‘I went to Alvi dental hospital along with a colleague. We went there because we heard Dr. Arif Alvi was one of the best dentists in the city. As such I was expecting a pleasant experience but I was definitely disappointed on that count’, narrates a senior research executive at one of the leading research firms of Pakistan. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Nestle Fruita Vitals campaign is an interesting online campaign that has caught the attention of some members of the Pakistani online community. The keyword here is ‘some’ because although the campaign is geared towards getting viral, it hasn’t done so to the extent that you would expect it to.
Why would you expect this viral campaign to go big? [Read the rest of this entry...]
Telenor’s new branded service easypaisa appears to be a novel concept, intended to remove the hassle in the payment of utility bills. What’s more, you don’t have to be a Telenor customer to avail this service.
Now only if the service worked as it was communicated to the entire nation by a very expensive branding campaign. [Read the rest of this entry...]
The movie sky-rocketed to the top of the charts. Why? Did it have a plausible plot? Hardly? A riveting name? Far from it. Movies with song titles abound but very few end up making a decent sale. A star-studded cast? No.
So what was it about this movie that moved the audience so much that it topped the charts? [Read the rest of this entry...]
Did you know that Metro and Makro are one and the same thing? Not many people know that.
Metro AG, is a German company which owns both Makro and Metro, making both brands compete against each other. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Back in the 80s, when café rage was yet to hit the Karachi foodscape; branded franchise (Pizza Hut, KFC & McDonalds) were non-existent, and places like Copper Kettle and the Zamzama street were still in the womb, Chinese restaurants were the place to hit if you wanted to have an upscale eating out experience. Most of the Chinese restaurants in the city including Peking, Kowloon and Hong Kong were concentrated in the PECHS and Bahadurabad area. And the king of the lot was none other than NanKing – a spacious Chinese joint situated opposite the area where Dolmen centre is now on Main Tariq Road. It had the best Chinese [Read the rest of this entry...]
BUILDING INNOVATION NETWORKS
Khurram Hamid – Global Strategic Projects P&G
Ø Last year when visiting Karachi, the billboards were that of the telecom companies and the financial services. This year the broadband companies like PTCL and Wateen have taken the lead.
Ø So there’s a definite paradigm shift happening which many people are not aware of.
Ø An idea however brilliant it may be is not enough.
Ø A profitable business model, venture capitalist, and consumers with a need all of that is essential.
Ø Pakistan has a reported 20 million internet users, but where are the start-ups to capitalize on this huge market?
Ø There’s a Connect & Develop Hub in India but not in Pakistan.
Ø If you have a great innovative idea, submit it on www.pg.com. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Entpreneurship ’09: Winning Strategies for Business Growth was a conference organized by the Memon Professional Forum in conjunction with TerraBiz at the Sheraton Hotel on the 12th of August 2009. Here’s what transpired at the conference briefly:-
THE HIGHLIGHTS
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Did you watch the T20 Final between Pakistan and Sri Lanka on Geo SUper? Did you hear what the commentators said after the winning runs? I couldn’t. Why? Because the abominable Geo animated character was dancing to the equally repressible jingle ‘Geo to aisey’. Either a child was at the controls hitting the animation button gleefully, or a mentally retarded employee had gone berserk. What else could it be? [Read the rest of this entry...]
Obama branded as America’s ‘first Muslim president’- Top 3 reasons why he may be.
Bill Clinton was branded ‘America’s first black president’ because his policies favored the African-American community and now Barack Hussein Obama is being branded as America’s ‘first Muslim president’ because he gave favorable speech for the Muslim World in Cairo. Both of them are branded as such because of their favorable policies and not because of who they are, right? Wrong. Dead wrong.
A stunning examination of Obama’s choice of words in the last five months reveals he may be a Muslim himself, Israel’s worst nightmare.
This inference was reached by Frank J. Gaffney Jr. who heads a Washington think-tank called the Centre for Security Policy. [Read the rest of this entry...]
It was supposed to be graced by Chief Minister of Sindh Qaim Ali Shah, instead came Shazia Marri the Minister of Information. It was supposed to start at 9.00 am, it started well after 10.30 am. And it had a few hiccups along the way. It was supposed to be jampacked and yet only 60% of the hall was filled.
This was the Tipping Point Conference organized by the Young Social Reformers at the Marriot Karachi on 6th June.
Social media has become the new buzzword, and this conference was supposed to deal in depth with this topic. On that count, it failed to do justice. Apart from Badar Khushnood, the Google representative in Pakistan, no other speaker tried to address it properly save for a few perfunctory remarks.
But by and large it was a successful event. Why? [Read the rest of this entry...]
Pepsi’s Lays has finally decided to counter the pig fat controversy. Their response was three-pronged. First they came out with a print campaign which included a a strip ad right on the front page of Dawn which says that Lays comply with the Shariat Council requirements and are therefore 100% Halal.
But the print campaign didn’t’ address the root cause of the controversy- the E631 chemical found in the Masala flavor which is supposed to be made from animal fat. The ad is pretty vague as far as this point is concerned. The print ad should definitely have mentioned this, and then the online version would have delved into the intricacies of this compound and why it isn’t Haram in detail. Many people, including want to believe that these chips they have come to relish are really Halal, they just need the official assurance that they are. But just saying that they are after all the hue and cry isn’t going to solve the problem. Get to the core of the problem. [Read the rest of this entry...]
Every great nation in history has seen the sun set on it. No exceptions. So will the seemingly invincible US of A. How? That has bamboozled many a historian.
The following is an email that I received recently that throws a satirical light on how that may happen.
Brands are something that America is good at creating and making the entire world mesmerized with. And if we are to believe this email, brands will bring about America’s downfall.
