We wake up to our Nokia Phones, paste our teeth with Colgate, eat Kellogg’s for breakfast, wear Arrow shirt and Blackberry trousers, drive Honda City to work, work on a Dell laptop, order lunch from Subway, visit Facebook to stay connected with friends, dinner at McDonalds, ice cream at Gelato and end a day with ‘Good Night’.
It is interesting to see that foreign brands have become such an integral part of our everyday lives that we Indians (knowingly or unknowingly) wear, use, talk, eat, drink (may be swear) foreign brands day in and day out. The only thing left Indian in us is our Indian name. Nothing wrong in using foreign brands, but what is disheartening to see is that Indian companies fail to give us these aspirational brands.
Is this true or a myth. To just validate this, I did a quick survey among my friends / colleagues on brand they would like to use in few consumer categories, if money was not a constraint. I am sure you will endorse this list as well.
Q: If you were given a choice which is the brand you would want to buy and use in each of the product categories. You may have already bought the brand and currently using it. It can be Indian or international brand. Also, please do not mention luxurious and overtly expensive brands. Eg: Porsche or Ferrari when it comes to cars. Answer should be Honda City, Ascent, BMW, Mercedes etc.
It is interesting to see that foreign brands have become such an integral part of our everyday lives that we Indians (knowingly or unknowingly) wear, use, talk, eat, drink (may be swear) foreign brands day in and day out. The only thing left Indian in us is our Indian name. Nothing wrong in using foreign brands, but what is disheartening to see is that Indian companies fail to give us these aspirational brands.
Is this true or a myth. To just validate this, I did a quick survey among my friends / colleagues on brand they would like to use in few consumer categories, if money was not a constraint. I am sure you will endorse this list as well.
Q: If you were given a choice which is the brand you would want to buy and use in each of the product categories. You may have already bought the brand and currently using it. It can be Indian or international brand. Also, please do not mention luxurious and overtly expensive brands. Eg: Porsche or Ferrari when it comes to cars. Answer should be Honda City, Ascent, BMW, Mercedes etc.
There you go, the list speaks for itself. But what this list does is it raises few interesting questions from the branding perspective.- Are foreign brands really superior in their quality than Indian brands?
- Do Indians lack trust and confidence in Indian brands?
- Do Indian companies give priority to profits over brand building?
- Is the image of our country driving people away to adopt Indian brands?
Will try to answer these questions in my next post. Meanwhile, do share your thoughts.
4 comments:
That was a good read. Well written!!
Just to share some views. I think these concerns originate from the fact that very few Indian brands have actually made an international impact. International acclaim plays a very crucial role. Also, we all will love to wear a CK or don the latest trend from Paris/UK/USA which stems from the fact that we are proud to own something which is rather ‘elite’. We as humans love to show off! We want others to notice the red tab on our Levis jeans so will tuck in our shirts. This is also a recent phenomena. My dad would still prefer his shirt to be tailor-made for him. This is our creation!
Also, as you rightly posed a question towards the end of your blog, many international brands have created a revolution within the market and have become more of an addiction for many consumers. They deliver great quality to the consumer and are constantly creating innovative products.
Nonetheless, to quote an example, I think India as a brand has reaped huge benefits due to its ‘Incredible !ndia’ campaign. Thanks to meticulous branding efforts, we enjoy a healthy influx of tourists and a fully rejuvenated business sector. I think we need to move beyond traditional marketing (e.g., advertising) and look for ways to ‘brand’ our country from an environmental perspective, (or perhaps) use technology to promote our country’s brand. We need to harness this positivism. What about combating negative perceptions without sugarcoating them over?
I don't know whether I have divulged away from the topic or I have opened up a new one. But, it was a pleasure to read your thoughts. It oiled my rather rusty brain. Kudos!! Keep writing (Errr….’typing’ in this virtual world)
Ya it is right, Indian brands are loose there likebility, because if we remember some month ago before vodafone launch, AIRTEL is highest rate of satisfaction among all other but what happen now. same for car like INDICA
you need to consider categories where you do have Indian brands. in some of the categories you have surveyed, there are n Indian brands at all for various reasons.
Try banking, insurance, Media and you will have Indian brands coz there few foreign brands. don't know if tat makes any difference to the conclusion though..
Excellent post, Sagar.
This is absolutely true with the massive middle class population of India.
However, this could be a lot different for the significant population that is still in our small villages.
I heard the other day that Lifebuoy and Santoor are top 2 soap brands in India. Similarly, Maruti (yes, in collaboration with Suzuki) changed the auto industry in India and is a big and successful car brand, today. Agreed that it may not be in the top of the wish list but the sales indicate that they are doing very well in comparison to the foreign brands and it could be for reasons like pricing and service rather than the product quality.
I do think thought that the fact that our products do not have a huge foreign market/demand has to do with the product quality not being competitive. Our companies do tend to focus and win customers via pricing rather than quality.
For a developing nation like ours which has still over 40% of population below poverty line, winning customers with focus on pricing works. However, those same products would not do good where quality is number 1 ask from customer over pricing as affordability is less of an issue in those developed nations.
It was interesting in your survey that in the phones category, Nokia was at the top. I would have imagined Apple's iphone.
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