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?

MANJUNATH – Was he an idiot? Or are the rest of us Idiots?

After watching Manjunath – The Movie last night, my mind seems to be stirred with thoughts on what is the real definition of ‘duty’.

Here is the official trailer of the movie to give you the context:

Being a B-School graduate, working in the corporate world, this story is about each and every one of us. This story touches the lives of every young ‘educated’ Indian who has dreams of ‘making it big’ in his/her career.

But the bigger question that emerges in my mind is what is the real definition of ‘making it big’? What is our real ‘duty’?

The movie reaches its inspirational peak when Manjunath sources his courage from the ‘guiding light’ of the Bhagwat Gita. These are some of the shlokhas (Excerpts from Chapter 2, Verse 31-37) that elucidate the consciousness of ‘duty’ in mankind:

sva-dharmam api cāvekṣya

na vikampitum arhasi

dharmyād dhi yuddhāc chreyo 'nyat

kṣatriyasya na vidyate…

…hato vā prāpsyasi svargaḿ

jitvā vā bhokṣyase mahīm

tasmād uttiṣṭha kaunteya

yuddhāya kṛta-niścayaḥ

TRANSLATION: Considering your specific duty as a kṣatriya, you should know that there is no better engagement for you than fighting on religious principles; and so there is no need for hesitation… O son of Kuntī, either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom. Therefore, get up with determination and fight.

These shlokas say that one must never hesitate or fear from doing one’s ‘real duty’. For a middle class young Indian who has ‘slogged’ to get into a premier B-school and worked hard towards landing a high-paying job, what do you think is the ‘real duty’? Before we answer this question, we need to look deeper into the culture that is ingrained in Indians since childhood.

What unites the great Indian middle class is the ‘dream’ – the dream to rise above their ‘mediocre’ lives. Many middle class youngsters in India have grown up seeing some of their ‘richer’ uncles being ‘worshipped’ by their entire family. They have grown up watching extravagant bungalows and lifestyles in Bollywood movies and their definition of an ‘ideal lifestyle’ has been shaped by these factors.

The milestone of success for most Indian youngsters today is to ‘own a house’, interspersed with some touch of luxury in the form of expensive cars and exotic holidays. Although these are physical manifestations of ‘success’, the social benefit of ‘brag value’ designations in ‘brag value’ companies acts as an icing on the cake. This manifestation of ‘success’ is not solely for self-satisfaction. It is for the satisfaction of the Family – because, in India, the Family comes before the Self.

So, now we move back to the question - what do you think is the ‘real duty’ of a young Indian B-school grad?

Is it his duty towards his family’s aspirations of rising above the middle class?

– If yes, then Manjunath was truly an idiot. He failed at his duty of being the ‘ideal son’ to his parents. He gave up his life which wasted a great source of potential monetary and ‘brag’ value to his family.

Is it his duty towards his conscience and personal integrity?

- If yes, then Manjunath was not an idiot. What he did was the right thing to do. We all have one life to live, which is quite short. Can we afford to waste this life in pursuit of just money and compromise on our personal integrity? Or do we choose to just move with the tide and 'hope' that the next generation wakes up?

I would like to quote an interesting classification of mankind shared by my husband. There is a hierarchy of 3 types of people in this world:

1. ·         The lowest level men are those who spend most of their energy in concentrating on the possessions of their neighbours – their desires are always comparative - directed towards beating their neighbor’s possessions.
2. ·         The average level men are those whose desires, although directed towards the self, are confined to material possessions in terms of maintaining/ enhancing their physical body and upgrading to luxury.
3. ·         Then, there are the highest level of men, whose desires are directed towards the self, but beyond material possessions. They seek wisdom, enlightenment and peace. This ‘peace’ can emerge only if our conscience and personal integrity remains satisfied.

Manjunath definitely belonged to the third and the highest level of mankind.

As the shloka says ‘either you will be killed on the battlefield and attain the heavenly planets, or you will conquer and enjoy the earthly kingdom’

This truly depicts where Manjunath is today. He was killed on the battlefield and attained the heavenly state of bliss – the mental state where your conscience is at peace.

So, do you really feel he was an idiot? Or are the rest of us idiots?

Role Playing to make impactful presentations

We, as market researchers, need to create presentations for our clients. But have we ever wondered about what the client feels when she is looking through our slides? It becomes difficult for us to visualize and think from the client's perspective about the same presentation that we have created with our own hands. The reason is that we already know all the rationale behind the information presented in the deck. But does the client share the same level of understanding about "why" you have created each slide and "what" are you trying to say in each slide?

