Corporate Focus

The Hidden Treasure (P) Ltd.
Beautiful Business

Some leftist feminists and ultra rightist moralists may be dead against the beauty pageants, but such events are attracting more and more of participants each year. And the list of such events is not limited to only Miss Nepal. There also are such pageants as Little Lady, Miss 10+2 (among the 10+2 school students), Mrs. Nepal etc. Also Mr. Nepal pageant started from last year. Added to them are such events as Safi Queen, Mr. Handsome, Lux Beauty Star etc. In fact, the list is not exhaustive.

Gopal Kakshapati Member, BOD, Hidden Treasure

The tradition of holding beauty pageants is, however, not that old. It was only in 1994 that the first attempt was made by Kathmandu Jaycees as a part of its leadership development program, recalls Gopal Sundar Lal Kakshapati, who was one of the persons involved actively in the organization of the first Miss Nepal pageant. Later in 1997, Kakshapati and 10 other friends went on to set up a specialized company for organizing such events as business. The Hidden Treasure (P) Ltd., as the company is named, is preparing to hold the 11th Miss Nepal pageant on August 7.

However, the business is still at its infancy. “It is still difficult to find the sponsors,” laments Kakshapati, and adds, “May be it is because the Miss Nepal pageant is still not that big event to enthuse the sponsors.”

That is not all. “Some possible sponsors are hesitant because of the politically motivated opposition to this event. But since Dabur Nepal started sponsoring it, the people too have started looking at it differently.” Still there is another problem. One of the major benefits of the sponsorship is the opportunity for the sponsor to use the title holder in the promotions of the products of the sponsor company. The small companies do not want to participate because of the big cost that will be involved in using the title holder in such promotions. Also among the big companies, there are very few who have sufficient promotional budget to afford such activities.

That leaves only few big companies or multinationals as the possible sponsors. But such companies do not want to be the cosponsors. Nor do they allow other companies to be the cosponsors. “They want the entire cake, but the total amount that they maybe ready to fork out will not be enough to meet the costs. Therefore, we have to search for other sponsors”, informs Kakshapati.

The sponsorship problem has been there right since the beginning. When the Kathmandu Jaycees decided to host the first event in 1994, San Miguel beer was enlisted as the sponsor of the event at almost the last hour. But the company did not use the Miss Nepal in its promotional programs as much as expected. And it did not continue sponsoring the event in the subsequent years. One reason, and perhaps the most important one, for this was the opposition from the anti-beauty pageant activists. And the opponents had some weight in their logic because of the beer brand as the sponsor of the event. They objected that the immature girls, who were still at their adolescence, were being used to promote an alcoholic product.

However, an equally important reason for the beer brand not sponsoring the event was technical. The government banned the advertisement of the beer, liquor and tobacco from appearing on the electronic media. “That meant we were not going to be allowed to show the event over the television. That would have limited the reach of the program and the major objective of the event in those early days – i.e. to publicise it to the widest audience possible – was not going to be fulfilled.”

Also the Miss Nepals have not been able to maintain their level, it is felt. Though they have been able to get prestigious jobs in different sectors, they could do still better, thinks Kakshapati. But he also thinks that it is influenced even by the stage that the Nepali society is on. “Many potential candidates are not coming forth,” he says and blames political opposition to the event as one of the factors for this. Moreover, many young girls have gone out for studies. So there is a vacuum of the interested girls. There are cases of some girls who filled up forms to participate in the contest but left the program during the trainings as they had to go out of the country for their studies. For example, this year there were 58 girls who applied to participate in the contest. Twenty three of them were short listed for trainings, but only 18 are continuing the training. In some cases, the offices where they work did not permit them to participate in the event.

So the coming ten years will be needed for the society to mature to accept such events, he thinks.

However, the days are much different today than 10 years ago. As Kakshapati recalls, the father of one of the contestants of the first Miss Nepal beauty pageant had to be lodged in one of the expensive hotels for nearly one month at the expense of the organizers. Similarly, when the first Miss Nepal had to be sent to Manila to participate in the international event, both of the parents of the Miss Nepal insisted that they must be allowed to accompany their daughter in the foreign land on the expense of the organizers. Despite a lot of efforts in convincing them the organizers had to agree to bear the cost of sending the father to Manila. The parents and guardians are now more liberal than that.

