Great thread. I think we can all do millions of things for the country. From big to small to even smaller like picking up that plastic bag you see rolling on the ground. However I am interested in the bigger picture. What can be done with minimum time and effort yet give huge returns.
Well, my idea is simple.
Brand Pakistan. Can we please, please, please build it up. My hope is one day 'Pakistan' will have the same cachet as 'Japanese, German, Italian' etc. This is about perception. This is about promoting 'Brand Pakistan' which first begins by us accepting it and owning it. Followed by assidiously making sure that anything, I mean even remotely anything positive is branded as 'Pakistan'. Think of this as marketing. When you see drinks being advertised like for instance Coca Cola there are few things to note -
- the brand will have clear, easily identifiable label that is recognizable by everybody. In Coca Cola's case they have used red and stylised writing that is now globally identifiable. Countries do the same. The Turks will throw red everywhere with lots of star/crescents.
- the brand will evoke a positive response. This is done by association. I you look at Coca Cola adverts the models will have perfect skins, perfect bodies, girls will look stunning, everybody will be jolly, sun will be shining. Never mind that drinking Coke will make you obese, get diabetes and bring on diseases. Same for cigeratte adverts. A cool handsome guy will be standing and smoking giving off positive vibes. Leave alone that smoking will mean wrinkled skin, cancer, rotten teath.
- but branding is about making a product is easily identifiable and be associated with a positive attribute. This means associating anything positive to brand Pakistan. Keeping in mind that what is positive will depend on the demographic you are appealing to. Trying to brand Pakistan in Europe will be differant from how you brand it in Saudia Arabia. You need to look at your target audience and use their dispositions to define what is a positive attribute. But whatever it is you must be consistent. Always link a positive contribute to 'Pakistan'. Keep it simple. A brand should be esy to identify.
So I ask all Pakistani's to please stop using synoyms that complicate or muddle
Brand Pakistan. A I said before if you complicate it or muddle it the brand will fail to build a strong identity. So I ask stop with the 'Desi, Asian, Muslim, Indian, Apna' and myriad other contrived ways that people use to either avoid Pakistan or obfuscate and muddle the brand from making a strong presence.
If we can build 'Brand Pakistan' by leveraging our incredible cuisine, natural beauty, cultures unique to Pakistan, out glorious 8,000 years history [which is second to non], music, sport etc I believe this would unleash huge potential. Brand Pakistan would rise and this would slowly feed into improving our economy as people will pay greater premium for our products. This would lead to greater tourism and open a huge vista for food industry. For this to work everybody has to rally together and insist that anything positive, any attribute, however small must be branded as 'Pakistan'.
I believe this would contribut in billions of dollars as Pakistan's stick value would rise which would feed into our economy in so many ways. And frankly it does not cost much. It just entails a change in outlook or state of mind. That is all.
Ps. However anything remotely negative should not be associated with Pakistan and instead concious effort made to obfuscate it. Anything to do with terrorism, poverty, crime etc go ahead flog that as 'Asian or Desi or Indian terorism', poverty etc.
