RIP VAN...WTF??

I stumbled upon my old blog while cleaning my digital attic. It’s like running into box of things from your childhood and how you just stop everything that you are doing and take trip down memory lane.

The first thing that hit me was to that it’s been long time since I posted something. Can’t exactly find a reason why?

Well, so I decided to pick up where I left off a couple of years ago...5 to be precise. That’s like 20 in today’s 50Mbps download speed times.

So, this is me dusting my mental cob webs and trying to rehabilitate my right brain …or is it left??

When I sat down to pen this or key this (nobody pens anymore, apparently) I couldn't help but feel like RIP WAN WINKLE, The character created by Washington Irving who to escape his wife’s nagging wanders off to into the hills (why am I not surprised J) and gets drunk on some moonshine offered by the hill folks and sleeps through the entire American revolution and wakes up only to find that world he knew has turned upside down.

In my attempts to cope the vagaries of life, living up to the Jones's and sometimes just getting by I realized that that I had left behind the metaphorical village in winkle’s story. Just like him I decided to wake up from this induced slumber and get back to my village.

So what’s new with the village then??  Well here’s what I see……

Facebook went public with that all your data and Snowden private. Kim and Kan-ye had a baby so there is another Kardashian we don’t need to keep up with. The royals had made a new addition to the family and Madonna found herself another boy toy from this year’s Vogue calendar. Egypt went crazy and Uncle Sam checks our phones like a crazy ex -girlfriend. We have reached to mars n beyond and yet cancer is still incurable. The whole world is having a financial crunch and yet the number of billionaires doubled or tripled in the last 5 years. Social media has democratized knowledge and yet we are none the wiser. Technology has changed the way we communicate, desecrate, reciprocate, procreate and in some cases defecate information and yet we are clueless about things that matter.  

Begs the question, has the village really changed the things they do or just changed the way they do things.

Indian Premier League- Gentlemen's game.. Just got Rowdy

Couple of days ago me and some of my friends headed to local sports bar in town to catch the grand finale of the IPL, for the uninitiated (which rock do you live under?) it’s the Indian Premier League. The latest iteration of the gentleman’s game. Personally I’m not much of a cricket fan, but was always fascinated how this game (The regular version) bought together the entire nation. Cricket was one-day affair. A family and community one at that! People would wind up work early; Kids were let off from tuitions early, the neighborhood store Walla would have a tv or transistor Radio facing towards the crowd so that the less fortunate can take a quick glance at the proceedings, That’s was then…


In comes the Indian Premier league, The magnamopus of a game, The Glitz, the Glamour and not mention the Moolah!! The cheerleaders, the after parties, all the ingredients that make a perfect recipe of a game palatable to gen next (as we call ourselves!). In short, Cricket has come of age, it has become cooler, more flamboyant and audacious .The next generation of the game catering to the young and the restless generation, who do not have time to do anything right the first time but always have time to correct it later.

As I was saying , me and couple of my buddies headed down to a local joint to watch the show( I don’t think it’s a sport anymore) and got ourselves perched on one of those couches. The place was buzzing with fans of both the teams. Team jerseys, Catch phrases.. basically the works!!!! The finals was a total nail biter with its Hits and Misses. But…. Something Didn’t feel right!!!!!! There was no camaraderie among the people. I was cheering my home team (which eventually one) when I suddenly realized I was a minority. I could sense there was more than beer that was brewing in that place, I cannot explain but the feeling of unity and oneness the game brought just wasn’t there anymore... We were not team India... We are the chargers, challengers, royals,knights, anything But team India...

Now you might say that I’m old school and that this is our answer to English premier league or that the game is going global. But, what I see is the brown man’s insatiable need to emulate the western way of life. That might not be entirely bad, but hey!! Isn’t that the place with highest acts of racism and Sports related violence? Don’t you think we have enough problems in that arena already?

The players themselves act less like sportsmen and more like rock stars with their on and off pitch antics. In all aspects looks like…

The gentlemen’s game…. just got rowdy.

