MxMIndia

Tag: Ashoke Agarrwal

  • … instead of the traditional Malthusian world of limited and depleting operand resources, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Operand and Operant Resources and the Emergence of Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) Marketing

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalTraditionally, marketing as a discipline inherited a model of exchange from economics – the exchange of goods that is an exchange of tangible resources, embedded values and transactions. The core value marketing brought to the business table facilitated this transfer, as encapsulated in Philip Kotler’s 4P model.

     

    Businesses and marketers thought of service as an adjunct to physical goods as a residual that enhanced the value of the goods.

     

    As economies and societies developed, services like health care, education and public transport became competitive categories. And marketers needed to evolve marketing and sales strategies for products that were pure services, with tangible goods playing a secondary role.

     

    There are crucial differences in the exchange between selling physical goods and offering “pure” services. First, the sale of physical goods was a one-time make-and-sell operation. On the other hand, providing a service like health care and education requires a sense-and-respond process overlayed on a make-and-sell one.

     

    In the last few decades of the 20th century, marketing considered services like health care and education as a niche within the overall 4P model.

     

    However, as the computer, internet and mobile age matured and services of various kinds bloomed, marketing evolved a new approach.

     

    This approach went to the core of societies’ economic life regarding economic resources.

     

    Operand resources as resources on which an operation or act is performed to produce an effect. Operant resources are employed to act on operand resources (or other operant resources). For example, societies’ operand resources are land, animal, plant, mineral, and other natural resources.

     

    In the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, marketing’s dominant logic shifted from exchanging goods to what is now known as Service-Dominant Logic (SDL). SDL applies to the marketing of all products, including goods and services.

     

    This shift is primarily in the outlook towards operand and operant resources:

    :: While traditionally, the primary unit of exchange is operand resources, in the SDL world, the exchange is to acquire the benefit of specialised competencies (knowledge and skills) or services, that is, operant resources.

    :: Even when the exchange involves operand resources, the marketing focus in the SLD paradigm is treating these operand resources as transmitters of operant resources (embedded technologies)

    :: In the SDL world, marketers view customers as operant resources as users in the value-creation process. In the SDL world, customers aren’t just value consumers but also value-creators. SDL marketing is a process of doing things with the customer.

    :: In traditional marketing, world value is determined by the producer. In the SDL world, value is determined and perceived by the consumer in terms of “value-in-use.” Firms can only make value propositions.

    :: Traditional marketing acts upon the customer as an operand resource. In SDL marketing, the customer is an operant resource in actively participating in relational exchange and co-production.

    :: Traditionally wealth is obtained from surplus tangible resources and goods. Wealth consists of owning, controlling, and producing operand resources. In SDL, wealth is acquired through applying and exchanging specialized knowledge and skills. It represents the right to the future use of operant resources.

     

    A realisation of the SDL world, even in traditional categories consisting chiefly of physical goods, is through the Brand-As-A-Service (BaaS) model. I wrote about this in my MxM India column dated March 17, 2022, titled “Like Saas, Is Baas the Future”.

     

    The SDL world also calls for a re-orientation of consumer research and CRM. Traditionally much attention in consumer research is paid to segmentation and further market penetration. In essence, an approach that treats the consumer as an operand resource that is acted upon by marketing. Instead, SDL calls for a research orientation that synergizes with CRM to facilitate the customer to be a co-creator.

     

    The coming of 5G and IoT will lead to a further explosion of Big Data. However, the traditional marketing paradigm would further distance the customer as an operand resource that is mined and exploited. In an SDL world, however, IoT-sourced Big Data combined with always-on digital communication can bring the customer closer as a co-creator of value.

     

    The other great advantage of the SDL perspective is that it is a world of abundant operant resources instead of the traditional Malthusian world of limited and depleting operand resources.

     

    For a detailed overview of the SDL approach, I suggest you read the white paper “Evolving to a New Dominant Logic for Marketing” by Stephen L. Cargo and Robert F. Lusch in the Journal of Marketing, Vol 58 (Jan 2004) 1-17.

     

  • Brands and marketers who experiment with the emerging Metaverse today will be in pole position as the tech matures, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    The Metaverse: A Reality Check

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalThe world woke up to the Metaverse concept when Facebook Inc decided, in October 2021, to change its name to Meta Platforms Inc and announced a $10 billion bet on making the Metaverse a reality soon.

     

    Zuckerberg’s gambit was an exercise in re-positioning.

     

    However, he seemed to have instead raised both public expectations and internal strife.

     

    A New York Times reporter, Kashmir Hill, spent many hours our days donning Oculus 2 and logged into Horizon Worlds, Facebook’s nascent Metaverse platform. She filed a report that broadly expressed disappointment.

    A few days later, another New York Times article laid bare the internal strife in Meta over the Metaverse bet.

     

    Zuckerberg seemed to have gone public with a concept too soon. Sooner than the concept itself was anywhere near being realised. And when his company was a clear laggard in the core technology race to the Metaverse. As a result, Zuckerberg faces the twin storms of falling revenues in his legacy business and cratering capital markets valuations.

     

    In his book “The Metaverse and How It Will Revolutionize Everything “, Matthew L Ball masterfully outlines this race.

     

    He starts with a carefully crafted definition of the Metaverse that portends the technology challenge in its every word.

     

    “The Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds that can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data, such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments.”

     

    Mr Ball believes that the Metaverse will change the world on a scale that the Internet has done. However, he clarifies that a fully realised Metaverse is still decades away.

     

    The critical technology challenges that the builders of the Metaverse face are in the areas of:

    :: Real-time 3D rendering,

    :: Assuring synchronicity

    :: And persistence and inter-operability

     

    The leaders in the race to real-time 3D rendering are Epic Games and Unity Technologies. Their gaming engines – Unreal and Unity – are currently game developers’ favorite real-time rendering engines.

     

    Further, Mr. Ball identifies three gaming platforms much closer to the proto-Metaverse concept than Meta Platform’s “Horizon Worlds”. These are Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite Creative.

     

    Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite Creative are far ahead of Meta’s Horizon Worlds regarding the number of developers building virtual worlds on these platforms and the number of daily and monthly users. A key difference is the leading platforms do not require a VR set, while Horizon Worlds is accessible only through the Oculus 2. Mr. Ball does not think immersion through a VR set is a definitional feature of the Metaverse.

     

    The leadership of Roblox, Minecraft and Fortnite Creative is also evident in terms of the response of marketers and brands. A recent paper by McKinsey titled “Marketing in the Metaverse: An opportunity for innovation and experimentation.” lists some ongoing brand initiatives.

     

    Gucci launched a Gucci World on Roblox to start forging a brand relationship with Gen Z. Epic Games of Fortnite, and Unreal fame has announced a partnership with Lego to build a virtual world for kids. Skateboarding retailer Vans has tasted success with a Vans World on Roblox, where visitors can explore skating skills with friends and collect points to spend on virtual sneakers, apparel and even custom-made skates. Last November, NASCAR partnered with Badimo, the developers of the popular Roblox game Jailbreak, to add a branded vehicle to the game for a ten-day event. In this nascent era of the Metaverse, marketing and brands need to focus their Metaverse initiatives on brand-building rather than sales. However, a decade or two down the road, the Metaverse will be an economy by itself, and marketers and brands will see it as a key market in terms of the following:

    :: Direct-to-Avatar (DTA) sales of branded digital goods: Every brand and marketer will need to focus on creating digital goods as most people will live a parallel life as digital avatars and spend significant money on products and services for their avatars.

