Brand the Nation, Sell the soul

What is the highest level of branding that can be attained? You brand a sport , music , movies and any other form of entertainment and reach its audience but how about reaching a nation of one billion and more. The challenge is great. There aren’t any easy answers. Well is it that difficult after all?

Its pretty simple. You brand a nation. India shining or perhaps take a national symbol and brand it. Just to check the current status, there are many underlying opportunities that I see in the coming future.

National anthem - Jan Gan Man - Branded as Jaya he - by Airtel
One billion hearts - One voice - Airtel. Brilliant. Bravo.

But this is just the beginning. We have a whole range of national symbols still available.
National Flag - available - Opportunity: Can fit with some textile brand
National Animal - available - Opportunity: Can fit with some bike/car brand
National Bird - available - Opportunity: Can fit with some female designer brand
And various other national symbols…

But I do have a problem. My problem isn’t the branding. My problem is why should these national symbols branding come for free?

The government suffers from a perpetual fiscal deficit , year after year, so why not auction each of our national symbols. After all we have auctioned most of it slowly and steadily. Why leave this or worst of all let it go for free? So charge for it.

Reminds me of my friend who smiles and says with absolute comfort that he has sold his soul. I have wondered many a time , how? But for once I guess I trust what he says for if the national symbol of a country can be branded and marketed , why can’t a poor soul be sold?

Mental Clones

What are the general topics of discussions we have? If we were to list down ten topics it surely would include news , events , celebrities , movies and sitcoms. The topics are limited and the opinions on the same are rather trite because the source of opinion for most such opinions are common. It is the media and a few media personalities to whom the channels have easy access who become the opinion makers. The handful of such media hyped personalities start voicing the opinion of a country of 1 Bn+. How democratic to have such representatives whom we know not much of. So Prahalad Kakkars and Mahesh Bhatts of the world turn out to be the ones commenting on anything and everything.

We watch , we listen , we accept and occasionally we question. So it isn’t surprising that we constantly find ourselves in agreement with each other. For if the source is the same , the outcome cannot be too different. What you sow is what you reap.



The problem is that media while representing opinions and presenting ideas may not do it democratically. So as media becomes the voice of the democracy we all are so proud of , I am not sure if the facts are reliable enough , if the opinions represents the majority and if media is not being used for the purpose of propaganda.

The idea is not to demean the importance of media in shaping the opinions. The concern is about the blind acceptance of these opinions and unquestioning belief in the information provided. The hero worship and uneducated approach to media representations is scary. After all the human race is endowed with the thinking faculty to judge and decide for its own and if it fails to use the same effectively there is no way at all that we will be able to judge fact from fiction. There is no way we will be able to ensure that as we exist peacefully we don’t loose our individuality and becomes mental clones of each other.

Independence day - not so special

It's independence day.So the mediated world is full of the regular chit chat ... Diamonds on Fever 104 Fm for celebrating 60th year of independence...Times of India launched Lead and Hindustan Times talked on 2067.

But what I enjoyed watching was the bit that Discovery channel did. It was part of the Independence day special features on India. I saw the one hosted by Sanjeev Bhaskar and what hooked me to it was the Yacht ride. It was the one on which we went for the Mid Day party almost more than a year and a half back. There was Sanjeev interviewing Singhania on the same yacht.



The story moved from the rich to the waste collectors of Mumbai. It then featured some participants of Gladrags Mrs India and Maureen Wadia. There was Q&A and one question related to marital rape. It then moved to Infosys campus in Banagalore and then to Cochin as a tourist destination. It was an eclectic mix representative of where we belong but more so it was about the outsider's perspective on something we see each day.

The feature on India made me wonder why we don't value all around us and if the outsider's perspective was what we needed to see inside. It made me wonder if the Independence day special was after all not so special.

Shining Star

As a part of the mediated world and looking to make media and communications my core area of existence, trying to get over the yahoo-google life , I was a little taken a back yesterday.

My media habits have evolved or shall i say just changed over the past few years completely. Met some ad sales people from Star World and Star Movies. Good people. Passionate about their offering. Clear on what they wanted to say. As I was talking with them and they were discussing the programming on Star World , it reminded me of that avid viewer I was.

Star World - once upon a time - was the channel I was hooked to. Would watch it endlessly. Would wait for series - episode after episode. Would get up in the middle of the night and watch Oprah and Ally McBeal. Would laugh alone watching friends, dharma and greg and Two guys, a girls and a pizza place. I was pretty obsessed with the stuff on the channel. Suddenly it all went away. The last bits of Star World I remember seeing were bits of desperate housewives , more so cause it was so heavily promoted across.

It was a meeting that really took me in the past in a way.I wonder if it happens to everyone working in media. People get intrigued to work in media looking at all of this and end up missing the same completely once they get working. Ironical but true , at least for me.

Towards the end of meeting I guess Indraneel commented its so much easier to explain things to you since you understand what the channel is. I smiled. I was silent. In a wayI agreed but I did want to say it was once upon a time.