Selling one piece of scrap is more challenging that exporting huge chunks of quality product. We do marketing in India, but I was taken aback by the way the Americans do it. Every one in this country is born MBA graduates and all of them are authors of the book “To blow out of proportion”.
Last week I was in Washington DC, walking the cross sections of a city full of museums and monuments. Places including Jefferson Monument, Lincoln Monument, and War Memorial were in my Itinerary. But the hard fact was that these places have nothing great to offer. Lincoln is perceived as one of the greatest president of US of A, probably he deserved a monument, but there was a selling point, his monument (just a statue in marble that’s left dirty) is in straight line with the Washington Monument, and the Capital Building. Jefferson got Virginia from colonial rule into Independent USA; he now gets his own monument with 30 feet tall statue, gardens, lakes what not. Lal Bhahadur Shastri united entire India, I wonder if he has anything close! These places are now places of tourist attraction and millions of visitors make it a point to visit them adding revenue.
Their strategy is not limited to monuments; we were on my way back from Buffalo, NY to Malvern, PA when we crossed a tiny county, so famous that I can hardly recollect its name ;). On the interstate while crossing that county there were huge banners everywhere reading “Visit Ruby Falls”, “Ruby falls this, Ruby falls that”, just curious to know what was so exciting, we made a point to visit it. It was a tiny falls falling from 3 feet high into a long stream of water and “PLING” it’s the sound of getting a 1000 Watts bulb.
Its like saying:
A research team of two proceeded towards the apex of a natural geologic protuberance, the purpose of their expedition being the procurement of a sample of fluid hydride of oxygen in a large vessel, the exact size of which was unspecified. One member of the team precipitously descended, sustaining severe damage to the upper cranial portion of his anatomical structure; subsequently the second member of the team performed a self rotational translation oriented in the same direction taken by the first team member.
Instead of:
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.
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Indians come from a society that believes in repression and anything that is expressed with a lot of fanfare is construed to be something big or something crass. Is it not amazing that creativity can make a tourism hotspot out of the memory of a dead man? Indians who may not know where Lal Bahadur Shastri's memorial is will definitely know where Lincoln Memorial is. Such is the difference in the social conditioning between an inward looking and an outward looking society. To us, this seems like a huge Tamasha. But then, we are going the western way and Image Management is really in :)
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