Tag: Fear

Certain, simple frames

I read an article recently on decision making, which among other things wrote about how instinct could beat analytical thinking. An insightful heuristic that I found in it was this – ..if you are in an uncertain world, make it simple. If you are in a world that’s highly predictable, make it complex.

While the article focused on decision making in the business context, I could relate to it in the personal context. I see the world at large as an uncertain and complex place, and have spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to contain its influence on my own life. It has been an evolution. The expectations frame I have written about does a fairly good job of reducing the variables, but it isn’t perfect. There are people and events that frustrate me, I sometimes lose my cool, and my remorse later doesn’t really change anything for anyone, including me. (example) (more…)

January 13, 2019
Guided by fear

I have this habit of adding a bookmark fold at the bottom of the page when I want to refer to it again. It is quite a task when I have to figure out much later what line in the page I’d originally bookmarked for! These days, Instagram solves it. At some point, I’m sure I can search my feed with a #quote hashtag and retrieve all the ‘bookmarks’ easily. Yay!

“And the Mountains Echoed” had many such bookmarks. (still an unconscious habit despite the Instagram method) But this one has to be my favourite – “..but most people have it backward. They think they live by what they want. But really what guides them is what they are afraid of. What they don’t want.” I can easily confess that a large share of my actions is to preclude some dystopian version of my old age. (one) Many a time, this leads me to choose cautious paths over (what I think might be) more emotionally fulfilling ones, and even ones that I think might be leading me to my purpose.

But when I thought about it a bit more, I realised that it can be read positively too – after all I am afraid of being switched off without knowing why I was here, and that’s what makes it an obsession! Also, the ‘afraid-don’t want’ factor often drives me to do things that are out of my comfort zone, so it’s possibly even pushing me towards my purpose, albeit from a different direction. Just a form of reduction? 🙂 It’s probably not a coincidence that my second favourite quote from the book is “When you have lived as long as I have, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same colour“

until next time, fear off

October 30, 2013
A brand is

One of the interview questions that brand managers get asked early in their careers is 'What is a brand?' Some of my favourite answers have been 'a promise to the consumer' and 'a thought in the consumer's mind'. But changing landscapes in technology and consumption mean that the definition remains an evolving one. I found a few interesting perspectives last week in this context.

The first is this seemingly simple, but excellent post at HBR titled 'A Logo is Not a Brand' which (to really summarise) explains how the brand is its strategy, the stories that its products tell, its calls to action, its customer service, its tone, attitude, its people, communication tools and its logo and visuals are all part of the brand. And he asks a very pertinent question in the end

Whether you know it or not, whether you have a swanky logo or not, you do have a brand. The question is whether or not it's the brand you really want.

With social platforms and user voices that become more effective than the brand's own, the likelihood of different perceptions is indeed high, but the good news is these very same tools also offer brands the opportunity to bridge the chasm.

The second post titled 'Brand Building: Is Function the new Emotion' builds on the view (that I also subscribe to) that the best advertisement for a brand is its product. But the twist in the end is that “the functional integration into a consumer's life creates an emotional bond” and sustaining it requires “superior performance and meaningful, empathetic innovation”. Completely agree, because it does tie into the idea of social business and identifying a workforce and processes that will help build and sustain it.

Car Leasing Kit And Guide

ads/2011/06/LB.jpg”>A brand's purpose is something I have written about many times earlier on this blog. I found a very elegant brand framework – part of Leo Burnett's Human Brands concept – in one of the Cannes 2011 decks. According to Mark Tutssel, Chief Creative Officer, “Brands which have a purpose, but don't act dreamy, while brands which act without a purpose are noisy. And, for brands which lack both, they are lazy.” (via) The top right quadrant belongs to 'HumanKind', and that's where successful brands are.

So what prevents other brands from occupying it? One interesting answer I read was 'Fear'. As the post says, to build a leading brand, “organizational thinking must be on the creative plane (possibility and potential) not the competitive plane (hard bargains and discount pricing)”, and marketers are frightened of what this entails. The post even outlines a six step transformational cycle. Metrics are mentioned as a strong deterrent.

