Bharat Kharbanda has 17 years of work experience in FMCG, Telecom, IT hardware (PC, Printers & Consumables) and the small domestic appliances industry. He has worked with Hewlett Packard, Shell, Tata Pennzoil and Usha. Currently, he heads marketing for electrical fans and home comfort (air cooler, room heaters and water heaters) business for Usha International Limited.His experience includes marketing, sales and distribution management, product category management, operations and people management. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM with Anuka Roy speaking to him on Below The Line (BTL) advertising, the focus of the company and the balance between ATL (Above The Line) and BTL
How important is BTL to your overall marketing plan?
BTL becomes a very important component of the overall marketing plan. Although at Usha, we have been running 360-degree campaigns and in that BTL component is very important. If you look at the making of the product which we are selling, I take care of fans and home comfort business – air cooler, water heater etc. These product categories unfortunately do not enjoy that kind of involvement with the consumer directly. And, if you look at the nature of the market, these are being retailed. Electrical shops might be selling fans, heaters, similarly there are destination markets. The stores at the destination markets are much cluttered and in the nature of these retail stores, the point of sell, visibility etc. is very important. So, keeping that in mind BTL becomes almost imperative. Most of the time I have observed, these basically comes from the feedback which I normally take during my interaction with the retailers, sometimes what happens is a consumer changes his brand on the basis of the interaction that takes place at the point of sale. From that perspective, I would say, BTL probably is the most important part in the overall 360 degree campaign but not as a standalone.
Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
We do multiple activities. If you have to bucket all the activities, there are certain activities linked to channels, there are certain activities in terms of experience and then there are certain activities which are more meet-and-greet. Now, in terms of the channel activities we do both. If there is a new product launch happening, then we do the main product launch at the retail outlet. We identify top retail outlets and then we take our products and unveil it through that channel partner, create some excitement- these are some channel engagement activity. We do a lot of in=store branding and display activities. If you look at all the leading players be it Usha Crompton or Orion, unless you showcase the range, the colours which are available, it becomes very difficult for a consumer to really select. If you really want to showcase you need to be a little different, whether in terms of the showcase or colours or a particular design. We do demo fan installations, meet and greet activities also. Usha has engaged with a lot of big events like IPL with Mumbai Indians. We keep organising meet-and-greets wherein you call certain top players from Mumbai Indians and we call certain top dealers also and provide them a platform wherein they can ask questions to their favourite cricketer, interact with them, click photos etc. We also do experiential activities where we give opportunities to our consumer to experience our product. By which I mean, participating in certain carnival, certain exhibition where you showcase product, then you provide an opportunity for the consumer to engage.
Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?
In terms of percentage, I think BTL would form a good 30-35% of my overall spends on marketing.
Do you prefer to do this through BTL agencies directly or via your existing creative/media agency?
It is a mix of both. Creative agencies are basically involved to create the creative that we want in terms of branding that we want in a particular platform. But in terms of execution there are dedicated BTL agencies which are expert in that. But all the creative support in the branding is provided by the creative agency.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
There are no clear answers to this. For a product category like fan and air cooler etc. the job of the ATL is actually to bring in footfall. But in retail shops it might go in the favour of my brand or go in the favour of someone else’s brand. But BTL ensures that whatever you have communicated through your ATL or you are promising to deliver, at the Point of Sale you have to live up to that. These are two complementary activities.
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?
Sales are the indicator of success or failure. In BTL, the qualitative feedback is very important. Typically, in BTL you are creating a point of visibility and engagement. So, how a channel is seeing you as a brand, basically what kind of store space they are giving to you. It is a good indicator of how your BTL has been. I might produce a costly display fan but is he allocating space to the retail shop or not, that is an indicator. So, qualitative feedback and engagement with the retailer is a strong indicator of how a BTL activity has fared.
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?
My point of view here is BTL on its own may not hold well across the board. You cannot have a blanket ‘yes’ for that. But there are certain categories, I am not talking about my own product category but certain industries like automobile lubricant or tyre industry, they would largely bank on BTL because the role of the influencers are very important in such product categories. Wherever the role of influencers is very important, there, BTL might be preferred over ATL. But in our industry, I do not see BTL replacing ATL. BTL has to compliment ATL. When we do product launches, we ensure that there is pull being generated through ATL and that is supportive at the retail outlet through BTL.
