Challenges for marketers in competitive marketplace

Some of the best international and Indian marketing and advertising minds, spanning traditional businesses and new-age digital transformers, exchanged ideas at the first edition of Star FLOW – The Change Festival by The Times of India.

W Chan Kim of INSEAD Blue Ocean Strategy Institute, expressed surprise that while India has produced leaders such as Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Vinod Khosla and Indra Nooyi, who went on to lead top global corporations, the country has not done justice when it came to producing global powerhouse brands.



“Out of 500 companies, China has 120 but India has only seven,” he said. “I know India could do better on a global scale.”

The panel discussion on classical and new age marketing, moderated by Naukri.com founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, threw light on the critical challenges facing marketers – how to grab the attention of consumers instantly in an intensely competitive marketplace with decisionmakers getting younger and extremely limited time spans.

RS Srinivas Jain, Executive Director - Strategy and International Business, SBI, said the challenge for legacy brands is about what was a pull product or service earlier becoming a push product now because of sheer competition.

Kunal Shah, founder of credit card payment mobile app CRED and of FreeCharge, drew attention to the ‘chief technology officer in everybody’s house’ – in other words the 12-18-year old.

“This person is slowly becoming the chief procurement officer of the house also. And this person is not being served by classical marketers,” Shah said.

Star FLOW – The Change Festival, presented by Star India & an initiative of the Times of India, was in partnership with Associate Sponsor Dainik Bhaskar, in association with Times Network, Music Entertainment Partner Radio Mirchi, Digital Partner Times Internet and Brand Partner Interbrand.