Is brand 'goodwill' going to matter more than 'image'.
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr made the now-famous “I have a dream” speech at Lincoln Avenue. He beseeched the whites to give equal rights to the blacks. “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges,” he said. In a soul-stirring speech he ignited the passions of blacks (and fellow believers of an equal world), demanded attention and asked his fellow black men to question the acceptance of their situation.
In 2008, Barack Obama made his now-famous “Yes, we can change” speech in North Carolina. “So let me remind you tonight that change will not be easy. Change will take time. There will be setbacks and false starts and sometimes we’ll make mistakes… Don’t tell me we can’t change.Yes, we can. Yes, we can change. Yes, we can. Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future,” he said impassionately. He asked fellow Americans to come out of their complacency, destroy the acceptance of their situation and drive commitment to the larger purpose of restoring American pride and stature.
Both speeches are of inspiration, change, hope, urgency and moving away from the status quo. And both are content-wise relevant to the times of their making. However, the tonality of the two speeches is distinctly different. Martin Luther King appealed, “I have a dream; follow me”; Barack Obama goaded, “We can do it together; come with me” — a change in leadership tenor. Clearly the world is moving from a ‘command and control’ paradigm to a ‘connect and collaborate’ model of leadership.
The winds of change are blowing. Though this may seem to be a trend in faraway America, it’s foolish to ignore its implications on the larger world. The US has always been a trendsetter; and, as Thomas Friedman said, in today’s ‘flat world’, ideas, concepts and philosophies travel faster than we can imagine. So India too will not be immune to these changes. What’s the implication for the branding world?
Branding has always been seen as a means to create a distinct image for a product or company to be differentiated in the minds of consumers. However, the social change from ‘I’ to ‘we’ may signal the dawn of a new era in branding. It could be a defining moment that could launch a new ‘brand’ of branding school — coincidentally more relevant to the affiliative cultures of the developing world, ie, eastern societies.
Pause for a moment to consider the following. The recent Satyam controversy has been spoken of as a big hit on the ‘image’ of India Inc, particularly the IT industry. Government and industry bodies have come together to do salvage operations so that confidence in the sector is restored by ‘saving’ Satyam as a company. The whole issue raises two interesting insights:
It has often been said that companies and brands don’t operate only in markets and for consumers, but also cater to society and community. While ‘process’ was important, what matters to consumers is the end product and what it does for them. This has been the thinking of marketing and branding through the twentieth century. Society and community have often been afterthoughts, to be addressed post-consumer delight. The time has come to question those hypotheses and get more sensitive to society, communities and processes — how products are made and how business is conducted. If the key question in the image-driven branding world was: “Does my brand have a distinct image”, the new question in the goodwill-driven branding world is: “Does my brand have a good reputation?” In an interconnected world that is driven more by ‘we’ rather than ‘I’, it’s important for brands to realize the need to build goodwill.
Building goodwill is more than corporate social responsibility activities and supporting large causes — often done by brands that have become monopolistic. These will be seen through by society as acts of cleansing and not really doing business with society’s good at heart. It’s about adopting ethical business practices (as the Satyam case has shown), and ensuring that the process of production is as good as the product itself.
This may seem distant for a developing market like India where people are still entering the consumerist world and may seek personal gratification over societal good. However, we need to recognize that India is a country with a strong and effective media; the net is making global knowledge and views more democratic and accessible; and consumer activism is growing.
Developing markets are not growing as sequentially as developed markets did in the past. They are leapfrogging steps their developed counterparts took while evolving. In such a scenario, while it’s always good to learn from iconic brands like Coke, Nike and McDonalds, it may be worthwhile to also consider and study Indian iconic brands like Tata that have managed to strike some balance between society and markets, community and consumers, image and goodwill.
Something worth thinking about.
The author is Country Head, Discovery and Planning, Ogilvy, India. Views expressed are personal.
