A Tale of 4 Cities.

(And how they lost four Billion Dollar Brands with a thoughtless name change.)

Bombay was given the golden handshake in 1995. Madras was booted out in 1996. Calcutta received a gentle farewell in 2001. And Bangalore got the pink slip in 2005. Except for a few minor murmurs and some elitist grimaces, no one seems to have lost sleep over the loss of these iconic names. The silence of the lambs in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru, has emboldened the flag waving name changers into proclaiming victory. That much abused cliché, ‘So what’s in a name?’ is being bandied about with naïve insouciance now.

At Albert Dali Naming Consultants, we share a contrarian view. We think the act of renaming cities was a grave error. It was done without much thought and due diligence. In the next few minutes, we shall present the tale and scale of the damage wreaked by this rash act, by using the device of a fictional conversation between the left-brained Albert and the right-brained Dali.

Albert: Renaming a city is a humungous exercise. It’s more massive than rechristening Coca Cola. Local, regional, national and international buy-ins, are necessary before the change is effected because maps need to be reprinted and databases have to be reconfigured. Such a project requires at least 5 years of planning. It can’t be executed with a 1-line gazette announcement. I don’t think the Government of India has a protocol in place for handling such a project. Otherwise why would the International Air Transport Association (IATA) still assign the old codes BOM, MAA and CCU to our new improved metros?

Dali: Forget international buy-ins, I don’t remember any semblance of a debate or discussion in any of these cities. If there was, then someone would have surely pointed out to the powers-that-be, that there’s nothing Tamilian about Mr. Chennappa Naicker. He was the Telugu who invited the British to trade on the Coramandel Coast! To name an important city after such a British lackey and to tom tom it as a trophy of triumph over colonialism, is downright demented.

Albert: The case of Bengaluru is equally baffling. From a cool-sounding, internationally renowned 3-syllable name, they regressed to a clunky 4-syllable name that has Bengal written all over, rather than Karnataka!

Dali: Kolkata is no better. It might pander to the last Babu Moshai on the tram…but does it have the same acoustics as Calcutta? No way! To a Non-Bong, Kolkata seems more like a city teeming with coal. Now why on earth would you want to paint such a grimy imagery in the 21st century?

Albert: I agree. A name change should logically add to your equity and not subtract from it. In none of the four cases, have I sensed any accrual to the equity.

Dali: Let’s face it. Chennai is a comedown from Madras. Kolkata is a notch lesser than Calcutta. Bengaluru is not a patch on Bangalore. While Mumbai is a paler shadow of Bombay.

Albert: Actually my disagreement is not so much with the names. It’s with the procedure followed. If the state had dissected the names under consideration, Bengaluru wouldn’t have made the cut at all. Also, a rigorous scrutiny would have turned the spotlight on the warts of the existing names. For example, a name like Bombay is not entirely flawless. The Bomb in Bombay can lend itself to a lot of ridicule especially on a day like 26/11. Thankfully, Mumbai doesn’t have such issues….

Dali: Fair enough. Every name has its fault lines. One shouldn’t over analyze, I guess. Like you rightly said, we need to mull over and re-examine the procedure followed. I still can’t fathom why they had to ease out names that have existed for 300 years. Why didn’t they follow the ‘India that is Bharat’ strategy? Why can’t a city have two names? A ‘Bombay that is Mumbai’ approach would have certainly bridged the aspirations of the Marathi Manoos. No one would have had a bone to pick with the Karnataka government if they had used Bengaluru for internal affairs and Bangalore for external affairs….

Albert: That would have saved a hell a lot of money. To be specific, the nation would have saved close to a thousand crores.

Dali: Where did you pluck that figure from?

Albert: I didn’t make it up. If you do the math, you’ll come around to same figure. All you have to do is to look at the stats. There are supposed to be 40 million business establishments in India. Let’s assume, at least 5 million of these, are in Mumbai. Even if all these establishments had spent an average of 1000 bucks, to redo their stationery (displaying new city name), that would amount to 500 crores. If you do similar computations for the other 3 cities, the figure is likely to cross 1000 crores….And you know the worst part? This is just the private spend. The government expenditure on reprinting forms and repainting signs has not even been taken into account!

Dali: You mean to say over 1000 crores was wasted and we didn’t even know about it….

Albert: Yup. No one quantified the damage. The business press didn’t even bother to evaluate the economic aspects of renaming. Funny, isn’t it?

Dali: Why just blame the press? I bet even if they had renamed India into Hindustan, no one would have raised a banner of revolt. That’s because we as a nation are a servile lot….

Albert: I won’t make such sweeping statements. The way to look at it is probably the country or city name is very low priority to the public. Whether it’s X, Y or Z, it doesn’t really affect them.

Dali: Oh yeah…let me tell you…name change is not low priority in our country…if Shah Rukh Khan were to change his name into Shahji Kannan that will whip up a storm across the country! Every Shyam, Dick and Hari will analyse the repercussions of this act. And our media will feed the frenzy by upgrading this news from Page 3 to Page 1. Unfortunately, neither the public nor the media discussed the city renaming issue with as much passion….

