We - The Change Catalysts

Welcome to 2005 - the period of massive transition in any brand look, name, logo, feel...you name it and you'll see that alls changed. From toothpastes, to airlines, to companies, to cities, to computers, to sim cards anything in any category of products that you were using, suddenly there is this change in colour or a change in constitution or a change in name or a change for change's sake that we have to get used to now, for reasons little known to us.

Wherever you go, they follow (Whether you want them to or not)

Hutch has gone Pink and Blue. Earlier Hutch was Orange. Fighting over a Brand name really makes sense coz the brand is the one that the customer knows, relates to and buys at the end of the day.So Hutch going all out in Mumbai is justified as in the Mumbai Circle, its brand name has changed from Orange to Hutch. But inother circles, changing a colour and increasing your already booming marketing spends for it is change for change's sake.

Fine I am ready to take it that in the agreement between Hutch and Orange there might have been something to do with the colour being used by Hutch. But then having a major mass marketing campaign just because you've changed from Orange to Pink is uncalled for. I would have been a little happy to see a good ad from O&M coz that is what I've come to expect from them for Hutch ads. But a pug running after a little piece of triangular pink paper just to show that Hutch is Pink, just points at the hurry in which everything was executed to herald the Pink.

We now have billboards and full page print ads with a woeful Hutch pug staring at us saying "Hutch is Pink". Great. Hutch has also tied up with Radio Mirchi for a 10 day period saying Mirchi is Pink (!!!!!!?????!!!) Red-Green-Mirchi = connection. But Pink-Blue-Mirchi = ????????? Total Breakdown!

I understand the importance of communicating the change. Hutch already is a huge spender in mass media. Its current marketing spends would have anyways helped it communicate the Orange to Pink transition. A good ad execution and normal media buying would have done it. Just relying on the pug to communicate that everything else remains the same in terms of functionality, only the colour has changed, is a little too much work for the poor pug. I hope some Animal Activists are taking note! :)

Sheher Sheher ki Baat hai

First Mumbai, then Chennai followed by Kolkata and now our very own Bengaluru. For the uninitiated, thats our Bangalore for you in the coming years. The Karnataka state government has proposed a name change for the capital city - from the Anglicised Bangalore to the very Indian Bengaluru.

Thinking of it, its all very patriotic, and a government has to do it sometime, so why not now? So what if the Indian-school-going-struggling-with-oh so interesting subject of-Geography- students are already burdened with learning the names of 28 states and their capital cities, 6 union territories, and the ever increasing number of new states and to top it all new names for older cities. Its a frenzy.

A city is also a brand. And a city like Bangalore aka Bengaluru which has been built as a brand the world over as the techie hub for India, will have its own share of problems. The Indian people are now by and large accustomed to the Bhartiya names replacing the Angrezo ke zamaane ka naam. But how will the IT honchos explain the bout of patriotism to the confused world market, where they have spent the better part of the last century building a brand name called Bangalore?

Changes are bound to happen as we move on, as the brands move on, their contracts move on...but the truth also remains that the only catalysts in this process of change are We,The People who have accepted and moved on with these changes, who've not changed our mobile nos. just because we dont like Pink and we liked Orange better, Who've just not changed the city coz we like the current name better.

We, The People who've accepted the changes being served to us and have moved on, giving our brands a chance to celebrate another life and giving our mass medias another reason to rejoice and laugh all the way to the bank coz a brand has been reborn.