Interview: 35-40% of our budget is spent on digital: Sameer Saxena, Legrand India

In conversation with Social Samosa, Sameer Saxena, Member of Board and Director - Strategy Marketing at Legrand (India) sheds light on festive marketing, the brand's marketing strategy, and more.

Legrand India, known as electrical and digital building infrastructure, recently launched an infotainment web-series, 'All in a Wink'. Saxena shares it is based on convenience, security, and energy consumption for various stakeholders, encapsulating the brand offerings of lighting management and the automation technology with customized solutions for its customers.

How the campaign adds value to the brand's marketing strategy, the relevance of storytelling in digital marketing, and more - Saxena shares in-depth insights.

Here's more from the exclusive interview, with Sameer Saxena - Member of Board and Director - Strategy Marketing at Legrand (India).

Excerpts

Please tell us about the All in a Wink campaign for Legrand Smart Automation Solutions. How did the web-series format help?

From the brand perspective, we have been in India for some time and have been pioneers in Home automation segment and in a leadership position from the technological point of view. But technology is sometimes difficult to understand for all the stakeholders except for a few. Hence, Legrand aimed to communicate to the customers about what ‘smart’ is as per the brand and what Legrand can do for them, in a simplistic manner. To do so, we had a web series aimed to reach different target segments, each with a different experience.

Initially, the plan was to have a single episode, but with various offerings, we panned it out as a series of 4 webisodes, which covered the brands’ spectrum of experiences and functionalities for the users.

Starting with the banquet hall area, here the target segment is the financer who needs to know the differentiating factor, he is offering to the users. Second is the end-users, who should feel that it is worth it to invest in the banquet halls for their occasions.

For the second episode, we are targeting the B2B model of data centers; where the stakeholder is well-aware of his ecosystem. The Third one is clearly on the residential side where we aimed to reach out to the customers with intelligent homes with security in mind. The last one caters to the business side for the commercial showrooms.

With Legrand leveraging web series format, what are your thoughts on storytelling on digital?

One of the challenges, as well as the advantage of Digital, is how we connect with the TG. The second challenge is from content point-of-view - content should be flexible enough that we can address the medium.

Legrand tries to keep up to the changing times but we should not be carried away by fads or temptations to ride the trend for the sake of it. We give a good thought into which medium is correct for our content.

Content needs to align with the medium.

Legrand invests in festive marketing campaigns. Please share some insights in terms of how brands can stand out via festive marketing in the cluttered space.

I would like to highlight two things. There’s no rule to it. The starting point is the idea as to what do you want to do. It needs to fit the long-term story. It helps if it has some connect with past or future campaigns.

First anything we do in festivals should not be in isolation. It needs to be tied on to the past and future for a continuity point of view.

The second is it needs to be 360 degrees. It has to be complemented with online and offline, both to achieve maximum results in a creative manner. Legrand did this campaign on electricians, #ComeHometoCelebrations. It was both on digital coupled with an interesting offline activity.

Third is the power of storytelling of your content and the idea. How effectively you communicate your content breaks the clutter. Whether you do so via humor, emotions or simplistic and practical way, that’s where you bring the story to the market which is important.

Also read: Interview: Its imperative for FMCG brands to develop holistic digital strategy & not just influence consumers: Karan Shah, Society Tea

How do you plan to capture the regional market through different languages? Please tell us about this.

To my team, I convey that if we have a silent film and if we can communicate our message through mere expressions, we have done our work in the right direction.

From brand’s perspective, we plan campaigns, in a way that it caters to Pan-India instead of being specific to a region.

#ComeHomeToPujo was similar to this. It is universal that in India, not all the people are lucky enough to be at home during all the festivals. The campaign was based on this insight and showcased how can you connect with your loved ones even when you are not at home. It was not based on any specific festival, region or language.

Such messaging is universal and not limited to any specific languages.

What percent of your marketing mix is occupied by digital? Please tell us your thoughts on this.

Digital is certainly important to us and almost 35-40% of our budget is spent on digital.

We are maturing and growing. Digital is picking well for us in terms of the strategy and how we reach out to our target audience.

Legrand being positioned for the futuristic homes; do you plan to leverage on AR and VR to market the brand propositions on digital?

We have Innoval or experience centers at 4-5 locations in India. Customers go through them through AR and VR. This also helps us to position ourselves as the futuristic homes

How do you look at your agencies and what according to you is the secret to a healthy client-agency relationship?

More than being the agencies, we call them as our ‘knowledge-partners’. It justifies the values and the insights, they provide. It boils down to understanding what we want as a company. There are various elements we want to take forward in the journey, how innovatively and consistently I can take these steps, that’s the key.

You need to be consistent and you need to look at the final objective to achieve. In between, you can be as creative and choose the medium as you want it to be staying true to the content.