Critically Yours

As researchers, and more so as human beings, each one of us has a tendency to be critical about many things we perceive around us. It is a vital skill to possess. Without the ability to critically 'read' the content shared by the outside world, mankind would not have been able to develop and evolve culturally.

What does it mean to be critical? Is it only about finding faults and bashing the creator of any content? No. Being critical means being wakeful while reading (or watching, hearing) any content. One should not blindly accept any content at face-value without analyzing and convincing oneself about its credibility. Being critical also means being mindful and conscious of our own thoughts - the content being created inside our own mind.

When we look at any content in the form of a text, a film, an ad, a speech or any form of communication or behavior, our mind starts the critiquing process. However, most of us use our personal biases and jump to conclusions. One needs to take into consideration all the authors of the content that is being critiqued - who created the content, shared the content, distorted the content, interpreted the content.

The interpreter (the viewer) is as much the co-author of the content as the creator because the viewer tends to project his self image on the content and create personal meaning. The 'culture' or the history of the larger social group that the viewer and the creator are a part of also plays a role in the creation of meaning because it shapes shared reference points of interpretation.

Although each one of us have our own idiosyncratic method of critiquing the content we consume, I would like to give a glimpse of the typology of Literary Critics from the domain of Consumer Culture Theory propounded by Barbara Stern (1989):

1. New Critics – focus on ‘what is said’ than ‘what it means’
2. Archetypal Critics – organize textual elements into packages of collective psychological, cultural thought patterns (archetypes)
3. Psychoanalytical Critics – analyze the psychological relationship between the reader and the text – how the reader creates personal meaning
4. Structural Critics – uncover multiple possible meanings of a text from a semiotic perspective
5. Deconstructionist Critics – understand meanings from binary opposites – defining based on what something is not.
6. Socio-cultural critics – explore foundations of ideologies like classism, racism, sexism, etc. that shape literature.

The above modes of literary criticism provide huge scope for analyzing the content from multiple vantage points. An uninformed critic may use any personalized technique that is skewed towards only one of the above techniques. Not only researchers, but the awareness of these methods would help people from all walks of life to become mindful critics.

Reference:

Stern, Barbara B. (1989), “Literary Criticism and Consumer Research: Overview and Illustrative Analysis,” Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (December), 322–34.

Culture and Consumer Behaviour

Culture is the mental programming of people in a particular context. It consists of implicitly shared meanings among a group of people. McCracken (1986) defines two elements of culture as (a) Cultural categories: which are fundamental axes or lenses of meaning through which the individual divides and views the world. These categories can include distinctions of race, class, gender, etc; and (b) Cultural principles: which are the values and ideas that form the basis of the above categorization. 

Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders (1990) developed a model to classify the levels of manifestation of culture. Figure 1 depicts the model.

Figure 1. Manifestation of Culture

Symbols are explicit words, gestures, pictures, objects that carry a specific meaning within a culture. Heroes are real or fictitious characters who personify prized characteristics in the culture. Rituals are activities conducted periodically which are socially essential within a culture. All these elements are explicit and can be observed in cultural practices. The deepest level of culture lies in values. Value can be defined as the answer to the question, “What is it that you want to live for? How do you want to live?” Hence, values are the end goals and preferred mode of action that people want to pursue.

McCracken (1986) also elucidates that cultural meanings are located in and transfer between three places namely, the culturally constituted world, the consumer good, and the individual consumer. Hence, in order to build cultural resonance, brands need to decode culture from the target society and encode culture in their brands through their products and advertisements.

Surf Excel: Redefining Cultural Principles

Cultural principles define cultural categories into valences and hierarchies. They decide what is good and what is bad. The detergent category conventionally follows the principle of ‘dirt is bad’, with all brands positioned on cleanliness and whiteness. Surf Excel redefined this cultural principle in order to break the clutter in the market and positioned itself on ‘dirt is good’.

Figure2. Surf Excel - Shifting Cultural Category by changing Cultural Principles

In Asia, dirt is culturally associated with negative aspects of poverty, poor hygiene, hardship, disease and sometimes death. In a case study written by Unilever and their advertising agency, Lowe (Gosling & Jathanna, 2012), they explain that they reversed the logic of making dirt ‘good’ from bad among moms by showing them the life values kids learn through dirt. Asian mothers cherish life values of  'forgiveness', 'sacrifice', 'gratitude', 'courage', 'determination' and want their child to inculcate these traditional values. Surf Excel, through its advertisements, showcased that, through dirt, a child can learn these values and have high gains. This helped Surf Excel become a symbol for freedom (Sachitanand, 2012). This campaign helped the brand's sales in Asia grow tenfold and become the No.1 brand in most Asian countries, with market share reaching as high as 70% (Gosling & Jathanna, 2012).

