2019: TOP 100 BRANDS

The annual list of the top 100 brands by Interbrand is out. As expected, #technology and electronic companies occupy more than half of the top 10 spots. 

While the usual suspects are all there, there are quite a few surprises this year: 1. #Facebook has dropped out of the Top 10 for the first time, since it first entered the Top 10 ranks!
2. There are three new entrants to the list: LinkedIn, Uber and Dell Technologies 
3. The Walt Disney Company enters the Top 10 for the first time since its 96 year history!
4. When compared to 2001, the year this list was published for the first time, only 31 brands remain in the Top 100!
5. There is only one #FMCG in the Top 10.
6. #Apple at first rank is valued at $ 234 Bn. while Prada at 100th rank is valued at $ 4.8 Bn.

There are some key lessons here: 

1. A success today is no guarantee of success tomorrow, unless you show results consistently. 

2. Persistence pays, as seen for Disney.

3. Entering into this list is the first step to the door of growth and brand equity. Staying there is an annual challenge.

NO NEED TO FLY AROUND THE WORLD

In the world of #Instagram and #Facebook, where travel is a passion and aspiration for all, people are flying to faraway destinations much more in this decade than ever before. 

German Rail was feeling the pressure of this as 72% Germans were flying out rather than taking trains within Germany as they felt German destinations were boring.

Here is what German Rail and #Ogilvy did to fix the problem:

1. They identified great locations from around the world and juxtaposed it with a similar shot of a German location next to it to encourage Germans to holiday in their home country.

                                  

2. They used Facebook data and targeted travel enthusiasts interested in those specific destinations on Instagram and Facebook.

3. Through geo-tagging technology and Google Search, they served video ads to the audience, updated with real-time prices, comparing two gorgeous locations (one in Germany and one abroad), detailing the cost of travel from their closest airport to the foreign country.

Results: An increase of 24% in brand revenue. This is a great example of: 

• Using #insights to convert it into an idea.
• Then leveraging #data to sharply target the right audience.
• That ultimately results in #revenues, which is what matters.

So many lessons in this case study!

DON'T STORIES AND DRIVE!

We have always heard the message 'Don't Drink and Drive'. But today, the number of people texting and driving is far more, and it is as dangerous as drunk driving.

#Mitsubishi understood this danger, built on the consumer insight and rolled out a series of print ads in Chile recently. All the ads use the #WhatsApp and other social media and messenger #emoticons brilliantly asking people 'Don't Stories and Drive' because a quick reaction can change your story, for good or worse. 

What makes it even more special is that the company is not showing its product or trying to promote one of its models. There is just a subtle logo on the left hand corner because the objective of this ad is to educate, inform and warn the consumer. 

I really liked this set of ads. How about you? 

                                   #advertising #insight #automotive #print #communication

WORLD'S 100 MOST VALUABLE BRANDS

The infographic below shows the brand value of the 100 most valuable brands in 2019 as released by #Forbes. 

As is evident, it is the tech companies that are ruling the roost in 2019, combining for a total of a mammoth $957 billion in brand value. Other than #Facebook, each of them have grown at a healthy double-digit since the year before. hashtag

#Financial services and #automotive sector are at a distant second and third ranking after #technology, and the traditional and reliable consumer goods sector comes in at the fourth rank.

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#brand #brandvalue #CPG #tech #valuation #billion

Have You Paid the Trolls at the Troll Plaza?

As you get onto the social media highway and start gaining social media currency, along with becoming something/someone more meaningful in the offline world, chances are - that you would have gained significant clout and there would be people following you/your fans who would want to hear what you got to say and see what you got to show.

Let me break the bubble by saying that this social media highway is not a smooth cruise! You will encounter a number of speed breakers in the form of troll plazas that will try to halt you, slow you down, and deter you from your path so that your ride to your destiny and destination is filled with pitfalls. 

And if you happen to be a celebrity of any sort in any field, then the payment to the trolls will be much higher! So the two questions that come to mind are:

1. Why and where are these troll plazas?
2. What is the payment that they seek, that will allow you to pass through them and what payment should never be given to them?

But before that, let us first be clear on who or what is a troll? You never know, the symptoms and behavior that you display would indicate that you could be a troll yourself!

