The Hindu Business Line : Emotions, heart of marketing

We are all trained to look at the centre of the bell curve. Look at the edges too,” urges R. Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, Tata Sons. It is not enough to just look at the object alone, look at the context as well as this will give you the great ideas!

Innovation is about emotions as it is about logic. It is about intuition as much as it is about analysis. Speaking at the Tata marketing seminar ‘Innovations in Marketing,’ held recently in Bangalore, Gopalakrishnan demystified the belief that innovation is an elitist activity that involves serious analysis and logic. “Creativity is not the domain of marketers alone. Creativity can also come from humble people. It is embedded in each of us. Democratise innovation – this is the challenge of leaders.”

In a mad, mad world, marketers are often caught in a frenzy to deliver today. That makes the entire marketing process “clinical.” Says Gopalakrishnan: “It is not enough to capture the heads and minds of people; we need to get people’s hearts as well. Add intuition to logic and analysis. Appreciate the context, immerse yourself in what you are doing. And fill the brim with emotions! Marketers must be emotional. That’s the heart of marketing.”

Involvement and emotions also help you understand the consumer better — consumer insight as it is called. Says Santosh Desai, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Future Brands, “Insight does not always shed new light. It also awakens the old and the known. It is like a flash.” He says innovation and insight come about when one “interrogates the obvious” and “questions the taken-for-granted” occurrences.

But it is not always the consumer who drives the change. Brands too dictate trends. In a cluttered world of products, what role does the ‘brand’ play? Marketers have wrapped things around you with meanings and symbols that are not inherent enough, says Desai. A ‘trunk box’ indicates a particular cultural context and may seem a bit “uncool” whereas a stylish strolley seems to stand for ‘sophistication’ and a certain ‘lifestyle statement’. Just like Dettol stands for ‘trust’, Bata for ‘sobriety’, but a cola is ‘frivolous’. Brands have created aspirations; they stand for lifestyle changes. Says Desai: “They are the symbolic crutches to make us feel we have it all. We need brands to complete ourselves, construct ourselves from scratch.”

But brands cannot become big hits if they are too absorbed in themselves. While marketers go around brandishing their brands in every conceivable way, they have realised one-way sermonising won’t just work now. Says Alok Kejriwal, CEO, contest2win – a company that looks to explore the various possibilities of marketing in the virtual world: “Interruptive marketing is slowing making an exit. And the nirvana to this problem is interactive marketing where consumers are part of the process. Although Internet penetration is not high in India, there is a sea change in the way brands are trying to communicate with consumers.”

And this shift is inevitable given that technology is catching up with each one of us. Look all around us – it’s the mobile phone and the Internet that is all pervasive. Marketers need to take their cue from the field. As Gopalakrishnan puts it: “Get out into market. Talk to people. Watch them. Consumers create images for you.”

Well, some good old marketing lessons never go stale!