Brand’s needs have to be linked to social marketing

Mediahas had a big influence on Ravi Kiran all his life. In fact some of the biggestturns in his life came as a result of one book he had read or another. Fromjoining and then leaving med school (Coma/ Robin Cook) after a year to anaspiring automobile engineer (Betsy/ Harold Robins) to finally settling down inadvsertising (Mirror Makers: A history of American advertising and itscreators/Stephen Fox).

AsCEO, South Asia, of Starcom MediaVest Group, Ravi and his team are responsiblefor Rs 2,200-crore of media planning and buying.

He spoke toRakhi Mazumdar on the changing role of ad and media agencies, amidstever-changing consumer interests.Excerpts:

What are theweaknesses of popular media spend?

Advertisers have been moreclued on to building awareness. This does not always get translated intopurchase at the retail end. Take for instance, Nihar. It had tremendous brandrecall since people in rural areas were asking for Nihar by name when they wentto buy cocunut hair oil. It would be the ultimate dream of every marketer. Butfor the fact that there were some 80 variants of it in the market all doingbrisk business at the cost of it.

Inthat case, what is the way out for a marketer?

Thebrand’s needs have to be linked to social marketing. District-wideinitiatives were taken up to convince people to buy Nihar based on hygiene atthe consumer and retailer levels. In that sense, we are going back to the olddays to create a direct experience between the brand and the consumer to convertawareness into purchase. A personal interaction between the brand and theconsumer is the key factor in suchcases.

So, it is back to basics?

Precisely. If we look at the path to purchase .. our basicstep is to think of the category and then come to a decision.As a industry wehave frontloaded our efforts. We do a lot of activity upstream to expect resultsdownstream. In some categories we have noticed 70-90 per cent awareness levels.The figure is 15 per cent when it comes to actual buying. It is time we focusedon increasing share of this 15 per cent rather than raising the share of the 90per cent. We have been pumping money and making noise on creating awareness. Itis necessary but not sufficient. And agencies now want to bridge the gap betweenawareness and behaviour.

How do youplan to go about it?

If we look at the linearity of theprocess from awareness to attitude to intent to behaviour, it becomes clearagencies need to find a way to measure ‘intent’ to be able topredict behaviour. Since January 2007, we have been investing in proprietaryresearch that measure consumer intent week after week. In mobile telephony forinstance, we can predict behaviour within in a range of five per cent. Everyagency is now moving from awareness to measuringintent.

So, the challenge is how doyou create intent?

Agencies thus need to know how to developskills around the brand story. Brands now need entertainment. It needs to beplaced in the context of entailment. The content and the brand need to beintegrated within that story in such a way that the brand adds to the story,like ‘in-scriptbranding’.

Can you explainthat with an example?

Consider the usage of brands in Bondmovies. Take Sony phones, Omega watches or Ashton Martin cars. They form a partof the storyline and take it forward. ‘Evolution’, a sci-fi movie onaliens vs humans theme, used the Head & Shoulders brand very effectively. Inthe heist film, ‘Italian Job’, the Mini Cooper automobiles wassuperbly used in a six-car chase sequence. In India, we did a similar thing withWorldSpace radio in Lage RahoMunnabhai.

What are the other newtechniques being used to convert awareness to intent?

In smalltowns we are increasingly using entertainment, retail and sports marketing.Tracking intent is serious business. Where consumers create intent thesequestions need to be addressed.

Howare clients responding to it?

Our clients realise the need tomove from pure exposure to sales. Accordingly we are developing intent-centricsolution for clients. New clients insist on creating awareness buzz and mileage.

A marketing executive may stay on a job for 2/ 3 years before movingon. He ends up spending money on awareness. We have seen owner driven companiesare more focused on doing things that target and drive sales. In the name ofimpact we often end up wasting money. Our intent is to make money run harder.The faster we measure intent, the more productive it willbe.

What are the new trends emergingin media?

The success of T20 has shown short, interactiveentertainment is in. We are seeing a morphing of media. Consumers are movingfrom one medium to another, from malls to movie halls for example. We need tostrategise around it so brands can also move from medium to medium.

Out of a Rs 20,000 crore annual media spend, digital, for example isstuck at around Rs 700 crore. We are just beginning to exploit the power ofblogs. The power of social media and networking is immense. Word of mouth is akey marketing tool since it can transfer an individual experience to a bigger,one-to-many platform. ‘Tweets’ are faster, shorter and more direct.