The more we have, the less we are able to absorb'

Author and consultant, N Chandramouli, gives an insight on how proper communication is essential for a business to thrive.
(extract of a Q&A in DNA)

N Chandramouli

A chemical engineer turned com-municator, N Chandramouli's business experience began with chemicals and then he jumped on to stock-broking, banking and exports. His engagement with communication since the last 15 years has obsessively con­sumed him since then. With his unique combination of engineering back­ground, communication business expe­rience and his other entrepreneurial exposures, Chandramouli conducts lectures in several communication col­leges and is also the author of recently published book 'Decoding Communica­tion '. He talks to Rajesh Rao on how he has brought an inimitable perspective to communication.

How can communication help one to make the best use of opportunities?

The world's commerce and mankind's development is crucially dependent on communication; the type of com­munication that helps promote ideas. Though the potential of these trillion dollar ideas to grow and build the fu­ture is high, their ability to contami­nate and destroy opportunities is equally quite astonishing.

Innovative and useful products fail, organisations are unable to align vi­sion, investors are quickly disheart­ened and seek exit - and all this and more is not because of what organisa­tions did was wrong. Most of the times, it is because organisations could not effectively communicate correctly their service, vision and product ben­efits, or because they totally misunder­stood their audiences.Doing these very same things cor­rectly will utilise the true potential of every opportunity.

How can one use words, images and ideas to impact thoughts and action in a better way?

When we look around us, we see a progressive atrophy that inflicts most brands, forcing them to seek expensive artificial means of sustenance that un­fortunately provide only cosmetic benefits. If brands are to flourish and strengthen, they need to build inner strength. Existence of brand levity, this natural strength that works against degeneration is a true sign of great brands. Brand levity has four aspects which give a brand the ability to op­pose gravitation forces that pull it down. These are memetic integrity, purpose, involvement sphere and ownership.

Do students today understand the subject of communication in its entirety and how can it make a difference to their lives as well as work?

Quite early, I recognised the impor­tance of theory - a process intended to set a firm grounding for a systematic approach to any subject. Its deficiency in communication causes a significant transactional gap between teaching and doing, leading to a massive waste of communication effort and business opportunities. Decoding Communica­tion is the cumulative result of my various research endeavours to under­stand and bridge this gap.

What are the various factors that make communication work?

Let me describe communication that works as one that is able to create an inherent magnetic pull in its audience. This pull called 'brand appeal' can be classified into four categories to make them easy to analyse. Two of them, rational and emotional appeal, exten­sions of Aristotle's Logos and Pathos, are usually a part of many contempo­rary communication exercises. In here, we look at them with a fresh perspec­tive. The other two aspirational and communication appeal are new intro­ductions, derived over several years of research, observation, discussion and empirical applications.

Why is communication a less understood process?

The life of a modern business is not easy as each of its actions carries the potential to propel or impede an or­ganisation substantially. The sheer complexity of businesses, information overload, unlimited potential and pos­sibilities of overnight business obso­lescence add to the every day risks of the business. The more we have, the less we are able to absorb and now we only absorb from the surface, on the surface. Communication, however, is only understood when it is a deeper process.

CSR: A marketing tool?

(This debate recently appeared in the Business Standard supplement, Strategist)

Coca-Cola’s Support My School initiative in India has been touted as one of the biggest CSR initiatives by corporate India and is beamed on NDTV with a lot of fanfare. Coca-Cola is not the only company that has effectively bundled, branded and communicated its CSR efforts; too many companies have started communicating their CSR efforts too early in too conspicuous a way. While their intentions are lofty, the whole razzmatazz surrounding such efforts raises a question: is a good idea for companies to communicate and get credit for their commitments?

HARISH BIJOOR

CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults

When companies put their profits back into the very same people who help them make money, the marketing cycle is complete

Coca-Cola has got its act right. The guys behind the scenes, global chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent, downwards, are a force to contend with in the world of corporate social responsibility (CSR) marketing. Today CSR marketing is a new sub-science of the world of marketing at large. In fact, it is the best thing to do when you are a big brand with a footprint of consumption across the world. Brands such as Coca- Cola, Marlboro, Dettol etc that touch billions across the world use CSR in their marketing approach.

