By Jaisurya Das
Yes, Thursday it is, and time for a fresh edition of Dear MxM, unarguably the most widely read counselling column that India’s Media and Marketing folks can call their own! Thank you, readers for giving us this niche in your heart. Your positive feedback on the series on neuro-understanding is indeed heartening and yes this will continue, in deference to your wishes.
I am not sure if you’ve heard, but a legendary print brand has been laid to rest. RIP ‘ The Independent ‘. With barely over a 60,000 copies sold it was inevitable, I guess.
I wonder if it’s a result of poor marketing or just lack of foresight but it’s a certainly an important lesson to learn. ‘Content is king’ is the mantra today and yet brands come crashing down like a tonof bricks!
The answer is simple. The audience isn’t the same despite their physical characteristics. Much to the surprise of practitioners, the neurons in the human brain are reinventing themselves rapidly in their attempt to adapt to the changing world.
Evolution will ensure we have no extras and organs like the appendix do not exist in the future.. Fingers that are adaptable to incessant texting, eyes that can focus on a brightly lit screen and skulls that can take larger sized brains are all inevitable. I wouldn’t be surprised if even menstrual cycles begin and end the same day to avoid any downtime.
Today, even puberty is attained well before we thought ideal. Maybe it’s just evolutions way of ensuring early childbirth (if need be!) and seamless adaptation to the environment. Yes, these are my views and I firmly believe in them. Life has changed, and we jolly well accept it.
And, believe me, it won’t be long before we forget how we lived in the past and what the world was like.  Memory in the human species is good but limited to the broad aspects and not so much when it comes to details.
All of us when prodded for detail, end up filling the blanks with instantly created information, and then soon enough, we believe in that. Our memories work with complex algorithms and are always linked to some other aspect . This seamless instant linking is the essence of recall.
It’s fascinating to see how it works. Do spend a few minutes to think how often this happens to you.. We make up little bits of information, fill the spaces and later believe in the new story we just created. That, then becomes the entire episode which we believe is a result of our amazing memory.
Interestingly, this is the social animal we are trying to market to, without estimating how complex they actually are. Unfathomable! It’s much like a million apps running highly complex algorithms all at one go, for even a simple activity.
Hence, ladies and gentleman, do not leave home without a hearty breakfast or what I term Brain Meal! The brain utilises over 20% of our energy needs/ day, despite contributing to only 2% of our body weight. Hence overnight is long enough and it’s imperative to feed it first thing in the morning to ensure optimal functioning.
I do hope to fill you in with more news from the ‘ cerebral side ‘ of town but for now, let’s move on to your questions and our answers for this 7th week of 2016.
Read on, my friends, Read on….
I am an executive with fair exposure to advertising and marketing content. I am considering an MBA abroad/India in marketing. But I hate maths and econometrics etc. I am told marketing is good to do but it’s all very numbers- and data-driven these days. And one can rise faster only with fair comfort and proficiency in data and research. My questions to you:
a. Can someone who detests Maths and all stuff that requires numerical proficiency go far in marketing?
b. Is there stuff that I can read and figure whether this is something I am interested in and I can do well? Any book, Internet links etc?
Thanks for writing in, my friend. I can seriously sympathise with you on maths, since I barely managed to scrape through all this at school!!
Having said this, I did come to terms with all this at various stages in my life as a marketer, brand manager and an entrepreneur. Fortunately, the amazing genius of human engineering, the calculator ensured I faired well! I wonder why they didn’t allow me to use one at school…I would have had a happier childhood!
Now to answer your questions…
But of course you can do exceedingly well in marketing without being a numerical genius. Yes, understanding finance is an advantage but that’s not something that you can’t manage, even if you detest mathematics. I say this from experience. I can handle P&L accounts and Balance Sheets with ease and they actually make a lot of sense to me too. I hate numbers though.
It does make sense to adapt yourself to reading numbers and numerical data but that doesn’t mean you have to proficient at putting them together. At work in a marketing environment it’s empowering yourself with data that’s significant, and not how well you calculate! Yes, being a number whiz can help to a certain extent to speed up your presentations and sales dockets but it’s not imperative in my opinion. Marketing craft is the challenge. The rest will fall in place.
Research is a given now in a marketing environment but it’s more qualitative now and will increasingly be cerebral, hence the number game will be relegated to the books! Don’t detest numbers or get attached to them. It can give you sleepless nights.. ‘Numerimares’, I call it!
Yes, is the answer to your second question. There are loads of books you can read on marketing, some bigger than the other. So, from a Peter Drucker to Al and Laura Ries… all speak the same language. A good start (ignore the name!) is ‘ Marketing for Dummies ’. Brilliant, simple and gives you the works. Get a newer edition. Available online for sure.
