 Welcome back, now over the past year we've seen Tata Motors getting a lot more aggressive in the Indian market and this going by their marketing push in November last year you might remember they launched their made of great campaign with the football sensation Lionel Messi, clearly a bit to give the brand a much needed image makeover and then put it back among the top passenger car makers in the country. The company had a 10% market share more than a decade ago but this has fallen to 5.7% so it really is trying to return to about 10% of the estimated market by the year 2020. So how's it planning to push the brand further to gain more traction for it? To answer that question and more we have Delna Avarish, he's head of marketing communication and services for the passenger vehicle business at Tata Motors. Great to have you with us Delna, tell us about the recent made of great campaign with Lionel Messi, it was talked about a lot, tell us what really was the thought behind it from a brand perspective. So Tata Motors is actually transforming, a couple of years back when we actually looked at what the brand stood for, it became very clear to us that the Tata Motors passenger vehicle brand itself really didn't have a distinct identity. So everything either came from the word Tata itself or then our sub brands whether it is the Nano, the Safari, Indica, Indigo, a lot of our older brands you actually had an identity which was with the sub brands. The Tata Motors passenger vehicle brand itself did not have a distinct identity. It also therefore from that point onwards we got into this entire journey of understanding what the Tata Motors passenger vehicle brand should stand for and crystallizing and defining what we wanted to be for the years to come. So a lot of focus group discussions, a lot of research, a lot of analysis was done. We spoke with people above a certain age group, less than 35 year olds, people who are younger than 18 to understand where is it that the brand really needs to go over a period of time. And what became painfully clear to us is that less than 35 year olds actually did not have a very direct understanding or even the brand Tata Motors didn't even exist in their consideration set. So starting from that point it became important to crystallize what we stood for. For any brand to actually be effective, a lot of its attributes really need to be anchored in a truth, a reality. And that reality for us came from the first two pillars that we have gone ahead to crystallize. The first being trustworthy, which really is something that is almost synonymous with the Tata brand and with Tata Motors as well. Trustworthy meaning that whatever I say I will do, I will do. So that became the first pillar of our brand. The second pillar of our brand really was the entire spirit of pioneering. This is something that the Tata Motors brands have shown, whether it's in our product, first SUV or the first indigenously developed car or the lowest cost car in the world or then more recently when we launched the petrol engine with multi-drive for the mass segment or the first diesel AMT in the compact sedan category. So from product point of view, we've been very, very pioneering. It is something that we want to continue being. We also went forward to say that a brand pillar or a brand DNA is more than just your product. It's also the way you live your life. So even from the kind of policies, the kind of marketing, the kind of processes from sales management, customer service management, all of those also needed to be in the space of pioneering. We have been and we said this is what we want to continue to be. The third pillar really was the tricky pillar. It is where we want to take our brand, which is what we call as the cool or the cool quotient. Why do we choose a word like cool when you're actually defining a heavy brand? You know, cool as such is something, anything that makes me feel good about myself. But more importantly, my peer group wants to associate with me. So it became extremely important to actually define what we wanted to stand for for the next generation of customers who are coming in who today do not consider the Tata Motors brand. All right, but do tell us what made you choose Lionel Messi as your brand ambassador. What do you think he's a good fit for the Tata Motors brand? When we define our brand values of trustworthy pioneering and cool, and we then start scanning the environment of who is a relevant brand ambassador. And when you put all the parameters that I mentioned in terms of they have to have a value match, have to have a long term capability, have to be relevant for the target audience over a period of time. If you start putting all those filters, you realize that the number of people who actually qualify to do that are very, very few. And very clearly what we saw in India is that the less than 35 year olds actually think football is the new cool. You know, while cricket and Bollywood will continue to be the main stay, it is extreme or at least for the foreseeable future will continue to be the main stay, the craze or the growing entire trend is all around football. And a lot of the heroes for the younger generation are actually in the football space. And when we ran the numbers, Lionel was way ahead. So you actually have a great value match with Tata Motors. You have a great