Look at the the history of CSR. It began when companies first looked at their corporate bottom lines and discovered profit. Having discovered profit, and investing that profit or splurging it into everything that was possible, such as personnel training, corporate junkets, corporate jets, profit had to find its way into society. CSR is the last thing that a corporate enterprise does. For instance, visualise a large vat. Imagine the money going into CSR activities as money that goes out of a small little pipe vent right at the top of the vat, much beyond and after the Plimsoll line of profits has been breached. Visualise this vat with a small vent opening right near the top brim. If you see it this way, you will also realise that if these profits did not find their way out (into society), the vat would itself be in danger. Therefore, CSR expenditures typically have been “safety valve expenditures”.

At the outset, corporates look after their immediate physical environment as a CSR activity. If a company had a factory in Jamshedpur, it would look after the people in the eco-system around it. Then the mindset changed and companies started thinking beyond their geography by picking up causes. They picked up causes adjunct to the industry they belonged to. 

For example, a company in the tobacco segment looked at health, a marketer to kids looked after the under-privileged kids. Subliminally, if not overtly, the connect always existed.

Then came the era of obscene CSR marketing. I have been witness to CSR efforts during the Tsunami that hit Indian shores some years back. I saw large trucks carrying water and supplies. Many of them chose to emblazon themselves with the brand names and logos. One corporation even had savvy ‘marketing-think’ where it had the top of the trucks emblazoned with their brand logo. This was for the media helicopters to catch when they hovered around the area under distress. How far can one go?

The latest is the Coca-Cola India ‘Support My school’ campaign with NDTV. I like this campaign as it picks a cause that is universal and big. It is about kids and their rights and the need to education. It picks rural and small town schools. It takes valuable resources to the points of need. It is not shy and does not use subterfuge as well. It talks to its audience without resorting to the in-your-face tools of advertising. It helps build future customers. In that way, it gives and takes. It gives resources today to support a nation of school-going children. It takes subliminally. It takes when it impinges its brand name all across, and plants a soft thought of an otherwise hard brand in the minds of impressionable kids.

I believe no corporate organisation must invest its money into CSR without purpose. Corporate organisations are run by stakeholders—by shareholders and employees— among others. The organisations must aim at profit in their ventures, both commercial or CSR oriented. However, in making this profit happen, it is not wrong if good money can chase good causes such as this one. Coca-Cola has cracked this code with the campaign and other initiatives in South Africa where the company is aiming to be water positive. CSR makes marketing sense as companies make money from people. When they focus their profits back into the very same people who help them make money, the marketing cycle is complete.

N CHANDRAMOULI

CEO, Comniscient Group

CSR must be an extension of the organisation's state-of-being and not just an activity that has to be ticked off in the check-box

While many organisations undertake their social responsibility as charity, many undertake it to fulfil their marketing needs or to give a positive disposition to their brands. However, all of them understand the personal-social benefits that accrue from acts of altruism. When a corporation acts beyond the narrow areas of self-benefit and works for a larger, socially-beneficial cause, you can describe it as CSR. This helps the corporate/brand in two important ways — first, the innate value-system that gets espoused by the social action helps build ‘organisational culture’, and second, CSR showcases any organisation’s positive intention, an essential ingredient in building organic trust for it.

Every organisation wants to impact the world that influences it. In order to determine that it has to decide on the following factors: internalities (that which it thinks it is responsible for) and externalities (which are outside its sphere of responsibility).This boundary of responsibility-acceptance is arrived at by balancing the intent with the ability of the organisation and becomes a direct measure of the organisation’s integration (on human, cultural, emotional and physical fronts) with its external world. As organisations expand to include more external aspects creating a progressively larger responsibility circle, they become more and more relevant to their ecosystem.

For instance, a responsible mining company may rehabilitate the people displaced as a direct result of its operations. If it considers more of its impact as its responsibilities, it may even replant trees to undo the damage caused by it to the environment. If it further increases its internality sphere, it may go further and invest actively in creating an ecological hub on the previously mined area. It is quite natural for an organisation that exists for profit to seek direct or indirect benefit from all its actions including CSR. Seeking benefits, be it marketing, community, image or other subtle benefits from the CSR is acceptable, beneficial and even recommended.

But if the benefits sought through the CSR are blatant or unreasonable, the action becomes counterproductive and is bound to have a negative impact on the brand. When you think of the ‘real’ campaigns, Coca-Cola’s ‘Support My School’, Aircel’s ‘ Save Our Tigers’ or Tata Tea’s ‘ Jaago re’, most audiences will have a visceral calibration of where the campaign falls on their acceptability line.

