Net amnesia in Brand New India

Net amnesia in Brand New India

Buzzwords like IT, cyberspace, Internet, and, of course, the ubiquitous dotcom, assault our senses on a daily, may be even hourly, basis. As new players emerge almost the first thing they do is to get very busy attracting our attention to their very special attractions. All of them appear to be in a frantic race to reach out to potential users, employees and investors. Ad agencies must be blessing their gurus and gods for the big and not so big spenders flocking to them for campaigns to get them known. Media, too, are raking in the money especially the Press!

But all this activity is leaving us somewhat tentative but enthusiastic entrants to this brave new world. Bewildered, if not bothered. How many of us can recall the brand identity of some of the big spender portal companies? Personally I find myself confused despite being an avid reader of these ads and a recent convert to the dotcom world. Why is this happening -- how has this confusion developed? Here are my answers: One, all the ads are inner directed talking essentially about what they offer in a ``laundry list'' manner. Yes, I know we do have ads and addresses targeted to specific groups - women, kids, shoppers et al. Often they patronise us; at other times they fall into the ``laundry list'' trap.

Second, many of the dotcom names are very alike -- a bit like different value cards from the same suit -- hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades! The names topping the list either start with India, include India in-between, or, end with India. Here are just a few Indiainfo.com, indiatimes.com, indiagames.com, indiacar.com, indiamarkets.com, indiaproperties.com, indianmoms.com, wahindia.com, net4india.com! Now while this trend is probably doing a great job of adding positive values to Brand India (something it really desperately needs) I am not too sure how well it's working for each of these competitive dotcoms.

Compare this with the international portals that stand out from the crowd: Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, and Netscape. Rediff from India is an exception, though I hear it is under pressure from global dotcoms. Three, the campaigns are Big, Bold but sadly not Beautiful. A sudden spate of energy is expended in high decibel Press, outdoor and TV advertising. And then silence.

A silence only to be disturbed by the entry of an equally aggressive competitor with a similar domain name adopting very similar campaign strategies: big introductory ads to be followed by a series of target specific ads. Result: rapid decay of the earlier players identity and an equally fragile registration of the latest entrant's brand. Four, arty crafty logos looking so alike that they do a great job of reinforcing my contention that somehow our savvy dotcom companies have really messed up their branding and marketing strategies. Surprising, really, as many of the larger ones work with the big boys (and girls) of big ad agencies!

There are certainly exceptions to the rule: naukri.com, jeevansathi.com, bachao.com and jaldi.com are some examples of players, in this rapidly expanding market, that are using a variation of the Indish concept to capture the imagination. There are, however, not too many exceptions to bad marketing and bad advertising. To prove that this is not just a sour grapes comment, let me ask you, dear reader, to try to recall, unaided by the list I have included, the names of Indian portals that have spent a bundle to get our attention and establish their brand name!

My prognosis: we are suffering from mass Net Amnesia.