In the middle of the decade, in 2015, the popular brand Asian Paints noted a drastic change in the consumer demographics and accordingly reformed the marketing strategies to meet the targeted customers. As per Amit Syngle, the head of sales and marketing, the majority of the consumers shifted from being male-centred to women-centred. It was observed that most of the decisions about the home decor were taken by the women of the house, quite contrary to the previous years’ trend of men deciding the home decor. Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone became the new brand ambassador of Asian Paints, and the result was, as quoted by Syngle, “We have hit the arrow at the right spot and it is showing clearly in terms of the equity of the brand.”
Some of the major growth drivers for the changing face of marketing strategies in India, as well as the world:
- the emergence of new-age consumers,
- booming digitization,
- the explosion of gig ecosystem,
- digitization,
- technological interventions,
- flourishing brand marketing strategies,
- innovative advertising,
- the highest ratio of youth demographics,
- preference for market research and test marketing
The eCommerce, retail, FMCG, insurance and all other industrial sectors of India have undergone dramatic changes in structures and the marketing strategies. In the previous era, the companies had power over the consumers. They could motivate the consumers for investments due to their selling techniques and marketing strategies.
But with the growing internet penetration, the consumers are now well aware of all the things happening around them. They have various sources available in their fingertips before from where they could compare and read reviews before investing time and money in anything particular.
The traditional pitching can no longer draw business single-handedly, and to reach the target the marketing techniques have to be modified as per the demands. Three decades back, the scooters were regarded as the family vehicle, driven by men; but in the 1990-2000 era, the scooters lost its relevance in the changing consumer pattern; the concept of scooters again re-emerged as “scooty” which is driven by women. This pattern is studied and analyzed by scooters brands like TVS, and it launched TVS scooty in India for women-centric consumers. Now, scooty is used by both the genders. The marketing strategies must be gender diverse for retaining a strong brand position in the competitive market landscape.
In this one decade, the companies and organizations have modified and rejigged their marketing strategies and research techniques; let us have a glimpse at that.
Conquer The Category, Not Just Brand
The marketing team often gives a lot of importance on brand building, which is essential, no doubt. But judging by the recent consumer trends and their knowledge in everything, they are concerned about the products and not the brands. The people buy products, not brands. So products must always be emphasised, and this is what the recent market heads are busy doing. This decade has witnessed the revolutionary growth of smartphones, and cell phones have become obsolete.
The brand Nokia dominated the cell phone market in the last decade, but in this decade when it tried to enter the smartphones market with the same brand name, the results were disastrous. But the marketing strategy of Apple was starkly different and still now they are ruling the market. When the Apple computers shifted from personal use at home to professional use at the office, it changed the name of the computers to “Macintosh”. When Apple decided to step into the smartphone sector, it used the name iPhone and not Apple. But the competitors of the iPhone did not use new names of brands. They stick to the old extensions like Samsung, Sony, Tata and General Electricity.
Through brand marketing and brand, advertising is essential, conquering the category is what the objective is. When TVS launched the “scooty”, it was a new name in that category, whereas “scooter” was the name known to all.
Visual Is Stronger Than Verbal Appeal
The on-point advertising campaigns, lucrative offers and discounts and marketing strategies can draw business, but most powerful is the visual appeal. The social media explosion and the newly applied digital marketing techniques are able to reach the target audience. It can contribute successfully to lead generation and lead conversion.
The sewing machines manufactured by the 81 years old Usha company were black in colour and pretty ordinary in visual appeal. With the changing consumer pattern and the rise of the eCommerce, several companies are manufacturing beautiful trendy looking machines for the young and affluent class of people. This forced Usha to take a backseat. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Usha International opines “The rules of marketing are changing in every respect.Explosive consumer growth, intense competition and new business models have demanded the ability of marketers to differentiate themselves through sustained innovation and launch of new products catering to new segments.”
Usha has now re-launched its new and vast range of products starting from sewing machines, fans, home lighting and several other customized products for the younger generations to whom time is a constraint. The newly launched sewing machines are white in colour, very trendy and possess a strong visual appeal.
Brand building and brand advertising are in the hands of the companies, in ads, the consumers will see what is shown to them. But, the social media platforms and rising eCommerce platforms have given the consumers the liberty to ask “Why” and to know “more”. Instead of brand-driven ads, they believe more on the real customer reviews and the word of mouth. There are online platforms where customers post their grievances, complaints, suggestions, and reviews. From such sites, the prospective consumers can draw an idea, based on which they will decide their purchase.
