Increasing reach, growing penetration and getting into the consideration set of the consumer spoilt for choice are just some of the challenges faced by the FMCG marketer. To address this, IMPACT hosted experts from the field of marketing, who proferred different perspectives on the topic ‘Diversity Marketing – The FMCG Marketer’s Challenge’ during a roundtable to understand the extreme diversity and complexity in the Indian market. The event was organized by Surewaves, a media convergence company, in collaboration with exchange4media on January 29 in Mumbai. Vanita Keswani, CEO, Madison Media Sigma, was the moderator of the panel discussion and engaged the leading FMCG marketers in a two-hour discussion that threw light on various aspects of FMCG marketing in India.
THE DISCUSSION POINTS
How important is it to address diverse consumers differently to drive the organization’s growth?
What are the interesting patterns observed across diverse consumer groups?
Have these insights triggered any path-breaking marketing innovations for the brand?
How are you looking to reach out to incremental audiences in the light of growing media fragmentation?
Media strategy for regions or States like UP/Bihar and the North-east which are low in media penetration?
THE PARTICIPANTS
Ajay Dang, Vice President Marketing (Home Care), Godrej Consumer Products ; Anuradha Aggarwal, Chief Marketing Officer, Marico; Anuradha Paraskar, President - Marketing & Group Brand, Piramal Group; Manashi Guha, Vice President – Marketing (Consumer Products Division) Loreal India; Parag Desai, Executive Director, Wagh Bakri Tea and Shivangi Gupta, Director, Midas Care
Here are excerpts from the insightful debate.
Anuradha Paraskar: A significant aspect which was missing from FMCG earlier and what is happening today is modern trade and the overall shelf space that many brands get versus the grocer. The other important aspect is Digital and social spaces. Some of the brands in the FMCG space are using social so well in terms of diverse segments and there is so much one can do in this space.
Anuradha Aggarwal: Today’s challenge as opposed to yesterday’s challenge is the challenge of plenty. It’s a fact that some parts of this country are now beginning to see so much choice and so much media and so much fragmentation that the marketer’s challenge is to ensure that they catch the attention. Currently they have fragmented and diversified attention of the consumer across all platforms.
Parag Desai: We have been discovered only in nine states and we are quite local, variable and very research driven. When we first launched in Maharashtra, there was no reason for anyone to buy our tea. We opened a tea lounge in Vile Parle, East because we discovered that people hardly knew what good tea is. We researched Maharashtra and started advertising in a language and in an environment where in people understood what we are trying to say. We spent a lot of money explaining to them the meaning of the brand in their environment, in their language. Something different was done in Marathwada, something very different was done in Vidarbha. People used to visit our tea lounges, experience the various kinds of teas and we didn’t showcase ‘Wagh Bakri’ just the brand, we showcased how tea is drunk in India and internationally. If you visit our seven tea lounges, it would be a super experience in experience of tea. On one hand in the upper hand of the spectrum we did the tea lounges, and the lower end we did localized communication.
Ajay Dang: When a consumer goes out and buys a product, the question he or she is asking whether your product or proposition is worth my while or not? The dilemma is how to contextualize it and make it relevant to them individually so that they are hearing your message far more and finally they are not buying your product, they are buying some change in their life and what does it mean to their life rather than whether you are selling A product or B product or you are using X or Y medium to talk to them.
Manashi Guha: We have brands globally that run only on digital. We have brands in India that run a lot in digital and very little television, we have brands which run on everything and we have brands that run in no media. One size cannot fit all and it depends on which consumer needs your addressing and how many people you are talking to. Digital is fun because it just gives you a world of opportunity. You can keep your brand core and still keep doing so many things that are different, relevant and topical. It gives you a whole opportunity to experiment which traditional television never gave us, either the cost or the production values or whatever. Digital is completely opening up that space and today building brands.
