Author name: Shubranshu Singh

Simply Speaking: Brands are born inside

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A brand needs support and reinforcement from its own people first and foremost and committing to creating an environment that makes their people happy and engaged is the way to do it. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Companies that leverage their brands to achieve phenomenal growth and market stature take their brands beyond marketing. (Representational image by Calvin Craig via Unsplash) “Everything has to flow out of the identity: image, behaviour, product innovation – and not least, the internal culture” -Adam Morgan Marketers are taught to bring to life the brand’s benefit. To focus on ‘what a brand does’, not ‘how a brand is made’. But consumers live busy lives and product-based differentiation is an advantage that flattens very quickly. The internal workings of a business – its culture, customs, activities, the working environment, people and even the tools it uses to create its products can have a large influence on brand identity and how it’s perceived by consumers. Therefore if channelled in the right way it can be used as a powerful form of marketing that leads to the creation of an honest brand. Moreover, nurturing external brand communications by reflecting internal workings pulls consumers in through a sense of honesty and authenticity. A manager at Pepsi is credited with having coined the term “Invertising”. It refers to onboarding employees to the brand mission. It is a competitive advantage to build and strengthen programs that make sure employees are aware of the brand promise and live it. But beyond just building exposure and excitement inside, brands need to be fully operationalised with employees. By operationalise, I mean that employees should understand clearly that what they do impacts the brand. Invertising is a large concept to build immersive brand engagement, alignment, and integration. To internalize, personalize, and process brand engagement, employees need to be engaged on three levels: heads, hearts, hands and feet. Great brands use company culture building to educate – to help employees understand what a brand is and why it’s important. They use it to define – to explain what the brand stands for and how it is differentiated. They leverage it to activate – to help people understand their own impact on brand perceptions and therefore clarify what is expected of them. Feeling good about the organization and having a positive outlook on its future are important. For employees to understand, embrace, and deliver the brand, they need to know its values in their heads, feel inspired by them in their hearts, and then put them into action with their hands and feet. To win their hearts — they must be inspired by positive emotions and feel pride and identification. By hands and feet I mean active effort and provision of resources and down the line empowerment to reinforce the brand appropriately Only when employees are full engaged with the brand will they align their behaviours and decision-making with it. Besides all levels of the workforce, other stakeholders must also be engaged and aligned. Brand stakeholders are people or groups that have an investment, share, or interest in the brand — e.g., business partners, agencies, investors/shareholders, etc. These people play a critical role in how the brand is experienced and delivered. Turning employees into engaged and valuable brand ambassadors who will tell the brand story on behalf of the brand is a critical brand program. Companies that leverage their brands to achieve phenomenal growth and market stature take their brands beyond marketing. They use their brand an operational tool to drive what their company delivers to its customers and how it does it. As such, their internally targeted brand efforts are focused on integrating the brand into everything everyone does and improve execution throughout their organization. Budgets and resources are well invested inside, when spent on internal communications, ways of working and cultural activities that reinforce the brand’s identity and values. This automatically has a significant effect outside the walls of the company. The strength of the culture means, in effect, the people in the company become influencers. Unique rituals and customs help bind the team together. A sense of group distinction is good for productivity and morale. But these activities bind the team to their common cause too. The strength of this culture means, in effect, the people in the company become the brand ambassadors and influencers, sharing unique stories of methods and rituals with those outside. This on the ground word of mouth can be an asset, particularly for a challenger brand. In the Alco Bev industry, there are powerful examples of cultivating an aura at every point of customer engagement and bringing the inside out to them. Investing to turn the traditional marketing model on its head and pulling people into their world rather than pushing messages out pays rich dividends. Guinness, at its brewery at Dublin, has a wonderful experience curated for adorers who flock to pour a pint and know all about the magical brand. Sipsmith, the independent spirits company that pioneered the craft gin movement in the UK have had the doors to the distillery open to the public since launching in 2010. The bulk of their marketing budget is spent on the distillery to offer tours and tastings.The beautiful copper stills, brilliantly named and personified Prudence, Patience and Constance are visited daily by visitors from all over the world who come to understand the gin-making process as well as sample gin cocktails at the Sipsmith bar . ‘Be human, and not a logo’ was how Oatly went about its business transforming from a dull food processing company into fearless challenger brand with a bigger purpose of shifting society towards a plant-based diet. The redirection touched every part of the business, from the vision, brand identity and design to the organizational structure, working practices and office environment. A brand needs support and reinforcement from its own people first and foremost and committing to creating an environment that makes their people happy and engaged is the way to do it. For employees to understand, embrace, and deliver the brand, they need to know its values in their heads, feel inspired by them in their

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Simply Speaking: Buy or Bye Bye?

