In The Binary City.

(From Business Today (India))

The Taj Presidency may not be the proper place to discuss what's civilised or not about Bangalore, located as the hotel is in that very city. But Suhel Seth, CEO Equus Red Cell and BT Crossfire moderator for the evening, took the liberty anyway. The three civilised aspects he spied were: "Its people, of course, the weather, and the fact that people come here on time."

Sponsored by Royal Challenge and held in association with Liberty, the debate's topic was 'You cannot create a great brand without advertising'. In support of the motion stood Gurcharan Das, playwright, former head of P&G India and author of Indian Unbound. And against it stood Nandan Nilekani, CEO, Infosys Technologies.

Das opened by making a case that even the PowerPoint presentations Nilekani goes about making for Infosys, are in fact a form of advertising. "Nandan understands that the human mind is not a computer. The human mind retains just around 5 per cent of what it sees and hears. To be in this 5 per cent, you need advertising. One, to occupy a distinct space, but two, to remind your customer about your brand," said Das, proceeding to cite the famous adworld quotation comparing building a brand without advertising to winking at a girl in the dark ("Only you know what you're doing").

Every business needs a competitive advantage, and needs to convey it to customers-for which advertising is a supremely effective method. If you hit upon a Big Idea, then this is all the more so, he added, citing the instance of Pidilite's 'fishing' commercial (which would make its point even on 'mute', his favourite test). That's not to imply, he cautioned, that a great brand can be created for a lousy product through brilliant advertising. "Advertising will give you awareness and trial, but you need performance for repeat purchase. It helps to also translate your brand equity into action."

That action, though, requires that the campaign be well-aimed at the chosen audience. "And I think this is where India Shining went wrong," said Das, "It was a great campaign, but was wrongly targeted." While investors responded to it, as per the original plan, common voters did not-since it was inapt as an election campaign.

To round up, Das narrated a little joke about a family that saw its family affairs as a sort of business, with dad being 'capital', mom 'management', baby 'the future', the maid 'labour'... and the little boy waking up late one night to find that, "This is one hell-of-a business. Management is asleep. Capital is exploiting labour, and the future stinks!"