Where is Marketing Headed? Shantanu Khosla, Executive Vice Chairman of Crompton Greaves Consumer Electrical Ltd, took this question head-on at the unveiling ofexchange4media Group’s Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2024on Thursday. “Now, this is a very dodgy thing to talk about because it is certain that things are going to move faster. That’s the only guaranteed thing,” he said while opening the session.
He went on to say, “Though Sam sounded a little pessimistic with the report, I think the good news is that this pie is going to keep growing, especially in India and there’s no doubt about it. It might shift from channel A to channel B, but we are an under-penetrated, under-served and under-consuming country by almost all benchmarks. So, this pie is going to grow in the lifetime of just about everyone in this room. Technology is moving faster than you could imagine. The only thing that is certain about technology is it's going to change faster than anyone in this room thinks and that’s going to throw up huge opportunities to connect with consumers.
Yes, there are risks but every new technology brings risks. For someone in our profession, the other great news in my opinion is brands are going to become more important. Our lives and our consumers’ lives are getting more and more complicated, I don’t want to spend half an hour on an e-commerce webpage or in a modern trade store or in a kirana store deciding which shampoo I want to buy. Brands make that easy for me, so the value of brands is going to only increase with the clutter which is coming in life. And for the advertising professionals, that’s got to be good news because our fundamental job is to build brands.”
Speaking about the challenges in marketing and advertising, he questioned, “Who here has not got irritated by WhatsApp messages? Who has been browsing a webpage and trying to click that little x to close that stupid ad which pops up? In the old days, it was about switching channels, who hasn’t done that? And now that has changed so much. If you want to build a brand and a relationship then you have to build trust. Trust in our society on the messages we see is going one way only, and that’s going to keep getting worse, not better.”
He believes that fragmentation will keep increasing. Elaborating further on the two elements of fragmentation, he explained, “One is the element, which existed when there were 300 cable channels, that is also fragmentation. Life was easy when marketing was all about buying one spot on Sunday morning every week on Mahabharat, and I’m done. However, there's a second part of the fragmentation which is going to get worse. When I used to watch TV or read my newspaper. I used to watch that communication in a certain environment. It was the same environment whether I was watching Star TV or Sony TV; reading Anand Bazaar Patrika or the Times of India. Now when I see it on my phone I might be hanging on the suburban train. Different environment. I might be checking the cricket score in a meeting. The environments are so different that the advertising has to take that environment into account. That is a second very insidious form of fragmentation, which will keep occurring. And it is not as simple as me saying: “I used to make 30 seconders, let’s make 5 seconders. That is a challenge.”
Fundamentally, the power is in the hands of the consumer. It used to be a push, now it is a pull. I don’t want to listen to your message. For example, a decade ago when someone used to buy a fan What did they do? They had the brand in mind - Crompton, a good brand, they would ask a neighbour or a friend who had bought a fan recently. Finally, they go to the electrical shop and buy a fan. Today, more than 80% of the people who have purchased a fan, have gone through a shopper’s journey digitally on the internet somewhere, before they arrive at the shop to buy. They’ll pull what they want. The power is not with the brand anymore, it is with the consumer.”
According to Khosla, the number one ROI in marketing is great communication to the consumer. “It does not matter what technology comes; it does not matter what algorithm you use. Two things don’t change – great marketing is rooted in the consumer and it is based on that great idea. I have often told my marketing folks that the number one ROI in marketing is great communication for the consumer. Of course, there’s other stuff, but nothing works better than that. This doesn’t change whether you are using AI or any other technology. But what I believe does change – you have to build trust. Ultimately, our most valuable consumers are our loyal consumers. This loyal consumer base will only continue to become valuable. Brands are like people, you need a relationship you trust, which means you have to be authentic; you can’t be seen as spam,” he further elaborated.
