​Have Purpose. Make Culture .
Brands have great power, potential and resources to be a culture maker. To not merely react to what’s happening around them – but to respond with a POV & action that makes the right dent in culture. There are two parts to this equation. 
One, requires understanding the culture & the issues therein. 
Two, requires operating from the brand’s purpose. Brands that have got it right are those that have stayed true to their Brand’s purpose, and used that as their guiding force.  

Understanding Culture (and the issues) + Understanding Brand = Where to Play 

Always needed a way to appeal to a next generation of consumers in the face of growing competition. Their award-winning response was the #LikeAGirl campaign that turned a phrase that was used as an insult to an empowering message, a rallying cry uniting all girls, in celebrating & giving meaning to the word ‘confidence’ in ways that mattered most to them. The purpose of the brand was the cornerstone of the idea. The purpose of the brand guided the path to take, the cause to espouse. 
Lifebuoy’s ‘Help a Child reach 5’ aims to change the hygiene behavior of consumers globally thereby helping to reduce rising causes of child mortality. A match between the cultural habits and practices around the lack of personal hygiene and the brand’s that has always  been an active proponent of hand washing with soap and instilling a hygienic hand washing behavior . As a part of expressing the brand purpose in the service of a relevant cause, Lifebuoy adopted villages with one of the highest rates of diarrhea to spread the message of hygienic hand washing – an initiative that saw both Lifebuoy Business and the infants grow in health. 
AirBnB is making diversity & inclusiveness a priority. It is using its brand values in responding to a big cultural tension of people feeling alienated, isolated, and discriminated against. “We do believe in an inside-out culture,” said Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder and chief product officer “If we hold our hosts and guests to an expectation of acceptance and belonging, it has to start within our company. Otherwise, how on earth do we have the credibility to hold them accountable, if we’re not doing it to ourselves? Airbnb has published its own diversity numbers, with 42.88% of its workforce being female in 2016. Meanwhile, 56.6% of the company’s employees were white in 2016, compared to 30.41% Asian, 6.47% Latino, and only 2.92% black.

When picking a cause to champion

1. Be sure that it is an expression of your core equity & and that you have a right to play in that space. 
2. Let the focus of your efforts be a genuine act of change for the better
3. Walk the talk. The cause you pick is one that you should live and action every day through your organization, employees, policy. It should be able to stand up to scrutiny. 

​One of the most common meme circulated in marketing and communications circle is that of  people’s attention span being shorter than that of a goldfish. This line of thinking believes that the entire generation suffers from ADHD – and for communication to work it needs to be short & condensed - to, where we are today, talking of 3 sec advts. 
Yet we are at witnessing binge viewing, long from videos with high Click Through Rates & high view ability, & movies are getting longer. 
There is ample evidence of people engaging for extended amounts of time.And engaging deep. 
 
Origins of the eight-second attention span myth
‘Most people will tell you that we know our attention span is less than goldfish because of research conducted by Microsoft in Canada in 2015. The Microsoft research includes impressive-sounding quantitative surveys and neurological studies – and the report does include an Infographic that shows human attention spans ‘dwindling’ from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2013, below the nine-second average attention span of a goldfish. The only problem is – that infographic wasn’t actually based on findings from Microsoft’s own research. It’s sourced from something called Statistics Brain. When you go to the Statistics Brain website, it offers a range of different sources for these and other stats. None of them seem to mention the attention spans of human beings or goldfish. When you look at it in any level of detail, the stat that has dominated a huge amount of marketing discussion since May 2015 isn’t based on any recognizable research at all. So the ‘fact’ that we have a lower attention span than goldfish isn’t a fact at all’ 
(https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/blog/best-practices--content-marketing/2016/the-great-goldfish-attention-span-myth--and-why-its-killing-cont)

So what’s the truth? 
"How we apply our attention to different tasks depends very much about what the individual brings to that situation," explains Dr Gemma Briggs, a psychology lecturer at the Open University.
So,if marketers are always trying to grab people’s attention, if their strategy is about disruption & incessant interruption, and if there is no utility built in – then yes, people aren’t going to reward them with their attention. 
But if you provide utility, a currency of value, content that entertains, conversations that people want to be a part of, communities that could benefit from the resources you have - people will reward you with their attention. Not only will they reward you with their attention, they will evangelize the brand on your behalf – IF what you are putting out there is of value, and not one more thing that they have to grapple with before they reach the content that they value.  

