NEW DELHI: Jack Trout , international brand strategist and a pioneer of ‘positioning’ theory, says Tata Motors has bungled with the positioning of the Nano car and the company should phase out the car that was once touted the world over as an engineering marvel because of its $2,500 price tag.“I think they did the wrong piece of psychology. Tata Nano is hard to save. My view is, I would kill the brand,” Trout told ET in an interview on Wednesday. “The damage is done there. The most telling thing they did is calling it a ‘ cheap car ’.People don’t want a ‘cheap’ car, which their neighbours can see. Especially in India, there’s a prestige thing about buying a car.” Trout, who is in New Delhi to participate in a conference organised by the All India Management Association (AIMA), said Nano’s positioning as a “cheap” car killed the aspirational element in the car.“People graduate from a cycle to a twowheeler to a car; not the other way around,” he said. The world’s cheapest car was launched at a time when middle class Indians started to upgrade to pricier entry-level cars. And the car — raved by international media — never took off in a big way.Now, Tata Motors is trying to reposition Nano as a smart city car targeted at the country’s burgeoning youth brigade by adding new features including fancy wheel covers, music system and new colour variants. But it sells only about 2,500 Nanos a month, down from about 10,000 units a year-and-half ago.Trout, who owns Connecticut-based international consulting firm Trout & Partners, has more than 40 years of marketing experience and has authored several marketing classics including ‘Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind’, ‘Marketing Warfare’ and ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing’. On India as an investment destination, Trout said the country needs to invest in infrastructure, health and education to make it attractive for international investors.“India is a country that needs a lot of work. The more you build infrastructure, improve the poverty situation, focus on healthcare and education, create jobs, the more people would say this is the place to invest in. Because what you have here is a very large market,” he said. “When I say job creation, I mean the middle class — it’s these consumers who generate demand,” he added.On Wednesday, Trout made a presentation on the topic, ‘Positioning an old idea whose time has come again’ in a ‘Session with Strategy Guru’ hosted by AIMA at Le Meridien hotel in the capital. He said perception is a problem for India. “If you have a Jaguar, you don’t want people to know it’s an Indian brand,” he said.“You have to come to grips with the fact that you have to have an identity change. You don’t see a lot of Indian brands overseas.” Trout said Indian companies need to come together to change this. “The concerted effort is missing…. Companies are operating in their own bubble,” he said.Indian companies marketing their products overseas have got to build brands. “Many companies here have not really been into the marketing game,” he said. “Challenges are creating knowledge, differentiation, packaging, and understanding the process of marketing,” Trout said.