Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 4: Introducing the Touchpoint Marketing ELATE Framework

Introducing the Touchpoint Marketing ELATE Framework

This is the fourth part of a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. Catch-up on the first, second and third parts to know more about the thought process that has led to this ELATE Framework

Touchpoint Marketing is all about having a disciplined, focused and passionate 5-point strategy abbreviated as the E.L.A.T.E. strategy. And what better abbreviation? Eventually, beyond all the 4Ps and 5Cs of Marketing, isn’t it all about ELATE-ing the only C that really matters? – the Customer!

Here’s finally unlocking the manuscript of this tightly inter-locked Touchpoint Marketing strategy of ELATE.

Engage

Through your unique Brand Personality

Ensure that all the customer Touchpoints right from your service kiosks, bank counters, relationship managers, showroom sales staff, delivery staff to your helpdesks, website, ATMs, after sales, customer service execs and complaint & grievance cells  are talking to same language.  All your brand imagery and messaging needs to be deeply entrenched across your Touchpoints. It needs to come across strongly in not just your communication, but more importantly in the customer interactions. Imagery is not just a wish or attitude of how you want your brand to be perceived by a customer. Imagery, Brand personality, Positioning are essentially more based out of your Touchpoint interactions. In simple words, your Brand personification is not a wonderfully woven Outside-In concept from your media agencies. It is infact, a steadily built Inside-Out effort reflecting the DNA and culture of your organization.

In India, MCdonalds is practicing it very consistently. Run across any of their stores and you’ll come across very similar standards of service. Cheery interiors, further enhanced by a happy, helpful and peppy staff. Others like Domino’s and Pizza Hut too are achieving this with a good degree of success. These food joints have realized the power of such Touchpoints and are certainly investing a lot in training and ingraining the Organization culture to these multiple ‘faces of the company’.

To add, over and beyond the traditional Touchpoints, companies need a distinct strategy to keep the Social Media Touchpoints pretty engaging as well. With its unique features, social media offers new opportunities for increasing transactions and gaining new customers through promotions and rewards programs. Infact, the level of engagement and dynamism generated from this media could be a key differentiator for many businesses –

• Design your marketing programs to exploit features unique to social media. Social media provides cost efficient, highly leveraged, and unique engagement opportunities (e.g., social networks, viral advocacy, one-click transactions, check-in/location services, scalability, etc.).
• Make it more engaging through platform strategy, content strategy, marketing and promotions, social  and mobile apps
• Identify and engage social media influencers. Convert them to brand advocates. Increase engagement to boost customer acquisition. Figure out innovative strategies to monetize your Social Media pull. Strategies to convert cute Likes to committed Love!

Link

One Brand, One Customer, One Experience

As indicated earlier, how often have you been pushed around by multiple departments in a company? How often have you felt lost in the complex web of organization structure? How often have you felt dealing with two completely different companies before sales and after sales (Mahindra Holidays, ICICI)? or during Business development pitches and final outcomes (various Outsourcing consulting firms with BD-transitions-Operations/delivery structures)?

Ask any existing Maruti car owner and he’ll vouch for its after sales service (ASS).  Yes, the company makes great value cars – aggressively priced, packed with features and fuel-efficient. But at the same time, a major component of Maruti’s success is its wide ASS. It’s not just an attitude reflected in its advertising (finding a Maruti service station in the nowhere of Ladakh mountains). It is a well-established fact that its customers feel delighted about. The wide ASS network and easy availability of cheap spares completes the One Experience picture for Maruti. All the afore-mentioned factors providing good resale value for Maruti cars and thus further enhancing its appeal. It’s a wonderful way of providing value right from Sales to After Sales to Resale (Maruti True Value) to Upgrade. The complete journey of a Maruti customer from his Alto to SX4 to Grand Vitara. Wonder why they haven’t used such a convincing script in their advertising? Zindagi ka Paiyyah, Meri Maruti! (driving the wheels of life, My Maruti!)

