Book Review - Brandwashed by Martin Lindstrom

It has been sometime since I wrote a book review. I was going through a book hiatus .. at least as far as non-fiction was concerned. I found myself picking up books and after reading the blurb finding they did not interest me in the least !!! So back to the shelves they went !!!

In this involuntary  moratorium I saw "Brandwashed" .. it looked interesting enough that it funneled through .. after all Behavior Economics is a fascinating area to explore !

As far as this book is concerned  I do not think the information is particularly new - much of the material is known. Neither do I think that the marketing techniques are hidden tricks .. save for a few. However it is the specificity of the cases that is interesting.

Some snippets -

1. We do know that music influences us .. but the author shares details of how changing the tempo of the music changed how the customers viewed the time taken to be served in the customer complaints queue.

2. By doubling the size of your shopping cart, you end up buying up to 40 percent more.

3. Malls and certain kinds of stores become  the “cool” hangout location — this is engineered by marketers, who often hire sexy, good-looking kids to stand casually in front of the entrance. Miraculously, the area is soon packed with other kids !

4. Ever heard of Listerine and Halitosis ??? Today Pharmaceutical companies do not market only for known terrible conditions like cancer, Alzheimer's but create conditions we never thought of - Restless leg syndrome? Fibromyalgia? Who even knows such things exist?

5. Supermarkets sprinkle select vegetables with dew drops of water — these sprinkler like drops serve
as a symbolic - of freshness and purity ! It may that the vegetables so doused with mist may rot faster due to this treatment !

6. Colas and other beverages have water drops on them - what those little drops signal to us subconsciously is that the beverage is not just cold but ice-cold, making it more tasty and refreshing. And those little drops kick-start the brains’ craving impulses to have a cool drink !

7. Mommy Guilt is a ploy used to  sell to new mothers. There are so many ways to make her feel inadequate and of course there is an endless array of products - from LeapFrog computers for young children to organic baby food to postnatal exercise videos to baby gates to child proof cabinet locks to ointments to safety bath-time thermometers to pre-school educational toys and baby video monitors to alleviate all that guilt !

8. The book claims that Apple’s iPhone has become the most effective tool in human history to mollify a fussy toddler - because an Apple store is made to resemble an international day care.

9. That marketers are trying to reach younger and younger children .. is nothing new ."Pester Power" [ refers to children's ability to nag their parents into purchasing items they may not otherwise buy ] is nothing to be sneezed at - it is a very powerful marketing technique !

So marketers want to catch the kids while in the womb itself ! :)

A shopping chain sprayed J&J baby powder in the baby clothing area and added soothing music and a smell of cherries... pregnant women were exposed to this calm atmosphere while browsing. The end result ? After birth when the mothers entered the mall ....  if their kids were fractious they became noticeably quieter ..!!

10. Games are designed to be addictive and hard to quit - by literally re-wiring the brain's reward system circuit... and turn people / children who use them into brand ambassadors for a brand or product.
The more points you win, the more levels unlock, keeping you in the never-ending pursuit of higher and higher highs and bigger and better rewards.

Think -   Farmville, Mortal Kombat, Mafia Wars, Playstation , Xbox.

Also - Food companies sell junk food using multimedia games, online quizzes, and cell phone apps.

11. One of the earliest ads I remember watching and being fascinated with is the Alka-Seltzer ad where 2 tablets are dropped into crystal clear water in a glass. And what that did - although in reality only one tablet is required , most consumers drop two tablets !!
And guess where this kind of marketing is used - Chocolate. Cheese puffs. Cookies. Chips !

"No one can eat just one !" - Does that ring a bell ?

Of course it was disturbing to read that many of these foods also contain habit-forming substances like MSG, caffeine, corn syrup, and sugar.

12. The author compares royalty to a long term high end brand - "Every single royal family in the world knows that the best—and quickest — way to boost its popularity ratings is  to host a royal wedding. [Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton :)) ] A close second? The arrival of a royal baby !"

