It is in the spirit of this age and our times that we resort to making comparisons all the time. About anything and everything. In the 60 and more long years of my life, I have never encountered so much of this, as in the past couple of decades. It’s something about the 21st century perhaps. We hankered so much after it as the defining watershed century, the one that will show us the path to the future. And now that it’s here, we keep comparing here and there, then and now, with scarcely a thought for the future.
To a great extent I think it has been caused by the explosion of information and media as well as globalization. And it is possible that the last decade of the 20th century sowed the seeds, with countries opening up and liberalizing their economies. With trade and investment flowing freely – relatively speaking – across borders and then the arrival of the internet. People in one corner of the globe could see how their counterparts were faring in other corners of the world and began comparing their lives. Companies from a certain country or region set up business in other parts of the world and soon, brands were developing similar consumer cohorts across the world. In the early years, many MNCs made the mistake of charging similar prices for their brands and products, until they came up against the wall of differing purchasing power. Differing income standards and differing propensity to buy.
Suddenly, there was so much to compare across markets, countries, economies, political systems, people’s livelihoods and living standards. It is so much a part of our lives now, that we don’t even realise when and what kind of comparisons we tend to make all the time. The contexts are all near-universal. From our education and family backgrounds, to careers and incomes, social and cultural aspects of our lives, gender, the arts, politics and political leaders, economies, businesses and business leaders and more.
Why do we make comparisons is a question worth pondering over. Is it because of a pressure or a need to conform? Or is it in order to stand apart? Or is it because we need a benchmark against which to rate ourselves? Whether we are comparing ourselves to others or comparing someone else, we must know that we are putting ourselves and other people under tremendous pressure to compare favourably, whatever it might be.
Let us look at the kinds of comparisons that exist, generally speaking. We can and do compare two or more separate objects or concepts to draw an analogy. This is when we intend to communicate something by way of illustration. In communication too, when we speak or write, we use metaphors or similes to convey our concept.
Then, there are comparisons which are made for precisely the opposite reason: to contrast. This too is used in communication, including in advertising, I might add.
And we also have comparisons that are made in a competitive context. We use these to evaluate and judge which is better, or more, or worthier of our attention, our time and our money. It is this third type of comparison that has become so commonplace, so as to make us unaware that it is even being made. Take rankings for instance. We have rankings of companies like the Fortune 500, of universities, colleges and business schools, of countries and cities, of brands, of books, music, cinema and the like.
If this is not enough, we also have indices of various kinds. From stock market indices, to cost of living indices, economic indices, brand valuations, each of these are nothing but a way to rank and compare, not just with each other but also over time. It appears that the world is suddenly filled with so many variables and so many choices that we need rankings, indices and comparisons of a competitive sort to help us make our decisions. Are we to conclude that it is greater complexity in our lives and work that forces us to make comparisons and depend on them?
I think that we need to tread carefully here. If these are comparisons being made to understand nuances and finer aspects of an issue, it is an intellectual exercise that demands rigour and depth. In fact, there are several subjects that lend themselves to comparative research and analysis, from literature and philosophy to religious, cultural and social studies. These are pursued in academia for in-depth studies and are meant to lead to greater understanding of different genres, schools of thought and societies.
But often people compare apples and oranges as the saying goes, which leads us to the wrong conclusions. Why, I have read in a review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s book, Klara and the Sun by the editor of Vanity Fair, Radhika Jones – who has a doctorate in comparative literature – a comparison being made with Thomas Hardy, and Tess of the d’Urbervilles being mentioned in a context that made no sense at all! I shared this with subscribers of my blog’s free monthly newsletter, The Whistle, though I suspected PR agency idiot bosses behind both the book as well as the review.
Then, so often we have heard our political leaders wishing to turn Mumbai into Shanghai or Singapore; it is a comparative frame of reference that has led them to this. Many people around the world including us Indians compare India and China quite often. I have myself made this comparison, but in a specific context. As large, populous nations with millions in poverty, and as countries that liberalised their economies around the same time, even if the exact year of China liberalising its economy was a decade before us. When our government compares India and China, it tends to compare our manufacturing, our exports, and wishes to follow China’s SEZ system. Not realizing that our economies are so different in many ways, that we cannot simply emulate their path to growth. I wish we would compare how many millions have been lifted out of poverty in China and their investments and focus on education, instead.
In the advertising industry too, we are required to make comparisons all the time. On the strategy side, we compare our clients’ brands with competitors, we try and see what consumer segment to target and how differently we can achieve this. In creative terms as well, we use comparison as a creative device or idea. And here, we follow all the kinds of comparisons I mentioned earlier: comparison as analogy, as a way to contrast and differentiate and even compare competitively as in direct, comparative advertising. All of them have their uses and benefits, provided we have the maturity and understanding to know when to use which technique in communication. Coke and Pepsi’s cola wars made advertising legend in the 1990s, as did Nike and Adidas, and Mercedes-Benz and BMW, albeit on a lower key.
But comparisons can sometimes also be odious. When we tend to compare people, for example. Siblings in a family, students in a class, candidates for a job, performance appraisals and bosses in office. Even political and business leaders, for that matter. What we aren’t always conscious of, is that when making these kinds of comparisons, it isn’t the comparison itself that is a problem but the parameters or dimensions on which the comparison is being made. It runs the risk of either putting too much pressure on one, or of glorifying the other and you’ll agree that neither would be fair to the people being compared.
It is true that in matters of leadership, one is at least expected to fill the predecessor’s shoes, if not do better. But this is where we might overlook other factors, such as context, time and place. I remember reading a short piece in HBR South Asia print edition sometime in 2009-11 (which I can’t find online now), that compared the new CEO of GE, Jeffrey Immelt to Jack Welch, and used stock market valuations as the basis for comparison. I don’t claim to know that much about GE, but I always thought that Jack Welch believed in growing GE inorganically and he aggressively pursued this in the diversification of GE. Investors cheered every such move he made. In hindsight though, his plan to take GE into media by acquiring NBC was as ill-conceived as Immelt’s plan to take GE into oil and gas. Who is the better leader, therefore, and should market capitalization of a company or its share price be the only criteria?
In a similar vein, I remember people comparing Mr SR Ayer of Ogilvy to Ranjan Kapur who succeeded him as chief of Ogilvy India. Since Ogilvy is a company I have worked for in two separate stints in their Delhi office, I can speak with greater confidence about it. I think context, time and place, are all extremely important. Ogilvy in the days of Mr Ayer was a very different place from what it was under Mr Kapur. Mr Ayer’s vision was to build Ogilvy India into absolutely the best agency there ever was, always clarifying that we don’t want to be the biggest. When Mr. Kapur took over, Ayer’s vision had already been achieved and Kapur’s clear statement to all of us was, that Ogilvy will not be content with being the best, we will aim to be the best and the biggest in the industry. They both had very different leadership styles which drew from their personalities, but when you consider their visions for the organisation and their achievements, both made huge successes of their leadership and Ogilvy, the company, gained the most.
Comparisons are all very well, and sometimes necessary. But if we allow our minds to be consumed by comparisons all the time, we are not merely being unfair to the people or subjects being compared, we are doing ourselves great disservice. A constantly comparing mindset actually robs us of many qualities that are important in life and in work. Genuine concern, empathy and even the powers of being able to exercise good judgement when it matters most. In constantly comparing, we can easily get swayed or easily disappointed on some dimensions, and miss out or overlook the more critical ones. Besides, comparisons turn everything into a competition or a contest. This too can rob us of our humane values such as consideration, fairness, giving in to more important requirements and the like.
Comparisons as a way of maintaining reference points is sometimes useful but only if one has the maturity to see it internally without letting it manifest itself externally. People often compare the East and the West and our cultures as opposed to each other. As if all of Western culture and all of Eastern culture are the same. Rudyard Kipling famously said,
“East is east and West is west
And never the twain shall meet.”
Well, it’s a pity he never realised that it was the British Empire of which he was an active supporter, that spread its culture everywhere it went. Then we had waves of globalization that helped foster greater exchanges between people and cultures. Of course, we are not all the same as a result of greater interaction; but that our understanding and appreciation is the richer for it, cannot be denied.
On that note, I must mention that I discovered an article that I seem to have downloaded quite some time ago, but hadn’t had a chance to read yet. It’s called Two Cultures by CP Snow, and was part of the Rede Lecture he delivered at Cambridge University way back in 1959. In it he notes a vast, unbridgeable gulf between the world of science and the world of imagination (writers) and makes a plea for the education system in England to change so that scientists and writers may better understand and converse with each other.
Having read it now, I must say that it was very perceptive of CP Snow to have seen and realised the vast gulf between scientists and writers in his time and to attribute most of it to Britain’s education system. I must say that he too couldn’t help comparing the education systems in Britain, US and the Soviet Union, with mentions of Germany as well, in making his inferences. A sensible and well-argued one, though, in this case.
The featured image at the start of this post has been generated using AI on the Microsoft Designer website
Peripatetic Perch 