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Tag: marketing

  • Usha International appoints Anshuman Chakravarty as VP, marketing

    Usha International appoints Anshuman Chakravarty as VP, marketing

    Mumbai: Usha International has appointed Anshuman Chakravarty as vice president – marketing. He will report to executive chairman Krishna Shriram and will handle the operations from Gurugram.

    Chakravarty is a brand management and marketing communications practitioner with experience in working in India and international markets (Asia & Europe), with exposure in B2C & B2B domains. He is armed with over 23 years of experience in strategising and executing brand launches, re-positioning strategies, media planning and buying, internal and external communication, social & digital marketing, PR & reputation management, and crisis communication.

    An MBA in marketing & post-graduate in journalism and mass communication, Chakravarty started his career at Sahara Group as manager of brand and corporate communications. 

    He later joined DS Group, where he served as associate head of corporate communications and post that, he worked with Jindal Stainless and Kaefer as head of corporate communications.

    In his most recent role, he was associated with electrical equipment manufacturer Orient Electric as head of brand and corporate communications for over seven years.

  • World’s top 50 luxury brands lose over $7 bn in value this year: Report

    World’s top 50 luxury brands lose over $7 bn in value this year: Report

    Mumbai: The total value of the world’s top 50 most valuable luxury and premium brands has declined by five per cent year-on-year, according to the Brand Finance Luxury & Premium 50 2021 report. As the world grapples with the fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic, these brands witnessed a downturn from $227.1 billion in 2020 to $219.5 billion in 2021, it said.

    Apparel brands dominated the ranking, with 30 brands featuring and accounting for 62 per cent of total brand value, but brand values suffered, nevertheless, due to Covid-19. German auto giant Porsche retained the top spot with a brand value of $34.3 billion, considerably ahead of second-ranked Gucci (brand value down 12 per cent).

    French leather luxury goods brand Celine bucked the trend to emerge as the fastest growing brand, up by an impressive 118 per cent, according to the report. Despite the pandemic’s impact on travel and tourism industry, two hotels managed to check into the ranking for the first time, with Shangri-La in 29th and Intercontinental in 35th position in the report.

    American luxury design house Coach, specialising in handbags, luggage, accessories, and ready-to-wear has recorded the biggest drop in brand value this year in the apparel subsector, falling 31 per cent to $4.7 billion. While performances across the board have been impacted by the pandemic, with the majority of brands recording a brand value loss this year, the brand’s sales and profits have taken a hit over the previous year. Coach’s parent company, Tapestry, has however, cited that forecasts across its brands are looking more positive than anticipated thanks to triple-digit e-commerce growth and a strong rebound across the Chinese market.

    In addition to measuring the overall brand value, the report also evaluates the relative strength of brands, based on factors such as marketing investment, customer familiarity, staff satisfaction, and corporate reputation. According to these criteria, Ferrari (up 2 per cent to $9.2 billion) is the world’s strongest luxury & premium brand – and the second strongest brand in the world. The auto-maker reacted proactively to the pandemic, initially shutting down production and then reopening with a focus on creating a safe working environment. This both minimised disruption and reinforced the brand’s reputation as a high-quality and responsible firm, as per the report.

    Sitting behind Ferrari as the second strongest luxury & premium brand is Rolex, up by one per cent to $7.9 billion. Despite the challenges of the last year, the market for luxury watches has shown remarkable resilience to the pandemic turmoil, with demand remaining stable, demonstrated by Rolex’s website traffic experiencing a surge over the previous year.

    “As predicted, the Covid-19 pandemic has damaged brand values across the luxury & premium sector with the total brand value of the world’s top 50 most valuable down five per cent year-on-year,” says Brand Finance valuation director Alex Haigh.  

    It is not all doom and gloom though, he notes, adding that the pandemic can be used as a catalyst for change across the industry, through growing e-commerce channels or through brands’ responses to the increased consumer demand for social and sustainable action.

