Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Educated-NOT


Generally speaking it is supposed to be the educated class of our country from which to get the hope to hold onto optimism when things are hitting new levels of low every day. Lack of education is what we put at the base of almost everything that is wrong with our homeland. A fact that is absolutely true.

The question however, is what to do of the educated class that refuses to show the traits that are supposed to distinguish them from the other group? This band of ‘parhe likhe jahil’ seem to be on the rise, at least as far as I am concerned. (Maybe I am not moving in the right circles! Anyways)

On Monday, a 23 year old Shams Alam murdered 19 year old Samar Wasti, a student of Kinnaird College and then committed suicide on the spot. He wanted to marry her and as a reaction to the refusal from her and her family he took her life as well as his own. The rest of the details we all know, thanks to our media who is running on the motto of ‘show it all’.

It was the reaction of people that made me smash my head in the wall. Not the reaction of the people in generally who we know are going to point their fingers at the girl even before they get to know what happened. I am talking about the reaction of our educated section of the society and frankly there was no difference in their opinion and that of an uneducated person. Don’t mention the degrees and you would not be able to tell the two apart. No wonder one of our politicians is of the view ‘Degree tu degree hoti ha, asli ho ya jali’ (A degree is just a degree, real or fake).

Some of the top comments were:

Ø  The fact that the boy committed suicide proves that the girl was responsible.
Ø  Girls these days are very good at manipulating the boys.
Ø  Boys don’t go to this extent if they are not provoked by the girls.
Ø  Girls hook up then when they can’t keep it from their families back out which results in such incidents.

To sum it all up, it was the girl’s fault she got killed and it was her fault YET AGAIN that the boy committed suicide. Seriously, WTF!

The fact that the girl’s father told the media that he knew the boy was bothering his daughter and had told him to back off. The fact that she was on the phone with her father telling him that he was harassing her and most of all the fact, that Samar’s father heard the shots that took her life on the phone were ignored by these people is simply mind boggling to put it in a polite manner.

Not to ignore the fact that this moral brigade is usually led by women themselves. Mothers, who nurture the basic thought process of their children and therefore, making sure that this bug is implanted in their grey matter.   

If our educated class thinks like this, then we are surely on a speedy trip to hell as a society.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Lawrence Gardens/Bagh-e-Jinnah

Lahore is known as the 'city of gardens' & Lawrence Gardens now known as Bagh-e-Jinnah is one of the great offerings of the city. The famous Quaid-e-Azam library is also located inside this garden. Following are some of the snapshots from the place.















Monday, October 3, 2011

Subtle is not our Style


Subtle is clearly not our style, especially when it comes to advertising and marketing. On one side one does feel good that marketers are looking at other available options as well and not just sticking to the comfort zone of traditional marketing. However, the low quality of the work and ideas squeeze all the positive feeling from you.  

Television shows and movies are a very good medium for promoting one’s product. People follow celebrities and in their following they do get influenced by what they get to see in the TV programs and movies.

Having said that, the Pakistani advertisers need to be reminded that this fan following does not mean that people are stupid and can’t identify a deliberate attempt of marketing. The most recent example of this is Nokia’s latest dual sim phone. ‘Bulbulay’ a comedy drama was used for the promotion and the actors were made to state lines which described the features of the phone in such a blank manner, that in a better world they would not even qualify to work in a commercial. Then the same show was used for a similar kind of promotion for one of the Q-mobile sets.

This is not the only example of bad marketing of this sort. I don’t remember the name of the show but we got to see the actors eating Amore ice cream and before it was served there was this similar monotone delivery of misfit dialogues.

I did suggest that marketers watch The Big Bang Theory, to get some inspiration as to how these shows can be used for the promotion of a product. The cool and subtle manner in which Dell laptops and other gadgets get promoted, without making the show lose its credibility as labeling it as a commercial front.