As an aspiring marketer reading books can take me up to a certain level; beyond that it is only observation of people, brands, culture and stories. Taking this aspect in my mind I have ventured into a weekly publishing of all my observations, stories and ideas.

1. Observations
Stories
Ideas
Week 1: 17th August to 23rd August, 2015
By Aniruddh Naik

2. 1. Mom asking me to download HotStar so that she can watch her serials
on Sundays- not the new ones but the old ones. Change in behaviour?
2. Stories from one of the poorest districts of India- Nabarangpur in
Odisha. A student waits for secondary education and hopes a teacher
would come. Somebody awaits for doctors to treat them. It's easy to
blame the govt. Are we as a generation giving rise t o new doctors not
willing to take responsibility of going to such districts? 159 doctors have
been allocated out of which only 45 are present. Last year 27 were
posted: 3 joined and among the 3, 2 left immediately. Reason: No
electricity and internet connection! So our basic consumption has
changed: bijli aur internet.
3. Also observed that no matter what is the political situation; no matter
what people from your community are fighting for, u will realise what
worries them is how will my child educate-how can help me become
what I am not! How will I earn for his fees
4. Definition of life now: enjoying today. Partying. Lavishly celebrating
birthdays. Weekend getaways
5. I saw a Volkswagen car where on the bonnet it was spelled out!
Karizma, Enticer, Mercedes or any vehicle for that matter has
names/symbols/signs/images/copy of Gods/mother/father.
6. The phenomenon where the new age couple comes home together
in the evening from work. Sometimes the lady has her mother-in-law
who takes care of the house. What if they stay alone? How do they
manage to prepare food? What do they buy? What do they do for
leisure activities?
7. ‘Life mai paisa ho ya na ho, ekdum excitement mai rehneka' 25 years
old, earning 30k per month, repaying an education loan, with a
humble background. Always loves to wear branded shoes, clothes,
watches and goes to movies every weekend with his friends. Two years
of work ex. Now wants to pursue MBA. Interestingly to make his profile
strong and competitive, he's working with an NGO on weekends
8. We lie to ourselves and others. That's why I have never understood the
importance of going to people and asking them to fill up a form. I tell

3. you why this is not a good thing to do. Suppose a guy comes and asks
you don't have a separate room. Point is you live in a 1 room kitchen.
But you will embarrass to share this data with anyone. So you lie that
you have a separate room!
Boys growing up in one room kitchen. Less money to spend on leisure
activities. When he mixes with people.
9. Heard a story from my mother. There has been negligible amount of
rain in North Karnataka. We are staring at drought. Debts will remain
unpaid. Farmers will suicide. Crimes will increase. In fact ut has already.
In Jamankhandi, near Bjiapur, thieves at night rob cattles, stocks and
crops produced. They say robbery is ought to increase if it doesn't rain,
because people have debts to pay and a family to feed. It may also
spread to cities. Crime may increase. Over crowded cities.
10.One of the contributing factors for increase in tourism: alone and in
groups can be attributed to the fact of so many travel blogs and more
importantly the HD Images of the places people visited. Pictures do
speak thousand words. The beauty is captured so beautifully that it
captivates your mind and offers a chance to go and visit; explore;
liberate from the mundane things, at least temporarily.
11.I saw an Amazon delivery van near my house. I had ordered a pen
drive that was to be delivered today. I had been out for lunch and
while back to home I saw a van filled with Amazon products. Assuming
my delivery would be in that van I enquired about the same to the
delivery boy. The guy checked my name on the list and asked what my
product was. I said pen-drive to which he said then it would be
delivered by bike-boys. The guy, in his early 30s probably, owns that
small van and calls himself owner of transports. In Dombivli, where I
reside, daily there are 3 such vans delivering products ordered from
Amazon. Each van carries around 50 items. Therefore total items
delivered per day= 150. There are 15 bikers delivering 50 small items like
pendrive, headsets, memory cards, etc. Hence, the items delivered in
Dombivli West alone is 15*50=750. In total, around 900 items are
delivered per day! A rather conservative town with a large chunk of
middle-class population earning less than on an average, 30k per
month. Shift in behaviour is clear.
12.There’s Vidya helpline that helps students from rural areas to explore
various career opportunities and let them take decision. Offers a simple
solution via phone. To avoid spam calling, they haven’t marketed at all
and only depend on word-of-mouth

