Indian Brands Missing Globaly

In the last topic in “Power Brands”, I wrote that no Indian brand is in the list of top brands listed by Interbrand. It takes years in building a brand and in spite of some strong Indian brands in home why could not they make it to that level…we have wipro, Tata, TCS, Infosys but they are only in India. At times it amaze me that despite of being such a strong free market and growing market we still have to go a long way.

Why? Most of the Indian global brands are either B2B or the companies follow the export route through appointed dealers. So it leave the companies with very less to go in other countries and go for a formidable branding campaign. Or they might not be having that resources to build brand.. Moreover if one compare the top brands reveled by Interbrand and the Indian brands than Indian brands are in very nascent stage. So it’s a long way to go before anyone starting comparing Indian brands with those top one’s.

Still there is a brighter side which one should feel good about. Slowly and steadily we are growing in some areas like Tourism, Medical, Education industries in India and producing some good brands. “Incredible India” has drawn global attention. Apollo, Escorts, IIT’s and IIM’s are also heard making news globally. India is not alone in this race and joining India is China, which also have not produced global brands and no brand of china has appeared in list of Interbrand. So have we found another topic of debate between India and China-Both formidable economies of Asia struggling to produce global brands. If one talk of Asia there are two countries-Japan and Korea who have found place for their brands in list of formidable global brands. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, LG, Hyundai, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung are some brands coming out of these two countries. In another aspects also the debate is on-“Are we approaching towards a unipolar world”, see this in the light of the fact the out of the 100 Top brands by Interbrand 62 are of US and among top 10 , eight are from US. But strictly it doesn’t mean that others will loose their grip to the American’s favorite coffee or cola, and India is not an exception. Am I getting more optimistic?, let time answer this.

A Journey: From Hutch to Vodafone

In one of the major transitions in Indian market, Vodafone has replaced Hutch.. In short time from now, you will see Vodafone everywhere at hutch’s place. Just get your eyes ready to see deep red speech mark logo instead of three deep pink stars. Vodafone has acquired Hutch for an enterprise value of $18.8 billion by agreeing to pay$11.1billion for Huthison
Telecommunication Pvt Ltd.

Hutch was a formidable brand in India as of now but now Vodafone will replace it. Just to give you an idea what it takes to build a brand

—Vodafone has booked virtually all the space on star TV on 20th September and it cost them about INR 130 million in all its ads for that day including Sony Tv. Star sells 10 minutes of commercial time per hour. Hutchison-Essar itself has gone through a major brand transition few years ago from its popular orange brand to Hutch which was supported by its popular advertising blitz.

A huge wave of advertising will roll in coming time as a result of this transition on Newspaper, Outdoor media, Internet and Television.

--Vodafone has set budget for this ad campaign to INR 4 Billion and for that Vodafone has booked huge ad space on channels like Zee, Star, Sony on 20th September.

--Vodafone will change Hutch’s “Wherever you go our network follows” catch with a new one “Make the most of now”.

-- The cost for the campaign is slightly more than which require to retain a brand campaign.

-- Most of the cost will go to change the appearance of dealers to suit the changed brand. It will be 50% of total cost.

Already we have seen beautiful ads shown on the first day - 20th September.
This is just starting, all the best to Vodafone.

Thinking of building a brand?? It takes lot more, so Interbrand is far for Indian brands but not inaccessible.