Avik Chattopadhyay
While a significant part of the nation was busy with discussing dance moves and dresses of the rich and famous gathered in a little town on the west coast of India, a bunch of medical students danced around in joy on the east coast of the US. While one of the richest people on this planet spent a whopping 100+ million dollars on a family function, a retired professor at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx donated a mere billion dollars to ensure free tuition for all medical students, almost for life.
It is cultural. Very very cultural. The two nations make up the world’s largest democracies, and have their own share of unemployment and poor, yet the two are poles apart. In a discussion with a social scientist who requested anonymity, I was reminded that we are basically a monarchy in the garb of a democracy. We celebrate 75 years of becoming a republic yet are deeply servile. We boast of some of the world’s biggest people movements, yet revel in creating demigods of the rich and the powerful. “We will always be a land of confluences, cross-connections and contradictions”, the social scientist commented, trying to explain to me how Indian brands are thereby quite different in their DNA from ones from the US or France or Germany or Japan.
“Indian brands love to show-off. We love to live in the now, more than for the future. For us, excess is success!”
What is wrong with showing off? Or for that matter, living in the now? Nothing wrong. It is just a matter of perspective. The same rich person who gave a pre-wedding bash will also go ahead and build a hospital or school, but the bash is very important as that sets a context. It is like when the ‘benevolent despot’ of an emperor used to throw silver coins in the air for the commoners to scuffle for at his child’s wedding. While the poor would get their clinics, night shelters and rations, they had to be reminded of the grandeur and graciousness of the mighty powers from time to time. The living in the present moment is a clever diversion from the present state of life into a world of make belief, with the subliminal message that this is a life that one could aspire for.
When the personality of the brand is derived from the personality of the ‘promoter’, things get very heady. The socio-economic and cultural background of the promoter clearly determines the way the brand behaves. If one’s legacy has been mired in a fair bit of controversy, the need for periodic demonstrations of power and pomp are crucial to establishing authority. If the background has been less than average, then the attempt is always to go over the top. “It’s a natural response of the reptilian brain,” explained the social scientist, born out of some kind of inferiority complex. The need to set the narrative from time to time is important or such personalities suffer from inadequacy.
This is why most Indian brands come across as more pompous than proud, more combative than competitive, more conflicting than collaborative. We see that in most of our communication. We experience it most in our service experience. We see that in the way most business leaders present themselves. We have an obsession with using terms like “#1” and “the best ever”, be it a toilet cleaner or an automobile. We love using pompous words like “unbeatable” and “unmatched” because, somewhere, the promoter or brand custodian is insecure and needs such posturing to reaffirm potency and power.
“It is like a stand-up comedian starting a show with the words ‘Mind you, I am the world’s funniest guy’”, said the social scientist, to put things in perspective. An American brand is running an enterprise. An Indian brand typically wishes to run an empire. It could be a response to the fact that we were a colony for close to 200 years that we are yet to be out of the mindset while our colonisers have adjusted with a post-colonial world.
We react positively to symbols of regality, power and authority. Which is why both our politicians and judges sit on quasi-thrones whether at a function or in judgment. Simple chairs will not work for either. It is the same with corporate India. Most board rooms I have peeked into have a larger chair and a fixed place for the leader. Everyone knows who the leader is yet the symbols are needed as constant reminders. The chair plays the role of omni presence.
It is the very same mental wiring that makes millions of us take voyeuristic pleasure in an exhibition of excess that thrives on our culture code of the need to overtly establish leadership. And nothing really can change that. We thrive on contradictions. While we believe in rebirth and the after-life, we prefer to live as if there is no tomorrow. While we revere saints and seers who excuse themselves from worldly pleasures, we choose overt displays of wealth and grandeur. While we preach the power of ‘karma’, we portray the potency of the ‘fruit’.
Avik Chattopadhyay is a Gurugram-based brand and business strategist and commentator. He is currently also working along with XLRI to set up the Indian School for Design of Automobiles. He writes on MxMIndia every other Thursday. His views here are personal.