Deen Sheikh On the road less travelled.....

The world that we live in, we as human beings are exposed to a very large volume of marketing communications courtesy of corporations that want us to spend our hard earned money on their product or service offerings as opposedmto that of their competitors. Due to the volume of information communicated to us through multiple mediums and channels, marketers are always om the look out for ways through which they can break through all that clutter. This is where Word of Mouth marketing comes in and can at times make all the difference in a very competititve environment. Word of Mouth marketing or Word of Mouth for short, though not a new phenomena in the field but has gained significant attention in the recent years. Among the reasons that come to mind include the cost effectiveness of Word to Mouth as a medium through which communication is established, however what really makes it effective is that is user generated communication without any direct asssociation or involvement of the use...

It has been a few weeks since I began my visit t my beloved hometown, the city by the sea Karachi. Now my time has come that I mus bid farewell to my beloved city and head back to the world capital on a tiny and rain soaked island far ar away off the coast of Mainland Europe. But before I could say Good bye and part my ways for the time being, life gave me the opportunity to experience a day of beautiful and truly ispiring weather to fully complete which has been a good and much needed trip home. Being a true Karachiete having been born and raised here, I know that this is the weather we Karachi walas truly admire.  Spring in the city by the sea is usually a time of the year when the weather is fairly hot and the celcius scale can easily reach levels comparable to those of the brutal summer months from July to September. It is a rare treat to see weather in this city during the month of Spring as how Spring should be. Warm, but mild, with flowers blooming and lots of green...

The free market has given us as consumers a wide varity of choices with respect to goods and services available to us. We as consumers in today's liberal market oriented world are truly spoiled for choice. It seems that this culture of consumerism, where one is also spoiled for choice, has had an indirect effect on our social values and how we engage and interact with the world around us. Long gone are the days when socializing was a simple exercise based on meeting and interacting with people. Socialising has now transformed into a full fledged self marketing exercise on an individual level. Basic marketing principles are infact very applicable to our every day social lives. Regardless of whether we go about it conciously or unconciously, social success it seems is now determined by how we as individuals market ourselves by applying the various concepts of marketing principles along the way. To illustrate this, let us revisit some of these concepts and analyse them in this very li...

In the back drop of rapidly growing radicalization of Pakistani society, it has become a commonplace for the remaining liberals or the educated liberals of this society to engage in discussions with regards to radicalization or the causes of radicalization in our society. Most such discussions are now taking place in privacy, where many are some what or the other reluctant to voice their honest opinions out of fear of reprecussions. The fear of reprecussions stems from people's heightened religious sensitivity which brings with it social consequences for the not only the minorities in this nation but also the non practising Muslims. Such reprecussions range from mild harassment to social ostracization to out and out direct life threats which come when the overly sensitive religious individuals start feeling that the liberals and the non practising Muslims are mocking Islam and what ever set of practises come with it. Instead of encouraging open criticism and open dialogue, their re...

This has been something that has been on my mind for quite some time now, it was only bound to be a matter of time before I either wrote about this or discussed it in an open ended platform through engagement with other people. We growing up in Pakistan, particularly my generation which grew up in the 1990's has witnessed a dramatic shift in society and their level of religious sensitivities which has reached significantly heightened levels in the recent years. The religious sensitivity of religious people has reached levels where they are unable to show tolerance toward anything deemed even mildly possibly critical of religion, at the same time compassion has evaporated into thin air and vigilantism behavior is becoming increasingly common. Just as food for thought I would like to propose a hypothetical suggestion, I could be right or I could be wrong, no one has to take my word for it, it is intended to be just food for thought. The hypothesis I would like to prop...

The word Humsafar itself means travel companion, or to give it a more significantly richer meaning, it is commonly used to refer to a life long companion. It is indeed a sweet word with an even sweeter meaning, how wonderful are those individuals who are either our travel companions or our life long ones. Growing up in Pakistan, for me, Humsafar was also the low production quality in flight magazine found in every seat of a domestic or an international flight of the nation's flag carrier PIA (Pakistan International Airlines).However if you are a Pakistan, or a member of the South Asian diaspora living in any corner of the world, the word Humsafar carries with it an additional meaning and a reference to something in popular culture. That alternative Humsafar which is what most Pakistanis in particular can identify or relate with is the Hum TV drama Humsafar which debut on weekend prime time television in September last year. Starring young talents such as Fawad Khan, Mahira Kha...

Public relations practitioners for some time now have been able to establish the importance of an effective public relations campaign relative other forms of marketing and promotional activities. Public Relations is not only more effective than other forms of marketing communication and promotional activities but is also relatively cost effective providing users of a public relations strategy a better value. However the ever changing world around us has brought significant challenges to the way in marketing and public relations strategies are planned and how those activities are executed. The rapidly changing nature of digital technology and the level of societies involvement with online and digital technology has meant that in order to compliment offline activities, Public Relations practitioners are faced with a new challenge, which comprises of incorporating an online or digital Public Relations campaign to compliment offline activities. Offline Public Relations ini...