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The tug of war between perceived risk and perceived value. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Humans have high risk consciousness but low risk assessment capability. The human mind does not appreciate probability instinctually. Therefore, risk is beaten by belief. Shared stories create belief. (Representational image by Jeffrey Grospe via Unsplash) “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.”  -Muriel Rukeyser In the book Sapiens, Yuval Harari makes one of his key points – “There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings. Whether or not something is true doesn’t impact whether you believe it.” We know that belief systems are created through common acknowledgment and common imagination. Money is money because we all accept it as such. Dan Loeb,in his Q1 2022 letter, said “to be an investor is to live constantly at the intersection of story and uncertainty.” Amazon has been the largest value creation story of recent times. Research on the performance of successful VC-backed tech companies in the 1990s shows that they raised less than $50 million before showing a return to investors. By comparison, Amazon raised $2.1 billion in investors’ money before the company broke even. This happened because Jeff Bezos made risk an essential part of the growth storytelling. Amazon was about lower cost, greater selection, and faster delivery. Per his narrative, these massive investments in consumer benefits that would stand the test of time. This, in fact, did turn out to be true. Bezos qualifies risk into two types: 1) Risk you can’t walk back from. The risk is existential, make or break, defining the future of the company 2) Risk you can walk away from. Fail early and get out. Jeff Bezos wrote in Amazon’s first annual letter, in 1997, “Given a 10 percent chance of a hundred times payout, you should take that bet every time.” He also wrote “Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.” Humans have high risk consciousness but low risk assessment capability. The human mind does not appreciate probability instinctually. Therefore, risk is beaten by belief. Shared stories create belief. Risk perception can depart from objective hazard evaluation because of evolutionary fears such as heights, confinement, predation and poisoning. On a broad basis, we can define 3 categories for risk – Where risk is Primary factor – nuclear energy, mining, metallurgy, intensive industrial processes, dealing with emergencies. Where risk is intentional but secondary – gambling, speculative financial products or thrill seeking adventure. Where risk is neither primary not intentional but exceptional aberrations are the proof points by which risk concern might arise – personal products and food and consequential, dietary, hygiene or handling issues. Pioneering work was done by Raymond Augustine Bauer. His initial proposition was that “Consumer behaviour involves risk in the sense that any action of a consumer will produce consequences which he cannot anticipate with anything approximating certainty, and some of which at least are likely to be unpleasant”. He introduced the concept of perceived risk to the marketing literature and gave two possible definitions of risks where marketing management is concerned. First is adverse outcome and second its likely probability of occurrence. Bauer defined five main types of perceived risks. These are time, social, physical, financial, and functional. Donald F. Cox Risk Taking and Information Handling in Consume Behavior in 1967 extended work in this area. Later Kahneman and Tversky’s loss aversion was propounded in 1974,  Thaler’s mental accounting in 1985. These brought together economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology and ergonomics – to get a better understanding of relationships between risk and marketing. Risk Psychology complements marketing in defining risk attitudes and shaping risk perception via communication. Perceived risk attitudes are a useful complement of the positioning statement. Brand communication ought to be framed accounting for psychological biases in a context of decision under uncertainty. Decision theory has inspired marketing. In this setting, risk is seen as an objective characteristic of a given situation, although assessing this risk may vary by individual. Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory is also well known in consumer research and has inspired some works by economists and psychologists at the interface with marketing such as loss aversion and status quo biases. Thaler has exported insights from risk economics and psychology toward Marketing, especially with the concept of mental accounting. When products are perceived to be risky, consumers show higher levels of involvement. Psychologists have suggested that there was an ecological ground in the way people interpreted their environment: Simon’s bounded rationality, Gigerenzer’s frugal heuristics and adaptive toolbox paved the way for a convergence of – bounded rationality, the feeling of risks and the role of the emotions- leading to the rise of a new approach of decision-making under uncertainty. More recently neuroeconomics has proposed concepts that could be more systematically exploited to the benefit of Marketing and could certainly enlighten the way people perceive and act according to their risk profile and to product’s potential threats. The key import to marketing is the understanding of risk as a feeling. Behavioural economics and nudges – try to identify and to exploit the mental biases influencing our decision-making process. Nudge marketers investigate how those gentle messages addressed to free individuals could be applied to consumers of goods and services The relatively new discipline of Neuroeconomics can help in designing those communications by focusing on how behaviour may be impacted by descriptions and pictures. Yet behavioural approaches fail to provide ultimate explanations of Homo economicus choices. It can explain what the bias is. It can explain how the bias operates. But it is unable to explain the ’reason why’ of the observed biases. Risk perception can depart from objective hazard evaluation because of evolutionary fears such as heights, confinement, predation and poisoning. What I see changes what I know. What I know changes what I see. Relationships between product involvement and risk perception are supposed to be two ways. Mainly, when products are perceived to be risky, consumers show higher levels of involvement. However, it can

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Simply Speaking: What is Viral is not always Vital

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When marketing pundits talk about ‘loyalists’, or ‘the passives’ or ‘detractors’ they are referring to merely a collection of individuals into range based groups. Leaving diehard loyalists aside, there is much eagerness to engage with the middle uncommitted. The recruits all lie in this middle mass is the belief. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Brands talk to the rejectors and the ‘passives’ in the same way they talk to their core. The idea is to activate the brand’s worldview in the brains of such folks. It is believed that via mirroring of messages, brands gain traction. (Representative image by Mike Petrucci via Unsplash)   There’s a joke about an old man in Finland who used to get up every morning at 5 a.m. and spray a chemical all around his village. When asked what he was sprinkling, he told passers-by that it was elephant repellent. Whenever folks challenged him and pointed out that there are no elephants around, the old man would smugly smile and say “Well then, the spray is working.” Business actions can work on such presumptions. Marketing ,when double bound by process logic and metrics based evaluation, can lapse to such self-deluding beliefs. Bill Bernbach said “I warn you against believing that advertising is a science. Rules are what the artist breaks. The memorable never emerged from a formula.” Bernbach’s agency DDB made iconic brand campaigns establishing brands like Avis car hire and Volkswagen. For Levy’s Rye Bread it created a campaign in which a variety of ethnic faces – from a Native American chief to an Afro-Caribbean to a Chinese American – all announced: ‘You don’t have to be Jewish to eat Levy’s.’ For Avis, the cut through insight was ‘We try harder’, and for the Volkswagen Beetle the headline ‘Think small’. These were major counter-intuitive directions. In the case of the Beetle, it encouraged the American car buyer – traditionally preoccupied with size and power – to purchase this oddly shaped German car on the basis of its low fuel consumption. All this was much ahead of its time. A related area of marketing delusion ripe for challenging is the concept of the unattached, unconcerned prospect. How is the ‘target’ qualified? When marketing pundits talk about ‘loyalists’, or ‘the passives’ or ‘detractors’ they are referring to merely a collection of individuals into range based groups. Leaving diehard loyalists aside, there is much eagerness to engage with the middle uncommitted. The recruits all lie in this middle mass is the belief. It is not true. There is no single, consistent characterisation of any of these terms. Buyers can be consumers of your product, of your cause, of your story, or all three The world of brands has big contradictions. There are big divides here and that’s why both Real Madrid and Barcelona are successful. The marketplace is also full of harmony. It comes from like-minded people , whose word of mouth can further a cause with their commitment. And that’s why both Real Madrid and Barcelona are successful. Think of any category and you will find this contradiction alive. It is fair to accept that if you mean something to everybody you are unlikely mean everything to somebody. Polarity is natural in brandscapes. Any and everyone is not a customer or buyer. Those who matter most should be attended to, on priority. Like everywhere, the 80/20 rule holds. Lavish attention on the 20 percent, understand why they love you, and grow the tribe. The required steps are simple. Find out what matters most to potential consumers: how you can solve their problems and provide emotional satisfaction through your brand. Segmentation only makes the specific more pertinent. Tailor the messenger to the drilled-down segmented recipient without changing core brand values, attributes, and identity based on every market segment. To convey the same essence in myriad ways is brand genius. Language always gives us clues. The English language has many words to convey various types of humour – wit , humour, facetiousness, drollery, funniness, wittiness, piquancy, quickness; jocularity, waggishness. Its forms have descriptions like badinage, persiflage, repartee, quip, wisecrack, sarcasm; irony, satire, burlesque, parody, caricature, travesty, witticism , bon mot, jest, jocosity, joke, pun, wordplay, play on words, spoonerism, double entendre; raillery, banter, joshing; buffoonery, playfulness Accordingly persons may be characterised as humourist, lampoonist, parodist, jokester, joker, comic, comedian, farceur, droll fellow, funny person, wag, reparteeist, banterer, wisecrack, punster, zany, madcap, mummer, mimer, mimic. Since both brand context and relevance are fluid, strong brands solve problems that matter. They do it fast, consistently but rich in variety and meaningfulness. Brand equity accrues over time and is the result of marketing communication, and experiences associated with a brand name. The mantra is connectivity, consistency, and transparency. The term ‘target group’ is highly misplaced. Which group ? On what basis are they qualified as ‘targets’ ? Brands talk to the rejectors and the ‘passives’ in the same way they talk to their core. The idea is to activate the brand’s worldview in the brains of such folks. It is believed that via mirroring of messages, brands gain traction. The worst mistake a brand can make is to move sharply one way or another on the rationale that that’s where the majority ‘in market’ consumers are. Understanding whom you are talking to and why is crucial before you begin to articulate what it is they have to say and how best to say it. Why is it a challenge? Firstly, because brands want to activate their core base while reaching new intenders at the same time; second, they must do so without puffery, hyperbole, false claims, distortion or pretention. The urge to posture emerges from certain well-established myths about uncommitted consumers. It is important to see things with real eyes. Put to rest the notion of the uncommitted buyer. She doesn’t exist. There are only people lined up from fandom to boredom. People know even if they don’t care. Relying on the consumer’s ignorance is a false strategy. Duality is a natural situation in our