There is ample proof from the world of marketing.
DOVE. Adept at crafting stories  (way longer than 8 secs !) and encouraging their community to participate in those stories by focusing less on their product and more on their mission – championing Real Beauty and encouraging all women to see, embrace & celebrate the beauty inherent in them, Dove has been successful in creating viral videos that have helped them stay top-of-mind.
GOOGLE EARTH. HOMEWARD BOUND. Emotional account of Saroo Brierley's journey to trace back his original roots after a tragic separation from his family is nothing short of powerful. By inserting their product into a story of loss, love, and restoration, google earth was successful in positioning its capabilities as life-changing. The length? More than 3 minutes – and related videos with lengths anywhere between 11- 20 mins, all with CTR and view ability higher than most 3 seconds, 6 seconds, 8 seconds or 30 second videos .
WAITROSE Waitrose's Spring ad includes footage recorded from a GoPro camera strapped to a cow! All with the honest intention of showing people where their food came from – simply, with no doctoring, no cosmetic modification. Just showing the real stuff – the way it is – nothing more.  The campaign won both the Innovation award and – new for this year – the People’s Favourite award, voted by the public. The Waitrose work also took the Grand Prize, triumphing over all category winners that were eligible and most importantly saw people voting for it with their attention and their wallets. 

In Short.
Time is a scarce resource & something people like to think that they are spending well. Give them value for the time they invest in you. Don’t add to the crap that’s cluttering people’s lives. 

1. Take a look at every piece of content you put out and score it against whether or not you would invest your time in it as a viewer, consumer. Does it provide viewers a currency of value? Does it help them become a part of communities in a manner that is useful to them? Does it help create communities that matter ? Does it drive conversations of consequence? Is it an example of great storytelling? Is it something they really care about? Does it get a laugh out of you? Does it make them feel that the time spent on you was well worth it? Is it a good experience? Or just act a roadblock to their actual destination? 
2. And if they skip you in less than 3 seconds, don’t blame it on their lack of attention. Blame it on your lack of the right intention, insight and imagination. And not having provided them an experience of consequence.

​Batman. He’s always been my favorite superhero, channeling what initially scared him – bats- into his identity and using it as source of strength instead. 
Which brings me to an issue we face every so often.  
Marketeer’s obsession with putting on a facade of complete perfection – being seen as a the fastest, coolest, the no.1 in everything you could possibly think of, with all the unflappable confidence, and all the undifferentiated braggadocio.  Yawn….
There’s a great opportunity in embracing all of your brand – and shining the light on its supposed weaknesses & use it as a way to super serve the customers you want to forge a relationship with. 
And giving the brand a personality that is differentiated, and interesting because of its authenticity.
 
Create the Batman Brief.
 
Avis V/s Hertz
In 1962, Avis was in search of a new advertising campaign. Since its inception, the car rental company had trailed behind the market leader, Hertz. So the ad agency DDB decided to embrace Avis’ second-place status as a sneaky way to tout the brand’s customer service. “When you’re only No. 2, you try harder,” went the new tagline. “Or else.” The “We Try Harder” ads were an instant hit. Within a year, Avis went from losing $3.2 million to earning $1.2 million—the first time it had been profitable in more than a decade.Avis ads never called out Hertz by name, but the accusations were implicit. “Avis can’t afford not to be nice.” “Avis can’t afford to make you wait.” “Avis can’t afford dirty ashtrays.” The campaign ran for the next 50 years, all over the globe. Acknowledging any sort of brand weakness is usually considered anathema to marketing. But by choosing to shine the spotlight on their supposed weakness – that of not being No. 1 – and the benefits to the consumer therefore, Avis won both the consumer’s share of heart & wallet. 
Volkswagen Beetle with its legendary ‘Think Small’ campaign followed the same strategy. “It’s ugly but it gets you there,” another VW ad confessed. 
 
