Not all Indians are polite, hospitable and vegetarian.
- Incredible !ndia campaign highlighting the tiger and the country’s wildlife sanctuaries
Before Shining India flubbed it and lost the BJP its reign at the Centre in 2004, another branding campaign had captured the imagination of a nation with 1.12 billion people, 28 states, seven union territories and 18 official languages, turning a contrarian diversity into a contemporary brand to sell India overseas as a tourist destination. There cannot be any doubt about the success of the Incredible !ndia campaign that catapulted the country into the mainstream of travellers’ consciousness when it was launched in 2002. That a country that had languished on the fringes of travellers’ itineraries for decades would get such amazing fillip was all the more extraordinary given the apathetic state of its infrastructure. Possibly what helped was that it coincided with the rise of India as an economic superpower, so the campaign, initially launched on a budget of a mere Rs 15.71 crore (increasing to Rs 110 crore of a Rs 220 crore outlay by 2008-09), became representative of a global superpower in the making.
Earlier attempts to brand India had resulted in coining such phrases as Cultural or Spiritual or Unbelievable but it was Incredible that caught on, though it was part of a legacy of branded destinations that included Malaysia: Truly Asia, or Live it up Singapore, Amazing Thailand, or 100% Pure New Zealand, which had all delivered on their premise. The amazing story of how the brand was created and launched, right up to its journey till last year when buses and taxis in London wore the eye-catching Incredible !ndia@60 livery, or the complete backdrop of the International Tourisme Bourse in Berlin, is now told by Amitabh Kant, who as joint secretary in the ministry of tourism was responsible for the creation of the brand. Kant, even then, had an archival eye, and would compile both the advertising and the Incredible spinoffs by way of articles and advertising in international magazines that resulted from inviting travel writers on trips to experience India — not least the cheeky invitation to Big Brother’s notorious celebrity Jane Goody that paid off handsomely in coverage across the globe — to its domination as a tourism hotspot in top destination lists.
But here’s the rub: Kant treats the book as something between a white paper and an action-taken report, filling it up with bureaucratese: goals, strategic objectives, marketing challenges and so on, the kind of gumph you will find in ministerial files. The point of the whole exercise would have been more fulfilling if the action behind the branding exercise, the actual strategies, the discussions and debates and drama, the tensions and celebrations, had been brought alive. Kant had come to the Centre after a successful tenure in Kerala, where a similar exercise to brand Communist-ruled Kerala associated with strikes as God’s Own Country had put it on the top of everybody’s wish list.
Though Kant treads lights over earlier branding exercises, Rajasthan and Kashmir had managed it to a reasonable degree in the eighties, and Madhya Pradesh has consistently created campaigns that, alas, have always been let down by the reality of a deplorable state of infrastructure. Similarly, he makes short shrift of K Jayakumar, who many believe laid the foundations for Kerala’s positioning exercise. Nor are relationships with Rathi Vinay Jha and V K Duggal at the department of tourism (who extended their support to the branding campaign), V Sunil (responsible for the creatives, and the book’s designer) or the two tourism ministers (Jagmohan and Ambika Soni) explored in any great depth. He does make the point that Jagmohan did not initially support the idea for the campaign because he felt “tourism officials preferred the softer option of promotion and marketing rather than undertaking the tougher task of infrastructure improvement at key destinations”, and had to be persuaded to steer clear of the brand line “The Wonder that is India” (from A L Basham’s The Wonder that was India). About Soni, Kant writes that she “had a sense of colour, design and visual appeal and gave the final approval to the creatives — almost to the extent of directing them herself — not because she wanted to interfere in the arena of creativity but because she had clarity of vision and a sense of direction on how India as a destination should be promoted and marketed”, something the new minister, Kumari Selja, will find difficult to emulate. Both ministers, observes Kant, “had, however, one thing in common — the highest levels of integrity I have come across in my twenty-eight years as a civil servant”.
Kant’s book will be an invaluable treatise for anyone associated with !ndia’s tourism and hospitality sector for its strategic perspectives, but what many will treasure is the images of the brand campaign that has run since 2002 — probably !ndia’s finest and hopefully one that will continue to be sustained if baleful officials don’t spike it some time soon.
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BRANDING INDIA
AN INCREDIBLE STORY
Amitabh Kant
Collins Business
267 pages; Rs 499