Marketing - The Ramayana Way!!!

In the Ramayana, the sage Vibhandaka raises his son Rishyashringa without knowledge of women. Rishyashringa lives a solitary life with no knowledge of gender. Then one day Shanta, daughter of the Lompada is sent to seduce him. She spend hours with him, first pretending to be a sage, then gradually introducing him to the idea of gender, and finally stirring sensual urges in him.

Eventually Rishyashringa succumbs. He becomes Shanta's husband and she brings him to the city of Lompada where he is welcomed with open arms. As a married sage, he is allowed to conduct yagnas. He conducts one yagna that brings rains to the drought-ridden kingdom of Lompada.

He is then sent to conduct another yagna that enables Lompada's brother, Dashratha, who is childless to become father of four sons, including Ram. The seduction of Rishyashringa is critical for rain to come in Lompada's kingdom and for Dashratha to have children. Rishyashringa represents the customer who has no desire for the product or service or idea we are selling.

To convert him, to seduce him, as Shanta does is a pre-requisite for business. Marketing is about seduction, making the customer of aware of needs he never knew he had. Unless the customer is compelled to share a portion of his wallet (marry Shanta), the business cannot grow (Lompada and Dashrath will not get rain or children).

We can question the morality and ethics of this action, but without seduction there can be no market where products, services and ideas are sold or bought. For generations, Indian kitchens did not have pressure cookers. When they first came into India, no one bought them. No one saw its value.

It cooked food faster and gave the cook more time. But people wondered what the cook would do with the extra time. Besides, experts were convinced the food did not taste as good. So then a marketing campaign was created, one that stated that a husband who loves his wife will buy her a pressure cooker and so make her life a little less stressful.

The seduction had begun. Wives saw pressure cookers as proof of love. The sale of pressure cookers rose phenomenally. Today, pressure cookers are seen as a necessity, hardly a luxury. Rishyashringa had been seduced. Desire is key to business. Without desire, there is no desire for things.

If there is no desire for things, the marketplace cannot exist. Marketing is about being bazaari (a word used with derision in traditional societies), and creating bazaars. Marketplace is where desire is satisfied.

Marketplace is about bhog and bhog is about seduction, where every seller is like Lompada, every product, service or idea is like Shanta and every customer is like Rishyashringa. The point of the market place is to make everyone happy, both buyer and seller. But to succeed, desire has to flourish.