Can INDIA be a BRAND

“Brand India” is an idea. Can India be a brand? A brand is a symbol representing all the information of a product or a service. It could be a name, a slogan, a logo or a graphic design. When the brand is mentioned, it accompanies all the experiences of the public mind and the expectations of how it perform. The band can be built by advertising but ultimately what maters is the actual performance of the product or service it stand for. If the brand delivers what it promises then the brand name is going to be a great asset in itself. Properly managed the brand can increase the value of the product on the other extreme, can undermine the product itself.

So coming back to our question, Can India be a brand? India is not a soft drink or Cosmetic, but the very name itself can bring certain memories in the mind of people. That is why our first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, insisted on the retaining the name “India”, rather than “Bharat” for the newly independent country. To the world, “India” was a fabled and exotic land, the dream land for travellers and traders for centuries. It seems that, Nehru want to hold on to the brand to proclaim to the world that the India he was leading was heir to that precious heritage.

This brand image worked for some time, India retained its exoticism, royalness, and majestic beauty along with the carrier of moral force for peace and justice. But it could not last long. As poverty and famine attacked the land, the global media replaced the exotic image with the picture of suffering and despair. The brand became dirtied. It was no longer a brand that could attract the world.

Today, the branding is changing again. India is transferring itself economically and it needs a fresh brand image to keep up with the times. Even the government too understood the need and joined hands with the Confederation of Indian Industry to make one. Thus born the India Brand Equity Foundation who came up with the brand
“India: Fastest growing free market democracy” which was heard loud in World Economic Forum 2006 session in Davos.



To our ears, its sounds good “India fastest growing free market democracy”, but is that enough. It is not doubt that our economy is at rapid growth and our’s is a free market and a democracy. Also it’s much better to replace the old picture of suffering and despair. It may be easier for small countries like Singapore to come up
with “surprisingly Singapore” and Bahamas to come up with “It’s better in the Bahamas” as they are concerned with one-issue branding. That’s not the case with “India” which is blessed with abundant potential.

What the world must think when they hear the name “India”. Certainly ,it’s more than fastest growing free market democracy. Many things like natural beauty of our country, as branded as “Incredible India” by Tourism department, Indian fashion and jewellery, advancement in Information Technology headed by infosys and wipro , glamour of Bollywood with India being noticed at International Film Festivals and Oscar Awards , our high potential human resource as marketed as IIT ians a IIM ians, unparalleled diversity of our plural society, with people of different religion speaking different languages live side by side in harmony. Moving further, India as the contributor to the world in Space Technology and peaceful use of Nuclear Technology. Above all, richness of our cultural heritage. It is impossible to put all these attributes to into a poster, or a commercial.

So the challenge of building Brand India is before us, the budding Marketing Managers. However the essential fact remains; what really matters is not the image but the reality. We must join hands to make India a healthy and prosperous place for all people. Then only we can say “INDIA SHINING….”