Brand Modi

Brand Modi

Modi In, Modi Out

By Harish Bijoor

My favorite brand names in the world are 4-letter word brand names. I wrote a research paper on this some eight years ago. I researched out some 2000 plus brand names from across the world, and the conclusions were simple.

If you are starting afresh in the world of branding, start with a 4-letter word brand name. 4-letter brands are crisp, quick to recall, long enough to be remembered and not short enough to be forgotten. 4-letter brands that have two syllables in it are even better. Even a baby can remember and articulate it. Tata. Bata. Pepe. Fila. And now, Modi!

Modi the brand has surely much more to it than the semantics of brand name itself that is crisp, curt and definitive. I therefore explore Brand Modi in this piece from two perspectives. Firstly an intrinsic view of Brand Modi. A view that emerges from his immediate turf of action, success and paranoia even: Gujarat. The second perspective would be one that comes from the rest of the geography outside of Gujarat. An extrinsic view of Brand Modi, if you will.

Narendra Modi the brand has therefore two avatars. An avatar that is seen, revered and respected within Gujarat (by a majority of course) and an avatar that is felt, perceived and acted upon outside of Gujarat.

The view from within is therefore a strong view. A view that is relevant today, with elections n Gujarat round the corner. A view that has been seeded, nurtured and cultivated by all the careful pieces of good work the CM of Gujarat has ensured across two successive and indeed very successful terms of governance.  Two terms that have turned the tide of sentiment in Gujarat. Brand Modi not only did good to Gujarat in real terms, he succeeded in showcasing all the good as well.  The point is simple. In the world of branding, you must not only be good, but appear to be good as well.

Narendra Modi has played the branding game well. The classical marketing bit has been played out to good advantage in Gujarat. A keen understanding of the market, its demographics, its needs and wants, and more importantly its desires and aspirations was handled first. And having understood it well in terms of both numbers as well as the soft sentiments that drive people in an electorate at large, Modi put his Business Plan for Gujarat into motion. 

He looked at the basics, and approached it all with panache. Just as good work was going on in the realm of irrigation and infrastructure development, he put together the cosmetics right a swell In came the wide roads, in came the movement towards world class sanitation, and in came all the publicity that accompanied it all. Every piece of development had the unmistakable Modi stamp to it. And gauss what, if you peek keenly at the various advertisements that the government would put out, everything was Modi-centric. The government of Gujarat meant Modi and Modi meant Gujarat. This singular focus has helped build brand Modi to what he is today. Within Gujarat. In many ways, Modi is a regional party within a national BJP. And the regional is more important than the national in this case.

Modi did it well. He researched sentiment, he made plans, got them implemented with an iron fist, show-cased everything that was done carefully and subliminally even, and finally used the tool of celebration as the icing on the cake of achievement. Modi brought  “Utsav” politics to the fore. “Vibrant Gujarat” was for a macro audience that comprised NRG’s (Non-resident Gujaratis) and people of foreign origin alike, and every “Utsav” whether it be a  “Rann Utsav” or a “Bhadrapad Ambaji Fair”, was for an audience that was of a more local hue

The idea was simple. Research, plan, implement, evaluate publically and celebrate it all with festivity and pomp. Government moneys and sponsorships alike from all over backed the plan to the hilt. Gujarat has not seen a deficit in its funding plan for a decade now for sure. Thanks to Modi.

Modi within Gujarat is a brand par excellence. A brand that is seen to be decisive, very Gujarati, and very much about development and taking Gujarat onto the path of prosperity and glory.

Modi outside of Gujarat is however an issue. What Gujarat feels about brand Modi is possibly not what those outside of Gujarat feel of the brand at hand. This is where the debate begins about the relevance of Modi on a pan-India platform. Do a dipstick around your own circles of influence. The moment you talk Brand Modi, in comes the stigma of Godhra.

