War of the Colas - Fire in the hole for Mountain Dew

Who told it is easy to run a Cola company?


Coke and Pepsi are the DMK and ADMK of the Cola business. The war of brands between Pepsi and Coke is as old as the one between Tom and Jerry. Both are posting millions of dollars of profit every year. But, then have you read the first line? What makes it difficult to run a Cola company? Cola is served as the next best drink after water. 95% of Americans are Cola drinkers. Then where lies the risk?


Survival of every product is mainly based on the USP contribution to its consumer. Fact is that there is no basic USP attached with the Cola drinks. People could just go with the soda and breweries. Hence, the existence of a Cola company entirely depends on the brand management and advertising associated with it. Cola sales are directly proportional to the public mindset. They have to make the consumer believe that their drink is unique, which is not in fact! Downfall for the company, otherwise. As an added headache, when the chips are down, health activists will spread the awareness about the excess calories and potential hazards present in Cola. When the TRP rating is down and the people have nothing to chew, media will take the dusted issue of caffeine content present in Colas,  polish it and keep the shows going on. They will sponsor talk shows in which limelight guys will talk about the various side effects of Cola. Audience will end up comparing Cola with bleaching liquid. All such stuffs will be carried out till the commencement of the next important Cricket tour or the next polls and scams. Again, brand-angels like Aamir and MSD will repair the damage done by the media and the mentality of the people will change. Again. Oh wait. Who are these people? What makes them? Whatever offered to them makes them. And such an offer is decided mostly by the businessmen, not the activists.


In addition to the above mentioned foes, it is not so often we see one Cola company taking a dig at the other. Pepsi, the company which is named after the digestive enzyme Pepsin, is the first company to understand the potential risks associated with running a carbonated drinks company. They forayed into the FMCG sector long ago with products like Lays, Aquafina, Lipton and Quaker Oats. Coca Cola on the other hand has a wide portfolio of more than 3500 beverages in its pocket. 

Both are known for their long stand rivalry in advertising their products. One of the famous brand war has happened between Pepsi and Coke. I'll rate the one between Coke's Sprite and Pepsi's Mountain Dew as the second best. Mountain Dew appealed to the little adventurer hiding within every Indian. The brand projected itself as the contender of doing the impossible with no fear. In contrast, Sprite mocked the dare associated with Mountain Dew. It projected itself as the drink of people's clear senses. But, in the long run, it is the adventurer who will take over the Smart-Dude. Coke knew this so well. Hence, it decided to launch another cannon on its rival Mountain Dew. This time, it is not the Cool guy Sprite. But it opted for a rough and tough Thumps Up. Believe it or not, Thumps Up is the largest selling Cola drink in India. 

The difference between the themes of Mountain Dew and Thumps Up are so thin. In Mountain Dew, the adventure staged is projected as a result of their drink. In Thumps Up, the person is projected to go to any limits to possess their drink. Now, the latest move by Coke has diminished this thin difference. Now, Thumps Up joins the line of Mountain Dew, but with a little youth revolutionary flavor peppered all over it. Replacement of Akshay by Mahesh Babu and the drop of 'Taste the Thunder' slogan tells the whole story. Coke has got the strategy right in nailing the Mountain Dew's coffin. I feel, the double barreled pistol of Coke is enough to fire the PepsiCo. But Pepsi is not dumb either.


Health hazards. Media. People Mindset. Scorching rivals. Advertisements with costliest brand ambassadors. Brand dependency. 


Well, Who told it is easy to run a Cola company?

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Post night Post

My Titan is glowing with 4.10a.m. I thank the Curie couple. My body is functioning like an Indian parliament. Dormant. But, My mind is working like an Indian bedroom. Over Time.  I am here, lying down and trying to sleep.. Or is it? What am I trying to do? I dunno for sure. Nights are capable of giving life to the dormant memories fossilized in our heart! Nights are dark. They are quiet. Probably our brain shouts its inherent thoughts when the earth is whispering to the moon! As I write this sentence, I begin to think about the famous creators created by this night. Theoretically, everyone is meant to be created at night.  Big shots inclusive. To hell with my humor. At this moment, most of the people will be wide awake, saying a silent-same-pinch to me. I think of my friend in USA, who is actually in a different time frame and it is daytime for him. So what really is time? Few thousand miles are capable of bringing different calendars to different people. Perhaps the time should be measured by keeping the people as constant. I wonder about the way our life is deciphered.  Philosophy is puked from my mind. I think that the nights extend to life and the days diminish to death. I think this. I think that. I think all.

