Parviz Karami

Production of something in country and its competition with the same foreign production is one issue, and changing the wrong culture of "domestic production has poor quality" is other issue. We need tools and goods to work and these can be domestic or foreign. Domestic of foreign being of Clothing, tools, laboratory equipment, televisions, food and other things of our lives and works is not the man issue. The main issue is we need these tools and cloths and… and we should provide them from anywhere that we can.

But when the issue is quality the "brand" becomes issue too. Cloth is cloth but when we see one is better tailored, more beautiful, and has better quality the buyer would choose good between good and bad, he will choose better between good and better and he will chose the best between better and the best. Is brand means that something is really good? I am writing this text and I heard a Porsche and a BMW had accident and crew died in both cars.

Both cars are belonging to one of the best and biggest companies and they are very expensive. Both cars are luxury and they advertise that their car will bring safety for you.  Porsche and BMW are so much famous that we cannot compare them with domestic cars. In addition they are so much well known that many people around world know their names and longing for having them. Meanwhile in this recent accident none was safe and could not prevent death.

In both cares nothing was different with "Pride" and drivers were thrown out of the window.  I don’t mean that expensive cars are not different with Peykan or Pride. Surely it is on our engineers to find and solve Prides problems and make it standard and increase its safety rate. But the considerable issue apart from engineering calculations and technical discussion is people believed that domestic productions – Pride or Peeykan or carpet and cloth – have poor qualities and this increases validity of foreign products.

But when we hear about accident of domestic cars apart from technical issues we think that Iranian products are poor in quality and do not care about consumer. In fact brand issue is a cultural case and if we want to do something about it we should change our cultural believes first. What prompted me to write this is determination of technologists and academics and industrialists of the country in holding "the third exhibition of equipment and laboratory supplies Made in Iran" and satisfied institutions and universities to buy Iranian products instead of foreign ones.

But if this exhibition and exhibitions like this do not be associated with changes in our culture then many of consumers will think that if they buy Iranian product they did a favor and they deserve a great encouragement. Of course for satisfying consumers to use Iranian products we need to have encouragement and some facilities. But until we do not resolve our cultural problem in policy will not go anywhere. Lets look at it from other angle. Suppose you have an appointment with someone that you don’t know. I present two pictures from your appointment. In first one he come with an expensive car and wear brand European cloth. He has Swiss made watch and his shoes are Italian.

In second picture he comes with a Pride. His clothes are inexpensive and made in Iran. How you will treat with him? Here in Tehran we have many shops that rent you foreign cars and watches and clothes and have lots of costumers. Why people should make themselves look like someone else? They want to impress who with expensive cars and clothes? The interesting thing is everyone know about it and there is a possibility of making such fake appearance. However, this "pretending" works and people do their things with that. This means there is something missing inside of human and he tries to cover it with these things. It means when Self-confidence is low, human is obligated to use these valid brands. Socially speaking a consumer society involves with brands that have self-confidence problem.

کهن جامه خویش آراستن/ به از جامه عاریت خواستن

People that have this kind of poems in their culture are less involved in consumerism. But not every problem returns to consumerism.  Iranian carpet has the best quality in the world and despite of presence of new competitors it is still the best and its marketing is not becoming low. It means that in field of culture and art we worked good and the build strong basis.

Peykan is made in Iran too but not only it is not getting better but also it has deteriorated day by day. Peykan 48 was was better than peykan 50 and Peykan 50 was better than Peykan 60. The quality downtrend of this brand was so indispensable that they shot it down for stopping the economic loss. So the quality is important and it should not be underestimated. Quality even affects our attitudes.  Some of domestic producers to show their quality they write "for export" on their product. For export means that our product is so good that even fastidious foreigners use it. Foreigners are not fastidious but because they have money they can choose easily.

But Middle East people are even richer and have more products to choose.  English people have a proverb says "we are not rich enough to buy cheap" this means expensive product means quality and cheap product means poor quality. Some brands take advantage of this and sale their products more expensive. Subconsciously consumer believes that product quality is also high. Economics is important.

Developing countries are faced with numerous patterns for their progress. Many of them want to be like Japan. Some want to be like Korea. Recently Turkey pattern has been added. But disadvantage of this issue is that they are not based on geography and culture of the country and for this reason prime cost is expensive. Also quality is not only measured in comparison with European products. Self-sufficiency is not making everything at your own country. We are in interaction with the world and we can provide some of our needs from other counties. But this is when we do not be only consumers and help with parts of needs of world. Of course selling oil is kind of meeting the worlds needs but no reason and economy suggests crud sale. We have other capabilities that based on them we can be producer. We export leather from Iran to Italy and Italy exports shoes all over the world. We sell soil of Hormuz Island with cheapest price to cosmetics factories and they make expensive products and sell them to the world. If economy of country become knowledge based as officials and wise leader of Revolution said, surely Irans name will be on list of producers.

Good marketing is not just because of money and decreasing the unemployment rate. It also in cultural aspects increases self-confidence of Iranian people. In production marketing works well the quality of products will be so high that there will be no need for advertising. However this slogan is the best slogan that can become true under support of knowledge based economy: Iranian, buy Iranian products.

Editor of the magazine "Saramad" and chief consultant of the National Elites Foundation