Associations

One normally thinks that the answers that we are looking for are locked inside our consumers. However, our consumers are themselves locked into a wider cultural context. This context is different for each category in each country.

I have often observed that our preferences in music are be driven strongly by associations. For e.g. if some one has grown up listening to Hindustani classical music at a home where classical music was appreciated by the, say, father, say when the father was in a good mood mostly on holiday’s. Typically, the mood at home was very relaxed on such days. Every time this music was played, this setting repeated itself. This child is likely to grow up liking Hindustani classical music, you would agree. There is a good chance that his father was a normal adult father, with varying moods including anger, irritation, disappointment and given to stress on some days. There’s a good chance that in these not so good moods and occasions, the father did not listen to Hindustani classical music. Over a period of years, the association of classical music with “something good, something serene, something warm and secure and happy” got built for this child. Many years later when this child grows up, it can be argued that listening to classical music evokes the same feeling that it did like when he was a child – “good, serene, warm, secure & happy”. A child from another country with a similar father but listening to Mozart is likely to have similar types of associations when ever he listens to Mozart, but its unlikely that Bheemsen Joshi (or another well known Hindustani Classical Artist) will work for him in the same manner.

This means that we like a particular type of music because of the association we have with it – finally appreciation of music is an acquired taste, and that taste is acquired due to associations with very fundamental human emotions.

The same argument can be made for food. While in music this case can be argued very easily, in case of food, also I believe that this association theory is extremely strong. Why is every mother’s cooking the best in the world? Its definitely not because every mother uses the same recipes or the same quality of ingredients, but more because most mothers while feeding their children are at their loving best. For the child the whole experience is enhanced in the company of her mother. Watching her make the roti’s puff up magically, adding that pinch of salt in her characteristic style, wiping her sweat from her brow, tucking her pallu into the folds of her sari – all these things are amazing for the child to watch. More than the food the mother makes, it is these memories, symbols and the love and care for which the grown up child yearns for the most.

What is the implication of this for our brands? We spend a lot of time, understanding reactions of consumers to stimulus that we throw at them. Also we focus a lot on drivers of category choice and brand choice. However, if we can truly understand what the compelling set of associations and symbols and cultural codes for our categories are, immense opportunities can be unlocked. How we can leverage this understanding is another question altogether.

Extremes

Enough is enough! I am going to write! Caution: If you find this post crappy, please forgive – this is my attempt to get over my block and I am determined to write something…even if it is crappy!

Last week I found myself in Bombay with a free evening with nothing to do. Tuhin, a friend who works for my ad agency was traveling with me suggested we go and see a play in the Prithvi theatre, which was quite close to the Hotel where we were staying. I have not seen a play in a theatre for many years now and jumped at the opportunity immediately. Anyways, we reached Prithvi and luckily got tickets for the night show for a Hindi play called “Bali aur Shambhu”.

Before, coming to the play we had spent the day in a studio supervising the post-production work that was happening on the latest TV commercial that we were working on for my company.

During the day, we were playing with frames, sound light etc. We were changing things at whim- even expressions can be changed by slowing them or speeding them. And in the evening we were in this completely different environment – the live theatre. Where we could reach out and touch the actors if we wanted, here I could almost feel the vibrations from the actors booming voice touch my skin. There was no scope to fix an expression; also there was no possibility to see the mistake again. The vector was however the same – that of telling a story by enacting it. The day was quite a yoyo for me in a sense, swinging between two extreme ends of the communication spectrum/vector.

What I realized is this, when you get exposed to the two extremes on the same vector of expression, you get a great understanding of the vector itself and also of the two extremes. If you want to play in the center (Like most of us do in our own vectors), I guess it would help us to visit the extremes ones in a while. If not anything else, it will at least help us define our centers a bit better.

Writers Block !

Am just not able to write off late. To make things worse, I have been terribly busy over the last month. Had a very hectic two-week travel to the US. Came back and got very very busy with moving to our new house. This is the first time that we have moved to a house, which we own and the process of moving in was very different from all our previous moves into rented places. The kind of involvement that goes into the planning of every fixture and every little piece of new furniture, furnishings etc was quite taxing but very enjoyable. Aditi's school admission was the other task that had to be accomplished. The workload also picked up at the same time and so did travel. Net Net, all this fed my writers block also and the outcome was a totally unproductive month...writing wise. Abhi sms'd, and said, "its scary when a regular blog goes suddenly silent"...the voice in my head said, "write bugger, write". But for some reason I am unable to see the purpose of this.
Its not as if I do not have subjects to write about. There are quite a few 1. The process of home building 2. Brand Positioning and how much time it takes - a personal case study 3. The Marketing of India Incredible in USA- a travelers view point 4. Film review of Jodha Akbar etc. But I am jus not able to put fingers to the keyboard. Hopefully, this phase will not last.

The Choice is mine

I spent the last weekend at the absolutely magnificent Club Mahindra Kodagu Valley resort at Coorg. I was part of a group of bloggers who were invited by Club Mahindra.

The entire group is featured in the picture. From left to right Srinidhi, Amogha, Apurv, Sudhir, Mridula, Arun from Club Mahindra, Kiruba, Anil, Anita, Khanjan and Joy from Club Mahindra. Hidden behind Amogha is the silent DJ Dhruv.