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Art of Framing in marketing: What you know changes what you see, what you see changes what you know

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Framing is about mental structures and stencils which we apply to derive meaning. To change a perspective is reframing. Reframing is a triumph of marketing. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Persuasion is fortified with evidence – information, referendum, validation, certification, statistics, testimonials – all enhance acceptance. Emphasizing the benefits is another technique for framing. (Representational image by paul skorupskasvia Unsplash) What you know changes what you see, what you see changes what you know Who is saying it matters as much as what is being said. Perhaps it matters even more. Credibility and argument have the same relation as a hammer and a nail. A heavy hammer will drive even a blunt nail into the wall. Likewise, strong credibility will make a weak argument more acceptable. Credibility is a foundation that is in two parts: sincerity and competence. The more sincere you are as a brand, business, or service, the more opportunities you get. This leads to development of competence and expertise. Perhaps an overstatement but “No publicity is bad publicity” has some grounding. Being famous aids being persuasive. Scale requires both reach and acceptance. All brand-to-consumer communication is deliberate and motivated. Still, it is consumed and even sought after. The logical and risk-averse consumers always seek more details. Factfulness is persuasive but it loses relevance quickly. For cynics and sceptics, your sincerity and track record come into play. All persuasive campaigns need repetition. When the earliest converts are those who are unemotional, analytical and objective, then those who follow later feel secure and confident to join the later majority. Framing is about mental structures and stencils which we apply to derive meaning. To change a perspective is reframing. Reframing is a triumph of marketing.The structure of framing often decides the response. The simplest is problem-solution, ‘cause and effect’. Even those who are unaware of a problem, once exposed to it, will pay heed to the solution being offered. Persuasion is the heart of marketing. But being persuasive is not simply about advertising action. Being persuasive requires effective communication, but even more so, it requires an understanding of the consumer. That understanding translates to insight. The insight is the core of the storytelling. With valid insights and engaging content, you can vie for attention. Persuasion is fortified with evidence – information, referendum, validation, certification, statistics, testimonials – all enhance acceptance. Emphasizing the benefits is another technique for framing. What they gain motivates people less than the fear of opportunity loss. “Hurry – offer valid till stocks last” can work wonders. Framing can be unilateral and proactive. You can hypothesize about your rival/competitor and then rebut their argument and advance your own. Prioritize that benefit which is most desired. Claim it as strongly as you can. Claim to be unique. This is a tactic, but action words can make a big impact – free, quick, easy, proven, guaranteed, certified, crucial, important, statutory, by law – these words open the doors of the mind. With analogies, metaphors, and stories help the messaging become accepted and rewarded with attention. It also simplifies the complex. It can provoke emotion and overcome distraction, diffidence or apprehension. When emotion takes over, the mind is subservient to the heart. Persuasive framing colours its argument via contrast, extrapolation, hyperbole and using triggers. Researchers have identified six essential psychological triggers. Most famously, they were outlined by Professor Robert. B. Cialdini and by Kathleen K. Reardon of the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business. These triggers are liking, reciprocity, social proof, consistency, scarcity and authority. With that understanding, now let us take a look at Framing : To present arguments in its favour, a brand has to frame its proposition – ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why buy me?’ – in such a manner that it maintains control, enhances desirability, ensures consistency and strengthens relationships. Framing is opportunistic. It is fluid. If you know your audience – you will frame persuasively. That’s why opinion polls matter too much to politicians. Moods, self- image, valves and incidents generate biases in the collective conscience. Framing can be unilateral and proactive. You can hypothesize about your rival/competitor and then rebut their argument and advance your own. Complexity cuts effectiveness. Keep it simple, keep it repetitive, keep it likeable. When complexity needs to be communicated, the task becomes difficult. Our languages didn’t evolve to explain large-scale complexity. When ‘N’ number of outputs get generated from ‘X’ number of inputs, we struggle to explain the interactions. We also find it difficult to explain probabilistic outcomes. We like simply deterministic cases; any multivariate weighted causation befuddles us. Therefore, responsible marketers must broadcast the generics and engage for the specifics. They must voice the obvious and then introduce the “not so obvious”. They must take the direct route to indirectness. Frames are not carried in the mind actively. They are unconscious. They are played out spontaneously, reflexively. Negation is easier to handle. What something is not conveys a finality. But what something is opens further possibilities. We enter the realm of dimensions. Marketers will think people vote for candidates based on the candidates’ positions on issues. Actually, it is seen that people vote for values rather than issues. Communicating values mattered more than specific policies. What we infer depends on what we perceive. Finally let us look at the most difficult task, namely that of ‘Reframing’. Reframing / Repositioning is not easy or simple. It is not a matter of finding some magic words. Frames are ideas, not slogans. Reframing is more a matter of accessing what we and like-minded consumers already believe unconsciously, making it conscious, and repeating it till it is attached to us as a brand. It doesn’t happen overnight. It is an ongoing process. It requires repetition and focus and dedication. George Lakoff, Director of the Center for the Neural Mind & Society at the University of California at Berkeley and retired Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics in his book ‘Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate’ says “[Reframing] is about bringing to consciousness the deepest

