Branding in the country of The holy Cow

The holy Cow, originally uploaded by Pranay Rao.

Branding, the word has it's origination in the branding of cattle by American cowboys. They used to use hot iron to brand their cattle and obviously there was differentiation amongst ranch cattle which was where the first brand choice was made, The branding concept was taken forward to beef which was branded and then ofcourse to denim.

Branding in India is probably the biggest challenge faced by any marketeer anywhere. You have regions which behave as independent countries. You have guys like Nirma which suddenly gives the Unilevers of the world a run for their money.

I work for ITC, probably the only tobacco company in the free world who has taken on Marlboro successfully through branding. A company which launches a brand a month,through their Food and Personal Care businesses and yet it's tough as hell to crack the Indian consumer.

All the SWOT charts, Ansoff matrices and Maslow's hierarchy charts can't help make sense of the Indian consumer. Trust me, I've spent a year in consumer insight, the Indian consumer is one tough guy to understand. I've managed what is the world's largest consumer survey and at the end of it still not totally sure.

The genesis of this post was a combination of working day and night on cracking a plan and watching outsourced. I've been working day and night on this damn thing and still don't think I've got it right. I also recently travelled to Vizag and was surprised (read shocked) to see a night life which could rival Kol and definitely way better music than Kol. And let me tell you midtown India is definitely freer than the metros and yes brand conscious. Rural India which was where I've done my sales stint has shown me stores stocking premium products which hardly sell in a Mumbai. India can take your beliefs and turn them topsy turvy. Nothing is understood here.

BTW I just realised this morning that I've been in ITC for 2 years and 9 months. I've done 11 months of sales, 13 months of research and 9 months of branding. That's as much varied exposure as you can get in marketing and there's still so much to learn.

Still making sense of Marketing in India

Luv,

Pranay