Waitrose UK.
Waitrose, UK’s top food supermarket had always been associated with quality food. However with increased competition, its position was getting undifferentiated & all the price driven promotions shifted the conversations from quality to value – making it tougher for Waitrose to hold its ground. The solution was reveal all as Waitrose live streamed footage from all its farms to show consumers the uncompromising standards that Waitrose holds to with honesty & vulnerability, never seen before, by using the immediacy of live streaming technology and TV ads filmed and aired on the very same day. 
Campaign reacted with an article on “Why slow marketing is going mainstream. After the success of slow food and slow TV, now brands are turning to slow marketing to help remedy our hectic, always-on lives”
The cam on a cow approach worked. Waitrose is not the fastest, nor is it the cheapest – and it didn’t desire to be seen as such either. It didn’t aim to be it all – just to reveal ALL - with consumers across UK voting for it with their purchases and an exponential increase in consideration for Waitrose.

Delamaison
A purely online furniture retailer overcame the supposed weakness of not having a physical store by transforming the weakness into its biggest strength with rent free pop-up shops. The idea, Apartment Stores by Delamaison was a free home styling service for Parisians selling their homes; helping them sell faster and for more, by transforming them into rent-free Delamaison pop-up shops.
Visitors could try and buy the furniture, the apartment, or both. In Delamaison campaign idea, the consumer and its apartment become a medium and media in itself, driving strong business results for the brand& each Apartment Store became its own organic grassroots PR campaign, for an investment of just 3000€.

People aren’t perfect. Nor are Brands. And sometimes their perceived weakness that can be turned into their biggest competitive advantage with creativity, honesty, authenticity, self-confidence, and a genuine desire to be of value to people. 

​Is Mobile the Modern Day pacifier? Is iPad the new nanny? Is parenting a skill that needs to be worked at? Does job of parenting often take over the joy of parenting? Does pumping the very best into the child – the best music lessons, advanced mathematics, tennis, and science – mean that there is no childhood left in the child? What is dad’s role in the picture?  What should the child be readied to face? 

Hours of deep immersion in the lives of parents in urban India, interviews with experts, partnership with leading online hubs for children’s activities & programmes – all of it to shine the spotlight on truths that seem to be guiding parents in India, today.

Success is directly proportional to ‘The Exposure Quotient’ Parents place great emphasis on children developing multiple facets to their personality, and are seeking various enriching experiences they can expose their children to. “In today’s world you need to know everything to survive. Academics are taken care by school. Outside the school, I gave them a choice of one sport activity, one music activity and one something else.”- Priya

Parents feel that these additional skills will give their children the bragging rights and street smart needed to succeed in real life.“We realise the importance of raising street-smart kids. The competition is for everything  and from everyone. It is important to expose children to different nationalities of children and to other children with varied talent” Priyanka

Parents extensively research in their quest for kid-friendly holiday destinations. “It is primarily about doing different things, exposing them to different stimulus. The family discuss it what we want to do. Drives happen for natural beauty. It’s not a spur of the moment decision.”- Pooja

They want to create smaller everyday moments of happiness for their families when they are together..“For me day-to-day memories are more important. All four of us are connected on a very niche website path.com. I keep posting pictures and posts about small little things like first time he made tea, lost his tooth, his first goal, his craft etc.”-Tarun

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
Brands can ignite a conversation on how we can prepare our children for success & how we can create the right context for talent to emerge & thrive. Think on the lines of having a Development Curator -  a digital resource that parents can use  to develop their own exposure and learning plan for their children.
 
Living their Dreams Vicariously Parents today are s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g and striving to expose their children to all the experiences they feel they themselves missed out on.
"It is important that she does good in all spheres of her life, especially those that I couldn’t get much exposure to as a kid. I want her to experience all the things I couldn’t.”-  Hiteshi

While parents today are enrolling their children in diverse programmes and activities and filling their child’s world with increasing possibilities, they are fraught with an anxiety of whether there is any childhood left in their child.“My child’s life is running from one class to another, one activity to another”– Shireen

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
Provide parents with skills, tools and access to experts  to understand and uncover the talents and interests of their child. Help them structure  the child’s environment & daily routine to help facilitate the expression of the child’s interests in a manner that permissive , exploratory & freeof pressures.
Celebrate Passions: Create live and virtual events that celebrate parents’ and their children’s shared interests. 

