Tag: BTL Baatein

With over 14 years of experience, Sarthak Seth specialises in brand strategy, creation and developing markets, consumer insights, visibility strategies and has been instrumental in conceiving, designing and implementing product and marketing initiatives for global brands such as Panasonic, LG Electronics, Indian Hotels Co Ltd in India and South Asian markets. Currently, he is the Head for Brand and Marketing Communications at Panasonic India Pvt. Ltd.We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM 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

How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?

BTL is extremely important and today everybody wants to demonstrate more in to experiential marketing thing. It plays a really important role because if you want to connect with the consumer, who actually wants to have a touch and feel of the product.

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

From a BTL perspective there are two-three things. One is, within the shop what exactly are you doing. So, if you see how the consumer journey today is, we start the journey from ATL which includes the release of your television campaign, it is more from the perspective of creating awareness. Now, a consumer might see you on television or newspaper and come in to the shop. But what message has been delivered to him is very important. From the perspective of what you see at the shop, all your POPs (point of purchase), POSs (point of sale), cut outs etc. So, we normally do all such things. Then another thing is in the zone of activations. Now the activations also fall in to the BTL activity itself. When you speak from activation per say, it is more about the experiential feel of the product to the consumer, so that you create various touch points where the consumer actually comes in and touches and feels your product. We do a lot of activations around mall. Today it is more about how you reach out to the end consumer. It is just that wherever you have consumer footprint, you just reach out to the consumer.

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

It totally depends on the product category. It is more to do with what are the numbers that you are looking at or what is your revenue for a certain category because if you really want to do your television commercials and everything, which is more of ATL then obviously it is like you really have to have a decent turnover because you generate your marketing budgets from that perspective. There might be smaller categories where you will see only 100% BTL has been done. So, it totally depends upon the product category you are talking about. Also, another thing is that if I look at broader prospect, I would say if a brand is in a decent stage in terms of awareness and everything, then the brands tend to shift towards BTL.

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

BTL is a specialised thing… your advertising agencies are not specialised in terms of activations. But when you say creative, the creative in terms of what POPs have to be designed or what sort of creative that should be made by your creative agencies but in terms of putting it over, implementing it in the shop floor, executing it-all these are done through BTL agencies.

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

Today in marketing everything is about numbers. So, you need to look at ROI (Return on Investment). ATL is more about building your awareness because on ATL we normally do not do much of tactical. Especially in television there is barely anything tactical which is done. The second tactical mode I would say is print ads, wherein you release your offers and all. But again in BTL front if your there with the end consumer and at the mall you are offering certain things, so you know how faster the conversions are happening.

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 things is the footfalls you have been able to generate, when you look from a BTL perspective. Here it is more of the activations that you are actually speaking. The number of people it is touching upon is number one. Another is how much conversions you are driving from there because from BTL perspective I would say that we are more in to being practical so we cannot just say with BTL we are trying to create awareness. Awareness can be a subset but at the end of the day it is more about can I have something which is more result oriented or result driven things.

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?

You just cannot do away with the ATL. But it totally depends on the product category you are dealing with. Marketing is always a function of what your budget has been generated. So, it has to be a mix of ATL and BTL. But again when you are doing an ATL campaign, you need to know that it has to be a sustained enough campaign. So, it cannot be that today I release an ad on television and tomorrow I am out of it, it just cannot happen. Every medium has its own role to play in to it. Like television is more about building awareness, position of the brand and print is more from a tactical perspective and also about what offers you are actually giving. BTL is reaching out to the end consumers in terms of identifying that these are my niche consumers, it is like you are directly reaching to the potential customers over there. ATL is more like you are reaching to the masses. Today when we are talking about geo targeting, digital media for example, even those sorts of geo targeting you are doing through BTL.

Coming on to brands doing a mix of BTL along with outdoors and digital, I would say it is a good mix. If you see outdoors will help you in creating awareness and increasing your visibility. Again, in outdoors you should know that any campaign which you are stretching beyond a period 21 to 25 days, actually the creative becomes a blind spot. So, if you are changing your creative, you can stretch it to two-three months also. Rising cost of media on one side, we are looking at it from the perspective of television or newspaper for that matter but their effectiveness is much broader. Outdoor, you need to be city and area specific. Digital is not at all a cheap medium. A lot of people make this assumption that digital is very cheap. The number of impressions you are required to put on to digital medium in terms of gaining frequencies, it is not very simple. It can be a decent mix but have to know where you want to target.

An economics graduate, Chaitanya Rele, Vice President, Marketing  of Havmor Ice Cream Ltd  is no stranger to businesses and their dynamics. After a short stint with the banking industry, Rele began a career in marketing and brand consulting. Over the last 16 years he has worked for clients across the board from telecommunication to FMCG and manufacturing to fashion. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM 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

It is interesting to note that a company like Havmor which we assumed would only look at the ATL route of promotions is looking at BTL in such a big way. How important is BTL to your overall marketing plan?

While ATL is important to create brand recognition, BTL play a significant role in ensuring our brand stays top of mind through the year. Ice-creams fall under the food category and without trying it – consumers are not easily convinced. The summer months are where our ATL communication is at its peak, but BTL is something that is on and in clear focus 12 of 12 months.

