BY RASHMI THOSAR
Founder of Brandcare Medical Advertising and Consultancy Pvt. Ltd
Once every 12 years the planets align to bring together a veritable flood of humanity to one of the four cities of Nasik, Allahabad, Ujjain or Haridwar. Kumbh Mela, the world’s most massive act of faith, is a festival so large that on its main days it can be seen on space satellites (all Mars sightings take a back seat this day!).
For advertisers there is a swerve of excited guesses about the ‘the size of the prize’ – an estimated 50-110 million people! All there for that holy dip that will wash away sins from this lifetime as well as those of their family’s 88 previous generations, qualifying them for a moksha. I just had to be a part of this colossal experience this year at Trimbakeshwar.
I could only watch with awe and admiration the austere camps of holy men and pilgrims who had traversed this journey from nooks and crannies of India – some from as far as the Himalayas!
As I walked through the ever swelling crowds, that were a curious mixture of unfathomable hope and bizarre contentment, I realized some never before marketing truths.
Beliefs are not necessarily an outcome of experience
All ideas and beliefs stem from experience say innumerable consumer psyche studies. Now, whoever has experienced moksha and has lived to tell its privy league benefits that it should so allure millions of people? Not a single experience to recount and yet 50 million living testimonials! Beliefs aren’t always the handiwork of experience. They have a life of their own and work in their own mystical ways, for better or for worse.
Beliefs defy all logic
As I explored eating options, I saw that modern day hand sanitizers were doing the rounds in bacterially blessed eateries and make shift tapris. The same hand sanitized pilgrims made their way enthusiastically to the Kund. Without hesitation they immersed themselves underwater with hundreds others, sharing their friendly and not-so-friendly bacterial ecosystem. The deluge of ‘kitanu’ squeaking ads clearly obliterated from their memories temporarily. The state had ambulances running efficiently but thankfully there were just minor casualties. Perhaps, bacterial evolution is yet to decode the firewall of beliefs.
Spiritual aspirations are as mighty as materialistic ones
Here was a gathering of 50 million aspiring not for the iPhone6 or the PlayStation or a tummy tuck. All they aspired was a simple, economy class moksha.
Not the usual segments
The conventional exercise of cutting demographic pies of age, gender, income and geography may go belly up at this congregation. Here you can witness clusters in sects. Apart from the allure of the moksha, devotees also flock to the Kumbh to connect with their clan every so many years. The sadhus, most interesting of the pilgrims see their sect as the extension of their family. Neatly laid out rows of tents house sadhus from different sects – Juna, Bairagi, Niranjani, Tayaga, Sakhis (cross-dressers and generally worship Radha), Aghoris (unusual clan known for their grisly rituals), Nirvanis, Udasi …and yes, of course, the Nagas famed for their full monty lifestyle. Not many marketing gurus would have studied these segments!
Once in a while there is this event that makes conventional thinking go belly up and compels you to go back and think that Consumer India’s consumption story is not just single story after all.
Feedback: rashmi@brandcare.net
