How the Commonwealth Games fiasco has tarnished the brand image

The Commonwealth Games fiasco has left the reputation of India’s government and the country in general in serious jeopardy.

Indians themselves agree as online poll by The Times of India in which 31,000 people responded clearly shows. The poll revealed that 97 per cent believe that the government, unions and the Games organising committee (OC) have tarnished the image of the country.

The public disappointment and outrage expressed in India reinforce a common thread about brand perception that Prophet’s own corporate reputation research has picked up across the globe.

In June and July of this year we surveyed 4,900 US consumers and 3,200 consumers in the UK, Germany and Switzerland. In all markets the common pillar of reputation was “Leadership, Leadership, Leadership!” 

In particular, the general public is looking for leaders to demonstrate a number of key behaviours. These are; to be fair and ethical, to be open and transparent, to communicate clearly, and to balance shareholder and public priorities.

Over a number of years, for example, the leadership team at Ford has been doing just that, focussing on getting the product right and running the business responsibly.

Having been the only large US motor manufacturer to not take a hand out from the government and also won several industry awards, public perception of the company has begun to rise.

Similarly General Mills has been at the forefront when it comes to best practices in ethics and employee relations, picking up a total of 20 awards last year alone.

This clarity of leadership has helped the company deal with rising prices of wheat and downward pressure on retail prices more effectively than peers. Our research gave General Mills one of the highest scores in 3 of the 4 leadership attributes we look at and placed it in the top 5 US companies overall.

The unfortunate after effect of the Games being so mis-managed and its leadership downplaying or refuting the seriousness of the incidents has resulted in falling confidence of the Indian government. While Prophet’s study did not measure reputations for specific countries, it is clear that in the current scenario India’s scores on these key reputation drives would likely be low.

It remains to be seen how the Games will go in early October but with athletes pulling out it is going to be hard for India to benefit from the positive halo effect it originally sought by hosting the Games in the first place. Right now, the country is in crisis mode.

Prophet’s advice in a situation like this would be to come clean, admit short-comings, and do whatever is humanly possible to make the sports infrastructure and experience for athletes as good as it can during the event.

Recently the World Cup in South Africa which was preceded by lots of negative publicity ended up a triumph because the real experience of the tournament did not match the pre tournament negativity.

In India’s case the situation is more serious because the problems are specifically related to the event rather than the country as a whole. But there is still a chance.

The only way to repair damage now is to execute on the promises it made to the world when it won the bid to host the games. The decision over the weekend to bring in the army to help out will hopefully mean that in a few weeks time, athletes will be returning home with positive stories and India’s reputation intact.