The Baffling Buffet Effect

How do you react in a buffet? What do you feel like doing when your sense of smell and sight are allured or literally challenged with a vast array of gastronomic delights within the easy reach of your hands and mouth? Think about it as I share my own experiences.

Happy birthday dear customer!

No wonder we have become a ‘like’ generation whereby we limit our interactions and expressions to our friends and families through Facebook’s ‘like’ buttons only. Too busy we are sometimes even to post a comment, or a message in the inbox, let alone picking up the phone and chatting for nothing for a while. That is how some friendship has become, while the number of 'friends' in your Facebook list keeps growing, what an irony. So I knew that way that my friend Harun is busy with his life and work in Finland and we never communicated for more than a couple of years now. Everybody is busy. So when he finally decided to show up (on Facebook that is) with a wish on my birthday, all this bitter and void feeling of ‘not being in touch’ disappeared. I was wondering if its true to some extent that people in general are more sensitive, or vulnerable or receptive to attention, or atleast they expect to be remembered on their birthdays. I don’t know if its true for all ages or all gender or for all consumer in all countries or not, may be it’s a human thing that exists sub-consciously even if we consciously deny it. What do you think about it?


In the same note if you notice that your date of birth is one of the most sensitive information companies can collect while you subscribe to their products or services. How many of those companies actually do something with that piece of very personal and unique information of yours when the day actually arrives? Other than letting the data lie dormant in the company’s member database, wouldn’t it be nice if the company could do something to make your day more special to you? Say for example, you get a text from your mobile operator on your birthday exactly when the clock strikes 12 AM saying, “Happy Birthday Asif, you are given 100 taka of free talk time to enjoy on your special day as a gift from Grameen Phone and its staff. Enjoy!’. How would you feel if the brands you love return the same on a day which is very special to you? Similarly the restaurants you visit, the food malls you go to, if at any time they have collected your date of birth, they have all the more reasons to try to connect to you on a personal basis, so that they can send you some gifts in the form of freebies, vouchers to spend or any special discounts for you only valid for that day. The companies should remember however that they should not take this day as another opportunity to push sell or promote a new product, rather the focus should be more on celebrating the customer, his/her loyalty to the brand all through out. One might argue that what happens if birthdays of 10000 customers fall on one day? Or you might argue that this is extra cost for the company in terms of customer service. In that case, its always a good idea may be to either randomise this birthday special treatment within a limit of customers which don’t dent the company’s budgets. But the fact is, its better to communicate to atleast some chosen customers on their birthdays rather than not communicating to anyone at all.


It does not require any market research to predict that consumptions tend to be higher right after monthly pay days. Similarly it’s a general assumption that consumers as a community might be more prone to buying your product during community events such as Eid, Puja, National festivals etc. but if you intend to get connected to users on a more individual level, its worthwhile to plan your activities surrounding their birthdays. Every customer feels like a king for atleast that one day, and your brand can certainly make an impression by showing up with a nice little gift of thanks or appreciation. And finally for those Bangladeshi consumers who are celebrating their birthday today and reading this post, wishing you a very happy birthday and happy consumer experience with Bangladeshi brands!

Riding a CNG for better reasons: Part 2

Incase you haven’t read the Part 1, here it is.

The first idea that comes to my mind is regarding mobile top-ups. All our mobile operators have successfully managed to increase their retailer network by collaborating with small shop owners in urban and rural Bangladesh. That way the retailers have another way of increased income through flexiloads, i-topups etc. Why not include the CNG walas in this scheme? If you are having an important conversation while on the move in a CNG and suddenly run out of credit, you can simply get it flexi-loaded from an affiliated CNG wala. That way you don’t have to disrupt your journey, look for an approved retailer and then top up your credit. This will also create commission based income for the CNG walas. However one counter argument to this idea is that, first the traffic jams in Dhaka are so notorious and choked that you can easily decide to get out of the CNG, get a flexiload and come back to your vehicle still finding it to be inching amidst the mindless traffic in the city. Female passengers might not be very inclined to give their mobile numbers to flexi-loader CNG walas due to fear of mobile abuse. Nevertheless, its just an idea worth considering.

