By Avik Chattopadhyay
Quite a shakeup in Bangalore, huh! Sorry, Bengaluru.
The market leader was dethroned by the second brand. While some saw it coming, guess the incumbent saw it much earlier, loud and clear. After all, as the market leader, if you merely rest of your laurels and do not deliver on your brand promises, you know your fate when appraisal time arrives. Then you have two options – either you accept your deficiencies and ask for another chance, or, you believe that offence is the best form of defence.
While the first option is the mature one, very few market leaders have the humility to accept so. That makes them looks fragile and vincible. No chest-thumping and bicep-pumping here. Very difficult for the also-rans itself, forget the market leaders. Have you seen any Indian brand ever stand up and say, “Sorry, we screwed this one up!”? Not possible as shareholders do not like that kind of talk.
So, what do you typically do? Go aggro! Bring in the musclemen, throw in the cheerleaders, crank up the spinmeisters and pump in lots of money. This formula may still work if you keep it all local and relevant. But no, you decide to call in your CEO and COO to cover up for you. They sounded like the Englishmen shouting at the “natives” in Lagaan. And to top it all, they changed the focus. From ground level issues the narrative moved to the spiritual invoking gods and goddesses. To make matters worse, north Indian gods were called upon into action. And the icing on the cake was a veiled threat that if you do not patronise my product and services, all hell shall break loose. That was the proverbial last straw. Not only do you guys own up to your shortcomings, you intimidate me in a language that I do not understand.
Every mistake in the brand textbook of “Things you must avoid for market leadership” was committed with full gusto:
Admit your mistakes? No.
Raise local and relevant issues? No.
Speak in the local language? No.
Never intimidate your customer base. No.
Do not spread negative vibes. No.
Do not try to impose views from outside. No.
The competition did not have to do much.
If the leader were yet to retain its position after all this, it would have been an insult to the values of Brand India. Peaceful coexistence. Collective prosperity. Positive outlook. Unity in diversity. Preservation of local cultural ethos.
Which brings me to the parleys the Indian government is having with Tesla to wean it into setting up a manufacturing facility in India. Round 1 ended in a stalemate a year ago when the government stuck to its ground of making the product in India rather than merely importing and selling it. Round 2 was quite a surprise to me. Obviously, there is pressure from the US to reopen the case and look at an ‘arrangement’.
There is no economic sense for Tesla to set up a facility in India of luxury electric cars as the very market does not and will not exist to justify the same. Unless it wishes to hedge the risk of its Chinese operation running into rough weather, or use India as an export base. We are still cheaper than China to make things and our government, in its fascination for hobnobbing with the Apples and Teslas of the world, would bend backwards in creating an incentive-laden offer more than what any local automaker would ever get. The narrative that iPhones and Teslas are now made in India is just too juicy to resist to demonstrate economic progress when elections are around the corner. Atmanirbhar Bharat can wait.
This is the other side of Brand India. Still unsure of itself. Still besotted with trappings of the western world. Still needing ratification from the west on our achievements and progress. Still focusing on quantity more than quality. Still content with just manufacturing and not designing and creating. Still stuck in “Make in India” and not evolving to “Create in India”.
Guess these are the typical signs of mid-life crisis of a 75-year-young nation. While we are yet to shake off the skin of the colonial past, we are sure of preserving the core fabric of what makes us a unique, rich and diverse eco-system. Just like any brand in its middle age… sure of what it must protect but confused about what it needs to project.
Jai Hind.
Avik Chattopadhyay is a senior business and brand strategist and commentator based in Gurugram. He writes on MxMindia on alternate Thursdays, and sometimes on other days as well. His views here are personal.