Albert: Valid point. I have an explanation for this apathy. Prior to the IPL, the concept of city-patriotism didn’t even exist. Naturally, Bombayites didn’t give a shit about Bombay. Since the renaming exercise was done in the pre-IPL era, nobody gave a fig. Tomorrow if someone moots the idea of name change from Chennai to Something Else, I am sure, a lot of questions will be asked….

Dali: You may give a hundred explanations but the damage is done…

Albert: True. May be you should cut to the chase and get to the untold story of the price paid by India for implementing this silly decision….

Dali: Before I get to the tale, let me share a few facts to put things in perspective. May be then, people will get it…the brand value of Chennai Super Kings is $ 48 million. Kolkata Knight Riders is supposed to be worth $ 46 million. Royal Challengers Bangalore is said to be around $ 42 million While Mumbai Indians is pegged at $ 40 million. Together that’s $ 176 million. None of these clubs would enjoy such puffed up valuations if they didn’t have the city name embedded in their names. I mean, who’d care about Knight Riders without the Kolkata prefix? Would you really follow a match if it were between Ambani 11 versus Mallya 11?

Albert: That’s an interesting point. City-based brands are indeed money spinners. If a cricket team could earn close to $ 50 million by just slapping on ‘Mumbai’ as a prefix, then imagine the full potential of the brand Mumbai.

Dali: I am glad you grasped the bigger picture. Finally it all comes down to brand value. And this value is always a function of brand awareness, brand likeability and the imagery associated with the brand.

Albert: Lemme guess…what you’re driving at is….the 4 metros have a brand value…

Dali: These are not teeny-weeny brands, Albie. They’ve been around for hundreds of years. At least 3 of these brands have been on the world map for more than 300 years. Each one of them evokes so many nostalgic memories. The laidback brand persona of Madras is so different from that of the very-wired Bangalore. At least a billion and a half people will recall these names, even in their sleep. If I were the Government of India, I’d have first done a brand valuation of these four names. If Coca-Cola’s name is worth 67 billion dollars, Bombay will at least be a billion dollars?

Albert: I get the drift. What you’re saying is Madras, Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore have a hidden potential of a billion dollars locked in them, right?

Dali: That’s a very conservative estimate. We’ll know the real value, if and when we announce a global tender for licensing the brands Bombay, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore. I am almost sure…the money that the government will make from the licensing could wipe out poverty in these 4 cities.

Albert: And I am certain these thoughts never crossed anyone’s mind when they quietly junked the names.

Dali: Can you imagine the kind of ruckus that would have been created if people of this nation had known that their netas were dumping thousands of crores of rupees into the Ganges under the pretext of regional pride?

Albert: You’ve hit the nail…no one offered a solid reason to retain the names. If pots of money had been at stake, not a soul would have backed the renaming proposal.

Dali: I feel the government needs to wake up and legally protect these four names ASAP. Otherwise there’s always the risk of China floating a new software city under the name Bangalore!

Albert: Are you kidding? How can they do that?

Dali: Why not? If the ‘Basmati’ name can be quietly hijacked, so can our city names. If I were the Prime Minister of some foreign country, I would appropriate these four names and create tourist cities to attract Indians. The theme would be nostalgia….

Albert: Come to Calcutta…the City of Joy near London!

Dali: Believe me! It will happen sooner or later.

Albert: How does one stop this?

Dali: Declare these 4 names as national treasures. Openly acknowledge that there’s been a mistake. Apply for intellectual property rights. And put in place a pucca procedure for renaming cities.

Albert: And that would be…?

Dali: Any city that expresses a desire for renaming itself can do so only if 75% of its citizens vote for it in a referendum. But before the referendum, the city should constitute a panel of naming experts and ask them to suggest a shortlist of names for consideration. The shortlist will be made public. And more suggestions can be invited from the public. An online poll will be held on the names and a list of 5 names will be chosen for the referendum. The referendum will have just two questions: a) Are you in favour of a name change? b) Which of these 5 names is your choice? Only if a name gets more than 50% would the name change be done. Else, the city will stick to its original name.

Albert: I can’t agree with you more. A referendum transfers decision making to the silent majority. And from our previous experience, we know that beyond a point our voter never gets swayed by jingoism. So this is the way to go…
Dali: Referendum is not my idea. It’s the done thing for centuries…To get our referendum right we just have to search for parallels internationally…

Albert: I’ll give you a live parallel….The State of Rhode Island in the USA is planning to hold a referendum in 2010 on whether its official name should remain as ‘State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations’ or just ‘Rhode Island’. The proponents of the name change are arguing that ‘Providen Plantations’ conjures up images of Rhode Island’s role in Slave Trade. The Status Quoists are doing their bit to place their case. When both the sides present the pluses and minuses, it’s easy for the state to make up its mind…

Dali: This discussion is what we sorely missed in our renaming exercise…and my worry is…we’ll soon pay the price for it…if we don’t act fast….

The article above first appeared in TOM, a marketing journal from the Times of India group.