have mercy on the teacher who has had enough of you!
Huge classes must witness splits,
for, the week becomes short of days ...
... but the window of opportunity is a test of your wits!
Marketing has taught you a lot,
apply an extension to this definition you have got!
It leads three stories down,
for a flight, so heavenly ...
... that would lead to a completely new town,
with this even your angels might agree!
With backbenchers differentiated shopping discussions,
these two (windows) were made for resulting repercussions!
Escape which you must ...
... for, ashes are for ashes and credit hour dust is for dust!
Disclaimer: At some point in time we get stuck in this 'Window of Opportunity' situation when we are forced to study an elective we don't want to, for example, Marketing majors are made to study a Finance and HR elective while Finance majors too have to study Marketing ... Thus, this window seems to be the right escaping route ...
Disclaimer: Okhere we go, disclaimer is at the beginning … All characters in this story are imaginary. Any resemblance to anyone dead, undead, haunting or trying to live is simply a coincidence. Don't start assuming things, try educated guesses . . . if you still fail and relate them to real life characters, it’s not vampires’ fault, you were warned already … besides, the author is not paid by VAMPIRES to write this, it’s not paid content my dear … =)
To Nazia’s horror, Faraz kept on glowing brighter and brighter and that meant something was wrong but she couldn’t yet understand what. A frog that had consumed a light bulb simply couldn’t make him glow that much when eaten. When vampires get into marketing, they become vulnerable to being recognized and with a lot of contribution in the total ad spend of Rs. 30.08 billion for fiscal year 2010. In spite of all the recessionary downturn, this industry had witnessed an 11.5% increase over the year and the brotherhood of vampires knew it all … those creative people excelling at copyrighting and knowing it all.
“Hey Nazia! You know what??!!! Toots found out …” said Scrooge.
“Found out what?” she asked, a little alarmed.
“Well she found out that I am one of your kind and that we are vampires in mutual terms …” he replied, “she found out when her cat went missing one day and my canines looked sharp but she forgave me finally … though excited about what I really am.”
“How many times have I told you to transform your taste and stay away from cats and where were those straws you were using after getting your teeth from hell whitened up? Oh hey wait! I’m not completely a vampire; I am still more than 50% human.” Nazia snapped.
“Whatever … HELLO! Whatever … forget about how much human you are, even completely born humans don’t act like humans anymore … Find a way to kill Faraz’s glow!”
Faraz seemed anxious and hibernation deprived since Karachi hardly even witnessed the slightest pinch of cold. “I’m worried I might have left a clue as to what I am, last semester in our ‘Self Brand Analysis Report’ I made up stories despite of which Mr. Sinclair penned down his comments: ‘You sound like a vampire! I hate vampires! I hunt vampires! They ate my CATS!!!’
I tried to write as many stories as possible not to make it sound personal but God knows how he thought that way … WE ARE BEING HUNTED!!! HELP!” he exclaimed.
“Yes they are spraying vampiricide in the city, oxidating us actually, the phenyl oxalate ester they are spraying reacts with hydrogen peroxide in our cold blood cells to make us glow. That’s how they want to make us extinct!” explained Scrooge.
“WHAT IN HEAVEN!!!” expressed Nazia with her jaw dropping fear, “They can’t do this to us! They’ll track us down to school and yes we will be glowing after our fourth time slot classes! Damn! Everybody will get to know … but who is this ‘they’?”
Eventually some mutual vampire in the brotherhood had updated his Facebook status saying, ‘[XYZ] is thirsty for B+ and mouth watering RBC’s’ which eventually had got the problem started and according to Scrooge, the local officials were screening down mutual friends.
“See the power of social media, now that’s what’s interactive. They first tried to strike a deal asking for a 10% share and tried justifying that it’s inflation adjusted given the current unemployment level at 30%. The brotherhood refused and now they are after us.” Highlighted Scrooge with somewhat glee and excitement in his tone, he found it challenging, “Apparently, out of the $14.48 billion foreign exchange reserves $2 are being wasted to produce Vampiricide.”
That could be a useful strategy for school too since classes were overcrowded and teachers were worried into splitting them for separate slots and days, especially for electives, however, having one or two students (vampires) less out of a total population of humans would not make much of a difference, classes would still be overcrowded with the quest for gaining knowledge or discussing their wardrobe for back benchers. This slight managing issue was still not to cause 'brandonment' for old students but could have been possible for new ones ...
All three sat together to deviate from the already overwhelming topic.
“Hey guys you know Omore is in Karachi finally, let’s go have it someday, it’s an evidence that 2011 is here,” Faraz chuckled since people were told this brand will be launched this particular year.
Photo courtesy: Sarosh Waiz
Nazia pounce with excitement, “Yeaaaaaaaah! For about two years those 2 out of three advertising functions were there, ‘inform’ and ‘persuade’ but there was no physical existence to actually ‘remind’ us about the product to make it a brand.”
