CII brings together industry bigwigs to confer on brand strategies

The 4th CII Marketing & Brand Conclave, held today in Ahmedabad saw marketers and brand leaders from across the industry verticals, discuss and share experiences on the nuances of new age communication, technology enabled ‘TECHNOcating” across genres of product services

Today, technology and content marketing are relatively newfangled in India, still at a nascent stage. While the figures are miniscule compared to other international markets, India is fast establishing itself as a strong potential market in the future world of marketing & advertising.

Elaborating further, Mr Piruz Khambatta, Deputy Chairman – CII Western Region and CMD, Rasna Pvt Ltd, said, “Brand extensions are flourishing for a number of reasons. More and more companies today, realize that one of their most valuable assets is the brand and not just their tangible assets and has a multiplier effect on your valuation. A strong brand commands loyalty, emotions, preference and associative powers, which are hard to duplicate by the competition. The brand is the USP for many products today.”

In his inaugural comments, Mr Sam Balsara, Managing Director, Madison World & Madison Communication, said, “A right story, right content, right medium, right partner, right category, right time, right pricing, and right controls makes a successful model. The opportunities in content marketing are limitless. We have only seen a trailer in India.'

The Conclave recognized the need for more and more of CSR money being spent on social cause marketing for Nation Building through the Areez Khambatta Trust supported “Best Campaign on Social Cause” trophy.

Many consumer product marketers believe that the brand has become more important than ever before and many a time, the only differentiator in many product categories. Brands with strong consumer connect, relevance and loyalty have been successfully extended into new product categories. But today, the scenario is changing, with more focus on other benefits that a carefully crafted content can deliver, apart from just royalty revenues.

“In the much-cluttered marketplace, where it is very expensive and time consuming to get brand recognition and brand affinity, many companies choose content creation and marketing to launch new products, by leveraging the power of existing strong brands” Mr. Khambatta added.

Some of the key note speakers included Kiran Khalap from Chlorophyll, Senjam Raj Sekhar from Flipkart, Jayen Mehta from Amul India, Anirudh Pandita from Pocket Aces, Devasis Chattopadyay from Adfactors PR Pvt Ltd., Amit Doshi from Divya Bhaskar, Prof. Siddharth Desmukh and Prof. Falguni Vasavada Oza from MICA, Glen Dsouza from MSLGROUP India and Chandan Nath from Ideas2Brands.

Indian advertising industry has made jaws drop and set eyeballs gazing with some astonishing pieces of work that it has given in the recent past. We have some excellent brands hailing from Gujarat and have reformed the face of advertising time and again.

Technology and communication has penetrated virtually all areas of operations of marketing & branding and entwined with advertising practices. To effectively benefit from technology and digital applications, it is essential that marketing professionals set themselves ready for transforming their practices and keep identifying effective ways for conversions in their contexts.