Collective psychology

 

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Reply to one of the scientific advisers to GOI who send a MSG from USA to us 

 

Thanks a lot Doctor Guruji for your efforts, observations, and suggestions.

 

Approaching ethnic stores, Indian grocery outlets will be of no use.  

 

In any place, more so in a new area, trying to offer any product, especially a product to a group that is familiar with the product,  without knowing their ( that area/location specific) competitive landscape will be tough. 

 

For example, let me use a very visible phenomenon, US of A never tried to sell any brand of idlies, dosas, pongal in India or any type of bread based products to the Western citizens in India, instead they started Coca cola, Pizza, KFCs, Subways etc which tried to fly over the native food items because they were not only new items but had new flavours ( for Indians) like Oregano, Periperi, Olives,bell pepper etc ( they never use green chilli, ginger, asafoetida etc). 

 

If we try to sell any kind of bread, pasta, noodles, or biscuit and whatever elixir that we think it may contain, still, we may not be able to make any inroads. 

 

As for ethnic stores and India groceries the less said the better. Most NRIs who buy there may bargain worse than what you may find in Palika bazar and may pay in instalments and are often Not Required Indians ( the fact is most of them prefer their parents or grandparents to buy locally and to despatch by courier as majority are middle class or upper middle class Indians who have excelled academically, worked hard and migrated for a better salary package to lead a different life style along with their inherent atavistic tendency to save and bargain- we cannot blame them , all of us would have done the same thing). 

 

Art, culture, and food must be packaged always with some amount of familiarity which attracts  the attention of the individual then gradually entice them with impactful flavours, fragrances, and colours.

 

Besides, every society has some collective preferences, we in India, prefer excessive colourful masala in anything and everything ( I can write a book on this) whereas, the Westerners operate like blinkered horses, if they like a particular flavour, taste or colour they don't like anything else mixed up, even SUBWAY had a problem using multiple flavoured sauces initially until it landed in India. 

 

Let me use a known example again, already half Europe witnesses mostly grey skies and dark clouds where darkness descends by afternoon , most months, despite that it is deemed fit for men and they too prefer wearing only black or grey coats for every major occasion be it marriage or funeral. 

 

Collective psychology is often a mix of several decades of nurtured selective amnesia and collective indifference. That's why real Harmony, Unity and Peace remain a utopia like fully compatible  coexistence of husband and wife ( where a lot of things are conflated to present a picture of happy wedded life with multitude of adjustments, compromises, suppressed anger, disappointments, delusions, imaginations, dreams, hyper expectations etc)

 

Add to these, there are stringent regulations, shelf-life aspects etc.

 

 

So, we may either focus on niche products and areas and most importantly quality. Quality is the best brand ambassador.