I believe that if people break the law, or behave differently from what they should, the flaw is in the design. If the design of products, services, experiences or even laws was based on convenience and efficiencies, there would be 100 per cent compliance with expectations.

Marketers have long tried to sell tea bags. When the Indian consumer is buying into convenience in every sphere of life, why has the tea bag market remained so small and the growth rate even smaller?

The flaw is in the design. In India, we don’t brew our tea. We cook it. We boil it with milk, masala and spices.

A tea bag does not lend itself to that process. It has a paper end that either catches fire or falls into the boiling tea.

The tea bag is saying not just ‘change the way you make tea,’ but also ‘change the tea you drink’ as the tea bag tea is the ‘separate’ English tea. It is not the Indian tea that is boiled over and over. For any innovations to work, it is important to understand the user experience. Boilable tea bags — without a string or paper tag — could be very relevant in the Indian market and genuinely stand for convenience.

Opportunities abound, if only we saw them with fresh eyes. Fruit yoghurt is a breakfast food in Western countries. In India, curd and sugar is the default lunch dessert. Curd is not eaten for breakfast, nor for dinner. Thus fruit yoghurts could be positioned as light lunch desserts. When we simply transpose international experiences and negate our own, we see many lost opportunities.

Culture-specific innovation is what I call good design. It is design that can shift behaviours and create market successes.

(Alpana Parida is President, DY Works, a brand strategy and design firm that creates culture-based solutions for businesses)

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