Tag: consumerism

  • Woke it out for yourself!

    A couple of months ago, I wrote an article for afaqs on the challenges for brands trying to remain relevant by stepping into “woke” territory. To summarise, being selectively woke is not an option. Every action by an organisation is scrutinised, and sometimes, scored! Both McDonald’s and P&G were in the “danger zone” of being viewed as more exploitative than empowering. The former even got called out by NAACP for not supporting workers. However, this post is not to belabour that point, instead I’d like to hypothesise on the long term impact on consumption and brand building. (more…)

  • Our kinda modern

    first up, a very happy friendship (yester) day to all of you…though to be honest, there shouldnt be a day for this, friends are forever… oh, well, those poor archies guys have to find ways to make money, dont they..hehei have finally finished ‘india unbound’, and am now reading roald dahl’s supposedly best stories, and to be very honest, after 110 pages out of 360 odd, it still hasnt delivered the kind of stuff it promises on the back cover, so it is not on my medialist…!!
    there are some guys outside my office protesting against the government for something, regular stuff in india, but the difference today is that they have stripped down to their undies…hehe, gives a whole new meaning to ‘india unbound’..yeah, speaking of that book, stll a couple of good points to share…one, about our concept of modern….our modern is mostly ‘western’… whatever is accepted there gets accepted here too…. from pizzas to music videos, oit is ironic that there is a jam packed crowd for every performance of indian maestros in the west, but here, its is only a niche audience….i dont think quality is the chief criterion we employ when we choose goods, services or whatever, there is basically a bias towards whatever is western, and thus we tend to kill whatever is homegrown, yes there are brands that survive, but i believe they entered the indian consumer’s brain before the concept of ‘western-modern’ came about……the other point, tomorrow’s post….meanwhile
    manuscrypts trivia
    “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” – Carl Sagan

  • Its all about money, honey?

    That was borrowed from the tagline of indiainfoline.com, i dont see it much these days, wonder if they still use it…but that also is what i am going to write on today…i am reading ‘india unbound’ by gurcharan das(see my medialist), almost finished it…and i am able to relate yesterday’s post to some of the stuff in the book…so, will continue on the path….but i believe, i will be backtracking by the time i finish the entire series..today’s generation, as compared to the ones earlier, gets a lot of money related happiness, mostly because of rising consumerism, which has almost enveloped the more developed countries and is rapidly aadvancing in india…we like to have things literally at our fingertips, and the mouse is a powerful tool.. we order books, gifts and many other things under the sun online, it definitely is convenient….the mobile is also a powerful tool, most of the restaurants here, have introduced home delivery, again the fingertips can get the job done….result of all this is a decrease in the kind of social interaction we grew up with…and whether it is online purchases or home delivery, there is definitely an extra price we pay for it……the BPOs (call centers, in regular parlance) that are spreading like a virus, not necessarily with the same dire consequences, hehe, they are either making calls or receiving calls,giving customers from far flung corners of the globe, info about a variety of products and services….so we have convenience, better economies coz these call center employees make good money, so more disposable income….but are we losing ourselves in the turn of the merry go round, why do we have waves of nostalgia? why do we turn to our blogs as outlets? a query, can our generation produce a bhagat singh or an aung san suu kyi, who would endure purely for what they believe in …..we have, but in a different mould, more on that tomorrow…. leaving you with
    manuscrypts trivia
    ‘If somebody gives you a free ticket for a tour, you cannot fight with the person because of the troubles you meet while on the journey.’….leena chandavarkar, on life