Branding challenges

No single celebrity can represent this diverse country

Does India need a brand ambassador? The serial controversies of the past few months over the brand ambassadorship for the "Incredible India!" campaign suggest that the government of India would do better to direct its attentions elsewhere in promoting India as a leisure destination. In January, actor Aamir Khan was dropped as campaign spokesman after about 10 years; this came shortly after his remarks about India's growing intolerance after the lynching by a Hindu mob of a Muslim man suspected of keeping beef in his home. Some had argued that Khan's comments that his wife (who is Hindu) had suggested moving out of India on account of rising random violence against Muslims were untenable with his role as the country's promoter. At the time, the government announced that it would appoint actors Amitabh Bachchan and Priyanka Chopra as replacements. The new development was that the government chose to be involved directly in the exercise rather than via an advertising agency, as it did in the case of Khan, who was hired by McCann Worldwide. Indeed, the choice of Bachchan was seen to be at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had appointed the mega star as brand ambassador of a popular Gujarat tourism campaign during his chief ministership. Before Bachchan could receive a formal contract, events took a tragicomic turn with the former's name popping up in the infamous Panama Papers, compelling the government to reportedly reconsider his name (Bachchan has denied his involvement with any company figuring in Panama Papers and insists that he was never approached to endorse the campaign).

As the commercial world is learning, brand ambassadorship can be a hazardous business, either because of controversies involving the brand, such as problems faced by Madhuri Dixit and Bachchan when Maggi noodles were banned, or the misdemeanours of the celebrity. The patent absurdity of appointing Salman Khan as India's goodwill ambassador to the Rio Olympics when he has fought two court cases, pertaining to a road accident and shooting of sacred black buck, would be lost on few. The risks associated with national brand ambassadorship can be even higher in a democracy that is still as open as India's. Aamir Khan's criticisms, for example, were hardly out of tune with opinion that is freely expressed in the national media and circulated around the world; but his position as India's brand ambassador arguably amounted to, say, Sachin Tendulkar publicly stating that soft drinks were unhealthy when he and the Indian team were endorsing Pepsi.

But the bigger question is whether the country needs a single person, however famous, to hard-sell it. Aamir and Salman Khan, Bachchan and Chopra are famous in India, among the non-resident Indian community and in West Asia. But Incredible India! is clearly focused on foreign tourists, for whom these names may not be familiar. But none of these stars can be said to represent India in its breath-taking entirety. It is true that Gujarat and West Bengal ran successful tourism campaigns with Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, but these were aimed at domestic tourists for whom the two are beloved household names. But the far more successful state campaign with equally strong recall was God's Own Country, which leveraged the stunning natural beauty of Kerala to create a compelling message. Odisha, Maharashtra and MP also managed well-crafted messages without celebrity endorsement. India with its unique and incredible diversity of people, landscape and cultures is a natural sell. If the government were to turn its attention to making the country more genuinely tourist friendly, it would probably attract more than seven-odd million annual foreign visitors, a truly meagre number when compared with 55 million for China.