Another View on Brand India

Since I am traveling from tomorrow this will be my last entry of the series about Brand India.

What is `India' for the world?

It is a millennia-old civilisation. A billion people speaking, reading and writing dozens of languages. A land that is the birthplace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.

It is also the world's premier IT services provider. The world's back office. Emerging small-car hub. Repository, arguably, of the world's largest number of engineers, doctors, accountants, and so on.

To bring it all down to a single idea, any single idea, is like calling an ocean a pool of water. India certainly can't just be a brand.

Does that mean we can't present India to the world in a simple, cogent manner?

It may be difficult, though, India is being presented in different forums across the world. Right now, it is being discussed by corporate CEOs, investment bankers, seekers of spirituality, health addicts and holidaymakers, all over the world.

What we need is a simple idea that'll encourage all these discussions. All this talk and interest in India. Such an idea was spoken about by Pandit Nehru decades back. The best way to present this complex nation is to ask people to, `Discover India.'

'Discover India' is a humble but enticing invitation, not an arrogant subjugation of a great nation to a brand idea. It allows India to be presented in all its variegated beauty to all the different audiences it needs to address. It kindles the interest of the global traveller and the global businessman alike. Now, that is something our IT chiefs and industrialists also will be happy with.

Would you agree to this???????

What do young Indians says about Brand India????????

So how do we create Brand India? When this question was posed to management students, this is what the young citizens had to say:

Brand India could have the following five E’s.

Our first "E" has to be Excellence.

There is no substitute for simply delivering top-grade products or services. This does not happen due to just clever marketing. It follows a period of hard work, of upgrading human and technological skills, and of a culture that pursued excellence, whatever the cost and whatever the pain..

Our second E was Ethics.

The best brands deliver goods and services that are produced ethically. The entire business cycle is transparent and marked with clarity. "Brand India" will not shine as long as our business systems, our rules and regulations and even our biggest corporations, prefer the comfort of opaqueness.

The third E was Equity.

When we’re talking of GDP growth rates and alluring Purchasing Power Parity numbers, it does seem a little out of place to bring up issues of equity and access when 400 million Indians cannot read and write, and girls are pulled out of school early, married off before they mature and forced into a lifetime of servitude. Or, that there are eminently preventable diseases that kill millions every year..

The fourth E was Empathy.

When people think of "Brand India", it must leave them with a happy feeling. They must cherish it, want it to be a part of their lives, have empathy for it. This calls for seeing India’s soft power — its culture, traditional systems of healing, entertainment industry and the very magic of its civilisation — as a brand builder.

These four Es together with the fifth "E" — Economy, ie. the ability to produce goods and deliver services at low prices, will lead to a true brand....... brand India.

Is Nation Branding a Marketing Communication Exercise? contd.....

If marketing communications works so well for products and services, why shouldn’t it work for countries and cities?

According to Simon Anholt, the simple answer is that they don’t work so well for products and services. Although great advertising, is strongly associated with powerful commercial brands, they aren’t the reason why those brands are powerful: brands become powerful when the product behind them earns trust and promotes sale.

Nations are complex

No single body, political or otherwise, exercises nearly this much control over the national ‘product’ or the way it communicates with the outside world.

The tiniest village is infinitely more complex, more diverse and less unified than the largest corporation, purely because of the different reasons why people are there. Places have no single, unifying purpose, unlike the simple creed of shareholder value that binds corporations together: a contract of employment is mainly about duties, whereas a social contract is mainly about rights.

National reputation cannot be constructed; it can only be earned

To imagine that such a deeply rooted phenomenon can be shifted by so weak an instrument as marketing communications is an extravagant delusion. As Socrates observed, “the way to achieve a better reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear.

Whilst governments cannot hope to manipulate the perceptions of millions of people in distant countries, there are three important things that they can do to enhance national reputation:

First, they can understand and monitor their international image in the countries and sectors where it matters most to them in a rigorous and scientific way, and understand exactly how and where this affects their interests in those countries and sectors.

Second, if they collaborate imaginatively, effectively and openly with business and civil society, governments can agree on a national strategy and narrative – the ‘story’ of who the nation is, where it is going and how it is going to get there – which honestly reflects the skills, the genius and the will of the people.

Third, governments can ensure that their country maintains a stream of innovative and eye-catching products, services, policies and initiatives in every sector, which keeps it at the forefront of the world’s attention and admiration; demonstrates the truth of that narrative; and proves the country’s right to the reputation its people and government desire to acquire.

More engagement, not simply more communication, with the rest of the world can enhance the profile of places, and higher visibility does tend to go together with stronger appeal.

Is Nation Branding a Marketing Communication Exercise?

Simon Anholt in’ Why nation branding does not exist?’ thinks otherwise and I would like to discuss Anholt’s views whether nation branding is a marketing communication exercise or it goes beyond mere marketing.

The Misconception

The idea that it is possible to ‘do branding’ to a country (or to a city or region) in the same way that companies ‘do branding’ to their products and services, is vain and foolish. There is no shred of evidence that shows marketing communications programmes, have ever succeeded, in altering international perceptions of places.


Why is nation brand important?

Today, the world is one market; the advance of globalization means that every country, city and region must compete with every other for its share of the world’s commercial, political, social and cultural transactions. In such an environment, as in any busy marketplace, brand image becomes a critical factor; the necessary short cut to an informed buying decision.


It’s more accurate to say that ‘nation branding’ is the problem, not the solution. It’s only when people start talking about branding rather than just brand that the problems start.

It is public opinion that “brands” countries. In fact countries need to fight against the tendency of international public opinion to brand them as a single entity.

Governments need to help the world understand the real, complex, rich, diverse nature of their people and landscapes, their history and heritage, their products and their resources: in other words, to prevent them from becoming mere brands.

It would certainly make life easier for many governments if it were possible to brand places: it would conveniently reduce the success criteria for their economic and political competitiveness to having a big enough marketing budget and hiring the best marketing and PR agencies. But of course the reality is more complex; national images are not created through communications, and cannot be altered by communications.

If marketing communications works so well for products and services, why shouldn’t they work for countries and cities?

Is a PR Campaign enough to Promote a Country?

Is promoting a country through a PR campaign enough? I believe not. Any Pr campaign needs to be supported by reality. The Davos 2006 camapign was indeed a success but India now has to prove its mettle. The country faces a lot of challenges which I will make an attempt to identify today. Wonderful though this is, but the ‘India Everywhere’ campaign maybe was a little too much hype. What will prospective investors make of the long, filthy, congested drive that leads from Mumbai’s international airport into the city centre? What will they make of the acres of slums that will greet them, the destitute in their pavement hovels and the barefoot children begging at traffic lights? About 320 million Indians go to bed without food every night, and recent data suggests this already alarming situation is getting worse. If they overcome their revulsion at this first glimpse of Bharat Mata, what will they make of our hopeless infrastructure and our rigidly bureaucratic ways?

Building Brand India calls for the willing co-operation of a number of people. It is linked to the quality of governance as well as that of the society. The brand can't be just built by high-decibel promos or slogans.

People looking at India have concerns about "a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of controls, a lot of restraints, a lot of difficulty in establishing an enterprise and barriers in the way of entrepreneurship."

Labor reforms in India were a major area of concern among many delegates.

Nilekani says the success of the "India Everywhere" campaign will be measured on two counts. The first will be changes in economic and social reforms in India, to ensure that India continues to evolve and builds a scalable model that encourages economic growth. Increased FDI inflows are the second barometer to watch. All I can say is India has set itself on a right path but we need to deliver fast otherwise China will take the cheese away from under our noses.