, the competition included time their viewer/s spent going to movie houses, eating out, entertaining friends and family, travel and holidays etc etc. By wearing a different lens and examining a hitherto unseen/untried approach, helped them immensely in becoming the brand they are today.

No conversation about a ” future-back ” model and a vision preceding strategy would be complete without talking about Steve Jobs and Apple. Back in the day, the way they disrupted music consumption and music distribution through iTunes and iPod is now part of folklore. They did not wait for either the market or the customer to tell them what is needed. They took moonshots( it’s in the culture), created highly desirable products that the customer never knew they wanted or would need and generated unprecedented gravitas, and the rest they say is history. Apple as a brand and Steve Jobs as a leader was always seeing around corners, anticipating trends and operated at the intersection of a new future and non articulated consumer need and desire.

Let me add here. ‘ Customer knows best ‘ is a whole load of balderdash. If organisations were to depend on customers to know what is needed, there would not have been any Post It Notes(3M), Fax Machines(Xerox) and many of today’s incredibly successful brands like Amazon, Tesla, Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Zomato etc. The onus and responsibility of drawing the future and working backward from there is fully on you, your brand, your organisation. So, don’t run away from it. Take it head on.

While we debate the vision vis a vis strategy and the “ future-back ” model to a ” present-forward ” one, do be aware that a vision is like an ‘ impressionist painting ‘ and NOT a ‘ photograph ‘. A photograph captures what there is already, there is NO speculation, hedging, punting and imagining the non existent. A vision on the other hand is similar to an impressionist painting in the sense that it is visualising what could/should be, what will/can be or what may/may not be. It is taking a shot at the future and setting the road to travel back from there.

To be blunt, getting through this tricky process of envisioning the future begins with confusion, experimentation and a touch of chaos followed by a single minded determination to make progress against an overarching goal. And an approach that futurist Paul Saffo recommends as creating as many forecasts as possible, fail as quickly as possible and vitally ” to hold strong opinions weakly “.

Another valuable perspective on this chaotic period of thinking is offered by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder. Anything that has more upside than downside from random events(or certain shocks) is anti fragile.

Rita McGrath, Columbia Business School professor and business consultant recommends a ‘ discovery driven approach ‘ to anticipating the future and you can dive deeper into her thinking and recommendations in BrandKnew on these links https://www.brandknewmag.com/thinking-innovation-driving-growth/ and https://www.brandknewmag.com/discovery-driven-digital-transformation/ .

It was the 4th of February, 2014. Satya Nadella was announced as the new CEO of Microsoft, the third chief executive in the company’s history, following Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer. Recognising that most of Microsoft’s woes at the time were a function of an approach that was ” present forward “, the first thing he did was to tell everyone in the organisation ” We are going to be moving away from a know it all organisation to a learn it all one “. Looking back on how well Microsoft is doing now compared to 2014, bears testimony to the potential for organisations in adopting a ” future-back ” model.

Brands that didn’t heed the  ” future-back ” model and met their fate inspite of being market leaders once upon a time include the likes of Blockbuster, Kodak, Nokia, Toys ‘R’ Us.

There are other industries very ripe for the picking to drive home further the point of vision preceding strategy. The pharmaceutical sector for instance. Based on empirical evidence, learnings from past epidemics like SARS, Ebola, Swine Flu, emerging lifestyle patterns and the accompanying chronic diseases that it helps manifest(diabetes for one), a pharma company can seize opportunities and address customer pain points that will occur in the future. An example that is worth looking at is the pharma giant Roche. Which saw huge potential in the ” future-back ” approach. That helped revive it’s struggling diabetes unit. The company ingeniously paired the mySugr app (which it had acquired in 2017) with Roche’s Accu-Chek Guide glucose meter, thereby allowing diabetics to have a different, gamified experience to managing their condition. By logging in their blood glucose levels, completing tasks and challenges, users can “tame their diabetes monster”. It’s a totally different approach(at least for the pharma sector) which forecasts that “the way forward will mean selling a total experience, not just a product.”

Rather than look at Fall of 2020 or Spring of 2021, Universities/Colleges will be best served to go further down the road and see how do we cope, prepare and anticipate learning and training needs in the near distant future and move backward from there. With the current Covid-19 crisis having caught a lot of educational institutions severely under prepared and like a deer in the headlights with no wherewithal (and mindset) for virtual/online delivery, the time is now, to graduate, to look into the future.

So, ‘ where do you go from here ‘? Or, rather, I should be asking ‘ where are you coming back from ‘ ?

PS: For leaders and organisations wanting to undertake ‘A back to the future voyage ‘, the video on this link https://www.groupisd.com/phewturecast/ can be a starting point.

ENDS