Valentine Day Corpotate Strategy Awareness

V day was this week. The annual event is named after St Valentine, who is said to have fallen in love with a jailer's daughter while serving time for arranging secret marriages. He supposedly sent her a love letter signed 'from your Valentine', on February 14th. What a romantic. St Valentine's day became officially enshrined in English calendars when Henry VII declared it Valentine's Day. These days, as we all know, there's at least a modicum of pressure to come up with the goods on V Day. Some couples like to splash the cash, buying expensive jewellery or clothes, eating at high end restaurants and drinking fine wine; others play it understated, perhaps cooking a special meal and gifting flowers and chocolates.

Valentines day, has become more of a fiesta for corporations to exploit and dip their hands in, marketed in the name of positive emotion, spreading love and expressing your feelings, and overall good vibes whilst hidden under a facade of profit seeking and false hopes. Yes, that's addressed to the inner romantic in every young lad's heart. And yes, it is gut wrenching to readers who've already realized by now that buying the girl of your dreams a plastic diamond ring at Archie's for Rs. 250 and a box of expensively gift wrapped Ferrero-Rochers chocolates will result in you living the perfect life with two kids and a dog called Sammy. However, I'm not negating the fact that expressing your affection for your significant other can be a truly rewarding experience.

There are plenty of people who have hit the lottery and are happy with their loved ones. But that didn’t necessarily happen through spending money on perceived likes and being too shit scared to say what you feel. That's where advertising companies saw a window of opportunity. Anyone who has seen movies like Fight Club, Taxi Driver, 500 Days of Summer or the likes is all too familiar with the angst of being targeted by corporations and false hopes. The few unawoken souls roaming this mad city called Earth are the ones this is addressed to. We've all seen it. Advertisements suggesting that buying that new car, that new house, or buying that new diamond necklace will make you or someone else happy. It is all but a sale.

A sale of an idea. Psychologists call it 'Embedding'. It is our tendency to latch onto the first piece of information offered to you, and which leads to irrational decisions. Tough break if you're on an allowance. Advertising and marketing are deployed to target and profit off this bias in cognition by trying to convince you that you need what they're selling because what they have is what you need. It is why a western tradition like Valentines day has travelled to our country along with globalization, of course. Now that we understand the inner workings of evil corporations, let us look at some fundamental truths. The turnovers for the gift segment at Archie's is 12735. 26 lakhs. Turnovers for greeting cards is 3736. 41 lakhs. The overall turnover of the company itself is roughly 19472. 93 lakhs. These numbers may seem underwhelming at first; they may be attributed to the rise in sensible human beings and the fact that India's market sense is moving to e-commerce over physical marketplaces. Over on e-commerce platforms, as of 2016, a survey by Qwikcilver Gift Card projected a 400% rise in the gift card segment itself, covering 400 big and small scale towns, as well as the rise in online traffic to their e-commerce site, Woohoo.

The Qwikcilver founder reported sales of 3-4 million cards a month on average. People would rather give gift cards and pre-printed gifts over gifts like cash. 90% of people surveyed said they received a gift they didn't like. The title of this article may make sense as of this point, however all hope is not lost. This is not a piece to further put down your irrational side, this is a brief commentary on chaos. If you chose to read this article, it is because what is being communicated to you resonated with something deep down in yourselves. To the one's feeling lost this V day, don't lose hope. There is more to life than fake love and unfelt gifts. There is comradery in revelry. And in that comradery, you shall find the acceptance you so seek. Don't merely accept chaos around you, rebel.