Take the dipstick around to deeper markets still, further away from your own circles of comfort. Take it to your maidservants and drivers, and I am afraid the talk is of divisive politics. The talk is of a certain degree of emotional if not physical ghettoisation. What Modi lacks in brand image terms in terrains outside of Gujarat is the inclusive feel of an entity that can carry an entire nation of divided people along.

Keep taking this dip-stick deeper and deeper into the gut of the Indian nation, or for that matter take it to overseas markets where the Modi brand is known, and you will find the response typical. The response sticks with one dominant memory alone. People outside of Gujarat, sadly do not remember the development that Modi has contributed to within Gujarat. That geography is far way, and so are the positive strokes.  People sadly want to happily remember the negative more than the positive. Particularly people, who do not partake of the positive touch directly, are in the habit of sticking on to the negative. And that is Brand Modi’s undoing when it comes to his ambition in national politics.

In many ways this is totally unfair. Narendra Modi is a CM who has delivered on all his promises and more to the State of Gujarat. He has tried hard to undo every negative aspect to his imagery post the Godhra-riots. While he has succeeded internally in the immediate geography of his immediate influence, externally, the challenge remains.

But, and that is a big but, brand Modi’s imagery outside of Gujarat is totally different from what it is in Gujarat. If Narendra Modi has plans to dominate national politics, there is a need to demonstrate to the rest of India what the can do in terms of inclusive politics that does not depend on divisive language, tone, tenor and decibel.

Unfair. But true. Sadly, the brand is a perception. And perception is more important than the truth in this space.

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The author is a brand-strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Twitter.com @harishbijoor

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Being Bangalore

Being Bangalore


Harish Bijoor
Bangalore means a lot to me. If I am asked to name one thing that excites me about Bangalore, that’s a difficult one. To me Bangalore is a ‘bisibele baath’! And I love Bisibele bath! My favorite vegetarian dish. It is so much like Bangalore. An amalgam of this and that. A mixture of cultures, a mixture of people from all over India. A mixture of nationalities, with us housing the single largest population of expatriates in India. A mixture of tastes, a mixture of textures even. A veritable delight to the city palate at large.

Do I love this city? I do. I owe everything to it. My education, my life, my career, my friends, my relationships and most importantly my entire being. There is a state of mind called ‘Being Bangalore’. And I think I embody all of this, as many of us in this city do. ‘Swalpa adjust maadi’. And we do a lot of it. I have done a lot of it as well.

My earliest memories of Bangalore as a kid are that of walking in good old Lalbagh, playing around, getting hungry and then being taken by my parents to good old MTR, where I would gourmandize on rava idlis, and those small little ‘gindlas’ (katoris) of pure ghee that added a taste of its own to the idli at large.

If I think later, my favorite place was the State Central Library in Cubbon Park. That stately little red building. To me this symbolized the one space of all reading and learning. I don’t know why, but I spent thousands of man-hours here. Reading the magazines and newspapers within its confines, and reading books within its confines as well. Those days one could not afford to buy all the magazines and newspapers one wanted to read, and so, this was my daily haunt, visited religiously every day whenever I got the time (and there was so much of it in abundance then). I would cycle there every day from my home on Victoria Road on my reliable old blue BSA cycle and get back in time to be very hungry at home. Moving around took so little time, that one had all the time to focus on the real thing. Reading and eating in my case. Two passions that I still hold on to.
And then there is my college. St. Joseph’s Arts & Science. I remember being more out of class than in. I was into every extra-curricular activity there was to handle. I was in so many of them that I had little time for the curricular activities altogether. My favorite memory was that of an inter-collegiate magazine a few of us started called “Scribe”. We had St. Joseph’s Arts and Science, St. Joseph’s Commerce, Christ College, and of course the more exciting Mount Carmel College and Jyoti Nivas College onto it. We had representatives from each of these colleges on the Editorial Board, and all of us poured passion into it. Passion and time. This was the earliest business and consumer-touch venture that helped all of us hone our early and latent instincts for business and writing and communicating alike.

I can go on and on. Memories are such. “Being Bangalore” has been an experience to cherish and preserve.

