Mela Marketing: The new Buzz

Fairs (Melas) have always been an integral part of the Indian lifestyle. It is difficult to find a person in the country who has never visited a fair or came across a Bollywood flick with a typical 1970s storyline of family tribute and re-union, all happening in Mela. It is these marketing honchos who have bought fairs to the center-stage by using them as a platform to market products.

The roots of such Mela Marketing are not just desi by their means. In USA, for example, in 2001 the sports drink giant ‘Gatorade’ tried to cash in on the theme of Thanksgiving and invested Millions in marketing its drink during the Thanksgivings fairs across the country. Later, in 2008, they even came up with a TV commercial Replay which was also built around a match that has always been played on the eve of Thanksgiving.

Not that Indian company was alien to this, but till now, Mela marketing simply was seen as a social service for rural folk. But this year Melas have seen huge investments in product marketing campaigns. In the Kumbh Mela, the element of novelty was 26 brands marketing their products using the Mela as the focal point of their campaign. For instance, Dettol marketed itself with a tagline, “Kumbh me snaan ek baar, Dettol mein Snaan baar-baar”. Boroline came up with “Kumbh se Punya Kamao, Boroline se Achchi Twacha Banao”.

Fairs are a good platform for direct promotion of brand. These fairs attract huge chunks of people from different strata of the society at one place for the longest period of time. Another example was the Dabur Campaign for its mosquito repellent ‘Odomos’. The interesting thing is, while Urban Melas like the Trade Fair, which attract highs of between 2.5-4 Lakh people on their weekend days, get hundreds of advertisers; events like Kumbh Mela still churn up at best only 26 Advertisers.

Melas advertising remains great point of sale immediacy conversion and would work only in relatively low priced FMCG products or services. For non-FMCG sectors, it’s clearly not such a promising deal currently as most of the masses at these Melas do not have intent to purchase durables during their visits. Nobody will buy a car or home in a Mela. But still they can think about it if there is an advertisement.