The best way to understand the client's perspective is to play the role of a client and look at the presentation like a client - asking at each slide,

"What is the key takeaway from this slide?"

"So what should I do about this information?"

But be cautious about choosing the presentation that you want to scrutinize as a client. Do not use the presentation created by you because you will be biased towards it and will already know the "hidden" facts. It works very well if you pick up a deck created by someone else on an unrelated topic and look at it like a client. In this process you will realize the common mistakes done by researchers (including yourself) while presenting data and giving recommendations.

It is very fascinating to dig out some old decks created by employees who worked for the same client before you joined the team, and to scrutinize them.

Insight is the Elephant

There is a famous story from Indian folklore about the Elephant and the blind men. We can clearly draw a parallel between the blind men and market researchers who are trying to understand the "insight" which is the elephant. This makes it more important for researchers to look at integrating multiple sources of data to get the "complete" and "real" picture of the consumer.

Here is John Godfrey Saxe's ( 1816-1887) version of the famous Indian legend,

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach'd the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, -"Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he,
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL.

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

I have also made a case for integration on the ESOMAR RW-Connect blog. You can read the blog-post titlted, "Let's Play a Game of Jigsaw Puzzle".

Gross National Happiness :)

We all know that many countries use GDP (Gross Domestic Product) as a measure of the country’s success. But our neighbor, Bhutan uses a more creative and humane measure of the country’s success. It is GNH – Gross National Happiness.

Here is a short 3 minute video explaining this concept:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zqdqa4YNvI

Confessions of a Shopaholic Interviewer

With the little exposure to field-work in my career so far, I have been driven by an urge to explore ways of motivating and engaging respondents to answer our surveys. I can still recall the turmoil I faced while conducting shopper intercept interviews during my summer internship last year. The first hurdle was to convince the respondent to start with the survey.“Why should I take part in a survey?” is a question every single potential respondent is confronted with, as this is the central motivation question. The answer to this question is decisive for the later results.

Many respondents feel “forced” to answer surveys and feel that they are doing a favour to the interviewer by giving her their time. Also, many respondents feel, “If I don’t do it, there are many others out there who would do it. Why don’t you ask the other person to answer your survey?” This phenomenon is called the “Bystander effect”.

With the “B.E.“ people are less likely to provide needed help when they are in groups than when they are alone. Reviews of studies on over 6,000 subjects in a variety of helping situations indicate that subjects who are alone help about 75% of the time, while subjects in the presence of others help about 53% of the time. The bystander effect is believed to occur because of diffusion of responsibility when the responsibility is divided among many, everyone thinks that someone else will help. Hence, it becomes problematic to convince respondents in a crowded shop! Also, some of them say, “Why don’t you ask the other people? My answers may not be good enough for you!”

Even after the first hurdle is crossed, the second hurdle lurks in the corner. The respondents start off the survey well and answer the initial questions with interest. As the survey progresses, they start getting impatient/ bored and ask, “Still how many questions are left? Can we leave now?” Some of them just walk away or dismiss the interview abruptly. Some also say, “Based on whatever I have answered so far, you fill in the rest of the questions yourself.”

We need to get them involved in the “purpose” of the research. They should know why are we asking them these questions – It is for their own benefit so that we can make better products forthem in future. With the knowledge about respondent motivation and ‘hot buttons’, researchers could influence response rates to online surveys.

Monetary incentives have been used extensively to make respondents participate in surveys. But we need to look beyond just extrinsic motivators. If monetary incentives are involved, many times the respondents just answer surveys for money. This leads to “professional respondents” who try to give fabricated answers in order to qualify for the survey so that they can earn the extra bucks!

Ideally, the approach should be of ‘Marketing 3.0’ where the respondent is considered as a consumer who is seeking value through the survey experience instead of an employee who is getting paid for doing a “chore” for the researcher. Like any marketer who motivates consumers to ‘try’ her new product by communicating with the consumer, the researcher should try to ‘market’ the survey to the respondent.

