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Innovation Conference 27th September 2011.

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“Now the global brands also have a focused market, ” said R Balakrishnan, writer and director of Cheeni Kum. Known more commonly as Balki, he is also the National Creative Director of Lowe Lintas. Balki was speaking at the session “Is there anything called the Indian Consumer?” during The Marketing Summit 2007 organised by CII at Delhi.

“Every person in India has multiple identities. This underlies the Indian consumer. India being a strong family oriented society, for the youth boarding and lodging becomes free even when they earn, so they have a huge disposable income to spend as per their will. Typically, Traditionalism and Modernism co exist here. There is a value consciousness in the Indian homes, which lately MNCs have also realised. There is now a movement towards value added products as people now do not necessarily go for the cheapest ones.” But before ending on this note, Arvind Wable, Chairman and CEO, FCB ULKA did not fail to quote author Shashi Tharoor “Any truth about India can be equally contradicted by an equally valid truth.” He also used the examples of Bingo chips and Scorpio, Toyota and Sumo (four wheelers) to show how marketers were using different varieties and brands of similar products for different group of Indians to validate his theory of ‘multiple identities and several markets within India’.

Charulata Ravikumar, Managing partner and National Head, Integrated Services, JWT India said that Indians now are accepting and managing their dual roles comfortably. “Spirituality goes along with changing values and modern and traditional go hand in hand. The difference between urban and rural is also getting blurred. Peoples’ aspirations are growing continuously. There is a dual consumer in each one of us, who is constantly evolving, and people are accepting this now. So, brands need to recognise the double role and look for key inflexion points relevant to the category to position themselves.”

Vijay Mallya, Chairman and CEO, UB Group started his Keynote Address giving his definition of ‘Brand’ as ‘a personality’, ‘as a person you can communicate to’ and ‘not as a commodity’. He said ‘luxury’ according to him is ‘aspiration’, ‘something that one looks forward to’. Adding, he said, while he was in the process of establishing Kingfisher as a brand, he had realised that India was a very young country and Young India wanted something that was ‘rocking’. So he linked his brands with lifestyle and sports, which is always aspiration of the youth. He also gave a suggestion to the brand managers – “ Don’t let your brand loose focus and never allow your brand to go stale. Invest every 2-3 years to make it look fresh.” The brand personality of his brands is a perfect marriage between ‘Aspiration’ and ‘Luxury’. He added, “ One should not depend 100% on market research. Gut feeling is also very important.”

“Rural markets will change with the advent of infrastructure and connectivity,” said Suhel Seth, Chairman, The Marketing Summit 2007 and Managing Partner, Counselage at the Marketing Summit 2007. “Innovation, interest and insight will bring the key difference in understanding the rural market and the ‘aam aadmi’,” he added.

”The marketer has to understand the development process of the rural market as the aspiration is fast tracked for the rural consumer compared to the urban consumer. The challenges for the rural markets are to establish trust, creating innovative product packaging and providing the right communication for the brand. The marketer has to create brand proposition by building iconic images and focusing on marketing challenges rather than penetration challenges.”

”Focus on rural markets can only grow if the margins in urban markets fall and existing markets become stagnant, said Seth. He also emphasized on the infiltration of media to the rural areas to make rural population more brand specific.”

S Sivakumar, Chief Executive – Agri business Division, ITC Limited addressing the session on ‘Integrating the rural consumer – Challenges ahead for the Indian Marketers’, said that distribution and reaching the rural markets at low cost is a major challenge. He said that the business has to be looked from the income generating perspective of the farmers since most of Indians still depend on agriculture as their sole occupation.

Technology, real time knowledge, local representation and transparent farm input transaction through collaborative effort creates architecture for profitability to the farmers as well as marketers, said Sivakumar. There is an opportunity of value creation in Indian rural segment which can be met with building appropriate channel, he added.

Gowthaman Ragothama, Managing Director, Mindshare, speaking on the session: ‘Changing media habits and innovative ways to reach the Indian consumer’, said, “Buoyancy, fragmentation and convergence are creating impact on the changing media habits of Indian consumers, said. Media is yet to reach to the Indian mass, as penetration is very low as compared to other emerging economies.” “Reach and diversity are the biggest challenge for Indian media. India can be divided into global, aspiring, destitute and struggling socio-economic strata to create varying reach options for the media,” he added.

Punitha Arumugam, Group CEO, Madison Media emphasized that the Indian consumer has not changed over a period of last few years but has become elusive. She said that word of mouth, technology, common sense and dialogue with consumers are the simple elements of creating media attention. Focus to narrowcast consumers and insights to communication are also important factors in creating distinctive brand identity in otherwise cluttered medium, she added.

”The television channels and print publications have grown considerably in last seven years but consumers spend less time on each of them,” said Madhukar Kamath, Managing Director and CEO, Mudra Group. Commenting on the 80% growth of advertisers, he said that the increase from 4120 in 2003 to 7368 advertisers in 2006 shows the immense opportunity for media. “The basic tenet of creativity still exists in media and the advertiser should focus on interesting, entertaining and creative media usage to capitalise on the current opportunities. Retail and in-shop advertising is also going to play a major role in near future.”

