The Hindu Business Line : Superbrands India to track export brands

SUPERBRANDS India, the independent brand arbiter, will soon extend its expertise into a new area by starting work on major export brands. It will also release the first Business Superbrands book by October 2005.

Mr Anmol Dar, Managing Director, Superbrands India Pvt Ltd, said, "In continuation with our vision to discipline brands, the Indian chapter of Superbrands is chalking out plans to start working on a larger project about leading export brands."

Work on Business Superbrands, a brand track of leading corporate companies, has already taken off and will be released by October 2005. Also, a council of eminent members for Export Superbrands will be set up, after which support of the Government will be sought.

"There are quite a few regulatory procedures to be addressed, besides talking to the Government officials about this particular initiative. But, work on this project should tentatively start in six months," Mr Dar said.

The council members for Business Superbrands are from companies such as Reliance, P&G, Tata Sons, HSBC, Bharati Enterprises, Infosys, HDFC, IOC and ONGC, which collectively represent 20 per cent of India's GDP, Mr Dar added.

Superbrands' books explore the history, development, and achievements of the strongest brands in each of the 39 countries it currently operates in, highlighting their advertising, marketing and design successes as well as revealing other interesting findings. To date, over 3,190 brands have participated worldwide in the 52 editions of the Superbrands books released so far. It entered India late 2003.

In addition to tracking consumer and business brands UK, Superbrands Ltd also evaluates youth-driven `Cool Brands' and Net-driven `E-Brands.' However, the Indian arm of Superbrands is not keen on introducing similar tracks at least in the near future. "There are very few youth brand custodians in India and, moreover, both youth and Internet brands are naïve and have a very little history to talk about as compared to our consumer and business editions," Mr Dar said.