Branding

One of the secrets of success is business and commerce is branding the product or merchandise. If the branding is done with great care, then one can be sure of success, even if the product or merchandise itself may not be worth that much hype. For those who are uninitiated into the world of business, branding is related to a projection of the product as it is and affecting the customer to a large extent, highlighting the great value for money that the product can give to the buyer. Branding basically targets human psyche, whereby the customer is brain-washed by the company. Take for instance, vesting a particular brand of vests is a ‘andar ki baat’! That is branding.

I feel terrible when people begin to brand their neighbors, friends, family members, and citizens of a particular nation. This is one of the greatest injustice we can do to humanity. First of all, human beings are a commodity that can be branded, for purchase. Branding persons basically points to an accumulation of prejudices and pre-judgements. When we say, so and so is such a kind of person, we are already branding the person, as if a person is a solidified matter, which cannot change over time. We need to look at people as they are and not as we would wish them to be.

Some of us are ace human branders, who even without seeing or hearing, can brand people, just on the basis of hear-say. History will tell us how mistaken these people are. It is only human beings who are capable of changing, and sometimes these changes can occur even over night; and we may not be in a position to explain how the change took place, but that precisely are human beings. Branding a person is equivalent to condemning a person to a state of immaterial being, who is incapable of change. We cannot have a healthy social living, until we begin to look at one another as people susceptible of change and transformation.

We all of us suffer at sometime or other from social stigma, and that is one of the consequences of immortalizing these human brands. The stigma is often imposed from out, without verifying the validity of the offence. Generalization is a cousin to this social stigma. But is it possible for us to ever overcome the propensity to brand people? We may have to begin our journey to cure, from the understanding that all are vulnerable, and weak human beings, and there is no one who can truly claim to be free from human frailties. Once I know that others are as weak as I am, I would not begin to label them for all eternity, but look at the silver lining in the midst of their dark gloomy nature. It is then that we will realize the danger of branding people.

Every time I brand people, I should realize that there are others prepared to brand me too. In fact, the very people I brand may be the people who may do the same thing for me. If I am in the chair of power and authority and begin to judge everyone on earth as I see them to be, then it may be good for me to remember that the day to be on the receiving end is not very far off. I may also need to realize that if others had branded me the way I do to them, then probably my life would be very different today. It is because many people had been generous enough to spare me from the humiliation of being branded, that I am able to keep my head erect and judge others. If I feel I have all the qualities to brand others, then it is time that I prepare myself to be branded too!