Touchpoint Marketing is about Linking up all your brand Touchpoints to a uniformly satisfying Customer Experience story. Needless to say, it’s essential to Link-in your social media strategy as well by creating a seamless user experience that drives conversion. Capturing, analyzing, and acting upon customer input in the various stages of the “conversion funnel” is key to reaching your objectives. Allow a good amount of tailoring of your social media promotions for various target segments. Allow them to create their own communities thus further enhancing the appeal of such programs.

To know more, continue reading the fifth part of this seven-part series here

Dhoom 2: Magic Recreated...well almost!

Dhoom 2: Magic Recreated...well almost!

Here’s reproducing a review earlier published in November 2006 when Dhoom 2 released to packed houses and shattered many opening day, opening weekend and global collection (worldwide Rs. 150 crores) records.

Do read about Dhoom 2’s predecessor or the prequel that kick-started the Dhoom franchise here. Couldn’t restrain from adding a dash of nostalgia to this sequel review. The review published for the original Dhoom, around 27 months ago in a pleasant Delhi weather. 

Return from the dead.

A movie review after ages. But then that’s the kind of effect Dhoom has on you. One is compelled to go back to the keyboard and type out his thoughts. 

Dhoom 2 – A wonderful concept to begin with. A well-deserved sequel for the refreshing sleeper hit of 2004. And the drool casting itself makes up for a Paisa vasool venture. Literally speaking. The 35 crore biggie is already in the Green with the advance bookings (domestic and overseas) already throwing up a 40 crore figure. Guys, think about the new Bollywood model in place. Much before a single show has been screened. Much before a single review is out. Much before Hrithik has committed a single heist, the movie has already got the thumbs-up. Declared a Hit!! 

Coming to the movie itself. Whatta fantastic opening sequence! Be there to witness the hysteria. The shouts, the hoots, the whistles…The superhero has arrived! Hrithik-Mania is back AGAIN! And this time much bigger than both Kaho Na Pyar Hai and Krrish put together. 

Infact I had gone in with a snickometer kinda device. A tool to measure ‘Which star entry caused the maximum uproar in the audience?’. The results –  

Hrithik:             120 decibels

Ash:                 90 decibels

Bips:                 80 decibels

Abhi:                70 decibels

Uday:               65 decibels 

Guess you got the clue. The superhero simply dwarfs the rest of the cast.  

The movie Infact leverages perfectly on the high energy start and proceeds like a dream. The Uday Chopra ‘Mummy’ act works. Abhishek is at his brooding best. And the screamin n screechin Rimmi Sen takes you back to the original enterprise. Wow! We’re already feelin’ at home.  

The babes make a dazzling entry. Crazy kiya re. They perform, we lap it up.  

The heists continue. The crown from the Namibian desert. The diamond from the Mumbai museum. The sword from the Jodhpur palace. Each sequence is an adrenaline pumping act. Wonderfully executed (both on and off the screen). Kudos!

A slight twist in the tale. The cops and the thieves take positions. The perfect set-up for a heavy duty, high octave showdown. Voila! INTERMISSION!  

For those aroused to read further, folks, here’s a caveat – That’s all about Dhoom 2!! 

The movie nosedives rapidly in the second half. The Uday Chopra buffoonery starts getting monotonous. The track itself departs towards an Ash-Hrithik sweet nothingness. The music drags (bet you remember any other number apart from the Dhoom signature and Crazy stuff once you’re out of the audi).  

And to top it all, the tame climax is infact the biggest dampener of ‘em all. 

Leave our Anti-heroes the way they are. Rugged. Unreformed. No regrets, right till the end. John ridding off the cliff with a chiseled grin was what defined Dhoom I. A cinematic moment of excellence. However, in the sequel, Mr. A serving beer and dressing salad, leading a monk who forgot his Chori-chakari kinda existence cuts a very sorry figure. No way!  