    :: Virtual-To-Reality (VTR) and Reality-to-Virtual (RTV) commerce, as coupons earned in the real world, are exchanged for goods in the virtual world and vice-versa.

     

    Brands and marketers who experiment with the emerging Metaverse today will be in pole position as the Metaverse matures and becomes a whole new market by itself.

     

    Mr. Ball, in his book, outlines the use case in a world that is part of the mature Metaverse that captures the impact of the Metaverse in the world of education:

     

    “Students from around the world will be able to strap into a virtual classroom, sit alongside their peers while making eye contact with their teacher, then shrink down to blood cells which travel through a human circulatory system, after which these previously 15-micrometre-tall students re-enlarge and dissect a virtual cat.”

     

    In a section later, Mr. Ball envisages these students converging after class for a game of basketball and then test-driving a digital version of the latest car (designed to the smallest detail to be a digital version of the real-world model).

     

    The impact of the Metaverse is going to be multi-dimensional and profound. However, the full realization is still a decade or two away. Despite that, it is imperative that every profession, including marketing, starts experimenting today to meet the opportunity and the challenge.

     

    In conclusion, let me lay out a few pointers, as suggested by the McKinsey team, for brands and marketers as they begin to experiment with the proto-Metaverse:

    :: Look for build engagement and brand presence rather than sales

    :: Choose carefully within the existing platforms – Roblox, Fortnite, Decentraland, Minecraft and Horizon Worlds.

    :: Create experiences.

    :: Explore partnerships and collaborations

    :: Proactively plan for risks to the brand

    :: Rethink how you measure marketing success

     

  • Somewhere early in the development of AI, the focus will shift to Strong Augmented Intelligence, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    The Future is Augmented not Artificial

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalIt is conventional today to blame many of modern society’s ills on social media and its tendency to nurture and amplify echo chambers. Echo chambers are fertile grounds for bigots and cranks for all hues to gather and indoctrinate the impressionable and idle among us.

     

    The more technologically sophisticated among the commentariat identify the algorithms that social media companies employ to be at the core of the echo chamber phenomenon. Social media platforms design these algorithms to maximise the time an individual spends with them and thus maximise advertising revenue. To many, these algorithms are simple forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) – a relentless machine that, one day in the near future, will control aspects of life, robbing the ordinary individual of many degrees of freedom.

     

    To my mind, the debate and apprehension over AI are overblown and misplaced. A crucial input into the algorithms that bring about social media’s echo chambers is the interaction of the individual with the content presented to him. The algorithms respond to the time he spends on a particular piece of content and the reaction button he presses (Facebook currently has six options – Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry). In that sense, social media platforms’ algorithms are a form of Augmented Intelligence (AuI) – albeit what I call Weak Augmented Intelligence (WAuI).

     

    A strategic shift from WAuM to Strong Augmented Intelligence (SAuI), whether voluntary or forced through regulation, can address the ills of social media. While WAuI implies near-involuntary participation by the human in the human-machine interaction, SAuI requires the human component to be conscious and informed. Imagine a social media platform genuinely sharing and seeking feedback. For example, say Facebook shares with its users at periodic intervals the user’s profile built by its algorithm and allows them to input suggestions. Furthermore, imagine Facebook periodically seeking their personal growth goals from its users and making these a part of the algorithm’s input. That would be the SAuI system, and I contend that, sooner or later, persuaded either by a maverick competitor or by regulators, the social media world would move to SAuI.

     

    I also contend that SAuI will be the dominant form of AI across domains over the next few decades.

     

    Take the example of AI applications in the daily lives of people that have been around for some time now – recommendation engines on e-commerce and streaming platforms and chatbots in the customer service arena. A white paper in a recent issue of the Journal of Marketing titled “Artificial Intelligence in Utilitarian vs Hedonic Contexts: The “Word-of- Machine” Effect” by Chiara Longoni and Luca Cian provides some interesting insights. People generally vary with inputs and advice from those they perceive as “Word of Machine” – inputs coming from AI with little or no human inputs. They are a little less vary when the “Word of Machine” is about a product or issue with well-defined rational dimensions at play – that is, they are “utilitarian” in nature. However, when the product or issue has emotional dimensions at play – that is, they are “hedonistic” at heart, the scepticism against “Word of Machines” is high. Some proponents of AI believe that as Natural Language Processing (NLP) engines cross the Turing threshold, pure AI-driven recommendation engines and chatbots will get wider acceptance and usage. The Turing threshold, to be clear, is when Natural Language Processing (NLP) based AI becomes so sophisticated that a human at the other end of a conversation cannot make out that it is a computer. They cite the emergence of Google’s LaMDA chatbot as that end is neigh. I think advanced AI technology like LaMDA can improve and be more valuable if it employs SAuI instead of pure AI. While the quest driving pure AI and GI pushes the boundaries, it is by incorporating SAuI that tools based on these advanced technologies can increase utility and find broad societal acceptance.

     

    A review paper titled “Artificial Intelligence and Management: The Automation-Augmentation Paradox” by Sebastian Raisch and Sebastian Krakowski for the Academy of Management Review validated this insight in business and management.

     

    As for the broader fields of arts and sciences and the broader human quest for knowledge, let us consider the predictions of Ray Kurzweil, the world’s leading authority on artificial intelligence and pre-eminent forecaster. In his 1999 book, “The Age of Spiritual Machines”, Mr Kurzweil made pithy milestone-type predictions for the next 100 years. Mr Kurzweil”s forecast for 2099 is “There is no longer any clear distinction between humans and computers. Most conscious entities do not have a permanent physical presence…the goal of education, and of intelligent beings, is discovering new knowledge to learn…Life expectancy is no longer a viable term in relation to intelligent beings.”

     

    That is a breathtaking and bold prediction, but Mr Kurzweil is taken seriously in most quarters because his forecasts for 2009 and 2019 have, by and large, come true, and the one he made for 2029 looks to be heading that way.

     

    In the context of pure AI and SAuI debate, it is essential to take note of two key phrases in Mr Kurzwell’s 2009 prediction – “no longer a clear distinction between human and computers” and “the goal of education and intelligent beings is discovering new knowledge and learn..”.

     

    The culmination of AI is a symbiosis of humans and computers, and the ultimate human goal is innovation and creativity. It, therefore, stands to reason to accept that somewhere early in the development of AI, the focus will shift from pure AI to what I term Strong Augmented Intelligence (SAuI). SAuI will be a jugalbandi between the extraordinary powers of computers married to the essential human quest for knowledge and creativity.

