By Parveen Chopra
New York, Sep 28 (IANS) India’s private and government sectors came together for the first time for the Incredible India@60 campaign here to showcase the country holistically through its business as well as culture.
Speaking at a panel discussion titled ‘Brand India: Where next?’ Infosys co-chairman Nandan Nilekai pointed out that the Sep 23-26 campaign fused two separate campaigns.
The first was kicked off by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) at Davos last year with the India Everywhere brand and the slogan “Fastest growing free-market democracy”. The second was the Indian Ministry of Tourism’s campaign under the theme Incredible India.
Amitabh Kant, joint secretary of the Indian Ministry of Tourism, said that building a brand for a multi-dimensional country such as India was not an easy task. While each state government has to build its own brand image, the task of the Tourism Ministry is to create the overall India brand.
He added that his ministry has worked with the best creative minds in order to brand India and to present a different aspect of India each year.
Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer of the advertising firm WPP, said that the impact of the brand campaign would ultimately be reflected in the change in perceptions about the country in a few years’ time.
Arun Sarin, chief executive officer of Vodafone, gave the example of his company that has just invested $11 billion in India to gain control of Hutch. He said that their most surprising experience about India was its management, marketing and technical people who could compete with the best in the world.
India also has the potential for reverse synergies or exporting ideas, Sarin said. Most Fortune 500 companies are already in India, he added, and those investing in India would find themselves transformed through the exchange of ideas on issues such as marketing, branding and cost-competitiveness.
The panellists agreed that the perceptions about India must match the reality, and one challenge is to create infrastructure in the country, both in terms of physical infrastructure as well as soft behavioural changes.
Kant pointed out that the Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God) campaign in India is targeted at service providers for this purpose.
The other challenge is to promote India’s brand image within the country, since there is a mismatch between the impact of economic reforms and their acceptability among the 800 million population of poor people.
High growth was the only way out of poverty, and would build resources for public spending on social infrastructure such as health and education, the panellists felt.