Exclusive | Exploring all possible ways of advertising, Tata Housing's Rajeeb Dash

Marketing industry in general, has undergone a paradigm shift in the last 5 years. Experts say that the rules of marketing have changed and so has the role of Marketers. A lot of it could be attributed to the information explosion caused by the advent of Digital platforms and the increasing dependency of consumers over the internet for making their purchase decisions.

Adgully in an exclusive interaction spoke to Rajeeb Dash, Marketing Head, Tata Housing, Senior Manager – Marketing Services with an aim to explore how real estate industry is affectively using various forms of advertising.  He also shared about his stint at the company and the present scenario of  the industry .
Established in 1984, Tata Housing is a closely held public limited company and a subsidiary of TATA Sons Limited. TATA Sons Limited holds 99.76% of equity share capital of the company.

Today, Tata Housing is developing large townships and differentiated theme based projects in major and mini metros. As a comprehensive real estate developer of choice, Tata Housing straddles across all consumer segments from value to luxury housing, by offering products ranging from Rs. 5 lakhs to Rs. 14 crores.

Defining his stint, he said, “It’s been an exciting journey with Tata Housing. When I joined the company way back in 2006 we had few projects in hand and less visibility in the market but now we are among the fastest growing real estate companies in India. Currently, Tata Housing has more than 60 million sq ft of development and as per the A C Nielsen Brand tracking study, we are  number one  in terms of brand equity at the pan India level.”

As Tata Housing’s Head of Marketing Services, Rajeeb is responsible for leading all corporate and project marketing efforts. He has played a key role in building a distinctive brand image for Tata Housing almost from scratch in a highly unorganized and cluttered Indian real estate market. During his tenure, Rajeeb introduced various innovative marketing concepts, which helped to minimize marketing spends upto 2% of the revenue with faster turnaround for the projects. He was recently bestowed with the Power Brands Hall of Fame Most Dynamic Professional of the year 2011 at Awards function held in London.

Some of the best experiences at Tata Housing so far include the launch of pan India affordable and low cost housing brands New Haven and Shubh Griha which cater to the bottom of the pyramid segment in India. 

“My most memorable marketing initiative was when Tata Housing launched its first value housing brand ‘Shubh Griha’. This was a pioneering initiative by any real estate player targeting the bottom of the pyramid,” he said. The success of the brand proved that it was not just a product innovation but also a marketing innovation in the real estate sector.

Adding further, Dash said, “We had to unlearn all traditional marketing concepts and adopt tools that were unique to the set of audience who had minimum mass media influence. We took help of activations that were unheard of in the realty space such as street plays in Mumbai’s local trains, streets, bazaars etc.,” Their project was promoted through Micro Finance companies.

Explaining the after effects and success of the campaign, Dash went on to inform that their innovative marketing drew so much of interest from the target audience that it became necessary for them to adopt a system of lucky draw for a transparent allotment of homes. Even the media termed it as ‘Nano Homes’ coinciding with the Nano car launch of Tata Motors. “I will always remember the passion of everyone involved, and the enthusiastic response from our customers and employees alike when it launched. There's nothing more powerful than an aspirational brand story to shape a company’s culture of inspiration and excellence,” shared Dash.

Dash is of the opinion that today buyers are more educated and informed, although at the same time attention spans have reduced drastically. Explaining further the growth of the market he said, “A new class of buyers known as ‘New Affluents’ is emerging. They are more opinionated, empowered and have a greater purchasing power than any other economic class. They are actually driving a huge change taking place across India with respect to the way people live, work and consume information.”

Real Estate in India has always been considered a very serious category so according to Dash the challenge is to make it exciting for the consumers and engage them through various media.

As a consequence, in order to break through this clutter and address the needs of different types of consumers, marketers are relentlessly jostling for new ideas to create a top-of- mind brand recall amongst consumers in order to turn them into not just buyers, but brand loyalists and influencers. “With real estate market evolving, in order to engage the consumers, marketers are adapting new marketing techniques like social media marketing, digital marketing, mobile marketing and experiential marketing,” believes Dash.

Being in the industry for quite some time now, he shared his views on the prevalent marketing trends . Dash avers, “The consumer today suffers an information overload and this, coupled with a rapidly-shrinking attention span, means that buying decisions at times may not be too informed and unbiased. Moreover these consumers are extremely skilled at sifting through the clutter of advertising and marketing campaigns that constantly bombard their lives through television, newspaper, radio and now the mobile phone and the tablet.”

