Brands are about products and services. True. Truer is the fact that brands are about the feelings and emotions the products or services invoke in the customer. These emotions are 20% a result of what the brand talks about and 80% the experience at the brand touch points.

Staff is an equal stake holder in brand building and they affect a customer’s brand experience as much as any advertising campaign. So can you encourage a workforce to behave “on brand”?

Internal branding has the answer.

Siddharth Anand (Salaam Namaste, Ta ra rum pum, Bachna ae haseeno) has always been at an ease with rom-coms. However this time, he has gone ahead with a plot that many would think twice before attempting. In bare words, Anjaana Anjaani is a film that starts with suicide attempts, with just two main characters and has no sub plots to talk of. Let us try naming one Bollywood commercial outing that has dared to do that, can we?

This film does take time to grow on you, for two prime reasons. First, given the fact that it is a romantic film, it doesn’t have a stereotypical start. Second, the story unfolds at its own relaxed pace. One thing that will hit you instantly, in a nice way, is the electrifying chemistry between the lead pair. Even with the worst of the scenes, with no great dialogues, that very chemistry will make you smile.

Making a gradual progression from cabarets, kothaas, discos and now almost everywhere — even a train top — item numbers have become an essential part of Bollywood.

An item number, in its earliest avatar, wasn’t endorsed by leading ladies. Only vamps or dancers making special appearances graced these tracks until a decade or two ago. The first major dancing star was Cuckoo who ruled the cabaret scene in the Forties and Fifties.

Let me start by stating that I’ve nothing against anyone who smokes and I am not in favor of judging anyone for the same.

By the way, when you went ahead and took the very first drag (smoke) of your life, if you already have, did you choose or decide, to do that? Of course, they are synonyms. But there has to be something that differentiates them, correct? Decide has a Latin suffix ‘cide’, which means to kill or cut. This is because we must kill or cut all given options but one to decide upon it. Whereas choice is based on free will, not on reasons.

On twitter, are we being someone we’re not.. or who we really are?

Are you the person we know online or are you really who you are in person? Confused? Good, you should be! – because this is a topic that I find fascinating as much as I find baffling! If you’re frequently on social networking sites, like Twitter or Facebook, then you are leading an online life in addition to an offline life. You’re in two worlds – the real and the virtual.

How much of your online life overlaps with your real life? Are you exactly the person you are online as you are offline? I’d argue that you’re not and that, to some extent, it’s almost like you’re leading dual lives.

Web-startups are here and more are coming. And these number of options are increasing, your packaging (in this case your website) becomes really important. It is sad to see web-startups ignoring their websites and trying to do-away with free themes and such.

It’s like a shop-keeper not bothering about cleaning, organizing or even making a shop. This is not just for web-startups, any startup with a website must pay attention. If your website sucks, you suck too. I know money is hard for startup but it’s worth investing in a remarkable website. And websites are as good as they are usable – beauty has no place.