Pre-release, the director (Sanjay Gadhvi) had ensured some action-packed stuff every 6 minutes. However, the second half of the movie literally begs for some action. Here’s a little analysis on the way the movie drags post intermission – 3 grand heists in the first 75 minutes. While a mere 1 in the closing 75! 

And no Tata Young to offset the Thanda ending either. Sad.  

To sum it up, Dhoom 2  works, fortunately for more than two thirds of its running length.

The franchise like most others in 2006 (Koi Mil Gaya, Hera Pheri, Munnabhai) certainly lives on. But a word of advice to the makers before embarking on the D:3 journey  

• Retain the original characters (Jai, Ali, Sweety), but do not go overboard in rehashing the old props over and over again (Ali’s mandatory song, his marital visions, the cop versus thief direct 1-0-1s)
• Concentrate on the music. D:2 is infact one of the biggest musical disappointments of the year.
• Please do not kill the spunk out of your Cool Chor. Let him remain jet black.
• And last, but not the least, please spare us the ham-of-an-actor i.e. SRK in D:3*. Ain’t the entire concept about chilled out, no frills, alpha males. So why not try an Akki instead? Fits the bill perfectly. What say? 

In the meanwhile, do they offer some discounts for watching just half-a-movie? Need to revisit the Dhoom of a first half once again….

*Please note that this review was published way back in November 2006 when a solid grapevine of SRK playing the anti-hero in the Dhoom 3 installment was doing the rounds. Fortunately, looks like better sense prevailed on the makers and finally it’s the maverick Aamir Khan playing the antagonist in Dhoom 3

Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 3: The Moments of Truth that define Great Brands, Great Companies

The Moments of Truth that define Great Brands, Great Companies

This is the third part of a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. Do catch up on the first and the second part of this series to build more context about this piece.

Knowing the characteristics of your customers can help to clarify and identify potential leads. Yes, it’s right that 20% of your existing customers are bringing in 80% of your revenues. But choose to ignore the other 80% at your own risk. Customers change. Their incomes, attitudes, preferences, life stages evolve at a much faster pace than our ability to garner insights. We could be sitting on potential blockbuster, currently dormant customers. It would be naïve and myopic to not acknowledge the unique, niche segments within your customer clusters. All it takes is a bit of a nudge and push to activate them. They may be too miniscule in terms of their segment size, but may still have the potential to emerge as your most entrenched customers. But yes, it definitely takes some deep-dive understanding about these customers to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

It’s time that companies wake up to the power of these niches and start looking at these smaller segments for their unique characteristics. It’s time to stop looking at customers as one large mass that’ll react similarly to mass marketing ‘pulls’. Somewhere, we need to go beyond the existing lazy segmentation of key accounts, high net worth (HNWs) and the rest.  Marketing to this ‘Rest’ could be a real game-changer! If marketers put concentrated marketing efforts toward knowing about these high-potential niche customer segments, they're going to do a whole lot better than if they go after everybody in a similar manner.

Now is the time to use the knowledge of your CRM systems and Data Warehouses for clarity and better decisions. For quicker, agile and more targeted offers/mailers. If there is newly discovered information that you should be capturing in your CRM system, now is the time to add the additional fields into your adaptable CRM system.  

Going ahead with a multi-media campaign that claims “Hum Rishtey samajhte hain” and not caring for your existing ‘Rishteys’ doesn’t really add up. It’s great to be gloating about your social media success through the sheer no. of ‘likes’ on your Facebook page. But is there any metric that tracks the sheer no. of ‘dislikes’ for your customer service? High-pitched above-the-line media campaigns bring immediate, far-reaching success (or so you think), but it are consistent below-the-line, Touchpoint-based, one-to-one efforts, the make you the revered organization you always wanted to be.

