Your biggest competitor isn’t another brand. It’s your own meeting that ended with “let’s revisit this.”

 

If the caption sounds like a boardroom bite, well that was the intention.

 

Can I ask you something?

 

What is the actual cost of the decision you didn’t make last quarter? Not the bad decision. The non-decision. The meeting that ended with ‘let’s revisit this.’ The campaign that got parked in approvals. The repositioning that died because someone said, ‘The market isn’t ready.’

 

The answer: The market was ready. You weren’t.

 

THE COMFORTABLE CATASTROPHE : Why Doing Nothing Feels Like Genius (Until It Isn’t)

 

Look at the peculiar genius of inaction: it is the only business decision that can never be directly blamed on anyone. A bad campaign? Fire the agency. A failed product launch? Blame the timing. But doing nothing? Ah. That’s collective wisdom. That’s prudence. That’s ‘we are being careful with our assets.’

 

Kodak didn’t destroy itself. It simply watched. It had the technology for digital cameras in-house in 1975. Engineers were excited. Leadership was nervous. They chose the safety of doing nothing disruptive. And then, with extraordinary patience, they waited for someone else to come and disrupt them instead.

 

Remember Nirma in India? Once it made HUL genuinely sweat. Then it stopped. Not dramatically — just quietly. No real repositioning, no new story, no fight for relevance in a changing India. It’s still there. But there as a ghost brand — present on shelves, absent from hearts. The safest catastrophe looks exactly like that: not a crash, but a slow, dignified fade.

 

THE SOHB STORY RECKONING: A State Of The Heart Brand Cannot Afford To Be Stateless

 

Crafting a State Of The Heart Brand means you have accepted a particular kind of accountability — one that most brand custodians run from. It means your brand carries emotional weight, not just market weight. It means people don’t just buy you. They believe in you. And belief, unlike market share, collapses not slowly but suddenly. We all know about ” The future arrives gradually, then all of a sudden “.

 

Not so long ago, think of how Café Coffee Day quietly imploded in public consciousness even before its financial collapse became news. The heart had left that brand years before the balance sheet confessed. Nobody decided to stop loving CCD. The brand simply stopped earning it, one non-decision at a time.

 

Contrast that with Amul — a cooperative that has consistently chosen to show up, say something, be present through every national moment for over five decades. Not perfect. Not always polished. But always there. A brand that never confused silence with sophistication.

 

SO HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY BUILD ONE? The Architecture Of A State Of The Heart Brand

 

No “off-the-grid brand strategy huddle” is going to reveal this: a State Of The Heart Brand is not built in campaigns. It is built in commitments. Small, consistent, unglamorous commitments that compound over time the way interest does — quietly, invisibly, and then all at once.

 

The Comfortable Coma

 

There exists a strange corporate lullaby:

 

“We’re doing okay.”
“Let’s not rock the boat.”
“Margins are steady.”

 

Translation?

 

“We are slowly becoming invisible.”

 

Brands that choose comfort over curiosity enter a beautifully decorated coma. No alarms. No urgency. No one to blame.

 

Because nothing happened. And that’s precisely what happened.

 

What would people genuinely mourn if your brand disappeared tomorrow?

 

Not miss, as in ‘oh, that was convenient.’ Mourn, as in ‘something real is gone from my life.’ If the answer is a shrug, you don’t have a Heart Brand yet — you have a transaction dressed up in a brand mission statement. The work begins there. Figure out what human truth your brand was born to serve. Not a category truth. Not a market truth. A human one. Patagonia didn’t build a Heart Brand by selling jackets. It built one by standing for the inconvenient idea that the planet matters more than the next quarter’s numbers — and then actually meaning it.

 

A Heart Brand must have a voice that speaks even when it’s uncomfortable, and a silence that is never confused with approval

 

Tata as a group has done this for over a century in India — showing up in moments of national crisis, rebuilding cities, funding education, refusing to exit markets just because margins got thin. You don’t have to be a Tata to do this. You have to be willing to stand for something beyond the transaction, say it out loud, and then — this is the hard part — do it when nobody is watching and there’s no press release to show for it. That’s where Heart Brands are actually forged. Not in the campaign. In the quiet, costly, unwitnessed choice.

 

THE GLOBAL AUTOPSY: When The World’s Biggest Brands Chose The Slow Goodbye

 

Blockbuster met Reed Hastings(Founder of Netflix) in 2000. He offered to sell Netflix for $50 million. The Blockbuster executives reportedly laughed. What they were actually doing was choosing comfortable inertia over uncomfortable reinvention. By 2010, Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy. Netflix today is a verb.

 

Nokia had smartphones before the iPhone existed. Their internal memos from 2007 reportedly show the fear wasn’t technological — it was cultural. They were afraid of cannibalizing their own success. Apple had no such fear. It ate itself first, before eating everyone else.

 

“The brand that waits for permission to be brave is already broken.”

 

And this food for torque from a domicile called The Quiet Coffin: Brands don’t die from bad decisions. They die from the comfortable ones nobody made.

 

Doing Nothing: The Safest Catastrophe

 

Let’s call a spade a spade( or should we call it a shovel?).

 

Doing nothing feels safe because it carries no immediate consequence.
No risky bets. No bold moves. No sleepless nights.

 

But it also comes with some sunken costs:

 

• Loss of cultural relevance
• Erosion of emotional connection
• Gradual commoditization
• Eventual invisibility

 

And the most dangerous part?

 

No one gets fired for doing nothing.
Because there’s nothing to point at.

 

It’s the perfect crime. With a missing victim.

 

Crafting a State Of The Heart Brand

 

Please Note: This is not a campaign. It’s a commitment.

 

  1. From Proposition to Pulse
    Stop asking what your brand offers. Start asking what it awakens.
  2. From Messaging to Meaning
    If your communication vanished tomorrow, would anyone feel the loss?
  3. From Audience to Allies
    Customers transact. Communities belong.
  4. From Consistency to Character
    Consistency is hygiene. Character is magnetism.
  5. From Safe to Significant
    Safe keeps you alive. Significant makes you unforgettable.

 

Wake Up and Bake Up: You Can’t Have The Cake And Eat It Too

 

Brands don’t lose because competitors outspend them.
They lose because they out-bore their audience.

 

In a world drowning in content, indifference is the new extinction.

 

If your brand does not evoke, provoke, comfort, challenge, or move someone…

 

It is already halfway out of the room.

 

Final Thought Please

 

You can choose chaos.
You can choose courage.
You can even choose calculated madness.

 

But if you choose nothing…

 

Nothing will eventually choose you back.

 

And it won’t even bother to leave a goodbye note.

 

If your heart is racing a little faster after reading this, perhaps it’s time we meet. I am at suresh@groupisd.com

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

Your brand isn’t for everyone. Good. That’s the whole point!

 

Circa 1962. A tiny car company told you it was ugly. “Think Small,” said VW. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t beg. Just drew a line. Sales exploded. Why? Because exclusion is the new inclusion. When you try to be for everyone, you stand for no one. The fastest way to become irrelevant is to keep every seat warm.

 

It’s not for you’ — the four words that built every cult brand you worship.

 

Make the best for everyone

 

Bullshit. That myth’s sell-by date expired with the last Kodak roll. In today’s bazaar of infinite scrolls, “universal best” is a recipe for irrelevance. The radical truth? “It might not be for you” is the unspoken heartbeat of every killer brand. It’s permission to polarize, to own a tribe, to leave the timid in the dust.

 

Question: What if your “best” is repelling 90%…and magnetizing the 10% who’ll evangelize forever? That’s the weight. Brands die chasing consensus; legends thrive on conviction.