In this decade, several brands have taken up the strategy of comparative advertising to aim at a higher recall rate and attention-grabbing value. At the beginning of the decade, several brands performed comparative advertising for reaching a higher sales target. Some of them are: New Pepsodent against Colgate, Thums Up against Pepsi etc. Though there is a question of ethics hidden behind this unjust way of advertising, several brands come up with such ads for the desperate need to conquer the market.
Affordable Internet Availability
The affordable data charges and rates are inspiring the huge user base to be more connected than ever. The Reliance Jio launched in 2015 created an uproar among the masses. The connection was supported in all the smartphones, the charges were much lesser than the dominant networks like AirTel and Vodafone.
The lucrative offers, discounts and plans attracted the attention of the users to a great extent. With the increasing availability of the internet, the scope of digital marketing thrived more than ever. Brand advertising via the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter has become a very important model of B2B (business to business), B2C (business to consumers) and C2C (consumer to consumer) communications.
Several other online or digital marketing techniques used by the marketing team of the organizations are: content marketing (blogs and articles etc), email marketing (sending emails to customers about products or services for augmented customer engagements), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Cost-per-click (CPC), Influencer marketing (roping celebrities and personalities as a brand ambassador),on-page and off-page Search Engine Optimization (SEO) etc.
The marketing teams of the companies use several kinds of software like Customer Relationship Management(CRM), Data Analytics tools, AI-driven software and Machine learning to understand the market pattern, calculate the bounce rates, loss aversion, A/B testing and develop strategies for market penetration.
The dot.com matters in Marketing
Having an official site is mandatory for every organization nowadays, and several companies are making this task easier and affordable. Though the website publishing brand Go Daddy was launched in the USA in 1997, it entered India, not before this decade. With its launch in 2012, the organizations were in a rush to increase and generate online presence and visibility.
Internet awareness was spreading fast in this decade, and Go Daddy made a very timely entrance. The multiple brands: like Samsung (manufacturing phones, refrigerators, TV, ac), Nestle` (manufacturing milk, chocolates, kids’ foods, Maggi), Procter and Gamble (manufacturing baby essentials, feminine hygiene, fabric care, hair care etc) have huge success rates as these multi-brands companies have a tendency to capture larger shelf space.
With the increasing dominance of the multi-brands companies, the single brand companies are not earning much from the online sites. The retail giant Wal-Mart started its website walmart.com in the year 2000, and till now the site has contributed less than 3% of the total sales of the brand. It faced disaster when it bought Jet.com in 2016 to compete with Amazon, incurring a loss of $1 billion.
Even though the dot coms are essential, but the marketing strategy has to be developed to survive the competitive market landscape. All the organizations, MSMEs (micro, small and medium-sized enterprises) have official sites. The booming of the gig economy and start-ups have made the online platforms lot more crowded. To channelize the traffic on your website, it will require new and updated online marketing techniques and strategies.
Developing Public Relations
Making the brand important, successful and relevant to the consumers, business partners, investors, and sponsors are essential in today’s fast-paced world. The Future of Marketing is built and shaped by the PR team of the organizations, whose main aim is brand promotions. In this era of digitization and globalization, the market is gaining new players every now and then. In this steep competition, customer retention and business growth become quite a lot of challenges.
Just like the digital marketing techniques as mentioned above, the offline or the traditional marketing strategies are developed to reach a larger spectrum of the target audience. Facebook live events and social media marketing techniques must be coupled with offline marketing strategies as well. Data-driven analysis and market research will help the PR team to predict the market movements.
Offline marketing tools like demos, consultations, direct marketing (face to face communications), trade shows and seminars, warm calling can boost lead conversions as well. Internet is giving a large scope for bringing the common man closer to the brands and companies. Nowadays, if a user is having any complaint, he can reach the brand directly via Help Desk (on the website), or just a tweet tagging the brand (@name_of_company). Prompt action and interactive approach of the brand will help it to be in the limelight of customer preference.
Digital Marketing and offline marketing must go hand in hand for maximizing the lead conversion rate. PR improves customer engagement models. Let us take an example of AT Kearney, which changed its name to Kearney in 2020. The brand rebranding is another marketing strategy to promote the name in the global market sector, and in this case, it was done mainly for attaining a more collaborative approach towards its communication.
Conclusion
The decade has created a historical tapestry on the evolving marketing strategies and research. With the increasing demand and fast technological advances, the domain will not leave the centre stage anytime soon. The transformation of the marketing strategies cannot be depicted in one post.
Do you want to know more about the same? Isn’t it best if you can know the waves of this domain from the experts themselves? Well, we can make your wish fulfilled. How?
We have an exclusive pool of industry experts and veterans who specialize in the marketing sector. If you wish to talk to them or consult for the long term and short term assignments, then contact us today. We at Vedak will connect you to experts for a better understanding of the changing marketing strategies.