GK Suresh, Head of Marketing, Foods Division, ITC Limited,  joined ITC in the year 2004 as District Manager – South and currently heads marketing for all categories of the foods business – staples, biscuits, confectionery, snacks, noodles, pasta, ready to eat, new categories, exports and packaging development. Prior to this, Suresh was Head – Brands and Business Development, Personal Care business, ITC Ltd, where he headed marketing for the newly created personal care business and oversaw ITC’s entry into the intensely competitive spaces of soaps, shampoos, fairness creams and Talcs. He lead the new category development of face washes and premium skincare products and also headed the media and research functions. In this edition of BTL Baatein, G K Suresh talks to Dyanne Coelho about the importance of BTL activations, why at ITC the spends on BTL are almost equal to ATL, and the importance of engaging the consumer through BTL activations.
How important is BTL in the FMCG space?
Hugely important.More than 50 percent of our marketing spends go into BTL activities. So whether it is influencing the consumer at the point of sales, or it is trying to influence the kind of trade in terms of stocking a certain product, BTL is a key component for us.
Are there any specific products at ITC that you use BTL for?
We use it for pretty much all our products. A bulk of our sales happens through the trade, and hence working through the trade is a key challenge for us. There are certain kinds of products where modern trade would become more important and there would be certain other kinds of products where the general trade would be more important. And there would be other more mass, more widely penetrated products where the wholesale channel would become more important. So, accordingly, we would deploy the inputs based on the requirements.
Specifically, how important is BTL to ITC Foods’ overall marketing plan?
BTL is almost 45 to 50 percent of our total spends. ATL and BTL is almost equal to us.
Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
So we work closely with modern trade, in doing a lot of modern trade programmes, whether it is a biscuit mela or a snacks festival, or something on the ready-to-eat category. We also do a lot of work with general trade, we have a loyalty programme for them which is called The First Club, where we give them preferential treatment in terms of supply, in terms of service, in terms of visibility, in terms of new product introductions, and in turn they give us a lot of preference and they talk to the consumers about new products that we launch and so on. We also have a loyalty programme for the wholesale channel called Shubh Laabh, which is pretty similar, where the whole idea is to get the wholesaler to talk about some of our newer products to the retailers who come to the shop.
Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?
We do a combination of both. A lot of the trade-related activities are done through our distributors;a lot of consumer related activities are done through a specialised agency. We work with a variety of agencies in that area.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
I wish I knew the answer to that one. I think each serves a different purpose. I think BTL to a large extent enables you to physically sample your product, in many cases do a one to one with the consumer and explain to the consumer about your product, and ATL does not necessarily offer that benefit. It’s more a broadcast, whereas BTL is a little bit more personalised and therefore for products which require a lot of convincing to do to the consumer, I think BTL works very well. For products where that may not be so important, I think ATL works equally.
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?
I think in most cases we would look at trials. That would be a big metric that we look at post BTL campaigns. A lot of our BTL campaigns are focused on addressing that issue. And therefore the single big metric we would look at is trials.
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 think so, absolutely. I see a lot of brands building themselves purely on the basis of BTL. On some of our products, even we are doing it. For example ready-to-eat products, Kitchens of India conserves and preserves, Aashirvaad ready meals, Aashirvaad instant mixes, we do a lot of activities in BPOs, in gourmet shops, at airports, malls, and so on where we believe that we the target consumers for these products are likely to be present.