Multiple customer service roles were introduced to bring your product/service closer to the customer. To help him, to advise him, to guide him, hand-hold him and lead him to this best interests. Excellent, ideal concepts to begin with. But somewhere along the way, all these additional roles are simply adding to your brand clutter. These numerous ‘faces’ of your brand (with no real brand ownership) could be steadily eroding into and diluting your core proposition.

It’s time Organizations de-clutter themselves and get out of the complex web of Organizational structures. It’s time customer-centric finally places the customer at the centre (rather than pushing him across the organization centers). Your customers are not just a part of a fancily-labeled segment (Young achievers, late bloomers, mid-life identity seekers), each one is a distinct individual. Each one is interacting with multiple Touchpoints of your company on a regular basis. It’s time each such Touchpoint starts being the essence of your brand characteristics. The features and attributes that you’ve been so aggressively marketing through your ATL campaigns, finally boil down to a few moments of truth. The moment a potential customer finally comes face to face with your brand.

Touchpoint Marketing is all about leveraging the potential of these moments. By no way is this revolutionary concept. CRM, Net Promoter Score (NPS), Point of Sale (POS), merchandising…companies have been practicing these concepts for a long time. It’s just that we need a consolidated fresh-look at all these initiatives from a ‘One Customer’ perspective. We need a strong culture that enforces the belief of ‘One Customer’ who deals with multiple Touchpoints in our organization. Rather than multiple Touchpoints catering to multiple customer segments, with no dialogue between each of such Touchpoints.

The idea of Touchpoint Marketing may infact find much resonance in John Carlzon’s definitive work in ‘Moments of Truth’ way back in 1987.

As famously emphasized by John Carlzon - A company is defined in the minds of its customers as the composite total of every moment of truth -- those short periods when the customer interacts with the company or one of its employees. The best approach to delivering consistently high-quality moments of truth lie in building a customer-driven company. The essential characteristics of such a company being –  

• The employees who interact with customers have the authority to make decisions on behalf of the company.
• Middle managers who work to manage resources so the frontline employees can be more effective.
• Corporate leaders who develop a vision of where the company should be heading and provide inspiration.
• A flat organizational structure where real-world experience from frontline employees is learned from and built upon.
• A willingness to look at everything solely and exclusively from the same perspective a customer uses.
• A commitment to narrowing the focus of the company to the delivery of exceptional service.

 

Bring all of those elements together and a customer-driven company can achieve some very significant business success, regardless of external financial conditions, competitive challenges or any other factors.

About 2 and half decades down the line, Moments of Truth still continues to be a truthful, profound ethos of everything that customer-centric companies should aspire to be. Today, Touchpoint Marketing simply tries to build upon these ideas through the twin lenses of Analytics and Social Media. Some impossibly powerful tools that were yet to be discovered way back in 1987.

To know more, continue reading the fourth part of this seven-part series here

Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 2: Are Your Satisfied and Loyal Customers Committed Enough?

Are Your Satisfied and Loyal Customers Committed Enough?

This is the second part of a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. Catch-up on the first part here

 

• How often have you come across a wonderful piece of direct mailer that makes you feel ‘The chosen one’?
• Yes, retailers keep blasting us with end-of-season, fresh-stocks, and clearance sale mailers on a perennial basis. But those are generic mailers. How often have we seen a customized mailer or offer from a retail chain?
• Our Banks and Insurance firms keep us occupied with higher interest rates mailers and ‘we care about you’ kind of mushy mailers. But how often have you witnessed a terrific pitch of up-sell or cross-sell from your bankers/insurers?
• Everyone has been doing database-based telemarketing since the birth of Christ, but how often have you come across a genuine case that talks just to you? A Marketer who actually knows your attitude, preferences, lifestyle and lifestage and has a terrific offer ‘Just for you’!
• My hatchback car company never reached out to me for a potential upgrade. I love their latest Sedan. Just a gentle nudge, some offer, some freebies…and I am sold on. But no one ever attempted this.
• My Insurance firm never tried a potential cross-sell for a kids plan despite being well aware of my lifestage.
• My online holiday provider was of good help during my last vacations. But they never reached out again with some exotic offers and locations for my next vacation.
• My executive education service provider takes web-based management lessons to the length and breadth of this country. However, closer home, its own team is struggling for simple customer service etiquettes.

