Friemily : Friends Become Family

While the TRP obsessed saas-bahu serials still revolve primarily around the family, in urban India amongst the upper middle class, friends are the new hub of life! Well the phenomena is not entirely new.

Maybe Bollywood tapped it first in 'Dil Chahta Hai'. The cover story of Outlook(Jun 25th issue) is on this theme. Some highlights from the issue mashed up with few of my thoughts, in no particular order...

1. "With joint families being dispersed around the country, sibling and parental ties weaken and reliance on friends grows."
There is a limit to which family ties can be maintained even on the low cost mobile telephony available in the country!!

2. "Families many-a-time are judgemental and inhibiting. Friends largely respect your independence, individualistic mores."
In a time-pressured society, young couples do not have the patience to deal with relatively more constricting familial mores.

3. "Family relationships can be hierarchical, weighed down by baggage of old feuds and quarrels. Friendships offer more liberating, guilt-free relationships."
The rapid changes in lifestyles, work-patterns, adoption of new social behaviours are better accepted, accomodated and enjoyed with friends than family.

4. "With the pace of change all around, parents fail to keep up with the new life and experiences of their young children however hard they try or liberal they try to become. Friends fill the gap!"

5. "Traditionally, the family was the inner core, while even the closest of friendships still stood outside that sanctum. But now it's all mingled, with friends becoming a part of one's family, often standing in for the family itself."
I remember while I was growing up, my father would take pains to explain the difference between 'dost' and 'bhai' even though the 'bhai' in question would be the 'second cousin' and the 'dost' - the closest buddy!

On the flip side, one may argue that family is the new friend. Blood brothers, fathers, father-in-laws/ mom-in-laws act, behave and accommodate more and more like friends...

There is a casualisation of relationships not just at the work-place but also at home. Age and experience are no longer setting the rules of the family.

Technology, first distance and dispersion and then a death-of-distance and other frenetic changes all around are re-inventing most of our social institutions and mores...

P.S. A bit of factoid. Just discovered when I type 'Friemily' in Google sesrch, my post is the page 1, item 1 search back:-)

The Smallness of Big B?

In my Oct 11 post, I had gushed my adulation for Amitabh Bachchan. But the recent event managed wedding of Abhishek and Ash and the loud noises made in/ by media left me puzzled about this great actor. Was wondering - is AB losing it?

No doubt, he is a legendary actor. But increasingly his close crony friends - Amar Singh and Mulayam, his less than credible endorsement of brand UP and his 'manglik' obsessions have left huge question marks in my mind!

Well, am not alone. The Outlook issue(May 7) has the artistic and literary community berating Amitabh's conduct during and before the Abhishek-Ash wedding...

Says film-maker Mrinal Sen - "The ritualism of so many temple visits is ridiculous. It's shocking that a person of Amitabh's stature should be indulging in this."

Voices the artist Paritosh Sen - "Amitabh has set a dangerous example by displaying superstitious beliefs. Because of who he is, the public watch and believe that much more."

The intellectual class is of the view that Amitabh's big-banner ritualism is a travesty of his father Harivanshrai's legacy!!

Of course one can blame the TRP hungry television media for the over-the-top attention given to a celebrity marriage but the fact remains that Amitabh has made a big public tamasha of a private wedding...And his overly superstitious doting father role has dented his image!

Great Train Journey 2

Another long train journey in just over a month...This time around I had my wife too to care care of Neo. So did manage more sleep and few thoughts:-)

Some random observations in no particular order or significance...

1. The humble newspaper is the one true community product. Especially in a railway coach. This is perhaps the only place where people sometimes don't even bother to ask for the paper. They just take and browse. The thank you is implicit, seldom verbalised!

2. Adjust kar lenge. Is perhaps the opening line of most train journeys as passengers begin to arrange their luggage in the compartment. The sweetness of the 'adjust kar lijiye' is directly proportional to the available luggage space!

3. T-bags : the bland equaliser. Till the Taj Mahal and the Tetley tea bags came into circulation, different stations had their own tea flavours and vendors had their distinctive sales andaaz. My favourite was 'Choudhary ki chai' - the adrak spiced milk-tea that I used to get ahead of Bhusawal on train journeys to my college in Surat. Choudhary was a ritual we used to look forward to. He had amongst the most lyrical sales pitch that memory recalls. Had character. A big smile and most importantly good chai.

No disrespect to T-bags; but in one swoop, they have managed to homogenise the tea drinking experience. It's the same bland sugary stuff wherever you go!

