It’s not resources that prevent Indian companies from building global brands but a lack of coordinated effort in industrial positioning, according to Erich Joachimsthaler, an expert in brand creation and founder & chief executive officer of Vivaldi Partners.
Joachimsthaler was delivering his keynote address at the brand enclave organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
“India is at a stage where there is a need to establish itself in the world market otherwise someone else will. The country should identify certain priority sector industries to brand its products in the world market, like hospitality and aviation, ” said Joachimsthaler.
He spoke about brands like Starbucks and Nike that did not spend even a dollar on advertising before reaching revenue of a billion dollars. “The brand-building space has become democratic where brands like Wikipedia and Google were created without spending great resources.”
“On the one hand, India is identified with very poor and very rich people, on the other, it has a vast resource of highly educated people,” he said. In India, unlike in China, this is an advantage in building world-class brands.
Joachimsthaler believes that India should not follow the low-cost product model of China. Rather, it should concentrate on strategies that are neither consumer- nor product-centric but stress personal behavioural pattern.
So, according to Joachimsthaler, the Indian companies should be more innovative when it comes to charting the future of brands.