Fair & Lovely: Tapping the Values of Fairness

Fair & Lovely is the largest selling skin whitening cream in the world. It was launched by Unilever first in the Indian market. It held a leadership market share of 50-70% of the skin whitening market in India in 2006, with its close rivals Fairever and FairGlow only having a combined share of 16% (Karnani, 2007). Fair & Lovely was able to build resonance with Indian consumers because it decoded the culture of fairness at a deeper level of values and encoded the same in its brand communication.

Based on the cultural analysis done by Verma (2011), we can plot the manifestation of the Culture of Fairness of Hofstede’s model as follows:

Symbols	·         Hindi idioms 2 (‘kali kartutein’, ‘kala akshar..’ ‘Buri nazar wale..’ ‘kaali kaluti baigan looti’ ·         Moon related songs (lullaby and film songs) ‘chand see mehbooba ho..’ ·         Fairness eulogizing popular songs and folk songs
Heroes	·         Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Fair protagonist in movies
Rituals	·         Home treatments to protect fairness ·         Religious customs of worshipping ‘full moon’ (poornima, poonam) vs. amavasya, ·         Search for bride and bridegroom (matrimonial ads) Eg: "I am a 36-year-old man looking for an ideal Indian wife. She must be beautiful, fair skinned, well-mannered and respectful of my aging parents."
Values	·         Feminine beauty, perfection, racial superiority, confident, attractive ·         Better marital and job prospects, status

Fair & Lovely tapped into the deep values associated with fair skin and showcased the same in their advertisements. They initially positioned the fairness cream as an instrument to reach the end goal of better marital prospects. As the society changed towards increasing career consciousness among women, they moved to the end value of better job prospects and focused on the role of the product in helping the women realize their dream of becoming independent.

Clottaire Rapaille – Unlocking the Culture Code for Product Design

The deepest manifestation of culture lies in values. However, consumers may not be consciously aware of their own value systems that drive their behaviour and decisions. Most of the deepest held values are at sub-conscious level. Clottaire Rapaille is a psychologist who delves into the sub-conscious mind of consumers to uncover culture codes associated with product categories. In his book “The Culture Code” (Rapaille, 2006), he explains that the culture code can be decoded by analysing childhood imprints.

He presents an example of Wrangler Jeep, a player in the American SUV market. Jeep Wrangler was initially a big player, but later lost ground because of many new entrants in the SUV segment offering higher comfort and luxury. Chrysler, the manufacturer, was contemplating to redesign the Wrangler Jeep to make it more comfortable and luxurious. However, Rapaille’s research probed on the childhood imprints of “Jeep” among American consumers and found stories about free riding in open planes and symbols of the American West. He concluded that the Code for Jeep in America is HORSE. He recommended to design the product to symbolize a horse. A horse is not associated with comfort or luxury. It is associated with toughness and ruggedness. Hence, Jeep was designed with removal doors and an open top – to give the feeling of wind while riding, similar to riding a horse. They included tough leather like a saddle for the seats and made the headlights round in shape because horses have round eyes and not square ones.

The company also used a horse in its advertising and presented the Wrangler as a noble, nomadic hero that arrived serendipitously in perilous situations, resolved them thanklessly, and rode off quietly into the sunset. With the new product design, the sales of Jeep grew substantially along with establishment of Jeep fan clubs in America. These fan clubs also had t-shirts with the slogan “Real Jeeps have round headlights.” Recently, I-Phone cases with the Jeep theme are also being sold (See image). The brand has become a symbol for wildness and ruggedness and has strong resonance among its consumers.

Figure 4. I-phone case with Jeep theme

Figure 5. Recent T-shirt themes on Jeep

References:

Gosling, B., & Jathanna, R. (2012). OMO/Surf Excel/Rinso/Breeze: Dirt is good - The value of dirt. Warc Prize for Asian Strategy.

Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D. D., & Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring Organizational Cultures: A Qualitative and Quantitative Study Across Twenty Cases. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(2), 286. doi:10.2307/2393392

Karnani, A. G. (2007). Doing Well By Doing Good - Case Study: “Fair & Lovely” Whitening Cream (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 958087). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=958087

McCracken, G. (1986). Culture and Consumption: A Theoretical Account of the Structure and Movement of the Cultural Meaning of Consumer Goods. Journal of Consumer Research, 13(1), 71–84.

Rapaille, C. (2006). The culture code : an ingenious way to understand why people around the world buy and live as they do / Clotaire Rapaille. New York : Broadway Books, c2006.

Sachitanand, R. (2012, August 8). How HUL succeeded in breaking through the clutter with “Surf Excel” campaign. The Economic Times.

Verma, H. V. (2011). Skin “Fairness”—Culturally Embedded Meaning and Branding Implications. Global Business Review, 12(2), 193–211. doi:10.1177/097215091101200202

My Best Friend is a Time Machine

Clearing the mystic clouds of nostalgia and cognitive biases that shape consumer preferences. 

“Even though we’ve changed and we’re all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we’ll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we’re not all still friends.”~Anonymous

An old friendship is the most cherished relationship. John Leonard rightly says, “It takes a long time to grow an old friend.” I found my best friend when I was 15 and she is my best friend even today. I have come across a lot of people over the years who could have easily been my friends if I had met them earlier. But there is something special about my ‘old’ friend that none of the ‘new’ ones possess. The best conversations with her are the stories of childhood pranks and the good ol’ dayswhere my friend adorns the role of a time machine that takes me back to the rosy past. What is her secret ingredient? Nostalgia.

Holbrook and Schindler define nostalgia as a “preference (general liking, positive attitude) towards objects (people, places or things) that were more common (popular, widely circulated) when one was younger (in early adulthood, adolescence, childhood, or even before birth)”. Consumers tend to like something that was an integral part of their “early” life not only because of the rational benefits of the object, but more so because of the emotional benefits of the “memories” triggered by it. These nostalgic feelings are strongly associated with an individual’s critical period which usually ranges from the age of 15-30 years. Researchers have conducted numerous empirical studies to prove that age related preference exist for tastes in movie stars, films, music, movies and also for styles of automobiles. Most of us would have noticed our fathers talking with praise for the old movie songs of the 60’s and with slander for the contemporary music. And for millennials, the romance lies with the 90’s.

But why is nostalgia “liked”? What is the value associated with it that makes consumers crave for it?

Nostalgic feelings depend on the age related developmental changes that a person goes through over time. These changes are ‘discontinuities’ that tend to disrupt normalcy in life. Discontinuity can be personal (divorce, friend’s death, immigration); collective (war, economic depression, natural calamity) or transitions in life-stage (adolescence to adulthood, marriage, parenthood). Davis says that nostalgia serves as a shield to preserve one’s identity against life’s discontinuities by connecting one’s past to the present. A person who has faced a higher degree of discontinuity is more prone to nostalgia.

“For me, the past counted far more than the present, Compared to memory, every possession can only ever seem disappointing, banal, inadequate … My anxiety at the present ‘immediately’ turned into the past so that I could love it and dream about it at leisure” ~ Giorgio Bassani

This clearly throws light upon the fact that most people have an affinity towards the city where they spent their childhood because ‘childhood days’ are the rosiest days of the past.

“We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.” ~George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860

In India, the best liking in food is for “grandma’s pickles” that were readily available in childhood. Many bottled pickle manufacturers in India have actually named their product as “Grandma’s pickles” or “Mother’s recipe” to leverage nostalgia.

A rational person would be expected to choose an option that would be best in rational benefits and bestow upon her a materially-gratified present. But if we look at this person as a ‘human’ from the vantage point of behavioural economics we can clearly witness the importance given to the romanticised past. Muehling and Pascal conducted an empirical study on the impact of nostalgic advertising and proved that personal nostalgia generally outperforms non-nostalgic advertising in terms of self-directed thoughts, positive affect, and attitude toward the advertisement. Rindfleish suggests that when a person is prone to nostalgia, she ‘blinds’ herself from the present choices. The sensorial stimuli (taste, sound, smell) that she receives from nostalgic food, music and scent trigger a sense of liberalisation of a higher order and the actual physical attributes of the stimuli do not matter anymore.

