When we talk about India as a multilayered brand, the first thing that comes to mind is that we are a land of incredible diversity. In fact, there is no other country in the world which has the type of diversity that we have, in various dimensions. There is an ethnic diversity; linguistic; religious; regional. It's a brand of incredible diversity, and marketers who have not understood this basic fact have quickly come to grief.

This is a fact that often gets lost when you see Power Point presentations by McKinsey or Boston Consulting Group, on which multinationals depend to enter this country. And they find that India is not quite what is portrayed. Second, it's an evolving brand. Today, we are all very proud that we are the world's IT capital, a country to which all the big companies are coming to, whether it's in software, or auto components or in research. But 40 years ago, Brand India meant to mean the world's largest importer of wheat. Forty years ago, it meant to mean a `basket case' economy that depended on food imports. But in 40 years, that economy has become the world's second or third largest rice/wheat producer, largest milk producer. That's what I mean by saying it's an evolving brand. Brand India in many quarters is a country where you can't afford not to be in to take advantage of these two lakh engineers who graduate every year, who speak English, who are operating in a democratic system, wedded to the rule of law, and who have a unique time-zone advantage vis-à-vis the rest of the world. You are working when America is sleeping, and when America is working you're still working! Particularly if you're South of the Vindhyas; work habits are quite different from the North. And it's no surprise that all the outsourcing is coming to South.

It's an aggregative brand. Kenichi Ohmae from McKinsey has a thesis that there's no such thing as a Brand India. There's a Brand Bangalore, there's a Brand Hyderabad, there's a Brand Chennai, there's a Brand Kolkata — whatever that stands for! But it's a brand.

Kenichi Ohmae, some years ago, came to India and said, "Forget about building Brand India. You guys can never build Brand India because you are associated with poverty, you are associated with filth." It's all very true, by the way. So, concentrate on building the building blocks of an aggregate brand.

A large number of sub-brands are associated with this brand, each of them with its own unique attributes. There's a Brand Tiruppur, which exports Rs 4,000 crore of hosiery. It's one of the most entrepreneurial cities that you can find where Government is not visible. Sheer entrepreneurial drive and talent has created this Brand Tiruppur, which very few people outside Tamil Nadu know about. Similarly, there's Brand Ludhiana. Brand Moradabad. Brand Rajkot.

When you look at Brand India, there are a large number of sub-components which have established and planted their flags. And they all go up to constitute this larger animal called Brand India. And perhaps the payoffs in the short-term are much more in building the building blocks and taking them up to the next level of competitiveness rather than in focusing on this very large animal called Brand India.

Fourth, it's a brand in transition. It's a brand that is undergoing a fundamental economic shift: it has gone from being an inward-looking economy to being an outward-looking economy. The fact that we are discussing brands in an international context reflects this change in mindset that has taken place in the last decade-and-a-half.

It's a brand in political transition: it has gone from being a highly centralised form of a democracy to a more decentralised form of democracy. The first level of decentralisation was from the Centre to the States, and the second level now is from the States to the local bodies. And those of you who look upon this phenomenon as something that is of importance only to politicians should think twice. Because, don't forget, it's a Panchayat in Kerala that has single-handedly taken on Coke. And Coke has come to grief on account of this Panchayat, not because of any State/ national government. And, of course, it's a brand in social transition, which you see very vividly in the Northern part of the country. It's a brand that is undergoing demographic transition. We will be the world's largest country in 35 years. But the more interesting thing about our demography really is the age structure of our population. We are going to continue to be a young population in many ways. While the world faces old-age problems, India will continue to face age-old problems. We will have our problems, but we will have our problems with a very young population structure. And that has its unique implications for consumer psychology and consumer behaviour.

Finally, it's a brand with a unique psychology, reflected in a large number of and wide variety of ways. Most vividly illustrated by the fact that this is a country in which companies which have come in and invested heavily in brands. It's a country where the premium is much more on the price and less on the brand. It's not only a regional market but also an extraordinarily price-sensitive market. That's not a surprise. That's not because of any culture. That's because of the low level of disposable income. Even though our economy may be growing by 6-7 per cent per year, our disposable income is still about $500 per capita. So, with this income, you are going to be more sensitive to price and less sensitive to brand. And hence the success of a Nirma or a Ghadi or, I am told, CavinKare, which are good examples of this type of sensitivity to the price equation.

All in all, when you look at Brand India, it's not a homogenous product. When you are looking at other economies, other brands in the normal corporate world, you talk of brand as a fairly homogenous entity. When you look at brands representing companies, representing products, you are by and large talking of homogeneity, whether you are talking of Microsoft, GE, Coke, Pepsi or Intel. But when you are talking of complex entities like India or even Kerala, for that matter - Kerala is God's Own Country, and it's a remarkable brand building exercise. But Kerala is also the God's Own Country which has the highest suicide rates, the highest rate of unemployment and the highest rate of emigration. So, these are not entities that you can generalise. I think we will be doing a gross disservice to ourselves if we gloss over India's various attributes or dimensions. The fact that we are the white-collar capital, attracting foreign investment, growing at 6-7 per cent a year, and the fact the foreign companies are looking at us differently shouldn't make us oblivious to the basic facts of Brand India - which are that there's a huge backlog of economic and social challenges that we still need to address.

By all means, let us be all optimistic and bullish about Brand India but let us also try to go beyond the headlines. And let us not fall into the same trap that the image-makers of India Shining so found themselves. And therefore look at Brand India in its complexity, in its wide variety. And don't get carried away by what's happening at a particular point of time.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page