It's been that kinda week: Four pitches, shitload of work and hardly anytime to breathe. Yet, its been quite entertaining as well - found the time to meet an old friend, drink my self silly at Club IX on Saturday night and grab a couple of good meals in places i've never been to before.
There have been many things that've made me stop and think, albeit for a few minutes only. So, instead of writing down my thoughts on a full fledged topic, here are some random observations over the last few days:
_ The Vodka Sachet pack: Adjacent to Club IX in Bandra, there's a really sexy alcohol store with classy display units and comfortable ambience. By the looks of it, it seems a showcase store for Diageo. In this place, i discovered 30 ml sachets of Smirnoff being sold. Sachets of Smirnoff? The amount we speak about the sachet-ization of the world, the one thing that i couldn't imagine being retailed in sachets was alcohol. Yet, the store owner told me that it was selling like hot cakes. People would enter his store before getting into Club IX, buy a sachet, swig it down and then go on. Alternatively, it was a good way to allow yourself "measured indulgence". (The mindset of not wanting to drink too much but of having a drink nonetheless because i feel like it). Quite an amazing concept, i must say!!
_ Flogging The Ad world: Read an article in the "Mocha Cafe" section of Economic Times about the overuse of celebrities in ads today. The author made statements to the effect that celebrities are being increasingly used in ads because the industry is bereft of ideas. Imagine this "A whole industry whose only reason to exist is to come up with ideas for communication is bereft of its only saleable currency" A whole industry consisting of 12000 odd people (even that is a conversative estimate) relies on celebrity advertising because they are short on ideas. I urge the author to just repeat these statements in her head three or four times; it should be fairly apparent that the statement was quite a foolish one to make. It surprises me when people take the liberty to make such statements without giving prior thought to the fact that its not a comment about a singular person but a whole industry; and hence an such opinion can be a broad generalization at best and could be easily disproved. In this particular case, our performance at Cannes over the last two years should be proof enough
_ The price of growth: Today's (July 10, 2007) Hindutan Times front page was quite an intriguing one. On the one hand it reiterated the rapid India growth story through an article on "why India is a more lucrative market for airlines and hence the drop in prices of flying within the country". On the same page, there were two more articles that spoke about incidences of rape within the city of Mumbai. It makes me wonder whether a ever loosening social fabric is the price we pay for growth. After all, the most developed nation in the world (USA) is also the one with the highest reported numbers for sexual abuse and rape.
The accused as well as the victims reported in today's articles were people either below or just about above the poverty line. We may soon come to a situation where the gulf between the affluent (mass affluent, class affluent, just about affluent, etc) and the poor (destitutes, below poverty line, etc) widens to such as extent that frustrations will lead people to indulge in nefarious acts. Will we be a society where as the increase in GDP numbers will be directly proportional to the increase in numbers of robbery, rape, muder, mugging, etc? Its happened in other countries, there's no reason that it won't in ours.
There have been many things that've made me stop and think, albeit for a few minutes only. So, instead of writing down my thoughts on a full fledged topic, here are some random observations over the last few days:
_ The Vodka Sachet pack: Adjacent to Club IX in Bandra, there's a really sexy alcohol store with classy display units and comfortable ambience. By the looks of it, it seems a showcase store for Diageo. In this place, i discovered 30 ml sachets of Smirnoff being sold. Sachets of Smirnoff? The amount we speak about the sachet-ization of the world, the one thing that i couldn't imagine being retailed in sachets was alcohol. Yet, the store owner told me that it was selling like hot cakes. People would enter his store before getting into Club IX, buy a sachet, swig it down and then go on. Alternatively, it was a good way to allow yourself "measured indulgence". (The mindset of not wanting to drink too much but of having a drink nonetheless because i feel like it). Quite an amazing concept, i must say!!
_ Flogging The Ad world: Read an article in the "Mocha Cafe" section of Economic Times about the overuse of celebrities in ads today. The author made statements to the effect that celebrities are being increasingly used in ads because the industry is bereft of ideas. Imagine this "A whole industry whose only reason to exist is to come up with ideas for communication is bereft of its only saleable currency" A whole industry consisting of 12000 odd people (even that is a conversative estimate) relies on celebrity advertising because they are short on ideas. I urge the author to just repeat these statements in her head three or four times; it should be fairly apparent that the statement was quite a foolish one to make. It surprises me when people take the liberty to make such statements without giving prior thought to the fact that its not a comment about a singular person but a whole industry; and hence an such opinion can be a broad generalization at best and could be easily disproved. In this particular case, our performance at Cannes over the last two years should be proof enough
_ The price of growth: Today's (July 10, 2007) Hindutan Times front page was quite an intriguing one. On the one hand it reiterated the rapid India growth story through an article on "why India is a more lucrative market for airlines and hence the drop in prices of flying within the country". On the same page, there were two more articles that spoke about incidences of rape within the city of Mumbai. It makes me wonder whether a ever loosening social fabric is the price we pay for growth. After all, the most developed nation in the world (USA) is also the one with the highest reported numbers for sexual abuse and rape.
The accused as well as the victims reported in today's articles were people either below or just about above the poverty line. We may soon come to a situation where the gulf between the affluent (mass affluent, class affluent, just about affluent, etc) and the poor (destitutes, below poverty line, etc) widens to such as extent that frustrations will lead people to indulge in nefarious acts. Will we be a society where as the increase in GDP numbers will be directly proportional to the increase in numbers of robbery, rape, muder, mugging, etc? Its happened in other countries, there's no reason that it won't in ours.
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