On 22nd July 2017, The Marketing and Brand Committee of The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry organized a mega marketing and brand conclave titled “Brand Stories” on 22nd July 201 where a galaxy of speakers from distinguished brands like Exide, Reliance JIO, NEXA, ITC and Grofers shared their story of from conceptualization to existence to growth to reinvention.

Mr. Sutanu Ghosh, President, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed everyone to the Conclave. He stated that consumer today decide how they expose themselves to brands and their communications. Brands therefore, also keep reinventing themselves as per the changing tastes and preferences of the target group. Brands are conceived as ideas, nourished with value propositions, nurtured through various mediums, and only then do they attain a certain personality. These brands walk, talk and associate with customers, and help them experience the brand. This brand experience can be on an experimental basis, or can become a habit. The success of a brand, though, is not only measured by the number of associations achieved but also very much by the message that gets communicated through its brand. Hence with time, the brand also ages and the challenge of a brand owner is to keep repositioning and adapting to the changing market dynamics and evolve with time. Similarly new brands also help category evolve by bringing on freshness of ideas and effective execution through innovative, oath breaking and using till then hitherto unexplored marketing techniques. The challenge for any brand owner in such cases is to create a niche for their brand amidst the stiff competition from existing brands. He concluded his speech by looking forward to insights on some cutting edge technologies on how brands are emerging in the current times.

Setting the tone for the day, Mr. Anoop Hoon, Chairman of the Marketing and Brand Committee of The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry presented an insight on the genesis of the Conclave. “Brand Stories” emerged as an inspiration from the book “The Fortune Cookie Principle” written by Bernadette Jiwaand its concept of the journey of the brand as a brand story. He stated that in the journey of the brand the script – writers change, the environment changes, the delivery changes, but it is really fascinating to see where a brand starts, where the dream of the product is and where it finally goes. He says no longer punchlines are important in advertising what is more important is to let consumers create their own stories. He also stated that if the brand are to sustain themselves in the long run the most important thing is to have the concept of that brand story where the consumers keep writing their own stories about the brand, which remain unknown to the brand, but is very close to their hearts of the consumers and they identify with their brand. Mr. Anoop Hoon concluded his speech by stating that he is looking forward to know the unknown about the brands from the illustrious speakers who were to present the story of the brand.

Mr. JaikishinChhaproo, Media Head ITC PCPB and Member, Marketing and Brand Committee, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry who was compereing the Conclave also stated that he looked forward to the stories of valour, inspiration and motivation from the brand stories to be presented. The first brand to present its story was “Exide Batteries”.

Mr. Subir Chakrabarty, Executive Director, Exide Industries Limited started his speech tracing the genesis of branding and related it with Nubian slaves who were the brand when slavery was the currency of trade and therefore he stated that in very rudimentary terms branding means gaining little monopoly for the product over others by making it more desirable than others. He defined battery as a grudge product. He stated that longer it takes to renew the process to get a new battery or to get it repaired, the stronger is the irritation. So once it is possible to understand that, it’s easy to be able to go about that clinically trying to dissect and understand what can contribute to the success of a brand like Exide. He also stated that in African countries battery and Exide are synonymous and there has been a huge lot of efforts that has been gone behind creating this monopoly in the market. He further stated that great brands defy the law of gravity. The law states that whatever goes up must come down and great brands only balloon up. So the only way to stay at the top is by understanding the factor which will help consumer retention. The answer to that is serviceability. It was also enlightening to know that Exide is the only unique company in the world which has bought over the number two company and maintained its monopoly in the sector. Providing brand experience in the low involvement category was a challenge which was overcome by providing a step in showroom experience, targeting individuals who love their cars and by providing the Exide app to individuals to help be by their side in terms of emergency. Exide presented an interesting story of how Exide has reinvented itself over the years. The session ended with Mr. Sidhartha Roy, CEO Response India Pvt Limited handing over memento to Mr. Subir Chakraborty