4. Graveyard shift As I have gradually migrated to the AC 3/2 tier, the buzz of the sleeper is gone. I never realised that as a nation we are so sleep deprived. A majority of the passengers sleep for the better half of the journey.
Rarely have I encountered the loud conversations/ debates on national politics, cricket and other topical issues which were an essential part of the long 'sleeper' journeys of the past!

5. Purdah-hai-purdah. The other public obsession in the AC 2 tier is the attachment to the purdah(curtains). For an otherwise open, loud, display-friendly and sociable nation, I find this cocooning inside the train purdah quite perplexing! Any insights here? Reminds me of the 'purdah' people had in the good ole Ambasador!

6. The Charger as ice-breaker. Saurabh in his post had pointed out on the ice-breaking qualities of the Nokia charger! I too had first hand experience when a portly Auntyji intruded our purdah with a warm -"Beta tumhara charger kaam kar raha hai kya". And thus ensued a relay race. Between the saas and the heavily sindur-ed bahu, they charged 3 mobile phones! Like good train Samaritans, hum thoda sa adjust kar liye:-)

But for the techno-social effects of mobile phones, mp3 players and laptops...many of the rituals of the train journey are intact...

However, the journey itself has irreversibly changed. With the constant beep of cell phones and the tracking by anxious family members, you are never on your own/ alone.

Yet again I missed the timelessness and the lost in wilderness feel...Promise to myself - Will keep the cell phone switched off for all the 30 hours next time!!

Big Idea : Finishing Schools for Rural Youth

Often I find advertising ideas to be quite small. Mostly, that's a limitation of our trade...But many-a-time a reflection of the size of our thoughts. Shackled as many industry minds are by a 30sec structure and generally inflated egos!

Therefore, I loved this 'finishing schools for rural youth to curb attrition' idea of Azim Premji!(read it in ET).

Wipro has set up finishing schools in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh on an experimental basis. Under this, students from interior parts are selected and given training in English and IT skills for 6 months.

These rural students are barely 10th/ 12th pass. Not typically eligible for any IT job. The 6 month training readies them for a proper job in the IT industry.

Wipro and Premji believe that apart from creating newer employment opportunities, the students from these rural finishing schools would be loyal, determined to prove themselves and a definite value-addition to the company.

Wipro, under another education programme imparts training to primary teachers and students. Till date, it has engaged in training 2.5mn children from the interior parts of 16 Indian states.

Both the efforts are great,laudable examples of the corporates giving back to society instead of merely creating islands of excellence...

Wish the communication industry too had the bandwidth, the vision and the money to do something similar...

Snacking on English

Saurabh had this interesting post on thotblurb on the exploding market for self-help books(in English) in India!

Since like many others, I have traversed the path from small town India to Mumbai, the city of dreams, I have lived through this fast-track booming India and its fascination for self-help. My addendum to Saurabh's pointers...

1. India may not be unique, any fast-track economy will have a huge demand for 'fast-track literature'!

2. I disagree with the premise that most of the non-textbooks till now have been bought for leisure reading...a visit to any wheelers book-store even a decade back wud have revealed a fat proportion of 'kaamyaabi kaise paayein' books! Competition Success Review has been a best-seller since the 80s...

3. The new change has been the translation of English sub-titles into Hindi/ regional languages...but a change under-way for at least a decade...It's of course accelerated with the economy. I myself have been a sucker for such books for a long time:-)
I had an old copy of 'How to win friends and influence people' in Hindi which i read and re-read although studying in an English medium school!

4. The real change that has happened is the SEC C-ization of the English language...the language of success & station. Nothing new here as well...just deeper penetration...the net is doing its own bit in democratising the access to English.

5. Yes Meraj - I too have read somewhere about the rise of the Hindi/ regional language blogs and other portals of indie expression...

6. I feel one of the primary reasons why self-help books are in great demand is their snack friendliness. Long fiction is not. In an attention deficit economy short tips on anything > twists and turns of long narrative...
Picture: The famous Wheelers bookstall at 'Katni' railway station during the great train journey...

The Disposable Culture

Read this write-up in Brand Equity yesterday(14Mar) on the rising disposable culture. Nothing really new...It's just that the change has been dramatic and quite rapid...

As a child in a middle class house-hold, I remember we used to preserve everything - old newspapers, Amul Spray tins, plastic milk packets, old stationery, diaries, ball-point pens, old clothes(to be exchanged for new utencils) ...

Contrast this with today when relatively expensive cellphones are upgraded in 6 months to a years time!!

1. Its clearly been a move from a 'mindset of scarcity' to a 'mindset of consumerism'

2. As Santosh said in the article, as a nation we are going through a 'I am what I have' syndrome.

3. Perhaps the change is best captured by the middle class iconic brand Bajaj Auto's tagline. It changed from - 'Value for Money for years' to 'Inspiring Confidence'!

