To grow, Kerala needs to put its nest in order first

Recently, the southern region chapter of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), told a press conference that the new United Democratic Front (UDF) Government in Kerala ought to promote the State as a brand that goes beyond the now-successful tourism slogan of “God's Own Country.”

That is easier said than done. Even the godly slogan had to cut through several layers of bureacracy before it won approval, thanks to an advertising agency, whose copywriter came up with the catch line that is now borrowed shamelessly.

Branding anything — a mass-consumed product like a soap or a nebulous entity like a region or a State — is difficult, to say the least.

Marketing guru

As marketing guru, Mr Philip Kotler, the S.C. Johnson & Son Distinguished Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, says, “Places are more than budgets an businesses. They are people, cultures, historical heritage, physical assets, and opportunities. Places are ranked, rated, and evaluated today on every conceivable dimension: where to start or locate a business or plan a retirement, where to raise a family or look for a spouse, where to plan a vacation, hold a convention, or have a meal. From quality of life considerations to charm, culture, and ambience, the quest for livable, investible, and visitable places is a perpetual search for the new and vibrant, an effort to stay clear of the sullen and depressed.”

Take the case of the US city of Las Vegas. In its effort to “brand” and market the city, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority decided to promote “Vegas” as the simple name for the city. Soon enough, that moniker came to embrace all sorts of Vegas symbols — the Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, Nevada, Henderson, Nevada, North Las Vegas, Nevada and parts of Clark County, Nevada.

As Kotler says, strategic place marketing succeeds when stakeholders such as citizens, workers, and business firms derive satisfaction from their community, and when visitors, new businesses, and investors find their expectations met.

Kotler identifies four activities at the core of marketing places: Designing the right mix of community features and services; Setting attractive incentives for the current and potential buyers and users of its goods and services; Delivering a place's products and services in an efficient, accessible way; Promoting the place's values and image so that potential users are fully aware of the place's distinctive advantages.

There is another cardinal lesson that Kerala's powers-that-be need to learn from Kotler: “A place's potential depends not so much on a place's location, climate, and natural resources as it does on its human will, skill, energy, values, and organisation.”

For too long, complacent Kerala has believed that all that matters in life is the timely arrival of the southwest monsoon — which only throws a wet blanket over the innumerable strikes and dharnas we have planned. If Kerala wishes to make that leap of faith, it needs to introspect.

Listen to Kotler: “For a place to succeed, it must be able to carry out the following fundamental tasks: Interpreting what is happening in the broad environment; Understanding the needs, wants, and behaviour choices of specific internal and external constituencies; Building a realistic vision of what the place can be; Creating an actionable plan to complement the vision; Building internal consensus and effective organisation; Evaluating at each stage the progress being achieved with the action plan.”

Public-private partnerships

Through a mix of public-private partnerships in the form of events, fairs, exhibitions and conferences — the backbone of the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) strategy — Kerala can still claw a way back into the limelight.

But as Mr Seppo K. Rainisto, a PhD student at the Helsinki University of Technology in Finland, says, “Before ‘going global,' place management needs to put its own ‘nest' in order, and the local development of the place is a demanding task with decreasing allocated economic development resources.”

That is precisely the problem with Kerala — a dismal absence of political unity, leadership and local development. Kerala should go beyond the desire to lure hi-tech firms (just look at what Chennai and Bangalore did without much fanfare), and entice rich upcountry visitors to sample the magical offerings of its backwaters. Kerala is much more than the sum of its technology parks.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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