Sagar Boke has around 15 years of experience in FMCG Marketing & Sales. He has been a part of many business turnaround stories like the launch of Dalda into edible oils.  Prior to this, Boke was the Marketing Head of Bunge India Pvt Ltd. He brings to the table a vast experience of over a decade in the field of brands and marketing. He was the Category Head for Skin and Fragrance at CavinKare and the Deputy General Manager, Marketing, Hair Colours, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. He played an instrumental part in building brands such as Godrej No 1 soap, Godrej Nupur and Fairever Fairness Cream. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM withAnuka Roy speaking to him…
How important is BTL in the FMCG space? Specifically, how important is BTL to Tata Chemicals’ overall marketing plan?
The importance of BTL varies depending on the industry, target audience, the product and the life cycle of the product. In an FMCG market, BTL is a low-cost and high impact method of reaching out to target audience in a predefined manner. Not only does it engage consumers but also enables product trials and brand experiences thereby increasing brand recall and visibility. BTL activities are also an effective way to educate existing and first time users with the help of personal engagement.
The emerging Indian economy has also enabled consumers to spread beyond metros, tier I, II and III cities, which broadens the playing field for BTL activities. BTL-related activities at Tata Chemicals have played a major role in our communications mix.
Are there any specific products at Tata Chemicals that you use BTL for?
The Tata Chemicals Consumer Products Business is categorised as its Living Essentials portfolio and bifurcated into Tata Salt, Tata Sampann and Tata Swach. Tata Sampann houses products such as unpolished dals, low oil absorb besan and spices. We use BTL activations as required for the products as mentioned above.
Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
The Consumer Products Business at Tata Chemicals caters daily, essential household products. We implement various BTL activations as the occasion desires basis the product and target market.
Recently, Tata Salt was seen at the holy Simhasth Kumbh Mela 2016 with its creative campaign titled ‘Shubh Bhojan ka Shudh Aarambh’. Tata Salt conceputalised to re-instate the long lost tradition of having a pinch of salt before a meal as salt is believed to be auspicious, life-giving and life-preserving. Salt is also considered divine in Hindu culture and a gift of salt is considered to be a potent symbol of good luck. While one consumes salt in their daily diet, many have forgotten its importance and significance with time. In order to re-introduce this ancient belief, Tata Salt distributed one lakh branded thalis to 15 akharas in order to serve food to devotees visiting the Kumbh Mela. The plates had been designed with a special section for salt, where the auspicious bhojan can commence with a pinch of Tata Salt, thus bringing salt’s age-old glory to the masses. This innovation was supported by a larger initiative wherein 35 tonnes of Tata Salt was distributed to the akharas to be used in preparation of the auspicious meals. Spread over a period of four weeks, the campaign plans to reach approximately 50 lakh pilgrims.
Another activation was for Tata Sampann low oil absorb besan, titled ‘Ab Khao Befiqr’, where we tied up with Top 104 Vada pav stall in Mumbai. Mumbaikars love vada pav which is considered an unhealthy snack. With this activation we wanted to encourage consumers to eat their favourite snacks and indulge without guilt. Tata Sampann Besan aborbs lesser oil as compared to the ordinary Besan and the tie-up enabled the consumers to witness this for themselves. We reached out to around 5 lakh consumers with this activity.
Similarly, last year, during Ganesh Chaturthi we offered Lord Ganesha the World’s Biggest Ladoo at Andhericha Raja Ganesh Pandal. Weighing approximately 8645 kg, the Maha Ladoo was prepared using 4250 kg of sugar, 4000 kg of Tata I-Shakti low oil absorb besan, 3000 kg of ghee, 35 kg of cardamom and measured approximately 6 feet in height. The Maha Ladoo caught the wonder and marvel of the devotees and helped generate a lot of eyeballs for the brand.
Tata Salt Plus, our iron fortified iodised salt, was launched with the aim to make India anaemia-free. Iron Deficiency Anaemia (IDA) impacts large parts of the population, with many people unaware that they might be iron deficient. Tata Salt Plus partnered with 2000 retailers across the 19 cities in the country through its campaign ’12 kanaara’ in order to generate awareness around the same. Being key influencers for consumers, retailers are instrumental in consumer education and awareness generation. Under the programme, retailers took a pledge and declared themselves partners in the drive to eliminate IDA from the country. Tata Salt Plus educated them about IDA and methods to counter it, in order to equip them to educate consumers in turn.
Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/ media agency?
We believe that specialist agencies add a lot of value when it comes to BTL activities. The existing creative/media agencies are involved in the ideation stages in some instances.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2C, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
Depending upon the geographical location and our target market we define our ATL and BTL strategy. While ATL helps us to reach out to larger target audience, BTL activations helps in delivering on the last-mile conversions and creates greater engagement with the target consumer. With increasing clutter in the market, it has become all the more essential to use activation which helps in reaching out to specific target audience and thus becomes a measurable activity. It not only helps in more product trial but also gives us an opportunity to take consumer feedback and suggestions and thus gives insights on our return on investment.
While sales and salience are good indicators of its success, what are the attributes you look at to measure the success of a BTL campaign?
We look at the lead indicators like Brand Health scores (viz Awareness, Consideration, Intention-to-purchase etc) and the lag Indicators like sales. We also look at qualitative indicators like the buzz and word-of-mouth created by the campaign.
There are many organisations that often do new launches almost entirely on BTL aided with an outdoor and/or digital blitz? Your view on this? Given rising media costs, do you see BTL managing on its own, without ATL?
For an FMCG product targeted at the masses, doing a launch only with BTL is a sub-optimal solution. BTL would not be able to create the desired awareness. However, if one is launching a niche product in a limited geography, BTL is a more efficient solution. Having said that, I don’t think that BTL will entirely manage on its own. Both of these play complementary roles to each other.