| What is brand India? It is different thing to different people, if we go by the speakers at a media conclave hosted by the Media Club at the Indian School of Business (ISB).
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| While Ajit Rangnekar, deputy dean of ISB, described it as a totally private sector creation, Rajeev Sawhney, president of Reliance Entertainment, said that it was a myth, perpetuated by the media.
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| Brand India, according to Sawhney, was an acronym of BBB - Bollywood, Bangalore and Bhatia (NRI making it good abroad).
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| “As much as 24 per cent of newspaper coverage and 31per cent on television is the share of Bollywood gossip. Three fourth of all international media about India reports is about outsourcing and fear of loss of jobs. The other fixation for the media is the NRIs. That’s what I call as the Bhatias. The latest fixation being Lakshmi Mittal,” he said.
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| On the other hand, ace ad filmmaker Prahlad Kakar said that it was the professional entrepreneur, the single-minded industrious community outside India, “who is the actual brand.”
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| For Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, former deputy editor of Business World, the success of micro units and the goodwill created by hundreds of entrepreneurs and ordinary Indians "is Brand India.”
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| As per V Sunil, creative director of Aontheweb, “there is an identity crisis as far as Brand India is concerned”.
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| According to Vikas Gupta, we need not bother about Brand India. “Where is the need to market India? The action is happening here. Why do we need to sell ourselves abroad?” the chief marketing officer of the Ananda Bazaar Patrika Group asked.
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| Nevertheless, as the topic of the media conclave being “The Role of Media in Taking Brand India Beyond Indian Shores,” Arnab Goswami, editor-in-chief of Times Now, said that the domain experience of the media, its competitive instinct, its logic and its linguistic experience would help take Brand India abroad. |
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