A sales professional with vast experience in channel management, key account management, B2B and sales strategy across various industries, Arun Souza Varma, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, AAK Kamani Pvt Ltd, heads the sales and marketing for the Food Service Division which caters to the requirements of Horeca, bakery, confectionary and ice cream industry. A postgraduate from the Sydenham Institute Of Management, Mumbai, Varma has been Zonal Business Head, West and Sales Head for Dr Fixit Urban at Pidilite Industries. We present to you the VISCOMM-powerd ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week with Anuka Roy speaking to him Below The Line (BTL) advertising, the focus of the company and the balance between ATL (Above The Line) and BTL
What according to you is the importance of BTL specifically for AAK Kamani Pvt Ltd products in the world of advertising and promotions?
For our particular products it is pretty important. We hardly do ATL and the kind of business we cater to is SMEs (Small and Medium-sized enterprises) – the smaller bakeries, confectioneries, frozen dessert manufacturers- for them BTL plays a major role. So, BTL is very important in our line of business.
Your products cater to which consumers? Are there some audiences where BTL works better than ATL and vice versa?
It is basically a food ingredient. We are in to specialty oils and fats. Largely we cater to bakeries, they use fats to make biscuits, cakes and creams; and then you have the HORECA segment which is the hotels, caterers etc., they generally use our culinary oils. Then we confectioneries which make toffees, wafer biscuits, so they use chocolate substitutes and we basically manufacture those specialty fats which are substitutes to the actual cocoa butter. We also operate in the frozen desserts segment, where again there’s the fat and the oil we have to make frozen desserts. These are the four consumer segments that we largely address to. They are all ingredients, we do not sell finished products but of course these products are finally consumed by large audience. So, if you look at it, ATL is more for mass mediums. Though we do a little bit of ATL, we do advertisements in paid magazines to target it to sector we cater to. But largely, it is BTL that works.
Would you say that there are certain types of marketers who have a greater affinity for BTL?
Well even if I have an affinity towards ATL, given the business I am in, I have to go for BTL because that is what the industry demands. It largely depends on your model of business, customers and the kind of product you are making; that is what is important for determining whether to focus more on BTL or ATL.
And typically what the break-up is of spends in Aak Kamani on ATL v/s BTL?
Well, it is largely BTL. On a percentage basis, probably 10-15% is what you spend on ATL but the maximum 80-95% of our budget is on BTL.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
In the smaller B2Bs, yes. In SMEs, BTL does play a better role and success would be more. There you can track your conversions through BTL, you know your consumers. For larger B2Bs like a Cadbury or a Nestle, I would say it should a mix of both ATL and BTL.
While sales and salience are good indicators of its success, what are the attributes you/ your clients look at to measure the success of a BTL campaign?
At the end of the day, all of them are into business. They are not the consumers; they have set up a bakery or a confectionery, they are also small businessmen. So, I think they are looking at their ROI (Return On Investment) and anything we do in BTL, we need to look at what is the ROI benefit that your target group is getting through BTL. When it is a BTL activity, I think it is more on the ROI of that business and how you impact the business that is a measure we would look at.
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?
When it comes specifically to your industry segment and target group, if you are going on a FMCG market launch, I think you cannot do it only on the basis of BTL, you would need ATL support because if your target audience is too large for a BTL to reach out and it would be more expensive. However, if you come to businesses like what we are in, then, yes we can definitely do an entire launch and make it a success without spending more than 5-10% on ATL. The more smaller B2B you are, I think it is dependent on BTL but the more large audience you have, you have to combine BTL and support it with ATL campaign.