Over the bygone weekend, SCoRe was the Academic Partner at IPRCCA, organised by exchange4media. E4M created quite a differentiated experience for a conference of this sort. One of the two panel discussions on the conference’s Theme – P3 India: Perception- Position- Proposition was on “Soft selling Culture & rebuilding brand India” – How can Changing perceptions and re-positioning a country’s image help arrive at the right value proposition?
Fascinating as the topic was, at stake was everyone, and not just communicators in it. The scope of the discussion varied from the source of India’s current perception right now, good or bad, to what the outlook will seem like. An esteemed panel of representatives of political outfits, and India Inc. discussed what would make a stronger Brand India, and our roles in that journey.
It was a healthy mix of corporate and public service experiences, a rare opportunity to ponder over a crucial subject. A variety of valid insights were also raised, till the debate was spiralled into an irrelevant subject matter, a “non-issue”, pertaining to certain topics of current affairs. And I felt that a great opportunity was lost, to leverage some of India’s best communications expertise to draw a roadmap for and inspire people towards strengthening Brand India.
The turmoil of the debate was freakishly symbolic of the state of our national discourse. We seem to be losing the plot here. PM Modi’s statement on the opening day of the Winter Session of the Parliament emphasised heavily on how this nation was built via contributions of every single prime minister and government. No single entity can take credit for its success just our failures cannot be attributed to a single entity. We make or break Brand India together.
Pooja Pathak, Co-Founder, Media Mantra, echoing this sentiment made what I felt were two of the most valuable points of the evening: a. That the contribution of media towards building Brand India extends beyond writing for attention, to writing with intention, and b. We are all unpaid brand ambassadors of India. Therefore, we all have a role to play. As democratic citizens, being able to question the status quo is our right, but uplifting our brand is our duty. And it will take an unbiased, ideologically agnostic, selfless and dedicated efforts from us. Especially you.