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Simply Speaking: Why brands need to be woke by design

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Great brands are a force for positive social change. They design their businesses and products to address social issues. This brand-as-business approach to bettering the world is a profound leap forward in supporting the case for capitalism as a practical way to a better world. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Free choice and free enterprise are at the heart of the market system of economics. Brands are its lighthouses. Marketing is its language. The great challenges that face the world require brands and businesses to come together, with complementary goals, convergent plans and pool their resources. (Representative image by Rod Long via Unsplash)   As a student and practitioner of marketing sociology I believe that driving positive social change is one of the most distinguishing marks of great brands. Any business can contribute some resources to causes. But, to run a business such that it makes a significant, sustainable positive impact on society, by design, is special. Tata Sons was founded in 1868 and the founders planted the seeds of the philanthropic trusts which now own two-thirds of the Tata group. It is an economic powerhouse effectively anchored in its commitment to charity. A diversified global enterprise, philanthropic at its core. In the Tata group, CSV is an initiating vision. Society is a vital fourth stakeholder alongside shareholders, employees and customers. John Hume, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Martin Luther King Award commented “During a time of global challenge and change, it is more vital than ever that the practice of business be underscored by a clear and thoughtful, environmentally responsible, person centred ethic….Tata provides a fascinating study of how a clear ethical code can ensure that business serves the need of communities rather than communities serving the needs of business.” In his book “The greatest company in the world? The Story of Tata”, Peter Casey notes that there is simply no other business like the Tata group – a company whose bottom line is doing the right thing for society. “Jamsetji’s commitment to philanthropy, his dedication to serving the needs of others and to improving the lives of all, his intense Indian patriotism, his innovative approach to practically everything, his refusal to compromise on ethics, his commitment to public transparency, his embrace of independence within a core corporate community, his passion for setting massive goals and doing great things, his aim to create evolutionary and enduring transformation, and his style of servant leadership-each of these, through time, has continued as a theme in the narrative of the company he founded.” The outdoor clothing retailer Patagonia ran one of the most unusual Black Friday ads in the history of the New York Times on November 25, 2012. A full-page ad declared in large, bold lettering: “DON’T BUY THIS JACKET.” The text below the image of its most popular jacket explained that the holiday season was a good time to consider the environmental impact of modern consumerism. “Because Patagonia wants to be in business for a good long time, and leave a world inhabitable for our kids—we want to do the opposite of every other business today. We ask you to buy less and to reflect before you spend a dime on this jacket or anything else.” That’s gutsy, impactful and vision aligned all at the same time. Patagonia’s ‘Common Threads Initiative’ engages the company in a promissory capacity to repair damaged Patagonia products and help owners resell their used Patagonia products. As a brand this commitment to sell long-lasting goods, be willing to repair the goods when they break, and encouraging buyers to resell, reuse, recycle what they no longer need is quite laudable. But is it scalable? Are all things ‘woke’ consigned to only niche adoration? Will the world see commercially viable, attractive woke brands building operations on a global scale? Is being woke only a state of affluent guilt being assuaged? These are questions that merit more debate and research. This sentiment of every dime a consumer spends is an assertion of building the kind of world they care about is at the heart of woke consumerism. Is Patagonia a great brand because it is committed to a cause? Is that a criterion for greatness? What happens when a brand is committed but as a participant and follower and not necessarily at the forefront of a social and cultural movements – will it diminish its claim to greatness? Creating Social Value – CSV – for customers, employees, partners, investors, and communities is about making a real difference in vital and pervasive areas. So, great brands are themselves a force for positive social change, rather than simply supporting external programs. They design their businesses and products to address social issues. This brand-as-business approach to bettering the world is a profound leap forward in supporting the case for capitalism as a practical way to a better world. Denise Lee Yohn describes the awareness building up against “Goodwashing” in her book describing the practices of great brands. In September 2010 Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, donated $100 million to help fix schools in Newark, New Jersey. This was a gift many times larger than the school system—one of the country’s worst at the time—had ever received. But it was just that. There was no tie-in to Facebook, its values, or its employees, nor to Zuckerberg’s own personal brand. There was no formal initiative to harness Facebook’s considerable brainpower to transform the education process or put Facebook’s resources and know-how to work on its behalf. Many companies awakening to the realization that it takes more than large attention-getting gestures to be truly socially responsible and moving towards an integrated approach. They want companies to stop doing a few virtuous things to bolster their reputations, and instead start using the power of their brands to inspire real change and have an overall beneficial impact on society. Doing well by doing good is not a new idea. But the integrity with which it should be pursued is. Corporate

