To Make a Brand - Make It Available

While writing the legendry book “Origin of Species”, Charls Darwin had put forward a phrase “Struggle for Existence”. Though this phrase he had put forward in context of explaining the evolution of species on Planet Earth, but holds true in every aspect. This is true especially with respect to the corporate world.

Since the time I have been transferred to Raipur, I am literally trying to understand one thing that how and why some product is not doing well in other part of the country is doing extremely well here in Chattisgadh? In search of the answer of this, I am trying to spend more time with the trade to understand the evolution of product to brand.

Products basically can be differentiated into two category :-

1. Product for Mass

2. Product for Niche.

If the product is for mass, it is definitely the Rural Market of the Country which makes it brand. This is for the simple reasons that still more than half the customers and consumers are residing in the rural part of all the developing countries.

While trying to understand what influence customer to buy and use any particular product, I really have lost all my little knowledge. Even people cannot be able to explain the fact why they are using any particular product. They are really not very much aware of the attributes of the product. At least in the market where I worked this holds true. It is only a habit which leads them to buy any particular product and make it a brand and then a big brand. But how does this habit towards any product develops? In the market where I worked had given me a very unique answer to this. It is not heavy marketing support, not the great multiple attributes of the product, not the multiple utility of the product, not even the heavy media spend influence the buying of the product by the customers. It is only and only a right price point product available in right place at right time for right period or band of time decides the movement of product from the shelf of the stores to the house of the customers. And with its continuous availability at the stores first takes the “Share of Shelf” of the store to “Share of Spending” of the customers to the “Share of Mind” of the consumers. This at the end, over a period of time makes any product a big brand. And if one need to break the existing line of Share of Mind of the existing product, will have to play very skillfully. This would happen if one could be able to take the same path of Share of Shelf to Share of Spending to the Share of Mind of the market and the customers & consumers. Means will have to wait for the exact time to make a right move into the market to take a competitive advantage over the competitor product. Or else to create a situation where the stock weight of the competitor product gets thinner and that of new product improves.

Though the market experience for establishment of the product into the brand looks very easy but it takes not less than 2 – 3 years to make any product a brand and not less than 5 – 6 years to displace any existing brand which actually have became brand in shorter span of time. Perhaps for any brand longer than 10 years of brand span, it takes more time to displace it.

These findings would be premature but I am still in the process of learning and understanding things better.

In Search of Nirvana

I was a part of an occasion at one of my close’s house. The occasion was the annual idolization of their community’s deity popularly known as Kul Devi. This isn’t first time when I am attending such kind of occasion but this is first time when I actually was thinking the need of creating lot of God. I really don’t know whether God were existing in this celestial world or its just we visualized them and created them.

Once upon a time, we were just newly derived organism on the planet Earth. Then we became Aryan, Dravidian, and Mongolian. We then said that there is some supernatural force which governs life in all of us. We called it God. We explained that there some Demon do exist which forces us to do diabolic act. Then we defined ourselves as Hindu, Muslim, Christians and Zoroastrians which were archaic religions. This differentiation of ourselves was totally based upon our own comfort level. Even this classification of ourselves didn’t satisfy our soul so we made comparatively new religions as Buddhism and Jainism. We invented the term Nirvana but were always running here and there from one place to other and from one philosophy to other to find the real meaning of the word. We didn’t find it. Some people said that they are the reincarnation of Lord and had established themselves as self praised God. We seek their help to explore ourselves and experience Nirvana. Even this didn’t vindicate us and we seek help of people who said that Love is the way to reach the God within us and they said that Sufism is one way of reaching Thou. But we didn’t find it even by that way.

We traveled thousands year journey of being organism to human and then to religion. Even this was not enough, so we classified ourselves into small society or “Samaaj” and appointed our own God as per our specification and our needs and named them “Kul Dewata” or “Kul Devi”. We explained that up above the sky there is Heaven where all the Gods live but fails to explain how much above. We said that there is Hell deep within the Earth where all devilish forces reside but failed to explain how deep. We made stories about our self made Lords. But don’t really know from where these stories came. Who witnessed the period and how it had been encrypted passing through a time band of several thousand years and finally had came to fully conscious humans.

I think its all in the brain. That our imagination is so much wide. Perhaps a thousand years down the line we finally would identify that WE ARE GOD. That every individual is kind of reincarnation of our imaginary lord. That whom we consider God were those who identified Nirvana in themselves. That even today there are people who are finding Nirvana in themselves but do not shout about it at the top of their voice to say this, the same way our primitive Gods did.

Till the time we understand it, we would keep creating some more complex differentiation of ourselves.

