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“A brand will gel with a civilisation if it has the necessary resonance”

McCann Worldgroup's Prasoon Joshi & Suzanne Powers and author & diplomat Pavan K Varma discuss how culture impacts brands and messaging at The Trust About Global Brands Summit

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“A brand will gel with a civilisation if it has the necessary resonance”

“A brand will gel with a civilisation if it has the necessary resonance”

McCann Worldgroup's Prasoon Joshi & Suzanne Powers and author & diplomat Pavan K Varma discuss how culture impacts brands and messaging at The Trust About Global Brands Summit

Shanta Saikia | Delhi | May 25, 2015

Prasoon Joshi and Pavan K Varma Prasoon Joshi and Pavan K Varma

Television, film, music and art are flowing around the world in new and surprising cross-border directions. What are the new dynamics of cultural influence today? How and why do some story ideas spread like wildfire,, whereas others simply get lost in translation? And what does this all mean for brands?

The topic of 'Inspiring creative that travels' was discussed at depth at the Summit to present The Trust About Global Brands survey by McCann Worldgroup in Gurgaon on May 21, 2015.

Commencing the discussions by referring to the survey, Prasoon Joshi, Chairman, Asia Pacific and CEO, McCann Worldgroup India, asked his fellow panellist Pavan K Varma, author and diplomat, about his initial reactions to the findings of the survey.

While Varma found the sheer scale and detail of the survey to be interesting and impressive, the one great takeaway for him was how the survey ended – that it's not only about what you bring in, but how you enrich what that culture receives in terms of your branding and your campaign.

He wanted to know about the sample size of the study and how it was arrived at, given the layered demographics of India.

Suzanne Powers Suzanne Powers

To this, Suzanne Powers, Global Chief Strategy Officer, McCann Worldgroup, replied, “The total sample size is 30,000 across 29 markets. We aim for a fair distribution. But in the next deep dive that we do, we can cover the two Indias to arrive at a deeper understanding of the country.”

Taking the conversation further, Joshi remarked, “Somewhere I feel civilisation and culture got interchanged. I feel that civilisations may die, but culture necessarily doesn't die because it lives in the people's subconscious. I think brands are ideas in some form. Do you think that brands can reside in the subconscious, is there a possibility that they will become part and parcel of the culture?”

According to Varma, “Civilisation is a very complex thing. If I were to talk about India's civilisation, I would say it is marked by antiquity, continuity, bits of refinement, assimilation and diversity, among other things. It is difficult at times to distinguish where culture ends and civilisation takes over. So many components of that civilisational journey become part and parcel and manifested in culture. Maybe culture doesn't encapsulate completely a civilisation, but civilisation certainly includes very many aspects of culture.”

He further noted that a brand would gel with a civilisation if it had the necessary resonance. For instance, there are concepts in India that are very peculiar like status, hierarchy, something called 'aukaat'.

Joshi then delved on what happened when there was resistance to another culture. “If it is so organic that it should happen, then why does the worry happen? Where does the worry come from? Is it legitimate?” he asked.

Powers explained that some of the worry came from the very deep cultural ties that one lived with. Another reason for the worry is due to economic reasons, such as loss of jobs.

On the other hand, Varma opined that the real dilemma was regarding what to borrow and what to preserve. “Resistance is a healthy thing. It becomes unhealthy when it becomes a foreign versus local issue and stems out of illiterate political beliefs,” he said.

Joshi remarked, “Suppose there is an ill-practice and brands, necessarily where the genesis came from, because I don't believe that brands necessarily are evil unlike what many people think. When a brand comes in from a different culture, does it also marry with the ills of the local culture or does it take a point of view there and stand in the culture with a contrarian point of view? What would you call it – foreign, elitist, disconnected or optimistic, looking towards a new world?”

To this, Varma replied, “Not every messaging needs to be entirely congruent with everything that needs to be corrected in society but is at the dominant mode at that time. At the same time, it also depends on how that messaging comes. Does it come from a moral pedestal or is born out of condescence? I believe in that case even if the message is right, there will be a dissonance.”

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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