resonance with your target group. You couldn't ask for a better combination. And how did you channelize the media for this campaign? What was the media mix like? Today, the entire mix changes, right? So the days where medium worked in silos is gone. So it is no more saying TV, print, radio, outdoor, and then later on digital got added and then mobile got added and now we've augmented reality and you have virtual reality. And of course, when it's cars and high value purchase, experience or BTL has been a very important part as well. So all of these have existed in silos in the past. Today that's not the case. Today each medium actually feeds off each other. So anything that you do in the experiential space or on ground has a digital amplification that is extremely important. Your digital or mobile strategy cannot exist without doing something a little more in terms of what you want to do with the customer life because a lot of authentic content, content becomes an extremely important part of it. So if you're asking from a mix today, it is so amazingly, I would say, feeding off each other that it is no more is about saying I spent so much on printer, I spent so much on TV and I use the same creative into another medium. Each medium has to be optimized for each medium you create for and the content that you create really is very clearly resonating with the audience that that medium is talking to. So it's no more about just silos. All right, but in 2013 you unveiled a horizon next. That's where you launched new variants for your entire lineup and this happened on the same day. In fact, on the same stage. It caused quite a stir back then for being a very bold move from Tata Motors, but it went out of the spotlight fairly quickly. So how well has the horizon next is a strategy work for Tata Motors? Horizon next really was about us defining our internal transformation. So it really was to give a kind of a beacon, a direction, a structure to our internal transformation journey. It really was around products, the manufacturing process, the sales network, the service network. What did we want to do? So from that point of view, it was really about just defining what we wanted to do and get people to run in a certain direction. I think we've been very successful in getting that going. All right, but let's take a moment and come back to the made of great campaign Delna. That's where you had a messy and of course it seems like you've kept the digital and social platforms in mind when you were designing it. So my question is, does this mean that you're going to go bigger in the digital marketing space? Are you thinking of increasing your spends there? So digital is something that has been significantly increased in terms of the amount of time. Time definitely digital takes up a lot more time than some of your conventional media does. And in terms of money as well, of course it's been increasing. I would say not in the same proportion as time to money because frankly creating interesting engaging content is very, very important. Today it's also not just digital, digital also now we have a separate mobile strategy because mobile first has to be thought of. It's not a buzzword, a buzz phrase anymore. It is something that you have to think of very differently as media as well. So this is a constant evolution and I would say in terms of resources it sucks up more time. Money yet still I say it's a lot more affordable. All right, and then looking a little bit more into the future Delna, what's the company's game plan now because I understand you're aiming at getting back to that 10% market share by 2020. Clearly not going to be an easy task given the intense competition in the space that you work in. So what's going to be the overall marketing and branding strategy for Tata Motors on this count? Quite simply it is about continuing to connect with your target audience where they are speaking a language that they are comfortable with. And the reason I stress this is because very often and I keep hitting that barrier even now in thinking where people are just comfortable taking one approach and trying to make it fit everywhere. So today it's more and more about almost creating your marketing strategy for one person. So you're talking to that individual and more and more emphasis will be given on analytics, on understanding your customer, on understanding your audience, taking them through the journey. And frankly there are mediums that will work on a longer term strategy and then those which work in a shorter term. But I would always say the one thing that I'm very, very clear of everything that you do needs to be defined as a return on investment. You don't do anything without very clear deliverables. I think those days are gone where you say that I don't know what 50% of my budget is spent on but all those kind of crazy phrases you've heard in the past don't hold true at all. The strategy will be for your target audience catch them where they are in a language that they are comfortable speaking. But with a clear ROI. Thanks Delna. Great to have you with us and here's hoping that 2016 starts off on a very good note. We'll be checking in with you a little later in the year. But for the moment we'll take a quick breather after that. We're reviewing Radio Mirchi's new ad campaign to join us. We'll be right back after this break.