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Marketability of social networking sites is overhyped

Marketers treat SNS as media space

It sounds sexy. It sounds very savvy, very happening. And therefore often features in the communication recommendation mix. But social networking sites (SNS) is indeed a overhype in its respect of providing the scale and measurability that one almost takes for granted on digital avenues these days. Marketers often treat these sites as media space and provide for a platform to advertise through banners, shoshkeles, wibbly wobblys, scrolling scrawlies, etc.

SNS are a part of many a groups’ living and brands must behave within these sites as such… as a part of their lives not as a brand. This demands a confident brand that can play its role without the crutch of traditional advertising. SNSs provide creation of trends. And trends are not created by overt means. These trends, once created, must be percolated down to the mass users to achieve the scale and measurability.

Furthermore, a big challenge faced in SNS marketing is the selection of such sites. Most know of only a few, very few such sites. But communities get formed at mind connect points leading to hyper-segmentation and sites known to a restricted community. And even when you have gotten to those sites, it becomes important to isolate the trend setters within these to make a meaningful impact.

Creating new relevant SNSs is a great way to leverage a brand’s connects with its consumers. However, the hype seems to rest at that, with very little thought going into the content management and content evolution. So the initial peak for such sites remains but a blip and is unable to sustain itself for a long time.

SNS need to evolve constantly in new forms and avatars to cater to a simple rule of youth law…belonging to unbelong and then again… unbelonging to belong. This creates break away sites from sites. Depending on them to provide immediate results and sales skews would be unrealistic. Yes, it is an exciting development and one that will determine or deviate many a trend amongst youth in future. It cannot be ignored.

But to place all your bets on it as a simple advertising medium would be a folly of fad slaves. SNSs are not revenue generators but act as facilitators and need to be carefully selected for relevance and clear objective fulfillment not because its fashionable to do so.

Give it few years & see where it leads to

Web 2.0 simply implies a platform where a user lets her intentions known (search), or contributes a text, opinion, video, photo or anything else. What the user is able to contribute really depends on what the platform is capable of ‘extracting’ from the user.

Why is it useful? In two respects; one the intention of the consumer is clear. If I am searching for homes in Mumbai, a marketer would, in a way already know what I am looking for. A typical and popular Web 2.0 platform currently earns huge sums of money from this model; and for the marketer it is really a dream come true to know what is the consumer is looking for.

The second reason is they hold a mirror to the consumer, in a sense that they provide the highest level of interactivity between the consumer and the marketer by allowing the former to express herself in a way she wants to, thereby adding to the first point, that is, making one’s intentions clear.

Agreed, that except for the current search platforms, not much else in this domain of internet has been successfully monetised. But what the heck? This has been around only for the last three years compared to 150 years of newspapers, 60 years of TV and nearly 30 years of internet (Web 1.0)! Give it another few years and see where it leads to; we would be talking about Facebook, ibibo, Bigadda, Orkut and Myspace in the same vein as we talk about Google search now.

Of course, the way the so called web 2.0 sites are coming up in India one would be inclined to believe that most of these would fade out, bought over or simply perish. Yes, some would fade out, others would perish and many would be bought out and a few would be running on their own steam.

But none of these situations could take away from these sites the fact that each of these site would get millions of people on to them everyday conducting at least a million transactions. That I would say would be a billion dollar opportunity if you are ready to step out of your ivory tower and explore where the 18-35 year olds are going.

Saying that marketability of social-networking sites is over-hyped is like saying that the Indian stock markets are overvalued…a rational view, but those that have to profit from it are doing it everyday, by understanding it, better than us.

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Advertising and marketing services go hand in hand. Bates is an ad agency and 141 Worldwide takes things forward with through-the-line initiatives. The two teams function together to activate the brand. Activation means that the brand is not just talking through advertising but interacting with the consumer.

Charulata Ravi Kumar, Country Head, 141 Worldwide, and EVP and GM, Bates India

Charulata Ravi Kumar, Country Head 141 Worldwide, and EVP and General Manager Bates India, who has 17 years of experience, started her career with Sista’s (now known as Saatchi & Saatchi). From Sista’s she moved on to JWT, Clarion (now Bates) and Lowe while she was in India.

Then she moved to the Middle East with an offer from Grey. Thereafter, she moved to Bates (Middle East) to launch 141 Worldwide. She also helped in setting up 141 Worldwide in Kolkata in 2003. In December 2004, she was given additional responsibility to head Bates Delhi. Sakshi Talwar of exchange4media, talks to Charulata about her journey through the years. Excerpts:

Q.
You have always been an advertising person. How is it that you ended setting up 141 Worldwide, a marketing services company, in the Middle East?