Yet, when starting CSR initiatives, the organisation has to understand that there is a significant time lag between the action and result expected from the CSR initiative. Therefore when organisations engage in altruism they must do so without looking for quick results that they are so accustomed to. Further, to create a sustainable programme of CSR, one needs to balance two opposing forces. First, the farther removed the corporate social responsibility is from the core of the business, the more trust it will generate. At the same time, the more direct the connection between the CSR and the business, the more sustainable it will be. Companies which get this balance right, accrue benefits that are highly resistant to erosion over time. CSR is a good strategy but only in the long-term. Though it is used to develop markets or for image, it is far more useful when it is used to infuse the organisation with culture, vision and values — the core drivers of any business.

The importance of CSR cannot be understated for it shows the organisation’s integration with its society. It is, however, important to temper expectations from CSR. Most importantly, CSR must be an extension of the organisation’s state-of-being and not just an activity that needs to get ticked off in the check-box.

Beware of the E, F and G of Advertising

Beware of the E, F and G of advertising

(this article by the author was also recently published in Asian Age, Ad+ section)

Emotions are loudspeakers of experiences, thoughts, culture, perceptions, environment and disposition and they work to amplify all these through a ‘remembered’ association. Emotions are important because they generate feelings - deep-rooted physiological and psychological sensations that help relate, adapt or cope with any situation. They may be conscious or sub-conscious, and emotions are essential in managing our personal outlook, inducing social behaviour. Emotions are important in unequivocally classifying action and are important accompaniments to it. They are also important in creating memory since and act as triggers for connected thoughts.

The use of emotion in communication is not new. Aristotle the Greek philosopher articulated it in his book 'Rhetoric' as pathos, which when used in conjunction with logos (logic) and ethos (ethics) could make a persuasive argument. Emotional responses result from deep 'internal' forces and have strong subliminal influence on audiences. Pathos is related to sympathy and empathy, and the use of emotions helps make audiences more receptive to the communication. The response to primary emotions, (and their derivatives) like love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear, is often seen as beyond-our-control.  It implies that our reaction to them is involuntary, subliminal and therefore, uncontrollable. It is this reaction that the communicator seeks in evoking emotions.

Advertising also uses emotion to create a stronger associative memory of the brand - you are more likely to remember something that made you smile, laugh or cry. Telecom companies have mastered the use of making emotional connections. Small features are advertised using real emotions and Vodafone made its 'Chota credit' big through exam-ink sharing advertisements. Airtel did the same with the small boy who complains to his father using a toy phone. Use of emotions in story-telling also makes it interesting, real and relatable - and without it, the story would be bland and may not have action or memory triggers.

However, since any feeling generated due to emotions impacts us deeply, it is important to be aware (and beware) when we are subjected to advertising that generates negative emotions of envy, fear and greed in us. Unlike positive emotions like joy, positivity or hope, which get enhanced by sharing, the E, F and G of negative emotions are almost always intensely private, almost secretive. Rarely does anyone share these emotions openly. These usually get formed due to the complex social and personal exchanges in the formative years of one's life, these take a shape in competitive and combative situations. Resultantly they almost always giving rise to a feeling of anxiety and need for immediate remedial action. In communication, use of envy directly impinges on the social worth of the individual, fear brings an irrational urgency to the situation, and through greed, the self-esteem is under assault.

Unfortunately, due to their inherent anxious nature the use of these three emotions in advertising does yield swift results, even if just as ephemeral. Caution is necessary in the use of such emotions due to the deep residual impact they can have. For example, if fear were used as a primary emotion to generate audience responses, the response will generate the after-effects of fear and this could give rise to acute reactions like stress, aggression, anger, and defence as a natural mechanism. These negative reactions could set off undesirable and unmanageable responses in the audience.

Though several advertisers feel justified in using these emotions, it must be kept in mind that in the wake of such communication consumers are left more mistrusting and nervy, attempting to satiate their desires by stuffing up more and more. Everyone is sure to remember examples of their own, but Onida was among the earlier user of envy with a direct statement in its by-line. In more recent times, envy has been used very successfully showing sexual attraction (or lack of it) to sell deos and even undergarments. Envy in advertising, doesn't spare anyone, not even kids. Fast food chains or cars, envy has been abused blatantly and abundantly.

