Come December, and festival goers have a brand new reason to celebrate. Nikhil Chinapa in association with LIVE Viacom 18 is all set to launch a new EDM festival in Goa this December – Supersonic – a five-day-long dance party, heavy on its community aspect, one that’s super safe for women, and with some solid international and local talent. All of that is now in the face of Sunburn, the Goa edition of which is also set to take place around the same time. Mr. Jaideep Singh, Sr. Vice President and Business Head – INS, Viacom18 Pvt. Ltd., tells EE what the audience can look forward to this December. EE: We are really excited about the EDM festival. Can you tell us a bit about it? Since the inception of Integrated Network Solutions, we have ventured into live events and successfully concluded properties. MTV VMAI, EMERGE (in association with VH1) and Comedy Central Chuckle Festival have been the first few initiatives of this division under Youth and English Cluster. ETV Kannada & Bangla Sangeet Samman marked the launch of Kids and Regional Cluster of LIVE Viacom18. Since EDM has been gaining immense popularity and has turned into the new favourite for today’s young millennials, it was a natural decision to create an EDM festival. Hence, we roped in DJ Nikhil Chinapa as the festival director and have also collaborated with world’s leading electronic dance music festival organizers to launch a truly world-class dance music festival. Vh1 Supersonic will take place in North Goa from 26th to 30th December. The five day festival will offer music lovers an unparalleled, immersive experience coupled with great music across popular underground electronic music genres. We have been working tirelessly to put together a fabulous line up of artists who will draw lots of attention from the Indian audience. Given Viacom18’s huge broadcast strength, we will leverage the popularity of the iconic music brand Vh1 and other youth & music brands in the network. With considerable knowledge of events across all platforms and in-depth understanding of the Indian dance music industry, the festival will definitely create an unforgettable experience on the sands of Goa. EE: So Nikhil Chinapa, formerly with Sunburn, is now associated with you. What do you see him bringing to the table? Nikhil has been with our network for a very long time, he is like family to the group and we share a fantastic relationship with him both personally & professionally. Not only has he developed the Electronic Dance Music scene in India, but has also become synonymous with it. Given his immense knowledge of EDM and deep understanding of the consumers’ needs, Nikhil was the ideal choice for being our festival director. EE: How is this festival going to be differentiated from the rest of the electronic music festivals? The aim of the festival is to restore the spirit of community and passion for music. It will target devoted music lovers by featuring a mix of Indian and international artists – popular and underground. The festival will have a strong local focus, creating a platform to nurture and promote some of India’s best DJs on the same stages as the international artists. Through, Supersonic we will completely focus on delivering a quality experience. With this festival, we will leave no stone unturned to provide a larger than life experience. Over and above everything else, we are also devising a strong plan for the security of women. EE: What is the artist line-up? Any first timers visiting India? We have a very energetic line up which will excite the audience. 60-70% of the artists will be international while 30% will be Indian artists. We have signed a mix of top international headliners plus newcomers. The idea here is to promote both established and new talent. We are in the process of finalizing the lineup which will be announced soon. EE: Why Goa? Goa has always been a confluence of cultures. The beautiful state is home to massive beaches, great food and hospitable people. Not only do the sandy beaches give enough space to accommodate large crowds, but also provide a relaxed vibe that will transport the crowd to stress free mindset. EE: Who are your sponsors going to be? Viacom18 network has a fantastic reach across various categories of clients that are willing to collaborate with us on our new initiatives. We will announce their names soon when we launch Supersonic formally. EE: Has the sales of tickets begun? What is the price of tickets? Not yet. Ticket sales would be announced at the official event launch. Keep your eyes peeled. EE: How many people are you expecting? Since it’s the first year of the festival our primary focus is to deliver quality experience hence we are not targeting huge crowds. EE: What kind of revenue do you think it should be able to generate? This year our only agenda is to concentrate on establishing the festival but we are confident that the subsequent years would generate great business.