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Ask ChatGPT, how to build great brands from buzzy innovations

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Hold on. You don’t need a chatbot for it. We have it covered for you. In this week’s Simply Speaking, understand why savvy marketing is perhaps even more important than game-changing innovations. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] In the Internet age, markets have been addressed in a state of fragmentation into various segments and niches. Customer networks emerged and its members influenced each other’s choices reciprocally. Traditional one-way communication—inform, persuade, and convince to buy – has been replaced with nuanced approaches where consumers themselves decide the main influencer. (Representative Image: Kyle Glenn via Unsplash) “The two most important functions of a business are innovation and marketing” – Peter Drucker A new sun has risen in the world of tech innovations. ChatGPT has the potential to change the world in many ways, impacting jobs and transforming industries. Its ability to understand and generate human language could be used to improve the capabilities of a wide range of AI-powered systems, including virtual assistants, chatbots, and other types of natural language interfaces. This could make it easier for businesses to interact with customers and for individuals to access information. In different fields such as customer service, content creation, search, information retrieval and education, ChatGPT is set to transform the world. While it’s important to note that the model is still new and that there are ethical and societal implications that need to be considered, the potential benefits of ChatGPT are hard to ignore. Google, Meta, Amazon, several start-ups are taking on this ‘open AI + Microsoft’ combine. It is not going to be an uncontested road ahead. Is this change truly shape shifting and immutable? Is it merely evolution with more fizz? What lessons can be learned from brand building of innovations? It is a proven fact that great ideas die in labs and proving grounds because a viable means to commercialise them does not emerge. When the lucky few do make it to the marketplace, getting awareness and due consideration is a steep hill to climb. Then there is the need to be able to present a product with due context. It is like looking into a mirror. Too close and you can’t see the full picture and too far away, you cannot see clearly enough. In a similar way, market immersion needs to be optimised and done iteratively. Innovations driven by a new technology, typically follow a multi phased marketing process. As soon as a new technology emerges, it is initially used by experts and technology enthusiasts. As it begins to spread, new companies most open to innovation in marketing come into the market. At this time the majority adoption has also occurred. The earlier technology now begins to be commonly used. A stage is again set for innovation. This cycle repeats itself with shorter and shorter time frames. Three ‘laws’ can explain this new world. The first is the ‘Moore’s Law’ of exponential growth and ever lower costs of computer power. The second is ‘Metcalfe’s Law’ about the value of networks, which grows disproportionally to accretion in size, and the third ‘Gilder’s Law’ is that the total bandwidth of communication systems triples every twelve months. The business model of the mechanical age (and the first phases of the electronic age) was based on the creation of efficiency through economies of scale in production and economies of scope in distribution. In the Internet age, markets have been addressed in a state of fragmentation into various segments and niches. Customer networks emerged and its members influenced each other’s choices reciprocally. Traditional one-way communication—inform, persuade, and convince to buy – has been replaced with nuanced approaches where consumers themselves decide the main influencer. Innovations are evaluated differently now than before. People are better informed, interact faster, and act faster. As the customer network gains weight, its influence on the reputation of the brand needs to be reconsidered periodically because effectiveness can decrease when buyers belong to new generations. In my opinion, the growth of artificial intelligence-driven algorithms and predictive analytics have heightened the need for more expertise and ‘true to domain’ marketing rather than lessen it. Marketing is deliberately cramped in most ‘routine’ decision making. Sales metrics are often used to evaluate brand building. The reverse is often ignored. In other words, brand health surge, a lead variable, may get ignored when compared to a surging sales performance which may well be on the back of promotions and tactics that in fact damage the brand. The search, content, and loyalty campaigns that get called marketing are mostly only shallow tactics. True brand magic is up the value chain – in ideas, insights, product origination or indeed, creating markets. Any cheaper alternative can be found for boring copy or visual rendition. You hardly need ChatGPT. Understanding people’s fundamental needs and drivers, identifying customers, and developing the entire go-to-market and usage ecosystem decide the success of innovations, especially breakthrough ones. Marketers need to be included in development discussions upstream in the innovation development process. Besides clearly defining who to sell the new offering to and how to sell it, such involvement helps in the following ways: Exploration of consumer needs and framing of insights – Marketing must probe deeper than the consumer has thought about the need. It must dive into the subconscious. Unstated needs are the best sources of value creating innovations. Creation of product or service appeal based on relevance and context – The context is about the cultural, social, and psychological levers that elevate an innovation to an instant or enduring hit. Walking in consumer shoes – Done via customer research and insight development, it bleeds into communications framing and marketing must ensure genuine consumer utility is obvious. Thinking of entire ecosystems – Innovations today rely on several partners and involves others outside organisational boundaries directly and indirectly. Going solo may often be detrimental to rapid brand establishment. The recent past has several examples – Blackberry, Electronic diary, Pager, Segway, Walkman, iPod, 3D printing, Blockchain, and Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality that succeeded, rose and then wasted the original scale of promise that was visualised or surrendered it to the

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ChatGPT, Microsoft vs Alphabet, Big Tech – what you really need to know about the battle for AI supremacy