Pete Cape distinguishes different types of motivation based on the different goals that give rise to the desired behavior.  It has been observed that tasks completed with intrinsic motivation are characterized by high levels of engagement resulting in high quality and creativity, and enjoyment on the part of the doer. Hence, it becomes important for a researcher to induce intrinsic motivation in their respondents in order to obtain high quality responses. Motivation depends on the person and different individuals may be motivated by different stimuli. If a person has to transcend from the level of extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation, she has to internalize the focus of causality (“they are making me do this” vs. “I am doing this myself”).

For my thesis, I had asked each one of the respondents of my survey the reason they answered the survey, what motivated them to answer the survey? One factor that emerged in all cases that drives motivation among respondents is “Karma” or reciprocity. People tend to answer surveys to help the sender of the survey.

Martin Nowak talks about two kinds of reciprocity that is applicable to respondent motivation. The first one is called direct reciprocity. This is when individuals have repeated interactions, so if I help you now, you may help me later. This was true in the case of a student peer group that I surveyed as a part of my academic research.

“I feel the guy/girl would really need people to fill it up so I try to help out in my own little way. I guess I might need their help in future. Karma is the answer.”

There is also indirect reciprocity, which takes place in groups. If I help you, somebody else might see our interaction and conclude that I’m a helpful person, and help me later. That’s a reciprocal process relying on reputation. This is one factor that I noticed when I approached couples who were out on a date and the boy would happily answer my survey to impress his girlfriend!

We really need to understand the respondent’s mindset deeply to find the key to unlock all barriers between the respondent and a completed survey! We still have a very long way to go…

The Epitome of Spiritual Strength - Joan of Arc

I consider myself extremely privileged to have received an opportunity to view the most magnificent and heart wrenching classic movies of all times, "The Passion of Joan of Arc".

Although the movie is now available on Youtube for everyone to watch, it is best experienced in "Plato's cave" where you are confined and watch it without any distractions.

This movie gave me goose bumps because I witnessed the highest level of spiritual strength in Joan of Arc. This movie clearly drew a distinction between religion and spirituality. Often people tend to equate both of them. But they are actually completely different from each other. Religion is very hollow and shallow if not understood with a spiritual base. The clergy of the church followed a very hollow religion. Their ego and vanity overpowered their mind. They believed that ‘God’ only showers blessings on people who follow the church. But did they know the true meaning of “God’? It was only Joan who actually understood and was clearly aware of what is the true identity of ‘God’. For her, God is personal. He is not a supreme entity sitting in an ivory tower and dictating rules to the world. God is within her soul, her inner voice. Each person in this world can be connected to their own God personally just like every little child can run into his mother’s lap and cry. There are no rules and regulations governing this acquaintance.



Joan of Arc was in a constant state of spiritual bliss because she was always connected to ‘her God’. The church cannot exercise ownership on ‘her God’. They have ‘their own God’ whom they try to ‘market’ to the world as a product. But if all the people in the world realize that even they have ‘their own God’ within themselves just like Joan of Arc, then nobody would ‘buy’ the ‘church’s God’. This threatened the church and hence they decided to break the spirit of Joan. Her spiritual strength surpassed all barriers, including the attachment to one’s own body! Among all the people in the movie, she was the only person who had a peaceful soul, even though her body was in chaotic pain. Everyone else around her had peaceful bodies that carried souls in chaotic pain.

A "little" wish for India at the ICC

This is a little wish of every Indian as we see the launch of ICC Cricket World Cup this year.

Click the image to enlarge

This is a print ad created by me for an advertising competition organized by SAMAR - The Sports Fest at MICA. You can join their FaceBook page here and check out other entries.
If you liked this ad, you can "like" it on FaceBook here after the joining the page and help me win this competition :)

A Walk Through the Greeky MICA Campus

The on grounds creatives for Sankalp 2010.
It was the best creative learning experience for me this year.


The campus looked heavenly when the sun went down. The photos below speak more than words on the work that our team put up.

Lamp shades were created using white chart papers with blue paint dabbed on them and greek alphabets drawn randomly. The yellow lamps were covered in red gelatin papers to get a red light. After that, blue chart paper made the final light look violet! :)
The hostel floor was full of greek alphabets, with me sitting with "colored fingers" :)


They look fiery in the day-light too!

Special thanks to the best team-mate ever - Taniya Dhirasaria! :)

My experience at ESOMAR Asia Pacific Conference 2010, Malaysia

I was selected by ESOMAR to attend the Asia Pacific Conference this April in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia through their Developing Talent Initiative. It was a life-changing experience for me and it gave me a whole new perspective towards market research and global relationships.

