Businessworld

The acclaimed tamper-proof ledger put wheels on blockchain taking it everywhere from healthcare to insurance and AI is the basis for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and now Libra. It’s sensible to consider the risks first. Its open and versatile nature could perhaps be its undoing. Quantum computing, could break blockchain defenses. That risk is palpable and the consequences are dire. Quantum computers can store more information using less energy than traditional computers, which means they can rapidly perform complex calculations. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] Unlike normal computers, quantum machines can go down multiple paths simultaneously in their problem-solving. As a result, it is tens of thousands to millions of times faster than current computers and more power means tasks such as breaking encryption becomes easier, potentially exposing critical data and sensitive information. As early as 2016 attempts by a team from MIT and the University of Innsbruck led to a quantum computer that they claim, if successfully scaled up, could break RSA encryption, a widely used algorithm. This is the standard encryption, securing everything from text messages to e-commerce. Given this news, one can only imagine the panic happening in commercial and intelligence establishments. The blockchain is particularly vulnerable because it has a single point of failure. Once breached, all the blocks are freely available for invasive appropriation from criminal mafias to undercover agencies to gather. Today they are encrypted, hence secure. Once quantum computing gets cheap enough, there could be huge leaks of blockchain data that is potentially being secured into a captive reservoir now. In 2018, Google unveiled Bristlecone, a chip with 72 qubits that the company believes could soon reach “quantum supremacy”, bringing mass-produced quantum computers to market. The biggest locks on our doors are as safe as the key that gently turns and opens it. Now let’s look at the hype. Who is to assess the magnitude of the change that is upon us? Is blockchain an imminent reality that is commercially viable now? Products and services are being “reinvented” with AI at their core. There is huge investor interest in AI data plus intelligence means new solutions to problems. But who is judging if the AI being sold as nirvana is not some ready-made algorithm slapped on existing data? AI needs to deliver in a commercially scaled manner. The question to ask the current AI hype builders is whether AI is ready for real-world robustness? The direction is set and the momentum is irreversible but the real magic will happen when early failure makes the smart followers scale to commercial giant status. The future is an era of AI no matter what the risks. That’s a certainty. We are living in an age where mass is replaced by personalised.  Everyone has a data track and the distinction between local and global is disappearing. Everyone is enabled by technology to choose between multiple market-based alternatives. For example, minting money used to be always a sovereign right. But now we see an explosion of alternative cryptocurrencies. Investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Bain Capital, and Peter Thiel have invested over $300 million into stable coins, projects that are seeking to print dollars and euros in blockchain to compete with central banks. This is a direct and potent challenge to control of monetary policy by central banks. Fact is that today most dollars and other global reserve currencies exist only as digital records, not as physical paper notes. Add to the tech-enabled fact that anyone can create blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, and we could create a system that issues a cryptocurrency which always has the same value as a dollar. Then there will be no distinction between a federal reserve dollar and a crypto-dollar. Today a dollar or euro is a unit and denomination of monetary value, not brands Projects such as Maker and Basis are attempts to achieve precisely this – creating crypto-currencies that can be accepted as if they were “real dollars” and are exchangeable for Fed-dollars on a one-to-one basis. There was a time when business was wary of big government. It is the other way around now. Recently, Facebook announced that it would launch its own digital coin next year, a potentially revolutionary step that will allow 2.4 billion users to make payments over its network. This promises to crack open one of the most over-regulated industries in the world. Doing so with its own private global currency, Facebook will allow users to convert from dollars, pounds, and other international currencies into this cryptocurrency called Libra and vice versa. The coins can be used for all in nature of commerce on the Internet in physical locations and transferring money without needing a bank account. This cryptocurrency, being developed in Switzerland is backed by networks such as Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. Others in the ecosystem include Uber, Spotify, eBay, Vodafone amongst a total of 28 companies that are reported to have signed up. The cryptocurrency was born with Bitcoin a decade ago and several other minor cryptocurrencies followed but their summative impact seems fairly marginal. Estimates of the numbers using Bitcoin do not exceed 20–25 million people. Facebook, however, is on a completely different scale. Besides 2.3 billion users, Whatsapp has another 1.5 billion. This user base along with a market value of $500 billion gives Facebook the muscle mass needed. If Libra becomes the currency used by everyday people it will be an irreversible phenomenon. Despite all its other troubles, the market is anticipating this huge breakthrough and the Facebook share price has climbed throughout this year. It will immediately impact traditional banking. Across the world, regular banks are grappling with ineffective scale, poor legacy technology, weak unemotional branding, and ‘low-tech – high touch’ structures. Their liquidity comes in via the current and savings accounts. Once that is gone, traditional banking will be gone too. It will also massively erode the power of governments, central banks, and monetary sovereignty. Once a currency has 2–3 billion users across the world no single government or currency can dislodge it. In other words,