Now to fear. Advertising Cooking oil showing want you to protect the heart of your loved ones by using the 'right' oil - it has PUFA it claims. Disinfectant soaps that want to protect your child's health show ickky germs on the child's hands or diaper advertisements that show you rashes in your baby's bum if you do not use a particular brand of 'absorbent' diapers. These advertisements attempt to make fear work for the brand, but subtly also make the wife, mother or husband more anxious - elbowing, forcing and egging them with their communication.

Greed, the G of the triad is a modern day malady. It is an underlying phenomena that goads economics, companies and individuals alike. We all want more. So, ads pander to this innate need by goading us to get something bigger, more luxurious and more abundant. After all, who doesn't want a house that has a Jacuzzi, swimming pool and a personal lift that opens into your living room? This is advertising of excess - making the false claim that more is best for you.

If it works, why not use it? Faster the results, the better it is, right? Well, no actually. When E, F and G are used in communication, they invariably leave the customer in a state of high-anxiety, fulfilling a purchase in the hope that the anxiety triggered will be sated. Unfortunately the anxiety never gets fulfilled, building further unease and discomfort in the numbed consumer. This in turn makes the advertiser's job increasingly more difficult.

And, that's reason enough to not use the EFGs in advertising at all - since the job of advertising is not just to sell, but to sell justly, wisely and well. 

Will Sach-in prevail? The trust issue.

Trust is unidimensional. In this case, dimension should be interpreted as a characteristic most relevant to the trustor for trust to be conferred on a trustee. For a doctor this may be the ability to provide a good diagnosis, for a pilot it may be her flying skills and for an artist, his flair with the brush. Uni implies that the trustor will usually place trust for one or a few closely related aspects in a familiar range. For example, while you may trust your boss to give you career guidance, you may not trust him to cook you a good dinner. In related aspects, that the trustor has grown to know or can infer, trust builds automatically – for instance, you may trust the same boss to give a good speech at the local club due to his inferred ability. The unidimensional aspect puts limits on how far you can push trust – and if the relevance seems too out-of-context, unidimensionality would be violated, resulting in trust erosion. 

Sachin endorsing 'Sach' and
Bipasha endorsing 'Real activ'

The subtlety of the unidimensional aspect gets elaborated in this incident. A cricket-loving friend and I were at a grocery store and she reacted strongly on seeing a new juice brand promoted by Sachin Tendulkar (the world’s leading cricketer) called ‘Sach’ (meaning Truth). It was surprising to me at first since Sachin is an overachiever in his game, completely non-controversial and universally loved. Like many other celebrities, Sachin has a host of endorsements - Pepsi, Visa, Philips to name a few. In fact, he even put his signature on a limited edition car.

As long as Sachin was only endorsing brands, there was no problem. But Sachin had moved from endorser to 'owner' status. He had ‘allowed’ the juice carton to carry his name, and my friend’s reaction conveyed betrayal. Sachin’s endorsement had stretched relevance a little too far and violated the principle of unidimensionality.  In fact when I later got to know that he even has a 10% stake in the company that promoted the juice brand - Sachin's trust loss seemed completely justified as well.

Keep unidimensionality in trust intact, and you'll always gain. Stretch it too far and it can turn counter-productive. 

(some parts of this blog have been extracted from my book, Decoding Communication)

How to listen

To understand your audience better, one must follow the first step of communication - observation, or the art of ‘intricate listening’.

We all intuitively know how important listening is to communication, but how many of us know how to listen.  Listening, is naturally not limited to the auditory function and comprises of combined 'listening' of all senses put together, including cognitive and the extra-sensory. When all this is fused, one becomes far more aware of the communication environment, giving rise to a highly ‘intuitive’ awareness. 

With koan-like wisdom, the Chinese symbol ‘to listen’ is a self-explanatory amalgamation of five sub-parts which include symbols for ‘ear’, ‘you’, ‘eyes’, ‘undivided attention’ and ‘heart’, shown here.

Lets look at the four stages of listening. First and foremost, listen with your eyes - what do you see. Trust your eyes before your ears. Secondly, give the communicator your undivided attention without any visible distractions or mind distractions. This will help you absorb without any dilution. Thirdly, listen with your heart - implying that you must empathize and 'feel' for what is being communicated. This will help you interpret underlying messages. And last of all, listen with your ear - into what is being said. 

If you combine these four forces into listening, you will have an enriching experience with the world. 

