For those of us that wear nearsighted glasses for our vision, there is a rather interesting thought experiment that you can conduct. Go to your rooftop, or balcony, or whatever point of observation that is accessible to you. Sit down, take off the glasses, and observe the world.

Watch the blurred reality as it slowly goes about its daily grind. If you’re as blind as I am, you’ll be able to recognize objects-man, car, dog- but won’t be able to see them in detail. You get a strange sense of numbness when you can’t differentiate things from one another. All these objects of our environment are going about doing their business, but when looked at from enough of a distance that you can’t recognize or tell them apart, the details seem almost trivial and inconsequential. You can see their ‘means’, as they go about this leg of the journey or that, but you can’t recognize the end.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the details that we forget the bigger picture. In our effort to navigate through life to the best of our abilities, we forget to live. Task A leads to Task B leads to Task C. We begin to worry about things that are tiny little parts of the grander scheme of things. We lose sight of the big picture. Sometimes, it makes sense to take off your glasses, forget the details, and look at life from a fuzzy, blurry perspective.

 What sort of person do you imagine drives a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW? Upscale, work-hard-but-play-harder executive types?

The stories around these automobile brands are carefully crafted marketing strategies that come to life thanks to a vast range of image-building activities including but not limited to lavish conceptual ads, tactical product placement in entertainment  and various branding opportunities.

Here in Pakistan, however, things are quite different. Our society has the remarkable ability to ascribe values and projections where none exist originally.

Never mind all your marketing budgets, the Pakistani stereotype can make or break your brand in a jiffy.
Take for example, the infamous Black/White Prado. Do you think Toyota ever thought that their nice little SUV would be loathed upon by the Pakistani society thanks to the acts of an alleged few?

Or consider the Toyota Hilux or Vigo. If I had a rupee for every time someone said that it was ‘not a family car’! Unofficially being the vehicle of choice for badmaashes country wide, this otherwise workhouse vehicle has come to symbolize fear in lady drivers and family men all over. Here’s a hint: this wasn’t part of Toyota’s marketing strategy.

Why does a Honda Civic have a consistently more premium and ‘educated’ feel to it versus its closest competitor, the Toyota Corolla?

While these sort of brand personalities exist all over the world, they are at least in some part supported by marketing strategies of the brands that manufacture them. The Pakistani mindset effortlessly bulldozes all these nuances.

The way we package things is important. Give it a name, a story, an imagined exclusivity, and you can pretty much sell cat-shit to the highest bidder.

And that is exactly what happens in the case of Kopi Luwak, allegedly the world’s most expensive coffee. Selling for upwards of $85 for a cup, this specialty coffee is widely regarded as one of the strangest, if not the most exclusive, beverages money can buy.

The premium is paid by connoisseurs because of the unique story behind the product. The coffee beans are eaten by wild Asian Palm Civets, a rare cat-like creature found in the jungles of Indonesia and Vietnam, and then.. excreted.

The semi-digested excrement is then hand picked by native farmers, washed, dried, and roasted for that exclusive cup of coffee served in extremely upscale cafes around the world. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but its supposed to have a nutty, chocolate-y taste.. with notes of mild spice.

If you’re looking to buy in larger quantities, a 1 kilogram bag of this shit (masquerading as coffee) will cost you just about $3000.

Photo credit: SpotCoffee