Understanding political propaganda and how some get influenced by it

(extracts from the book 'Decoding Communication' by N. Chandramouli)

Nature of Propaganda

Propaganda can be defined as 'a debased system of persuasion which boasts neither impartiality nor accuracy, substitutes emotional catch-phrases for reasons, puts results before principles, and success before truth'. Since the political rhetoric in India is rife with blatant use of negative propaganda, it will be relevant to understand these techniques to protect oneself from becoming a victim. 

The use of propaganda in conflict and war has always been prominent, when outcomes could mean a significant gain or loss of power, status, wealth and life. Many nations, cultures and political parties have used propaganda to exercise a intense measure of influence over people. This blog becomes more relevant because of the government's reaction to the current Punjab farmer protests, and earlier CAA-NRC, and there has been an unprecedented use of propaganda in both cases to exercise a similar dominance public opinion. 

Propaganda achieves its result by altering the message content, context and association. Though it is not intrinsically wrong or right, if it is used with wrong intent, it can cause enormous harm. Knowing how to decipher propaganda is crucial to our understanding of the political bombast being used today, as it makes its way into the mainstream. 

Propaganda techniques used in politics

Name Calling

Name Calling is more than just a form of expressing anger or dissent and is way of creating cognitive bias within a social environment. When derisive labels are used by political groups, it may be overtly stated as being done to preserve the ‘values’ or 'culture' of society, by expecting to ostracize the non-conformists. 

Name Calling, however, is a two-edged sword in politics since society treats the use of derogatory language for any adversary with disdain. It may stain the object of Name Calling, but the subject also gets a highly negative shade. If a large number of the polity opposes the Name Calling , the negative colour of the those using this technique gets exposed and fully visible. 

Pinpointing the Enemy

The foremost of learned behaviors is one which relates to enemies is that of community preservation - action against a 'common' enemy placed as the common responsibility of all the individuals in the community. Political propaganda users divide the sides into an enemy-friend situation and usually an 'invisible' enemy is presented. 

Pinpointing the Enemy in politics can be seen when action is taken against a supposedly 'hostile' nation making citizens believe it is justified to vote to secure common interests like protecting one's country. 

Assertion

Assertion is a simple propaganda technique when an enthusiastic or energetic statement is presented as a fact, though it may not necessarily be true. It almost implies that the statement requires no support and should be accepted without question. When it comes from authorities of power or stature, it gets believed and accepted by more readily. It goes with the assumption that if someone in power says something, then it should be believed.

In politics, though Assertion works to its end in some cases, it also leaves the source more vulnerable, leaving them open to stringent scrutiny. The politician can often be a victim of his own Assertion as can be seen in the current election situation, when many a political personality who were accustomed to using Assertion with impunity, are now getting subject to inspection, checks and scrutiny. 

Bandwagon

Humans tend to conform to the normative group behavior. In Propaganda, this is used in a technique called Bandwagon, and subtly appeals to the herd-survival instinct using the ‘or you’ll be left out’ argument. The closer the social group is to the person’s externally expressed views, the more effect the Bandwagon technique has.

Sometimes, selective deterrents are used for non-conformist behavior to further strengthen the Bandwagon effect. When politicians ask citizens are asked to give up individual rights or benefits by showing a larger, social betterment, Bandwagon effect can be seen in action. Even socially and morally unjust laws and statutes try to sell this idea for greater consensus using this argument. 

Cardstacking

Cardstacking, or selective omission, involves presenting information that is positive to an idea and omitting information contrary, but critical to it. This technique is used in all forms of political communication and when presented by a highly placed source, seems more believable.

The most effective of political outcomes of Cardstacking are when a part of the information presented is completely true and of unquestionable veracity. In such cases using political Cardstacking omits just a little something pertinent, the disclosing of which may change the interpretation of the ‘facts’ presented. The partial truths regularly seen in election rhetoric, is an attempt at this omission by choice, which can make a voter take a wrong decision due to partial 'facts' absorbed. 

Glittering Generalities

In politics, Glittering Generalities technique uses words that appeal to highly valued social concepts like security, collective pride, country, freedom, honor, glory, among others. Such words demand the citizen's approval without thinking, simply because a meaningful and unquestionable social concept is involved. 

Glittering Generalities tries to build on concepts of self-sacrifice, loyalty, resolute faith to show allegiance to the 'larger good' and are therefore get considered worthy by unsuspecting voters. When some political parties of the day use nationalistic issues like 'saving the country from division' are attempting this propaganda technique on voters. 

Lesser of Two Evils

Research on human choices shows that a smaller consideration set allows easier understanding and simpler processing. The "lesser of the two evils" technique uses ease of comparison as its base, and tries to convince the voters of an idea by presenting it as the least offensive option. Also called false-dilemma, this method presents only two either-or options, when in truth there are several other options available.

When some political parties try to project the message 'What is the alternative choice?', they are subtly using this propaganda technique to negate the existence of any opposition. 

   

Plain Folks

The Plain Folks technique is an attempt by the political propagandist to convince the public that their life is similar to that of the common people and thus attempts to seeks their empathy. This sense of 'common man' approach of the politician is often used to hoodwink voters to seek their support. 