(some parts of this blog piece have been extracted from the author's recent book, Decoding Communication)

Illusions of the mind

This figure below is an optical illusion created by Prof. Akiyoshi Kitaoka who has been studying the reason why such illusions occur in humans. If you look at the figure below, you'll see it rotate continuously, but if you fix your eye on any one spot, the rotation stops. Why it occurs is not completely clear yet, but it teaches a lesson in perception.  Prof. Kitaoka has been gracious to allow the use of this image in Decoding Communication to explain the Third lesson of Perception.

Optical illusion of Rotating Snakes by Prof. Akiyoshi Kitaoka, 
Department of Psychology, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan

 

Action - the first fundamental

(Inspired by the recent swift shift in economic policy action by the Indian government with inputs from the chapter on Brand Appeal from my book Decoding Communication)  

Keep pushing

Action is life. Action is doing something with a commitment to achieving an objective. It, unsurprisingly, is also the first fundamental of communication. This implies that every other aspect of communication, like transmission, interpretation and response, are founded on action. This draws from the timeless concept of causality - cause and effect, connecting the now to the future through Action.

And, for action to have a positive impact, not just any action is enough - it has to be the right action. Right action is itself quite ambiguous, and has been central to philosophical, scientific, sociological and religious debates without bias. In a broad sense, right action could be interpreted as that which is done at the right place, at the right time, by the right persons and with the right intent. While the place, time and people are the locators of right action, the correctness of intent is measured by collective values in a given cultural context.

Action is often seen as different from communication, though in fact, they are the same. Every action is communication and every communication, action manifest. Action is also the basis of Goal Achievement, one of the four drivers of human behavior. It displays a direct commitment to achieving goals, something that benefits society as a whole.

Action is imperative in building Brand Appeal, the positive attraction that many brands display. Its importance is evident because it features in all the four quadrants of Brand Appeal -  Rational, Emotional, Communication and Aspirational. Action is the seed of Rational Appeal, the appeal of logic, by displaying Conscious Effort and Utility bettering the ability to achieve a desired goal. It is also at the core of Emotional Appeal by adding Positivity and Hope to any situation. Positive Action is as essential in building Trust, the most important aspect of Communication Appeal. And, Action is also core to Aspirational Appeal by giving Winner's Attributes to the doer, often seen in sportspersons who train for years just to compete in an event, the outcome of which is completely indeterminate.

Action is life and if the etymology of the word 'inanimate' is any indication, it shows how connected life and action are. The word inanimate means 'without life' and is built from the words that mean without action.  At every level we perhaps instinctively understand that only by the use of correct action does our future comes more in our control, something that man has always wanted. Though we may often miss the obvious concatenation that sews thoughts and words to our future through the forces of positive action.

Trust in an online buying experience

Decoding Communication

What makes you trust a brand, and why does that brand sometimes miss the mark?

Among other things, it also has to do with an ability to fulfill expectations, but when that ability is delivered with  sense of dedication, trust is a natural outcome. If you make your customer's pain areas to be your delivery points, your brand's greatness becomes evident. Let me take the case of my book and its launch as an example to show how.

When you launch any product the first rule is to ensure reach and availability. With a book this becomes crucially important because a good book to a reader is like candy to a kid with a sweet-tooth. You need instant gratification. One day extra feels like a lifetime and in some extreme cases, depression takes hold if you don't find the book in time.

When several readers wrote to me saying that they had ordered the book from flipkart, I was thinking that it might have been a better experience if they  felt my book in their hand and saw it on the shelves much like the experience I enjoy myself (yeah, yeah - I've been called old-school before too). But I guess what I learnt can put me in the new-school bracket now.

My book  launched recently (and though I had slotted 3 weeks for it to reach major stores), flipkart had the  book within 3 days of my distributor sending them the books. That was fast by any standards! Then I noticed that they exercised care with respect to uploaded reviews and only verified ones were put up (something every reader expects). It only when I went on some rounds of book stores that I realized how important the flipkart experience is to a book-lover. When a book is sold-out in stores, it  can take between 7 to 10 days to reorder. Using flipkart, though the delivery is 3 days the reordering is almost instantaneous.

flipkart does two other things very well to make it a great online experience for book buying. First, like an on-ground book store, it is a good judge of books and takes a calculated risk of ordering a higher number of copies from the distributor if it thinks it will do well. Secondly, it thinks like a book reader and ensure fastest delivery by making the distributor a partner in the delivery (often picking up the book from the local city office of the distributor to ensure upcountry delivery faster).

I personally think that flipkart has a sweet-tooth for books, and when someone feels exactly what the customer feels, it is easy to trust them.