     

    PS: I have explored these themes in my earlier MxMIndia columns – two of them being:

    “The Coming Post Digital Age”, published on Jan 6, 2022,

    and “From Machine Learning to Machine Creativity”, published on Jan 20, 2022

     

  • No marketer can today rely on experience being sufficient to tackle emerging opportunities and challenges, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Ashoke Agarrwal: Hedgehogs, Foxes and Dragonflies: The Art & Science of Good Judgment

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalGood judgment is critical in all areas of life, as it is in business and marketing decision-making. From everyday decisions like launching a new SKU to the big ones like deciding on the scope and direction of new product development, good judgment is a crucial factor in good marketing across the spectrum. Advertising makes much of creative judgment, and many an advertising honcho’s reputations rest on their supposedly excellent creative judgment. More on that later.

     

    Philip E Tetlock, a well-known social scientist and researcher, launched in 2011, along with Barabara Mellers, a project entitled the Good Judgment Project (GJP). An arm of US intelligence – the Intelligence Advanced Research Project Activity (IARPA), collaborated and funded GJP in launching large-scale research to get to the roots of whether Good Judgment is a god-given attribute of an individual or borne out of deep experience in a relevant field.

     

    GJP and IARPA discovered after years of painstaking experimentation that good judgment is a skill that any individual can pick up in any field, provided they are of above-average intelligence, exhibits the right attitudes and works hard along the right lines.

     

    Tetlock has detailed the experimentation and its findings along with an eminently readable general survey of the field in his bestseller – “Superforecasting – The Art & Science of Prediction.”

     

    The GJP findings delve into many dimensions of forecasting that can impact good judgment. In his book, Tetlock explores these various dimensions concerning appallingly lousy judgment shown by the JFK administration about the Bay of Pigs invasion and how the team turned around by instituting simple procedures and showing good decision-making powers during the subsequent Cuban missile crisis.

     

    While the GJP focuses on the broad areas of socio-political and economic forecasting, it offers insights useful for day-to-day decision-making in the business and marketing arenas.

     

    One such insight is how foxes are better than hedgehogs in forecasting and decision-making. Hedgehogs are like experts who have firmly held views on how things work in their field of expertise. Their decision-making in any given situation is coloured by these views and is dictated by snap judgments. The much-feted creative director who can, at a glance, judge to merits of an innovative idea or a creative campaign is an example of a hedgehog. Another example would be the eminence grise Marketing Director who does not need any marketing research or other persons’ insights before setting the new product development plan for the next five years.

     

    Foxes also make snap judgements but temper them with a healthy dose of doubt before they act on them. Many are experts in their own right but do not let their expertise work as blinkers.

     

    In his book “Thinking Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman wrote about System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is the snap judgements we pass on a situation based on core human impulses like survival, ingrained habits and deeply assimilated expertise. System 1 thinking is spontaneous and arises in a human in any situation which requires judgement and decision-making.

     

    System 2 thinking, on the other hand, is an act of deliberation. It subjects the output of System 1 thinking to doubt and seeks to verify, modify or negate it through seeking further data and inputs from any available resources.

     

    For example, foxy creative directors might dislike an advertising idea or campaign on sight. However, before proceeding with a go-no-go decision or seeking modification, ask the creators for their rationale in creating the campaign, ask their colleagues from other disciplines for their views, and they might even commission advertising research before making a decision.

     

    Foxes can improve their judgment by increasing the data points and viewpoints they incorporate into their System 1 thinking. Dragonflies are uniquely sighted. Their eyes consist of multiple lenses with a different focus and, therefore brain processes various views of the same scene. Foxes will do well to be actively open in developing a dragonfly-like approach to evaluating a situation or at least having a dragonfly-like colleague to who they listen closely. That’s why consistently successful marketing and advertising decision-makers are eclectic in their cultural consumption and societal interactions.

     

    GJP discovered that a well-coordinated and managed team makes better forecasts and decisions than any team member acting alone. The reason behind the better performance of a team is that the team members taken together provide more varied viewpoints than any team member and thus reinforce the dragonfly effect. The assumption is that the team is well-managed – members can disagree without being disagreeable and that every member’s viewpoint carries equal weight. GJP also discovered that teams often make better forecasts and enable better decision-making if the leader – the boss- does not express his views but is a careful and patient listener and absorber.

     

    The third insight that GJP offers is that it is essential to state clearly the rationale behind every decision made and the desired outcome. For example, suppose a Marketing Director and his team forecasts a market surge and decide to double advertising spending. In that case, it will be of help if they put on record the reasoning behind the forecast. The recording of the rationale is not for bureaucratic cover-your-arse reasons but for the fact that putting down the explanation in block-and-white will help him validate and fine-tune the decision. As necessary, is that the team states precisely the outcome targeted from the action of doubling advertising spending. The rationale behind asking for precise specifications of the desired effect of decisions is that it enables teams to evaluate every decision without bias and thus continuously improve into the future.

     

    Conversely, a loosely specified outcome allows teams to succumb to the human tendency for self-justification, thus short-circuiting the learning process. For example, suppose the Marketing Director and his team loosely specify the outcome of doubling advertising spending as an “increase in sales”. In that case, it allows them to conclude that they were right in various situations. For example, they will contend that they were correct if the sales increase in the year was 20% while the market grew by 30%. Or if sales over the next three years grew but stagnated in the first year. The alternative is a precise statement of the outcome – “a doubling of advertising spends this year we anticipate a 10% increase in our market share this year over last year as also a 20% increase in our brand in the consideration set of potential buyers.”. Well-specified outcome statements allow teams to judge and diagnose success or failure, leading to a virtuous cycle of constantly improving forecasting and decision-making.

     

    Change is accelerating in today’s world, and the need for better forecasting and good judgment confronts marketing decision-makers not only for long-term or medium-term decisions but also for short-term day-to-day decisions. At the same time, no marketer can today rely on experience being sufficient to tackle emerging opportunities and challenges. In this scenario, a marketing leader needs to invest in a team of good forecasters with sound judgement outcomes and give them the resources and the ecosystem to fine-tune their abilities constantly.

     

  • New marketing trends dictated by emerging new technologies are rapidly emerging, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    The Four Factors Driving the Emergence of New MarTech

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalA recent special issue of the Journal of Marketing focused on the interaction between the emergence of new technologies and the domain and practice of marketing (Journal of Marketing 2022 Volume 86-1). It is worth a read.

     

    Technology changes marketing practice on various dimensions, with some changes being quite disruptive. For example, the emergence of the World Wide Web and Social Media over the past two decades are mature technologies with far-reaching effects on marketing.

     

    New technology is defined as new when its early in the adoption cycle for firms and is in the innovator or early adopter phase for consumers. In this column, I will briefly examine the emergence of new technologies and their effect on the practice of marketing along four factors.

     

    The first and central factor that new technology impacts marketing results from new forms of consumer and firm interactions, be they consumer-to-consumer, consumer-to-firm, firm-to-consumer and firm-to-firm. The emergence and maturing of online digital communication platforms have already played a disruptive role in marketing. Over the next couple of decades, the emergence of AI-mediated online digital communication will be the new technology that will be central to changes in marketing practice.

