Mumbai: Confederation of Indian industry (CII), the apex body of big and medium sized industries in India, held a full day Seminar on ‘Marketing & Branding’ at Radisson Blu, Noida and was attended by nearly 100 CMOs and big industry owners & CEOs to discuss the challenges of evolving and re-learning the concepts of marketing and branding in this era of media& digital revolution being witnessed in the country today.
Tapas Gupta, Founder & MD of BEI Confluence was invited by CII to Chair and moderate a half day session on “New Age Marketing: The Game Changer” in which Abhishek Gupta, Executive Director Digital Division of BEI Confluence was one of the key speakers along with ProtikBasu, Managing Partner of Weaddo, a reputed Data Analytics organisation. It was a gripping, involving and participative session of over two and a half hours where both the speakers excelled in their areas of specialisations.
Abhishek Gupta of BEI Confluence spoke at length about how the digital revolution is fuelling aspirations and changing the lives of millions of Indians at all strata of society. With the exponential growth of the smart phone penetration and the 4G revolution greatly catalysed by the Jio effect, and with competitors like Airtel expanding almost over night their technology, quality,span and width of services, the digital revolution has permeated deep into the rural heartland of India, reaching out to the farthest corners of the country.
He presented an eye-opening case study on the launch of Kayakalp, an organic soil nutrient from Insecticides India Ltd one of India’s largest herbicides and pesticides manufacturers, almost entirely through digital communication targeting the relatively affluent, young and progressive farmer community and how this community reacted to the communication and adopted it almost instantly to enable the brand to endear itself and build loyalty amongst its core target. This is probably one of the first (if not the first) farming brands to have been launched in India almost entirely through the digital platform.
Abhishek also presented the recent case study of Delhi’s No. 1 Bread brand Harvest Gold going very substantially on the digital medium for its promotion. Bread is a highly commoditised category (a bread is a bread, is a bread) and the challenge was to create engagement through disruptive digital communication to help it stand above the clutter. Initial results indicate that the trends look encouraging and healthy.
While Abhishek demonstrated the ‘softer’ and the strategic and creative side of digital communication, ProtikBasu of Weaddo presented the analytics and the developments happening at software base and continuous developments of digital communication platforms. A solid technological backbone is the fundamental need and such technologies are evolving by the day, keeping software engineers and developers on their toes.
Tapas Gupta, Chairman of this half day session, in his concluding remarks advised that the softer side (strategic & creative) and the harder side (technological backbone and software development) go hand in hand and the name of the game in digital communication is to continuously update and upgradeone’s self with the evolving and changing consumers need & demands, habits and attitudes, as also the technological shifts and developments that are taking place at breakneck speeds in the digital world. Those who fail to keep pace will fall behind.
This half day Seminar on New Age Marketing: The Game Changer was highly applauded by the audience and a number of senior marketing professionals observed that it was an eye-opener through its very fresh take on the ‘softer’ and the ‘harder’ sides of digital communication.