A troll is a person on the online world, who doesn’t know you personally but yet believes that he knows you, your personality and your life very well. He feels that it is his prerogative to point out what you are doing wrong in life, how pathetic your choices and actions are, how stupid your looks, your knowledge or your fashion sense is, etc… Basically, this person will find a flaw in something or the other in you, and make it his agenda to not only point it out to you but also to the entire world as that is the only way he can make a mark of himself in the social world. Quite often, these trolls are hidden behind fake identities and if not, then they feel powerful behind their online profiles, sitting in the comfort of their room and blurting out their unwanted and unsolicited advice and views. 

Coming back to the question that I raised ‘Why and where are these troll plazas?’. The reasons troll plazas exist is because of multiple reasons:

         i. Some trolls feel terrible about their own life as they haven’t achieved anything and for them, pulling down others who are doing well is a way of coming to peace with their own misery. 

       ii. Sometimes, they do not like your face and are unable to fathom the reason for your success and hence they will find every opportunity to point out your flaw.

      iii. Jealousy is another big emotion that drives a lot of trolls because sometimes when they see people who were lucky enough to get the chances that they got by either being at the right place at the right time or by being born to parents who had achieved immense success (sons and daughters of celebrities), they feel that life has been unfair to them and the only way to get even with life is by being vindictive and vicious to people who had better stars in their favour. 

       iv. Sometimes trolls wear the cloak of moral police and according to them, people are supposed to behave, act and dress up as per the standards and norms that seems correct to the trolls and when one doesn’t follow those codes, the trolls are not able to bear it. 

      v. Hero worship is another reason why trolls exist. They are so blindly in love or adulation of their heroes that if someone has a different point of view or someone says something against their hero, they feel that it is their duty to come forward and protect their hero, who may not even care or notice what the other person has to say about them. 

      vi. Intolerance to another point of view or a different religious philosophy is another reason why a plethora of trolls float around the stratosphere of social media, with their weapon of trash talk ready in their minds that just makes way the minute the fingertips type it out and bring it alive. 

These trolls can be found on each and every platform that exists, which is accessible to the public at large. So one could encounter these troll plazas on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, blog, websites and the list can go on and on. 

This brings me to the second question of ‘what do these trolls at the troll plazas want?’ 

The biggest high for any troll is to get noticed, get talked about, get a reply from the person being attacked, get likes or retweets on his comment that proves to him that people have really enjoyed what he has to say. All of this emboldens him to do more of such things. 

If a troll has attacked you for the first time, the best way to move forward is to ignore the person and not even acknowledge him. Some of the trolls may realize the futility of attacking you and may back off. If the troll continues to attack you further, a witty and smart reply can be a tactic that can be deployed. If you are a celebrity with a strong following, chances are that your fans will latch onto your reply and share it with others and you will have the upper hand while a troll will fall flat on his face. If the troll continues his attack and is getting vicious in his language, you can either block him, report him or share his comment/tweet with your friends and fans so that they can tackle him because a troll is like a bully, who can attack a single person, but when he is faced with a huge crowd going after him, he will quickly get into his shell. 

If you are the one who is being attacked, and you decide to stop and get into a verbal argument with the troll, the task of the troll has been achieved and he has been able to derail you from your track. That is a heavy payment to be made from your side. It is not worth it. This is the route to be avoided. This is the payment that shouldn’t be made at any troll plaza, irrespective of how angry or frustrated you feel. 

What are your suggestions and ways to pay the trolls at these troll plazas? I would love to know from you.

MEETING MEN AND WOMEN ON A FARM

Relationship status messages on Facebook, matrimonial sites, dating apps…they are all there around us. If you are single or even if you are not, choices exist for you if you are willing to put in the time and effort that comes along with it. 

Today men and women or even people of the same sex can meet each other through various platforms and see what they can make of these meetings/dates/rendezvous, call it whatever you want. 

Depending on what you are looking for, you can decide on which part of the FARM do you want to be. FARM. Did I just mention FARM? Have I lost it? Till a paragraph back, I was talking about men and women and how they can mingle with each other through various platforms and then suddenly why would I be talking about an agricultural piece of land FARM?

Now now, before you start thinking that I am drunk in the afternoon, let me explain myself. Basis my understanding and observation of human behavior, I have come across four levels at which people want to connect with someone else. I have put these four into a term that I call FARM.

So what does FARM entail? 

FARM consists of a Fling, Affair, Relationship and Marriage.

Different people at different point in their lives choose one of these parts of a FARM. Sometimes it is the same two people who are on different parts of the FARM but quite often, one of the two individuals are different at different parts of the farm. 

