Being the Brand

The India of today is rapidly becoming tag- obsessed, and seems to be losing perspective of the bigger picture

BY PINKY BHATIA

Visit suits, flashing their or an intoxicating whiff of the latest Chanel perfume while their Gucci or Louis Vuitton bags dangle leisurely over their shoulders, the sight may captivate you for a while. The connoisseurs of luxury have arrived in this part of the world with a bang, and the likes of Gucci, Venini, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Missoni are making a beeline for hawking their oh-souber luxury products to the highflying, well-heeled, and globally evolved nouveau-rich Indians of the postreform era.

A retail revolution is sweeping through India, making it among the fastest-growing industries in the country. With the growth of malls, multiplexes and hypermarkets, the consumer is being exposed to new kinds of services which are quietly and surely redefining expectations from shopping. Whatever your need, it will be met by express check-out counters, service and installation by appointment, valet parking and not to mention, “home delivery” by McDonalds. With retail ambiences getting upgraded, clearly the poky neighborhood kirana stores are becoming a part of the past for the hypermarket consumer, and “she” now finds it difficult to shop “regularly” at the dusty grocery shop. This has driven a push by the consumer’s overall need for greater aesthetics in all areas from clothes to furniture to jewelry!

Interestingly, in the late ‘80s when Titan launched its first showrooms, it had to battle the consumer perception that “swank” means “expensive”. Today with the growth of malls and hypermarkets, that has changed and consumers no longer think “expensive looking” means “expensive”. To actually establish premium imagery through shopping environment is much more difficult, as the benchmark has changed!

Whatever your need, it will be met by express check-out counters, service and installation by appointment, valet parking and not to mention, “home delivery” by McDonalds

The question to ask though: “Is India witnessing an unprecedented consumption boom, is it a mindset change altogether, or is it merely a race to be seen ‘with it’”? This thought has been nagging me for a long time, as I keep hearing stories about friends being disappointed by their families’ attitudes and comments, parents being shocked by statements made by their children and worst still, no one noticing when things are clearly over the top and “not right” as they are so bombarded by the voice of the media and political pollution. Till date, I can’t figure out the motivations behind some of them. A good friend of mine went to see her family for the first time since her wedding, accompanied by her American husband. She was in for a shock… her mum advised her that she should lose some weight! Well, this would have been reasonable if she had any to lose. To me she is a very healthy (touch wood) size 10 or maybe 8, and maintains a very healthy and active lifestyle. All this because of magazines articles, TV ads, press features and most importantly, our Bollywood movies promoting the “size zero” phenomenon. Obviously no one has spoken to “Kareena Kapoor” about the responsibility of being a good role model that comes with fame!

Another incident is when a family member retracted their compliment about my friend’s pair of jeans and its good fit because she found out it wasn’t the Sass and Bide she was wearing the last time they met, but a meagre pair from Target! Oh my goodness, the look she got was “is she good enough to be seen with?”

My nephew said this to me two years ago and I still can’t get it out of my head, “Maasi, I don’t like this because it has no name or sign on it”. Well, this was a 4-year-old’s way of saying ‘I don’t like this because it is not branded!’

Now while I love my nephew to death and have no issues with people’s preferences for brands, I do believe that this must be rationalized by the correct reasons. I pay for a brand because I trust I am getting a good quality product versus having to pay for a brand because I cannot be seen without one. Another incident was when a sister’s friend commented,

“I do all my shopping from the Godrej Nature’s Basket (a specialty store chain in Mumbai); they’ve got all kinds of cold cut meats, different varieties of bread, Arborio rice (which I believe is quite difficult to get and quite expensive in India) etc.,” and I still haven’t figured out in what context that statement was made! It was definitely not in response to what I said, or a natural course of our conversation! Clearly there was a reason of wanting to share that important piece of information with me, but I just wasn’t with it, you see.

World cuisine is another way of displaying how many visas you have had stamped on your passport. The number of specialized restaurants in 5-star hotels is growing by the day and people are willing to pay up to Rs. 6000 for a bottle of wine. Better still is the need to you can make sushi at home when entertaining your guests – after all, it is a matter of pride. And I need to have “readymade” yoghurt and not the homemade one, ‘coz I want people to witness my “lifestyle”!

OK – so where does this stop, as it has to. We are the generation who have seen the deregulation of Indian markets and experienced the burst of brands and luxury goods in the Indian plethora, parallel to the arrival of the “call centre and outsourced services era”. It is us who have to stay grounded and not let aesthetics and superficiality of brands rub into us as “human beings”. In an age where Facebook, Blackberry and iPads are the norm, it is all the more important to maintain the human connection! This can only happen if we view brand choices, aesthetics and dress size as different facets of the one person, and not the facets as the person themselves. If we fail in our responsibility to do so, we will give birth to what I call “brand babies” who will then have to soul search for the very things that their parents stole from them – but not intentionally! Let’s not forget that brands need us and we make brands, not the reverse. We are privileged in having the backing of a rich culture and heritage with us, and a present of all luxury and international brand exposure available to us – let’s combine the two and give our children the best education and arm them with the knowledge of both. This will ensure that they understand the difference between what’s important and what’s not, and will concentrate on the permanent rather than the transient!