The Reebok and Nike Talk on Berth No- 18

Group dynamics is one thing which always fascinates me. I really do not understand why we find deep association between people only within the geography which is often being used by them. An association would be possible any where which may not be used by us much frequently. This association may lead to a deep bonding even. It is happening in our surroundings. Then why it is not the part of Law of Group Dynamics?

It was another opportunity for me to travel and to understand human psychology better and more of my behavioral pattern with different group of people better. I again was on the way to Raipur from Patna. My berth number was 18 in the train. So I sat on my seat when the train arrived at Patna. A few minutes later, this sweet lady with her grand father came and insisted that number 18 is her berth and probably I had been fooled by the travel agent while making my ticket. I said; OK let’s wait for the TTE. He will come and resolve the issue. Though I knew that her berth numbers were 17 and 20 which I already had read on the reservation chart sticked over the train’s gate. I let the time flow and let her be in a state of dilemma for the berth and enjoy the situation. After all after a long time I had got a chance to share a train compartment with any girl that to a so beautiful one. I offered her grand father the berth and arranged the bed so that he could rest since it was night train.

I and that lady were sitting on the same seat opposite to his grand father’s berth. She was busy with her mobile and I was with a book I was carrying. After about half an hour the TTE came and had clarified her berth status which was already clears to me. After being clarified that it’s not me who got fooled by the travel agent, but was her misunderstanding which had lead to this sweet crisis, she literally was feeling embarrassed of the situation.

After about a couple of minutes, she broke the ice and said, “Is Reebok your favorite brand?”

“Not exactly, but why?”

“Since you are wearing shoes and watch of this company so I thought so.”

“Okey, but it was just a coincidence and nothing sort of liking of the brand but are you a Nike follower” I asked, since the talk had started in this way only.

“Oh yes, I like the brand so much that all my possessions belong to this brand only. In fact I have become a brand patronage of this brand.”

“OK, so you are a management student.”

“Yes, but how did you know that?”

“Because you smell like a management guy.”

“Oh no, am I smelling bad?”

“I really don’t know, but I had smelled a breeze of sweet fragrance when you entered into the compartment.”

And to this she literally blushed. This is how a group was in formation, in a place which is not often being used by me neither by that girl.

For almost the whole night we were talking. She made sure to talk to me in English only as she thought a management guy should speak in English. She was also very much conscious while talking to me as what she is saying and how I am replying.

As my nature, I was just enjoying the talk and giving her lot of opportunity to laugh in between the talk. Thanks to my little sense of humor which always helps me during these kind of situation.

And that was not enough. She said, why don’t we stand at the gate or sit on the attendant’s seat to talk as people has started sleeping and our talk would disturb them. How can I say no to a beautiful girl! We started talking initially to kill the time and then the talk started progressing to know each other and understand each other. And it was just talking, talking and talking. By the time the train reached to her destination, we knew each other very well. The bonding was so much strong that we were feeling that we are long time buddy and that we met after a long time. We exchanged our facebook and orkut ID and she left.

Well a group has been formed. A deep association had been build up. But this deep association was stretched till the journey time only. There were very little chances that we would continue like a chuddy-buddy for a longer time.

I think the Law of Group Dynamics is right.

Two Tales, One Journey

Journey is one of the ways of getting acquainted of the real India and Indian. And if the vehicle of journey is Train, you can be assured of the fact that you are sharing the path with entire India. Eventually train is one vehicle to connect the religion, cast, region with each other without the fear of getting them cursed on each other. Last day was one such experience for me. I was traveling down to Raipur from Patna. Here I met two different people. In fact, two different lives, or two different philosophy. This was something which had let me understand two different ways of thinking. The way which is totally different than the ideal school of thoughts. A thought very different from the trivial world, perhaps not much acceptable by the mass, perhaps. The incidents goes like this :-

Tale 1 : Thank God, its Holiday Again :

While the train was passing through Orissa with its usual speed, I was in inertia of finishing “Two States” of Chetan Bhagat before I reach Raipur. The Author of the book was in inertia of narrating his story of marriage to the reader before it’s too late. Suddenly a co-passenger jumped down from the upper berth and in a very excited manner had given us the information of Mr. Jyoti Basu being expired just few minutes before. Since the guy informed us about this was a Bengali, I thought to show my deep condolence about the news, considering the fact that they are very much concern about these kind of news. So I said that the man was a legend in himself. He happens to be one of the greatest communist leaders of his time and that it is the biggest loss of the communist movement of India. That Bengali guy also had shown his concern by adjusting the pitch of his voice while talking to me. We exchanged our deep condolence for about 5 minutes. And that’s it. He picked his Mobile phone, called one of his friends living in Kolkatta and said in a very excited manner that this would be the happiest weekend his friend would be spending. After a weekend of Saturday and Sunday, the WB Govt. is going to announce two days of state holiday to pay the tribute to the lessened leader. So he is the luckiest enough to get a holiday of consecutive four days. Lucky he. And he giggled while talking to his friend on mobile.