    German automaker Porsche, for instance, is striving towards pushing the boundaries and redefining the future of the sportscar. As part of the brand’s ‘Strategy 2025’, the auto giant aims to maintain the traditional aspects that the brand is known for, as well as undertaking the shift towards sustainability through the launch of the Taycan. Porsche celebrated strong sales of the Taycan, which totalled over 20,000 units sold last year, despite a six-week pause in production due to the pandemic. This impressive result means that over 10 per cent of Porsche’s sales are now from its EV models.

    As holidays are cancelled and people are instructed to work from home, the hospitality industry has reached an almost complete standstill both from tourism, as well as corporate travel and hotel brand values, have suffered as a result.  Home to five-star luxury properties with elite postcodes and addresses across the Middle East, Asia, North America, and Europe, Shangri-La – despite the challenges – is the highest-ranked hotel brand in 29th position. The hotel recorded an encouraging recovery across mainland China over the last year with demand being supported by an uptick in domestic leisure travel.

  • Stylework appoints Vikrant Vashisht as country head, sales & marketing

    Stylework appoints Vikrant Vashisht as country head, sales & marketing

    Mumbai: Co-working aggregator platform Stylework on Wednesday announced the appointment of Vikrant Vashisht as country head for sales & marketing, India and transactions, MEA.

    Vashisht comes with over 19 years of experience in business development, revenue management, customer relationship management of large-scale businesses in the real estate, retail, and aviation industry.

    Prior to Stylework, he worked with FirstLease, Awfis and Regus as marketing head and has experience in flexible workspaces function and operation.

    “Having Vikrant on board will strengthen the brand’s positioning with outstanding creative strategies along with active community engagement,” said Stylework CEO and founder Sparsh Khandelwal. “His experience in leveraging consultative selling strategies will build relationships for the company across all target markets.”  

    In his new role, Vashisht said he will be overseeing sales, marketing, managing profit/revenues, results-driven planning, and quality targets. “I am looking forward to joining the Stylework team and leveraging my experience to contribute across various functions,” he added.

  • GUEST COLUMN: Going beyond the short video format for digital media

    GUEST COLUMN: Going beyond the short video format for digital media

    Mumbai: Coconut Films has been in the business of TV commercial production for more than a decade and has recently delivered a digital film for the bullet brand, Royal Enfield. Breaking digital stereotypes, the film is a long-format one & profound. Much like the bike, the film – ’Home’ moves at a cruising pace, and leaves the audiences with a lingering feeling of connecting back with their roots. Coconut Films co-founder Tushar Raut shares his insights on creating the ad-film and how different it was to write for a digital audience.

    Digital has been on the rise for a while. More occasions and more stories have been the mantra for marketers trying to connect with a divided audience whose attention span floats from window to window and app to app. So, how are ad-makers navigating through in a cluttered market? These are some questions that the entire marketing community has been facing since the short format video and video consumption online became a way of life.

    The good news is that we are no longer being dictated by the inherent challenges of the medium and being dictated by the format. Digital gives you a lot of creative freedom on the upside. Brevity is no longer the order of the day. We are not writing for 30 seconds. Of course, the audience has the option of skipping but every second does not count so I believe there is a lot of wind beneath our wings by that count.

    Short format videos are moving fast and selling like hotcakes but the medium has space for longer format and a lot of other kinds of storytelling. The thumb rule here is that there are no thumb rules. It is as ‘lawless’ as it gets. So, you have to do a lot of self-censorships and not get overindulgent with your own ideas. The script is the hero and the story you want to convey guides you rather than the medium.

    For Royal Enfield, we picked a subject that most people would relate to, irrespective of the age group and the format of media they consume. The film for Royal Enfield speaks about going back to roots, going back home and that can’t differ in terms of emotions. Even when it comes to the tech-savvy audience, going back to roots (in most cases) is very soothing. Anybody who has been away from home while having a similar set of feelings. People may change with every passing day, their physical needs also change but emotional needs are less fastidious, it is far more basic and confined. That is what makes us so similar despite many differences. I believe that is what one should focus on while working on a film, be it for TV or theatre, or digital.

