teee teeeeee tooooooooooo teeeee…:)

# the maker is more focused on the content
# the maker has diverted the cost of design to content making it a better product .
# the maker is so supremely confident about the content – that he cares a dime about the packaging.
# the maker makes the product in a small pollution free organic town..where makers are seedha sadha..

Its like you start doubting your thele wala subjiwala and the palak and dhaniya’s, the day he vacuum packs the greens for you..

there is something about design..when the product is expected to be organic..

Can we purposefully design bad design ??..difficult..against human nature..but then..if light can be bent..why not human nature..

Which is why, there is another framework within which you may want to evaluate the design:

– The audience perceives Baba Ramdev as the brand and not Patanjali.
– Patanjali is not competing with the MNCs but working to replace the vast unorganised sector that produces an impressive range of quality organic products from grains to cosmetics.

If you visit any large Khadi outlet and pick up one of the many local brands that retail there, the Patanjali packaging appears to make sense.

Having said that, Khadi’s house brands are quite sophisticated. It would be interesting to find out if they move more than other brands at the outlet and, if a different and a more urbane audience buys them.

In my humble opinion, the reason why the brand simply works is because the rest of the market is saturated and bombarding the public with messaging of “buy me and I’ll change your life”. This usually creates a fantastic space for the “anti-hero” to flourish; we have observed this with the likes of Sprite “Bujhaye only pyaas, baaki all bakwaas”, FOGG (albeit with a “perceived” product innovation – loved how a cheap perfume was positioned as a non-gas deo and rose to market leader status). In the Spanish market, where I currently reside and work, I have also heard some customers, of the leading cheese brand here, say “I like this brand because it does not communicate and lets me decide without manipulation”… maybe a little far away for India at this point though.

Personally, the brand seems not to convey an “ayurvedic” feel very well, but instead communicates naiveté – “I don’t know how to do this marketing-sharketing”. To an audience feeling invaded by communication all around, who do feel more and more manipulated into purchasing things (the big debate on Facebook ads), Patanjali (at the overall brand level) is playing the “no-ploy ploy”. As they expand their product portfolio to perceived non-ayurvedic products (if someone claims their noodles are ayurvedic… even if it were true, the Indian customer may subliminally disagree at some level – decoding the meaning of the word ayurvedic to the Indian customers would probably also show a strong link with Indian… noodles are not). Some products are sub-scripted as ayurvedic, made from ayurvedic ingredients. Loved Sangeeta’s reasons above from nationalism to health and wellness for the purchases and I suspect we may observe a few of those if we researched it.

A question I find intriguing is if the majority of sales, which come from the non-Baba zealots, are repeat purchases or first time trials.

My thanks to Itu for publishing the article that triggered the various points of view in the comments that were interesting to go through. Like Atulit, I would also love to hear more of Itu’s views on what they can do next to their design to further their domination.

I cringe at the packaging, but then, I cringe at the brand and its mnemonic, too.

The point is that “bad” design cannot be a strategy. “Authenticity” could be, “untouched by marketing gimmicks” has worked for many global brands.