I have always felt that most advertising have not been measurable from an actual sales perspective. Parameters like TOM, salience in brand advertising are a no-brainer, but even in 'performance' advertising, there are so many factors that remain unaccounted for and unmeasured. But most brands go through the loops. We come back to the first reference about brands being a collection of various parts, a sentiment that is echoed in the last reference too, as the author defines leadership as “the quality of one’s presence in every aspect of life”. When organisations learn to do that, brand utopia will be nearer.

until next time, contrabrand

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July 7, 2011

The price of fear

1989… Rs.15… Bees Saal Baad
2006… Rs.170… Darna Zaroori Hain

until next time, there’s a reason to be afraid

May 8, 2006

Nope, AXN is not paying me for the publicity (as if)..hehe.., oops, i am not paying them royalty either…oh well, the balance of life… the disclaimer – this post is also on the lines of some previous posts, in terms of general direction, that is – why we do the things we do…..
in one of my previous posts, i had written about sex being the principal driver of our actions…but though the arguments were compelling, i realise that there are some times where the argument draws a blank…
for example, as kids, we dont have conscious thoughts of sex, maybe it exists in some form in the sub conscious, but definitely not as overt feelings..
so i looked for one emotion that at least equals sex in terms of being a driver – fear…
from birth to death , there are zillions of situations where fear has propelled us to do the things we did…
cry coz you were afraid you wouldn’t get fed…..
ate the food coz you were afraid of the big bad wolf that would come to get you, if you didnt eat
refused to go to school coz you were afraid of the bullies, teachers etc
didnt go into a dark room coz you wera afraid of ghosts
did the homework coz you were afraid of being punished
insisted on the cricket gear coz you were afraid you wouldnt be allowed to play without it
took a career path coz you were afraid of being called a failure
thought hundred times about proposing to your girl/boyfriend coz you were afraid of rejection
smoked/boozed coz you were afraid you wouldnt match up to your peer group’s standards otherwise
thought hundred times about proposing to your girl/boyfriend coz you were afraid of commitment
believed in God coz you were afraid of His wrath
let your dreams meander away coz you were afraid that if you followed them, your life would meander away
didnt help an accident victim coz you were afraid that it would take too much of you time/energy
developed multiple masks coz you were afraid to show your real personality
thought twice about posting this coz i was afraid people would think of my line of thought as an obsession.. 🙂

all this and much much more… maybe if i could only stop being afraid, i could be what i wanted to be and do all the things i wanted to do.. and then FDR’s words rings across my mind -” there is nothing to fear, but fear itself”
but what you dont have to fear is
manuscrypts trivia
a link thats a must see…only instructions are to take the pointer to the guy’s nose after the site is fully loaded

a shot in the arm for indian sports (pun intended?)
and a great forward
I wanted to thank all my friends and family who have forwarded chain letters to me in 2003 & 2004. Because of your kindness:
* I stopped drinking Coca Cola after I found out that it’s good for removing toilet stains.
* I stopped going to the movies for fear of sitting on a needle infected with AIDS.
* I smell like a wet dog since I stopped using deodorants because they cause cancer.
* I don’t leave my car in the parking lot or any other place and sometimes I even have to walk about 7 blocks for fear that someone will drug me with a perfume sample and try to rob me.
* I also stopped answering the phone for fear that they may ask me to dial a stupid number and the I get a phone bill from hell with
calls to Uganda, Singapore and Tokyo.
* I also stopped drinking anything out of a can for fear that I will get sick from the rat feces and urine.
* When I go to parties, I don’t look at any girl no matter how hot she is, for fear that she will take me to a hotel, drug me then take my kidneys and leave me taking a nap in a bathtub full of ice.
* I also donated all my savings to the Amy Bruce account. A sick girl that was about to die in the hospital about 7,000 times. (Funny
that girl, she’s been 7 since 1993…)
* I went bankrupt from bounced checks that I made expecting the $15,000 that Microsoft and AOL were supposed to send me when I
participated in their special e-mail program would arrive soon.
* My free Nokia phone never arrived and neither did the free passes for a paid vacation to Disneyland.
*Made myself sick trying to call divya singh (Siemens employee) who needs help for her hubby suffering from Lung cellular cancer
especially when she was not married!!
IMPORTANT NOTE:
If you do not make this into an e-mail and send it to at least 1200 people in the next 10 seconds, a bird will crap on your head today at 5:30pm 😉

August 18, 2004

Tag: Fear

Certain, simple frames

Guided by fear

A brand is

The price of fear

Fear Factor