GREAT UNIFIER: Commuters of all hues ride the metro
| Photo Credit:
SUDHAKARA JAIN
When I visit Mumbai, I often take the local train from Churchgate station to Borivali. The main objective is to observe the people on the train. In my home-town of Bengaluru, as well, I have begun travelling by metro quite often, but mostly because the metro takes me to my destination far quicker than an Uber cab can — particularly given the many choked roads of this otherwise lovely garden city. But having got onto the metro, here too I keep looking at people.
In the past two months, these occasional travels by local train and metro have thrown up several interesting insights. I have jotted down over 25 observations during this period. Here are five of them.
90 per cent of the people are on their mobiles constantly — a vast majority are watching videos on social media.
60 per cent of the people wear wrist watches, primarily metal analogue watches. I see far fewer wearables on wrists now, compared with two years ago.
Many more young and middle-aged men are wearing colourful shirts, compared to earlier years (including me).
On my last local train ride in Mumbai, virtually no one was smiling, perhaps after a long and tiring day at work. On the metro in Bengaluru, on the other hand, I inevitably see many more smiles.
Lots of people in Mumbai local trains were carrying lunchboxes, but very few did in Bengaluru.
Each of these ‘public transport’ observations can potentially lead to good marketing insights. For instance, probing why fewer people are wearing wearables now, and what this tells us about changing attitudes to digital health and wellness. Or why middle-aged men are suddenly wearing floral shirts, and what this tells us about ageing and urban masculinity.
Living laboratory
This leads me to an interesting point. Public transport — whether local train, metro or bus — is one of the best platforms for observing consumers and their real-time, in-situ behaviour. Yet, many marketers who choose to travel exclusively by private vehicles or Uber cabs or auto-rickshaws miss out on this living laboratory that pulses with consumer trends every single day.
If you are a marketer or a student of the consumer universe, here are a few reasons why you should ditch your private vehicle and consider travelling by public transport at least occasionally.
Local trains, metros and buses bring together many different segments of society. Affluent office-goers, young students, retail employees, working women, middle-class families — people from virtually every large consumer segment use local transport, particularly in large cities. This helps you break away from the ivory tower of your office or apartment complex, where you are likely to interact primarily with people from your own demographic segment.
With little effort, you can observe what people are wearing or viewing, and often also overhear snatches of conversation. You can see which shopping bags they are carrying, what snacks they are munching on, and what hairstyle or jewellery they are sporting. Sometimes, just the expression on their face speaks volumes. These and other observations can create trend lines in your mind, or stoke your curiosity to find out more.
If you are a little more adventurous, you can strike up engaging and relevant conversations with co-travellers. I do this quite often, and I find that many people (though not all) are happy to chat. For instance, during one metro ride in Bengaluru, I overheard two young people speaking about garments they recently bought at Zudio and Max stores. I spoke to them about why they shopped at each of these stores and the comparative benefits. I came away with a couple of nice insights.
While it is important not to generalise or reach firm conclusions from these assorted observations or conversations, what I have realised is that they can spark new thoughts, questions or hypotheses, which can, in turn, lead to meaningful and actionable ideas.
For all these reasons, I would urge marketers to hop onto metros or buses every now and then. This is one of the best and easiest ways of keeping consumers in your sight.
(Harish Bhat is an avid marketer and bestselling author. He was earlier the Brand Custodian at Tata Sons)
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Published on July 28, 2025