Nostalgia is not the only reason why people tend to like something that they had an early encounter with. Based on research done in food preferences by Beauchamp and Bartoshuk, exposure of the unborn child to flavours in the amniotic fluid and mother’s milk may contribute to later preferences to such flavours. The impact of the ‘mere exposure effect’ may lead to a liking, or even overcome a dislike, for an object by mere repeated exposure to it. This can explain a stronger liking for ‘older’ brands because of the higher number of mere exposures to them as compared to the newer brands. Another explanation for food preference can be linked to Pavlovian conditioning which especially applies to food that are high on fats and taste and produce positive hedonic experiences when eaten. Consumers tend to ‘learn’ the cause-effect relation of the hedonic pleasure with the food and develop preferences based on past experience anchoring.

If we look at purchase behaviour of brands, there is a segment of consumers who claim to like their brand but are not truly satisfied with its performance. Jones and Sasser call them ‘hostages’. These are consumers who are ‘stuck’ with the first brand they tried because of high switching costs. Cognitive dissonance does not allow them to admit that they have made a wrong brand decision especially in case of high involvement products where the decision is irrevocable. They need to convince their rational minds to believe that their brand is the ‘best’. Cognitive biases like post purchase rationalisation and selective perception comes into play to justify their decision where they seek out information that confirms their existing beliefs and reject information that disconfirms the same. Another bias that functions is ‘loss aversion’ which is the tendency of people to strongly prefer avoiding losses over acquiring gains. This makes them feel apprehensive about trying something new because they do not want to exit their present ‘comfort zone’ with their first brand because losses hurt more that gains feel good.

The ultimate goal for any consumer is to feel good about herself. It is either through escaping or distorting the present in the mystic pathways of her mind. She needs a friend to make her feel good, not a stranger. After all, what are friends for?

A Consumer is a Temporary State of Being

How do you define a Consumer? Is she a person who buys your products? Who consumes your products?

The person whom we consider to be our consumer, also does one million and one other things throughout the day. She is not our consumer 24/7. If we look at the person from the inside, we can clearly see that this person is not the same person in different contexts. She adorns different avatars when surrounded by different discourses. These avatars, or "Moments of Identity" as Virginia Valentine from Semiotics coins it, are contextual and volatile in nature. They are temporary states of being. Similarly, only when the person is in the context of our brand, and she consciously immerses herself in the context, does she adorn the avatar of our consumer.

So, the lessons brands can learn from this perspective of looking at consumers is to make the brand discourse culturally immersive for the person to transform into a consumer. It is more important for the person to see herself as our consumer instead of we falsely assuming her to be one.

Inspired from 21st Century Consumer by Wendy Gordon & Virginia Valentine

ShweePea - A new brand I cooked up

We had a course on 'Visual Literacy' recently at MICA where we worked on an interesting assignment of creating a new brand for any product or service category. So, we thought of launching a new chain of playschools across the country and name it "ShweePea".

The underlying idea that guides our brand purpose emerges from Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk below:

Each kid has tremendous talent. Kids are not frightened to make mistakes; they are ready to try everything. But the world teaches them to be scared to make mistakes. Creativity, which is the process of having original ideas of some value, comes from seeing things differently and that’s what ShweePea would help kids do.

Based on the Montessori school of thought, we nurture innocent naughtiness in your child and ensure that he doesn’t lose the capacity to think creatively. The brand elements are colorful and safe with smooth rounded edges. We have made all elements including the fonts, shapes and colors reflect innocent naughtiness. :)

Word of Mouth

“Why and What do Brands Do to Inspire Conversation?”

Janelle Zurek, vice president of innovation at P&G’s Tremor, did a nice job of identifying the keys to effective word-of-mouth messaging. She explained that things that disrupt a set of established mental associations, or “schema,” get us thinking. Then, if a disruptive idea is considered relevant and useful, our social survival instincts will prompt us to share it with others. So in order to create messages that will spread by word of mouth, you need to find the thing that will disrupt people’s established beliefs and make them stop and think.

Janelle proposed that it is the things that do not fit an established mental schema that make people engage their conscious minds.

Excerpts from an article by Nigel Hollis (Millward Brown)

Understanding "Niche" Marketing

Niche marketing is servicing a portion of a unique market,
or a unique portion of a common market, not already served.

