This document summarizes a Harvard Business School case study on branding yoga. It outlines different approaches taken by Bikram Choudhary and Tara Stiles in marketing yoga. Bikram strongly branded his hot yoga style, trademarking and patenting his method. Tara Stiles took a more secular approach without explicit branding. This led to debate around whether yoga should be branded or remain unbranded given its spiritual roots in Hinduism. The case discusses the origins of yoga in ancient India and examines the question of whether yoga can or should be branded as a business.

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

2. Why study
this case?
Harvard Business School Case 2

3. Objectives of this case
To understand how to brand a
business.
How a business creates customer
value.
Harvard Business School Case 3

4. Importance of
Branding.
Is everything
Brandable?
Objectives of this case
Harvard Business School Case 4

5. Present
Situation?
Harvard Business School Case 5

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. Harvard Business School Case 6

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.
Harvard Business School Case 7

8. Situation Analysis
The marketing of yoga
and dispute over its
origins have led to
debate as to whether
yoga should be
Harvard Business School Case 8

9. Two paths..
Branded?
Not
branded?
Harvard Business School Case 9

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.Harvard Business School Case 10

11. Bikram Style
Taught Hatha Yoga.
Classroom temp. 100 to 105 degrees.
90 minutes long
classes.
26 asanas and 2
breathing
exercises.
Harvard Business School Case 11

12. In 1979, he trademarked his
company’s name, Bikram’s Yoga
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.
Harvard Business School Case 12

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.
Harvard Business School Case 13

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” . Harvard Business School Case
14

15. By 2011, some 5,000 Bikram Yoga
Studios had opened around the
world.
According to one estimate, Bikram’s
business was earning $5 million a year.
Harvard Business School Case 15

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)
Harvard Business School Case 17

18. Inferences
• Understood the potential in his
product.
• Established the differenece of Yoga
and Bikram’s Yoga.
• Knew the requirementsHarvard Business School Case 18

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. Harvard Business School Case 19

20. Stiles Approach
When she moved to New
York in 2000, she disliked
the Yoga “gurus”.
She taught yoga classes
out of her apartment and
offered private sessions.
Harvard Business School Case 20

21. Women’s Health and the
Huffington Post hired her as
a blogger.
In 2008, opened her own
studio, Strala Yoga.
Harvard Business School Case 21

22. Stiles yoga was highly
secular.
No Sanskrit words were
used.
She believed- “People
need yoga, not another
religious leader.”
Harvard Business School Case 22

23. No plans to patent her classes.
Published a book “Slim Calm Sexy Yoga” and
launched a yoga DVD under Jane Fonda's "Team
Fonda" fitness brand.
In addition she also released a yoga iPad app
“Authentic Yoga” with one of her students.
Harvard Business School Case 23

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 notHarvard Business School Case 25

26. Inferences
• She did not wanted to mix
yoga with religious beliefs,
unlike Bikram.
• She believes that yoga is
more of being natural.
Harvard Business School Case 26

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.
Harvard Business School Case 27

28. The
Debate
Harvard Business School Case 28

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
Harvard Business School Case 29

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
Harvard Business School Case 30

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.”
Harvard Business School Case 31

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.
Harvard Business School Case 32

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
of Yoga.”
Debate
Harvard Business School Case 33

34. Questions raised in Discussion
Does yoga belong to Hinduism
or any other tradition?
Or
Its validity is for exercise alone?
Harvard Business School Case 34

35. Evidences from History
Earliest records
of Yoga was
found in Indus
Valley
Civilisation
dated to 3rd
millennium. Harvard Business School Case 35

36. Evidences from History
Indian Philosopher,
Patanjali, wrote the
Yoga Sutras.
Historians believed the
Yoga Sutras were most
likely written after the
Bhagavad Gita(circaHarvard Business School Case 36

37. Harvard Business School Case 37

38. Evidences from History
The texts related to the limbs of yoga
in Yoga Sutras are also sacred to
Hinduism.
Harvard Business School Case 38

39. Evidences from History
Some Historians argued that
Yoga predated Hinduism.
A historian noted that Yoga was
“technically a part of three
religions- Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism.”
Harvard Business School Case 39

40. Possible Conclusion
• History gives indication that yoga
predated Hinduism.
• Moreover, it is part of different world’s
religions.
Harvard Business School Case 40

41. Other Questions?
Should Yoga be
branded?
Harvard Business School Case 41

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
49

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