Why do you check that app frequently?

Why do you check that app frequently? 

Because u know u will see something new?

Or, Because u just might see something new?

Read that again!

Yes, ‘MIGHT’ signify the concept of the variable reward. 

This concept was discovered by psychologist B.F. Skinner in 1950s when he put a bunch of pigeons in a cage. There was a lever in the cage, every time a pigeon tapped a lever, a pellet of food was delivered. 

Skinner then introduced variability: food pellets were not delivered at every tap of the lever, but at random intervals. 

And this made pigeons go 😜 , the number of times they tapped the lever increased dramatically!

This was Unpredictable/Variable rewards at play. 

Our habit to go back to that app is a result of our brain’s craving for novelty and pattern identification. 

When we know what the reward is going to be every time, we grow uninterested, but when there is no obviously apparent pattern, we get hooked.

Every app wants to become a slot machine!

Have you got over that app addiction yet?

 #marketing #product #habits

Book Review - The great mental models by Shane Parrish

Finished this #book recently - The great #mentalmodels by Shane Parrish.

The premise for one to read the book is - In life and business, the person with the fewest blind spots wins. 

Blind spots are areas which which we don’t know that we don’t know. 

Until, we figure multiple mental models which people apply across disciplines, we would be at the mercy of our default mental models. 

Mental models describe the way the world works. They shape how we think, understand, and form beliefs. These are largely at play in subconscious!

Some of the key Mental Models from the book:

#firstprinciples Thinking

Break a complicated concept/problem to building blocks, the first principles. Remove all existing beliefs or assumptions. What remains are the essentials. 

First-principles expose the boundaries that you have to work within. From this, you can challenge the fundamental assumptions of the situation more effectively. It’s a must have Recipie for disruption.

How to arrive at them - 5 Why’s is a good approach. Keep asking why at each level till u have at least five whys. 

#SecondOrderThinking

When making choices, consider not just immediate; but distantsecond and subsequent order consequences that help you avoid future problems. When making a decision, ask this question: And then what?

#Inversion

Inversion means approaching a situation from the opposite end of the natural starting point. Start by assuming that what you’re trying to prove is either true or false, then show what else would have to be true. 

Sherlock homes was assigned a task of finding x is having a valuable picture. Straight approach is to first assess if x has that picture - Search the house to figure etc. 

Inversion is to assume x has the picture. He burns nearby area to create panic for x to leave house. X runs out with valuable picture out herself! Power of inversion!

Any other book on mental models you recommend?

Should brands bow down for advising a story of change?

Should brands bow down for advising a story of change?

Brands tell stories.

Stories that reflect the society at times, and stories that defy the society.

Ultimately storied to land a message - might be aligned to existing norms of the society, or might be suggesting a change.

Change to break away. And start something new.

Change is difficult. But change is the only constant. Change at times, or most of the times is progress. Or at least a strong effort to think different.

However, there are things which nobody would want to change. And things which are open to be thought of at least.

Who decides that? Audience does.

And that’s why -

A section of audience would like the way current things are.

A section will like a new and fresh thinking.

Some will boycott. Some will not.

Some will remember the brand for pushing boundaries and challenge status quo. Some will hate it for doing it.

But brands need to stand by thier narratives and stories. Not bow down under pressure.

I remember Nike’s ad on taking a stand around racism by bringing -Colin Kaepernick, an outcast American football player and civil rights activist .

Despite pressures from media and thier share price going down under furore - Did they take it off? No

Did the brand wither away? No. It’s stands stronger. And I guess that’s fans expected from thier brand that is thier mentor on pushing human limits around athletics.

What do you think from a #brand perspective?

#marketing #advertising

PS - The recent AUFinanceBank Ad featuring Aamir & Kiara talks about groom entering the bride’s house after wedding for Pelham Kadam vs bride. Earlier, Manyavar had a narrative around kanyadan. Tanishq had one talking about adoption of cross-religion customs.

Metaverse - a fad?

Metaverse - a new wave like Social media?

Back in 2006-07, there was a new wave of social media & digital marketing trying to redefine how brands communicated and engaged with people. 

It started as a fad, when brands ignored it first, then adopted like experiments with 1% of budgets to today, where it is one of the top 2 spend channels.

Metaverse, is in the same zone as social/digital was back then.

