Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Traits Of Marketing –

Indians are very good sellers and very choosy buyers. The marketing trait of an average Indian starts from the date when you see your dad praising your mom’s food. “Doesn’t that happen everywhere??”

No!! Not if the food is bad. :)

We portray our emotions, our feelings, our beliefs to accommodate a lot of social hooligans in our lives.
"What will the neighbor think if I buy a big car?"
"Is this dress too revealing?"
"What will the priest think if I don’t visit our temple today??"

So by aligning ourselves to this already established social setup, we market ourselves for social acceptance.
We are scared to be left outside the circle that forms the so called conservative society in our country.
We drink/smoke in private, but don’t approve of the SUPERSTARS smoking in movies.
We pray for the girl next door to turn up in tights, but wouldn’t approve of someone in our family to do the same.

If Kotler was to have born in India, he would have chosen FINANCE – because the entire nation can be decided to award a PH.D in personal branding!!
We as a race have inherited the art of marketing!!!
No wonder we excel in tourism – while different nations impose their own rules to tourists, we go one step forward and accommodate their culture into ours.
We practice different religion, different culture, we market ourselves to the highest levels of social and religious tolerance - we are a special race in ourselves – we are the perfect marketers!!
On a lighter note, the race of Manu(the first man according to Indian mythology) might one day market itself as the biggest supporters of ManU(Manchester United) – all for the cause of global acceptance!!!

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Reasons to blog - Personal Branding???

Well..lets face the truth- Avoid marketing, Ignore mAdd Videoarketing, but you cannot live without marketing.With a population of 1,147,995,904, if there is a place on earth that requires marketing to survive, then it is India.
Marketing at a very elementary sense is the art of buying or selling in a market. But today the meaning has expanded like most of the words in the english literature. Ironically this very act of me creating a blog and trying to sell (even though you arent paying a penny :) ) my ideas is itself an example of marketing - or personal branding to be more specific.
In India, it is said that you need to stand up to be heard. Only the crying baby gets the share of milk in this part of the world and so, the significance of how you pitch yourself as an individual is imperative for your survival.
I accept that my foray into the blogging terrain is an attempt to understand the new avenues of digital marketing and social networking/professional networking.
But yes this personal branding attempt of mine is being build over a beautiful premises - Marketing in India!!
"Why India?? - why not the world !!!", would be your first question??
Simply because I think marketing is specific to regions...its deeply rooted with the culture of the nation..and to write about the success of IPHONES in U.S, I should have atleast made an attempt to cross the Atlantic.. - "Not a pre requiste, you would retort"- Those optical fibres crossing Atlantic are for your thoughts and mind to travel. I dont disagree!!! But I'm sure that my cousin who has spend 10 years in the U.S would find 10 flaws in my article on something written about the U.S.
So lets try and stick to India!! The sub continent has left even the likes of Philip Kotler puzzled!!
Hence I'm confident that this is a challenge which is not a penny less than my established cousins who figure in http://adage.com/power150/
Adage - Here I come!!!!