Pakistani cricketers and officials who had either played or worked abroad would have been inspired by the systems there which, in addition to paying players for matches, would allow clubs to employ players as well. In Pakistan, with match fees so low from the sports administrative bodies, bringing in large national and private corporations would have been the only way in which sports could see any real rise in the new nation.

An ad for HBL stated: “Not oblivious of the future welfare of their sportsmen, Habib Bank is simultaneously training them in banking practice and procedures so that when they retire from active sports, they will be well equipped for a regular career.”

Hence, industries were absorbing sportspersons into their organisations’ departments after they were done playing, which led to a steady stream of their future workforce being developed.

HBL formed its cricket team in 1975. In an interview with Osman Samiuddin in The Unquiet Ones, the only thing that A.R. Wadiwalla, a senior vice president in the bank who was entrusted with setting up the sports division, asked HBL’s executive director Ameer Siddiqui was that there be no interference in his selection of sportspersons playing for the bank. This was assured.

Sitting in his office at the Habib Bank Plaza, once the tallest building in Asia, Wadiwalla then looked across the road at the Karachi Cotton Exchange, where Miandad Noor Muhammad held the important position of grader, pricing the cotton coming in to be used by textile mills and for export. The other important position that M.N. Muhammad held was in the Karachi City Cricket Association (KCCA), and a boy who was making a name for himself throughout Pakistan was none other than his son, Javed.

Javed Miandad signed on with HBL, and the rest became cricketing history, with HBL becoming a powerhouse of Pakistani cricket. Domestic players would usually travel by train, but Wadiwalla made sure that they would fly to matches, with a much larger daily allowance to boot. Abdul Qadir and Mohsin Khan became a part of the side during the Wadiwalla years, and later on Younus Khan, Shahid Afridi, Umar Gul, and Fakhar Zaman came through its ranks.

United Bank Limited (UBL) and the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) started their own teams, and amongst the banks and other departments, nearly all of Pakistan’s elite cricketers came from departmental cricket. Years of advocacy from players for better pay throughout the 1970s made sure that even if some sports persons could not make it to the highest domain of their sport, they would still remain financially stable. Another added boost to the departments being included was the rapid development of sports infrastructure. UBL, NBP, and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) all developed grounds and complexes, which are not only used as first-class cricket venues today, but also added to sports facilities in cities like Karachi.

Domestic Revamp: Towards the End of Departmental Cricket

For the 2018-19 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy season, under former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who also served as Patron in Chief of the PCB, Pakistan’s first class circuit was completely revamped by excluding all departments and only having the provinces field cricket teams in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. Imran’s proposal was to have six provincial teams, with two from Punjab.

Khan had long advocated for an end to departmental cricket in Pakistan, claiming that the top talent in the country did not have the chance to strengthen their skills owing to the large number of players with varying skillsets they had to play against. Khan remained a proponent of bringing an Australian Sheffield Shield-like tournament to Pakistan, which for Australia’s population of 26 million, comprises six teams based in the six Australian states.

Almost instantly and without a fallback for players who were hired by the departments, well over 50% of first-class cricketers in the country saw their livelihoods vanish. While the previous Quaid-e-Azam Trophy structure had 400 cricketers, the new structure in 2018 had the PCB offer contracts to just 192 players, with pay much lower than what the departments offered, and benefits that players received from the departments were gone as well.

2018 was not the first time that departmental teams had been completely scrapped – the tournament is famous for the constant tinkering of its format – but this time, since the voice to end departmental cricket not only came from the man who was prime minister but also the country’s greatest cricketer, entire sports divisions were shut down and players were out of a job. In 1999, Lieutenant-General Tauqir Zia, one of the most powerful men in the country at the time under Musharraf, also announced that departmental cricket would end, and in 2003, the departments were excluded from the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, only to be brought back a few years later.

Following the 2018-19 season, departmental teams were brought back to the fold of Pakistan cricket just last year in the 2023-24 season, though this time under the ‘President’s Cup’, a tournament specifically for departments. 360 cricketers from 18 regional teams were also offered domestic contracts, announced by Junaid Zia, director of domestic cricket operations at PCB, whose father was none other than Tauqir Zia. HBL did not take part, though instead continues to support the Pakistan Super League (PSL).

Constant reworks, drying up of funds, and mismanagement characterise sports in Pakistan, but quite clearly in the country’s history, the time when its sports were absolutely at their peak came precisely because of large investments of both time and management from outside the governing bodies of the sports themselves.

Branding cricket has not changed, but what has changed is where the brands are now investing their money. NBP bought the naming rights for National Stadium Karachi (now named the National Bank Cricket Arena) in 2022 under a 5-year MOU, in a deal that is one of the first of its kind in Pakistani history. Funding for cricket and advertising for sports still exists, but since the end of departmental cricket in the country, no money has directly gone to player development outside of tournaments like the PSL, or small one-off tournaments that people lose all memory of after a few years.

Saeed Husain is Managing Editor, Folio Books.

Motorcycles now seem to outnumber people and are a part of every landscape. With an estimated local annual production ranging between 1.5 and 2 million, they afford the middle class a mode of transport to work, socials and even trips to the far north of Pakistan.

Honda was the first Japanese manufacturer to establish a factory here, and Suzuki, Yamaha and Kawasaki soon followed. Now, we see multiple Chinese brands offering a wide range of two-wheelers at a lower price point, though buyers are suspect of quality.

All locally manufactured motorcycles operate on the policy of ‘barely acceptable’ quality. However, this was not always the case. In times gone by, quality was a mantra.

We often talk about brands and brand loyalty. Companies take years, sometimes decades, to build a reputation. Now it’s called branding, and firms take particular care to create, nurture, and maintain an image. At the top of the list are the Germans, followed by the Japanese when it comes to motorcycle manufacturing. However, there was a time when British motorcycles were a name to be reckoned with.

The Triumph Motorcycle Company, set up in the late nineteenth century, produced its first petrol engine-powered cycle in 1902 and, on the onset of the First World War, received large orders from the British Army, establishing itself as a major player in the field.

Triumph, along with other British motorcycles, became the go-to two-wheel mode of transport in the far reaches of the British Empire. India became a major market, and post-Partition, Pakistan inherited many of these motorcycles; a sizeable number of 350cc bikes served in the Pakistan Army with dispatch riders.

Triumph started exporting to the United States of America after the Second World War, and they soon found a receptive audience, especially amongst the younger riders, some influenced no doubt by seeing Marlon Brando on a Triumph Thunderbird in the film The Wild One.

As an automobile enthusiast myself, I had previously written about a young motorcycle enthusiast who rode his 1940 BSA trouble-free to Malam Jabba and back.

Shortly after, I received an email from a gentleman from Hyderabad who wanted me to write about his father and his collection of Triumph motorcycles.

I was finally able to travel to and interview Syed Muhammad Haroon Rashid, a lawyer by profession who had settled in Hyderabad for the past many decades. Now in his late 80s, he maintains an active lifestyle, still practices law, and on occasion will ride with his sons to Karachi. I hazard to guess he is probably Pakistan’s oldest motorcycle enthusiast and rider.

He inherited his love for these two-wheelers from his father and, on passing his intermediate exam, received his first motorcycle as a gift. That was the beginning of his lifelong passion, and his collection of vintage motorcycles is an impressive sight.

Ranging from the 200-cc Tiger Cub to the 650-cc Thunderbird, Syed Haroon has seven of these iconic motorcycles. He is also the proud caretaker of a Royal Enfield, a Harley Davidson, and a Suzuki.

In his words, “motorcycles are my first love, and I will continue to love them till I cross over to the other side.”

Haroon’s father, a Customs officer in Calcutta, rode a Harley Davidson and presented him with a Matchless 350cc, then a Willys Jeep, and finally a Triumph 650cc Thunderbird; it is the pride of his collection.

He and his sons frequently ride out together, occasionally completing the 150 km Hyderabad to Karachi run.

Admitting to an urge to prefer project machinery over complete and functional motorcycles, Haroon’s penchant for acquiring the incomplete and non-runner has saved many from the scrap heap. His mechanic spends the day at the residence, slowly completing the orphan, and the Triumphs now on display are a testament to his skill. Haroon keeps the man ‘fed and watered’ and the bike slowly comes back to life. Having been involved with restoring older Volkswagen Beetle cars in the past, I can vouch for the difficulty of finding the correct part and the lengths one goes to trace them.

Our conversation moved on to challenges faced by the younger generation in access to motocross tracks, as well as acquiring motorcycles that are imported bypassing the regular channels.

His advice: get organised, club together, and form pressure groups. Apply to the government, pay the taxes, and regularise the vehicle.

As a fellow enthusiast, I cannot but agree with him. A shortsighted and counterproductive amendment in 2006 to the import regulations banned the import of cars and motorcycles older than three years. Conceived with the idea of stopping used cars from undercutting the sales of locally manufactured cars, the amendment has effectively throttled the hobby.

State functionaries will go on ad-nauseum about the importance of ‘saving our heritage on wheels’ but will take no concrete steps to support the vintage motorcycle and automobile hobby.

Syed Haroon Rashid’s words ring true, that it is only by grouping together, forming a pressure group, and making concerted moves to educate the man in the ministry that Pakistan may have a healthy hobby.

The family is based in Hyderabad and is happy to hear from fellow enthusiasts. You may reach them by email: choicehyd@gmail.com

Romano Karim Yousuf is a vintage car enthusiast.
romanokarim@gmail.com

Photos: Romano Karim Yousuf

The Farshi Shalwar: Pyjama Chic or Mughal Majesty?

Oh, the farshi shalwar. The gotta-have-it piece of the season that’s got everyone from designers to your neighbourhood darzi in a frenzy. Floor-skimming, loose and rooted in Mughal culture, this trend is the epitome of comfort-meets-elegance. Last seen in the seventies paired with ultra-tight, body-hugging shirts, the farshi shalwar is back – but this time, it’s got a modern twist. Think contemporary, looser cuts that skim the body rather than cling to it.

But here’s the catch: not everyone can pull this off. If you’re not naturally willowy or tall, there’s a fine line between looking regal and looking like you’re drowning in fabric. The trick? Luxe fabrics and the right cuts. And if you’re pear-shaped, ditch the short shirt for a longer one to balance the silhouette. The real challenge, though, is not getting sick of it before Eid rolls around. It’s everywhere – on your Instagram feed, in every designer collection and probably in your cool cousin’s wardrobe already. Love it or hate it, the farshi shalwar is here to stay (at least for this Eid).

Dubai’s Viral Chocolate Pistachio Knafeh: The Dessert of the Decade

Move over, Biscoff Lotus – there’s a new flavour in town and it’s taking over Eid desserts like a delicious storm. Say hello to pistachio chocolate knafeh, the viral Dubai dessert that’s got everyone from Karachi to Lahore obsessed. Imagine crispy kataifi pastry smothered in pistachio spread, covered with rich chocolate and topped with a sprinkle of crushed nuts. It’s the kind of dessert that makes you want to skip dinner and go straight to the sweet stuff.

Pakistani bakers have fully embraced this trend, churning out everything from pistachio chocolate cheesecakes to waffles and even tiramisu. But a word of caution: not all pistachio spreads are created equal. Some versions taste suspiciously like almond essence (shudder), so choose your baker wisely. When done right, though,this flavour combo is an absolute banger. Your Eid meetha spread just got a major upgrade.

Khussas: The Footwear That’s Stealing the Show

Continuing the Mughal theme, khussas are having a major moment this Eid. These traditional shoes, which migrated from rural villages to the Mughal courts, are suddenly the coolest thing in footwear. And why not? They’re versatile, stylish and rooted in regional heritage.

You’ll find khussas in every bazaar from Liberty Market to Tariq Road, but this year, they’re getting a modern makeover. Pair them with shalwar kameez for a traditional look or rock them with jeans for a fusion vibe. Embroidered, monochromatic or classic leather – there’s a khussa for every mood. Just don’t make the mistake of pairing them with a floor-skimming farshi shalwar (you’ll need a heel for that). Instead, let the khussa shine with ankle-length pants or an izaar. Trust me, your feet will thank you.

Henna Stencils: Skip the Mehndi Waali Drama

Chaand Raat is all about the mehndi, but let’s be real – finding a skilled mehndi waali can be a hit-or-miss affair. One minute you’re dreaming of intricate paisleys and the next, you’re stuck with something that looks like a toddler went wild with a mehndi cone. Enter henna stencils, the game-changer we didn’t know we needed.

From traditional paisleys to quirky truck art designs, stencils take the fuss out of mehndi application. Brands like Kolachi Mehndi are even offering Eid-themed stencils with chand sitarey motifs. Plus, there’s a growing trend of artisanal, chemical-free henna that smells divine and stains beautifully. No skill required, just lots of fun. Gather your girls, grab some stencils and turn your Chaand Raat into a DIY mehndi party.

Open Houses: The Chill Way to Celebrate

Big Eid dinners are so last year. The new trend? Open houses. This laid-back approach to entertaining has been simmering for a while and it’s perfect for our busy lives. With so many family commitments (hello, mamoos and chachas), it’s hard to find time for everyone. Open houses solve that problem by letting guests drop in whenever suits them.

For the hostess, it’s a dream. No stressing over timing dinner perfectly – just set up grazing boards, a dessert trolley and maybe a couple of hearty dishes. It’s relaxed, fun and the perfect way to catch up with friends and family without the pressure.

Kaftans: The Comfort Queen of Eid Fashion

Last but definitely not least, let’s talk about kaftans. This trend has been steadily gaining traction, thanks to our high-end designers making waves in the Gulf states. Originally introduced to cater to the tastes of customers in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, kaftans have won over Pakistani hearts too. And why wouldn’t they? They’re comfortable, effortlessly chic and perfect for Eid.

Picture this: a flowing, floor-length kaftan in a luxe fabric, adorned with delicate embroidery or a bold print. It’s the kind of outfit that makes you feel like royalty while secretly feeling like you’re wearing pyjamas. Pair it with statement jewellery and strappy sandals for a glam look or keep it casual with minimal accessories. Whether you’re lounging at home or attending an Eid gathering, the kaftan is your go-to for comfort and style.

Eidul Fitr 2025 is all about blending tradition with modern flair. From the Mughal-inspired farshi shalwar and khussas to the viral pistachio chocolate knafeh and the ever-comfy kaftan, this year’s trends are a celebration of our heritage and our love for all things luxurious and laid-back. So, whether you’re rocking a stencil mehndi design or hosting an open house, make this Eid your most stylish one yet. And let’s be real – the best moments these days don’t even make it past the group chat, let alone onto Instagram. Some things are just too good to share with the world.

Salima Feerasta, aka Karachista, is one of Pakistan’s first lifestyle influencers. karachista@gmail.com

Like other major languages, Urdu has its informal versions. Featuring abay, tabay, teri tou, and beyond, this version comprises interesting terms, trendy catchphrases and suggestive expressions often too informal to be spoken, written or found in dictionaries. Sifting through the good, the bad and the ugly of Urdu slang and colloquialism is an uphill task. Nevertheless, it is an inevitable part of our everyday language, as shown by many common examples worth mentioning.

Kaddu (pumpkin) may be just another vegetable in other countries, but in the Subcontinent, it is the most emphatic word to convey one’s impulsive emotions. Lassan (garlic), originally lehsan, is another word people use with a befitting verb to express their frustration when things go in undesired directions. Khachar (mule) is used with similar connotations.

Despite their rather blunt, offensive or closer-to-offensive nature, the perennial popularity and strength of colloquialisms lie in their never-ending capacity and elasticity. They help one speak one’s heart out on the spur of the moment without constraining one’s impulsive creativity to steadfast lingual rules or confining one’s wildest (literally) imagination to conform to social boundaries. And even the sky’s not the limit when such expressions are delivered, particularly in anger or spoken during abrupt moments.

With an overemphasis on Urdu alphabets like gaaf, chay, laam, tay and pey, most slang is used within a specific environment and by particular groups of people sharing similar ages, interests, professions, communities and socio-economic backgrounds. However, many colloquial terms, catchphrases and common proverbs tinged with slang are frequently used. From the potpourri of the most popular street lingo and casual expressions, the words abay, chal, bharam, ghanta, tera bhai, patlee gali se, and ‘Hitler’ top the list and are used with a variety of connotations by both the literate and illiterate.

The non-academic version of the Urdu language is predominantly ruled by Hindi, followed by Punjabi. The popularity enjoyed by Indian films has been a great source for inducting slang expressions and catchphrases into everyday vocabularies, such as panga, action Kumar, bol Bachchan, chamiya, chammak challo, dada, siaynpati, tashan, tapori, takla, tulla, chirand, waat lagna, and many more. “Tera kya hogaa kaliya?”, “Kitne aadmi the?”, “Mogambo khush hua”, “Ye Baburao ka style hay” and “Tareekh pe tareekh” are iconic lines from films that have found their way into everyday communication.

Examples of the most common colloquial proverbs are Khaya piya kuch nahi glass tora baraa aanay ka, Jo naa katay aari se, wo katay Bihari se, Lag pata jaey gaa, Baap bara naa bhaiya, sab se bara rupaiyaa, Banda heera hai bas zarra saa keera hai, Kaam karo poora, bhaar main jaey noora, Majboori kaa naam shukriyaa, Ya Shaikh, apni apni daikh, Pappu yaar tang na kar, Hansi tou phansi, and Naqad baray shoq se, udhaar agle chowk se. Colloquial proverbs such as Bharam tight aur pateela khali and Baat croron ki, dukan pakoron ki are used almost with similar connotations, referring to a destitute person behaving arrogantly or making tall claims.

Urdu is never short of befitting expressions to honestly describe a person along with his or her personal characteristics, such as chashmatoo or chashmulli, darhyal, mucharr, heroinchi, afeemchi, akru, lambu, khaimbu, paitu, kodu, tunta, dedh footiya, tat poonjia, foothpathiya, taaru, pakaoo, etc. Similarly, there are scores of analogies and similes, such as pakora for nose, buttons for eyes, bhoosa and khali khopri for the brain, samosa for ears, thobra for face, ghonsla for hair, airport for a hair-free head, kunwan for the stomach, til kaa laddu for a mole-filled face and doodh patti for a person affected by vitiligo.

The localised translation spree has turned the measurement tape into an inchi tape, a water suction pump into a khainchoo, a stapler into a joroo, a megaphone into a bhonpu, a bobby pin into a baal pin, an old, worn-out car into a dhakka start and an old motorcycle into a phatpati. Ironically, a poor man with no means of transportation has to rely on walking called giyara number ki bus. Many words also have clandestine meanings and euphemistic applications, such as dhulai, ragraa, panchayat, merna, maarna, marwana, laina, daina, lagana, banana, pakana, chorna, phainkna, lapiatna, phutna, phootna, hatana, bejana, kaam hojana, halka/bhari/choraa hona, class laina, etc.

