No, I’m not referring to the number of years completed by Kotak Mahindra Bank….that IS mighty impressive.
Today’s The Times of India’s false-front page ad has this milestone from Kotak. The back page talks of an interesting caption contest where people are asked to send their captions via text message, which the winners will get in a T-shirt printed with the winning caption.
Calling for slogans/captions is not new at all. We’ve all seen enough and more of them, but what I found intriguing is the fine print in the back page. It says, this…
The average price of a T-shirt, these days, depending on quality/brand, is about Rs. 250 to Rs. 1,500…more exclusive brands will be costlier. Personalized T-shirts are very, very easy to get these days – Printo has stores all over Bangalore….there are many online players who make buying customized T-shirt a breeze! But, I’m not referring merely to the cost of the T-shirt – I’m wondering aloud about the alleged pay-off for people participating in this ‘contest’.
I agree that anything free is a good thing (particularly in India!) or offering something as a prize that is costlier than the effort it takes to participate (here it’d be cost of the text message), but offering merely 25 T-shirts for celebrating 25 years? Even assuming the cost a T-shirt at Rs. 500, that’s Rs. 12,500 – if you add courier charges, may be the tally would be Rs. 15,000. Now, compare that to the cost of this all edition front page advertisement in The Times of India.
I’m I over-reacting/over-expecting? Possibly…but I would perhaps assume that if the value of the prize/pay-off is relatively small’ish, the numbers could be increased to offer better spread and participation. So, why not 25 T-shirts, to 25 people, across 250 cities in India? Yes, the cost of prizes is a LOT more, but consider the number of people participating and flaunting Kotak’s T-shirts…that too across the country! You could say that 250 doesn’t have the perfect ring of 25, to commemorate the occasion – I buy that argument. But again, this contest’s online version offers 50 T-shirts 🙂