Hey folks!

Swiggy has a new feature. And no, it's nothing to do with food delivery. Rather, it has found a heartwarming way for delivery partners to use their time in between deliveries―looking for lost pets!

See, losing pets can be distressing for pet parents. And they mostly have to rely on animal care groups or a network of friends and family to step up search efforts. But Swiggy could make that easier by relying on its extensive network of over 3.5 lakh delivery partners across India.

So when someone loses their pet, they could simply fire up the 'Swiggy Pawlice' feature on the app and report their missing pet with details and pictures. Delivery partners could then keep an eye for these missing animals while they are out and about delivering food or even in between deliveries. And if they do find a missing pet, they'll report their location to the Swiggy team, who'll then pass it on to the pet owner.

And yes, Swiggy will make sure that it rewards delivery partners who go out of their way to reunite lost pets with their owners. Hopefully that'll acknowledge their efforts and bring a smile on the faces of pets and their humans!

Here’s a soundtrack to put you in the mood🎵

Timro Pratiksa by Shallum Lama

You can thank our reader Parth Garg for this soothing recommendation.

A couple of things caught our eye this week 👀

Have you ever smelt an ad?

Confused? Well, McDonald's just released a new and quirky marketing campaign in the Netherlands this week. And the trick was not to advertise its brand name anywhere. No pictures of hamburgers or the happy clown, Ronald McDonald. Not even the Golden Arches (or its initial 'M').

All it did was used the power of its scent to get people craving for its food. Here's how.

McDonalds simply planted red and yellow billboards in the vicinity of some of its outlets, that actually seem empty at first sight. But when people linger within a few meters' distance they'd instantly smell McDonald's French fries. If you're wondering how that happens, every billboard has a side compartment that holds fries and a ventilation system built to intensify and diffuse the scent.

And that folks, is called scent marketing. McDonald's is using one of the most powerful things associated with brand recall―smell, to drum up sales. And it's not even a new idea.

Look, in 1990, an American neurologist and a quirky smell researcher Dr. Alan Hirsch ran an experiment. He kept identical pairs of Nike sneakers in two rooms that were exactly alike. The only thing that was different, was the scent. One room just had purified air, while the other had a floral scent. He then asked 31 shoppers to check them out. And guess what he found? 84% of the people were more likely to buy sneakers from the scented room!

That's why you associate particular smells with certain people, brands or even hotel lobbies. Heck! Even the G20 Leaders' Summit at New Delhi's Bharat Mandapam last year crafted a special scent with a hint of spices for the venue and takeaway gift, so that participants wouldn't easily forget their Indian experience.

After all, a 2014 Sense of Smell Institute study showed that 90% of respondents remembered the last time they ran into a certain scent, while only 50% remembered what they'd seen.

So yeah, scent marketing is a great way to trigger brand recall and make you spend more money. And it seems like McDonald's has cracked the code. Because who doesn't crave for fries after smelling them, eh?

***

Sugar puts Nestlé in bitter trouble

Food and beverage giant, Nestlé isn't having the best time. Because a report published this week accused it of adding sugar and honey to its infant milk products in low-and-middle-income countries.

The worst part? Nestlé doesn't do this in developed markets in Europe or the UK!

Public Eye, a Swiss investigative organisation found out that Nestlé's Cerelac had no added sugar in France, Germany and the UK. But the same product had over 5 g of it per serving in Ethiopia and 6 g in Thailand. Even the Cerelac sold in India has nearly 3 g of added sugar on average per serving.

So why could Nestlé be doing this, you ask?

Well, you could trace that back to a controversy that the brand attracted in the 1970s. Back then, Nestlé controlled nearly half of the infant milk substitute sales in Asia, Africa and Latin America. And its formula, Lactogen, was the largest-selling powdered milk product around the world.

But to get hold of a bigger market, Nestlé simply promoted its baby formula to be the more nutritious cousin of human breast milk. Not just that, the milk formula was painted as a miraculous product or a symbol of modern progress. And Nestlé's and other companies' posters and calendars made their appearance in doctors' clinics and maternity wards. It's no wonder that women in poor nations lost confidence in mothers' milk, considering it old-fashioned and inconvenient. They were also made to believe that breast milk wasn't good enough since they themselves were poorly nourished.

Breast feeding cases naturally declined.

On the flip side, infants who'd been living on baby formula were indirectly being poisoned. That's because, poor mothers spent nearly 20-80% of their family earnings on feeding their babies. So they couldn't afford to repeat the purchase soon enough. And that meant that they'd over dilute the formula with water. Add to that the fact that poor nations may not have had easy access to clean drinking water, the unsterilised bottles or contaminated baby food could even give babies diarrhoea.

Nevertheless, these big baby food brands made their money at the cost of ill-informed mothers.

And the Nestlé controversy today is quite similar. It could simply be using sugar to get babies hooked to its packaged food, so that mothers in developing countries buy more of it.

But we're just drawing parallels here. Is Nestlé guilty though? We'll only have to wait and see.

Infographic 📊

Money tips 💰

Beware of iceberg spending

Ever thought of saving up for something as grand as a luxury car or something straightforward like an iPhone?

Sure, buying it with your hard-earned money could make you feel ecstatic. But there’s an unforeseen cost most of us invite when we purchase expensive stuff that often requires months and sometimes years of thrifting ― maintenance.

And that could trap you in an iceberg effect.

Imagine you’ve been sincerely saving to buy a luxury car. After a point, you discover a great deal on a well-maintained used car. You do your research and buy it. But 6 months later, it starts throwing tantrums. It guzzles more fuel than you anticipated, its engine often stalls and it keeps asking for repairs every now and then.

Now, although the initial purchase felt smart you may not have been ready for these extra expenses simply because you missed all the vehicle’s flaws.

And this isn’t true just for second-hand purchases. Let’s talk about the iPhone we mentioned earlier. Damage protection for an expensive device doesn’t come cheap either. And if you crack the screen by accident…the less said the better.

So it’s always wise to thoroughly understand what you’ll involuntarily invite when you buy something like this ― registration and other costs for homes, insurance and fuel costs for luxury vehicles or even customised product costs when you get a fab hair treatment at a salon! That way, you’ll be ready for the additional expenses that accompany your purchases like a shadow.

Readers Recommend 🗒️

Clear Thinking by Shane Parrish

This week our reader Sourodiptto Mondal recommends a book that talks about how you can reshape your thoughts. See, most of us run on autopilot. Sometimes we react to negative events without reasoning. And we don't realise that we’ve missed an opportunity to think at all. But when good things happen, we recognise these moments for what they are and use our reasoning and rationality to their full capacities. This book has stories and mental models that offer a missing link between real life outcomes and how we behave.

And Sourodiptto says that it's like a software update for your brain when you can't seem to think clearly. Thanks for the rec, buddy!

Finshots Weekly Quiz 🧩

It’s time to announce the winners of our previous weekly quizzes. We missed announcing last week's winner. So here you go. And the winners are…🥁

Kundan Kadam and Samitinjaya Rath! Congratulations folks. Keep an eye on your inbox and we’ll get in touch with you soon to send over your Finshots merch.

Anyway, that’s it from us this week. We’ll see you next Sunday.

Until then, don’t forget to tell us what you thought of today’s newsletter. And send us your book, music, business movies, documentaries or podcast recommendations. We’ll feature them in the newsletter! Just hit reply to this email (or if you’re reading this on the web, drop us a message: morning@finshots.in).

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