Background score of communication

(extract from the forthcoming book Decoding Communication)

No background music

If the force of attraction of a brand is a natural phenomena, why does it need to be embellished? Why can’t its natural attractiveness get results?

To answer that, I must share an anecdote about a friend from the world of movie-making who showed me the deep-rooted relevance of communications.

An animated raconteur (he was often invited to give story presentations to producers), he not only was involved with the film industry for a living but he also seemed to watch movies for sustenance - seeing two or even three a day. His personal life had been tragic – a victim of a broken family, drug-addiction and a difficult recovery, and failed attempts to prop the family business of renting movie equipment. His cousins were prominent actors in the fan-crazy Hindi film industry, which did not make his life any easier. Now a volunteer-speaker at Narcotics Anonymous, he devoted all his non-movie time in convincing addicts why they should quit, using his life as an example. He is funny, selfless, and a complete stoic.

One evening he invited a few friends to watch a movie - a regular family-drama, on the larger-than-life screen in his house. The movie was an over-the-top Bollywood masala  and we watched the movie like friends do - opining on every aspect of the movie using our half-baked knowledge of the movie-world, taking jabs at the director, actors and everyone else. Throughout the movie, my friend stayed glued to the screen, never even once partaking in our digressions. And, he was crying unabashedly. Copious tears flowed even at the smallest emotional scene. We joked about it among ourselves, but he almost did not seem to notice us. The movie over, he washed his face, and was transformed back to the friend we knew, back to his former self - funny, and yet without much sign of emotion.

Much later, his father, who he loved dearly, passed away. My friend did not show any pain or emotion, though everyone knew how much he felt the loss. When I met him a few weeks later over coffee and compared the two situations, the movie and his father’s demise, and asked him why he did not cry or express any emotion in the latter, while the movie had made him cry uncontrollably. He answered spontaneously, “It is because life does not have background music.” He also admitted that he was himself only when he watched movies - it transported him but also allowed him to be himself.

I thought much about what my friend had said, and realized one thing. The embellishments of communications are necessary to transport the audience to an experience of the Brand. Our relationships with different people and things force us to behave in different ways, so much so that we often mask our real selves. And it takes the background score of communication to make us 'see' our true selves better. Good communication from any source actually helps one communicate with oneself better and is like communion with oneself. 

Brands - Ideas with soul...

Living ideas

An idea is a 'memetic' system analogous to the genetic information system. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from person to person through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable actions.

Richard Dawkins, the originator of the term meme, wrote in his book, The Selfish Gene, “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes, fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.  Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.  If a scientist hears, or reads about, a good idea, he passes it on to his colleagues and students.  He mentions it in his articles and his lectures.  If the idea catches on, it can be said to propagate itself, spreading from brain to brain.”

Memes rely upon stored memory to create new memories through experiences of different kinds - physical, psychological, experiential, transactional, ethical, metaphysical, spiritual, social and cultural. Memes self-replicate and respond to selective pressures following genetic principles like natural selection, variation, mutation, competition and inheritance.

To give a more philosophical interpretation to the Brand, imagine it as a living idea - an idea which has a soul. The Brand is the soul that gives animation to the idea - its non-corporeal essence, its vital-breath or life-force. The Brand is embodied in, and acts through, its physical and non-physical extensions. Every state of the idea expresses its brand-soul and the concept of Brand is present in the smallest thing that the idea represents, as much as it is evident in the whole. It is something that emerges from the conscious and subconscious interaction with the complete entity.

As soon as an idea has been conceptualized or it begins to transact, the Brand’s journey of life has begun. The Brand may be visible or invisible, it may be understood or not, but the Brand is born with the birth of the idea itself. Such a 'living' idea carries in it a natural ability to spawn and inspire generations of brands. 

(Extract from the author's forthcoming book 'Decoding Communication')

Difficulty of printing black on your book cover

Printed covers ready to be loaded

 For a book to be right, the printer has to be perfect. And there are many things that can go wrong, because there are several stages and people involved in it.

Knowledge of printing limitations helps on planning your book from the beginning. The biggest problem that Decoding Communication faced that it was in black. We came to know that black and blue are the most difficult colors to deal with, and the extra time this color took for drying was some of the more benign ones.

First test copy on the forming machine

Test of the initial copies before final run

As every woman knows (and no man does), there are hundreds of shades of black and only the most experienced printers can get 'your' black correctly. One more problem with black is even the smallest mistake in printing will show up like it was highlighted. If you have lamination on the cover (which if it happens to be black and white, like in the case of Decoding Communication), any extra pressure leaves a white mark, making the mistake very evident.