Kids are referred to as raiz gari, bacha party, chillars, chillar party, bachaa log and chawwanni athanni, while the word bachoo is used as an intimidating remark. A beautiful girl is mostly painted as bachi, kancha, chanp, piece, popat, hato-bacho and katto, while pappu, pappu bacha, and chikna are used for a clean-shaven, good-looking boy. People use kallo pari to refer to an attractive girl with a dark complexion. Interestingly, my late mother coined the term kallo patra, a distorted version of Cleopatra, to describe those women (mostly her daughters-in-law, her relatives and her neighbours) trying to appear beautiful despite being otherwise.

In a culture that revels in gender segregation, one must never wonder when a doctor is called doctorni, manager becomes a managerni, darzi as darzan, chamar as chamaran, baira as bairan, and banda as bandi. Terms like youthiya, surkhay, jamaati, jiyala and tableeghi depict people’s political and ideological associations.

Counting in Urdu’s colloquial version is much more than just numbers. Children have alternatives for the natural numbers, such as pail (one), dool (two), teel (three), chol (four), panj (five), and so on. Aik number refers to a top-quality product, while dou number is used for a second-rate thing and for those considered dishonest and have immoral characters. Das numbri denotes a clever person or a fraudster, while char so bees, derived from Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, also reflect similar meanings. Ponay aath refers to a man with effeminate qualities, and chakka and teesri dunya are used for transgenders. A chappan churi person is quarrelsome, while the one-of-a-kind slang proverb De maar, sarray char is often used to show one’s frustration or desperation to achieve results no matter what.

Based on euphemisms and quasi-offensive expressions, many phrases fall into a gentleman’s slang, used mainly by the educated, well-bred lot as an accessible outlet for catharsis without crossing moral thresholds. Venting their anger with a murmured teri tou to quietly calling someone saala, saali and susra, a gentleman’s slang features many words and phrases revolving around bhains (e.g. abay bhains, bhains ki aaknkh/taang/poonch), ullu (e.g. ullu ki dum), kutta (e.g. kutta dimagh), sooar, gadha, khar or khachar.

Due to cultural and historical factors, language, phrases, and words keep evolving, as do their pronunciations. From naalij (knowledge), kaalij (college), paalish (polish), puncher (puncture), lecturaar (lecturer), and custoomer (customer) to laat (lot), plaat (plot), phateek (fatigue), biskut (biscuit), ricaard (record), mainoo (menu), tool plaza (toll plaza), full-flash (full-fledged), kalashan (Kalashnikov), etc., a whole host of non-Urdu words are used with gusto but with localised pronunciations.

The commonality of informal lingual expressions and how they become part of everyday speech is underlined by their widespread use in TV shows, films, and ads. Haath hojana, an offensive phrase, is now a (wrongly) yet widely accepted journalistic term. Lashkara is a common word used in washing powder ads. The phrase lush pash, mainly derived from urban street jargon, was also featured in one of Ariel Excel’s TV ads in the early 2000s. Chief Saab, Sajjad Ali’s trademark song, is a textbook example of urban Urdu slang. Other than the eponymous Chief Saab, the song is littered with such slang words as pinki hona, meter ghumna, raag paat sunana, naqsh-e-bazi dikhana, mawaali and pakhraat.

Be it a mummy-daddy boy, papa ki pari or a burger family, the taap-o-taap journey of Urdu colloquialism is never-ending, coining, mimicking, distorting and scooping up every possible word to help us let it all out. Alat dee!

Faizan Usmani is Senior Editor, Intersys, an international IT firm. faizanusmani76@gmail.com

We should be outraged. Livid. We are being led into a curated world of blandness, and we are doing it with our eyes wide open. Our sense of individuality is being eroded by brands that peddle collective emotions in an attempt to buy our loyalty. What else could explain the frantic rush to buy a new wardrobe that fits in with the season’s trending colour? Years of mass consumerism and social media prominence have led to a culture of commercialism and a desperate need to own the gadget, fashion accessory or technological tool that an influencer has highlighted as essential to our well-being and design worthiness. These wildly popular items promise to transform our otherwise purposeless, devoid-of-aesthetic existence into one that is Insta-worthy and straight out of a Pinterest board. 

When did this brainwashing begin? Was it Apple, with its ability to create meaning in collective experiences, that first made us desperate to join a community of shared choices, thereby giving us a sense of belonging? Was it the emergence of influencers, buoyed by sponsors, that hyped up the urge to spend to make us feel complete? Or have we always been tied to collective trends that seem to define entire cultural eras and create a sense of unity?

Launched in 1999, the Pantone Colour of the Year was conceived as a way of beginning a conversation within the design industry and among colour enthusiasts. The first colour was Cerulean Blue, chosen to represent the new Millennium’s calm optimism. Over subsequent years, more colours were chosen in keeping with the world’s economic changes, cultural shifts and societal moods. Mimosa in 2009 was picked in the midst of the financial crisis to inspire hope and echo the warmth of the sun. In 2017, after a year of political upheaval (US elections/Brexit), Greenery represented a yearning for rejuvenation, environmental awareness and hope for change.

Mocha Mousse is an evocative soft brown that “nurtures with the suggestion of the earthy richness of cacao, chocolate and coffee,” as explained by Laurie Pressman, VP, Pantone Colour Institute.

In a promotional video, Pressman explains why this colour represents harmony. Wearing a Mocha Mousse outfit against a beige backdrop, she tells us that, “From sweet treats to nature walks, we are creating these special moments whose promise of a fleeting escape brings us joy.” 

It should all sound perfectly delectable and, by all accounts, ignite a glow of warmth inside me. The idea of peaceful harmony and thoughtful indulgence should bring me comfort. Yet, it leaves me feeling quite the opposite. This mass adoption of a single idea is unsettling and uncomfortable. Although the act of making similar choices encourages social cohesion and a sense of belonging, it also obliterates any idea that contrasts with the collective idea. Homogeneous trends encourage conformity. As trends gain popularity, they discourage uniqueness. The desire to be fashionable and ‘on trend’ leads to a uniform aesthetic environment and a sad loss of diversity. 

We are by now fairly used to the dreaded algorithm and its devious ways. When a trend takes off, social media platforms push out more and more content to support that trend. We consume hours of interior inspiration and curated consumerism fed to us by vloggers – all of us victims of the trending hashtags. As we fall into a cycle of repetitive content, our online lives start existing in echo chambers where trend-aligned ideas thrive and innovation and creativity are suppressed – all the while convincing us that we need to be part of the collective visual movement.

If Mocha Mousse is the colour that is touted as the colour that will transform our visual landscape and finally help us to create a digital presence that looks like the one influencers follow, then that is what we desperately seek.

When I was in school, I read Yargo, a book by Jacqueline Susann, about a super-intelligent, technologically advanced race that reached a state of utopia on their home planet. They shared a collective identity with the same physical appearance, the same personal expression and the same lack of empathy. Although they were light years ahead of Earth, they were devoid of emotion, and any desire to challenge the status quo was completely absent. I remember being quite enamoured by this concept of intellectual superiority and state of perfection, but it quickly turned into a lifelong inner debate where the joy of collective experiences battled with the drive for diversity and individuality. The uniformity of Yargo reflected a society that seemingly transcended conflict and inefficiency but at the cost of emotional richness and diversity.

My issue with Pantone’s Colour of the Year is the same one I have with any establishment attempting to lean on a group of people who are fighting for their right to be non-conformists. By targeting creative practitioners and the design industry, these seemingly harmless trends encourage an environment of mediocrity. The warm blur of a well-packaged idea lulls us into making easier decisions. By being complacent and less likely to think for ourselves, we take the road more travelled and arrive at the same destination as everyone else. In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine, researcher Adam Grant discussed how non-conformists (whom he refers to as ‘originals’), are more likely to drive innovation. They may not be risk takers but they are more likely to champion new ideas and challenge the status quo. 

Imagine, if you will, Luis Barragán’s brilliant use of colour in his architecture, bowing down to a trending colour. His stunning colour combinations – the golden yellow paired with a pastel petal pink sacrificed for a beige – because it was the visual dictionary of that time. Despite all the talk about design thinking in the last decade – a methodology that emphasises ideation, experimentation and benefits from non-conformist perspectives – we seem to have not learnt much from it. The desire to meld in, the need to belong, the quest for tenuous connections is killing our spark. 

Mocha Mousse seems an ill-advised and superficial attempt at nurturing warmth and well-being when there is none.

The clichéd sentences spoken by Elly Cheng, President of Pantone, seemed to have been dreamt up by ChatGPT, devoid as they were of substance. This colour, she said, is the “visual response to the challenges, hopes and aspirations that we all share.”

This then is our cue. The challenges, hopes and aspirations that we all share. But do we? Isn’t it high time we fight against the cookie-cutter template that is designed by the West? Most trends tend to be based on the Western world, but do they accurately represent us? Should we as ‘brown’ people celebrate the recognition of a colour that we visually identify with? Is it a symbol of ourselves, or is it a statement of denial? A denial of the challenges, hardship, death and destruction faced by the brown. Just like Peach Fuzz in 2024 seemed tone-deaf given rampant racism and white supremacy, Mocha Mousse is a very bland characterisation of a world that is anything but. 

Mariam Hussain is Creative Strategist and Design Director, 240 Inc., London.

AI is a broad term used to refer to a range of techniques. Recent advancements often refer to a subset of techniques also grouped as generative AI. Broadly, these constitute the ability of computers to synthesise new content, such as images or language. Some of the techniques in use today date back decades, but consistent advancements have led to breakthroughs. In particular, the last few years have seen the emergence of new mathematical techniques, increases in processing power and available data, as well as the popularity of new interface experiments (the chatbot) that have captured the world’s imagination. We are now envisioning computers that can perform complex linguistic tasks, understand what humans mean more accurately, and replace humans in many tasks we would not have thought possible before.

In simple terms, AI techniques allow computers to identify patterns in data.

Humans can do this too, but computers can conduct mathematical procedures over large amounts of data much faster. This makes computers uniquely able to find patterns in places where humans may not be able to (as well as learn to mimic existing data). By reading large amounts of text, computers can learn how to find patterns between words. By using this ability, we can make predictions and classifications. For example, guess what the next word in a line of text could be, or identify the emotion expressed in a sentence. We can also use this ability to generate new text.

This new wave of AI capabilities has hit a tech world that is largely centred in the West and in China, where technologists have begun to imagine new opportunities in terms of how computers can help humans. However, I worry that our vision of how to use AI is so centred on Western life and culture that we in Pakistan may benefit less from the technology than we would otherwise do.

When my work on building better technology for written Urdu began, I found it glaring how many technologies, which we consider table stakes for English, are missing for Urdu and other regional languages. Take spell check, which corrects erroneously typed language. This ensures linguistic standards and creates a sense of reliability and credibility in the text, and I assumed this technology would be of extreme value to Urdu publishers.

However, in my discussions with professionals in the Urdu language, I found that automated spell check did not hold the allure that I had expected it to.

Copyediting from professionals is readily available, and publishers value the in-person networks and expertise that their existing mechanisms enable. Would spell check be helpful? Sure. But it is not the technology that is holding back the progress of the Urdu language. In fact, in some instances, it may negatively impact the culture of publishing, and this is why it is important to understand the cultures in which our languages and our people operate.

Precedents for the sort of shorthand analysis I conducted are available throughout history. When the printing press was introduced in Europe, Muslim printers did not adopt it straight away. Historians first assumed this was because the Muslim world was backward. However, our assumptions about this have since evolved. It now appears more likely that the printing press was slow to be adopted because the needs of the Muslim world at the time were not to spread the written word across geographies quickly. Muslim education at the time relied on in-person teaching and apprenticeship. What this story illustrates is that while the benefits of technology may be available to all cultures and people, different regions require different things at different times.

Here is another short story that is illustrative of how our cultural blindness can limit our ability to progress in technology. In my role as an educator and mentor to young designers across Pakistan, I have found that the core of our professionals are more familiar with the principles of Western design and typography than they are with typography in the Arabic script or South Asian design principles. This is because we are short of professionals with expertise in our native design disciplines while being at the same time proficient in the vocabulary of Western higher education, which big-name Pakistani educational institutions draw from.

The result is often the belief that design knowledge (and even high culture, aesthetics and taste) is the domain of the West and not of Pakistan.

The truth, however, is that, as far as I can see, Pakistan is the country that cares the most about typography in the world.

Pakistan prints Urdu in the Nastaliq script. The aesthetic of Nastaliq is so closely tied to the Urdu language that until the late 1980s, Pakistani newspapers preferred to handwrite and lithograph rather than use movable type, which was introduced in Europe many centuries ago. Time and again, we see examples of how Western visions of technology do not address our needs in the same way. Instead of believing that this somehow makes us technologically backwards, we must make our technology more culturally aware and forward-thinking.

There are some problems with AI tools that are simple to understand. Because these tools train on high-quality data from the West, they are better at understanding Western culture than ours. For example, image generation tools are much better at mimicking the style of Rembrandt than they are at mimicking Sadequain. While technology is becoming cheaper and more widely available, we cannot argue that this kind of structural inequality will decrease in the future.

There is also a more complex problem – the fact that our best-in-class vision of AI is centred on Western culture. The jobs we look to automate are jobs considered mundane in the West, such as form filling and copy editing. The magical scenarios we are given are from English science-fiction movies. These are not stories about the Pakistani people, and in chasing them blindly, we may forget the needs of our people. Where is the gadget that automatically turns on our old geyser when the gas is back? Where is the cheap sensor that detects unhealthy levels of toxic fumes from cheap fuels in home kitchens? Where is the monitoring system that collates unexplained viruses killing our loved ones?

Where is the software that digitises old Urdu texts to modern formats? And where are the games that teach our kids about running a tandoor?

The truth is that technologists like me can be smart, but we can also be very dumb. We had to develop a whole new discipline called human-centred design to get around our own failures. This new discipline is rooted in the idea that technologists are very bad at predicting what humans will do, and the best way to design new products is to observe our audience, try out ideas and see how people react to them. It is this approach that needs to be at the core of how we use AI to build new products for Pakistan.

Zeerak Ahmed is Principal UX Designer, Amazon and Founder, Matnsaz. He tweets at @zeerakahmed

A woman’s persona, it appears, is written by her makeup. The cleaner the face, the clearer the character.

Up until very recently, Pakistan’s television dramas validated the stereotype with annoying precision. Imagine a heavily made up female character, ostensibly wearing three layers of mascara on her fake eyelashes and coloured contact lenses to magnify them a bit more. A thick coat of foundation reflective of war paint covers her face, which is then contoured and highlighted by strokes and strobes of various powders designed to convolute the face. The lips are often an entirely independent character: the deadlier the character, the more lined, filled, built-up and basically bold lip she’ll have. This kind of woman you’d have seen in Pakistani dramas, and soaps in particular. In the average soap, the made-up woman was the manipulative mother-in-law, an equally toxic sister-in-law, or the quintessential ‘other woman,’ the home wrecker.

While it’s still makeup versus no makeup when it comes to defining the innocence of a character, things are no longer as over the top as they used to be. The turn of the millennium saw the influence of Indian soaps wearing off, and we saw the rise of subtlety; that said, the principle of the character remained the same.

The heroine has evolved to have fifty shades of fresh face. Mawra Hocane as Rashtina in Nauroz, or Sabeena Farooq as Barbeena in Kabuli Pulao, are refreshingly sans makeup. Urwa Hocane has a signature ‘no makeup look’ that we see in her drama serials, most recently in Meri Shehzadi. Urwa’s eyes are made to look bigger and more bewildered with mascara and no kajal, liner or eye shadow. A natural-toned rouge gives her a youthful and innocent blush across the cheeks and nose. The lip tint is kept as natural as possible. You could have a Meerab (Yumna Zaidi) in Tere Bin, a Mehek (Dure Fishan Saleem) in Kaisi Teri Khudgarzi, a Zoobia (Dananeer Mobeen) in Muhabbat Gumshuda Meri or even an Aliya (Sajal Aly) in Kuch Ankahi and you’ll see the pattern: good girls don’t depend on makeup. They’re born pretty.

Makeup, even in its subtler form, is mostly restricted to several types of female characters. First and foremost: the negative character, evil, manipulative or home breaker. Think of the wicked step-mother in any Disney classic. Think of Niggo Jee’s (Saman Ansari) Star Plus soap inspired alter ego in Fairy Tale. Two: the rich b*tch, and she’ll inevitably have grey undertones under the makeup if they’re not more obvious; Kiran Malik plays her to perfection as Natasha in Jaisay Aap Ki Marzi. Three: the westernised woman, meaning the one in jeans and shirts, who’s thrown modesty to the wind and just doesn’t care about cultural sensitivities. This character is hard to find, as every woman must subscribe to cultural sensitivities, but every now and then you’ll have a Faha (Washma Fatima) as we saw in Mujhe Pyaar Hua Tha. Four: the ambitious woman, one who’s better dressed and perhaps even fashionable as she has a life beyond the four walls of her home. Sonya Hussyn’s Noor ul Ain was destined for heartbreak and solitude (Tere Bina Mein Nahi) the minute she chose her career over marriage. As per drama values, she obviously didn’t care about family values.

We’ve seen these tropes play out on TV for far too long. It’s time to see a good girl not afraid of a slick of Russian Roulette. Or some high contoured cheekbones and a French manicure for a successful albeit loving woman in a relationship. It’s time for an extreme makeover, wouldn’t you think?

Aamna Haider Isani is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Something Haute.
aamna.isani@gmail.com

Globally, the premium-priced segment is outpacing mass market growth and a number of factors are driving this trend. When we look at emotional factors, studies reveal that consumers are willing to spend more on luxury items, if they also have the potential benefit of improving social or environmental aspects. Typically, these are products that taste good, make them feel good, give them confidence and fulfil their status and personal self-esteem needs.

Nielsen’s Global Premiumization Report 2018 highlighted the fact that the tangible product attributes associated with the term are considered to be more important than the emotional aspects. Globally, quality (of material and ingredients) is the top-ranked attribute consumers associate with premium-priced products, followed by superior functionality/performance and then by superior design/style. Globally, Nielsen defines the premium price segment as “goods that cost at least 20% or more than the category’s average price.”

