The Gora Fever- an ever popular positioning strategy

They came on a boat, claiming to start a company, with their aristocratic norms and love for tea and 400 odd years later they have left us not only with the foundations of our railway and postal system, but also with a deep rooted consumer mindset, that marketers tap into till today. The British did spark a sense of awe into the people of India with their logical thought, systematic work habit and unfortunately an aristocratic class based society. India has developed a lot since then both socially and intellectually, yet trails of devotion to anything over the seas or quite crudely "white" still remains embedded in the Indian consumer.

The Americans have been playing into this mindset for decades not only in India but also in South East Asia and remarkably Japan. Archie did sell soda pops in the 70s and Gossip Girl designer outfits today. The Indian consumer has progressed with time and would not be enticed to pick up a product just because it has the stars and stripes on it. However, when it comes to more high involvement purchases such as a masters degree or a high-tech industrial equipment- white it is!

In this study I discuss how I used this ever popular tactic to reposition a declining brand amongst the ever volatile student population at VIT.

The Background

Before the dawn of the 09-10 academic year, the IEEE Student Chapter saw itself at crossroads. The university management had decided to allow more chapters to enter the market to pave way for a diverse and rich extra curricular environment at the university, good move for VIT, scary one for the IEEE chapter. With the introduction of international chapters like the ISA, the cropping up of many new student clubs, we faced a tough task at hand. On one hand, we could utilize our already established brand name to target the technically enthusiastic juniors or we could apply a more mass market strategy to grab the masses before anyone else. A niche audience would further instigate our position as a high tech niche brand, and would allow us to focus more on a selected group with our services, but our membership numbers were on the decline and so were the number of technically inclined students entering university(shocking being an engineering institute) How would we sell the most expensive membership on campus to the not so involved student population?

The Positioning

We positioned ourselves as primarily an American brand that offered high value services from abroad and gave students an opportunity to connect to the international, science and engineering community.

All our products and offerings and their promotions, needed to stay in lieu with the position we wanted in the minds of our consumers.

The Strategy

• We created a display campaign that portrayed all the big wigs of the engineering world who were IEEE members, mainly American or from the EU.

• We promoted the mentor ship program that connected students to American professors via live web chat.

• We justified our higher costs, with international standard rates, the opportunity to learn from the best in the western world, and the fact that our services were being provided from abroad.
• A sales pitch that enticed students to get involved in projects and innovations like students in the States and EU.

The Result

A sheer 54% increase in memberships.

The Pitfall

With newer international chapters entering the market, promoting the "white" brand might not suffice.
With a less motivated and inclined crowd, we might need more than just "the international pitch".
Our services did not entirely meet our hyped elevator pitches and word did spread.


All in all, employing the "gora fever" tactic does have it's short term rewards, however, with an ever developing Indian consumer, we marketers need to pull out more tricks from the hat!