Markathon - December 2020

MARKATHON

INSIDE THIS EDITION: PERSPECTIVE | EYE2EYE

December 2020

VARTALAAP

THE FUTURE IS SOCIAL (MEDIA)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MR. ABHISHEK ASTHANA

EDITORS OF THE ISSUE Shreyans Agrawal

Palak Bhargava Mohanchand Naik D Khyaati Agarwal

Chayan Dhall Shardul Parab

Shishir Ghildiyal Devleena Biswas

Sahil Jain

llahD nayahC

avagrahB kalaP

The long dark night, which is 2020, is about to end, as the promises of a vaccine give us hope of a new dawn. As we were confined to our homes and our desires for growth were stumped, it made humankind introspect their actions. The unprecedented pandemic tested our resilience and bonds.

These challenging times also tested the values and the social commitment of big brands. Health and safety were of paramount importance as the customers were anxious.

Instead of going into hibernation, brands took a step up and reached out to consumers, not with an eye towards short-term sales but to provide support and strengthen existing relationships.

Covid-19 has caused widespread health and economic crisis globally. The brands tried to remain at the forefront of consumers' minds by leveling up their game when communicating the messages they wanted to share. Various marketing campaigns reflected the message of mutual harmony and how we all will come through these tough times together. The brand wars took a back seat as they came out in each other's support. The #Heartwork campaign of Lays praising India's unsung heroes working on the front lines made other brands join hands and show gratitude. We saw multiple campaigns where staunch rivals came in support of each other.

Burger King calling for customers to buy from the rivals was one such action where brands reflected their values in uncertain situations.

Amidst these uncertain times, the festive fires kept burning, while some people missed their home during the festivities, brands made sure they also enjoy the celebrations wherever they are and embrace the new normal. For this edition, we invited Mr. Abhishek Asthana, founder of Ginger Monkey and a former brand manager, who is famously known as GabbarSingh, on Twitter. He talks about how to leverage social media platforms and be better marketers. This time around, we focus on how the world has changed drastically in the past 12 months since the Covid pandemic's onset and everything shifting to the digital mode. We discuss how the future is social media and how brands are adapting themselves to stay relevant through these rough waters.

We also got to witness big brands such as Burger King supporting small businesses affected by the pandemic, and brands like Cadbury taking advantage of people munching on snacks in the lockdown by launching a new range of cakes and cookies.

Finally, we would like to thank all the participants for sending us exciting entries for the Perspective and Eye2Eye section. We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to our readers, who motivate us to bring out fascinating editions each time.

Looking forward to receiving your feedback and suggestions!

We hope you keep safe and tide over the pandemic together, and have a riveting read.

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The Future is Social (Media)

COVER STORY

A Cookieless Future

By Akshansh Gupta The Exponential Rise of Influencer Marketing

By Harshit Somani

Devleena Biswas & Khyaati Agarwal

07 PERSPECTIVE

Should brands avoid using culturally inclined marketing, considering the risks of public reactions?

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13 LOGOISTIC

Logos and their stories Sahil Jain

Eye 2 eye

INDEX

Guests from WIMDR Bangalore & IIM Nagpur

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Catch or Miss Mohanchand Naik D & Shardul Parab

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Exclusive interview with Mr. Abhishek Asthana

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How brands are marketing beyond just markets Shardul Parab & Shishir Ghildiyal

Palak Bhargava & Shishir Ghildiyal

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SOCIAL COMPAIGN

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INDEX

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War between your favourite brands, and you chose the winner!

BRAND WARS

Mohanchand Naik D & Shreyans Agrawal

19 UPDATES

The New marketing trends Palak Bhargava & Shreyans Agrawal

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COVER STORY

T H E F UT UR E IS SO CIAL ( M E D IA)

By Khyaati Agarwal & Devleena Biswas Humans are innately social beings. So it wouldn't come as a surprise that in today's digital world, Social Media plays such a massive part of their lives. There are 3.6 billion people on social media, a number that will only keep rising. What started as a tool for people worldwide to connect, regardless of their time zones and shared real-time updates with their loved ones, has become so much more. Social media has become a place to build a community of like-minded individuals and form meaningful connections. It has not-so-surprisingly also become a profession for some! Social media influencers are, as, if not more revered than celebrities today.

