The Rise and Fall of a super brand

The Rise and fall of a super brand 

By Sheeraz Adil 

I thought I would never see a down fall of a well establish brand and it will remain only in our marketing books that every product has a life cycle.

For those who have no idea about the product life cycle, it is one of the core principles of marketing that every product goes through 4 stages

1:Introduction
2:Growth
3:Maturity
4: Decline

When my marketing teacher introduced this concept, it suddenly came to my mind that only newly opened businesses can decline as one can understand that it is hard for them to sustain but once the product reaches its peak how can it decline. Or else not very huge companies can decline like Frooto, Choco Chums, Haleeb, RC Cola and Polka to name a few but their decline was primarily because of the tough competition from the huge companies like Nestlé Unilever Coca Cola and Pepsi.

Then I realized that the life cycle exists for all the products doesn't matter if they are on their peak. Some unbelievable declines of the recent times are Nokia, Blackberry and now GEO which is of most interest to me being part of the same industry.

Geo has been an institution in the Pakistan Broadcast Industry. It has produced talented journalists, engineers, directors and many other professionals.

Things that went wrong with geo:

1: Feeling of being super power

Geo thought they control everything in Pakistan and to some extent it wasn’t wrong at all. However too much of everything leads to a path where you don’t realize what you are doing. Many think that Geo has played a vital role in defaming Pakistan internationally. . The most disliked content ever broadcasted by geo according to me was their attempt to proof the plan and nationality of Ajmal Kassab. I still have a question in mind that what could be the objective of geo broadcasting the investigating reports with no proper proofs.

I would sort of agree with it however we should also realize the role that geo has played in promoting the positive image of Pakistan, whether its any achievement in sports or research or some really effective education and awareness campaigns it was only Geo in the whole industry who could have done this for Pakistan

Although geo is by far the most neutral content provider but one felt that something is wrong. Too much support to the current government and  being one of the biggest supporters of the controversial Chief Justice pushed geo to where it is now. It is also said that it is because of Geo , General Musharraf is having tough time in Pakistan. I personally think that he doesn’t deserve what he is going through these days. Democracy is fine, but he did what none of the democratic leadership has done to Pakistan. He was the one who coined the free media term in Pakistan otherwise we would be relying on the 9 pm pro government news of our state broadcaster.

2: Ignoring other participants of the race

There is another strategy that we learnt in marketing and that is cooperative strategy. Geo didn’t consider having alliance with any of its competitors and this lead to the grand alliance of its competitors against geo. It is really sad when one of the journalist or team members of any channel dies due to any terrorist activity, the other channel ignores such a big incident. On all these occasions all the channels should have a collective voice.

Most of the channels in Pakistan now seem to have one aim- and that is to make sure that geo doesn’t recover from the recent hit. It should not be this way; the industry will suffer if something happens to geo. When most of the channels are reluctant to pay even salaries, geo has always ensured that the employee gets the salaries on time.

3: Supporting too much PML-N and ex CJ

It is a general feeling that geo is too much pro PML N and ex CJ. No matter if geo denies this but it is quite evident that the content after the elections has been biased. I think we haven’t eliminated any corruption or miss management in the government run organizations as compared to the last government but certainly we haven’t seen that sort of criticism for this government like it was in the previous one.

4: Unnecessary defaming of ISI chief

I think this has been discussed on all the forums so I need not to write too much on this. It shouldn’t have happened. This is irresponsible journalism and many think that you don’t do this with your top agency and if you do you are off air!

5: Revenge mode against Musharraf

We all know that geo was banned in Musharraf’s reign and geo also faced tough time in UAE due to the pressure of Gen. Musharraf however that doesn’t mean that you start taking the revenge on air.

Things in which geo was accused and blamed unnecessarily

1: Morning show issue & its reaction

It wasn’t an issue at all, this was unnecessarily created by its biggest competition. I am not an expert but this is not be wrong if I say that ARY and Mubashir Lucmans content has way passed the level of extremely immature journalism. The series of Mubashir Lucmans Baba ji campaign was pathetic and pointless. But it shows the mindset of our people and how external forces creates and changes the perception of the masses.

2: To an extent Aman ki Aasha

I think Aman Ki Aasha was a very nice campaign if the objective was to reduce the tension at the borders and to improve the economy. We all should realize that we should have good relationship with our neighbours in order to excel. However at the same time if there is some anti state activity by the neighbors then it should also be broadcasted in order to be neutral. Certainly Aman ki Aasha is pointless if we find  out that the India is responsible for the unrest in the country. In addition to this, even if they are responsible for this, it cannot be done with our black sheep so instead of blaming others we should identify bad people amongst ourselves in order to eliminate this issue.

3: Cable operators Mafia

I am sure now the government would realize that how important for us is DTH and even if we have to continue with the cable then they should be a proper frame work , rules and guidelines for the cable guys to operate.

 

Conclusion:

I am not an expert but if geo shuts down it will be the worst night mare of our industry. It has a huge employee base and so many kitchens are running because of geo. Not sure how can this be done but there should be a solution to this extremely big issue of the industry. I wish that geo improves its deficiencies and come back on track. With BOL to launch soon , there should be tough competition between all the leading channels for our industry’s growth.

All the stake holders need to realize if one horse falls in the race, the other horses also fell. So Geo should be running in order to have a smooth race!