     

    The three factors that result from the central factor of the emergence of AI-mediated online digital communications are:

    :: Marketing Innovations

    :: New Data and Analytic Methods

    :: New Strategic Frameworks

     

    Marketing Innovations like AI-driven recommendation engines and chatbots are beginning to appear across product categories from e-tail and entertainment to health care and public services. Augmented reality in fashion retailing is another innovation resulting from the emergence of AI-mediated interaction. Finally, in the B2B arena, Livestream Selling is a fast-spreading innovation spurred by pandemic restrictions.

     

    The new form of communication and marketing innovations lead to the emergence of New Data and Analytic Methods.

     

    For example, reams of consumer interaction data allow the mapping of AI-mediated chatbots in various categories. For example, extensive studies on the effectiveness of AI-generated word-of-machine compared to human-generated word-of-mouth have resulted in critical insights regarding the Automation versus Augmentation debate regarding the use of AI in marketing.

     

    Another emerging data stream and analytic method are making informed product launch and product retirement decisions based on the rate of disengagement with old technology. This type of analysis is becoming increasingly important as new technologies emerge in categories like transport, energy, lighting and entertainment.

     

    In the B2B arena, the use of Computer Vision methods to analyse the effectiveness of salesperson’s facial expressions in Livestream Selling is emerging. Genetic data and analysis to better target consumers and new product development is an outlier in the latest data and analytic methods arena. The use of genetic data in marketing is predicated on the increasing popularity of Direct To Consumer Genetic Testing (DTC GT) like 23andMe. In 2018, Spotify allowed users to upload their genetic data with the promise of creating playlists that match their ‘genetic ancestry’. AeroMexico launched a ‘Genetic Discount’ based on the percentage of ‘Mexican-ness’ as posited by the individual’s DNA profile!

     

    The above three factors of new forms of communication between consumers and firms, marketing innovations and new data and analytic methods lead to the fourth factor of change in marketing – the emergence of New Strategic Frameworks.

     

    An example of a new strategic framework is the emergence of a given product category’s Utilitarian and Hedonistic determinants to resolve the Automation versus Augmentation debate.

     

    Another example of a new strategic framework is the emergence of a new consumer segmentation framework consisting of Leapfroggers, Switchers, Opportunists and Dual Users when resolving the response to emergent new product technologies in terms of new product launches and product retirements.

     

    Brands as Platforms is another strategic framework emergent from the new streams of data and analytics emerging from AI-mediated consumer and firm interactions. I have written about brands as platforms in my MxMIndia column dated February 3, 2022 – “Big Brands, The Digital World and The Promise of Brand Platforms.”

     

    New marketing trends dictated by emerging new technologies are rapidly emerging. These include the emergence of real-time and automated decision-making, AI-based new product development and in the determination of go, no-go decisions, the automation versus augmentation debate and the emergence of new marketing funnel structures and dynamics in the virtual, augmented and metaverse ecosystems.

     

    Most of the above trends are related to the four factors delineated in this column. I plan to write about specific facets in future MxMIndia columns, including:

    :: The Automation versus Augmentation debate and its relationship to the Utilitarian and Hedonistic framework for product categories

    :: The new consumer segmentation framework Leapfoggers, Opportunists, Switchers and Dual Users when making decisions about new product technologies

    :: The use of Computer Vision in Livestream Selling and other applications

    :: The new marketing funnel structure and dynamics will likely emerge in the virtual augmented and metaverse ecosystems.

     

    Readers’ thoughts on the above topics are welcome.

     

  • It is time for Indian brands to bid for relevance on the global stage, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Three Routes to Global Relevance for Indian Brands

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalIt is time for Indian brands to bid for relevance on the global stage. An extensive and high-growth domestic market can provide the ballast. Here are three ideas that can do the rest:

     

     

    • Leveraging India’s Soft Power: As of today, only the practice of yoga has leveraged this power. Though only as a generic brand. Is there enough juice left in the concept of yoga for an Indian consumer brand to parlay it into global prominence? Can the power of yoga go beyond the category of yoga studios and yoga mats? For example, can a fashion and personal accessories brand out of India based on the core material and design principles of yoga become a global player? Ayurveda is beginning to emerge on the world stage. While selling it as a branch of medicine worldwide is fraught with high resistance and many pitfalls, I think it has potential as a personal and health care platform. However, to go beyond appealing to a niche audience among the Indian diaspora and diehard Indophiles, a personal and health care brand based on Ayurveda will need to adapt and invest in scientific research and testing with a vengeance. L’Oreal and its sister brand Garnier won global leadership by combining the natural ingredients story with the pharmaceutical activation concept and by putting high-intensity marketing behind it. Companies like ITC and brands like Haldriram have successfully taken packaged food based on Indian cuisine to the global market. However, their success again has mainly been confined to the Indian diaspora. I believe there is excellent global scope for an Indian cuisine-based fast-food chain. The key here would be to crack the technology to deliver Indian cuisine at scale across geographies. Indian ethnic wear is the other area of potential.

     

     

    • Take The Leap Into Web 4.0:A lot of hype and capital has gone into the concept of Web 3.0 built around technologies like blockchains, cryptocurrencies, NFTs and metaverses. Most products and services based on the above ideas cater to the millennial mindset. However, marketers worldwide are beginning to realise that the mentality of the next generation of young – Gen Z – is very different and, in many cases, the antithesis of the Millennial mindset. Gen Z looks beyond self-fulfilment to ‘self-expansion’ – an experiencing of multiple identities by immersing oneself into the reality of various situations, communities and ways of being. In a way, the typical Gen Z will be a neo-hippie, unlike the Millennial who is a neo-yuppie. Tomorrow’s winners in the technology services and the content arena will be those that understand this mindset and cater to it. The core Indian ethos of subsuming the individual into a spiritual and community identity will appeal to this neo-hippie outlook. Combine this with India’s technology edge, and India could lead a Web 4.0 revolution to global leadership.

     

    • The ‘High-Quality Low-Cost’ Quadrant: The earlier Make in India initiative and current Production-Linked-Initiative (PLI) stimulate the B2B manufacturing sector and, to some extent, the consumer electronics sector, mainly smartphones. I believe there is excellent scope for India to attract global FMCG brands to make their products in India for the worldwide market. To attract top brands to India will need the removal of bottlenecks in the availability of quality ingredients and some reimagining of duty structures and tax incentives. The advantages of developing a ‘high-quality, low-cost’ ecosystem in India for global FMCG brands are many:

    » A boost to the agriculture sector

    » Mass employment prospects

    » Balance of trade improvement

    » Better quality products for the Indian consumer stimulate the Indian consumption economy, leading to a virtuous cycle.

     

  • Only a powerful, evolving emanation from the grassroots that animates the entire society, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Wanted: A New Idea of India

     

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalI am aware that hundreds, if not thousands, of my betters – philosophers, public intellectuals and general blowhards – have said volumes on ‘The Idea of India’. However, as an ordinary Indian, as we enter the week of our 75th anniversary of independence, I feel encouraged to add my two bit.

    And since our notion of who we are is central to the practice of marketing and marketing communication, I am publishing this part of my fortnightly column on developments in the marketing world.

