It is often said that the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing and for a conglomerate like the Aditya Birla Group, whose heritage is so deeply ingrained with that of India’s own, it’s ordinarily so that the young consumer doesn’t realize the impact that it has on their lives. Such was my case.
By the time I was in the junior year of high school I had developed an obsession for all things branded. Pantaloons being the go-to store for variety, range, and competitive pricing had always been my first option. The revolutionary idea of power dressing for a party, immortalized by Van Heusen was complemented perfectly by Allen Solly’s range of smart casuals preferred by me for a Sunday evening tuition. Never will I forget about the best sellers that formed the core of my collection, Peter England and Louis Phillipe. Little did I realize then, the underlying connection between all these things I had grown to love.
Rolling through came in my senior year of high school and I was slowly learning to introspect; my sixteen-year-old self was gaining awareness and asking questions about itself. I was eventually realizing how my obsession towards brands was bordering on vanity; I needed more answers. I started reading up on the psychology behind marketing, the hidden presence of the Aditya Birla Group in my life, discovering a whole new world of neuroeconomics in the process, a world that still to this date hasn’t been able to quench my thirst for knowledge. This ultimate culmination to all this was my decision to join an MBA program and specialize in the Sales and Marketing domain, to learn more about the positive influences such omnipresent corporations have on us. From the Freshwrapp in my lunchbox fashioned into a ball for playing catch, to the radio waves of Idea emanating from that hidden phone in my study book; the formative years of my life which gave me a purpose today were all revolving around the late Aditya Birla’s forever rising sun.
“As we lose ourselves in the service of others, we discover our own lives and our own happiness. “ - Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Growing up in a privileged background I never knew of need. Abraham Maslow would’ve judged my physiological, safety, and belonging requirements to have been met and for many years I lived under a cloud of what felt to be a false sense of satisfaction. Something was missing in me, a part of me was left unexplored.
My first exposure to this uncharted territory was during my first year of undergraduate studies. While working for the Rotaract Club of my college I came across people of varied social conditions. I quickly realized how lucky and easy I got it in life. One case particularly stands out to me among the numerous that led me onto a path of self-discovery aided by social awareness.
In a public speaking event organized by the Rotaract Club, we came across an NGO worker fighting human trafficking and child prostitution in the rural area of Hasnabad, on the Bangladesh border. The situation out there was deplorable to the extent that local authorities had started turning a blind eye to the problem. She needed monetary help in order to raise awareness and pay off hospital bills for the survivors. My idea was to take a documentary style video interview of these survivors and use the footage to convince our parent Rotary body to fund the endeavor. I formed a team of five, each with specific skills and charted the itinerary for the coming days and we succeeded and raised twenty-five thousand rupees for the cause.
Prior to these experiences, my primary challenge was not having an emotional quotient strong enough to be able to identify with my fellow person’s emotions. I worked relentlessly on social service projects not only because it gave me a sense of what it means to be happy but also because each project I worked on took me one step closer to being a perfectly empathetic and appreciative person.