The Hindu Business Line : Does one have to force India to cheer?

After a brief dalliance with ingredient-centred ‘USP kind of positioning’ (remember Godrej ‘PUF’ and Clinic ‘ZPTO’), many categories and brands have, perhaps, moved towards more overarching holistic themes.

But this question is beginning to throw up some engaging visible contradictions in behaviour from the world of sport. Where, in many cases, the ingredients in question happen to be people. And that’s what makes this conundrum all the more riveting.

Shirt changed

Till recently, the colour of Anil Kumble’s India jersey and that of his Royal Challengers one would have only interested his dhobi. Not any more. As Kumble himself would have found out, some of the supporters who once cheered his every wicket have now turned against him. They happened to be backing their own team at the IPL.

Interestingly, Australian players who were heartily booed when on international duty in India, have become the pin-up boys of the IPL — Shane Watson, Shane Warne, Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist. How could the mere change of a shirt stir such an emotional response? Are these sporting brands becoming the ultimate global unifiers and boundary dissolvers? Time will tell.

Club innovation

Arsenal, a London-based club, hardly has an English player of note. Yet, it is one of the most passionately supported clubs in England (and across the world).

In many ways, because these sporting brands are unencumbered by national mindsets and prejudices, they can be hotbeds of creativity. They can be destinations where both the sport and its management break new ground.

To borrow a phrase from Professor Robert Sutton, these clubs embrace a spirit of Vu ja de, the fine art of looking at the same old thing in a completely new, refreshing manner. Most of the dressing rooms of these football clubs are like United Nation’s conventions. This difference in perspective and background often manifests itself in a unique blend.

For instance, Arsenal’s playing style is far removed from the British-inspired physical game in the air, and is more a heady mix of the smoothness of international harmony on the ground. This is a brand of playing style that attracts fans beyond the limitations of geographic proximity to the club. Thus, enabled by its multinational cast, Arsenal offers an experience in clear contrast with the regional paradigm.

The insiders

In fact, the varied nationalities at play (literally) also help bring new nations into the audiences. Imagine the increase in Manchester United’s fan base in South Korea because of Jee Sung Park playing for them. Or how interest in the NBA has skyrocketed in China after Yao Ming started turning out for the Houston Rockets.

And, how golf has started invoking far more spectator interest in the country now that Indians feature on the PGA tour. A local ingredient suddenly seems to make a remote brand offering extremely relevant. Is there a lesson other categories can learn from this, I wonder.

Sporting brands in many ways tap into the more primal parts of our brains. They invoke emotions on an unprecedented scale. Hence, while it is possible to imagine two people having a fierce fight over whose club is better, it is perhaps inconceivable to see the same happening over a bar of soap.

At the same time, as we have seen, there seems to be a dichotomy and flexibility in consumers’ behaviour towards the ingredients that constitute these brands. Perhaps a certain mindset that allows for the mind to see what it wishes to see. Maybe in today’s times, we all need causes to root for, people to cheer and groups to belong to. And this sense of community is what these brands foster like few others.

So drive on Force India, the nation is cheering…

(The writer is an independent strategic and ideation consultant. He is also the author of ‘The Madness Starts at 9’ and the patron saint of Juhu Beach United, a football club that celebrates ‘the unfit, out of breath, working professional of today.’)