Over the past 15 years, Facebook has defined the way we look at social networks and expanded the possibilities of social media. It essentially initiated the social media journey for casual content. Then came Instagram. Founded in 2010, Instagram became a huge success by exponentially growing its user base, and it is now one of the fastest-growing social media networks globally. This growth shouldn't come as a surprise. We are in a space where the mobile phone dominates, with people spending more time on their smartphones.

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Facebook might have a more extensive user base, but Instagram's stats are quite impressive, specifically in terms of engagement. Instagram has displayed itself as a platform that thrives on users being able to engage with the visual content that people and brands share.

While all social media platforms' functionality is essentially the same - to connect with people and build a community of likeminded ones, different social media platforms have certain features that make them stand out. This also entails that they each have a diverse consumer base. In short, people flock to different apps to meet different needs. While Youtube is the go-to for streaming videos - be it sports, stand-up comedy, or cooking and make-up tutorials, Twitter is used to know the latest trends and happenings around the world. While Facebook was once the most used app by Gen Z, there has been a shift to Instagram due to new features and it being more mobile-friendly.

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COVER STORY The social media game has evolved exponentially over time. As the user base of social media platforms kept on increasing, businesses caught wind of the potential of using them to their advantage. What was once a platform for sharing vacation photographs and connecting with friends and family has now become a tool for successful and inexpensive marketing for brands around the world. Today, over 90% of marketers utilize Social Media as part of their marketing strategies. The more people use these platforms, the more data for marketers to track and analyze consumer behaviour. While companies consider digital media a space for advertisements, it also provides the most reliable customer feedback and the potential to create a community.

Today, brands like Burger King and Durex have fan-following simply due to the great content every consumer relates to. This helps them grow their online presence organically and engage with millions of consumers, which could not have been possible using traditional media.

Social media has given businesses a chance to build a community and different avenues of spreading brand awareness. The best part? It's free.

While traditional media has been used for ages, the shift to the digital world has been smooth and steady. However, what prompted a spike in social media usage by businesses, was the Covid-19 pandemic. With people around the world being stuck in their homes, it made little sense to brands to invest in outdoor advertising and print media. There had to be an alternate place for them to park their marketing budget, which happened to be social media. Social media usage increased by 55% in India during the lockdown. People resorted to social media to distract themselves from the seriousness of the worldwide situation and started following entertaining and joyous content. Thus, apps like TikTok experienced record growth as they put out fun and engaging content for viewers. While most big brands have always been active on social media, the pandemic gave rise to the need for small businesses to venture into it; else, they would be losing out on customers.

The trends on social media changed rapidly, with brands going for moment marketing by spreading awareness on Covid-19 safety measures via great campaigns, incorporating memes, and influencer marketing. While influencer marketing has been quite common on Instagram, now even big brands have started spending on it. It helps in two ways- provides vast reach spending relatively lesser than advertisements, and helps acquire customers as these influencers have a loyal follower base who trust them for purchasing decisions.

To put it simply, social media doesn't just create markets; it builds communities. It is where all kinds of businesses have opportunities to grow together. They can engage with their customers in just a snap and respond to the pulse of the hour quickly. It offers ways to target unique and specific audiences and demographics with equal ease. All this, only at a fraction of the cost they would have shelled out on traditional marketing efforts. It is estimated that the use of social media marketing reduces marketing budgets by 61% outright. A comprehensive digital strategy ensures that the businesses record a significantly higher ROI. In the words of Erik Qualman - "We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media; the question is how well we DO it." What started as an entertainment source eventually has evolved into one of the most potent marketing channels for businesses. In today's date, if we say content is the fire, then social media is the gasoline.

Social Media isn't merely an advertising medium, but now social media accounts can be a fully functional sales channel that drives revenue. About 54% of browsers use social media to search for products.