Leave a Comment / Simply Speaking /

In Simply Speaking this week, explore the deep implications of the likes of ChatGPT and the grand arc of AI. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] In enthusiasm for artificial intelligence, Marvin Minsky has been quoted as saying that the thinking power of silicon “brains” will be so formidable that “If we are lucky, they will keep us as pets.” (Representational image via Unsplash)   Silicon Valley is in a frenzied rush to find, fund, nurture and advance “generative” A.I., technologies that can generate text, images and other media in response to short prompts. Microsoft invested $10 billion in OpenAI, the San Francisco start-up which has made ChatGPT. It is noteworthy that the surge in AI funding comes at a time when funding for other start-ups has dried up, in a dismal market for tech investing. This is not surprising since it brings forth a technology that is spontaneously capable of handling any task an average person could do. This is unchartered territory. It will be – socially, emotionally and economically – a first in human history. After the invention of the digital computer, it was abundantly clear that it could perform functions that could in some sense be called “intelligent.” In 1936, the great English mathematician Alan Matheson Turing showed that it was possible to build a machine that would, for specific practical purposes, behave like a problem-solving human being. Turing claimed that he would call a machine “intelligent” if, through typed messages, it could exchange thoughts with a human being—that is, hold up its end of a conversation. In the early days of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Joseph Weizenbaum wrote a program called ELIZA, which showed how easy it was to meet Turing’s test for intelligence. PitchBook, which tracks private investment data has reported that Anthropic, a San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up, is close to raising roughly $300 million in new funding. It values Anthropic at roughly $5 billion as reported by The New York Times. The startup, which was founded in 2021, previously raised $704 million, valuing it at $4 billion. Other funding deals in the works include Character.AI which lets people talk to chatbots that impersonate celebrities, Replika, another chatbot company, and You.com, which is rolling out similar technology into a new kind of search engine. The reason why generative A.I. is the hottest interest area today is because these technologies are poised to remake everything from online search engines like Google Search to work tools across industries. These corporate research labs are running an epic race for AI supremacy. This will decide how we live and use computers and who will commercially dominate the coming new era. Anthropic was founded by a group of people that included several researchers who left OpenAI. Most of its early funding came from the tarnished cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and his colleagues at FTX. Microsoft had already invested more than $3 billion in OpenAI, and the new deal is a clear indication of the importance of OpenAI’s technology to its future competition with other big tech companies like Google, Meta and Apple. More than a million people tested the chatbot within five days of its launch, using it to answer trivia questions, explain ideas and generate everything from poetry to term papers. This is the steepest commercial scale launch of any online tech till date. With Microsoft’s deep pockets and OpenAI’s cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the companies hope to remain at the forefront of generative artificial intelligence —after its ChatGPT became the symbol of a new and more powerful wave of A.I. The cruel irony is that this deal follows Microsoft’s announcement last week that it had begun laying off employees as part of an effort to cull 10,000 positions related to what it called “changes to our hardware portfolio”. Satya Nadella has bet big on artificial intelligence, which he called “the next major wave of computing.” OpenAI’s stated mission was to build artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. When OpenAI announced its initial deal with Microsoft in 2019, Satya Nadella described it as the kind of lofty goal that a company like Microsoft should pursue, comparing A.G.I. to the company’s efforts to build a quantum computer. OpenAI was created in 2015 by small group of entrepreneurs and artificial intelligence researchers, including Sam Altman, head of the start-up builder Y Combinator; Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla; and Ilya Sutskever, a living legend of a researcher. They founded the lab as a nonprofit organization. But after Mr. Musk left the venture in 2018, Mr. Altman remade OpenAI as a for-profit company so it could raise the money needed for its research. A year later, Microsoft became a funder and investor. It paid for the enormous amounts of computing power needed to build the kind of generative A.I. technologies OpenAI is known for. As of now, the company is valued at around $29 billion. In 2020, OpenAI built a milestone A.I. system, GPT-3, which could generate text on its own, including tweets, blog posts, news articles and even computer code. Last year, it unveiled DALL-E, which lets anyone generate photorealistic images simply by describing what he or she wants to see. Based on the same technology as GPT-3, ChatGPT showed the general public just how powerful this kind of technology could be. More than a million people tested the chatbot within five days of its launch, using it to answer trivia questions, explain ideas and generate everything from poetry to term papers. This is the steepest commercial scale launch of any online tech till date. Companies like Google and OpenAI can push the technology forward at a faster rate than others. But their latest technologies have been reproduced and widely distributed. They cannot prevent people from using these systems to spread misinformation. Microsoft has already incorporated GPT-3, DALL-E and other OpenAI technologies into its products. Most notably, GitHub, a popular online service for programmers owned by Microsoft, offers Copilot, a tool that can automatically generate snippets of computer code. Microsoft expanded availability of several OpenAI services to customers of its Azure cloud computing offering

