India, the world’s biggest democracy, is rapidly becoming the key market to crack for international brands. In a new series of blog posts Anjul Sharma – fluent in Indian culture and languages Hindi, Punjabi & Urdu - looks at the approach to branding in one of the planet’s fastest growing markets.

Having started this blog series by exploring examples of India’s great customer service, it is time to look at another area where India appears just as impressively to be leading the way: innovation. Enter centre stage, the Tata Swach.

Produced by the Tata Group – who gave us the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car - this product has been in R&D for 10 years. The Tata Swach is a water purifier that uses ash from rice milling to filter out bacteria and tiny silver particles, thereby killing harmful germs that can lead to diseases like diarrhoea, cholera and typhoid. Given 1 billion people globally are affected by lack of clean drinking water and the nasty diseases that go with it, this is quite a ground breaking innovation: it has a genuine application to a major human problem that knows no geographic boundaries. 

But its real ingeniousness is this: it does not need running water or electricity to work. It doesn’t need bromine, chlorine or iodine either. A water purifier that does the job without components that we in the West would think where essential is a pretty amazing feat I think. What’s more, at less than 1 metre high, it is pretty portable. And at £13.00 or US $21 it is pretty affordable for communities. Its performance capabilities, based on path-breaking nanotechnology, have been tested in the UK and Netherlands as well as India.

Small wonder, then, that on 11 November 2010 the Tata Swach won Gold at the Asian Innovation Awards. Out of 300 entries from 13 countries, an Indian innovation won.  And that’s not all – it also won the global ICIS award for best product innovation. ICIS, a leading global provider of news and information in the chemical and energy sectors, gave the award to the Tata Swach for the best overall innovation as well as best product innovation. The judges applauded Tata for their deeply established and embedded philosophies of social and corporate social responsibility which reflect on how they approach business and innovation.

Now at a personal level, I would be really excited about the next great innovation in hair straighteners to deal with my unruly thick curly hair, in fact, even more excited than the next woman along the line. However, a little part of me thinks I shouldn’t be quite so vain and frivolous. Whilst I respect great innovations in Western markets that lead to new brands, products and services, their impact rarely stretches beyond financials. Why the Tata Swach is so impressive is because this product is both commercially feasible and can have a phenomenally positive global impact.  How many innovations can truly be said to save lives from the shores of Haiti to the flooded plains of Pakistan?

For major global brands, ’Corporate Social Responsibility’ is becoming increasingly important, demanded by many consumers (especially in America and the UK in recent years) who question the morality of big business. It is great to see an Indian company not just creating a convincing CSR policy, but actually living it through the power of thoughtful innovation.

Lou Ellerton, Senior Consultant and Kids specialist at The Value Engineers, comments in this week’s The Grocer in the ‘Focus on Cheese’ section.

Lisa Riley, author of the article ‘Must try harder at lunchtime’, makes the point that manufactures have failed to make the most of the kids’ lunchbox sector and need to capitalise on the demand for healthier options.

Lou Ellerton comments: “Manufacturers need to wake up to the possibilities. Parents are looking further afield for a relatively healthy, balanced snack in a form that will appeal to kids. Kids’ cheese players are suddenly competing for lunchbox space not only with each other, but with everything from Yoplait Choobs and Innocent Kids to Kellogg’s Winders, Humdinger and Planet Lunch snacks. As yet, there’s little sign that manufacturers have realised this, and they are in danger of falling into the classic trap of marketing myopia… At an ever-younger age kids are starting to move away from foodstuffs formulated to appeal to their age group, towards what they perceive as more adult brands. There are signs that a similar phenomenon is starting to take place in cheese, with adult single-serve products becoming more popular with pre-teens and kids.”

… for creativity, of course (what did you think I was talking about?).

A recent workshop exercise sparked a bit of an email discussion at The Value Engineers on the best way to get oneself in the mood for being creative and innovative. A whole raft of different suggestions came up, from the delightful “watching the cat play in the garden” to the rather more straightforward “gin”.

But the thing that struck home for a lot of us was how few of these we actually make the time to build into our creative sessions, internally and for our clients. The lack of a Value Engineers cat and garden notwithstanding, we’re going to start using more of these suggestions to get us in the mood, and hopefully this list will provide a few inspirational warm-up ideas for others as well.

So, here’s the starter list… feel free to add your own suggestions too ::

• Rock guitar
• Shopping
• Sunshine
• The City e.g. Berlin
• A good breakfast
• Coffee
• Diverse people
• Ice cream
• Positive spirit
• Energy from music and chatting
• Football
• Adventure trips
• Gin
• Team spirit
• Watching kids
• Running
• Dancing
• Walking amongst trees
• Sitting on a park bench
• Watching the cat playing about in the garden
• Working out in the gym
• Lying on the pillow at 4 am i.e. ‘pillow moments’
• Watching water flow over rocks
• Reading fiction
• Elgar
• Constant Lambert
• The countryside
• Reeling
• A good night’s sleep
• The Wallace Collection
• Vorticist art
• Wild swimming
• The sea
• Observing nature
• Driving
• Watching cricket

Not sure what this list tells you about us, but it looks like a lot of fun!

In this industry it is always really exciting to see a new product out there in the marketplace that some of The Value Engineers thinking went into. One of the latest examples to hit shelves in the UK is Powerade Zero; another piece of NPD exploring the boundaries of the functional beverage category.

The multi-media campaign supporting the launch is a great execution of an insight led proposition brought to life in an engaging and memorable way. Unfortunately I’m not going to be able to spell out what the insights were as they belong to Powerade, but what I can say is that the campaign execution taps into them superbly well!

Furthermore with the London 2012 Olympics on the horizon the choice of Jessica Ennis, a darling of Team GB, at the heart of the campaign seems to be an obvious fit. However, I would suggest that there are some more specific and strategic reasons why she especially suits the aspirations of the target consumer.

A pre-occupation with body shape has resulted in more gym-goers fixated with a need to shed fat and tone their body. This represents a slow moving cultural shift in the last twenty years away from the original ‘spit and sawdust’ power gyms still extremely popular in certain areas such as South Wales. Gym goers will now often search for ways to remain hydrated without using the calorific sports drinks that are often perceived to undo all their good work. Ennis’ defined but not overtly muscular body shape suggests a similar approach and her dedication in the traditionally masculine environment of professional sport makes her a perfect role model.

Great to see Powerade Zero out there on shelves and getting the media support the product deserves!

• “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things” – Machiavelli
• “Just because you build a new, improved or newly available product does not mean people will know about it, buy it, or even know why they should” – Penny Young
• “A company must never forget that just because they are launching a new brand, they are not necessarily launching something that is an improved and more valuable version of its predecessor” – Anon
• “When you’re getting ready to launch into space, you’re sitting on a big explosion waiting to happen” – Sally Ride

Borrowed with pride from all over the place.