Now this was something I did not know before !! :)

13. Digital footprints - This covers a whole gamut of details that help marketers target the exact loan one is looking for , the kind of products one wants to buy , the general profile of a person and his/her shopping habits - This is nothing new - we know .. every "like" we click is helping form a demographic profile of ourselves that help companies target us with perfectly tailored ads.

In fact just send a mail with a specific topic in gmail and see the "More About" - links .. they will reflect your message content ! Write about baking and links for the same will appear ... write about prep schools and
see how the links change !!!!

14. In what could well be the future of marketing - peer recommendation is where we take the word of our friends in trying out brands. A Hollywood movie The Joneses is about a fake family of stealth marketers who move into an upper-middle-class community and begin to market brands to their neighbors covertly and successfully.

The author did a real life experiment mimicking this concept and the results are very compelling ... !!

All in all a very good read ....... !!!

Take me where the sun is shining ......

He was the second child in a lower middle class family. Nothing very special... just one of the millions who did not live hand-to-mouth but luxury did not come by easily either. Every penny was definitely stretched as far as it could go. There were celebrations when he was born .. a boy.. after his sister.

He was destined for great things ; so he was told... he was very good at his studies , got into some mischief just as boys tend to do and in general was happy with life.

Everything changed when his Dad died. Not that his Dad had played fast and loose with money .. but some of the investments had sunk when the stock market crashed with the scams ... so he had had no choice but to work.

He had to give up his studies. His dreams of graduation and post graduation in a prestigious college were replaced by getting educated via correspondence. He was now a manager in a small manufacturing unit.

He had taken up the education of his sister and ensured she was married into a good family. She was now settled in US with her husband and one daughter. He was happy for them.

He himself was married with one son. Today morning his sister had come for a visit with her daughter armed with loads of gifts for the family. Then the inevitable comparisons began. He was monetarily in the same place his father had been while his sister was definitely in a better financial position with her double income household.

He tried to understand why they believed he made wrong decisions.

- He had not changed cities to follow a job that would have meant he could have had a better education along with work experience since his mother had balked at change in the cities
- He had laid aside money for his sister's education in good schools / colleges
- He had paid a lot of dowry to get his sister married into a good family
- He himself did not command a good dowry since he was not in very good job. Besides he did not ask for dowry. Was that wrong ?
- He did not expect his sister to share in taking care of his mother's hospital bills ...
... and so on ...

It seemed like his life had been shaped by the expectation that as the man of the family he would shoulder the
responsibilities.

Should he have moved from his hometown regardless of his mother's feelings ? Should he have made his sister sit at home while he finished his education with borrowed money perhaps ? Should he have gotten his sister married into a poorer family and saved money instead ? Should he have insisted on whatever dowry he could have commanded ?

He had never expected gratitude; he did not feel bitter or resentful but he had not expected his contribution to be summarily dismissed. Perhaps that was not the intention but that was the message he got. He realized he had made the mistake of not tempering his duties with his aspirations.

In the end perhaps .. monetary success was more valued than anything else but more importantly ; he had failed himself too. He forgot to add his needs to his list.

May be still there was time ... to change his path. To get out of his self-imposed straight-jacket. May be then he would not feel like a signboard on the path to success ! Perhaps ............... but as he stared pensively at nothing ; he decided he would teach his son to take care of his responsibilities but would add that he should take care of his dreams too ...

That following his heart was not an indulgence but something he owed himself.

Life's like that ... only ............. [2]

Teenager + Reading/Read "Linda Goodman's Sun signs" = Crazed Insane Giddy Teen :)

A phase of life I always associate with having a very sharp tongue and not minding using it ! :) Ok I will admit it - I don't have many friends from that time and I don't even wonder why !

So .. in this maniacal phase of gobbling up everything about Sun Signs , each and every one of its tenets..... any additional information was eaten up with nothing short of rabid fervor !

My friend [ who is a Scorpio herself ] came to class one day and told me of this new book she had read on Sun Signs and proceeded to give me all the fresh fodder about Scorpio gals. I hung on every word.