Interestingly, there are varied responses towards these different attributes across countries. In Pakistan, quality of material and ingredients tops the ranking. However, the second most attributed criteria are brand awareness and trust which rank fourth globally. Another interesting fact is that appetite for premium-priced products in Pakistan has increased over the last couple of years, even if accessibility to these products is still a challenge.

Delving deeper into these dynamics, Nielsen Pakistan analysed 44 FMCG categories and found that in Pakistan, premiumisation is a growing phenomenon and is exhibiting significant opportunities in terms of size and growth. The premium-priced segment is worth approximately Rs 215 billion and accounts for about a third of the FMCG market. Growth has remained stable if we compare the data from recent consecutive years (2016 vs. 2017). Furthermore, the size of this segment is evenly spread and about two-thirds of the categories showed a sizable premium-price segment (greater than or equal to 10% share in the respective category).

Nielsen further shortlisted 21 categories out of the 44, where the premium-price segment is growing at a higher rate compared to the non-premium segment. These findings showed that the premium-price segment grew by 12% in these 21 categories against 10% growth in the non-premium-price segment. It further highlighted that there is a clear acceptability of this segment among Pakistani consumers.

However, the key question is how to tap into this lucrative segment. There are five key levers which are helping the growth of the premium-price segment in the Pakistani market.

Growing reach and visibility

Although it may seem obvious that increasing distribution is the answer, there are underlying factors that need to be taken into account. Companies have to reach new audiences, expand their distribution and ensure that their distribution network carries the entire portfolio range for that specific segment. This can be achieved either by increasing current distribution as well as in-store visibility (acquiring shelf space or adding new assortments). However, premium-priced products cannot be expected to reach the same level of distribution as non-premium products. In most cases, we see that distribution remains at 50% of the non-premium segment, simply because we cannot expect mass market appeal for premium-priced products.

Growth in rate of sales

In this regard, factors such as better in-store visibility, greater consumer pull/appeal, frequent purchases/more buying occasions or the incremental weight of purchase contributes to an increased sales rate from the existing distribution network.

Increased pricing

Although premium price products can be tagged freely, in the majority of successful cases, the price is limited to approximately double of that particular category’s average price. For instance, if a category has an average price of Rs 100, the price range of premium products will be set between Rs 120-200 in most successful cases. Moreover, the prices of existing products in a portfolio can be increased, but the increase should be supplemented by clear communication regarding product benefits to justify it.

Pack format and size mix

Although these cases are very limited, in general, this helps achieve increased value sales but may have a negative impact on volume sales and brand loyalty.

Innovation

This plays a vital role in premium-price segment’s growth. We have seen how a number of new launches in the premium-price segment in Pakistan have achieved a fair level of distribution during that particular launch year.

Nielsen has identified key take-outs which can help manufacturers and retailers to either increase or make their presence much more effective in the premium-price segment.

Despite the changing economic scenario and market dynamics, we see premiumisation retaining its hold in the Pakistani market. Although consumers are attracted to premium-priced products due to a combination of emotional factors and tangible product attributes, there is a strategic side to it as well. This originates from businesses’ assessment of how to launch new premium-priced products or market their existing ones by adopting a holistic approach which takes into account factors that are not just limited to regular product marketing.

Asfand Aslam is Associate Director, Retail Measurement Services (RMS), Nielsen Pakistan.

Background and inside scoop

Although personal care products have been in existence for a long time, personal care brands are relative newcomers. Personal care has historically been driven by society’s expectations of women (more than men). To achieve beauty, the Egyptians used essential oils as moisturisers (very organic). The Chinese used a combination of nutrition and circulation (internal) and face powders and skin lighteners (external). The Greeks used a mixture of fresh berries and milk for skin treatments and white lead or chalk to achieve a lighter appearance. The Romans stressed on bathing for a youthful skin and used olive oil as soap. The Elizabethans painted their faces with lead, carbonate and hydroxide.

Grooming and hygiene drive the modern concept of personal care. ‘Toiletries’ are intrinsically linked to bathrooms and the latter only became commonplace in the 19th century. Things were quite different before the bathroom. The Venetian aristocracy were happy to relieve themselves using the chamber pots stowed under their beds and when they were full, the contents were dumped outside the window – so that passersby were always prone to a dose of aristocratic excrement. Toothbrushes did not become a thing until the late 18th century. Deodorants were invented in the 19th century; in medieval times, people would (hopefully) bathe once a week and most probably smelled bad. Men used to wear powdered wigs as a symbol of status.

The personal care brands we know of today, made their appearance in the 20th century. Max Factor entered the US in 1904. A French chemist named Eugene Schueller invented the modern hair dye in 1909, forming the company that would later become known as L’Oréal. In 1913, chemist T.L. Williams created Maybelline mascara for his sister, Mabel. The flapper look was invented in the 1920s by Coco Chanel who made the ‘Hollywood tan’ famous in the 1930s. Charles and Joseph Revson established Revlon in the midst of the Great Depression. Companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) established the modern concept of how to advertise personal care products in the 1950s. P&G introduced Crest, the first toothpaste with fluoride and clinically-proven to fight against cavities. Aerosol deodorant was introduced in 1965. The modern age of branded personal care arrived. Men were not left behind. Powerful brands such as Gillette and Old Spice have shaped social expectations among men about how they should look, smell and project themselves. Brands such as Fair and Handsome remind us how men too have the right to be beautiful.

In Pakistan, consumption of personal care products has replaced traditional personal care regimes based on natural ingredients. This consumerism has been driven forward by global marketing powerhouses following their global strategies. Several local brands have climbed onto the personal care bandwagon, adopting many of the stereotyped formulas of the leading global brands.

The ethics of some of the marketing techniques have been questioned internationally. For example, women with darker skin made to feel inadequate compared to their fairer-skinned peers. The notion of teenage girls compelled to look as flawless as picture perfect models (usually far too thin). I know this has been the norm for decades, but the approach begs to be questioned.

In today’s world, personal care is defined by the media, the leading personal care brands and the regulatory authorities. It is interesting to note that two of these are motivated by commercial profits. Personal care marketing works to drive societal norms, motivated by the dual forces of sex appeal and fear. Fear of dandruff causing a rishta to be turned down, resulting in social embarrassment. Fear of being turned down for a job for being too dark. Fear of social rejection for not having silky smooth skin when playing a sport. Let’s not forget the classic fear of body odour as a result of not wearing the right deodorant. Personal care brands can save you from social embarrassment. As for sex appeal, we must remember that personal care brands are a rush for the senses. Smell is one of the key senses to engage a range of emotions, thereby making women appear more desirable (if we believe the advertising). Leading brands work with fragrance makers such as Givaudan and Firmenich – companies that have created scents for Bijan, Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss, Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren and Tom Ford. Sex appeal is also driven by the image of becoming more desirable to the opposite sex by using a prescribed brand of deodorant or a particular brand of depilatory cream. By combining fear, sex appeal and societal norms, we end up with a powerful potion that drives some of today’s most well-known personal care brands. Personal care is a category which appeals more to the heart than to the mind.

Questioning the approach

As a disruptor, I would ask two simple questions to the personal care marketing community. The first are the ethics of using powerful motivators to achieve commercial ends. The second is whether it is time to break away from these stereotypes and move towards something that is more relevant to the consumer of today. These questions are directed at both Pakistani and global brands.

The ethics of some of the marketing techniques have been questioned internationally. For example, women with darker skin made to feel inadequate compared to their fairer-skinned peers. The notion of teenage girls compelled to look as flawless as picture perfect models (usually far too thin). I know this has been the norm for decades, but the approach begs to be questioned. On consumer relevance, it amazes me how leading brands keep using the same stereotyped approaches. It amazes me even more when I see local brands copying the same approach. I can see how this safe approach drives brand awareness and sales, which is why it is used. My view of why it works is because of societal norms, rather than the result of brilliant marketing. In other words, consumers are compelled because they believe that is what society expects of them (use a particular brand of soap, shampoo, deodorant and toothpastes to avoid being left out).

The reason I challenge the relevance of personal care stereotyping is because Millennials and younger users are highly exposed to social media and the internet and consequently, have more individualistic, better informed opinions. Earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to work on a personal care brand in Egypt where we broke away from the stereotyping prescribed by the leading global brands. As a result, the brand’s position went from number three to number one in just a few months. I was disappointed the team for the same brand in Pakistan adopted the stereotyped approach in the shadow of the market leader. The result in Pakistan was not nearly as impressive as it was in Egypt. Something to think about.

Afzal Hussain is GM, M&C Saatchi World Services Pakistan.

Historically, the region has been an active field for social innovation, smart tactical moves and guerrilla marketing. According to the official press release, Uber will buy Careem with a mix of $1.4 billion in cash and $1.7 billion in convertible notes. The deal is expected to close this month, subject to regulatory approval. Both companies believe this will provide an opportunity to expand the range and reliability of their services at a broader range of price points.

Under the deal, Careem will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber, although they will continue to operate as an independent company under the Careem brand, with the front-end operations untouched. This is a wise business call by Uber as Careem as a homegrown brand, has a deeper emotional connect with the region’s customers and a better understanding of the market dynamics. For example, Careem Kids (offers parents the convenience of rides with pre-installed child seats), Careem and Robin Hood Army (feed 10,000 people in Pakistan) and Careem Women Empowerment Network (increases the number of women drivers). In fact, Careem’s strong brand equity and existing customer relationships played a key role in the valuation. The other critical leverage point is Careem’s adaptive approach to regulatory issues and a “let’s work together” attitude, which helped them resolve the same issues Uber faced in Western markets when they came head to head with traditional transport systems, forcing government intervention. While Uber adopted a rigid posture, Careem amicably resolved local governments' concerns by making their platform more inclusive and open to traditional taxi territory (a good example of this are The UAE and Egyptian markets). It is expected that Uber will leverage these operational relationships and use Careem’s brand equity to further develop personal mobility and introduce new propositions in the delivery and payment verticals.

One may wonder at the timing of this acquisition, especially as it is rumoured that both companies have had multiple exploratory M&A engagements over the last couple of years. Perhaps the accelerator behind the announcement is the fact that Uber’s IPO is expected end of May (Uber has picked the New York Stock Exchange for the IPO). Lyft, another huge ride-hailing brand in North America, had a successful public offering debut at Nasdaq, reaching a market capitalisation of approximately $2.4 billion, making it the biggest IPO of 2019. If Uber (which is currently loss-making) obtain the same multiples as Lyft, we are potentially looking at a $125+ billion market capitalisation enterprise, making Careem’s acquisition a part of Uber’s next phase of growth. Post the IPO, the key elements of Uber’s strategy will include increasing ridesharing penetration in existing markets, expanding personal mobility in new markets, continuing investing in Uber Eats, pursuing targeted investments and acquisitions and investing in advanced technologies including autonomous vehicle technologies.

Careem’s high valuation speaks volumes about the booming start-up culture throughout the MENA region; one advanced enough to gain traction from international VCs for early and growth stage homegrown entrepreneurial digital businesses. A new generation of start-up founders have worked for some amazing companies and are now applying the lessons learnt to their new ventures.

According to Magnitt’s 2018 MENA Venture Investment Report, a record number of deals (336) and investment funding were carried out in 2018 (exclusive of Amazon’s acquisition of Souq and Uber’s of Careem) among MENA based start-ups, up three percent from 2017 (see Figure 2). The UAE remained the top destination for start-up investment, accounting for 30% of all deals and Egypt 22% of deals, up seven percent. FinTech overtook e-commerce as the most actively invested sector, accounting for 12% of all deals; e-commerce took second position (11%), followed by Delivery and Transport at third (nine percent). Although we can see many similarities between the MENA and Southeast Asian ecosystems in terms of macro-economic indicators, in terms of digital adoption and fragmentation of the market, there is still a huge difference in investor focus and large-scale funding between the two.

Potential reasons behind this dearth of funding can be found in the Global Entrepreneurship & Development Institute (GEDI) Index 2018 assessment (see Figure 3). This is a composite indicator of the health of the entrepreneurship ecosystem in a given country in terms of quality of entrepreneurship and depth of the supporting entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In Pakistan, despite lower economic growth projections, the digital consumption indicators are extremely favourable thanks to a supportive telecom infrastructure (a core enabler behind the increase in digital customers). Nevertheless, Pakistan is way behind the MENA countries, scoring second lowest in South Asia and the Pacific region. Despite the efforts of the National Incubation Centre, Pakistan Software Houses Association for IT and ITES (PASHA) and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to cultivate a conducive start-up environment along with secondary support from the private sector, the core ask is to bridge the skill-talent gap and more emphasis on private-public partnerships.

Khurram Mahboob is a tech marketer currently working in the Middle East for a leading fortune 500 company.
khurram.mahboob@gmail.com

Cool is what makes or breaks brands. Cool is the currency that brands, particularly those targeting the young, can profit from when they trade in it. The profits are high for brands that are considered both cool and meant for conspicuous consumption such as fashion, cold drinks, electronic gadgets, etc.

What is common among brands such as Adidas, Coca-Cola, Converse, Levi’s, Nike, Pepsi and Reebok is the cool factor. These brands have either been persistently cool or are known for their ability to regain their lost cool. Big brand manufacturers such as P&G, Sara Lee and Unilever have all managed to get their taste of cool as well.

So what is cool? The common belief is that cool is beyond analysis. Cool is obscure. It can be described but any attempt to develop a strict criteria is futile. However, we support the contrary claim that cool is open to analysis.

First, let’s trace the origin of the word ‘cool’. The word emerged in the 20th century; it is an Afro-American phenomenon as expressed by Peter N. Stearns in his book American Cool: Constructing a Twentieth Century Emotional Style. Cool entered the common vocabulary around the Second World War. It was a predominantly jazz term; saxophonist Lester Young is credited with coining the term’s use in jazz circles. Miles Davis called his greatest album Birth Of The Cool in 1957.

However, more important than the use of the word is the pervasiveness of the attitude the word describes. Cool is sometimes defined as ‘ironic detachment’, meaning the attitude one adopts when one cannot confront authority because the consequences of doing so are too high, but at the same time, one does not want to willingly submit to it either. This attitude is termed cool. To illustrate the point, consider two overlapping circles. One circle denotes ‘rebellion’, the other ‘submission’. The overlapping area denotes a mixed reaction – signs of rebellion as well as submission – and is the area that signifies cool.

Brands become ‘cool’ when they project their consumers exhibiting such behaviour (streaks of rebellion mixed with bands of submission). Pepsi’s advertising in the late 80s featuring Junaid Jamshed’s Dil Dil Pakistan and a band of westernised youngsters, in the context of an establishment headed by a military dictator (General Ziaul Haq) using Islamisation to legitimise an unconstitutional rule, accompanied by a disdain for pop culture that didn’t suit his political purposes was ‘cool’ and made Pepsi a cool brand overnight.

Marlene Kim Connor, in her book What is Cool: Understanding Black Manhood in America, is explicit in connecting a cool attitude to the Afro-American experience. She states that cool is the silent and knowing rejection of racist oppression, a dignified expression of masculinity developed by black men who were denied mainstream expressions of manhood.

Although cool has its roots in the Afro-American experience, it is wrong to confine it to a purely historical moment. It would be equally wrong to confine the term to a particular ethnic group or gender. The fundamentals of a cool attitude can be distilled beyond any specific cultural or ethnic roots. Cool is concerned with practical responses to a situation – for example, how to react to the day-to-day indignities of oppression and keep one’s dignity intact. Cool has thus, gradually moved from being an attitude for the marginalised to an attitude adopted by ‘lifestyle outsiders’ (people who don’t conform to mainstream ways of living in a society and its prevalent values).

Brands become ‘cool’ when they project their consumers exhibiting such behaviour (streaks of rebellion mixed with bands of submission). Pepsi’s advertising in the late 80s featuring Junaid Jamshed’s Dil Dil Pakistan and a band of westernised youngsters, in the context of an establishment headed by a military dictator (General Ziaul Haq) using Islamisation to legitimise an unconstitutional rule, accompanied by a disdain for pop culture that didn’t suit his political purposes was ‘cool’ and made Pepsi a cool brand overnight. Pepsi’s later advertising featuring cricket stars breaking the team’s discipline to sneak out of their rooms to grab a bottle of Pepsi was also ‘cool’. It helped Pepsi continue to rise in its stature. Mountain Dew is also ‘cool’ when it features its users exhibiting extreme behaviour. Available in a bottle that looks more like a beer bottle than a soda and the tagline Dew Na Kiya Tou Phir Kia Jia, it connotes resistance against authority but not quite rebellion. Dayfresh flavoured milk is another brand that features extreme behaviour by respectfully disobeying authority making it ‘cool’ and appealing to today’s young.

Once cool people adopt an idea, a chain of events unfolds with the rest of us eventually adopting it as well. Naturally, by the time the un-cool public adopts the idea, the idea itself becomes un-cool; what is cool today becomes un-cool tomorrow. This means there must be universally shared goals that both the ‘cool’ and the ‘un-cool’ respond to.

The un-cool are driven to adopt cool behaviour when dealing with a universal problem cool people have already solved.

The status of cool people depends on their authenticity, an authenticity that can only be proven by self-expression. The value of this self-expression is eroded when its ways are adopted by the public at large.

This adoption does not and cannot make them cool, but it does spread the trend. And what we see around are lots of ‘wannabe cool’ people imitating cool behaviour rather than being real cool people.

Cool people need to be outwardly expressive and socially engaged. This is true of teenage and twenty-something audiences. These life stages are pre-eminently about social engagement and the kudos necessary to achieve successful and fulfilling engagement with one’s peers while commanding their respect.

Malcolm Gladwell writes that the nature of respect has shifted: “It has to do with personal influence within specific social networks. It has to do with the influence held by those who have the respect, admiration and trust of their friends and not with a kind of status envy, which is, to me, a notion that comes from the 50s. It’s a notion that’s not relevant today and also happens to be a notion that I find personally distasteful.”

This is true. Status can only be derived by conspicuous consumption if one can have more than the others. It used to be cool to be the first to own a TV, then a colour TV, then an LED and so on, but no more. Goods have become so ubiquitous and of such consistent quality that the notion of ‘mine being superior to yours’ is not true anymore. Social status no longer comes from ostentatious consumption but from how one consumes.

The status of cool people depends on their authenticity, an authenticity that can only be proven by self-expression. The value of this self-expression is eroded when its ways are adopted by the public at large. Men and women exhibit their cool attitude in different ways; for example, courage finds a different expression among young men in their twenties who follow cricket teams than it does for teenage girls interested in fashion. What brands need to consider is how they can reflect the way their target consumers express virtues such as generosity, bravery, truthfulness, standing up against what is wrong and so forth. The more a brand helps them do so, the cooler it is.

