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The Branded and Gilded Life

Connecting the not-so-obvious branding dots

Marketing is a never-ending set of experiments to understand human behavior. It"s still opaque even after billions are spent every year. Predicting human behavior is like the horizon - visible yet hard to reach ideascape.substack.com

business marketing

All Episodes

5:52

Halt. Who goes there?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/02/28

Back in the day, there were only a few places when you had to prove your identity before entry.The internet has made it a daily requirement.You log into your email. Your bank account. Ecommerce sites. Ticket booking sites. Your messenger account. Your social media handles.I'm sure you can think of moreSure, most of us have automated it by saving login credentials.But when you change phones or upgrade laptops, the routine repeats.Remembering the details for one site is easy.As the numbers add up,

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6:19

How would you define software?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/02/21

Statues or art pieces had to be installed. Not software.Why did a formless creation adopt such a 'heavy' term?Most of us have no idea what goes on inside of our computers.Or the operating system, for that matter.Where does the system operate? Software developers are probably shaking their heads.It's just a set of instructions to be executed.Why do they have to be executed?Because they are programmed to execute a defined set of functionsAnd where are these programs?In the computer's memory, in a

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5:38

The stickiness of nicknames

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/02/14

Parents consult astrologers, invoke the gods they believe in and name their child for life.In school, one quirk of behavior, one careless remark and they're stuck with another memorable oneThere was this spindly guy in class blessed with terrific metabolism.He just wouldn't put on weight.But he looked like a stick figure on whom clothes had been draped.Naturally, he was named 'Kaddi', the Kannada word for stick. He hated itHis parents were mortified when they learned of the renaming.No Indian mother

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6:02

Delete without reading

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/02/07

Is that what you do when internal company emails hit your inbox?Or ignore them because they not important to you?A webinar invite. An external speaker session. New client wins. Or the launch of new training skills. They remain unread.You've got work to do.Your senses are tuned to respond to emails from your immediate boss.Or from clients you handle.That's super important. The rest can wait.This is where the insider bias works against you.You shrink your world to fit your role and

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5:41

Your future is a bank account

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/01/31

When you start out with an education or a degree, your largest asset is time. You've got nearly four decades of it.Experience is probably at zero because you're starting off.As you add years on the job, you spend time freely, even recklessly.But it cannot be regained.Experience as an asset has to replace all the time you spend.It should increase in value exponentially, faster than the time you're losing.40 years looks reassuringly long.You'll be surprised at how fast it disappears.Between the

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6:06

WhatsApp is the history of our lives

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/01/24

We may not be aware of it but we're literally creating historyAs we interact with members of our family, friends, and associates, we're building a trail of messages every minuteTime stamped and backed up to servers for years.There's an old saying that history is written by the victors.Not after WhatsApp became the staple diet!With over 400 million Indians on the app interacting everyday, it is the chronicler of our lives.And what do we see?Nothing profound. Good morning messages, sappy love notes

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5:58

The EPIC battle at the App Store

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/01/17

Well, that one blew up quickly. And what was behind the scenes in gaming moved center stage.Apple collects a toll of 30% on all the apps purchased at its store. Obviously developers aren't happy to part with a hefty amount for every sale.But they had no choice. The business is worth $550 billion for Apple. And just like that, the battle lines were drawn.EPIC is the game developer behind Fortnite.And it has a substantial number of players invested in the game - 350 millionWhen EPIC introduced a

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6:25

What links knowledge, wisdom and insight?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/01/10

Original concept by Gaping VoidIt's just dots scattered across space.Until you see the connections.And then, it's impossible to go back to where you were.Information is about making sense from data around us.Knowing what a dish contains is different from being able to make it.Or a scientist explaining what gravity means in relation to our understandingKnowledge is about connecting points logically and making sense.But it takes the convergence of data points to help people understand concepts and

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5:58

Is your website a Porsche? Or a Model T?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2021/01/03

If it shows up fast, people will stop to take a look.If it doesn't, they will leave, never to return.So, how do you increase site speed?Start with a good web hosting service.Yes it's basic. Like people who don't understand how critical it is to control and renew business domain namesA website put up in 2010 or earlier is long past it's expiry date.Worse, it tells potential prospects you're out of touch.Like wearing bell bottoms to a partyIf there's only one thing you do this year, take existing

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6:09

The early social media influencers

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/12/27

Frank was a barista at a coffee shop.And his lady customers kept asking for used coffee grounds.He thought it was for their potted plants but it turned out the secret was a face cream scrub.Apparently the caffeine had a glowing effect on skin texture.Intrigued and enthused, he went on to create an entire product lineSigned up models to demonstrate a new skin care rangeAnd instead of merely gathering followers, he converted them to customersOn a social media platform growing exponentially -