 

It might not be for you

The most dangerous words in branding. Also, the most honest. Because hidden inside that polite shrug is a war cry:

 

“We are the best…for someone.”

 

Not everyone. Not the masses. Not the bored scroller who double-taps everything from biryani to bitcoin.

 

Someone. Specific. Chosen. Excluded.

 

And that’s where most brands lose the plot.

 

The Cult Of Universal Likeability(And Other Expensive Mistakes)

 

Somewhere along the way, brands started auditioning for everyone.
Like a stand-up comic who refuses to offend, provoke, or even mildly disturb…and ends up being just background noise.

 

Saying it as is, where is:

 

If nobody is saying “this isn’t for me,”
nobody is passionately saying “this is for me.”

 

Indifference is the tax you pay for playing safe.

 

The Unpopular Superpower

 

The best brands don’t chase approval. They engineer belonging.

  • A gym that screams at you is not for the “I’ll start Monday” tribe.
    It’s for the “give me pain, give me proof” tribe.
  • A luxury watch doesn’t whisper value. It declares irrelevance to anyone asking for discounts.
  • A brutally honest consulting firm repels the “yes-men seekers” and magnetizes the “tell me what I need to hear” crowd.

 

They don’t just define who they serve. They define who they refuse.

 

And that refusal? That’s the real brand asset. Want cult status? Start saying no.

 

The Unignorable

 

Exclusion is not arrogance. It’s precision.

 

When you say “not for you,” you are doing three radical things:

 

  1. Sharpening your promise
    Blurry brands don’t scale. Sharp ones slice through noise.
  2. Accelerating trust
    The right audience recognizes itself instantly. No persuasion theatre needed.
  3. Creating cultural gravity
    People don’t just buy. They belong. And belonging travels faster than advertising.

 

Building The Arsenal For Perpetual Readiness

 

  1. Audit your tribe: Map who raves about you. Double down. Ditch the dabblers.
  2. Polarize with purpose: Launch “not-for-you” variants—spicy for firebrands, subtle for sages.
  3. Test-fire hooks: A/B captions like “Love it or loathe it?” to spike shares.
  4. Future-proof pivot: Quarterly “tribe pulse” surveys. Evolve or evaporate.

 

Overhaul complete. Stop pandering. Start provoking. Your “best for someone” is the moat no competitor can breach. Scarcity of relevance beats abundance of mediocrity.

 

The Final Provoke Of This SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story

 

Stop asking: How do we get more people to like us?

Start asking: Who are we willing to lose to become unforgettable?

 

Because the moment you accept that it might not be for everyone…

 

…is the moment you finally become the best for someone.

 

Because, the brands that win don’t include. They choose.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

The RFP Circus: A Love Letter to the World’s Most Elaborate Pretence

 

RFPs: Request For Performance…Theatre

 

Sorry to defy the conventional RFP definition…almost forgot…yes I got it now…Request For Proposal.

 

As I write this, I can visualise a brand manager copy-pasting an RFP template from 2020, changing the logo, and calling it “a strategic partnership opportunity.” The heavens are weeping( No, the Bangalore rains this morning was something else). Somewhere else, an agency is pulling three all-nighters to answer 17 questions about “brand philosophy” for a pitch they know — in their bone marrow — was already decided over golf(or golgappas) on Saturday.

 

Welcome to the RFP. The world’s most expensive theatrical performance where everybody knows the ending but nobody breaks character.

 

Let’s call the shovel a shovel, shall we?

 

The RFP, as currently practised by most brands, is essentially a free consulting extraction machine dressed in the language of “due diligence.” You’re not evaluating agencies. You’re harvesting intellectual capital from six desperate vendors while the decision maker’s brother-in-law’s agency warms the winner’s chair. The “evaluation matrix” with its delightful columns of Strategy (20%), Creativity (25%), Team (15%), and Cost (40% but listed last to seem classy) is democracy theatre of the highest order.

 

The real comedy?

 

The evaluation criteria that asks agencies to demonstrate “deep cultural understanding” but the shortlisting is done by someone who hasn’t spoken to a consumer since 2016. That requests “breakthrough creative thinking” but caps the budget at what wouldn’t cover a decent documentary. That demands “long-term partnership vision” from someone who changes agencies more often than their Instagram profile picture.

 

The agency side isn’t innocent either. They dress their speculative work in confident fonts, present recycled frameworks with evangelical conviction, and call three junior executives “The Core Team” while the actual talent never enters the room.

 

RFPs: Request For Performance…Theatre

 

Somewhere in a glass-walled boardroom, an RFP is being born. Not as a quest for brilliance, but as a beautifully formatted ritual. A document that whispers: “Show us your best thinking”…while quietly budgeting for the cheapest thinking available.

 

Welcome to the grand opera of “RFP for Vendors” where agencies pirouette, procurement claps politely, and merit is the understudy who never gets stage time. Welcome to Russian Roulette with blanks.

 

Act 1, Part 1

 

The opening act is always seductive. “Looking for a long-term strategic partner.”

Translation: Three presentations, five rounds, twelve stakeholders, and a decision already pre-decided in a WhatsApp chat.

 

Agencies arrive like Olympic athletes. Strategy decks that could double as PhD theses. Films that could win at Cannes. Ideas that could make a brand feel something other than quarterly anxiety. And then comes the twist ending:

“Can you match the lowest quote?”

 

India’s masala remix?

 

Picture a Delhi FMCG behemoth RFPs for “disruptive content storytelling.” You pour Diwali-level effort into GOLOKA-esque narratives. Shortlist? The Mumbai shop with “digital expertise” (read: interns on Canva). Verdict: “Your ideas brilliant, but budget!” Why? “Procurement.” It’s the corporate equivalent of “It’s not you, it’s our P&L.”

 

It’s less Mad Men, more Deal or No Deal.

 

Across India, a boutique agency crafts a soul-stirring brand narrative. In London, a mid-sized firm builds a cultural movement blueprint. In Dubai, a digital shop reverse-engineers consumer behavior like a Swiss watch. All three lose to…a spreadsheet with a smaller number. Now go, spread the word!

 

Globally consistent. Locally perfected.

 

In New York, agencies joke that RFP stands for “Really Fixed Process.” In Bengaluru, it’s “Rehearse, Perform, Perish.” In Mumbai, it’s simply “Rate First Please.”

 

The irony is rich enough to invoice. But don’t you dare try it. And if you do, please ensure your price is the lowest!

 

Nothing Changes

 

Because brands don’t actually lack good agencies. They lack the appetite to choose them for the right reasons. The RFP becomes a polite alibi. A compliance costume. A paper trail that says, “We evaluated everyone fairly” while the decision quietly hums, “We evaluated cost obsessively.”

 

And agencies? They play along. They romanticize the chase. They submit unpaid thinking like it’s a devotional offering. They convince themselves that this time, surely, the idea will win.

 

PS: It rarely does.

 

Ever wonder why RFPs demand 43-page decks plus free mood boards, yet decisions hinge on “rate cards“? Because depth? Nah. It’s shallowness disguised as process—agencies shortlisted by Excel wizards, not visionaries.

 

And the shortlisting process?

 

Please. It’s a mood ring, not merit. “We loved your case studies, but your deck’s font felt aggressive.” Or the classic: “Your team is brilliant, but our procurement guy didn’t like your coffee.” Or the ubiquitous cut paste four para regret note that is as emotionless as a doorknob. At this point, agencies should submit quotes in crayon. It matches the depth of evaluation.

