MAM
Free Branding Services?
There are thousands of very, very small companies out there who will develop a logo at no cost, a tagline at no cost, get you a free domain name and a free website at no cost. I guess the next big thing will be that they also write you a fat check…all for free. Who are these enterprises and how are they doing this?
The Internet has removed the cumbersome overhead costs and linked very talented people to handle the real issues in real time without the fancy decorum and the super fulvous big time fanfare.
Enters the street fighter, a savvy marketer with some teeth and a friendly smile. The freelance nations have far too many operators on the marketing and branding circuit that all are chipping away the armor of the giant branding companies who until now sold more on their posh addresses and furniture than raw talent. Million dollar logos with a matching spin to thousand of others, million dollar-slogans, confusing sentences as branding miracles. Suddenly, such services are now available for free as an incentive to get a new client for print and related packaging services.
Recently, logos have seriously slipped in power, impact and originality. Outside the famous and overly used examples of Coca Cola, Nike, Mercedes, most customers can’t visualize a logo of a major corporation. Like, AT&T or GM. Also a lot of companies simply resorted to a word marks, the use of a simple typeface and that’s all. Like Microsoft or Rolex. Currently of the millions of logos in use today a very large number are just almost identical copies of others.
Losing Distinction
Before the web corporations, big or small easily got away with that as no one bothered to check a logo of an American company for similarities in Korea or India or vice versa. Today with a simple search, hundreds of countries are all lined up with their spinning logos. The similarities are far too obvious and hurt the image by not offering any creative distinction. On the web logos have lost their power.
All enterprising design logo shops are offering free logos in hope to get new clients. Nothing wrong here. The same design exercises, which took months and millions to justify a circle over a triangle, accompanied by psychological studies and fanfare to select a color. For example “blue “ is for the sky, therefore, it is open versus “green” for grass, which is flat? There were further national studies to find a matching tagline. This is now done in a few hour turn around. Is this any different than the a fully air conditioned room with a raised floor, called the data center to house a large cabinet-sized computer system with a power no greater than a fancy electronic gadget now on your desk.
If all these services become so easily accessible and so massively applied to everything big and small then where lies the distinction, the differentiation and the uniqueness? Furthermore, what is the future of such services including the gatekeepers of image and identity? It is dark.
If branding is really supposed to be a logo, a distinct color and a tagline then it is now available for free, all as a small introductory service from print shops all over the world. Look for free logos and creative branding on the web; the quality and the services are at par with any top major agency, minus the fanfare. The issue here is that e-commerce has taken the punch form design side and opened some new frontiers. Web site performance is more important than the logos or colors, the search engine positioning is more important than the tagline and the domain name is more important than the entire website itself.
New Frontiers
Corporate branding is now divided into two distinct areas, acquire a name identity that will work on global e-commerce and design a real web site that will deliver the message. All the other things in between which took months and years of expensive teams to mull over are now replaced by quick creative services. The magic is now in the cheapest and the fasted deliveries of creative ideas and the boardroom style branding think tanks are being booted out.
Corporate image and the naming of products and services are still the most critical issues for any serious player. The fact that most of these services are not capital intense any longer, the issues of distinction will always remain on the forefront.
Customer hungry corporations are putting more emphasis on correct global name identities as a key to play in this new name-economy and ride the fast tide of cyber branding… almost for free. Why not?
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