Here, Unique Market can be in terms of a unique segment (based on demography, geography, psychography) - the product is not meant for the masses at all. But, because the market is considerably huge in size (i.e., total no. of customers), the nicher serves only a portion of this largely sized unique market.
Eg: The "luxury designer wear" market has a unique audience - so it is a unique market. But this market is huge and spreads throughout the world. As a nicher, I can open a small boutique in Ahmedabad and say, "I will design kurtas and designer sarees for Gujju women in Ahmedabad."
Since news channels are generally targeted to the masses, a nicher in this category can offer something unique to cater to specific needs of a smaller segment. Eg: a channel on Fashion news.

For the second part - Unique portion of a common market - an example can be Johnson & Johnson Baby soap that targets the 'baby' segment in the common soap market (which is mass).

For niche - 2 or more companies can offer the same products (eg: boutique) - but the individual customers should not be common between them. Eg: "A Gujju boutique with Bandhni designs" will still remain niche if another boutique "A modern khadi cloth design" opens in the city. But if another "Gujju Bandhini boutique" opens in the neighborhood- they dilute each other's "niche"status - and start competing with each other for "market leadership" again!

As can be seen in the above cartoon from www.CartoonStock.com, The first salesman has carved a niche for himself in the "garments" market as a "tie-seller". But the second salesman has entered the "tie" market as a nicher by catering specifically to the smaller segment within it - those who do not know how to tie a tie! Basically, both of them are niche players. But the customer segment of Salesman 2 would be a subset of the customer segment of Salesman 1.
Both of them are not competitors because one is offering a product and the other is offering a related service.

The basic purpose of 'carving a niche for yourself' is to get rid of competition.

The final point is that the status of being NICHE is not permanent, it is rather relative to the presence or absence of direct competitors.

MY JOURNEY WITH MAGGI 2-MINUTE NOODLES

Mummy! Bhook Lagi!
Bas Do Minute!
Maggi! Maggi! Maggi!

My oldest memories with Maggi dates back to 1994-95, when I was studying in 1st Std.
My sister (who was in 3rd STD) and I would come back home from school at 4pm everyday – throw our bags on the couch and shout “MUMMY! BHOOK LAGI HAI!”
Our Mom knew what we wanted. She would take 2+1 minutes to serve us with Maggi. The extra 1 minute, to add her “mustard tadka” to add flavour. It’s the same tadka that she adds to Dal for dinner.

This scene was shown exactly in the same way in their TV and print ads those days. Instant gratification was the key! My sister and I wanted it. In the ad, the mom would quickly break the noodle cake into two equal halves and put it in the boiling water. When my sister and I used to peep into the kitchen and look at our mom doing the exact same gesture, we would be instantly reminded of the ad, and especially the loud crunch noise that accompanied the breaking of the noodle cake.

We would try to imitate everything in the ad- especially the slurping in of the single strand of noodle by making our lips round. Even though it was a noisy way to eat, we enjoyed it thoroughly! I still remember, we had a set of 2-toothed forks instead of the typical 3-toothed ones shown in the ad. There was only one 3-toothed fork in our house and my sister and I used to fight for it daily because we wanted to eat in the same style as the little girl in the ad.
6 units of the Maggi 4-in-1 pack was a part of my mom’s monthly grocery list. When I asked my mom why she made Maggi for us every day, she would say, “Tum logon ko itni bhook lagti thi, jaldi jaldi ban jaata tha”. Maggi was equally loved by mothers because it was quick to make. And ofcourse, we kids loved it because it was “Mmmmmm… TASTY!!” The tagline was perfect “Fast to Cook. Good to Eat”

My mom is a housewife. She was always at home when we came back from school. Maggi knew this and hence it made ads that touched our lives! The mom in the ads during 80’s and 90’s were housewives wearing sarees. They were just like my mom and I could very well identify with the little kids who would relish the noodles. The extra mustard tadka to the dish made my mom feel assured that she has contributed something to her daughters’ meal. Moms in those days had a need to put in all efforts into cooking, even if they use shortcuts to cook- they did not want to feel guilty about not doing anything special for their kids. This is also shown in Maggi ads where the mom cuts and adds vegetables to the dish.

As I grew older and entered primary school (5th Std), I had already learnt how to cook Maggi noodles. It was the first thing that I learnt to cook! I remember, once the Nestle team had visited our school and had a quiz competition. They were giving away maggi noodle single packs as free goodies. All of us made sure that we went back home and opened that very pack , cook it and eat it on the same day. We thought that the Maggi guys are directly giving it to us, it must be “special” maggi from the ad girl’s kitchen

But when I was in 6th Std, Maggi changed! It had a different texture and taste. I didn’t like the new taste and missed the old one. We started buying packs of other brands and tried to develop a taste for it. But nothing was like the old Maggi. We stopped eating noodles after a few months as we became fed up of other brands as well.

