Amit Kumar Gope, National Marketing Head of CenturyPly Group, tells us about the brand’s new campaign that targets consumers, not influencers, and the company’s focus on building brand CenturyPly through consistent advertising
By Simran Sabherwal
Q] What is the insight and proposition behind your latest campaign, ‘Khushiyon ka Rangmanch’?
Our brand is in a category that is heavily led by influencer recommendation and the advertising has been product-led and functional, talking about strength, durability, etc. Being leaders in ply and strong followers in laminates and veneers, we conducted an extensive market research across India and found that quality and trust are seen to be embedded in our brand. However, we realized that we need to create brand value and for that we had to connect with the end consumer, the idea being that despite being a low involvement category, they would ask for CenturyPly whenever the need arose. There has to be an emotional connect and the link we chose was happiness and the creative process came up with ‘Khushiyon Ka Rangmanch’, which we liked. The conviction here is that we are in the business of creating surfaces which are witness to everyday moments of joy and happiness. The surface, for example, could be your childhood study table and the memory associated with it - we are looking to tap those memories. When the script came to us, we felt that actor Nana Patekar would be the perfect protagonist for it. We liked the idea so much that we told the creative agency either get us Nana or get another script. However, Nana had not done any advertising before and we waited three months for him to confirm that he was on board. The other challenge was who would do the film. We decided to go with Abhinay Deo, who had worked with us earlier, as we had intrinsic faith in his ability and the feedback so far has been very positive.
Q] How has the proposition changed from your earlier campaigns?
This is a corporate campaign while the earlier campaigns were product-specific. We have around 18 brands in various formats, but this was not clearly structured and the architecture was not clearly defined. We re-structured the brand internally and the corporate brand is now called CenturyPly, a strong entity in itself. The colour connotation has also changed and the logo has CenturyPly with century laminates and veneers written below it. We will follow this up with a products campaign, but looking ahead, we will have our corporate brand campaign every year with the focus on building the brand. We are looking to increase our brand affinity and trying to enter the consumer’s mindspace with our advertising. We are not targeting our influencers – architects, designers, carpenters, with our campaigns. We engage with them on a regular basis with our activities and schemes in the marketplace, and are not looking at speaking to them through television.
Q] What does your media mix look like?
Television is our lead medium as we realized that connecting with consumers is best done on TV. We are also using Radio, Digital and Outdoor, but are not using Print as it is expensive. On the Digital front, we have revamped our website completely and it now engages the consumer more. Our social media activity has been ramped up completely. We have also invested in the website Nestopia, India’s first interior design marketplace, which has information on designers and their work from across the country. We are targeting the Hindi-speaking markets and in South India, we are focussed on Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Karnataka and Kerala will have a spill-over effect from the media, anyway.
Q] How will you define your core TG?
I will say, ‘an inspired home-maker’. He or she could be anybody, a 27-year old first home buyer or a 35-year old home renovator or a 45-yearold second home buyer. People today browse the Internet, check out designs for their dream home and are very involved in the whole process and that’s who we are looking to target.
Q] What is your strategy to drive growth in the industry?
The organized sector is about a Rs 30,000 crore industry and the two largest players, including us, have a 13% marketshare each. The unorganized sector is the biggest challenge for the category. We are looking at market expansion, increasing our channel spread and the availability of our product, so Tier I and Tier II towns are becoming extremely important. The economy and even the real estate in these areas will develop and so will activities relating to our products. Hence, our distribution is focussed on these areas and we would like our product to be available here. After seeing my ad, if someone looks for my product, I need to be present there. So we are improving the market availability and speeding up our distribution over the next year. We have increased our resources and manpower, particularly our sales teams. We will also become big in the laminate space, where we are currently a modest follower.
Q] What are your plans in the readymade furniture space?
We currently have three Nesta stores that offer home lifestyle products. We have huge expansion plans in this space and are going the franchisee route and plan to have 26 stores in the next one year. To start with, our focus will be on modular kitchens and later expand into furniture. We are not focussed on the metros as they are too crowded but only on Tier I towns as building a brand there is easier.
Q] How has the Indian consumer evolved over the years? Can you share with us a few consumer trends you have observed?
We are turning European in our thinking and looking at shades other than teak, mahogany and red-rose wood. We are looking at oak, silver oak, etc. In terms of design, people are more experimental, willing to use more colour and designs on the walls and becoming far more international. People are more exposed today due to the digital reach.
Q] Your main competitor has been more consistent than you in the advertising space. How are you addressing that?
That will happen now, as consistency on the brand has to be paramount if the communication has to reach the consumer, be it product advertising or brand advertising. We are bound by spirit and effort that we will deliver. The conviction is that the brand communication will be strong and we will stay there. We will take leadership stance and prove it to the consumer that this category can be built into a consumer brand from a product category. Plywood is a commodity, but we want to create a brand out of it, like an AC or paint. We are working on creating brand value so that it is not just rated as a category leader, but also as a brand leader in its ways and means. The quality of communication matters in the way you do it and speak it. The brand value needs to go up in my balance sheet so that people want to talk about it, not just as a plywood category, but as a brand. That is the route we want to take.
CMO FILE
Amit Kumar Gope is the National Marketing Head of CenturyPly Group, and has over two decades of handsonexposure to all aspects of marketing. Gope started his career with concept selling at Timeshares in 1993, post which he had a short stint in advertising and then moved to media marketing. He has managed business and marketing for brands like Navbharat, AnandaBazar Patrika and The Telegraph. Gope has worked in the telecom domain with majors like Airtel, Vodafone and Uninor and has also done a short stint with Reliance Retail. He holds a postgraduate degree from Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar.
MARKETING TIP
There is nothing right or wrong in marketing - it is simply a gut feeling which comes from working in the markets. You are only as good as your last campaign, so consistency is extremely important
FACTS
CREATIVE AGENCY: DDB MUDRA
MEDIA AGENCY: MINDSHARE
SOCIAL AND DIGITAL MEDIA MARKETING AGENCY: WEBITUDE
PR AGENCY: MSL GROUP, INDIA
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