A.
I believe in marketing services as form of communication. Traditionally, 90 per cent of ad spends have gone to above-the-line activity, mainly TV and print. Since you cannot put your money behind 70-odd channels, the main thing was how to use clients’ money better without increasing their budgets. Everywhere in the world, companies started to feel that traditional ATL advertising alone is not sufficient for a brand. How to communicate the brand more effectively is where it all started. At that time, one of the accounts I was working on was British American Tobacco, which is globally handled by 141 Worldwide. So, in the Middle East, 141 Worldwide needed to be set up, and I had to drive the project through for the BAT account. Also, i worked in 141 Headquarters in London before coming to India, which gave me exposure to the new world of marketing and communications with global methods and innovative offerings.

Q.
Why was it set up as a separate division of Bates? What has been its response?

A.
It was set up as a separate division to reinforce the importance of point of contact with consumers. In addition, the kind of people who work in 141 Worldwide are not necessarily from advertising; they come from specialised backgrounds. Since everyone knows Bates for advertising, to go and tell people that we have additional functions was not credible enough. 141 Worldwide has huge credibility globally. Its response has been excellent. We have won nine accounts since we set it up in 2003.

Q.
How is it different from other marketing services companies?

A.
141 started in the West in 1992. It was different from other marketing services companies as it offered the entire gamut of marketing services under one umbrella. There were individual outfits that specialised in their own areas like direct marketing, event management, retail, etc. But in 141 Worldwide, we got all the services together.

Q.
Can you elaborate on the kind of specialisation and services you provide with 141 Worldwide?

A.
In India, we provide a lot of B2B activities, which include activating a brand and creating brand interaction with your trade and channel partners. We also have a CRM team which has a more personalised approach. It is often mistaken for direct mailing, which is only one part of CRM. It could be service at the retail outlets, creating a regular channel of interaction, etc. And then there are events and promotions. There is also a reference programme that we connect with our CRM programme.

Q.
How do Bates and 141 Worldwide function simultaneously?

A.
Advertising and marketing services go hand in hand. Apart from advertising, how do you take the values of the brand into various other functions that still interact with the same consumer? Bates is an advertising agency and 141 Worldwide takes it forward with through-the-line initiatives. The two teams function together to activate the brand. Activation means that the brand is not just talking through advertising but interacting with the consumer.

Q.
Why is it described as ‘through-the-line’ marketing division?

A.
When we talk about through-the-line, people automatically start putting advertising into outdoor, radio, poster, etc. It is a lot more of scientific thinking than just putting it into media other than TV and print. Given the increasing fragmentation of media, it is a judicious mix of below-the-line and above-the-line that help brands connect with the target audience. For example, we have a dedicated BTL team and an ATL team that work on Nokia. The purpose of providing this kind of specialisation is to ensure that the brand gets a well-rounded marketing strategy.

Q.
Are the clients for 141 Worldwide independent of Bates?

A.
Clients are independent of Bates but if clients of 141 Worldwide have advertising needs, we bring in team from Bates to work on it. There are clients exclusive to 141 Worldwide and Bates, and also clients that are common to both. In India, 141 Worldwide has clients like ITC, Nokia, Shell, Rupa Innerware and Star News.

Q.
Is 141 Worldwide yielding profits? Will it be more profitable than Bates?

A.
141 Worldwide has been very profitable because in marketing services, margins are higher than in advertising. It is a very work intensive and lucrative area. However, we are looking at a 50-50 split, which means some revenues from both. That’s also a reflection on the trend in the market that will emerge in terms of brand spends. Brand spends across the world have become 50-50 between marketing services and advertising and it has started happening in India as well.

Q.
What is the vision for the Bates group?

A.
We want to take Bates among the top seven in 12 months’ time. Bates does not figure among the top 10 agencies in India at the moment but we are very likely to get there considering the pace at which we are growing. This year the revenue of the Delhi branch has gone up by 30 per cent over the last calendar year. Not only that, we have been doing some great work on Indian Airlines, Nokia, Dabur and Indiatimes.

Q.
What has been the biggest challenge of your career?

A.
Every point was a different kind of challenge. When you are junior, even if you have brains and you are talking sense, it is tough to get your point across if you don’t have the experience. Being a woman was also a challenge in this business. It is better now as things have changed, but it was a little more conventional in the early years of my career. And professionally, I have learnt to push my limits over the years.

Q.
In advertising, do you think there is a trend towards attaching a social message to a brand?

A.
It depends on the product. You can’t give a social message for a lifestyle product. For instance, you can’t say that for every Cartier you buy, a child’s life is going to be saved. That is not going to get people to buy a Cartier. It might help people to buy Benetton as social messages have been a part of their brand image. It can’t be a forced social message as it should be relevant to the brand. Human emotion on the other hand works across the entire spectrum of advertising. Putting children in ads works as a rule of thumb. Even if it is a very premium brand like Rolex, human emotions work always.

Colin Watts,
Chief Innovation Officer, Walgreens (2010 Jury Chair)

Ed Uebele, Marketing Director, MARS Petcare (2010 US Winner)

Associate Brand Manager, MARS Petcare (2010 US Winner)

Natalie Banks 
Marketing Director, Wella (2009 US Winner)

Neil Shah 
Brand Manager, SC Johnson Aircare (2010 US Winner)

Mike San Clemente
 Associate Brand Manager, MARS Petcare (2010 US Winner)