SIMSREE was proud to have on
campus yet another distinguished personage, Mr. Tushar Murdeshwar, alumnus of
the 1993 batch of SIMSREE and now Head of Marketing, Johnson & Johnson
Consumer Products Division-India. The topic for the day was ‘Integrated
Marketing Communication.’
The lecture started with a note
on how different media channels have sprung up and grown in India in a
relatively short period of time. Just two decades ago, television used to be
the main mode of communicating with the masses, via short commercials on just a
handful of television channels. But with economic progress of the nation, media
has also grown in terms of the various channels offered as well as in terms of
reach into the nooks and corners of the country. The fact that the customer has
also evolved has just added to the complexity, with information being bombarded
on the customer every second of the day.
Mr. Murdeshwar also commented on
TVR ratings, a measure of how many people can be reached through the medium of
television. A point worth noting is that the ratings have seen a drastic reduction
over the years from 16%- 24% representing peak viewership to a meagre 2.5% at
most today. Hence, it has become
crucial for the creative media agencies to make the brand message more focussed
to create a sharp distinction between them and their competitors. He then spoke
on copy strategies, that is what a television commercial should say. The key
elements of these were ‘Who?’, ‘What?’ And ‘Reason to Believe’.
He demonstrated the above
concepts with the example of Neutrogena-right from how a brief is given to a
creative agency by identifying the key problems, key challenge and core target
segment to business objective, strategy to be followed, and equity challenge.
Ultimately, a way to establish consumer connect is identified by hypothesis
testing and building a database of information on consumers. He stressed on how it is important to
create relevance for the product category by highlighting the core purpose-why
it is necessary to use the product and what need gap it fulfils.
According to sir, Integrated
Marketing Communications (IMC) is about the right person, the right message connection,
the right channel mix and the right impact. The effectiveness of advertising
can and needs to be measured. He emphasized that every big idea must connect
with the audience, differentiate & stand apart, and be scalable-that is
grow well with the business, and the key is that “Less is More”.
He further continued with the
steps to be taken once the big idea is arrived at, with the communication
objective being used to tell (i.e. awareness generation), recommend and engage
(two-way communication) with the customer to finally come up with the
integrated communication strategy and plan, an integrated channel plan, and
integrated selling plan.
The lecture concluded with an
example of J&J’s treatment of ‘Top to Toe’ and an interactive
question-answer session with the audience. It was indeed a very interesting and
informative session and we hope to see many more of the same in future.
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