Nights are dark. Dark is black. Black is capable of absorbing anything and everything which comes to it. Nights are capable of bringing back our memories and sucking our joy or sorrow. Black is a color parasite! Night is an emotion parasite.

Oh, what am I doing? I got stuck in this vicious cycle of thoughts. Again my thoughts come back to time. When I think of it, time is like a feminine brain. It is a constantly changing variable. Time is perceived based on perception geography,  environmental physics and mental chemistry. Time is Einsteined! In time, I wanna embrace the sleep which is seducing me for a while. I wanna forget everything and just sleep all the way. In spite of that feeling, I am not welcoming the sleep to my mental condominium. Such a meta-state between sleep and awake is similar to the limbo oscillating between life and death. Meta-states are highly unstable. My chemistry professor has taught me that electrons acquire motion in such meta states. Electrons radiate from atom. Thoughts radiate from grey matter. Such electric thoughts are known as philosophy. I am asleep. I am awake. Yes I am a philosopher!

Suddenly my conscious pops out of my shirt, just like the way I have seen in the movies and it starts to do self-advising. It says -"If you really do what your heart craves to do, then you are in the real heaven". As I blink, it transfigures itself into my Mathematical teacher. It goes back and writes this formula in thin air.

Happiness Quotient = No. of actions performed / No. of actions desired by our heart.

Omg, the air is not thin anymore! Revelations. And it pops in back inside my Indian Terrain. At some distant, my brain is shouting at me that my present action is more of a blabbering than real thinking.
But, I.Really.Do.Not.Care.As.Long.As.It.Makes.Sense.To.Me! My thinking tank takes pity on me. Tired of philosophies, my body takes control over my mind. My blinking rate becomes directly proportional to our interests in studies. My muscles act as if I'm their college professor. Yet, I am going to be awake...in my dreams. I decide to do what I would like to do. I give up to sleep. To improve my happiness quotient, I am entering heaven. Dot.

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'Aam Aadmi & The Art of Management' by Antony Dilip

Antony Dilip,  Jan 30 2012, Chennai

Indian tea stalls have become one of unique characteristics of this great Nation. In any part of the country they are the “hot-spots” of busy alleys where you can meet different and distinct people. Once on a rainy evening, I entered a tea shop which had every feature of a perfect Indian tea stall. Discs of biscuits arranged inside glass jars, different flavors of tea bags, hot bronze boilers, kettles blowing out steams, hot kaadai on a kerosene burner, wooden benches, pile of news papers, group discussion, politics and a stray dog sleeping at the entrance. The tea master (that is the w! ay one calls the person who makes you tea. Maybe he masters it very well that he can make a really long tea) happened to be the owner of the shop had a welcoming smile. I ordered a “cup of tea”. He replied, “Hot bhajjis ready for you sir, two minutes”. He spoke Tamil with a Malayalam accent and had a Chandan on his forehead; I don’t have to be Holmes or need Watson’s help to conclude that he is from Kerala. I wasn’t hungry but his pleasant offer made me order a plate of bhajji.  With the very first bite of the bhajji, I realized that it had coconut oil and it was made of the banana fruit. This is not the usual “roasted-batter -coated plantain”. I didn’t like this new flavor, so I threw them into the dustbin. Then I ordered few butter-biscuits and asked for the bill. The bill was not a computerized paper with a neat tabular column with rows of products bought and their rates across them. Also I did not have separate mention about the tot! al, “service” tax, round-off and the grand Total.  It was just a chit with numbers scribbled on it showing no distinction between the numbers 4 and 6. The bill was 10 rupees and I realized that he had missed to enter the bhajji’s price. When I told him that he had missed the bhajji in the bill, he said “You did not eat, so you don’t have to pay”. I was shocked; a sense of guilt had filled my heart and mind.  I wanted to apologize, so I told him “Annachi I m sorry. I will pay for the bhajjis too”. But he gave the same reply with a smile and added,” I will get paid only when you are satisfied with my service”. Oh my god! What is happening? Did this tea-master learn about customer satisfaction in IIM –A before starting his tea-stall? Or does he really belong to the middle class who lament about the surging food prices? Or is it because he is from the state of Kerala which has the highest literacy rate? Before I could reiterate, I saw something else in the tea shop which I had not noticed all this while. Babuji, father of this great Nation, was smiling from a 30x35 frame and was embellished with a fresh garland. I smiled in return. I left the shop paying for what I was asked for. 

