The Hindu Business Line : ‘Focus on intuition, authenticity vital for engaging consumers’

Mr Bharat Patel, Chairman, Indian Society of Advertisers and Chairman, Procter & Gamble Hygiene and Health Care Ltd (right), with Mr Bernhard Glock, President of World Federation of Advertisers & Vice-President of Global Media & Communication, Procter & Gamble, at a conference in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Our Bureau

Mumbai, March 5 With media becoming fragmented, engaging the consumer has become difficult. With its theme “Effective Consumer Engagement”, the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and the Indian Society of Advertisers’ (ISA) global advertisers conference, held here on Wednesday, reflected on issues regarding media spends and measurement of ROI (return on investment).

On the role of intuition in consumer engagement, Mr R. Gopalkrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons, said, “Marketers have become slaves of analytical tools and there is absence of the touch and feel factors in marketing. Marketers must have an essence of authenticity and use their intuition. They have to be more emotionally involved, and must immerse in and reflect on their brands.”

Highlighting the changing face of consumer expectations, Mr Keith Pardy, Senior V-P, Nokia Strategic Marketing, said, “The model for media should be about people, connections and network. It is all about marketing and communicating with the billions of consumers.”

Mr Doug Baillie, CEO, Hindustan Unilever, stressed on the importance of cell phones in communication. According to him, the cell phone is the device which will help connect with the rest of the world. Speaking about synergising rational and emotional consumer brand benefit with social benefit, Mr Baillie said, “When companies and brands do good, reputation is built. Success is not financial but about achieving business-oriented goals as well as societal ones.”

Speaking on consumer engagement driven by consumer insight, Mr Gunjan Srivastava, Senior Director, Marketing, Philips Consumer Lifestyle, highlighted the ‘consumer centric holistic measurement.’ With the consumer at the centre of the operations, Mr Srivastava believes that engaging with the consumer is a process which should be rigorously applied.

Mr Stephan Loerke, Managing Director, WFA, believed in putting the consumer at the heart of consumer measurement. His wish-list comprised having a quantitative, passive measurement system and also multimedia research which can lead to tools that can link multimedia consumption and purchase behaviour.

Flooding the consumer

Mr Jon Wilkins, Co-founder, Naked Communications, put under the scanner the widely held formula of flooding a consumer with advertisements everywhere he went. He questioned the 360-degree approach of advertising. “I would get annoyed if some brand kept following me wherever I went. I would probably call the police!” he said.

Mr Prasoon Joshi, Chairman and Regional Creative Director, South & South Asia, McCann Erickson, agreed and emphasised on the power of one. He said that sometimes a single branding exercise could do for a product what repeated multiple mediums could not achieve. “Our Happydent advertisement, about using the shiny teeth of men to light up a palace, found widespread acceptance from many quarters,” he said.

The Vodafone brand went from multiple sub-brands to a mono brand identity, becoming tighter and more focused. “It definitely works to project a single brand to the consumers as it removes confusion and brings clarity,” said Ms Grace Molenaar, Global Brand Engagement, Vodafone.

Mr Bernhard Glock, President of World Federation of Advertisers & Global Media & Communication, Proctor & Gamble, emphasised on the importance of ROI. “While engaging the consumer is an issue, it is also important to keep account of ROI,” he emphasised.