How do I further classify these parts and what distinguishes one from the other?

FLING: A fling is a short term event or incident. It usually lasts for a few days and extends sometimes to a month or so. In most cases, a fling has lust at its core unless it starts with the honest intention of a relationship, but due to circumstances or reasons it ends much earlier and ends up being a fling. Quite often, both the individuals knowingly get into a fling, where usually terms like ‘No Strings Attached’ are also heard. I am sure that all you readers are smart individuals and I do not need to explain a fling any further. 

AFFAIR: An affair is usually something that is meant to be known only to the two individuals. Both the parties choose to be discreet about it and do not prefer talking about it or coming out in the open. There is also the fear of getting caught that lies at the core of an affair. Some people get thrilled by living such an emotion and is one of their big reasons to have an affair. Usually, there is an emotion of guilt that is always playing a role when it comes to an affair. That is why, you also hear the term called Extra-Marital Affair.

RELATIONSHIP: This is where emotions start getting involved. You start connecting with the other person on various levels: emotional, intellectual, romantic, physical etc. People call themselves in love when they are in a relationship and love is the core of this segment. People love going out for movies, dinners and dates and have no qualms in telling the world about their partner, their boyfriend/girlfriend. This is the phase when people are glowing and are the happiest. They look forward to the time that they would spend with their partner. 

MARRIAGE: This is the last part of a FARM. A lot of relationships gravitate towards this part and culminate into marriages. This is the part where legality also comes and starts playing a role. This is the part where individuals become an official couple by calling themselves husband and wife, which is like a seal of commitment. 

So friends, these four together represent the FARM and the question is “Which part of the FARM are you sitting at?”

Why are our online identities so different from the real ones

Have you ever wondered why Big Boss is one of the most popular reality shows on television, making people sit and glued to their television sets? Or have you ever thought why is Halloween gaining so much popularity in India over the years? 

The answers to both of these questions are the same. We love the thrill of disguise and the act of unveiling that disguise through its layers. 

In the case of Big Boss, we enjoy watching personalities without any of their reel character and yet there is an iota of disguise in their behavior, which we try to unravel. Halloween is the exact opposite of that, where one goes to a party in a disguise to present oneself as something that one is not. 

The reason spy films give an adrenaline rush to viewers because the detective is a secret agent, who often catches criminals while disguising himself as someone else. 

If given a chance, people would love to live such an existence where they can be what they aren’t in reality. The online world gives that opportunity. This is the kind of thrill people get to live daily when their online identities are completely different from their real selves. An online identity is like a Halloween mask, allowing one to live with a completely different identify from one’s real self. 

Social recluses become popular characters on Twitter – sort of mini celebrities, ugly looking men become Hrithik Roshan in their display pictures, women become men, fat girls tweet like Katrina Kaif, talking about their admirer and people who would never dare to even oppose anyone’s views become trolls abusing celebrities and the Government openly. All of this transition happens when people move from the real world to the digital world. 

The question that comes to mind is that why a sane and normal person would do something like this. One can understand criminal or psycho minds doing something like this but why people like you and me? 

One of the big reasons for that is that people believe that if you are online, you have become invincible. No one can find you or touch you. There is an immense sense of power, which makes one believe that whatever they say or post is perfectly fine as no one can do anything to them. Though, even this reality is changing, as was witnessed in the arrests of two girls who had posted some statements on Facebook. 

But not all the people online are like this. There are a few other kinds as well who lurk there in the digital realm. 

There are those who are like an open book, whose every move in life is shared with the online world, irrespective of whether they know people on the other side or not. They talk about their mood, what they ate, where they are holidaying, who they are seeing, what are their views on the cricket match and anything and everything else in between as well. For these people, online world is a security blanket but in a different way than the way it is for the kinds explained above. 

Insecure people in real lives have online identities that defy their insecurity and showcase them as confident individuals. They tweet and post content at regular intervals and every like, comment or retweet that they garner acts as a confidence booster for them. These are also the people who will try to give a point of view on every topic just to be seen as cool. 

On the other side of this set of people are cynics in real lives who like every post, every picture and project themselves as people who appreciate good content. Talk to them in the offline world and spitting fire is second nature to them. 

Let me now conclude with something provocative but yet worth thinking. Try and analyze all these different kind of people a little more and you will realize that there is a bit of us in each one of them. We have also been one of these at different points of time, so all these different kind of online people are nothing but mirrors of our real selves at different points of life, despite the fact that we tend to have online identities that are different from our real identity.

