APRIL 11th 1994: WHEN DUBAI WAS BLOWN AWAY! AISHWARYA RAI(Pre-Miss World) SUSHMITA SEN(Pre-Miss Universe), Shiamak Davar and 16 Miss Indias were flown in for the grandest launch that Dubai had ever seen and I had the fortune to organise. When Sushmita Sen made her first trip abroad after me convincing her dad for over an hour to let her travel.

A night to remember: To launch a brand. A brand which was Al-Futtaim's own brand. An earlier failed brand. For which I was roped in as the guinea pig, the first employee, with one message from the Group Managing Director:

'Vijay, if this brand succeeds, everyone in the company will get the credit. But if it fails, only you will be blamed. Are you on?'

Of course, I was on.

Then began the journey from the 1st employee, in a market driven by Japanese and other global giants National, Sanyo, Toshiba, Sony etc. Where everyone felt this brand didn't have an icicle chance in hell.

To rewind a bit, Al Futtam, Dubai's biggest giant had everything going for them. They were represented in every category. But there was one gap. They did not have their own brand and it was on the mind of the founder for decades and finally, this was the day of reckoning.

A million dollars in one night! Never before had Dubai seen such grandeur and the marketing rainbow that sparkled across. See if you can recognise AISHWARYA RAI with the AFTRON Sash below!

And in no time, the brand created history. Straddling across every other brand and soon had numbers which were the cumulative of all other brands put together. The brand AFTRON. The new name that now spelt unbridled success. 

It was surely UNSTOPPABLE,

What did we do?

Distinctive branding strategies that were simple but never attempted before. For ex., playing to the neuroscience of the Asian user and creating a positioning of a unique Emotion that was to be the talk of the town. Advertising in non-electronic relevant stores. Knowing very well the target audience will come here too but will have unrivalled visibility and recall.

Creating the now world-famous tagline with all the elements of Alliteration etc.

'TOWARDS TOMORROW, TOGETHER'

And many many such.

This is what made the brand hit the skies in over 22 countries. A brand that had 70 products sourced from 15 countries. All in all an unheard-of paradigm and with the Grace of God pulled off nothing short of a miracle.

I detail many such brand strategies in my #1 amazon ranked book, THE GOLDEN LADDER. RISE TO BE UNSTOPPABLE. Where I elucidate clear-cut methods of how business owners, by knowing these simple but rarely known secrets, can scale their business to levels beyond imagination and BECOME UNSTOPPABLE.

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Where over 30 companies have used the mantras enumerated here as their new business model. 

'To go where no one has been, you need to begin where no one has looked before'

You were born to BE UNSTOPPABLE.  RECLAIM THAT Power NOW!