MAM
The scary future of e-commerce
From the Model T to modern cars and from dusty trails to super-highways, historians tabulate the remarkable evolution of transportation — the good and the bad combined. However, alongside the great wonders of four wheels, there are the traffic jams, the carjackings, the drive-by shootings and the accidents.
Similarly, when tabulating e-commerce’s evolution, we start right at the dark ages, then suddenly turn to the greatest moment in history, when it found the Web. This extraordinary, one-of-a-kind innovation has brought us all to a new crossroads again.Shouldn’t we push forward just a little to see how this e-drama unfolds? The following scenario is how it might go.
Spammed Nation
There is nothing left but spam, as junk mail reaches its own climax. Mailboxes alone require super computers to sort out the inflow.Hundreds of e-mails per second attack you, and millions of e-mails per day jam your inboxes. The marketers use lists of billions of addresses at a time, selling the weirdest and most unnecessary things. The chunk of population enlarges and shrinks on regular hormonal intake and realignments. Half the population outgrows like Godzilla, while the other half shrinks and slims down to nothing.
The human mind is easily conquered with a highly repetitive mail onslaught of junky suggestions. Could this possibly be the dawn of the over-dozed zombies, showing off their Stepford wives? Or possibly a dizzy, spammed nation leads the way — as business moves back to snail mail. Postal workers finally calm down. Normalcy sets in. Really?
Sky-Rise Shelters
The offices shrink further. A corner suite turns into a cubicle and a cubicle turns into a jack outlet. No need to drive, park and go to the 100th floor, just to open more junk mail. Do it from the kitchen or your porch. Cars are sold and garages turn into headquarters. Save the gas on Hummer look-alikes and let the oil producers drink their own lubricants. Skyscrapers become homeless shelters and flea markets.
There is no fixed time to work or play. Everything is open and everything is transacted 24 hours a day, all year round. Calendars, clocks and watches are almost deemed useless. Will this ensure more free time to read more junk mail?
Hurricane Pricing
The prices are spinning out of control and pushing downwards, ripping competition along the path like a twisted hurricane. Like a wrath of the Temple of Free Trade, a finger gently passes through the city landscape and turns fancy shopping landmarks into trailer parks, so that nature can also pick on its refuge later.
The dollar-a-day workforce kicks in. For each skilled citizen from a G10 country, there are 10,000 cheap workers teamed-up to compete. Get 1,000 percent cheaper products directly from the remote mountains and jungles, nicely packaged, charged on plastic and shipped shrink-wrapped to your bedroom. No need to get out. E-commerce brings out the largest global supermarket, and countries basically act as the checkout counters, while smart countries become the express lanes. Will they end discount coupons now?
Name-Economy
Smart countries are also building armies of high-profile name brands with unique name identities, and going out on global missions in search of becoming the next regional power. Branding is no longer just a tagline for a dumb name with a spinning logo.
It is a comprehensive, sophisticated global name-identity-delivery-system based on corporate naming laws, ripping hip-hop creative advertising routines. Ferocious demands of return on investment bust traditional advertising. Highly professional corporate communications, along with great PR take over the wild side of branding. Marketing science is re-visited. Names with crystal clear recognition attract the masses, prices drive the sales and cash registers ring in synchronized harmony. Will smaller enterprises with sharper images hit higher notes?
Small Revolution
The big business tries hard to hide behind the desks in response to the attacks by the armies of officials as they keep charging in, armed with subpoenas and warrants and pushing the giants to their knees. The little guy from the other side of the tracks now suddenly emerges, along with more and more global marketing savvy and a real contender. There is a major grass-roots revolution of the little businesses run by the little folks.
The skyscrapers are now entangled by the Lilliputian attacks, and Steven Spielberg finally decides to make a movie called “The Encounters With Artificially Intelligent Businesses and Saving of the Small-Business-Minority-Report.” Go Steve!
E-Fireworks
E-commerce is too boring. It’s e-fireworks time now. One hundred-plus brand new features and 100-plus brand new gadgets all delivering and communicating simultaneously with whatever you need in whatever shape, style and form. Move over, “What You See Is What You Get”; it’s now “Whatever You Want, You Got It.” The bells and whistles along with new features will blow the mind. This gizmo, you put in your pocket, it’s not just a gadget, it’s the entire globe in your pocket. Do you get my drift?
Finally. Are we there yet? Maybe we already arrived just a few hours ago. Anyway, you make sure you have batteries and a radio in case there is a power failure. Candlesticks and matches will also help. It is still a foggy, a long and a winding trail, go for the high road. Who knows?
MAM
De Beers launches ‘A Diamond Is Forever’ centenary book
Visual retrospective traces 100 years of iconic slogan and cultural impact.
MUMBAI: De Beers just dropped a century’s worth of sparkle between two covers because when a four-word line becomes forever, even the book needs a forever title. De Beers Group has released A Diamond Is Forever: The Making of a Cultural Icon 1926–2026, a landmark visual retrospective celebrating 100 years of shaping the modern perception of natural diamonds. The book traces how the brand transformed diamonds from elite heirlooms into universal symbols of love, commitment and personal achievement, with rare archival material, campaign highlights and cultural commentary.
At its core is the legendary 1947 slogan “A Diamond Is Forever,” penned by N.W. Ayer copywriter Frances Gerety. The four words redefined diamonds as eternal promises, earning the title of the 20th century’s greatest advertising slogan from Advertising Age in 1999. The book explores how this idea and others like the “Two Months’ Salary” guideline and the “Right Hand Ring” influenced social rituals, female independence and consumer behaviour worldwide, including in India, where diamonds shifted from gold-centric traditions to emotionally resonant milestones.
Beyond marketing, it showcases collaborations with artists like Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Raoul Dufy, alongside icons such as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Later campaigns, including the 1990s “Shadows” series set to Karl Jenkins’ Palladio, reinforced diamonds as timeless and unique. The narrative also addresses today’s focus on provenance, sustainability and ethical stewardship, positioning natural diamonds as symbols of both enduring love and responsible luxury.
The book arrives as De Beers marks a century of innovation in luxury marketing, from the Great Depression to the era of conscious consumption, offering a rare window into one of advertising’s most enduring brand stories.
In a world where trends fade fast, De Beers didn’t just sell diamonds, it sold forever, and now it’s bound the proof in pages that will outlast even the hardest carat.