    Imagination and ideas are central to human society. Humanity has progressed from being bands of powerless apes in the animal world to unchallenged rulers of all that survey mainly because of its unique ability to cooperate flexibly as groups of thousands, millions and even hundreds of millions.

    This ability of humans to launch and sustain world-changing projects stems from a core human functionality – the ability to imagine an entity – an idea – that is little to do with physical reality and nurture and strengthen it as an integral part of the collective consciousness.

    In this realm of core ideas that drive human civilisation are the notions of God, Religion, Nation and Money.

    Just as the larger human project, every nation is bound together as an entity by an idea.

    The United States (US), for example, achieved greatness based on its self-image of rugged individualism and meritocracy framed in a federal democracy. An idea that attracted the best worldwide, priming a virtuous cycle.

    However, over the last decade or two, this idea of the US has begun to fade, resulting in a decline from being the world’s hyper-economic, military and cultural power.

    The US needs to reinvent itself, and at the core of this reinvention will be forming a new idea that redefines its self-image.

    Thus, the defining idea, while being the engine that drives its society and its place in the world, cannot be static – it has to evolve with time.

    Currently, politics mire the debate on the idea of India. At one end of the spectrum is the idea of India forged in the Independence struggle, Gandhian ideals and the trauma of the partition. An idea of India as a unique society that values pacifism and eschews materialism and consumerism. A simple living and high thinking paradigm contrast the West’s power-seeking “greed is good” paradigm.

    The idea of India as an ancient civilisation is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Once a superpower that went through a passing phase of subjugation. Now beginning the reemerge as a powerful and rightful leader of the world.

    To my mind, both the above ideas are anachronistic in that both are rooted in the past. Because, to young India, in a world of rapid change, even the past decade, let alone the past century or past millenniums are irrelevant.

    India as a society needs to evolve and nurture an idea of itself that can power its future.

    This idea needs to be rooted in its potential, not its past.

    At the same time, this idea needs to be rooted in reality and not just a rhetorical shift from extolling a glorious future instead of a glorious past.

    Furthermore, this idea should position India uniquely and not just as a me-too in the polity of nations.

    A nation of 1.3 billion people – nearly 18% of the world population- cannot but have an idea of its future without evoking world leadership in some area of human endeavour. We cannot be a nation perennially looking to catch up with others,

    India is a young country with a median age in 2020 of 28.43 years. However, the media age is growing at an annual rate of 2.15%; thus, by 2040, the median age will be above 40.

    It is today’s young who should define the new idea of India. Therefore, this new idea of India has to be aspirational – an aspiration of leading the world in a focused set of essential areas.

    Given the structure of the modern world, this shortlist of essential areas must come from the domains of science & technology or public welfare (health, education and social justice).

    To my mind, global leadership in a chosen set of critical science & technology fields can yield the resources that, if appropriately husbanded, can impact public welfare.

    However, a government committee or even a set of bigwigs will not choose this new idea for India.

    The new idea of India will need to bubble up from the grassroots and percolate through Indian society before it takes hold. But, for that to happen, the nature of public discourse and debate must change.

    Today’s public discourse in India is both toxic and petty. The politicians bicker, and the media megaphones the bickering.

    I believe that a handful of charismatic and articulate young Indians aided by a set of powerful mass and digital media can seed a new idea that galvanizes India. But unfortunately, these seeders cannot come from the political class though they would readily find the media platforms. That well is too poisoned. Political voices today start from a heavy trust deficit and are guaranteed vocal opposition from the get-go.

    Perhaps somebody needs to ‘seed’ the seeders, a ‘Star Chamber’ of well-resourced well-wishers who will carefully identify them and give them the media platforms.

    To sum up, a debate around the idea of India cannot assume that it is an idée fixe.

    An idea of India should be the roadmap to the future and not just a relic of the past.

    A bunch of public intellectuals (let alone politicians) cannot decide on the idea of India. Instead, it is a powerful, evolving emanation from the grassroots that animates the entire society.

    Moreover, such an animating idea of India is not just a nice thing to have but instead a critical ingredient for a vibrant, on-the-move nation. And the only role for the elite and the powerful is to provide the ecosystem to empower such emergence and get out of the way.

     

  • It will create a different species of human beings way beyond the current divide driven by economic and social power, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Homo Proxies: Beyond Income Inequality & The Digital Divide

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke Agarrwal“As for living, our servants will do that for us.”

    From the play Axel by Auguste Villiers de I’Isle-Adam. Also used by WB Yeats as an epigraph in The Secret Rose.

    To my mind, the invention of money is at par with the control of fire as a seminal development of human society. Capital produced the class system, which is the bedrock of modern human society’s economic, political and cultural structure.

    Many who ponder humanity’s future see the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a development that will alter the core structure of human society.

    AI’s progress over the decades has been stop-start. For decades it has been the saga of a promise fulfilled more in science fiction than reality.

    Quite often, it has been a cliche with wannabe setup trying to pass off data analytics and second-order model-building as AI.

    However, over the past few years, the exploits of Google, Deep Mind (a subsidiary of Alphabet, Google’s parent company) and OpenAI have once again brought the promise and perils of AI front and centre in the popular imagination.

    In June 2022, Blake Lemoine jolted the world by claiming that Google AI engine LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Application) had turned sentient. The powers that be at Google denied the claim and sacked Mr Lemoine. Was Google upset that Lemoine pre-empted the announcement of what many would think is a seminal milestone in the development of AI? Or was Google upset by the revelation of a secret it would want to, for myriad reasons, keep from the world? Or was it simply that Mr Lemoine’s claim was hyperbolic and premature?

    Whatever the case, the media attention that Mr Lemoine’s claim got is symptomatic of the widespread realisation, conscious and sub-conscious, that AI is much more than just another technological development. On the contrary, it is a recognition of AI’s power to change the very dynamics of human society.

    I have been writing in this column about one aspect of how AI, as it develops, will change an individual’s life. In my January 6, 2022 column, I have written about Concierge Intelligence (CI). CI will augment the capabilities of an individual to deliver better outcomes for her – at work, in learning and in relationships. It will be the next big thing – a consumer service whose impact will be an order of magnitude higher than, say, the emergence of the personal computer or the smartphone.

    CI will be an AI companion of the individual, assisting her in all her interactions with the world. CI will enable the individual to communicate better, learn more and better, work better and even shop better. It will do so by developing a deep understanding of the individual’s capabilities, biases, needs and desires. CI will combine this depth of knowledge about the individual with near-encyclopedic knowledge and awareness of the world to deliver solutions and assistance at the speed of a computer.

    The overall impact of CI on society will be more or less egalitarian, as is increasingly the case with personal computers and smartphones. As the CI technology matures, most people who cross the poverty and subsistence lines will be able to afford CI.

    However, there will be an aspect of CI that has the potential to further immeasurably the class divide. This divide will go much beyond the divide of being able to afford a better brand of smartphone or PC. It will even go beyond the digital divide that separates people with access to the digital world and those deprived of it.

    The divide that a specialised aspect of CI can produce could be to create an almost different species of humans. Not yet Harari’s Homo Deus (as posited in his book ‘Homo Deus. A Brief History of Tomorrow’) but on the way. An era of Homo Proxies.