 

The RFP charade is a mask for indecision. Brands fearful of owning a point of view hide behind “process.” They want to look polite while gutting value. They tick boxes like tourists ticking temples—no prayer, just photos. They( read the VP-Marketing) want vendors who will give them a roll up overnight Rs 80 cheaper; not an entity with breakthrough strategy or moonshot thinking that delivers.

 

The Tragedy?

If you shop for imagination like you shop for office chairs, don’t be surprised when your brand sits comfortably…and says nothing.

The tragedy isn’t that cheaper agencies win. The tragedy is that better thinking doesn’t even get a fair audition.

 

So what now?

Brands, if you truly want transformation, rewrite the ritual.
Pay for thinking. Shortlist for chemistry. Decide for courage.
Because the cost of safe decisions is invisibly expensive.

 

Agencies, stop auditioning for every stage.
Qualify the client as hard as they qualify you.
If the brief smells like procurement, don’t spray it with creativity.

 

Brands, stop the motions. Agencies, demand paid pilots.

 

Merit-first RFPs exist—Scandinavian brands nail it with “idea bounties.”

 

India, let’s pioneer: Reverse RFPs where you vet them on vision, not just velocity.

 

And maybe, just maybe, we rename RFP to something more honest?

 

RSL — Request for the Safest Lowest.

 

Or, if we’re feeling generous,

 

RFT — Request For Trust.

 

Because the brands that win tomorrow won’t be the ones who found the cheapest partner.

 

They’ll be the ones who had the spine to choose the right one.

 

So, what to take away?

 

Brands: Stop asking for magic at bargain-bin prices.

If you run an RFP without real intent, you will attract real actors—not artists. You’ll get compliance, not courage. And your brand will sound like every other brand: safe, sorry, and silent.

 

Agencies: Ditch the dance. Chase clients craving heart over hustle. Your stories deserve shovels that dig gold, not dirt-cheap graves. Who’s in?

The contrarians will disagree. Good. Let them. But the ground truth is simple: Merit isn’t a checkbox. It’s a mirror.Look into yours before you send that next PDF.

Or don’t. And keep wondering why your “brand story” sounds like a terms of service agreement. Your move next.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

“Let’s Catch Up Soon!” — The World’s Most Beloved Lie

 

“Let’s catch up soon.”

 

You bumped into Ramesh at the Bangalore supermarket. Or cousin Priya at a wedding in Coimbatore. Or your college roommate Vikram on Zoom. For approximately 90 seconds, you performed the Dance of Manufactured Warmth — eyebrows raised, arms slightly open, voice pitched at “delighted but busy.” And then someone said it. The magic spell. The Get Out of Genuine Connection Free card.

 

“We must catch up soon!”

 

Both parties immediately relaxed. Because everyone understood the assignment: this meeting will never happen. No date. No venue. No intention. Just the beautiful social lubricant of a sentence that means absolutely nothing and protects everybody’s feelings simultaneously.

 

It’s brilliant, actually. Diabolically, anthropologically brilliant.

 

Let’s catch up soon!

 

The four most faithfully broken words in human history. More predictable than a politician’s promise. The Great Ghosting Gala of Modern Bonds.

 

Sorry to open your gall bladder with a rusty fork: The last time you said “Let’s catch up soon,” you were probably on the pot, scrolling reels, lying through your teeth.

 

The Japanese call unnecessary social performance tatemae — the public face worn over private truth. The British perfected the art with ” We should do lunch“ — an institution so hollow it has its own Wikipedia entry. Brazilians have “a gente se vê” — “we’ll see each other” — which roughly translates to “I wish you well from this comfortable distance.” Indians? We weaponised it. We added “for sure,” “definitely,” “100%” — extra garnish on a dish that was never going to be cooked.

 

Some Ground Truth?

 

In our swipe-right era, “catch up soon” is the velvet hammer of shallow ties. A 2023 Pew study ghosts us: 60% of adults feel lonelier despite 5x more “friends.” Why? We’re masters of motion, not momentum.

 

Ever wonder why your WhatsApp glows with 27 “let’s meet” threads, yet your calendar’s looks like a Vidarbha farmland in summer?

 

 

 

Some More Examples( Caution-They Might Sting)

 

– USA:Two ex-colleagues text “Let’s Zoom!”. After six months of “So busy!” the quest dies without a meeting. LinkedIn recommends each other instead of therapy.

– India:Uncle says “Beta, come home for lunch” at a wedding. You say “Yes, uncle.” You both know the only lunch happening is between his ears. Next family funeral? Same script.

– Japan: “Gohan ni ikimashou” (Let’s eat together) gets lost in keigo politeness. It never happens. Deep bow, shallow bond.

– London: “Fancy a pint?”: translates to “I’d rather scrub a Tube station floor with my tongue.”

 

-In Dubai, “After Ramadan for sure.”

 

Civilisations change. Scripts remain.

 

This isn’t harmless fluff. It’s emotional spam. Because, we’re not bad people. We’re bandwidth bankrupt.

 

“Let’s Catch Up Soon” — The Most Successful Event That Never Happened

 

Somewhere between “How are you?” and “Take care,” lies a phrase that has built more imaginary bridges than actual meetings:

 

“Let’s catch up soon.”

 

Soon, in this context, is not a unit of time. It’s a polite black hole.

 

Entire friendships have been parked there. Engines off. Indicators blinking. Nobody stepping out.

 

We’ve industrialised intent without delivery.

 

Shall I dare say it aloud? 

 

Most “catch ups” are not postponed. They’re pre-cancelled.

 

This ritual isn’t just harmless social lubricant anymore. It’s a symptom. Of connections measured in follows, not phone calls. Of relationships maintained by forwarding memes at unearthly hours. Of a generation that mistakes being liked for being loved. Of the slow, quiet tragedy of people who are digitally crowded and humanly lonely.

 

We’ve confused the motion of connection with the emotion of it.

 

We’ve mastered the art of appearing invested without investing time.
We’ve replaced depth with declarations. We’ve turned connection into a checkbox with good filters (and of course bad lighting).

 

Consider the family WhatsApp group

“Let’s all meet this Sunday!” Twelve blue ticks. Six heart emojis. Zero logistics. By Saturday night, the message has gracefully aged into archaeology.

 

Or the annual ritual: bumping into a school friend after a decade.
“We should totally do a reunion.”

Yes, we should also colonise Mars. Similar probability curves.

 

And yet, beneath the comedy sits a small ache. Because every “soon” that never arrives leaves a residue. A thin film of almost. And over time, almost becomes our default setting.

 

The Truth Of This Lie

 

“Let’s catch up soon” is now the world’s most popular lie, beating “I’ve read the terms and conditions.” It sits between “We should have dinner sometime” and “I’ll pray for you.” A verbal mirage.

 

Why this shallow grave?

 

We’ve outsourced connection to likes and story replies. Real meetups require calendar negotiation, deodorant, and emotional availability. Too hard. So we toss “Must catch up” like rose petals at a baby shower.

 

The Call Of The Shovel

 

Call it what it is—a social sedative. We are drowning in acquaintances, starving for depth. Your WhatsApp has 1,400 contacts. Who will hold your hand during a colonoscopy? NOT the “catch up soon” crowd.

 

A Honest Cleaner Playbook, If I May?

 

If you mean it, book it. Date. Time. Place. Done.
If you don’t, downgrade the script. “Good seeing you. Take care.” No emotional EMI.

 

And occasionally, surprise the system.
Be the anomaly who turns “soon” into Sunday, 5 PM, filter coffee, no agenda. My place. Watch how rare that feels. Almost rebellious.

 

Because in an age of infinite pings, the scarcest luxury isn’t attention. It’s showing up.

 

So the next time “Let’s catch up soon” tiptoes to your lips, pause.

