Category: DAS KA DUM

A sensitive question, but answered in no ambiguous words by Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 18 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

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Q. Now AU Bank is in a spot over its ads upsetting religious sentiments. Given rising intolerance levels, would you advise advertisers to steer clear of such issues/themes? Or any publicity is good publicity?

A. I agree with your observation that advertisers/ marketers should steer clear of sensitive issues in their communication, in view of increasing intolerance/ cancel culture. I know there would be advocates of freedom of speech and use of communication as a means of driving social change and they would be right in their position. But when one does business, these kind of controversies cause distraction from the core focus of any business entity. It may be prudent to mind one’s business, literally and metaphorically.

Yet again a sensitive question, but answered in no ambiguous words by Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 19 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

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Q. As someone who is not originally from Mumbai or Delhi, do you sometimes find that our news and entertainment content in English and Hindi alienates the rest of the country?

A. You haven’t specified  the relevance of your observation in respect of which medium. I perceived that it is skewed towards the TV medium. Assuming that, I may mention that in a country like India with a mosaic of culture and diversity, no medium and content can be everything to everyone. Besides, in an age of hyper-personalisation, consumers prefer unique content by format, by language and region. If media owners do not take cognisance of this reality, more alienation with the target audience. I think both English and Hindi news and entertainment channels are doing their best to serve their audience but one size fits all is a dream of the past and a sure recipe for failure. Having said that, I won’t deny that there is always scope for improvement but it is difficult to be objective in subjective matters. After all, it’s more art than science, though AI/ML or data literate content design can inject some science into the art.

Yet again a sensitive question, but answered in no ambiguous words by Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 19 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. The loss of Shashi Tharoor in the Congress Presidential elections clearly indicates that while he may be a darling of the social media, but clearly not that of the holy souls of the Congress. Is there a lesson in personal branding out there?

A. In any democratic country or a political party, a win or a loss is part of the game. And the game is different is different in every area of combat. I presume your question is related to lessons in personal branding, but being a novice and an apolitical person, I shall abjure the path of any reference to any political party or political personalities.

Jeff Bezos once said: “Your brand is what people say about you,  when you’re not in the room.”  I haven’t read a better definition of personal branding as of now. That Personal Branding (aka PB) is an important element of positioning an individual (in the process, the rub-off effect goes to an organisation) cannot be over emphasised. When there was no ubiquitous social media, even then, no one could deny the PB of Mahatma Gandhi or Rabindranath Tagore or Nelson Mandela. They were charismatic by their deeds and authentic appeal.

In today’s world of internet and social media, PB has assumed a very different dimension and the rules of the game differ by the format of the medium and its respective ecosystem of communities. A PB in Meta can be very different in Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn. And a PB (built through broadcast media) may or not have any repercussion on narrowcast or monocast media. So one has to customise building of PB as per the characteristics of the medium. But core principles of PB remain the same: consistently authentic on what one does and what one says, expertise in an attractive, even quirky niche, deep knowledge in a domain and ability to articulate in an audience-sticky way (both online and offline).

So much for the principles. Finally, followership may not get translated into winning an election mandate. By that logic, all influencers could been leaders in a country. Leaders can opt for social media to complement their position through social media but it is double-edged sword as trollers can target any discordant note in any inadvertent communication of a leader. After all one’s reputation is an opinion of others. So constant tracking through social listening is a must to respond to such discordant rumblings.

Followership in social media generally should never be conflated with one’s popularity in any area, specially political. Otherwise, if you check the correlationship of the rush in political rallies and the number of winners, the findings can be startling. I don’t have data but just thought of that. I am wondering if I have answered your question-definitely not to your liking, I guess.

It’s not an easy question to answer, and our Wizard with Words minces no words as he responds. Do read it for yourself in the October 21 edition of Das ka Dum by Dr Bhaskar Das. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. It’s Diwali week. While it’s surely not ‘diwala’ for the media, but things could’ve been better, revenue-wise. What’s your view?