Read More
Boasting of clients like Tag Heuer, LG, Canon, Nikon, Hyundai and a host of others, the CS Direkt provides complete 360 degree marketing tools, combining creativity with latest technologies. Sanjeev Pasricha, MD, CS Direkt, shares his views on achieving an effective brand-consumer connect: EE: Which are the means to create experiential campaigns to showcase brand benefits? Today, consumers are more informed, intelligent and want to experience a brand and its products before reaching any decision to buy it. Experiencing the brand in real time and engaging in dialogues with the brand is a recent trend driving the market. As such, the need of the hour is to create such experiences that surpass customer expectations and create brand loyalists. EE: What are your goals to combat the challenges that lie ahead in the field of experiential marketing? The biggest challenge is the ratio of advertising budget assigned to experiential marketing by the companies. Experiential marketing enables a company to establish a dialogue with its customers and deliver results in the product’s most important moments of truth – when a customer interacts with the product and brand in real time. The right communication, delivered in an effective way will not only help build a loyal customer database, but also ensure that the customers turn into brand advocates. We wish to redefine the way organisations look at marketing. We want to change the way companies connect with their customers. We want to create a paradigm where companies can grow their business by adopting new and effective ways of connecting and networking. We are constantly in search for new and innovative methods of communication. We want brands to understand the true potential of experiential marketing and turn it into a powerful tool. EE: How have events become the face of marketing today? Consumers today are more informed, intelligent and inquisitive. The market has moved from the world of USP – Unique Selling Proposition, to UExP – Unique Experience Proposition where stakeholders want to experience the brands before they make any decision. The pivotal moment of truth for a brand is when its customers interact with it in real-time. The right communication, strategy and experience are vital to sustain as well as nurture customer relationships in this scenario. This is why events have become the face of marketing as they help brands establish a one-to-one relationship and share a dialogue with the customers. EE: In which different ways are you able to reach the consumers? We are the consultative partners of communication for our clients. We provide a gamut of services that are tailored specifically for each client, keeping the objectives, industry, past precedence and competitive scenario in mind. We understand the client’s needs and create pathbreaking experiences for his customers through a spectrum of different mediums like events, exhibitions, activations, mice, retail and films. EE: What facets of a product make you choose your projects? We work with brands that strongly believe in themselves. We have worked across a plethora of industries like power, technology, automobiles, cameras, medical, consumer durables, lifestyle products, smartphones, and many more. The brands that we have worked with are committed to delivering the best to their customers, are innovative and oriented towards creating the best experiences for their customers both with their products and services, and through their brand communications. EE: Please tell us about your latest work? Our strength lies in giving a unique personalised experience that is specific to the client’s objectives and surpasses his expectations, irrespective of the location. Some of our recent campaigns are Schneider Xperience Efficiency Tour that brings Schneider directly to its customers and spans across 50 cities across the North, South, East and West regions of India; Microsoft Partner Summit that will be held across three metropolitan cities; Canon Leadership Summit at Goa. These are but a few of the campaigns that were delivered successfully by us. EE: You are a proud winner of awards : Best Brand Builder Award from CMO Council, Singapore. Do you feel that the awards that you received on a personal level for entrepreneurship have contributed towards Corporate reputation building of CS Direkt? The rewards I have received on a personal level are also a reflection of my organisation’s achievements. They are a representation of how my team and I have achieved accolades for our clients. While awards are a good reflection of the milestones we have crossed, our true visibility is showcased in the results our clients achieve. Our client’s appreciation of our work, and the long term partnerships we build with them are worth a lot more. Our goals is to always do the best for our clients, surpass all expectations and create new benchmarks of success, not just for us, but also for our clients.