Is Social Networking feeding our Narcissism?

I have been wanting to blog on this topic for weeks but the very topic I want to blog about would suck me into its whirlpool every now and then so strongly that getting out of its hold would be next to impossible. Yes, social networking has that power! 

Research after research throws up the same thing – every person loves a few words of appreciation, a pat on the back, an acknowledgement of the great work he/she is doing. When one does not get this, one’s motivation levels tend to go down, whether it is at work, home or any other place. 

Enter Social Networking. A phenomenon that has taken the world by storm. Why is it so? Is it because it allows people to connect with each other? No, there are phone calls for that. Is it because it allows one to give work update to others? No, there are emails for that. 

Then what is the reason? 

It is simply because social networking is an ego boosting mechanism, which allows your narcissism to grow manifold by feeding it regularly and yet making it crave for more and more. 

Every like that your status message generates on Facebook, every comment that your picture gathers and every new follower that you accumulate on Twitter are nothing but food for the narcissist inside each one of us. 

No wonder after every post that we upload, there is this constant urge to check the network regularly to see if anyone has liked it or not or has it generated a conversation or a mention or not or has it been retweeted or not. 

It is once again the veil of narcissism that allows us to celebrate every new follower, who most of the times is a stranger, who we do not know but yet are happy to have him or her follow us. This is the same reason bots are seen as useless but yet relevant, simply because they add up to the numbers and make us feel important in this crazy world. 

Today, even our styles of holidays and vacations have changed completely. It is more about capturing the right kind of pictures that can be shared with friends and get comments rather than sitting back and enjoying the view available to us. Every picture that is clicked is also checked and evaluated to see its potential to be shared and is deleted and clicked again if it is not worth sharing. 

The reality is that we may get bored and move from one social network to the other as we had done from Orkut to Facebook, but as long as the narcissism in us exists, social networking will continue to thrive and dominate a large part of our lives. 

Now I need to rush and quickly upload this post, so that the link of the same can be shared with all. My narcissistic hunger beckons! 

Let’s talk about him. He is gone now!

The need to put this blog triggered after watching the mass hysteria that prevailed across mediums and forums after the deaths of two famous and great men – Dara Singh and Rajesh Khanna.

Reams of paper were printed giving the minutest of details of their individual lives, things we did not know about them, stories that talked about their personalities, incidents giving glimpses into them as individuals.

Even the social media – whether it was Facebook or Twitter was abuzz with people remembering them and showing reverence.

While there is nothing wrong in remembering someone who has left, what I am not able to fathom is why all these good things were not mentioned about that person while he was alive. Why do we feel that we cannot tell the world all these things when the person is alive? Why do we feel that we need to wait for the person to go away to bring out these stories?

I do not remember any article or news story on Dara Singh or Rajesh Khanna in recent times other than the times when they were admitted to the hospital or when Rajesh Khanna appeared in the Havell’s advertisement, which gave people an opportunity to just thrash the commercial but not talk about any of the good things of Rajesh Khanna that suddenly appeared after his death.

Won’t it be amazing to know about the great things about a person when he is alive so that one can appreciate him for those things and he can also get to know about it/read/hear about it? If someone has achieved so much in life, it should be celebrated during his lifetime rather than writing paeans about him after he has gone.

This analogy can be extended further. People will not appreciate the great work/virtues of a colleague till the time he is around in an organization, but will talk and remember him only after he has left the organization and the said person will never know what people thought about him.

The attempt of this blog is not to question or criticize the tribute that comes in from people after the person has left but rather say that one really does not need to wait for the person to have gone to talk the good things about him.

Experiences - They vary

All of us know that no two fingerprints are the same. Maybe, we should add one more saying ‘No two experiences are the same’.

Just think about it – You must have had instances when two different friends had uploaded pictures of their holiday to Paris on Facebook, but the pictures of the two would be completely different. The pictures would be different in terms of their posture, their emotions and their expressions, etc. In fact, don’t be surprised when you notice that both set of pictures have been clicked at the same place, like the Eiffel Tower, but yet, the description put by the two people are as different as chalk and cheese.

Now why would a picture taken at the same place by two different people look so different (other than the Eiffel Tower in the background looking the same in both the pics!)? The simple answer to that is because the picture is actually telling you about the experience of that person in that moment at that place. And the reality is that the experience of each person is different due to a number of factors and place is just one of those factors that plays a role in building that experience.