Khalid Naseem is Head of Strategy, Firebolt63.
khalid.naseem@firebolt63.com

Pakistan has witnessed a similar trend in the last five years. Although large departmental stores remain the main attraction in malls, an increasing number of consumers are more inclined to spend on experiences while shopping – to a large extent – is viewed as a women-centric activity. Therefore, to attract men and children, malls are increasingly providing entertainment options to cater to them. As a result, malls are witnessing a change in their tenant profile as small-scale retail stores lose out to flagship stores and entertainment options.

According to Sidra Nadeem, CEO, Sindbad Wonderland, which has a presence in all three Dolmen Mall branches in Clifton, North Nazimabad and Tariq Road, the connection between entertainment and retail has always been there but concedes that this is more noticeable now.

“Families are increasingly viewing malls as recreational and shopping venues. They come with the intention of spending two to three hours shopping, being entertained and having a meal.”

Zeeshan Saleh, Marketing Executive, Ocean Mall and Tower, agrees with this viewpoint but maintains that “shopping is still the main draw, but having something for everyone in a family is becoming increasingly important as malls are now one-stop family destinations.”

As a result of these factors, Sindbad Wonderland, which primarily offered rides and games for children, initially increased the number of arcade games for teenagers and adults. After seeing the positive response to them, Dolmen Mall’s Clifton branch introduced Sindbad Extreme in September last year that offers teenagers and adults rides that use technological advancements such as virtual reality experiences and 360-degree roller coaster simulators.

Similarly, realising the need for rides for the older (primarily male) demographic, LuckyOne (the latest addition to Karachi’s ‘mallscape’) introduced Onederland Level 2, which provides rides including an indoor roller coaster, VR experiences and wall climbing for adults. The mall provides entertainment options for children and pre-teens between five and 13 in the form of Onederland.

Meanwhile, Ocean Mall has also recently introduced a wider mix of entertainment options catering to all age groups: Topsy Turvy for toddlers, Atlantis and Bounce for pre-teens and Battle Station (laser tag), VR gaming and Haunted Prison for teenagers and adults.

“With such a mix, the mall has increased its footfall substantially and it has become very apparent that entertainment options are increasingly becoming a ‘pull factor’ for the mall,” says Saleh.

Another factor that has led to the establishment of entertainment options for adults in Dolmen Mall and Ocean Mall is the fact that they are ‘mixed-use developments’; this means that they provide office and retail space as a result of which they are frequented by an increasing number of men who are looking for something to do while they take a break from work or while their womenfolk shop.

Saleh highlights another reason why a separate facility catering to adults was needed: “Sindbad Wonderland had a ‘family only’ policy; this meant that if a group of men who work in the offices in Dolmen Towers want to play video games during their lunch break, they were not allowed entry.”

Another factor that has led to the establishment of entertainment options for adults in Dolmen Mall and Ocean Mall is the fact that they are ‘mixed-use developments’; this means that they provide office and retail space as a result of which they are frequented by an increasing number of men who are looking for something to do while they take a break from work or while their womenfolk shop.

Another entertainment option that adds to footfall is a cinema, and Saleh believes that the presence of Cinepax in Ocean Mall continues to result in increased footfall for the mall.

“The movie-going crowd, more often than not, ends up in the mall for a quick bite from the food court or for a visit to a retail outlet,” he says. Atrium is another mall that has been benefitting from the crowd-pull of its cinemas and the cinema goers contribute to the revenues of various outlets and eateries there.

However, Nadeem is of the opinion that providing consumers with entertainment options that do not require as much time as a film does is more important (families visit a mall for an average of two to three hours), and this is why Dolmen has not, so far, added a cinema on their premises.

Another mode of entertainment for mall visitors are brand activation and engagement activities and they are increasingly being organised all year round by FMCGs and clothing brands.

An example is the Dolmen Shopping Festival in December which remains the biggest shopping event of the year for the mall. The timing is of importance as this is when children have holidays and when a lot of Pakistanis from overseas visit the country and shop; winter is also considered the ‘wedding season’ in Pakistan and this further boosts sales.

Another activity that attracts shoppers are lucky draws and these are held during the run-up to Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha; people who spend a specified amount on shopping within a mall are automatically entered into the lucky draw; sales are also held during this time. Furthermore, special discounts and activities are organised on specific days such as International Women’s Day (March 8), Pakistan Day (March 23), Independence Day (August 14) and Children’s Day (November 20).

Such has been the success of these entertainment options that this has resulted in the emergence of a major challenge for malls: that of running out of space to accommodate people within its premises.

Furthermore, installing and maintaining imported technology-based rides (they are extremely popular) presents the challenge of hiring people based overseas to conduct maintenance rounds or at the very least, training people in Pakistan to do so. Both options place a financial burden on the malls and they are struggling to offer the most economical rates for these rides in a bid to cater to all income segments.

However, despite these challenges, it is clear that there is a need for entertainment options within malls. While those in the larger cities have already done so, it remains to be seen whether or not this trend will emerge in second-tier cities across Pakistan.

Sadia Kamran is a freelance writer. sadiazam@yahoo.com

On a large scale, there have been no formal attempts to upcycle waste in order to create new products for the benefit of the community. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in Pakistan usually involves companies spending large sums of money to help flood survivors or schools and sending out news highlighting their magnanimity. Now, the CSR team at Haleeb Foods Limited (HFL) have taken an initiative which may help Pakistan on many levels by developing an idea to prevent the vinyl skins of billboards from ending up in landfills by upcycling them into large sheds for dairy farmers in Jhang.

Although upcycling billboards was virtually non-existent in Pakistan, companies in other countries are known to have repurposed their billboard skins for a variety of uses. Air France turned their billboard skins into a limited edition series of bags and accessories. Sony created a buzz when they held a fashion show displaying a limited edition series of jeans made from their billboard banners.

Out-of-Home (OOH) has historically been one of the oldest forms of communication and despite the fact that the global media landscape has undergone rapid change, the medium has held its own because of its ability to reach massive audiences.

Throw an old banner over the firewood to shield the wood from the elements and use them to protect the floors when you paint or cover your plants when the weather is bad. Local artists and schools can use the material for projects such as recycled guitar cases, wallets, clothes and tabletops. Since the only limit to reusing vinyl banners is your imagination, the possibilities are endless.

It is pertinent to mention here that the spending by clients on OOH runs into millions, if not billions, of rupees every month. It is therefore apposite to consider the sheer amount of waste produced once the billboards are taken down. These billboard skins are manufactured using resilient and durable plastic vinyls, which have undergone surface treatment aimed at limiting sun damage. Billboard vinyls are usually 20 millimetres thick and this makes them more durable and better suited to heavy-duty or outdoor uses. Billboard banners can last for 10 years or more.

Under their pilot programme, HFL have repurposed the billboard skins used for their Asli milk campaign in order to build sheds for dairy farmers over a total area of 4,000 square feet in Jhang. The purpose of these sheds is to provide farmers much needed relief from the scorching heat. HFL’s Milk Collection and Dairy Services Division (MCDS) will also use these structures to conduct trainings for dairy farmers with respect to teaching them how to increase the yield of the milk they supply.

Turning the billboard tarps into large sheds for dairy farmers is only one of many applications. The vinyls can be repurposed in a variety of ways. Studies into developing cost-effective by-products of billboard skins have identified several residential and commercial applications ranging from bags to safety floor mats, watering containers and roof tiles. The great thing about using old banners for tarps is that one doesn’t have to do anything. Throw an old banner over the firewood to shield the wood from the elements and use them to protect the floors when you paint or cover your plants when the weather is bad. Local artists and schools can use the material for projects such as recycled guitar cases, wallets, clothes and tabletops. Since the only limit to reusing vinyl banners is your imagination, the possibilities are endless.

HFL has appealed to all brands, advertising agencies, vendors and market players to donate their used billboard skins to them so that instead of ending up in a landfill, they will be upcycled by HFL to create sheds, tents and overhead coverings for the benefit of Pakistan’s dairy farmers.

Natashe Zafar: What prompted you to establish Washup?
Abbas Jaffery: After returning to Karachi from our honeymoon in South Africa, my wife and I discovered that our maid had gone AWOL. We only had two pieces of clean clothing left; we decided to load the washing machine (it was the first time we used it); 30 minutes later, we came back and found water everywhere. We pulled the plug, and started Googling, ‘laundry services’; we couldn’t find any. This is when the idea of Washup came to me. I realised if there was such a service, we could have outsourced our laundry. The next week, I called up Sumair Saleem (co-founder, Washup) to discuss the idea. Six months later, in September 2018, we launched the service.

NZ: How would you describe the service?
AJ: We are an on-demand, high-quality and cost-effective laundry service. We provide three services: wash & fold; wash, iron & fold, and iron & fold. Currently, we cater to people living in Bahadurabad, Clifton, DHA, KDA and PECHS.

NZ: How are your services priced, and how do they compare to other laundry services?
AJ: Our prices are lower than laundry shops but marginally higher than the average dhobi, because we use fresh water, high-quality detergents, softeners and steam irons. However, unlike other laundry services, we charge per kilo rather than by piece (this is the practice in many countries) and this makes our service cheaper compared to other laundry shops which charge per piece and tend to overcharge on items such as bed-sheets and duvets. Ultimately, we want to disrupt the laundry market by introducing kilogram-based pricing to Pakistan. This has been appreciated by our customers, especially those with children.

NZ: How has the customer response been?
AJ: So far, over 200 customers have registered with our service and we have processed more than over 1,600 orders.

NZ: Who was your target audience initially and has this changed?
AJ: Our target market initially included working men and women, as they have do not have time to chase after water tanker services, deal with maids and dhobis and want their clothes washed with care. However, as word went around about our service, housewives, high-end restaurants and salons started approaching us as well.

NZ: What edge do you have over your competitors?
AJ: Convenience. Our services benefit men and women who are time constrained and like most residents of Karachi, continue to struggle with issues relating to water, electricity and unreliable domestic staff. Laundry is one less thing that they have to think about now. Our delivery time of 72 hours is unmatched by our competitors (laundry shops that can match our quality standards either do not deliver or are extremely expensive while dhobis tend to have a seven-day turnaround time with sub-standard quality).

NZ: How do you market Washup?
AJ: In addition to Facebook and Instagram, another thing that that helped us to get the word out was an e-flyer which we shared with our friends and family over WhatsApp, and we received a lot of orders through it.

NZ: Do you have expansion plans?
AJ: As our customer base grows, we are planning to launch a hanging and a dry-cleaning service and expand into other areas within Karachi.

The above scenario sums up the transitional phase experienced by most Pakistanis living in urban areas that are shaped by a complex mix of demographic, cultural, economic and technological factors. It also reflects the adoption of technology while remaining indecisive about its utilisation. With mounting pressures to balance work and life, consumer behaviour and buying patterns are changing; multitasking, along with the quest to find convenient solutions that both save time and offer value for money, sum up the dilemma faced by modern consumers.

Although the majority of the population in Pakistan relies on conventional means of shopping by visiting shops and stores, there is a growing trend (especially in urban areas) focused on modern solutions driven by the socio-economically advantaged, who also happen to be the major contributors in terms of spending. An evolving gender role is another aspect defining lifestyles and consumption patterns. The need to manage and prioritise day-to-day tasks has never been so important. With more and more women joining the workforce, household setups and lifestyles are changing to adapt. This in turn, reflects how consumers make decisions regarding necessary, discretionary and luxury spending. The Nielsen Quest for Convenience Report (covering the second quarter of 2018), explores changing consumer needs and highlights the rapidly growing demand for convenience. About a quarter of Pakistani consumers say that they seek out products that make their lives easier (26%) and are suitable for small households (24%); about one in five are looking for products that are convenient to use (20%).

Consumption patterns that a few years ago were limited to the few, are becoming more embedded in today’s lifestyles. Eating out or ordering food, an activity largely limited to special occasions, has seen a sharp increase. The demand for convenience has given rise to a slew of life-simplifying products such as quick-to-prepare and on-the-go meals, home delivery offerings and tech-driven, on-demand services. Almost a quarter (24%) of Pakistani consumers use restaurant or meal delivery services or grab-on-the-meals from quick-service, fast food and street vendors. Dinner is the meal most likely to be substituted with an out-of-home dining option, with 24% online consumers opting to eat out on a weekly basis and 38% on a monthly basis.

Pakistan as a developing country with a very large, tech-savvy, young population is expected to adopt emerging e-commerce trends. The fact that the rural areas are still fairly isolated may explain why 24% of consumers strongly agree that internet connectivity is a barrier to online shopping and 37% somewhat agree.

Given the growing e-commerce sector, the Nielsen Future Opportunities in FMCG E-commerce Report examines the current growth drivers of FMCG e-commerce in 34 markets and estimates that global online sales will be as high as $400 billion by 2022. Pakistan as a developing country with a very large, tech-savvy, young population is expected to adopt emerging e-commerce trends. The fact that the rural areas are still fairly isolated may explain why 24% of consumers strongly agree that internet connectivity is a barrier to online shopping and 37% somewhat agree.

The rise of e-commerce is providing exciting growth opportunities for thousands of companies of all shapes and sizes; from major corporate players to local start-ups, especially in the urban areas and Pakistan is no exception, with success stories such as Daraz and Shophive. Moreover, people are increasingly switching to apps such as Careem, Uber and Foodpanda due to their range of convenient features and their promotional deals and discounts. According to the Report, internet and smartphone penetration, especially in the urban areas, has significantly facilitated the growth of certain categories with fashion, travel and IT accounting for the largest proportion of online transactions (40%, 31% and 29% of consumers respectively purchasing from these categories). The Report further highlights that categories posting significant growth in e-commerce activity include restaurant deliveries, beauty and personal care products and books and music (24%, 22% and 28% of online consumers said that they made a purchase).

Another aspect shaping consumer behaviour is the awareness about making informed decisions by weighing the benefits of different options. As more consumers become aware of health issues and life-simplifying options, they tend to go for choices that are healthier, more convenient and cost-effective. As a result, some businesses have started to market and package their products and services in a way that promotes their health and safety benefits. For example, many leading companies have started to highlight the nutritional value of packaged food by communicating health-related facts through various strategies. This is further reflected in the way personal care has become a prevailing trend. According to the Report, categories witnessing growth at MAT (Moving Annual Total) are face creams (+17%), baby diapers (+62%) and mineral water (+21%). The growth of these categories sums up how health, personal care and convenience have become more pronounced in recent shopping trends.

People are increasingly switching to apps such as Careem, Uber and Foodpanda due to their range of convenient features and their promotional deals and discounts. According to the Report, internet and smartphone penetration, especially in the urban areas, has significantly facilitated the growth of certain categories with fashion, travel and IT accounting for the largest proportion of online transactions (40%, 31% and 29% of consumers respectively purchasing from these categories).

Despite all this, cost remains a major concern. The dilemma to opt for choices that allow them to reach a balance between healthier and cost-effective products and services remains for most consumers. The third quarter 2018 Conference Board® Global Consumer Confidence Survey revealed that consumers remain vigilant in their spending intentions due to anticipated price rises amid high oil prices, uncertainty regarding trade, falling exchange rates and possible rises in borrowing costs translating into a more prudent attitude toward spending in the coming months.

The Report also lists the factors that may affect consumer buying decisions. Thirty-one percent of consumers are concerned about job security, 24% about the economy and 22% about health; findings which suggest that consumers’ top concerns revolve around a mix of socio-economic considerations.

Commenting on the overall market scenario from a research perspective, Quratulain Ibrahim, MD, Neilsen Pakistan, says that “the uneven pace of development and technological advancement (displaying a sharp contrast between urban and rural areas), combined with evolving demographic and socio-economic dynamics, present a complex yet interesting scenario for consumers and businesses. Businesses will have to constantly look for areas of growth within these changing dynamics by planning go-to-market strategies and product innovation. As far as consumers are concerned, good value for money along with convenience will define future spending trends.”

Fatima Abbas is Manager Marketing & Communications, Nielsen Pakistan.
fatima.abbas@nielsen.com

The one billion dollar number seems to have breached a psychological barrier and the signs are that the climb will be faster from here on; the question is how will it actually grow compared to how fast it can grow. Like any business, there are multiple cogs to this machinery we call e-commerce, the efficiencies of which determine scalability, performance and overall health. These cogs are both qualitative and quantitative in nature and putting in place a roadmap aimed at achieving both will contribute to overall business growth.

Industry cohesion and structure

Pakistan’s e-commerce sector lacks cohesion. It was only this year that a formal e-commerce association was formed. However, it was rather surprising that the smaller players (who face the most challenges) perceived this development with scepticism; in fact, some believed it was aimed at destroying them. The larger players must provide reassurance and support to the smaller players and take them into their confidence. It is important to understand that large and small players face entirely different challenges. The larger players may be focused on granular tweaks which may result in significant gains due to their scale; the smaller players, however, are focused on finding the right balance of automation versus manual processes in order to control costs. Furthermore, the larger players are either investor-backed ventures or owned by large companies; the smaller ones were set up with savings to help run the kitchen at home.

The get-rich-quick theory

The number of e-commerce players who believe they can set up an e-commerce store and get rich quickly is surprising. The e-commerce platform is not seen as a business vertical but rather as a Ponzi scheme, with a high focus on low-priced, low-quality items, backed by even poorer customer support. In the absence of an actionable legal framework or regulator, this issue could be addressed by a third-party rating of e-commerce service providers through customer satisfaction scores. However, the fact is that customer support and satisfaction management does not seem to be a priority. Most businesses, especially multi-brands and smaller marketplaces, seem to be disconnected with the idea of customer support. The lack of support tracking and resolution level data means that they are unable to quantify the number and types of queries vis-à-vis the resolution mechanisms. Furthermore, there is no clear policy regarding customer communication standards and basic benchmarks. Given the limited understanding of the need for customer service and relevant tools and measurement metrics, clearly, customer care for e-commerce has a long way to go.

Local e-commerce players are hesitant to work with international payment platforms for two reasons. One, Pakistan origin cards are treated as high-risk by most service providers and two, transferring money to Pakistan can be challenging as most transaction platforms do not offer a cost-effective solution to transfer funds to Pakistan, which ends up costing the business more than just a transaction acquiring fee.

Lack of understanding of technology platforms among most smaller players has contributed to the non-standardisation of the sector as well as to poor third-party platforms in general. Even today, you find people writing the code for a basic e-commerce operation from scratch despite the fact that there are several CMS systems available with the ability to integrate with multiple third-party platforms. As a result, most players have a limited view of their store’s performance metrics and of the customer and this in turn, restricts their ability to take the stores to their true potential.

