Just the header of this post could make you wonder, how can I say this when the retail sector is something that is still catching up in kerala and the product penetration is so low across the geography. Well this post is to do with another dimension of the malayalee psyche.

The average malayalee is born by default into a society which follows the ‘herd mentality’. The ultimate ‘right’ thing to do here is what everybody else is doing. To quote a few examples, there was this time when certain border 2 start hotels started mushrooming on the sides of some of our major highways. The characteristic of these ‘star’ hotels where that they all were geographically just too wrong, no one would ever need to stay the night at ‘that’ place for any reason. All these hotels were garishly painted on the outside. They had to have green, lime yellow and orange on the facade and 5 cheap satin flags fluttering in front of them. There had to be a ‘coffee shop’ on the ground floor which on the inside was just another average ‘bakery’. Now when 2 of them came up, within the next 6 months this sight was soon dotting the entire stretch of highways as common as the ‘tea shops’. Apart from this niche example if we look at everyday things like the scooters, the way brides have to be dressed, the toothpaste we use, the style of architecture of every new house, the cars that sell in kerala, the brand of washing soap used….. it all points out to one obvious fact.

If you have a product that needs a ‘market test’, dump it into kerala. Grab some primetime TV ad space between those serials OR reality shows. Get a dozen ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ to start using it (attaching some medical benefit to the product is a sure shot at achieving this) and by the time 4 marriages are over in that area, you will have 100% market cap in all households. The younger generation might object but then in kerala the products we use become part of our moral fabric. So all good respectable households have to brush their teeth with ‘colgate’. If you use ’501 bar soap’ openly to do laundry then you are a ‘low class’ family (its okay to make the maid use it though) If you use fabric softeners then you are a wasteful and extravagant family (its okay to use ‘Mr. Wash’ or the other local brands). Once you have captured this segment of the market in kerala. You would have achieved market cap since markets trends are viral in kerala.

Tags: consumer, Kerala, market, product

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