Section--377

Homosexuality is no more a Taboo. As they say “It has come out of the closet”. The sheer number of people from different walks of life involved in this is a testimony to this fact. Personally, I think it’s unnatural, but hey !who am I to pass a judgement! (Pun Intended)

By the way, you know what they say about closets!! There might be skeletons you don’t want to see.

This ruling by Delhi high court has changed everything… Or has it? We are rejoicing about a change in the law for homosexuality in a country where young girls and boys got beaten up for enjoying each other’s company… The walk and talk kind Guys!!!

Last time I checked, there was no rule against that now, was there? And yet in many parts of the country, it is still frowned upon. Amidst all this, do you really think the gay community will get social acceptance it so rightfully deserves just because a high court said so? It is going to take more than court order to change that status Quo.

They have won this battle, but the war has just begun.

Nano-The Indian Marque.

When it came to cars, it always bothered me that we had nothing to claim as our contribution to the world. Our fifteen seconds of fame, our share of the pie... catch my drift!!!

The Italians had the Ferrari's n Lambhogrhini's which represented their passion and sense of style, The Germans dispalyed their engineering prowess with their Audi's n Merc's, The americans had their big trucks and Hum-Vees to show off their Muscle, Japanese had their Honda's and suzuki's to show off their tech wizadry and her majesty's factories were churning out fine examples of british opulence and subtle snobbery vis a vis Bentley's and Rolls's.

Every country had a car or dare I say a mascot in the automobile arena which represented their beliefs, values and customs.Indians had nothing to call of their own. The amby is British and the 800 is a Suzuki.


The Nano has changed all that. It has done more than proving India's engineering prowess. It has got a permamnent parking spot for india in history books. Our Two cents in the automotive dollar. The Italians have the ferrari's and Lambo's and we have our Nano. "The Indian Marque." An odd comparison you might say, but they have a lot in common.... All three of them are rare engined and rare wheel drive, come in same colours and there parents are related to each other.

The wheel. Version 2.0

It took a global recession and an expensive tea party in Copenhagen to make the electric car look great, more importantly as a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine which made its debut in late 1800’s or so. 100 years on, this little contraption has been lugging the world on its shoulders in its various Avatars.

This bag of nuts and bolts catapulted this world into a whole new dimension. Last century owes its prosperity to the engine. I mean, think about a world without engines…. Crazy isn’t it? After a stupendous century of gas guzzling, rubber burning,and iceberg melting performance it looked like that there is no worthy contender to the almighty internal combustion engine. Sure, there are a few radical alternatives like the fuel cell, electric vehicle, the air pod but none could deter the legions of petrol heads from their path to motoring nirvana.

In the last couple of years I’ve noticed an insurgence of battery powered boxes in to the domain of the internal combustion engine. This time they are lean, mean and green.

This whole green party has the tree hugger inside me all excited , but every time a straight six, a V8 or a W12 is pulled out of the market a part of my petrosexual soul dies and I know that I’m not the only one.

You might mistake me for a motor head who is high on exhaust fumes and doesn’t give damn about the planet I live in and that I’m being unfair towards these glorified battery cases.

That’s not entirely true.

A fellow gearhead shuddered at the thought living in a battery powered world. He wondered whether these battery powered cars will put the internal combustion out of business just like it made the horse look for greener pastures. Well,I don’t think so; in fact the internal combustion engine freed the horse from mundane job of hauling weight around, for more pleasurable activities these thoroughbreds were meant for.

Likewise, I think these battery powered cars will do the same for the internal combustion engine what the latter did to the horse. It will free up the oil reserves that we so callously use for routine activities and save these masterpieces of automotive engineering and enjoy them the way they are meant to be enjoyed. Wot say! ……….

Innovation-The Second Wave

As the year draws to an end, it just occurred to me that this is not just another holiday season but the end of a decade and what a decade it has been! Recession, terrorism, social networking, T-20, Global economy …. shook the foundations of the world that we were used to. These cataclysmic events that occurred in this decade made it the decade that truly changed the world.

Now that I think about it, every decade had an idea, a philosophy, a thought process, a laissez faire so to speak the defined the events and happenings in that period. The 50’s and early 60’s was characterized by the baby boomers , The late 60’s and Early 70’s saw the birth of flower power and the 80’s and 90’s was dominated by liberal and capitalistic ideologies. These seemingly irrelevant sub-cultures and idiosyncratic ways of life sometimes defined the entire future of an economy.

