 Very good evening. I Promise we will not talk TV versus digital for the next 30 35 minutes What we will talk however is advertising versus IMC's Now, you know when I started my career 30 something back years back with procter and gamble the company knew only Advertising and that also only TV advertising for the love of money or anything you couldn't get them to do anything else Then I spent five years in coke and suddenly the game changed to IMC's activation touch-point marketing a whole lot of Non-reach frequency built media plans and then of course in my agency life I spent a lot of time with lever where again activation was very very core to the very being I Think Madison's best calling card for what I think is the best IMC done ever and across 10 years has been Transforming Cadbury's from a gift for someone you love to a Moomita moment Now all of this happened and of course there are plenty of more examples that we've got But in the last seven eight years if I've been looking back. I somehow feel that With all this journey planning performance marketing top of the funnel stuff Has IMC somehow got a little shaded Now to discuss the role of IMC or the relevance of IMC in today's world I couldn't have a better panel than this. We've you've already been introduced to you. We've got Ashwin from Godrej When I from Peter light and of course Soma from Marico So let's just kick this off by let me let's start on a fun note So I will start with you. Tell us in your illustrious career, which is the fear The one IMC that you've done that has really been close to your heart And we go around the time the panel on this one Audible now. Yeah, so my favorite one is the one where we launched the brand Godrej air Especially because there was no money So essentially Godrej air which will be about 10 years old now It is a home freshener home and car freshener brand and it we launched it in 2012 and the best part is when you are launching a brand the monies are absolutely limited Almost like, you know If there is some spare money after the core categories and brands in the company you would be spending on this That is where actually what we tried was Experiential marketing given that it was a fragrance category and that's where we had to go much much beyond Television which was a traditional media and at that point of time digital was just about taking off print Has been big around that time So we used all sorts of sources of reach while maximizing on ROI for every penny spent so we fragrance the newspaper for the first time and Literally at a rupee one cost reached out to consumers lax of consumers in their households Creating that fragrance experience Reached out to consumers on radio while they were you know driving Hence tapping on to them at the most relevant moment, which is while they are in their car Why don't they fragrance think of fragrancing their car and drive making their driving experience better and Television of course to get a mass Awareness of the brand so you know with limited monies what we did was within three years We actually became the market leaders and guess who we toppled we actually toppled Procter and Gamble And that for us was a big big win and hence the power of IMC according to me wonderful I Got to go way back shows you how much of a beach base planner I am but when I was a media planner I got an MV for this so I think it came straight to mind and many familiar faces I hear from that time so on surf excel and it was very rich base planning and and I remember at that time an idea came To me on print, which is you know because I wanted to do this UGC thing And everybody was user-generated content was a big thing and viral videos and let's give the part to the To the creators and not the advertiser. That was a condition at that time Many years ago and I remember at that time and we had big print budgets We had really no budget for all this creator-based stuff and the idea was let's give Kids the part to be editors. Let's remove all the content from a page and we call it so fix the Nannay Patra card I think we did with the publication in UP And so We basically stripped paste three or page five or forget the exact page number of all its content and just left Placeholders, you know empty place for the picture and lines and just had questions on the top And it was basically, you know, let's get let kids create the world that they want to see and what is the news in that? Child's life on that day was what the idea was about so I think it's I know I've not seen I'm not had a better idea than that So that's what I came up with but here's a case where look it was a high-reach medium And I think it's very hard to justify I am see If the media is not high-reach it also shows you the power of the idea The idea is not worth investing behind you'll find it doesn't have much scale. So That's the one that comes to me quite fondly Fantastic and what about you? Yeah, so I think a couple of I would say Points that I picked up from what both Shoma and Ashwin said and I think that's the you know reality of every marketer every advertiser out There today is that it's damn hard. There is very little money, right? Interestingly, Sam you showed some data about the top 50 advertisers moving from 38 percent to 30 percent if you do the math They scale down spends from 100 to 95 in the same one year while the addicts grew And it's becoming so difficult today because Viewership is going down Rates are going through the roof and people's attention spans are like mosquitoes So it's really really difficult to build really strong brands So I think to be really honest in the last 10 years. I don't think I have been part of any great. I am see We've been forced to make really good strong choices In terms of what we want to say and where we want to say and we have taken those bets and really made the most of those And I think that's what's really something that strikes me today and that I think is today's reality So going back to your question. I am see getting under value I think it's becoming far more difficult than what it used to be and doing a really good job of all of it It's becoming even more difficult Wonderful now. We've got a We've got some kind of a thing to debate about you've had two examples