Brand Gandhi lives by licensing to luxury brands

Mahatma Gandhi, a prolific writer, may not have ever used a Mont Blanc to write any of his soul- stirring words, nor did he flaunt any branded item of daily use even when he was a successful lawyer in South Africa, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming one of the most respected brands in the country, 140 years after he was born this day in the then princely state of Porbandar.

Mont Blanc, the Swiss luxury brand, unveiled a limited edition of 241 pens in Mumbai earlier this week to commemorate Gandhi's 241- milelong Dandi March against the punitive salt tax in 1930. The pen, which has an 18- carat gold nib plated with rhodium, is priced at Rs 14 lakh (USD 28,000). The company has also rolled out the ' Mahatma Gandhi 3000' pen ( priced at Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.7 lakh i.e. USD 3000 to USD 3400) with sterling silver mountings on its cap and the cone.

" We must learn to accept that Mont Blanc is not associated with being frugal as Bapu was. Still, they have felt the need to salute his image," says Tushar Gandhi, the Mahatma's great grandson. Mont Blanc, though, is not the first big brand that has wanted to get linked with the Mahatma. Says Tushar Gandhi, " One of the most surprising cases was the campaign the makers of the Audi car had conceived of, exclusively for Spain, where they had wanted to license Bapu's image. I asked them how they would justify the use of Bapu's image in that campaign. They replied it was the ' long- lasting untarnished image of Mahatma Gandhi' that they wanted Audi to be identified with." But the campaign got shelved mid- way for some undisclosed reason.

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