From Bangalore with love:Thank you, President Obama!

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Pakistan and the regime of Asif Ali Zardari got a right hook from President Obama of the United States last week. And this week, it is the turn of Bangalore. Bangalore gets a left-hook. With one strong statement of his, delivered in his now famous Presidential-style, Obama has catapulted Brand Bangalore to a new status of recognition altogether.

Obama's speech-writers did Brand Bangalore great justice when they chose to use the alliterative format of Bangalore and Buffalo (a now-dying town in terms of jobs and prosperity quotients of every kind in upstate New York). Brand Bangalore, which until just about yesterday was known to a billion-plus people is today known to a multiple of that. Google searches of the word Bangalore must have touched a new figure already. We will have the verdict on this soon.

Bangalore on the other hand has morphed year after year. From being a sleepy small town, today it is the bustling and brash statement of intent it wants to be. From being a lazy little city where everything died down after sunset, everything and everyone wakes up instead as the sun sets out here and rises out there in the United States of America.

Bangalore today runs the bank out there in Buffalo just as it runs the car rental services and the airline ticketing industry and the research and development industry and the pharma industry and literally every vertical of business there is to handle. Not only in Buffalo but in Rochester and Texas and Las Vegas as well. Bangalore in many ways is the metaphor that has seeped into the psyche of the American, just as it has seeped in quietly into the psyche of the Japanese and the European and the Canadian as well.

Bangalore today boasts of a big bite of the overall IT and IT services exports revenue of USD 42 billion-plus. A big chunk of IT workers of the world live here. A big chunk of the most educated and the most technically qualified live out here. And serving them all are a host of industry verticals that have risen to the occasion. We have robust retail, a robust entertainment vertical and a robust food and beverage space that has emerged in this city. Slow-down or no slow-down, the city buzzes on, as does its many businesses.

From a political and business point of view, President Obama is making US go insular. He caters to a kind of nationalistic, political, economic and social jingoism that the world has rated to be old-world and anti-globalisation oriented. Obama erects new walls and new barriers as he uses strong words against everyone who has outsourced in the US. His words recall phrases that are strong. Here's a sample: "I'm announcing a set of proposals to crack down on illegal overseas tax evasion, close loopholes, and make it more profitable for companies to create jobs here in the United States." Does this mean that every company that rode out from the US on their virtual horses of good intent and set up outsourcing centres in India and elsewhere are willful tax-evaders with just one purpose in mind: tax evasion?

That's a long debate. Best left for another occasion.

From a brand point of view, what Obama has contributed for Brand Bangalore is a great piece of advertising, marketing, branding, selling, and PR, all rolled into one. All rolled into one bite of nicely written speech text, delivered with Obama panache to boot.

Bangalore to that extent has arrived. Arrived in the minds of billions of people in the world. Thank you, President Obama!

(Harish Bijoor is a brand-expert & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)