 

Either give it a calendar…
or give it a dignified funeral.

 

In Closing

 

So next time you say “let’s catch up,” ask yourself: Am I building a bridge or just licking a stamp for a letter I’ll never mail?

Be a shovel, not a spade. Dig truth. Or shut up.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

 

 

 

We don’t fail because we lack talent. We fail because we misallocate it

 

We love the talent myth. “If only we had smarter people.” “If only we had more budget.” All that is a pack of lies. Look at your organisation chart. Your best creative mind is buried in quarterly compliance reports. Your sharpest data scientist is writing meeting minutes. Your most charismatic brand storyteller? She’s “managing vendor relationships.”

 

A virtuoso violinist doesn’t fail because she can’t hold the bow. She fails because someone handed her a drum kit and asked her to open for Metallica. As if nothing else matters.

 

We don’t bleed talent. We misplace it. Then call it a skills gap.

 

The Benchmark Nobody Benchmarks

In New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby setup, no player — regardless of global superstardom — plays in a position that doesn’t serve the collective strategy. The best ball-handler doesn’t automatically play fly-half if fly-half isn’t where his instincts peak.

 

They call it Role Clarity aligned to Natural Game.

 

Your brand strategy needs the same surgery.

 

Not “we have a great creative team.” But the question to be asking is “is our great creative team solving creative problems — or drowning in approval chains and reporting decks?”

 

The Allocation Illusion

We obsess over hiring. We ignore placement.

 

We run talent audits. We skip talent deployment audits.

 

We ask: Who do we have? We forget to ask: Where are they being wasted?

 

Think about this. The Māori concept of Mana — roughly, personal power and authority — isn’t something you’re born with permanently. It rises or falls based on whether you’re placed in situations where your gifts can actually land. Misplace a person, you diminish their Mana. Diminish enough Mana across an organisation, and you’ve built an expensive mediocrity machine.

 

Flip to benchmarks that bite

 

Japan’s kaizen ninjas at Toyota don’t hoard engineers in R&D ivory towers; they scatter them on factory floors, tweaking assembly lines mid-shift. Result? Zero-inventory miracles while Detroit rusts. Or Nigeria’s fintech phenomenon Flutterwave: Engineers could’ve coded another boring app. Instead, they allocated smarts to “barter bucks” for Africa’s unbanked, exploding from zero to unicorn in hyperdrive.

 

A bit of wisdom whisper here: Chanakya nailed it—”The root of wealth is activity, not talent.” But activity without aim? That would be like squirrels on steroids.

 

The Kodak(Non)Moment

 

Kodak employed some of the sharpest engineers in America. One of them — inside Kodak — invented the digital camera in 1975. They buried it. Not because they lacked genius. Because they allocated that genius to protect film margins instead of inventing the future.

 

The talent was there. The misallocation was catastrophic.

 

This isn’t ancient history. This is De rigueur  in most organisations.

 

You might have heard about The Roman Praetorian Guard — elite soldiers who ended up babysitting emperors — is history’s most elegant metaphor for talent misallocation. Don’t build a Praetorian culture.

 

Netflix’s “Keeper Test”

Not “is this person talented?” but “would I fight to keep them in this exact role?” If no, move them. Don’t fire them. Move them. Misallocation is the enemy, not mediocrity.

 

Japan’s “Cleaning with Elite Athletes”

 

Instead of hiring separate janitors, a Tokyo airport gave sprint coaches to their cleaning crew. Result? World’s cleanest airport. They didn’t add talent. They reallocated timing, precision, and urgency from track to tile.

 

Actionable Arsenal for Brand Rebels

  1. Audit Ruthlessly: Map your squad’s superpowers. That copywriter killing carousels? Don’t bury her in boilerplate emails. Redirect to viral threads that hijack feeds.
  2. Experiment Wild: A/B test allocations weekly. Swap your data wizard from dashboards to customer whisperer—watch retention rocket like Elon’s rockets.
  3. Cross-Pollinate: Borrow from offbeat worlds. Allocate your CMO’s hours to a street vendor’s hustle study. Their one-minute pitch could nuke your pitch deck.
  4. Kill Sacred Cows: Fire 20% of “talent” at misfiring tasks. Reassign to moonshots. Perpetual readiness demands it.

 

What if your next breakthrough isn’t a new hire—but a reassignment?

 

You may not find these captions on a slide, therefore here they are:

Misallocated brilliance looks like mediocrity.
Correctly placed mediocrity looks like competence.
Correctly placed brilliance looks like magic.

 

Your job isn’t to find more magic.
It’s to stop hiding it in the wrong rooms.

 

Food For Thought?

The Talent Bazaar – Kill job titles for a day. Post “problems” on a wall. Let people grab whichever problem fits their instinct, not their JD. You’ll see your true talent map in 4 hours or even less.

Wisdom Weight:  A Ferrari in a cornfield is just expensive scrap metal. A dull axe in a lumberjack’s hands fells forests.

 

Talent is neutral. Where you place it is the strategy.

 

 

The Brand Personality Clinic: All 16 Types. Fully Diagnosed

 

Carl Jung walked so Myers-Briggs could run. And Myers-Briggs walked so brands could finally stop lying about who they actually are.

 

Meet the Brand Personality Clinic.

 

Here’s a question that is probably not asked during a typical brand strategy meet: Is your brand an introvert or an extrovert?

 

While human beings spent decades using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(MBTI) to figure out why they hate networking events, brands have been doing the exact same personality thing — loudly, proudly, or quietly — without a diagnosis.

 

It’s probably time to look within.

 

The Extrovert Brand walks into every room like it owns the zip code. Nike doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t “suggest” you work out. It grabs you by the collar and yells Just Do It. Red Bull doesn’t sell energy drinks. It sells the audacity to jump off a cliff with cameras rolling. These brands are the ones texting first. Always.

 

The Introvert Brand lets the product do the talking while the brand itself sits in the corner, radiating quiet power. Muji. Aesop. Patagonia. No celebrity. No confetti. Just depth, restraint, and enough self-assurance to make you feel slightly underdressed. These brands don’t chase you. You go to them.

 

Here’s the lowdown on 16 Brand Personality Types

 

  1. INTJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging — The Architect.

Apple. Dyson.

India: Tata Group.

Builds with ruthless long-term vision. Doesn’t explain itself. Doesn’t apologise. Quietly right about everything, annoyingly early.

 

2. INTP — Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving — The Logician

Wikipedia. Wolfram Alpha. 

India: Zerodha. 

Obsessed with how things actually work. Allergic to fluff. The brand that would rather be correct than popular — and somehow becomes both.

 

3. ENTJ — Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging — The Commander

Amazon. McKinsey. 

India: Reliance Industries.

Doesn’t suggest. Decides. Efficiency is the love language. Will restructure your entire industry before your morning chai cools.

 

4. ENTP — Extroverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving — The Debater

Oatly. Tesla. 

India: boAt. 

Picks fights with convention on the packaging, in the pitch, on the billboard. Contrarian by design. Wins arguments before you knew there was one.

 

5. INFJ — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging — The Advocate

Patagonia. Ben & Jerry’s. 

India: Fabindia. 

Carries quiet, burning conviction. Every product is a quiet protest. Makes you feel complicit in something good.

 

6. INFP — Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving — The Mediator

Hallmark. Moleskine. 

India: Archies. 

Feelings first, always. Romanticises the ordinary into something worth framing. May cry during the brand review. Means well. Always.

 

7. ENFJ — Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging — The Protagonist

TED. Oprah’s OWN Network. 

India: Josh Talks. 

Genuinely believes your story can change the world. And then convinces you too. Stage presence as brand strategy.