A magic that defies definition or the eternal pursuit of being better? No one needs luxury. Yet everyone wants it. It represents the most valued of mankind’s possessions. Luxury takes wallets to dreams. ‘Getting luxury’ is a mindset. It is an acquired taste. For the same reasons why one can learn to tell from amongst varieties of cheese. But since the world is changing at an unprecedented pace and extent, so must luxury. Today the definitive icon is a self-made super achiever. Her ascendancy has little to do with privilege or context but with value creation and qualifications. For such a super-achiever seeking experience are equally, if not more important than possessions. Brands also are seeking to be their own medium. With a global rise of affluence, there is a recognition that many more people can ‘do expensive’. Wallets can buy their way to any epic restaurant but one can walk into one’s club without a wallet altogether. This elevated state of being whilst being wedded to earthly delights is the essence of luxury. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] For the ‘super-elites’, luxury has been a way of life from the advent of civilisation. In the modern sense, it got crystallised as a class characteristic in the post-renaissance period in Europe. In 1899, Thorstein Veblen used the description ‘conspicuous consumption’ in his profound work ‘The theory of the Leisure Class’. Sociologists viewed the acquisition of luxury objects and its associated lifestyle as a socio-cultural phenomenon driven by hedonism or acquisition of social esteem. In Vance Packard’s ‘The hidden persuaders’ one can see a cumulative academic judgment that a luxury-seeking lifestyle is a shallow, materialistic drivenness. This hankering remains forever ungratified. But most authorities on aesthetics, culture, art and social esteem will rubbish such a biased judgment. For them, luxury is beyond a badge or marker of superior quality. Luxury is elevated to an emotional essence, a cultural medium and – at its very highest – a self-perpetuating myth, even a philosophy. Luxury can be seen in two ways at any time. An outer symbolism vs inner-directed pursuit. A statement of self as against an unconscious adherence to social class codes. A possession to play up one’s entitlement or the need to not be overt because everyone gets it. No matter why you seek luxury be it quality, prestige, pleasure or status, it is ultimately to elevate, enrich and luxuriate oneself. Buying luxury is being luxury, irrespective of the context and no matter what your depth of connection you are then part of an enigma, an aura, and a self-perpetuating mystique. Every Yacht is an iceberg. The badging and the possession is only the manifestation of a deeper set of urges. These associations that act below the threshold are much more significant. For me as a marketer, there is another perspective as well. I see the ‘longing’ as a need for ‘belonging’. A tribe of super achievers who are united with others who are equally unique. This inaccessibility is the biggest brand strength. Not everyone can get in but everyone ‘wants in’. The life behind velvet cordons is the boundary line. All desire it, only the very few deserve it. Inside the cordon is a living benchmark of aspirational elitism. They are assumed to be folks who are cultural and creative sophisticates. A few who are inside the ring get evolved enough to be in the clique of tastemakers, trendsetters and those who define taste. I will conclude by saying emotion and evocation are more important to understand than any physical, factual or substantial reasons. After all haute cuisine, exhibition art and performing arts are all spaces for enjoyment and delighting only the senses. The image, aura, provocation, pride, inscrutability is felt without much being said. In a cruel irony, those who hunger most for luxury never get it. Those who climb up to get into the circle choose luxury brands to give their growth some gravitas. New money gets infected with the desire much before any claims to connoisseurship. It’s a marker to signal that they too are privileged and exceptional. Those who belong, know it. The vast majority are made to admire from far away. Those are the rules of the luxury game. Not all wallets buy dreams. http://www.businessworld.in/article/Luxury-Wallets-To-Dreams/27-07-2019-173756/

