'Made in India', a movement to celebrate brand India, takes off

Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, Percept has announced a new initiative ‘Made in India’, with the objective of celebrating, promoting and building ‘Brand India’. The initiative of NGO United Welfare Trust, of which Singh is managing trustee, intends to be a platform to unite Indians and get them to ‘Celebrate India’. The focus will be on positive news coming out of India and activities will be targeted at spreading goodwill and inspiration.

‘Made in India’ aims to be a 360-degree movement encompassing online, on ground and media activities. The first phase of the venture will engage India through merchandise, knowledge expos, charity dinners, online platforms and a feature film. An ‘iammadeinindia.com’ website, which will offer ‘Breaking Good News’, is scheduled to launch on 1 January 2013.
 
On the initiative, Singh said, "This is a charity organisation, for which I have allocated time and money. It's a challenge and I will do what it takes to make it run. I will be using any medium for promoting this. Marketing initiatives begin in the next three days. I have been very fortunate with some media people who are helping me out by giving me subsidised rates, and hoardings for free. Everyone who has joined in has done so because they loved the idea."

On the thought behind the initiative he added, "’Who will cry when I die?’ was the thought behind this. Prior to this I had only done great deals. This is my way of lighting up a forest fire. I don't know if its going to work, but 97 per cent of my decision making comes from my gut and the remaining from my brain."

The movement was unveiled by Singh along with India’s first World Cup-winning cricket captain Kapil Dev; Kishore Biyani, CEO, Future Group and MD, Pantaloon Retail; author Amish Tripathi; endurance runner Sumedha Mahajan; and the youngest Indian to climb Mt. Everest, Arjun Vajpai, at an event in Mumbai on 19 December.