 Now more and more consumers are getting acutely aware of what is good and not so good in the Indian marketplace when it comes to products and services, all of which are growing leaps and bounds. But of course, through a period of time there is a certain perception that is built around these products and brands and of course there is a trust associated with them as well, which gets reflected in the TRA's annual report. We are talking about the Trust Research Advisory, a Mumbai headquartered company that for the last six years has been coming out with an annual survey that talks to two and a half thousand participants across sixteen cities and comes out with this report that gives us a picture of which are the most trusted brands in India. These are the key findings for 2016. In the ever expanding smartphone market, Samsung, the largest smartphone maker, is the most trusted brand in India according to the latest brand Trust report. And that's no surprise. The one that strikes out is Nokia. Since the market leader, the company may have lost a lot of ground over the last four or five years. But Nokia is still the most trusted brand after Samsung. And the buzz is that Nokia will cash in on this Trust and launch its own range of smartphones soon. Even the newer entrants like MicroMax, Lava, Motorola, Integh have gained consumer trust. Interestingly, these brands sell budget phones and they have hit the sweet spot in this price-sensitive market. And if you thought brand positioning of banks was always lackluster, the recent spate of smart marketing has brought several private players into the spotlight. Both ICICI and HDFC Bank shine in the banking and financial services space as the most trusted brands, taking it away from established public sector behemoths like SBI. Of course, within the group of well-diversified Indian companies, all names like Tata Bajaj and Godrej still rule the roost on the trust barometer. But when you turn to FMCG brands, it's neither the makers of Duff, nor Surf XL, nor Parachute Oil or Polgate that topped the trust charts. The homegrown Chennai based Kevin Care, a pioneer in shampoo sachets, is the topper here. Just as surprising is Patanjali, the other local brand that has garnered a huge following in a rather short span of time. With its promise of being natural and Ayurvedic, backed by Baba Ramdev, it has been rated as the third most trusted FMCG brand in the country and tattooed with minimal advertising. Controversy doesn't seem to take away much from a brand's trust if you go by the position that Maggie Noodle's holds in the report. Despite the recent controversy around its safety, it is still the most trusted fast-moving food brand. But then, one brand's loss turned out to be another's game. In this case, Yipi Noodle's. While Maggie went off the shelves, Yipi found its base, making safely its core advertising message and thus finding a spot on the trust ratings at a number three just behind Maggie and Lidget Pupper. While the good times have turned tight for Vijay Malia, the beer brand he created is still regarded as the most trusted alcoholic beverage brand. Kingfisher beer has stayed at its top of this category for the last six years. Kavmong, which is a favorite across age groups, doesn't make it to the list. The trust and local brands have garnered. It's not just Kavan Kehra Patanjali, the quiet entrance this year, a Chennai-based edited drinks maker Bhuvantho and Gujarat-based Soya drinks maker Socio. So, this is the beginning of a Swadeshi trend. Will we see these local players consistently rise above global peers? Watch this space. Well, you're getting the overall picture in that report that the trust research advisory has come out with. This is an organization that is based in Mumbai and Enternum Moli is the CEO of the company. Great to have you over here. Thank you. Moli, now you tell me because we just heard that Indian brands are really coming into the fray. The trust factor that you find with domestic homegrown brands is on the rise. You find that surprising because you've come out with six reports already. So is this a new trend that you're seeing? It is a shift? The trend is new, meaning Indian brands are able to kind of break international barriers, so to speak, international brand barriers. But there's a reason behind it and the reason mainly is because of the confidence that the Indian brands have started gaining in terms of how they can compete in the marketplace. So you today have billion dollar brands, many of them Indian, and you don't really think twice about saying a billion dollar number for a very small company which is just a couple of years old in an Indian company. And whereas several international companies are looking at it very differently and saying, how did that small brand get such a valuation? So Indian brands in the Indian brand context have gained a large amount of confidence in the last few years to come. And therefore their ability to compete even on a trust stage is very different. So if you see the advertising, the budget has changed considerably. And do you find that particular to certain sectors or is this across the board? It is across the board. It's not as if it's in a specific sector. Because in FMCG for one, we've seen Patanjali come up in such a big way. We carried a story here on the show as well. And that seems to be a segment that's growing and you're finding these local homegrown products really find favor. So the trust factor is growing there. Definitely. In fact, if you see the leader in the entire diversified sector of FMCG is Kevin Kair. You may not have heard of it. The Chennai-based brand. And not many people have heard of it. And the Chennai-based company is the first person who actually came out with the sachet shampoos, is known for that, countrywide. But after that is Patanjali on number four, just after HUL. The 2000 crore brand which Patanjali has created is not on the back of advertising, not on the back of reach. It's on the back of a person talking to hundreds and thousands of people on a direct one-to-one basis. It's like a direct selling company which one man leads. But imagine that with the back of, he's now the largest advertiser. He's also got a great amount of reach with now future group as well as reliance partnering him. And therefore you can imagine what the future is for such a brand. What about the newer businesses? What about the e-commerce space? Because now that's a sector that has been buzzing and you're seeing so many of them. So let's look at it in two ways. This is a very odd space because over here, most of the advertising because of the discounting is not for anything else but to create a market. So they know that Indians were very resistant to coming online. The penetration of credit card is still in just early two digits. So if you look at that, why are they doing this? They say, come on and I'll give you an experience that you don't really have ever got before. So the brand creation there is the experience. So if you look at the first three or top three or four businesses over there, Amazon just came into India in 2013. In the last two