That night I did not sleep.

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The Author of this post  is my close friend. I know him for the past 7 years. Currently, he is working as a Software Engineer in iNautix. He is a natural leader who loves to see/bring positive changes in our society. He believes in reforming our  administrative system for the upbringing of a better world.  A selfish dream, when realized has the potential to uplift only our lives. But, a selfless social dream, when realized, has the potential to uplift the society we live on, thereby providing real improvement in our lives. Our Author falls in the latter category.

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Nanban is well

Pre-Nanban release:
"Shankar is a great creator. Why does he wants to do a remake when people like Jeyam Raja are there for that particular purpose already?"
"Vijay? Casted as the scientist played by Aamir? Don't joke man. It is bullshit! Surya will be the opt guy for such intellectual characters"
"When is the last time you watched a Vijay movie without making fun of him?"

Post-Nanban release:
"Shankar proves once again that he has ability to deliver a successful message sandwiched inside a boxoffice hit"
"Vijay at his best eventhough there is not a single punch dialogue or a single action sequence"
"Just like any other Vijay movie, we ended up laughing continuously for the entire time. But he is not the source this time"

Casting:
When it comes to casting Shankar has always been a forerunner on Tamil cinema. Examples like Nambiyar on Gentleman, Radhika in Jeans shows his thirdeye to cast the actors. In Nanban, a movie-goer will not think odd to see Vijay as the intellectual. And that is the victory gained for Shankar's casting and directorial genius.

Script:
Screenplay of 3 idiots is used exactly as it is. Changes in dialogues gives the regional flavour to the film. Shankar and Madhan karky does their best here.

Cinematography:
My favorite cinematographer Manoj Paramahansa has lifted the lens for Nanban. In Eeram and VTV, he had the scope to exercise his innovations. But he did a great job for a entertainer like Nanban. Visuals never felt awkward in a single roll, unlike the experience of usual remake movies.

Art:
This is one of those departments which hasn't had a great show in original 3-idiots. Being a Shankar movie, Nanban has the gigantic sets in songs. Sets erected for Asku laska and Ileana songs shows the exemplary ground work done by the art department.

Music and Audiography:
Harris Jayaraj has exceeded his expectations in all the song numbers. Hear 'En friend ah pola' song with full bass and you will know how close competitor it is to the 'Mustafa' song. His background score is weaved close to the story-flow. Oscar winner Resul Pookutty has shown his adept at the audiography. Techniques like echo and amplification are used for particular scenes where the hero intends to tell a message to the audience.

Acting:
Acting department is under the radar of some directorial genius like Shankar. He shows how to get the best out of actors like Satyaraj and Vijay. Even Jiiva does proves his skills.

Direction:
Not to mention too much about Shankar, he has carved a great flick. Successful placement of Ileana song just before the emotional climax shows his mettle to give a masala mix to any story. Asku-laska song will be a visual treat to Shankar audience where he rectifies the limitations posed by 3 idiots script on his grandiose visualisations.

Everyone in the age group of 20 - 35 would have seen 3 idiots. It is one of those rare movies with a wide audience reach. I have watched 3 idiots four times and when I watched Nanban, I neither felt bored nor I thought of Nanban as a waste remake. Even to set a benchmark in remakes, we need Shankar.
He neither made Vijay to fly nor to fight. But he made him to act. There lies the greatest success of Shankar. 

Verdict:
Nanban - A successful remake. A remake of Shankar's success.

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The Fountainhead & Bhagavat Gita - A Compare and Contrast

The Fountainhead is a famous philosophical novel written by Miss.Ayn Rand. It is based on the concept of individualism and epistemology.

