Marketing India!

Marketing India!

“The fastest growing free market democracy in the world!” screamed a billboard at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This might well have been the first tiny step for India’s marketing campaign to woo foreign investment, but to a nation that was for a long time inward focused, it is a giant leap.

The question is why India should market itself at all. After all, the Indian culture has always preferred the path of the understated and unspoken with branding and marketing being considered hubris. The answer is that as a nation we are at the cusp of events and our decisions now will determine our future. From being a nation filled with social strife and economic disparity to one of economic superpowerdom, we can be anywhere in between.

But then again, does marketing fit into the scheme of things? Yes, because we are in an era defined by globalization, technology and communication, reduction in traditional boundaries, and stronger focus on international relationships and strategic alliances. And in this era, every nation has a position in the global pecking order and every nation must sell itself before selling its products.

This marketing of the nation as a brand leads to what Joseph Nye, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense and Harvard University professor of international relations, calls ``soft power,'' which he defines as ``the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than through coercion.'' “Coercion”, he says, “needs the stick of military power or the carrot of money. A country's soft power, by contrast, rests upon the attractiveness of its culture, the appeal of its domestic political and social values, and the style and substance of its foreign policies''

When talking about the Indian culture, words like spirituality, yoga and alternate medicine immediately strike a chord in the western mind and these are considered chic. With the largest functioning democracy, independent judiciary and free press, the Indian political and social values are definitely aligned with the west. And foreign policies, after the opening up of the economy in 1991 have been forward looking. These are just indicators of the soft power that India can wield on the world and pull the world’s attention onto itself if marketed effectively.

But then, acquiring soft power is just one side of the marketing coin. This side addresses the problem of changing the world’s perception of India. The other side of the marketing coin deals with creating, communicating and delivering actual value for businesses and individuals wanting to associate with India. Unlike soft power, this ‘value’ is not universal to all. Hence the need for creating as many value centers as possible each with its own unique value proposition (UVP). Some of the value centers that have come up inadvertently in India are Diamond state- Gujarat, IT city- Bangalore and Textile town- Tirupur. Eventually these value centers become brands unto themselves and they will be the windows through which their customers look at India.

The companies in these value centers will individually have to become world class in order to compete with similar companies having similar workforce trying to woo the same global customer. To achieve that they carve niches and create UVPs within their operating space and become world renowned brands like Infosys and Wipro have in the field of IT. The leaders of these companies then become brand ambassadors for the country.

These companies competing as they are with each other and the rest of the world will require every employee to be accountable and deliver value to the company and eventually to its customer. In a way every employee has to market himself and his work to survive and succeed.

Thus every employee, by doing his work in a way that adds most value to the customer is marketing himself, the company, the value center and the nation! As every citizen realizes this, we begin to decide our own future and the future of the nation. And what an exciting future it promises to be…