The second idea in this line is up for charities/NGOs. Say an NGO decides to partner with a CNG owners committee which has say 500 drivers. The NGOs will be allowed to put promotional/motivational advertisements inside the CNGs urging passengers to donate by sending text to a certain shortcode. Incase someone does donate, a portion of that could be shared with the prompting CNG wala. Assuming that they themselves comprise as an important target audience for delivering of any social message related with say maternal or child health, AIDS, primary education etc. they can become advocates for not only the cause, but can play a role in motivating, urging passengers to donate for the issue. Albeit they have their financial incentives embedded in this model, but atleast it will be meant to serve better purposes. The NGO will need to take service from an intermediary mobile service provider to take care of the mobile based donation, rules regulations etc. according to BTRC rules. More on mobile donations, mobile marketing in later posts.

The third idea relates to urban retailing powered with mobile technologies and the CNG walas. Consider the following scenarios.

1.You get into a CNG asking it to take you to Banani 11. The CNG wala agrees and also checks that he is affiliated with Rosh (Sweet shop) and also to ‘Shada Kalo’ (Clother retailer) in the same area.

2.CNG wala informs you that incase you want to make a purchase from Rosh or Shada Kalo, he can offer you 5% discount provided he sends you a text with the timestamp and his unique ID, and you have to make the purchase within 30 minutes and present the SMS at the counter to staff.

3.You agree to the offer and receive the text from him. So you have his phone number, the time stamp and his ID and your countdown to purchase starts!

4.You decide to make a purchase from Rosh (buy sweets) within 30 minutes of the validity of that token and present the SMS at the counter. You can forward the same SMS to 10 of your friends and if they make purchase within that timeframe from the same retailer in the same process, they get the same discounts or same special offers.

5.Staff at Rosh checks the timestamp, the ID and the number and offers you 10% discount.

6.Staff asks you to forward the SMS to their number and that information of purchase/discount gets stored into the service providers database. Rosh shares 5% of the purchase with the service provider who in turn gives 2.5% to the CNG wala. Either this can be credited as air time or the CNG wala may be allowed to redeem the accumulated commission from the service provider who may be managing more than one interested retailers.

Why would a passenger be interested?

Discounts. There is no question of lengthy loyalty to be shown to the retailer, its all based on the fact that a passenger just happens to be in the same location as the retailer, a good enough reason to turn into a consumer and make the purchase, may be an impulse one.

Why would a CNG wala be interested?

Commission. They will have one more reason to ferry passengers to their destinations, hoping that incase the passengers make any purchase from any of the subscribed retailers in that area, his chances of earning some commissions on the passengers purchase are kept alive.

Why would a retailer be interested?

The possibility of getting more footprints in the premises, more purchases from new and old customers with a ‘location and timestamp’ catch in-built. The fact that the SMS tokens will be short-lived will be re-assuring to the retailer that quick sales take place.

Certainly this is a very naïve attempt to conceptualise the idea of location based retail marketing involving the cabbies, in case of Bangladesh, who make a major portion of the urban poor. While the west is still playing with innovative location based loyalty services through mobile such as Foursquare, we can still attempt to bank on what already exists in the country, no matter how basic and simple it is, as sending and receiving SMS and facilitating sales. I have mentioned earlier about the possibility of introducing location based services which will be extremely important and revolutionary from a retail marketing perspective in Bangladesh. Until that gets materialized, we can still ride and drive a CNG for better reasons, while Liton can continue his amorous adventures and still make a discounted purchase, all by riding his favourite public transport in Dhaka city.

Riding a CNG for better reasons: Part 1

I am convinced that my Chhoto Chachchu, may be unknowingly, was one of the leading pioneers in promoting and practicing the concepts of ‘Liton er flat’ in Bangladesh since late eighties. When I look back now some 22 years ago, I realise that the frequenting of the Dhaka hotties (omuk apu, tomuk aunty) and the warm welcome by Chachchu in his mysterious, dodgy private room in the house was nothing but the budding concept of ‘Liton er flat’, the fact and phenomenon later exposed in the hit Bangla film ‘Bachelor’. I am even surprised and happy to discover that even a fan page on Facebook exists for ‘Liton er flat’ where they ask ‘what kind of services you wish for in Lit’s flat?’ (lol). We can discuss however about the concept, emergence, need, use, risks etc. of this innovative, productive (!) ‘flat’ in a later post.