    As for us, ‘Home’- the ad film which is roughly over seven minutes long, was not even conceived with the digital platform on our mind. We wanted to tell a story and tell it in the most authentic way. It was conceived with a feeling of wanting to give things back to where we all came from! Roots! We just wanted to make a film with a pure passion for storytelling without limiting ourselves to any parameters. We strongly believe that good content will be seen be it on TV or digital.

    ALSO READ | https://www.indiantelevision.com/mam/marketing/mam/royal-enfields-new-ad-film-kindles-the-joy-of-returning-home-210804

    The market dynamics these days are such that brand managers are often pushed by visibility, recall factors and maintain a continuous presence. While the line between content and advertising is blurring, on one hand, there is a constant need for being present and being connected with the audience. I don’t know whether to call it a downside but that tends to dictate a lot of other factors in terms of making the films, production values, etc. Initially, when the medium started putting out films, the brands would have smaller budgets, more films that were restricted to the short format. But over the years, marketers are coming to terms with the fact that a film is a film irrespective of the medium. It has to have a story, good production values, and weave well, overall. It really doesn’t matter if the film is for digital or any other medium because everything remains the same while producing one. One big takeaway for me has been that this is a very dynamic medium and still at nascent stages so it is evolving at a paid pace every day.

    It is important for the client, agency, and the production house to be on the same page and understand the objective of the film both in terms of the creative and budgetary aspects. If the brief is clear and everyone is aligned, then you can do a phenomenal job on a tight budget also. Budget is not the prerequisite of success; it gives you more freedom to do a lot of things. But I think it is a sort of a litmus test for professionals.

    All marketers will want the best bang for the buck and hence the entire value chain, therefore, aligns to this direction. ‘Home’ luckily was our pet project and the objective was to make an authentic, true-to-life film, which we managed to achieve. By the way, it looks opulent too and that is where our years of hard work has come into play, to achieve what we have achieved within the price points we had earmarked.

    (Tushar Raut is co-founder of Coconut Films. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • Unacademy elevates Karan Shroff to partner

    Unacademy elevates Karan Shroff to partner

    Mumbai: Learning platform Unacademy has elevated its chief marketing officer (CMO) Karan Shroff to the position of partner at the company. Shroff is the first partner named by Unacademy in recognition of his exemplary contribution in helping build Unacademy into an iconic brand, stated the company.

    Making the announcement in an internal note, Unacademy Group, co-founder and CEO, Gaurav Munjal said a partner is a leader who emulates all the characteristics of a co-founder, and in that essence a partner is a co-founder of today.

    In his most recent role, Shroff held the position of CMO since September 2020 at Unacademy. He was responsible for all marketing efforts including performance marketing, digital marketing, creative marketing, brand management, ATL campaigns, brand partnerships, media buying, consumer insights, and overall brand positioning. Shroff joined Unacademy in 2019 as vice president, marketing.

    Prior to Unacademy, Shroff led brand marketing at Xiaomi India. He has won numerous accolades and has regularly been featured as a top marketer, including being named ‘CMO of the Year’ by World Asia Retail Congress in 2021.

  • Bhujia, extrudes and the festive season: Bikano’s go-to-market strategy for H2

    Bhujia, extrudes and the festive season: Bikano’s go-to-market strategy for H2

    Mumbai: The second half of 2021 began on a bustling note for packaged snacks brand Bikano. The Company has launched two new snack ranges – a tea-time maida-based snack range and an extrude range under sub-brand Fatax, a new campaign for its star product – Bhujia, and the festive blitz focusing on sweets. The launches are part of Bikano’s well-thought-out strategy for the rest of the year even as the Delhi-based FMCG firm sets out to achieve its larger goals of establishing itself as the Bhujia specialist and market leader, developing the extrudes category and driving volumes for sweets with festive offerings.  

