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Branding hygiene
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has focused a lot of effort on the Swachh Bharat Mission. Is it a powerful brand today?
Thanjavur
Raman, “Swacch Bharat” is today a brand for sure. A brand that brings to mind the effort of the Union Government to re-invoke hygiene and hygienic practices once again into the ethos of India and the Indian at large. Prime Minister Modi kicked this off in an address from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, and ever since, it has indeed captured the imagination of the common and not so common man alike.
At the ground level, the campaign is as effective as different stakeholders want to make it in the many cities and villages of our country. We are a toilet-deprived country that believes in open-air defecation.
Municipalities and local groups that have taken this up on a war-front have done well. Others just linger and wait for the World Toilet Day or a Swachh Bharat Diwas to make a hue and cry about it.
I am afraid this is not a full-fledged movement to date. And that is its downside. Many see it to be a politically expedient campaign to tout.
The upside of it all is that civic cleanliness campaigns are gaining traction in the country. The thought that “We are like this only” is being challenged by the Swachh Bharat thought that asks Why?
Hygiene and cleanliness which had gotten onto the back-burner in our cities and villages is suddenly back on the front-burner. Thanks to Modi for that.
Swachh Bharat is the umbrella campaign. Into it have jumped in private stake-holders of two kinds. One is the corporate stakeholder who may have a brand that will benefit from hygiene and cleanliness (like Dettol) and the other is the quasi civic body, and the citizens groups that are concerned about cleanliness in our cities. To that extent, Swachh Bharat is the catalyst that has fired this imagination up into traction. Let’s wait and see how it pans out in the years to come.
Harish Bijoor is a brand strategy expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. Mail your queries to cat.a.lyst@thehindu.co.in
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