While COD accounts for over 80% of the revenue, even the remaining 20% constitutes a sizeable component of the market. Customer on-boarding tends to be easy but when it comes to platform stability and transaction rejection rates, local payment platform providers complain about issues with respect to local players. Local e-commerce players are hesitant to work with international payment platforms for two reasons. One, Pakistan origin cards are treated as high-risk by most service providers and two, transferring money to Pakistan can be challenging as most transaction platforms do not offer a cost-effective solution to transfer funds to Pakistan, which ends up costing the business more than just a transaction acquiring fee. Local buyers are also hit by the international transaction fees levied by most local banks, which can lead to customers being taken by surprise in terms of costs.

Another challenge with respect to merchants dependent on COD is the lengthy and unpredictable payment cycle of logistics partners. Such settlements take anywhere between 14 and 21 days and further delays are the norm. While e-commerce outlets run by manufacturers are not affected by these delays, marketplaces and e-commerce merchants are hit by cash flow issues. This is especially true in the case of high-traffic events and online shopping festivals. In the days leading up to the event, sales take a dip and then surge on these occasions and this means that large amounts of cash are stuck with logistics partners for unpredictable amounts of time. The solution would be larger working capital but this can increase the cost of doing business.

Although customer confidence may be growing, the option to ‘try before you buy’ and physically see a product before paying for it adds to both confidence and comfort. While asking for a refund or a size change may seem a simple option, it falls short of creating an amazing customer experience. This shows the need for product depth in logistics instead of simple dispatch and return collection.

Unfortunately, because e-commerce is often treated as a secondary priority, not enough attention is paid to these platforms and therefore, to the user experience. Furthermore, not enough attention goes into segmenting and communicating to users. Often, users just need a gentle nudge to come back if they have a positive customer experience. Merchants should look to resell to customers based on their preferences instead of the generic ‘spray and pray’ approach. Dynamic retargeting is a viable option but it must be complemented by targeting and personalisation on the basis of customer behaviour and history.

These challenges are by no means unique to Pakistan and can be fixed by cross-industry collaboration and by learning best practices from one another. Thankfully, with a growing young population, falling data rates and growing data access, the market is big enough for plenty more players to operate in a range of verticals. Here’s to hoping we break some more records in 2019!

Imtiaz Noor heads OrangeFox, a marketing technology company focused on making digital businesses more efficient. imtiaz@orangefox.io.

SYED WAJEEH-UL-HASSAN NAQVI: What made Tetra Pak enter the Pakistan market?
TAHIR HAFEEZ: Tetra Pak launched in Pakistan in 1983 as a joint venture between Tetra Pak International and the Packages Group. As Tetra Pak started to expand, we targeted countries where the availability and consumption of milk were high and what brought us to Pakistan was the presence of a huge and untapped potential for packaged milk. Today, within the food packaging industry in Pakistan, we are the market leaders. Ecolean also has a strong presence and there is one local player, the Popular Group of Industries. We only deal in liquid food packaging in Pakistan; major clients include Engro, Haleeb, Nestlé, Pakola, Shakarganj and Shezan.

SWHN: What differentiates Tetra Pak from their competitors?
TH: We are a complete system supplier, from processing to packaging and delivery, we provide an end-to-end solution; we call it the ‘cow-to-consumer’ system. System costs are a big issue in this industry so there is an advantage in being an end-to-end solutions provider. Our customers prefer Tetra Pak over other packaging alternatives which, although may be cheaper, have higher conversion costs in terms of the manufacturing and production expenses incurred when converting the raw material into the final product. Our customers also do not have to deal with wastage or spoilage due to low-quality or outdated packaging material. So, all in all, we are competitive when it comes to overall pricing expenses. Furthermore, no other company offers the sizes, shapes and functionality that we do. It is about value and innovation and not only about what the product costs. Most importantly, we have a local presence and we provide 24/7 service to our customers. Added to which we have a wealth of knowledge available from our international team and should anything go wrong, we can draw upon resources from our facilities throughout the world.

The new food safety regulations introduced by the government require that tea whiteners specify on the packaging that their consumption is for tea alone. Companies are complying with this but it will take time for consumers to understand the difference.

SWHN: What are the opportunities and challenges of the milk packaging industry in Pakistan and how do they help or hinder the growth of your brand?
TH: Pakistan produces about 36 billion litres of milk every year and only five to seven percent of that production is packaged, therefore, approximately 90% is unpackaged. Milk production is concentrated in rural Punjab and rural Sindh, despite the fact that consumption is higher in cities; furthermore, there is a dearth of supply in the northern regions. Considering these factors, in a country where temperatures are high and a cold supply chain is not available, we are able to provide the optimum solution in terms of delivering milk from the producer to the consumer. In terms of challenges, consumer focus on quality is much higher compared to before and we have to meet those expectations. Furthermore, the duties on raw materials continue to increase while those on finished products are decreasing and this has made local production less viable compared to 10 years ago. People who have invested in setting up an industry in Pakistan now have to pay higher duties on the purchase of raw material and this is unfair and is harming the industry.

SWHN: What was the impact on Tetra Pak of the Supreme Court’s decision to ban certain packaged milk brands?
TH: There was a negative impact on the industry because the initial reports that were submitted to the Supreme Court by the three testing organisations did not corroborate each other. In spite of this, those reports were circulated in the media and misrepresented the industry. If you read the reports, UHT milk has been declared safe for consumption. Yes, some pasteurised milk brands were called into question, but we do not deal with pasteurised milk brands. The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) tests milk brands twice a year and as per the results published on their website, UHT brands are on the list of approved brands that are deemed safe for consumption according to food safety standards. In light of this, it is clear that the initial reports were unsubstantiated, but the media hype had an extremely negative impact on the industry. Government food safety bodies lack information about packaged milk. Tea whiteners are used all over the world; the difference between them and packaged milk is that in tea whiteners the animal fat is replaced with vegetable fat to add texture and make the tea creamier and more affordable. However, tea whiteners should not be marketed as regular milk. The new food safety regulations introduced by the government require that tea whiteners specify on the packaging that their consumption is for tea alone. Companies are complying with this but it will take time for consumers to understand the difference. However, scrutiny is good for the industry because brands will be more careful in future. For our part, we are trying to engage with the media to spread awareness about the safety of packaged milk.

The environmental footprint of Tetra Pak is far better compared to the global packaging industry. Packaging material such as bottles take up a lot of space. Our packaging is shipped in rolls that are compact and allow for more volume in a small space. Our packaging to product weight ratio is very efficient. Our factories are given carbon footprint targets in terms of energy and product efficiency.

SWHN: There is growing concern about the environmental hazards posed by discarded food packaging. What is Tetra Pak doing in this regard?
TH: The environmental footprint of Tetra Pak is far better compared to the global packaging industry. Packaging material such as bottles take up a lot of space. Our packaging is shipped in rolls that are compact and allow for more volume in a small space. Our packaging to product weight ratio is very efficient. Our factories are given carbon footprint targets in terms of energy and product efficiency. Our company stands for sustainability and renewability. The material we use is FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified, which means that the number of trees used to make paper for our products are sourced from managed forests and that the same number of trees which are cut down will be planted to ensure there is no decline in their number. We have also set up a recycling initiative in partnership with a local recycler. The environment is one of the top priorities of the company.

SWHN: How important was the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance Award to Tetra Pak Pakistan?
TH: Japan has been at the forefront of efforts aimed at improving the overall efficiency of industries and JIPM uses an award system to recognise factories around the world that achieve excellence. In Pakistan, we started working on their model in 1999 and this year, we were presented with their Advanced Special Total Productive Maintenance Award, which is their second biggest award. Achieving world-class manufacturing standards in our plant is an extremely significant development for us and for Pakistan. It is very important to Tetra Pak that we adhere to our values both within and outside the company. Our motto includes the words Rehbar-e-Taraqi-o-Kamal because it was always our intention to build a factory that was unparalleled in our field of operations. Our success is evident from the fact that of all the Tetra Pak plants in the world, Pakistan is number one when it comes to controlling wastage and in terms of efficiency and reliability.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com

ANUSHA ZAHID: What made you become a venture capitalist?
BERNHARD KLEMEN: After completing my Ph.D in economics and business in Vienna (Austria), I moved to Morgan Stanley where I met Rabeel Warraich (who is now my partner at Sarmayacar). A few years later, I joined J.P. Morgan and was given the responsibility to set up their Austrian franchise. Since 2011-12, I have been investing in Europe as a first investor in different companies and so far, I have co-founded 15 companies in different countries. Seeing my experience, Warraich approached me in 2016 and proposed we look at the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan. We made a couple of investments with our own money and found it interesting enough to plan to raise a venture capital fund, which eventually became Sarmayacar.

AZ: What is Sarmayacar’s interest in Pakistan?
BK: Pakistan is one of the largest untapped ecosystems in the world and international investors are beginning to show an interest, although it is still at a nascent stage. In my opinion, there is a perception-reality gap in the sense that the reality is more promising in Pakistan than what investors outside the country believe it to be. This is a problem, but it is also an opportunity. We are trying to change this perception by trying to convince investors to do what we did – come to Pakistan, see what the situation is like and then invest here.

AZ: How does Pakistan’s entrepreneurial ecosystem compare with that of other countries?
BK: Pakistan’s ecosystem is still shaping up. As an investor, I look at it in terms of the different ingredients that are important to tech investors, such as the market, talent pool, education system, investor base and infrastructure. Equally important is internet access and smartphone penetration, where there has been a rapid increase. I would say that the ecosystem is at a very interesting stage. However, you have to look at it from the entrepreneur’s point of view. You need business angels, early venture capitalists, later stage venture capital and finally the exit opportunity. There is a scarcity here of experienced/serial entrepreneurs who make money with their first start-ups and put the money back into the ecosystem (we call it smart money). These entrepreneurs not only invest in future start-ups, they also provide guidance; more of such individuals are needed and we are working on this. We are bringing in additional entrepreneurs who are experienced and ready to invest. Part of our fundraising includes briefing international venture capitalists from Silicon Valley to China on the opportunities in Pakistan and the potential because we need co-investors in the beginning and later stage of the start-up cycle.

“In my opinion, there is a perception-reality gap in the sense that the reality is more promising in Pakistan than what investors outside the country believe it to be”

AZ: What are the key aspects you look for in a start-up when deciding to invest?
BK: Firstly, the team and a shared value base; they have to believe that they are capable of doing what they commit to. Secondly, we need to reach an understanding that we provide more than just capital; we want to bring in our expertise to ensure the start-up does not run into financial loss. After this comes the business model, the market, the competition and so on.

AZ: Apart from capital, how else does Sarmayacar support a start-up?
BK: It is case by case. The optimum scenario is to find a serial entrepreneur who has done this three to four times in a similar environment. In Pakistan, this is largely missing; entrepreneurs are motivated and ambitious, but they have no experience. Creating a company is about avoiding the mistakes made in the past. We see ourselves as sparring partners in terms of what is required to achieve the end objective. Strategy and mentorship help in identifying distribution channels and the talent required. It’s about giving advice if we fear they may run into a problem and then solving it together. But it is not about doing the job of the entrepreneur or running the business or interfering.

AZ: What sectors is Sarmayacar looking at to invest in Pakistan?
BK: We are looking at both b2b and b2c. We prefer recurring business models with recurring revenues, so yes the B2B side. I have a lot of experience in fintech and payments so that is a good starting point. We are also looking at SAAS models. Otherwise, we are agnostic in what we are looking for and everything is up for discussion.

"We don’t want to be in a situation where a team is trying to figure out what works and what does not. The start-up should work; otherwise there is no basis for investment."

AZ: What advice would you give new entrepreneurs about how to increase their success rate with venture capitalists?
BK: Number one is to know how to scale a business. We don’t want to be in a situation where a team is trying to figure out what works and what does not. The start-up should work; otherwise there is no basis for investment. Equally important is to know how to take it to the next level and turn it into an organisation ready for growth, recruitment and scalability on the marketing and distribution side and identify areas where there may be obstacles to scale.

AZ: What are the areas where government support is required to attract venture capital to Pakistan?
BK: Regulations clearly. However, what is more important is to have stability in the country. Secondly, we need a better perception of Pakistan internationally. We are trying to do this on our own but everyone should support this because a positive image will increase the likelihood of more success stories because these speak louder than any bad press coming out of the international media.

AZ: How many Pakistani start-ups has Sarmayacar invested into so far?
BK: We have invested in three. SimPaisa (online payments), Patari (the Netflix model for music) and Procheck (verifies if a medicine is genuine or not). We are close to investing in two more.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com

Given changing agency roles and structures, a new set of technology agencies are emerging. They are not agencies in the strict sense of the word. They are agency collaborators – because they help agencies and clients to undertake data-driven campaigns empowered by technology such as ad viewer, consumer data providing companies, demand side or supply side platforms, ad exchanges and other companies which enable programmatic technologies.

The changing agency role has opened the doors to an entire new generation of young entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is sexy and attractive and it is equally rewarding. People working in traditional media and creative agencies will find it rewarding to explore new technology-based agency models, especially if they enable them to provide real value to their clients. Furthermore, even techies can dive into the advertising world using their technology skills. However, entrepreneurship brings both risks and opportunities and sometimes soft skills are more important than technical skills when it comes to a start-up. In fact, the minimum number of soft skills entrepreneurs willing to enter the advertising industry need can be summed up as follows.

First, understand the market, your customers’ needs and whether they are willing to pay for your product. Idea and market validation is the most difficult part because this requires meeting with decision-makers, which is not easy for industry outsiders. Second, make sure you have the patience to enter a B2B market because it has a relatively lesser number of customers with deep pockets compared to a B2C market that has millions of customers but with smaller purchasing power. A B2B deal may require more time to mature compared to a B2C one. Perseverance and hard work is the only way forward. Third, if you are a non-techie, make sure you identify the right technology team and the right technical co-founder to build products from a MVP (Minimum Viable Product) perspective. Fourth, learn to know what to do to get things going. Fifth, understand how to build relationships. And sixth, always follow the rule of customer-obsessed product development in order to build a perfect product.

Entrepreneurship is about solving problems or addressing a business need. Here are some business problems which young entrepreneurs can try to solve in the advertising world.

1 Providing data and insights

Nobody should forget John Wanamaker’s famous words: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted but I do not know which half.” Measuring advertising impact and ROI has always been a problem in the advertising industry and this can now be solved by data, which is dubbed the fourth industrial revolution. More data simply means better measurement and better measurement means better management of your advertising spend. Similarly, the new kids on the block are AI, machine learning and Blockchain, and they require data science based skills. Given the way companies are becoming data centric, data provision and insights (predictive and prescriptive analytics in particular) are the hottest things tech entrepreneurs can do in Pakistan right now. Data obtained from AI can be used in trade marketing to provide ROI for trade marketing spend and retail tracking. Similarly, it can be used to provide retail intelligence for OOH assets measurement, measuring mall media ROI, adding new elements in the marketing mix, predicting sales and even predicting the likely sales outcome of an advertising campaign. Anonymous data (obtained with user consent) is sold to multiple partners, including first-party data users, third-party data integrators and market research companies.

Location advertising is big business globally; it is estimated to become a $72 billion industry by 2021. Placed, a company which provides location-based offline attribution services, was recently bought by Snapchat for $100 million.

2 Creating digital programmatic companies

In Pakistan, digital spending is at six percent of the total ad spend. However, it was also the fastest growing medium registering a 25% growth in 2017. In the next five to 10 years, this figure will account for 10 to 12% of total ad spend with programmatic being the ultimate winner. The opportunity is ripe to start a digital programmatic company acting as a DSP (demand side platform) for buyers. Even in the global market, there are important programmatic players apart from Google and Facebook. App Nexus (the third biggest DSP in the US) was recently bought by AT&T for $1.6 billion. The Indian start-up Inmobi is a billion-dollar company because it had first-mover advantage as a SSP (Supply Side Platform). Making a successful bid is not easy, especially in today’s competitive environment when clients want quality on a budget, but it could be a big opportunity for anyone who wants the first-mover advantage in a potentially Rs 10 to 12 billion industry in the next five to seven years.

3 Solving offline attribution problems and location-based advertising

Linking online ad serving with offline purchase is a problem for retailers whose bulk of the business exists offline. Although Google and Facebook have started providing such services in North America, they work in silos without integration, whereas advertisers want a holistic view of their digital media efforts. In Pakistan, where the majority of the business is still offline, finding a way to demonstrate the link between OOH assets, digital ads and in-store visits would be a great service to the industry. Similarly, location data can be used to serve digital ads after a person has been exposed to an OOH ad to enhance brand recall or to serve hyper location-based ads. It can also be used to serve ads by predicting a next visit and displaying the most relevant ad at the most relevant time. Location advertising is big business globally; it is estimated to become a $72 billion industry by 2021. Placed, a company which provides location-based offline attribution services, was recently bought by Snapchat for $100 million.

4 Acquiring technical skills for the data-driven agency

The skills required to work in data-driven agencies are primarily technical or computer sciences based. The skill set will move from the traditional creative thinker to the analytical brain, where the thought process is based on computation and mathematical algorithms. Thanks to MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses) platforms such as Coursera, Edx and Udacity, anyone interested in coding can learn these skills in a year or two. Similarly, people working in data provision companies must have knowledge of deep learning, which is the basis of AI and AI-based tools such as object recognition algorithms, self-driving cars, etc. Advertising data scientists should also have a strong grip on computing languages such as Java and Python. Understanding Game theory is essential to build real-time bidding engines. For creative dashboard design, designers must have skills in how to merge and visualise data in Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, Sisense and how to use CSS or HTML along with Adobe and Photoshop. Similarly, for building location-based offline attribution tools or location-based advertising services, understanding GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is imperative as is a good understanding of LAN (Local Area Networks). The technical team should be able to think creatively and develop solutions according to the set requirements. Most importantly, they should be able to think in terms of user story – what customers need and what they want.

To conclude, agencies of the future will be data-driven and will require the skills of a computer scientist, combined with the abilities of a creative dreamer and the rigour of a highly-analytical media planner.

Tayyab Tariq is CEO, Advertelligent. tayyab.tariq@advertelligent.com

Finally, a cooking oil brand has done it right; a brilliant shift from a health shield to an advocate against body shaming. For the brand that owns the words Mamta to embrace confidence and bring up the fat versus fit debate is a step in the right direction.

2. edenrobe’s #IChooseMe

The idea of a doctor bahu and the practice of objectifying women to tick the boxes for an ideal rishta was the theme bravely taken up by edenrobe. When one brand is gutsy enough to raise its voice for prioritising oneself, the echoes are heard across the globe.