Email: harihsbijoor@hotmail.com

Karnataka Global Investors Meet Imperatives Ahead

3rd June Congratulations Mr.Yediyurappa


By Harish Bijoor


As the Global Investors Meet (GIM) kicks off in Karnataka today, the BS Yediyurappa government in the State, which has just about entered its third year at the helm of affairs, has fired its first serious salvo of development for the state. The GIM in many ways is the first big organized bid by the State to attract investors to a State that has everything to offer to the serious investor. Well, almost everything, except Power. But then the flip side of that statement is that Power sector investment is also an opportunity in itself for the serious investor.

The Yediyurappa government that came to Power 2 years ago has had serious issues at its doorsteps to date. Like a true-blue Sandalwood film unrolling itself, it has had a lot of drama. The euphoria of victory, the throes of division of power through the various ministries, two successive budgets that had Ministers clamoring for more in terms of expenditure limits, depending how much political clout they brought to the party. Ministries such as the Tourism Ministry, oft ignored and pushed into a corner of the budget, benefited for sure out of this. By reasons of default, rather than by reasons of conscious planning.

And then there was deceit and dissension to boot. A performing minister such as Shobha Karandalije had to leave the Ministry, thanks to egos at play. Nature had its play. Severe floods at one end that disrupted thousands of lives, and a severe drought at the other that had the government pushed onto the brink on its promise of the Rs. 2 per kg rice scheme. And amidst it all, the only missing element has been ACTION. It has had plenty of lights, lots of camera. But not too much action to date.
There was off-screen action though. There were bad-words in plenty, mouthed against a Chief Minister in front of television channels waiting to unfold it all. There were patch-ups cobbled together in Delhi. There were euphoric patch-up returns played out at the BIAL.

Amidst all the ‘nataka’ we have witnessed thus far, Karnataka and the BSY government in the State has fired the first serious salvo of good intent, backed by good planning through the GIM kicking off today. Hopefully thousands of serious investors will throng the show, and by the end of the 4th of June, 2010, we will know for sure how the event converted into serious bucks of investments. The MOU’s and their value (whether it be 4 lakh Crore INR or more or less), and more importantly the very many verticals that will receive investor interest will define the path of development the State will traverse over the next decade.
Every vertical of value and significance has been targeted, be it aerospace, biotech, pharma, Services, auto, infrastructure, power, food processing, health, education and more.
I do believe this festival of investment organized by the BSY government in the State is the first serious investment oriented foray launched in a State that deserves this and more. To that extent, the BSY government in the State earns its first positive spur of serious intent towards the development of the State.

Karnataka will move ahead basis the MOU’s signed. If we sign a 4 lakh crore INR set of MOU’s, conversion of this into actual projects, and on time as committed, is going to be a serious issue to tackle in the future. It is important for the government to set up a single-point nodal body that does serious follow-up on each investment oriented MOU. Investment-intent as exhibited in MOU’s need to convert to serious action plans cleared as projects by the State government. These need to be backed by loans as lined up by the plethora of banks that are keen participants in this 'mela'. And that needs to convert into actual on-ground action with the several projects being set up all over the state.

This nodal body needs to be empowered with action-parameters that help rather than hinder. The GIM is a terrific piece of proactive Karnataka-oriented development action. Let’ remember, this is just the beginning. From intent to plan to action to fulfillment is a long phase of dedicated work a lot of our bureaucrats need to get involved in. The game in many ways has just begun.

If good work results out of it all, and if investment intent translates into ground-level action, and if completed projects result in jobs and resultant prosperity, it can all only reflect in positive votes for the BJP government by the time we get to elections. Development is always a positive vote. And a well deserved one.

This is one big opportunity for Mr. BSY to emerge as a Statesman-planner of the State of Karnataka. The planning effort is excellent. It is important to witness the same degree of efficiency and follow-up action in terms of fast-tracking intent and implementing it all. And with pace.

Congratulations Mr.Yediyurappa! May the force be with you!

The author is a business-strategy specialist & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.
Email: harishbijoor@hotmail.com