    ‘Proxies’ is the name I have given this species-creating aspect of CI. I have borrowed this concept from Jennifer Egan’s latest book, ‘The Candy House’. Egan comes to the idea of Proxies from a different technological development – the ability to download one’s memories – conscious and sub-conscious. In her imagining, Proxies are an escape hatch devised by those wanting to escape the tyranny of this technology.

    In that sense, I have only borrowed the label from Egan. In my imagining, Proxies are a result of CI, and a means for individuals to distort the technology to entrench their power and pelf further.

    Proxies will be a form of super CI that an individual will use to create multiple identities. As much of human society’s endeavours – economic, social, cultural and political – move online, an individual using Proxies will have the means to exist as multiple entities. Proxies will be a turbocharged CI – say a Super CI – that will enable an individual to digitally live and interact as multiple entities that multiply the time and the legal and social presence available to the individual. In that sense, Proxies go beyond the concept of fake identities.

    While this Super CI will be expensive, the inequality that will result from proxies goes beyond the cost aspect of it. Instead, it will be more to do with the individual’s capabilities. For example, proxies-driven multiple identities are valuable and produce more economic and social capital only if the individual is either a knowledge worker or an entrepreneur.

    Imagine a world where a class of individuals will enjoy unlimited “me-time” while their multiple proxies take care of worldly endeavours. It will create a different species of human beings way beyond the current divide driven by economic and social power.

    Dig below the anxiety that the coming age of AI produces among many, and you will find that the possibility of proxies is part of it.

    As the 21st century slips into middle age over the next couple of decades, a new leisure class will likely emerge. And to paraphrase Auguste Villiers, an elite who says, “as for earning fame and money, our proxies will do that for us”.

     

  • The dividing line between what a good creative and a good planner does is pretty thin, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    The Account Planner: A Coroner of Ideas? Or a Curator of Insights?

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalAccount Planning came to the world of advertising in the eighties and matured in the nineties.

     

    The trope was that while Account Management represents the client within the agency, Account Planning represents the consumer. And Creative? Well, Creative was the agency itself and only needed to express itself!

     

    I started in advertising, right out of management school, as a copywriter. Then, after a few years of a detour into entrepreneurship, I took on the role of Director of Account Planning at one of India’s top five agencies.

     

    In my first stint, I allied with Account Management and struggled to define and express the role of Account Planning. During this struggle, I ended up griping about the function as, to paraphrase US President Harry S Truman, “the piano player in the whorehouse” gently tapping out his ditties while the others, unaffected, went about their business.

     

    However, after a detour into Account Management, I finally discovered the soul of Account Planning. I realised that Account Panning’s natural partner was not Account Management but Creative. And as Creative’s partner, Account Planning’s role was to define and explain “the creative dimension of strategy and the strategic dimension of creative.”

     

    Traditionally Account Planning’s role was to work with Account Management to translate a brand’s marketing objectives into a “creative brief”. Very often, though, the “creative brief” was anything but creative. Instead, filled with Blinding Glimpses of The Obvious (BGOs) culled from reams of marketing research translated into cardboard cutout profiles of target consumers. No wonder you will find these briefs buzzing around as paper planes in any self-respecting creative department.

     

    I discovered that the real work of Account Planning began where the creative brief ended. It lay in bringing to life the person and the context the creative needs to address. This work lay in insight mining. These insights were not in market research but out there in the world, in the news, songs, films, books, anecdotes and conversations. In short, in life. And how does one mine life? With the twin tools of high curiosity and extraordinary empathy. For example, an Account Planner may be a geek and an introvert but should be able to view the world from the eyes of a rabid extrovert. She may be a snob in private life but will dig into every pop culture hit – listen to the songs, watch the movies, surf the memes.

     

    Insight mining leads to, for example, recognizing that the unstated gold standard of freshness is how you look and feel at the end of a hard day. It is in the realization that cooking oil is not a health risk but an essential energy source for most people.

     

    The dividing line between what a good creative and a good planner does is pretty thin. And that’s why they are twins. And like all twins, they sometimes run down each other. A few years ago, one of India’s name brand Creative Directors ran down his Account Planning partner as the one whose job was explaining the rationale behind the hit campaigns to the world. After the fact! A coroner of ideas! Somebody good at explaining why an idea was great after somebody else had thought of it!

     

    The big Creative pooh-bah is not wrong. The Account Planner does put the strategic dimension into the creative part, explaining why a creative idea works. That is useful, not just for the post-facto award shows and the trade papers but can be an essential part of selling a campaign before it can see the world’s light. Because, in most cases, the Account Planner is better at strategy-speak than creative people.

     

    However, dig deep enough into the making of an effective advertising campaign, you will find that the team, as a first step dug out a fresh insight into the relevant attitudes and behaviour of the appropriate target consumer. And then subsequently used this fresh insight and oodles of lateral thinking giving birth to a clutter-bursting, emotion-laden piece of communication.

     

    The first step was Account Planning and the second step was Creative. No matter the labels, the people who accomplished them carried.

     

    A decade ago, as digital marketing was coming into focus, I thought the world of advertising and, therefore, Account Planning would change dramatically. That it has not is mainly, to my mind, a failure on the part of brands and agencies to recognise the true potential of digital marketing. Instead, for the most part, brand and communication strategies have stuck to the many-to-one communication paradigm. Most marketing and advertising strategies still consider the world in terms of broad demographic segments. Dig into the strategy at the heart of fancy programmatic-platform-driven performance marketing campaigns. and you will find that the messaging is one-way targeting based on gender, age and socioeconomic status. The difference is that due to cost economics, a brand can run multiple digital campaigns targeted at a matrix of demographic segments crossed with stages in the marketing funnel.

     

    However, I believe this will change as digital marketing matures over the next decade.

     

    Imagine a world where most marketing communication becomes a one-to-one two-way conversation? How does that change Account Planning? To my mind, a third entity would enter the Account Planning and Creative dyad. This third function would be that of the Data Analyst. Ill-used, as he is in today’s digital marketing world, a Data Analyst is also akin to a “piano player in a whorehouse”. Or is it “a warehouse”?

     

    Instead, over the coming decades, as digital marketing and machine learning mature, brand communications will become multi-dimensional . One dimension of digital marketing will be at the purely cognitive level. Through this channel, a brand’s AI engine will communicate with the CI (Concierge Intelligence – see my earlier MxMIndia column on CI) of the individual consumer. The channel will share relevant information about functional features and promotional offerings and set up a two-way information channel on needs, complaints and wish lists. The second dimension will be a two-way conversation that will be a permission-driven one-to-one conversation between the brand (as an avatar) and the individual whose objective would be to entertain, edify and enable personal growth. Given that the cognitive channel is taking care of selling the brand’s products, this emotive channel could focus on a no-agenda development of “brand friendship.”, a concept that goes much beyond brand loyalty. An individual will share a “friends” relationship with a chosen set of brands, and a new metric for a brand will emerge besides market share – “friendship share”.

