Marketing/Branding and India

Improvement and enhancement are important, but the concept of innovation is much wider. AI, Automation and Virtual Reality are breakthrough innovations. Professionals need to increase their capabilities, leverage the resources that you got. There is no comfort zone; you have to maximize your creativity. Your capabilities will make you a better partner with machines. I believe there is bright future for human-machine partnership and this partnership will bring remarkable results for industry and for the economy as a whole.

Now if I talk about branding and marketing side of the business, ‘Emotion’ plays a crucial role in brand experience and brand loyalty. A branding strategy, which appeals directly to a customer’s emotional state is good, particularly in B2C market. But targeting the same set of emotions in each region/country cannot help a brand anymore…as the customers are becoming more and more active and attached to their environment, they are now more conscious about their social presence, they are using a number of self-branding tools like social media. It’s time for the businesses to align their branding strategies with the mood of the customers. Observing which way the wind of popular sentiment is blowing will help you in designing the better marketing/branding strategies.

National pride is one of the most strong emotions. Everyone feels a special attachment toward country’s flag, national anthem, sports and other national symbols. In India, around 60% of the population is youth. India is going through a big transformation so naturally, among these millennials, nationalism is the most popular trend. Aligning branding and marketing strategies around this trend will help a brand to establish a strong link with this group.

Some big brands are already doing this like Tata, Reliance, Hero MotoCorp and recently Micromax’s ads targeting Angrezipanti, OYO Rooms JAI HIND ad, ThumsUp’s Tribute to soldiers etc. The kind of attention that such ads receive is remarkable!