FSTR…..FSTR….FSTR: Everything is starting earlier today - babies are being enrolled in structured programmes and classes at a much younger age than ever before.
“Parents bring 6 months old child to music classes because they want to start stimulating their child at an early age.”– Sonam, Child Care Expert 

But while they want to prepare their children for success as fast as possible, they are often left wondering as to whether or not they are hot-housing them?
“Unstructured time is very important for the child in his early age. It is not about teaching all the time. It is about creating a stimulating environment. ”– Pooja, Early Childhood Educator

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Enable the creation of nanny +child / grandparent + child programmes and activities, where the caregivers can pick up skills and be trained to care for and engage the child  productively in the comfort of the home, in an informal, unstructured manner
- Give parents a vocabulary  to recognize and appreciate what everyday success looks like when it comes to parenting
- Ignite conversation in parenting forums  & communities on how to effectively care for the child, stimulate and not hot -house the child.  Invite tips, discussions, debates , sharing experiences . Acknowledge & reward participation
- Empower parents with online resources that they can use to equip their caregivers with the right materials to entertain + educate their little ones in the process. Provide training classes for house helps 

Global Citizen with Ethnic Roots We saw parents creating opportunities – small and big – to introduce their children to their Indian roots as well as expose them to the vision of the world.
“We tell them Ramayana/Krishna stories ( Indian mythology) as bed time stories. I chant one or two shlokas (religious prayers)  at night when they are sleeping. Arjun knows most of the hanuman challisa (Hindu religious prayer) because that used to be his lullaby”- Shilpa

While they want their children to have strong local roots and a strong sense of identity, they believe a global vision is critical too. “It’s a global society and you want to give your child all the exposure, learn many things and you don’t want them to be one dimensional in their outlook" – Anika

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Provide opportunities for children to connect with their own traditions, re-acquainting them with their own roots - festivals, foods, history , mythology, arts & crafts. Online resource to help them improve their CQ – the Culture Quotient. 
- Enable parents and children to develop their Global Culture Quotient . Provide online resources & exchange programmes  & access to communities to enable cross- cultural exposure and learning
- Provide parents with ideas on how to adapt traditions to fit more modern needs.  
 
 
The Parent ‘Project Manager’ The role of a parent has changed from a DOER to a MANAGER. They delegate key tasks to maids, grandparents, tutors, even schools - demanding greater accountability from all of them. 
“I call myself the COO of this household. I call this household Shireen Enterprise. My role is of a supervisor cum administrator cum trouble-shooter ...managing everything bu outsourcing duties. I can cook but I would rather not. If you don’t have help and your kids are continuously demanding attention and you feel this continuous need to attend to their demands then how do you figure out to do the rest of the work”– Shireen
They feel that they can outsource some of the ‘doing’, and that planning & managing is their education and ability is best used.

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- The Parent Coach : Work with parents & help them articulate realistic, achievable goals both in short term and long term and  to plan their daily lives, & weekly activities to work towards the achievement these goal
- Ignite skill exchanges:  Unite caregivers  by connecting them to experts and to other parents, helping them both share  and gain knowledge & experience  

The Road Often Travelled - The Guilt Trip This is the age of time-poor, money-rich, guilt-ridden parents. Parents are constantly trying to compensate for the lack of quantity of time with their children and the resultant guilt results in material benefits and quality experiences.  “The guilt of time is compensated with showering them with gifts. It’s not as much like the kid wanting it. But parents saying take it. Because they both are working so they are very guilty and that’s what is compensated with a lot of gifts.” – Priyanka & Shitij.

But they realize that time is the ultimate luxury and are always wondering how to optimize and make the best use of their time with their children
“I really believe in spending quality time with my kids. I am with them every single morning regardless of what I am doing, where I am, I want them to know that we are with them at the beginning of the day. I am always home by 6.30. So that again they know that their day ends with us.” – Anika

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Outfit parents with ideas on activities they can do with their children making the everyday routines a little more special and something they can count as meaningful. How can they transform the routine and the mundane into a playful, fun time, full of mindfulness and fulfillment.
- Well-Being Classes for Parents. Provide parents options for de-stressing, relaxing, re-balancing . A de-stressed parent  is a better parent.
- Connect parents to a community of parents and experts  to help them discuss their anxieties and find everyday solutions to cope with it.  