Post that, may be ‘22 Immutable laws of Marketing’ by Al & Laura Ries. Another simple, brilliant book by this pair. Their one on branding is legendary too.
This is enough reading to interest you. Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy it! Still in doubt? Mail us @ Dear MxM and we would be happy to advise you.
My mother tongue is Bengali, but I can’t read and write the language. I have been living in Mumbai for the last 15 years, and haven’t ever felt the need to be proficient in the language beyond speaking. For my profession (I am a journalist), do you think it’s good to know how to read and write?
Am not sure I have understood your question completely, but for the moment I shall assume you are a journalist who isn’t employed with a Bengali publication/ channel…
Besides the positive emotion of being proficient in one’s known mother tongue, it really isn’t a necessity unless you are working / want to work with Bengali media. In this case, it’s definitely a pre-requisite!
Personally, I feel knowing to read and write a language will always hold you in good stead, no matter whether it’s your mother tongue or otherwise. I would have loved to learn more than what I know, but never got to doing it.
If you have the time and inclination, do learn. Learning empowers! Â All good wishes to you for your career ahead.
Why do we find so much inefficiency and corruption in our private sector media companies, and why is that the owners condone all the mess that happens.
Now that’s a strong statement my friend ! I don’t think one can generalise in this manner. Yes, there are instances in a few companies but these are exceptions to the rule.
I must add, that this is true of any industry and loopholes to beat the system are exploited by one smart cookie or the other! Having said that, the situation isn’t as bad in professionally managed firms who have tighter controls and are not typically owner-driven.
I would to a great extent blame the owners themselves since they tend to be lax with basic protocols and don’t follow them either. This results in the wrong message being passed down the line. Owners tend to treat the company as their own proprietorship firm and hence financial regimen is ignored.
Prohibitive costs are incurred to keep their ego well-massaged and this cascades to become a huge drain on the company. Chartered air travel, hotels, luxury vehicles are all part of this persona that they carry. Yes, this is fine if the company is doing well and business looks good. However, it doesn’t stop here and such cost is incurred even when the chips are down!
Now, this is being unreasonable and grossly inefficient . On the one hand, the company takes cost-control measures eating into various things and on the other, the owner splurges as though it’s a blue chip enterprise!
Corruption etc is yet another fall out of corporate inefficiency and mismanagement wherein constituents tend to strike deals with suppliers etc to satisfy their greed. Controls are critical and so are protocols and this is the only way to ensure it’s a well managed firm. Owners can’t really do much but condone since most often they don’t have the mind-space to get into the micros.
Yet, these things mean nothing, if it doesn’t apply to all, principal shareholders included.
The advertising agency that I work with has this celebrated creative guru as its head. In fact I joined this agency only because of him. But since the “hi, hello” I got to do on the first day and some exchange of pleasantries there has been no interaction. Now this CEO is so busy with his own thing that he doesn’t inspire anyone to stay on. Can you please help ? Should I move elsewhere?
Now, that an interesting one!
I completely understand the way you feel yet, you must know it’s virtually impossible to spend time with everyone when you are in a high pressure environment. Hence, I wouldn’t really blame this Ad guru for not finding time to mentor you… unless ofcourse mentoring is priority 🙂
Having said this, let me ask you what you looked for when you joined this agency? Was it just the celeb ad guru and his persona or was it to work with his trademark agency?
This is important to understand. Is it really the man who is important or his legacy, his excellence, his work ? Does it really make a difference whether you meet him once or a hundred times as long as you are exposed to his creative expertise?
Do or don’t you feel good about learning in this environment or is it just another job and having him around is the only advantage? I doubt it! If he’s that good, am sure the work the agency does is equally interesting and of a high order.
The decision is really yours, my friend, but do read my response to your questions more than once.
It not anything, it may give you another perspective to learning itself.
Remember, even legendary advertising and marketing professionals are as good as they’re work yesterday . This is the environment now.
They adapt and continue to excel… and you ? Think before you leap
All the best!
Jolly good weekend to all of you! Now, stop getting so excited… We are returning next week, same day, same space but with newer questions and taaza answers.
Well, thats our job isn’t it? Dear MxM because… We care, we honestly do.Â
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Keep writing to us with all your questions at editor@mxmindia.com with ‘Dear MxM’ as the subject…. and do mention the city you currently live in !
Jaisurya Das, the maverick media-evangelist, eats, sleeps and romance’s brands. His cerebral consulting interventions are aimed at making brands powerful and sustainable. He is also the Contributing Editor of MxM India. The views expressed in this column are his own.