This opportunity is enthusiastically grabbed by searchbased ad targeting on social media platforms, and voila! There’s a winning duo. This provides businesses with unprecedented opportunities to reach a vast sea of audience. And it can only be said that now that the businesses have dived in the deep sea, it's up to them how well they can fish.

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A COOKIELESS FUTURE Businesses were using third party data to track your activity and show you targeted ads, but it won’t be the case now. Google Chrome is doing away with thirdparty cookies citing data privacy and transparency on customer data usage as reasons for the move, and will completely phase it out by 2022.

Some experts also believe that it is a tactic used by Google to strengthen its grip on the advertising market by pushing its first-party cookies. This tactic would let Google eat up the revenue which would have otherwise gone to third-party platforms.

The reasons for the move and implications have been a point of immense discussion in marketing circles ever since. There have been opinion articles and reports on how the future of digital advertising and customer retargeting looks, with the most significant source of browsing data on the internet going away.

Before we look into how this will affect businesses, we need to go back in time.

Browsers like Safari and Firefox removed third party cookies way back. Chrome entered the party late. But the news of Chrome following suite is more significant than any other

PERSPECTIVE By Akshansh Gupta IIM Shillong browser for it controls almost half of all the internet traffic.

And thus, the impact it will create is going to be huge. The effect would be even more on companies who rely heavily on advertising and are not much into alternate strategies like content marketing, email, social media, and SEO. All online businesses rely heavily on third-party data to track their visitors, improve user experience, and show them the right ads.

Cookies have been the most popularly used technique for the same. But the point to be noted here is that Google is only doing away with third-party cookies and not first-party cookies.

So what is the difference?

First party cookies help you track basic data of the people visiting your website, while third-party cookies are for websites you don't own. They help you better understand the browsing behavior of the visitors. So, this move of Google won't allow you to track users' overall behavior, but you still can track the activity they do on your website.

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Now, the important question iswhat change will this bring in the marketing processes and what alternatives exist in the market for businesses to leverage.

With third party cookies no more available, marketers would have lesser data about the customers and what they are doing across the internet. They won’t be able to create detailed customer profiles and show highly targeted ads. Retargeting won’t remain as precise as it is today. They would rely on whatever they can get out of their website. And in case you don’t have enough first-party data, which is the case with a lot of new websites, you can have more problems than the rest

But there are solutions available.

Google itself is planning to launch a platform called the Privacy Sandbox, which will make most of the user data available on the user's device itself, and the data shared will also be reduced.

So, though it would help address the data privacy concerns, companies can still use the data for targeting purposes with certain limitations in place.

Along with this, marketing automation platforms are coming up with strategies like contextual

advertising to utilize first-party data better. Such techniques existed in the past and were only losing importance given the pinpoint profiling with third-party cookies.

Another concept people should look forward to is that of CDPs (customer data platforms).

CDP is a software platform that collects customer data from multiple sources like your own website, e-commerce sites, and social media. It makes it available in a structured fashion to be used by marketers. You can say that it is a culmination of a lot of firstparty data. It creates customer profiles anonymously and thus is more probable to live up to the changing privacy norms. It can affect almost all forms of marketing and not just advertising.

Multiple innovations in marketing technology are expected in the future to fill the void created by the absence of third party cookies. Marketers will offer solutions, and all the industry needs to do is be agile enough to adopt them. But one thing every business can learn from this is that companies need to be omnichannel in their approach, and reliance on one channel for all their attribution and outreach can prove costly.

The world of digital advertising and marketing technology is changing, and this time, the change is driven by government regulations and policy. We need to be watchful, for this is going to be interesting.

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THE EXPONENTIAL RISE OF INFLUENCER MARKETING

By Harshit Somani IIM Shillong

The world of marketing has seen drastic changes over the decades, and evolution keeps surprising us. Hoardings and banners, advertisements over the radio, celebrity endorsements, and print ads played a crucial role in the marketing world.