Makes me wonder, where is all that Analytics going into? Is it sitting in water-tight silos? Does all the output from ivory tower data warehouses goes in creating only historical patterns, trends and dashboards? The predictability, the power to predict that we keep talking about, never reaches the on-the-field marketing teams?

In today’s age of ubiquitous feedback forms and KYCs, do companies actually KTCs i.e. Know Their Customers?

To improve sales, you don't necessarily need more customers. You need better customers.

A concept wonderfully explained in Jan Hofmeyr & Butch Rice’s seminal work in Commitment-led Marketing.

The customers that your data says are your most satisfied may be the most likely to leave tomorrow. So are you asking the right questions and measuring the right dimensions? Some customers appear to be loyal because they habitually buy a product, but this does not mean they are committed to it. They appear to be loyal because in all probability they don’t have many options. They may be the first to fly off your radar the moment another similar product arrives. More like commitment levels in many long-term marriages and relationships. Many times, loyalty could just be a virtue of lack of exciting options! 

Loyalty is what customers do. Commitment is what they feel! Customers can appear deceptively loyal but actually be uncommitted (they might only use the brand because everyone else does (Microsoft), through lack of choice, affordability, or distribution. Commitment-led Marketing is about creating a Conversion Model that allows companies to segment users by commitment to stay, and non-users by openness to adopt their brand. By applying this to their brand, and competitors, companies can identify the right strategy to defend share (if they are a large brand), or steal it (if small). It’s time companies and marketers start acting on the fact that customer satisfaction is a poor predictor of behavior – commitment is better. How many committed customers are being created and nurtured across their Touchpoints?

Many businesses believe mass advertising through email marketing, billboards, radio/TV, direct mail and other channels alone will drive sales. They couldn’t be more half-baked in their assumption.  ‘Above the Line’ Media simply creates awareness, interest levels, enquiries, walk-ins and at best, trial purchases. Beyond that, it’s your brand attributes and service features that take over.

Many businesses simply create the pre-requisite Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter home pages and think they’ve cracked the Social Media Marketing (SMM) puzzle. Just beaming over the no. of likes and shares (most often by your own employees) can’t be the only defining metrics for SMM. It’s more about how your brand has adapted or presented itself in the social media context. How is your brand engaging (and not just informing and entertaining) with the online customer?

This shotgun outbound marketing approach (one to many) is very helpful in creating the ‘Brand Decibels’ – the awareness. It ensures is setting up potential customers’ first meeting with your brand. Beyond that it’ your ‘Touchpoints’ that need to make conversations, conversions, establish connect, build relationships, drive repeat purchase and most importantly enforce commitment. Touchpoint-based marketing is all about smart and focused client retention through effective inbound marketing. All the marketing media, with their distinct reach and impact, help building your brand saliency (awareness). But what actually builds a Brand is what happens when the customer ‘pull’ results in equally impactful customer service or product commitment.

To know more, continue reading the third part of this seven-part series here

Touchpoint Marketing Chapter 1: Do Companies Really Know You?

Do Companies Really Know You?

Starting today and through this week a seven-part series on Touchpoint Marketing. This is the first part of a seven-part series.

Organizations evolve. Steadily over a period of time. And as it goes in Organization Theory, they start getting more institutionalized through structures, levels, hierarchies, culture, values, policies and processes. Most of these aren’t really ‘etched in stone’ fundamentals that organizations begin with. But most of these keep getting formalized as organizations acquire client base, gather some momentum, expand their tentacles, carve their distinct identities, positioning, the mindspace amidst their customers. Both existing and potential.

