Green Brigade

If you want to sell someone a Mac, show that person a PC. Sounds odd, but going by some recent Apple ads, it appears to be a ploy that works really well. What better way to highlight the Mac-vantage than by showcasing the faults of the PC. The past few decades have been a turbulent one for business, and we have seen some drastic changes in business sense, models and ethics. Innovation, traditionally a Xerox domain, is now Google’s forte, and innovation seems to be the key to success in recent times. Apple’s dig at the PC maybe seen by many as innovative marketing, but despite being a Mac fan, I do not approve of it. Living in Nepal, I am all too familiar with such negative marketing, and thus know the pitfalls.

With the Red Brigade now in the national mainstream, a lot of people are breathing easier. This is the time to look ahead and put the wheels of the economy back on track. The red shadow still looms at large, but I see a bigger threat from the Green Brigade – it may not be out in the open, but it lies within most of us, and manifests itself in our policies and day-to-day dealings. The green in us is not a new phenomenon, even inspiring Kunti Moktan’s very popular hit, ‘<i>Khutta tandai gara</i>…’. Many people in fact consider it the basic ‘Nepali trait’.

I am no expert on Nepali business, but I have been in Nepal long enough to see its ailments. Corruption has sucked this nation dry, and sadly it continues to do so. People languish on favours and obligations, scratching each other’s backs, and flushing down talent, quality and ability towards extinction. Another rabid infection that is keeping back business is the negativity that resides in all levels. I remember the members of the marketing team, of a newspaper I worked for once, come back with long faces and say how difficult it was to sell ad space in the market. As they said, clients were not difficult to convince, but they had no way of keeping at bay the competition and their negative marketing. What our competitors were selling was not ad space in their publications, but reasons why not to buy space on ours.

The green thing is not just about selling advertisements or rather spreading bad vibes about the competition, but it is something we encounter everywhere. I went to New Road recently to buy some RAM for my computer – the price as I was told in one shop would be lower than what was being offered elsewhere. I first had to tell the person what the price was in another shop and then he would quote his. It is okay to be wary of competition, but why base one’s business or marketing policy on someone else’s? We so fixated about the competition’s offering and why not to go for it that we often neglect our own offering so much so that it fails to be competitive on its own. It is ironic that our USP is not our own strength, but the competition’s alleged weakness.

When Apple can, so can Orange, but how many of us really have an offering as good and as innovative as Apple does to go into negative overdrive?  Have we explored our inherent strengths fully so that we can now move our sights to the competition? Is our offering good enough to justify marketing the weaknesses in others’?