It has been a time of boycott for multinational brands including Hyundai, Kia, Domino’s, KFC, Honda Motors, among others. All these brands in the last few weeks received flak from netizens for posts on Kashmir Solidarity Day which was observed on February 5. Believed to be sent out by the dealers and outlets of these companies outside India, the posts created a stir as Indian consumers demanded a complete boycott of the above-mentioned brands. “As a business policy, Hyundai Motor Company does not comment on political or religious issues in any specific region. Therefore it is clearly against Hyundai Motor’s policy that the independently-owned distributor in Pakistan made unauthorised Kashmir-related social media posts from their own account,” an official statement issued by Hyundai Motor India read. Later the Indian handles of Domino’s, Kia, Honda as well as KFC, too issued statements of apology for the posts as calls for boycott trended on Twitter.
Brand experts are of the opinion that global companies must not venture into local outrage topics. “There are hot button topics in every country. In India, some of those topics are religion, politics, nationalism, among others. Brands must refrain from using these. As for dealer level problems related to communication (popularly seen across auto and fashion brands), it is the onus of brand owners to set out rules stating what is acceptable and what is unacceptable,” Karthik Srinivasan, independent communications consultant, stated on the controversy.
Meanwhile, Domino’s India, in a post apologised and said that it is committed to the Indian market, having called it home for more than 25 years, and has the utmost respect for the people, culture and spirit of nationalism of the country. According to Harish Bijoor, brand expert and founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, brands must not touch two key fabrics – religion and politics (including geopolitics) as politics and religion divides people. “As long as brands do not touch these two things, they will do well. Local jingoism is not for brands,” he added further.
For Soumitra Patnekar, strategy lead, Enormous, in today’s hyper-charged nationalist environment, brands should be extremely careful about what they put out. “So while Patanjali and Dabur do stand to gain by riding on nationalist sentiments, multinational brands like Hyundai don’t need to venture into these minefields. Especially in today’s interconnected world, where a seemingly harmless and innocuous-looking tweet can risk its carefully built global reputation,” he added.
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