AIMA 6th National Brand Summit: Brand leadership in volatile times challenge, lead or perish

The Brand Summit on theme "Brand Leadership in Volatile Times: Challenge, Lead or Perish' was lead by Hemant Sachdev, Former Jt MD Microsoft Corp. Pvt. Ltd as Summit Director who whilst opening the forum, articulated, "Volatility is about brand accountability, at present there is an economic reset that is happening and not in actual fact an economic recession. There is no change in consumers but there are two distinct demographics hence execution, more for less and talent restructuring are essential".

"It is the need of the day to address how brands can evolve and be a reckoning force in the current volatile scenario. Branding is a complex part of global marketing and challenging conventions will lead to change in the market dynamics" said Kamal Singh, Director (CMD) AIMA in his welcome address.

On profitable growth during volatile times, Gopal Vittal, Executive Director ' Hindustan Unilever Ltd, inferred, " Younger, literate consumers drive consumption along with aspiration which makes a shift to a margin based pricing an essential move for businesses. Indentifying the pockets of growth and investing ahead of the curve through innovative ways shapes a resilient growth portfolio which is sustainable despite changes in consumer demographics".

Some of the key discussions of the Summit were Speaking on Challenger Brands Sunil Alagh, Chairman, SKA Advisors stressed on the importance of brands challenging the leader's position saying "Leaders have to never underestimate their competition. A challenger brand should never compete with the leaders strengths but should identify weaknesses and work around that limitation to successfully challenge the leaders".

Lead through Experience Vipin Anand, Executive Director (Corporate Communications) Life Insurance Corporation of India said "Experience enables an organization to act decisively and anticipate various obstacles. Long term values and ethics that are adopted by a company lead to their sustainability as market leaders".

Mohit Beotra, Head (Emerging Business) Bharti Airtel Ltd. spoke about business based on technology saying "As a business Airtel strongly believes that what matters to a customer is user friendly technology which they can experience. Youthful & Dyanamic are the two words our brand sustenance is based on".

Day 1 of the summit featured K. Ramakrishnan, CMO ' Café Coffee Day, Anisha Motwani, Director and Chief Marketing Officer ' Max New York Life, Rajesh Kumar, Head of Marketing ' SAP India Pvt. Ltd., Tarun Katial, CEO ' Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. and Dharini Mishra, Global Head of Brand ' Suzlon Group.

Thus the 1st Day of All India Management Association (AIMA) Summit comprised of various elements that the Brand Leaders need to posses, be it innovation, Experience or Technology in order to lead the market. It also shed light on Challenger brands and how these brands need to be different and think out "of the box' by changing conventions and paradigms to successfully compete against the leaders in their industries.