What is ESOMAR?

ESOMAR is the world organization for enabling better research into markets, consumers and societies. It is a prestigious community with more than 4,600 members in over 100 countries. ESOMAR’s aim is to promote the value of market and opinion research in illuminating real issues and bringing about effective decision-making. To facilitate this ongoing dialogue, ESOMAR creates and manages a comprehensive programme of industry-specific and thematic conferences, publications and communications.

What is DEVELOPING TALENT INITIATIVE – Future Talent Meets the Industry?

ESOMAR has developed a programme aimed at encouraging the brightest students to enter the industry and to start a dialogue between University and Business school professors. This highly successful initiative has extended many invitations to students around the world including MICA. They want to show the students that the business dynamics require a market research profile which is not only rigorous and based on knowledge of methodologies and statistics but also needs skills that prepare new comers in this industry to handle the complexities of everyday business. ESOMAR events are also a great opportunity to learn and to allow students to get in touch with industry experts and their companies worldwide.

The APAC Conference

Asia Pacific 2010
Eyes on Asia
Kuala Lumpur / 25 - 27 April

Theme of the Conference

There is a widespread sense that we have talked for 20 years about Asia as representing the future. Now the global economy has positioned Asia as a driving force of the world economic recovery. Asia is no longer the next thing but the thing. In this context, business must find the way to invest in innovation and capabilities. How can market research help business exploit the opportunities that the economic situation is bringing to the region? How can local Asian market research companies leverage global opportunities to expand and grow their business? And what are clients looking for? How can local and international companies best utilise existing skills and maximize resources?

The answers to these critical questions will be the engine that drives the Asian research industry to react and adapt quickly to the new context.

Students selected to attend the conference

ESOMAR had selected 4 students from across Asia to represent their country’s young talent at the conference. The following students were selected from Asia-Pacific, including me:

- Benjamin Jozef F. de Leon University of Asia and the Pacific, Philippines

- Tanvi Gupta MUDRA Institute of Communications, India

- Mark Wong Kah Yuang Singapore Management University, Singapore

- Wenqi Zhu Communication University of China, China

The ESOMAR APAC Team

The conference was held at the JWT Mariott Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In the conference, the four of us were given an opportunity to work as a part of the organizing team of ESOMAR and to interact and network with all the participants from across the globe. We attended all the presentations followed by the networking drinks and dinner. We got an excellent opportunity to work on the back-hand operations of an international conference along with overseas colleagues in the same team. In the above photo, the two senior members on the left are the Presidents of ESOMAR - Gunilla Broadbent and Finn Raben.

There was a plethora of innovative ideas and thoughts spreading across the sessions as the presenters from across the globe presented their research papers. The papers were from all across Asia including India, China, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and also other countries like UK, Germany and USA. Most of the papers focused on the Indian and Chinese context but yet had a universal applicability. Some of the papers that I found very interesting are described below.

Synergistic co-creation: A blend of art and science. This paper was presented by Deepa Soman and Prakash Dadlani from Godrej, India. They spoke about how “synergistic partnering” between client, agency and consumer can create wonders in the market. They spoke about the process of ideation, design and implementation of innovation in developing remarkable products by using innovative research.

Shoppers of Asia was a paper written by Korakoj Nirutnapaphan from Bangkok. It was also co-authored by MICA alumni, Himanshu Vashishtha and Aruni Ghosh. It was a very interesting comparative study of the differences and similarities across markets in different asian countries, with a focus on shopper’s store selection behavior.

Relevant pieces to the Chinese media puzzle was presented by Don E. Schultz and Martin P. Block. It gave a revealing comparison between consumers’ media consumption in China vs. the USA.

Will Twitter change the way that market researchers communicate? Was presented by Ray Poynter from UK. This was one of the best presentations I have ever attended in my life. It was an interactive session where Poynter projected a live Twitter screen and live comments from the conference attendees were showing up every minute. The hashtag #ESOMAR was being used to tweet the proceedings of the conference. Live feedback to the ongoing seminar was appearing on the screen simultaneously as the speaker was presenting. This would allow the speaker to adapt to the audience needs real-time. It was only after this experience, that I was inspired to use twitter productively. And till now, I have been using twitter to stay in touch with all MR professionals from across the globe!

Measuring emotions: Is China different? Was presented by Raimund Wildner and Laena Liu. They had created a tool that researchers can use to measure emotions quantitatively. Also, this tool had to be tweaked to be applicable to China because the tool used cultural elements as the base of measurement.

