Editor’s Note : The day Karthik Siva spoke his mind!

Never mind Bollywood siren Mallika Sherawat (has any star ever turned up on time?) showed up fashionably late on Day Two of the Global Brand Forum (GBF) in KL recently. Or that Ivanka Trump decided to ‘transmit’ herself to the dismay of many in the audience. Or that some of the world’s finest marketing minds had gathered in Malaysia for this inaugural GBF event.

What remains vivid in my mind is what Karthik Siva, the Chairman of the Global Brand Forum, said in his opening speech on Day One. His message was not sexy, but it didn’t lack the necessary bite. Without mincing words, Karthik was in his element as he spoke eloquently with stinging depth about his long journey crusading the value of brands. In a blistering account of his experiences, he lamented that most Asian manufacturers were manu-fake-turers, citing that every ‘conceivable’ successful brand in the East is from the West. “Asia used to be where the inventors were, before it stated copying. Moving from a centre of invention to the centre of imitation. Most big companies in Asia are ‘small brands’ in the global context.”

“Even the new Sime Darby, the world’s largest plantation company, and Proton are big companies, but small brands.” Challenging the audience to name which is the biggest company in Singapore, some in the crowd murmured Singapore Airlines. To which Karthik corrected, “Neptune Orient Lines ‘NOL’ is the biggest company in Singapore. But as a brand, it’s almost unknown.” Citing the power of brands, he declared that the fall of the Kremlin was accelerated by Starbucks and McDonald’s, not the CIA! He cautioned that Asia has to change its brand-building strategy and mindset if it were to succeed in the global marketplace. The mantra of ‘copy them’, ‘copy them cheaply’ and ‘make a lot of it’ is longer viable. If anything, Kartik’s scathing but revealing comments, delivered with his trademark smile, will resonate with me as the most telling ‘awakening’ at this maiden Global Brand Forum in Malaysia.

Meantime, enjoy this image of Mallika Sherawat by our very own photographer who got slightly injured while taking her picture.