Pasta is the new pizza

Growing up in the late 80s and early 90s in India meant that pizzas were mouth-watering frisbee-like things that you either saw in Jughead’s hands or were the occasional treat that your hip aunt who was into exotic and international cuisine, made.

When Domino’s and Pizza Hut entered India in the late 90s,the urban youth starved of Western products took to pizzas like fish to water even though price was quite a deterrent.At the time,pizzas were exotic and instantly became the high priest of Western fast food culture.Over the years,pizza marketers in an effort to increase penetration by reducing its exoticness Indianized the Italian icon.So you had Tandoori chicken Pizza and Kadhai Paneer Pizza staking their claim on the menu.Sure enough,the consumption base widened and pizza joints became the Indian family’s  favorite hangout, more so with younger families.Today it is very much a part of the dietary mainstream, at least in urban,middle-class India.It is special but no more exotic.It is no more a symbol of your hip aunt’s culinary skills and evolved palate.

However even culinary habits are a zero-sum game.Something has to take the ‘exotic’ place that has been vacated by pizza.And today pasta is poised to occupy that space.Various events in society point towards the fact,looking at both  changing consumer tastes as well as marketer’s initiatives.After Chinese and Indian,Italian cuisine seems to be everybody’s favorite and people are realizing that there is more to it than just pizza.Indians are beginning to know their penne from their fusilli and take smug pride in it too! Ritu Dalmia’s cookery book/show on NDTV Good Times brilliantly called Italian Khana of all things, will also do its bit to cement Italian cuisine’s place in Indian stomachs.

Marketers have also sensed this new-found fascination with pasta and have responded presciently.Pizza joints like Domino’s and Pizza Hut have included pasta in their menus for the first time. Brands like Sunfeast have had pasta in their stable for a while now which they have promoted on mass media fairly aggressively using Shah Rukh Khan.Even Maggi,an iconic and deeply penetrated brand in India has recently launched Maggi Nutri-licious Pazzta. 

At the rate of change that India is experiencing though,I wonder what’s going to be the next pasta.However,till then i’m gonna ask my hip aunt to make me some  Spaghetti Aglio Olio.

Shashi Tharoor – the accidental brand manager of brand India?

Shashi Tharoor’s talk at TED India on why a nation’s true influence is to be judged by it’s ‘soft power’ reminded me of an extremely interesting theory I heard about from a colleague,Dave McCaughan.

The theory is that a nation’s soft power is key to it’s export effectiveness when it comes to consumer goods.Consumers overseas lap up a nation’s products when it’s soft power(culture) has reached foreign shores and occupies much mind space.

Dave is an Aussie and he often tells us of his life as a youngster in the 70s in Australia when his dad drove a Chevy or a Ford and like all Aussies thought highly of all things American.The 1970′s was also the time when the biggest cultural imports in the lives of Aussie kids like Dave were karate and a cult Japanese TV show called Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot.And sure enough when Dave grows up he buys a Honda or a Toyota because to him Japan and all things Japanese seem credible especially when it comes to technology.In the late 90′s and early 2000′s,South Korean soft power began to make it’s presence felt abroad and movies like Old Boy,singers like Rain had gained popularity in the West.Before you knew it Korean chaebols like LG,Samsung & Hyundai gained impressive acceptance first in the U.S and then across the rest of the world.

I could not help but go back to my own childhood and teenage years to recollect cultural influences that made me think the world of all products Western…Enid Blyton and her various characters, Archies & Superman comics, Hollywood, sitcoms like Friends, international sporting events like Wimbledon and French Open and later on European soccer leagues.

While Tharoor in his talk at TED India didn’t make any reference to the commercial success that soft power could precipitate, his examples of Indian properties that could strengthen it’s soft power-Bollywood,Ayurveda,Yoga, Indian cuisine not only underline his intuitive understanding of what could gain acceptance abroad but are also a pointer to the Goverment of India as to what they should protect and promote.What is also heartening is that these very elements are beginning to occupy cultural mindspace in the Western world.A.R Rehman and Jai Ho garnered huge public attention around the Oscars last year, Bikram Yoga – a yoga style developed by Bikram Choudhary is well known for his Hollywood clientèle as is Deepak Chopra.Ayurveda also has many takers abroad with it being an added attraction for tourists to Kerala.Basmati rice and chicken tikka masala in the UK are also doing their bit to enhance image of India abroad and hopefully in a few years to come – that of Indian products.

While these phenomena often evolve on their own,the need of the hour is for the Govt. of India to promote these potential icons of Indian culture abroad, and to accelerate the change in India’s image from a land of fakirs and cows to one which produces high-quality entertainment,soothing spirituality and delicious dishes.Ironically the man who has pointed out the pervasive aspect of soft power in his TED Talk also happens to be the Minister of State for External Affairs. Coincidence?

A key to unlock the young Indian female consumer

Below is a summary of a study I did to find a refreshing role for brands in the lives  of young Indian female consumers by understanding their unstated motivations in today’s context.

The casteist and communal nature of money in India

Below are institutions which are flourishing in India even today thanks to the patronage of millions of customers who flock to these banks for reasons not too subtle.

Saraswat Bank

Federal Bank

the erstwhile Karur Vysya Bank

Lord Krishna Bank

Catholic Syrian Bank

Dhana Lakshmi Bank

Canara Bank

Bank of Rajasthan

J & K Bank

..and others.I rest my case.