Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The flip side of being an MBA


"Daag acche hain". I was busy marvelling at the Surf Campaign and admiring the use of Kids in the ad and the apt tag line while watching TV with Mum. She as usual started changing the channel to some other serial with the start of the commercial break when i asked her to watch the ads. "I wish you watched TV more normally", she sighed when i started analysing the ads i was watching apart from commenting at the product placement in 'Krrisshh' . I sometimes wonder, if life was more normal without me having stepped into the world of marketing and MBA.

When I enter a Kirana store I start looking at the displays, the product packaging, analyse the how well the owner services customers, question them about margins etc etc and start comparing them with the Organised retail superstores down the street. When I visit the Reliance Fresh outlet, I check out the POP displays, the placement of the impulse purchases, the layout, the discounts, the promotions, the variety, assortment of everything that I certainly dont need and compare them all with the same in other chains such as Subhiksha, More, Trumart (now changed to Indiabulls mart), etc. I wish I could go to a shop and randomly do my window shopping like I used to without these assailing my mind.

We have a subject called 'Audio visual production'. Thanx to this, everything that is captured on camera is unconciously analysed for 'Composition', 'Camera angles' blah blah.. Damn, life sure was normal earlier.

But on the other hand, sometimes being more informed, does help. You cannot get fooled by the PR articles published in newspapers under the guise of 'news', you cannot be duped into believing that margins of several items are as low as the vendors claim them to be thus raising your bargaining power, more research is carried out while buying so many things, that I probably at one time would ve been swayed into buying just by jazzy commercials...