News: 'Market India as a durable brand'

(BL 21/07/2006) Kolkata - Building a strong "Brand India" in the global market will require "holistic marketing" practices, as countries too are brands just like products, services and organisations, with their own associations, images and set expectations, which affect perceptions and behaviour.

Making a presentation on "Building and Managing Brand Equity for Profit" at the inaugural session of the Confederation of Indian Industry's two-day National Brand Conclave here on Thursday, Prof Kevin Lane Keller, Professor of Marketing at Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth of the US, and co-author of Philip Kotler's bestseller on "marketing management", said the India story in the US, as a brand concept, has gained momentum, and "there is a need to build on this successfully".

Explaining how it was possible to market India as a durable brand in this fast-changing marketing world, he said the key challenge in marketing was that "everything mattered".

Holistic marketing, according to him, can be seen as the development, design and implementation of marketing programmes, processes and activities that recognise the breadth and interdependence of their effects.

Need for an integrated perspective

Calling for a broad, integrated perspective, Prof Keller said the four holistic marketing dimensions were internal marketing, integrated marketing, relationship marketing and performance marketing.

Suggesting that marketers now need to attend to a host of different issues, he said the new marketing management concepts centred around people, processes, programmes and performance.

Introducing the theme of the conclave, B.L. Raina, Chairman, CII - Eastern Region, said the conclave was the fifth successive one in the series, attracting leading business and marketing leaders from around the country. Over 250 brand and marketing managers from corporate houses and leading ad agencies in Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata, and over 100 industrial houses have signed up for the event.