     

    The triumvirate of Data Analysts, Account Planners, and Creative will operate both the cognitive and emotional channels by setting and continuously tweaking the parameters on the agency’s proprietary AI – the Spin Engine. Spin Engine? That calls for its very own post one of these coming fortnights!

     

  • These two power sources compete for dominance over an individual's subconscious, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    The Libido-Mortido Framework and Brand Strategy in Dark Times

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalA fundamental principle of movie marketing relies on the concepts of Libido and Mortido. This column examines the implications of the Libido-Mortido framework for brand strategy across product categories.

     

    Libido and Mortido are two power sources in the sub-conscious that fuel individual activity. Libido is an aspiration for creativity and art or a desire to live. Mortido is the power restricting Libido; it is an aspiration for death or eternal life out of the bounds of the body.

     

    Throughout life, these two power sources compete for dominance over an individual’s subconscious.

     

    The same two forces also struggle to dominate the collective consciousness at the societal level. Throughout history, human societies have alternated between eras where either Libido or Mortido have dominated. The Middle Ages was Mortido dominated, followed by a Libido-dominated Renaissance. In modern times everything has gathered speed, including the switch between the two forces. The first four decades of the twentieth century were undoubtedly Mortido, given the two World Wars. The next four decades were a phase of transition in which the world slowly inched away from Mortido. By the late eighties, as the Berlin Wall fell and the ICE revolution took root, the world had moved into a full-fledged Libido-dominated era.

     

    The Libido-Mortido-based principle of movie marketing is somewhat paradoxical. The assertion is that films that cater principally to the Mortido instinct do better in a Libido-dominated era. And vice-versa. Dark, apocalyptic or dystopian thrillers, cynical social critiques or horror are genres directed at the Mortido instinct. Witness the rise of the superhero franchises whose basic premise is of a world in big trouble that is in dire need of a superhero rescuer. Life-affirming comedies, high romances, and inspiring biographies are some genres that cater to the Libido drive. That is not to say that, in a Libido-dominated era, a poorly made Mortido-directed movie will do better than a well-made Libido-directed movie. But, everything else being equal, a good film that caters to the opposite force in an era dominated by the other force has a better chance of success.

     

    Unlike in the entertainment industry, the effect on political and economic activity is in accordance with the dominant drive. In the Mortido phase, politics become combative and dark and economic activity is risk-averse.

     

    In the Libido phase, politics are progressive, and animal spirits buoy economic activity.

     

    The difference between entertainment and political or economic activity is in the context in which they exist.

     

    Political and economic activity deal with reality, while entertainment is about escaping reality.

     

    What phase are we in today? Are we not sliding from post-World War 11 and the post-Cold War Libido-driven era to a Mortido-driven era? Rising sectarian passions across societies, a devasting and persisting pandemic, inflationary pressures that could spark a recession and a war that threatens to spill into something more global. These are the proximal causes driving the slide. However, indications are that the shift started a decade ago.

     

    In a recent article in The Economist, Jon Clifton, the head of Gallup, lays out the numbers that make clear that human unhappiness has been steadily increasing globally over the last decade. The causes, according to Mr Cliton, are many. A rise in hunger around the world after a decades-long decline. In 2014 23% of people globally were moderately or extremely food insecure. Now the share is 30%. Yet another factor is loneliness. Astonishingly, Gallup finds that 330 million adults in today’s world go at least two weeks without talking to a single friend or family member!

     

    The daily grind of work offers no respite. Statistically, the average employed experiences more negative emotions such as anger, stress and physical pain than someone unemployed! Overall, Gallup finds that along with soaring inequality, the world is experiencing another fundamental inequity – a well-being inequality. On a scale of 1 to 10, Gallup finds that in 2021, the top quintile’s self-rating of well-being averaged 8.9. The lowest quintile averaged 1.2! The numbers in 2006 were 8.3 and 2.5.

     

    Numbers do not lie, and perhaps it would be safe to assume that the world has already transited away from the Libido-driven era to the gloom of a Mortido age.

     

    How should brand strategy and brand communication respond to this major societal shift?

     

    Brands are economic entities, and brand communication – mass-media advertising, digital advertising and PR – are economic activities. However, unlike most other economic entities and activities, brands and brand communications have two facets – the rational and the emotional. Therefore, effective brand strategies develop brand communication that maintains this balance.

     

    Further effective brand strategy also ensures that the rational and emotional facets reflect the broader societal context and changes while maintaining a consistent brand position and personality.

     

    Broad trends observable in successful brand communication globally over the decades that were Libido-dominated have been:

    :: At a rational level to encourage status and pleasure-seeking conspicuous consumption.

    :: And at an emotional level to showcase competitive one-up-manship and a cynical take on the human condition.

     

    Cases in point are the 1984 Apple commercial and the Axe campaigns that kicked off the Libido-era in advertising.

     

    In the Mortido-era, brands must take a relook at communication strategy.

     

    On the rational dimension, brand communications that anchor themselves in value – personal, economic, societal and ecological – will do better than those who continue down the status and pleasure paths.

     

    On the emotional dimension, on the other hand, brand communication must become lighter and more fun. It should deliver a feel-good punch, much like a good buddy movie or a rom-com.

     

    Going by the Libido-Mortido framework, the rational and emotional dimensions of an effective brand communication strategy deliver at two opposite ends of the spectrum. Synergising these two seemingly opposite ends is a challenging creative task.

     

    In the Libido-era, rational appeals to status and pleasure come wrapped up in cynical and dark overtones. In the Mortido-era, light-hearted emotional appeals must deliver serious, high-minded themes of value and eco-sensitiveness.

     

    In conclusion, the Libido-Mortido framework is an excellent touchstone to keep in mind as we navigate brands through a changing societal and economic landscape. However, it is also essential to remember that, like all overarching rules, it is only a guideline. Following the Libido-Mortido framework and guidelines will not make a lousy campaign fly. The framework can only make a good campaign better.

     

  • Ashoke Agarrwal on the interface of technology and modern civilisation of which marketing is small subset

    Technology: Nature’s Catalyst for Human Evolution

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalPre-script: My remit is to write a column on the interface of technology and marketing. This fortnight I take a step back and take a look at the interface of technology and modern civilisation of which marketing is small subset.

     

    The doom and the gloom hang heavy over the world these days— the reality of climate change, the increasing social and cultural divide within and across nations, a naggingly persistent pandemic and the spectre of war and economic hardship.

     

    An antidote to the doom and gloom is to take the long view.

    Take technology, for instance.

     

    Many cite technology as a critical factor driving the crises facing humankind. The agriculture and industrial revolution fuelled a consumerist, rapacious society overburdening the earth. The resultant destruction of animal habitats and air travel makes zoonotic pandemics inevitable. And, of course, the Internet and social media divide society into mindless tribalism and parochialism. And new, advanced weapons promise to make the wars of the 21st-century ultra-destructive. And so on. The charge sheet against technology is long.

     

    So much so, the trope among run-of-the-mill science fiction writers is to imagine a dystopian future for humanity: a dog-it-dog, bleak Mad Max world.

     

    Peel away these layers of techno-pessimism, and you will find a view that puts technology, at the core, outside the order of nature. A belief that sees technology as an aberration fuelled by human ambition, greed and hubris.