In the case of this book, the white had to look like chalk on blackboard, so it had to be having a light feel. One thing very difficult to imagine is how 'light' the white will feel after a matt lamination. From my experience with cover laminations, I would suggest that you leave the white 10% sharper than what you want the end result to be.

While designers suggest some standard colors that compliment black, the one I found to work best was the unadulterated yellow and black. If the writing is in this 'specific' yellow, it will not take away from the white (the face in this cover for instance). But if you get the yellow wrong, this color can draw all the attention.

Finally, we have what we want, and as I have been ranting ever since I saw it, the baby does look dark and handsome. 

Two liners that give you a picture's worth

Some two liners often use convey more than the proverbial 1000 words. Here are some I use:

"Don't use your last resort before it is due."

"To get anything done faster, seek out the cynics and convert them first."

"If you don't worry about the value you are giving to your customers, you'll have a lot more to worry about." 

"As you traverse from doer to viewer, trust goes through distance dilution. Involve the viewer in the 'participant' circle to lessen trust dilution."

"Visualize your long term plans. Analyze your short term plans."

"Cement your success with humility and bridge your failure with courage." 

6 ways to create path-breaking and sustainable communications

(this article was also published in www.mxmindia.com)

Everyone loves to win, though only a few have what it takes to prepare for the win. Sustainable Communication is that organizational winning strategy.

1. Future relevant communication

In my several thousand interactions with CEOs and top management, one significant conclusion with regard to communication has dawned – successful organizations always have top-driven communication.

Though everyone understands the importance of communication, most top management are unwilling to get involved enough to deep-impact it. Most only want to see results without wanting to participate in its creation.

Communication is treated as an essential, but ‘extraneous’ service to the organization. Therefore, while the result is important, how it is achieved, is not. The communication function most often reports into marketing, and due to this, the entire organization’s communication remains partial to marketing communication.

Sustainable Communication is that which impacts the future of the organization, and without the direct involvement and guidance of the top management, the organization’s future cannot be impacted. Organizations where the top management does not give communication the maximum attention remain myopic without much control over their own destiny. It also silently encourages the ‘dynamite fishermen’ to play havoc, severely damaging the communication environment of the organization.

For an organization that wants to remain relevant in the future, the person piloting it has to be fully committed to Sustainable Communication giving it requisite time, energy and direction.

2. Communication Philosophy

All systems run on some principle and only when articulated explicitly do they become ‘believable’- a prerequisite for adherence. Its expression is the first step for Sustainable Communication to take root, and this creates adherence at the deepest level in the organization.

The Communication Philosophy of an organization is an analysis of the organization’s reason for existence, its values, nature and its reality. It asks three fundamental questions, the answers to which define a Brand’s topography for Sustainable Communication.

Q. Why do we communicate?

Neophytes usually get drawn to answering this in terms of the business goals of the company, but this question must not be taken too literally. It is necessary for the answers to be unshackled from the business goals, and therein lies its difficulty. The Communication Philosophy seeks out the intrinsic nature of the organization’s communication, and this answer helps understand the organization’s true objectives in relation to its ecosystem.

Q. How will we communicate?

The answer to this question gives guidelines for communication to the organization. It also elaborates the tone and tenor of communication, and most importantly, the Brand’s not-to-do list.  This usually sets the foundation for all to adhere to.

Q. What do we want to communicate about us?

The answer to this reveals the ideally desired perception. Since the seed of communication lies in its action, it is necessary that this ideal seeps into every action the organization takes. While articulating its response, one must consider the different states of the entity; current, future and the approach to overcome this aspirational gap. The danger with ideal perceptions is that they tend to fly, and therefore, its articulation should be grounded in reality.

3. Discovering Communication pathways

Every organization has natural communication trails within them. They use these pathways predisposed to communication because of interdependencies within the sub-group. Use of these interdependencies provides natural energies for supporting the Sustainable Communication structure. Often hidden beneath the surface, unexposed to the organization, these trails need to be discovered with focus. Once found and worked on (no different from real pathways), these pathways will automatically draw more communication traffic through them.

To discover these trails, a deeper understanding of each sub-group’s aspirations, interests, preferences and culture is necessary. These communication trails are also useful in two-way communication and have the scope to become robust feedback systems.

