Is India becoming a Marketing battlefield?

Is India becoming a Marketing battlefield?

Look at any industry out there and you will realize that slowly but surely India is getting hot with the war of the brands. There are a few prerequisites which any industry / company demands when entering a market. Some of them are market potential, buying power and the number of competitors.

Obviously, when companies started expanding in India around 1990 and 2000 they found a lot of market potential along with slowly increasing buying power, especially in the urban areas. Coming down to 2010, probably all companies have found out this one crucial secret – Indian consumers can buy their products by heaps.

Take electronics for Example – Samsung and LG are the David and Goliath of the electronics industry in India because of the the product range they have and their clout due to ATL and BTL Marketing. But lets break down their product range to each individual product and you will find that each product has individual competitors. Air conditioners will have Voltas, Washing machines will have Whirlpool, so on and so forth. Not only are the brands fighting on product range, they have to fight to market each product individually.

Take mobile handsets and you will find that within 2 years Nokia is practically out of the running. You may take any side if you want, but the culprit was Android. Just one wrong strategy – not partnering with Android and Nokia was hit badly. Loyalties were broken and new bonds were formed with smart phones which had android. That’s market sentiments for you.

For that matter, take Hollywood. Although I am not a movie buff, and I might not be able to get the data right here, but at least 10 Hollywood big brands are planning to release their movies in India first rather than anywhere else. So one things for sure, Not only Indian brands are battling for india, but the Indian market is even taking on the global market in entertainment too.

The fact is this – Indians brands better roll up their sleeves coz India is really becoming a battlefield. There would be a time when it would become hard to differentiate between an Indian and global brand and in that time, brand equity is the only thing which will count. Be wary of those days and start planning now.

GAURAV KUMAR

PGDM 2^ND SEM

PGDM/11/14