In less than 40 years, China has become the world’s largest industrial producer and trading power. It holds the largest foreign exchange reserves in the world. Whether anyone appreciates it or not, China is contributing more than any other country to global growth. It is a global power with all the bells and whistles required. Beijing now splurges $10 billion a year on overseas propaganda and at $28 Bn, China’s aid budget is the largest in the world. There are now Confucius Institutes covering every continent. Xinhua, its state news agency, has 180 bureaus, making it the world’s 4th largest behind the Associated Press, Reuters and Agency France-Presse. Its trillion dollar belt and road initiative is more than 10 times larger than America’s postwar Marshal plan in present dollar valuation. It has the world’s largest co-existent public and private sector. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The US accuses China of practicing “state capitalism” and supporting state owned enterprises at the expense of the free market. But honestly, even in the US the government has never ceased to intervene. The US government rightly fostered the growth of the internet, bio-technology and shale gas. Likewise, during the grave financial crisis of 2008, the US rescued banks and provided fiscal stimulus. State owned enterprises are present across the developed world including in the US especially in capital intensive sectors viz infrastructure, public services and scientific and technological research. Chinese public sector mega-corps are run by elite cadres. Many are listed joint-stock companies China has a ‘socialist- market’ economy. The Government overrides the market and has a decisive role in resource allocation. China’s industrial and credit policies dictate results even if its macro-regulation follows WTO  rules. We have evidence about China’s economic miracle in the private sector. It contributes more than 50 percent of China’s tax revenue,  60 percent of gross domestic product, 70 percent of technological innovation and 90 percent of new jobs and businesses. Chinese private businesses and companies with foreign investors accounted for 83.7 per cent of imports and exports in 2017, up from 57.5 per cent in 2001. This is the context for the simmering that has now come to a boil in US – China relationship. Of course, there was cordiality on display when Donald Trump met President Xi Jinping in Osaka at the G20. But no one is under any illusion that one of the biggest trade wars that the world has seen in recent years is on. The US has imposed tariffs on $250 billion of imports from China. Beijing has retaliated in like measure. The tariff fight is only an overt sign of a much larger struggle – The struggle for world domination. The struggle itself, forget the outcome, will change the world forever. Trump has enough critics. But even critics acknowledge his administration has put US policy into gear and blown the whistle on China. It seems to be in the “national interest”. What that means in the present world of transnational cross holdings, global capital flows and distributed worldwide innovation merits an article on its own. China has risen inexorably to become the most powerful strategic rival to the US but under successive Republican and Democratic presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, China was given a wide berth and  accommodation. The US had a $375 billion trade deficit in 2017 vis a vis China. It is unsustainable. Trade flows aside, the US needs to challenge China’s rise comprehensively including but not limited to economic muscle, foreign aid, soft power and diplomacy. The assumption that bringing China into the WTO and other such global regimes makes it conformist with international norms in trade and business was simply invalid. The US has now upped its attack to Beijing’s human rights record, its Belt and Road Initiative and military presence in South China Sea. This could be a long haul. The US- USSR attrition ran its course from 1945 -1991. But China is already an established and flourishing economic power as they start off China is also one of America’s biggest creditors. Therefore, the US strategy is multi-pronged. First, restrain and challenge China’s technological growth. Stop intellectual property or technology transfer. This is why Huawei was deemed to be a ‘national emergency’ for the US. China has made huge advances in certain areas – artificial intelligence, material science, avionics and military technologies. Secondly, to reduce US economic dependence on China. Transfer investments and manufacturing elsewhere into Asia. Growing partnerships with key allies such as Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines is to act as a counterweight. Finally, critical to leverage India. We, in India , have a good position to favourably exploit this attrition too. No other Asian power has the size, growth, population, domestic market, physical expanse, intellectual and material resources and soft power that India does. America –India is a natural partnership. Through mutual economic pursuits and collaboration a glorious tomorrow is within sight. http://www.businessworld.in/article/India-US-The-Democracies-That-Are-Natural-Partners/09-07-2019-173005/

To any electorate, the perception of performance matters as much if not more than the performance itself. They notice input, not intent and seem to reward effort, not outcomes. We live in a world of brands. Politics is no exception. Modern-day Indian democracy is a market place where agendas, ideologies and above all, charismatic brands are competing for share. