Afterword

ThimphuTech was the first technology blog in Bhutan. We started writing it in 2009, just as broadband and mobile internet started to take off. (Although internet in Bhutan was launched in 1999, it was either super-slow or super-expensive, and was only used by a selected few).

In the blog, we wrote about technology and food, but also about plenty of other stuff. The blog became popular and influential in Bhutan. A companion bi-weekly column -- Ask Boaz -- was published for many years in the Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper. (The complete Kuensel columns are available as an ebook, Blogging with Dragons).

We stopped updating the blog when we left Bhutan in 2014, but the information within the posts can still prove useful, and thus we decided to keep it online.

We thank all our readers.
Tashi Delek,
Boaz & Galit.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Raising the next generation of "Fair & Lovely" consumers

"When I grow up, I want to look Indian!"
If you want to help your "dark-skinned" child to develop a slight inferiority complex, I have a simple recipe: Take her to any Gini and Jony shop. This high-end Indian retailer of children's clothing has hundreds of outlets all over the subcontinent, and a branch was opened recently in Thimphu. Naturally, I went to see what the buzz is all about.


While the store is arranged nicely (Western-only wear, in case you wondered), I found the decor striking: All over the shop are huge banners of happy, smiling, and cute Caucasian boys and girls of the Scandinavian blond-with-blue-eyes type, wearing the G and J clothes. There is not a single banner with an Indian or Asian child model in sight.

Check out the G and J website, too. Just by looking at their catalogue, you wouldn't know it's an Indian retailer.
Apparently, this is how you market in India these days, and children are not spared. I found it sad, even a bit depressing. Last, but not least, here's Gini and Jony "corporate philosophy":
We believe that children must be happy. It’s the only goal set for ourselves. A happy, laughing child is one of the best sights of life and believe that childhood lasts a lifetime.
A note to the G & J folks who are sitting in their Mumbai offices and planning their next campaign: Asian children can be happy too.
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1 comment:

  1. Linda York LeamingFriday, April 22, 2011

    Love the headline. I hope Thimphu residents will see through this markeing ploy. Wonder if the clothes are any good.

    ReplyDelete

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