Brand custodians from various industries illustrate the strategies devised for the festive season and the reshaped consumption patterns that alter the festive marketing playbook for brands.
The Panelists discuss the effect of the pandemic on the festive season, the adoption of technology to digitize logistics, and their core objective wished to be achieved with the festive marketing playbook.
The Panelists
- Moderator: Shreyansh Bhandari, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, Lyxel&Flamingo
- Ajay Dhyani, General Manager – Marketing and eCommerce, Timex Group India
- Atul Shivnani, Head – E-commerce & Digital, The Body Shop India
- Smita Murarka, Chief Marketing Officer, Corporate & Brands, Digital, Duroflex
The Effect of Pandemic On Festive Season
Shreyansh Bhandari, Co-founder & Chief Operating Officer, Lyxel&Flamingo shares that the last one and a half years of pandemic slowed the economy down but with the end of lockdown and the onset of the festive season, there
has been a good spurt in luxury spends by consumers. A whole new set of audiences is on Digital now, particularly people above the age of 45 and from Tier 2 & Tier 3. He also points out the explosion of D2C brands during the pandemic.
Atul Shivnani, Head – E-commerce & Digital, The Body Shop India shares the brand always planned for the festive season as early as March, and assets had to be deployed and strategies had to be panned out. But with no clarity of thought for the last and this festive season, the brand has been responding to the business month on month with agility at backend and frontend operations.
Smita Murarka, Chief Marketing Officer, Corporate & Brands, Digital, Duroflex shares that during the pandemic the brand was able to scale up communication and educate the consumers about the importance of sleep. She shares that this Diwali the mood is different, last year it was bout cheering people up. The national celebrity campaign with Alia Bhatt refreshed the category and the brand has gotten a facelift.
Ajay Dhyani, General Manager – Marketing and eCommerce, Timex Group India states this period is important not just because of Diwali, but because it's also the wedding and gifting season. With the pandemic, there has been a difference in consumers shopping in traditional stores and eCommerce platforms. eCommerce is experiencing a strong trajectory in growth and traditional partners are also adopting digital.
Adoption Of Digital
With the accelerated digital revolution and increased dependence on Digital for everything from shopping to payments, the brand custodians highlight their efforts to digitize operations on their end.
Smita says that the brand has digitized the backend and the entire service mechanism, order management, supply system, and employed a CRM team that is also responsible for selling and upselling. Apart from this, the brand also uses digital tools for measuring campaign analytics and studying consumer behavior.
Atul reckons traditional brands are used to selling through trials and in-store experience, but the new D2C brands that pop up every day, come with a lot of understanding of digital consumers, and one can wash off their ego and learn a lot from them. eCommerce has leveled out the playing field and prepared the brand for frequent peaks throughout the year.
Ajay shares Big Billion Days and Great Indian Festival are significant periods to generate sales, increase ranking, and deploy channel-wise planning, this is also supported by product launches backed by sizeable communication. He adds that sharing access to communication assets and brand content with dealer partners so they can post it on their social media has also been productive.
The Festive Creative
Smita shares the recipe for success during the festive season has been consistent messaging on diversified media with each media being treated differently and the creative edited accordingly. Extension of the message with digital content conversations is also beneficial.
Ajay shares as an overall approach of communication for different product ranges would be different. For example, communication for smartwatches and analog watches would be different; the brand attempts to gauge the consumer with the genre of products and try to appeal to them .in the best possible way
Atul says that the brand is not focussing on the festive aspect of it but what they can do for society at large during the festive season, the core messaging appeals to both online and offline consumers.
The Festive Marketing Objective
Ajay Dhyani
The core objective is to maximize sales, improve ranking on digital channels, and delight consumers this festive season.
Atul Shivnani
We're sticking to the traditional digital media mix and are collaborating with NGOs dedicated to COVID-19 relief to contribute to society at large.
Smita Murarka
The objective is to get at least one Duroflex product in every home and educate consumers on the importance of sleep.
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