Book Review: India Reloaded

Author Name: Dheeraj Sinha

Publication Name: Westland Ltd.

Submitted By:- Submitted By:-

 Dr. Bidyanand Jha  Divyanshu Tripathi (PG2018-

H101)
 Summary

Introduction
What Dheeraj has explained in a very adept manner is that India is not what it appears to
be. It is very different from the rest of the nations and it is also very different from itself. The
book is definitely good in parts and one can learn a lot from those, it provides rich insights
into various consumer segments linking political, economical,social and media changes and
how they reflect the changing ‘reloaded ‘ India.

Starting with making a good case for branding, the author cites several examples of
branding that went right and examples of companies that either goofed up branding or did
not leverage its benefits.

Author neatly uses figures and data to present his case. He uses many anecdotes,
observation and marketing success & failures from current era to force his point of view.
There is some clear segmenting of classes and opportunities that leads to new perspective,
which is presented in a planner’s approach. Arguments are layered enough and placed with
iterative force for you to flow with them while you walk through the pages.

Author doesn’t just get under the skin of India, but he’s got the inside story on several
scandals that go on in the name of marketing and advertising in India. And he knows these
from being a first-hand witness to many of them. He goes behind the scene at many of the
biggest brands in India and unpeels their masks.
Earlier in India people used to have related and unrelated market needs but due to
emerging togetherness in different cultures of India, more or less people have related needs
as consumer were excited to explore new cultures. ‘Conservatism’ has changed from era of
80’s to 21st century, from ‘Mujhe Peene Ka Shauk Nahin’ to ‘Chaar Botal Vodka’ India has
somewhat lost the culture and behaviour for what it was known for. Consumer are more
attracted toward western culture and behaviour of consumer like choices, likings, taste etc.
are changing.

The Consumer Today is driving more toward the status symbol and want himself/herself to
be known is society. Consumer today wants to have more comfortable life which is satisfied
by the choices of things what he/she made. They want show-off and marketers have known
and taken full advantage of this fact, marketers are always ready to make consumer feel
good by making lots of offerings in the market, marketers tends to break the narrow minded
consumer thinking to open minded, ready to accept and innovative consumers. Marketers
are always ready to chase the consumer in one or the other way.

Right at the onset, Dheeraj leaves no stone unturned to rephrase the Indian Middle Class
bubble that MNC’s been chasing without success. The numbers with access to toilets, the
four wheelers, education etc. rolls from pages like the hot molten lava trying to dislodge and
burn any other argument in its path

Learning’s from the Book and Mapping to the CB Concept

Major Things that we have learned from this book are:-

 Nature And Perception Of Consumers in India

 How Indian market has changed Overtime

 Consumer Decision Making , A Way Different India from 80’s

 How ‘word of mouth’ affects buying decision of customers

 Mass Market Is Not Always A good Choice

 Long-time sustainability is not an assurance

A mass marketing strategy and availing the same product to every class of people is
not going to work. People in India are of different culture having different kinds of
needs and desires, having different rituals, tastes, and preferences but the more we
break up India the more we defeat the idea of scale that India offers as a market.
Putting some research on it we can see

As we have learned from the ITC’s story, that we may not be born a leader in a
category, but we must assume leadership to gain any significant play.

Most of the consumer in India are confused like they are not sure about things they
want and they can easily be manipulated through marketing and advertisement, and
the thing that we have observed and known is that, when a consumer is treated in
kind and polite manner and marketers show some respect towards the consumer
then they can easily be influenced for purchasing products.

Things that were keeping us apart, are now bringing us together-as given in book
that the movies like robot, songs like kolaveri di, television shows like Indian idol,
foods like masala dosa, cloths like benarasi saree are now being accepted by every
culture and despite being a trend of a particular region these things have a great
presence in PAN India. People are ready to adapt things that are new to them or
maybe of different cultures, things are becoming more familiar. Millennial,
Generation Y is becoming early adopters and innovators in India at more fascinating
rate.
 Quality of Narrative of Book

India Reloaded is concerned with far more meaningful and stimulating deductions of
many sharp investigations, the opening one is about selling India as a haven of a
billion plus consumers.
The book uses consumer research, popular culture observations, market data and
macroeconomics indicators, to unravel insights for brands and businesses. It weaves
a narrative through the changes in the politics, the economy and the social mores of
the country. It presents consumption through the prism of changing social and
individual identity. It comes on the back of a political and economic resurgence in
India or as Narendra Modi’s election campaign promised- acche din aane wale hain.
In this book He has taken such an interesting examples like movies of rajnikant ,
songs of honey singh , festival like karvachauth , food like vadapav that influence us
to read it by imagining all those things in a fascinating way.