This is not a sponsored post :) And I did think twice because I don't generally blog about products or food (or drinks) Paper Boat Drinks wrote to me earlier this year, requesting if they could send me their products, what caught my attention was when they sent me their drink called 'panakam', I was like "really?" the drink 'Panakam' has been such a quaint part of my childhood, that I had forgotten all about it and I'm not sure many South Indians who grew up in Bombay have even seen or tasted the thing. That a brand has made it, is packaging and selling it piqued my interest.
So when this box arrived in the mail, I got slighly alarmed by the size. and opened it to find this Tin box inside which was neatly nestled 2 packes of their drink "Chilli Guava". We happily poured it in into glasses, it looked nice & thick and tasted yum.
I looked at the packaging, it said "No Preservatives, No added colours" and it was made in India. I wrote back to them thanking them and asked if I could speak to someone from their team. The same person who wrote to me spoke to me, I remembered that I had let them send me their products because the mail I got was so real, unlike the many many mails that I get which are written in mass to 'bloggers', merely changing the name on top does not personalise a piece of communication. We discussed how it must be a challenge to manage distribution and inventory when the shelf life was only 3-4 months. I also told them about drinking their 'panakam' and why it tasted like a watered down version of the real thing. She requested if I could put it in a mail, so their team could change it. It is not easy to have this level of willingness or engagement with the consumer or end user when you are making a mass market product.
I read through PaperBoat's website and saw their Facebook and Instagram pages where they are currently running the most endearing campaign about train travel and each post just took me back to my childhood and summer vacations which were incomplete without these travels. The folks at Paperboat have definitely got their communication right, and they genuinely seem to love what they do.
Their posts are warm and beautifully thought through and explored, which is so rare and heartening. Their Ramadan campaign was so beautifully done that I could just imagine how much this series must mean to the Muslims in this country. Its amazing to see a large mass market brand have such a good grip on where they come from and stay so true to it. Our country and how we feel about ourselves, is changing, the Saree making a huge comeback in urban India and a brand like Paperboat thriving are such good signs of how far we've come in accepting and celebrating the goodness of where we come from.
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