An excerpt from Ayn Rand's  Philosophical Pinnacle - The Fountainhead:

Howard Roark: "Before you can do things for people, you must be the kind of man who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the people! Your own work, not any possible object of your charity. I'll be glad if men who need it find a better method of living in the house I built, but that's not the motive of my work, nor my reason, nor my reward! My reward, my purpose, my life, is the work itself - my work done my way! Nothing else matters to me!"

What defines a man? How a person is judged? Which scale is used to measure him?

A man is defined by the way he communicates to the nature. The way he responds to the input gained from this universe. And what defines his responses? Responses are based on the array of things he noticed/experienced/learnt/did/influence/influenced from his childhood. In short, a man is defined by what he does. 

 People do things all the while. Action composes the materialistic world. Inaction is also an action performed in the state of hibernation. A man's action is born with his birth and dies with his death. It is the intermediate time between birth and death which injects meaning to a person's inane life. One must do only those things which makes him/her happy. Performing an action under compulsion is the greatest insult you spit on the face of truth. Be yourself. Everyone and everything is unique in this world. Everyone is gifted with some skills to perform their own actions. Chaos emerges when man fails to recognize what he is destined to do and decides to take other person's route. Doing something just because everyone else do the same spoils the real purpose of God's creation.  In our human body, every organ does some unique function. If nose gets envy of the delicious food chewed by its neighbor mouth and decides to refuse oxygen, it chooses its own demise. Even the blood groups are unique. None of the animals copy from others. They learn to do the basic actions like locomotion, reproduction and food-intake from their counterparts. But they never copy when it comes to choosing their destiny. They act only to fulfill their need of the hour. They short sell their actions in the life stock market. But, man, being the zenith of species, must live for a cause. He must be a longterm investor. Otherwise, he will lose his own definition of human being. He must remember that the sole purpose of human being is being human and being human is determined by our actions.

A creator conceives what his mind imagines, thereby opening the doors of our world to a new invention. He is the prime-mover of the world. A second-hander depends upon the creator for his lifeneeds. An action takes the straight route for a creator and it takes a proxy for a second-hander. 

 In Miss. Rand's words -

"The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary."

Such an intermediary is viewed as an act of charity by Bhagavat Gita and it is viewed as an act of killing the action by The Fountainhead. Never forget that the uncharitable Steve Jobs is hailed as the game-changer above the charitable Bill Gates. Steve Jobs criticized Mr.Gates as follows– “Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas.” Steve Jobs is the closest match for Rand’s Roark. 

Bhagavat Gita is the famous teachings of Lord Krishna to Arjuna in Kurukshetra. When Arjuna feared to do his duties in the battleground, Krishna told him the essence of karma yoga. Here, Man's action is defined as the 'Karma'.  People are here to do the actions to be performed. Both the books talk volume about the integrity associated with performing our actions. They say that the destined action is the greatest yoga ever done on any altar. This is where The Fountainhead and The Bhagavat Gita clasp their hands together. Rand says - ‘Feed the need, not because they depend on you, but because you like the action of public service.  Service is the action itself. Not the resultant of it.’ Krishna says – ‘Action must be performed without the dependence of its resultant'. My reward is the work itself.

In contrast to the above similarities between the two books of our discussion, Upanishads order men to be humble and selfless. But, The Fountainhead states that the man must be the proudest of all the creatures in our world. Because, he knows the purpose of his actions. He knows the effects and impact it can cause to his milieu. He can understand that performing an action is not just a transfer of energy from one form to another. But it is taking the current form of energy to the next level.

 Human mind could be the angel's philosopher stone or it could be the devil's horcrux. In Roark's conclusive speech, Ayn Rand states the following about human mind and its importance to stay aloof.  

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice."   

According to Bhagavat Gita, man must perform him karma in order to attain mukthi. It is the method of associating a humble man with the supreme universe. According to The Fountainhead, man must realize his mukthi in his karma. It is the method of associating the vast universe with the reverence of man’s superiority. 

Howard Roark could have been the Lord Krishna of our century.  But he won't, because there is only one Roark and only one Krishna.

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