The entire idea of Organization theory is a beautiful concept that allows companies to be much more efficient and effective in their chosen goal of serving their customers. Structures that allow the companies to get closer to their customers and serve them better.

Now, look around and try to think of all the companies you’ve ever dealt with. Right from your mobile service provider to banks to retailers. Right from big-ticket items like cars, consumer durables and holiday packages to everyday FMCG goods. How often have you been (allow me the cliché) ‘delighted’ as a customer? You think ‘delighted’ is too passé a word. Well there are a multitude of others doing the rounds – customer ecstasy, the ‘Wow’, the ‘Aha!’….an entire battery of such customer-isms depicting your satisfaction levels.

Moving beyond the world of Organization theory, let’s talk about the more glam sounding concepts of Research and Analytics. Insights, Marketing effectiveness, Marketing ROI, data, Big data, Predictability, Certainty, Measurements, CRM, Dashboards, Customer Scorecards, Business Intelligence, Measuring the intangibles, Smart Analytics. Phew!

Analytics (and its various avatars) are the biggest thing to have happened to Management since Lean and Six Sigma. It’s in, it’s cool, it’s intelligent and more of an imperative for your corporate existence to be talking about it. To discuss the magic of Analytics and how it has the potential to ‘Unravel’ (pardon the cliché once again) layers of customer insights, never known before! 

Companies are processing data, Big data by terabytes. You habits, spending patterns, ‘likes’ (it’s no longer a cute word preceding love. It means big business in today’s overtly ‘social’ times), your lifestyle is under constant surveillance. You are under constant, microscopic observations. As a customer, every day, every moment you are being studied, processed, segmented, clustered, regressed and character-sketched. You, the customer, are the subject, with multitude of subject matter experts knowing more about you than your father-in-law!

Wonderful times to live in, right? With so much customer-centric, infact customer-obsessed practices, you the customer, must be amidst the best of times, right? Yes? No!

Once again, think about all the Brands that are serving you right now. How many of these, do you think have really ‘delighted’ you off late?

My existing Bank sold me a Demat brokerage plan and I have since then been running from pillar to post to get it resolved. My multiple well-wishers in this bank right from Equity advisor, Relationship manager, Customer care Execs, Helpdesks, Head Service Quality, etc. have all suddenly vanished in thin air. What a wonderful Organization structure to be swimming in? Amidst all these glorified roles, everybody knows everything about everything. But no single body, knows that one single thing that it takes to (forget delight) Retain an irate customer.

The point being, amidst all this customer relationship and analytics jargon, how many companies are actually reaching out to their Existing customers? Note the word ‘Existing’. We’re not even including ‘potential’ customers in this debate.  Somewhere in our B-schools, we were entrenched with this wonderful insight –

‘It costs ten times to get a new customer as it takes to retain an existing customer.’

Now with companies going out all guns blazing to acquire newer customers, expand footprints, grab footfalls, eyeballs and all the works, is anyone even looking at this huge set of existing customers? 

“Yes, ofcourse” will be an emphatic response from the marketing and technology heads of most firms. “Why else do you think we’ve invested millions in super data-crunching machines and Apps?” We are generating existing customer spend and lifestyle patterns by the minute.

Fair enough. And that precisely, brings us back to the discussion. Think again. How often have we have seen the magic of all this Analytics actually ‘Touching’ us? In today’s age of multiple Touchpoints, are brands and companies actually ‘Touching’ us at all?

To know more, continue reading the second part of this seven-part series here

The Paradox of Studious Professionals

The Paradox of Studious Professionals

Throughout our student life, we wanna grow up, step out, try to be creative, imaginative, do our own thing, don’t want to blindly follow instructions or simply cram the books. In a nutshell, we are so damn eager to be Professionals!!

Cut to our Professional avatars. We will strictly follow our set KRAs, walk with blinkers, never attempt what we were never asked to, never question set processes, rarely look beyond our silos. Our student-mind, so restless to get out of the box, suddenly goes blank and numb the moment we turn professionals. Professionals happy to stay cocooned within our comfortable boxes (also called as Job Profiles).