MRF became symbolic with Sachin Tendulkar, and many other brands became associated with other celebrities. Much water has run under the bridge since then, and things are no more the same. These marketing methods still play a crucial role, but gradually, brands and companies have shifted their marketing strategies to suit the changing demands. One such vital route of marketing has been the everemerging concept of influencer marketing.

What Is Influencer Marketing?

It is a unique form of social media marketing where marketing is done through individuals having a significant influence over a large section of people or expert knowledge on a subject matter. Here, brands and companies reach out to these people to ask them to market their products in exchange for money or free products. Have you ever seen Rohit Sharma wearing an Adidas jersey and flaunting it on Instagram or a Virat Kohli sporting Puma shoes and appreciating the product? What you saw, there was an example of influencer marketing.

Who Are These Influencers, and Why Do They Matter?

Here comes the age-old yet golden idea of word-of-mouth publicity. If you have a significant influence over a group of friends and you are giving out a positive review of the latest smartphone you had purchased, then congratulations, you are an influencer.

Film critics, comedians, actors, sportspersons, bloggers, your relative or your friend - everyone is an influencer. The social media channels have become so popular that humans have a digital version of themselves all over these channels. What one wears,

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where does one spend his holidays, where does one party and what are his likes or dislikes are written all over the social media. When there is so much that is being put out on social media, it is sure to grab many eyeballs.

Ironically, this is what marketers aimed at – grabbing as many eyeballs as possible for their products or brand.

I nfluencer Marketi ng Helps Brands Reach Customers i n a More Personal and Customi zed Level

There was an opportunity for the brands as well as the influencers. The social media giant, Facebook, now has two billion monthly active users, and Instagram now has over 800 million users and about 500 million daily users.

These are crazy numbers not only for these media giants but also for the brands. Consequently, brands using the right mix of traditional marketing and social media marketing. The social media stalwarts previously use to promote brands in barter for free products. However, they are now paid for such promotions. The next time you like an Instagram picture of Disha Patani wearing a Calvin Klein apparel, remember she is making loads of money. Selena Gomez reportedly gets paid $550000 per sponsored post on Instagram.

When your celebri ty cru s h or your i dol recommend s a product, you are bound t o use i t.

Well, celebs have existed as an influencer over decades - earlier through television and now through social media as well. However, there is a new breed of influencers like Bhuvan Bam, Carry Minati, food bloggers, photographers, travel bloggers, and the list is endless.

Millennials and youngsters are the target audience for numerous brands, and these influencers are the right medium.

Skincare products, edible oils, new android applications, gadgets, consumer durables - everything is advertised through influencer marketing.

The Exponential Marketing

Rise

of

Influencer

Businesses soon realized that amidst the marketing clutter, it is seemingly difficult to reach the target audience.

While the advertising reach through traditional means was decreasing, the follower base of these influencers was increasing.

As the consumpti o n of soci al medi a i ncre as es , i nfluencer marketi ng wi l l i ncrease ground i n the s ea of marketi ng

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Should brands avoid using culturally inclined marketing, considering the risks of public reactions?

Vanshika Choudhary, Vishnu MK Welingkar Institute of Management Development & Research, Bangalore People's expectations of brands have changed over the years, and nowadays, customers are not just considering the type of product or services a brand offers but also what the brand represents and what it stands for. In a world where anything and everything can be commodified, cultural marketing offers a huge competitive advantage and a powerful way forward for brands to connect with their customers. But when brands adapt marketing techniques with an artistic inclination, they must know that they are dealing with a double-edged sword. Among the various tools used to promote a brand, advertisement remains to be the one that has the widest impact among the masses. Good promotions can resonate well with the audience's emotions; they have the power to move them to tears or burst them with laughter.