Crowd-sourced Wisdom. Trust is a Person. Parents want to stay connected to other parents to learn about others’ experiences and opinions. “When deciding about the school for my son I asked parents about various schools their kids go to. And then I did my own research. I went inside/outside the schools with mothers from different schools from my reading club. I spoke to the other parents” – Shibani

Parents trust other parents and this connection to other’s experiences is the way parents form their own opinion and fortify their choices. "I search on internet by what age should a child be speaking. I would search out if my child is going through something that’s different for example Arjun has started snoring in the last three weeks. I have started reading about it. I have never sought formal help. It would always be informal with friends or families or see what other parents are saying online.” – Shilpa

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Feed parent’s conversations with images & success stories of parenting that they can then learn from & emulate
- Connect them to Real People with Real Stories. Stories of the everyday successes, failings, learning as  a parent.   
 
Building The Museum Of My Child’s Achievements. Parents uber-document and share every experience and accomplishment of their children. The child’s ‘newsfeed’ also fuels the parents’ ‘e-dentity’, giving them shareworthy original content.
“I put her achievement shots like when she got her badge, any little celebration, pictures of her doing something cute, her birthday pictures, or we go out - even my cover photograph is her picture.”- Shweta

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Help them Curate their Memories. And make sense of their pictures, the numerous artwork
- Parents are natural sharers of their  child’s  first anything.  Provide opportunities for parents to showcase children’s success. Celebrate and help document & share the experience.   

Dads In The Picture Dads today are more involved in their child’s everyday life. Their involvement extends to more aspects of their children’s lives. It’s not just about getting involved in academics and sports only – their involvement is more expansive.
“My husband is completely involved, right from the time of changing / washing nappies, giving them bath; he even learnt to braid their hair, so on days when we were rushed to school he used to braid their hair and try out new styles.”- Kavitha

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Celebrate Dads in the Picture. Use Dads in communication; Create live and virtual events that celebrate and encourage the various roles that Dad’s play in their children’s  lives
- Lead through example. Ensure that the organization puts Dads in the centre of parenting with paternity leave, child care leave for Dads and enabling Dad to play a stronger more present role in their child’s life
- Connect Dads to a community of other ‘hands on’ Dad to help them learn the ropes of active parenting  
 
Grandparents are Stepping into the Parenting Role. Grandparents are the new life support system for working parents today because grandparents are seen as the most trustworthy and dependable supervisors, as well as capable “edu-tainers”.
“Grandparents spend constructive time...quality time and give them a lot of knowledge. What grandparents can teach parents cannot because they have different experience.”- Nidhi
The knowledge that their children are with their grandparents is the greatest ‘guilt release’ valve for parents.“Having them gives me mental security. They make life fun. I love the fact he is spoiling them because there is enough rules and discipline that we inculcate at home so, they have to get their; pampering from somewhere.”-Anika

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
Celebrate the power of the mash up team of the Golden Age and children. Facilitate grandparent-grandchild team getting together with other grandparent-grandchild team for experiences that keep them productively occupied, engaged & enriched. Extend the interaction to a regular conversation on how parents  can better equip both grandparents & children as well as the home environment to respond to the  increased responsibilities  & involvement of the grandparents.  

The Newborn Parent. Parents are looking to online and offline resources to learn different aspects of parenting.
“I read a lot about parenting in blogs online, through websites,  in newspapers, magazines & books"-  Afrida
There is an increased realization amongst parents today that parenting is a skill that needs to be worked at – hence, they seek help, advice, support and inspiration to get it right.
“Parenting evolves every day. Every day there’s a unique situation and you don’t know how to deal with a situation at that time. You have to learn how to deal with it.”- Pooja 

What are some of the experiences that brands can design in this space?
- Empower parents by giving them bite-sized, mobile enabled, access to important tips, information, advice on parenting
- Go SO –LO-MO social – local – mobile. Create an ongoing  crowd sourced platform to help answer the everyday queries of parents and be their always available & accessible , 24X7 ‘agony aunt’  who will partner them in solving their parenting issues, with them, each step of the way.. Connect them to their neighbourhood community of experts    
 
 
When it comes to products and services, there definitely is a lot more that could be done in response to both the expressed and unarticulated needs of the parents today, with experiences of consequence. Brands can certainly do a lot to support parents and help ensure that the  job of parenting doesn't necessarily overtake the joy of parenting.