Brands today must work a lot harder at winning consumers’ trust: Aman Arora

There has been a dramatic shift in the way PR is viewed since the pandemic struck the country in 2020. The demand and need for PR have grown and brands are beginning to look at innovative ways to leverage their brands and strengthen their equity through PR. Parallelly, the media landscape has also evolved and the consumption pattern of news and content has rapidly taken a shift. Having a focused and well thought out PR strategy is pivotal for brands to look at, with the changing behaviour and new trends that one notices in content consumption.

Adgully’s latest column, titled PR OPINON, features views and insights of Industry leaders from the PR and communications world. In this episode, Aman Arora, CMO, Keventers, writes about how the company is special because it not just stays true to its legacy, but also appeals to the younger consumers.

There was a time when the ultimate mark of credibility was the amount of time a brand had been in existence, and how many nations it had made its way into. Today, that is no longer the case.

Consumers want more. They want to believe in your brand the way you would believe in it. They want an authentic story from a company that has values and ideals that reflect the 21^st century and uncompromising morals. Brands today must work a lot harder than they have before at winning the trust of consumers. Keventers is special because it stays true to its legacy but appeals to the younger consumers as well.

How do we add value? How do we make sure that we are just not another QSR chain amongst the multitude that already exist? These were all questions we grappled with when we started Keventers. We needed to stand out not just to break the clutter, but to stay true to the great many years that had gone into cultivating the history of the brand.

The first step was identifying the ways we could reach out to more people in a shorter amount of time. You must remember, this was right before social media became the primary advertising medium for brand awareness. So, we settled upon the glass bottles. We told people you could take them home, reuse them as water bottles, planters, canvases, etc. This was a huge success. Not only was Keventers making its way into people’s homes, but it was also a useful addition to their households. We knew it was the most environmentally friendly option at the time as well, because the best way to be green is to reuse.

Then the social media wave was upon us. Brands had to not only keep up with trends, but they also had to be one step ahead of them. Your measure of success was not only how many products you were selling, but how many people came back for more and how many people became active promoters of your brand. We knew milkshakes wouldn’t be enough, Keventers would have to live up to its true legacy, especially since we had a lot of copycat brands come up in a very short amount of time.

The brand has always been a trend-setter in the space and if you notice, all our touchpoints today honour Edward Keventer in a myriad of ways. Keventers new ice cream packs have colourful illustrative artworks along with the recently launched brand mascot ‘Mr. K’. The mascot is a modern-day embodiment of the visionary who started it all, Mr Edward Keventer. Whether it is letting his personality shine through the world of Instagram or having him feature in a newspaper ad, he has become the face of our brand in every way. People respond well to this, it makes them feel like there is a friendly face they can associate with us, a genial and gentle grandfather figure. The perfect example of the wonderful world of Mr. Keventer is through the #KeventersComics that are put out every Sunday through the Keventers Instagram page.

Apart from that, we also try to hire young talent – not set in their ways, spoiled by years of working in a system that moulds them into a particular personality as well as eager to learn from those who do belong to this system. They are in touch with all the ways Keventers can leverage digital trends, keep the values as authentic as possible and find the global food phenomena that we could bring to India.