4. Integrated approach

An integrated approach looks at the organization’s communication philosophy from various dimensions. Some are listed below, but this is a dynamic list and must be added to by the communicator – the more that get included in this list, the more sustainable an organization’s communication will be. The communication should be integrated from the dimensions of:

1. Culture – The organization’s communication must be integrated with the culture of its people and of the society that it exists in.

2. Vision – All communication of the organization must emanate from a common, expressed vision.

3. Time – The organization’s communication must be relevant to the past and the future of the entity while remaining aligned to its present.

4. Environment – The communication must be in harmony with the environment the brand engages with, eliminating any damage to it.

5. Audiences – It must be integrated with the needs of all the primary audiences of the organization; clients, employees, shareholders among others.

6. Audience Degrees – It must be integrated with the primary, secondary and tertiary audiences and must be relevant to all three.

7. Knowledge – Sustainable Communication must have an integrated approach to creation, storing and dissemination of knowledge.

8. Lifecycle – It must have a regenerative approach such that the birth to demise message lifecycle is considered.

9. Function Collective – Each function of a business must reinforce the collective, and the collective must reinforce each function’s communication.

5. Multi-polarity

Multi-polarity tends to maximize communication efficiencies and as it looks at several polarities achieved through each message. For an organization to have Sustainable Communication, while the main focus could be one or a few, the multi-polarity maximizes value by deriving more from the same message. The more polarities that get included in the message, the more sustainable it is. These polarities are:

1. Multi objective - Each communication must impact multiple objectives in positive ways.

2. Multi sensory - Such that it integrates experiences of as many senses as possible – cognitive, tactile, auditory, visual.

3. Multi-audience - The same communication should reach several audiences.

4. Multi noded - There must be several crossover nodes of several communication pathways to facilitate interaction at the nodes.

5. Multi functional - It should take into consideration the needs of all the functions (like finance, human resources, marketing and others) around the communication.

6. Issue Chain

An Issue Chain is the identification of the natural issues of any system that gives it the propensity to communicate. These depend on its contributors – sector, audiences, technology and others that are issues that drive communication energy. To better this Sustainable Communication method, it is necessary to identify the various issues in the sub-systems and then build communications around these. Such communication sustains itself through the energy that others put into it as it is of their interest.

What does Creativity have to do with Rational?

Strangely, a seemingly non-logic based ability, creativity, is a primary part of Rational appeal. Roughly put, Creativity is a strategy ability to cope with situations to create better or new solutions. Creative solutions are those that combine innovative thinking and efficacious application. When Brands display Creativity, they demonstrate an ‘intellectual’ ability to deal with the future better. Audiences don’t just measure Brands on a creative scale from a viewpoint of novelty, entertainment and utility, but from a position of future risk amelioration and protection.

Creativity, the third operator of the rational base of Brand Appeal demonstrates a Brand’s high adaptability and sensitivity to the environment it exists in. It also gives the Brand the imagery of a pioneer, one willing to take risks and go into unchartered territories, making it an attractive proposition.

Creativity places the Brand high on the social ladder too and this position of social leadership relegates its competition to the role of an automatic thought follower. A Brand’s Creativity shows a new way of thinking, giving it a unique appeal that audiences prefer to associate with. A creative Brand not only enhances its own value but brings value to society as a whole, helping breed a creative-culture in society, a necessary ingredient in social survival and growth. 

My favorite communication quotes

My favorite comms quotes that I have also used in my forthcoming book Decoding Communication. 

“Everything becomes a little different

as soon as it is spoken out loud.”

                                             - Hermann Hesse

“Trust is learned over time, like a well-trained athlete, one makes the right moves without much reflection.”

- Robert C. Solomon

“It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

- Albert Einstein

“Attraction and repulsion are

necessary to human existence.”

- William Blake

“What we think, we become.”

- Gautama Buddha

“Knowledge, like fire, must first be

kindled by some external agent,

and will afterwards propagate itself.”

- Samuel Johnson

“Build trust.

The rest will take care of itself.”

- Anonymous

“We are all caught

in this inescapable net of humanity.”

-           Martin Luther King

“The final mystery is oneself.”

- Oscar Wilde

“Jos viestintä voi epäonnistua, niin se epäonnistuu.”

("If Communication can fail, it will.")

            - Wiio’s first law [Original in Finnish]

“Good communication is

as stimulating as black coffee,

and just as hard to sleep after.”

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“We never are

definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong.”

- Richard Fenyman