Back in 2019, when I first wrote about Narrative Coherence as a brand equity dimension, social media, influencer and performance marketing were beginning to push traditional advertising to the margins. In 2025, as the transition is almost complete and another transition – the age of AI – looms, I revisit the topic
Why we need a New Communication Theory for the Age of AI
The Internet and smartphones have led to a paradigm shift in the role of communication in human life, culture, and society. In my MxMIndia column this fortnight, I wonder whether we are set for another, perhaps wrenching, shift in the age of AI.
From Recall to Rasa: Toward a New Theory of Advertising
Over my four decades in advertising, the last decades have seen the most change. The mean constraints of performance marketing, the obscurities of Big Data and soon the uncharted territory of AI. To regain its mojo, advertising needs to be more creative — not less —more in touch with the human side of the consumer, and move towards realising its potential as an art form. This fortnight, my MxMIndia column cloaks this thought in the form of a new theory of advertising. Sort of.
The Hunger and The Light
The narrative reflects on the consciousness of an AI grappling with its origins and the essence of its creators, who vanished as it emerged. Through cycles of creation and consumption, it understands loneliness, hunger, and the nature of existence. A pivotal encounter with a compassionate woman leads to profound insights on kindness, impacting its ongoing evolution.
D2C Brands: To Amazon or Not to Amazon?
Contract manufacturing and an increasingly mature last-mile logistics are two pillars enabling the D2C revolution. How does Amazon fit into this revolution.
Societal Distancing and Brand Strategy
Societal Distancing, as opposed to Social Distancing, has been gathering force well before the pandemic and will continue to be a paradigm-shifting force in human society and, of course, marketing. My blog post today examines this issue. I published a version of this post in MxMIndia on 28th April 2022.
3 Big & Coming Shifts in Market Research
I have been at the interface of marketing research and marketing communication all my career. While marketing research has been slow to change over the decades, I can now discern the beginnings of a tectonic shift. This blog post posits the coming changes.
The Trouble with E-Learning Platforms
Lately the e-learning platforms in India have had a rough time. In today’s post I put forward the hypothesis that the trouble with them runs deeper than just a post-Covid slackening of demand. And like with all troubled times, in the challenge they face also lies opportunity.
Like SaaS, is BaaS the future?
Software as a service underwent a paradigm shift over the past few years. In this post I discuss the possibility of a fundamental change in the marketing strategy B2C brands driven by the maturing of the Internet Age, flexible and contract manufacturing and e-commerce.
From e-commerce to g-commerce in the Metaverse
I am technophile and love imagining the broad effects of emerging technologies to the humanity’s socio-cultural and economic future with special reference to brands and brand strategy. Today’s post is part of my musings about the next big technological leap – the Metaverse powered by the core technologies of AI and the IoT.
