What on earth is a Bheja Bazaar?

Bheja is the Hindi word for brains.
Bazaar is the Hindi word for market.

So, Bheja Bazaar, my multicultural amigos, is a market for brains.
Or to look at it another way, it's brains, for market.

Grey sells.


copyright 2006 Gavin Barrett All rights reserved

Just recently, I was confronted with two questions
"Where do you come from?"
And "Where are you headquartered?"

Barrett and Welsh is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.
We have roving branch offices in dim sum restaurants, bubble tea parlours, kabab houses, dosa palaces, Turkish cafes and roti huts.
We have affiliates in Vancouver, Washington D.C., New York, Mumbai (India), Hong Kong and Dubai.
We have ideas in bathtubs, backyards, bedrooms and cars.
(Not to mention elevators and lifts, apartments and flats.)

We were established as a full-service agency in 2004.
Before that we operated as a creative consultancy, serving some of Canada’s largest agencies.
Our Mom was a Mughal queen. Our Dad was Genghis Khan.

And where do we come from?
Bombay. Hong Kong. Delhi. Singapore. London. Toronto. Calabria. Berlin. Beijing. Palermo. Next door. Faraway. Neverneverland. Narnia. Bollywood.

Or to look at our origins another way. we were appalled by the poor quality of advertising Canada's ethnic markets are faced with - produced mostly by ‘translator agencies’. We wanted to change all that.

And that, dearly beloved, is where we come from.




copyright 2006 Gavin Barrett All rights reserved

There has been some discussion in marketing circles about Chinese consumers being closer to their own heritage and culture than South Asians. It's not a defensible argument.

Is Alice, a Mandarin-speaking dollar-store-owning-mum, closer to her own mainland Chinese culture?
Or is Gurpreet - an English-speaking Punjabi-sweets-and-samosa-takeout-owning-mum closer to her roots in Punjab?

Who feels more connected to her homeland or her ethnic origins?

Let's look at Alice, married, with two kids; she celebrates the Chinese New Year, speaks Mandarin at home, reads the Mandarin newspaper, watches Mandarin TV and sends her kids to extra Chinese language classes and ballet, but is Catholic (the largest single religious denomination among Chinese immigrants in the Greater Toronto Area) and hopes her children will find Chinese mates for themselves when they grow up.

And Gurpreet? Also married, with two kids, she celebrates Baisakhi, shares her home with at least one set of in-laws, speaks a combination of Punjabi and English at home, reads the Toronto Star, occasionally picks up a free Indian newspaper, usually in English, watches Omni and English TV, goes to the gurdwara religiously (and takes her kids with her), attends several picnics and Punjabi reunions with her family and is already thinking of what will be the best possible way to arrange a marriage for her kids.

To sum up: It's true that the Chinese simply cannot access mainstream Canadian culture with the same ease that South Asians do. However this does not automatically make the Chinese closer to their own culture than South Asians are to theirs.
It's only true that the Chinese are more isolated from the mainstream by the barrier of language.

Successful marketing to these audiences is a matter of cultural insight, not of language.
(It's the same approach that works in the mainstream after all).
If we connect with them in their own language, sure, they'll hear us.
But if we connect with them on their own wavelength, they'll actually listen to us.

Language may help you get your foot in the door.
Understanding, on the other hand, will get you invited to dinner.
And that, my friends, is where the gravy is.


copyright 2005 Gavin Barrett All rights reserved.

For our award-winning Rogers Bollywood Oye! campaign, there certainly seems to be life after advertising. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper featured our work front and centre in this prominent, insightful article on multicultural marketing by Aparita Bhandari. Our strategic and creative leadership was amply on display. And our clients were quoted, yet again. It appears this is a campaign destined for recognition — it has just picked up a couple of gold awards at Promax and C-TAM — shows that celebrate the world’s best marketing work in the cable, television and entertainment businesses. Want to know what the article said? Email Gavin Barrett at gavin@barrettandwelsh.com and he’ll send you the text.

Brands began as marks burned onto rumps of rawhide.
Many brands are still that today, and, often enough, even less than that:
just marks minus the life they were imprinted on.

The most successful brands step beyond the boundaries imposed by design.

Even in intellectual property law a brand is no longer just mark or a unit of design.

In fact, a brand is as much about a logo or mark, as a marriage is about a wedding.

Logos and weddings represent nothing more than beginnings.
Whereas brands and marriages represent the continuum. They represent relationship.

Today's brand, is exactly that: a relationship.
And all good relationships are built on communication.

The moment a brand leaves the chapel of design and crosses the threshold into communication,
it stops looking in the mirror and saying, "I, brand."

It instead begins looking at you, the consumer and says "Us, brand."


More blogs about Advertising.


More blogs about Marketing.


More blogs about Multicultural Marketing.

Welcome to our multcult marketing adventures.

The things we've done, heard about, and heard done to others.

We hope to serve a dim sum feast of derring-do, a ghotala of gumption.
Those who get it will be held up. Those who don't will be yelled down.

Welcome to Bheja Bazaar.

It's located at the intersection of knowledge and je ne sais quoi.
Where menudo meets vindaloo. Where turbans meet kilts.
Where political correctness meets the Grim Reaper.

If you have a bowlful of rice to throw into the congee, be our guest.
If you have gunpowder for the pepper water, sau putr ho.

Bring your hoary old stories, you storied old whores.
Bring your tired, your weary, your multicultural cliches.

Bring your brains.

Step right in.
Mabuhay. Swagatam.

Gavin Barrett
www.barrettandwelsh.com