Rest n Peace, Dr. Salam

Mohammad Abdus Salam (1926-1996) was his full name, which may add to the knowledge of those who wish he was either not Ahmadi or Pakistani. The man proudly lived and died as both, and much more, as Pakistan disowned him, in life and in death. The government denied him the honour of a state funeral; the media remained absent from the burial ceremony at Rabwah, which has since been renamed not after Abdus Salam but as Chenab Nagar, just to spite its Ahmadi residents.

The restyled epitaph at his grave near his native Jhang awkwardly reads: “First —— Nobel Laureate”, from which the word “Muslim” has been deleted under court orders; the court, even in its narrow mindedness could have ordered the replacement of “Muslim” with “Pakistani” but that was not to be. This son of Jhang is less known in his own country today than the terrorist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, even though he had founded and led an abler lashkar (brigade) of some 500 Pakistani physicists and mathematicians over the years whom he arranged to send to UK and US universities on scholarship for higher studies.

He was the guiding spirit and founder of Pakistan’s nuclear programme as well as Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco). The pygmies who after him headed the two institutes he was allowed to set up in Pakistan in his pre-non-Muslim years have since been credited with laurels, and honoured more, even in their dishonourable conduct, as father of this and that, while the Godfather remains conspicuous by his absence in official records.

Dr Salam became the victim of rigid social attitudes and state discrimination against his community when Z.A. Bhutto through an act of parliament declared the Ahmadis non-Muslim in 1974. Heartbroken at the humiliation, he left Pakistan in protest to live in Europe where in 1979 he was awarded the Nobel for his groundbreaking research in theoretical physics; soon roads were named after him in Geneva and Trieste, if not in Islamabad or Jhang. The same year, as it happened, Bhutto was hanged by Gen Zia’s kangaroo court, but the Ahmadis’ predicament was Bhutto’s only legacy that Zia embraced wholeheartedly and built on even further. Despite being given the roughshod, Dr Salam from his institute in Italy, continued to patronise bright Pakistani scientists and students through a scholarship programme. His alma mater Government College, Lahore, which has named its mathematics and physics departments after Dr Salam, and Pakistan Post, which issued a two-rupee stamp to honour him, remain the only state institutions to have acknowledged him.

The nascent rock band aptly named as Beghairat Brigade, of Aalu Anday fame, has hit the nail on the spot with their lyrics of the popular song which rightly laments: aithe Abdus Salm noon puchhdai koi nai (nobody values Abdus Salam here) as they point out that murderers Qadri and Qasab have become our heroes. His birth anniversary, January 29, remains a long shot from being celebrated as Dr Abdus Salam Day, even though we invent anomalies like the Yaum-i-Takbir (atomic detonation day) and Sindhi Culture Day, amongst the myriad others, that are officially marked on our calendar. How truly unworthy is Pakistan of its only Nobel laureate.

Rest in peace, Dr Salam--Dawn Report.

Qantas in 'epic PR fail'

A Twitter competition has drawn thousands of angry responses after Australian airline Qantas launched it amid a major labour dispute, reports BBC.

The airline asked people to describe a "dream luxury in-flight experience", offering Qantas gift packs as prizes.

But users of the micro-blogging service instead used the competition to vent their frustration with Qantas.

The contest ran a day after talks with unions broke down, and after Qantas grounded its entire fleet in October.

Thousands of passengers were stranded worldwide after the firm halted flights in an attempt to end months of strike action by workers angered by the firm's restructuring plans.

The "Qantas Luxury" promotion, launched on 22 November, quickly tapped into customers' ire.

"Qantas Luxury means sipping champagne on your corporate jet while grounding the entire airline, country, customers & staff," one Twitter user wrote.

"Qantas Luxury is getting my flight refund back after waiting almost a month," wrote another.

One Tweeter suggested the phrase meant "more than 3mins notice that the whole airline is on strike".

Social media commentator Peter Clarke wrote: "Epic PR fail, excellent case study in corporate cultural tone deafness. Simply don't get it".

But the airline put a brave face on what is being seen as a debacle, Tweeting: "At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge".

When Qantas grounded its fleet in late October, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said its bosses had taken "extreme and irresponsible" action.

Unions are reported to be considering more disruptions to Qantas flights, while the government's industrial relations umpire is beginning work to impose a new wage agreement between the airline's management and workers.

Storytellers will win

In the race to own branded entertainment, BBDO's David Lubars believes storytellers will win, and he's betting that a media agency player with Hollywood roots will put his agency ahead of the competition.

This week Teddy Lynn becomes the first director of content at BBDO New York. At that level, he'll work closely with Lubars, the agency's chief creative officer for North America, on both new business pitches and existing client briefs.

BBDO has had success in branded content with the likes of Starbucks, General Electric, and HBO. But from Lubars' perspective, the agency's branded content work has been almost incidental.


"Catch as catch can," he says. Lynn's main charge is to make marketers take the option more seriously from the get-go.

"There's a way to do it up front," says Lubars, who describes Lynn as "the missing link" in that equation.

The Lynn hire underscores the reality that as marketers question traditional forms of advertising, branded content has gained appeal, particularly amid the proliferation of new media channels.

Lynn's varied background itself illustrates the many paths to branded entertainment. The son of the director of My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn) and a psychoanalyst, he started out as an associate producer or co-producer of feature films, like 1998's Pleasantville. After returning to school to get an MBA, he launched a marketing/entertainment consultancy that became the foundation for creative shop Arnold's foray into branded content. More recently, Lynn was an executive creative director in the content and experiences group at Universal McCann, working on Microsoft's Bing, Windows 7, and Xbox Kinect.

"What we found at UM in the last couple of years is you need the right balance" between ads and content, Lynn says. "Ads performed better when they were next to content.

"The UM experience also taught the 38-year-old London native the value of being able to measure the success of a branded content effort, be it a program, vignette, or integration into a TV show.

So why leave a plum position at a media shop to join another creative agency? Like Lubars, Lynn believes that storytelling, as championed by creative shops, is all that matters. As he puts it, "A lot of the business has become commoditized, and a good idea never can."

And, from afar, Lynn had envied BBDO's leadership status with major marketers like AT&T. The clincher, though, was the chance to be a key lieutenant in the shop's 185-person creative department, rather than someone building yet another separate content group.

That integration of Lynn into the shop will be key to Lubars' plan to make branded content more than just an afterthought for BBDO and its clients. And Lubars believes he found the right person for the job. "He's a firecracker," Lubars says. "He has done the stuff. He's not a bullshitter."