LAHORE - President Dr Arif Alvi Thursday stressed the need for adopting realistic approach of selling products saying that marketing strategies should be modified to show the reality.
“Reality is not what you show; reality is what it was and what it is,” he remarked while addressing the concluding session of the AdAsia Lahore 2019 here at Alhamra, President said that marketing including advertisement strategies played a crucial role in developing perceptions as these contained ideas, skills and creativity.
While urging the marketing companies to adopt a realistic approach of selling products, the president said that world was moving towards truth and therefore efforts should be made to formulate the advertisement strategies for presenting the truth about products being sold in the market.
He said that the meaning of words had been changed through advertisements. “People believe in advertisements and products are sold through them these days. Therefore, advertisements should be meaningful and truthful”, he said, adding that media had been changed and a greater volume of fake news were being reported in today’s world.
People believe in ads and products are sold through them these days
Dr Arif Alvi said that media had undergone a significant change. “Nowadays newspapers have become opinion-makers, whereas the electronic media disseminated news within not more than two hours while the social media was being used as a platform to share the latest news within no time without any editorial control”, he observed.
The president said that newspapers carrying advertisements of various brands were actually selling their own products, adding that it was difficult to identify difference between advertisement and news. He said that it was also a difficult task to identify natural and unnatural advertisements.
He said that foreign delegates enjoyed Lahore’s cultural diversity and history, adding that Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Prince William and Kate Middleton and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands recently visited the historic places in the provincial capital and enjoyed its cultural diversity. He said that Pakistan had become a safe place.
Dr Alvi said that there were huge investment opportunities in the country as Pakistan’s market was developing, changing and expanding. The honest leadership in the country was committed to bringing about development and prosperity, he added.
The president hoped that the foreign delegates, after returning to their countries, would paint a true image of Pakistan.
Earlier, he appreciated the role of AdAsia Lahore 2019 in organizing such a programme for promoting various trends of advertisement and said that such programmes would help explore new opportunities in the advertisement industry.
Also, President Dr Arif Alvi Thursday urged the management of National School of Public Policy (NSPP) to maintain a close liaison with training institutes of excellence in the world to learn from best global practices. This, he said, was vital to emerge as an internationally competitive training institute.
Chairing the 16th meeting of the Board of Governors of NSPP in Lahore, the president said that NSPP must maintain its image of an excellent institution imparting training to the civil servants.
The meeting discussed various items of agenda, including ratification of decisions taken during 15th meeting. Decisions were made accordingly after thorough deliberation for the smooth and efficient functioning of the institution.
Emphasizing the need to involve private sector to benefit from its input and experiences, the president said that said the training of the faculty was of paramount importance so that they could learn and employ modern training techniques and tools to further improve the existing models.
Earlier, Rector, NSPP Azmat Ranjha, briefed the meeting about the efforts being made for further enhancing the quality of training at NSPP.
