Brand and Personality

Post jury we had a course on Branding conducted by Dr. Hemant C Trivedi, Head – Retail Academic Area at MICA. As a part of the course we did a writeup on celebrities endorsing certain brands and how much does a particular celebrity justify him or her endorsing the brand.


Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind - Walter Landor


“Aiye, aiye - kya lenge? Thanda ya garam?” This is the most common question whenever an Indian welcomes another - may it be at home or in office. Coke has been smart enough to capture this and turn it to their advantage where Coke and thanda are synonymous today. Coke also has been even smarter by not targeting urban India but rural and semi urban India and popularizing the culture of soft drinks there.
Aamir Khan has been a brand ambassador for Coca cola for quite a while now. Though as an individual (Aamir Khan) I do not think that he would be my first choice for the brand, but there is more than the individual which connects with the philosophy of the brand.



Aamir Khan in all the Coca Cola ads has comfortably and dexterously donned regional personas which have targeted different regions of India. These ads connect with the targeted region and the country as a whole and the wit factor added to the idol like status of Aamir Khan hits the consumer spot on.

Lux has for always had this association in our minds that it is the soap of the filmstars where they once had the catch phrase “We bring out the star in you.” Lux surely could have had better ways to celebrate it’s 75th anniversary but chose to cache in on the rising metrosexual phenomenon, yet keeping Shahrukh’s masculinity well hidden below the water lined with rose petals.



Probably Lux wanted to get a good amount of publicity on its 75th birthday that it came up with something which would be more talked about than followed. As for a product which has little differentiation from others in it’s category, quick publicity was intended and thats what they got as well.
Talking of reality, Lux will have to fall back on it’s angels sooner or later - thats if they want business.


BSNL - The country’s No.1 telecom service provider with maximum coverage was for long using modes of communication which were cliché. May it be the drab print ads or the TV commercials where the connection happens through the transformation of umbilical cord to telephone wires, BSNL was just not being aggressive and to the point.
With its competitors sporting Ajay Devgan & Kajol and Shahrukh Khan, BSNL was badly in the need of an young indian who the youth could connect.



Roping in Preity Zinta for a 2 crore deal, BSNL has given its brand a new face and has built a much younger brand image for itself. In one of the ads which is on the lines of Salaam Namaste, the use of vibrant colours and catchy tune along with crisp communication makes the brand image much more youth oriented.
In the BSNL broadband ad, keeping aside the weird samurai costume, the speed of the communication acts as a metaphor for the high speed internet that they are promising. In this 19 seconds spot, it talks about GPRS, datacards, picture messaging and the likes thus bringing out the multi benefits of BSNL broadband.


Our success is a direct result of knowing how to market a brand and having the right people representing the brand - Greg Norman

missing......

an incomplete in the complete,
seeking presence of the present,
i look here and there looking looking for the last jigsaw piece,
least realizing that the last piece is within me.

Ali

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses, behind the lines and the gyms out there on the roads long before I dance under those lights - A quote by Mohammed Ali which I came across while reading through an interview with Dada.

Time = Money? Urs or mine?

"ok.sire..ur time is my money" - Someone messaged me while chatting on Gtalk.

Thinking over it, I guess its such a true statement going by today's standards where one is paid for the time he or she spends on charting the growth plan and strategy for a company.

We designers will surely be smiling and patting ourselves on the back when we look forward to entering the industry which will be paying us for our ideas, where we are the people who will make others make money; well hopefully atleast. Amen !!

I have my fingers crossed till I cross the Major !! ;-)

Pagla

Demented thoughts of an infected mind,
Abuzz with thoughts of any kind,
Social or contextual - I dunno,
Trying to capture ideas that come and go,
Dustbins or chairs - which is the need of the hour?
Remember !! you have to raise your bar,
Which is the major one - I try to find,
Demented thoughts of an infected mind.

Jari Mari: Of cloth and other stories

A review written by me for a documentary shown to us during our Science and Liberal Arts (SLA) class this semester.

Documentary Name: Jari Mari - Of cloth and other stories
Hindi/ Colour/ Video/ 74 min./2001

Credits
Director, Producer: Surabhi Sharma
Photography: Setu Pande
Editing: Jabeen Merchant
Sound: Gissy Michael
Music: D. Wood, Vipin Bhati




Set in the slum dwellings of Jari Mari, an area adjacent to the International Airport in Bombay, the film Jari Mari talks about the inhuman living and working conditions of the people living there.

The film starts with an image of one of the old mills of Bombay where the masses used to go to work every morning but now only a minuscule fraction of the staff come for work to the mill which looks ghostly and deserted.

Moving ahead the subject shifts to a mill worker originally from Bihar. Recollecting glorious days of the mills in Bombay he cites reasons why such a huge and flourishing industry is today broken down into a network of narrow lanes filled with sweatshops. According to the government’s laws, any company with an employee strength above 100 people cannot stop it’s employees from forming an union. This is the main reason why the garment export industry today is fragmented into dotted jobworkers where the employee strength is weak and their pay devoid of any perks, provident funds or any such basic facility.

Shifting focus on a jobworker’s workshop, we are appalled with the huge difference between the money that a tailor gets for stitching a shirt (Rs.10 - 15) and it;s actual retail price abroad ($9.99)

Though the documentary starts with the aim of bringing to light the depleted state of the once flourishing mills but I think the focus gradually shifts to the lives of the people living in the slum colony of Jari Mari.

The first person accounts bring us close to reality and hardships of life. In one such account a lady talks about the hardships she went through while working as domestic help in one of the middle east countries. Away from home for years this widow had to raise money for the upbringing of her three children and later on their marriage as well. As she expressed her desire to go back to the middle east and not be part of inhuman living conditions in Jari Mari, it leaves us wondering that gradually people are losing the pride and pleasure of living in one’s own country.

The documentary is an eye opener for all of us who are happy in our own world of living in the present and not bothering about the future. Nobody today questions as to why did the mills actually shut down? Who are these people who have not paid these workers any compensation and are scot free today? Rehabilitation is promised as usual, but today rehabilitation is just a promise to earn votes and the traces of it remains only in blueprints but not in geography. We hear of lots happening for the ex-workers of mills but none of it gets a tangible form. With shifting timeline and builder’s pressure, soon the landscape of Bombay will change with lesser public spaces and lesser wetlands which would soak up water, leaving Bombay to the continual fate of yearly floods.

Summing it all up and having attended four SLA classes in four semesters, I am left wondering that how much we as designers are doing for any social cause? We probably only cite examples where we feel that a problem exists and leave it there without a solution. It is quite a pathetic situation when we are blind all six months in a semester waiting only for a one week SLA course to open up our eyes about what is actually happening around us. It’s time we ask ourselves, “Are we really needed or are we just satisfying our egos”? But I guess we need to be optimistic for atleast we have started asking the right questions.