Abhishek Somany on 3 key elements that define Somany’s campaign strategy

Somany Ceramics, a leading player in the Indian ceramic industry, recently rolled out their latest 360-degree brand campaign – ‘Apka style, Somany style’. The fresh and peppy campaign, conceptualized and created by Ogilvy & Mather, reinforces the brand’s commitment to meet the diverse consumer personalities and requirements through their vast product portfolio. Through this campaign, the brand seeks to communicate how the homes of consumers are essentially an extension of their own selves and the wide-ranging Somany Ceramics portfolio enables them to personify their quirks and fancies. 

The campaign has also unfolded with a power packed all round outreach and engagement plan across media vehicles. The brand will have a significant presence across digital, retail, radio, print, cinema and TV with an estimated 1000+ GRPs. 

In a freewheeling conversation with Adgully, Abhishek Somany, MD, Somany Ceramics, speaks about the campaign, the creative thought behind it, marketing strategy, go-to-market plans and much more. Excerpts: 

What is the philosophy behind the latest campaign?
We wanted to further emphasise on our brand and put it on top of everyone’s minds. The idea was to pull it 360 degree, so we rolled it on Television, and very soon one will find us in cinema, radio and various other mediums. Somany is placed second in India in the tiles market. With a view to further strengthen our position, this is a very large campaign in terms of investment. 

Marketing for this campaign is not just restricted to television screens. We will soon touch the radio. We are going very well on social media and digital platforms. The campaign has been released on various OOH platforms within a week of its launch on TV. 

What was the creative brief shared with the agency?
Since we all know that tiles are not a product that we buy on a daily basis, so keeping that in mind, we wanted to create a campaign which could have a long lasting impact on people’s minds when they think about it, and for that we had three major elements. Firstly, we wanted to target younger audiences, who buy their own or rented house. Secondly, we didn’t want to have an emotional advertisement, instead we wanted to take a quirky, young, peppy and colourful route that could strike a chord with the younger audiences. Lastly, one more thing that we had shared with Ogilvy was that whatever route they came up with, it should be more digital and social media friendly, so that we could do a lot more activations around the TVC in different formats. We decided against roping in a brand ambassador for the campaign because sometimes the brand ambassador becomes even larger than the brand. Therefore, we decided to use that money in making the ad more quirky and happening. 

With this campaign we intend to strengthen our position as the first choice for Indian consumers for all their tiling needs to make their dream homes come to life. 

What are the go-to-market plans for Somany?
Individually, for this campaign we have spent somewhere around 3 per cent of our revenue from the overall spends. Riding on the campaign, it will definitely have a long lasting impact on the audiences. This campaign will run next year as well. We will finish this around February or March and then will take a break and will return on the same track. Consistency is a major factor that plays with people’s minds. Also, going forward we will explore this campaign a lot more in 2018 as compared to this year. 

What are your growth plans for 2018? 
According to me, 2017-18 is a year of disruption. We had GST, where now the rates have been placed at 18 per cent, which we welcome. 

Campaign credits: 

Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

Production House: Apostrophe Films

Director (Film): Kaushik Sarkar

Executive Chairman & Creative Director, South Asia, Ogilvy: Piyush Pandey

Deputy CCO: Ajay Gahlaut

President - Ogilvy Group Companies, North: Kapil Arora

Creative: Krishna Mani, Shailendra Mahajan, Neha Bhatia, Srikanta Behera, Vishal Yadav, Vikalp Gupta

Account Management: Chandana Agarwal, Antara Suri, Rahul Ojha, Aurko Mukhopadhyay

Account Planning: Alok Sinha, Abhishek Chaturvedi, Aakriti Goel