where two CMOs have very fondly talked about What they thought were great ideas and probably at the brand and one CMO who says Hand on heart probably it's not a easy thing to do at this point in time We will come to this advertising versus I am see question in a second, but before that For clarity sake, let's define I am see is I am see a multimedia plan Is I am see a media plan with an innovation or is an IMC something? broader than that So and why should anyone take a stab? I mean, that's a question. I asked when I got the call for this Which is can you we mean integrated marketing communications, right? And there are way there are 360 etc I I think true IMC done well is basically an idea that derives. It's from strategy. I think that IMC can be indulgences And often they come from Let's say for example if you feel pressure to do something beyond running the advertising It's not quite fancy as a marketer sometime to say I got a piece of advertising It's really good and it just went and I kept increasing reach. So then you kind of Start adding one in our digital media to it I think if you have ideas that line itself well with what your initial advertising strategy was and able to use the Medium in order to kind of develop or build on their strategy I think that's what I would define as IMC. It is the use of multimedia and understanding the nuances of different media and being able to adapt core advertising ideas into ideas that deliver the same communication job, but do it in a way that You know fits the medium. I would say that's my core advertising idea Amplified across different media touch points. Yeah, okay. Shoma your definition So to me, yes, of course, it's about using Different sets of medium, but like Ashwin said every medium has a role to play and I would say that use it only first It helps you optimize in terms of reach for the money that is there So basic objective is you know, for example when you're using TV Like I think just before this we had that whole debate about you know The long tail channels etc. The cost of reaching an incremental reach of the next audience The thing is that once you hit a point where the marginal cost of reaching the next audience goes up That's when you anyway have to go to the next Set of media and in this case in today's world and in fact interestingly I was just going through the pitch report which clearly actually stated that in addicts This is the first year that digital spend has overtaken TV and it actually tells you how Consumers are also consuming different sets of media and how they are You know sort of over-engaging on digital and which is where you then start looking at the cost of reach Is it better easier to reach? With higher ROI in terms of going to digital for that incremental one is that Second is what is the role of the media for example? I'll just go back to the example that I stated that if I want to drive Experience among my consumers, right? I will have to reach out to them Not with just the brand like I do on TV I have to be physically available for them and physically available I can do that either on print the way we did by Frigurents in the print use paper or by doing sampling like we did in that case by tying up with indigo airlines Where we actually sampled our product? Over there because that was relevant Having said that for each of the brand each of the category they have their own strategic task and the usage of the media and Hence how much audience you are targeting to reach basis the objective you have business objective You have that should define what will be the mix of media rather than you know it being fashionable or like You said forced to use that because it's nice to do a IMC Okay I'm gonna extend the same question to you when I but if from a because the sense I'm getting is What Ashwin was saying is an idea different touch points and I think the part which Show my sort of built on that was yes every medium has a different role to play But you also brought in the question of incremental reach plateauing and therefore the role of maybe an IMC coming in but I've seen a lot of IMC's in the form of say, you know, you could have a mission in media. I mean Sepola world hard day is that Tata T's power of 49 is a mission in media entire activation idea as I think the entire piece about kuchmeetha hojaye is a Activation idea that Cadbury pursued across various touch points. You've got these tentpole ideas like what a phone Is something which they've done in many years in IPL and And like that it was this I mean To your mind, what is a good way of sort of defining an IMC? I think I used to think actually 129 My favorite was also at one point. I'm Britannia cow World Cup job It was at one level of promotion, but I thought to me it was a deadly IMC. No, it was a great IMC And at that time it did really well. We did amazingly well when we did it first in 1999 When we did it much later in 2019. We really fell flat on her face. So, you know, success is as important as failure But you know, I just want to step back a bit. I think in my own definition of IMC It's about touch points. Sure But it's a lot about many other things as well, right? For example, the dimension of time Is not something that we discuss so much in the, you know, in the conversations around IMC It's it's very campaign led very often But some of the best examples like you're talking about whether it is kuch meetha hojaye is because that communication has been integrated into What the brand stands for for years, right? And you've talked about consistency ad nauseam in today's, you know Forum as well. I think one of the best examples from pretty light on Good integrated marketing communication is the brand story of Fevicol For years for the last 20-30 years whenever people have interacted with the brand Fevicol, whether it's been on TV Whether it's been on social media, whether it's been on activation. That's happened in the Kumbh Mela They have seen pretty much exactly the same story. To me, that's great integrated marketing I mean to your point Fevicol 60 a campaign was using the ad as content I mean the entire plan was seeding it as content. It was viewed the two-minuteer was actually viewed as content So yeah, I feel so therefore the dimension