Read More
Claimed to be the biggest Bollywood dance music festival ever, MTV Bollyland, brought together by Live Viacom18 and Cineyug Entertainment, is all set to take off in exactly two weeks. Jaideep Singh, Sr. Vice President and Business Head – INS, Viacom18 Pvt. Ltd., tells us more about this first of its kind festival that is anticipated to attract over 15000 attendees. EE: What is MTV Bollyland? MTV Bollyland is a first of its kind property that will create a fascinating fusion of the leading music genres like Bollywood and Electronic Dance Music. With this property, we want to create a platform for talented Indian artists to showcase their talent in an international format. EE: When is it happening? The two day festival will take place on 28th & 29th November at Unitech Golf & Country Club in Noida. It has been conceptualised by LIVE Viacom18, a subdivision under Integrated Network Solutions in Partnership with Cineyug Entertainment Pvt Ltd. EE: What is the line-up? The artist lineup includes some of the biggest names in the music industry such as YoYo Honey Singh, Mika Singh, Sunidhi Chauhan, Hard Kaur, Benny Dayal, Shalmali Kholgade, Neeti Mohan, Shibani Kashyap and DJs like DJ Aqeel, Chetas, NYK & Khushi. This festival will give Indian audience a chance to experience their favourite artists and music in a new way. EE: How are you planning to maximize its reach? While the music festival will take place over two days at Unitech Golf and Country Club Noida, It is also a live IP that would be telecasted on MTV in a 1 hour special episode. We might also telecast three or four ‘making of’ videos that would capture the behind the scenes action. Post its inception; the festival will expand its reach to international audiences as well. EE: What is MTV’s role? MTV Bollyland has been mutually developed by LIVE Viacom18 and Cineyug Entertainment. It was a collective decision to work with MTV, to give the festival a strong backing from one of the most powerful brands in the music space. EE: A music festival based on Bollywood music is indeed a novel concept. What will be the vibe? With a great team in place, we are aiming to provide a larger than life music experience for our consumers. The entire ambience is going to be set up with larger than life installations, Bollywood inspired areas which will showcase some of the best from the Bollywood world. For those who would want to take back memories, other than the music, can buy some spunky Bollywood inspired merchandise in shops set up at the venue. With such a pool of great talent, coupled with a great line up of artists and fun activities, the entire festival will cater to everyone’s need, musical and non musical.
Read More
There was a time when the major focus of budgets relied mainly on distribution to score an edge. Today, in this competitive scenario, innovative marketing campaigns are stealing the thunder. It is more of a ‘pull’ strategy that the brands are looking to create so as to generate customer loyalty. The ultimate aim then becomes to retain the customer and make him loyal, such that he doesn’t settle for Product B, if Product A isn’t available. As per industry reports, more than three quarters of the money and time invested by major brands, goes towards acquiring new customers and subsequently retaining the same. From a seller’s marketplace, it has transformed today into a lively, customer-centric scenario, where a WOW factor is the buzzword. Experiential marketing effectively helps in customer retention and offers a high recall value. And if you’re lucky, this customer becomes your new brand ambassador. A dynamic step forward The convergence of experiential and digital could represent one of the most important steps forward in modern marketing. It is little secret that today’s consumers are demanding a much more personal relationship with the brands they choose, and this has been a key factor in the rise of experiential marketing. Experiential campaigns have a lot to thank the digital world for. Most digital campaigns are now seamlessly integrated on-ground. When digital and experiential campaigns are integrated, experiential gives digital the ability to master proximity, and digital gives experiential the power to extend its reach and add value for both the brand and the consumer. Says Vineet Gupta, Managing Partner, 22 Feet Digital, “There was a time when anonymity was the mantra of the digital world. Aliases were always sought after. But with the rise and rise of social media, everyone knows who you are, what you do, where you stay, what exactly you’re doing. Your opinions are being heard, broadcast and shared, and this is a make-or-break for brands. If even one consumer does not like the experience you provide him, he has all the liberty to showcase it on the social media.” The convergence of experiential and digital could represent one of the most important steps forward in modern marketing. It is little secret that today’s consumers are demanding a much more personal relationship with the brands they choose, and this has been a key factor in the rise of experiential marketing. People are now less concerned about brands violating privacy laws and bombarding them with promotional emailers, because they are engaging with brands they trust, thus the experiences are now richer and more dynamic. Competitive space, smarter consumers Every day, there are several products that are being launched. To make matters complex, there is category creation. Products are becoming congested with a lot of display information and features, making it difficult for the customer to distinguish one product from another. This environment is now forcing brand managers to find new ways to create and maintain a relationship between their product or service and the customer. This is where experiential marketing comes into place. “Customers today are more skeptical than before about mass media marketing campaigns and advertising of claims. They are more aware and have easy access to information,” adds Gupta. Integrating digital media by way of social media campaigns into experiential marketing is not as simple as throwing a link, hashtag or a QR code. The integration of digital communication needs to be seamlessly bonded to provide the brand experience. Brands are now realising the importance of creating a dialogue with the consumers to make them feel heard and validated. The integration of digital media with experiential campaigns thus helps achieve this.