Brands created pages on social media platforms. Then, they added interactive stuff via various widgets and apps to build engagement. Then came idea of selling via social.

Even customers first created thier profiles. Then they connected with friends, built communities. Then, they started reading news. And today, it is a complete entertainment package, where people open these apps to see some random byte sized content (call it reels or shorts).

Same trend seems building for Metaverse. People are creating thier avatars. Kids are already used to such parallel places via games like roblox or minecraft. Adults have had this virtual reality life (WFH)during COVID via zoom and are now living a hybrid work life already.

Brands are creating Metaverse stores, buying retail space in Metaverse (will you call it ‘un’real estate 🙄) - Samsung, Adidas in Metaverse like Decentraland, The Sandbox. 

CPG Brands like Coca Cola, Nike etc have done various events in Metaverse to promote a new product line or special events. Walmart has a Walmartland in Roblox and has released a video on how they imagine shopping at walmart in Metaverse (it’s interesting if you haven’t seen it yet - link in comment).

And yes people can buy from brands in these Metaverses. So, the proposition is that consumer can shop from say Macy’s physical store in NY from Bangalore by visiting its Metaverse store and get the purchase delivered in real world! 

Sounds exciting?

#metaverse #marketing #ecommerce #social

Brand Signage stunts- from Lucy Pizza to NolhtaceD?

Brand Signage stunts- from Lucy Pizza to NolhtaceD?

Brands are about stories. Stories that connect. And if stories, translate into reality; nothing like it! 

Here is how two brands - Domino’s and Declathon played with thier signage for few stores to tell beautiful stories.

#Domino's rebranded one of its stores in order to honor Lucy Bronze, an English woman footballer ahead of the Euro 2022 final. Lucy Bronze worked as a chef at Domino's in Headingley while studying at Leeds Beckett University in the early 2010s.

French sports apparel brand #Decathlon changed its signage of 3 stores in Belgium to promote "reverse shopping", through which people in the country can sell their sporting products to the company to support environment friendly practice of reuse. So, the brand literally reversed thier logo!

Do you remember any other such story of #logo change?

#marketing

New Modern Sarees from Tata, Birla & Ambani

Indian modern Sarees - now from Tata, Birla and Ambanis!

India sells ~50000 cr worth of Sarees annually. Out of which ~27% was organized market in FY20, which is slated to grow to 40% by FY25.

New cool brands have been growing with modernised play on sarees. Taniera by Tata, Navyasa by Birla and Avantea by Ambanis are some those new brand launched in last 5 years. 

The erstwhile biggies - Nallis, Kalyan Silks, Pothys, Chennai Silks have been there since ages selling buildings full of traditional sarees.

Interesting play in retail with again expansion of exclusive stores by each of the new brands. 

Definitely, there is a gap in the market with the dearth of modern sari specific brands, contrasting to plethora of western wear brands. 

W and Biba capitalised on this gap earlier in non-saree ethnic market earlier.

Interesting to see, how things pan out.

Where do you buy your sarees from?

#fashion #retail #brand #sarees 

Startups & Leap of faith?

Startups & Leap of faith?

From leap of faith, the best example that comes to my mind is that of Hanuman doing a leap over the Indian ocean to lanka in our mythology epic Ramayana.

At first, he just had a problem at hand that he had to find the whereabouts of Sita. He was confounded as to how he will reach lanka which cant be seen from naked eyes and its only water everywhere in sight.

He didn't remember any of his magical power giving him confidence that he could do it. He was made to remember his might, later by his team members. He gained strength, but still wasn't sure.

Later, its the leap of faith. Faith in his idol Ram. He then believed in himself and jumped off over the ocean. He needed to believe that he HAS to find Sita. He defied gravity by believing that he has the rocket fuel(magical powers) within him to sail through!

Similarly, #Startup culture is all about believing in yourself (irrespective of your earlier experiences) and taking the plunge in something you might not have done earlier.

You generally set out to do the impossible or something big that looks impossible under constraints of time. And once you achieve the same, you wonder, how we did it.

One key trait in this playbook is to try things which are different from convention itself. For eg, if the normal industry does this for ages, who can we defy those assumptions or constraints and then think fron there. This #firstprinciples thinking is at the heart of startup thinking and should be in #career and #life as well.

Believe in yourselves!

Defy assumption!

Take that leap of faith.

Happy #diwali ! 