of time is really important The second thing that's also happened is because it's become so difficult as I was talking a few minutes earlier He has advertisers also if you step back are making a few mistakes, you know I'll give you an example. We have a we have this brand called doctor fix it It's a waterproofing brand one of one of the things that we have always talked about is that it's an expert waterproofing solution But for the longest time anybody who would call the helpline of doctor fix it would speak to a guy Who was a regular calls and a person? It's only in the last three years that we actually have a civil engineer Who talks like an expert so imagine you speak a guy and he says hello my doctor fix it So I'm talking around, you know, can you give me a number? But I really don't know anything about what your problem is. That's bad. I am see a Great I am see would be that if I say I'm a good expert waterproofing solution Provider, then I need to walk the talk where you come and meet me and today Consumers are reaching out to us at multiple touch points multiple multiple touch points and many of those touch points are places Where we are not really getting our brand proposition out in the same way as we do when we talk to them of our own accord Look at how we respond to complaints on consumer media On social media, sorry Mercedes-Benz has exactly the same Thing when they talk to a disgruntled customer on Twitter, which are Parley products has it's exactly the same speak and That I think are things that we need to probably reflect on and learn upon and see as to how else because there are so many more Mediums that we are in control of which don't cost money Are we doing a great job as as advertisers? I think we need to look Hard at ourselves and make sure that we keep upping the game I know I'm sounding a bit like Cassandra, but that's not the intention Intention is that there is a lot more we can do as well. I think that's a great point you made But let me build on your touch point point If you take touch points into the consumer journey, which everybody seems to be now talking about What it tells you is that different stages of the consumer journey the kind of touch points that they are sort of Exposed to there is an opportunity to help them unlock the door to success to purchase So if we are to adopt consumer journey based marketing, does it automatically like exactly like the Call center guy becoming a civil engineer. That's part of the consumer journey piece that you're talking about Now is that something which becomes deregure for CMOs to then tell your people okay fine Advertising is basically just we call it the encounter phase where you just going and Telling people what your brand is and that's addressing one part of the journey But there's a lot of other parts of the journey which are getting untapped So is it becoming now the note is it becoming imperative to touch those those consumer journey elements? You know, I don't think we have a choice that we have to I think you've answered your question in your question itself It doesn't show up in the budget allocations. It doesn't show up in the budget allocation is the truth Yeah, but I think in every action that we do as a you know as a marketer You will see a lot more investment going into performance Then what it used to you know, and I think what's happening as a result is many of us are spending a lot more on what we think Or what we are able to really attribute to good ROI And that's something that is happening No, so actually what a way in on this the and And there's a further element come in now it's come in the ROI performance marketing Whereas I am see a wasn't classically looking at as performance marketing Is that attribution of I am see two final sales sure, but is it linear? Probably not So from that standpoint, do you feel regardless of performance marketing? Consumer journey marketing makes it imperative to look at different touch points Going by your definition take the idea and move it forward Depends on the size of the brand so if you have a very large brand which reaches a couple of dozen million consumers It's very hard for you to expect to Plot out the consumer journey and the thing with consumers journey is they're not very linear most consumer journey slides You see are quite complicated right and not every consumer discovers you on TV reads about you in print searches for you Changes her mind comes back on an e-commerce site. It's not quite that linear. I think the question is Understanding how your brand grows. It's a very large brand. It typically grows by strengthening equity and it's turned an equity by Basically advertising and include I am see in that so if you're able to at scale as so much correctly kind of Said reaches many possible consumers as you can and keep strengthening brand memories over time That is kind of you know across that's basically why they purchase your member of Berlin They enter the category at times exit the category at other times and they buy you so I think if it makes you memorable We have to be less anxious about reaching every possible consumer at the time, which we feel she's going to buy and just build stronger brands giant equities over time and Let me let me challenge you on that point completely agree the reinforcement of brand Consistency and my session that's going to follow after this. I'm also going to re-re-re-re-retreat that point, but There are sometimes where communication tasks are that you have to reposition the brand or get the people to think about a brand a little differently So like Cadbury's from being a gift for someone you love to a Moomita moment appropriate metai moments fundamental change now mentals Advertising reinforces builds mental structures and consumers minds So if you just continue to advertise you won't break those mental structures quite easily But for example that empty page that you had which showed What you could do for surf and therefore what kids could do probably could do a little bit more than one more exposure of advertising Whereas of course the the other experience that other example that Shoma gave that was a here and now new brand launch She used experiential marketing where you could smell the product and