branded for life

what is in a brand... mbas would say that brands are an intangible entity that help you relate to a particular product in a particular sort of way and that it is the top of mind recall of a particular company's product over similar products of other companies... in short a brand is a product's identity creating the first among equals relationship in the market...

there are brands that are in fact products now - people now don't photocopy, they xerox... all low floored a/c buses are volvos... all packaged waters are bisleries... all general internet searching is googling... all mahindra type 4-wheel drive off-roaders/open top vehicles are jeeps... an mp3 player is an ipod... a piece of quality A4 paper is a bond paper... a scooterette is a scooty... any cola drink is a coke... all chocolates are cadburys... baby foods were all cerelacs and baby powders were johnson and johnson... prickly heat powders were nycils... portable cassette players were walkmans... emails were until recently hotmails... and a b-school was an IIM...

well so as a line extension on the same brand the great indian government decided to open 7 more IIMs as part of a national welfare program... this might appear to be a great idea to provide an opportunity for the millions of youngsters who don't get into the top b-schools each year... but to me it is more of lazy ploy by the indian government to fool students and their recruiters and a long term strategy to dilute the IIM brand... it is more of a ruse to fool the people into making them forget the lack of infrastructure for quality educational institutions in india... the only reason why iim students are in such great demand is because they are in such short supply... how would it be if we could convert all b-schools to iims and all engineering colleges to iits - then will we have a standardized indian population of mbas and engineers... and what is the next target - all medical colleges will henceforth be called aiims ?

i just can't accept the thought of creating a new college or taking over some old college and calling it an iim or an iit... take the example of roorkee... it was a cult brand by itself before it became an iit... now people feel cheated when they crack the iit-jee and are offered an admission into roorkee... if it is an existing college, it is a grave dishonor to its existing name.

of course starting a world class educational institution is not easy and bringing it on par with the existing competition is no joke... but then it is not a case of "if you can't beat them, join them uninvited" philosophy. how can you possibly claim that a college say opened in some remote location like the northeast, (no offense meant to the northeasterners, but then those states have been isolated due to inaccessibility) why would any non-northeasterner agree to go there and settle down there to teach? and if we argue that we will get local teachers doesn't that defeat the purpose of an iim - the brand being a global one we should at least have exposure to different regions of this country at least... or is it a plot by the indian government to release a spurious iim just to keep the people in this region happy and garner their votes?

many people in favor of the brand extension argued it costs a lot of money to setup a new world class college equivalent to the iims and in the initial years you will probably operate at a loss since not many would apply to these colleges without a brand... well i can only say that it costs a lot more than just money to build a brand like that of the iims...

what does the indian government know about education at a level that the iims and iits have achieved... just because they were initially created by the indian government they are not still the children of the indian goverment that they can decide whatever they want to do with them. just because they have a ministry it does not mean that it is qualified to make decisions affecting educational freedom... in fact it just means the opposite - just because they have a ministry, they are the least qualified. it is more of a lazy shortcut method to increase india's only currently abundant natural resource - intellectual capital. i do not wish to quote specific examples beyond the generic iims because that might explicitly portray this post to be sort of biased (which it is anyways)... but then you do have success stories of colleges extending their brand name across the world; but my counter argument is that these colleges have borrowed brand names only, and they have created a better offering compared to the existing brands - it is not an attempt to just ride on the wave of the existing brand image and cheat people...

how would it look if Reynolds called themselves parker or mont blanc… how would it be if the local udupi hotels called themselves taj or radissons… how would it be if maruti called its cars Suzuki… how would it be if hmt or titan called themselves rado or tag huer… it is not to bring out that one is a lower quality brand, this is just to highlight that each brand has its own niche in the market… that cannot be denied or taken away from them…

after all, a brand is a brand is a brand…