Marketing Continuum 2010 - Report

24th July 2010, Marketing experts from various industries delivered lectures to a packed auditorium at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT- Bombay. The topic under discussion was “Marketing 3.0: From Relationship to Collaboration”

Mr. Mahesh Murthy, CEO-Pinstorm, spoke of the state-of-the-art digital tools that can help manage brands in real time. Using Google trends and ad-words, it is possible to determine which keywords are “in” at any moment and then design an ad campaign around them- guaranteeing high online visibility. This requires fast turnaround times on the part of creative teams so that the they can respond to short-lived internet trends.

Mr. Vikrant Khanna, VP- Bharti Airtel, discussed the use of social media in marketing today. He suggested that “crowdsourcing” i.e., sourcing innovative advertising ideas from regular people rather than experts, has been experimented with, and will soon be the order of the day. According to Mr. Atul Sinha, VP, Britannia, innovation from the public could be sought for products as well as for their packaging or advertising. He deplored the slow rate of innovation in the FMCG sector and hoped that this will soon improve.

Mr. Vivek Sharma, CMO- Philips India, stressed the need for market research in order to reach out to the “bottom of the pyramid” (BoP). He suggested that products should be specifically designed for the rural consumer instead of merely stripping down an urban product to basic functionality. For a marketer, immersion in rural life could be very helpful in order to determine unstated needs of BoP consumers.

Mr. Sridhar T., AVP-Idea Cellular, also discussed BoP marketing and said that collaboration and customer engagement are essential and that an aura of intrigue surrounding a product can create interest.

According to Mr. Prashant Pandey, EVP-GSK, engaging and involving rural customers can also be achieved through street plays, movies and fairs.

The seminars all highlighted the importance of “co-creation”, as a joint venture between organizations and the interested public. The speakers also stressed the importance of the rural consumer in both product development and marketing.

The event was also accompanied with a pre event named SCORPIO Zeitgeist, an advertisement making competition, witnessing a massive participation from all over India .The event was a huge success as evident from the feedback given by the judge Ms. Deepa Arjunan, DGM SCORPIO Brand “Zeitgeist received a tremendous response from all of you: future strategists, innovators - and hopefully - passionate crusaders, who will drive transformation and steer India to greater heights. Entries received for the Zeitgeist contest, reflect enormous research, hard work and imagination. The ideas are inspired and original and each video was distinct and different from the others. And though we enjoyed them all, it was definitely an effort to pick out winners – a tribute to your creativity.” said Ms. Deepa Arjunan.

Written by,

Marktrix, the Marketing Club

SJMSoM’10