What makes me look back to this is also the fact that Chachchu used to ask (or rather command) me from the realm of his own 'Liton er flat' sometimes to get him a ‘baby’ with ‘curtains’. Now don’t be mistaken by this ‘baby’, this ‘baby’ was not any of Chachchu’s ‘babies’ i.e. hot/spicy Dhaka drop-deads. Before the arrival of environment friendly green colored CNG auto-rickshaws, we used to call the three-wheelers ‘baby taxis’ or simply ‘baby’. So Chachchu used to yell for a ‘baby’ when his ‘baby’ needed to be dropped off ‘Shayer jao taratari ekta baby nie asho…porda wala anba!!’.


So that was my first orientation to the innovative usage of baby taxis in Dhaka, that other than carrying passengers around, they can be ideal places for last minute intimacy on the move between lovers of Dhaka...Liton er CNG??, as long as there are curtains and covers ofcourse. Although I remained intrigued for long time wondering how come Chachchu’s ravishing hot-heeled guests are so ‘parda-nasheen’ that they preferred ‘parda’ in baby-taxis too. Eventually I realised that this ‘parda’ was meant for other purposes which Chachchu knew and practiced better. So he kept on doing what he enjoyed doing best and I grew up to test it on my own too. I realised however that those were risky ventures if the ‘baby-wala’ happened to be a moral police and/or the time and fate was just perfect for getting mugged too. So after knowing three-wheelers as the passenger carrier and ‘vehicle of love’, I also realised that these can be used to be mugged or to mug unsuspecting innocent passengers too. Time went by, baby-taxis got replaced with CNG auto-rickshaws and we replaced ‘baby’ darling with an acronym…‘CNG’. And as Dhaka city got busier, traffic jams increased and kept on proving how horrible the urban planning in the city is and how much time, productivity, mood we keep wasting stuck inside environment friendly CNG auto-rickshaws. Sometimes I used to doze off in such situations, sometimes throw glances left and right to spot any potential Dhaka Eves in the air conditioned car stuck side by side, sometimes used to curse my fate and the system that how severely its choking people’s productivity, mood, time, etc. However if every (black) cloud has silver lining, was wondering if there is anything worthwhile doing while travelling in CNGs in Dhaka? Anything we could think of in terms of urban advertising on the go? Anything revenue generating involving the CNG owners or the drivers? (to be continued)

Retail Love: Free Bus Service

As a shorts-donning young boy, I used to ask my lungi-donning abba, "If we ever go wearing this to Sonargaon hotel, will they let us in?". Abba used to casually and confidently reply, "If we go wearing a lungi, they might put us in a special cell and never let us in there. But with shorts, you might get in". Same with cars and baby-taxis (CNGs!) I guess. I always used to think that if I ever end up at Hotel Sonargaon by a baby-taxi, the gatekeepers of the then posh hotel would not give me as warm a welcome as I would get if I would have got off a car. One day our pilot Shafiq (our chauffeur) was asked to carry out the week's grocery shopping from Nandan. As a preparation, he then decided to shed his lungi and put on trousers instead, he also insisted that he be allowed to take the car along with him. Upon asking why this ornamental preparation for merely doing a grocery shopping at Nandan, he replied "Bhaiya oigula borolok er jayga, lungi poira ar haita gele dhukte dibo na" (Bro those are places where the well-off shop, they won't let me in if I walk in and that in a lungi'). Funny how even big retail malls such as Nandan might have a perception of being as posh and exclusive as five star hotels, barring entry to those who don't comply with unwritten dress codes or vehicle status quo (no car no entry...wearing lungi no entry).

I wish how nice it would be if Nandan or Agora could come up with their branded mini-buses to ferry customers from different locations of the city (or even from outskirts) straight at the doorstep of their respective retail fortresses. If they are wary of the fact that there are too many free-ride lovers in Dhaka city who might take them for a ride by travelling in the vehicle to go to other destinations or disappearing from the entrances, then they can atleast provide free transport (as free love from the brand) to those customers who have just finished shopping and are waiting frustratingly on the streets to convince a CNG or a stubborn yellow cabbie to take them back to their destinations loaded with a whole range of shopping bags. So say for example a bus could run from the Rifle's Square branch of Agora every 30 minutes to cover areas such as Dhanmondi and Mirpur and selected points en route. Similarly another bus can cover the Gulshan branch and areas such as Uttara or even Gazipur. Shoppers who have made a purchase of a minimum amount (say 100 Taka) míght qualify to get on the buses by showing their proof of purchase.