therefore almost sampling So that was at the beginning but mature brand you used IMC Arguably where advertising couldn't work. No, I would say it was it is it is all advertising So even so you chose to activate? Let's take with the surface example a more familiar but even the Cadbury's one I suspect The reason why it worked and able to stick with it and give it scale was it built upon the existing platform So let's say for surfs case it is stains are good if kids get dirty in the pursuit of let's say drawing a picture on piece of Newspaper it reaffirms what that brand's memory structure is which that kids got dirty doing it in creating something So it's good. So as long as you're able to do it at scale and it reaffirms brand message I never ran a coupon there not a suspect you did on Cadbury and a coupon there and say buy now buy now So it is relieving yourself of the anxiety to trigger a purchase today In the understanding that this helps me Deepen equity what you did is you added an attribute of giving To a brand that was already pretty much well-loved considered a good brand considered bomb Pretty much the same values, but you're able to enhance that by adding another layer that is important And I think that's important You have to understand where the brand comes from what the advertising is trying to do and then use IMC to build on those attributes Repositioning is really hard. Both these are not repositioning cases. Both of these are extension cases Repositioning is really really hard because you have to fight against what the natural Positioning or natural equity of that brand is and there are very few cases none that I'm really well aware of There are successfully repositioned fundamentally at great scale But if you're a smaller brand and you have to let's say have a target of a couple of You know lax recruitment, etc. Then perhaps you might want to go the acquisition route Which may turn out to be more cost-effective for you in the aggregate So if you have to change mental structures, would you rely on IMC over Advertising or would you just change your ad and hope that it works? So to my mind first of all segregating advertisement from IMC is a little tough task in today's world Because you have to reach out to the consumer where the consumer is today first of all So TV and digital have to go hand-in-hand for sure, right? now coming back to I think at some point you were talking about performance marketing and then you were talking about you know Building on the top of the funnel, right? What I would say is that everything the need for IMC or changing the advertisement which are the mediums you use Actually depends really on what is the brand's objective like for example? If I'm looking for a particular season sale that I have to do I will focus more on the bottom of the funnel Which is essentially performance marketing, right? But if I'm to build the brand consistently I will be focusing on the top of the funnel middle of the funnel to build awareness and consideration and That is where using the right medium to reach out to the maximum amount of people with the relevant message But consistent message from the brand is what is critical and you reach out with that That message where you think the consumer is at that point of time. So it is not a choice of Whether I choose bottom of the funnel and top of the funnel As such in terms of you know in terms of media what you choose is basically what is it with the brand that I want to achieve? So so the sense. I'm okay. I get the fact that you want looking at the communication task But now let me just for example reference the last panel when Sandeep talked about use me made two references to go over Than he basically what we did there was In ABC At a certain point when the guy asked answer the question and reaches next part He said tomorrow make he sugar and there was a whole lot of go over than he kind of references made Now it just got the brand to be seen in a completely different setup And it gave a different context and relevance to the brand in a KBC setting stature Whatever else it might be and somewhere and this is a entrepreneur or a promoter lead company They felt it worked Tremendously well, and you heard the story that from six weeks they extended it to an 18 weeks now this was at the cost of Several weeks of reach building advertising you could have otherwise done Now would any would whenever would you have sacrificed when 12 or 15 or 18 weeks of Tough advertising or vanilla advertising for this kind of stuff. I think the I Think the decision really is that if you are doing something like this, which is high impact Whether you are appearing in some kind of integration on something as marquee as KBC or whether you want to be on an IPL Jersey It really memory structures take a really long time to build And unless you do this for weeks and weeks and weeks, it's not gonna work Govathan had done this For three episodes and walked out. It would have probably done nothing for them is what my Reckoning is I think the fact that they stuck to it and the fact that they didn't do multiple touch points But they did that one touch point really really well to me is great marketing now, so and I would you know come in wonderful so now Let's get to the cut to the jugular Typically what we guys find is look everybody Agency is love innovation. They love the idea of a because you know people don't remember 600 grp well optimized campaign which we delivered Deadly reach at the lowest cost and all the rest of it people do it But they don't remember it finally people remember and boardrooms talk about some great ideas that you did and executed So we get our kicks and of course awards and everything else But I feel brand fame comes from a lot of these activation or IMC led ideas But still when it comes to getting them approved Advertising hard-working advertising wins nine times out of ten nine point five times out of ten What is the advice you'd like to give everybody in this room to increase that hit rate from nine point five to at least Maybe eight so two out of ten times we can get it Anybody also take a batch at that. I'm looking for answers here. I can try and You're the least committed to the IMC course. So you start Okay, that's