Read More
Fasten those seat belts guys as India is set to get blown away with a storm of electrifying performances throughout December. Heres a heads up to what’s in store… Nov 30- Dec 1 and Dec 14-15 Bacardi NH7 Weekender- Buddh International Circuit, Greater Noida and Ibiza Resort, Kolkata Launched in 2010 in Pune, NH7 is a multi-genre festival produced by OML. In 2013, the festival travels to four cities adding Kolkata to its roster. While New Delhi will see performances by Lucky Ali, Chic + Nile Rodgers and Meshuggah among others, Kolkata will witness Raghu Dixit Project, Dualist Inquiry and Vir Das Alien Chutney in action. Dec 1 Sound Awake- Bangalore In its second year in 2013, Sound Awake will feature an impressive line-up including Hed Kandi and Ministry of Sound besides Steve Aoki. A property of DNA Networks, they say this time around the event is going to be much bigger and better. Dec 6-8 Enchanted Valley Carnival- Aamby Valley City A first ever camping music festival set in the beautiful backdrop of Aamby Valley is as good as Disneyland for music aficionados. Top artists include Umek, Jeremy Olander, ATB & Chicane. Developed by Twisted Entertainment the festival boasts of multiple stages, over 60 artists, adventure activities, camping and a flea market. This will be one to look out for. Dec 6-8 Sunburn Arena- Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi What initially started as an annual event in Goa has now began permeating through the nation promising the same experience to all those who cannot make it to Goa. Lookout Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi, this time its Avicii in the house! Dec 13-15 Magnetic Fields Festival- Alsisar Palace, Rajasthan Three days of music, art and food at a 17th Century palace in Rajasthan. Experience the energy of Rajasthan, its heritage and culture, as you live within the palace or its luxury campsite. Artist lineup includes Robot Koch, Midival Punditz, B.L.O.T, Shiva Soundsystem among others. Dec 21 Smirnoff Experience- Manpho Convention Centre, Bangalore The festival claims to be the first ever to create a truly visceral multi-sensory experience for its participants. World-renowned stage designers Alex Lazarus and Heather Shaw of ‘Vita Motus’ will create an exclusive set for Smirnoff Experience, one that promises to showcase the limitless possibilities of visual art. The event will be headlined by dubstep icons Nero and Rusko. Dec 27-29 Sunburn, Goa In its 7th year Sunburm is undoubtedly the biggest EDM festival in all of Asia. This year Axwell is enroute planet Sunburn. Lets hope it stays that way now that Nikhil Chinapa has jumped off Percept’s wagon. Dec Vh1 Supersonic, Goa After joining hands with Viacom18, Nikhil Chinapa is set to launch an independent, five day music festival in Goa named Vh1 Supersonic around the same time as Sunburn. Date and venue to be announced. Keep your eyes peeled for more info.
Read More
Claiming to be the world’s biggest cycling tournament, Tour De India, in its second edition this year, has chosen Mumbai, Jaipur and New Delhi to play host to this multi-city event. The essence of Tour de India is to promote cycling as India’s next big sport and get more and more people to embrace the activity as a passion and a cause to ride for pride. After roping in Godrej Eon as its title sponsor, the event owned by Total Sports Asia has now engaged Mickey Mehta as its official sports mentor. At a recently held conference to officially announce the launch of the event, Mickey Mehta, India’s leading health and fitness guru, took to the stage to conduct an interactive exercising session educating guests on the importance of exercise and demonstrated a few important lunges, breathing techniques that can be performed on the day of the cyclothon. Mickey took the help of the guests at the events and eager participants to convey his message and engage the audience. In conversation with EE Mickey quoted, “I’m a huge protagonist of cycling, not only as a sport but as a general health activity. The Tour De India is a great endeavour to spread awareness about the sport and, in turn, support a greener environment. I hope that with this event more people will take to the streets on bicycles and begin reducing their consumption of fuel. If the masses are engaged, the government will hopefully see it as an incentive to build bike lanes and facilitate bikers. This is the need of the hour and we need to address the issue. The tour De India is a great initiative and will be a catalyst in rekindling the long lost love for cycling”. Mickey will be helping the participants with pre-workout exercises on the day of the event. Bollywood heavyweight and brand ambassador of the event, John Abraham, set pulses racing during the unveiling of the newest advertisement shot with him to create more awareness and encourage maximum participation for the main event. Also, present at the event were Maharashtra PWD minister Chhagan Bhujbal, Kamal Nandi, Vaibhav Maloo, Vibha Pahwa, Dr Akil Khan, Dr Shakil Khan, Ojas Desai, Mr. Vaibhav Maloo- MD at Enso Group, Mr. Kamal Nandi VP at Godrej and former Miss Indias Prachi Mishra. Rochelle Maria Rao was the host for the evening. This year, the multi-city event will tour Mumbai, Jaipur and Delhi on December 15, 17 and 22, respectively.