Mr. Kaushik Roy, President, Brand Strategy & Corporate Communications, Reliance Industries Limited was the speaker for Reliance JIO. While presenting the disruptive marketing techniques undertaken by JIO he traced its origin from to the DhirubhaiAmabaniphiliosophy of reineventing brands in each category with affordability at its central point. He stated that the strategic move of Reliance is aimed at making the digital technology available to all by making it affordable and reinventing the existing infrastructure through innovation. The basic focus of JIO is to make data available for all across all categories. Hence the idea is to include data availability in the feature phones as well . He also stated that a study conducted by Kantar IMRB suggested that feature phone users consume more data than the smart phone users despite of their limited accessibility. Currently Jio is aimed at making 4G from aspirational to affordable. Mr. Sutanu Ghosh, President, The Bengal Chamber of Commerce handed over the memento to Mr. Kaushik Roy at the end of his captivating presentation.

Mr. SanjeevHanda, VP Marketing, MUL presented a very interesting story of Nexa. The story shows how old brands can invent or reinvent through brand extensions to remain as a market leader. The journey for Nexa began a couple of years back but the conceptualization started a in 2012-2013 with the market share of Marurti shrinking to 39-37% inspite of having the largest distribution network in the automobile sector. This gave a new challenge to the management who looked at a new strategy to double up the figures on the next 5 years by winning over the customers who were at that time not looking at Marutias an option. Their study revealed that “emerging urban middle class” is the segment which required to be tapped and a further study was conducted to ascertain the consumer behaviour. The study revealed that consumer service benchmarks were largerly defined by airlines, banking, hotel and restaurant and consumer remembers and differentiates the service quality. The consumer is also well informed, does their homework, digitally savvy and is looking for partner relationship with the sales person. With all the inputs the Nexa experience was formed which is now instrumental for the surging growth of MUL. The session ended with Mr. Anoop Hoon presenting a memento of appreciation to Mr. Handa.

Mr. Mahendra Baid of ITC Aashirwaad brought alive the story of a brand that has revolutionized the staple food of the country with holisticinnovation across all spheres of production, branding, procurement and distribution.-ITC Aashirwaad Atta. The marketing and branding of the product addressed major concerns like freshness, health hazards, positioning in a fiercely competitive market. The freshness concern was addressed by shorter shelf-life, strong supply chain, self-dependent supply chain and strong quality control. The biggest challenge that evolved was creating a strong positioning in the fiercely competitive market. Studies pertaining to the product also showed changes in the consumer perception of the product over the ages and dwindling aspirational interest in the commodity. ITC Aashirwadconceptualized brand communications in a strategic way to send the message across of adopting Aashirwadatta as a way of healthy lifestyle combined with an evolving product line to substantiate the message. Mr. Sutanu Ghosh at the end thanked Mr. Baid for the insightful session by presenting a memento of appreciation to him.

Mr. Arun Shetty, Senior Manager, Grofers presented an enthralling last session with the story of a young brand, Grofers. The presentation sketched the journey of the brand fromhyperlocal business shopping model to inventory led marketplace extension. The major difference between the two models is that of product & service quality, value and generating loyalty. The target segment includes stay at home mothers between the age group of 32-36 years with kids who believe in saving and are controller of volume grocery business through planned trip. The brand further desires to build upon its positioning as a source of saving money, time and effort and smarter way of grocery shopping. The message is being communicated through strong advertising proposition of “Groferskikharidaarimein hi samajhdarihai” with a cheerful light-hearted conversational tonality celebrating Indian Women. Mr. Shetty further stated that that much of the revenue is still generated from the app. based model while they are still trying to work on the web-based model. The session ended with Mr. SandipanChaudhuri, Co-Chairperson, Marketing and Brand Committee presenting a memento of appreciation to Mr. Shetty.

The insightful knowledge sharing sessions ended with Mr. Anoop Hoon providing the formal vote of thanks to the participants and the speakers.