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Where sleep is competition

Leave a Comment / The Economic Times, The Economic Times - Brand Equity /

Since the pandemic, Hollywood’s old formats have nosedived and turned belly up in commercial terms. The new ones are not growing fast enough nor making much profit. Cinema and Cable seem to be on a journey into the history books. As the Titanic sinks, Hollywood’s streaming businesses are not proving to be viable lifeboats. New platform content appears only a bonfire where value turns to ash. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] There was no business like the show business. It gave a much-esteemed soft power to a few nations, by itself no less significant than nuclear might. The change of technology or delivery modalities scarcely affected the primacy of the West. Its ability to export its culture far and wide was enviously acknowledged. Then decline set in. The rise of Asia made media a multipolar industry. And then corona shut the world down. Since the pandemic, Hollywood’s old formats have nosedived and turned belly up in commercial terms. The new ones are not growing fast enough nor making much profit. Cinema and Cable seem to be on a journey into the history books. As the Titanic sinks, Hollywood’s streaming businesses are not proving to be viable lifeboats. New platform content appears only a bonfire where value turns to ash. While Apple and Amazon invest in streaming as a loss-leader for their other businesses, traditional leaders such as Disney have seen erosion of market value by half. In November 2022, Disney sacked its CEO Bob Chapek, and brought back his predecessor Bob Iger from retirement. Catching a falling knife safely calls for luck. The industry is in long-term decline, as households swap expensive cable packages for cheaper streaming services, as well as free content on YouTube. Mark Bergen writes about this extensively in his book “Like, Comment, Subscribe – Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination”. Within a decade of its founding, YouTube had set the model for on demand, lightning-fast internet television and become the place for free online video. It remains the second most frequented website on earth behind its parent Google. A third of the world’s internet population visits it daily. That is staggering and it does not need genius to imagine the magnitude of the drift. Wish that could be said about good old network TV. Primetime audience on TV in America is about half of what it used to be five years ago. The three networks look like stunned dinosaurs. Since July 2022, Americans have spent more time streaming than watching cable, according to Nielsen. Only sports broadcasting makes the show go on but profitability is a huge challenge. To win subscribers, Hollywood’s biggest studios have ramped up their combined content spending by 50% since 2019. Amazon and Apple have been writing very fat cheques that have raised costs for everyone. Studios have pumped money mostly into established properties. No more do they have the appetite to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in global promotions and make a return from box office earnings over a relatively short period by establishing new IP. America’s ten biggest films last year were all sequels or parts of a running franchise such as Avatar or Indiana Jones. Entire new categories of entertainment will emerge or get hybridised. For young adults in rich countries gaming is bigger than television in terms of time spent. Hollywood has been slow to catch on, but its Silicon Valley rivals are snapping up gaming IPs. Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, whose games include “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush”, is worth $69 billion, ten times what Amazon paid for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Movies based on games are becoming as popular as games based on movies. When “The Last of Us” came out in 2013, the hit video game’s premise seemed outrageous fiction. Imagine a fungus turns people into zombies, leaving society in shambles. It would have been impossible to turn to a viable plot back then. Cut to a decade later and it is a hugely anticipated HBO series going out to a world only too familiar with a pandemic. Over the past decade, as video games have become more vivid and complex, developers have used the medium to spin rich, character-based stories that rival film and TV in depth and quality. “The Last of Us,” for instance, is less about an outbreak and civilisational chaos than the father-daughter relationship between a smuggler named Joel and a 14-year-old girl named Ellie. While game-to-screen adaptations like the “Tomb Raider,” “Resident Evil” and “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchises have made enough money to warrant sequels, unlike comic books, the stories in video games have never been properly translated across media boundaries. For Hollywood it is a gold mine of intellectual property with a built-in audience of gamers thus far unexploited. Viewers should prepare to see more games onscreen soon: Other popular video game franchises with film and TV adaptations in the works include “Twisted Metal,” “Ghost of Tsushima” and “Assassin’s Creed”. Spurred on by the pandemic, which saw video-game spending increase by nearly a quarter in 2020, the games industry was worth more than $170 bn in 2021, in worldwide revenues. That’s about five times as much as the global box office. A shift towards subscriptions and cloud gaming could fundamentally reshape the landscape. Subscription gaming is growing fast, but even in five years it will represent less than 10% of game spending as per estimates. Streaming from the cloud is still less popular. Google will shut down Stadia, its cloud-gaming service. Amazon’s Luna service has yet to take off. Microsoft, which separately runs Azure, the world’s second-largest cloud network, is well placed for cloud gaming if and when it emerges. As of today, streaming services represent well under 1% of games spending. Cloud gaming aims to do for video games what companies like Spotify and Netflix have done for music and films – make them available on any device with an internet connection. For the gaming industry, that would be a revolution. The consoles and beefy PCs required to run modern

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Simply Speaking: Aping trends is wannabe. It is not what great brands do

Leave a Comment / Forbes India, Simply Speaking /

Buck the trend of marginal futility and create something bigger and enduring [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Apple is the most valuable enterprise on the planet but you could put Apple’s entire product portfolio together on your desk. It has built value through immense focus and brand identity. Each facet of the brand experience inspires people through both tangible and intangible means. Most Apple users feel a part of a community that is elevating for them. Image: Shutterstock “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost Great brands often earn synonymy with their category, pricing power and wide acceptance and deep penetration. But, to my mind, there is another, higher order test. Great brands don’t chase trends. They often ignore them. But they do set trends for lesser, non-strategic brands to follow. Mediocre marketers are avid trend-followers. It is a trap. Great brands are great if they have the stature to challenge trends. The truly great brands build and advance genuine cultural movements. This is not possible till there is true self knowledge and a depth of understanding within marketing ranks. Rarely will careerism weld with a calling. It is possible to buck the trend and take a counterintuitive approach only if you truly understand what your business definition is and explore that scope fully. It means rising above product myopia. Following a trend is taking the easy road and going with the herd. If everyone’s doing it, how wrong can it be? Besides, who wants to expose their company to getting left behind, to being excluded from the next big thing? Being ‘on trend’ is likely to be the simplest and most direct way for any business to raise short-term revenue. The seductive logic is that riding a wave of a fashionable trend will make people notice a brand and talk about it. Reebok rode the aerobics dance trend through the early 1980s and launched a first exercise shoe designed for women. The hit status of that product led to Reebok’s $68 million IPO, one of the most successful public offerings made in 1985. But one swallow does not a summer make. ‘Sameness’ is the kiss of death. When you set the trend benchmark you are a “more or less” copycat. Your brand logic becomes “I am the same as X but cheaper” or “I am same as Y but (amplify benefit claim)”. This “same but different” position is a dangerous place to be. Not only does it relegate your brand to subordinate status compared to the brand used as your reference point, but it also tells customers that your brand possesses only comparative value, rather than having its own inherent value. Your value proposition becomes “just as good as Brand X.”   Also read: Simply Speaking: From Nike and Adidas to LV and Balenciaga — sportswear and its ascent into high fashion Instead of copying trends, brands must do things that highlight the uniqueness of their brand and customer experience. Rather than mindlessly jumping on the trend juggernaut, a brand must be managed to develop long-term relationships with customers. The brand equity that isn’t ownable is ephemeral. Aping trends is wannabe. It is not what great brands do. True innovation is risky. Its proof of success must be publicised and commercialised. Segway was much celebrated at its debut, but it could not ‘land and expand’ on the basis of sheer utility. Trend riding is easier but there is a lack of context and “copy all” execution of a strategy. Trends come and go quickly. Related products and personalities may become popular overnight but lack the majesty of originality. Plus given the super saturation that is the norm now, the collective consciousness drops the trendy shiny objects as fast as they adopt them. A rapid life cycle can wreak havoc on efforts to build a sustainable brand image. Coco Chanel said “style is forever”. A brand must build products and services that are consistent with their internal culture. When Hot Topic opened its first store in 1987, its edgy styles were a hit among teens bored with preppy Tommy Hilfiger and similar conservative brands. But then as the punk look faded from popularity in the early 90s, so did Hot Topic’s performance. Liquid Death as a brand is elevating canned sparkling water to a lifestyle statement. It sends you your horoscope as an engagement gratification and its stated motto is to ‘murder your thirst’. Well, it is a distinctive if not exactly distinguished approach.   Also read: Simply Speaking: Emotion as a marketing lever—you can’t wish it to happen Brands must originate with authenticity and a full injection of personality. A culture of novelty seeking kills true innovation. If you’re seeking inspiration by drawing on the same narrow range of artifacts as everyone else, you’re going to end up with products and solutions that everyone else already has. The results will be marginal, and the status quo will prevail. Tall brands must stand out. A distinctive brand makes deliberate hardworking choices. Great brands, in fact, challenge established trends. In 1993, Steve Ells, a trained chef and graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, came to Boulder, Colorado—and opened the first in a chain of Chipotle Mexican Grills. Its food was produced fast and inexpensively, but the quality and the flavour weren’t compromised in the way that typical fast food fare is. There are now more than 3000 Chipotle locations across America within 30 years of birth. It employs more than 100,000 people. Chipotle created “fast casual,” which offers a more upscale dining environment and food quality, along with higher prices, but in the familiar, convenient limited-service format of fast food. An interesting fact is that much of Chipotle’s early growth had been financed by a large investment from McDonald’s Corporation, but it never succumbed to taking a prescription.   Also read: Simply Speaking: A brand mosaic and the little things that make it The TED conference was a much