As students we hated the concept of 'ratta maar' education?. However, the same ourselves are now seeking some divine help (in the form of sample papers and paper patterns) in our professional roles. We hated our teachers for favouring the by-hearters, the quintessential good boys & girls, the front-benchers who won’t know an iota beyond the books. We titled these single-trick ponies as Bookworms, immersed in their books, oblivious to the world around. However, the same inquisitive and brimming with ideas ourselves now hate our bosses for not providing clear instructions. Not being specific in exactly laying down the expectations from us – A, B, C, D…

It’s much akin to the children versus grown-up syndrome. As children, we try too hard to look, behave and project ourselves as mature grown-ups. And by the time we actually grow-up, the reverse process has already started. We try too hard to look, behave and feel younger, cuter and not necessarily smarter. No wonder the repeated reassurance through “I am still a child at heart!”

Corporates have long been emphasizing and underlining this aspect of there being no correlation between Education and Employability. The seemingly sharpest of Engineers are happy doing some of the most redundant jobs. They were refrained from asking too many questions as students. And now, they are too conditioned to not ask questions in their existing job profiles.  Some of the sharpest Engineers from some of the sharpest institutes, but never sharpened to be imaginative. Never engineered to be enterprising. Look around and it’s not a case of over-qualified professionals stuck in monotonous jobs. It’s more a case of under-inquisitive professionals very rightly mapped to the jobs they are possibly the best at – clear, unambiguous, process-driven. ‘Ratta maar’ jobs!

Growing up in value-chain can never be achieved by being served highly intellectual projects on a platter. As it goes in the Bournrville advertisement, “You do not buy a Bournville, you earn it!”

An exciting job profile is necessarily an acknowledgment and award of some exciting ideas. You don’t graduate to intellectually-stimulating projects by demanding for it. You exhibit Intellectually-stimulating ideas and thoughts and then graduate to such projects. Your clients and stakeholders will never ask you to do rocket science, till the time you don’t educate them about the impact of rocket science and infuse (their) confidence in your capabilities to do so! But how will you exhibit such rocket science traits amidst your existing ‘A, B, C, D…’ job profile? Now that’s a classic Catch 22 and that’s something that you’ll have to imaginatively figure it out for yourself.

It’s odd to be quoting a cliché in this piece on imaginative thinking. But perhaps some clichés are unavoidable and necessary to drive home a point - “Ask not what your job has done for you, rather challenge what you have done for your job”.

Look around for all those goody-two shoes toppers and front-benchers in your school and college. Are they necessarily at the top of their game? Are they the front-runners in their professional avatars as well? Ummmm….not exactly, right?

During an interview for the position of head of an analytic team, I questioned a potential candidate on a simple aptitude problem. A problem that involved calculating the area of a circle. He fumbled and had retorted “But how is that important to my role? And as it is, it was too far back in school. Can’t exactly recollect the formula.” Can’t recollect the area of circle formula? You were the Math topper mate! “But we do have Google and all the advanced tools and techniques for formulae.” 

Another potential candidate, who had been at a very senior position in a reputed consulting firm, was asked to run me through his most acclaimed project. Some project where advanced analytics was put to best use with some very insightful and actionable results.  I requested, “Walk me through your statistical/analytical approach to the problem”. He was deadpan in his response “But, I had teams doing it!!”

Yes Google will answer everything and there will be teams doing the groundwork. But as leaders if you don’t know the basics of flying, why would I hand you a pilot’s license? Won’t it be a recipe for disaster? Yes, leaders are meant to provide directions, navigate teams and clients, steer thought processes. But it would be dangerous to be led by an explorer captain and hope to discover America. As they say, Hope can’t be a strategy.

Yes, the area of circle formula was way back in your school. You crammed it up then, topped the grades and then started focusing on the new syllabus and paper patterns.

