Rape of a 68 yr old: Independence Day revisited

Disclaimer: for all those excited by the topic,  there is no physical rape here so move on.

I am both sad and ashamed to narrate this. And this has not happened just once, it has been happening for many many years now,  in fact since birth.

First rape happened when the country got independence. Few people for fulfilling their personal dreams of being the premier raped it so bad that it split into two and the memory is still fresh in our hearts and minds.

And the rape continued,  in various ways and forms, exploitation of resources, corruption etc.  But I am not going to talk about that. That’s a boring topic now.

What I want to discuss is the spirit of independence that has been dying a slow death. 15th August is but a holiday (dry day as most people know it) and an important day in the marketing calendar of most companies.

So what I want to discuss is the over commercialisation of the Independence day.
You are not a smart brand manager if you do not have a 15th August activation planned well in advance with a manifold sales jump.

So now I line up outside Big Bazaar or Spar or many more such super/hyper markets, or wait for the online sale to open at 8 am so that I can shop instead of showing my respect to the country by attending a flag hosting session and singing the national anthem. It’s only symbolic and does not prove anything but the thought is very powerful.

Freedom as a word has been molested the most. Marketers have bombarded their Freedom Sales so much that the word Freedom or Independence is now synonymous with discount sales and not the independence of the country. In fact the SEO is so well done that when I type Independence day in Google the offers start showing in the top 10 results.

Let’s see some examples:
1. British Airways Independence day offer: fly back to your country (sounds very logical,  smart marketing team there), Jet airways Freedom sale.
2. Independence special sale at Shop clues, Amazon, Jabong, Flipkart, and all of them.
3. LG designed for India TV at just Rs 15, special independence day offer.
Etc etc.

Just wanted to provoke the thoughts to not let Independence day be synonymous with sale and sale only. There is a very deep meaning to the day, respect that. Do something more meaningful on that day which can make you or your country proud.

Hope I made sense (I know I did).
Share your thoughts.

image courtesy: www.quarterlyconversation.com