BRANDING YOGA

A HBR CASE STUDY ANALYSIS

What is Yoga?

The sanskrit word Yoga came from root ‘yuj’, Meaning “union”.

The Yoga Sutras, written by Patanjali, considered to be yoga’s most important precursor.

Yoga

Raja Yoga

Bhakti Yoga

Karma

Yoga

Jnana Yoga

Modern day Yoga – A brand and a multi-billion dollar industry valued at $5.7 billion in 2008

CASE STUDY–

2 Different people and their approach to BRAND YOGA

Bikram Choudhury

Founder of Bikram Yoga in America.

His Yoga style and technique in hot classrooms were patented as Bikram style which included asana and breathing exercise.

TARA STILES

A former model and ballet dancer.

Opened a studio Strala Yoga and made Yoga cool for the younger generation.

Open Source Yoga Unity (OSYU) filed a suit against Bikram, claiming that his copyrights and patents were invalid, and that yoga could not be copyrighted

Belief- Poses can’t be treated as private property.

Traditional Knowledge Digital Library-

Indian govt. responded to Bikram’s patents by assembling historians and scientists to catalog 1500 yoga poses found in ancient Sanskrit, urdu, persian.

Objective- to keep others from following bikram’s example.

Hindu American Foundation-

Launched a campaign – “Take back yoga – Brining to Light Yoga’s Hindu roots.

Objective – to acknowledge the connection between Hinduism and yoga. “Yoga is but one of Hinduism’s great contributions to humanity”.

DEBATE Continued…

DISCUSSION HAPPENED….

A Dicussion was held between Sheetal Shah of HAF, Tara Stiles, and others at Princeton University on the topic “Politics of Yoga”.

Sheetal Shah said “What we noticed . . . was that . . . while [Western yogis] are very accepting of the fact that yoga is rooted in ancient India, there was a tension calling it Hindu, or even accepting the fact that it was rooted in Hindu philosophy.

Should Yoga be commercialized/branded or be practiced as a free form?

Should Yoga be free from religious connections or be associated with Hinduism, Christianity, Jainism, Buddhism or any other religion?

There should be a middle ground between branding and keeping it as a free form. Yoga should be branded and publicized but not patented and restricted , its essence and naturality should be maintained.

It should not have any interference with any political or religious groups which will make it more complicated and restricted.

Yoga is rooted to early hindu origins but it should not associated with any religion.

Yoga should be promoted as a brand so that it is accessible to a larger audience and bring people of different origins together on a same platform.

Different Brands also gives different choices to various segment of the population.

Effective marketing and branding should be done so that the benefits of yoga can be utilized by all the sections of the society.

The HAF trying to brand yoga and associating it with Hinduism will fail in the western countries.

They can instead use the vedas inscribed in “Surya Namaskar”.

In a nutshell, branding of yoga cannot be stopped, it is according to individual preferences as to what type of yoga they want to perform, whether the “hot yoga” by Bikram yoga, secular yoga by strala or meditation.

A commercialization of yoga is indeed needed but a coolness factor will make it more appealing to the younger generation.

Yoga should not be involved in political or religious matters.

Branding of yoga should be done but the poses and asanas should not be patented and copyrighted.

Creditshttp://yogaisyouth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Intro-to-Yoga-Small-For-Web.jpg

http://wallpapersinhq.com/images/big/yoga-1426447.jpg

http://static.hothdwallpaper.net/51afaa7677b4c40164.jpg

http://tarastiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/REEBOK_TARA-STILES_PR-PORTRAIT_-8.jpg

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00351/yoga_12_351932b.jpg

http://www.opendoorwayreflections.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/problems-1.jpg

http://www.tkdl.res.in/tkdl/images/tkdl-logo1.jpg

http://www.hheonline.org/funds/fund_75/images/hafsmall.jpg

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/steveolenski/files/2014/09/bigstock-Challenges-Road-Sign-3530978.jpg

http://happyeaters.net/gfile/75r4!-!HFIJEM!-!zrzor45!-!NGFGNDFM-RPLQ-HLKP-ONFQ-PJNIGKENPFNH!-!72y1nq/tumblr_mb9z4raobn1qduh58o1_1280.jpg

http://images.mapsofindia.com/my-india/2015/01/commercialization-of-yoga.jpg

http://uvmbored.com/files/2011/08/Debate.jpg

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/75/fa/33/75fa333a071db0da0c75dd331fed36a5.jpg

http://biz-store.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/conclusion-introduction-starter-plenary.jpg

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3507/4081427228_1e52a107e3_z.jpg?zz=1

Created By :-

Soham Nayak , NIT Calicut

Internship with Prof Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow

www.IIMinternship.com