After a few months, I saw ads saying “YOUR FAVOURITE IS BACK”. But I was so horrified by the yucky new taste that I decided not to buy Maggi again. I thought they would have mixed both the tastes and made it more horrible. But luckily, I got to taste it at a friend’s house. I was so overjoyed with the taste that I asked for 1 more helping. That day, I went back home and told my sister, “Our Maggi is really back!” We bought the packs and started restarted our maggi relationship.

When I started college, Maggi had gradually transformed in its message. It was already popular among kids in the household. Now, they wanted to expand to other members of the family- the grandparents, father, and mother. As a teenage girl, I was growing health conscious. And there was a general wave of health consciousness all over the place. Maggi noticed this trend, and changed itself into “Taste Bhi. Health Bhi.” The new Dal-Atta noodles ads showcased Calcium and Protein components. These ads also showed grandfather and father eating the noodles. Maggi had now become a healthy family meal.

The mothers in the ads were looking more modern and were working women. The “Mania” ad did not show the mom as a housewife. The teenage boy comes from the shop with the noodle pack and cooks it himself. I could identify with the teenage boy this time, who was casual but yet independent. He cooked what we wanted, which was also healthy (rice).

Maggi has grown along with me, the ads have grown along with me. They seem to follow my life and show it the exact way on TV! Today, I sit and remember my good ol’ days with Maggi. They have captured that as well. The current campaign of Maggi is about “Remembering your good ol’ days with Maggi”. It has recently launched “MAIN AUR MERI MAGGI” campaign in commensuration of 25 years of Maggi in India.

This new campaign is interactive. Maggi is now cashing in on the memories people have with it. Licking waali Maggi.... Hostel waali Maggi.... Camping waali Maggi... Recently, there has been a slow decline in people’s connection with Maggi. This is because the departmental stores and supermarkets are stacked with 10 different brands of noodles. Maggi wants to remind everybody about the beautiful memories and relationship that everybody shares with the brand. All the new ads are now giving everybody another reason to love the brand.



Maggi will always be an iconic brand. It has now become more of a generic name for a dish – like “panipuri”. There is also an orkut community on “Maggi Lovers”. A brand that is so well-knit in our lives, it becomes impossible to imagine our life without it.

Some of Maggi’s old and new ads can be seen here:
http://www.maggi.in/merimaggitvc.aspx

Visual Thinking - the best way to learn

Visual Thinking is something that has always purveyed strength to my concentration levels. From among the 5 senses, the sense of vision is the most important one for me. Since childhood, I have always been attracted to visual content that textual or audio. Even if one reads through a text, the mind creates various kinds of images with circles and arrows, dynamic transactions between people, objects, shapes, colors, etc... The simple black and white text on paper turns into a beautiful, colorful collage of characters in our mind.

The canvas for this amazing piece of art resides in our right brain. The right brain is known to be the link to experience "Nirvana". It does not confine your consciousness to the "real" world. It creates or enters into a new world that has no boundaries, no definitions. A person who is comfortable using her right brain more often, turns out to be among the creative lot!

But visual thinking generally comes naturally to us. If I tell you that I have a friend called "Bob", you may instantly create a rough image of that person in your mind. Maybe that person has a round or oval head! This can be clearly explained using the famous "Bouba-Kiki" effect.
I have 2 creatures with me. One is named "Bouba" and the other is named "Kiki". I have the pictures of both of them (not necessarily in the same order). Can you tell me which one is Bouba and which one is Kiki?

Generally, a majority of people will name the spiky pointed creature as "Kiki" and the rounded blob-like creature as "Bouba". This is the power of visual thinking that is innate within us.

Visual thinking helps a student to grasp concepts faster and to retain them as well. The Effective Elaboration that takes place within a person's mind after learning is an outcome of visual thinking. If you hear the word "Circle", the image of a circle will come in your mind. The 'database' of our mind is a zillion times larger and faster than any of the fasted computers or search engines in the universe!

A large part of this database lies within our genes. This means that we are born with a lot of images in our mind. That explains the "Psychic Unity of Mankind".