Karma and Free Advertising
Sathyam Cinemas — if you’re from Chennai, you know that the iconic cinema theatre is an integral part of why “Madras is an emotion.” Being a B2C brand in Chennai, at some point, one would have dreamed of seeing theirs on that iconic screen. And what if I told you that the dream came true, without having to pay anything? Yup :) Read on…
Just a couple of weeks ahead of the International World Tourism Day this September, me and my marketing folks huddled up in a room to brainstorm about the different initiatives we could undertake around the special occasion. As usual, there were heated conversations on what is right, what we should do, what our competitors were doing, and so on. Remember that wise guy in every such discussion, who’s always asking tangential questions? Well, we had one in our room too.
And that voice said — “Have you heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Where does travel fit into Maslow’s pyramid?” For the uninitiated, in the 1940s, psychologist Abraham Maslow divided every human being’s needs into different levels, usually represented in the form a pyramid.
That question set me thinking.
Where does travel fit in my life?
I went back to my most favourite read on this — Pico Iyer’s ‘Why we Travel’. And I asked myself — Why do I travel? Because I believe that travel is one of the best mediums to get acquainted with myriad experiences. I am a huge fan of experiential learning and I believe travel has taught me so much about adjusting to new places, thinking on my feet, discipline, widened my perspective, made me more confident as a person, and taught me the power of planning. Just like math, or motor skills, I feel travel should be looked at as a basic educational component. And just like education, travel needs to be made more accessible, even to those who cannot afford it.
So I pitched to that group — what if we chose to educate someone through travel this World Tourism Day? To someone who, as of today, cannot afford it. There was a deafening silence — apparently, I was that wise guy who says tangential things in meetings. And that was the beginning of #CuriousFeet.
After some more back-and-forth, we agreed that finding the right partner to do such an exercise was key. My first call was to Karthee Vidya, the founder of Team Everest. He has been a great inspiration for me and is dedicated to the cause of better education, making it accessible for underprivileged children. (On a side note, you should seriously consider donating to Team Everest if you do have a habit of donating some part of your earnings). From there on, they picked up the job of identifying the right student and as they say, the rest was history.
Meet Sandhiya: A stellar scholar with Team Everest, she’s a 2nd year BSc student who has already designed an entire website by herself. Raised by a single mother who used to work as a house help, Sandhiya perseveres with the help of Team Everest, to pursue her dreams of becoming a software engineer.
We got in touch with Sandhiya and invited her to our office to celebrate the #curiousfeet campaign. The icing on the cake for me will definitely be the quick turnaround time and ownership put-forth by my team and I couldn’t be more proud of them!
As it turned out, this sentiment was shared by many, particularly Ratheesh Krishnan, an admirer of the work at Pickyourtrail — he invited the entire team that worked on the campaign to watch a movie of their choice at any of the SPI halls! And guess what, it turned out to be the most fun outings for the team! Wait, the best part is yet to come. As the movie rolled into intermission, they were treated to this amazing surprise (see pic below)!
The smile on their faces was priceless. It’s a campaign that the folks at we will all remember for years to come.
And it just goes to show that at the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished… it’s about who you’ve lifted up, who you’ve made better. It’s about what you’ve given back. Karma always catches up.
