There is a breed of humans that views everything that happens in the world through the lens of ‘the brand’ and ‘brand-value’. The breed is called the admen, which some-within themselves-refer to as the madmen. For them everything comes down market and brand dynamics. Two nations fighting amongst each other is nothing but two brands competing for acceptance with the masses. Bipolar is about market shares of Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, or iphone users and non-iphone users.
This is how an adman’s mind is likely to view ‘decoupling’…
For him/her, even with ‘decoupling’, the next world order may still be bipolar, albeit in a very different way. American companies, that had set up manufacturing facilities in China, due to lesser costs of production (read cheap labour), will bring back production to their own shores. Their products would become costlier.
Here’s where emerging economies–India primarily–have been instruments (and pretty aggressively) in filling up the void. Prices of Iphones and Macbooks are still not out of the reach for most GenZ executives.
China and some other developing nations like it (read India), may have a little advantage over first world nations like the US, in the post ‘decoupling’ world. With most first world multinational corporates having the production shop floors of their goods located in China, and some other developing nations (read India), China and these nations (read India), now possess manufacturing and technical know how that is pretty much on par with first world nations. The developed world will still have the advantage of patents, but with ‘decoupling’ would come protectionism, and third world nations with large domestic markets may be tempted to throw patents to the wind in their own markets (which way China would go is anybody’s guess).
China, though, by all realistic calculations, will have a disadvantage too, post ‘Chinese virus’. The world would–as it has already begun to–trust it that much less.
This advantage, directed smartly, may just have the next world order become witness to a global marketplace replete with nationalism, and coupled with protectionism. A world where nations, and their products, would compete hand-in-hand, with other nations, coming to the same market hand-in-hand with their products. Nations would take nationalistic pride in what they produce, and some of them would work towards producing everything. In the ideal world, a self dependent nation and marketplace is potentially immune to global disturbances. An ideal world is what every nation would aspire towards, within its shores, in such a scenario.
Consider a world like this—in it’s extremity, of course—for a moment.
Decoupling Marketing and Advertising
What would marketing and advertising look like over there?
Think Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, working out the strategies of penetrating the Chinese markets at Dabur India. General Montgomery doing the same at Rolls Royce (they’ll definitely have gotten it back from the Germans), and General Eisenhower, along with Commander Ulysses S Grant, doing something similar in the boardrooms of Kellogg’s.
Advertising punch lines for Toyota may sound something like: “Designed with the Art of Zen at its heart”; while the commercials for the Mustang may all begin with the sound of the gunshot.
There will be inexpensive products from large developing nations (inexpensive only within their own shores), and expensive products from first world nations (expensive everywhere, only more expensive outside their shores). Both these categories of nations and economies will impose exorbitant trade duties on imports from one another in order to effect a level playing field in their respective markets. The first world nations for the sake of price, the third world nations on account of brand appeal and values.
From where I stand, if the efficiency of local industry and the quality of locally manufactured products improves in developing nations as a result of ‘decoupling’, we’re all the better for it. Wonder if that’s what Trump 2.0 is really aiming towards…
Think Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, working out the strategies of penetrating the Chinese markets at Dabur India. General Montgomery doing the same at Rolls Royce (they’ll definitely have gotten it back from the Germans), and General Eisenhower, along with Commander Ulysses S Grant, doing something similar in the boardrooms of Kellogg’s.
Advertising punch lines for Toyota may sound something like: “Designed with the Art of Zen at its heart”; while the commercials for the Mustang may all begin with the sound of the gunshot. Business Business News – Personal Finance News, Share Market News, BSE/NSE News, Stock Exchange News Today
