Now, message in the lunch box

Last week, lunch boxes delivered by Mumbai's formidable army of dabbawallas (delivery boys) came with a small tag. It was an advertisement from Sahara One, the entertainment channel, to promote its new reality show, India's Biggest Loser.

The show is about participants attempting to lose weight. By bundling its communication with food, the channel has created a connection with viewers.

"Since Sahara's show is about health and food, communicating via the dabbawallas is in perfect sync," said Manish Porwal, managing director (India, south-west), Starcom.

To cut through the clutter, companies have realised that the dabbawalla can be an effective courier for their messages.

For one, their reach is awesome. Every day, some 5,000 dabbawallas, unmistakable in their Gandhi cap and white pyjamas, deliver lunch boxes to around 175,000 office-goers and 50,000 students.

Clearly, for companies that target this audience, the dabbawalla is a convenient option to get their message across. "It is a measurable medium. If the motto is to create awareness, then you can call office goers to find out if they know of the brand after the message has been delivered through the lunch box," says a Mumbai-based media buyer.

Another industry expert said courier companies could use the medium to send their on-time delivery message across - after all, who delivers better than the dabbawallas? Their supply chain efficiencies have been studied by the world's leading business schools.

Earlier this month, Corporation Bank signed a deal with the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust to distribute account opening forms along with the lunch box. An official told Business Standard that the bank hopes to get a response from at least 50 per cent of the customers by the time the promotion comes to an end three months later.

It's not a bad deal for the delivery boys either. For every form delivered, the dabbawalla gets between Rs 5 and Rs 10. If he scores a hit and gets the completed form back, the dabbawalla gets an additional incentive of Rs 10-15 a form.

Media buyers say that the dabbawalla's association even has a rate card. You could call it leveraging the reach.