Brand India!

The world’s business press is going gaga on a success story called India; how we have grown in the last decade; how we could get to be the top 3 economies of the world soon and so on. I am proud and all that, as much as you are.

Yet, as a marketer, graciously allow me to claim so please, I was always worried about how as a nation we had a bigger problem to confront. Our economy has been largely demand-led. It’s the internal consumption economy of ours that has been driving our growth; nothing wrong with that. But for us to grow in stature and lead the world we need to grow strongly through exports and, more importantly, we need to conquer world markets with Made-in-India brands.

Put simply, we need Indian brands, in more than a few categories, rule the world. I always wondered if I would ever get to see in my lifetime, Made-in-India brands dotting the top sellers list across the world

Unfortunately, to start making world-beating brands we had to correct years of a deprived image that India has had; a third-world country with third rated facilities that had rotten and could stand up only to raise a begging bowl at the World Bank or the IMF.

Students of International Marketing would know the term, Country-of-origin effect. COE is any influence that the country of manufacture, assembly or design has on a consumer’s positive or negative perception of a product. A company competing in global markets today manufactures products worldwide; when the customer becomes aware of the country of origin, there is the possibility that the place of manufacture will affect product or brand image. Consumers tend to have stereotypes about products and countries that have been formed by experience, hearsay and myth; English tea, French perfume, Chinese silk, Italian leather, German beer, Russian vodka, Jamaican rum to name a few.

Given this, and with an image like what we had, I used to think what we should do to make Indian brands big in world markets.  I wondered how, if at all, we could rectify this image crisis.

Now, I see the seeds of change being sown; slowly yet surely. Not through an advertising campaign to change world’s view about us; not by a Public Relations initiative to rectify fallen image; but from an unexpected source. Human trafficking!

Don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about flesh fetish here as much as export of the gray kind: Indian talent and intellect!

MasterCard, Pepsi, Citibank, Reckitt Benckiser, Motorola, Deutsche Bank, Vodafone and McKinsey….Do you know all these MNCs are or were headed by Indians?

Do you know, ever since Kraft bought Cadbury’s, it has picked 21 top crew from Cadbury’s India operations and has sent them to head its different divisions across the world?

Time magazine says CEOs are India’s leading export!

And therein lays a trickle that is waiting to grow into a torrent. Indian talent is now global property. Indian intellect is leading giant corporations. Added to it our, the now clichéd, software prowess, India would begin to be seen hi-tech, talent rich and intelligence endowed. In other words, the perfect launching pad for the world to see us in a different light.

Hopefully, in the near future, just as Swiss cheese, German engineering, Japanese miniaturization….it would be time to add a new Country-of-origin effect: Indian intellect!

Now is the time for Indian manufacturers to enter categories that require intellect and talent: packaged software, publishing, education, low-cost engineering, pharmaceuticals, R&D, space exploration and the works. Now is the time to build Made-in-India brands. I know our companies will. And I also know the world will begin to accept them with glee.

I am confident, now more than ever, I will see Indian brands rule the world…in my lifetime.

And die a proud Indian!