Don’t make this mistake in case you are buying a HOUSE!

Last week, a team member brought sweets to celebrate buying a house. I congratulated him and asked how it was going....🧵 He shared that he got a home loan from XYZ Bank and also signed up for home loan insurance.

When I asked him if he understood how it truly worked, he seemed clueless. That’s when I realized how much banks and financial institutions don’t tell you.

I lost 9 kg and got rid of my big stubborn belly in less than 6 months. Here’s how I achieved my 2023 resolution

Thread 🧵 1. Calorie Restriction

Fat loss is a state which gets triggered only when you consume less than what you burn. No matter what meal plans you follow or how you structure it, the fat loss will only happen via calorie restriction

Bihar — a ‘dry state’ since 2016 — actually consumes more alcohol than Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh & Maharashtra.

Back in 2016, Bihar imposed a complete ban on the sale & consumption of alcohol to curb alcohol-induced violence against women. But things haven’t really gone to plan🧵 1 in 6 men in Bihar still consume alcohol. The state loses a whopping ₹10,000 crores in revenue annually to the ban. The hospitality & trade sectors have also taken a hit.

So, what’s exactly going on? And where is Bihar getting its alcohol?

Ever wonder why McDonald’s and Burger King are located next to each other?

Or the many phone repair shops you can find in one street? In fact, we see competitors cluster together a lot.

But here’s the big question - why do they?

[Thread...] The answer lies in Hotelling’s model of spatial competition.

Imagine there is a 1km stretch on a street where Indian Oil and BPCL are thinking of setting up fuel pumps.

While other brands spend 8-15% – Amul spends less than 1% of its total expenses on advertising.

Yet the iconic Amul Girl is probably one of the most recognizable advertisements in the country - so, what seems to be Amul’s golden formula for cost-effective advertising? 1. Umbrella branding:

One thing that sets Amul apart is that it markets the brand, not individual products - this is called umbrella branding.

If you are a salaried employee, then congratulations!

You already have ₹7 lakh worth of FREE life insurance.

Here’s how.👇

[A thread...] Well, kudos to the Employees' Deposit-Linked Insurance (EDLI) scheme. Under EDLI, all folks with an EPF account are eligible for free life insurance cover.

Red Bull is a company that does many things.

It gives you wiiings, sponsors F1 teams and football clubs, and even made a man jump to Earth from the edge of Space.

But, it doesn’t produce any of its products.🧵 So, how did Red Bull earn a 43% market share, and earn a whopping EUR 7.816 bn as revenue in 2021 - without owning a single manufacturing plant?

The short answer? Red Bull outsources the production of its popular energy drinks, and focuses on just one thing: marketing.

India saved an astonishing Rs. 41,000 crores in Foreign Exchange this year!

How, you ask?🧵 Well, India has been working hard to reduce its dependency on foreign oil. And one of the most promising alternatives has proven to be — Ethanol.

What do Kit Kat, Nike, Krispy Kreme, KFC, and Starbucks have in common?

Well, they’re all a product of a neuromarketing technique called the K effect. Meaning, they all either have the letter K, or the K sound in their brand names.

But what’s so magical about this letter? 🧵 You see, branding practitioners are often looking for something unique to make their product stand out - and the letter K delivers. It’s one of the least common letters in the English Dictionary.

Pepsi ran an advertising campaign where people were given 2 cups - one filled with Pepsi & the other with Coca-Cola, without revealing which was which. 🧵 The blind tasters were asked which one they preferred. Surprisingly, more than half chose Pepsi, even though Coke had a much higher market share.

When Shinzo Abe stepped in as Prime Minister in 2012, Japan’s economy was in crisis. Its GDP growth rate had tumbled to -4.3%.

Abe had his work cut out for him and he needed to shock the world’s third-largest economy back into action - and lo and behold, Abenomics was born. 🧵 The plan was to get the multiple levers that drove the Japanese economy to work together. Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy and Structural Reforms, all working in unison, to achieve one common objective — Growth.

Noticed your iPhone getting unusually slow after the new iOS update?

Well, this is due to something called “planned obsolescence” - the strategy of designing a product with limited useful life so that it becomes obsolete after a set period of time. 🧵 Apple’s planned obsolescence is no secret. In fact, in 2020, Apple paid $113 million to settle an investigation into its practice of throttling iPhones.

Something very interesting happened yesterday.

One of our clients came to us with a very specific question - “What would happen to my term insurance if I went missing?” 🧵 It’s an interesting question because term insurance policies only pay out the corpus upon the death of the insured individual.

Does health insurance cover mental illnesses?

Thread. 🧵 In 2017, 1 in 7 Indians suffered from mental health issues. But being a hush-hush topic, mental illnesses were never given much attention by insurers.

2018 brought winds of change. Why?

While an iPhone 13 costs ₹79,900, a 13 Pro costs ₹1,19,900, and a 13 Pro Max costs ₹1,29,900.

Why would you not pay an extra ₹10,000 and get the Pro Max instead?

That’s how the Decoy Effect nudges your decisions.🧵 First, some context. More than a decade back, behavioral economist Dan Ariely noticed something weird about the subscription model of the international weekly magazine - The Economist.

A champagne bottle often is sold for hundreds of dollars with vintages costing up to a few thousand.

But why is champagne so expensive?🧵 Reason 1: Champagne is only true champagne if it is made in Champagne. That’s right! The world's entire true stock of champagne is made only in a region called “Champagne” in Northern France - where over 300 million bottles are produced every year.Why just this region, you ask?

Bangalore was changed to Bengaluru. Gurgaon to Gurugram. Bombay to Mumbai. Allahabad to Prayagraj.

More than a 100 cities and towns have been renamed in India. But ever wonder what’s the economic impact of renaming a city? 🧵 (1/n) Well, renaming cities is an expensive affair. First there’s all the paperwork that needs to be updated across the country. This includes - changing road & railway signage, highway marks, maps, official stationery of the state and more.

A study found that 87% of consumers make ‘impulse purchases’ on a shopping trip.

And if there’s one place that shamelessly exploits this consumer tendency, it’s malls!

There are a plethora of ways by which malls trick you into spending more money: 🧵(1/n) Think - the clever layouts, endless stores, and the fact that there’s not a single clock in sight!

But two things that usually go unnoticed when you’re skimming through stores in the mall are - the fragrance and the music.

Paytm Mall just lost 99.5% of its valuation and its precious unicorn status - from a massive $3 billion to less than $13 million.

So, what happened? 🧵(1/n) Well, in short, two of its lead investors quit their stake - Alibaba and Ant Financial sold 43% of their ownership back to Paytm E-commerce (the parent company).

A cup of chai and samosa would cost you ₹50 in most places - except when you’re at the airport. All of a sudden the same chai and samosa are worth ₹300!

From cooked items to packed ones, food at airports is nowhere near the market price. But why does this happen? 🧵(1/n) Well, let’s decode.

1. There’s demand!

You see, airports are high-security zones - meaning operations are strictly limited and outside food is restricted to a significant extent. This results in a limited supply but high demand, driving up the price.

India lost almost ₹200 crores every hour during the pandemic. Sounds crazy right?

Well, it’s true. According to the latest RBI reports, India lost a whopping ₹19.1 lakh crores in 2020-21 and ₹17 lakh crores during the second wave in 2021-22.

🧵(1/n) But here’s where things get interesting - weren’t we told that India lost ₹9.57 lakh crores in the Union Budget? How come the RBI is quoting a number that’s double what we were told by the honorable finance minister?