 

8. ENFP — Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving — The Campaigner

Innocent Smoothies. Oat-ly’s wilder cousin. 

India: Paper Boat. 

Writes nostalgia on a juice carton( sells yesterday to fund tomorrow). Makes you feel seven years old and somehow also deeply understood. Chaotic good, bottled.

 

9. ISTJ — Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging — The Logistician 

FedEx. Bosch. 

India: LIC. 

Has been showing up since before your parents were born. Doesn’t need a rebrand. Needs your trust. Has earned it. Will earn it again tomorrow, quietly.

 

10. ISFJ — Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging — The Defender

Johnson & Johnson. Dove. 

India: Dabur. 

The brand equivalent of your grandmother’s kitchen. Warm, reliable, never loud. Has your back before you know you need it.

 

11. ESTJ — Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging — The Executive

Goldman Sachs. KPMG. 

India: HDFC Bank. 

Runs on process, precision, and the radical belief that systems matter. Not glamorous. Absolutely indispensable. The brand that built the scaffolding everyone else stands on.

 

12. ESFJ — Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Judging — The Consul

Coca-Cola. 

India: Amul, Tanishq. 

Everyone’s favourite at the family gathering. Warm, inclusive, impossibly consistent. Has a timely, witty opinion on every moment in national life. Loved across generations without trying to be cool.

 

13. ISTP — Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving — The Virtuoso

Leatherman. Victorinox. 

India: Royal Enfield. 

Doesn’t pitch. Performs. Built for people who’d rather fix things than talk about fixing things. The brand that shows up when things break — literally.

 

14. ISFP — Introverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving — The Adventurer

Vans. Polaroid. India: Forest Essentials. 

Quietly beautiful. Refuses to be defined. Aesthetics as autobiography. Makes you feel like self-expression is a birthright, not a campaign.

 

15. ESTP — Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving — The Entrepreneur

Red Bull. GoPro. 

India: CRED. 

Moves before the risk assessment arrives. Sponsors the cliff jump. Films it. Makes it look inevitable. Discomfort is the product.

 

16. ESFP — Extroverted, Sensing, Feeling, Perceiving — The Entertainer

Disney. MTV. 

India: Fevicol, MDH Masala. 

Every touchpoint is a performance. Joy is the strategy. Laughter is the margin. The brand that turned up to your childhood uninvited and never really left.

 

What’s The Prognosis?

Most brands are born as one type and slowly tortured into blandness by committees, consultants, and quarterly panic.

 

A brand’s MBTI(Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) isn’t what the strategy deck says. It’s what the brand does during a crisis. That’s character. That’s the only brief that matters.

 

The Real Twist

The best brands aren’t pure types.
They’re intentional hybrids.

 

Apple = Introvert (product) + Extrovert (launches) + Intuitive (vision)
Nike = Feeling (storytelling) + Thinking (performance tech)

 

That’s not confusion. That’s strategic gymnastics.

 

In Closing

 

If your brand feels inconsistent…it’s not a marketing issue.

 

It’s a personality without a spine. Define it. Design it. Defend it.

 

Because in a world of infinite scroll…
people don’t follow brands.

 

They follow behaviour they recognize.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

 

Airplane Mode:Where Your Seat Reclines Four Inches.Your Dignity Goes Further

 

AIRBORNE DISEASE: What Really Goes Viral at 35,000 Feet 

 

We faced the dreaded Covid some years back. It’s time to put that behind us( literally and figuratively!). The real contagion in air travel is human behavior. And it’s been spreading, untreated, since Orville Wright landed that blasted thing in Kitty Hawk.

 

A Preamble

 

They say flying is the safest form of travel. But, that said, no Caveat Emptor came with it. They never said anything about the safest form of human interaction. The moment an airport boarding gate appears on the horizon, something deeply primordial awakens in otherwise civilised people. A perfectly reasonable auditor from Pune transforms into a Gladiator that Russel Crowe would find hard to mimic. A mild-mannered housewife from Hyderabad becomes a geopolitical strategist with aisle ambitions. And a startup founder from Bengaluru — who hasn’t actually built anything — begins treating every overhead bin like an IPO.

 

The Boarding Gate

You know the drill. The boarding gate is not a lounge; it’s a gladiator pit for the fashionably late narcissist. This guy walks in 10 minutes before closing, holding an overpriced Starbucks cup like a souvenir from Rashtrapati Bhavan, acting as if the aircraft is waiting for his astrological alignment. Meanwhile, the aisle occupancy squad has already formed: uncles who believe standing 2 cm from the boarding scanner makes them pilots.

 

Boarding passes clutched like lottery tickets. Eyes scanning for weakness. Predators in athleisure( airport look anyone?).

 

The Boarding Gate Theatre begins before the flight is even announced. Zone 3 is called. Zones 1 and 2 remain seated. Zones 4 through 9, plus twelve people who don’t understand boarding groups( or any language that the announcement takes place in), rush the gate like it’s a Black Friday sale at Croma. In America, this is called “gate lice.” In India, this is called every day, every time.

 

“The plane will not leave without you. Even if it wants to. It has your name on the manifest. It does not have a choice “. Sad but true!

 

Then arrives The Fashionably Late Passenger. Boarding has closed. The gate agent is already emotionally exhausted. And then — THEN — a man appears, rolling his luggage with the unhurried authority of someone who genuinely believes the world is on his schedule. He is usually in a Nehru jacket(And there is nothing Gandhian about him). He always has a wife six steps behind him. He is always slightly smug. In Dubai, this person arrives in linen. In London, tweed. In Lagos, he arrives on a phone call. The accent changes. The attitude never does.

 

On board, the Aisle Seat Occupier plants himself and immediately spreads out like a territorial nation-state. Both armrests( Arms and The Man?). One knee in the aisle. A Bluetooth speaker, technically on mute, radiating menace. The Middle Seat Human — always the most emotionally defeated creature on the aircraft — folds himself inward until he is physically 40% smaller than his original dimensions. And since these seats don’t have memory foam, it is unlikely that he will regain his original size(or composure) once he lands.

 

Somewhere in Row 14, The Recliner strikes. The seat back slams into your tray table with the violence of a small verdict. And you thought the jury was out! Your coffee is now on your laptop. It is now branded the Coffetaria. Doing a decaff lap. Your dal makhani is now a tie-dye experiment that curriculum designers at NIFT would be proud of. He does not look back. He has reclined. His journey is complete.

 

The real action starts at 35,000 feet. We don’t fly planes. We unleash personalities at 35,000 feet. That is really…the height!

 

The Class Divide

Meanwhile, in First Class, a man is handed warm nuts and a hot towel simultaneously. In Business, another man is having feelings about his lie-flat bed not being perfectly flat. The airline lied? He almost throws in the towel. In Premium Economy, someone is doing complex mathematics on whether 4 extra inches of legroom justifies the psychological anguish of knowing Economy is right behind them. In Economy — or as it has been lovingly rebranded: Cattle Class(by those who forget they too once mooed) — a family of five is rearranging the food chain. And everyone nose!

 

I don’t know if this has crossed your mind: Ever wonder why Economy flyers treat cabin baggage like it’s the last roti at a North Indian wedding?

 

The Air Hostess Pulveriser

There is a special circle in hell for the flyer who rings the call bell three times to ask, “Do you have tomato juice? No? Then what is your problem?” This is the same creature who will argue with the air hostess about the definition of ‘vegetarian’ using the Bhagavad Gita and a credit card swipe.

