Two Tales of Marketing: A Tourist Trap on the Way to Mysore Zoo and a Sweet Surprise in Madurai

Two encounters during Diwali 2025 changed how I think about marketing. One left me feeling cheated. The other made me a willing advocate.

Here’s what happened.

The Friendly Stranger on the Road to Mysore Zoo

We were visiting my sister-in-law in Bangalore, and on Diwali day, the family decided to visit the Mysore Zoo. It had rained the previous day, but we started early, around 7:30 AM, hoping to beat the crowds.

About five kilometers from the zoo, we stopped at a signal. Our car has Tamil Nadu plates. The roads were mostly empty. As we crossed the signal, a man on a bike pulled alongside us. He looked to be in his fifties, friendly face, the kind of person you’d expect to offer directions.

He gestured for us to roll down the window. My wife did.

“Where are you going?” he asked in Tamil, warming up to us as fellow Tamilians. When we said the zoo, his expression changed to concern.

“It rained yesterday, so they’ll be cleaning the park. The zoo opens late on days like this.” He paused, as if considering how to help us. “There’s a nice complex nearby - a silk saree shop, Mysore sandalwood, all the special things from Mysore. Why don’t you check it out while you wait? I’ll show you the way.”

He was so convincing that we followed. My sister-in-law was skeptical from the start, but my wife wanted to see the silk. So we split up: I drove to the zoo to verify his claim while they checked out the shop.

The zoo was open. No cleaning. No delays. It had been running normally since opening time.

I called my wife. She confirmed what we’d suspected: the silk was poor quality, priced absurdly high. The whole thing was a setup.

As I drove back to pick them up, I noticed something. Other bikers near the signals. Auto drivers at key intersections. All doing the same thing - intercepting tourists, spinning the same story, directing them to the same shops.

It was organized. Coordinated. And deeply disappointing, especially during what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.

A Week Later in Madurai

The Mysore incident left a bad taste. But a week later, something else happened.

I was in Madurai. After a particularly spicy lunch - the kind Madurai is famous for - I needed something sweet and cold to balance things out. I spotted the BG Naidu sweet shop and noticed a board advertising bun butter jam. Perfect.

I walked in with a singular purpose: buy a bun butter jam and leave.

An employee greeted me immediately. Before I could say anything, she offered me a piece of sweet to taste. I politely declined, explaining I just wanted the bun butter jam, nothing else.

She smiled and handed me the sweet anyway. “Just try it.”

I did. It was good, but I stuck to my plan. She wrapped up my bun butter jam without pushing anything else.

As I paid and turned to leave, she made one small request: “If you have a moment, could you leave us a review on Google?”

Not “Please give us five stars.” Not “Rate us highly.” Just “leave us a review.”

I walked out, opened Google Maps, and gave them five stars. Not because she asked for five stars. Because the experience deserved it.

The Two Extremes

These two encounters sit at opposite ends of what marketing can be.

The Mysore approach was deception. Lies dressed up as helpful advice. The goal was to manipulate someone into a place they didn’t want to be, to buy things they didn’t need, at prices they shouldn’t pay. It might work once. But every person who falls for it leaves feeling betrayed. They’ll never return, and they’ll warn everyone they know.

The Madurai approach was value. A free sample costs the shop almost nothing, but it creates goodwill. Respecting my stated preference - that I only wanted one thing - built trust. The review request was humble, not manipulative. And because of all this, I became an advocate. Not reluctantly, but willingly.

One pushed. The other pulled.

One treated customers as marks. The other treated them as people.

One optimized for a single transaction. The other optimized for relationship.

What This Taught Me

I don’t know much about marketing. But I know how both experiences made me feel. And I think that’s the point: the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing at all.

The BG Naidu employee wasn’t running a sophisticated campaign. She was just being genuinely helpful. The sample wasn’t a manipulation tactic - it was hospitality. The review request wasn’t a growth hack - it was a straightforward ask after earning the right to ask.

The Mysore scammers had it backwards. They thought marketing meant getting people to do what you want through any means necessary. To me, that just felt like deception with extra steps.

I still think about that sweet shop sometimes. Not because of the bun butter jam - though it was good - but because of how it made me feel. Respected. Not manipulated.

That’s the kind of marketing that lasts. Not the kind that intercepts tourists at signals with practiced lies, but the kind that makes someone reach for their phone to leave a review without being told what stars to give.