Despite the old saying "There is no such thing as bad publicity," at the end of the day, bad publicity is worse, especially when brands ruffle the feathers of birds who use Twitter for all the wrong reasons. Nowadays, anyone can initiate a witch hunt against a brand for many reasons, both genuine and ludicrous, with social media platforms; the only thing restricting them is their imagination and skewed logic. The latest brand to face the wrath of cyber warriors was Tanishq. The ad's theme revolved around an interfaith marriage and a mother-in-law who belonged to a different religion which respects her daughter in law's faith and customs. Despite the brand withdrawing the ad from their social media pages, the fervor, and frenzy they generated did not die down. The social media space was filled with groups who were calling for the boycotts of the brand's products on one side, and on the other side, people were in support of the brand for its portrayal of mutual respect and cultural harmony. Once the genie is out of the bottle, he is out, so what brands should learn from these episodes is that they should make sure they never cross the line when they are adopting culture marketing tactics. They should

Eye 2 understand that their cultural values and norms influence the way people think and the decisions they make to an extent. So, instead of going for themes that revolve around a particular religion, cast creed should focus on neutral and universal themes like the #ThankYouMa campaign of P&G or #SmileKaroAurBasShuruHoJao of Colgate. We Indians may tolerate corruption, poverty, and any forms of injustice instilled upon us, but we will never take slander or jibe directed at our Gods.

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Swapnil Ingole Sankalp Chandra Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Nagpur

2 Eye In conclusion, emotional marketing is a mainstay and will continue to capitalize on it effectively. The company should be extra cautious in the design for a solid campaign that indeed covers all bases.

As mass-production becomes mainstream, companies produce the homogenous products with competitive quality and price. But just the right product does not ensure good sales. Thus, companies facing tough competition start targeting niche groups. Like in shoes, the company Vans has become a lifestyle brand while facing tough competition from Sneakers giants like Converse, Under-armor, or Nike.

Vans did by supporting the skating culture, rising in the 70s and 80s in the USA & becoming the uniform of choice for skaters, bikers, surfers, and snowboarders alike. For ages, companies have leveraged sports, music, and even a political opinion relevant to the market. For the Indian markets, it will not be a false generalization that emotional marketing has been the most effective. It is also true that the average citizen is deeply sensitive and yet emotional towards the faith, religion, and familial structure. Companies have repeatedly tug on the most sensitive emotional string to connect and market their product.

It is a truly sensitive tread for the companies as the public reaction could be drastically opposite of what the company intended. Recent examples are Tanishq jewellery or Surf Excel powder campaigns, where the advertisement reflected the harmony of two religious sects. The respective products are the tools for the connection. This, however, was perceived as leaning towards one particular section and caused a public boycott. However, it is unfair for the companies to not capitalize on this, for the lack of a better word, the genre of advertisements. We have plenty of examples where the showcasing of the product holding a place of importance for people of all religions and political beliefs has been received positively. A simple example can be of the spice' chaat masala' being something a Hindu pandit, Punjabi kid, and a Muslim head of the family have to have in/on their food to be delicious, the ad suggests.

It is not essential to distinguish whether to have the culturally sensitive subjects or not but rather how cautiously, we can design the campaigns

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Do you often wonder what is the first thing people notice when they check out your business?

It is your logo! The logo not only represents but IS your brand.

A company's logo is a symbol of its identity. People associate a brand’s logo with the values and character of the company. A logo says a lot about the brand, and that is why big brands invest a reasonable amount of time & money into developing a logo that is creative, conveys a message, and connects with the masses. Let us see some of the beautiful logos and interesting stories associated with them.

A military contractor, a hidden house, a family sigil, a human head and 31 flavours of the month!

LOGOISTIC

By Sahil Jain

BMW: The logo represents the history of the company. It is a reminder of World War II when BMW used to manufacture aircraft engines for the German military. The logo features spinning aircraft propellers with the blue sky peeping through it, also taking inspiration from the Bavarian flag for its colour scheme.

Baskin Robins: Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins, the two brothers-in-law, started their separate ventures of selling ice-cream in 1948-49.

Advertising giant, Ogilvy and Mather is behind the present logo design.

Baskin Robbins, at that time, had only 31 flavours of ice-cream. This has been very cleverly inscribed in the logo representing a flavour for every day of the month.

