By
S.Subramanyeswar
Group CEO – India & Chief Strategy Officer – APAC
MullenLowe Lintas Group
‘It’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’ That may have been Sir Winston Churchill’s oblique description of Stalin’s Russia, but he may well have been referring to modern India. Closer home, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen’s view is equally relevant – ‘Whatever you can say about India, the opposite is also true’.
The fact is, India has never been easy to read. It’s a continent-sized country of an amalgam of states, resulting in a smorgasbord of regions, cultures, religions, ethnicities, languages, food, clothing, lifestyles and political ideologies. It’s a veritable explosion of diversity, gamely, and often unsuccessfully, sought to be held together by a unifying ‘Idea of India’ or ‘One Nation’.
While this national diversity, unparalleled anywhere else in the world, was always a reality, it was never really a stark and strident phenomenon. People just went about their business knowing that there are different sections of society in India having their own cultures and traditions. But in the last decade or so, there’s been a surge in the sense of regional identity and pride. A sort of regional cultural revivalism or even activism, in flamboyantly displaying and celebrating their own unique traditions and ways of life, and often even manifesting in inter and intra-regional competitiveness.
This rediscovery of hyper regional consciousness and affiliations isn’t just expressed through religious celebration, linguistic exclusivity and uniqueness of dress and food, but also permeates segments such as cinema, sport, economic activity and politics. For instance, films such as Kantara, a Kannada film exploring the social, cultural and divine dynamics in the Tulu region of coastal Karnataka, through the art form of Bhoota Kola – an ancient tradition of spirit worship, mesmerised a pan-Indian audience, while focusing the spotlight on regional diversity. In politics too, regional identity and pride has manifested itself in most States, especially in southern India, with people increasingly voting for their respective regional parties, instead of monolithic national parties, in the belief that the former are better equipped to understand their issues and respond to their aspirations.
With regionalism taking root across India with new-found vigour, deconstructing the cultural history, and how it impacts modern aspirations, becomes all the more important today. And nowhere is the task of deciphering this nation of many varied worlds or many Indias more palpable and onerous, than in the sphere of marketing and brand communication. For decades, brands have relied on stereotypes to define the people of different regions, their lifestyles, their way of dressing and their style of speaking. Not only has this been simplistic and limited in its explorative range, but more importantly, fallacious at a granular level, while running the risk of flogging a caricaturish image of regional identities.
Brands are not mere marketing constructs, but have the power to drive conversations and shape cultures of the future. The one size fits all approach to marketing or brand building does not seem to work effectively anymore in the context of angularly rising ‘many India’s.’ I believe that at the root of every culture/sub-culture exists cultural gene codes and understanding the interplay between these codes and how they collide with events and narratives of today, present transformative opportunities for creating winning strategies. For this to be truly effective, we recently took a quantum leap in gathering comprehensive knowledge and wisdom through a study called ‘State of States,’ and found profound identitarian ideas on every single culture or state of India, stories that will change the way brands can connect, the way they can lead, and the positive impact they can have on the world.
To share a couple of meta codes, the notions of ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity,’ the cultural dimensions that influence societal attitudes and behaviour, vary starkly from state to state – revealing, reinforcing, redefining and reframing, all at once.
In Gujarat, while the dominant culture code of men is ‘Quiet Masculinity,’ it is ‘Anxious Masculinity’ in Uttar Pradesh, and ‘Hyper Masculinity’ in Andhra Pradesh. The Gujarati man’s life revolves around chasing success smartly and persistently; and being a devoted family man. In order to keep that razor sharp focus on his professional ambition, he has allowed the woman of the house to completely control the domestic space. He does not portray an assertive physicality. To compensate, he lives vicariously through role models who embody a more aggressive flavour of masculinity. In UP, there is a constant anxious desire to forcefully assert one’s masculinity to demonstrate power and superiority over all others – male and female. A sense of emasculation shaped by invasions and colonialism, masculinity in UP has always resorted to violence to cover up an anxiety over loss of power, status or position in the caste, class or socio-political system. Similarly, for women, taking two other different cultures, while she symbolizes ‘Steadfast Shakti’ in West Bengal, she is a ‘Princess In The Tower’ when it comes to Punjab, and a ‘Chameleon’ in Kerala. The Bengali woman, like the Bengali man defies all Indian gender stereotypes. She is strong, independent, resilient and empowered – attributes linked to the man by default. She can match any man in intellectual debate and makes sure her voice is heard loud and clear. The Punjabi woman has physical strength, ambulatory freedom, is not hidden away behind a ghunghat or in the house, but despite the supposed equality, Punjabi women have long lived under the ‘rule’ of their male counterparts. In different regions, it is different dimensions or different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, and different dreams.
My belief is that if we give each culture its due, and create strategies that respect the sanctity of that culture or land, the stories/conversations that brands weave may well be the magic that brands seek. And the soul connect that cultures seek. This ideology has long been understood better outside the business world. For politicians, artists, and social activists, this way of doing things is the name of the game. It’s time brands take a leaf out of them. And the new world of digital and personalised media aided by technology can only be an indispensable catalyst for this kind of work, in advancing the way consumers confer local cultural values on the brands they use or brand experiences they engage with.
Remember that famous quote from the book of Nowhere! ‘Respect the sacredness of the earth you were born into, for the story of your soul is inseparable from the magic of your lands’.
The article was originally published in print and online by Livemint