Read More
When you joined Shobiz back in 1990, what was your role? Well, I actually joined as a production manager and we were a staging company at that time. My father (Rehmatali Tobaccowala) started the brand Shobiz in 1982 and we were basically a set-making company. I joined the company to learn how to make sets and spent about two years in the carpentry workshop and then took it from there. So, at that time was it just about joining the family business? I thought I was joining my father’s company. I was just about 18 years old and had started my under-graduation. My college used to run from 7 to 10 in the morning and it was like let’s do something after that. It was quite exciting to get up and say I’m going to be at my father’s office… and have a Thums Up and sit and enjoy. Obviously it turned out to be very different because he made me sit in the workshop for two whole years. In the hot… in the heat… learning the business. The expectation was to have fun but it turned out to be very hard work. Many a time it was like what am I doing! But it got exciting over time and I thank my father today for putting me through that process because it really helped me understand the business. As a kid growing up were you aware of your father’s achievements? I think I was very aware. He was such a larger than life figure in this business. From the big weddings of the Ambanis to the Mahindras to the who’s who of Mumbai. In 1956 he had done the wedding of Dilip Kumar and Saira Banu! You can imagine his history. Plus his association with theatre… Alyque (Padamsee) used to come over to the house, sit and talk about his new productions! So, I was very much aware of the great work he was doing. I remember in the 1980s all the Filmfares (award ceremonies) he used to do. The first time they moved out of the Shanmukhananda Hall and did it at the Centaur… I think it was in the late 80s and I hadn’t joined the organisation then… and he had built the entire stage over the swimming pool of the hotel! What changes did you bring in as you grew in the company? I was the first employee that my father had from an executive point of view. He always worked with the labourers and the carpenters… people who used to make things. I think what I did – through learning of the basic business and then obviously wanting to do more (which is always a good thing when a young person joins the organisation) – was to get into the equipment rental business, where I started to take in a few people. And then in the mid 1990s I started employing more executives in the organisation. Boys who could help me do more shows at one time. Multi-city things had started coming into the picture. In 1997, we moved from a partnership to a private limited company and that’s when I took over as the CEO of the organisation. And then I started thinking what more. We opened in Delhi, we opened in Bangalore and we started moving to other places and by the end of the 1990s we started changing the face of the company from a stage management to an event management company. Through all this change has the ethos behind Shobiz remained the same? We were always taught that when it’s 6 o’clock in the evening things have to go right. And that you cannot say no to clients. It’s very important to deliver what we do. You cannot get into discussions about pricing later on into a project with your clients. We were taught all this and that has really helped us along the journey. Say with Unilever, now that’s a company Mr Rehmatali has been working with since 1973, with the launch of Rexona when Alyque was the CEO of Lintas. And I’m sure there’s a Unilever show happening right now in the organisation. We have lived these relationships. I think one of the reasons behind the big success story for our brand for 31 years is the fact that we have been able to live up to our original ethos of being able to deliver what we’ve promised on paper. Your motto has been to be the best and to be the biggest. If you can elaborate on this… Being the best is very important. Especially in our industry where you are as good as your last event. Unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you look at it. If something goes wrong, they don’t think of what you have done for the last 20 years. You have to really work hard to keep your reputation up. And Murphy’s Law hits every one of us. I cannot possibly say that any of us have never had a problematic show. It happens… at home you’re wanting to watch a movie and that day your DVD will not work. But yes being the best is very important to be able to sustain in this industry. And it’s also important that your clients feel that you are giving them the best. About being the biggest, it’s just happened over time to be able to grow the company to what it is today. It is a large organisation without a doubt and it’s been a good journey. You said somewhere that Shobiz has been into experiential marketing long before the term came into vogue. Tell us about that… You know, it’s very strange… recently we were into this EEMA (Event & Entertainment Management Association) meeting a week or two weeks back and everybody started saying that we should now be called the experience industry. And I changed my name from Shobiz Events Management to Shobiz Experiential Communications about five-six-seven years back. I think over time and a little bit exposure to the world, I did realise that one of the biggest things our industry is doing is providing experiences to the audience that comes and providing experience to our clients’ clients, who are basically the final users. A lot of our thinking has been as to how we can provide a great memory, a great experience rather than a great event to the audience. Do you think it’s time that experiential marketing became the essential element of mainstream marketing in India? It is a very