Prized Placebo

The billionaire wine-maker Ernest Gallo understood the power of perception better than many marketers. He would pour two glasses of wine for potential buyers, telling them that one cost 5 cents, while the other cost double. Customers invariably chose the more expensive glass of wine without knowing that both glasses were from the same bottle!

The Gallo Effect also got confirmed in the lab: scientists could correlate the differential perception of prices with measurable changes in the brain. Stanford scientists called it the Price-Placebo Effect: people who were told they were spending more for an energy drink (a dummy) went on to perform better on mental tasks! Like beauty lying (no pun intended) in the eye of the beholder, perception of value was also in the mind of the beholder. More intriguing was its effect on performance.

The enhanced perception of value for branded products versus identical generics was also reflected in the self-help business. Surya namaskars, for example, had been part of health-bestowing nitya vidhi or daily routine. But they were weighted down with religious baggage and remained confined to a narrow fringe of devotees and physical culturists in India.

The wider world woke up to their immense value and myriad benefits only after the former Raja of Aundh began to market them as sun salutations, with the help of comely western models and his own sprightly son. The humble dandor plank also got viral popularity after the pioneering yogi T Krishnamacharya recast it as Chaturanga Dandasana!