that sounds very Accusatory but But see You know, I really think see I've been two different industries guys One of them has been in large CPG in companies like Britannia Where typically very often what has worked for us in the last ten years has been very very hard-working advertising It's a monthly purchase. It's a top-up purchase. You want people to remember your brand every Day of the year when they go to a shop to buy stuff So honestly, we didn't do much impact that we've done a few it hasn't worked as well for us What really worked for us is relentless You know reach building with great frequency just make sure that you are somewhere in the back of the mind We didn't need awareness at that time We just needed salience at that time to make sure that when people go to buy their groceries They remember to buy us work really well work like a charm nothing sexy about it Nothing one of any awards except for a few things which I won't talk about right now But it worked really really well But at the same time it depends on whether if you want to really get very good reach going or if you want if You're if your objectives are different if you really want to be a challenger brand and you want to unseat somebody You would do this thing very different And and therefore I don't think that and in a country like India or in any fact of life while there is one good Way of doing things the exact opposite way is also right And I think it's really up to us as marketers to find what is our right and Stay the course on that How can we get better success rate at selling IMC's can IMC's be used to break inertia Yeah, I mean that's the thing writes a lot of media is a procurement subject and what's the creative subject in it And I think the creative subject in it is how close you are to the advertising idea I think honestly all the examples that have been mentioned here were built on the back of really good advertising ideas and I think what Happens in pitches is we forget that and I think what I see more and more happening is There are like a standard set of ideas that have been doing the round for the last decade And there are few that come which is with a more medium focus. They look you know This brand is doing that that brand is doing that for more etc I think what it needs is for the creator of the idea to deeply understand that advertising is not your enemy Advertising is the foundation on which great IMC's are built great brands are built obviously if you have a sense of What the equity of the brand is why? Why that medium needs to be treated in a unique way whether it's experiential Whether it's a question of attention and time where the question of brands are not the creator, but creators are the creator I Think then you'll find more and more educating approach. I think the issue is the volume of ideas Don't justify a better ratio than the one you mentioned But good quality ideas in general get picked up. I think there aren't many that are really good ideas that I regret not having done They usually do get invested in Okay, and Shoma if do you think the If IMC's have to big be done get to get more of a hit rate Do you think they should be introduced at the AOP stage or can they come anytime in the year? Interesting question. They have to be I believe that they have to be pre-planned Because they have to be integrated to what the brand strategy and the objective for the year or even the long-term strategy For the brand is what it stands for and particularly since you were talking about can we do this big blast one time and expect a Tremendous ROI it should be consistent with what the brand is trying to build and Yeah, I mean if there's a brilliant idea like you know the ones that you see in Super Bowl Etc. Then it does have merit in terms of you know getting the brand idea out in a crit clutter breaking motion Like I'm sure most in this room would remember how Volkswagen introduced one of its Cars in a in a newspaper where it was a talking newspaper literally So some of these clutter-breaking ones can actually give you tremendous ROI and memorability But yes, it has to be consistent with the brand and has to be planned in the beginning of the year itself is what I believe Okay, thank you so much now as I'll just to wind up this panel Not necessarily to your own lives, but if you have to be as an observer of the marketing industry Just give your pity answer to the topic of the panel discussion our advertisers Undervaluing the importance of IMC I shouldn't start with you Just yes, no No, there are still as many MVs being given out each year So I guess IMCs are happening But I think the question is on quality. Are we seeing like really great Breakthrough work. We've had to if you recall we have to go back quite and pass except for show Masai, which is quite new. We've had to go back to the past think about IMC's we admire So probably it's not a question of quantity but quality. I think perhaps It might be the reverse of what you're saying because a lot of college ideas are going through but maybe we're not creating the memorability It may be because of fragmentation and attention Maybe the quality isn't there To the expert that we would like it to be great quality. I mean quantity is there quality is not Shoma I would agree with Ashwin's statement Also, the reality is that especially for CPG company is given the inflationary pressure The bare basic Sustainance media is something that is kind of in work right now But I would say that it's not because people are undervaluing the power of it It's also the quality of ideas coming up and where we need help of teams like Madison Quality of ideas again I do think that as an industry over the last 20 years We have probably undervalued it a bit and I also think that's also happened because we are commoditized ideas Brand stewardship the way it used to be and the way it is now We have started almost farming out ideas from everywhere as an industry and people don't have long-standing stewards of brands as they used to have I Think there is a balance that we need to strike and I think we can get better. So that's my pithy answer on that Some more optimistic note. Let's all thank the panel with a nice round lower sort of round of applause. Thank you so much