Building a brand
View(s):At the traffic lights at Kohuwela junction one evening, an old Datsun Sunny waited for the lights to turn green. A policeman on the sidewalk was watching it because it didn’t have any lights on.
When he walked across to the car, some bystanders were watching the scene expecting the officer to reprimand the driver and book him for an offence, a violation by any driver. But then suddenly the crowd saw the officer with an embarrassed look on his face, salute the driver who was dressed in police uniform with stars and stripes and appeared to be an ASP or SP. When the lights turned green, the car pulled away, while the police officer slunk onto the other side knowing that he was being watched. “This is the problem in this country. The law applies only to the poor man and the underdog, everyone else is above the law,” one young man muttered.
By the way, this is not the focus of today’s discussion but what I call a “sideshow’ in the column to raise issues which show the unfortunate path of this country – going downhill or down the pallang!
Another sideshow this week was the stupid call by politician Udaya Gammanpila to declare a public holiday for a public protest the opposition is organising in Colombo, to reduce the inconvenience to the public. As if the country doesn’t have enough public holidays!
Meanwhile, Kussi Amma Sera is back in action from her holiday in the village and this Thursday morning was at the gate, sipping her cup of tea and chatting with her ‘mango’ friends, Serapina and Mabel Rasthiyadu.
Watching from my office window, I could hear snatches of the conversation which centred round the exorbitant price of coconuts today, particularly important since Kussi Amma Sera comes from a coconut-growing area.
Sri Lanka was once famous as a coconut exporter but today due to many reasons we are also importing coconuts. Reminds me of legendary singer M.S. Fernando’s famous hit on coconuts and coconut exports: ‘Pol, pol, pol, pol, pol, pol pol … Lankawe wathuwala wewena pol … pita rata patawana pol’.
Coconut was as famous as tea exports but over the years Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange earnings have been taken over by remittances from Sri Lankan migrant workers, garments, tourism, and, slowing rising up the ladder, earnings from ICT services and software sales.
While this is all fine, Sri Lanka needs to seriously build a brand or brands rather than depend solely on services and being a top-end tailoring shop for the world’s best brands.
We need to build on Ceylon Tea as the country’s premier brand and what Dilmah on its own is doing to take the country forward on the need to focus on single origin tea, amidst stiff opposition locally. The British built Ceylon Tea as a brand and made it famous in the world but today the Ceylon Tea brand is being challenged with a mixture of cheap teas from other tea-growing countries.
Many countries with smaller populations and land areas are world famous for different products, while Sri Lanka with a population of 21 million and 65,610km (land area) is shooting itself in the foot by degrading the Ceylon Tea brand.
For example, Switzerland is famous for chocolate (8.5 million people and 41,285km land area); Denmark is famous for Carlsberg beer, renewable energy, having the happiest people in the world, dairy, and thousands of bicycles (5.7 million and 42,924km land area); Amsterdam – the capital of the Netherlands — is famous for tulips while the country is the world’s second largest exporter of food and sustainable agriculture, and has thousands of bicycles than cars (17 million and 41,526km land area). With so much of land space, we should be looking at ways of enhancing the Ceylon Tea brand.
Thus, rather than being a mere high-class tailoring shop, we need to create a great shirt, a great dress or even lingerie or swimwear brand instead of only servicing other world famous brands.
Prof. Ananda Jayawardene, Director General, National Science Foundation (NSF) and former Vice Chancellor, Moratuwa University, at a recent address at the Uva Wellassa University (UWU) Convocation said:
“Sri Lanka is globally competitive as Sri Lanka’s electronic sensors are used by the world’s best car brands, apparels are worn by the world’s top athletes in Olympics, surgical gloves are used by the world’s top surgeons, tyres manufactured in Sri Lanka are used by the world’s best aircrafts and software and algorithms of Sri Lanka are used in the world’s leading stock exchanges and doing over one billion eBay transactions per day.”
These are all fine except that these are products sold under different labels. Many years ago, during a visit to the US, I happily bought a nice shirt from a branded store with a US label. On returning to Colombo, I re-checked the label again to find the US branded shirt was made in a Sri Lankan factory!
Ceylon Tea is unmatched in its pursuit as a single origin tea but the local industry is torn between two groups – those propagating tea as a total Ceylon Tea product without blending and those pushing for blended teas. This debate has been going on for decades. The problem is that Ceylon Tea is expensive compared to tea from other countries particularly Kenya or China. Unfortunately, many non Sri Lankan brands are marketing tea as Pure Ceylon Tea with less than 10 per cent tea sourced from Sri Lanka, which on the long term will ruin the Ceylon Tea single origin reputation.
However, today’s discussion is not about the dispute in the local tea industry but on creating brands that Sri Lanka would become famous for. And this is timely since Sri Lanka, as our story on Page 1 signifies, is searching for a new branding and tagline to market its tourism product. The ‘Wonder of Asia’ tagline is changing. (On the other hand, the ‘Wonder of Asia’ tagline is being used to define different things – politicians hanging on to power, growing number of strikes, most number of holidays, etc.)
With tea still being the country’s best known export, a visit to a tea estate, factory, making a cup of tea or sipping teas that Sri Lanka is famous for should be one important stop in a tourist’s 10-day or two-week itinerary, instead of only the elephant orphanage and the gem trail. Maybe even a visit to a garment factory that is making the world’s best swimsuit might be interesting.
In today’s world of tourism, it’s all about sharing experiences like a stopover in a village, cooking a traditional meal, having a river bath or taking a ride in a bullock cart or a tuk tuk. Tourists all over the world are charmed by these experiences and no longer are content with staying long hours on the beach or in their hotel rooms. Sri Lanka needs to create a brand that would achieve stardom similar to the Incredible India or Amazing Thailand nation branding. Tea should figure as a crucial component of this experience. In fact, a few tourism companies arrange tea factory visits and the experience of plucking tea. Visitors at the airport shouldn’t be greeted with a garland but with a beautifully done packet of tea.
In a recent interview in Colombo, hospitality branding specialist QUO Founder/CEO David Keen spoke of how he walked into the lift of a new hotel in Amsterdam on opening day some years ago, and was surprised to find a saxophonist and a singer in that tiny space.
“The duo started to play as the 1×1.5 metre lift began moving. I almost cried with delight. It was a sublime and memorable experience. Just imagine moving up to live music……..just for you?” recalls Mr. Keen, a pioneer in creating new brands and re-branding existing ones across Asia and Europe.
Many of the experiences – including tea and garment factories visits — that can be shared with foreign visitors need to be built into branding Sri Lanka.
Glancing at the gate, I see Kussi Amma Sera and her friends still engrossed in a conversation on coconuts. They would also benefit if tourism takes into account visits to villages to partake a traditional meal or visiting a tea estate and engaging with workers.