She then quote verbatim from the book - "Scorpio women can be first rate bi***** ".
"What???!!!!" I spluttered .... completely taken aback .... then ..... after a moment or two I shrugged and said "Oh what the heck .... it is true I guess ". My friend said she had had exactly the same response ... And since this line had come at the end of the page ... she turned the page over and read ....

"........... and they don't mind being called so !! " :)

Just another statistic

It started with minor things .... a small mistake while cooking his favorite food , a crease in his otherwise neatly ironed shirt , a missed call from a wrong number viewed with suspicion , a slightly messed up dining table , the house not neat when he returned home , a dissatisfaction with her dress , a loathing of her shyness in social situations .... It seemed like nothing she did pleased him anymore and the more she tried the worse it got until the displeasure was displayed in physical terms and she became what she never thought she would be - a dreaded statistic - just another abused wife.

She did not go out of the house for days , the bruises were too visible. She did not know where to turn or to whom. She felt too ashamed. She had read about such things and knew that she had nothing to be ashamed of - yet a part of her felt she had asked for such treatment with her behavior. That she was not good enough to be loved. That she could not do anything right. She felt herself lacking in every department. She was a failure. The thought of telling anyone about her situation made her cringe. The thought of being pitied seemed more painful to her than her wounds. She knew .... a part of her was responsible for the way things had degenerated and living with that self-disgust made her recoil from herself.

In her more rational moments she realized that she could not be as useless as she was being told. That her worth was not directly proportional to her ability to cook or clean or talk or be glamorous. But none of that seemed to matter when she felt the cutting edge of the biting sarcasm that shredded her confidence to tatters. Or when  she faced that rage with nothing but her arms over her face ...... hoping it would just end and she would never feel any pain ever again.

She could not pin point when things had started to change - within her as well as within him. Was it when she quit her work due to the move across cities ? Was it when the years did not bring an addition to the family ? Was it when the business started to keep him more and more away from home ? She suspected perhaps it was more than business. But the beginning did not count. Once he had been her friend ... now .. she just hoped he was in a good mood when he came home and would not bother her.

As she stood at the window looking out into the sky ..... thinking of escape - she tried to understand why she was unable to muster enough courage to walk out. Why did she believe that his remorse after every episode was real and that he would not do it again ? Why asking for help from anyone seemed to hold more trauma than everything that had happened so far. With a humorless laugh - she thought of the story of the frog being slowly boiled alive. It seemed more true to her than anything else.

Why did she behave like that bird whose wings had been clipped for so long... it had not only forgotten how to fly ; it did not want to fly. The exhilaration of rushing wings had been replaced by a trepidation of the unknown dangers lurking in the air.

She wondered ...... when had hope for a better life become more terrifying than a fear for her life itself ?

Life's like that ... only ............. [1]

There I was sitting and watching the falling snow flakes from the sky through my window ..... thinking this could have been very romantic but for a couple of things - If my hubby were in the same continent as I and if I were not stuck in a Greyhound bus with 3 blown tires smack between Indianapolis and Chicago with no means of informing my friends. ( Various reasons for the incommunicado state ).

The guy in the next seat decided to become loquacious and started to tell me about himself.

He told me how he met his girlfriend and the wonderful person she was. Well .. I thought .. someone was having their romance. :) He went on to expound on her virtues for the next few minutes. And then mentioned that although he was against it when she got with a child ; he was now thankful that she had gone ahead and had had the child. His son was a joy to him and he loved him a lot.

It also made him see how difficult it was for his girlfriend to be single parent. He realized it was time he took up his responsibilities. He described in great detail his understanding of what he now needed to do with his life. That he needed to be with his son. He had to be a good father. He needed to make a stable home for the family.

So towards this he had proposed and was en route to his wedding 4 days later.  Wonderful I thought ..
And then asked ... how old is your son ? 5 years came the prompt reply.
????!!!!!!  ...... better late than never ??? :)

Princess ... to ?

She was the princess of the house. Just a few months old and already everybody doted on her ... everything she did was commented on and exclaimed upon in wonder ....

