Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Where's the limit...

Marketing always fascinates; to the extent that it makes you wonder if you really are buying something because you needed it or because you were marketed to. Take my example...I get into a retail store having a set list in my hand ably supported by the limited cash in my wallet (thanks to my dad and my bank!). Then I see this wonderful red color wrapped choclate which has been doing rounds in the tv ads for a week now. Next frame...it's in my basket.

Okay...you may try looking at this from the angle of impulse and non-impulse purchases but seriously saying, I never would have bought it had I not seen that ad. I still don't buy that 4-PM crunchy snack (Sorry Sir, I don't remember the name) because I didn't think it was well sold. The very fact that the general store near my hostel puts a discount on this snack and not on the red-color one tells me that the latter has been marketed.

But, can you sell anything and everything to any one and everyone? May be not. As famously protrayed in an advertisement in the past, you can't make women shave every day. Come on, if a bright marketer can do that, imagine the amount of opportunities for shaving companies. Pealitte can come up with a razor that is dual purpose (the reverse side for the gals). You may argue that there are razors being sold even now but they are for different 'location'. I wish to see the day when a bright marketer can make women shave their (non-existent)beard every day.

People say that marketing is the art of selling a comb to a DevaGowda. Yeah, you can go ahead and sell it to a Kirmani as well but there always is a limit to what marketing can do. It can't make you wear a watch on each of your wrists. Or can it?

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