In fact, if you think deeper, you will realize that not only are experiences of different people different, but even the experience of the same person is different on different occasions, even though the place may be the same or the event may be the same.

An experience is a summation of various things that are part of a given moment that come together and form what we call an experience. What that means is that even if one of those various things is different from the earlier experience, the entire experience would be different. Confusing?

Let me try and simplify. According to my hypothesis, an experience is formed with the help of a number of factors – place, time of day, your own mood and mood of others, friends/relatives who are there with you, the kind of music in the background, the quality of food and drinks being consumed, the kind of weather, the occasion, the kind of customer service being offered. (This is not an exhaustive list and one can easily add more factors that play a critical role).

The point here is that if any of these factors change either for you or for someone else, the experience will also change. Often, one hears the use of the term ‘A sense of déjà vu’. What this means is that what  one is witnessing or experiencing is coming pretty close to what one has seen or experienced before (may not necessarily be exactly the same). That is when one immediately comes up with this as the human mind knows that it is very rare that you get to experience the same thing again and again (unless it is a Monday morning blue!) and if you can manage to do that, either you are lucky or you need a change!

Thank You Team India

Dear Team India,


I would like to take this opportunity to thank you not only for myself but on behalf of the entire nation. With such a sensational World Cup victory, you have brought joy and pride to each and every Indian living in every part of the world. You gave all of us a moment that has allowed us to forget our worries, our sadness, our struggles, our mundane lives for some time and given us the opportunity to be a part of this celebration.

Your World Cup victory was celebrated in every house, every street, every corner, and every intersection of the country with great chutzpah, zeal and energy. I was out on the streets of Delhi after the victory and I saw people in big cars and small cars, people on bikes, people on foot, people in autos and people on trucks with each one having a glow on their face, a smile on their lips and just one word to say ‘Indiaaaa… Indiaaa’. When I saw a guy standing on his cycle without a shirt dancing and waving to every car passing by and people stopping by to hug him and dance him, I knew then and there that victory is sweet without any ifs and buts. It also told us once again that victory has no caste, no colour, no creed and no regional bias. The sight of young guys and girls on the bonnets of their cars, standing out of their windows, holding the flag of India was a sight of a lifetime. Even the cops did not want to spoil the party and they let people just be. There were some joyous and amusing moments also when I noticed two guys standing out of the windows of a car, wearing the T-shirts of ‘Dhoni’ and ‘Tendulkar’ mentioned on it and the guy on the front holding a big trophy in his hand. It could not have got more symbolic than this.

What also amused me was the same people who were abusing the style of playing of the Indian team during the qualifying stages and criticizing Dhoni’s captaincy, his strategic decisions and his form on Facebook and Twitter after every inning, every session and every match had suddenly done a volte face and were now tom-tomming the same team and captain calling him a great leader and a true strategist. I remember telling my mother how quickly people change their stance and colour surprises me and she summed it up beautifully by saying ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. I always knew India is an emotional side when it comes to cricket but not only are we extremely emotional, we are also extremely impatient as we expect results instantly and cannot control the urge of lambasting you guys even when the match is not over as yet.

To further add to the drama, there was the Indian media playing its role of Narad-Muni to perfection, building full hype around every player and every match, with complete background music, interspersing movie dialogues with scenes from earlier matches of India and getting everyone from an ex-cricketer to an astrologer to come and give their two bit of what will happen in the next match and who will be the key. Some of the people giving all the tips had never every played cricket or picked up a bat in their lives but that is India, where every person, be it an auto-driver, a fashion designer, a corporate guy or a normal middle-class businessman with a paunch has his own expert comments on what you guys should be doing and what you should not.

Team India – you showed us all how it is done in style despite 2.4 billion eyes watching you like the eagle watching its prey, ready to swoop down on it when there is one wrong move. Achieving the victory through a six was a statement to the world that we have arrived and arrived in style and now we will dominate like never before. Each and every one of you - Sachin, Yuvraj, Virat, Gambhir, Raina, Zaheer and of course Dhoni showed why India is such a formidable opponent.

There was a lot to learn from you guys in terms of team work, handling pressure, delegation of responsibility, managing and leading from the front, never-say-die attitude and I already know that over the next few years, every corporate AV, every new launch, every team-building workshop and every leadership seminar will have pictures and videos of the quarters, semis and the finals telling each and every one of us how it is done.

