Paying for adjectives
Inflation is certainly a cause of concern. More so, as the prices of commodities and travel keep increasing. And incomes seem like they have a fat ass and are too lazy to move. What were 20–30% hikes before have reduced to a 3–7% today. And resources say, even after dedicated slaving of 5 odd years (yes, this is equivalent to the 15–20 year retention of the yesteryear) in the celebrates IT companies, all they are rewarded with are peanuts.
The worse is not yet begun. Come to think of it and you have suddenly seen packaging go creative and contents reduce in almost everything we buy.
Be it the Soft drinks that have been fleecing us for over a decade, by projecting a carbonated flavored sticky sweet liquid as the power drink, that “clears” our minds or challenges us to do something “toofani”.
The modest pricing of ₹5 for a 250ml drink turned into a pocket pinching 2.5 times for 50ml lesser. Its not ₹10 as the advertise, its an additional ₹3 for cooling charges at Bus termini and Railway platforms. Apparently the soda companies sell the retailers their wares at MRP.
Soon it was the Chocolate companies followed suit by reducing just a couple of grams and adding a fancier outer cover. They stared with card boxes and now fancy the cheaper plastic wrappers. To make it eye pleasing, now that they had to reduce quality and increase profits for their corporate greed, the design suddenly became snazzy and the rather compromised version of the tasty chocolate began being tagged as “new”, “new shape” (wow!) or gained a suffix. As if that was not enough, the latest addition of adjectives (that brought the products another gram or two down of the already 18–20gms), pronounces the chocolate either “crisper”, “softer” or “fresher” if its mint.
Though I don’t have the exact calculation of the reductions handy, I am sure every smart mind recognized the compromise.
So, with flats upgrading to be more state-of-the-art or luxury by the addition of some lights and fans and glass windows instead of the more sturdy wood versions, the FMCG had to learn the con.
The next time you see two versions of the same product, I would suggest using up some grey-cells on what the actual difference costs and how benefiting the rather new version is to both your palate and pocket.
A smart shopper always reads the small fonts and hidden agendas. ☺
