Marketing strategy...

Yesterday I had a great time starting very early morning, with the Ishquia show at 0850 AM at INOX, after a bike ride of a whole 16 KMs.

Then we went to Pantaloons where the gals wanted to have some shopping. It turned out to be a shopping spree for the guys.

But that is all normal stuff. So where is the cranky, nerdy, thinking kind of Gautam...

Well ladies and gentlemen, here I come...

At Pantaloons, as it happens with me mostly I was checking out things in the fragrances section, though highly reluctant to buy any as I have enough right now to burn a corn field in it. Still, others had paid the bills and we were about to leave when one of the gals (no names... Rule no 1 lolzzz... don't get the joke, watch Transporter) went over to try out the Polaroid sunglasses.

We all flocked over and the salesperson told her that "These are Polaroids"

"So what about it?"

"Well these are not tinted or colored and can be used for night driving. And I tell you what? Look at that shining yellow card over there with these glasses on"

There was a plastic strip attached over a small florescent lamp (CFL). And she looked:

"Gautam. Its magic. There is Polaroid written over there. If you wear these glasses it appears, but not otherwise" (OK we all were talking in hindi, but the word magic was there and it rang...)

I also looked but while looking was rather thinking. Was it magic?

Appears it was, because it did create a sense of awe, an interest in the product.

No one cared to ask what magic it was. I can't say if the sales person could explain that magic. Neither did anyone ask what that magic was supposed to be useful for, in sunglasses? After all Sun does'nt have Polaroid written over it.

It was simple and at first I had the urge to explain it all. But if it had any use, the company would have not used the idea of creating magic, it would have rather explained the simple phenomenon of polarization that they were using in their glasses. They would have told that with polarization their glasses reduce the intensity of light in by cutting off all electric vectors other than the ones parallel to the optic axis of the polarized material used in the glass. This meaning, that contrary to usual sun glasses which filter out all wavelengths other than the color it has, these ones allow all colors to be seen clearly but still reduce intensity...

But the idea of "Magic" was awe inspiring. No body cared about polarization or how the shades worked or why have that magic in those at all. The company people knew, also did those who developed this idea of using polarization for making sun glasses. But what the company people also knew was that no body cares about the idea. These ideas are only for the nerdy, geeky kinds who create them. Who are useful as they create these new products.

At the same time, I remembered an incident that happened around 2.5 years back. It was just about some company selling "triple oxygenated" packaged drinking water. And a friend asked:

"Gautam! There is one thing I do not understand. How come water have triple the times of oxygen it usually have? After all whatever I read in school said it was H2O. So is that claim incorrect? Seems not because its a big company and it cannot make such claims. Guess that water will be good anyways. Isn't it?"

"Well, bhai. What they are talking about is dissolved oxygen and not the oxygen in water molecule"

This discussion left me in a frenzy. How many were thinking the same way he was thinking. How many had the question that they never asked. Though I never studied much of biology but still couldn't understand how thrice the dissolved oxygen in our drinking water be useful for any one unless he or she has gills. Moreover, thrice of what base value? The oxygen in sea water, lake water, which lake water, river water, which river water, drain, which city's drains? The questions abound. (http://www.lenntech.com/why_the_oxygen_dissolved_is_important.htm)

But the marketing works. Because the people just want magic.

Selling them to the people is a totally different question... The people want "Magic".

P.S: Wish the people could think, would think and would question. Wish the quintessential "Why" was not so scarce. Wish I had listeners who would like to know the answer to the Why there itself.

P.P.S: I really miss my friends at such times. Friends whom I always frustrated with my answers to un-asked questions.