In the process of finalizing the interior décor of our house, my quest led me to “Asian Paints: Har Ghar Kuch Kehta hain” which showcases the houses of celebs. One such celeb’s house that caught my attention was John Abraham’s house. The house was lavish but there was minimal décor and minimal usage of multiple hues of colors, to sum it up it was calm and soothing and most importantly decluttered. I started searching for minimalistic designs and realized that these designs are high on functionality. There began my interesting journey of trying to understand minimalism.

What is minimalism?
Minimalism as a concept originated in the post World War II, this was mainly an art movement. The main focus of minimalism is the necessary elements and to cut down on noise. Simplicity and functionality become the crux of minimalism. The minimalist movement slowly spread across many countries like Japan, Sweden, and Denmark.
The lexicon meaning of minimalism indicates a lifestyle involving a reduction or simplification of one’s material possessions that makes one’s life more purposeful and intentional. I truly admire this concept, decluttering leads to a better flow of physical and mental energy. I tried decluttering twice a year, I tried to donate my unused clothes (clothes that I never wore in the past 10 months and do not fit me anymore). The living room of our house has minimal décor. My idea of keeping it minimal was purposeful, as I wanted less time to be spent on cleaning and maintaining things.

I was inspired by Matt D’Avella, Connie Riet. I really liked the simplistic ideas of renting a book from the library rather than buying, having a simplified wardrobe that makes decision-making easy, and hoarding a lesser number of things at home. Indians as a community try to spend wisely and we are known for reusing a maximum number of products, this is a quality of minimalists, however we tend to overdo this and we end up hoarding a lot of stuff. Many of us would have noticed our parents using the Horlicks, Kissan jam bottles in kitchen to store other stuff. The intent of minimalism is lost while we try to overdo a lot of things.

On one sunny day I took my kids to an art and crafts fair. We passed by many stalls but ended up purchasing very few extremely essential items. I looked at the disappointed stall owners and wondered if many people embraced minimalism what would be the plight of marketers? Maybe they will eventually have to segment markets as consumerists and minimalists. For the minimalists, the focus would be on product functionality and utility rather than packing. I was surprised to know a few fashion brands embraced minimalism, the thought of fashion and minimalism looked like an oxymoron. A few brands like Cord, and Khara Khapas that promoted minimalistic designs caught my attention.

Embracing Minimalism

Organizations targeting minimalists have to be aware of their core values. Organizations can save immensely by not overspending on flashy ads and just focusing on the utility and functionality of the product. Furlenco, an online furniture rental company encourages minimalism by providing minimalistic designs to make homes look better. It emphasizes decluttering. The philosophy of Furlenco is a “Sharing economy” which is a reflection of a minimalist’s quality.
Many consumers “Judge a book by its cover” and hence the packaging plays a very important role in consumer decision-making. Almost 81 percent of purchase decisions are made after looking at the packaging of a product. If this is true, then many marketers are in deep trouble while targeting the minor segment of minimalists. But many of the brands that cater to minimalists do not try to impress conventional consumers. A few examples of minimalistic packaging would include the usage of recyclable material as packaging material, usage of minimal colors for packaging, and avoiding attractive pictures.

Such kind of minimalistic packaging also helps in reducing costs.

Another approach marketers can adopt is to encourage long-term use of products, generally, minimalists prefer to use a product until obsolescence. Minimalism encourages longer product usage or minimalists prefer products of longer shelf life. Many Scandinavian brands are known for their durable products like Ikea, and Svenskt Tenn. If you looked at most of the IKEA products, it focused more on utility than on style elements. They avoid purchasing products without a strong intent. Online furniture rental company “Furlenco” philosophy sharing economy strikes a strong chord with minimalists. The company provides ample guidance to organize their homes simplistically, it provides inputs on making many corners of the house functional (Karimpana, 2017). Furlenco aids customers in long term maintenance of their furniture by providing deep cleaning services. This indicates that minimalism can lead to a slow paradigm shift towards after sales services. It could also indicate that companies will be dealing with longer customer lifetime value.

On observing the hospitality industry, it’s great to see several Japanese hotels that have embraced minimalism. Many Nordic countries that have minimalism as a lifestyle focus only on products that are of everyday utility. Another way to cater to minimalists is to have stores or websites that sell second-hand or pre-used or pre-loved products. Hoarding of products never helps, especially for the current generation who are like nomads, relocating from one place to another becomes difficult. They too try to adopt a minimalist lifestyle, and many of such consumers opt for rental websites like Furlenco, Rentomojo.

Minimalism does not sound like a new concept, as this was embraced by the majority of the middle class Indian families for centuries. We still reuse jam bottles for storing other products, we reuse various bottles and packaging material. We pass on our used products or clothing to needy people. Demographics have a huge play, and marketing organizations can crack this by identifying different layers and carefully targeting customers. The pandemic has fueled the growth of minimalists, according to Malvika a minimalist, about 400 people were counseled by her and eventually converted to minimalism during the lockdown. The minimalist world does not have products of vanity, luxury, or good to have and hence the organizations can cluster their products and market segments and target accordingly.

On a concluding note, in this era of globalization and capitalization, minimalism can only act as hindrance to most of the marketers if adopted on a large scale. Minimalists definitely help in the sustenance of the circular economy by helping in reusing, sharing and recycling most of the products. However, this proportion of minimalists as compared to the consumerists is very small, minimalism currently looks like a fad, the movement has to be embraced by more people. Hence the conundrum can be addressed slowly by the marketers, certain improvements like sustainable packaging and reducing carbon footprint can become a long term goal of the companies. The slow alignment of a minimalist’s goals and company’s goals can be initiated to reduce the gap and address some major concerns regarding the environment.