3.Nike’s controversy or #BoycottNike

Nike caused an outcry after featuring Colin Kaepernick in their campaign, with reports about burning Nike shoes and online sales going up at the same time. Now that’s how you stay iconic even after 30 years of ‘Just Do It’.

4.Generation’s #ShanazKiShadi

It was a delight to see another fashion brand taking up a social cause and breaking stereotypes around the shadi ki umar. In a country were weddings are not only the biggest events but a recurring theme in morning shows and drama serials, this take on the shadi of a middle-aged woman with beautiful grey hair not only stood out of the clutter, it created meaningful conversations.

5.Lacoste’s #SaveOurSpecies

After 85 years, Lacoste replaced their iconic crocodile logo with endangered species and the world called it fashionable and helpful. A good example that CSR is integral to brand-building and you can do it for a profit.

Atiya Zaidi is ECD (North), Synergy Dentsu. atiya.zaidi@synergydentsu.com

SWHN: Is Miniso a franchise?
KJ: Our HQ is in China and almost all Miniso outlets worldwide are company-owned stores. However, to expand our presence further, we developed a franchise model. In China, the franchise model is completely managed by Miniso, however, since some overseas markets are unique, it is difficult for the company to directly manage all stores. This is the reason why a different type of franchise model was established.

SWHN: In Pakistan, in how many cities does Miniso have a presence and how many outlets are there overall?
KJ: We have 68 stores in Pakistan, of which 34 are operational in 11 cities so far. Once all the stores become operational, we will have covered two-thirds of Pakistan’s market.

SWHN: What product categories does Miniso offer?
KJ: We have over 10,000 SKUs in Pakistan. They are divided into 11 categories – creative, homeware, stationery and gifts, health and beauty, accessories, food and beverages, boutique and bags, toys, textiles, digital products, life department and seasonal products.

SWHN: What brought Miniso to Pakistan?
KJ: In 2015, our HQ management decided to expand Miniso worldwide. We are already operational in 72 countries and aim to be in 100 countries by 2019. The main factor here is China’s friendship with Pakistan. When we first visited Pakistan, we felt the hospitality and the market research determined that there is high customer demand in Pakistan for Chinese products.

SWHN: What is the competitive landscape of the category?
KJ: We don’t think we have any competitors. Ours is a completely new business model and the opposite of conventional retail models. In a traditional retail model, the product goes from the manufacturer to the branding section to agents and then to the franchise stores and in the end, to the customers. This way, the cost to the customer increases with every layer of intermediaries. At Miniso, we have revolutionised the process and deliver directly from the manufacturer to the customer, which eliminates the intermediaries. Considering the uniqueness of our business model, we believe that our market share will only grow.

In 2015, our HQ management decided to expand Miniso worldwide. We are already operational in 72 countries and aim to be in 100 countries by 2019.

SWHN: Who is your target audience?
KJ: We cater to all age groups and have a variety of products to suit everyone. Our prices cover all segments because we want to cater to all socio-economic groups. Our products are low in price but high in quality. We want to fulfil the needs of every person in the global market and this is an ongoing subject of study at our HQ.

SWHN: Is Miniso’s pricing premium, average or below average compared to other retailers?
KJ: Thanks to our business model, we believe that our pricing is the lowest in the industry.

SWHN: How are customers facilitated, in addition to quality and affordability?
KJ: We focus on giving the customer a premium shopping experience, which we achieve through a combination of the quality of our products, our store design, our customer service and our management.

SWHN: How is Miniso promoted in Pakistan?
KJ: The people who visited our stores were the initial message carriers and this word-of-mouth marketing worked so well for us that there was no need to spend much on marketing. For new product or store launches we use OOH. Print advertising in magazines has been used occasionally. We have undertaken several promotions on radio and we do a great deal of BTL activities at our mall outlets. We do not think TV is the right medium just yet. On the digital front, we have bloggers reviewing our products and posting videos with hashtags without receiving payment from us. At the moment, our focus is not on spending excessively to advertise. We have an in-house team that handles all brand communications and they are supported by our HQ in terms of content, which helps us maintain global standards for all our campaigns across the world.

SWHN: What is the future of retail in Pakistan in terms of challenges and opportunities?
KJ: Retail in Pakistan doesn’t present any significant challenges. We keep optimising our systems so we don’t face any challenges in terms of customer response. The only challenge at the moment is the fact that the number of our stores is limited. The big opportunity is that the market is virtually empty and we have the first mover advantage in developing this special category. At Miniso, everything is available under the same roof, so the ease of access is there. According to our research, Pakistan’s market has a potential capacity of 150 to 200 Miniso stores, so there is room for expansion.

For feedback: aurora@dawn.com

In the budget bathroom of my budget hotel was something I had previously never experienced before in the hospitality industry; the unsettling absence of those tiny shampoo, shower gel and conditioner bottles. Instead, there was a Dove dispenser that dispensed just one liquid. Just one. It was supposed to be my shampoo, conditioner and body wash, all in one. How barbaric!

Fast forward to a few days later, and we have used up the Dettol hand sanitiser we religiously use when we are out and about. I pop into the closest store and ask for one. The attendant gestures they don’t have it. No problem, I think to myself, and make a mental note of buying it from the hypermart when we pass by it later. They didn’t have it either. Neither did the pharmacy. I could no longer chalk up the absence of this fine product so common in Pakistan to stock shortages and language barrier miscommunication. So I muster up the courage to ask for an English-speaking member of the pharmacy staff and ask them why they don’t carry the product. His response: “Why would you need it?”

Then it hit me. Why would we need it? We didn’t have it when we were growing up and we got by just fine. A quick Google search pulled up studies showing that hand sanitisers did not significantly affect frequency of illnesses like the flu.

This reminded me about a marketing symposium I attended a long time ago, where one of the keynote speakers was the head honcho at P&G around the time they were introducing Head & Shoulders in Pakistan. He went into a tangent about how his team had to create awareness about dandruff in a naïve Pakistan that didn’t even know they had dandruff problems. I remember wondering if this really was the best course of action, given that dandruff is fairly harmless and is mostly an aesthetic issue rather than a medical one.

The entire marketing industry is built on a slippery slope and I am cognisant of the fact that I am one of them. It takes a special kind of moral ambiguity to market a bar of soap (red carbolic, for example) on the basis that it dissolves more slowly than regular soap and therefore lasts longer and then later, market a new liquid wash on the basis that it is superior because it dissolves faster than the one they were marketing earlier.

Waltz into any decent supermarket and you will be greeted by shelves upon shelves of beauty and personal care products that leave you mesmerised as to the level of differentiation they offer, each one claiming to be made from some hitherto unknown miracle ingredient that will ‘rejuvenate’ or ‘revitalise’ some part of your body.

For the purpose of this topic, I will skip the ethical part of marketing fairness creams; although, if you are so inclined, you can get Fair & Lovely in a men’s variant as well. And although a case could be made that men’s skin is slightly thicker and therefore requires a stronger dose of certain ingredients to attain the same effect, for many such products, the secret sauce lies in the fundamentals of gender marketing rather than any significant dermatological differentiations. Men tend to gravitate towards darker colour packaging with bold typefaces and rugged or slicker imagery. The aisles play up to this advantage.

Without naming names, I have been close to a local brand that leans towards using made up pseudo-scientific differentiations to bring an edge to their products. The formula, in crude terms, seems to be to find a vacant ingredient niche, add it to the product, find scant ‘clinical’ evidence (never mind that it is about the ingredient and not actual research on how it performs in a personal care product) and dress it up with enough asterisks to make sure legal never comes after you. Next, you package it in gimmicky bite-sized proprietary terms and pepper it up with some paid celebrity testimonials and raving reviews and voila! Checking my ethics at the door once again, I am amazed at how well it seems to be working for them.

Another personal care brand from our portfolio attempts it in a completely opposite way. Their entire marketing collateral is updated every year with genuine, unprompted testimonials they receive via email from their customers. Every TVC, print or media execution of their brand is based entirely on these and as an agency, we are not allowed to twist words or make bold claims.

The entire marketing industry is built on a slippery slope and I am cognisant of the fact that I am one of them. It takes a special kind of moral ambiguity to market a bar of soap (red carbolic, for example) on the basis that it dissolves more slowly than regular soap and therefore lasts longer and then later, market a new liquid wash on the basis that it is superior because it dissolves faster than the one they were marketing earlier. While we are at it, anybody wonder if there is any significant difference between body wash and hand wash? Never mind that the hand is a part of my body; there is little substance and more marketing gimmickry there too.

The latest trend, which is yet to hit mainstream Pakistan, are snail creams. Yes, you read that right... they actually contain snail slime, although I lack the imagination to understand how that might be done on an industrial scale, since snails only secrete the stuff when they are stressed. Apparently it is supposed to be good for your face because it contains hyaluronic acid and collagen, although the scientific evidence for its efficacy is dodgy at best.

Contrived differentiation in the world of personal care marketing seems to be the oldest trick in the book. This is not to say that it’s an absolute scam but rather, a baseline of tiny fragments of truth here and there that are propped up by genius advertising and communication.

During my last grocery store run, I earmarked a new body wash from L’Oreal that contained 100 mg of taurine. It looked super tempting and I am going to get it when my boring non-taurine body wash finishes. Previously, I had only seen taurine marketed by energy drinks and sometimes labelled on cat food cans. A little background reading reveals that this amino acid can theoretically be absorbed topically as well and will yield some results on your skin. Do I really need it outside of a clinical problem? Probably not. Do I want it? Hell yes!

Contrived differentiation in the world of personal care marketing seems to be the oldest trick in the book. This is not to say that it’s an absolute scam but rather, a baseline of tiny fragments of truth here and there that are propped up by genius advertising and communication. Reputable brands legitimately have these huge R&D facilities and budgets to arrive at the next big thing.

At the end of the day, what is picked to be produced, marketed and sold on the shelves seems to be based not just on what works best, but rather on what sells best. This is fine, because that is pretty much the case for any product line. It is up to us, as consumers, to be a little more informed and take brand claims with a pinch of salt. Or snail slime, whatever you prefer.

Umair Kazi is Partner, Ishtehari. umair@ishtehari.com

It was a great party! I know, because my daughter hummed the lyrics of Baby Shark all the way home, giddy from the euphoric dancing and plentiful chocolate cake.

Baby Shark features two young children – a boy and a girl, singing simple lyrics about a shark family going on a hunt. Set against basic animations of an underwater scene, this catchy tune has had 3.3 billion views to date and the trend is just catching on.

The song first gained popularity in Indonesia, in 2017 and later spread to other South East Asian countries. Fast forward to 2018 and a dance version of the song, which was uploaded to YouTube in June 2016, has become the 34th most viewed video on YouTube. Baby Shark is now played at parties and weddings and is fast becoming the Gangnam Style of 2018.

James Cordon, a British comedian and the host for The Late Late Show with James Cordon, humorously called Baby Shark a “modern classic” and a song that “defines this generation”.

If this wasn’t enough, the ‘Baby Shark Challenge’ was launched on the internet and people are now posting videos of themselves with shark masks, doing the signature moves with the song in the background. Some are taking it on in the same style as the the ‘Kiki Challenge’, where they step out of moving vehicles to dance to the song, while others have taken it more in the spirit of ‘flash mob’ style dancing, though with fewer people and less exotic locations. Regardless, the song is getting hot, and the possibilities are seemingly endless.

Not one to ignore such trends, James Cordon, a British comedian and the host for The Late Late Show with James Cordon, humorously called Baby Shark a “modern classic” and a song that “defines this generation”. He recreated an adult version of the song on his show. Singing along with Sophie Turner, who performs the voice of ‘Mommy Shark’ and Josh Groban who plays the voice of ‘Daddy Shark’, the trio give the song a jazzy rendition, complete with a choir and dancers wearing…? You guessed it! Shark masks! The performance received a standing ovation, and I have to say it made me look at the song in a completely new light. At least, until the next kiddie birthday party I go to.

For those of you who haven’t heard Baby Shark and think you will escape unscathed, there is no point in resisting; it will slowly but surely creep through your social media pages and become lodged in your head and turn into the annoying tune that you find yourself humming in the shower or in moments of deep reflection. Just do yourself a favour and learn the darned lyrics, so you don’t get told off by the kids around you for getting the words wrong.

Sheherzad Kaleem is a documentary filmmaker based in Dubai. sheherzadk@gmail.com

It says something about the power of a brand when it can inspire confidence in markets where it has little or no presence and get investors to place astronomical amounts of money in the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history. What makes this truly staggering is the fact that the above said investors are bidding to put their money not in the actual company but in a shell corporation registered on a little rock in the Caribbean Sea.

Sounds complicated? Well that is exactly what the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba managed to accomplish with its $25 billion IPO in New York on September 19, 2014. The company is now valued at $231 billion, which is more than the combined value of Amazon and eBay. And since the Government of China restricts foreign ownership, investors vied to bid for the privilege of owning shares, not in the Alibaba Group, but in a shell corporation (albeit with significant safeguards) registered in the Cayman Islands.

Considering the number of competitors in its category and the volatile history of dotcom busts, here is what Alibaba did differently to help it accomplish a successful version of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward.

Alibaba’s business is based on promising fundamentals. The Chinese economy is buoyant with 1.36 billion consumers. Added to this the share of e-commerce transactions is over seven percent, which valued at $713 billion, makes it even higher than the US. Alibaba’s websites account for over 60% of end-user parcels delivered in China.

1. It’s all in the leadership

In the same way that Apple had Steve Jobs, the Alibaba Group has Jack Ma, a man from a humble background but with a grand vision. Ma effusively personifies the brand values of Alibaba. He is charismatic, energetic, accessible, flamboyant, a controversial upstart brimming with confidence; all the traits that Alibaba’s customers have come to associate with the company. An English teacher by profession, Ma turned tech entrepreneur when he had that stroke of genius in 1999 of bringing low-cost Chinese speaking manufacturers and their global buyers together in a business-to-business portal that would help them maximise opportunities. Since then, there has been no turning back and the Alibaba Group continues to be directed by Ma’s vision. Detractors say that Ma runs the company in a highly personalised style, to the point of even making personal investments and doling out loans to favourites from company money. In their view, without him Ali Baba will undergo a succession crisis. To be fair, Alibaba has gone some distance to allay these fears. Ma stepped down as CEO last year (he is still executive chairman) and among the safeguards in the new IPO are clauses that prevent Ma from doling out the company’s money; furthermore, any profit he personally makes arising from investment of corporate money must either go back to the shareholders or be invested in a social cause overseen by shareholder appointees.

2. Position the brand with a great backstory

Assertive branding is the cornerstone of what makes Alibaba stand out from other Chinese e-commerce brands. Ma never fails to remind everyone of the company’s humble beginnings from his Hangzhou apartment (certain board meetings and inspiration sessions still are scheduled on the premises, giving it an almost shrine-like status in corporate lore). Since its founding, Alibaba constantly emphasises its status as a challenger to the giants of e-commerce and a champion of the underdog. The company started with a vision of wiring small and medium Chinese manufacturers to the global business mainstream. Even today Ali Baba’s successful spin-off businesses, such as the Taobao Marketplace, TMall and Ali Express, constantly harp on about how they have made life simple for the little guy, the Chinese customer, the small manufacturer and the supply chain middlemen, linking them to global consumer mainstream – and to prosperity. There are entire villages in China called Taobao villages where the economy subsists on trading on Alibaba’s successful online marketplace, connecting buyers and sellers across China. At the launch of what was to be the most successful IPO in history, Ma told the story about how he was shown the door by numerous Silicon Valley venture capitalists and how he was branded Crazy Jack when he proposed a vision of a Chinese company challenging global giants like Amazon and eBay. While detractors have dubbed this as showmanship, it has built up an epic legend of the Alibaba brand and helped share values climb from $68 to 92.70 after the first day of trading.

Analysts says that while these purchases have given Alibaba access to new technology platforms as well as a measure of income diversity, they also comply with its overarching vision of becoming a global e-commerce giant and the point of choice for the world to access China’s e-commerce landscape.

3. The brand and its value proposition need to resonate globally

According to industry insiders, the branding success of Alibaba has come through consistent clarity in communication. They point to the fact that while other Chinese companies struggle to have their name pronounced correctly, Ma gave his company a name that had global relevance. Ma says he came up with the name after an impromptu focus group starting with a coffee waitress and 40 odd people on the street. This clarity has filtered through; Ma speaks to his audience in English and has gone beyond the ordinary to build his image (even donning a blond wig, nose ring and dark lipstick) of a people’s person. The company also invests in causes that strike a chord with a global audience, such as donating 0.3% of earnings to environmental protection initiatives.

4. Fundamentals make sense

Above all, Alibaba’s business is based on promising fundamentals. The Chinese economy is buoyant with 1.36 billion consumers. Added to this the share of e-commerce transactions is over seven percent, which valued at $713 billion, makes it even higher than the US. Alibaba’s websites account for over 60% of end-user parcels delivered in China. A number of the company’s websites are counted among the global top 20 most searched sites on the internet. Furthermore, Alibaba companies account for 80% of China’s online sales and its online payment system, Alipay, accounts for just over 50% of all online payments in China. It is fundamentals such as these that have global investors drooling in the financial capitals of the world.

5. Ideas don’t need to be original; just well executed

Many scoff at the lack of originality in Alibaba’s business model, claiming it is Amazon, Amazon Web Services, eBay and PayPal all rolled into one. That may be the case, but then not all tech giants represent original ideas. Companies like Facebook and Microsoft have shown that you do not need to be original; rather if you build on an existing idea and make it work, you can outshine the innovator. Alibaba has understood this logic, with one key difference that has held it in good stead; it never veers too far from its stated global vision “to bring people together in commercial connections.” As it cements its success story, Alibaba has invested in a number of successful spin-off businesses which are both homegrown such as Alipay, Aliyun, Comparative Shopping, Cloud E-Tao, Flash Sales and Juhuasuan as well as foreign partnered ones, such as Singapore Post, online retailers 11 Main, Fanatics and the gaming site Kabam. Analysts says that while these purchases have given Alibaba access to new technology platforms as well as a measure of income diversity, they also comply with its overarching vision of becoming a global e-commerce giant and the point of choice for the world to access China’s e-commerce landscape.