 

The Perennial Sleeper (Certified Corpse Class)

This guy boards with a neck pillow that looks like a medieval torture device. The meal cart rams his elbow. The baby screams. The plane lands. He refuses to acknowledge existence. You want to eat your 5-course meal (read: a paneer wrap and a mithai). But no. The Recliner Seat Terrorist in front of you has just executed a rapid recline ( Remember: The Future Happens Slowly, And Then All Of A Sudden). Your food tray is now hugging the seat behind you. Your crotch is now the dining table. Crotch crotch hotha hain!

 

And of course, there is The Know-It-All Traveller, who knows the cruising altitude, the exact model of aircraft (and its production year), why this route was changed last April( and why Govinda could dance on an Air Mauritius plane wing), and why the airline lost its competitive edge post-2019. He tells the air hostess. She smiles. This smile has a tensile strength that should be studied by materials scientists. She has heard everything. She has survived everything. She will continue smiling as she goes home and screams into a very understanding pillow. Kylie Minogue, are you listening?

 

And then…we land. Ah, the grand finale

 

The aircraft has barely kissed the runway and suddenly everyone is cured of inertia. Seatbelts? Purely decorative. The entire cabin springs up like toast. Overhead bins open with the urgency of a heist movie( yes you have seen that Korean movie I know!). Bags rain down. Elbows become conversational tools.

 

Phones emerge. Not casually. Religiously.

Because clearly, the global economy was paused mid-air, waiting for you to reconnect. Without your WhatsApp “Landed” message, civilisation teeters on the brink of collapse. And, needless to mention, both Android and Apple would shut shop. Apple’s new incoming CEO has his work cut out.

 

Airplane mode, by the way, wasn’t invented for aviation safety. It was invented to give humanity a few hours of forced silence. A digital detox disguised as regulation. The only time people reluctantly meet themselves… and hate the encounter. From Gate to Gait…watch humans devolve in real time.

 

And then comes the Gold Rush.

Not for exits. For toilets. A mass pilgrimage triggered by nothing but herd instinct and bladder paranoia.

 

The real Airborne Disease is this: we board as strangers united by destination, but we behave as if the cabin is a zero-sum game where your overhead bin space is my defeat, your on-time departure is a personal inconvenience, and your aisle is my sovereign territory. Every flight is a referendum on our collective EQ. We keep losing.

 

But we keep flying. And somehow, gloriously, inexplicably — we keep arriving. Bon Voyage!

The WhatsApp Confessional: We Are All Guilty And We Know It!

 

Now it can be told:- WHATSAPP Is The Green-Tinted Theatre of Human Behavior.

 

Welcome to WhatsApp — where relationships go to be managed, avoided, and occasionally, accidentally forwarded to the wrong person. Welcome to the most honest stage of human behavior ever invented. No filters. No lighting. Just raw, unedited you with typing dots that feel like Jethro Tull  drumrolls.

 

WhatsApp didn’t save us from SMS charges. It saved us from accountability. Before 2014, if you didn’t reply, you were “busy.” Now? You’re a psychopath with a diagnosed blue tick allergy.

 

We all know the species. And some. Let’s dissect the digital caste system, shall we? Please pardon me if the pecking order doesn’t stack up well. My limited observation offers the following:-

 

The Coveted Blue Tick

The blue tick turned the humble chat app into a courtroom( and offered those immortals a status upgrade). Suddenly, everyone is either a suspect or a detective. So what did the truly guilty do? They disabled read receipts. Beautiful. Magnificent. The digital equivalent of closing your eyes and believing nobody can see you. “I value my privacy,” they announce, while reading every single message the moment it arrives and responding only when geopolitically convenient.

 

These Blue Tick Buddha sees everything. Responds to nothing. Achieves enlightenment through silence. Claims “digital minimalism.” Actually runs a high-efficiency ignore factory.

 

The 1:10 Ratio Responder

Every group has one. The 1:10 ratio person deserves a dedicated paragraph. It will be remiss of me not to include this Impact Sub (if I can borrow the terminology from the IPL). For every ten messages sent their way, you receive exactly one reply. Usually “k”. Occasionally “🙏”. Never an explanation. In Bengaluru, this guy is a techie who “doesn’t have bandwidth.” In Delhi, he’s a cultural attaché of cold snubs. Geography changes, hypocrisy doesn’t.

 

The Olympic Sprinter 


The Roger Bannister types. Or Usain Bolt. Take your pick. Replies before your message is even delivered. Either deeply invested…or unemployed…or both. You’re still typing “Hey” and they’ve already said, “Yes, 7 PM works.”He doesn’t read. He pre-judges. He’s the human equivalent of an autocorrect gone rogue. Nobody knows how he does it. Science has no answers.

 

The ‘Sorry, Just Saw This’ Archaeologist 


Interned with the ASI (Archaeological Survey of India). Responds after 3 business days. Excavates your message like it’s from the Indus Valley Civilization. “Sorry, just saw this!” Translation: I saw it. I evaluated your importance. I chose peace. Now what? 

 

And then…the real drama.

WhatsApp Groups

A sociological experiment disguised as convenience.

There’s always:

  • The Forwarding Factory: sends “Good Morning 🌹” like it’s a government mandate( as if there’s a tax rebate under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act)
  • The Silent Spectator: diligently reads 187 messages, contributes none
  • The Over-Enthusiastic Admin: treats the group like a startup IPO
  • The Ghost Who Returns During Crises: disappears for months, resurfaces only when someone needs money or contacts

 

In India, family groups are sacred temples of passive aggression.
“Beta, why no reply?” lands harder than any corporate escalation email.

In Dubai or Singapore, WhatsApp becomes a polite chessboard. Everyone responds. Nobody says anything.

Group Admins

They are the only honest dictators left. They kick you out for a political opinion but keep the guy who sends “Good Night” photos of Jesus. That’s the democracy we deserve. Well, you asked for it!

The real insight?

WhatsApp isn’t a messaging app. It’s a mirror with notifications.

It reveals:

  • Your priorities
  • Your power games
  • Your emotional availability
  • Your need to be needed…or feared…or ignored

Every “typing…”is a promise. Every delay is a decision. Every reply is a revelation.

If you think I am letting you go so easily, you have another think coming. We are the sapiens. And there is more to it than meets the thumb!

Let’s widen the circus tent. Because just when you think you’ve catalogued all the WhatsApp wildlife, a few rare, glorious outliers wander in…behaving like they’ve been raised by a different algorithm altogether. See, its all about the parvarish!

The Paragraph Poet 


Writes messages that need a scroll bar. Opens with context, builds tension, lands a conclusion, adds a PS, and sometimes a sequel. You asked, “Free at 6?”


They respond with a TED Talk.


Reading their message is less “chat” and more weekend assignment.

The Voice Note Hostage-Taker

 

Typing is apparently beneath them. Every response is a three-minute audio recording delivered with the microphone six centimetres from their mouth, in a moving auto, next to a construction site. You can hear wind( actually the message has gone with it as well!). You can hear someone’s pressure cooker. You cannot hear the actual words. You listen three times, understand nothing, reply “haha yes,” and carry the secret to your grave.

 

The “Typing…”Ghost Who Never Delivers

You see those three dots. The mocking dots. The teases. They appear. You wait. Your heart rate spikes. You think a novel is coming. Maybe a confession. Maybe an apology. Maybe feelings.

45 minutes pass.

The dots disappear. Nothing arrives.
This person opened the chat, started typing “Listen, I think we need to talk about what happened on Tuesday,” then deleted it, then typed “Haha cool,” deleted that too, then watched three reels, ordered dinner, and went to bed.
You? You’re still staring at the screen like a clown. Congratulations. You’ve been dotted. No dot, sorry doubt about it!

