“Why did I buy this?”

Often it happens that after I come back from a weekend shopping trip I ponder and question myself that why did I buy a particular brand and not the other one. Earlier I used to think I am the only confused one, but, trust me, I am not the only one! I spoke to a few friends, did a bit of google search and found that it’s a common problem. The next obvious question that  popped in my head was why do we buy all this stuff afterall? Is it the need? The necessity? or simply an urge to exploit our increased spending power.

After a lot of contemplation and observation, I came up with just one logical answer – IT IS ALL ABOUT MARKETING!

Just have a look at all the stuff you have bought till date and ask yourself why did you buy this particular item? The answer would be because it’s the best and also one of the family friend or relative used it. The neighbor has the same car, Arvind has the same watch or even I saw it on TV it’s the best brand to wash my clothes. (Reference Marketing –referred by someone or just out of sheer jealousy)

I myself have realized that I tend to buy stuff which has the best marketing in terms of TV commercials, Radio Jingles, better placement in the malls, better and attractive offers and, of course, the strategic pricing of the product which gives me the feeling of becoming rich eventually by saving that 3.99 rupees on buying a larger packet of detergent, which I later realize is useless as all my clothes go to a local laundry (dhobi).

Marketing is the only reason that allows the existence of so many brands for a single product . Otherwise there should have been just two varieties a good one and a not so good one. Owing to a great marketing strategy, there are many companies offering products under each category. There are at least 20 kind of glycerin (translucent) soaps, 50 types of low cost soaps, around 10 types of anti bacterial soaps and 5 types of luxury soaps; still all the soaps sell,  why? Because each company has a different marketing strategy which involves capturing our hearts and hence our pockets through some big movie star like Shah Rukh or Kareena or making us believe that the revolutionary technology used in the soap would make us a different person altogether in just one bath; a single spray of the deodorant could end all our troubles of finding a sexy girl friend (I am still waiting for this to actually happen though).

What I mean to say is do we read the components of a product before buying or do we blindly believe the marketing strategist of different companies. The search goes on …