Friday, January 28, 2005

Perception/Branding

Our perceptions don't easily change; do they? And how much of this has got to do with branding? Here's a situation. Analyze for yourself!

I come to office by the office van and we get to listen to the radio every morning in the van. (This makes the trip to office in the morning very rejuvenating and energetic and gives me enough ammunition to last the day). The driver always tunes into Radio City FM 91. And as most of the Bangalorians know, Radio City mostly plays Hindi Music, esp in the mornings. It is primarily a Hindi Music Channel and rarely plays Kannada (the local language) songs. This morning, I was listening to Radio City on my mobile as the driver hadn't switched on the radio in the van. And at that point in time, surprisingly, a Kannada song was being played. After about a few minutes, the driver did switch on the radio in the van only to hear the Kannada song playing and immediately toggled to the next channel which was playing a Hindi Song. It was later apparent that he thought he had tuned into the 'wrong' channel only because it was playing a Kannada song! Was that because he did not expect Radio City to ever play Kannada songs based on his previous experience or was it because of the Radio City brand image? These two might seem like the same question, but there is a subtle difference. That between one's own perception of the world and the perception that one is forcibly driven into because of the branding of a service/product.
Nothing profound here...just found it amusing enough to be blogged! :)

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