The power of Logic

What does the typical Indian middle class consumer do when he wants to make a big ticket purchase, say a car for instance? The first thing he does is start ogling at the car adverts with at most attention. Unfortunately the ad says…blah blah blah…the sunshine car. So what does that mean? Does it mean that he gets more sunshine when he is in the car? He thinks ‘Oh my god. I am buying the goddamn car just to escape this great indian summer and they want to me to have more sunshine’. He feels so unsure and dumb and changes the channel, and another ad keeps repeating “You gotta be dumb…you gotta be dumb”. ‘That’s it’ he says, ‘I cannot take it anymore’.

Of course his travail does not end here. Coaxed by his colleagues and cajoled by his wife, he finally takes time out on a Friday afternoon from office and decides to take the Test Drive. Unfortunately, there are 20 other ‘in-duh?-viduals’ waiting in queue. As he waits for his chance, the sales guys spot him on the spot. He looks at them like a cornered buffalo does a group of hyenas. The great Indian sales pitch then begins. The consumer is bombarded with more information than he can ever assimilate and he is stuffed with ten to fifteen brochures. To top it all, his kids seem to understand everything and they have already decided. So everything seems settled and the salesman smells blood and then all of a sudden our buffalo gets up and says, “I have to think about it!” (Of course he does eventually succumb to the pressure and buys something after going through the above process for two to three times)

Now how does a brand manager perceive this whole process? He designs an ad which talks about the sunshine car. The car that will bring smiles to faces and is fresh and youthful. When he talks about the “you got to be dumb” campaign, he is excited about how much the customer is intrigued and wants to know more. He knows for sure that the ad is good enough to pull the customer to the showroom. His job is done and done well and he has passed the baton to the sales guy.

The sales guy has to deal with, as Uncle Bala says, two kinds of people, the Customers and the Cushtomers*. And in an Indian context, most of them are in the second category. So here he sees this fellow whom he is sure is a cushtomer and diligently goes about educating him about the product and provides him with all the information necessary to make a wise and informed decision. He knows that the cushtomer is hooked and eventhough he is not making the buying decision now, he will eventually. (Ofcourse the cushtomer was made to wait for the test drive to give him an opportunity to explore the products in the showroom and get a feel of their hospitality).

Now the question is why this post is named “The power of logic”…Well that and more in my next post…Cheers.

* Cushtomers are those customers with whom doing business is extremely difficult and mostly non-profitable.