After a good start in Hyderabad, Pitch CMO Summit South is all set to create another buzz in Chennai today, starting at 9.30 am at the Hotel Radisson Blue.

The Pitch CMO Summit South edition is all set to impart marketing knowledge with the city of sandy beaches, filter coffee and hot weather. The keynote address will begin with Nitin Seth from Ashok Leyland who will set the tone in Chennai. Seth will be talking about marketing challenges in the B2B automotive space and how Ashok Leyland is outdoing those challenges. Ashok Leyland has been going through a revival process through newly defined positioning, product innovations and celebrity endorsements. Despite being a B2B brand, through new positioning the company is focusing on evolving into a strong consumer-centric brand. Seth will share the key strategic reasons behind this and much more at the summit today.

While Seth will talk about the commercial vehicle segment in the automobile industry, Len Curran, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Renault India will focus on the passenger vehicle segment. Curran will talk about how to adapt the global branding strategy to suit the Indian market in order to win the heart of Indian consumers. Renault India has been aggressive in the Indian market over the last one year.

Another key marketer, who will be talking at Chennai is Harkirat Singh, MD, Woodland India. Singh will be sharing the story of creation of an iconic brand like Woodland. The key takeaways for the audience can surely be multiple, especially about how to create a global brand.

Besides these, other important speakers include Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder CEO, BharatMatrimony.com and Kiruba Shankar, CEO, Business Blogging, who will be delivering the CMO address.

Apart from the CMO presentations, there will be two panel discussions, comprising a Marketer Panel and a Regional Media Panel. The panel of marketers will mull over ‘South Markets: Driving growth for National brands’. The speakers on the panel include:  B A Srinivasa, Director, Viveks Ltd;  Charath Narsimhan, CEO, Indian Terrain;  G R Anand, Joint MD, GRT Group;  Neeraj Moorjani, Head Marketing, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance and Satya Prabhakar, CEO, Sulekha.com The discussion will be moderated by R Sridhar CEO, Brandcomm.

The discussion of the Regional Media panel will hover around ‘Luring National Advertisers to Regional Media: Challenges & Opportunities’. The speakers on the panel include: Arun Anant, CEO- The Hindu;  K R Skandraaj, GM-Marketing, Dinamalar; Narendra Alambara, COO, Sovereign Media Solutions; Ramesh Praba, President- Kalaignar TV; Shankar Bala, CEO, Fourth Dimension Media Solutions and  Venugopal, CMO, Sun Direct TV. The discussion will be moderated by Srinivasan Swamy- CMD- R K Swamy BBDO.

And in addition we have RL Ravichandran, Executive Director, Eicher Motors to deliver the valedictory note for the day.  Ravichandran is the man who turnaround the cult brand Royal Enfield in India during 2005-2008. Since then Royal Enfield has become a reference case study on turnaround strategy. In his address Ravichandran will talk about how to sustain a cult brand like Royal Enfield.

Catch all this and much more today at the Pitch CMO Summit Chennai.