    Bikanervala Foods, head of marketing, Dawinder Pal takes us through these developments and their strategic importance for the Company in the light of trends, that emerged out of the pandemic year. When Pal joined Bikano from Bonn Group of Industries in October 2019, little did he know that in addition to transitioning from leading a premium western snacks category to heading marketing function for a traditional snacks brand, he will also have to deal with another unexpected industry-wide transformation, just six months down the line. Fortunately, the change was largely positive for him as well as Bikano.

    Taste and flavours reign supreme

    There’s no denying the emergence of health and hygiene consciousness as the most important trends out of 2020. From sanitisers to ‘virus-resistant’ clothing lines, brands across categories grabbed the opportunity to come up with new offerings. Bikano also introduced a range of diet namkeen mixtures and multigrain chips. However, with the setting in of post-covid rationalisation, it became clear that while snacking had definitely embraced hygiene, thus providing an advantage to packaged foods brands, the wave of health-consciousness was short-lived.

    “Even though there’s more awareness and talk of healthy-snacking, the quantum of it is quite low. When it comes to snacks, people are more glued to the taste; there’s still an unwillingness to compromise on it,” says Pal.   

    With renewed confidence, Bikano decided to go full throttle on traditional tastes and flavours, delivered with the hygiene advantage of packaged foods. Bhujia emerged as the obvious choice to lead the Indian snacks category. The humble snack contributes a whopping 35 per cent to Bikano’s namkeen category sales. “We are targeting Rs 200 cr in revenues from Bhujia (Aloo and Bikaneri) in the next two quarters,” says Pal.

    The namkeen and snacks market in India is valued at about Rs 35,000 crore, with Bhujia and Sev enjoying a 25 per cent share. Currently, the second-biggest player, Bikano wants to become the market leader in Bhujias. To this effect, the brand recently launched a campaign – ‘Hum Se Behtar Bhujia Ko Jaane Kaun’ – positioning itself as the “Bhujia specialist”.

    Bikano’s new tea-time range of refined wheat flour (maida)-based snacks, launched in July is further expected to provide it an edge over the competition. Consisting of seven products – Bhakar Badi, Tikoni Mathi, Gol Mathi, Matar Para, Methi Mathi, Mini Samosa and Chai Puri – the range is primarily targeted at the northern markets.

    Unlike traditional Indian snacks where it is the second biggest player, Bikano’s foothold in the western category which includes extrudes, wafers and bridges are not as strong. Pal tells us that since the time he joined, efforts to capture the western snacks market have picked up significantly. With a minimal presence in wafers and bridges ensured, the brand decided to aggressively pursue the high-volume, high-growth extrudes category which targets kids.

    In July, Bikano introduced a revamped extrudes range consisting of Ringz, Puffees, Cheese Balls, Pasta Crunch and Jungle Safari for children aged three to ten years. The objective was to augment presence in the 16000cr western snacks market, within which, extrudes (6000cr) is the fastest-growing sub-category at 23-25 per cent YoY.

    During the launch, Bikano, director Manish Aggarwal had stated that the new range is expected to give the Company a sales surge of up to Rs 15 crore in this fiscal.

    Another top gainer of 2020 for Bikano was the sweets category. Explaining the phenomenon, Pal states, “While our snacks TG remained unaffected, as consumer behaviour shifted towards hygiene, we felt the change – a positive one – most prominently in the sweets category, with volumes doubling in the last two years. That’s also when festive became an important part of our portfolio and yearly plans.”

    Last festive season, the brand achieved 40 per cent growth over the previous year. It has the same target for this year.

    Overall, the Company is eyeing 125cr in revenues from global markets and 1250cr from domestic market in this financial year.