4. In under a decade, the replacement cycle for TVs and other consumer durables has come down from 8-10 years to 4-5 years!

5. However, we haven't lost our VFM mindset completely. Rarely would an Indian throw a durable. He would most likely upgrade to a newer durable/ gadget by exchanging the old one. The mindset still is 'Iska kuch toh mil hi jayega'!

6. Of course, the disposability index will vary widely within the same family. While the youngest members would believe in the use-and-throw religion, the grand-mother would still be using Amul Spray tins for keeping the pulses even while she might have upgraded to a new camera phone:-)

7. On a personal note, my new Nokia E-50 is my 6th phone in 7 years and yet when it comes to raddi(old newspapers), I hate to give it away free:-)

Ironic then how even with a new disposable mindset and with vastly shortened durable upgrade cycles, Gillette is still facing problems with its disposable razors in India!

15% More Insights on Love Marketing. Hurry!

Yet another 'diary-page' from a young(er) friend of mine!

Super Duper Hype.. but its become a huge marketing endeavour every year.. specially since last few years...from greeting card companies to cell phone companies, to even banks use this occasion!

i came across this while i was googling - HDFC is offering a new variant of Gold Bar - an attractively priced 2.5 gm Heart-shaped Gold Bar.
HDFC Bank Credit Card holders would enjoy one per cent cash back on every 2.5 gm Heart shaped Gold Bar, bought by swiping their credit card!

Valentines day till a few years back, i didn't even know, but by the time i was passing out of school which was about 8 years back... it had started catching up big time at the archies and hallmark level.. now i think it has crossed all boundaries...

i saw the hutch hoarding at bandra with pink heart shaped balloons all over - i think was for downloading lovey ring tones or something for valentines.. i personally wanted to puke..

valentines is not just about lovers.. its about LOVE across genders across age and across relationships but unfortunately the marketing has stuck to focussing on lovey couples and it begins and ends at that.. hotels have special dinner meal offers and parties.. its anywhere and everywhere and u just cant miss it...

personally valentine is just another day in the year and it is bloody annoying wen people have to find a day to make it gooey and say things to their girlfriends or boyfriends.. in anycase in a city like bombay u mite tend to feel left out because the hype is so bloody much and people are so for it that u cant avoid it..

the reason why valentines so big here i think is solely because of the mad marketing because and the media hype around it within the country because otherwise its not such a mad thing abroad.. its big but people don't treat it stupidly.. i remember going out and catching a movie with my girlfriends (all of us single and no boyfriends to go out with he he)..this year i think will be going out for dinner with my girlfriends again.. ha ha.. lol!

thats about it.. i guess the media exposure and wanting to ape the western culture bit has gotten the people down to following such days including fathers day motherdays and blah blah.. these are undoubtedly great cashing days for various companies without doubt..

chalo nothing more that is coming to my mind..

Picture courtesy a colleague who was kind enough to model for indiadrant:-)

Gift Wrapped Love with 25% extra Romance!

The new India that the world loves to talk about is not just young. It's madly in love!
Or so the $65-90 mn that were spent around Valentine Day last year suggest. (The figure might be puny compared to global 'mush-market-index' but then our Valentine market is in nascency)...

Well, the decibel levels of v-marketing have risen dramatically this year. The day that stretched a week is now a full month. Pretty soon, we may have the Year of the Valentine!

There are more hearts per person in Bombay today. There are red-n-pink hearts everywhere and love messages on sms and buildings/ bill-boards wrapped with heart-shaped-balloons.

Of course, there is much money to be made from mush. But what nauseates me is the 'lowest-common-denominator' of love-communication. Looks like marketers and ad agencies are catering only to age 16, starry eyed kids. It's the dumbing down/ in-your-faceness of the Valentine communication and the cluttered shelf space of love that sucks!

Commerce > Romance.

Being on the other side of 30, I asked few of my young friends to pen down their feelings on V-Day marketing...for a better/ balanced perspective!

Here is a page from the diary of a young friend...She is young, very bright, very blunt. Definitely not a silent consumer(as they say, not me:-) of 'mush marketing'!

Love sells. It's as simple as that. If it didn't we wouldn't have so many jewelers selling diamonds on the anniversary gift concept. And guess what, it works! I mean I would never imagine a practical man like my father could buy my mom diamond earrings for their anniversary, but then again it was their 25th year and they love each other…so see what I mean, love sells because everyone seems to be so smitten by, well, love!

