From Rs 5000 to Rs 50: The Wild Spectrum of Impulse Buying

How Impulsive is Impulse?

Ever wondered why you’ll happily blow up  Rs 5000 on a movie night but still grumble about paying Rs 50 extra on BookMyShow? That’s impulse. It’s weird, it’s emotional, and it makes no sense until you realize it’s less about your bank balance and more about your brain’s wiring.

Marketing folks always talk about impulse purchases. But what is impulse buying really? Buying without thinking? Buying without guilt? Most people link impulse buying to purchasing power with the presence or absence of cash. In simple words, the level of poverty.

But honestly, I feel there’s a level of emotional impulsiveness that is more personality-driven. Take watching movies as an example.

 

• For Gen Z, going to a multiplex with a friend and spending ₹5000/- can be impulsive.
• Even booking tickets on BookMyShow and paying that “extra” ₹50/- convenience fee is impulsive!
• Someone else might cap it at ₹2500/- in a smaller multiplex.
• A cautious family could happily finish it off at Rs 500/- in a single-screen theatre.
• The true family man might say “Wait! My whole family will watch it for Rs 149/- when it streams on Amazon.”
• And the super-disciplined type? They’ll impulsively jump when it’s available for just ₹50/- during an Independence Day deal.

So impulsiveness can swing all the way from  Rs 5000/- to Rs 50/-. And trust me, this has nothing to do with salary or purchasing power. It’s about perceived value, urgency, FOMO, curiosity, and that emotional itch to experience it right now. Impulse is less about your wallet and more about your wiring!

 

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Flipping the Script: The Inspiring Long Tail Lesson from Aamir Khan

All management professionals talk about the famous 80:20 principle or the Pareto Law, where the focus is on serving the 20% of customers who give 80% of the business. The usual assumption? Leave the remaining 80% of the customers alone or serve them at a minimal level.

But what if the story could be flipped? What if we could fit square pegs into round holes by thinking differently? Years ago, Dr. Kota my ex-colleague, dear friend, my research scholar, and now B-School professor gifted me a brilliant book – The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More written  Chris Anderson.

Dr. Kota, like me, loves to read, and this book was a true eye-opener. It challenges our default way of thinking. Chris persuasively argues that even though the market is cluttered with 80% customers the market size is still 20%. And the beauty is that not many competitors in that market and there is less focus too. companies can operate in stealth or under the radar mode. Amazon and Netflix are perfect examples, they thrive by serving niche markets with vast selections, catering to diverse tastes that the mainstream ignores.

The Indian Cinema Parallel: Take Indian cinema. Almost 99% of movies won’t cross ₹10 crores in theatrical business. Yet, 1,500 to 2,000 films are made every year. Can the script be flipped? Aamir Khan seems to think so. His film Sitaare Zameen Par reportedly did a solid ₹293 crores at the box office. But here’s the twist – Aamir refused to sell the OTT rights to the big streaming platforms.

Why? Because while Indian cinema is widely watched, only 2–3% of India’s 1.4 billion people go to theatres. In comparison, a staggering 491 million people in India are actively engaging with YouTube content. That means theatrical releases are the long tail of the real market!

Beating the OTT Game: OTT platforms usually operate in two ways – they either buy the film outright or stream it on a pay-per-view basis. But the real viewership numbers are murky. They only publicize their “top 10” lists, and their algorithms are laughable.

Netflix, for instance, counts a two-minute watch as having “watched” a movie. By that logic, I “watched” at least 730 movies last year (two movies per day)! And if a film underperforms, the data vanishes into a digital Fort Knox. Aamir Khan was done with these games. He announced he wouldn’t stream his movie on any OTT platform. Instead, he went direct-to-audience: pay-per-view on YouTube at ₹100 for multiple views within 48 hours.

Let us do some back of the envelope calculations. Even if five people watched together, that’s just ₹20 a head cheaper than a half-litre water bottle in a multiplex.

The Math That Changes Everything

Let’s assume only 1% of the 491 million Indian YouTube audience watched the film, 49.1 lakh views ×  Rs 100 =  Rs 49 crores.

If 5% watched that would be Rs 245 crores , almost the same as the theatrical gross, but with far higher margins.

Aamir pushed the envelope further, from 15th to 17th August, he is offering the film at  Rs 50. If 10% of that YouTube audience watches at this price (4.91 crores people), that’s another Rs 245 crores. Add the two figures and you’re looking at ₹500 crores, double the theatrical revenue  and likely with almost 100% margins.

The Takeaway:  Don’t just be a follower. Be an innovator. Be a disruptor. Chart your own path and become the role model others follow. Aamir Khan’s move is not just about selling a movie differently – it’s a masterclass in turning the long tail into the main act.

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What a thermometer kink and bubbles in an oil bottle can teach us About product improvements and Innovation!!!

Often, the simplest inventions come from keen observation and plain common sense. Have you ever wondered why there’s a tiny kink in the old-fashioned analogue thermometers doctors used in the past?

Mercury expands with heat, making it ideal for measuring temperature. In regular thermometers used for weather, mercury rising and falling with daily temperature changes isn’t a problem. But when measuring human temperature, doctors faced a challenge. 