years, it's been leading and trust. And what is the trust because of not because of the communication. You can match dollar for dollar or rupee for rupee and you'll see they spend the amount of the same thing first and second. But they've really come there because of the experience of delivery. The kind of trust that you have in a product that you order for, you'll get the same thing at a particular time. But you have number two and number three and it's difficult to guess who will be number two and number three, but it's actually snapped he lose at number two. And that's the same. And have they been there in the past as well? Not really, not in number one, two and three. They have scaled up. They have scaled up considerably. Flipkart, which is touted as one of the Indian big, many, many times unicorn, $7 billion or $15 billion is what they say. And that has gone to number three. That's because of the fact that the experience perhaps is not matching it. The advertising and the communication says, come buy me at a large discount. But when I get something which is not as per my requirements or as per my expectations and goes below, the discount no longer matters. I would rather take a lower discount, or rather a lesser discount, rather than a higher discount but get my product in time. So when you're talking about a brand, you're talking about loyalty to a brand. Service really comes into play. It's not just about the communication. There are so many factors that come into play. But when you talk about service, I find it interesting that in the aviation space, you're finding key differences come forth. What do you tell us about those? So this is a little strange and I'm probably going to get a few letters after this particular conversation with you. But invariably in the private airline space, which is quite different from Air India, you want to separate the lots over there. Indigo has been leading for the last three years. And it has got great service, a timely service. If I know of businessmen who can afford business class but Indigo doesn't have it but would still go Indigo because it's an on time delivery. That's the brand promise. That's the brand promise. Maintain, develop trust, shows in our report, no problem there. But what really begins to happen in the other context of it? We went IPO a few months back, just before our entire field work started off. And surprisingly, we find that their entire trust has fallen. And I was trying to analyze what's happened and whose gain we'll come to. But they've gone to number three position. And the leader over here is Paischak, which has got the second largest passenger fair right now, passenger count right now in the current context. And that's come to number one. And if you know, there has been a change of leadership at Paischak. A huge one, not just leadership because I mean, there is the entire effort to turn it around. And that has worked for the airline? Completely. Give me an understanding of what are the largest attributes. Are we seeing a shift over there as well? When you look at the different factors that make a brand stand up on the trust parameter, which are the attributes that really work for a brand today? Can you make a larger statement about it or does it work differently for different sectors? Actually, the latter is true, Vikram. It's about the differences in that category. It's a brand promise that they say and they are actually able to meet. But this is made up of, trust is made up of 61 different attributes. At the base level. But that's a little complex to explain now. But I'll tell you very simply what they are in three foundations. The first foundation of trust is called capacity to trust. Building capacity to trust. The brand has to build a capacity to trust. And it does that by saying that it becomes a very, very secure ambience to approach the brand. You should not be an alien brand. Meaning, if there's a baroque, let's say, hotel, me not dressed appropriately will find it difficult to enter. And those are issues of me feeling secure enough to enter. So that brand has a similar ambience, so to speak. The first is that, building capacity to trust. The second is showcasing relevant intent. So that my intent is correct. Listen, I'm here to make money, of course. But that's not the only thing I'll make. I'll do several other things in the process. So that's the second foundation. The third foundation is called competence. My competence towards serving you and your needs well. So if these three meet well, these three will build trust for you at the most basic substrate level. At a larger level. Absolutely. Molly, in passing, if you can tell us today, if you look at the larger context again and see the kind of brands that India has to offer, what is the trajectory of growth over here? Are we in a process of building brands that survive over a period of time? Or like I started out by saying, especially in the e-commerce space, it's only about the here and now. It's about the communication that you make. And social media has come to play such a huge role. I want to understand the impact that it has on people's minds when they're assessing what a brand stands for. So let's do this in two parts. First and second, social media latter. But essentially, when you look at brands, brands live almost can live forever. They are an idea, they're a manifestation of idea. And therefore, from one mind to the other, it moves in like a meme, similar to a genetic movement. In principle. In principle, memetically, it can move. But the only way that brands will stop is when you actually force it to stop by doing the wrong things. Otherwise, it will have a tendency to spread. At the other end, what's happening is we are now over communicated. Everybody talks to you. You have things like WhatsApp, which kind of impinge on you, even if you don't want it. Half of them are irritated, but then you have to have that particular app with you. In that social media space where chat is happening, you are responding, who is the real owner of the brand? Not the one who legally owns it. But you and I, who consume it. And once we consume it, as an owner, I have an opinion on it. Even if I don't consume it, I have an opinion on it. My friend says something about it. I have an opinion. The minute I have an opinion, and let's say I go online and tweet about it because I feel strongly about something good or bad, it becomes the opinion of my friends. Or at least some of them carry it. And look at me. I didn't even consume the brand. I merely had an opinion of it. And there I'm talking about a brand. I'm now influencing the brand. And that's the ownership. The ownership profile has changed. It's no longer legal ownership that counts. It's about the people who use it, consume it, want to talk about it. That matters. It seems like inclusiveness is where it's at. When you're forming a brand strategy and going ahead, we'd be tracking exactly how different brands in the various sectors that we spoke about are going to take it a few not-is-up as well. For that, we'll be connecting with you. But thanks very much for joining us on the show, Molly.