Why Soooooooooo Viral?

Share it on Facebook, Tweet on Twitter, Digg it, Stumble on Stumbleupon, do whatever you like but make sure you pass it on. If at all there is any rich media content that makes you do this repeatedly, then it has successfully managed to become viral. Most of the times, its the videos that make the cut and before you know it, everyone on your friend list is sharing it, all your secret crushes are going bonkers over the guy in the video, your lecturer has caught you in the class watching it and even your granny is watching it on the new smartphone you gifted her. 

Offlate, there have been numerous such videos. I found this video recently and thought I'll share it with all of you. The main intention of a viral video like this is to make you speculate the fact whether it is true or not. In the most of the cases, the video keeps going out of focus or the camera keeps shaking at all the right moments and the message or brand is secretly hidden in it. These campaigns totally rely on the number of hits to measure the success and their main intention is not to induce buying, but to create awareness of the brand and spread the word around. While your conscious brain is concentrating on the content of the video, your subconscious is concentrating on the brand or product being used. Don't believe me? Think about it. Which brand comes to your mind when you think of Roger Federer's trick shot where he knocks the can off a guy's head? I rest my case !!!

P.S - The video is actually part true. It's a viral marketing stunt to promote the movie "Limitless" which appears at the 1:30 mark on the big screen.

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The God, The Religion and The Ugly

The much awaited sequel to Godz-illa is finally here. For starters, I was cursed for writing such a long post and I can probably expect them to kick off again after this one. So where do I start from?Hmmm. Let me go back in time and begin with the chronological order of events. As requested, I'm going to start with 'The Big Bang Theory'. Before I move on, if you haven't watched this" Sheldon at his best ", then you are surely missing out on one of the most awfully obnoxious yet insanely funny on screen characters ever created.

Just had a chat with Stephen Hawking and that dude too is not sure how it all began. Even though I have read so many theories about how life began on earth and other theories on evolution, its probably safe to say that the truth may have been a combination of all those theories and all might have been right in their own way. The only reason we haven't been able to zero in on that one particular theory is because of the ego clashes between the brain damaged, bald (some very hairy) and erectile dis-functioned geniuses. While Newton had gone Apples over his theory, and Archimedes had turned into a streaker and Einstein was trying to relate his theory of relativity and stamp his authority on E=MC², none of them would have compromised on their theories. Lets face it, we are still trying to figure out what the hell is this light. Some say its a particle, some say its a wave and some say its the God trying to work like a torch. As far as the plants are concerned, they are just happy having  it for breakfast everyday.

If God has actually created all the living organisms on the earth, then why isn't anyone questioning the fact as to who created God? Assuming that it is true, has anyone wondered how Gods actually live in heaven. Frankly speaking, none of the stories in any of the religions talk about interaction with Gods of other religion. So I'm assuming that they live in separate countries like we do with a specific country alloted to a specific religion. I'm also assuming the fact that the Gods are not issued Passports or Visas to other countries as that would have them giving guest appearances in fables of other religions, which till now has been unheard of. The funny thing is we haven't heard any true stories of religion in the recent times. It stopped with Ramayan and Mahabharata for some and with the resurrection for others while some still believe that blowing up a country will give them a business class ticket to their god. If people put at least 10% of these efforts in impressing their partners and family instead of the intangible God, then their lives would become a living heaven naturally. Simple yet still people manage to complicate it and make their lives a living hell not only for themselves but also to the people around them.

Coming back to the topic, are all the people under a certain religion mapped to a single God? All my C/C++ coding friends out there could help me here figuring out the kinds of data structures that can be used :). Either ways, we have devised our own ways of converting to these religions. Growing of beard or wearing of an infamous cross belt combined with a change in place of worship will help you earn that coveted membership for one particular brand, oops sorry God. If thats the case then what happens to the stories and the belief that you had in your previous God? Do they get nullified as a result of shifting to another brand, oops sorry again God? All these can actually be related to the kind of brand loyalty that we see nowadays. Apple users curse Microsoft and vice versa and fanatics on both sides have found their Gods in Jobs and Gates respectively.