She grew up a bit ... and then the expectations started "You are a girl .. don't run about so much", "Tell her not to shout so much", "She should sit properly", "Don't let her go in the sun .. she will become dark and then who will marry her ? "

The child was puzzled but being a sweet girl by nature did not rebel ..

She grew up some more ... and then her choice of clothes were scrutinized by every member of the family as well the extended family .... and so it went on .. by the time she reached her late teens it seemed like nothing she did pleased anyone !! What a contrast to how it was when she was born ...

Her freedom was curtailed ... she could not go out easily .... for safety reasons ... In time she compromised on her choice of education as well on working ... since they had found a very good groom for her .. and it was a fantastic match ... !! She had to learn cooking so she could keep her future in-laws and husband happy ...

Eventually she had a daughter ... and .. she tried to make every choice for her baby consciously so her baby would not feel burdened by the myriad expectations on her tiny shoulders .. but she wondered why had not the situation changed so much .. that she was still concerned about ... the same things her mother used to be concerned about ...

• She was perturbed about her child's safety when going out
• A good marriage was still considered more valuable for her girl child than a good job/career
• Her child was the censure of so many eyes 
• Her baby's complexion was a source of more anxiety than her activities in school

And so on ....

To add to her melancholy she learnt that her mother had been told the the same thing she heard ..... "Be thankful your in-laws are happy .. even though it is a girl !! "

She thought pensively ....How had the society/country moved forward if she was still worrying about the same things ... her mother had worried about for her ? Where was the lack ? In her ? In her upbringing ? In her inability to change the expectations of her family ?

She wondered - Shouldn't progress be measured in more than just economical terms ?

How do you .....

How do you cope when the person you know .. is no longer the person you know ?

How do you reconcile to this person recognizing you in snatches ? Time has no meaning in that world ....

How do you hide a fear of ... something that you don't want and yet ... wonder if that is best outcome that can happen .. but not for you ...

How do you make decisions that hinge on making a person live like a vegetable ?

How do you look at hands that cared for you ... now tugging desperately at the IV line ?

How do you look into eyes that gazed so lovingly at you .. now vacant or looking inquiringly at you ... as if you are a stranger ?

How do you understand a creeping loss ?

How do you say a slow good bye ?

How do you .......

To Remember Me ....

The best appeal for organ donation in my opinion ... I know I would like to end this way ....

To Remember Me - Robert N. Test

The day will come when my body will lie upon a white sheet neatly tucked under four corners of a mattress located in a hospital; busily occupied with the living and the dying. 

At a certain moment a doctor will determine that my brain has ceased to function and that, for all intents and purposes, my life has stopped. 

When that happens, do not attempt to instill artificial life into my body by the use of a machine. 

And don't call this my deathbed. 

Let it be called the bed of life, and let my body be taken from it to help others lead fuller lives. 

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise, a baby's face or love in the eyes of a woman. 

Give my heart to a person whose own heart has caused nothing but endless days of pain. 

Give my blood to the teenager who was pulled from the wreckage of his car, so that he might live to see his grandchildren play. 

Give my kidneys to the one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week. 

Take my bones, every muscle, every fiber and nerve in my body and find a way to make a crippled child walk. 

Explore every corner of my brain. 

Take my cells, if necessary, and let them grow so that, someday a speechless boy will shout at the crack of a bat and a deaf girl will hear the sound of rain against her window. 

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow. 

If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weakness and all prejudice against my fellow man. 

Give my sins to the devil. 

Give my soul to God.

If, by chance, you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you. If you do all I have asked, I will live forever. 

6 things that occur to me ..... tongue-in-cheek

1. Buddha did not honor his family commitments.

2. Aim big - you will never pay for any misdemeanors. [ Bofors, CWG, IPL scams ].  Anything less and you are in trouble.

3. Even the so-called-bravest-of-men find it difficult to stand up for a woman and have feet of clay. Case in point - Bhishma who was very much present in the court that allowed Draupadi to be almost molested.

