THE ‘INCREDIBLE INDIA’

CAMPAIGN:
Marketing India to the World
 Introduction
 The ‘Incredible India’ Campaign is an integrated marketing
communication to attract the tourists to the country by
showcasing the different aspect of Indian culture like yoga,
spirituality etc.
 It was launched in 2002 by Ogilvy and Mather(O&M).
 It was appreciated by tourism industry globally.
 But some criticism was there that India first needs to improve
its infrastructure rather than spending money on marketing
itself.
 The main aim of the campaign was to project India as a
unique opportunity for physical invigoration, mental
rejuvenation, cultural enrichment and spiritual elevation.
 Cont’d
 It was promoted through:
 Television channels
 Online ads
 Website(www.incredibleindia.org)
 Print ads
 Online campaign(contests)
 Cont’d
 In 2003, the print campaign focused mainly on spirituality.
 The new ads were different, very stylish and young in nature.
 The aim of the spirituality was to attract wealthy and busy
western people.
 In 2004, a centralized electronic media campaign was also
launched.
 It covered emerging economies like China and those of
North-East Asia and South-East Asia.
 The tourism ministry also organized road shows in Europe.
 Cont’d
 By 2005, the ‘Incredible India’ campaign adopted a 360
degree approach.
 Digital brochures were placed on major sites like Yahoo!,
rediff etc.
 In 2006, the tourism ministry organized an online contest
called ‘Come to Paradise’.
 The prize was a 4-day/5-night a vacation in Jammu and
Kashmir.
 Achievements through campaign
 In 2002, online campaign succeeded in attracting 31 million
impressions.
 The online campaign during 2004 and 2005 was successful
in drawing attention of 25 million people in one month i.e
April 2005.
 Problems
Problems in the campaign:
 It was main focusing on heritage of India.

 It was overboard with the Taj Mahal.

 It never looked at promoting individual states of India.
 Mentality of developed countries people towards Indian
people.
 It was a futile exercise because India does not have the
necessary infrastructure.
 Cont’d
Infrastructure problems:
 The other main problem was the “infrastructure” problem.
 There are no budget hotels.
 The roads are in very bad conditions.
 There are no proper signs, tourist maps, historic information
or even tour guides.
 Cont’d
Governmental problems:
 Bureaucratic hurdles in the issuing of visas.
 Lack of professionalism, unhygienic conditions, lack of
easily available of information, lack of safety, poor visitor
experience, restrictive air transport policy, inadequate
facilitation services, multiplicity of taxes, and low priority
accorded to tourism, lack of basic civic amenities.
 Solutions
 The campaign is needed to increase the scope of target market.
 It needed to promote the modern India.
 It needed to promote the value and importance of individual
states of the country.
 It needed to show best cities of India in order to change the
mentality of the people.
 India really needs to improve the infrastructure in order to
gain and retain the tourist customers.
 The government should control all the problems that tourists
face in India.
 It needed to promote the hill stations also.
 Steps taken by Government
 Medical tourism: A new category of visa, the M-visa, which
allowed a medical tourist and his or her companion a long
stay in the country, was introduced in 2005.
 Cruise tourism: In order to market India as an attractive
destination for cruise tourism, steps were being taken to
formulate policy that covered issues like immigration,
customs. The govt. constituted a high power steering group
to draft cruise shipping policies.
 The campaign will also concentrate on areas like medical
tourism, agro-farming etc.
 Suggestions
 Instead of spending money on various campaigns Indian
government must spend money on infrastructure which is
really to be improved in India to gain and retain the tourist
customers.
 The campaign was so much effected that it attracted so much
tourists but, this is not in synch with the present conditions
of the country. Or we can say it was not the right time to
market India because Indian government first needs to
improve the governmental, societal and infrastructural
problems.