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 2 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 market is a very impatient place currently, thereby affecting the uniformity or expected output of these strategy waves.

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

The Business Don'ts Right Now: In such 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 Social Media frenzy, some pics of even an apologetic Tanishq showroom in Gujarat was floating on Twitter! Here is one.

Where Tanishq Missed: Respect the customers' emotions. And don't 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. Don't 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 all across India. It would have been a fresh outlook and something interesting for people too. Always project art & craft for its own uniqueness. Don't wrap it in any social messaging. Ekatvam is such a beautiful unique initiative, communicated so grossly wrong and digressed. And its a damage thats difficult to undo. Its hurts to see business strategies failing just due to communication flaws and not due to bad product/service. 

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

     -by Rakhi Sinha, Founder & CEO, The Syntax Systems, India (Dated: October 12, 2020)