And now coming to Valentine's Day, that fateful day in the middle of the shortest month, it can also be identified as the biggest brand for love, its byproducts being cards, gifts, and other moronic lil pink n red objects floating about like chaos (ref. to ancient Greece where it was believed that chaos was the mixed matter the Universe was made up of before the Big Bang).

Wait a minute, I hope you don't think I'm another political party with an anti-love agenda, actually I'm quite mushy in my own right. What makes me queasy is the desperate search for a Valentine a week before Feb 14th.

This has now resulted in a phenomenon known as "the friendly Valentine". It starts with a Valentine'less' guy who just can't seem to find a chick no matter how much Axe he sprays all day long. He then uses his devious mind to come up with a plan to save face- ask one of your best friends! They'll never let you down. And even if they try to you can always say "yehi dosti, yehi pyaar???" Cheesy, I know, but works like a charm. Said best friend gets emotionally blackmailed and desperado has a date.

Another nauseating symptom of Valentine fever is overt displays of affection, a frantic search for the perfect gift with "to our eternal love" on the card. By the way, Webster's just called, they're changing the definition of eternal to "a time period equivalent to a month or in rare cases, a few more".

Let's get this straight, I don't mean don't celebrate your love or your "beautiful journey together". All I mean is that when the axe falls on it, we shouldn't find that the glue that held it all together was made of gift wrap paper and greeting cards.

Valentine's Day is not a competition for the best gift or the biggest bouquet. It's a day to celebrate the fact that every time your special someone calls and that assigned ring tone rings, you feel that tingly feeling waking every part of you, or every time you walk together in the rain, you feel your senses coming alive. No corporate firm can package that and sell it to you in a box. The same way, you can't buy love. So when are we going to stop trying?

Family is the New Friend

One of the great things about Indian culture is that we import stuff/ concepts/ lifestyles/ trends and almost always give a spin to it...

So, while elsewhere in the world, Friends might be the New Family, in India 'Family is the new Friend'. That's the verdict of a nation wide survey done by India Today-AC Nielson-ORG -Marg(browse the Feb 19,'07 issue)!

Have summarised some interesting facts and nuggets from the survey.

1. Parents become the new pal as young Indians, often transiting cities in pursuit of colleges and careers, seek emotional solace in the families they leave behind.

2. Family Longing. The percentage of people who would like to live in a joint family has gone up to 74% this year, from 68% in 2006!

3. For a generation that lives on take-aways, the uncertainty of blind dates/ speed dating/ divorce and constant job-hopping, stability doesn't come easy. Parents might be a convenience to have around, they might just be a mere sounding board or the last resort when everyone stands you up, but at least they are there. And that seems to be comfort enough.

4. Sociologist, Yogendra Singh, professor at JNU, says this reciprocity among India's youth, where the family is concerned, exists because parents in India are extremely supportive of their children, unlike in the West, where children are expected to be independent at a very early age. As a result, despite the influence of modernism, India's youth prefer to stick to family and traditional values...

And technology(be it the Internet or mobile or low cost airlines) is playing it's small role in keeping even the diasporic Indian family intact...

P2P, Friemily, UnI. Call me anything but Consumer

Imagine if your visiting card said - Senior Producer. Or National Producer. Or Chief Producing Officer. Or Creative Producer. Or Art Producer. Or Market Research Producer.

The very thought is appalling!! And yet in the marketing/communication game of us vs them,we call the people who buy stuff/ experiences/ grocery/ dreams from us - 'consumers'.

I hate this term. Its so inhuman. So degrading. So wrong. So incomplete!

Then is an entire lexicon which we have created- consumer insight, consumer behaviour, consumer research, consumer loyalty...And the edifice of our thoughts, strategies and communication is built on it!

I feel nomenclatures shape our world/ worldview. Seemingly innocuous labelling affects perceptions, thoughts and behaviours...But stereotyping simplifies. And therefore as marketers and communicators, its easy to maintain the divide. Us and them. Producers( of products and communication) and consumers.

Implicit are the rules...
1. They are a target audience
2. We make the rules.
3. We are smarter than them
4. They are stationary targets
5. They are waiting for our products and communication
6. We learn about them. They do not learn about us.
7. They can be loyal to us, if only we tried harder.
8. They can always be grouped in clusters to suit our mass media weaponry.
9. We can change the packaging of our products. And they will fall for them.
10. They have an insatiable appetite for hype, half-truths and bull-shit.
11. If you pray hard. The remote will disappear! Or at least they won't use them that often
12. They love the sound of our voice...