The group was a fairly diverse one. We had professors; marketing professionals, corp. comm. Managers, entrepreneurs, photographers, techies etc traversing a wide age as well as size band to make things even more interesting. The only common thing was that all of us were bloggers. Some were fairly evolved bloggers like Kiruba (www.kiruba.com); while there were also a recent upstarts like me.

I had a fantastic time meeting the group and it was a pleasure to interact with some of the “rascals” who were more than 10 years younger but never made me feel old. I Came back drunk on the energy and enthusiasm of the young and happening generation next. I have always maintained that the power of the untrained mind is one of the most potent forces that our country has today. Intelligent, enthusiastic and with the confidence to take on the world.

I have not had an outing of this nature for a long time. I have probably not gone out and had fun with strangers for the last 10 –12 years. As a matter of fact, most of the “new” people I have met in the last decade have been professionally and most of them have not become friends. It amazed me that for some one who is given to making friends so easily and some one who loves meeting people and analyzing social and cultural issues, this would be the case. If you had asked me 10 years ago if this would have happened, I would have laughed at you. It is amazing the price your career makes you pay.

Now, that I am back and looking at sales numbers and the media plan for next month, it just struck me that the choice to stay young is mine!

WHAT THE F !

A Spanish acoustic guitar is fantastic in many ways. It sounds great, is relatively easy to start playing (not easy to master it though), if you play chords well it can be a great accompaniment to a good singing voice, simple to carry around - most of all it can solve some problems for lonely musicians. Okay- most of my musician friends would raise their eyebrows in harmony if they hear that word being used in my context. (I confess, I am not one. lonely, sometimes, but "musician", not yet!). Lets, settle for Lonely Wannabe Musician.

So here is the thing - When I was in College, we started this light rock band called Dhwni and played together for more than 3 years. All of us still say that those were the best years of life. Yes, college had a part to play in it - but it was the music, the special bonding amongst band mates and the adrenalin rush of performing live was the real stuff - the kind of stuff that can come back to you when you are getting towards mid 30's in your fancy tie and stuck in that traffic jam in your fancy car !

Anyways, I was the drummer in this band and once we left college , while the guitarists and the singers and the piano guys continued to do what they were doing (musically speaking), I was stuck. Wanted to play, but there was no outlet. You cannot sit in your bedroom on a Saturday afternoon and bang away on the drums really, its not that kind of an instrument. At least that's the way it works for me, I need a band to play with and solo was not my deal was never good enough to do a solo.

The above state of affairs has continued for the last 12 years and all along I have thought of taking up the Spanish Guitar. My friend Neeraj Khanna ( A very accomplished Guitarist - Lead Guitarist of Sonic Flare) even gifted me a box guitar - a nice jumbo with a very good hum - which i played for several years. Over the last 3-4 years this guitar was getting very difficult to tune and I began to doubt my own ability - "If I cant even tune a guitar - then I cannot play it". Therefore I stopped when i had started picking up the guitar a bit.

But, last Friday, some thing happened that changed things - I was in conference organised by my organisation and like all our conferences, this one too ended with a session of singing late into the night with much alcohol and delirium. My friend Harsh had got a guitar for me to play and sing. A brand new F Cut beauty. I tuned the completely out of tune guitar in about 40 seconds in a reasonable inebriated state (no it was not the alcohol - i also checked with some sane parties, if the sound was OK) and played it for 3 hours after that. Confidence boost happened and this confirmed that my ear was not really out of tune but the problem was more with my old guitar that had warped and bent with age and cannot be tuned unless repaired.

So, last Sunday, I have acquired a beauty - A brand new YAMAHA Acoustic 310 Spanish Guitar. Cost me a bit - but every sound that it produces gives me a ROI and I am feeling great. Have been trying to play a lot of things and am trying to continue from where I left 4 years back. I just recalled that I was stuck last perfecting the F Major Chord properly. I can play most of the other Chords, their minors, their suspended versions and the works, but I just cannot master the F major Chord. Therefore, the only thing that stands between the lonely musician and his music today is the Major Chord F. What the F !

What am I doing here ?

I have been planning to write a book for as long as I can recall.

My self assessment is , I think I have good skills with people, good public speaking ability and am fairly articulate. I also love to read, especially what some people call "literary fiction". I cant say that I am a fanatic reader, but, I am always reading something all the time. I also love performing arts like Theatre and Performing music live in front of an audience.

Some how all of this coupled with a desire to leave a lasting imprint on this world has ignited the desire in me to create some thing. Some thing that others can see, feel and be moved by in some way. Some thing permanent, some thing nice.

Initially, i thought of making a movie, but that was unrealistic. Then it came down to making ad films, but that also seemed to be a risk, considering that I started to do well in my career and the comforts the modern MNC marketing job seemed too good to leave. So finally, it came down to writing. I don't know if that is a logical conclusion to arrive at from where we started, but this is where we are. I have been telling myself ages now, "Some day I will write a book".

This has now transformed to, at least I will write a blog. At least I will write.

So here I am - I will write. I have no subject, I have no inspiring thought that is consuming me, my fingers are not moving on their own, a story is not building.

So I have nothing really to write about, hence, I have decided that my writing will be random for now. I will write about what I read, yes, I will do some book reviews here. I may also write about interesting people I meet and random thoughts. I may also write about Marketing (my profession) Hopefully, some of it will make sense to some people. If it makes sense to me in the future and if there is trend that I can see - may be it will lead to some thing. May be....