Book Extract: BrandShastra – Use the power of marketing to transform your life

Author: Mainak Dhar

Publisher: Portfolio Penguin

In the beginning, there was lack of awareness.

That’s probably not how you’ve heard the beginning of human history described. All of us know of Adam and Eve, placed in the Garden of Eden. Then came the first marketer of them all—Satan—and he did what marketers have done ever since: Make what has been in front of us seem suddenly desirable. In this case, from Adam’s point of view, both the apple and Eve.

The rest, as they say, is history - a long history of marketing through which the thread of our civilisation has been woven. If you think I’m overstating the role of marketing, consider some examples.

Thousands of years ago, a civilisation thrived in cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Very few people recognise that the Indus Valley Civilization was perhaps home to the world’s first MNC, which created ‘branded’ products sold to consumers in faraway lands. Many scientists today believe that the seals found there served more than an ornamental or religious purpose, but served to trademark the products from particular artisans or villages. When we talk about ‘Make in India’ today, we should realise its origins were forged in these ancient workshops.

Fast forward a few thousand years, and an emperor struggled with a problem that modern marketers confront: How do you get your message out to your target audience in the most effective manner? Ashoka did not have media planners but what he did have was an intuitive knowledge of his ‘consumers’. Ashoka put his messages about law and society on pillars spread across his empire, placing them near important trading routes. This was the equivalent of a modern marketer advertising on popular Facebook pages, reaching consumers where there is high traffic and ‘engagement’. With this one stroke, Ashoka ensured his messages directly reached the millions who lived in his empire. Today, when Narendra Modi reaches out directly to millions of Indians through his ‘Mann ki Baat’, he is channeling the same marketing genius.

We think creating ‘viral’ messages is a modern phenomenon yet long before Facebook, people were using the same principles to stoke their own movements. Perhaps one of the most ‘viral’ campaigns in our history dates back to 1857. Everybody knows about the greased cartridges that incited revolt against British officers among sepoys. The message about the new cartridges being greased with pork and cow fat was a masterstroke. It was built on long simmering discontent among sepoys. The audience was perfectly chosen and the message sent out played on the fear that the British were out to destroy Indian religions. It also united Hindus and Muslims in one fell swoop. The East India Company protested that the new cartridges had not actually been deployed but sent in small numbers for testing by British soldiers. This never reached the masses and ultimately didn't matter. It was much like a big company issuing a boring PR statement when consumers were setting social media on fire with complaints.

In challenging the might of the British Empire, freedom fighters used some of the same principles used by marketers to create brands. A great example of this was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose who ‘branded’ the Azad Hind Fauj. It unified everyone under a common banner of fighting for the nation, irrespective of state, caste or religion. In an age when political parties were beginning to squabble over the rights of religious groups, Bose rose above it. Also by calling it an army, he was recruiting not for some group of rabble-rousers opposing the establishment, but his force was the establishment. He was creating a legitimate army which all Indians could join.

Post-Independence saw India trying to find its place in the world, like a new brand in a marketplace. In a bipolar world, with the United States and the Soviets carving out their spheres, India chose to ‘differentiate’ itself by spearheading the Non-aligned movement. It chose a path of development that was a hybrid of Soviet state planning and Western-style democracy. We were differentiated all right, though historians still argue about whether we changed fast enough as the ‘marketplace’ around us changed.

The Nehru–Gandhi brand had ‘market leadership’ for many years, with successive relaunches and extensions. Then this ‘brand’ started meeting competitors which might not have had their lineage, but were ‘brands of the people’. It finally met an irresistible force in Narendra Modi’s brand, which positioned itself as the very antithesis of the ‘ruling’ family. Modi connected directly with his ‘consumers’ using branding strategies and selling lines with the genius of a veteran marketer, and then we entered the days of ‘Acche Din’.

While the principles of marketing have played a role in shaping our history, this book is not about the ‘history of marketing’. Rather it takes the principles of marketing and show how they can be used to both better understand and influence everyday life.

Marketing goes beyond the world of business. It is about something each one of us can relate to- human perceptions, motivations and behaviour. From a child who fakes a tantrum to get a toy, to a young man who professes real love to get the object of his affection into bed, we are all wired to understand people’s motivations and how to influence them. I’ve found that the broad concepts of marketing can unlock solutions to many everyday choices and challenges we face.

The application of insights to everyday issues is nothing new in India. Chanakya laid out principles of statecraft using his insights into human behaviour in the Arthashastra. Vatsyayan contributed to affairs of passion in the work known as the Kama Shastra. This book has a scope neither as grand as statecraft nor as intimate as what you do in your bedroom. It overs those myriad things in between that go into determining whether we are indeed creating ‘acche din’ for ourselves and those around us.

I call it the Brand Shastra.

Excerpted with permission from the author.