Nestle: The Nestle logo was designed in 1868 by Henri Nestle, based on his name in German. The logo consists of a little nest and his family sigil. Along the years, as the logo evolved, the beak of the mother bird was modified, and the fledglings were reduced from three to two in order to depict an average modern family.

Picasa: At first glance, the logo looks like a camera shutter. But wait, there's much more to it. The name of the company, Picasa, is based on the Spanish word 'Casa', which means house. The logo is meant to represent a house for all your pictures (Pic + Casa becomes Picasa). Look carefully and you'll spot a house in the middle of the colorful shutters!

Beats: The logo is minimalistic, yet is very creative. It looks like a circle with the letter 'b' enclosed in it. The circle, though, isn't just a circle. It represents a person's head and the letter 'b' represents headphones, which is the primary product of the company. This gives the brand a personal touch by allowing a customer to envision themselves wearing the headphones.

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Company: Dream 11 Agency: Tilt Brand Solutions Theme: Utilizing wasted time

Company: Paytm Theme: Make the right choice

Concept: Dream11 is an Indian sports fantasy startup and the latest title sponsor of the Indian Premier League, which guaranteed them nationwide attention. They needed to come up with a quirky yet effective ad campaign to capitalize on this attention wave. And capitalize they did. With just 10 seconds runtime, this ad sure got the right ingredients to make it an instant favourite. Airing during breaks, the first ad featured Rohit Sharma, Mumbai Indian's captain, asking a bored man to stop playing with a bubble wrap and play on Dream11 instead.

Concept: Paytm First Games is an online gaming destination that allows users to play interactive games to win prize money. In their recent collaboration with Sachin Tendulkar, the God of cricket himself as the brand ambassador for their platform, they rolled out an inspirational ad which has led to controversies in the social media for its projection of child abuse.

The ad shows a small kid with curly hair cheering for his senior team without practising. His coach, disappointed in him slaps he kid and asks him whether he want to cheer in life or play.

CATCH

OR O

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Verdict: Catch

Verdict: Miss

The ad addressed the Indian phenomenon of 'Timepass’ a blanket term used to describe the inane activities which a person indulges in during his free time, thus giving a logical positioning to the brand. With a substantial recall value, this ad quickly got infused in our daily lives in the form of jokes, memes, and humorous banter, thus creating more publicity. High relatability and sheer simplicity with proper brand placement and awareness, sprinkled with the familiarity of our favorite sports stars helped the ad (campaign) score boundaries to win the campaign match.

However, the ad was able to garner its share of views and publicity but faced considerable backlash in social media for having a child abuse element, which might have shifted the focus of the ad's primary purpose to the coach slapping the kid. The ad triggered some of the biggies in the country for being problematic and inexcusable. Some saw nothing terrible in cheering up for a team and mentioned that cheering is also part of sportsmanship and slapping a child for cheering is an abuse.

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VARTALAAP By Shishir Ghildiyal & Palak Bhargava CO-FOUNDER, GINGER MONKEY

Mr. Asthana was one of the earliest proponents of capitalizing upon the reach of social media with beginnings as early as 2010. He has been a perfect example of how social media can help you generate synergies with your professional career and later on empower you to pursue your passion & leverage one's expertise to build a business. Since starting his journey on Twitter, Abhishek has worked across sales & marketing, handling multiple responsibilities. His last stint was at an iconic sexual wellness brand as the brand manager.

Q1: You’ve had an interesting journey from being Brand Manager of an iconic sexual wellness brand to now starting a creative agency of your own. How has marketing changed for you as you’ve shifted from one brand to managing multiple ones now?

I think it’s more like how, as a consumer, you interact/use multiple brands in a day & now, as a marketer, I get to attempt multiple brand briefs in a day. Thinking about how to sell cookware in the morning, to a Car in the afternoon to insurance in the night. To learn about multiple business models, to hear from the founders how they scaled their business, built a brand, is fascinating. Such exposure was hard to come by in my previous role. Although, it comes with its own opportunity of staying really close to a brand and see it grow.

