The 10^th edition of Pitch CMO Summit is a flagship property of the exchange4media group.  It witnesses a gathering of the best minds in the business of marketing. The conversations at the summit each year revolve around current and relevant marketing topics in a changing global market scenario.

Attended by industry leaders of the biggest brands

Amazon India, PayTm, Raymond, Aditya Birla Capital, Wavemaker, Onida, VIP Industries, Nalli Group of Companies, Microsoft India, Titan, Vodafone, Havells India Ltd, Godrej, Bacardi India, Tech Mahindra, PepsiCo, Bausch and Lomb, Pidilite Industries , Marico, Lenovo , Kansai Nerolac Paints Ltd, Discovery Communications, Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd amongst others.

Detailed Analysis revolving around various themes

“Why sell if you can get consumers to buy?” and “Generating Brand Love- Are you really ‘listening’ to your consumers?” are the themes around which discussions took place at the Mumbai and Delhi Summit respectively.

Some interesting insights on engaging topics

• Inspire devotion, not just loyalty.

Lavanya Nalli, Vice Chairperson, Nalli Group of Companies said, “Your customer defines your brand, not you. The customer who is a fan and becomes your brand advocate is better than any marketing strategy.” She also said that you need to be clear on what you do not want to do, “What you don’t do also needs a clear strategy. We don’t have a loyalty programme and we don’t have discounts since 1928. Do not compromise on your strengths.”

• Flywheel Effect- Selection, Pricing and Convenience

Ravi Desai, Director, Mass and Brand Marketing, Amazon India told, “If you get these three factors right you can actually get traffic. The more traffic you get, the lower your prices become and more people get attracted to you both on the seller and customer side. This creates a flywheel effect which helps you expand the base of customers.” Desai also reiterated Amazon’s belief of ‘It’s always Day One’ instilled by CEO Jeff Bezos to convey that the company will never stop being a start-up.

• “How do you build brands when brand equity itself is not a guarantee?”

Sanjay Behl, CEO, Raymond said, “None of the factors which earlier provided sustainable competitive advantage to the brand like age, size, reputation, current sales, brand equity and IP in any combination guarantees a brand’s existence today. He added, “Every industry would go through the 6Ds- digitization, deceptive, disruption, dematerialize, demonetize and democratise.”

• Deep conversations is a way of life

Ajay Kakar, CMO, Aditya Birla Capital said, “People say we will listen to the customers but I say that customers do not always have a voice. We go to people and listen to them. We don’t start talking about our product; instead we ask them about what is happening in their lives. When you talk about life, people are bound to talk about money, that’s where we come in.”

• Role of marketing will only grow

Vijay Mansukhani, Onida co founder mentioned, “The role of marketing will only grow in the future and to succeed marketers will have to merge it with R&D. Apart from operational excellence marketers must also focus on strategy and look for opportunities, like absolute fanatics. While your products sell, the market capitalization of the company must also go up.

• Define your competition set and plan accordingly

Shankar Nath , SVP Marketing, PayTm said, “If you really just focus on a rigid one year marketing plan then, chances are that by the time you go out in to the market, the market would have moved on and become something very different.” He added, “The single biggest learning for me and my organization has been that you need to define your competition set in a very broad way. If you are an app, at the most a consumer is going to have 15- 30 apps in his phone. So your competition set is not the two or three guys in the industry but you are fighting against a whole plethora of apps which may be there. “

• The power lies in listening to consumers.

Sudip Ghose, CEO, VIP Industries said, “If you look a few years back, we were a traditional company. But we realized that if we do not change our business model, we will be left too behind in the market and it will be very difficult for us to compete. Many companies make this mistake. They do not realize that the world is changing. We, as a brand, have always changed ourselves and that is how we launched Skybags. Today, we cover 65% market in India. Perhaps, we are the only Indian company which has been around for 50 years and is still the leader.”

Brands at the Pitch CMO Summit Bangalore

“I shop, therefore I am” is the theme around which discussions will take place in the Bangalore Summit to be held on the 4^th of July. Speakers from brands like Panasonic, Tanishq, Max Bupa, Pepperfry, Freshmenu, Dell, Swiggy, Kantar IMRB, KraftHeinz, Cigna TTK Health Insurance and many more will be gracing the event with their presence.