 

TBTDT(The Been There Done That) Brigade

These are the guys who control the Central Bank of WhatsApp. All deposits and withdrawals go through them. They are in the know, now, then, whenever, always. You post something and within 0.8 seconds of that you see a response that says “ I have seen this, it’s an old one “. So, effectively puts off those occasional posters( if there is such a word) lest it earn the wrath of the TBTDT Brigade.

 

The Read-At-4:17-AM-But-Reply-At-7:32-PM Artist

Ah. My favorite specimen.You message at 11:00 AM: “Hey, free for a quick call?” Blue tick. 4:17 AM next day.

Then radio silence until 7:32 PM: “Oh sorry ya, was in meetings. Everything okay?”

You know they were not in meetings. You know they were awake at 4:17 AM watching Kantara reaction videos and eating leftover biryani (from Mallika Biryani, Hennur). But they have perfected the art of strategic disrespect. They want you to know they saw it. But they also want you to know you are not a priority. The 4:17 AM read receipt is not an accident. It’s a power move.

 

The “Last Seen: Long Ago” Mystic

This person has disabled everything. No last seen. No blue ticks. No online status. No profile photo update since 2016. They are a digital ghost. You send a message. It goes into the void. Two grey ticks forever.

Then, exactly 11 days later, they reply: “Hey sorry, off grid.”

You ask where they were.

They say, “Just needed peace, bro.”

You check their status — which they forgot to hide — and see them at a Go-Karting track, a pub, and a wedding, all in the same week.

 

This is not peace. This is performative hermitry.

 

The Screenshot Archivist

 

Dangerous. Quietly dangerous. They never react. They never respond with heat. But somewhere on their phone exists a folder — organised, dated, possibly alphabetised — containing every questionable thing you have ever typed. They will not use it today. They are patient. They are waiting for the right moment. That moment may never come. But it exists as a possibility, and that is enough to keep you spiritually humble.

 

The Emoji Economist 


Communicates purely through emojis. No words. Just a cryptic sequence like: “🔥🤝😶‍🌫️📉💀”


You’re left decoding it like ancient Sanskrit.


Is it agreement? Sarcasm? A warning? A breakup? A new language? A sign of the times?

 

The Forwarding Fundamentalist

 

This person has never — not once in recorded history — generated an original thought on WhatsApp. Every message is forwarded. Every. Single. One. Health tips from 2009. A video “scientists don’t want you to see.” A voice note from “a doctor in Germany” about something happening to your kidneys. The timestamp on some of these forwards predates the smartphone itself. When you ask “bro did you actually read this before sending?” the reply arrives in four seconds. Forwarded, naturally.

 

The Urgent Broadcaster

 

“Call me ASAP.” That’s the entire message. No context. No clue. You call, heart hammering, convinced someone has died or a building has collapsed. They answer cheerfully and ask if you know a good place for biryani near Koramangala. They needed this information urgently. You age four years in real time.

 

The K Person ( no, nothing to do with Ekta Kapoor)

 

You pour your heart out. Three paragraphs. Vulnerable. Raw. Honest. They read it — you can see the blue ticks absorbing your soul — and they reply: “K”. Not even “Ok.” Not “Okay.” The single, weaponised, atomic K. In certain cultures this is considered an act of aggression ( K for Kryptonite?). In others, it qualifies as emotional abuse. Linguists are studying it. Therapists are billing extra for it.

 

The Status Passive-Aggressor

 

Never confronts anyone directly. Doesn’t need to. At 11:43 PM, after the argument, they post a status — a quote, usually in a dramatic font, sometimes with rain in the background — that says something like “Some people reveal their true colours eventually.“ Forty people view it. Thirty-eight know exactly who it’s about. The target sees it. Nobody says anything. The status disappears in 24 hours. The wound does not.

 

The Grammar Gladiator 


Will ignore the content of your message… but correct your typo.
“You’re*” That’s it. That’s the reply. Conversation derailed. Ego punctured. English saved.

 

The ‘Call Instead’ Assassin 


You send a well-thought-out message.
They reply: “Call?”
Translation: Your effort is admirable. Also irrelevant.

 

And somewhere in this beautifully chaotic ecosystem…You exist too.

Maybe as a hybrid.
A Blue Tick Buddha by day.
A Double Texter by night.
A Voice Note Virtuoso when lazy.
A Silent Spectator when overwhelmed.

Because WhatsApp isn’t just an app.

It’s a personality test… where the results are visible to everyone except the person taking it.

The cast is now complete. The courtroom is full. And every single person reading this has just quietly recognised themselves in at least two of these profiles and is hoping nobody noticed.

 

You noticed. We all noticed. 😄

 

PS: On another note, my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well and can be accessed at https://profile.dailyhunt.in/SOHBStory

The Most Expensive Question in Branding is the Cheapest One You Ask

 

Imagine Picasso asking, “How much paint can you afford?” . Or God, before splitting the sea: “What’s your miracle budget?”

 

Ridiculous, right? Then why do brand storytellers hide behind this lazy, selfish question?

Because it’s safe. Because it shifts risk to the client. Because figuring out what they really want—the fear, the hunger, the unspoken dream—is hard. So you outsource your thinking to their wallet. Shameful.

 

What Is Your Budget?

 

Four words.
Zero imagination.
Negative empathy.

 

It’s the branding equivalent of proposing on the first date…with a menu card.

 

The Budget Question Is A Coward’s Question

 

Nobody ever fell in love and asked, “What’s your budget for this relationship?“

 

Yet somehow, the first thing most brand consultants do when a client walks in — is exactly that. They reach for the safety net. The spreadsheet. The number that lets them off the hook before the real work begins. Budget: Please Note That It Is Your Crutch; Not Their Cue

 

You’re Not A Vendor. Stop Auditioning Like One

 

When Harley-Davidson rebuilt its brand from near-bankruptcy, nobody sat across from Willie G. Davidson and asked what he had to spend. They understood what he was terrified of losing — the soul of a subculture. That fear became the brand brief. That brand brief became a legend.

 

Fear is always the real budget.

 

So is hunger. So is the story they’ve been rehearsing in the shower for three years but haven’t found the right room to tell it in yet. Your job — your only job — is to find that room.

 

Ask Three Questions That Actually Matter

 

Rather then walk in with a budget, the best ammunition to carry would be:-

 

What are you trying to become that you’re not yet? This unlocks ambition. Ambition has no ceiling.

What keeps you up in the wee hours of the night about your brand? This unlocks fear. Fear has no floor.

What’s the story you’re dying for someone to tell about you? This unlocks desire. And desire? Desire writes the cheque.

 

When you excavate these answers, the budget conversation doesn’t disappear — it transforms. It stops being a gate and starts being a bridge.

 

The Real Brand Brief Is Never in the Brief

Assume a founder says, “We have INR 20 lakhs.”

What they mean is:

  • “I’m terrified this won’t work.”
  • “I need to look smart in front of my board.”
  • “I want to matter in a market that barely notices me.”

But instead of decoding the subtext, we reach for the calculator.
We price the fear. We itemize the dream. We invoice the insecurity.

And then we wonder why the work feels…forgettable.

 

The Patagonia Lesson To Learn From

 

Patagonia didn’t become a billion-dollar conscience because some brand consultant asked Yvon Chouinard how much he wanted to spend on branding. Someone understood his existential dread — that commerce was destroying the planet he climbed. That dread became doctrine. That doctrine became brand equity no balance sheet can contain.

 

The story they were eager to buy? We’re in business to save our home planet.

 

Nobody budgets for that. They commit to it.

 

What Is The Radical Reset

Stop being a quote machine. Start being a diagnostician.

