Stanley Moss knows his brands. In India to be felicitated at the two-day World Brand Congress that starts in Mumbai on Wednesday, he says nothing bothers him more than insipid graphics and incongruous brand messages.
Expert view: Stanley Moss says the Mother Diary brand can only work in India, and the Taj Mahal is a huge branding opportunity going waste.
Moss is the CEO and general secretary of The Medinge Group—an elite, invite-only coterie of brand experts from around the world. Members of this Sweden-based non-profit think tank meet twice a year to discuss sophisticated marketing mechanisms, evoking semiotics and subliminal codes.
When Moss is not debating theory and trends in international branding, he runs diganzi, an international brand consultancy that he founded in 2001. In a career spanning over 40 years, the brand guru has helped shape several high-profile brands such as Coca-Cola, The New York Times and the University of California at Berkeley. His motto, he says, is to “influence businesses to become more human and humane”.
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Here, he shares his thoughts on a few trailblazing Indian brands. Edited excerpts:
Mother Dairy
“Regional sensitivity in brand naming often presents challenges. Mother Dairy, a government-sponsored initiative to bring nutrition to the masses, was a great success story. For many Indians, it connoted ideological associations with parental nurture, representing sociological implications which can’t be well translated across borders.
Its name has major significance in a place where the country is known as Mother India, river Ganges is known as Mother Ganges, and every cinema-goer knows the iconic line “Mere paas ma hai”, the Bollywood equivalent of “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”.
But the strong cultural and family-centric values embedded in this name would barely resonate in countries such as the US, where family values have declined and “mother” is associated with a notion of weakness, and the first half of a popular ghetto epithet—the phrase “mother of all battles” uttered by Saddam Hussein, which became an object of popular ridicule.
Unlike India, where the word “mother” alludes to greatness, elsewhere a brand name containing “mother” would bring up associations with a homespun, organic, or small-scale enterprise.”
Sulabh International Social Service Organisation
“An impressive NGO brand that India can be proud of. Sulabh brought forward the taboo subject of sanitation and waste management, and contributed to the ongoing dialogue about the caste system. In the course of its work, the NGO has had a multidimensional positive impact on society. There is enormous merit in installing over a million toilets and raising awareness about how to improve living standards. This is a magnificent NGO brand, and India should be proud of their work and the way they have consistently underlined their goals and missions with distinct brand purpose.”