MAD AND DEVINE by SUDHIR KAKAR

Just picked up Dr. Kakar’s latest titled Mad and Devine-Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World and am riveted by it. The book looks at the interplay between the spirit and the psyche and aims at distinguishing between the psychic and the spiritual phenomena. Besides insightfully articulating something as abstract as that, his brilliance lies in the ability to infuse poetry into the subject matter. I have been a keen student and follower of Dr. Kakar’s work and it is great to see him get back to non-fiction after a series of novels in the last 10 years. Although last year he came out with The Indians-Portrait of a People, but it was more a synopsized version of his earlier works. Check M&D out for a breathtaking journey into the inner theatre of the mind!

...only one King!

To all those looking for some serious theoretical grounding in the abstract, subjective world of brands and communications, JWT has done a huge favor by coming out with the Timeless Works of Stephen King. I have been fortunate to have been exposed to his works by my mentor and we have been studying, not just reading the stuff he wrote during nearly three decades of practice at JWT. The prescience and the depth of the man is mind boggling. Particularly the articles on Brand Building in the 1990s and Strategic Development of Brands. In the latter, he talks about a new kind of brand planning organization that will be required to service clients in the future (article written in 1988) and almost every word resonates as having come true, including the need for expertise in one-to-one interactive marketing, even before the advent of the Internet.

This book needs to be treated like a pillow and flattened by every planner worth his salt.

It breaks down the world of brand-building practice into simple universally applicable elements that can guide decision making under almost any circumstance. And this grounding in my opinion, is key to ensuring that the world of brand strategy is taken as seriously by clients as the world of management consulting.

Some Research on Quali Research!

For the believers of quali research, it's been getting increasingly difficult (particulary in India) withdemanding respondent criteria from clients, shortage of genuine research talent and extremely suspect field work. The fact that most clients feel comfortable with the tangibility of numbers makes the task of convicing them about the validity of findings even more challenging. The proverbial 'searching under the lampost for keys not because you lost them their but because that where the light is' phenomena is inescapable in the research context.

Two relatively recent works propose a couple of interesting directions quali research could take. Firstly Doug Holt's How Brand Become Icons?, looks at the cultural role brand play and in the process some become symbols of their times in a society a la Beetle, Coke, Bud, Apple etc. The other very interesting work is by Dr. Clotaire Rapaille called the Culture Code and recommends a semiotic/psychoanalytic approach to uncovering the hidden codes and symbols at the heart of a category. Both these books put enormous emphasis on the societal/cultural aspects in which the brand or the category is rooted and going into lives of the consumers to uncover the meaninsg they attach to using these products.

Both these methods require very high level of skill and specialization and focus on going deeper rather than broader in terms of understanding a phenomena. Both the methods require talking to a select few respondents and going beyond the superficial or spontaneous responses.

Doug Holts recommends studying the societal conflicts that define a certain time period and peg the brand as a reconciliation of that conflict while Dr. Rapaille's methodology belives in going deeper into the lifescripts of consumers and getting them in touch with their earliest memories and associations with that brand/category.

Both are extremely compelling arguments that make enormous sense in explaining a lot of the complexity behind how people interact with brand s and why some become more successful than others. However, the execution of this kind of research (including interpretations) is complex and demands qualifications that very few quali researchers lay claim to.

However, I see it as the future of research as the easy gains that come in a high growth economy dwindle and brands would need to pull off something extraordinary in order to justify their premiums. It is agreat opportunity for research firms to decommoditize themselves and occupy a place that is as valued as any upstream consultant's.

The question is - how many are up to it?...afterall easy gains are easy gains for all and god is the enemy of great!

The Halo Effect

It's been a while! Need to be more regular with this baby.

After a long time stumbled upon a great management book called the Halo Effect, which critically analyses the claims of scientific rigour and empirical evidence iconic management books like Built to Last and Good to Great make.

Personally, i have always felt the discomfort in the absoluteness with which these books dish out recipes for success. Built to Last was still important from the point of view of uncovering a blind spot in Corporate Brand Building and the significant role for a corporate ideology in it. However, in my opinion the findings and recommendations of G2G are motherhood at best and force-fits at worst.

The Halo Effect, for me has been another addition in a series of readings i have found useful over the last year or so starting from Mintzberg's Rise and fall of Strategic Planning to The Witch Doctors to a lot of writing from David Maister. These have all questioned the simplistic, formulaic management writing and emphasised the need for multiple perspectives and thinking on the feet.

As an advisor to companies, it has resonated with my idea of the role i need to play as not a person with answers but as a person with multiple perspectives and empathetic listening. We are there to act as mirrors to our clients and reflect back what is occurring from the outside as a result of their actions so that they can readjust their organizational functioning in line with what they wish to be seen as.

Unfortunately there is also a school which believes that clients are buying a consultant's conviction rather than advice...which leads to the salesman in them take over the advisor.

The Halo Effect is a must read for anyone wanting to know how little we know and how complex real-world management is for anyone to zero in on a magic pill for guaranteed success!