While it is good to use all these visuals to motivate working people like us, I also feel that there was lot more that the corporate world can learn from you guys. They can learn that one does not have to be made to work for years and years before being given the command of a team. It is not always about experience. Sometimes it is also about the ability, capability, killer instinct and passion that an individual possesses that should decide who should lead from the front. Corporates should also learn from you guys that it is perfectly fine for even a 15 year old senior to work under his junior without the senior feeling any insecurity about it or the junior feeling a sense of over-achievement about it.

Dhoni, by staying behind a few paces and letting Sachin get all the limelight post the victory, you also told us that credit should be given where it is due and a leader should know when to step back and yet enjoy the success of his team. By shaving your head off immediately after the victory, you also taught us that staying true to your word is far important than looking good from the outside.

I can go on and on about what all was there for us to learn but I would leave that part to the HR people and motivational speakers at this point of time as this blog is really not about picking what I learnt but rather about what I saw during the entire duration of the tournament all around me.

One of the things that struck me during the course of the World Cup was that surprisingly China has not picked up this sport as yet. Could it be because cricket is still not included in the Olympics and so it does not hold the same charm to them? I am not ready to believe that China is not capable to play cricket as today they are playing each and every sport, including Volleyball and Basketball, which earlier was not the key sports of China. I would not be surprised if over the next few years, seeing what you guys have been able to achieve, they pick up this sport and we see them participating in the World Cup of 2019. I would surely be keen to see a battle between India and China on the cricket field. It would also allow us to avenge for the Indo-China War. Well I guess there is no point of talking about this as right now China is not a cricket playing nation so there is no point in discussing that further.

From a corporate stand point, being a marketer, I can vouch for the fact that this victory of yours has got a large number of people of my fraternity extremely excited and they have already started discussing new campaigns and new brands having one or lot of you in that. As I had said earlier ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. You guys deserve it as well and you should it enjoy it to the hilt. After all, a wait of 28 years has been brought to an end. You have brought rains to the land suffering from the drought of the World Cup victory and so once again, I would like to thank each and every one of you with utmost gratitude and with great pride.

Cheers Team India!

STATUS MESSAGES AND TWEETS

Status messages and tweets have become a part of our lives. People even say that they are nothing but mere extensions of our personalities. I don’t agree with this at all. Well, neither is this completely true nor is this completely false. This is partially true.

The reason I say this is partially true is because of the simple reason that there are some people for whom status messages are actually the extension of their personalities whereas for some other people it is just a way of projecting a personality which they really don’t have. For some others, some of their status messages reflect their personalities whereas some other of their status messages do not. In fact, in today’s times when one has a different status message on Facebook and a different one on their Blackberry Messenger and a completely different one on Twitter, it is just not possible for all these statuses/tweets to reflect ones’ personality unless someone suffers from split or triple personality.

What is clear is that there is a reason or an objective behind each of these status messages or in other words the person has certain expectations when he puts some of these messages. The objective could be hiding a cryptic message in the status which only he or a select few can understand. In such cases, these messages are no less than the Da Vinci code… only people who understand would respond or comment on such a status. The other objective of a status could be simply showing one’s creativity and getting a high by noticing how many people like such a status. Sometimes people put up a status/tweet just to vent out their anger against a person, system, company, society or any other thing. Some other times the idea of putting up a message is to open up a discussion or a debate with others. Sometimes when one has been missing in action for a long time, then just to remind people that he/she exists, a status message is put up.

The reason of putting up a status or a tweet could be one or many but the truth is that each status or tweet desires a conversation as it tells the one who has put it that in this widespread social network, where there are loads of friends, followers and contacts, there are atleast a few who have read what they had to say.

I won’t be surprised if few years down the line psychologists, criminal experts and psychiatrists start analysing status messages and tweets along with the body language to figure out more about a person, but the way body language can deceive, these messages can deceive much more… so lets see!!

POSSIBLE CARTELS IN THE WORLD

In today’s times, there is so much of inter-linkages between sectors/companies/countries that an activity or an event at one place can lead to the benefit of the other. I was just wondering that if some of these people decided to come together, they could easily form a cartel and ride on these joint benefits that would accrue.