4. Krishna loved Radha but married Rukmini anywayz [ and others too ] ! :)

5. Gandhi was so rigid in his ideals that he allowed his wife to die instead of allowing modern medicine to help her.

6. An entrepreneur in India is a life-giving being to thousands of leeches who neither work nor earn on their own but come to get "their due" !


And don't get me started on Ram - the so-called-ideal man !!!!

Song of freedom

She showed me glimpses of freedom , on many winter days beneath dreary skies ...

I was naive, idealistic and green and I wanted her to teach me how to fly ....

Summer days beneath a wide azure sky, the mountains standing at a distance ....

Springtime fields, yellow sunflowers;  a vista that caught the eye ....

Rustic splendor, idyllic haze and a bird's cry ...

Clouds of dust from passing cars ... they passed me by ...

The road beyond the distant blue horizon ... gave me longings I couldn't seem to elude...

Yet everything I ever knew of freedom ... was the love in a gaze I never knew I would lose ...

Which Alma Mater .....

Tis the admission season for 1st std and Junior KG here and the frequent topic of discussion among parents obviously revolves around schools - merits / demerits , admission process , entrance tests [ call it is what you will - assessment, admission test , writing picnic ... :) ] ..

There is the usual name dropping and mentioning of the influence one has in varied schools and the other end of the spectrum with parents forging birth certificates and hauling moolah to get their wards into the school of their choice. And then gloating over the poor souls who have had to go the regular route to get admissions ! Not nice at all !!

All parents have their reasons for seeking schools they like .. but some reasons puzzle me ... Among them the top two I am going to elaborate on.

1. Choosing a school because it is a good school.

Ok ... I have not gone crazy here .... no one wants to choose a bad school for their child and there is nothing overtly wrong in choosing a school because it is good. I would however go one step further and evaluate if the school would be good for the child.

There are many good schools each having their own educational philosophy - some that follow old methodologies of teaching , some that look at newer ways of teaching. Some well established and not in danger of being shut down in a couple of years and some that have an attrition rate of teachers that would give a BPO company a run for their money !!

A school has such an impact on the child's development that one would think that knowing the child's personality and trying to reasonably match it with the school's ideologies would figure somewhere on the list !!!

I am not getting into the other reasons for wanting to get into a particular school - the peer/alumni network, the social pressure , the academic/sports expectations of the parents , the family traditionally going to the same school , age related issues ( too young / too old ), coming in the middle of the year and not having many choices, religious inclinations ... etc ...

2. Choosing a school / board because the parent can handle the syllabus/language.

This almost always stumps me !! Isn't this a disservice to the child ? Shouldn't the child's needs/requirements come first ? And when I look at the curve of learning the past 2 decades ... it seems so apparent that a parent will never be able to handle the syllabus !!! :)

I mean how many of us learnt how to use the internet because our parents taught us ? :))

How many kids tell their parents what latest technology toys/games/mobiles/cameras to buy ? More than one would like to acknowledge !

Children are almost always ahead when it comes to learning something new. Parents - unless they are the uber learning/coping type cannot always hope to keep on top of the curve ... And nobody even knows what tomorrow's wave is going to be !!!

And then languages ... the CBSE board is considering making Mandarin a part of the syllabus. French , German , Spanish already figure in the foreign languages section .. how many parents learn these ? [ Mind you there are parents who do learn and teach their children !! Kudos to them ! :) ].

For that matter how many parents have children who have learnt Sanskrit whereas the parent has not learnt it ? :)

To me it seems self-evident that parents over-estimate their ability to teach ! Or may be I am under-estimating the desire and drive to teach ... But then this is just me .... perhaps marching to the beat of a slightly different ( weird? ) drum on this issue ... :)
 
But to equip a child for the future I would think the most important thing a school can teach a child would be the ability to learn, unlearn and relearn. [ To quote from Alvin Toffler - "The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn." ]
 
And ofcourse use the knowledge. To use another quote which I recently heard and loved [ Its raining quotes here ! :) ]
 
It is not the deficiency of knowledge that matters; it is the efficiency of its usage !