     

    Allow me to present an alternative view.

    What if we view technology as an integral part of human evolution?

    In his pathbreaking bestseller, A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari presented a compelling insight into two revolutions that shaped early human history.

     

    The first he called the ‘Cognitive Revolution’ – was propelled about 70,000 years ago by changes in the brains of homo sapiens that enabled the emergence of a language that allowed for conversations that ranged beyond the signalling of approaching danger and of the availability of food. According to Harari, this significant development initially led to the emergence of gossip as a human occupation and, in time, fiction creation. An anthropologist could classify both activities as unproductive and harmful in the initial phase. Much as a sociologist is liable to label the effects of social media today.

     

    However, in Harai’s telling, taking a longer and deeper view, the emergence of gossip allowed bonds of trust to form and for communities to emerge. And the ability to create and propagate fiction is at the heart of the uniquely human ability to create myths and intangible entities – the creation and propagation of religion, nations, education and business entities.

     

    About 30,000 years ago, the Agriculture Revolution happened. With the widespread cultivation of wheat, rice and potatoes, humankind starts transitioning from being foraging and thus nomadic bands to settling down into communities around farmlands. Contrary to popular belief, the Agriculture Revolution’s early effects were to reduce the quality of life drastically. Foraging offered excitement, a much more varied and nutritious diet, and a better shot at survival than the boredom and near-slavery of farming, the restricted diet, and the ever-present threat of famine. Yet, many thousands of years later, it is acknowledged that the Agriculture Revolution was much more than that. Without it, humankind would not have become the dominant species. And human civilisations, with large swathes of their population freed from foraging for food, could rise through the pursuit of commerce, the arts, and the sciences.

     

    The Scientific Revolution is not more than 500 years old. The internet is just 50 years old, and AI and biotech are still in relative infancy. So, could it be that the immediate effects of this revolution are just the preliminary and passing results of the latest step-up in human evolution?

     

    It took between twenty to thirty thousand years for the long-term evolutionary effects of the Cognitive Revolution to be fully realised.

     

    The Agriculture Revolution took less than ten thousand years. Evolution is speeding up. Will the ongoing Scientific Revolution fully realise the next stage of human evolution in the next two to three hundred years?

     

    Given the ills of today, many would assert that modern technology has only exacerbated inequalities and inequities and brought the planet to the brink of disaster.

     

    That, I think, is an ultimately self-defeating way to look at it.

    Going by the past epochs of humanity’s history, we must believe that the Scientific Revolution heralds humankind’s leap into a new orbit.

    Perhaps technology is a dance – two steps forward, one step back, three steps ahead.

     

    Perhaps the threat of climate change will ultimately result in the acquisition of geoengineering – the ability to effect change at a planetary scale, not over centuries but in decades. Perhaps the next economy of sustainable consumption will be driven by sustainable, on-demand, accretive manufacturing that will destroy inequalities based on means of production and consumption. Perhaps genetic engineering and symbiosis of man and machine will give every individual the means to discover and fulfil their potential. Perhaps space exploration will reach a stage where national boundaries here on earth will seem meaningless. Perhaps physics will solve the mystery of consciousness, and humankind will dissolve divisive religious myths.

     

    Perhaps as Yuval Noah Harari posits in his book, humankind, on the back of the Scientific Revolution, will graduate in a hundred or two hundred years from being Homo Sapiens to Homo Deus – a godlike species with seemingly magical powers and flirting with immortality.

     

    All that could be in humankind’s grasp, but only if we let the dreamers among us dream and strive. And not given to the doubts and the gloom as they will arise every now and then. And allow technology to perform its role as nature’s catalyst for human evolution.

     

  • Given that screen fatigue is setting in with the young, the post-1995 born seeks new experiences and likes experimenting with new identities, writes Ashoke Agarrwal

    Will Audio become the New Video?

     

     

    By Ashoke Agarrwal

     

    Ashoke AgarrwalTime was when radio was the go-to mass media for entertainment and news.

     

    And then video sank the audio ship.

     

    Broadcast TV ruled the roost for close to five decades. But, over the past couple of decades, the internet, social media and streaming have begun to eat broadcast TVs’ lunch.

     

    However, though the delivery platforms might be changing, the content format remains the same – video and more video. From short-form videos to Netflix binge sessions, video probably accounts for more than 80% of media consumption among today’s young. So much so, that it is becoming a thumb rule in advertising that if you don’t say it in video, you have lost your young audience.

     

    But then, every coin has its other side.

     

    Screen fatigue is setting in with the young. Studies by The Mckinsey Global Institute and media research by IPA Touchpoints discern a significant shift in Gen Z, the generation born after 1995.

     

    Gen Z seeks new experiences and likes to experiment with new identities.

     

    In other words, they seek a greater agency for themselves – to be more in control of every experienced moment.

     

    The passivity involved in watching a video lessens the agency of the individual. To watch a video is to surrender your senses to the video.

     

    The consequence is that there are incipient signs of the young moving away from passive video watching.

     

    Some media mavens believe that the maturing of VR leading to more immersive gaming and the metaverse will solve the passivity problem.

     

    Perhaps so, but to my mind, the jury is still out on that assertion. Gen Z is also much more tech and marketing savvy than previous generations. As a result, they may see VR and the metaverse as marketing machinations that further reduce and not enhance their agency.

     

    While the genuinely immersive and convenient VR and the metaverse are still years away, there is a medium that may replace video as the principal media consumption format among Gen Z.

     

    There are already signs that streaming audio – music, podcasts and – audiobooks – are increasing their share of Gen Z’s media consumption. The IPA Touchpoints study offers an insight into why this is so. Many in Gen Z see streaming audio listened to on headrests as a pleasing, relaxing soundtrack to their lives. They dip in and dip out of it as they go about their lives – walking, trekking, shopping etc… An essential aspect of headset streamed audio is that it is intensely private, allowing one the choice to be secretly elsewhere when stuck in an unpleasant social situation. A recent ad campaign for Spotify India powerfully illustrated this. They depict teenagers’ content with their Spotify stream as they sit through otherwise awkward situations. Say, uncle types heatedly arguing about the obnoxious anchor as the TV news played in the background or auntie types harassing a talkative saree salesperson in a stuffy showroom.

     

    A friend in the publishing world tells me that literature is making a comeback with the young with the emergence of richly-produced audiobooks.

     

    The IPA Touchpoint study also reveals that Gen Z trusts information that they receive through podcasts more than through other media. This increased trust could be because they see podcasts as individuals’ products rather than faceless organisations. They also take them more seriously than social media posts as they recognise social media posts governed by a mad scramble for likes and followers.

     

    Audio could take over Augmented Reality (AR) as AR becomes a part of day-to-day life. Instead of outputting visually-distracting text or video on your AR glasses, users might prefer audio outputs streamed through smart earpods.

     

    Every science fiction film worth the label shows futuristic computers responding mainly to audio inputs. Siri and Alexa are leading the way. I believe that in the near term, an increasing number of smartphone functions will shift to intelligent earpods while the smartphone shrinks to become a wristphone a la Dick Tracy. Très chic!