Opinion... Brand-crazy India has grown obsessed with its reputation

India itself is a much discussed and agonised-about brand. It is as if the country has woken up not merely to this concept but to the very idea of marketing, and to the importance of desire itself.

For decades, Indian consumers were brought up on a diet of self-restraint exempt from choice. They made do with what was available. It didn’t matter what they thought, or wanted; if anything they were chided for showing desire.

The opening out of the economy and the explosion in media choice have set in motion radical changes. The idea of economic growth is linked inextricably to that of consumption, and the consumer is becoming the primary unit of definition of an individual. Desire has not only become legitimate but is seen as the driving force of the new economy. Today, everything needs to be marketed; the consumer needs to be seduced with increasing sophistication.

Of course, this obsession with the idea of brands does not necessarily translate into buying brands, especially those at the very top end. Luxury brands have struggled to make much headway in the country as they find the addressable market not large enough to offset the costs of doing business in India. Luxury labels do not as yet hold sway over the Indian imagination; they are pieces of exotica, understood by a few.

The use of the brand as a frame creates its own set of distortions. When India - at one level a vast and diverse country with a very large number of constituencies, and at another an ancient civilisation with an intricate and complex cultural legacy - is seen as a brand, there is a tendency to shave off all texture and nuance. More importantly, a country becomes implicitly repositioned as unsold-inventory-in-waiting, and the overriding concern is one of looking good to the outside world. This has dominated the urban, middle-class worldview.
Often, instead of examining issues on the basis of the impact they have on the people they most directly concern, they are examined for the impact on the country’s image outside. Whether it is a question of workers agitating for better conditions, or of terrorism, the worry that it might somehow taint India’s reputation in the world is often the primary concern expressed in media.

Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands
[email protected]

This article was originally published in 5 November 2009 issue of Media.