There is a wonderful book from Marshall Goldsmith, ‘What Got You Here Won't Get You There’. It argues that at the top level, the problems are behavioural, not skill-related. You may have been a meticulous and diligent student throughout. Crammed through your books and sailed across top schools and top colleges with top grades and have now landed a top job. However, what got you here won’t get you there! Welcome to the corporate world, the real world. From here, life won’t be an instruction manual. It’s time you finally apply what you’ve learnt and be your own guiding star.

The true sign of Intelligence is not Knowledge but Imagination. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. - Albert Einstein

But unfortunately, Imagination, Lateral Thinking and Creativity were never full-fledged courses in our education system. Coming back to the crammers from your schools and colleges. Yes, so have they made it large? Have they arrived and are thriving in their professional roles?  Some of them, definitely Yes! Some who had the foresight to adapt to the new rules of the game. They have leveraged their cram-abilities to land up at the right place at the right time. And are now doing the right things, by being rightfully self-driven and imaginative.

Ofcourse, there are many others from those batch of crammers, who are still struggling to make a mark. Perhaps, they are still looking for sample question papers and paper patterns to decode the corporate jigsaw. Perhaps they were never forewarned in their schools, that a major part of what happens in life will be ‘Out of Syllabus’!

This Barfi! is colder than stone-cold Barf!

This Barfi! is colder than stone-cold Barf!

It’s a cold Turkey! Whatever it was a chaplinesque comedy? Poetic romance? Love between physically disabled couple? Or as itself declared in the movie “ek bakwaas jasoosi novel!” Doesn’t Move, doesn’t Engage, doesn’t Entertain! Frankly it does nothing in its never-ending running time.

Why do they make such films? Who story-boards them? Who and why mounts them, sanction them? Why do production houses back it? Why do actors get super-excited about these futile exercises to exhibit their acting skills?

It’s a woeful waste of great resources – the cast and crew included- in such self-indulgent exercises. Just pencilling in a couple of physically disabled characters doesn’t really qualify for great cinema. Barfi! for most part of it comes across as a contrived and manipulative effort, trying too hard to be too cute.

Dear Ranbir Kapoor, we have seen enough of your range as a powerhouse performer. Wake Up Sid, Rajneeti, Rocket Singh, Rockstar, Barfi!...phew! Yes, my friend, you are an actor par excellence, the new kid on the block, the most promising newcomer…and all that jazz! But it’s time we move beyond this audition show-reel of yours and get into some real movies. It’s time you emerge from the ‘most-promising’ category and actually deliver on those promises. Some real seeti-maar and in your Rockstar-lingo, some real palang-tod entertainment! The larger than life Khan-Akki-Devgn stuff. Or if that’s too much to ask for, atleast some frothy breezy romance of the Saif variety.

Ok, fair enough. Even if we take off the entertainment bit and start looking at Barfi! as an artisitic-beautiful work, it doesn’t really cut much ice (much Barf in this case). The direction is too flawed, and fails miserably in trying to be too intellectual, too layered. The director Anurag Basu continues to suffer from the ‘Kites’ hangover and assumes a back-and-forth narrative to be a great technique for great movies. It didn’t work for Kites. And it most definitely won’t for Barfi! either.

The thriller bit doesn’t work. The physical disability of the lead couple appears to be too force-fitted. And finally, the end-product is a confused exercise that seems to be based out of a neverland.  It goes from nowhere to nowhere. All the characters and situations come across as cardboard cut-outs, caricaturish. As if everyone out there was trying to impress (look I can act, look I can direct) rather than express.

Sorry, I can’t be a pseudo-intellectual and praise this so-called masterpiece, when I was dozing off throughout this yawn-inducing Barfi! Three thumbs down for this torture – for the movie, for the director and for myself for listening to fake glowing reviews!

The only redeeming feature – a superb ‘Picchar shuru!’ song at the start of the movie.