And I thought he was also a bit vexed of the passing of the leader. I think, this is the way we new generation people are thinking for any politician being passed away. Is it because, we feel that these great people had hardly affected our life or our thought process. We perhaps deny the contributions made by these great people (if they really are) to our progress. If this thought process is of mass, we should have to see if we would like to live with this or would need to change the face of politics to create a liking into the young generation.

Tale 2 : Its All Bihari :

The train while running had changed its directions several times. The sun outside had rise up in the sky. Some scattered rays were getting inside the train through its think glass window. Though the intensity of the ray was not creating any warmth, it was feeling good to be bestowed by these rays in the shivering climate of January.

To pass the static time in the running train, every one was trying to make a facultative relationship with each other. While I was busy completing the book I was reading, this man in a peak of getting bored had initiated his talk with me. I closed the book and started giving him company in his talk. This man was belonging from some place in Chattisgadh.

The topic of discussion was Bihar and Bihari people. We talked about the developments happening in Bihar. While discussing Bihar, I found him not feeling comfortable with the topic. I wanted to know the reason, so I once had told him the kind of crime and criminals residing in Bihar. And here it is. I actually hit the Bulls’ Eye. He just started abusing Bihari people. Reason, he feels that basically Bihari people are responsible for all the kind of crime and mismanagement happening in the country. And why so, does he really have any bitter experience with any Bihari? No I don’t have but I have heard a lot about Bihari ditching his inmates or friends and making his livelihood.

And that if someone feels Naxalism is an issue in Chattisgadh, it is not. All these Naxalism has been initiated in Chattisgadh by Bihari People. Tell them to leave Chattisgadh and you will find there is absolutely no any problem in the state.

This guy was looking educated. In fact he was. As he said, he is a law graduate. He had read somewhere that Naxalism was started in 24-Pargana District which is situated in Bihar (!) though only locals of Chattisgadh and Orissa has been killed in insurgency operation and the Bihari Mastermind behind the Naxalism always escape with the help of the mole in the police department. Criminalization of politics has been started from Bihar and even his Chattisgadh is facing lot of problem of criminalization in the politics which has affected the growth of the state. It is the criminal nature of Bihari people that they are snatching job opportunity from rest of the country’s citizen. But his relative in Australia is in threat by the locals because he is having an edge over their local counterpart. Blah… Blah… Blah….

Enough. When I asked him from where he read all these, he said he is having a habit of reading since childhood and wherever he see any knowledgeable book, he buy it and read it from start to end. When I asked, what is the maximum amount he has spent over a single book, he replied he does not remember but it must be not less than Rs. 30. OK buddy, now I understand why and from where you have got such a huge knowledge and your thought process and your philosophy.

Few things I had extracted from talking with him.

1. It is not always our own experience which helps creating any philosophy but sometimes heard things also impact substantially over our thought process.

2. People often hardly try to find the facts behind the heard things and just believe this if it’s related to hide our own inability.

3. That good books which actually gives us knowledge are either quite expensive or is not in the language of the mass.

4. That people know exactly what they want to learn, but don’t actually know the source from where they can get to know this, be it books or people.

5. It is just our frustration lead by our inability to abuse things which we think would hide our own inability.

Borrowed Intellect

Words of wisdom is one of the common columns in any newspaper. Would I not have started reading this, I would not have came to know how much popular these columns are? Nor even would I have know that how much people are following these one liners, not in terms of their action but in terms of their usage.

I was in one of the condolence ceremony to express our grief to the lessened. There I meet this old man. He was acquainted to us as one of the top management official of some Mid Cap Company. I thought it would be nice talking to him though the occasion was not like that. So with a little hesitation, I thought it would be good if I initiate to break the ice and involve him into the talk but he was faster than my thought and he himself had started. Perhaps because of the fact that as he came to the venue he had been introduced to us in a way that he is kind of alien among us or perhaps we are alien in his world. And here goes his talk wagon. He was into his late fifties and was talking to a group of people who were into the age group of 25 – 30. So he tried to pick the topic of talk in a way to keep us listening. It started with the career option and new gen carriers opted by young Indian to Share Market to Girl Friend to Savings to Marriages to Investment to Stock market. A kind of ring road type talks which started with Share Market and ended at the same. And not to forget, during these talk he did mentioned about his kids shifted to European Countries and earning in pounds and dollars.

We were sitting on lawn of the house where we were here to pay the condolence. But with his talk, almost all had forgotten the purpose of visit to this place.