If you look at the concept of religion logically, it was just created to keep the mankind in check and to create a sense of division in the society. When man could not find reasoning for anything that happened on earth, he gave the credit to God. At one point, eclipses were thought of God's way of saying that he was throwing a temper tantrum as a result of not having regular bowel movements. At the end of the day, one has to accept the fact that it is we humans who are better evolved and we are intelligent enough to make our own future. We definitely don't need any soothsayers or god-men to guide us. It's actually disgusting to see people believing anyone who says he/she is a messenger of God. Have a look at this video "Baba's chicanery "which clearly shows how the god-man SaiBaba tricked millions of people. The truth is, he is gay and found extreme pleasure in cross dressing even from his childhood. Do your research and you'll find videos of that too. If not for the technology, a deception like this would not have come out and people would be still blind under the smoke of devotion. I can only imagine how people in the olden days could have been easily tricked in a similar way by glorified magicians and illusionists and people would have believed anything in the name of God. Incidents like these act as a catalyst in promoting a particular God and provide a lot of word of mouth advertising and viral marketing to any religion.

At the end of the day, we have to accept the fact that no God is going to prevent you from having a black out as a result of binge drinking or help you in cheating on your partner or save you from dying in an accident. We have the ability to make sensible decisions and our actions dictate our future. Use your brains in taking decisions instead of staring into a crystal ball or rolling a die. This way, at least you'll grow a pair in blaming yourself for any failures and not find comfort near a fluffy bunny by saying its the God's will. 

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The 'Bra' of Branding

A bra is an article of clothing that covers, supports and elevates the breasts.

Going by the definition, the 'bra' is an integral part of branding and metaphorically speaking does the same job of elevating the business as done by bra to the breasts. I'm definitely not going to include any images of Victoria's Secret for this post just to increase the traffic or flirt with my readers' hormones and stimulate the flow of natural juices. Even though I might have slightly done that by now, I'm sure you would have enjoyed fantasizing some voluptuous, busty bosoms. If you haven't done so, you can always use the 'qVik Search' on the top to treat yourself for some eye pleasing visuals.

Getting back to business, I honestly believe that broadminded women will be able to relate appropriately to this post. For convenience sake, whenever I use the term big breasts, you can relate them to the big businesses having a turnover in millions. Similarly small breasts can be associated with SMEs. Big is always not necessarily better. The super size option is not only unhealthy in McDs but also in real life. With big breasts come loads of added overheads and even though it might look great from outside, one really needs to talk to that person to understand their problems. Google offices and the salary might seem like an "opportunity which you want to grab with both hands", but you do not get to know about the 60+ hours of work that people are putting in every week so that you can type "How to pick up girls in a bar" and probably help you score. Just like a breast which looks at numerous aspects like shape(C,D), size(32,34,36), strap, color before its finds its suitor, every business needs a customized branding strategy to make it look better. While the core aspects of a business are taken care of by a different department, the department of brand management looks into numerous aspects like brand image, positioning, social media strategy, advertising and appeal created by the brand. Once all these factors are worked out properly, a customized branding strategy is adopted. If this goes wrong it can lead to a lot of adverse effects in the future like decreasing the rate of brand recognition and recall similar to a bad fitting bra leading to back aches and undesirable, unattractive outlooks with undesirable protrusions.

Some of the SMEs, at some point decide to become a player in a different market by increasing their size. Either through integrations or acquisitions or by increasing their capital, many firms take that big risk of going all out knowing that a failure will lead to a permanent dent to their image. Similarly, some of the women who are adipose challenged in their upper body and who are unhappy with this condition decide to take a vital step in order to entice a broader segment of the opposite sex. Some of the cosmetic surgeries might help them achieve the desired results but they forget the fact that big is not always better. This in turn leads to all the problems discusses previously. A considerable solution is using the push up or padded variants. The upside of this approach is that it projects the entity in an appealing manner and until one gets close to it, it is hard to actually estimate the value of the assets. Numerous firms have adopted this approach by projecting themselves as a player in the different league and have actually done well as a result of the right 'bra' used in branding.

This post was in a way dedicated to the problems faced by women which some of them find it tough to discuss even with their closest pals. Most importantly dedicated to the realization that the toughest problems have the simplest of solutions and one has to know where to look :P.

P.S - A lending ear is better that a staring eye.

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