Marketing Valentine's Day

As internet penetration rises in India, so does, well, Valentine’s Day penetration. (Do note that all the egregious puns in this ‘tongue-in-cheek’ piece are intended.) Online purchases of adult love toys, especially, spurt in the days leading up to the day of love. Just ask IMbesharam.com . Yes, that exists! Now you know where you can get your naughty appurtenances from, my dear ‘adults only’ friends. And don’t miss their seductive video reviews of whips, chains and more. You’re welcome.

And now everyone is agog over the Bold Care ad featuring Ranveer Singh and porn star Johnny Sins that is about helping a man perform in the bedroom so he can keep his partner satisfied. Quite a radical message in India where men have traditionally cared only about, well, making themselves happy.

It is so typical of us ‘globalised Indians’ to think only of the physical act of lovemaking when talking about Valentine’s Day. No wonder various Indian religio-political bodies have tried to ban this Hallmark Cards holiday. Since globalisation brought it to India, the day has often been marked by violence from them. So, you can be sure that if their members ordered whips and chains online, it would be to chastise people like us, not to pleasure their co-groupies.

Violence is actually in sync with the Roman origins of the celebration. 14th February is the date when two men, both called Valentine, were executed by Roman emperor Claudius II in two different years of the 3rd century. The Catholic church started observing St. Valentine’s Day to mark the martyrdom of their two Valentines. Over time, the holiday got merged with a pre-existing pagan festival of love—one which involved animal sacrifice, whipping, drinking, nudity and a matchmaking lottery. Yes, it was politically incorrect by the standards of today. Just like the naughty statues and texts of Ancient India apparently are.

Having erased Kama Sutra and Khajuraho from our cultural narrative, our moral guardians now focus on forcing girls to tie ‘rakhis’ on the wrists of boys they are found romancing—thus instantaneously turning them into siblings and thereby disqualifying them as lovers. Wow! The amazing power of Indian culture! Globalised youths do not take such attacks lying down, of course. (Or do they?) On one occasion they famously sent 34,000 pink underwear to a religious outfit that was harassing them—a great activation, I must say.

Speaking of activations, a Romanesque matchmaking lottery would be just the kind of thing the online upstarts aimed at Gen Z would go in for today. After all, they are far more direct in their overtures than the more ‘mature’ brands. The latter, on the other hand, attempt to strike a progressive note despite staying in the sanitised candy hearts and cupids territory: A brand of chocolates, for example, has shown in their ad a role reversal—a girl proposing to a boy in the type of grand gesture that is ‘traditionally’ the preserve of boys proposing to girls.

Meanwhile Gen A rails against hotel ads that leave them wondering whether the model is merely a sloppy bruncher or if she is being fed cake by her partner in a let-your-imagination-run-wild sort of way. To avoid upsetting these souls, the Valentine’s Day ad I choose as my favourite bares no flesh. It portrays nothing more than a coupling, erm, couple of squeaky-clean chairs. Who could object to some innocent wood furniture shot in pure morning light? Umm, did someone say morning wood?

In the prematurely abbreviated lingo of Gen Z, happy VD to all!

— Sumanto Chattopadhyay

This is an updated version of an article I wrote for ET BrandEquity .