That brings me to this decade. One philosophy or a thought process that cut across all fields and that defined this decade was Innovation. Whatever happened in this decade was because of this one ideology. The decade of the grey caps. Some had their caps on right, others tried to pull a rabbit out of a cap and we all know the result. As this roller coaster ride of a decade comes to an end, a simple yet predominant question lingers …What Next?

Everything has alternative today and the rate of obsolence is almost at the same pace as innovation. If some how you manage to stay ahead of this vicious cycle, The Chinese will bring out a replica that costs half as much and does twice as much the original. This puts the so called innovators in a quandary. How do they keep up with the Joneses?

So far, Innovation as an ideology has been applied only to the product or the core element of business.

In the next decade, innovators have to shift from the product centric approach and take a wholistic approach in order to sustain this pace and take the pole position. They need to collaborate with the customer rather than just sell.

Apple Inc. is a good example of this wholistic approach of innovation. It is the only company that provides the entire package ,meaning the software, the hardware and all the other bells and whistles to its client along with product. In its I-phone, it has given the customer not a product but a platform with obscene amount of scalability. It is for this reason its products are considered superior and have been able to hold its own in the face of competition.

The critics might and in all possibility will disagree with me.. but hey! They are just doing their job.

The second wave of innovation has to be a collaborative effort rather than just a science project in a garage that hit the jackpot. Innovation should not limit itself to a product but rather spread across all other aspects of business.

Time for thinking out of the box is over. It's about time you ripped the box apart!

Luxury Brand Management.

Luxury… Everybody wants it.., Don’t they?.. Don’t you?. I know I do and I know you do too. That’s exactly why you and me are working our arse’s off in a B-school or where ever that is you are to make our future “Luxurious”. But ever stopped and pondered…what the definition of “Luxury” is?...... Drawing a blank ,aren’t you?. Exactly…The concept itself is subjective. what is luxury for some is just ordinary for others .

What was meant only for gods a couple of years ago have become easily attainable to the average Joe. A couple of decades ago, you had to be on the queen's dinner invitee’s list to buy a Rolls and today…… Your neighborhood billionaire has two. Adding to this, the economic crisis, it has become ethically more dubious ‘to like luxury’ or ‘to pursue luxury’. Given this situation , how do you manage luxury brand?

The answer is Aspiration and Association.

Every marketer worth his salt knows what is aspiration and what it can do to their brand. Luxury brands tend to enjoy a certain aspirational value. This is what puts them on a different level altogether. The trick here is to balance the aspiration and attainability. Like CEO of Lamborghini, Stephan winkleman said “ The key to staying ahead in Luxury market is to always produce less than demand”. That pretty much explains the limited production runs of most luxury car brands and their exorbitant prices.

The second most important thing for any luxury brand is association. Luxury comes from ‘lux’ which means light in Latin. This is a typical character of luxury . It should shine and shimmer. It has to be seen by the customer and more importantly the people he is trying to impress. That is why luxury brands flaunt their brand signature. These are made to perfection and standout in a mélange of other brands and products.

Luxury brands should and must represent a certain lifestyle. A life of leisure, free of all working, money, time or space obligations. These brands tend to associate themselves with Sports, events or celebrities that complement these characteristics. Like Rolex’s association with Golf or chanel’s association with Milan Fashion Week and Aston Martin’s association with James bond. Each of these associations is not a random marketing exercise but a carefully chosen image booster.

Association is not just limited to tangible entities. Some luxury brands have carved themselves a niche by associating themselves to certain virtues and emotions. Swiss watches embody precision engineering, Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s stand for boundless passion, and any fashionista would swear by their French perfume.

The sum of all things is that people who buy luxury brands and products don’t just look for things like practicality or affordability and other things us lesser mortals worry about. What they want is character, individualism , personalization and snob value. It is not to say that they ignore the basics of any product such as quality etc. etc. Beyond all that, it has to play a classifying role which creates a restricted group that bond together and distinguishes itself from rest of the society.