Following are some of the possible cartels that my crazy mind could think of:

1. On-ground and on-air aviation cartel: Cartel between shops at the airport and aircraft carriers – Try and delay each and every flight by atleast half an hour to an hour. This would obviously give lot of time in the hands of passengers and would result in additional sales at the airport as some hungry ones would go to the restaurants, the tired ones would get a massage done, the bored ones would probably pick up a book or so and the ones with still some dough left would finish last minute shopping at the airport. While the airport stores stand to gain, not sure whether flights would gain anything or not by paying the high ground parking charges unless the retail chains at the airport agree to share the parking charges

2. Web and the Eye Cartel: Cartel between Facebook, Orkut, Twitter and other social networking sites and opticians- Make the content more and more interesting and get people to spend more time on each of the sites. Spending more time would mean spending more time looking at the screen and that would lead to eye strain and other eye problems for which people would have to go to opticians, so it is a win-win for everyone. The web sites would get more advertisers due to their stickiness and it would mean great business for the opticians.

3. Indian wedding and international honeymoon cartel: There are a few dates/months in the Indian calendar every year, when most weddings take place and nowadays a lot of Indians get their wedding fixed by a wedding planner. This is followed by a honeymoon to international destinations like Mauritius, Bali, Malaysia, etc. for a number of new couples. One way of forming this cartel is to for international hotels/airlines to tie-up with the Indian wedding planner, whose job is right from arranging for flowers, deciding a theme, getting wedding cards printed to suggesting interesting countries to couples for their honeymoon.

All a wedding planner has to do to convince a couple is to show some great pictures of the country, the hotel and the special honeymoon suite that he/she can arrange for at a great rate. Throw in a limo pick-up and the new husband would want to give that experience to his new wife. The hotels and airlines recommended by the wedding planner beat competition as the trust in this wedding planner is immensely high. This allows the hotels/airlines to tap into the right profile of customers and the money that they save on advertising can be used to make the wedding planner ‘plan’ the right honeymoon for the couples.

4. Indian and Chinese toy/mobile phone cartel: Chinese goods have made a number of small Indian dealers rich on one hand, but on the other hand, it has also hit a large number of Indian companies making Indian products and selling it in India. One of the possible cartels could be that these Indian companies pay the Chinese companies their margins on these products, buy these products and destroy them. Then they sell their products in the Indian markets at healthy margins (which covers for what they are paying to the Chinese). This will be a win-win for the Chinese manufacturers as well as the Indian manufacturers. The people who would lose out due to such a cartel would be the small dealers who make money by selling these Chinese goods and the consumers who buy Chinese goods regularly at half the prices of what they have to pay for the Indian goods. 

But then who said that cartels are supposed to be beneficial to all. In fact, the word CARTEL is supposed to mean that only. While it benefits a few groups of people/companies/sectors, there will always be another set who will bear the brunt of such a cartel.

I am sure that this way there can be a number of cartels that can be formed. One just needs to sit and look around and see the possibilities. What cartels come to your mind? Do let me know.

Contacts

Do you have contacts? Although it sounds like a very simple question, but quite often there is more to this simple question than what is seen. What one is trying to ask is that how much clout does one have. This is a question that is asked at various points of time in one’s life in India as lot of work gets done only through ‘contacts’.

But today I will not be talking about those kind of contacts. I would like to talk about the contacts that exist on our mobile phones. Each of us has a number of contacts on our mobile phones. In fact, each and every new mobile model that comes into the market promises more and more space for your contacts. From 100 to 200 to 500 and many more.

I just wonder how many of these contacts do we really contact….. and how often? In fact, the other day I was just going through my long list of contacts as I wanted to clear out some names, with whom there will be no contact or there will be no need to contact. There were some names against which I could not place any face at all nor could I recollect who or what that person had done to be a part of my contact list. Then there were some whose name was ringing a bell in the mind, but it was difficult to recollect their significance in my life. These were the easy ones to remove from the contact list as it was clear that they were not important enough to stay in my contacts list.

The difficult part came after this. As I started scrolling from one name to the other, there were faces, past memories and moments that started coming across me. Each name had a certain story and relevance in my life. Some of these names or contacts were very important in a certain phase of my life and these were the people I used to speak to very often, but as time passed by and college, cities, jobs, and relationships changed, each contact started moving up or down in one’s hierarchy of importance. Some of the regular contacts became once in a while contacts to a need based contact to a contact who just exists on my mobile phone. But these are still contacts, whose name I do not wish to delete as I feel that someday I might call them again and relive some of those old moments.

Till then Facebook will help me keep updated on a lot of them!