Apparently he didn’t and couldn’t give a fuck to how small businesses always suffer in cities where these retails chains open. So I tried to tell him that even if the things are cheaper, you don’t end up saving money. “The layout of these store means you end up buying things you don’t need just because they are on a sale. I end up buying biscuits that I have to throw away after months when they are past their use by date or I end up buying things that I originally didn’t intend to buy like the ‘two for one’ macaroni that again doesn’t end up being used. You need to be exceptionally disciplined to go to a store like that and buy only the things that you need. I know for a fact that I save money if I buy groceries from a mom and pop shop even if the individual items are more expensive.”

To this he said “Well, people will buy only what they can afford, they are not taking money out of someone’s pocket” I realized that I have agitated him enough and continuing this conversation will end up only embarrassing our host so it was time for me to shut up.

However, here are a couple of info graphics that I sincerely wish I could share with that person.

Locally Owned Business vs. Non-Locally Owned Business Spending infographic

Give us a social platform with a promise that it is the next big thing, the facebook killer and we will drop what we are doing and flock there. It’s that easy to engage us online.

We all want to be connected and we all want to get the maximum out of social media and that desperation is the new way to gain our attention. Just present us something that promises to be the next big thing in the social media. This is all we need to rush to create a profile there.

Think about the social media platforms where you have created profiles. I have created profiles on so many sites like Flickr, 500px, Tumblr, Posterous, Pinterest to name a few. Every now and then I try to “reach out” to more people by posting links of by blogs there. But if I am not following links posted by someone else, why will someone follow my links and following someone else links, reading someone else’s rants take time. The key is you need to give more than you take, you need to hear before you can expect to be heard. If I can’t do that, then I am wasting my time there and my half-assed efforts are nothing more than beaming messages in space hoping an aliens on another planets will get it and will respond. If you can’t be a part of a conversation, just leave it..

Any corporate house will make a big fuss about donating 1% of their sales to a social cause but at the drop of a hat will offer a huge price cut to increase market share or to drive a smaller operator out of business.

If you are doing good do it for the sake of it. If you are inspired to help a cause, you will donate your money and energy to it, you won’t wait for your customers to buy something before you make a contribution. That is using a cause to increase your sales, not social service.

This is a marketing trick to take the customer on a guilt trip and then make you buy something by giving you a “feel good” factor for “making a difference”

Good marketing strategy, you are leveraging the image and popularity of Sachin Tendulkar to sell your brand while maintaining you are “celebrating the heroic achievement of a national icon” by dedicating your cold drink can to the landmark.

Or maybe I am completely wrong and money has exchanged hands for Sachin to appear on the can.

A couple of days ago, I found that idea being validated by Seth Godin in his post titled “The tyranny of low price“.

Cheapest price is the refuge for the marketer with no ideas left or no guts to implement the ideas she has.
-Seth Godin

The CAN DO SPIRIT if Teacher’s is more powerful rule of CAN’T ADVERTISE rule of government. The question now is what are they going to sell in these cans.

This ad, while intended for Music CDs, is more than suggestive of what it is trying to sell. The use of full stop after a can and then actually using shape of cans leaves no doubt that they are trying to sell a beverage in a can. The question is what are they trying to sell. Is this something like Teacher’s whisky mixed with soda or cola or a new drink altogether?

We are used to watching photoshopped images of almost everything. We have seen before and after pictures in slimming plans where the woman surprisingly wears the same bikini even after losing 20 kilos, and even more amazingly it still fits her perfectly. We are used to watching images of fairness creams where the complexion of the skin has been digitally altered.

This one though is completely unacceptable, specially coming from an agency working for TATA. You can see the two shots- one of polished dal an another of non polished TATA dal, are in fact the same shot digitally altered. The least they could have done was make another pile of dal and shoot it and digitally modify it to look shiny and polished instead of using the same shot side by side. That way it would have looked more realistic.

We all see ourselves as rational buyers but we are hardly that. What we manage to do at best is try to be rational “most of the time”. This means that there can be a few things we like to buy but we don’t because we have programmed our mind to see that they are not worth the price we have to pay. So while we are able to resist such things most of the times, there are moments of weakness when we drop our guard that small opportunity is what those things need to strike.

One such blow was dealt to me by Lamy. While I rationalized that the Lamy is overpriced and bought “full metal body” a Parker instead of that “molded plastic” Lamy and lived with that decision for more than an year, one moment of weakness at Delhi Airport saw me buying this Lamy.

In a marketplace increasingly being populated by people who don’t give a fuck, it is very important to find ways where you are connected to your customers and are willing to resolve their problmes and I am happy to say Samsung has demonstrated that to me.

Last Saturday I got a cheque from Samsung after returning my faulty phone and while it is very easy to blame them for delaying it and not doing it till I reached a higher authority, I guess Samsung need to be congratulated for doing the right thing.

After delaying it for some time, I finally bought a phone in January. The phone I selected was Samsung Galaxy 3. Priced at INR12,000 it was a good phone. Running on Android, it had a lot of oomph. It was fun to download applications from the android market. Watching the sky, Google Goggles and a lot of other application.

One thing, however, remained an issue. The phone failed miserably at doing the most basic of the function a phone is supposed to perform - make and receive phone calls. After visiting the service center for a software upgrade and then a change of mother board , I decided to take the issue further up and see if I can get a new phone or a refund. I managed to find the contact details of a fairly senior person in the company and shared my discontent with him and he ensured that I got a refund.

Last Saturday I got a cheque from Samsung after returning my faulty phone and while it is very easy to blame them for delaying it and not doing it till I reached a higher authority, I feel Samsung need to be congratulated for doing the right thing.

So here is a message to the senior executive who responded to my complaint – Thank you very much sir. Your help is greatly appreciated. I don’t know if you would want to be named, that is why your name is not mentioned.

Has it ever happened that you have gone to a bottle shop and asked for Chivas Regal and were told “Sorry sir, we are out of 12 years old whisky… will 11 years do” or “Sir I have 13 year old whisky which I can give you at the same rate as 12, would you be interested?”

You tell me how is it possible that every year we have exactly the same amount of “12 years old” whisky as there would be the demand for it. Baffling to say the least.