With over thirteen years of experience in marketing, product management, sales and strategic planning, Anil Bhamre is an alumnus of Department of Management Sciences, PUMBA, Pune. He joined Racold Themo Pvt Ltd as General Manager Marketing recently A strategic planner with proficiency in streamlining marketing inclusive of ATL/BTL, social media, product management, strategic planning etc., Bhamre has been an experienced practitioner in the industry for some time. We present to you the ‘BTL Baatein’ of the week which is powered by VISCOMM with Anuka Roy speaking to him on the balance between ATL and BTL marketing at Racold.
What is the importance of BTL in the durable goods space?
BTL plays a vital role in marketing of durable goods, no doubt over last few years its importance is getting diluted due to online shopping. BTL helps most brands not only for the last push on shop floor and brand visibility at the time of purchase/sale, but also silently helps to register brand awareness.
Are there any specific products at Racold for which you only use BTL?
As mentioned earlier, BTL is a good medium but even today for any durable player it is difficult to do away with ATL and completely rely only on BTL.
Can you give a broad idea of your spends pie of ATL v/s BTL?
We spend diligently as per our marketing strategy based on innovations, effectiveness, mileage and reach as per the brand and market requirements in both ATL and BTL, where BTL plays a slightly lesser role compared to ATL.
Over the last three-four years, the company has increased its reach among consumers in India and is in more than 10,000 stores across towns. Can you also specify the range of activities that you undertake as part of the below-the-line advertising and promotion?
We at Racold Thermo Private Limited follow the philosophy ‘Reborn Every Day with Hot Water’ and have always promoted our brand through many BTL activities, to name few are e.g. corporate social responsibility activities like Switch2Green, Wake Up Bucket Challenge and Turn Up The Heat Challenge in association with strategic partners.
Recently, we initiated a campaign called Racold SunCity, which is a thought provoking campaign for the internet users of India. With this campaign we are supporting the thought of using solar products and reduce carbon emissions. We continuously work on increasing visibility in market place through sign boards, in shop branding, POP (Point Of Purchase)/POS (Point of Sale) and activations.
Racold recently launched its new range of solar water heaters. 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?
Every brand and organisation has their own brand/marketing strategy based on their current expectations/needs. Only BTL does not have the reach today which most organisation would like to have with limited time, money and resources they have. Yes, if BTL is used intelligently with other ATL mediums e.g. outdoor or digital yes it many a times can be effective too. But today even outdoor and digital are expensive too.
In terms of generating results especially from consumers and in B2B, do you find BTL a more sureshot avenue than ATL?
In B2B, yes, BTL is a winner provided you are in his/her (consumer, decision-maker, influencer) consideration set. In order to register in consideration set you need to generate some awareness through strategic mix of ATL and BTL. But when it comes to final execution and results in B2B , BTL like exhibitions, meets, sponsorships, one to one dialogues are more sure shot avenue than 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?
BTL campaigns are having two types, one that has immediate results e.g. walk ins, purchases, enquiries, sales, etc. when we use mediums like activations, exhibitions, events, meets, dialogues etc. But in second type it is difficult to measure success through BTL activities like store opening, in shop branding, visibility, POP/POS etc.