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6:05

The mystery of IKEA's bestselling poster

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/12/20

It is a scenic shot of Amsterdam. A cycle parked across a canal.Even if you spent time staring at it, you won't find anything remarkable.Except that IKEA has sold nearly 500,000 prints of the photoPeople across countries seemed drawn to it.It's displayed on restaurant walls. supermarkets, bars.And in homes - living rooms, bedrooms, lounges…So, what makes this photograph magnetic to such a wide cross section of people?It was not promoted specifically by any of the stores.The display is prominent

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6:09

How can a company making doorbells be worth a billion?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/12/13

The local doorbell you pick up in a store in India offers you a choice of tunes.The good old ding dong, or something fancier if you really want music every time your doorbell rings.So, who would think that putting a camera into a doorbell helps?Here's where it gets interesting.The camera in the video doorbell connects to your wi-fi and you can see who the visitor is on your phone app.No need to walk to the door and open it.In fact, you don’t even have to be in the house when the bell rings. You

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6:08

The remote car that could only turn left

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/12/06

The early remote toy cars in the 1970s were great fun.They were big, with cutting edge radio technology and so expensive, only adults could afford them.Companies manufacturing them thought exactly like we do today.Add more features and you'll get more customers. And keep raising the price.What's not so intuitive is to figure out how to make expensive technology cheap.Until an engineer working at a small company decided to re-engineer the categoryHe called it 'Lateral thinking with withered

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7:07

How did Instagram grow beyond picture sharing?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/11/29

Instagram has been around for a decade.A good time to look back and see why it overtook other picture sharing sites of the timeIt wasn't the pretty interface alone that did the jobThe founders were very clear about the problems they were solving.Back in 2010 mobile cameras took terrible pictures.Filters were a beautiful way to camouflage the poor quality.Uploads had to be optimised - it took as long as two minutes over a slow 3G network.Third - and here's the twist. When users uploaded pictures,

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6:42

The biggest advertiser in the US spent $6.9 billion...

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/11/22

Photo by Christian Wiediger on UnsplashWhy would a globally known brand spend this incredible amount of money?Amazon was the largest single advertiser in the US over the past year.Overtaking the Cokes, the P&Gs and the GE'sThat works out to $19 million a day.There are millions of companies the world over with a lower annual turnover.Most of the spend is automated. Has to be.Even of you wanted to, blowing that kind of money on traditional media is hard to manage.And where would Amazon spend?They have

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6:15

The Game of Salaries

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/11/15

Photo by Tierra Mallorca on UnsplashWinning is everything. Can you double your salary in two years? Fantastic.If you're playing for the short term, match time is now.Then the pyramid narrows. The politics gets intense. Delivering on narrowly defined targets becomes the priority.And stress overtakes satisfaction.If you like that game, by all means, go ahead. It's what you were made for and you won't change your mind.But there is another game.The knowledge and skills game.It won't make you lots of

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5:19

The supermarket is over 100 years old

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/11/08

Photo by Fikri Rasyid on UnsplashIn 1916, a grocer in Memphis in the United States opened the world's first supermarket.And it was called Piggly WigglyIt wasn't Walmart or Tesco or Target.And he opened it for a very clear reason. To drive up his profits.He found that his assistants were spending most of their time serving customers.If he had to increase sales, he would need to employ more assistants.He decided that customers would do all the work.Walk into the store, pick up what they wanted and

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6:05

If an idea is a seed, execution is the tree

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/11/01

Photo by Hasan Almasi on UnsplashHow would you like to write fluently in several languages of the world at the same time?Great idea? A beta version has already been launched.It's called Fluently. The promise?It will translate text from your native language into multiple other languagesIt's the No.1 product of the month on ProductHuntThe site where entrepreneurs get their first experience of the real marketAnd what ideas gain traction.A hotbed of ideas in an early, difficult rollout phase.When it

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5:25

Can your money drive itself?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/10/25

Sounds a little off, right. Who ever thought it would happen?Turns out that it is one of the things that wealth managers are experimenting with.You don't have to make the allocations every month and figure out how much you need to allocate.You simply let the software know what your goals are and over what period of time.And it takes you there. Hopefully.You don't have to spend time over things you don't understand.Equity. Derivatives. Bonds. Passive Investing. ETFs. Hedge Funds. Leverage And so on

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5:46

Can you program Diwali?

The Branded and Gilded Life ·

2020/10/18

Diwali is just weeks away.Remember lighting up those thousand walas and running away before it resounded in your ears?The zameen chakkars that rotated as spinning orbs of fire until they slowed into weak flames on the ground.And the anaars, the cones that spit fire like little exploding volcanoes.Everyone has their favourite Diwali memories because it is an individual pursuit in India unlike countries abroad.The fireworks spectacle is standard fare for major events.But the mood has shifted on the

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