The moment you ask about budget before understanding belief, you’ve already lost the plot — and probably the client.

Great brand work begins in the archaeology of anxiety, aspiration and appetite. Dig there first. The numbers will follow the narrative. They always do. Because the best clients don’t have budgets. They have convictions. And convictions? Those are infinite.

 

Plain Speak Wisdom

Clients buy transformation, not tariffs. You’re not vending widgets; you’re vending wings. Perpetual readiness? Ditch the spreadsheet. Arm with empathy grenades. Watch budgets balloon into blank checks.

 

Truth Be Told( based on our experiences at ISD Global)

Truth #1: People Buy Stories, Not Services

Nobody wakes up craving a “brand architecture framework.”

They crave:

  • A redemption arc
  • A comeback story
  • A “finally, we’ve arrived” moment

Your job is to write the movie they want to star in…and then design the brand that makes it believable.

Truth #2: Budget Is Elastic. Belief Is Not

When belief spikes, budgets stretch like warm mozzarella.
When belief is absent, even free feels expensive.

So the game isn’t to fit into a budget.
It’s to expand conviction.

Truth #3: The First Question Sets Your Ceiling

Ask “What’s your budget?”
-You get a number. You stay small.

Ask “What are you trying to change in the world?”
-You get a mission. You think bigger.

 

The New Playbook (If You Will)

  1. Diagnose before you prescribe
    You’re not selling services. You’re solving tension.
  2. Translate fear into strategy
    Every hesitation is a clue. Every doubt, a doorway.
  3. Sell the future, not the deliverables
    Decks don’t close deals. Destiny does.
  4. Price after meaning, not before
    When the story lands, the number follows.

 

Etch this in stone if you can: UFP > USP aka : In brand building, Unique Feeling Proposition(UFP) is far greater than Unique Selling Proposition(USP).

 

In closing, may I recommend we do this: Stop asking what they can spend. Start asking what they can’t afford to lose.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below:

 

The Problem With Racing to the Bottom?

 

You might win. Then what?

 

” We need to be more competitive on price “, is a common refrain heard in brand and board rooms. Most people in the room nod, effectively paving the way for what I call long polite brand suicide.

 

Discounting Is Not A Strategy. It Is An Apology

 

Very few will admit that they are running this race-where the prize is margin destruction, commoditization, and the haunting sound of customers who only show up when you’re desperate enough to go lower.

 

Look at what happened to Kodak. Not the camera story — the other one. In the 1980s, they quietly crushed their film margins trying to out price Fuji on retail shelves. They won the price war. They lost the brand. When digital arrived, there was nothing left to defend. No premium, no loyalty, no fortress. Just a company that had trained its customers to see it as cheap.

 

Or consider Spirit Airlines in the USA. — the poster child of the race to the absolute bottom. Zero frills. Zero loyalty. Operationally brilliant. Strategically catastrophic. Passengers didn’t love Spirit. They used Spirit the way you use a gas station bathroom — reluctantly, never returning unless completely desperate. In 2024, they filed for bankruptcy. The bottom had a floor. They found it.

 

Truth Be Told

When you compete on price, you hand your competitors a weapon. Every time you drop yours, you tell the market your value isn’t real — it was just a number you made up and now you’re taking it back.

 

Meanwhile, Liquid Death — canned water, aggressively priced at premium — turned H₂O into a $700M brand by refusing to race anyone anywhere except up. They didn’t have a better product. They had a better story, better attitude, better audacity. They made water feel like rebellion.

 

That’s the game worth playing.

 

The Market Will Always Find Someone Willing To Go Lower Than You

 

Your job is to make price irrelevant. The brands that outlast market chaos aren’t the cheapest. They’re the most believed in. They’ve built something competitors can’t photocopy: meaning, mythology, a reason to exist beyond the transaction. Harley-Davidson doesn’t sell motorcycles. It sells the last legally acceptable form of rebellion for middle-aged accountants. Try undercutting that.

 

So what do you do instead of racing? You build altitude. You make your brand the one people seek out, aspire to, defend in conversations they didn’t start. You stop chasing the bottom and start owning a summit nobody else is climbing.

 

The Most Dangerous Trophy In Business? The First Place At The Bottom

 

Welcome to the slowest suicide in business: winning the race to the bottom. No spreadsheet will tell you:

 

When price becomes your story, you become forgettable. When you become forgettable, you become replaceable.

 

And replaceable things don’t get chosen.
They get swapped.

 

The Seduction of Cheap

 

Cheap feels like a shortcut.
Fast traction. Quick wins. Volume spikes that look like victory.

 

Until the day you realise you’ve trained your customer to never love you… only tolerate you.

 

Airlines did it. Then had to invent “priority boarding” just to sell dignity back to people.

 

Streaming platforms did it. Then bundled, unbundled, rebundled like confused DJs remixing their own funeral.

 

Every time you drop your price, you’re not just shaving margin.
You are shaving meaning.

 

The Physics of the Bottom

At the bottom, three laws apply:

  1. Gravity wins. There’s always someone willing to go cheaper. Usually with less to lose.
  2. Differentiation dies. You can’t out-story a discount.
  3. Loyalty evaporates. Deal-seekers don’t stay. They migrate.

 

So yes, you can win the race. You just inherit a finish line where no one claps.

 

We’ve All Guzzled The Gospel

 

“Compete on cost! Undercut the competition!” It’s the siren’s song of desperate boardrooms and spreadsheet jockeys. But here’s the gut-punch wisdom: The problem with racing to the bottom is that you might win. And victory? It’s a trapdoor to commoditized hell—where margins evaporate, loyalty’s a myth, and you’re just another faceless widget in the bargain bin.

 

Ever seen airlines turn cabin into a cattle class? Ryanair strips seats to skeletons, charges for air. Passengers cheer the “deal,” then rage at the regret. Offbeat benchmark: Compare that to Singapore Airlines’ suites—pricey, yes, but they own the sky because they race to the top of desire. Or take Zomato vs. the roadside dabba: One feeds hunger; the other feeds souls with stories, quirks, and that viral biryani flex.

 

Have you considered this? Why do 90% of “budget” brands vanish in 5 years? Because cheap erodes soul. Wisdom weighs in: True brands build moats of meaning—wit that winks, wisdom that whispers, weight that anchors.

 

The SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story Reframe: Don’t Compete Down. Design Up

If your strategy can be undercut overnight, it’s not a strategy. It’s a placeholder. Really, I mean it.

Here’s what can be the sharper playbook:

  • Move from Price to Proof
    Make your value visible. Demonstrable. Unignorable.
  • Engineer Emotional Moats
    Utility gets you trials. Meaning gets you tribes.
  • Create Asymmetric Advantages
    Own something competitors can’t copy at speed: a ritual, a worldview, a signature experience.
  • Redefine the Category Math
    Don’t be cheaper toothpaste. Be oral wellness. Don’t be budget stay. Be mindful escape.
  • Audit Your Discounts Like Debt
    Every discount you give, ask: what long-term perception did we just borrow against?

 

Examine The Brands That Refused the Slide

 

The most enduring brands don’t fight on price.
They fight on perception.

They charge for:

  • Certainty in a chaotic world
  • Identity in a commoditised category
  • Belonging in a lonely marketplace

They don’t sell cheaper. They sell clearer.

 

And clarity commands a premium.

 

And For All The 25 to 70% Off Brigade 14 Months In A Year

 

The bottom is crowded. The top is quiet. And weirdly, it’s cheaper to get there than you think—just not in the way spreadsheets measure.

 

PS: On a completely different note, I am taking the liberty to share here that my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story is now a Podcast as well. You can access it on these links below: