As countries report their September 2021 quarter GDP growth rates, the world will be eagerly watching to read and parse the news and data. So far, China has reported a much lower than expected GDP growth at 4.9% over the previous year. I am not sure how much of that is due to the government’s… Continue reading The Global Economy In a SWOT, Wot?
In recent days, the Indian media has been full of news and views about Air India finally being sold to the Tatas. Divestment done. People have also been opining about how this reflects the government’s seriousness about privatization and reforms. My reaction was: If only it had been allowed a couple of decades earlier, when… Continue reading The Return of The Prodigal
We all talk of brand equity, especially in the advertising and brand communications industry. The Economic Times in India even has an advertising and marketing supplement called Brand Equity. What exactly do we mean, when we speak of brand equity? The term has come to encompass many aspects of a brand’s growth, from brand awareness… Continue reading Between Equity and Valuations, What Brands Represent
Hello readers. Welcome to the first of my Owleye blog posts - a monthly column of commentary on the most important issue facing the world - in place of my Writings on The Wall blog posts, that now says goodbye. This one is on Afghanistan's economic troubles and its future. After the longest war that… Continue reading Afghanistan Impoverished by More Than War
Finished reading Amartya Sen’s Home in The World, that my parents had gifted me for my birthday this year. The first I heard of it was in an article by Edward Luce of The Financial Times that he shared on Twitter and I remember thinking, well, it’s been a long time since one saw or… Continue reading Truly at Home in The World
The act of transcribing one’s thoughts on a page or any surface dates back millennia and is inextricably linked with our being human and needing to communicate. Whether expressed as ideograms or drawings, like the Lascaux cave drawings in the Dordogne region of France, this form of communication developed even before languages and scripts were… Continue reading Of Writing and Writing Instruments
The last time I wrote about Europe’s economy, it was in the context of global economic recovery, jobs and employment and how many people who had been furloughed were back to full-time work. Now that we know that the European economy has grown healthily in the second quarter of 2021, we must remember that it… Continue reading Europe’s Economic Recovery Could Be Hit by Own Goal
For the past few years, I have noticed a new craze in marketing circles in India called moment marketing. I have even seen posts shared on LinkedIn about great moment marketing activities and how marketers were smart enough to cash in on opportunities. I also discovered recently that LinkedIn has a page devoted to #momentmarketing.… Continue reading Setting the Record Straight on Moment Marketing
As an advertising and brand communications professional who has been observing and working on brands for many decades, it strikes me that there are many industries and indeed companies in India that are ripe for market segmentation. In marketing, of course, that would mean tailoring specific products/brands to meet the specific requirements of select groups… Continue reading Market Segmentation: Different Strokes for Different Folks
In an increasingly polluted world of congested cities and long commutes to work, do luxury cars have a future? And as much of the world recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic and returns to work, will preference for private transport drive the growth of luxury cars, as well as all the others? We have seen the… Continue reading Ideas to Help Jaguar Leap into the Future
Peripatetic Perch 