Shivangi Gupta: Digital has increased the aspiration and also built the awareness that a consumer has. You can’t do that cookie cutter thing any longer because it becomes irrelevant as with just one communication where you talk a certain language on a particular brand, many a times, there are a lot of consumers who switch off the brand completely. He will be like, ‘okay this brand is not talking my language, I don’t understand what is going on, I would never say something like this, I don’t understand.’ You have to address that particular customer segment in a particular way. Rural India is also very well connected to what’s going on because they are consuming same media that you are, thanks to the digital age. They are watching YouTube videos and a lot of content which is extremely radical compared to, may be some of the things that urban India is also watching. They are very aware of what’s going on and you have to understand what their needs are, what their requirements are and tailor make, whether it’s the product or communication or whatever it is for them.
Parag Desai: We were one of the first people to start the 5 Kg retail pack in a glamorized form. People used to complain that our families are large and we want to take in bulk, but we don’t like the packaging of the brand. So we launched a little bit premium product with a very nice packaging and we are in mass. And today, across Maharashtra it’s the number one selling in that segment. Till not very long back, our ad agencies used to design the packs. Now we work with global design firms and the fact remains that people, even in rural India, have to like the packaging before they try the brand. Earlier, people would be okay if the packaging wasn’t good but the quality was good. Now that generation has gone.
Anuradha Aggarwal: I don’t think that this is a world of one agency giving all solutions at all. I am very excited by the options that today’s world generates. On a recent campaign that we are about to go in on SetWet, we have actually briefed three different agencies for three different content platforms. Some content platforms are around just video content, some of them are vines, some are around hairstyles. One agency cannot produce that quantum of work that is still very necessary to keep a young 15 year old boy engaged. I don’t think this is about large agencies being able to hold it together as the brand manager and the brand management responsibilities are much larger today and it’s becoming more complex, but it’s also more exciting. It’s also true that the senior management who is above a certain age now needs to make sure that we have enough people who keep in touch with the new world. And we keep ourselves abreast with the new offerings.
Manashi Guha: Today you need to react fast to the market and it doesn’t give you that much time to call one person, figure it out now. You got to be on top of things and you got to have resources of at least five to six of them at any point of time to dip into and get something out. Honestly speaking, every large creative agency is trying to bung in that addition and have a digital team to speak of. But honestly when we meet them, speak to them and give them challenges, etc. I don’t think they have the capability to handle it because the digital medium is so wide and is so full of specialists today. Every subsegment of digital has a specialization. Even in content there are so many different kinds of content. So it doesn’t make financial or efficiency or timing sense for us to just go with one partner.
Ajay Dang: A disappointment if I may say so, at times that we have from partners coming on board is that most of them are bringing expertise of the media on to the table. However, the understanding beyond the medium - as to how does it translate to the consumer and your category, that is a very large missing skill today. Most people have premium technology platforms, most of them with due exceptions, I don’t think have taken the effort in terms of how that medium would work and give the greatest amount of results and efficiency to your category and consumer. Beyond saying, it is customized to this medium, that’s been the focus by and large, but beyond the buying pitching, saying that we are on board, that effort is far more necessary. The goal of the brand team, the marketing team, the business team, therefore in terms of synthesizing that entire piece is far more. Because you bring that filter on to the table saying, this does not work for my consumer or this works very well for my consumer, that’s super critical.
Shivangi Gupta: The medium is evolving so fast, by the time you adapt to a particular thing, for eg, you adapt to vines, you have got Snapchat, you adapt to Snapchat, there will be something else. You need to constantly stay in touch with specialists for a particular medium and you can’t adapt because the content or the style you are talking, or the language, or the way of communication changes.
Anuradha Paraskar: Looking at social media and the insights and research, increasingly we as marketers prefer to build our own social media teams and with our core brand team help create content. Content creation and interactive engagement with your consumers have become important because at the end of the day gone are the days when it was about media rates and deeper distribution for sales only. It’s also about insights through digital medium and through any kind of interactions - events, brand initiatives.
Feedback: simran.sabherwal@exchange4media.com
