Marketing Journeys - 1

Marketing Journeys

A hilarious look at the author’s marketing experiences in India and abroad

By Prakash Subbarao

Chapter 1: My Marketing Journey Begins

My marketing journey began one fateful day in the year 1975 in Calcutta, West Bengal.

I was in a chauffeur driven car that belonged to the Managing Director of Brooke Bond Limited.

I was being taken to Chloride India Limited at his behest. His stern instructions to me – to accept the job offer that Chloride had made me and which I had refused to accept but which they had patiently kept open for me in the hope that I would come around.

Now, why would the managing director of Brooke Bond try and force me to join another organization instead of making me a job offer himself? Read on.

The story begins with my being happily ensconced in Madras, Tamil Nadu, far from the watchful eyes of my parents. I had graduated in August 1974 as a mechanical engineer and, since I had no desire to live with my parents, had applied for all non-Calcutta jobs. Given that I was quite well qualified, it didn’t take me long to land a job with Binny Limited, Engineering Division, in Meenambakkam, Madras as a Management Trainee.

This was in 1974, mind you.

Less than a year later – nine months to be precise – the paternal hand fell on my shoulder and I found myself one fine day in Calcutta in my father’s home. My luggage was following by road, I was informed.

Soon I had interviews from many companies (all arranged by my father’s personal assistant who not only typed my résumés but also signed them for me and speedily sent them to the companies concerned). I was escorted to the interviews by another well built lackey of my father.

All the interviews ended in failure to get a job, a strategy that I deliberately employed to thwart the designs of the old man. I was “getting my own back” at his having yanked me from Madras. (How foolish we get at times!). When I look back and realize that I could have joined Hindustan Lever as a management trainee, (I attended the interview arranged my father and then turned down the job offer) I wince at the lost opportunity. But back then it appeared to me that it was I who was winning and my dad who was losing. This was my way of getting back at him for his having uprooted me from Madras and brought me, at gun point, so-to-speak, in Calcutta.

I made what I thought was a winning move by getting a manufacturing job with MMC Ltd. My troubles are at an end, I told myself. But they weren’t.

I had, a few weeks earlier, attended an interview with Chloride India Limited (blue chip British MNC in those days). One interview was followed by another (the company had a policy of having all the marketing managers take a look at potential recruits) and finally the GM made me a verbal offer. “You can start as a Management Trainee” he said.” Your salary will be Rs. 700 per month”. He expected me to join immediately.

The problem wasn’t the salary. In fact, in those days, 700 bucks was quite a lot of money. The problem was that I was already making Rs. 750 at MMC and I figured that I should get a little more if I were to join them. I said so in as many words to the GM of Chloride.

He was a patient man, and he sat with me for several hours trying to explain why joining Chloride would be a career move for me. He explained that the company was extremely profitable; that its share value was much higher than MMC, that it had a very friendly work environment and so on. All this fell on deaf ears. I wasn’t going to join a company by taking a drop in salary, blue chip or no blue chip.

My father just couldn’t believe it. He pleaded, he cajoled, he screamed, he got my mother to talk to me.

Nothing worked.

Finally he said “Son, don’t listen to what I have to say. Talk to any of my friends who you feel will give you good balanced advice. Tell them what you feel about this difference of Rs. 50 and then ask what you should do. What do you say?”

Hmmmmm, I thought to myself, this is fair enough. I started wondering which of my father’s friends I should approach. I made a short list. Mr. Naidu over at ITC Limited; Mr. Mudaliar at ICI; and Mr. Nagarajan at Brooke Bond. These were the doyens of industry back in those days.

Brooke Bond was geographically the closest so I decided to start from there.

I had met Mr. Nagarajan several times socially and had been very impressed with the way he spoke and handled himself. To me, he was the ideal marketing person. I looked forward to meeting him.

He had a huge office and, I remember, a huge desk. He didn’t appear to be very busy that day and gave me a patient hearing. I told him my view of things and my logic in not accepting a lower start at Chloride. He listened silently without interrupting me even once.

When I had finished he picked up his telephone and asked his secretary if his car was downstairs. She told him that it was. “Ask the driver to come in front of the office entrance and wait” he told her.

He looked at me and told me “Prakash, I hope for your sake that that job offer is still open. Take my car right now and go to Chloride. And tell them that you will join them immediately”. He said it so forcefully that I just nodded dumbly.

I went down to the lobby. His car was waiting for me. It took me to the Chloride office.

I wearily climbed the stairs of Exide House. I felt foolish.

Zona Bout, the GMs secretary, looked at me in surprise as I walked into her office. She didn’t say a word; she just raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Is that job offer still open?” I asked her. She nodded. “I accept” I told her meekly.

She picked up the phone and told the GM that I was in her office and that I had accepted the offer. “Send the rascal in” he told her jovially and a few seconds later I walked into his office.

As I walked into his room, my marketing journey began. That was nearly 30 years go but my journey has still not come to an end.

I joined at Rs. 700 a month, a full Rs. 50 less than what I was currently earning.

A few months after I had joined, I got a memo from the GM. Your lunch allowance has been increased by Rs. 50 a month, it informed me. A few months later all of us management trainees at Chloride got an ad hoc increment of Rs. 100. A year later, I was earning over Rs. 1000 a month.

Peace reigned at home. I was (finally) enjoying my new career in marketing.