Category: SPECIALS

Kamal Basu

Head of Marketing & PR – Volkswagen Passenger Cars

Volkswagen Group Sales India Pvt Limited

A seasoned marketing professional with over 25 years of experience in advertising and marketing, Kamal Basu was appointed as Head, Marketing and PR at Volkswagen from January 1, 2015. Prior to this, he has worked with Skoda Auto India as Marketing Head and has contributed to Skoda’s performance in India over the last three years. He has spent close to two decades working with leading advertising agencies like Rediffusion Y&R, Ogilvy and with Saatchi & Saatchi as CEO.

In his current role as the Head, Marketing & PR at Volkswagen Passenger Cars India, Mr. Basu plays a key role in developing the strengths of the Volkswagen brand in India. Mr. Basu has done his marketing management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, and is passionate about cricket, movies and travelling.

How important is BTL to your overall marketing plan?

It is a very critical element for us and I’m assuming it is the same for most auto companies. It’s the first method of introduction when the customer reaches out to the auto dealership. However, we need to reach out to consumer needs and wants and small BTL activities also include reaching out to consumers rather than wait for them to come to our showrooms.

Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

In other industries, BTL is in the range of 12-15% of ATL budget, but in the automotive space, it is almost 1:1.

Apart from the routine display and engagement activities, in what way do you innovate with below-the-line advertising and promotion?

We have something called open floats campaign, where we put the car on a flatbed in the back of the van and we take it physically to markets where we are not present. We do these displays within a distance of 40-50 kms from our showrooms, because when people from these small towns purchase our products and if they need servicing, they are not ready to travel much. We also do a lot of associations with events happening at a local level. Almost 80% of the money is spent through print work for dealership advertising.

In terms of generating results, esp from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?

BTL campaigns are always result-oriented. They have a clear mandate. Corporate brand campaigns have multiple tasks like driving imagery, brand awareness, etc. BTL would form a subset of the ATL objectives.

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?

For BTL campaigns, enquiries generated are the attributes. This campaign is evaluated with the overall leads and enquires we’ve got on a day-to-day basis. Test drives will definitely help in branding as well. One thing that differentiates BTL between the automotible and FMCG space is that in the automotive space, almost 85% of the BTL money is spent in the organised sector. This is generally used to communicate offers. When I say that I spend 1:1 on ATL and BTL, this also takes into account advertisements in supplements of newspapers, etc.. Communication of offers is also considered to be BTL.

There are many organizations who 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?

I don’t see BTL managing without ATL. During a launch of a new product or service, the primary task is mass awareness of the new product. This is not possible only through BTL. During a launch I like to keep everything close to my control. It is what we call Corporate ATL Activities. If today one looks at advertising on TV, in print media or even in a magazine, I don’t think anyone can look at only BTL. The market is getting ferocious.

Sanjay Tripathy

Senior EVP, Marketing, Product, Digital and E-commerce, HDFC Life on the role of below-the-line advertising and promotions in a marketing plan

Award-winning marketer, Sanjay Tripathy is Senior Executive Vice President, Head Marketing, Product, Digital and E-commerce at HDFC Life. A graduate in management from IRMA, Gujarat preceded by an engineering degree, Mr Tripathy has worked with GCMMF, Fritto-Lay, Mattel and Reliance Infocomm before joining HDFC Life in December 2004. In this interview with MxMIndia, Sanjay Tripathy speaks about how key are below-the-line promotional activity to a marketing plan…

How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan? And overall in the financial services sector?

BTL activities form an important part of our overall marketing plan. In context of the financial services industry, product understanding and trust are teething customer issues. BTL marketing becomes important because it provides the human interaction, which effectively solves problems related to understanding and trust. It also provides the desired experience to the customer which can affect the purchase decision process.

Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

Depending on the objectives of the campaign, we allocate budgets for ATL and BTL activities. More important than the budget allocation, is to make sure that the ATL and BTL activities being executed are complementary and provide the complete brand experience, which we intend to provide to the customer. We don’t work on pre-decided spend patterns, rather adapting to the communication and engagement objectives of the campaign.

Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?

– They would be of two kinds:

i. Strategic:

a. Experiential modules at relevant sites (work site, malls etc.), to let them experience the campaign/product proposition. e.g “Director Of Happiness” for Smart Woman campaign and work site campaign for QROPS prospects

b. Contact programmes such as Spell Bee which we have done in the past, which help us engage with the right audience in the relevant life space

ii. Tactical:

Lead Generation modules run at channel partner locations, work sites etc. for product awareness and desired customer action, especially during the tax investment season

Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?
– Different campaigns demand different skillsets. For campaigns which require smaller scale and faster turnaround, smaller agencies are our pick as they are more agile and can turn around work much faster. Whereas, for campaigns of a larger scale and higher complexity, larger agencies tend to do well. So, we use a mix of both, depending on our requirements.

In terms of generating results esp from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?

BTL has its advantages, as it provides opportunities for:

i. Direct interaction with customers

ii. Immediate Query resolution and closure

So we use BTL activities as a part of the mix, where it fulfills our business objectives. ATL obviously has its part to play.

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?

With the increased social media usage, brands have the opportunity to amplify consumer experiences beyond the select few who are physically a part of it. Hence, another way of using great activation ideas is to put them up as a part of consumable content on social media. How well it does on social media, in terms of reach and engagement, is also a metric we use to look at the success of the initiative. In the past, we have done this with our Smart Woman’s “Director of Happiness” campaign and “HDFC Life Spell Bee” with great results.

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 a brand to scale up and reach out to people on a national level, ATL will remain important, as BTL can only reach out to a select few. And we are still some way off from seeing the kind of internet penetration that makes Digital interchangeable with ATL.

Hence, we look at creating and executing a strategy which optimises the strengths of each media rather than replace something completely.

For a product like a motorcycle, it’s got to be more than just advertising above-the-line that can do full justice to a brand. But sometimes it’s also a combination of BTL or on-the-ground activity with ATL or digital specifically, as Bajaj Auto did recently. And, as Sumeet Narang, Senior Vice-President (Marketing – Motorycles) at Bajaj Auto says what drives customers a lot more to showrooms is the above-the-line investments.

We’ve seen the webisodes for Discover and this is possibly the first time a product in this sector has embraced the digital medium in a big way. Huge step forward?

The bigger move is not the screen through which we’re broadcasting but the content. Whether it’s cinema, TV, mobile or laptop; whether it’s through the internet or a place where you buy a ticket, it’s just a medium.

The spends on this campaign are probably as much as for a TVC, but the reach is not as much. Do you think it’s effective enough, in terms of RoI?

First, if you don’t lean forward and experiment, you’ll always stay in the safe zone. We clearly explored the upside and downsides [before embarking on the campaign]. The ZingZong ride campaign was launched on Feb 8, but before that, we conducted a 13-city survey on relationships and how people about them and about marriage and such. And we saw we were on the right track with our findings. Another thing that came out strongly in the survey was that people found a long drive on a bike to be the most romantic way of spending time together, and they rated it higher than a candlelit dinner, a movie together or just hanging out at home. This was a corroboration of our findings, and the way we’re building this brand. We decided that we needed to take this campaign into people’s lives. If this brand stands for re-igniting romance, what’s the biggest symbol of that? The heart, of course, and that’s how ZingZong was launched – strategically -on World Marriage Day. It was launched with press articles, TV ads over three days and advertorials across all leading print papers. We also invited couples to drive around the country and bring the ZingZong back in their lives. That announcement is, in itself, an endorsement by the brand of what it believes in. It was a pretty high-reach campaign when we launched it. We used mass media. I think if you mix media, you can get a good balance of reach as well as engagement.

It’s still early days but how has the campaign worked for you? It really seems to have struck a chord…

Considering we got upwards of 8,000 entries from couples wanting to take part and willing to share their stories.

In terms of sales?