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] A successful political brand is one that capitalizes better with the electorate. Indian democracy has been steadily witnessing to the ascendency of corporate style marketing management. The arrival of near-universal web access will accelerate this to record levels. To any electorate, the perception of performance matters as much if not more than the performance itself. They notice input, not intent and seem to reward effort, not outcomes. Voters punish the perception that the needs of the common man are not important to those who rule. On what basis is this perception currency earned for the political brand? Law and order, low cognizable crimes, high economic growth, ease of doing business, low inflation, faster employment growth, better living standards, industrial output and dozens of such indicators are ballyhooed into prominence as advertising artifacts. The perception battle has, however, now decisively shifted its focal point in our polity. From governance perceptions to personality associations, a Presidential style narrative is at play even in state elections and every result is adding or eroding individual charisma. In political branding, charisma ought to be seen in spectral terms – as personal magnetism – as an objective measure of social leverage, recognition, perceptual superiority, community standing etc. At its core is the personification of values through espousal. Certainly, factors such as personality, known trustworthiness and authenticity make voters gravitate to one or another. A charismatic leader is one who inspires you with his or her vision and has solutions to the problems. Being charismatic implies being possessed of high energy, performing actions ripe with symbolism and being seen as a visionary. Time is the main erosion agent of charisma and it needs to be constantly revitalized with sustained results. If a candidate doesn’t deliver and fails to live up to the expectations of the followers, charisma nosedives. Voters then look for someone who is different, with new qualities. As a ground condition, erosion is good because authenticity comes to play and folks want someone who won’t hesitate to tell them the truth. We live in a media hyped ‘personality’-driven world, where the connection with voters is heavily influenced by what people think of politicians and what they see of them. A natural magnetism allows one to connect with the masses but the operational challenge is to walk the talk and generate the same level of performance as magnetism. Erving Goffman, one of the most influential Sociologists of the 20th century and the father of ‘Impression management’ had the theory of dramaturgical keeping of persona in myriad quotidian interactions. The Latin word Persona itself means ‘mask’. To use Goffman’s construct, every public figure is also an actor in their own play. Each one gets to script the opening at the least. Their social image gets developed thereafter on basis of a social pact which is that the public accepts their self-presentation and judges actions against this persona based on tacit agreement. We know you are not who you claim to be but we are willing to accept the face value and judge your actions against this persona. Emotional connect has come to occupy a position of prominence when one talks about how brands are influencing our day-to-day lives. Even the worst political brands are agents of social change and their image enhances emotional connect thus making the product perform well beyond its stated functionality. That’s why perception often tides over reality. But this doesn’t last forever. Likewise, rebranding of politicians is done mostly riding on the emotional connect to help him/her improve appeal and ratings Political brands get greatly devalued when they don’t live up to the pre-poll tall claims or fall short of the promises on which they ought to deliver. The heuristics are the same as repeat purchasing for a brand. Elections are as much about the ‘electorate’ and here the declining group affinities, social fragmentation, material stresses, reversal of conventional stereotypes, emasculation of traditional authority totems have resulted in personalized politics. Collective actions have been replaced with individual expressions, often angry and polarising. This holds much relevance in our world where the politician is more popular than the party and the electorate is searching for some anchoring. Perceptions are built via intangibles – trust, emotional connect, story, priming, and mental conditioning. Contemporary political battles are fought as much in the virtual world (if not more) as they are in the real world. India witnessed the biggest election exercise in the history of mankind to elect the sixteenth Lok Sabha in 2014 when more than 553 million people – nearly twice of USA’s total population -exercised their franchise. This meant an all-time high of 67.7% voted.  The high turnout had much to do with the aspirations, the hope of the consumer-citizens with the poll promises made by brand Modi which fought this election on the plank of development, employment opportunities and elimination of corruption Out of the 397 million female eligible voters, 260 million turned up to vote in the election, which is almost two-third of the total. This was the highest and best-ever turnout of female voters in a Lok Sabha election. Gender participation came to the fore as a marker of assertion in representation. It was credited that Charisma alone cut across divisions of caste, language, region, community. To conclude, a leader’s reputation is no otherworldly or divine apparition. Instead, it is a manicured and carefully cultivated face. What it becomes eventually embodies and communicates collective evaluation of the masses. In the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharata, after inquiring about all aspects of war and statecraft, Yudhishtir inquires as to what is the most precious thing for a King. Promptly comes