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

Taste and trials become critical – especially when entering new markets. We’ve been expanding over the last few years and the best way to convince people about our brand is our product. It’s our hero and we know it. That’s the very reason we don’t actually have a brand ambassador. Alongside taste & trial activities, we’re focused on partnering with events on ground – creating availability on-ground. India is a hot place and ice-cream helps you cool down – no pun intended! Ice-cream is also a great energiser and consumers have the opportunity to try a variety of products through BTL activities. We also have a very strong parlour, push kart and dealer network across India – and these too become BTL tools for our brand promotions. ATL is often used to amplify these efforts – but BTL is the focus for all year round.

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

While I can’t provide specific numbers – our ATL: BTL spends are about 2:5.

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

We have begun working with some of the best in the business, and we over 70 years of experience in the industry. It is not a rule for us yet – great ideas come from everywhere and we encourage this. But we are looking to engage specific shopper practice agencies in the near future.

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

Sureshot is really based on the effectiveness of the activity or idea. ATL has proved to be useful, but let’s take into context that ATL is something we have invested in just twice so far. BTL activities have also been unsuccessful in the past. But if we were to objectively break it down – BTL is the more effective engagement tool and when combined with targeted ATL communication – the BTL activity becomes even more effective.

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?

Consumer engagement and brand recall. These are the two most important things for us. There is always a debate between biggest or best – and I can firmly say that we want to be the best. We’re a vibrant and authentic brand, and it comes to life through our product, our communication and really through everything we do. There is certain positivity about us and BTL is the more effective tool to help us with consumer engagement and through this – recall.

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?

India is an enormous country, in more ways than one. Even a small BTL activity if done strategically, can yield positive results – in their catchment areas. But ATL does help amplify; now ATL can be radio, OOH, TV or even digital. I feel the dependency on traditional ATL media will dwindle for us in the next 5 years and our focus will be on BTL and amplification through digital.

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.

Sudheer Srinivas is Marketing Manager at The Himalaya Drug Company. He looks after the newly launched division Himalaya Wellness. Divided into three wings, it comprises Pure Herbs, General Wellness and Nutrition, addressing a wide spectrum of medical issues – from preventive care to health management. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM with Anuka Roy speaking to him Read on…

What is the importance of BTL in the wellness care products space?

The importance of retailing for our wellness range is because of many reasons. First, people today can afford and second, they think about their health more than anything today. Third, people have stopped being reactive and started being proactive over their health issues. Earlier when we used to go to a doctor we would spend Rs 50 maximum but today it is minimum of three to four thousand rupees. People today want a solution for their basic health care needs which they can pick it up along with their monthly shopping and they would want to make it a part of their lifestyle. The need for having a retailing for wellness range is the elderly population. The life expectancy of India today is 72 years.  But the quality of life between 52 and 72 years have suffered a lot. They go through diabetes, arthritis, infections etc. What this population is looking for is a daily health supplement which maintains their health apart from the regular medication that their doctor prescribes. They would prefer picking up Guduchi tablet, considering the benefits of it. Even Guduchi as a product is popular among the working professionals.

So, BTL is very important for wellness care products. And, we would target it along with awareness. Today, somebody who is overweight may be looking for a solution but may not have found it. In the BTL space, there are health advisers give out pamphlets, talk to them about the products at Himalaya Wellness. That is helping us a lot. Creating awareness via BTL is what we are working on.

What are the specific products or services for which BTL activations are used at Himalaya Wellness?

First is our over weight, obesity product, second is our health drink. Third are our general category products like cold and pain balms, foot care crème. These are the three main categories. And the range, where we have Karela and other products, we educate the people, we do not insist on buying that. We tell them you have a solution in hand if you are suffering from diabetes or hyper cholesterol.

How important is BTL activity to your overall marketing plan?

BTL is the only way we have taken as a policy from our division. It is the only thing that we are exposing our brands to.

Do you see a special role for BTL in the rural market?

The general belief among all of us city dwellers is that Class B and C towns are not that much health oriented. But the reverse is true. Today, even the B and C town people are very health conscious, they go to gyms , they jog and walk. They are interested in their health. So, BTL is very important in rural also. Rural, not the village kind but towns with less than five lakh population. Considering the wellness products, I would not recommend ATL because I would not take an anti-obesity product just because a Shah Rukh Khan or Salman Khan tells me to. The brand benefit should talk and it talks better we feel through BTL.

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

We do not have an ATL plan at all. Not in the wellness portfolio.We haveseparate team promoting these products to Doctors community also. Even today, doctors are very important to generate the trigger of product. We strongly believe in that and are promoting to doctors through separate channel. Medical Representatives who approach the doctors and we have doctors across the country prescribing our products.

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 POSM (Point of Sale Materials) and product activations. We do a lot of tasting campaigns for our health drink. We do nutritional talk programmes, doctor meets, chemist meets, branding meets, all these activities. And all this is targeted at increasing the awareness.

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

Where it requires a specific skill set we do it with an outside agency. The regular activities are done through our staff only.

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?

Firstly, it is sales. Secondly, what we look for is repeat process. Third thing is we conduct regular market insights. For our health drink, we are currently looking at a small sample size in four or five cities to find out the brand awareness and things like that. So, we look at what was our target and what we have achieved in terms of awareness. That is a very realistic measure of my BTL activities.

There are many organisations 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?

For certain categories, definitely yes, BTL can be the only mode of promotion. Media cost is definitely rising. For our set of products it would not make sense in going ATL. So, BTL is here to stay and is very important.

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.