It’s a brand activity. It’s difficult to isolate aspects and say I see a blip here or there. It’s a part of the whole process we’re rolling out in, in terms of repositioning Discover as a brand. I don’t think I can isolate any one activity. It’s still early days.

Apart from digital and television, has the ad been on other media as well?

TV and print are the dominant media. We’ve also used digital. There’s an interesting on-ground property that we’ve built where a couple can visit a showroom and get a 60- second film made of themselves. It’s called a ZingZong World Tour. We’ve had to be careful with digital, though. This isn’t like a youth brand; . In a certain way, there is a bit of a convergence on the way the role digital’s got to play in the life of Discover. It’s a more mass brand and for that way, everybody is wanting Digital to evolve as a medium. From being a youth brand consumed more out of desktops and laptops and high-end smartphones, we all know there ae actually 250 million internet users, dish has also to got a lot more mass and wider. It’s a challenge for the brand and as much for the digital industry.

The spends are huge for digital and you’re happy to experiment.

We’re pretty mindful of what we spend across media. So we feel a small proportion of our spends could be put into something experimental. It may or may not work, but it definitely leaves us a lot wiser.

In terms of your sales, this is the beginning of the festive season, the key season…

This is a big season for us in the north, particularly during what we call the wedding season. So you do see an increase when the festive season comes on, starting with Navratras, that’s the next big season. The webisodes and all will not necessarily culminate in that. They’re not being timed toward the October festival season per se, but I would say it comes in now. We launched a new campaign in January. So, across what is quarter four for us, we’re focused on our above-the-line campaign and some time in February, we launched ZingZong Ride.

How much of your spends are either above the line or below?

It’s a much smaller amount that goes below the line where it varies from industry to industry. We have dedicated dealers with showrooms, but that’s part of our infrastructure. Whereas for an FMCG, every poster put up at a retail shop would constitute a below-the-line investment. For us, that’s really the infrastructure. It’s a difficult thing to compare. Below the line plays a role. The infrastructure is there and it’s already gone in the infrastructure and continues to do so. We find what drives customers a lot more to showrooms is the above-the-line investments.

And there’s still some time before you get into some e-commerce sales, which hasn’t really entered the automobile sector in a big way….

In case of two wheelers, I don’t think you can do away with the kind of experience and assistance and expert advice that a customer requires at a point of sale, which is [acquired from] the dealership. It’s not like browsing through features online and then ordering the bike online too. I can’t say how things will be in future. Currently, we’re very focused on our current methods.

And one last question: What are the challenges that lie ahead for you in terms of marketing, advertising and promotion of motorcycles?

At the industry level, we’ve been seeing a slowdown in the last six months. So one big challenge is going to be to accelerate the re-purchase cycle at an industry level. Our commuter segment, where Discover is operating, has lost some market share. We have to get that back. Our third challenge has to do with new launches. I think we need to consolidate them in the market. We’re talking about quite a few of them, like Platina or CT100. We have to continue building the credibility of these brands and make them look very different and exciting. Similarly, with the new Pulsar that we’ve launched, the advertising and marketing challenge is going to be to up the brand imagery and sheen. These are top-of-the-line bikes and our challenge would be to come up with marketing which complements them.

And one last question: What are the challenges that lie ahead for you in terms of marketing, advertising and promotion of motorcycles?

As Head of Marketing at Bunge India Pvt Ltd Sagar Boke brings to the table a vast experience of over a decade in the field of brands and marketing. He was Category Head for Skin and Fragrance at Cavin Kare. Prior to this he was the Deputy General Manager, Marketing, Hair Colours, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. He was instrumental in building brands such as Godrej No 1 soap, Godrej Nupur annd Fairever Fairness Cream. Mr Boke speaks with Dyanne Coelho on how BTL is a key part of his overall marketing activity.

We’ve heard about your activation in Lucknow and Varanasi. For a product like Dalda, how important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?

