Brand India

Now this was something which I feared.

Slumdog may have won all the Oscars of the world, but it has led to people having a certain wrong perception of India. Now when someone who is not very familiar with this part of the world, hears the word India, the direct association with the movie takes him to an image of the slums which were spectacularly shot in the movie. Brand India certainly takes a hit.

Jim Rogers in a recent interview said “Wherever I go for speeches around the world I tell people, if you have to go to one country in your lifetime, you should go to India.”
But may be his audience are restricted to the ‘Economic Times reading type’.

Movies are a powerful medium which have both the reach as well as the influence to change or form perceptions. May be some of the filmmakers should take lead in making movies which have global appeal and which something better to people to associate India with. It will be quite a creative challenge to weave this aspect in an interesting script.

Elections and Marketing

1.Who is the target customer? – Young India
65% of India is between 18 and 35 - 2 years in my MBA this was the first line I used to write under target customer of any marketing plan.
And how do you target these young customers – Divisive Hate politics?
Not at all. We, youth are no more concerned about it. People of India are becoming so called Global Citizens erasing the boundaries between countries and here is someone who is attempting to create boundaries of religion, caste etc. No surprise that there were few takers.

2.What are you selling? – Hate or Hope
Congress and all the regional parties who won, especially in Bihar and Orissa, won because they were selling the development. There was NREGA(which affected 38 million households [Source]), Loan waiver etc for the rural masses. For the urban section, it was the image of Congress being a secular party and the prime minister as an honest man.
BJP were not selling anything except de-positioning Congress by a single minded attack on the current prime minister. One of the TV anchors, who attended many BJP rallies, commented that Modi (their only face of development) focused only partially on development. The rest of the speeches had ferocious communal agenda built into them. Many claps at rally but ‘shoegate’ on the real stage.

3. Positioning? - Weak and Strong Netas
More of de-positioning tactics used by BJP. But again they were tactics not a strategy. Weak Prime Minister Logic was only based on the fact that Sonia Gandhi was the party president and common perception held was that she was driving the government. I don’t agree to this line of reasoning but for once even if we believe that is the case, then she is there now too. Right? So she can drive the government again. So what if she sets a direction in which she wants the party and the country to move? Think of them as Mr. Narayana Murthy, the chairman and mentor of Infosys and Mr. Gopalakrishnan, the CEO. Mr. Murthy is not actively involved in the running of the company but he gives a strategic direction. Does that mean Mr. Gopalakrishnan is a weak CEO?

4. Brand Names- Gandhi
Gandhi is definitely one of the biggest brand names in India. People argue that we are enslaved to a family. Well then it can be argued that so are we to other brands – HUL, Airtel, Nokia and so on. Why do we ‘follow’ a brand or become ‘enslaved’ to it – because we think it is good for us, it gives us good value for money. Same is the case with Gandhi Brand name. In the past it has provided us stability and good governance and that is what people needed right now.

5. Brand Extension – Rahul Gandhi
Rahul Gandhi is using his family name to his advantage. So do all brands.
They are simply using the same brand name for a different product – a product which appeals to the young India, something which gives hope for the future and which people can trust.

Economics and Branding

Interesting to hear the word “Brand” in a class of Economics of Industrial Organisation. But it seems brand is in a way derived from the concept of monopoly – which you generally find in a Eco book.

Though Marketing, essentially has been derived from economics only but still it’s interesting to see the concepts merge. According to economists, Branding is a way of gaining “Artificial Monopoly”.

Monopoly is when you have the power to control prices. You are the Price Maker – i.e. you can set the price and then are able to sell everything at that price. By branding you are differentiating yourself and trying to positioning yourself a tad above the rest. You are trying to gain that distinct space in the minds of the consumer – or in other words a monopoly in the Mindshare – which will then give returns just like a ‘copy book’ monopoly.

A tradition Monopoly Market is not generally preferred as it results in an overall social loss. Hence many economists are against the concept of Branding or artificial monopoly too. They believe that an activity like advertisement or branding does not add any value – it does not increase production.

Well, just a contrarian view point. Though I am a die-hard fan of the concept of Branding !