Q2: You’ve been one of the most recognizable Twitter influencers. How did it all start for you?

It all started accidentally. Actually, I was about to do a post on my blog about how this new platform called “Twitter” has sprung up and how it would be like to have Sholay characters on Twitter. Dakus “following” Basanti. On the premise of this silly joke, I created a few Twitter handles on Twitter, the plan was to do some tweets, take screenshots, post them on the blog, and then delete the account, but then I saw some 20 Retweets on one of the handles after I deleted the other

VARTALAAP

Mr. Abhishek Asthana is the co-founder of creative agency Ginger Monkey and is famously known by his twitter alias @GabbbarSingh. With close to 7 years of experience in marketing with globally renowned brands, he has developed a penchant for solving brand and marketing related problems and the success of Ginger Monkey has been a testament to that.

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two. It piqued my interest, and since then, I have been wedded to this handle of @Gabbbarsingh, which provided the safety net to start my entrepreneurial venture.

Q3: What would be your advice to people who seek to create content and leverage social media?

I think creating content has become a monetizable activity now, instead of just being a hobby. I always tell people that if you can’t monetize your hobby, it dies.

Staying topical, having a unique point-of-view helps a lot. A lot of people follow the news now; once they are done with the facts, they need opinions to validate their own. Such opinions can come via Op-Eds, Cartoons, or tweets. That’s where the demand is, and you can be a supplier while monetizing it.

Q5: What skillsets do you think are a must for an individual looking to establish his career in the sales or marketing domain?

I think the skill sets are pretty much the same for any other career: Diligence, Attention to Detail, and being really pro-active (when you anticipate and act before being told). One other facet which comes in handy is presentation skills. A lot of times, you will be the one asking for more monies to fund your ideas. It could be a new product launch, another resource in your team, or just another distribution drive for your brand; in all these scenarios, you have to sell your ideas to the top management and convince them to commit to it. Hence the ability to clearly communicate & persuade is very handy in a Sales & Marketing career.

In the end, it’ll all be worth it. Be diligent & be attentive to details. Success will follow.

Q6: Finally, what message would you like to share with our readers who are budding marketers looking to make a career in the field?

Always remember, an MBA teaches you to be a Business leader. The path to leadership is strewn with hardships, from selling biscuits in rural Telangana to picking awards in glitzy ballrooms. In the end, it’ll all be worth it. Be diligent & be attentive to details. Success will follow.

All the best!

VARTALAAP

Q4: Where do you think Indian brands stand as compared to their global counterparts in terms of leveraging digital platforms?

I think we are bridging that gap quickly. A good surrogate is the media money split a brand puts in Digital: Non-Digital. The ratio of money being put on Digital media is constantly going north. Say this medium can solve the issue of Ad-fraud & bots, then more and more monies will come in. D2C brands are anyway putting all their money here.

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S O C I A L CAMPAIGN Brand: Nike

In the year over highlighted by the Pandemic which kept people locked up indoors and made worse by the case of police brutality, Nike along with its creative agency, Wieden+Kennedy did just what has always been Nike’s purpose – Unite the world with sports, with their advertisement “You can’t stop us”. A split-screen technique with 36 pairings taken out of over 4,000 different clips, woven together to be in harmony communicates the message of not letting the closed gyms or the stadiums hold us back and showcases us the way athletes continue to push forward and have always done so. The advertisement featured renowned faces including LeBron James, Naomi Osaka, Eliud Kipchoge, Cristiano Ronaldo, Serena Williams, Colin Kaepernick and Kylian Mbappé. Throughout the lockdown, Nike has tried to find creative ways to keep people upbeat despite the negativity surrounding them. The way Nike has brought together athletes and individuals from different backgrounds of Black, White, Asian and Muslim athletes adds weight to the power of sports. "We're never alone, and that is our strength," quotes the ad's narrator, women's soccer star and equal-pay activist Meghan Rapinoe. "Because when we're doubted, we'll play like one.