    Changing Media Needs

    Bikano’s media strategy has been a combination of ATL and BTL, with print (newspapers and magazines), tactical outdoor, BTL activations, PoS branding and digital dominating the mix along with some TV. The brand has collaborated with Chhota Bheem for the launch of its Fatax extrudes range. As its builds the kids-oriented extrudes category, more such associations can be expected to increase the quantum of advertising on TV.

    Within digital, Bikano prioritises social media. “We are using the modern social media platforms to build preference for our traditional products among millennials who are more inclined towards western snacks,” Pal remarks.  

    Pal has deployed the OTT medium significantly for the brand’s advertising needs in the US and Canada. Commenting on the rather muted presence on Indian OTT platforms, he notes, “OTT brands in the US offer clear audience segmentation, for instance, the Willow TV app is dedicated exclusively to Cricket. The phenomenon is yet to happen in the Indian OTT space, where there’s no evident differentiation, but we do plan to explore it in the coming year.”

  • L’oréal India appoints Gaurav Anand as chief digital & marketing officer

    L’oréal India appoints Gaurav Anand as chief digital & marketing officer

    Mumbai: L’Oréal India announced the appointment of Gaurav Anand as its chief digital & marketing officer (CDMO) on Monday.  This newly created role brings together the digital and marketing efforts of the company to focus on the consumer journey.  

    Anand will be a part of the India management committee and will lead and integrate the consumer insights, data, strategy, media and consumer advisory functions to enable L’Oréal’s digital-first brands to deliver accelerated growth on online platforms.

    Commenting on the appointment, L’Oréal India, managing director, Amit Jain said, “The Indian consumer is making a rapid shift towards omnichannel. As a beauty tech company, L’Oréal India is addressing this evolving landscape by deploying new technologies to enhance our products and customer experience for a new O+O world. This new role is our commitment to strengthen the role of digital at the core of our business strategy. With his proven track record of accelerating disruptive business growth, Gaurav is best placed to scale our digital marketing efforts to harnesses new capabilities for the company.”

    Anand joins L’Oréal from PepsiCo Europe where he led the snacks business for central Europe and digitisation of sales strategy for Europe. With his experience across multiple geographies and diverse categories, Anand has built core expertise in business strategy & development, customer acquisition, motivating millennials, growing brands with digital & data

    On his new role, Anand said, “As a marketer, it’s been interesting to watch what L’Oréal has done for the Indian beauty market in the last 27 years, bringing many first-to-market innovations and products. Future possibilities lie in collaboration and I am looking forward to working with our industry partners to chalk out a strong consumer and data-focused growth story for L’Oréal.”

  • Embassy Group appoints Debosmita Majumder as group head, marketing & comm

    Embassy Group appoints Debosmita Majumder as group head, marketing & comm

    Mumbai: Real estate development firm Embassy Group on Monday announced the appointment of Debosmita Majumder as group head – marketing & communications.

    Majumder is an accomplished communications and marketing specialist with over 16 years of experience working with some of the country’s biggest brands and agencies and has delivered award-winning campaigns.

    Prior to joining Embassy Group, she was Porsche India’s head of marketing and was responsible in leading strategic campaigns and marketing initiatives for the brand. She has also previously worked with PUMA India, driving business impact, and is the brain behind the empowering Propah Lady campaign, the Cannes Awards nominated Suede Gully campaign, and the #DoYou campaign, which broke the Guinness Record in 2016.

    “Debosmita, with her years of diverse and rich experience in front-ending successful communication and marketing initiatives for various brands, is a great asset for our team,” said Embassy Group, COO, Aditya Virwani. “We are pleased to welcome her on-board and look forward to working with her to further strengthen our marketing practice, building the brand’s strategic narrative and drive holistic communications for Embassy Group.”

    Majumder’s role with Embassy Group would focus on providing strategic and thought leadership direction for the brand and communications. She will also be responsible for driving and unifying the brand’s story and image, focusing on digital marketing, creative communications, and public relations across its corporate, commercial, residential, services, community outreach, interiors, co-living, education, and equestrian verticals.