important part which has been accepted by a large amount of clients. Any kind of 1-on-1 communication has become very important. People do waive a little depending on whether the economy is going up or down. Some times when there is less money to spend, some industries go back to mass communication in a larger way because it’s still trusted in their minds. Like last year when automotive got hit a little bit, a lot of money moved back from experiential communication to big ads of launches, etc. So it fluctuates but one thing is for sure that marketing people have now started adding the experiential part of it to their marketing mix. That’s a positive sign and it’s happened many years back in the western countries. What has been your favourite experiential marketing events from Shobiz? The Nano Superdrive was very good. We also won an international award for that. That was a good campaign we did. Generally for many of our IT client campaigns that we do, we catch the audience very early into the space and we are able to add microsite work to that, digital work to that, EDMs to that. And we have been running these campaigns for year-on-year. You are getting into social media in a major way. Is that where the future of marketing lies? I think social media is there in a combined way. One is that the clients are looking at social media for their own brands and are using the digital agencies to do that. But what is happening is that in many, many pitches that we do is bring the social media part of it into the thinking process. What clients are positively looking at agencies like our’s is to come up with thought-process campaigns for their launch or event space in a larger 360 degrees. They ask us to add things like radio. Yes, social media is becoming a very important part of it. If it’s anything that needs to go out to mass, it is one of the larger ways of going out and you know the response is much faster than whether someone saw an ad in the papers or not. Finally, where do you see Shobiz in the next five or ten years? You know in our industry it’s very tough to project five or ten years down the line but you know, we have grown internationally now. We’ve got offices in Singapore and Dubai. I’d probably look at opening a few more offices around the world without a doubt. India seems to be on the right track. IT, automotive, FMCG, pharmaceuticals… we are into lots of industries and I’m sure we can add more industries in the time to come. You can get up and say that there are too many fluctuations but it’s been 23 years for me personally and I can say there are always ups and downs. There are a lot of new players in the industry and that always adds to the interesting mix of how you are going to go about the future of the larger organisation. But I don’t see a major hurdle down the line.
Read More
Min Chang is President – Asia Pacific at DAS (Diversified Agency Services), a division of Omnicom Group. She is leading business development and operational activities in the Asia Pacific region and works with all the group agencies in the region as well as globally. Prior to this position, she was EVP of Business Development and Client Relations Asia, SVP of Operations and VP of Operations at DAS. Prior to joining Omnicom, Chang led the Procurement organisation at Honeywell International as Vice President of Procurement Transformation. She was also Vice President of Purchasing at AstraZeneca. In addition, she has spent over eight years in the industry in various leadership roles globally with three of the largest Fortune 500 companies: Procter & Gamble, American Express and United Technologies. Do you think experiential marketing is being under-leveraged in India? It is such a large umbrella. Consumers may not respond to traditional conversation anymore, so you can start with in-store event and activation instead of a TVC; it is more cost effective with social media integration. I think India is at par with other countries, but experiential marketing still has immense potential that needs to be tapped. The need for CRM in India is very high. There are tons of data, but what are you doing with it? Analysing this data and then driving your campaign with the insights derived from it is critical. In your view and experience of the region, are clients today experimenting more with new media forms? Clients are hungry for innovative ideas and engagement, if you can show value in your approach or an idea, they are willing to take that on. How have you seen digital, social and mobile evolve in India? I have been to India a few times in the last two years and I have seen changes here. In terms of digital, social and mobile, there is work here that is leading the world, both in India and China; most of it is better that what we do in the US, it is ground breaking. So, you see India doing well in these areas? Yes, especially in mobile. The huge mobile user base in India is driving innovation; you don’t have some of the trappings of the US. The market there has reached maturity level, but here in India, digital, social and mobile have an edge of newness, freshness and more effectiveness. What are the other significant trends that you have observed? Indian brands such as Tata, Godrej, etc., which have a rich heritage, are expanding outside the Indian market and I see this as an increasing trend. These brands are really about how do I build my awareness broader with other consumers beyond India. What, according to you, are the challenges? I will speak more personally about Omnicom. Our biggest gap in India is in capabilities; sometimes, our clients are smarter than we are. They know the challenges and the marketing savviness of some of our clients has improved a lot. So, we need to ‘up’ our game and make our innovations not just on par, but better. The challenge for us is to build better skills