Mumbai: SOCXO Solutions, the Bengaluru based Brand Advocacy start-up, announced the appointment of Ajit Narayan as CMO and Program head. Working with SudarsanRao, Co-founder and CEO and Dhanasekaren COO, Ajit takes on responsibility to accelerate adoption and usage of brand advocacy in both the B2B and B2C marketing space across the global market.
With more than 25 years of experience in the CRM and experiential marketing agency space, Ajit comes with around a decade strategic planning experience with Bates Chi and Sercon where he built his trade mark integrated communications tools around B2C and B2B experience strategies, many of which have resulted in campaigns which have won international awards including PMAA, DMA, B2B marketing London etc. He has also been on an independent stint for last 4 years as a marketing consultant for brands and agencies to help them in their strategic planning function.
Ajit brings to the table the unique ability to dissect data and develop creative ideas which enhance customer and prospect experiences across the buying cycle.
According to Ajit, “Brand Advocacy is the new wave of the old-fashioned business way of making friends and conversing with them wherever you go. As made famous by Anheuser-Busch.”
“When people think brand advocacy, they immediately refer to a HOG or Apple or Nike. These are iconic and cult brands and not every brand can become that, they are aspirational. I would rather point to the 100’s of others out there, which have channelized their believers to communicate their essence. And did great business by doing so.
On the Martech evolution, he says “Technology is just a tool to enable you to simplify your process. But people connect with ideas and not products or solutions. And that’s where Advocacy program building comes into play.”
Loyalty marketers will show you the Loyalty Ladder and points-basedprograms to take your suspects through the ladder. But we always drew a blank when we came to advocates. We just assumed best customers would talk great stuff about the brand and buy more and refer. But that in reality never got into an organized framework. Now that’s where SOCXO comes in.”
Says SudarsanRao, Co-founder and CEO SOCXO “The brand advocacy space is relatively new in Asia-Pacific region, it’s got higher adoption in the US and European markets but overall it’s a business waiting to explode. It is beginning to show great opportunities for brand marketers to build and sustain their most important assets, their brand believers.”
“I believe that Ajit’s insights on digital social media, combined with strategic brand and loyalty marketing will help us focus on innovation and entrepreneurship to deliver dynamic growth across brands and product categories.”
Ajit has worked across the Marketing spectrum with Bates Chi & Sercon, OgilvyOne, Enterprise Nexus Direct, RMG Connect, Wunderman India. He has worked on leading campaigns for Castrol, Microsoft, Compaq, Ford, CII, Monster, Audi, Dell, Sun Microsystems, EMC, VLCC among many others.