When we're held back, we'll go farther, and harder. If we're not taken seriously, we'll prove that wrong. And if we don't fit the sport, we'll change the sport." The advertisement works as editing and filming marvel wonderfully portraying differently-abled and able-bodied athletes across different sports in a span of 90-seconds; wherein an athlete on one half of the screen complements the movements of another athlete portraying how sports can brings us together despite the differences.

By Shishir Ghildiyal & Shardul Parab

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In search of people's favourite brands, we conducted an Instagram poll among eight famous brands. To assess the brand recall value and connectivity, we made our audience vote in the brand wars. The poll was among Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonald's, Burger King, Zomato, Amul, Nike, Fevicol. And indeed people voted for their and the country's favourite brand - Amul "Utterly Butterly Delicious" is undoubtedly the taste of India. Over the years, Amul has evolved to become one of the most beloved brands in our country.

When Amul was established in the year 1946, consumers had limited purchasing power and modest consumption levels of milk and other dairy products.

Amul adopted a low-cost pricing strategy to make its products affordable and consumer appealing. Low pricing has always been Amul's USP. It hits at the transnationals by reducing its prices on the product portfolios. Amul follows a backward integration strategy, and it results in sustainable cost reduction.

Segmentation: Amul focuses on mass segmentation. People from all populations and age groups enjoy the product.

Targeting: The primary target audience for the brand is the regular middle-class families. Nonetheless, the brand has a diverse product line, including premium products. Amul strategically targets people with different blends of campaigns for distinct groups.

Positioning: Amul carefully cultivated its family image over the years. The "Taste of India" campaign was a great success and helped Amul capturing a great market share.

With a vast supply chain and distribution networks across India, Amul products are readily available in nearby stores. Amul's punny ads are the longest-running ads as per the Guinness World record. Amul covers all the famous events and is known for its moment marketing.

Amul spends only 1% of its revenue on advertising with a heavy target market.

Innovation for new products is the key growth driver, along with its brand quality and loyalty.

Amul has built its brand personality to connect to people, often stressing nationalism, and focuses on moment marketing. Its tagline, "The Taste of India", instils a sense of nationalism in the consumers' minds eradicating the perception of their products like bread, butter, cheese as British and foreign cuisine. Being a brand of daily importance, it connects to people culturally as well as emotionally. Upon that, along with its catchy advertisements and posters, Amul will not leave the throne anytime soon.

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MORE TO LIFE THAN WHOPPER Burger King, one of the front runners in terms of viral marketing, has won our hearts again. This time it's not about its competitive marketing but the support for its rival firms. Recently, Burger King UK posted an Instagram image displaying ORDER FROM MCDONALDS. Users were shocked. Burger King mentioned purchasing food from all of its sister food chains to support the restaurants employing thousands of locals.

To support the independent restaurants, competing hospitality brands will be able to share their content via Burger King UK's Instagram account for free by tagging their posts with the hashtag #WhopperAndFriends. Netizens praised the brand's efforts and boomed the internet with 35k+likes and 5k retweets within a few hours of announcing.

Burger King succeeded with its unconventional but inventive advertising technique and showed its humanity over the competition.

Are you still wondering #Kahan Gayi Cadbury???

Mondelez India launched yet another eyecatching campaign, where the word 'Cadbury' was missing from its wrappers, Billboards, and advertisements. It created curiosity and buzz regarding the mystery of Kahan Gayi Cadbury? (Where did Cadbury go). The internet was buzzing with people missing Cadbury and curious about where it could be. Some celebrities were also seen telling tales of their missing Cadbury. But in the middle of the chaos and confusion, Cadbury Choco bakes came forward to claim that it knows #Kahan Gayi Cadbury? The secret was revealed that our favorite Cadbury was in Choco bakes, Choco layered cakes and Choco filled cookies. So, the whole buzz was created for the launch of Mondelez’s new product line, Choco bake cakes and cookies. To support the launch, apart from this campaign, the company also recently launched a new film as part of the second leg of the ‘Meetha Chhupa Rustom’ narrative.

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