Branding Yoga Case analysis

1. Branding Yoga
Harvard Business School Case
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL CASE 1

2. Why study
this case?
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3. Objectives of this case
To understand how to brand a business.
How a business creates customer value.
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4. Importance of Branding.
Is everything Brandable?
Objectives of this case
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5. Present
Situation?
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6. Situation Analysis
Yoga’s popularity has grown
into a $6 billion business.
A cast of entrepreneurs has
emerged with their own style
of practicing yoga.
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7. Situation Analysis
Bikram
Choudhary
Believed in
copyright and
patent of yoga.
Tara Stiles
Believed that yoga
is more of a
personal thing and
can be practiced
anyway one likes.
HAF
Wanted to
establish that
yoga was one
of the greatest
contributions
of Hinduism.
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8. Situation Analysis
The marketing of yoga and
dispute over its origins have
led to debate as to
whether yoga should
be branded at all?
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9. Two paths..
Branded?
Not
branded?
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10. Bikram’s Yoga
Who is Bikram Choudhary?
Born in 1946 in Calcutta, began to study yoga at the
age of 4 under his guru, Bishnu Ghosh.
Arrived in America in 1971, opening his first studio in
Los Angeles.
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11. Bikram Style
Taught HathaYoga.
Classroom temp. 100 to 105 degrees.
90 minutes long
classes.
26 asanas and 2
breathing exercises.
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12. In 1979, he trademarked his company’s
name, Bikram’sYoga College of India.
In 2002, worried that people were copying his
style, Bikram decided to patent the
Bikram Style, including the asana series
and breathing exercises.
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13. Hundreds of cease-and-desist
letters were slapped on
competing studio owners.
“To stop them from stealing, I
must go to lawyers” Bikram
told a reporter in 2003.
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14. • In 2006, Indian government responded to Bikram’s yoga
patents.
• A panel of 100 historians and scientists began to catalog 1,500
yoga poses found in ancient Sanskrit, Urdu, and Persian.
• The goal was to keep others from following Bikram’s strategy.
• Their logic: Yoga was a part of India’s “Traditional Knowledge” .
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15. By 2011, some 5,000 BikramYoga Studios had
opened around the world.
According to one estimate, Bikram’s business
was earning $5 million a year.
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16. What inferences
can be drawn
about Bikram’s
Marketing
Strategy?Harvard Business School Case 16

17. Inferences
• Very good Branding Strategy.
• He knew the importance of Bikram brand.
• He understood the importance of his
product (YOGA)
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18. Inferences
• Understood the potential in his product.
• Established the differenece ofYoga and
Bikram’sYoga.
• Knew the requirements
of Branding.
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19. Stiles Approach
Who is Tara Stiles?
Born in 1981, she discovered yoga as a preteen.
Her early experiences of yoga were personal
and drew from several different traditions.
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20. Stiles Approach
When she moved to NewYork
in 2000, she disliked theYoga
“gurus”.
She taught yoga classes out of
her apartment and offered
private sessions.
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21. Women’s Health and the
Huffington Post hired her as a
blogger.
In 2008, opened her own
studio, StralaYoga.
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22. Stiles yoga was highly secular.
No Sanskrit words were used.
She believed- “People need yoga,
not another religious leader.”
She was “making yoga cool”
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23. No plans to patent her classes.
Published a book “Slim Calm SexyYoga” and launched a yoga
DVD under Jane Fonda's "Team Fonda" fitness brand.
In addition she also released a yoga iPad app “AuthenticYoga”
with one of her students.
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24. What
inferences can
be drawn from
Stiles
Approach?Harvard Business School Case 24

25. Inferences
• No intentions of developing a brand.
• Not very regimented for her classes.
• Unlike Bikram, Stiles did not open
many studios.
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26. Inferences
• She did not wanted to mix yoga
with religious beliefs, unlike
Bikram.
• She believes that yoga is more of
being natural.
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27. In 2009, the advocacy group Hindu American
Foundation (HAF) , concerned over yoga’s
commercialisation, launched a campaign – “Take
Back Yoga- Bringing to Light Yoga’s Hindu
Roots”
Goal was to get U.S. yoga devotees to
acknowledge that the roots of yoga came
from Hindu faith.
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28. The Debate
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29. On April 18, 2010, Aseem Shukla, a
member of HAF’s board, wrote a
piece for the Washington Post’s On
Faith column, entitled, “The Theft
of Yoga” that indicated that yoga
originated in Hinduism.
Debate
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30. Deepak Chopra responded to this
post accusing Shukla of having a
fundamentalist agenda in mind and
that evidences show that Hinduism
came as a religion after many
centuries of foundation of yoga.
Debate
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31. The Debate continued..
Chopra countered that yoga
predated Hinduism, but said he
wished to “find common ground
[with Shukla] in the term Sanatana
Dharma, the eternal wisdom of
life.”
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32. In November 2010, the New York Times
ran an article about HAF’s “Take Back
Yoga” campaign and the ongoing
debate over the origins of yoga.
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33. In March 2011, Sheetal Shah of HAF,
Tara Stiles, and many other
professors from many colleges
participated in a discussion at
Princeton University called “The
Politics ofYoga.”
Debate
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34. Questions raised in Discussion
Does yoga belong to Hinduism
or any other tradition?
Or
Its validity is for exercise alone?
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35. Evidences from History
Earliest records of
Yoga was found in
IndusValley
Civilisation dated
to 3rd millennium.
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36. Evidences from History
Indian Philosopher, Patanjali,
wrote theYoga Sutras.
Historians believed theYoga
Sutras were most likely
written after the Bhagavad
Gita(circa 300 B.C.)
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37. Harvard Business School Case 37

38. Evidences from History
The texts related to the limbs of yoga inYoga
Sutras are also sacred to Hinduism.
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39. Evidences from History
Some Historians argued thatYoga
predated Hinduism.
A historian noted thatYoga was
“technically a part of three religions-
Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism.”
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40. Possible Conclusion
• History gives indication that yoga predated
Hinduism.
• Moreover, it is part of different world’s
religions.
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41. Other Questions?
Should Yoga be
branded?
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42. Harvard Business School Case 42
What is Yoga?
Yoga is associated with:
• quieting the mind.
• transcending with the
physical self.
• attaining communion with
the divine.

43. Harvard Business School Case 43
What is Yoga?
Hatha Yoga (physical exercises)
Bhakti yoga (yoga of devotion)
Karma yoga (yoga of service)
Jnana yoga (yoga of knowledge)
Raja yoga (mental cultivation through meditation).

44. Harvard Business School Case 44
Yoga is not only
about physical
exercise but it
has some
spirituality
attached with it.

45. Harvard Business School Case 45
Opinion
Yoga is meant to balance the mind, body and soul.
It is not a commodity to sell.
It should remain pristine and pure.

46. Harvard Business School Case 46
Opinion
Restricting its
practice to some
boundaries is
decreasing its
actual value.

47. Harvard Business School Case 47
Opinion
Not branding does not imply
that one cannot charge
people to teach them yoga.

48. Harvard Business School Case 48
Take Aways from the case
Can the conclusion be
generalised?
Well, not in this case,
since different people can
have different opinion on
this case.

49. Harvard Business School Case
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50. Created by Sonali Gupta,
Indian Institute Of Technology, Roorkee,
during an internship by
Prof. Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.
www.IIMInternship.com