Arnab Banerjee on CEAT Tyres’ grand plans for women’s cricket in India

Tyre manufacturer CEAT India has come on board as the official strategic timeout partner for Wwomen’s T20 challenge 2022. The objective of the association with women’s cricket as a strategic timeout partner is to bring women’s cricket at par with men’s cricket in India.

CEAT Tyres has also been at the helm of transforming its workplace into a more inclusive environment for all genders, and is setting an example of breaking stereotypes within the workspace.

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CEAT is the flagship company of RPG Enterprises, and was established in the year 1958. It is now one of India’s leading tyre manufacturers with a strong presence in global markets. It produces over 40 million tyres in a year, offering the widest range of tyres to all segments and markets.

In conversation with Adgully, Arnab Banerjee, COO, CEAT Limited, speaks about associating with women’s cricket in India and the company’s plans to bring it at par with men’s cricket, the challenges faced and learnings from the pandemic period, and more. Excerpts:

Please tell us about CEAT Tyres’ association with women’s cricket as a strategic timeout partner?

We are already associated with men’s cricket for more than five years. When this opportunity came around, we thought it’s a natural extension to support women’s cricket. This will bring some diversity to our spends and it is improving in terms of popularity, visibility, number of players coming through. We already have Harmanpreet Kaur, who is captain of the women’s cricket team, so this naturally happened and we jumped at the opportunity.

What is to be done to bring women’s cricket at par with men’s cricket in India?

It is just a matter of time. First of all, more women should be coming and finding a good source of livelihood. There are many talented players who don’t take up cricket because it is not feasible or viable. But socially, the country is opening up, and this is a good means of livelihood, recognition and fame. A lot of new players are going to come in from various parts of the country. On top of this, if you do an organised tournament like IPL, women cricketers from different parts of the world, who have already made a name for themselves and who have established their credibility as players, would come and play here. Hence, more teams and more competition will make it a good spectacle sport, which will draw in the spectators to the stadiums as well as on television. This, it is a matter of time when women’s cricket will be at par with men’s cricket. We need to remember that men’s cricket has been going on since 1930s, so it’s almost a century old now. On the other hand, women’s cricket has started coming up in the last couple of decades. But I don’t think it has to wait for 50-60 years, but maybe a decade or so for women’s cricket to have its own following.

What are the different ATL and BTL marketing activities that CEAT Tyres has been undertaking in the last few years?

We’ve had the Aamir Khan creatives – firstly, when he appeared as a completely robotic kind of character, and secondly, when he appeared in different celebratory situations. We also did a two-wheeler creative during this time on the problems of Indian roads, which is continuing. So, we have been pretty positive about spends, and of course we have been continuing with the strategy timeout on men’s IPL all through the Covid times. The BTL strategies were little bit restricted during the pandemic period because movement of people was not there, so in terms of visibility, merchandising, store opening, etc., we were little slower than usual.

What kind of challenges did CEAT Tyres face during the two years of the pandemic?

It has been challenging because we have not been meeting our colleagues and our customers very frequently. So, we were living off our past relationships and understanding of each other. Many new people joined our team. We have opened many channel partners, so it has been difficult of course. We cannot continue forever meeting on Zoom or Teams. We need to have face to face contact, and we need to develop new relationships with new people. We have managed well over the last  2-2.5 years and now a hybrid kind of model is evolving, wherein we have both face to face contact and work from home. But customer relationships have to be face to face, that is our understanding, and it is not properly managed if you just rely on technology to manage the same. Thus, there have been some learnings from the Covid period, some insights to match the work in the pre-Covid and Covid years, to find the solutions forward.

How is CEAT Tyres breaking stereotypes within the workplace and transforming its workplace into a more inclusive environment for all genders?

We have a big stated message from the top about diversity, equity and inclusion. Diversity is not just gender diversity. We are looking at diversity of location, people from all corners of the country should be part of the CEAT family. We are looking at transgenders, we are looking at specially abled people, we are looking at bringing back women who had to give up their corporate careers because of family reasons or to raise their children. So, that is another source of talent. We have opened the gates to different kinds of talent and we are embracing them in various ways within the company. For example, we are the first tyre company to have a large number of women on the shop floor manufacturing tyres. In our Chennai factory, about 30% of the shop floor workers are women. It’s a journey and we have a long way to go.

What are your observations on the consumer behaviour in the tyre market in the last few years?

First of all, consumers spend a lot of time researching online before buying tyres. The online research concerns not just price discovery, but also for doing a comparative analysis of which kind of tyre is the best for their vehicle – be it a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler. The dealers have also gone digital, the importance of Google rating, etc., has gone up because if I’m lost in the way, and I need a tyre, I will just take out my phone and search for the nearest store with the best rating, and if it is selling CEAT Tyres, it is great. Thus, digital presence, digital footprint, and digital touchpoints with consumers have gone up. The sale is just about 2%-3% in the passenger segment. But in some economies of the world, it has gone up as high as 20-25%. So, the journey from research and understanding tyres to actually buying them digitally started during the Covid times.

What are the other brand associations for CEAT Tyres this year?

One is the celebrity tie-up with Aamir Khan. Moreover, there are a plethora of cricket celebs whom we associate with. We have invested in a couple of start-ups – one is in the fleet management TRC space and the other one is involved in the doorstep delivery of tyres, which is operational in some 3-4 cities and there is a run rate of about 20 crore per annum. We do not have any known brand name associations so far, but these are the areas where we have hinged upon.