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Tumbling Tech : The slide to the bottom

Leave a Comment / The Economic Times - Brand Equity /

When Covid shut the world down, it was tech that kept it up and running. All things digital surged even as the rest of the sectors tanked. But then things changed. The Nasdaq composite, a tech-heavy index, shed off one third of its value. That is equal to India’s GDP. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] If ever there was an apt example of ‘nothing succeeds like success’ it was the case of America’s five largest technology companies. Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta saw their revenues and profits grow at five times the rate of American GDP between 2011-2021. When Covid shut the world down, it was tech that kept it up and running. All things digital surged even as the rest of the sectors tanked. But then things changed. The Nasdaq composite, a tech-heavy index, shed off one third of its value. This loss of value totals a staggering 3 trillion dollars. That is equal to India’s GDP. Mark Zuckerberg was tech’s Don Quixote charging at the windmill, and Cervantes couldn’t have made a more dramatic loss come alive. Meta shed two-thirds of its value. ‘The Age of Social Media Is Ending’ – an article by Ian Bogost in Foreign affairs generated much interest. Those who were hyping the narrative of tech exceptionalism knew this was coming. Digital markets accessible via internet enabled mobile phones had been plateauing and maturing for long. Alphabet and Meta depend on online advertising for their revenue. The growth came from eating into the share of ‘old media’. Close to 70% of Ad spending in the United States – by far the largest market – turned digital. Then the base effect caught up. Novelty gone, the music stopped, and the party was over. Once the rising tide retreats, all can see that everything afloat was not a boat. Looking at Google trends – the term Facebook has witnessed fading interest levels from an Index 100 to Index 25. Two quarters in succession -July and October 2022 – Meta declared drops in revenue. This had never occurred even once in its history. If Big Tech had looked to the past, it would have got enough guidance to navigate into the future. Pioneering companies and brands get scale, concentration, ecosystem advantages and synonymity with entire verticals and processes. So it was with Tech: Google was search and Facebook, social media. Then the clock on the time bomb went ‘TikTok’ and Facebook’s user count began to experience gravity. When the times got tougher, the party under the marquee turned to bloody strife. Apple vs Google on privacy. Amazon vs Google in cloud services. Netflix vs Disney vs Warner Bros vs Apple vs Amazon in content. Netflix dropped 50% in terms of market value this year and rushed to pure play advertising with its nose bleeding. This coincided with headwinds ripping the roof off for digital companies. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates continuously to contain inflation. Tech companies turned unappealing because high rates erode the present value of promised earnings. Such has been the chaos on the way down that even the collapse of the cryptoverse, barely made headline news. Geopolitical tensions made China unattractive. ‘Friendshoring’ by Americans drove Apple to shift new production to India and Vietnam. It has lost more than a quarter of its market value within a year. Of these, the case of social media meltdown is most noteworthy. As social media companies grew their user bases into the hundreds of millions, the business applications of Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms began to take shape. Social media companies had access to some of the richest trackable user data ever conceived. Powered by a surveillance-based business model designed to mine, map and manipulate our actions to a degree sophisticated algorithms learn our emotional vulnerabilities and exploit them for profit in possibly insidious ways. When did social networking become social media? When did it become “by brands, of brands and for brands”? The shapeshifting of the social space from ‘networking’ to ‘media’ might appear cosmetic, but the duality was irrelevant. Social networking, especially Facebook has come a long way from Mark Zuckerberg ’s original vision of connecting every person on earth to each other. Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, , and other social media services thrived in the mobile app environment. Facebook began to place ads on its platform as early as 2006. Twitter enabled ads in 2010. LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok all have attempted to monetize their services through various forms of sponsored advertising. Technological improvements — specifically, powerful in-phone cameras — shifted the focus of mobile apps to video and images. In addition to written messages, end users could now broadcast in real time. But then branded content took over and community networking became an optional extra. Effectively. social networking has now migrated to chat applications like WhatsApp and Telegram away from the cacophony and forced feed of social ‘media’. As our lives moved online, social media platforms could predict our emotions and behaviours. They leverage these insights and auction us to the highest advertising bidder. But users aren’t just being sold grocery or shoes. The targeting capabilities of these platforms give anyone with a motive the power and precision to create disinformation on scale. Gloomy enough? Now toss machine learning into this concoction enabling deployment of tailor-made content targeting potential targets to a ‘segment of one’ level. Machine learning is at work to deploy the right ads, not to find like-minded people or a long-lost friend. The rules of engagement swung away from community to focus on content without our conscious consent. Social media platforms started monetizing reach . This is why the hype cycle started and now there is more content than community building on social platforms. Everything about us cannot be allowed to be commercially monetised. The required emergence of social networking 2.0 might just pave way for a much bigger and stronger ecosystem where smaller circles are the new reality Link: https://brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/digital/tumbling-tech-the-slide-to-the-bottom/97018011?utm_source=linkedin_web&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialsharebuttons  

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