Branding Complexities In India - Hisham Kabir

Branding in India, yes there has been un countable number of articles written on this topic, ever wondered why ? no prize for guessing, yes it’s the experience that each person agency or branding consultant have gone through on different magnitudes.

India has a different language you move each 200 km’s, so do the way they see things, each state has their own distinct cultural up bringing and this also reflect in their attitudes, a same product will be taken differently by individuals even if the product has to convey one purpose of it.

Let take classical example, condoms used for fixing up mechanical parts of an automobile, washing machine used for making lassi (sweetened yogurt) on a large scale. And fair & lovely a fair ness product meant for women used by a larger section of the males.

Coca-Cola introduced a powdered drink very similar to KRAFT’s Tank that we all are familiar with, they were not competing with tank but with a national player names Rasna, and what was the result, the product of coca cola was too superior to locally made Rasna, however that was not the problem, the problem was that the percentage of color used was way too less for Indians to accept this as a orange drink in comparison to rasna.

For Indian the sec b,c category to whom this product was primarily targeted wanted good orange color for the orange juice, which coca-cola did not understand, this resulted in company shelving its product despite two re launches.

Communicating in India has to be very careful.

Having different religion that live in a society strong attention to details has to be made while making an ad, creating a copy or even using images. The reaction of the consumers if committed a mistake can be disastrous not just in literary sense.

You cant assume that all will understand,

There was a SBI debit card campaign where they said even pick pocketer quit the job, because evey one has started using SBI debit card. Though their intention was great the ad execution was just too poor, may be they wanted to be it sent to the cannes. However if a survery has been conducted the most remembered ads are those which has humour in it, and has to be very very simple to understand( all this is to be kept in mind while designing and ad for the masses not the classes) however the medium is strong and has high rating, let take all the tata safari ads, first it was make your own roads, the ad was brilliant. The next was reclaim your life, the tata safari, came up with another good one.
However there was an ad by fewi quick instant adishave bond where a man catches fish by just sticking the glue in a stick and immersing it in water simple idea, brilliant execution and excellent recall what more can a product ask for.

In branding its very important to know whom you want to communicate to, the TA should be clearly specific not just specific but strong and perfect. …….to be contd..