Obsession with KPIs - Popular Post from Linkedin.

Obsession with #KPIs

In my personal experience across companies, there is this madness to track everything. You will find a dashboard with lots of colours, shapes and trend charts showing slices and dices of data.

Somebody said - " Whatever gets measured, gets done". Very rightly pointed out, given until we measure we wouldn't know how good or bad e are doing. Then only you can apply resources to improve!

But, there is this concept of 'Efficiency' and 'Effectiveness', i think Peter Drucker mentioned this in his milestone book 'The effective Executive'. 

#Efficiency is how well a process or task is getting executed. For eg, Making a product in part in a factory is taking XX minutes at YY rupees cost.

#Effectiveness is about assessing whether that part is needed in great supply or at lowest cost at all, given its a part which is not a bottleneck at all to push production!

Having KPIs to just keep tracking efficiency is a drain on resources and direction for entire org. Keeping minimal but effective metrics is essential for entire org to keep thier focus on those few that are effective and matter the most.

Another concept that Amazon prescribes is the #input metrics tracking apart from output metrics. Until we track what all we are putting in (say spends in media, hrs in training, points of distribution..), outcomes of sales wouldn't happen! 

Infact, Input metrics tracking is the holy grail of KPIs and Dashboards!

Any other concepts you picked around KPIs?

credits for cartoon - Tom Fishburne 

#growth #analytics #data

Apply the art of Storytelling. Everywhere.

Classic Fairytales > #Data & Spreadsheets

I was teaching my son the following expression in algebra -
x(y+3)= xy+3x,
however he was only multiplying x with y and leaving 3 separate. I told him multiple times via logic, bodmas etc but he kept repeating the same mistake.

Then my wife told him a story - A guest is ringing a doorbell of house, he is standing out of the house(x). In the house, y and 3 stay together (y+3). When they open the door(brackets), both y and 3 meet the guest x (multiplication) and they spend good fun time together.

The result was astonishingly strong, he didn’t do any further mistake! I realised the power of storytelling even in algebra.

Similarily at work or in life, it’s important to harness the power of #storytelling vs keep sticking to spreadsheets. Now, more and more organisations are switching to #narrative  writing vs power points or just tables as exemplified by Amazon  with the doc writing that crystallises everything from mind to the 6 pager what, why, how, who etc).

And to learn from classical fairy tales, there is always this broad structure at work as well-

- Beginning - Once upon a time | Market was like this…
- Context - There was a king and queen | We did a,b and c
- Problem - But they were sad because of | however the kpis didn’t move
- Solution - Then the hero did this | Then we took actions x,y,z
- Evaluation - And they lived happily ever after | Resulted in kpi movement
- Moral of Story - Learning | Learning’s and way forward

Do you have more such insights out of plain logic vs #stories experiments?

Get Drunk with Happy Harmones!

Got drunk in the morning ever?

I do. Regularly.

With Happy Hormones!

Yes. I am back on running track in between with cult classes. Ran 50km for July; good start after a hiatus. Loving the happy hormones rush through the day to keep me full of life! Once done in morning, you are drunk through the day with energy!

As you know, Hormones are produced by human body after certain activities. Certain hormones are known to help promote positive feelings, including happiness and pleasure.These “happy hormones” include:

Dopamine. Also known as the “feel-good” hormone.

Serotonin. This hormone helps regulate your mood as well as your sleep, appetite, digestion, learning ability, and memory.

Oxytocin.This hormone can also help promote trust, empathy, and bonding in relationships.

Endorphins. Endorphins are your body’s natural pain reliever, which your body produces in response to stress or discomfort. 

Try a 20-30 min morning physical activity for 21 days; i bet you will feel a lot more alive and addicted more than any alcohol to keep doing the same thing everyday. It’s been 7 years since I embraced running and it has turned my life upside down - from how I weigh to how energised I am thru the day to an entire identity it has given me! 

As world famous Dilbert cartoonist says - We should not get drained by time management or task prioritisation tactics, we need to do energy management as with high levels of energy, we can tore down a big task in less time vs otherwise.

Have you experienced such happy harmones already? 

In running circles, it’s said - When u feel bored or tired, u go for a run! Contrary to popular belief of ‘Running long distances will drain you’, it is actually energising and for me it’s like #Meditation. 

Try it!

#life #health #work #management #tip