Ganji Chudail (GC) is an animated green witch created for the YouTube channel Majedar Kahani. She is also now the latest “brand” property with Swiggy, Nykaa, YouTube, Netflix using the character in ads. Yeah, sure, I’m happy that local content is being licensed and the ads are funny, but are marketers losing the plot? The heroine of these ads is the witch – not their own brands.
But maybe the goal is distraction
Maybe there is nothing new to say about their brands? IPO done, Swiggy and Nykaa are now sort of GenZ themselves. Chasing the latest trends in an attempt to stay current and young. Which describes so many of us, too. Living in an endless whirl of distraction, avoiding that cliched conversation gambit “what’s new”.
Naturally, YouTube and Netflix will jump on the GC bandwagon – their business model is entirely distraction!
We humans are neurologically wired to be social. We are tribal creatures and like to belong, or if we can’t do that, at least fit in. This desire to belong to the tribe peaks during our teen years but doesn’t go away. So if we marketers see other marketers doing something, we want to be like them!
Are we all eating the $6.2 million banana?
A cryptocurrency entrepreneur bought an artwork of a fresh banana stuck to a canvas for millions at an auction at Sotheby’s and then ate it. I never thought I’d have Deepinder Goyal of Zomato, a thriving businessperson, and Urfi Javed, a striving fashionista, in the same sentence, but here we are. He recently announced that he would hire a chief of staff who would have to pay Rs 20L ($23K) for the privilege. She put up her iconic butterfly dress for Rs 3.67 crores ($433K).
The value of all these products is fame.
And the fame of being able to consume the trophy that other people in the tribe thought was highly desirable.
What to do when AI eats everything
If the output of your work is digital, then your job is at risk. It is hard to predict what roles will exist in 10 years – the speed of change is so rapid. AI is – at least currently – harsher on the lesser skilled knowledge workers.
The creator economy is a safe haven in this emerging employment wasteland. As AI generated blah moves rapidly to meh, we want more unique, more custom content. Like ganji chudail. But there is another reason we are craving more content – we want to forget the doom and gloom surrounding us. Many of us are faced with unprecedented fears – job losses that impact our whole industry, climate change that makes our homes unviable, political conflicts, unemployable family members, and the loneliness that results from a rapid change in societal structure.
Our brain responds to threats with fight, flight, freeze or disassociate as a response. Fight is by learning more about the problem or educating ourselves to deal with the threats – hence the rise in self help and online education. Flight is through escapism – movies, gaming, comedies, adventure, tourism, shopping – distraction in all its forms. Freeze is where you stay in your pyjamas, eat sweet, fatty or salty foods (SFS) and stay in bed with streaming shows. There are businesses benefiting from all of these responses.
How do we stay human
The only way to stay relevant is to focus on our uniquely human traits – empathy, sympathy, mirror neural networks, our joy in relationships, resilience and love. We need to tune out the distractions and stay human.
Have a great weekend!