Simplification

This technique is one of stereotyping of a culture, gender, race, country, religious group, among others. The propaganda technique of Simplification reduces a situation to a choice on the basis of stereotypes. If you were asked to fill-in-the-blanks, you can see how stereotypes work and perhaps see what the debased persuasion technique of Simplification is capable of. Russians are___________, Indians are___________, Jews are ___________, Hindus are ________, Muslims are __________. 

Used most often in current political circles, this propaganda technique is also among the most dangerous and divisive. 

Testimonials

We always look to learn from those who inspire us. Society leaders, achievers, actors; all those who inspire us, we also seek to endorse. 

In politics, Testimonials are endorsements which attempt to connect a 'inspiring' person with a political ideology, person or party. It is a process that leverages endorsers using their credibility to persuade voters towards a particular point-of-view. Considering the endorsers inspirational in one area of work, voters could sway towards their political alignment as well. 

Transfer

Transfer is the technique of being seen in the the appropriate context, to give positive or negative attributes to the subject. A political personality using the technique of Transfer to project himself as technologically savvy may often be seen in the presence of scientists, or to transfer a negative connotation to the opposition may show morphed pictures of political opponents to spread falsehood and hate in an attempt to create doubt in the voter's mind. 

This is not the first time, nor the last that propaganda will be used by the politician. More than ever, it is up to the citizen to not get swayed by their propaganda machinations, but instead to rely on their own true understanding of situations by delving deeper and knowing more rather than reacting first. 

Can there be a model for building attractiveness?

The answer is - 'Definitely'. Attraction is more scientific than most would have you believe. 

Every time a Brand has a human interface, it arouses deep-rooted physical, psychological, sociological and cultural reactions in the person, exerted as a ‘force of attraction’ by the Brand. This intrinsic capacity of a Brand to arouse the audiences’ interest and create a magnetic pull towards itself is Brand Attractiveness, also called Brand Appeal. Appeal (appropriately derived from the French word adpellere, meaning ‘to drive’) may be described as the inherent force of attractiveness of the Brand that interests, pleases or stimulates, and it is this force that makes a Brand desirable (or not).

Brand Attractiveness is a powerful, intangible force, which goes much beyond its physical appeal. It is an invisible, overwhelming pull, which subliminally, but irresistibly draws audiences towards itself.

Communication plays a dual role in building Brand Attractiveness. First, it embellishes the inherent force of attraction of the Brand, and secondly, it helps transport this inherent appeal to audiences who have never directly experienced the Brand. Good communication is the telescope which brings Brands up-close and personal, enhancing attributes to make them more noticeable. It is also the microscope that helps bring out the internal intricacies that may need deep delving to be experienced. Nevertheless, for this appeal to work, the force of attraction has to be natural and intrinsic to the Brand.

The Brand Attractiveness Model has four pillars on which it is founded, namely Rational Appeal, Emotional Appeal, Communication Appeal and Aspirational Appeal. 

(Adapted from the book 'Decoding Communication')

God’s trick

Communication must have a profound impact on survival for it to be as abundant as sight in humans and animals. It is an innate function present at birth and many of the neonatal responses that are hardwired into the brain manifest as instinct. Humans, animals and even some plant species communicate with each other. 

The most basic communication in all animals remains instinctual and reactive, i.e. in response to food, danger and sexual stimuli. The more evolved the communication used, the more efficiently information gets transmitted, resulting in a better outcome. For example, in the case of food, evolved communication can give an idea of the direction, taste and source; when representing danger, a sophisticated language can indicate the degree, type of danger, or methods to overcome it.  And when it comes to symbolizing sexual stimuli - well, let me just leave that part to your imagination.

Human communication is unique; it is not just biologically inherited but is also learnt. Other animal species communicate mainly through behavior, ritualized calls and gestures, whereas humans possess highly evolved linguistic systems that can express an infinite variety of diverse thoughts and intricate ideas. The human language system, with advanced semantics and syntax, has the ability to communicate myriad concepts with precise detail. Little wonder that this evolutionary leap distinguishes us from every other organism on earth.

The four-sided argument about the development of language in humans remains indeterminate. It may have developed as a normal byproduct of a well developed brain (called Spandrel), or on account of natural genetic selection (as an Adaptation), or because of the idea information system pressures (known as Memes), or due to the neurons in humans that facilitates imitation (Mirror Neurons).  A few other interesting ideas also give stimulus to new theories; like a suggestion that language developed as a 'social technology' to eliminate visual idea-theft.

Whichever way the above arguments go, the fact that language developed due to a blend or a combination of several factors including those stated above, cannot be argued. It advanced as different species realized that production of sound was useful and gave them a distinct competitive advantage, leading to the development of sophisticated variations of sound to communicate better. Language is only an exaggerated variation of natural communication capacities.

At the same time, language, the basis of communication, is also at the center of conflict and confusion by mere virtue of multiplicity. The 7000 or more human languages seem to have their origin in God’s ploy against humanity. The Book of Genesis speaks of how God tricks a united, single-language human race (who had resolved to build the heaven-touching ‘Tower of Babel’), by confounding them with the ‘confusion of the tongues’ - languages.

(extract from the author's recent book, Decoding Communication)

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.

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

 

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.

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')

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.