As we gallop into a new Millenium, technology is creating irreversible changes in communication and dissemination. A look into the fundamental underpinnings of communication psychology will prove useful All human action is motivated. It stems from a desire to achieve a conscious or sub-conscious end. It, therefore, implies that understanding of the underlying motivations is key to communication design. It will assuredly lead to a greater payoff. Communication via paid media is the biggest marketing expenditure for most companies. Hence, the most effective return on advertising expenditure and investment is possible only when some strategic advantage is found which gives greater effect to every dollar thus spent. [siteorigin_widget class=”SiteOrigin_Widget_Image_Widget”][/siteorigin_widget] The theoretical foundations of effective advertising have also grown and changed with advances in psychology and other social sciences. Yet, universality in the manner of physical sciences is elusive in this realm. Everything which can be measured is not a fact. Everything which is not measurable is not false. What is measured is never beauty, aesthetics or emotion. Our experiences and sensibilities are immeasurably richer and more intricate than the methods and media we rely upon to describe and measure them. There has been a steady growth in our understanding of impact and response via advertising. The earliest view was that a consumer’s mind was like a clean slate. His neural network was primed with impressions that were repetitive. Such impressions then ‘owned’ mind space and built conditioned response eventually leading to ‘habit’. Thus, linkage and top of mind awareness were the keys to success. Imperfect and inadequate as it may seem today – upon closer inspection – one can see that this school of thought is alive and manifestly evident in practice. The concept of the ‘target’ group as a herd, amenable to manipulation still persists. The memory structures and furrows that are the maps for the ‘heuristics of habit’ omits the case of the non-steady state, new, original, fresh intenders. Psychology as a roadmap to consumer behavior in the 20th and 21st century is entirely derived from western schools of psycho- cognition. In its entirety, two branches of this theory form the foundations. These are Wertheimer’s gestalt and Freudian psychoanalysis. Gestalt psychology, very simply put seeks to explain perceptions in terms of the sum of constituents which emerges perceived more than the sheer sum. Rational evaluation as the substrate of behaviorism was prodigiously written upon and theoretically expounded by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Kurt Kafka. Gestalt is about living in the conscious, alert, material world. It is acutely focused on rational justification and goal- achievement. The other major foundational platform is subliminal, subconscious, conflicted even traumatic. This ‘Freudian’ psychoanalysis was further developed by Carl Jung, in his theory of archetypes, Alfred Adler concerning personality theory and Erich Fromm who worked on Isolation and belongingness. Psychoanalysis postulates that a conflicted ego and instinct manifests itself behaviourally and we are mostly puppets on strings. Our conscious mind is only rationalizing our subconscious urges and drives. We are driven unconsciously to seek that which we fail to recognize or maybe unwilling to acknowledge consciously. Ideas are repressed because the conscious ego cannot accept them. With time, people also forget because they have achieved a ‘satisfactory’ adjustment. So, the two streams of thinking that aim to decipher the consumer’s actions have different conclusions about the development of personality. Psychoanalysis predicts that ‘traumatic experiences’ from birth onto weaning, toilet training, and puberty are all battles to master the forces of the environment. Therefore, the consumer is preoccupied with the symbolic aspect of goods, to utilize or possess them as a means of giving vent to suppressed desires. Symbols matter a lot more than we perceive it. Rationality, on the other hand, is about the cognitive process, mature reflection, and comparative judgement. Public means to appeal to ‘public’ life even of the individual, in everyday consumption, what is personal and deep is deemed somewhat irrelevant. The cognitive track assumed problem showcasing, solution storytelling, Unique Selling Proposition, and active comparison would be postulates of consumer rationality. Media and mass advertising took to rational ‘hard sell’ finding it a lot easier than to smartly recognize and put into effect symbolism that comprises personal and private inspirations. Moreover, rationality offered more chances of ‘word of mouth’ relay whereas ‘universal psychographic types’ proved elusive. Whereas symbols may be universal, consumer typologies abound in a confusing mass of theories. The Extrovert/Introvert of Jung, the Neurotic/Impulsive/Creative types of Otto Rank, besides several ‘orientations’ expounded by Erich Fromm. What remains missing is an integrative science of the image cutting across economics, psychology, sociology of groups and other branches of knowledge. What is clear is that the wisdom of the crowds is again being technologically trumped by the ever-present, always on modes of content communication. Therefore rationality, efficiency, and accessibility are given as granted. The billion dollar question is how will ‘data-driven’,  technology-infused’’,  global, young, new brands take this emotive, elusive, expressive aspect of the brand building into the future that is arriving already into our very busy world? http://www.businessworld.in/…/Advertising-And-Its-Psychological-Rationale/23-09 -2018-160638