Mr. Nikhil Raibole, Planning Director, Ogilvy & Mather, interacted with IIM Indore PGP Mumbai participants on 16th of August. He discussed on the topic Strategic Planning of Brand, keeping the session very interactive.
Mr. Raibole defined brand strategy as more of an art which includes understanding brand’s problem and target consumers. ‘A brand problem revolves around brand, category and consumers’, he said. He noticed that there is a business objective behind every brand which is converted into a marketing objective and then the brand strategist takes it forward to build communication objective. He explained how before jumping to the communication objective, a brand strategist has to understand why consumer is not considering a brand by carrying out a consumer research. He then familiarized the concept with an example of Fair and Lovely Facewash to further explain how to perform the above activities to solve a brand’s problems.
Mr. Raibole discussing about how to engage customers mentioned about effective and creative communication, which can also include an emotional angle. He said that communication strategy differs with different problems. If there is a need of category awareness, demonstrate the usage and benefits of the product. If there is a need of brand awareness, communicate the differentiating factor to give consumers a reason to consider the brand, he noted. Quoting the example of Amazon’s ‘Aur Dikhao’ campaign, he explained how Amazon was successful in doing so .He also told that some brands like Red Label came up with advertisements conveying social message in order to create an emotional touch along with the brand benefits.
Mr.Raibole concluded the speech discussing about how Flipkart should project them when competitors like Amazon and Snapdeal are projecting to be the best in variety and value providers respectively. The participants also raised lots of possible situations and got them clarified from the speaker.