Mumbaikar...Branded for life!!

Mumbai: The Biggest Brand in India

Venue: Marine Drive, Time: 7:00 a.m.

The Sun is on the horizon and is peppered with the cackle of the soft sea breeze and the rattle of the BMC workers sweeping the ground at the Marine Drive Stretch. The race against time is inevitable. Be it the aam aadmi running for his 9'o clock shift, be it the BEST buses maneuvering the traffic signals, be it BSE traders literally running for their money, hawkers for their bauni(first customer), taxi drivers ferrying surplus passengers from Churchgate station, even the old retired folks jogging away to glory, but nothing is matching the speed of the trail of my thoughts- WHICH BRAND HAS THE LARGEST LOYALTY?

How do we define brand loyalty crudely -Is it the number of Lays wrappers stuck in between the rocks at Marine Drive, the number of mysterious gazes to a passing BMW, number of people queued outside Iranian tea stall, wait list at Sardar Pav Bhaji or number of females flocking Mannat  to get a small glimpse of Badshah of Bollywood. Ordinary people do not use Brand asset evaluators or marketing metrics to justify their loyalty but they see value addition. Mumbai is host to over 18.41 million brand loyalists with diverse ethnic backgrounds, income status and social capital. I think it should be safe to assume from these figures that Mumbai is the Mecca of aspirations and business and that the followers have such a loyalty that they do not want to experience this nirvana just once in their lifetime.

Crowds flocking the 'Mannat'

Keeping aside the marketing greats: Kellers and Kapferers for the likes of HUL, P&G, Hyundai, Tatas, etc and being true to the DNA of a marketeer I would like to suggest my own model and ridiculously try to defend the genesis of it. I suggest a 3 dimensional model with Opportunity on one axis, Time on second axis and Objective fulfillment on the third axis.

Mumbai presents itself with an array of opportunities paralleled to none other. Real estate, Banking financial and services insurance, waiterer's job at a local "dance" bar, shot at being cast even the minutest role for an undergarments advertisement, CEO of Nariman Point's/Bandra Kurla Complex's stamped elite companies, BMC sweeper, Vada pav stall owner, seat in Mantralaya and I could go on and on.

Favorite food of Mumbai: Wada Pav 

 On the dimension of corporate, Mumbai presents an excellent platform for global presence, local market and infinite resources. Opportunity axis is going to be having an infinite locus reflecting the magnanimous nature of Mumbai towards success seekers and achievers. The rains falls in a special part in the hearts of Mumbaikars. Mumbaikars not only swim through  flood of job opportunities in Versova and Powai but indeed through the flooded waters of monsoons too.

Mumbai people swimming through the floods

Ask the importance of 10 seconds in the life of a Mumbaikar and you will get a defensive look on the face. Time is money(literally) in Mumbai and a crude way of brand valuation could be that of the usage of time in Mumbai. You lose 10 seconds and you could lose a Virar fast local, you could lose a business transaction, shares market volatility base, Mumbai Dabawallas cannot boast adherence to Six Sigma, Paani Puriwala hawker loses 4-5 customers and most importantly you lose a valuable resource to make it BIG in the city. Sensitivity towards time is an all time high ranker in the quiver of  arms for success. There could be a paradigm shift in the way people would look Mumbai in the light of things. 

Mumbai Dabahwallas

For instance in the

World of Science: there might come a time in the future when the doctorates and astrophysicists would shun their work on the time dimension in String theory and set their eyes on the extensive study of the time dimension in the Tushar's graph on Mumbai.

English Literature: Time, Tide and Mumbai wait for none!!

Bollywood: Mumbaikars follow the philosophy of Ranbir Kapoor in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani in which he quotes" Mujhe Daudna hai, Udna hai, Girna bhi hai par kabhi Rookna nahi hai." And literally the Mumbaikars tirelessly run for the train/bus defying Aamir Khan's philosophy of bus, train and chokri; fly in the terrible poses in the train, in which you crawl with a hand on top in pursuit of a support on the roof looking like a true Desi Superman. Handcuffed to the will of making it big, Mumbaikars endure all this and yet emerge victorious.

People who come to Mumbai want big money, instant stardom or career growth. Mumbai never disappoints, though the individual aspires to go to the moon in spite of the fact he/she cannot even jump 2 meters off the ground. The variables for objective fulfillment like infinite opportunities, law and order, infrastructure and generosity of masses is in abundance. Mumbai provides light, space (pretty expensive though), food, water, social security and respect in the best possible combination for achieving one's objective. Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Parsis, Sikhs, South Indians, North Indians, etc have all etched their traits into what is called the Bombaiya culture and people in Mumbai or migrating to Mumbai become part of this frenzy which fulfills an iota of their objective- Happy Living!!!.

'Bombaiya culture'

The permutations and combinations on this Tushar's graph( opportunity v/s time v/s objective fulfillment)  will give us a disastrous recipe which will give Sanjeev Kapoor a run for his money. With a certain degree of conviction I would agree to the abysmal standard of this model (owing to numerous bizarre hypothesis in marketing subjects in college)  but would conclude that Mumbai( land of opportunities) is a brand which does not have an expiry date, cannot be bound in any framework but is yet an enigma whose potential is beyond human calculations.

Its not just insatiable appetite for success but the infusion of Bombaiya culture which textures the warp and woof of the fabric called " Mumbaikar"