A. When it comes to growth in topline, the usual adage of ‘dil maange more’ would always be applicable. So I think the market is improving in the right direction but some sectors might experience a winter of discontent, as there is an underlying sense of unease due to rising inflation and consumer cautiousness on optimism about the future. In fact if you pause for a moment, you would realise that the world has been reeling under one shock after other viz Covid/ health scare, Russia Ukraine war, bellicosity of China, climate concern, concern about food security and possible energy crisis in Europe and supply chain challenges etc could queer the pitch of many predictions about business in general, irrespective of sectors. We are all connected and to say that India is insulated from the impact of the aforesaid factors, tantamount to staying in a fool’s paradise. Hence I feel these are challenging times for every business and given this the Indian market is responding with alacrity and pragmatism.

The newspaper headlines echo the sentiment. Everyone’s happy that a Brit of Indian origin, and a practising Hindu, is now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. So we asked Dr Bhaskar Das a question on this for the October 26 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. So should we doing a ‘tunak tunak’ dance now that a British Indian Rishi Sunak has occupied the hot seat at No 10?

A. I think we need to get out of brandishing clannish affinity and be a professional to deliver an outcome that is important not just for UK but for the world. For too long, we have spent time on local issues without realising that we are all connected in some way or the other and whether it’s climate, energy crisis, supply chain challenges, food crisis, populism, rising inflation and growth challenges et al, all of these are affecting the fabric of global society, specially the underprivileged ones. Time is ticking and some short-term (if not medium-term) tough measures have to be taken rather than adopting a populist stance. Fiscal and monetary policies have to be balanced to have a pragmatic approach for solving issues facing humanity and leadership, across the world, need to think and act with compassion. Easier said than done, as in a multipolar world, unipolar aggrandisement is aspired for. Hence an asymmetrical approach is inevitable.

So Tunak Tunak is ok for optics but not now, as humanity is on the throes of a series of unprecedented challenges—economic, social, cultural, environmental and ethical..

It’s one of those questions where you feel a little embarrassed after reading the answer. So let’s dive right into it. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 28 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. What does the rise of British Indian mean for Brand India? Unlike Kamala Harris, he is quite upfront about his Indian roots and Hindu faith?

A. I think we should stop counting chickens before they are hatched. The new PM of UK has to look after his country’s priorities in the context of various global imperatives and not take decisions on the basis of his country of origin. That’s pretty myopic and not in sync with what the world need. He has a tough task in hand and the world is surely looking at how he demonstrates his leadership skills for UK and the world.

Nothing new in this question as we tweeted on it last week. But we didn’t get too many answers, so we posed this to our Wizard with Words today. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the October 31 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. Last week, newspapers in Ahmedabad were shut for three days. In Pune for two. And this is when printwallahs have been complaining that ‘dhanda’ is ‘manda’. What’s your view?

A. Your question seems to suggest to me that continuing publication for the two-three days would have cured all the perceived ills that plague the print media.

I find no substantive logic in this legacy industry convention. Incidentally, I feel this convention has a humane aspect in it, beyond the cold logic of business. Just imagine: the entire community of sellers and hawakers who work round the year during the wee hours when all of us are in deep slumber. Day in, day out, in all seasons. They never fail to deliver the daily newspaper at our doorsteps. They deserve two-three days in a year to celebrate an annual festival with their families.

Finally, even in terms of cold logic of business, I can mention with confidence that no advertising revenue (generally 75/80 per cent of a newspaper’s topline) is lost due to this as advertisers also make their media plans accordingly. The only loss is the cover price revenue which won’t be generally more than 25% topline of a newspaper, leave or take 5/10% plus- minus. In fact I would hazard a guess the savings due to non-publication on those two-three days of holidays would be more than the loss of cover price revenue.

So there is economics in being humane too. If you are really concerned about the future of print media, there are other systemic issues which, if addressed, can make more impact on the sector.

