Slumdog Millionaire : A very recent movie that caught the attention of the film audience in India and International. Says the story of a love struck youngster who participates in a reality show because of the probability that his lover might be watching it. And the movie element- he wins the show!
The White Tiger: A very recent novel written by an Indian author about a person born in the rural India making it to be an entrepreneur.
Two recent items in news-one is a novel and another is a movie based on an Indian novel. What is common between both? There are two common factors:
First: Both have been critically acclaimed and won prestigious awards. While the author of The White Tiger , Aravind Adiga won the Man Booker Prize, The Slumdog Millionaire won has won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes (including Best Drama Film), and seven BAFTA Awards (including Best Film). The film has also been nominated for ten Academy Awards
Second: The crux or the background of both the works remain the same- an India which is known and familiar to the world. An India which is poverty struck with large population living in slums and underdeveloped rural areas getting exploited by the powerful. Beggary, Communalism and Poverty being the backdrop of all images that is being created about the country.
Why does it sell big? Why does such portrayal of India become so successful, acknowledged and acclaimed in the West??!! Let’s face it, the world like India that way. The image of the emerging super power or the Corporate India does not sell!! It’s like an overnight transition of the brand image. The brand called India sells when it is associated with slums, beggary and poverty rather than with corporate tycoons or the nuclear weapons.
I am not getting in to the controversial topic if India is really so, the accurate depiction of reality or stark contrast. This is been discussed and is quite a repetitive one. But I would like to pose more impartial questions purely from a marketing perspective- Why is that this brand image of India as a third world country still sell so big when our nation builders are making huge efforts to re brand India as the glamorous, young superpower/ Corporate India??!! Is it a marketing failure? A case of unsuccessful re positioning or is it just that the cost and effort incurred in re positioning the brand will take much more time to produce results than envisaged by this brand builders??
Questions are open!! Suggestions, Opinions and Hot debates are welcome!!!
Brand INDIA
ReplyDeleteIt sells. It makes them jealous. It makes them feel lose the status. It changes equations. It shakes.
They make it, mould it, and twist it, their way.
The west always wants the east to be followers. But remember the sun always rises from the east.
Do they not have a rags-to-riches story?
Anyways this is a topic of debate. Let me end it here.
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Now comes the branding part of it.
A very important concept in branding is creating value. It essentially is manipulating the projected image of the product so that that the consumer/market sees the product worth buying.
The nation builders and the India Inc. are building “BRAND” India as a game-changing country for the region. Let’s take the example of WTO – Doha Round 2001, it is this country INDIA which came, united the developing countries and went up against superpowers.
This exercise itself creates the BRAND VALUE for India.
There are many more examples (WEF, Davos 2007) like this.
India, today, has emerged as one of the decisive nations shaping the contours of the world economy. Consistently charting a growth path over the last few years, today, brand India is visible in almost all fields — with some aggressive cross-border acquisitions India has been rewriting the global business equations; India has established its leadership in IT and knowledge-based industries globally; and along with the rapidly declining age profile, it has the fastest growing population of workers and consumers.
It is one of the world’s most rapidly growing markets, and today, Indian products and services are recognised for their quality all over the world.
I would also like to add upon here, changing the brand identity of soap is not comparable to changing the identity of a nation. Time taken will always be different in both cases.
A lot more still needs to be done to change this image. We are still at the exercise, a lot is being done, a lot more needs to be done.
Let’s keep contribute to it.
Now that the Slumdog has seized 8 Academy Awards too.. People working in Indian cinema has been recognized the world over for their effciency, talent and skill.. Then again, would this have been the same if they had shown such excellence in a movie which portrayed the glamourous India??!!
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