Why the Ambani wedding helps the Indian-American brand

One of the gaudiest event series of our generation was net-positive for us.

Context: An “eat the rich” level of celebration

It was India’s richest Billionaire family marrying a well-known Millionaire family whose last name is Merchant. You can’t make this up.

The Ambani wedding was Indian Opulence at its extreme, coming in at a whopping ~$600M price tag. It all started with an engagement party that everyone thought was the actual wedding, and continued from there across continents, yachts parties, Rolex gifts and so much more. Celebrities from around the world flew to India as invited guests including the Kardashians, Tech Titans and Political leaders.

Why would something like this be good for the Indian-American brand?

A non-Bollywood event in India penetrated the American zeitgeist.

Hate it or love it, Bollywood is India’s single greatest export. In many ways that popularity is beneficial because otherwise they wouldn’t know any elements of our society. In other ways it casts a long shadow covering our true culture.

Bollywood floods the zone. It’s so all-consuming and has such high distribution that its difficult for anything else to get out and be heard. That’s why it was so powerful when, for first time at scale in the US, we saw TikTokers discussing a non-Bollywood Indian event: the Ambani wedding. That was a very important first.

It doesn’t matter that it was a gaudy wedding. It doesn’t matter that folks were railing against income inequality and clamoring “how could they”. What matters is that a real-life Indian event, not a manufactured on-screen one, broke through and became interesting to the average social media consumer.

What matters is that they were talking about it at all. This is modern cultural exchange.

Social media gawking and commenting is not a bad thing. This is an “all press is good press” situation, even if it makes us (Indian-Americans) uncomfortable. We need to embrace this not run away from it.

We want Indian culture to bleed into Indian-American culture and the broader US conversation. We want people of all races in the US to at least be talking about India and be curious for more. The fact that it happened through a wedding so gaudy is ok. When was the last time your friend Jamie asked you anything about India, at all?

It made Indian culture aspirational not just foreign.

The overly-opulent argument aside, this wedding was so incredible that it was downright aspirational. That is a completely new feeling not usually associated with Indian culture. The more this can happen, the better.

Remember that the Indian-American brand is very much still recovering from the Apu, snake charmers, IT-guy stereotypes. Don’t think for one second that the the prominence of Indian-American business, tech leaders and politicians all of a sudden makes people forget those age-old tropes.

Also, the fact that Indian-Americans are successful does not make us aspirational. “Model minorities”, regardless of what you think about the term, does not invoke a feeling of cool. It’s events like this wedding that slowly chip away at our age old stereotypes while making room for new ones.

The average American does not draw much of a distinction between Indian and Indian-American. What happens there reflects on us here. Our brand reputation is very much tied to what happens in India — especially for those events that penetrate the social media-sphere.

Throwing an event that features Mark Zuckerberg instead of Bengal Tigers helps shift the global reputation of Indians everywhere. It makes India the country approachable instead of foreign. It makes it Indians seem aspirational instead of third world.

Other countries have gone through similar reputation shifts over the last two decades. Look no further than the middle east. Saudi, UAE and others have gone to massive lengths to make their cultures more aspirational. Since India is unlikely sports-wash or pay social media influencers at scale, we’ll have to count on our capitalism to do it. The Ambanis are taking that step for us.

Demonstrates India’s increasing relevance on the world stage.

When Bill Gates shows up to a wedding, you pay attention. Add on top of that Tony Blair, Kim and Khloe, Ivanka Trump, Tim Cook, Law Roach … and all of a sudden you realize that you should care about this too.

Few events in the world attract this array of famous folks across business, tech, politics, culture and more. And while yes, probably many of these folks were paid in some way (just a guess!), it’s still a testament to the Ambani Family, to India and to its potential.

These elites are making clear what is lurking but not yet fully out in the open: India is rising. Much of this is due to not only to its increasing economic performance, but also the bi-partisan support for India amongst Democrats and Republicans. India is also growing in geopolitical relevance to the United States.

India is increasingly becoming a security & economic partner for the US, at a time when the cold war with China is full on. While India is unlikely to ever replace the manufacturing might of China, it will continue to serve as the back-office of the world, a role that only becomes more prominent as AI models scale.

As the US slowly decouples from China, elites from Tim Cook to celebrities like John Cena know that the next great market frontier is India. Their PR and Marketing Teams made sure they attended and were seen. After all, this was our equivalent of the Royal Wedding.

Remember: Slightly cringy is ok. Lean into it and answers questions from your friends.

As Indian-Americans, we can’t shy away from things that are pretty good for our brand but kind of cringy. Not every brand-positive moment for us comes as well wrapped as the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Sometimes its Trump holding hands with Modhi on stage in Texas.

These are rare moments when we capture the nation’s attention. When this happens, we have to explain to inquiring friends that no, not all Indian weddings are like that. But yes, we have many of the same traditions. Instead of Rolexes we give flowers. Instead of a full weekend of yacht parties we have one night called a Sangeet, a night of song and dance. No, we don’t agree with everything Modhi does, but very few Indian Prime Ministers have ever been truly friendly with sitting US presidents.

Ultimately we need to transend the brand of “model minority” (a semi-controversial term now). Embracing these cultural zeitgiest moments is one way we do that. We also need to embrace our motherland as their fate and our brand reputation are continually tied together. This will all work in our favor in the long run, even though it feels uncomfortable for now.