CHANDIGARH, May 3: City markets are flooded with "buy-one-get-one free" offers. The time-honoured marketing ploy has been deployed to push everything from cosmetics, toothbrushes and razor blades to cooking oil.Cosmetics lead the freebie charge. Emami Naturally Fair creme tempts the buyers with "two for the price of one" while "three for the price of two" is the offer from the highly expensive and highly popular Dove soap.Synergie moisturiser offers a free face wash; ditto Ponds 200 ml cold creme worth Rs 95. Ponds face wash, worth Rs 21, comes in a pack that claims to be giving 25 per cent extra stuff.Buy a 200 ml Lux shampoo and you get a Lakme moisturiser worth Rs 29 free. Buy a giant-size bottle of Swiss St Ives shampoo and you get an equal amount of conditioner free. Either shampoo will set you back for Rs 275. A cleansing milk worth Rs 42 comes free with a Freya moisturising lotion worth Rs 72.Razor blade companies do not lag behind. You get an Oral B toothbrush worth Rs 22 free with a pack of 7 o'Clock super platinum blades worth Rs 48. Another free toothbrush is handed out to the purchases of Ajanta Select shaving brush.The blade manufactures have all gone gaga over the World Cup. 7 o'Clock offers a "ticket in a packet" contest: spend Rs 50 on a pack of its twin-blade cartridges and you find out whether or not you are being flown to watch the action live.Among the other logical combinations, we find a free Palmolive soap tagged with a Colgate toothpaste, and 200 ml of Parachute coconut oil free with a five-litre pack of Sweekar soya oil, worth Rs 270. But one also discovers some unlikely bedfellows. For instance, buy a packet of Bru coffee and get two combs free, or buy a 500 gm jar of Kissan jam and get a free frisbee.Those eager to dig for gold, in a manner of speaking, can try their luck with flour sacks and soap cakes. If you are lucky, your Cinthol soap cake will yeild you a pendant in the cherished metal, as will a 10 or 5 kg pack of Shaktibhog flour. The Panchkula-based firm will give you 5 grams of gold if you find a gift coupon in the sack.
