“XYZ is almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application…”

“…possibly the best radio station in Singapore.”

“…probably the best Indian curry that you could ever have!”

A new clan of pseudo-claims.

What are claims? (Not the insurance types, and definitely not the legal ones). For the non-branding junta, claims are what the word means. Marketers make claims for their brands based on the product performance, efficacy, credentialing by third party, external certification, internal R&D etc. Look around you and you’ll see claims everywhere (“Toothpaste most used by dentists themselves“, “Reduces dandruff by up to 100% and prevents hair fall“, “Best satisfaction guaranteed or your money back“, “Certified by American Health Association“, “Fights 7 signs of aging” and so on and so forth). I will not call out the brands and their associated claims, but you get the idea.

What is catching my attention is the slow movement of claim history towards more and more murky claims and pseudo-claims. ‘No product is better than X‘ translates to ‘X is as good as any other’. ‘Possibly the best‘ and ‘Definitely superior performance‘ always crack me up. Possibly? Superior? Superior to what? Your own performance 2 months ago, possibly.

And the opening claim is absolutely hilarious. ‘Almost certainly‘!!! How certain are we? Almost? But then, can’t blame the brands nowadays. Especially Web brands have their positions and superiority challenged on a daily basis. So no point wasting time, energy and resources to go for the superiority claim (one has to research into the details, do massive surveys and involves agencies to say that one is the best product / brand / service in the industry). So one would rather use a murky claim that supports and emphasizes the goodwill that Web brand has.

Like I used to say before; such great insights one gets only on my blog. Possibly the best branding blog you’ve never read.

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No, its not metaphorical. And no, its not a joke.

My company is a nice place to work. Really. The people are damn smart, the environment is competitive yet casual, and I can wear my jeans and sneakers to office every darn day.

But then, God save you if you have to pee between three and four in the afternoon.

Let me explain. Of the few simple yet sublime pleasures of life, spraying the cannon after a few minutes with a full bladder is the most gratifying experiences of all. (Or hosing the lamp-post, or letting loose the lone water-pipe or the simple one-number. Whatever you wanna call it. Go pee.) And when an office floor is as cold as mine, it is but natural for a man (or a woman for that matter) to make a few quick stops to the restroom (finally! now I realize why toilets are called restrooms!) and relieve oneself of the unnecessary pressure. Only then can one think straight. You get what I mean.

So imagine this. You are walking towards the restroom (REST-room) after many minutes of foot-tapping and fidgeting with your pen. And just as you take the left turn towards the restroom, you freeze.

Because you see the mop-cart and a warning-sign that reads, ‘Caution. Floor is wet’. Because, there is only one person who cleans the toilets in our floor to a sparkle. And that person is a she.

Don’t get me wrong. This person is unbelievably industrious, excellent at her job, and very efficient. But the way men run helter-skelter when she’s about to enter the men’s-room is indicative that something is wrong somewhere. Karma, Gaya, Yin-yang, whatever.

She’s all of five foot (and maybe an inch). And pretty tiny at that. But six foot giants scoot off when she’s in our floor. I have heard of people catching a lift and going to upper floors just to take a pee. (I’d call that a sneak pee, but it would be too lame, even by poor joke standards). I mean, however proud a man is, one place in the whole wide universe he would not want a woman to walk into him is in front of the urinal.

Many questions arise in my mind (Does she knock; how does she make her entry; what do the guys already trapped inside do; worse still, what about the poor souls using the commode; what kinda sheepish grin do they have to put up when they step out; yada yada) but I let them pass. As I exit to the lift lobby.

Life is funny as hell, I tell ya.

(4 votes, average: 3.75 out of 5)

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A gifted few who can play with words and bring out humor in the very mundane of things… Sameer Bhatt for one, and then there’s the incorrigible Jat friend from IITB, Pawan Kumar.

One of his best comments, too risque for this blog, but what the hell :) His own version of ‘The grass is always greener on the other side’:

“Abbe bata raho hoon… doosre ke kachche mein loda hamesha bada dikhta hai…”

LOL!!

Thanks Dahiya for remembering this gem :)

It is the final dying minutes of the class, and the mind has wandered to a myriad of questions; what would be today’s menu in the mess, which movie am I gonna watch once I get back to my room, AMR project kab karoonga, whose bday is it today in the hostel, etc, etc. The hand has taken a life of its own as it goes about packing my books and the pen into the bag, and the papers and notes are shuffled into an unknown corner. I am ready to spring to my feet and head happily to the door, and that is the exact moment when R puts up his hand up in the air and says, “..but Sir, why cant we look at it this way…blah blah blah…”

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the world of CP and its many hideous forms. For the uninitiated, CP (or Class Participation) is the art of participating or ‘contributing’ in a class where substantial weightage is given to, well, CP. Or sometimes, participating just for the heck of it. Usually an occupational hazard of taking Strat Courses.

Siva has delved into this topic before. But I wish to take it further (RCP, hehe…). Lets have a detailed look into the world of CP and its variants:

• CP: The basic, plain vanilla variety. Never to be observed. But always wished for by profs and students alike.
• RCP: Repeat CP. You repeat whatever the prof or the student before you has just said. No value add whatsoever, but who cares!
• PCP: Painful CP. The kind described in the first paragraph of this post. Which kinda makes you want to use the choiciest of expletives on the PCPer’s lineage (past and future) and beat him/her up to an unrecognizable pulp. And this thought process is interrupted by the next question in the PCP…
• DCP: Desperate CP. You can almost smell the desperation and the raw, animal need to put CP that the DCPer feels when it has been too long since he/she has spoken. The RCP and PCP champions are firing all cylinders, and that is when the DCPer feels the pinch. “Omygawd” he/she thinks “I have to speak now or my head will blow up to smithereens and spray all over the classroom” or something like that…
• ACP: After class participation. Sometimes sucking up to the prof, sometimes in desperation (when faced with a certain D or F, for example). The genuine, relevant, clarification-in-subject ACP is as common as a dodo found copulating with a chicken on a winter morning atop a volcano. You get the picture.
• ICP: Irrelevant (or irrational) CP. This is when you say something so irrelevant that the prof looks at you as if he doesnt know whether to flush you down the nearest loo or swat you like a irritating stingless bee. He has already had enough of the above mentioned CPs and then he has to deal with irrationality too. Aaaarrgh!
• And the winner for today… RTCP (thanks, Kaul, for reminding me!): Real time CP. This is displayed by a few gifted individuals, who, even though not having read the case, read a paragraph, put a CP, read the next paragraph and then the next CP and so on! Compare to run-time compilers of yore :)

More kinds later. Laff it up, and yea, no smartass comments on which kinds do I indulge in :D

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