8 April 2014

In perhaps the first ever initiative of the Goa government in positioning its biggest ever natural asset, its beauty and its way of life, it has sought a research based mind set positioning of Goa’s tourism. The go to firm was not a quick fix ad agency but a relatively early stage branding company Chorophyll Brand and Communication Consultancy, which has now firmed Goa’s tag line Kenna calm, Kenna clamour, Kenna fast, Kenna slow.

While early reactions to this has been half positive and half confused, this positioning, at least at this moment, has hardly evoked the simple yet powerful of the euphoria of a line like Gods Own Country, which catapulted Kerala tourism from its nadir.

Kenna calm, Kenna clamour, Kenna fast, Kenna slow, pivots around the word Kenna, which in Konkani means sometimes. The word is actually spelt kednam, but Kenna seems pronunciation friendly. It seeks to give Goa in all its hues, from calm meditation to hedonistic parties, from susegad to superfast. But does the line give you a one shot feel of Goa? Are there too many words? Is the big idea missing?

The three short answers to the three above questions are NO, YES, YES. It doesn't give you what the Goa brand managers or Goa tourism really believe the X factor is. It also uses a Konkani word as the fulcrum of its message to the outside world. Konkani is not Hindi, followed by millions of more people. Kenna won't be understood by fellow Indians, leave alone foreigners like Russians who are struggling to cope with English. The one Konkani word that has almost taken an international dimension is Susegad. Even a line like "Susegad to Superfast", would have served the limited purpose of portraying what “Kenna slow, kenna fast" is meant to do.

Most importantly, the most successful public sector campaigns of all time, by India Tourism, leveraged by a genius called Amitabh Kant, an IAS officer who green lighted the God's Own Country and the Incredible India campaign, used simple English words to drive home a phenomenal brand positioning. And every bit of creativity that flowed from agencies that created those magic campaigns, Grey World Wide and Wieden + Kennedy, was based on a clear brief and the freedom to position the campaign internationally, by their clients the Government of India. Let’s take two examples, one for Andaman Islands, as a subset of the Incredible India campaign and the other a part of the Gods Own Country campaign.

‘An island a day, keeps the doctor away. Vitamin Sea’ for Andaman islands; and "One day, man will travel at the speed of thought. Pity,’" to describe Kerala’s calm slow backwaters.

These campaigns were aimed at the discerning upmarket Indian traveller as well as a classy well travelled international traveller to change the earlier high volume, low value tourism, which is Goa’s bane now. Kant in his book on the journey of the Incredible India campaign, Branding India- An incredible story writes of what Kerala tourism was before 'Gods Own Country'.

“A solitary ITDC hotel, mass tourist arrivals in the form of garbage collectors from Manchester and cobblers from London contributing not more than £15 a night.”

The big ask is, will Goa's Kenna campaign deliver Kenna (sometimes) or deliver Soddanch (always), or will it deliver at all? Will it get international tourists hooked as Gods Own Country did? Doubtful because no campaign aimed at declaring a country’s or states positioning to outside tourists has worked with vernacular tag lines. Remember Aithi Devo Bhava was a public awareness campaign for Indians on how to behave with tourists. It wasn't a brand positioning line.

While there is scope for correction and positioning, even this commendable exercise to search for what Goa really is and wants to be for its tourists, will be self defeating unless tourist taxi drivers, heritage conservators, infrastructure, roads, garbage management and easy Visa facilities all come together in an incredible package that delivers always, even as Goa’s tourism mandarins want to play with the word sometimes.