Karthik S | beastoftraal.com

Can a brand show its users as unhappy people in advertising?

August 25, 2021 by Karthik S

I had written about a brand that generously swore and was generally abrasive on Twitter, back in 2018. That brand continues to be exactly the way it was and it’s a total riot! It is so unusual to see a brand stay…

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Framing EV launch communication – Rahul Sharma vs. Bhavish Aggarwal

August 24, 2021 by Karthik S

I don’t recall Ather or Hero Electric launching their electric scooters/bikes with live streaming fanfare, but both Revolt and Ola have quite a few things in common. Both have well-known founders – Rahul ‘Micromax’ Sharma and Bhavish Aggarwal. Both companies are primarily…

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Outsourcing tasks to your digital deepfake

August 23, 2021 by Karthik S

When I wrote a note on deepfakes last year, I was merely looking at it from the perspective of disinformation. But, besides perpetuating disinformation (and misinformation), it is heading in a really interesting direction that is not so bad (though still questionable)…

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Airtel Nigeria: The invisible logic

August 20, 2021 by Karthik S

A recent ad for Airtel Nigeria, by the agency Noah’s Ark (Nigeria), made me ponder quite a bit. When I saw the ad for the first time, I loved the idea and thought that it was a fantastic way to showcase how…

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Should you be paid less for working from home? Or more?

August 19, 2021 by Karthik S

One of the most sweeping changes due to the pandemic is the situation around remote working (for the kinds of work that can be performed remotely, that is). Consider this background: several large companies have tried remote work and have famously canceled/banned…

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Strangers in the…

August 18, 2021 by Karthik S

There is one crucial element of social media that is worth remembering constantly, but most people don’t particularly remember or bother about it. Hold on to that thought – I’ll come back to it. Before social media platforms entered our lives—which would…

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What Facebook sells to advertisers but does not want you to know they sold it

August 17, 2021 by Karthik S

Signal, the messaging platform that pitches its privacy-first nature as the USP, recently took aim at Facebook with a very interesting idea. We all know that Facebook collects a treasure-trove of data about every user across its many online properties. Facebook sells…

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