An apple a day...
No we are not playing metaphor completion games nor am I prophesying doctor-knows-best. This old wives tale is a quintessential adage that the urban Indian is well cognisant of today. With urbanisation growing at double the pace of the population, the route to survival was aimed at achieving life in the fast lane. The upshot of this has been a rise in the urban disposable income and also increasingly prolific lifestyles.
The downside being an equally proportional rise in lifestyle diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiac ailments and others. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention and the mantra for survival in this concrete jungle is an adaptation of what mother used to advise. To adopt a cliché and the tagline of a popular food brand — eat healthy, think better.
And if there is a consumer malaise, can the “doctor” marketeer be far behind?
Realising the huge potential of an emerging Indian mindset of prevention being better than cure and the increased emphasis on wellness of mind and body, tandoorasti ki raksha was a natural recourse. And this was an integrated approach that covered every medium of communication.
Let’s get physical: the lifestyle quotient of health and fitness has created an exodus with every publishing house launching a health magazine ranging from Life Positive, Complete Wellbeing, Health and Nutrition to Prevention. A healthy mind is targeted through regular columns in national dailies and the Sunday supplements of these papers usually have a regular column giving gyan on good health. Information galore on exercising machines, relaxing spas and wholesome fitness solutions are a regular feature with every newspaper. The print medium works well with those who need to take a well-informed decision.
Healthy hoardings: to ably support the printed prescriptions are the strategically placed hoardings telling you about the neighbourhood Fitness First, Elemention and the rest. Unusual frames like airport conveyor belts in Mumbai and Delhi were used for Reebok’s Crossfit fitness programme to announce to the Indian consumer that the ‘sport’ of fitness had arrived in India. Hoardings work as they are passive reminders often placed strategically at traffic crossings.
Televising tandoorasti: And then of course there is the Sukh dukh ka saathi — the television. This medium being the favourite because of its reach to almost every nook and corner of the country and also because it offers a huge scope for creativity. With the magic mantra of health being piyo glassful doodh, both the age-old rakhwala of health Amul or the ma ka pyar of Mother Dairy, play reminder games through variegated advertisements.
What was once Mera gaon Kathiya wade jahan doodh ki nadiyan bahe, Amul is now poetry in motion of reaching higher and higher with the original energy drink as the brand proudly declares its contemporariness as the official sponsors of the Indian Olympic squad in the London 2012 Olympics.
The latest to join the healthy bandwagon is Tetrapak the packaging company which has a minute-long commercial with a bunch of young mothers explaining through a stage show the sterilised advantage of Tetrapak. And then declaring doodh koi bhi ho Tetrapak hi surakshit hai, aur wahi wala doodh mama tumko deti hai.
One of the oldest and constant endearing jingled advice is by NECC of Sunday ho ya Monday roz khao andey. The energy boosters, whether Boost, Horlicks, Complan or Kellogs, never fail to remind you that from Sachin Tendulkar to Sehwag to you, they are the secret of our energy.
Wellness experts: Health being a grave and growing concern the role of the expert who can guide you towards a solution is more than welcome. Thus wellness gurus like Baba Ramdev are able to reach out to a vast audience from the commoner to the elite to the videshi with his pranayams and healing yoga and ayurveda. And finally, as a country, the final stamp of approval for adopting a healthy lifestyle comes when Bollywood celebrities like Salman Khan advocate the Ginseng-fortified Revital for a healthier you and the gym-toned John Abraham, Bipasha Basu and Shilpa Shetty promote a diet and exercise regime for an alert mind and body.
Thus fads and brands may come and go but for the Jaan hai to jahan hai Indian the emphasis on health and well-being will always remain the mantra for hasti, gaati zindagi…

The writer is professor, marketing, IMI, Delhi