Tariq Ziad Khan is a US-based marketer and a former member of Aurora’s editorial team. tzk999@yahoo.com

Indeed, ‘AI’ has re-emerged as a buzzword in recent years, particularly with respect to smartphones and connected gadgets and appliances. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a platform which enables machines ranging from doorbells to light bulbs to fridges to washing machines to collate and analyse data and perform specific actions accordingly. So, for example, if someone rings your smart doorbell and you are not home, the bell will make a video call to your phone and show you a live feed of the visitor or connected bulbs change their intensity according to your preferences.

The emerging devices require little or no user input. Smart assistants like Google Now and Siri learn your usage habits, browsing preferences and schedule and push information and content to you. However, given their capacity to gather and analyse data and these devices can do much, much more. It is safe to say that AI is enabling us to process a lot more data than humanly possible and, more importantly, derive meaning from it.

In the field of medicine, which is ever more dependent on data analysis as much as human skill and learning, AI is delivering wonders. In healthcare, AI uses algorithms and software to approximate human cognition in the analysis of complex medial data and then to approximate conclusions without direct human input.

The applications for AI in medicine go beyond data crunching: diagnostic algorithms are being developed that process and interpret data in nanoseconds. Similarly, AI-powered surgical robots can carry out precise surgery, armed with an entire library’s worth of information and sensors that exceed the sensitivity of human limbs.

As far back as 2003, a landmark was achieved when scientists announced that human genome had been fully coded to the accuracy of 99.99%. The three billion ‘letters’ of the human gene were laid bare for all to see. Unknowingly, most of us have been using AI for medical insights for years. Websites such as WebMD specialise in diagnosing illnesses based on symptoms. As the years go by and more information is added to the internet, such systems are becoming smarter (this is where the intelligence in AI comes from). It is not far-fetched to imagine a scenario where AI will one day replace general physicians, if not specialists.

The applications for AI in medicine go beyond data crunching: diagnostic algorithms are being developed that process and interpret data in nanoseconds. Similarly, AI-powered surgical robots can carry out precise surgery, armed with an entire library’s worth of information and sensors that exceed the sensitivity of human limbs.

Recently, an AI system beat some of China’s top doctors with respect to diagnosing brain tumours and predicting hematoma expansion. As reported by Xinhua, the ‘BioMind’, was developed by the Artificial Intelligence Research Centre for Neurological Disorders at Beijing Tiantan Hospital.

For the first time in human history, the skill, knowledge and dexterity of medical professionals are under threat. However, like the internet, AI is not destined to supplant human thought. Rather, it enriches it by taking away the menial aspects of medical practice (such as data analysis, the need to hone physical skills and having to commit entire books to memory). Free of administrative and tedious burdens, medical professionals will be at liberty to explore, analyse, invent and experiment.

We can all agree that this is just what the doctor ordered.

Talha bin Hamid is an accountant by day and an opinionated observer of pop culture, an avid reader, a gamer and an all-around nerd by night.

Who would have thought that Betty Crocker was not a real human being? I certainly didn’t. That is until I picked up Time magazine’s The 100 Most Influential People Who Never Lived which hit bookstores recently.

In this slim volume – which, as its name suggest, includes 100 influential fictitious individuals – ranging from Mary Poppins to Scarlett O’Hara and from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde – one can find several icons from the advertising world – although one could also argue that all 100 of these fictional characters are brands in their own right, given their influence – be it James Bond (“who has survived six changes of actor”), Uncle Sam (“the symbol of a nation”), Harry Potter (think the movie franchise and theme parks across the globe), Santa Claus (at a certain point in time it was believed that he was a creation of Coca-Cola as he was used in their advertisements in the 30s).

But coming back to Crocker, it turns out that adman Samuel Gale created her with “a gleam in his eye… the name Betty was chosen for its all-American cheeriness” and she began life in 1921 as a Dear Abby of sorts who dispensed household tips to housewives before her cake mixes were introduced in 1947. So no wonder she has been thought of as a real person by many people – after all since the 30s she has emerged in several incarnations and continues to line our shelves, much to the purist baker’s disdain.

While there aren’t any South Asian – let alone Pakistani – fictional characters in the book, it is reassuring to know that Burka Avenger was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 11 most influential fictional characters of 2013.

In contrast to Betty’s wholesomeness is the Marlboro Man’s lonesomeness. Created in 1955 for Philip Morris by Leo Burnett, the Marlboro Man was “one of advertising’s most evocative, successful and, in many quarters, reviled creations.” What is perhaps less known about him is that he was created to lend the Marlboro brand masculinity given that prior to his conception, the cigarettes targeted women with the slogan “mild as May”. Such was this solitary man’s influence that within two years of his creation, sales of Marlboros increased by a whopping 3,000%. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, as antismoking sentiments increased, “the Marlboro Man made his last ride into the sunset in 1999, cradling a smoke – and his life – in his hands.”

Perhaps an offshoot of the Marlboro Man is Don Draper – who must be lauded for making it to this book given that he was created only six years ago. “Pure talent… and the charisma of a lantern jawed Ayn Rand hero… propelled him to the top of his profession.” And while his existential crisis continues to plague him, there is no doubt that Don Draper – and Mad Men – has influenced many people. However, despite the success he has achieved – not to mention the women he has been involved with – “Don Draper is discovering that you can’t outrun the past forever.”

Away from the darkness that Don Draper exudes there is ‘sunshine’ Barbie – who it has to be admitted – is over 50 years old, although you will never be able to tell from her 39-18-33 figure. Despite stirring innumerable controversies (women the world over have objected to her ‘perfect’ figure because she “promotes eating disorders”), Barbie has evolved with time. Her career choices over the years range from rock star to race car driver and from astronaut to aerobics instructor – and she is still going strong. And let’s remember, as the PR department of Mattel (the company that created Barbie) once stated: “She’s just a doll, people…”

While there aren’t any South Asian – let alone Pakistani – fictional characters in the book, it is reassuring to know that Burka Avenger was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 11 most influential fictional characters of 2013. Who knows, in time, she – or perhaps another Pakistani icon – may just make it to such a list.

I recently told Zubeida Mustafa that I had an issue with the subtitle of her memoirs. I feel her years at DAWN were more meaningful than simply the pursuit of social issues, important as they are and clearly close to her heart. With over 30 years at DAWN, many of which were in the position of a senior editor, Zubeida had a more significant impact on the newspaper than perhaps she cares to lay claim to – out of her inherent modesty. Her years at DAWN did see a shift in editorials, from ambivalence to clear positions on issues that matter – democracy, pluralism and rights of the marginalised, to name a few. If Ahmad Ali Khan (the editor for most of her years at DAWN), was her mentor, Zubeida too, in her own quiet way, exercised a significant influence on the newspaper’s journey.

In July 1975, Zubeida was working as a researcher at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs when DAWN ‘discovered’ her and she was interviewed by Ahmad Ali Khan. She is taken aback by his humanity, his concern for her young daughters who he fears may be neglected if she takes up a job with demanding hours. She notes that had she been a feminist at the time, she may have taken offence at the intrusion into her private life!

Zubeida’s memoirs are almost as much about Khan sahib as about her time at the newspaper. It is clear that he had a tremendous influence over her professional development, as well as ideals. She admires his integrity and the independence he guarded so firmly.

In My DAWN Years, Zubeida also writes about the projects that were close to her heart. When the newspaper became part of the ‘One World’ supplements, Zubeida was given the responsibility of coordination and editing. An idealistic concept, One World supplements brought together some of the world’s leading newspapers to write and report editorially on issues of common concern.

She writes: “This relationship between the management and editor of DAWN to which I was witness, was quite remarkable… The two were distinctly separated and the editor was a professional journalist… A proof of this delineation of powers was evident from the line the newspaper took editorially on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s execution when Mahmoud Haroon, the proprietor, was a part of Ziaul Haq’s establishment. When Bhutto was executed, DAWN wrote an editorial on April 7, 1979, titled ‘Bhutto: the end of a great promise’. Commenting on the execution of the Pakistan People’s Party leader, the newspaper wrote, ‘No one – not even the most impenitent of his political foes – could have wished Mr Bhutto to end as tragically as he did…’"

The editorial independence, she notes, continued even in the post-Khan sahib years which saw greater interaction between the editorial staff and the newspaper’s management. While Zubeida shows her reverence for Ahmad Ali Khan, My DAWN Years also covers her experience of working with the editors who succeeded Khan sahib. It is an indication of her professionalism that she shows the same respect for an editor much younger – and less experienced – than herself, Abbas Nasir.

At the time of Khan sahib’s retirement, there was hope among many of Zubeida’s women friends that she may be appointed his successor, becoming the first women to hold that position in DAWN and Saleem Asmi’s appointment as editor was seen by many as a sign of misogyny. In My DAWN Years, Zubeida responds to such perceptions by stating her own reasons for not wanting to be editor; the primary one being her aversion to dealing with administrative matters. Nevertheless, Zubeida did reach the top, even if one notch below the editor. In writing about receiving the International Women’s Media Foundations Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012, she narrates how she had to clear the misconception among the organisers that she was the “first woman journalist in Pakistan”.

However, she explains her position: “What I could lay claim to... was being the first at the decision-making level in the mainstream media. From that position I played a dual role. First, I would inject the women’s perspective in the subjects DAWN would cover editorially and also in news reporting. That allowed the socio-political-economic issues affecting women directly to find more space in the newspaper and from the feminist perspective.”

The above excerpt is from the chapter, Being a Woman in a Man’s World in which Zubeida doesn’t just write about her own journey in a male territory, but acknowledges the contribution of many more women – her seniors, peers and juniors – from the English, Urdu and Sindhi language press. She mentions, in particular, the many women who preceded her in journalism, including Alys Faiz, Anis Mirza, Mariam Habib, Naushaba Burney, Zebunnissa Hamidullah, Zuhra Kureshi and Razia Bhatti, of course, who truly exemplified courage in journalism. Zubeida’s position at DAWN also helped open the doors to many young women who entered as reporters and sub-editors.

My DAWN Years is a noteworthy contribution to the history of DAWN (which is yet to be published) as well as to the larger world of print journalism in Pakistan, particularly when so little has been recorded. Memoirs are important sources for people researching the history of the print media in Pakistan.

In My DAWN Years, Zubeida also writes about the projects that were close to her heart. When the newspaper became part of the ‘One World’ supplements, Zubeida was given the responsibility of coordination and editing. An idealistic concept, One World supplements brought together some of the world’s leading newspapers to write and report editorially on issues of common concern. This responsibility, she writes, gave her an opportunity to travel and to meet many well-known editors of the time. The other project the writer is particularly proud of is Books & Authors. Introduced shortly after Saleem Asmi became editor, Books and Authors replaced the features on books in the newspaper and was published as a 12-page magazine. It was a unique initiative. Apart from carrying book reviews, interviews with authors, Books & Authors also helped sustain an interest in reading.

My Dawn Years is more than a chronicle of a journalist working for Pakistan’s major English language newspaper. It is also a fair account of what those 30 years meant for DAWN as it faced myriad challenges, ranging from the demands of technology to competition from new and slicker publications. One of them, The News, succeeded in luring away several of DAWN’s editorial staff members. Zubeida describes her own, and rather interesting, encounter with the management of The News when she was made an offer that she did not take too long to turn down.

My DAWN Years is a noteworthy contribution to the history of DAWN (which is yet to be published) as well as to the larger world of print journalism in Pakistan, particularly when so little has been recorded. Memoirs are important sources for people researching the history of the print media in Pakistan. Ahmad Ali Khan’s autobiography, In Search of Sense, which he could not complete and which was published posthumously, provides a significant insight into the workings of DAWN and the considerations that framed its editorial policies. However, women journalists have been rather reticent in recording their experiences and insights. Razia Bhatti, for one, sadly left no account of her experience as editor of Herald or Newsline, although the period presented many difficult challenges to journalists. Zubeida too, had to be coaxed by friends to write her memoirs. Now that she has done so, one hopes other women journalists will be encouraged to follow.

My DAWN Years
By Zubeida Mustafa
Paramount Books (Pvt) Limited
240 pp. Rs 695

Zohra Yusuf is Executive Creative Director, Spectrum Y&R.

• <strong>Packaged milk in Pakistan</strong>
• <strong>Deeper in the pyramid – the next big opportunity</strong>
• <strong>An issue of affordability</strong>
• <strong>Dairy liquid vs filled milk</strong>
• <strong>The tea whitener phenomenon</strong>
• <strong>Formats aplenty</strong>
• <strong>More to come</strong>
• <strong>Cashing in on the controversy</strong>
• <strong>The butter spread</strong>
• <strong>Cream close up</strong>
  • <strong>Editorial</strong>
• <strong>Pakistan is said to produce an estimated 38 billion litres annually. Of this total output, only 1.3 billion is processed and sold in packaged form, be it liquid or powder.</strong>

(This article was published in the Sept-Oct 2012 Aurora Magazine issue.)

Anyone who watches TV with even a modicum of interest knows that packaged milk and dairy is big business in Pakistan, based simply on the number of advertising campaigns launched by this industry every year.

Tetra Pak’s consistent efforts to popularise packaged milk since 2003 (when it first launched the Doodh Aur Kya campaign), combined with massive marketing spends by the major milk processors, Engro Foods and Nestlé Pakistan have helped to build market share for packaged milk.

However, for the last two years, there has been a shift in the types of products being promoted, with the focus changing from whole milk to dairy liquid, tea whitener, powdered variants and new formats such as instant desserts, lassi and cold coffee. What has emerged from most (but not all) of these promotions is that milk companies are targeting the lower income consumer segment. This is an important development for an industry that has for years focused mainly on SECs A and B. So what triggered the shift?

Packaged milk in Pakistan

It is important to review some basic facts about the growth of the packaged milk sector in order to explain the shift in focus.

Pakistan is one of the top five milk producing countries in the world with an annual production of 37-38 billion litres (an unofficial figure that no one is willing to confirm). A lot of this milk is wasted due to lack of refrigeration facilities, and an equally large portion is consumed in raw form in the rural areas. As a result, Javed Iqbal, Director Marketing, Dairy and Beverages, Engro Foods, explains, only 12-13 billion litres of milk are consumed in the urban areas, in both packaged and loose form. Of this, says Amir Iqbal, Business Executive Manager, Ambient Dairy, Nestlé Pakistan, approximately 1.3 billion litres (eight to 10%) is sold and consumed in packaged form annually (0.9 billion litres in liquid form and 0.4 billion litres in powdered form).

In spite of efforts to make the use of packaged milk more widespread, the majority of Pakistanis still drink loose milk and even those who consume packaged milk use it in conjunction with loose milk. Therefore Pakistan presents a tremendous growth opportunity for milk processors, but, as Iqbal of Nestlé says, “the opportunity size is much larger in the lower income segment.”

Deeper in the pyramid – the next big opportunity

Tetra Pak’s Dairy Index (an annual report on the dairy industry) from May 2012 helps to explain the size of the opportunity in the lower income segment.

In the Index, Tetra Pak has identified a group of consumers called ‘Deeper in the Pyramid’ consumers or DiPs who live in developing countries, earn between $2-8 a day and accounted for 38% (72.5 billion litres) of liquid dairy product (LDP) consumption in the developing world in 2011. Seventy-six percent (or 55.2 billion litres) of this consumption is concentrated in six developing countries: India (49.9%), Pakistan (21.9%), China (18.7%), Brazil (5.8%), Indonesia (2.6%) and Kenya (1.1%).

What is interesting is that in spite of heavy consumption, DiPs are still virtually untapped by milk processors, and represent, as Dennis Jonsson, President and CEO, Tetra Pak, puts it, “one of the biggest growth opportunities for the dairy industry in the coming years.”

In Pakistan, which ranks second highest in terms of LDP consumption in developing countries, 64% of the population is classified as DiP and these consumers account for 60% of all LDP consumption in the country, most of which is still consumed in unpackaged form, making these consumers an extremely important segment for milk processors. Therefore, based on the fact that the packaged milk consumer base is still quite small, and lower income consumer segments are going to drive consumption in the future, milk processing companies are focusing most of their energies on converting people from loose to packaged milk by making the latter more affordable.

An issue of affordability

Iqbal of Nestlé says that the price difference between loose and packaged milk has increased so substantially that conversion to packaged milk has slowed down. Therefore milk processors need to strengthen the value proposition of their brands so that consumers are willing to pay the premium. To this, Iqbal of Engro also adds that one of the reasons why the usage of loose milk is still so prevalent in Pakistan is because of its low price. For comparison, loose milk sells for Rs72 per litre whereas a litre of packaged milk is sold for Rs90 or above. If you factor in Tetra Pak’s assessment of DiPs earning between $2-8 a day (which works out to Rs8,000-24,000 a month -- based on the conversion rate in 2012), it’s easy to understand why most of these consumers prefer loose milk.

The importance of making packaged milk affordable is also highlighted in the Dairy Index which suggests offering alternatives to whole milk (such as products containing whey, lactic acid and dairy formulations using powdered milk or vegetable protein), and innovations in packaging to drive the price down.

Dairy liquid vs filled milk

Both, Engro Foods and Nestlé Pakistan have innovated with dairy formulations to appeal to lower income segments with the promise of good nutrition on a budget.

Engro Foods launched Dairy Omung in August 2011 calling it a dairy liquid (the product uses 10% milk solids, whereas a product needs to contain 13.5% milk solids in order to be called milk). The savings on milk solids have helped Engro price the product at Rs65 per litre, which is lower than the price of loose milk, thereby directly targeting consumers who still prefer khula dood. (Engro recently launched lassi and cream products under the Omung banner, with the idea being to strengthen the equity of the master brand.)

Iqbal of Engro says that the company’s strategy with Omung is to take market share from loose milk. “The role of the brand is to increase category size and to grow the market for packaged milk.”

However, Engro isn’t the only company to offer formulated milk. Nestlé first launched what it calls a ‘filled’ milk (some of the milk fat has been replaced with vegetable fat) product called Nido Bunyad in 2009 aimed at providing low-cost nutrition to children between the ages of one and 12. Nido Bunyad is sold in powdered form and a Rs70 sachet makes one litre of milk. Iqbal at Nestlé says that Bunyad is a superior product because it is nutritionally fortified with iron and minerals. However any comparison with Omung is unequal because Bunyad specifically targets children whereas Omung is for all age groups.

Nestlé also sought to strengthen its value proposition and target the lower income segments by launching a powdered version of MilkPak in late 2011. Powdered MilkPak is packaged in foil laminate instead of Tetra Pak to bring down costs and one sachet (good for one litre of milk) sells at Rs75, putting it approximately on par with loose milk. Again, the idea is to get people to convert from loose to packaged milk and grow the size of the packaged milk category. However, considering that the prices of powdered milk are soaring worldwide (reflected in Nestlé’s price hike for Nido before Ramazan) the future of powdered MilkPak at Rs75 is very uncertain in the coming months.