“Apart from their other ads did you know the jingle one was an adaptation from Coca Cola’s classic jingle in the 1990’s” continued Scrooge.
“Oh really?” asked Nazia “But nothing can beat their 1971 Christmas Hilltop Commercial … Their creative director was Bill Backer and the agency was McCann Erikson but according to what I read when the ad was first launched on radio it flopped, however, it did wonders when the television waves got to have a taste of it …people requested it to be played again and again on radio … it’s simply amazing …”
“Hmmm … I wonder why an ad would get flopped on one medium and do wonders on the other …” added Faraz “Someone please clarify my curiosity I would want an answer for this.”
Each one of them knew they could be hunted down any moment but their conversation added to their craze for ‘Marketing’
"Jingles seem to have a good recall but you should know that some jingles have recall value simply because they are awfully annoying ... remember Telefun?"
All of a sudden Nazia felt a lump in her throat and started to glow as well …
This semester we were told that each one of us is a brand and that we are all unique personalities, ironically we were also given an assignment to write about ourselves, however no matter how reluctant we were at the beginning it turned out to be interesting.
People have the view that as human beings we love to talk about ourselves but I would tend to differ and disagree, still here I am talking about a human as a brand and that too at a social media platform that I was reluctant to join in 2008 … peer pressure got me a Facebook profile.
Depending on how we behave or misbehave we become consumer durable or non durable goods, later if we could be classified as white or brown (goods) is a question to ask ourselves.
The self image we project carves the perceived positioning of us which should be close to the actual positioning that we want to have of ourselves, now, that is determined by how well people around know us or how well we let people know our personalities or allow to get close to us for that matter.
You should know your essence and identity and what you stand for, as the saying goes, ‘Those who stand for nothing fall for anything’ (Alexander Hamilton). It might be difficult to know but then there must be something that you stand for and you should know that for your very own brand building strategies, just stay focused and find out what you are good at that you could churn out into a profession, yes … not all of us have discovered what we are good at and it should be your aim to discover yourself.
What you wear is not exactly your packaging but how you interact or how bad or nice you are with those around is, at times one might just learn to say ‘no’ in different ways and be rude to some, believe it or not it’s a requirement, you should learn to be ASSERTIVE.
Every brand has attributes, for instance, as a human brand your attribute might be ‘a person of his/her words, never faltering on commitments etcetera. However, people do tend to be judgmental when it comes to perception … it might be a way of judging people’s personalities according to how they perform in academics, that’s where a few go wrong. Good GPA or average GPA both might not promise a job at times, at least these days with respect to the job market it doesn’t, no employer seems to be giving a damn about it! So don’t compare yourself on the basis of GPA, work and studies could be two different measurement scales.
Whether you are a right brain individual or a left brain individual would further elaborate the brand you are, if you are creative and concentrate on visuals and patterning of certain things that means you are a right brain person, however, if you focus more on connecting pieces to the picture as a whole and have deep analytical skills you could be a left brain person, that is to say that you could be very much into mathematical courses and all. Ironically, schools mostly are designed to foster to left brain activities and learning based on that than catering equally to right brain focused people which in return is a huge drawback. Forgive the right brain individuals for not being interested in subjects like CALCULUS! Get a life … will you? And get me one too ... :)
You might be a closed brand by not revealing much of yourself to anyone, however, you need to get yourself known and heard for what unique attributes you have. Thus, the concept of a positioning statement comes up. According to Wilson and Blumenthal (Managing Brand You), there are four parts of a positioning statement, that is, the target audience your brand is meant to be marketed to, the frame of reference (your comparison with other competitors you have), your point of difference, and support (a supporting statement for the above mentioned establishments).
Well it’s easy to say Brand You, brand this, brand that, branded ingredient bla bla, however, among the brands that you know, knowing yourself could be the most difficult brand of all. It’s easy to say but difficult to become one. To become a good brand you have to start believing in yourself first and in your capabilities then later maybe you can make your potential employer realize that …
You, on the other hand, might have dreams based on the brand you are, sometimes, creative, sometimes destructive and at times confused. I have all kinds of dreams, This morning I had a dream … Earth was about to finish off completely, we were packing to shift to a new planet altogether, dress lovers had to leave their most cherished dresses here, I picked up a few books but had to let go of my valuable knitting and painting books in this world because we were short of space and I kept on thinking whether we would have mobile signals and internet on that other planet where we would start from scratch. Well what in Heaven was that! Goodness … My branded mind should at least stop thinking while I am sleeping … phew …
Ok I have limited needs and unlimited wants and yes I’m unemployed too. What’s the name of my disease? Acute Brandosis???
No matter how disease inflicted or short of brain cells you are, you will still be a brand. Know yourself before others try to translate you…
A PR and communication professional, an occasional blogger, and a hobby artist. A nature obsessed, wannabe
travel aficionado who wants to explore new horizons!