But everyone knows...The rules have long changed.
1. We are the new target. Of disloyalty. Of cynicism. Of derision.
2. They are making most of the rules.
3. They are much smarter than us. They didn't even give us time to realise this:-)
4. They are moving fast. We are the targets
5. They are having fun with change and technology. And are saying to us - "Get a life".
6. They have learnt all our tricks. They can now even make a super bowl ad for $12!!
7. Hype and half-truths never gets loyalty. They are loyal to their families and communities and passions not to bars of soap and toilet paper! Not even to their companies(most of the time)
8. They are as fragmented as shards of broken glass
9. They are saying to us - "When will you change the packaging of your thoughts?"
10. They say to us - "Boy, when will you ever get it. Why are you guys so dumb?"
11. Who needs the remote to escape your ads...We don't watch TV. We watch TiVO.We get RSS feeds
12. They don't give a f*** to what we have to say(mostly)!!

In this open source bazaar of conversations, of people-generated-content, a world with zero tolerance for hype and falsehood, we must find a new word for 'Consumer'. They are exactly like us. They are Us. We are them. People who work during the day and surf at night:-) People with families and stress, kids and budgets.

They are not on this earth to consume. They want authenticity. They want trust. They want to protect the earth and keep it green. They want to laugh and joke. Their loyalties can never be bought with a card. Yes they want discounts;they want 'beautiful images' but that doesn't define them.

They read many of the articles on 'how to capture eye-balls', how to capture a share of the target audience. And then they trust us even less. They shrug their shoulders. Because we don't get it! Even now.

So if they are us. Should we call this bazaar conversation P2P(people-to-people), Friemily(Friend and Family), UnI(You and I)...They aren't the best nomenclature. But at least they are better than 'Consumers'!

2007 resolution. As far as possible, avoid the use of this word/ mind-set:-)

Picture courtesy: Gettyimages

Arranged Love, Love Arranged

I have written earlier on the subject of marriage portals and how these portals are more about family psychology than technology!

The Great Indian wedding is amongst the most colourful, engaging, furiously-reinventing, cross-over social concepts of our times. And therefore of utmost interest and curiosity to me. Found this very well written and researched piece by Tavishi P. Rastogi in HT Brunch.

I have tried to summarise the main points raised over this business of 'arranged love' or better still 'love arranged' marriages.

A recent survey of 603 young men and women in Delhi and Bombay(between the ages of 17 and 25) revealed that a staggering 93% approve of arranged marriages!!A generation ago, metro India rebelled against the very idea of arranged marriages. So, why does Gen Now want Mummy-Papa to find them spouses?
Many cultural/ societal/ individual shifts have been happening often at high pace that have resulted in this...

1. Defiance --> Compliance
Then - The caste/sub-caste restrictions on marriage were far more stronger; so young couples in love had to necessarily rebel.

Now - The new nuclear family parents are far more accomodating and relenting to inter caste/ even inter religion marriages...hence, love is accepted and complied with and almost invaribaly accompanied with the pomp and panache of an arranged marriage! I just attended one such marriage in Mangalore last week. In fact at the sangeet, the love story of the bride and groom was enacted as street theatre with the accompaniment of Bollywood music in front of parents, elders and close friends and relatives!!

2. Risk Takers --> Risk Averse
Then - Love was worth taking the risk of parental disapproval and societal flak.
Love marriage was an emotional decision!

Now - Career obsession by both partners, extremely busy lives and a comfortable lifestyle are too tempting to risk over the mundane but necessary subject of marriage.
Arranged Love marriage for many is a 'considered decision'.

3. Social Decision --> Individual Decision
Then - Part of the angst among young couples was that almost everybody(except the groom and the bride) had a role and decision/ veto power. Arranged marriages involved joint/ consensual decisions.

Now - Arranged love/ love/ love arranged are individual decisions, aided by the internet/ open source parents/ nuclear lifestyles. Diasporic joint families are more for props in the back-drop of a well choreographed sangeet than for 'decision making'.

4. Life Partners --> Lifestyle Partners
Then - Arranged or love marrianges were to get a spouse as life partner.

Now - Young men and women today are looking for perfect spouses/ complete packages/ perfect 10 partnerships that will complement their carefully constructed lifestyles.

5. Hi Tolerance, Lo Expectations --> Lo Tolerance, High Expectations
Self explanatory. Bound to happen when marriages are increasingly being treated as lifetsyle choices/ decisions!

6. Then : Arranged = The arrangement of finding a nice match(status & family compatibility) done by elders

Now : Arranged = The convenience of a finding a safe match(individual compatibility and parental acceptance)

For an increasingly consumerist culture, the market forces are bound to intersect personal spheres. Therefore, marriage contracts, arranged loves, and lifestyle partners are it's natural fall-outs...


Of course no trend completely replaces the earlier patterns or basic human needs, values and aspirations...