Well, an unfair question to ask because Elon Musk is known to be an unconventional businessperson, and his ways are even more dramatic. While all of it may work for Tesla, but will it work for a platform like Twitter? We posed this to our Wizard with Words today. Here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the November 1 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. It’s now been a few days since Elon Musk took over Twitter. Your expectations from the ‘Chief Twit’?

A. I am too small a fry to pen down my expectations from the ‘Chief Twit; and as a digital immigrant, I am not an avid social media user.

Having said that I must admit I was watching the developments at the Twitter takeover battle and being a fan of Elon Musk—I love his attitude and his business ventures—and find a lot of comparable stuff with Steve Job’s story of his return to Apple, albeit in different contexts and circumstances.

I may guess from Elon Musk’s tweets on how he wants to change Twitter. He seems to have a lofty plan like defeating spam bots on Twitter, prevent Twitter to becoming an echo chamber of hate, to be more inclusive and would support free speech etc. Now, the God is in execution and it might not be a smooth task, especially when one has to work in sync with multiple-nation regulatory frameworks. Musk must have an execution roadmap in his mind and the new lead driver (if I may suggest) of these goals Shriram Krishnan would certainly try to fructify Musk’s vision. Come to think of it, it’s too early to comment authentically on the subject. So, as they say, watch this space.

So he calls us a “white collar, privileged person”!!! Ha ha. But we stand by our view, even though twice over he has made us believe that our argument (or question) was bunkum. Without any further ado, here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the November 2 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar.

Q. Given your response to our question on newspapers taking a day or two or three off, would you be cool with digital and television also doing the same. The rank and file there also need some respite, na?

A. Asymmetric comparison. In case of digital and news television, the content generating team have duties in shifts. Generally the employees have shifts of eight hours or so. There are compensatory offs. They have compensation and promotions. Have we heard that a hawker has been promoted or he can take off as part of his job or he has been given a hike beyond his commission? I can imagine that as a white collar, privileged person, it’s difficult to empathise with blue collar workers and their work challenges. Marx and his ideology is out of fashion anyway in today’s post-modern society.

A question meant to provoke, but that’s not a trait you associate with our Wizard with Words. Presenting Dr Bhaskar Das in the November 3 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. The British media – print, television and digital – showed amazing character reporting on the run up to Rishi Sunak’s ascent. And even after. Why do you think our Indian media can’t be and do the same?

A. This question is more appropriate for media owners. I can’t arrogate their authenticity. Having said that, I would like to submit my point of view of two cents: our proclivity towards comparing/ benchmarking everything that is western need not always be appropriate. Every country has its own cultural preferences on many matters , including news. So benchmarking against a western country won’t help much. If market/ consumers stamp their preference (as evident through an accepted currency like BARC data), why ignore that. There is no use extrapolating our individual liking on the universe of news consuming audience. Besides, western news channels don’t offer choices to consumers, the way it’s available in India and consumers have the right to choose the news channel they like. I am sure mediaowners are conscious of the market forces that determine viability of a channel and cater to the needs and wants of their served markets.

Our now-regular question pre-season, post-season and in-season.Without further ado, here’s Dr Bhaskar Das in the November 4 edition of Das ka Dum. Read on…

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. Given that Diwali-led Festive Season 2022 is now past us, what’s the mood on the Street? Jubilant or Despondent?

A. The general mood as I discern is of cautious optimism, experiment without profligacy, leverage the innovation/ startup culture that is dominating the India growth story, etc. There are global and local headwinds, yet India is showing positive signs of drive towards growth aspirations. I think that India can show better growth rates in the coming years as political ambitions of China are stymied by contradictions. Through the China +1 approach globally, a few countries are well-poised to craft a different growth orbit and India can be one of them. There are many indicators for that.

In others words, jubilant or despondency can be a sector-specific and company-specific affair. But directionally, India story is going to be positive.