Tanishq Ekatvam Ad Controversy Dated October 12, 2020 & Onward

Background: On upcoming festive and wedding season, Tanishq, a TATA Jewelry brand, launched its Ekatvam Range ad on October 10, 2020. According to MarketScreener data of October 13, 2020, Tanishq reports 98% of its Net Sales from India, a Hindu majority secular country. 

Ad Plot: A Hindu girl married in a loving Muslim family. She is pregnant and her doting mother-in -law has arranged a Godbharai function to make her daughter-in-law happy. The ad positions the unification and bonhomie of the two religions. 

Controversy: Many social media (SM) users found it a Love Jihad supporting ad. Their point also was why Muslim girl is not shown married in a Hindu family. The reason for controversy has a background of several Love Jihad cases being constantly reported in the country. Some on SM batted "for" the ad, supporting the depicted bonhomie.

Business Need: The entrepreneurial experimentation and persistently demanding profile of business makes its market strategy a wave, with its sets of crests and troughs. And the market is a very impatient place currently, thereby affecting the uniformity or expected output of these strategy waves.

Volatile Customer Behavior: The customers, across the globe, belong to transitioning politico-social cultural influencers. There is an awakening of sorts. And that impacts emotional reactions. SM has trained people to clearly and unhindered react (and even overreact) anytime, anywhere. That adds to the emotional high people generally and always are in. And they are emotional in a very unprecedented rigid way. 

Business Don'ts Right Now: In such an explosive emotional state, using emotions to set a business pitch, carries more risk of failure than success. Businesses should just focus on sustenance right now and not get into any social responsibility or social/cultural/political preaching/messaging. 

Tanishq Blunder (#boycotttanishq Trending): Unable to think out of box and probably not in touch with majority Indians' pulse, Tanishq hits the preaching emotional wall, at a strategically optimally wrong time and with an optimally wrong plot in the context of the majority customers' current mood. Remember, emotions are a double-edged sword, set to cut against you more, rather than for you. Not just the SM frenzy, some pics of even an apologetic Tanishq showroom in Gujarat were floating on Twitter! Here is one.

Where Tanishq Missed: Respect the customers' emotions. And do not confuse emotional high with a lack of intelligence. People can be intelligently emotional and may be selective in accepting and vociferous in rejecting an idea. So, do see if they are in a mood to receive your narrative. Do not force feed even if your message is intentionally pure & right. time, place, & person are the tripods markets too stand on, like life. 

What Could Have Been the Right Strategy: Tanishq should have stuck to its real Ekatvam plot of unifying different jewelry craft forms brought together from across India. It would have been a fresh outlook and something interesting for people too. Always project art & craft for its own uniqueness. Do not wrap it in any social messaging. Ekatvam is such a beautiful unique initiative, communicated so grossly wrong and digressed. And it is a damage that is difficult to undo. It hurts to see business strategies failing just due to communication flaws and not due to inferior product/service. 

UPDATE: By Oct. 12, 2020, evening, Tanishq pulled down this ad. 

                                                             -Rakhi Sinha, Founder & CEO, The Syntax Systems, India