The tea whitener phenomenon

Another area of innovation in the packaged milk sector has come in the form of tea whitener, currently the fastest growing category in Pakistan. Tetra Pak estimates that drinking milk with tea accounts for 32% of total milk consumption in Pakistan, making this an extremely important focus area for milk processing companies.

One of the greatest strengths of tea whitener is that it is a less costly product compared to packaged milk because it contains small quantities of milk or milk fat replacers. As one industry source explains, it takes only 30% milk to make a litre of tea whitener. In the case of non-dairy creamers, milk fat is replaced with vegetable fat – milk fat is priced at Rs250 per kg, whereas vegetable fat is for Rs130 per kg.

The low cost formulation of the product combined with widespread tea drinking habits makes tea whitener an extremely effective way of introducing loose milk consumers to packaged products before moving them on to packaged milk. Every milk processor (from the largest to the smallest) has embraced this strategy wholeheartedly with brands aplenty in the category from Tarang (Engro), EveryDay (Nestlé), Chaika (Shakarganj) and Tea Max (Haleeb) to Chai Mix (Nurpur) and Millin (Premier), all priced between Rs18 and 20 for a 250ml pack.

Price, however, is only one factor in the popularity of tea whitener says Iqbal of Engro, whose brand Tarang has a 60% share of the tea whitener category.

“When people make the conversion from loose to packaged products, they want to consume it in smaller quantities so that they don’t have to spend a lot of money. For tea, all you need is 35ml of milk. Taking these factors into account, most tea whiteners are available in smaller SKUs and this is one reason why this product is so attractive to DiPs.”

Further cementing this statement is the fact that Nestlé EveryDay, which for years was only available in larger SKUs, has launched sachets priced at Rs8, 12 and 18. Correspondingly, EveryDay has also changed its marketing strategy (reflected in the most recent ads) to target lower income segment consumers.

Formats aplenty

Although DiPs constitute the bulk of the growth opportunity in the dairy sector, some of the product launches this year have also proven that milk processors don’t want to ignore their current consumers either, especially the young. New formats such as flavoured milk (Engro, Pakola, Nurpur), cold coffee (Nescafé), dairy dessert (Nestlé) and lassi (Engro) are all a step in that direction. In every case, the product is offered in a small, on-the-go SKU which is not only convenient but encourages usage and trial and doesn’t require a huge investment from the consumer.

More to come

In spite of the frenzied activity in the dairy category, there is every reason to believe that what we see now is only the tip of the iceberg.

Milk processors will continue the process of conversion from loose to packaged milk with lower priced, value added products and it is extremely likely that more brands will enter the dairy liquids/filled milk category, currently led by Omung. In fact, Muhammad Tayab, GM Operations, Nurpur Foods reveals that Nurpur is planning to launch a brand similar to Omung in order to remain competitive.

Additionally, the launch of Omung Lassi and Omung Dobala prove that this is the brand that Engro will be focusing on in the future.

However, the growth of dairy liquids will not be challenge-free, as many consumers on social media and blogs are questioning whether it is safe or healthy to consume milk that is not 100% milk with the finer points about percentages of milk solids becoming lost in the conversation. Another area that will see even more growth is tea whitener and as the number of brands increase and usage becomes more widespread, tea whitener could potentially surpass packaged milk in terms of market share.

Iqbal of Nestlé says that ‘consumer relevance’ will be the buzzwords in all future offerings by milk processors and the key will lie in launching products for specific consumer (nutritional/functional) needs; he also says that there will be an increase in the number of on-the-go formats available but remains silent on Nestlé’s strategy.

Iqbal of Engro says that the packaged milk category will continue to grow steadily with better offerings at better (read: lower) price points.

The current strategy at Engro is to “use Omung to take share from loose milk, use Tarang to build consumption through smaller SKU’s and use Olper’s to take away market share from other packaged milk players.”

Contrary to popular opinion, the race to grow the packaged milk market has only started and considering the enormous growth potential, it is really anybody’s game at this point.

Cashing in on the controversy

Making packaged milk affordable to a wider cross section of the population is one of the key challenges milk processors must deal with (see main story for more on this). However an equally important and growing concern is the safety of packaged and especially UHT milk.

Taking advantage of the controversy and the fact that the milk processors have chosen to remain mum on the issue, pasteurised milk has been making small waves in the metropolitan cities. Karachi-based Millac Foods is the biggest player in the pasteurised category and Mahmood Nanji, Advisor at Millac Foods says that of the packaged milk market, pasteurised has a three percent share. Although the numbers are not significant, Nanji says that pasteurised milk offers consumers many advantages: it doesn’t have the health hazards of loose milk, the price is competitive with loose milk and in spite of processing it doesn’t lose its colour and taste (unlike UHT milk).

These arguments have resonated with small but influential (mainly SEC A) groups of consumers who swear by their favourite brands, which currently includes Millac and Dayfresh in Karachi, and Anhaar, Farm Fresh, Premá, Gourmet, Halla, Nurpur and Prime in Lahore.

In spite of its growing popularity, UHT milk processors remain unfazed by pasteurised milk and don’t think it will be a threat to their business in the future mainly because Pakistan does not have the infrastructure to support the cold chain needed to ensure the freshness and quality of pasteurised milk (unlike UHT milk, pasteurised milk has a shelf life of two to three days).

Although cold chain is a major issue, perhaps the only thing stopping pasteurised milk from becoming a major player in the packaged milk market is the involvement of one or two big companies who will be willing to make the cold chain, marketing and advertising investments to take it to the tipping point. Stranger things have happened.

— MLA

The butter spread

Within the dairy industry, butter and margarine fall into the branded spreads category valued at “approximately Rs2.5 billion,” says Raheel Pasha Khan, Marketing Manager Foods at Unilever Pakistan. Nurpur is the market leader in branded butter with a “95% market share,” according to Muhammad Tayab, GM Operations, Nurpur Foods, but there are also two other players: Millac Butter (a brand of Millac Foods, launched in 2008) and Adam’s (a brand of Adam’s Milk Foods, launched a few months ago). The two most popular foreign brands are Lurpak (produced in Denmark) and Mumtaz (from the UAE). The local brands range from Rs105-110 (for 200g) whereas the international ones retail at Rs180 for the same SKU.

Blue Band (Unilever Pakistan) is the biggest local player in the margarine category; international brands include Flora (also a Unilever brand, however the company stopped distributing it locally in 2010), I Can’t Believe It Is Not Butter, Mumtaz and Nawar. Local margarine (i.e. Blue Band) is priced at Rs84 for a 200g SKU (significantly lower than butter) and is therefore more popular with consumers, and the butter to margarine market share ratio is 30:70, according to Khan.

In terms of challenges for the spreads category, the biggest one is the low penetration of branded butter and margarine as a result of high prices. Most people still prefer unbranded butter which is sold at Rs80 for 200g, however by and large butter remains a luxury item in Pakistan.

Another challenge within the branded category, explains Yousra Taj, Assistant Brand Manager, Millac Foods is that people think that butter and margarine are substitute products. This is a major challenge for butter producers, says Taj because as a result a lot of people buy margarine which is cheaper because some of the animal fat has been substituted with hydrogenated vegetable fat.

If the spreads category is to grow, it needs to give consumers cheaper, value added products to draw more people into the branded segment. A concerted awareness raising campaign is also necessary to increase knowledge about the differences between butter and margarine.

— Vanessa D’Souza

Cream close up

Pakistan’s branded cream market is worth approximately five to six billion rupees in value terms or 14,000 tonnes in volume share, according to Amir Iqbal, Business Executive Manager, Ambient Dairy, Nestlé Pakistan. His counterpart at Engro, Director Marketing, Dairy and Beverages, Javed Iqbal, however believes that the market size is between 20,000-25,000 tonnes.

While the total size of the market may be uncertain, what’s very clear is that Nestlé with its MilkPak cream is the market leader with a 50% market share, whereas Olper’s cream (launched in 2010) has a share of 15%. Other brands, such as Good Milk and Haleeb cream are also available. In terms of consumption, Iqbal of Nestlé says that almost 80% of MilkPak cream is consumed by people in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for whom cream is a part of their daily diet. Most cream brands are priced at Rs70 for a 200ml carton.

Both Nestlé and Engro also have alternative cream products in which some of the milk fat content has been replaced by vegetable fat, presumably to reduce the price; however both companies have different reasons for launching these products.

Nestlé Creations, launched in 2011 is priced at Rs65 and positioned as a whipping cream for desserts and baking, and targets, says Iqbal, an increasing number of home cooks who are watching cooking shows and want to create exotic desserts at home. Engro, on the other hand, launched Omung Dobala in July this year and priced it at Rs50 for 200ml, making it the cheapest in terms of price. The idea with Dobala, says Iqbal of Engro is to target lower income segment customers (which is very much in line with Engro’s overall strategy for Omung – see Page 6 for more on this).

Iqbal of Nestlé says that although the overall size of the cream market is fairly small, Nestlé isn’t too concerned because the production of cream is entirely dependent on the quantity of milk processed, which can vary greatly especially during the lean season and lead to supply shortages. He does however mention that in the future, specialised products such as flavoured whipping creams and light cream will have potential (presumably because these are vegetable fat based products and therefore cheaper).

Editorial

Milk, milk, everywhere, and unlike the Ancient Mariner’s water, there are plenty of drops to drink. In fact, Pakistan could almost be said to be awash with milk.

Pakistan is rated to be among the top producing milk countries in the world (rankings vary from the top five to eleven), accounting for, according to the Pakistan Dairy Development Company (PDDC), an estimated 38 billion litres annually. Of this total output, however, only 1.3 billion is processed and sold in packaged form, be it liquid or powder. The rest is either consumed in situ on the farms, sold as khula (open) milk by the neighbourhood milkman or largely wasted. Viewed from this perspective, the market is hugely underexploited.

It is also unstructured and undocumented. Not surprisingly, the PDDC figure of 38 billion litres is unverifiable.

Pakistan is said to produce an estimated 38 billion litres annually. Of this total output, only 1.3 billion is processed and sold in packaged form, be it liquid or powder.

This is typical of how much of Pakistan operates. Other countries with a significant dairy industry have regulatory bodies in place to protect the interests of their consumers. Such bodies are charged with enforcing regulations and codes of practices covering animal care, milk processing and transportation, among a slew of other milk safety measures. Added to this, those government departments that are tasked with livestock and related responsibilities by routinely documenting their sphere through data collection, monitoring implementation and regulatory compliance and working with both the private and public sectors to develop their industry further through better capacity building at all levels. In Pakistan none of this applies. The Ministry of Livestock is inert and has little motivation to take a more proactive role. Apart from the PDDC, there is the Pakistan Dairy Association. However, both bodies, like the Ministry of Livestock are somnolent at best.

Under such circumstances, one can only wonder at how Pakistan has managed to find itself counted among the top ranked milk producing countries in the world. It does, however, explain why the industry remains so underexploited and with such large coefficients of substandard quality and sheer wastage. The good news is that the private sector, in the guise of MilkPak which was established in 1979 (a Nestlé company since 1988), spotted the business opportunity and to a large extent pioneered what one may legitimately term to have become Pakistan’s mainstream dairy industry.

Due to the absence of credible documentation, it is hard to determine the value of the industry in either dollar or rupee terms, however what is certain is that dairy is the big business opportunity of the moment in Pakistan. Industry players, such as Nestlé and Engro, having focused on the upper urban consumer segments, are pushing down into the pyramid by offering packaged milk at lower prices, thereby encouraging the switch from khula to packaged. They are able to do so not only because the demand for their products has the potential of achieving a significant tipping point, but because they have, despite the overall lack of structure within the industry, been able to streamline their collection services by dealing directly with farmers across Pakistan. This has involved opening milk reception centres, investing in milk cooling tanks and supply chain infrastructure as well as setting up processing plants. For this and more, Pakistan’s dairy companies need to be commended. However, the lack of any sort of serious regulation by the government or an independent body leaves it entirely up to the dairy companies to ensure that consumers are sold milk that is safe. This is not an ideal situation, simply because health and safety regulations are always best undertaken by independent watchdogs.

Another issue to ponder is why Pakistan’s formal dairy sector is almost purely UHT driven? Countries with significant dairy industries have all adopted the pasteurised method. People usually buy UHT milk for longer life storage purposes. An explanation offered is the lack of cold chain infrastructure that pasteurisation requires. That may be true, but is not entirely satisfactory. Investment in cold chain may be considerable, but so was the investment required to set up UHT processing facilities. Perhaps now that the UHT infrastructure is in place, the milk companies are reluctant to bifurcate their investment. Yet the point is that pasteurised milk is a better option, certainly in terms of taste, if nothing else. Like so much else, Pakistani consumers will just have to put up with what they get.

• Mariam Ali Baig

• There was a time when videos were rare on social media and people tended to click on most of them. Today, with so much video, people scroll past them. They click on the one that catches their attention in the first three to five seconds on silent mode. Have you noticed that Facebook runs a small silent loop for your video? This is what I call the bait,
• The days of the shotgun approach are dying. In my opinion, they have been dead for a long time, but our market tends to evolve at its own pace. In 2018, marketers will figure out how to personalise ad experiences. Cookie-cutter campaigns will become obsolete as their ROI is ridiculous.

This month marks the anniversary of my decision to move from traditional marketing to digital (although the actual move took place almost three years later).

I remember it distinctively. I had just finished eating a slice of Sachertorte at the Café Sacher in Vienna. There was a snowstorm outside and the city was blanketed in white. Sipping a cup of hot coffee with a friend, we were discussing the differences between traditional advertising and digital. The most striking thing we observed was the pace with which digital has evolved.

Traditional marketing rarely saw change. Most of it, we felt, was a superficial repackaging of old concepts sold as new tools. This was not the case with digital. By the time a new concept, tool or platform emerged and one learnt to adapt to it, it was replaced by something else entirely. Traditional advertising lived in the past and the present; digital seemed to live almost entirely in the future. This idea fascinated me.

Six years on, and I still feel working in digital means living in the future and evolving rapidly to keep pace with the digital changes. However, in this industry, the present is a synonym for the past, which is exactly where a good chunk of digital agencies are residing, as we wind down 2017.

Barring a handful of exceptions, digital marketers (clients and agencies) have not even sorted the concept of digital currency. For them, digital means Facebook likes. I recently had a discussion with the marketing head of a well-known oil company. He went over my proposal; he said he liked my strategy. However, all he wanted was 10,000 more ‘likes’ on each of his posts – and ideally organically. I asked him what good this would do to his bottom-line. He kept quiet for a while and then asked again whether I could get him 10,000 likes on each post. I said he didn’t need an agency to do this. If he had a credit card, Facebook would give him a good chunk of likes for every dollar he spent.

There was a time when videos were rare on social media and people tended to click on most of them. Today, with so much video, people scroll past them. They click on the one that catches their attention in the first three to five seconds on silent mode. Have you noticed that Facebook runs a small silent loop for your video? This is what I call the bait,

Although it is heartening to see so many clients take to digital this year, both clients and agencies are using the medium superficially; a means to check the boxes on their annual marketing plan rather than trying to figure out how to use the medium to some benefit.

Brands persist on putting their ad campaigns on digital. They treat digital like traditional media; they design a campaign and post it. Digital cannot run on this model. It is not a start-stop place for communication. The entire year is a long progressive conversation between brands and their consumers. The execution is non-stop.

Setting the stage for 2018, here are my predictions.

1 The rise of the community manager

So far, the role of the community manager has been to press the ‘like’ button on consumer engagement and reply to comments with stock answers. The year 2018 will see clients demanding more from their agencies, and community managers with excellent communication skills who are able to create new dialogues with consumers, engaging them in a comment chain, will be in demand. The challenge for clients will be to empower these community managers to make on-the-spot decisions in creating dialogue. Community managers will become the face of the brands.

2 Live content will improve

Live content has to evolve into something that adds value to the consumer experience. Some of the live content is so boring, monotonous and repetitive that I switch it off 30 seconds into the conversation. However, this will improve as live content generators acquire experience and learn to create videos that people want to watch.

3 The silent video bait

There was a time when videos were rare on social media and people tended to click on most of them. Today, with so much video, people scroll past them. They click on the one that catches their attention in the first three to five seconds on silent mode. Have you noticed that Facebook runs a small silent loop for your video? This is what I call the bait, and it is the only opportunity you have to generate immediate interest for your audience to click and watch it in full. The year 2018 will see people figuring out how to capitalise on this.

The days of the shotgun approach are dying. In my opinion, they have been dead for a long time, but our market tends to evolve at its own pace. In 2018, marketers will figure out how to personalise ad experiences. Cookie-cutter campaigns will become obsolete as their ROI is ridiculous.

4 Rise of user-generated content

Recently, I saw a digital video series that was developed by a food brand. It had a huge number of likes, but only three comments. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that all the likes were paid for. It was a grand production with beautiful photography and epic drone shots. Unfortunately, it means nothing. In contrast, there was a team of two young kids who went around reviewing the best bun-kebabs available in town. They had 500-plus organic shares, an absurd amount of comments and overall, great engagement. There is a learning here for the savvy marketer; get people to create content for people. The days when brands created content in brand-talk style are dying fast.

5 SEO becomes more challenging

I am not saying this because Google and other SEO algorithms are making it more difficult to rank. The fact is that SEO practitioners have been getting away with creating below par content in order to create links and improve rankings. With engagement becoming more difficult to acquire, the quality of content will have to improve. SEO experts will have to work hand-in-hand with good content creators to manage their rankings. Soon, the probability of scoring with a search engine will depend solely on the quality of the content.

6 Personalised ad experiences

The days of the shotgun approach are dying. In my opinion, they have been dead for a long time, but our market tends to evolve at its own pace. In 2018, marketers will figure out how to personalise ad experiences. Cookie-cutter campaigns will become obsolete as their ROI is ridiculous.

7 Brands break away from the campaign mindset

As mentioned earlier, brands still think of all communication from a campaign point of view. In 2018, some key brands in the industry will start to view digital as an ongoing dialogue. This means that the content will have to be independent of the advertising campaigns and made specifically to generate continuous engagement.

To summarise, digital is a rapidly evolving space. I went into this field because of the excitement it brings and to get away from the monotony of traditional communication channels. I am happy to report that 2017 was an exciting year and 2018 will be even more so.

I would love to hear your predictions for 2018. Get in touch with me if you have a crystal ball in front of you.

Syed Amir Haleem is CEO, KueBall Digital.
syedamirhaleem@kueball.com