It was in 1997 that The Hidden Treasure started organizing the pageant. “We thought that as the leadership keeps on changing in a non-profit organization, it will not be possible to continue the event in the same format. In fact the pageant saw three different formats over the three years of its organizing under Kathmandu Jaycees. The new leadership may have different views about such events. So we formed a separate company to give continuity to the pageant,” says Kakshapati.

But Kathmandu Jaycees did not stop organizing the event in 1997. So there were two such events in 1997. Kathmandu Jaycees called it Miss Nepal while The Hidden Treasure called it Miss World Nepal. From 1998 onwards, it is being organized by Hidden Treasure only but the cooperation of Jaycees is still being continued.

Since four years ago, the Hidden Treasure has also affiliated to Miss Universe which involves an additional cost of US dollar 10,000 per year while the affiliation to Miss World costs 6,000 sterling pounds. Moreover, it is also affiliated to Miss Earth and Kakshapati thinks of using this last title as well from this year. There is also a proposal pending consideration of The Hidden Treasure for affiliation to Miss Intercontinental. The affiliation with such international events gives the company opportunity to send the title holders to participate in the respective international events at the cost of the hosts. The Hidden Treasure has to bear the costs for the air ticket and the dresses.

According to Kakshapati, the company is still not profitable, though the costs are being met somehow. To supplement its income, the company also helps other parties to organize different events. In this connection, it has already helped in the organizing of Sikhar Sanjh musical tour conducted by Surya Tobacco (now Surya Nepal). It can also help organizing the Annual General Meetings of companies and business associations. However, the company has not been able to do these businesses much as the flagship event Miss Nepal is time consuming to organize and to prepare for sending the title holders for international participation.

One bad experience about the business that Kakshapati wants to mention specifically is the rejection by the authorities to register Miss Nepal as a brand. “They said as it is not a physical product, it cannot be registered as a brand.”

Regarding the opposition that the company faces from various quarters in organizing the Miss Nepal beauty pageant, Kakshapati says the opposition is because of the lack of understanding among the opponents about what such pageants involve. “It is not the winner of the title alone who benefits. All the participants benefit from the rigorous training on various aspects of personality development. We help them to recognize the treasure that she has within her. They are trained to present themselves with dignity. Moreover, the country itself can expect benefits.”

 So the other strategy the company is now considering to promote the event is to associate it with the promotion of the country. “In fact we are trying in this direction from the very beginning. The contestants are educated during the training on the positive things about Nepal and to take pride on being Nepali. When they are sent abroad for participation in the international events, they promote Nepal and this helps in the country’s tourism development. Though RNAC has helped us by sponsoring the tickets for the Miss Nepal to go abroad to participate in the international events, we are still not successful to convince the Nepal Tourism Board to enlist its sponsorship,” says Kakshapati.

Despite this difficulty, The Hidden Treasure is still trying to convince the authorities about hosting international beauty pageants in Nepal itself. “When such events are held in Nepal, the publicity that the country will receive will be much more than what any amount of investment in other promotional activities will be able to buy,” he adds.

For the opponents of the event, Kakshapati requests to look at the fact that about 200 girls are already trained by the event in their personality development and they are making positive impacts not only on their personal life but also in the society. They have created some aspirational value. They have participated in the international events and proved that Nepali girls are talented. For example, Usha Khadki was among the top 20s in the Miss World event she participated. Similarly, Prerna Shah was among the top ten in Miss Asia Pacific last year.

These are no small achievement against the fact that such events in Nepal are recent while Miss World is being organized for the last 53 years. Even Miss India event is 40 years old. The Indian girls started being crowned Miss World or Miss Universe only recently.

Going by the achievements recorded so far in the international events, Nepal may not need to wait that long as India did to have one of her girls crowned Miss World.

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