Habits
June 30, 2020Have you hated some vegetable all your life till one day, like a lightbulb being switched on, you start liking it for some inexplicable reason? It happened to me. I have hated capsicum all my life. Or, I thought I hated it,…
Category: opinion
HUL dropping ‘Fair’! Have brands suddenly developed a conscience?
June 29, 2020A summary of recent major change in behavior by large brands around the world: 1. 2. 3. 4. And the most recent and popular example – HUL changing the name of Fair & Lovely! There are brands like Patagonia and Ben &…
Toys and imagination
June 26, 2020Two hugely imaginative campaigns, for two children’s play-things. Lego, by Ogilvy Bangkok in 2017. Play-Doh, by Ogilvy São Paulo in 2019. For Lego, they could have shown the kids building it from the outside. But, from the inside, it makes a more…
Personal branding using paid advertising
June 25, 2020When you notice ‘Brand Connect’ in a magazine (or a newspaper), what goes in your mind? Most people in the marketing space know that it is a euphemism for ‘paid advertising’. Instead of saying, “We paid for this space because we don’t…
Would you pay for email and search?
June 24, 2020My answer to that question – I wouldn’t. At least not yet! We are probably seeing very, very early signs of a movement away from advertiser-led business models to a subscribers-led business model. This is already evident in the media industry. There…
Virtual walkouts by employees
June 23, 2020Employee activism has been on the rise in recent times. With large companies, when a small number of employees visibly (digitally) protest, it doesn’t amount too much beyond minor damage in PR creds. In many cases, the employee (or the core group…
OLPC’s pandemic-induced redux
June 22, 2020Back when I was at Text 100 (now called Archetype), my largest client was Lenovo. As part of understanding the client’s context, I had done a lot of reading on the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project by the co-founder and chairman…