and hire better talent and for that, we may need to bring some of the best practises and talent from the US or Europe. The other part of the equation is that I think we need to build some of that pool of resources and skill set here as well. How are you going to bridge this gap? Part of this involves taking some of the interesting thinking globally to India. Regarding the activation landscape in India, we need to take a step back and analyse what is really the purpose of the brand, besides also look at it from a consumer’s perspective as to what is the brand bringing to me. We need to look at activation as an opportunity to be with the consumer, touch the consumer and create an unforgettable experience for the consumer that is powerful – for instance, the Dove – Sketch campaign, and Dumb ways to Die campaign. We haven’t reached this level yet in India. A lot of our clients see mobile and digital as areas where they should be investing in, however, they are still somewhat sceptical as it is difficult to measure the RoI and impact. Hence, the budgets aren’t as large and the spends still go the traditional way. I don’t think brands and markets are utilising the medium as much as they should, but at the same time there is some great work happening in terms of quality.group/#sthash.QL3iatY0.dpuf
Read More
Mr. Srinivas, as someone who has been in the industry for a while, how do you feel media is evolving as compared to older times? There has been a fair amount of evolution in the media space in the last 5 to 10 years and we have been setting up networks in India. So apart from having standalone media planning and buying agencies and were planning on buying agencies which share a similar portfolio. We have also gone ahead and invested in a host of specialist units in areas of trading, content, activation in experiential and data analytics. Over the last few years we have upgraded our specialist units and it reminded me of our early years when we were setting up the networks we referred to the planning and buying business as the ‘core’ business and experiential as the ‘non-core’ business and that is an indication of how we have evolved. None core is now called the new core which is where most of the driving forces is coming from. What is the role of experiential marketing in building brands? Today experiential marketing plays an important role in brand building. With the fragmentation and inflation of media, especially mass media, it is difficult for advertisers to get a return on their investment, which is one factor. The other factor is the attention deficit economy we live in; it is difficult for any brand to attain its objective only through traditional advertising. Traditional advertising basically builds awareness of the brand and the products. With the fragmentation of media,where the product is not consumed with as much patience, experiential has a very important role to play. It actually helps the brand fly and helps client actually experience the product and become stronger advocates than marketing and advertising. GroupM has done a lot of work with experiential over the years and has a body of over 200 projects. It also has a unit called Dialogue Factory headed by Balbir Singh, a known figure in the field of experiential marketing. He and his team are doing a great job within the company and providing value to our clients. So what do you think that brands are not understanding about the role of experiential marketing? The barriers with experiential marketing are different for different clients. Some are hesitant to get into experiential because they bring up measurements as part of the issue but solutions are available today thanks to technology and to mobile media. There are ways of measuring this and another way is to build a link between what you with an investment in experiential marketing and what that does for a brand. Over the years, in our own body of work we have seen that with our knowledge and expertise we can advise clients on what could be their returns on their investments. One thing that is important in experiential marketing is that to know and be clear on what their objectives are such as figuring out or revising a campaign. We have been in this space for long and built up a body that guides the clients in setting up the right objectives in the first place to the strategy and implementation coming back right at the end to measure the impact of the cycle. How have you equipped yourself to specialize in experiential marketing? We believe very clearly in media planning and buying especially traditional media when it comes to brands engaging with the category developing and so on. We were the early movers in the areas of activation and content. We have a robust offering pretty much all of these areas and mentioning earlier, this is the new core and are providing value to our clients and these categories are working closely with our existing media planning and buying team that is able to provide diversified services to the client; a very holistic kind of a product which is the need of the hour. At the Mobile Marketing Association, do you have any announcements to make for us? Yes, I’m delighted to let you know that Madhouse which is our brand marketing partner is bringing the MMA conference to India. They have done fabulous work across the world and this is the third country that the MMA is coming to after China and Vietnam. Madhouse investing in and set up this body and hopefully we can work with other industry partners and help grow the advertising base in India. It is the most under leveraged medium in the country but with the highest penetration and which offers a lot of unique advantages to the advertisers. I am hoping that associating with MMA and working with the rest of the industry will be able to extrapolate the overall marketing base.