I would say very important, because whenever you are competing in the commodity category, it is important for a brand to create an emotional connect. One of the ways to really do that is through BTL activation, which amplifies the brand idea. Now the brand Dalda is focused on a mother’s trust. The tagline of the brand was ‘Trusted by Mothers who Care’ and the current tagline that we have is‘Dabba Khali, Pet Full’ to imply that every time the kid comes home, the dabba is khali and the stomach is full. The idea was to look at areas that create an emotional connect with the mother. This activity was one where we achieved that objective.
And for other products like Gagan?

For all our brands I would say that BTL activation plays an important role. In ATL, we talk about the brand value and brand proposition, whereas in BTL we bring the brand proposition alive to the consumer. The amount of consumer connect we receive through BTL is unparalleled.
Dalda has always been very active on the mass media… how are those spends doing?

I’m not in a position to share exact numbers, but I can definitely say that we are one of the most active brands on the media and possibly one of the highest spending brands on media in the edible oil category. With respect to our spends, I can say that it is 70 percent on television and print, 20 percent on activation and 10 percent on digital. Also, when talking about digital, I think mobile as a platform holds a very high potential. We launched an initiative called Dial D, wherein a consumer could give a missed call on a number and they would instantly get a call back. Once they got the call back, they could submit a recipe to enter the contest. We also shared recipes with the callers. They could stand to win prizes if their recipe won.

Can you give us a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

It would be 70 percent ATL and 30 percent BTL.
What is the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?

Our aim of BTL is to bring the brand proposition alive. So for these, we look for high conglomeration points and various occasions. Last year, we had an activity at the Rath Yatra, where about 10 lakh pilgrims had gathered. The campaign took place at Puri, Odisha, during the Jagannath Rath Yatra.  We collaborated with renowned sand sculptor Sudarsan Pattnaik who created a life-sized sand art sculpture of Lord Jagannath on the beach in Puri.Similarly, during Durga Puja last year, we had a Dhunuch iinstallation, an offering made to the goddess. This was created using 5000 Dalda bottles at Singhi Park in Kolkata. Like these, many of our activities have caught the attention of the consumers. Last year, during Mother’s Day, we had created a special mobile application wherein the consumer could record a message for their mother and the message would be delivered to their mother through us. So in this way we look at occasions and ideas which are clutter breaking to really create awareness about the brand.

Do you prefer to retain BTL agencies directly or initiate them via your existing creative/media agency?

We have a number of BTL agencies who work for us, so mostly we do it through a BTL agency, since their expertise is in that.

In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sure shot avenue than ATL?

I would say so, because in BTL you are pretty much focused in terms of the target audience one is looking at. And also it is a very measureable method. Far more measureable in terms of the results one would get.

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?

One of the other parameters we look at is brand health. Another is spontaneous awareness of the brand. We also look at the consideration of the consumer to buy the brand. Because if both brand health and brand awareness are high, then the inclination of the consumer to buy the product is also stronger.Consideration is important. Would they consider buying my brand? In terms of creating brand awareness, ATL is more effective, but what BTL strongly does is it creates an emotional connect. It is not only sufficient to have an awareness of the brand, it is also important that consumers consider consuming the brand. BTL really works to create an engagement and a connect for the brand.

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?

I wouldn’t say that. In very niche categories it is possible for BTL to manage without ATL. For example, if it is for a premium product, or a customised offering where you only want to target a small audience, then it would work. At the end, the objective of ATL is to reach a larger consumer base. In BTL, your consumer target base is smaller and it should do the job. However, if you are targeting a large mass audience, then it is difficult with BTL alone. In order to create awareness for a larger number of people, BTL is more expensive; however the quality of engagement via BTL is also far superior.

With over 15 years of experience in the domain of sales and marketing management across various leading companies such as Blow Plast, Pidilite and Parle, Pravin Kulkarnii joined Parle Products in 1994 and is currently General Manager, Marketing. He is based out of Mumbai and is responsible for corporate strategy, business profitability, product portfolio management, strategic brand management, advertising and promotion for all Parle brands in the country. Mr. Kulkarnii is a graduate in Engineering from VJTI, Mumbai and a postgraduate in management from the University of Pune. Mr Kulkarnii speaks with Dyanne Coelho on how ATL and BTL have complementary and not competing roles.

