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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 15

A lesson for India from very recent US history on how treating unusual bigotry by the powerful in localized settings as "just politics" can have devastating consequences for the entire polity.

In Dec 2015, a couple in California killed 14 innocent civilians using assault rifles.

Americans kill innocent civilians with guns on a regular basis. What made this attack stand out was that the couple were Muslim immigrants "self-radicalized" and acting as part of the ISIS methodology of independent attacks on soft targets.

It was a "terrorist attack" for sure.

But in the grand scheme of things, in the overall context, while ISIS was still rampant, the tragic incident, while very tragic, was no 9/11, iykwim.

FBI etc were on it already.

But in the grand scheme of things, it was treated as something sad and serious but still, you know.

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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 15

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1453652486569484293

Oooh one more thread to flesh out bits of lecture script for this prep. Let's see if this analogy works.

What is the difference between Marketing & Propaganda? Forget dictionary definitions. Let's think of analogies, even if a bit flawed. Consider a knife. What is a knife?

https://twitter.com/gauravsabnis/status/1453652486569484293

A knife is used by billions everyday for everything from feeding people to killing people. I've never used a knife for anything other than cooking, some crafts, and opening those damn unopenable hard plastic cases stuff comes in, you know those (joke break on opening packages).

Similarly, I've never used my marketing knowledge or skills in any way to deceive people or sell them a bad product or take advantage of them.

So think of marketing as a knife in general. Mostly used for good. Overwhelmingly. In every kitchen on the planet, everyday.

Read 7 tweets

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 15

https://twitter.com/KRCopywriter/status/1503649488497352706

Was discussing this recently with a student after class. How Netflix & Prime, 2 cos who very much lean progressive in terms of content production and promotion in the US, have become very "neutral" in India in recent years. Clearly a strategic choice. Kinda understandable.

https://twitter.com/KRCopywriter/status/1503649488497352706

You have to remember that Netflix, Amazon, are at the end of the day, publicly traded companies mainly making their money in the US.

And the biggest difference between the US & India is that the most lucrative customer segments are all heavily progressive. It's where big $ are.

In India, the most lucrative customer segments lean conservative.

Netflix isn't some social justice warrior in the US. It sees in its data that it makes more sense for it in the short term and the medium term and the long term to be more progressive, more diverse, not less.

Read 16 tweets

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 15

"The Birth of a Nation is not a bad film because it argues for evil. Like Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil." said Roger Ebert once.

The sanghi propaganda films we are getting so far are all badly made films arguing for evil. Has been opportunists trying to jumpstart their careers and make some money in this hate wave.

What I'm saying is, the best made evil films are yet to come from Bollywood. 😳😳

Btw, D.W.Griffith remained indignantly unapologetic about his film though it revived and influenced the KKK, right down to their most visible stunt. The original Klan didn't burn crosses. The movie showed it. And then the Klan started burning crosses.

But DWG denied being racist

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Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 15

The more I read of the Karnataka hijab verdict, the more I can't even .... wow... the details make it even worse, if you can imagine.

It's like they not just delivered the main verdict but have also planted a lot of sections to be used by lawyers in the future arguing in court on behalf of more such Muslim targeting rules and laws. This is the Nuremberg Laws phase.

Of course this should go to the Supreme Court but I don't have much hope. That this even is a court case shows how deep the rot has set. That it even was a rule shows how deep the rot has set. It is offensive and demoralizing on every level, from Indian to human to educator.

Read 26 tweets

Gaurav Sabnis 🇮🇳🇺🇸

@gauravsabnis

Mar 14

A tip I give my Desi MBA and MIS and Data Science students in this country is to always avoid using business or tech acronyms from India when talking here. The earlier you learn that no one knows FMCG here, you should say CPG instead, the smoother your communications will be.

Recently a student was making an otherwise great presentation on segmentation analysis but kept saying OTT data this and OTT data that and I could see most of the non desi audience was confused. I had to strategically interrupt and say, btw OTT means streaming.

Now, in context, of course an American business student will figure out that OTT means Netflix etc. The business press does use the term. But out of context, especially in a presentation, OTT is just a slang term that means over the top, not Netflix.

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