Billion dollar baby: Leveraging mobile technology for research applications in India was presented by proud MICA alumni Madhumita Chakraborty and Sandeep Arora. They spoke about how the mobile penetration in India can be tapped by marketers and researchers as a tool for data collection. This paper was selected as one of the best papers presented at the conference and was nominated for the global award for excellence. It was a very proud moment for all of us because the two best papers selected at the conference were both authored by MICAns!

Listening to the sounds of silence was presented by Shobha Prasad from Drishti, India. This was a very out-of-the-box presentation and was very much appreciated by all. She said that in qualitative research, most of our analysis is based on what respondents “say”. However, she explained that more often there is a lot of valuable information in the “silences” of consumers, what they leave unsaid. Silence may play a role to convey opinions and feelings. This gave me a fresh new perspective towards qualitative research.

There was also a great line of panel discussions spanning across different topic areas. One interesting topic that was covered was about how can research be done on “hard to reach” respondents especially when the universe size is very small and obscure. This panel discussion was moderated by Pravin Shekhar from Krea, who is also the ESOMAR India Representative.

I also got an opportunity to meet some key people from the world of marketing and research. I got an opportunity to interact one-on-one with the one and only Don Schultz – The Father of Integrated Marketing Communications! I have been reading books written by him and we have been learning the definition of Advertising and IMC as defined by Don Schultz. It was an immense pleasure and a dream come true to come face to face with such a personality. He is a very warm person and very supportive to young students who want to achieve something big in life. He gave me some recommendations about further studies and career paths when we all sat together and had lunch at the same table.

Me with Don Schultz- The father of IMC

I also got an opportunity to interact with the chairman of TNS worldwide, Mr. John Smurthwaite. He was very keen on playing a role in helping students kick-start their career and to help them develop a good future in the market research industry. I received a very warm welcome into the MR industry by the senior members and it further boosted my enthusiasm and respect towards the MR industry.

What I have gained from this experience

This was my first trip outside the country, and I went all alone. It was a very liberating experience for me as I got to experience a whole new world all by myself. There was a certain level of fear at the back of my mind about going to an unknown country all by myself, but the entire experience has made me a much stronger and bolder person. This was the first time I got to interact with many people from different ethnicities and nationalities and it instilled a greater confidence in me to understand the global culture much better. It made me realize that no matter what country we are from, all humans share the same feeling of passion towards innovative ideas and self development. We all worked together as one team, as one fraternity. Personally, it was very beneficial for my future career growth as well since I got to network and build connections with the who’s who of the MR industry.

I must say that we were literally “pampered” by all the senior members of the research fraternity because we were the only four young “talents” at the conference. The entire MR fraternity is very supportive and welcoming. I can’t wait to complete my studies and be a part of the MR industry.

My profile, my views towards the furure of Market Research and my future career plans can be viewed at ESOMAR's website in Future Talent Meets the Industry section here.

Kabir laments the pitfalls of 'Language'

If we ask ourselves one question, "What is language?", we would get a simple answer that language is a set of symbols that we use to communicate with each other. It may be either verbal or non-verbal. Since ages we have created signs and symbols and have assigned 'shared' meanings to each of them. Many of these signs seem to continue to depict the same meaning through out. But some other signs mean different things at different times.

The purpose of communication is to communicate a message clearly to the receiver. But when the signs we create start becoming contradictory to their own meaning, the whole concept of language starts looking funny.

Kabir, the great Indian saint and poet, laments about the vagaries of language:

Chalti ka naam gaadi

Maal ko kehtey hain khoya

Rangeen ka naam narangi

Dekh Kabira roya

[What moves is called interred/ vehicle

Commodity is called lost/ desiccated milk

What is colorful is called colourless/ orange

On observing these, weeps Kabir!]

Source: The Tenth Rasa by Michael Heyman

Whoever had assigned the meaning of the colour "orange" to the word "naarangi", must have had some mischief in her mind. These words can mean completely opposite things at the same time. This makes us think and rethink the level of importance we give to words in our daily lives. Are words mere carriers of literal meaning or they carry a lot of other hidden motives? Do words actually add meaning to our lives, or are they mere illusions? The language needs to be created with responsibility to make it more understandable. Otherwise, it will fill the society with contradictions and myths. But who takes the responsibility of shaping language in first place?

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