How critical is the role that Below-the-Line advertising and promotions plays in the FMCG space?    

The main role of BTL is to give the experience of the brand to consumers, to have an interaction and experience with the brand , positioning  of the brand, etc. This is done so that the positioning of the brand gets completely fixed in their minds. ATL generally creates awareness and an image, but positioning and communicating the experience of the brand comes only through BTL activities.

Are there any specific products in Parle for which BTL is used in particular?

Almost all brands have some kind of BTL activity, mall activations and all. We even have rural activations. Almost 70 to 80 percent of the brands have some amount of BTL activity.

How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan at Parle?

It is very important. Almost 15 to 20 percent of our marketing budget goes into BTL.

Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

Like I mentioned earlier, we spend between 15 to 20 percent of our budget on BTL activations.

Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion? 

We do a lot of activities, like sampling of our products, merchandising activities, schoolroom promotions about different brands, brands especially that are targeting kids. We also do rural promotional activities, which means that we go to villages and spread activities about the brand and also do distribution. We also take part in a lot of melas, at movie theatres, exhibitions and other activities.

Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency? 

No we do it via specialised BTL agencies that have the infrastructure in various cities. That way it is also much cheaper, because regular agencies charge too much for such activations.

In terms of generating results especially from consumers, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL? 

There is a completely different role for ATL and BTL. They don’t clash with each other. ATL helps create awareness and brand image. BTL complements it by creating an experience for the brand. Both have complementary roles rather than competing roles. Neither is complete without the other. ATL doesn’t give the brand experience to the consumers, at the same time, doing just BTL is going to be a very limited activity. How many BTL activities can you have? You want to create mass awareness, and for that you need ATL.

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? 

In a BTL campaign, it is not always sales, but many times we check to see the awareness of the brand before and after. Similarly, we track what the brand image was before the activity and after. Whether the positioning of the brand is more clear is also what we look at. We also look to see what is the overall experience of the brand, whether it was positive or satisfactory or not achieved results. So these are the factors we track before and after the activation.

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?

Both are complementary. None can exist without the other. A lot of experience also happens at the shop level, during the actual sale. Even if we create awareness, the consumer may not remember it at the top of his/her mind all the time. So if the consumer has a good experience at the shop level, the likelihood of purchasing the brand increases.

You’ll have done some BTL activities recently in non-metro cities…

Yes we have done it across the country. We go to over 500 population villages. We do similar activities there as well. But we have noticed that we get a far better response in the smaller towns than in cities. There people are more excited about such activities. In bigger towns the psychology is that they have seen everything. So they don’t get excited anymore. That is not the case in small towns.

A postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Sachin Dingankar took on charge as Head of Marketing at Zydus Wellness in March this year. Zydus has a strong portfolio in the FMCG space with brands such as Sugar Free, Everyuth, Nutralite and Actilife.

Of his 18-odd years of work experience, Mr Dingankar has worked with well-known FMCG majors like Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Godfrey Phillips (GPI) and  Henkel managing brands like Four Square, Red & White, Cavanders, Stayfree & Schwarzkopf Professional. A diverse set indeed. Recently, at the Kyoorius Advertising Awards, a Zydus campaign crafted by DDB Mudra bagged the lone Black Elephant awarded. Mr Dingankar takes questions from Dyanne Coelho on his company’s BTL philosophy and how it is gaining ground vis-a-vis ATL.

How important is Below-The-Line marketing in the wellness space?

Experiential marketing has become an important part of driving brands/ products in the wellness space. This has become all the more important because new products are being developed with specialised ingredients and benefits that needs to be communicated to the consumers

Are there any specific products or services for which BTL is used in particular at Zydus?

We use BTL for engaging with consumers for all three franchises – Nutralite, Everyuth and Sugar Free

How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?

As mentioned, BTL has become an integral part of our marketing plans

Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

The spend ratios are similar to the industry.

Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion? 

We do a range of activities for Nutralite like festival activity, sampling in different touchpoints like modern trade, general trade, corporate and society etc.

Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency? 

We work with both options. DDB Mudra has been partnering with us on Nutralite for both creative work and on activations as well.

In terms of generating results especially from consumers, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL? 

Both have their reasons for being an important part of marketing plan.

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?

Various measures are used to evaluate success of BTL campaigns. Some of the measures are increasing relevance, image parameters etc

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?

In India, a number of brands are building business by using BTL. It has become a relevant lever to build brand without using ATL significantly.

In the creation of the Nutralite’s ‘Health Cha Shree Ganesh with DDB Mudra, did you’ll worry about hurting religious sentiments? 

We were very conscious of not hurting any sentiments. Full attention was paid to the activity to ensure that this issue was addressed appropriately

The ad won the only Black Elephant at the Kyoorius Advertising Awards last month. What was the overall response you got to the campaign?

It is a very prestigious award and we are very happy to win it. The response has been overwhelming.

A postgraduate in marketing from the Xavier Institute of Management, Swati Rathi has been with Godrej Appliances for over nine years after a stint at IMRB and Polaris Software. Given the wide range of products that Godrej Appliance has, Ms Rathi’s experience ranges from driving a 1000+ team of frontline customer advisors to directing the ATL and BTL of Godrej Appliance products. Ms Rathi takes questions from Dyanne Coelho on how vital BTL is to her company’s over marketing plan and the attributes she looks at to measure the success of a BTL campaign philosophy

Swati Rathi, Senior General Manager and Marketing Head, Godrej Appliances

1. How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?

BTL communication is extremely critical to the success of any marketing plan. It not only helps in building awareness, creating interest and driving imagery for the brand but also helps in providing a deeper level of understanding to the consumers by giving them information and by connecting with them more closely. It is a down-to-earth, hands-on approach that is more direct and helps the brand in establishing a relationship with the consumers. For a consumer durables brand, product understanding and demonstration plays a very important role and purchase decisions continue to get influenced at the shop floor and therefore, BTL communication plays an even more crucial role for brands like us.

At Godrej Appliances, BTL activations play a crucial role in the overall marketing plan. Through our BTL activations, we try to ensure that there is consistent brand presence in the market and a high visibility at the shop floor. We do nearly 1000 BTL activations throughout the year ranging from participating in premium exhibitions such as IITF to improving shop floor visibility through clutter-breaking visual merchandising concepts.  All our activities are targeted at driving brand imagery and conversion at the shop floor level by letting the consumers experience the products and offerings up close.

Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?

Approximately 25-30 % of our marketing spends are on targeted BTL activations.

Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
At Godrej Appliances we undertake a wide variety of activities as a part of our BTL communication. These include:

:: Shop level product launches and retail promotions> demonstration focused activations at shops or in mobile canters around the city
> cookery classes for Microwave Oven promotion
> product stacking/usage demonstrations for refrigerators etc.

:: Festival specific activation

> tactical offer centric promotions at or around the shop floor through inserts and visual merchandising

:: Exhibitions of different scales

:: Van branding and activations
:: Office/ Mall/RWA activations
:: Clutter-breaking visual merchandising led promotions
:: SMS and email campaigns

Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?

While we work with our creative agencies for creative development, the execution is taken care of by our BTL agencies.

In terms of generating results esp from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?

For improving marketing effectiveness, we typically combine ATL and BTL techniques in a single, integrated campaign for communicating consistent messages across all media.

BTL activations work as reinforcement and are more driven to effect conversions. BTL is very successful in upcountry locations and the results are also easily measurable.

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?

The number of leads generated, footfall and sales are important parameters that are measured to assess the success of BTL campaigns. What is also positively impacted through a well executed BTL campaign is the confidence of trade partners, motivation of the sales force and reassurance to consumers, feedback from trade partners etc.

There are many organizations who 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?

Both ATL and BTL have their own defined role to play and the media mix depends on the objective of the campaign and nature of the product being launched. Further, with consumers’ media habits getting more and more fragmented, it is important to have a sharply targeted mix with the role of each media vehicle being defined very carefully.