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It is that time of the year in India when everyone is expected to be in the mood for buying gold. Why, because it is Akshay Thritiya - a day that's supposed to bring goodluck and prosperity. "Akshaya" in sanskrit means "never diminishing". So it is believed that investments made on this day brings in "never diminishing" returns.

From being an auspicious day that few people knew about, Akshaya Thritiya has been transformed into a must-buy-gold day, thanks to marketeers. Other than advertisements selling gold in material form, this year I also see ads for innovative instruments that help investments in gold in other forms.

One such ad that caught my attention this morning was from Sundaram Mutual for their New Fund Offer of Equity Plus - a fund that invests in equity and gold exchange-traded-funds. I have not been a big fan of past ads from Sundaram Mutual, but what appealed this time was the innovation. The innovation is in the execution and not the ad itself, Sundaram Mutual have chosen to run two print ads back-to-back on page 23 and 24 of today's Economic Times. One of the advertisment talks to the "Husband" and the other talks to the "Wife" - explaining why their partners would approve of investment in this new product.

Vijaya Karnataka also had the Sundaram Mutual advertisment on the last page today, but only one (the wife version). Was it as effective? No. Its the combination of the ads in the Economic Times thats made an impact.