As soon as the patient removed the thermometer from their mouth, the mercury would start dropping to room temperature, which is almost always lower than body temperature. That’s where the small kink (constriction) at the base near the mercury bulb came in. It acted like a stopper, holding the mercury at the highest point reached so the doctor could note the correct temperature before shaking it back down.

The same principle, solving a problem through simple observation, applies to many other products. Take the example of oil cans and bottles from earlier times. Opening them often caused oil to splash onto the container, spill on the kitchen counter, splatter on the person, and worst of all when hot oil was being topped up, it could lead to painful burns.

A smart product development manager came up with a simple fix: leave a little extra space inside the container. This allowed air bubbles to form and oil to pour out smoothly, avoiding splashes altogether.

Management and especially marketing is all about spotting these small but powerful opportunities, often by borrowing ideas from other fields. At the end of the day, what matters is what works especially when it improves customer safety, convenience, and comfort. So, what small tweak will you spot today?

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Keywords: Product innovation, small design changes, everyday inventions, observation in product design, thermometer kink, oil bottle bubble design, simple product improvements, customer convenience ideas, product safety tips, marketing through observation, problem solving in design, everyday product hacks

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Letting Go of Legends: When Emotions Clash with Business Sense - Bajaj "Scooter", HUL "Pureit" and "Pawan Kalyan Hari Hara Veera Mallu"

In 2005, I witnessed a press conference that still lingers in my memory. A composed Rajiv Bajaj stood before the press and announced the discontinuation of one of India’s most iconic products, the Bajaj Chetak petrol scooter. Next to him sat Rahul Bajaj, crestfallen and close to tears. It was a moment that marked the end of an era.

Hamara Bajaj was not just a brand campaign. It symbolized middle-class India’s aspirations. In the 1980s, owning a Bajaj scooter was a dream so strong that families waited for years to get one. Sometimes, the only way to get a Bajaj allotment was through a foreign relative wiring USD 500 back to India. 

Along with an HMT Kanchan gold-plated automatic watch, the Bajaj scooter was the ultimate wedding gift and status symbol. However, with the arrival of cheaper and more fuel-efficient four-stroke motorcycles, the decline began. Despite its legacy, Bajaj couldn’t keep up with the changing market dynamics. As Ravi Bajaj himself later admitted, letting go of such a legendary product was like losing a family member. That’s the emotional price of being in business. Marrying memories to markets doesn’t always make sense.

A similar example comes from Hindustan Unilever (HUL). The company had a vast portfolio of FMCG products in India. However, Pureit, their water purifier brand, was an exception to the rule. It wasn’t sold through regular kirana stores or supermarkets. Instead, Pureit followed a medical distribution model, marketed directly to hospitals and doctors, with its own separate sales force and supply chain.

In 2024, HUL decided to offload Pureit to A.O. Smith, signalling a smart move to refocus on their core categories. Again, a difficult but strategic decision. Proof that sometimes, cutting emotional ties is essential for future growth.

Even the entertainment industry isn’t immune. The recent film Hari Hara Veera Mallu, with a reported budget of ₹300 crore and over five years in the making, faced a major setback. Starring Pawan Kalyan, the movie received heavy backlash after its regular release, particularly for poor visual effects. As a reaction, nearly 22 minutes were cut from the film post-release. But the damage was done.

The question arises. Why weren’t rational decisions made earlier? Why not test the film with a sample audience beforehand? Why wait for public backlash before making drastic edits? It’s a classic case of creators becoming too emotionally attached to their vision, blinding them to objective feedback.

As the saying goes, common sense is not so common, especially when emotions, legacy, and ambition take over reason.

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Can Symbols Protect a company? Reflections on Karachi Bakery and the Indian Flag

My post on Karachi Bakery elicited an enthusiastic response, and I am grateful for the same. Karachi Bakery remains the cynosure of the public for many reasons, such as its impeccable quality and the controversy linked to its name, Karachi.

As many have pointed out, Karachi Bakery is the brainchild of an Indian who migrated from Pakistan and set up an eatery in Hyderabad. Similarly, a bakery exists in Pakistan called Bombay Bakery. So far, no riots or attempts to vandalize Bombay Bakery have been reported in the press.

Yes, you are all right. As you have pointed out, the idea is to show that Karachi Bakery is Indian, and it is a clever attempt to distance itself from the “Pakistani connection.”

But as some of you might know, until 2004, the usage of the Indian flag was restricted only to Republic Day and Independence Day. There was a strict protocol about its usage, and only official government institutions had the right to fly our national flag.

However, in 2004, in a landmark judgment following an appeal by Naveen Jindal, a businessman, the Supreme Court ruled that all Indians had the freedom to fly the national flag without restriction.

Here is my contention. Yes, Karachi Bakery has been a target, and it has been vandalized. But can the Indian flag be used for commercial purposes—and that too as a shield against vandalism and stone-throwing? Can the proud national symbol of India become just another token of symbolism? Especially when the Indian government frowns upon the use of the word India for commercial purposes. Naming institutes as “Indian Institutes” is restricted only to IIMs and IITs.

The Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950 prohibits the use of certain names and terms—including those that suggest government or national patronage—without explicit permission from the Central Government.

But where there is a will, there is a way. Arindam Chaudhuri flouted the rule by naming his institute IIPM (Indian Institute of Planning and Management). How did he get away with it? He never went in for accreditation with AICTE. He made merry as long as the going was good but had to shut shop when his bluff was called. 

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