Welcome to The Marketer Who Went Off Consumption! Subscribe to my RSS feed in a feed reader or by e-mail and you'll never miss any chapters from my year-long blog-as-a-book experiment on why we choose to consume, or not.
I first heard about Patricia Martin and her book RenGen (Renaissance Generation) while I was listening to Susan Bratton’s Dishy Mix, one of my favorite podcasts.
The basic premise of RenGen is that we are about to see a cultural movement that is similar in scope and scale to the Renaissance. This movement will be spearheaded by a sophisticated and demanding group of ‘cultural consumers’ who are expressing themselves creatively and organizing themselves into communities using the powerful tools provided by social media. To succeed in this context, brands will need to transform big ideas into reality (idea brands), build compassionate relationships (compassion brands), provide the tools to remove anxiety (anxiety brands), fuse opposites into a holistic collage and provide authentic experiences.
Wednesday, May 14th, 2008
I spent last Sunday at Crossword book store in Kemps Corner, reading Timothy Ferris’s ‘The 4-Hour Work Week’.
Given Tim’s ‘live it up’ image, I expected it to be a book about having more; instead, it turned out to be a book about finding happiness in having less.
The basic premise of the book is that we have a choice between work and leisure. An income of $100000 a year means very different things when it requires a 60 hour work week and a 40 hour work week. At more than 60 hours a week, typical of Asia and America, it inevitably results in stress-related health disorders. At less than 40 hours a week, typical of Europe, it results in a happy work-life balance. At 4 hours a week, typical of Tim, it means nirvana.
When you can’t buy things, you learn to ask for things, and when you ask for things, you learn something about yourself and others.
Throughout last week, I have been asking my friends to make me aloo parathas.
It started last Sunday, when Kanishka and Avantika came over for lunch. My cooking range is limited to pasta and pulao so, if you eat at my place regularly, you might find the menu a little repetitive. Knowing that, I had made two different types of pasta — farfalle, bell peppers and spring onions in Mexican salsa sauce and casarecce and baby corn in cheese and wine sauce — and added mushrooms on toast as a side dish. However, I wasn’t really surprised when, five minutes into lunch, Avantika took a break from picking at her food and asked me —
I haven’t watched TV or read newspapers or magazines for more than a year now, with one exception — twice a month, I stop by at the roadside magazine stall opposite my house and hand over thirty rupees for a copy of Time Out Mumbai.
However, even though I have been buying the magazine for almost two years now, I only started to think of it as a necessity when I started my experiment.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Sean Penn’s ‘Into the Wild’ is a brilliant movie adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s bestselling book about the real-life (mis)adventures of Christopher McCandless.
I had been dying to watch ‘Into the Wild’ ever since I read about it in the April 2008 issue of David Report. So, I was delighted when GK brought over the DVD for our Saturday Night Movie Marathon session. It is such sweet serendipity that reaffirms my faith that the universe reaches out to give you whatever you ask for.
The Saturday Night Movie Marathon turned out to be exactly what I needed after working all day on another big presentation.
To begin with, fewer people turned up — and, while twenty is perhaps the right number for a party — five works better for a movie marathon.
Then, GK turned up with a few DVDs of his own and we decided to leave aside my lineup of classic World War 2 movies and watch ‘Into the Wild’ instead.
Saturday, April 19th, 2008
Perhaps the biggest challenge of being off consumption is the difficulty of maintaining an active social life.
When you take away the context in which social interactions happen — eating or drinking out, or going out for a movie or a play — you basically make it really difficult for people to spend time with you.
A home-cooked meal, or a walk along the sea, works well once or twice, but, eventually, your friends are likely to tire of such simple pursuits, even if you don’t.
The other night, a lady friend was combing her hair in my bathroom when she decided to investigate the state of my toiletries instead.
She made appreciative sounds when she saw my Bvlgari body lotion and Burberry perfume, but was much perplexed when she couldn’t find any aftershave lotion.
Here’s a more or less faithful reproduction of the conversation that followed –
Lady Friend: (clearing her throat) Which aftershave lotion do you use?
Gaurav: Actually, I don’t use one anymore.
Lady Friend: (resuming her inspection of my toiletries) Oh! So, you use an aftershave gel. Those are good too.
Yes, that’s what I said –
I’m the king of the world!
Yes, you heard it right —
I’m the king of the world!
Once more, with a little ‘yay!’ at the end —
I’m the king of the world!Yay!
I hope you remember how it feels to stand up and shout it out –
I’m the king of the world!
If you have forgotten, here’s Leonardo DiCaprio himself to remind you –
King Of The World - Titanic - Click here for more free videos
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
The problem with being off consumption is that you can no longer buy a ‘treat’ for yourself in order to snap out of a bad mood. Being off consumption means no comfort food, no self-gifting, no temporary postponement of pain by the rush of adrenalin triggered off by that perfect purchase.
But I knew that when I went off consumption. I knew that, to resist the temptation to buy, I’ll basically need to be happy all the time. I also knew that I’ll face my first big test as soon as I hit a bad day.
Why would a twenty-something, single, eligible, upwardly mobile, IIM-educated marketer on the corporate fast-track in India's business capital decide to go 'off consumption' for a year?
I'm a marketer by profession and a poet at heart. For more, read 