But even this was not the thing which could be marked. This was just introduction to his non – stop talks. The real words of wisdom had yet to come. Now he started talking lot of one liners which we often read in newspapers or some junk mails which often being forwarded by those friends who think this is the best way of being in touch with their buddies. The more he was talking, the more he was using one liner the more it was giving a kind of headache to me. On the top of it, after every one liners, he was giving such a body language or geek smile like, “see you people should have to mention me every time you use these one liner” and that “I am sure you will need these one liner throughout your life if ever you want to look more intelligent”. It was almost intolerable to me as on every one liner, like others I had to give an expression as if I had received the biggest lesson of my life. Thanks to his wife who saved us by calling him for food.

After this incident, I literally have started observing talk of such people more critically. And to my surprise I found that all the middle aged middle management people talk in the same language using lot of one – liners.

But why do these people need one-liners to show their intellect? Why people don’t create their own? Are they really intellectual creatures or they just pretend to be one? Is it the only way to sound intellectual? Or is it a necessity for them to use more often these one – liners to show the world that they really deserve the place they are holding?

For sure, the world is full of borrowed intellectuals. And there is a big market of Quotation Books in India.

Confused Little Bunch of Organism!

Human are confused little bunch of organism. We know our problems. We do know its solution. But still wait for someone to come and solve it. If things do not go right, we even know whom to blame. No ownership, no responsibility, just complaining… complaining and complaining.

If the train is late, we assume that because of someone’s mistake we are excruciating, without understanding the fact that there are certain irrepressible situations which may cause this. If the infrastructure of the country is not as we want or we think we deserve, we held responsible the Government without remembering the fact that many a times we have evaded the taxes. When the elected candidate is not doing any good for the constituency, we blame him / her without remembering that it was we who either have elected him or was careless about the election and didn’t have went to cast our vote considering election a dirty game which end up exploiting the countryman. We see poor people and think of doing something and the time that poor goes out of our sight, helping him also goes out of our mind. But when Government makes any plan to create living for the socially and economically depressed class of the society, we blame Government unnecessarily giving importance to them.

The height of the situation I faced today. I was talking to one of my business associate. In a lighter moment we were discussing the laborer problem in the state. It indeed is. Here the responsibility goes to both the laborer as well as the employer. The employer has not come out of the mind of paying less and getting maximum work done by the laborer. Whereas the laborer are not very much keen about working since they are already very much contented with the Facilities State Government is giving to them. Now this even was not the problem of my business associate. The problem was everyone is suffering with the laborer problem but no one is raising his voice. And then he said, “Boss you are a good writer. Why don’t you raise this issue in the newspaper? This will help us solve this problem”. When I asked, “But writing on this issue don’t need you to be a good writer. In a simple language you can raise this issue and its repercussions”. He showed his dissatisfaction on me not ready to write for his problem, as if his this cronic problem is waithing for just my one writing to get solved. Now this is the actual problem. We understand the problem, we know the ways of solving this but still we don’t want to because if anything goes wrong, how can I blame myself for things not going right. Actually initially when any problem comes we resist to that by discussing it into our drawing room. But when it becomes persistent, we just complain… complain and complain. We develop a habit of staying with it and blaming others. Actually we are quite ok with any problem in our life. With the practice of many a thousand years we, the humans, have developed a kind of resistance into our mentality for any such situation which is affecting our equilibrium.

Indeed human are confused little bunch of organism!.

Mohajir : The Escape of Religious Persecution

The word is “Mohajir. This is an Arabic word meaning migrant. It has a religious connotation, denoting the faithful who followed Muhammad to Medina from Mecca in 622 to escape religious persecution.

But why I am researching on this word? What is great about this word?

The reason is very simple. Last week, the Muslim of the world had celebrated “Muharram”. Muharram festival commemorates the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Holy Prophet. This festival starts at the 1st day of Muharram and lasts for 10 days until 10th of Muharram. Muharram is the first month of Islamic calendar.

One of my Muslim employees had given me all these information just a day prior to the occasion. In response, I told him to take leave on the day irrespective of the fact that we were not having listed holiday for this festival. That guy told me that the celebration begins in the evening and probably he would leave early instead of taking a day off.

On the day of Muharram, I was so much occupied with the work that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him. During evening tea time, I made a call to him regarding his plan to leave early. He was in the middle of his work and very courteously said, “Boss I had married with my work and hence have changed my religion. And my in this new religion, we celebrate only after accomplishing the job assigned”, and he got engaged into his work.

I was so delighted rather imperceptible to hear this.

Mohajir were those faithful who followed Muhammad Saheb to Medina from Mecca to escape religious persecution. And this man is a Mohajir in a real good sense. Buddy your this gesture had taught me another lesson of life time. Thanks a lot…