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Updated August 14, 2024You’re reading an excerpt of Great Founders Write, by Ben Putano, writer, entrepreneur, and book publisher. He’s the founder of Damn Gravity Media, a publishing house that inspires and educates tomorrow’s great founders. Purchase now for lifetime access to the book and on-demand video course.
The logic behind the project was sound. There were millions of Indian families who needed an affordable car, and the Nano had everything they could ever want. But no one bought it. Ironically, the Nano was most popular among rich businessmen. They bought it as a toy—a gimmick to show off to their friends. You can imagine Mr. Tata’s frustration. He built exactly what the people of India needed—or so he thought. Was it possible he missed something?
Turns out, the Tata Nano was doomed from the moment it was announced. When Mr. Tata unveiled the Nano at the Auto Expo in 2008, it was accompanied by a horrendously out-of-touch slogan:
“The World’s Cheapest Car.”
In rapidly developing India, buying a vehicle was a status symbol for upwardly mobile families. It wasn’t just a practical purchase, but a highly emotional one. With those four words, the Nano positioned itself as a car for poor people. Any self-respecting person would rather keep their moped than drive “the world’s cheapest car.”
Here’s a clip from the Economic Times about the Nano’s early advertising:
It wasn’t just for people who would have to stretch to get a car; it could also have been for the housewife or a youngster who’d just turned 18. But the advertising focused at a parity level. It was not aspirational to the one and not desirable to the other two.
Mr. Tata built the right car at the right moment, but he failed to build something much more important: empathy. Driven by ego, Tata couldn’t see the condescending tone of his slogan. He wasn’t empowering the people of India; he thought he was saving them. You’re too poor to afford something nice, he seemed to say, so here’s the world’s cheapest car. You’re welcome.
The market responded bitterly to this insult, and Tata Nano sales plummeted.
Could the Nano’s fate have been different? Luckily, we don’t have to imagine too hard. History gives us a near-perfect comparison—another small, affordable car built for the upwardly mobile masses:
The Volkswagen Beetle.
In the 1950s, Volkswagen aspired to break into the American market where big cars reigned supreme. They hired ad executive Bill Bernbach—one of the original “Mad Men” of Madison Avenue—to develop the Beetle’s first advertising campaign.