The first message we heard in the class of Brand Management of Professor Ram Kumar, was “It is an eco-system…”. An entangled, closely knit or perhaps confusingly mingled ‘Eco-system’. Econ-system of brands, products, product variants (variants are very confusing, no doubt) and bombardment of marketing messages (communication). Here everyone wants to say that our product is the best using different channels and different language. Hum! it sounds very common, right? So common that we overlook it.
In another class of Marketing we were asked which is the oldest business in the world, still running successfully? I (when I say ‘I’, literally I) responded ‘religion’. Every religious institution says our religion is better (perhaps the best) than others and is the only path for salvation. Walmart, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Tata or Reliance might exist, or not, for 1000 years but for sure we will (and had) many religion for 1000’s of years and we will have them in future too. Why? Because – religious institution sells itself on emotions. Even without learning any Marketing concept, religious institutions learnt that emotions should be hit directly to let people decide emotionally and justify rationally.
Let us talk about the channels they use. It is similar to what we learn in distribution channel or managing supply chain. ‘Retail store’ of Religion or distribution channels are found everywhere, and finances? Well there is no limit to it (find it for yourself – a recent News in an Indian Newspaper The Hindu or Google search for $ with any major religion of the world…). Every religion has a source of income this source of income germinates from the EMOTION we talked earlier about. Yet there is a lot to learn from religious institutions, learning the administration, Marketing and distribution channel and much more, is not that true?
Personally, I am a strong believer that religion plays an important role in building and binding society. Religion is a path wherein you have to follow the traffic rules. If you do not follow the rules you are likely to meet with an accident. What is the question of saying rules of left hand drive better than right hand drive? The rules are there to avoid accidents and make the journey safer and easier. When I say ‘firm believer’ I mean the rules taught by the religion, and not the comparison of one to the other.
Well, not only for business but also for being righteous person we can learn a lot from religion!
* Conditioned applied – Thoughts presented here are my own and learnt from different sources, I do not intend to hurt any sentiment or question any religion.
4 Comments
Rummuser · July 18, 2011 at 10:31 pm
The comment above mine is a spam! I hope that you realize that and will take appropriate action, I disagree that religion can do anything in business. Spirituality certainly, but religion, by which I mean dogmatic adherence to outdated values, will not be able to contribute, We can certainly learn from mythology and our puranas, but that is about all that we can. This is Ramana Rajgopaul aka Rummuser.
KRD Pravin · July 19, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Dear Sir,
Thank you for browsing and posting your opinion. I have removed comment above your comment, thank you for suggesting that. I partially agree with you. We can not learn a lot from the age old outdated stuff. Yet at the same time we can learn a lot from the age old stuff e.g. honesty, see the corruption in India, see the poverty, see many ailments. What I wrote above is more on the front of
i. each religion saying I am the best. I mean the leaders of the group, who are minting and baking their breads on the foundation.
ii. there is opportunity to learn in terms of administration.
iii. the basic concept for this blog comes from the conflict we create using religion – take an example of Bomb blast in Mumbai (earstwhile BOMBay). Religious fanaticism creates a false perception that – “my religion is the only right one” and it is not about one religion it is about many religions in the world Similar is the premise of Branding for me. Look at Apple – it is more or less a cult, a cult following for its products. So, I thought to ponder and came with this blog.
Spirituality, is a different ball game for me. I am not an expert so can not comment much on that in the context of business.
Thank you for stopping by and commenting too. This is Pravin aka KRD aka KRD Pravin 🙂
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