I think the feeling that the brand cares for the customer even after they are done with the shopping is of great importance. Customers without any private vehicles can shop happily and heavily without the anxiety of how to get back home through the horrifying traffic jams of Dhaka city, worse even if the weather is bad too. As their favorite retail shop has air-conditioned mini-buses stand by every half an hour to ferry them for free.

Ikea, the giant world famous retailer of house-hold products provides similar service all around the world to its customers for free and this act of free love from the brand is well appreciated by its customers. As we see branded mini-buses from leading telcos in the city ferrying their employees, we stare and try to see the faces through the tinted glasses of the priveleged employees and wonder how nice it must be to work in those companies. Similarly we will stare at Nandan or Agora branded mini-buses filled with happy customers and keep wondering how nice it must be to shop at those places. Even if the retail shops take you for a ride in terms of product prices, atleast they would offer you a free ride back home with all the shopping. Also, from outside, no one can figure out if the customers had a private car or not, or wearing a lungi or trouser. Provided they let us in in the first place in a lungi, rest can be a happy experience till the end.

image : http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3018/2605247653_ef9a8f64b0.jpg

Retail Love: Personalized Receipts

How often do you actually scrutinize the receipt you receive after paying for your essential shoppings at Nandan, Agora, PQS, MeenaBazaar etc.? Chances are very high that not many of us want to read it line by line, as it bears nothing more than the testimony of the payer being poorer at that instance. Was wondering would it make any difference if the malls would consider pepping up the plain and boring act of handing over receipts with statutory texts, legal terms, promotional items etc. by also doing the following.

1. How about asking for name of say every 10th customer and typing it in before printing the receipt. So that the receipt would read, 'Thank you (Asif, Sonia, Rahat) for shopping at Agora with us today'. Will that add a bit of personalization?

2. How about random motivational quotes or 'On this day in history' information on the slips? One might argue that what is the relevance of putting these unrelated information in a receipt? Well that exactly is the point. The objective is to divert buyer's attention to the possibly not so good feeling of becoming poorer by some hundred taka, to something lighter, entertaining and short-living, something which is good as it happens only at the bill counter or at the queue.

3. How about having a webcam installed at every till and targeting customers especially with children to make a pose and smile as the checking clerk pushes the final button for the bills and prints the receipt with a photo icon in it? Its likely that children might find this idea of printing free photos on receipts very exciting and persuade parents to visit that shop everytime, for a reason...or without any...next time.

4. How about asking customers in the receipts to return a collection of say 10 past receipts within 2 months to be able to enter into some sort of lucky draw, free gift voucher or some sort of 'free love' from the retail shop?

5. I am convinced that I suffer from short term memory (ref. Hindi movie Ghajini :) ) as I still have the habit of writing 'things to buy from kacha bajar' in a small piece of paper mixing Bangla and English as my preparatory work. I must admit that I still don't know the names of many spices and vegetables in English and I end up writing it in Bangla in my shopping list such as 'hing, jabitri, jaifol, mushurir dal, tej pata etc'. I always mix up between cardamom, cinnamon, cummins etc. and still function better by writing and reading dhonia, jira, gorom moshla, elachi, darchini. How about asking customers if they want the receipt to be printed in Bangla or English? Is it too much of an overhead or are there too many software complications to achieve this? I reckon not.

6. What about Lazz Pharma and bigger medicine retailers printing out random health and care tips on their receipts?

This simple act of doing something new with something as old and as mundane as a shopping receipt might help those pieces of paper from not being trashed through the car window or to the nearest litter bin along the way. Also, since retail shopping has become more of an experience worthwhile, so there is no harm in giving customers new experiences through something as small as a receipt.

image: http://digitaldoorway.net/images/walmart-666-receipt.jpg