Read More
Mr. Sheikhawat, you are a dominant brand in the market, how have you evolved in your media to consolidate and grow in market share? It gets tougher every year. For a brand like Kingfisher, it is important to be young, fresh, aspirational, sexy, dynamic, relevant and glamorous for a new and ever evolving consumer dynamic. A lot of people don’t want to drink the beer brand but go for the father brand and the only way to do it is to remain as aspirational and desirable for them as for the previous generation. So, everything we do for Kingfisher is centered around that; whether its participating or being the content creators for some of the sports, music, fashion and food activation programs to being ubiquitously available across the country. We have the strongest distributional capability and the largest footprint in the country in terms of manufacturing capability. We have the largest environment handling competency because the government handles close to 60 % of the alcohol business in the country. With third generation distributors, we have the strongest and largest distributional network in the country with powerful brands and sharply defined exciting marketing activational platforms. So, when all these work together in harmony as one then you have growing value in market share. what is your media strategy to remain young and sexy in the market? There are several things that you need to do. A. a target audience- knowing what they do, where they go, what they buy, what drives them, their choice of music food , entertainment, travel, dining and see where your brand can fit into that lifestyle and that thought process. One really intervenes at that points of occasion and medium such as digital and mobile are big forces and our way of leveraging and using them is what helps us. You have associated yourselves with social events such as the Kingfisher derby and sports events such as the F1 or the IPL, what are your future plans to own event platforms to promote your brand? Sports and cricket are going to be our number one platform and it’s not just cricket, we also have a football club called the Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club. We also associate with the running events such as the Bombay marathon and the Delhi half marathon and others such as the Bangalore and Hyderabad 10 and 15 km runs, respectively. We have also associated with tennis tournaments, hockey tournaments, the rugby tour, F1, horse racing derby and so, we do a variety of sports. We associate with every genre of music and we were the first to bring music and big bands into the country and we continue to do that. Food is a critical part of our association because beer goes very well with Indian food and all our programs across pubs, bars and restaurants have food festivals which are big part of our marketing. Fashion also because we are the only beer brand that participates in all the nation and international fashion weeks. And so these are the four major platforms that help us achieve our objectives. The hunt for the Kingfisher calendar girl is a highly acclaimed initiative of yours, how is this added to your brand value? Well, I think, driven desirability. It is the most up market and exclusive calendar show and reality program in the country. The calendar itself is a highly prized object with only 3000 copies that are not for sale and you can only get them if your are on the chairman’s mailing list and there is thus a huge desirability that we leverage with audience participation and the reality show called the ‘hunt for the kingfisher girl’ on NDTV Goodtimes. This year is going to have a tighter programming, bigger names as hosts, exotic locations, and production values far superior than the past. The glamour drives the desire, style and fashion quotient of the brand and since this is the eleventh year, it’s going to be bigger and better. What do brands in India not understand about experiential marketing? Some of the best brands understand experiential marketing very well but the one thing one needs to understand is that Indians, by and large don’t complain very much and are tolerant consumers. We are willing to put up with a lot but this not going to continue. The younger audience which has money and customer service and so, the bar is continually raised in terms of what experiences the consumers expect and you cannot thrust it into their lives. There is need to interweave it seamlessly into their lives and they should see value in it and need to be educated, entertained and informed. A bad quality program thrust onto the viewer who may or may not be engaged is really not the way to go. Content is going to be king. Mediums and channels to access content are exploding. Content itself is exploding. And all these experiences need to add up and consumers need to participate. So you either need to entertain them, or educate them or inform them. Preferable all should be ticked but at least one of these three should be ticked.
Read More
