Rise of India

The year was 2000, my uncle from USA had just landed in India. The time was well past 3 am and both of us were walking in the deserted streets of Adyar searching for an ISD booth. A gentle breeze was blowing across our streets, I certainly found it refreshing but for my Uncle it was hot air. As we started conversing about the hot climate and the ill effects of global warming our hope of finding an ISD booth started diminishing like an ice cream melting during a hot Indian summer. On the way back, my uncle was commenting how India and China will dominate the next century. My initial thought was he is too patriotic. Little did I realize later on in my life I will become a important cog in the wheel of life, churning away the poverty and bringing in the prosperity to the ‘New India’. And in 2001 Goldman sach’s in its famous report coined the term BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) which also put our country amongst the international investors spotlight.

How can India and China over throw the mighty America? This was the question that had been lingering on in my mind for a very long time. As I graduated from college and pursued my masters slowly economics became started to become an interesting area for me. Any country or empire had ascended the throne of supremacy while the earlier super power started gradually declining. But how can you dethrone America when we have a Uni polar world and the way of life had become American especially after the disintegration of Soviet Union in the early 1990’s.

Fast forward to early 2006-07 the Big three(GM, Ford and Chrysler) from Detroit was falling away and Toyota was equipping itself to usurp General Motors(GM) to become the biggest automobile player in the world. GM had a two pronged fight. One hand had to fend off Toyota and it had to satisfy its labor union, with health care rising out of control. Meanwhile in the east coast the American Investment bankers (IB) with their wizard airy were making lots of paper based wealth by Centralized Debt Obligation (CDO’s) and putting the concept of globalization at work. Distributing this CDO’s to farfetched countries in the hope of distributing the shock. Having given to the lust of making money, the IB people were smart enough and insured their property with the big American insurers. The underlying asset of CDO’s were the housing loans given to subprime people ( who had very bad credit and hence were required to pay a higher interest rate). People bought their homes in the hope that their asset’s value will always move up which can help them in repaying their mortgage, the housing bubble. Post 9/11 the war against terror was the way of life. The Bush Jr coined the word ‘Axis of Evil’ and invaded Iraq first and then started a war against the Taliban’s to stop terrorism . As a result the American Defense expenditure was 22% of GDP. Quality high school and college Education was relegated in the priority list.

When the housing bubble burst, it not only resulted in property prices crashing it also brought the entire Wall street along with it and the big insurers of America. With price of Oil peaking the big three was fighting of stay afloat and were begging literally for Congressional aid. The war in Iraq, Afghanistan had gone awry wrong. People became desperate because of mounting job bless and America fast became a melting country. Being the most influential country, it naturally paved the way for global economic meltdown except for Brazil, India and China who had managed to post decent positive GDP’s during 2008-09.

Now the stage is set for a multi polar world where we don’t have a King (America) but a council of minister (America, China, India, ) who can play the geopolitical games. Where the youngistan is being groomed to take over from the old King.

America being America cant be relegated to the corners of geopolitics since the vision and attitude of founding fathers is still visible in the remote corners of the country where ordinary civilians still have the thirst for innovation which is unfortunately being blocked by the congress and influential lobbies.

Marketing to Indians 101

 

Selling to Indians is definitely not an easy task. For sure, I am not the first person nor will be the last person to (re)discover this fact. Why is that Indians are a difficult community to advertize both for multinational companies, easily attracted to India because of its huge market and for regional companies aspiring to become a national player. Those companies which have found the holy grail of selling to Indians either by accident or by research have managed to keep their cash register ringing all the time.  But what is so unique about Indians that modern thinkers and marketing guru’s are unable to decode and devise a strategy that can guarantee success.

 

For starters you can never a common strategy / approach to appeal to the Indians, in short you just can’t straight jacket them. You have to employ the Divide and Conquer, perfected by Robert Clive of the East India trading Corporation. The country “India” can be divided into 5 major regions.  For sake of familiarity I have named them in the most elementary manner. 

 

Market 1 – Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Old Delhi, North eastern states

Market 2 – Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh

Market 3 – Rest of Maharashtra, Rest of Andhra Pradesh , Goa

Market 4 – West Bengal, Punjab, Rest of Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat, Rest of Tamil Nadu

Market 5 – NCR (New Delhi, Gurgoan, Noida ), Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore

 

Why you can’t never treat India as a single country where people have the same mindset or cultural background is beyond the scope of this essay. Things can change after 2040 if we are to trust the demographic guidance given by the ‘Experts’.

 

The main idea of advertisement is to make people buy your product. We all have five senses to learn and explore this beautiful world. The art of Advertisement is to ensure that you appeal to more than one sense of the viewing public or to their vanity. If your advertisement appeals to only one sense then you’re ad is lost in the zillions of data the common man is exposed to in these days. Depending upon the target market you have to create the Ad’s appealing to multi senses.

 

At the basic you should appeal to the public’s sense of sight, and sound. Since these two are the most commonly used sense for mankind in TV / Newsprint medium. As you move from Market 1 to Market 5 we can start including the other ‘higher’ sense of thinking and rationalizing, like quoting technical facts, results of survey, latest results of research studies etc.

 

Examples of Brands which captured the imagination of the public

 

1.       Catchy tagline / jingle – Pepsi, Nirma, Ujala, Pulsar, ICICI bank , Idhayam Gingerly oil

2.       Excellent audio / video - Leo coffee powder, Shakthi masala, Power Soap, Cadburys chocolate

3.       Appealing to vanity : Axe chocolate , Sunflower oil, Fair & Lovely, HDFC Life insurance

 

 

The other way to capture the imagination of the public is through Brand Ambassador(BA). In the Indian heartland the best place to shop for BA’s is Bollywood / BCCI.  The choice of BA plays a crucial role in catapulting your brand in the Wild Wide West of consumer imagination. When the south Korean chaebol’s arrived on the Indian shores they had to compete against American and Japanese brands who had a better brand value and recall. They smartly employed New age Brand Ambassador, (Samsung – half of the Indian cricket, Hyundai – Shahrukh khan and LG – Bunch of bollywood actress) these people were the epitome or icons of the Indian dream, a dream which the Indian people believed in and worked hard to achieve them.