It makes your branding blood boil… We all know how journalists can be false friends; writing great things about your region one day and then slating your destination the next. But you would expect that ad agencies would be more predictably glowing in their praise. After all they are there to promote the inherent benefits of brands. But what happens when, in the process of a clever ad strategy, they have a swipe at the 
place brand you have been nurturing for years. hsbc_india_ad_0905_small.jpg Aaah!!
Enter HSBC! “The world’s local bank”, the strapline continues to impress on us (but not so local in both Afghanistan and South Africa as I found to my dismay a couple of years ago…) Anyway for ages they have been highlighting cultural differences to promote the bank’s understanding of all parts of the world. hsbc_india_ad_0905_a.jpgSo how come they are getting it so wrong in the current campaign deliverable? 
You may have seen the creative hook “precious” that illustrates this value as a stack of gold bars in respect of the USA (predictable I suppose) and then as a woman in traditional dress, drawing water, for India. Well, how deriding and hypocritical is that! HSBC has no qualms in mopping up thousands and thousands of talented, dedicated and loyal workers in India to develop and support the bank’s IT backbone, and to man its call centres that give great service to HSBC’s customers worldwide. They do that because there’s no better place on the planet to be! But it then allows its ad agency to present the country as poverty stricken and lacking in infrastructure. Surely they could have made their clever advertising point with a little more consideration of the value that India represents! hsbc_india_ad_0905_b.jpgOr use stricken images of New 
Orleans instead!
Indian Brand builders like those behind the Incredible India tourism campaign, or at the Brand Equity Foundation, or even those represented by India’s outsourcing association NASSCOM, must be grinding their teeth. Maybe HSBC and others should think about their commitment to corporate social responsibilty and do more to give back to those countries something more valuable than low paid jobs – respect and appreciation of the host countries and the people that have helped make them so successful. Maybe a slightly more considerate application of its $600m advertising and marketing budget would be a start!
