The curious Marketer: Of Bhaskar Bhat’s brightly coloured socks, Champagne modaks and more.

Curiosity is a human trait and a virtue. It is a desire to lean more. Learning leads to generation of new ideas resulting also in innovation and clarity of thoughts. The overall effect is improvement. Curiosity is also a great source of intellectual engagement.

Books from successful marketing practitioners in India are rare. The launch of The Curious Marketer : Expeditions in Branding and Consumer Behaviour by Harish Bhat is therefore a welcome step.

Harish Bhat is the Brand custodian and member Group Executive council at Tata Sons. He is also the chairman of the board at Tata Coffee Limited.

The book has six sections dedicated to Places, Products, People, Festivals, Product promotions and Consumer behaviour.

The articles in the book have been compiled from The Hindu Business line’s marketing supplement CATALYST.

Written in an anecdotal and conversational style, The Curious marketer is a great source of information on all marketing related topics.

Though living in Mumbai, I did not know that the Bhau Daji Lad museum in Byculla was earlier known as Victoria and Albert museum. I also discovered a brand of carbonated coffee, Café Cuba and Samoa air - world’s first airline that charges travellers by their body weight.

The article Why Marketers Should Visit Museums is interesting and insightful. Museums are a great source of historically accurate information and great platforms for storytelling. Harish elucidates how the British museum uses small easy-to- read story cards in large fonts, bringing to life the stories of diverse exhibits ranging from Berlin wall to the bible of Martin Luther king.

According to Harish, marketers need to tell captivating and yet simple stories through every advertisement, packaging design, website or tweet.

In the Products section, Harish’s keen sense of observation becomes evident when he describes Bhaskar Bhat’s personal traits and the brightly coloured socks that the latter has started wearing.

He has shared the success and the philosophy behind Swedish socks and hosiery company Happy Socks. Socks that make you smile being the brand’s motto.

I could relate to this example as I was introduced to Happy Socks by my son in law Amey who gifted me a pair.

 We're beginning to see more people wearing socks that reflect their personalities. And if there's one thing we know for sure, it's that when these wardrobe essentials are noticeable, they really make a statement!

Colourful socks can also be a symbol of professional success in the corporate world. “The louder the socks, the bigger the wallet.”

Harish elaborates on his conversation with Bhaskar who said that the colourful socks provide a focal point that helps him concentrate better, come up with ideas and evolve solutions.

Recently, Raymond has launched brightly coloured socks that are doing well. Harish feels that there is an opportunity for brands to collaborate with reputed designers such as JJ Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani to develop premium coloured designer socks.

The foodie that he is Harish writes fondly about Champagne modaks and single malt halwas. He highlights the brand building opportunities that exist for low involvement product categories such as banana chips, honey, mangoes and coconuts.

In the chapter titled: Timeless Lessons from a Titan, Harish pays tribute to the late Xerxes Desai for his courage. His bold decision to launch a quartz watch brand ignoring conventional wisdom ehich stated that it would be safe to stay with mechanical watches.

Xerxes Desai’s aesthetics, creativity and imagination are exemplary. They resulted in a fertile relationship with Ogilvy and Mather. In a country where virtually no one understands or follows western classical music, he readily agreed to the use of Mozart’s twenty fifth symphony as the signature music for Titan. The results were spectacular and its impact lasts even today.

Watch industry professionals will love to read about Fastrack and Raga. The former achieved cult status due to its unconventional shapes and designs coupled with the bold communication campaign Move ON. It encouraged young consumers to challenge the outmoded societal norms and accept LGBT or alternative sexuality as a fact of life.

Titan Raga on the other hand created India’s first watch brand specifically for women. It married western concept with designs rooted in Indian traditions.

Harish has also written about minimalist Scandinavian watch brands such as Obaku, Jacob Jensen and Skagen with reference to Titan Edge.

I in particular found the information on Geneva based brand Romain Jerome particularly interesting. The brand’s limited edition moon dust DNA watches are said to contain actual dust particles from moon rocks and the outer case of these watches is crafted with metal from the original Apollo XI spacecraft and shuttle.

In order to stay relevant marketing professionals need to learn skills. According to Harish three skills appear to be important and they are Digital, Data and Design.

As most marketers are deficient in these areas, Harish recommends them to improve their Curiosity Quotient (CQ) .

The first step towards curiosity is to be aware and accept that you do not know it all.

A marketer needs to adopt a childlike curiosity, listen, Read, Read and Read.

He suggests reverse mentoring where senior managers interact and exchange ideas with the young digital natives. This process is mutually beneficial.

A true leader that he is, Harish has acknowledged the contribution of his team members who have helped him write these wonderful stories at the end of each chapter.

Just when I thought I missed the humour associated with Harish’s writing (with reference to his articles in MINT) ,  I came across the epilogue.

Gayatri H Bhat, Harish’s daughter has written the epilogue in Bhat’s characteristic, signature style.

She seems to have inherited not just Harish’s alma mater but his tongue in cheek humour as well.

As a movie buff, what I missed in the book are the examples of films. Films are a great source of enjoyment, creative inspiration and learning.

What the films three idiots did for Ladakh tourism is a case in point. In three idiots the climax is shot at Pan Gong Lake.

When millions watched the film, they became curious about the lake’s location. This resulted in increase in tourist traffic to this breathtakingly beautiful location.

What one film did to the tourism of Ladakh would have taken a multi media advertising campaign costing crores of rupees.

The best time to catch up on reading is when you are travelling for work. Pick up this book from the book store at the airport the next time you fly out of Mumbai...

I did just that and have gifted a few copies to my dear ones….