Its meant to be an observation with audience without any specialised educational insights, as is the writer of the piece.
Hypothesis being that its a blatant abuse of extrapolated advertising budgets that is suffocating & throttling competition in a free economy. The
purpose is far from making an informed decision. Rather associating products with non-consequential ends. To drive home the point, lets pick the
buzzword "HAPPINESS". A rough estimate as to how many products have alligned themselves to it instead of any focus whatsoever on products' merit(if
any)
* Coke - Open happiness - Product hardly has any 'merit' except it being vaccinated to us since early years ....now the focus is festivals,
Celebrities etc.
* Cadbury Celebration - Again, regardless of festival, they claim a proprietry inclusive claim even when traditional cerermonies had 'sweets'(no
dearth of varieties of them in our country). SO now rakhi to be worth with a pack of chocolates! Outrageous! We slowly would be having them as
desserts in marraiges or may be as offerings to dieties on religios performances.
Perhaps the MAIN REASON is to break free from image of pesticides found in BOTH of aforementioned. SO now they know, the FOCUS has to shift from
product's merit!
* Dominos' - Deliver happiness. Its surprisingly in a land of parathas,poha, idly, vada etc & a zillion assortment of healthy fastfoods we have to
rely on some bread with generous cheese!!
No doubt, the paltry nibu-pani has taken shape of beveraged drinks(which logically can be far from 'fresh')
Other similar inncuous buzzwords would be freshness("Limca"), Courage("Mountain dew")etc...Strange, how these associations work like charm.
Retail therapy is again misleading(placebo??) - Malls being nothing more than a packed store chains are now held as a place to hang-out. Yes, we
have 'AC' but thats not a priviledge, rather a necessity if you look hard at a dense pack of ppl in a building with no open space(read some kind of
space perhaps green where people can walk)and without a WINDOW !!
Earlier we had shops of "XYZ & sons", but that XYZ had been in a business for sometime & knew well enough about their products & thereby could
lend some discerning insight to their clientele(if so inclined). But now, we have Malls, with bunch of English-speaking 19year old who hardly know
more than the releases that Friday on IMAX or something. Well, its not there fault, its the demand that drives the supply(theoretical). Perhaps, we
encourage such practice for sake of convenience. That perhaps, saves us when we ask in an accent for a particular brand with hardly any knowledge of
product, since out audience(the salesperson) is as naive.
No suprise this illetaracy has put the Firms in an advatageous position. We watch an entire soap each day hardly noticing there were products
only from 1 particular firm !! especially over regional channel. Lets see how many of us are aware of this -
Dettol, Mortien, Lizol, Airwick, Saridon etcc...
All seemingly different genre belong to just 1 firm - Reckitt Benser. Its not any particular firm who does so, pick any of them, HLL,ITC etc. After
all its perfectly legal & legitimate and moreso economical !
Please NOTE its not a blame or malignant practice....its just a reflection how this keeps our imagination to hostage.
The point is STEP BACK and think what you feed to your senses. And if you are lead into a decision making. Be cognizant of the choices & merit
each one warrant eg. a popular(MNC) clothes brand over say the ageless charms of Raymond, Vimal etc. The Open Economy has no doubt
benefitted us in setting standards in quality, customer servise etc but its efficacy props on our decision which shudn't get bedazzled with all the glitterati.
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