Marketers are making efforts to engage the consumers at all the touch points. Elaborating on this further, Dash said, “Apart from traditional advertising, marketers are now keeping separate budget for digital and experiential marketing. Now marketers follow a 360 degree approach. Most of the campaigns are integrated with Social media. Also, experiential marketing offers a virtual tour of the property, 3 dimensional views, creating experience center at the site and more. These strategies are increasingly used to engage consumers especially in the real estate sector as consumers would like to get a feel of the home they desire to live in, just like a prospective buyer would like a test drive before buying the car. Hence, with the increasing consumer demand and exposure, it has now become essential for marketers to continuously evolve their strategies in order to appeal to the consumers.”

Answering our question as to how and why Real estate industry uses digital medium Dash explained , “The real estate industry takes a lion’s share in the media that we see around us, be it Print, OOH or Internet. Currently, the industry is undergoing a sluggish phase with input costs skyrocketing every passing day taking a toll on the margins. The challenge for real estate marketers is now to maximize sales and minimize marketing expenses to safeguard the squeezing margins.”
He believes that digital marketing emerges naturally as medium of choice for the real estate industry and many real estate players are way ahead of their counterparts in other sectors in terms of their wallet share for Digital in their total marketing budgets.

Following are some of the key reasons why Digital Marketing is most effective and preferred medium for Realtors.  Real Estate as a business has always been local hence digital platforms like Google Adwords, SEO and other tools help realtors in identifying potential customers from highly targeted geographies hence causing minimum spillover.  Moreover the focus is not just on demographics but psychographics too and Internet Advertising  helps realtors to find customers on the basis of their interests, likes  and cultural affiliations so one needs to do effective media planning for the target segment.

It is also evident that for a majority of property buyers, being one of their most planned purchase it involves a lot of research starting from the location to the developer & the project. Furthermore it is critical to stand out in a cluttered space and Online as a medium gives realtors an opportunity to showcase their marketing innovations and it is also a very reliable platform as it can be measured efficiently and tracked on real time basis thus rendering the facility to make timely changes.

When asked to elaborate on the marketing situation that they are in, Dash said, “As per the recent JLL report, the country`s economic environment will certainly improve in 2013, with a corresponding (though lagging) gain in momentum for real estate. The most tangible benefits of economic improvements on the Indian real estate space will be seen in the second half of 2013.While a falling rupee is not the best news for the domestic market, it certainly provides a good opportunity for exporters and NRI investors, who stand to gain from the weakening rupee on conversion, making India an attractive destination for real estate investment.”

“Tata Housing is one of the fastest growing real estate developers in India with over 60 mn. sq. ft. under various stages of development. Over the years we have evolved into a strong, differentiated and reputed brand in the Indian real estate market. The core objective is to create a real estate development business that offers world-class property development skills while maximizing financial returns. The company is recognized for its quality construction, ethical and transparent business practices and high standards of maintenance of properties. We are present across all the segments, luxury segment, premium, affordable and low-cost homes,” he added. 

Some of Tata Housing’s best campaigns include ‘Experiential Marketing for La Montana – From Spain to Spain’, ‘Mumbai Wall Book’ and ‘Awareness through Dabbawallas’ for their affordable housing brand New Haven.

With increasing number of people consuming video content (You Tube) in a social environment it has become critical for marketers to tell their story by going beyond a typical 30 seconder. Hence elaborating a little on marketing via YouTube and how essential  it is to do so in today's scenario, Dash said, “This is the primary reason why real estate developers are being drawn to using You Tube platform to engage and to create awareness about their projects. YouTube plays a very important role in the overall social media mix. The project walkthroughs and virtual tour help customers to visualize and experience a project/an apartment virtually. It also helps the developers to reach the NRI customers who can experience a project without having to physically visit the project site.”

Well, experiential marketing is also emerging as a path-breaking marketing tool that is fast becoming the buzzword across sectors as it allows customers to engage and interact with the product, the brand and the services it provides.

Increasingly real estate players are also experimenting with newer technologies for consumer engagement. Interactive devices like Multitouch Tables, 3D Alioscopy TV, Wall Mount Sensors are being used, which not only help in engaging the consumers but also makes the consumer experience the features of the property. 

Sharing his views on how experiential marketing plays a major role in the real estate industry Dash concluded to say “Marketing in the real estate sector is not just limited to pamphlets in newspapers and local advertising anymore. By adopting experiential marketing, developers introduce initiatives like creating experience center, property fairs, trial homes etc to engage with the consumers. Such initiatives not only help in increasing sales but also increases brand recall.”