Friday

I don't know why I am writing this. But if I have to hazard a guess - well it's Friday morning, I am traveling in my local Metra train on my way to office and I have nothing better to do.(Actually it would really help if the lady sitting in my next seat, keeps her stretched out New York Times, away from my nose)

Friday's are usually fun time at work. They come with a few games of "foosball" and a couple of beers with colleagues before the day ends. Not to mention some weird meetings during the days.

I know my opinion counts a squat. But here's one more of my opinions - America, *can* market anything. I mean ANYTHING. Americans can convert a crappy shit of an entity into a brand and still sell it to world. They are world leaders in marketing. That I am utterly and completely convinced about.

Why do I say that? OK, lets see. Let's start with two of America's most known brands. Mickey Mouse and McDonalds. At the very basic, Mickey is a cartoon character to be found in children comics and day time television. That's as far we mortals could have thought. These Americans converted Mickey Mouse, into a multi billion dollar industry.
Same with McD. At the very basic McDonalds sells wada-pavs. Only, it packages it well. But it's a wada pav after all. Nothing more. And McDonalds has a turnover bigger than some nations GDP. Get the drift?

Brits created English language, but Americans made it COOL.
This 'coolness' factor is essential to re-branding something. You can make a shitty stuff cool and all off a sudden it becomes sell able.

Most Indians re-discovered Yoga after they came in contact with Western World. Ideally it should have been the other way round.

All of us are "going green" today. But we Indians were always "going green". We always recycled. Now Americans are making it "cool" to go green (More on this later)

So why am I calling the title of this post - "Friday"? Coz, I just think that it was the Americans who made "Fridays" cool. They branded Friday as the cool day. A day to just loosen yourself. It may be argued that TGIF is not an American term. But who knows how it came into being. The fact that Friday is celebrated across the western world, as the 'coolest' day, does not take away from this notion that it was made cool by Americans.

The term Friday Dressing must have boosted the Mall sales, when it was introduced I am sure. Sometimes I feel there are forces who work together to create this brand so as to induce more market into it.

Just think about it. 'Thank Goodness It's Friday', just makes you feel good even if you know it's going to be a regular day. You have a bounce in your feet. You hang out at those bars shouting loudly. Checking scores on monitors while checking other things and keeping scores of your beers.

(Blame this lame post on the book I am reading - "The Tipping Point". There's a bunch of "branding" crap in it)