Marketing Icons
I was recently asked in a discussion to enlist my choices for the Top 5 marketing icons. This set me thinking as I had never bothered to piece together my own list of favourites. Gathering my wits, i quickly chose the following.
1) Mahatma Gandhi : How a person unleashed the potent force behind the ubiquitous - 'Word of Mouth'. Imagine an impoverished, illiterate nation rising up to face the greatest imperial power on earth, all through a few grains of salt. Mahatma cleverly figured out the weapon which even the humblest strata of population could identify with.
2) Steve Jobs : How does a techie almost always stay ahead of the innovation curve. All this while ensuring that his products are the most customer friendly.
3) Madonna : How does a diva change her colors as routinely as the chameleon. In a career ranging from waitress, singer, style icon, bedroom story teller, broadway and screen actor, religious bigot and finally a children author, she has always defied the norm.
4) Amitabh Bachchan : How does a person rise Pheonix like, after being mauled so badly. A superstar appearing on idiot box and then climbing up his way to work with best of the directors.
5) Sunil Lulla : How does a person go againsts the conventional wisdom and customize a medium (MTV), whose founding USP was "teenagers are same everywhere". Later at Sony Entertainment, he cleverly used every tool in the book like product placement, flash mob, co-branding to create a buzz around an imported upstart - Jassi.
The above personalities operate/d in different spheres but one underlying theme unites them - their strong sense of individualism and self-belief.
1) Mahatma Gandhi : How a person unleashed the potent force behind the ubiquitous - 'Word of Mouth'. Imagine an impoverished, illiterate nation rising up to face the greatest imperial power on earth, all through a few grains of salt. Mahatma cleverly figured out the weapon which even the humblest strata of population could identify with.
2) Steve Jobs : How does a techie almost always stay ahead of the innovation curve. All this while ensuring that his products are the most customer friendly.
3) Madonna : How does a diva change her colors as routinely as the chameleon. In a career ranging from waitress, singer, style icon, bedroom story teller, broadway and screen actor, religious bigot and finally a children author, she has always defied the norm.
4) Amitabh Bachchan : How does a person rise Pheonix like, after being mauled so badly. A superstar appearing on idiot box and then climbing up his way to work with best of the directors.
5) Sunil Lulla : How does a person go againsts the conventional wisdom and customize a medium (MTV), whose founding USP was "teenagers are same everywhere". Later at Sony Entertainment, he cleverly used every tool in the book like product placement, flash mob, co-branding to create a buzz around an imported upstart - Jassi.
The above personalities operate/d in different spheres but one underlying theme unites them - their strong sense of individualism and self-belief.
posted by Amit Pandey | 2:11 PM
6 Comments:
this is a bit unrelated ... came across your blogs ... wanted to know some quizzong club's address in Mumbai ...
Madonna? I am very impressed with this list - Sunil Lulla for instance - thanks to all that he has done, MTV can now run almost on auto-mode even without him... and by the way, MTV could take a lesson or two from your list when they do their yearly youth icon number!
I would say Laloo ...
He practised what they called the perfect Targetting , perfect segmentation ,perfect communication and has the perfect hypnotic effect on his target segment !!
Pity he is not the perfect product !!!
Hi Amit,
Kiran here! stumbled onto ur blog thru rashmi's. Since when have u taken up writing with such gusto? great start.
i completely disagree with sunil lulla on your list of mktg brains.
i vividly remember an interview in sunday times while he was at MTV.
he was caustic while referring to Ch[V]. He called V as 'channel paanch' from its roman numeral and said that it appeals to the teenager, the grandmother?, the family dog etc. (Those were the days when V led the localized menu whereas MTV stuck to its phoren maal.) Turns out later that he ate his own words after that and was forced to go the V way and audaciously take credit later.
The fact that he cant stay at any one place for more than 2 yrs is the icing on the cake.
besides a common interest in quizzing, i love tracking people (movements and quotes).
wonderful blog.
You and I have one icon in com'n:
Steve Jobs:
If you want to visit my list, plz visit:
http://pilot-pooja.blogspot.com/2007/03/big-shots-i-admire-most.html
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