4. 13.Mill workers dressed very well because it gave them a sense of ‘Self
Respect’ (Hub Van Wersch)
14.40% of ABDUCTIONS are women for marriage: NCRB
15.Movies makes you crave for a particular food item: Like I heard
someone talking Kung Fu Panda makes her wanna eat ‘Noodles’.
Have to test this hypothesis?
16.An idea! If you want to download an song/file/pdf/video, ask the
people to first tweet/facebook it and then download
17.Senior citizens faced most violence cases in 2014: #1 Maharashtra-620
cases #2 MP – 428 #3 Tamil Nadu-309. Robbery is the prime reason
followed by cheating. Assault is an inevitable evil that comes along
with robbery. Isn’t it clear? That more the people went abroad to make
money, parents were left behind alone to fend for themselves? How
brands can hop in? – Security Personnel companies and Locks/CCTV
home solutions/ Police Patrolling.
So in news, I read something that can be a possible solution for this. In
Mumbai, senior citizens who live alone in big flats have started renting it
out to youngsters below market rate who can act as companions. It
has received a fair amount of success. All they need is
companionship.’ It means more than a medicine to me’. Even we, as
youths, young adults, no matter how busy we are; we keep telling
ourselves we are better off alone and don’t need anyone, deep down
in your heart you yearn for someone who would listen to what you
have to say; appreciate you, criticize you, correct you, loves you, smiles
at you! That‘s called companionship.
18.In Nashik, for Kumbh Mela, local authorities trimmed the Ram Kund, Sita
Kund and Hanuman Kund for controlling the crowd. It wasn’t received
well because, people said each kund has a cultural significance- Ram
is for men, Sita is for women and Hanuman is for sevaks. Now here the
authority tried to do something good for the people and it missed out
to find the cultural significance!
19.‘Whatsapp’- New tool for participative law and order situations. How?
Twitter was rife with a pic of a guy in Colaba who was accused of
masturbating after he saw an expat. Colaba cop arrested him.
Interestingly, the cop was in a whatsapp group along with
businessmen, courier boys, local postal employees, security guards. He
posted the accused guy’s pic on the group and the members gave
leads to nab him who was living in that area only

5. 20.Parents in metros nowadays are encouraging their children to take up
extra-curricular activities. The reasons are: a) to help them focus better
b) improve communication skills c) take off academic pressure. Energy
drink brands can sponsor a few activities. Usually you will find the
reason for this encouragement comes for the fact that all classes like
painting, dancing, singing, martial arts are in the same complex. So
now for e.g. Lodha’s next project for young couple should offer such
classes in the complex or at least do the profiling of all those who
come to buy house.
21.The more we hear about something, the more we accept it. This is
called exposure effect!
22.Lack of Marathi teachers in BMC made them to ask Physical Education
teachers to teach Marathi. Good or Sad?
23.For keeping shoddy contractors away from taking up BMC projects,
dynamic security deposits have been implemented. The lower you bid
more you have to pay security deposits as a percentage of tender.
Smart governance!
24.A high-profile woman who is belongs to the elite class of women. One
look on their thoughts about clothes. ‘I only think of two things when I
buy clothes: comfort and design’. Idea. Positioning for differentiation:
‘Why wear fashion that is not comfortable?’ #ComfortableFashion.
‘You know how kitty party circuit is; everybody turns up wearing same
suit. But this (Pakistani lawn, Gul Ahmed brand) is exclusive’ So they
seek for exclusivity!
25.Concept of Restorative Justice: The family of victim meets the culprit
after the latter gas served his sentence to forgive him. How can brands
try this? After the Maggi fiasco or in similar crisis situation.
26.Increasing number of women in metro cities are visiting pubs and
consuming alcohol. It has also lead to late night hangouts. This has
given rise to new job profile: Women Bouncers. Story of a 28 years old
Nisha hailing from UP, now settled in Delhi. Earns 15+allowances.
Comes from a conservative family where father cut electricity so that
they could not study, get graduated and run away with the boy she
likes. She’s again an M.A in Hindi. Last week I read a story of delivery
boy who in on ecommerce company who was B.A,Hindi. Why these
guys aren’t finding jobs? Soon will they become extinct? Coming back:
Nisha’s neighbours’ attitude changed from ‘pat a nai kaha jat i hai aur
at i itni raat ko kya kart i hai’ to ‘Tere jaisi bet i honi chaiye’ Society does

6. change, only we need to give them time and not lose our self-
confidence
27.UNESCO’S Intangible Cultural Heritage: India’s Bazaar Thatherian in
Jandiala Guru, 10km from Amritsar has found its way along with Turkish
art of marbling and Japanese technique of hand-made paper- Washi.
Why I wrote this? The idea can be providing tourism based on this
UNESCO’s program. It would be different, activity-based; you keep the
culture alive and bring in the exclusivity factor.
28.Mind of Migrant: A farmer earns more now by taking up the job of
security guard at ATM than by farming back in his village. Is survived by
two daughters in the age of 18 & 15. How he got here? His brother-in-
law. What he feels? He’s awestruck with the life in city, misses greenery
of his village and most importantly, wants his daughters to leave village,
stay with him and learn more in the city. Thus he would soon become a
family man, will need to buy a house, have to start saving more for his
daughter’s education and marriage. Will have to provide them with
best of facilities. How can a financial product, affordable housing
scheme manage?
29.In local train, commuters who usually support Modi expressed their
discontent against him. “What has Modi done in one year?
The other guy replied, “He has asked us now to use LED bulbs to save
energy
“What difference does it make to our bills? Our usage of refrigerator,
washing machine, geyser, inverter, fan, TV, computer consumer more
electricity than that of bulbs. So technically bulbs won’t help us!”
Now what Modi was communicating- Majority of bulbs used in India
are tungsten-filament. They are extensively used in Tier 3, 4 and 5 towns
& according to him, it does makes sense to change them into LEDs.