    “With marketing and communications powering my career through the past decade and a half, I have had the opportunity to work with leading brands across sectors and drive their strategic narratives,” said Majumder about her new role. “I am excited to work with Embassy Group, a brand whose ethos aligns with my passion, creativity, and curiosity. I look forward to leading successful communications and unearthing powerful narratives for the brand that is known to be a leader in the real estate development space.”

  • Cashify ropes in Rajkummar Rao for its first marketing campaign

    Cashify ropes in Rajkummar Rao for its first marketing campaign

    Mumbai: Cashify has launched their first TVC with National Award winner Bollywood actor Rajkummar Rao as the brand ambassador.

    Conceptualised and executed by the in-house team & MotifGlobal, the 30-second creative uses humor, wit and clear messaging to draw awareness among the prospective and existing customers about the ease and convenience of selling old or used mobile phones using Cashify for instant cash and free home pick-up.

    The campaign comprises two films. The first film opens up with a conversation between two brothers, one being stuck in a real-life situation, struggling to recover the loan. That is when Cashify is stitched in the narrative as a solution highlighting various value propositions to the users including trust, convenience, maximum value, safe & hassle-free, free pickup, and instant payment.

    In the second ad, the protagonist is asking the audience if they are planning to buy a new phone and what they will do with their old phone. We all have that temptation of buying a new smartphone. And selling the old phone to help fund the new purchase is always a great option. But the question is how to get the best resale value for your phone? The protagonist explains step-by-step how Cashify simplifies the process of managing your devices by helping you with price discovery, cash in hand, and other such features in a streamlined and efficient manner.

    The company had roped in Rajkummar Rao earlier this month as its first brand ambassador to promote its products and services across offline and online mediums. The company will run this campaign across Television, OOH, Radio and Social media channels for the upcoming months making it a 360-degree campaign.

    “As the country went into lockdown, the need to have a smartphone with internet connectivity and the supportability of apps became a necessity. Be it keeping up with jobs or education, digital became the new normal. People couldn’t make do without a gadget in hand. And for those who couldn’t walk into a showroom and grab a new smartphone, refurbished devices came as a sigh of relief,” said Cashify, head-content strategy, Puneet Arora. “With this campaign, we are trying to reiterate how Cashify makes selling or buying phones hassle-free. Rajkumar as a brand ambassador is a strong face to our brand philosophy. We are looking forward to a multi-year engagement with him.”

  • upGrad appoints Ankit Khirwal as VP – marketing

    upGrad appoints Ankit Khirwal as VP – marketing

    Mumbai: Homegrown ed-tech company upGrad on Saturday announced that Ankit Khirwal has joined the upGrad management team as vice president – marketing.

    As part of his new role, Khirwal will lead the end-to-end marketing efforts across the organisation. He will manage all aspects of brand marketing and public relations, performance marketing, CRM marketing, creative and content marketing.

    Khirwal was earlier associated at Pepperfry as marketing head. As a part of its senior leadership team, he managed the entire marketing function. In addition to marketing, he has also led various verticals including category management, financial planning & strategy. Prior to Pepperfry, as an analyst at RBS International, he worked on key Debt Capital Market transactions for Indian corporates.  An IIM-Bangalore alumnus, he is a CA by qualification and a graduate of the Shri Ram College of Commerce.  

    Welcoming Khirwal on board, upGrad India, CEO, Arjun Mohan said, “We are thrilled to have Ankit onboard. His proven experience in deepening brand presence, expanding the consumer funnel, and scaling up revenue will be invaluable in helping upGrad maintain its rapid growth to meet the strong demand with the expansion of our footprint in international markets and new verticals.”

    Talking about his new role, Khirwal said, “I was the first person in my entire family to pursue studies beyond under-graduation. I understand and value the importance of education in life. It is an exciting time to be part of the global online education revolution and it will be a fulfilling experience to take upGrad’s philosophy of lifelong learning ahead.”