Mumbai: Day two of the five-day TV Brand Fest summit being organised by IndianTelevision.com saw brands discuss their experience, with regards to increasing the market share while using Television as a communication tool.  

Ernst & Young partner & leader - Consulting Markets Monesh Dange, who was moderating the discussion set the ball rolling by asking Lenskart media head Anupam Tripathi about the brand’s transition from a D2C brand to a house of brands model.

“As a consumer you don’t just buy a product, you buy a brand,” asserted Tripathi. “So, having the entire control on the product- from production to the end user- eradicates the middle men which saves cost and gives value-for-money to the consumer. It was a carefully thought-of year-long strategy.”

Matrimony.com GM - marketing communications Akhil Jain talked about how the brand replicated its urban success in rural areas. The brand has recently launched the website in Tamil version. “In the last five to six years, internet penetration has grown exponentially & led to a rise in vernacular users,” he noted. “Our overall learning is that if you can break the barrier of language then you will see tremendous success.”

Syska Group’s head of marketing Amit Sethiya encapsulated the marketing-led growth of the over 30 years old SSK Group. For the Syska brand’s communication, the company did not go into product-driven promotions, but rather ventured to educate the masses on why they need to buy LEDs. “For almost five to six years we supported the entire category. And today Syska has become synonymous with the LED category,” he said, while adding that the brand has now expanded into wires, cables, as well as mobile accessories.

“Marketing is both an assailant and a victim of its own creation,” said Upstox senior director, Marketing Kunal Bhardwaj, adding that a year and a half ago nobody even knew this category existed, much less the brand, but they came up with a mix of traditional and non-traditional marketing media, using them to their maximum potency. “Nothing beats Television when you want to create awareness and nothing beats digital when you want to create Call-to-actions or a reminder medium,” said Bhardwaj, adding that the Media mix, along with a “190 per cent effort on retention and user experience” were the three things the start-up focused on the most”. He also added that the English-first app is also looking to expand its language boundaries.

The pandemic hit every business sector and category. Talking about the specific marketing strategies during the prevalence of the pandemic, Amit Sethiya of Syska Group shared that the first thing that the brand did was to remain completely agile and optimise the distribution channel.

The government mandate that personal care appliances were considered semi-essentials helped the brand and they placed their products across all the medical and kirana shops which were the only ones operational during lockdowns. “That's also when we saw the uptake of contactless lighting and smart home products as people were at home 24/7, so we quickly tapped into that,” added Sethiya.

Tripathi shared Lenkskart started the digital revolution in spectacles buying in India and with time many new features have been introduced based on consumer behaviour and needs. Having started with 3-D trial more than four years back, the brand has now moved on to AR (augmented reality) & HTO (home try on) on the app.

The panellists unanimously agreed on the importance of Television in carrying the brand message to masses. “The moment we stop TV, we see a downfall in traffic, app installations, social media interactions and even calls. So there’s no competition,” said Tripathi.

Marketeers realised that when push comes to shove with disruptions such as the one caused by the pandemic or else technological disruptions, the key is to be very agile and help brands reach their objectives, agreed the participants on the panel.

The five-day event is being organised by IndianTelevision.com, and co-powered by Star India.