We have been living with crises for years: Abhishek Gupta

Business operations, consumer behaviour, marketing strategies have undergone a lot of changes in the pandemic period. Goals, visions and aspirations have had to be reset as Covid disrupted lives and economies. The challenges are great for marketing heads as they strive to bring back topline and bottomline growth amid rising inflation and costs, on the one hand, and meeting the consumer expectations in the new normal. Empathy and experiential need to be at the core of marketing strategies in the new normal. Moreover, the transition to digital has brought with it its own set of challenges and opportunities.

Adgully held the second edition of its premier event for marketers – CMOs’ CHARCHA – yesterday (May 18, 2022) with the overarching theme of ‘Marketing 3.0’.

The event commenced with a keynote address by Abhishek Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Edelweiss Tokio Life Insurance, who spoke on ‘Recalibrating marketing strategies for the new normal’. He highlighted the learning and unlearning experiences of the pandemic, how we always faced different levels of crises for years, as well as adapting to the new normal and the digital transition.

Gupta remarked, “What we have seen and experienced right now is a crisis of enormous proportions. Covid-19 was a crisis we never could have anticipated, we could have never planned for it and, therefore, it tested all of us in terms of how prepared we are. It tested our perseverance, it tested our creativity, it also tested whether we have nerves of steel. While Covid-19 was a crisis which we had never anticipated, it is not like a crisis doesn’t come once in a while. If we just Google ‘crises on mankind since 1900’, we will get to see a list of crises that happened over a period of time. Some impacted only one part of the world, while some impacted most of the world.”

He went on to list out some recent and not-so-recent crises such as the dotcom bubble bust at the beginnings of the 2000s; the financial crisis that lasted from 2008 to 2010; along with the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

He then mentioned about the key and harsh learnings from the Covid-19 crisis.

Gupta also spoke about the seven distinct trends during the pandemic that have managed to bring about some changes in consumer behaviour.

The first trend was that realisation of the importance of one’s family, much more than before. The second trend that everyone learnt was that we are left to fend for ourselves, without any support system other than that of our families. Hence, self-reliance became much more important.

The pandemic period also saw job cuts and salary cuts and people realised the importance of saving for rainy days, which was the third trend seen. The fourth trend was that people started treasuring the small joys of life that money can’t buy.

These are edited excerpts. For the complete address, please watch below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNQws_k0Y8I

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