ThinkPad 3 Marketing strategies in these uncertain times

In these times of crisis, savvy and visionary marketing strategies assume crucial importance for the growth of India’s alco-beverages industry. In fact, now the marketing strategy has even more significant role in the success and failure of an enterprise.

ThinkPad Session 3, explored various interesting marketing ideas and initiatives through inputs from several industry experts. The enriching discourse had Sanjeev Banga, President, International Business, Radico Khaitan Ltd. as the moderator. Other industry experts who took part in the discourse were Rishi Walli, Director Marketing, Beam Suntory India; Anmol Gill, Head Customer Marketing India and Neighboring Countries, Bacardi India Pvt. Ltd.; Ravindran Venkatesh, Vice President Sales and Marketing Amrut Distilleries Pvt. Ltd.; Heemanshu Asher, Head Marketing, Paul John India Single Malt; and Rachit Gupta, Marketing Head
India, Campari India.

Sanjeev Banga, President, International Business, Radico Khaitan Ltd., opened the discussion while noting the usual; that 2020 has been a highly unusual year and the world has not seen such unprecedented lockdowns. “And for us marketers, grim challenge is how to evolve our marketing strategies in this uncertain time,” he affirmed.

But Sanjeev struck a chord of optimism too. “I am sure, this bad time is not going to last for long and normal times are going to come back but the consumers and trade would react positively to those companies and brands which supported them in their hard times,” he asserted.

“In these Covid times, we need to evolve our strategies on how we can engage our customers as well as our trade partners. The influence of social and digital media has increased manifolds in these times. The digital world provides lots of touch points to interact with consumers as consumers are spending a great deal of time in front of their screen. It is important that we as marketers reset our strategy to grab these eyeballs,” he elaborated.

He also feels that digital media is great to interact directly with consumers for the emotional bond, while expressing that e-commerce and online sales are also growing in India. “However, in India, due to our local regulations, e-commerce is still not much popular,” he observed, while maintaining that home delivery of alcoholic beverages may become a usual thing in India, in the days ahead.

Sanjeev maintained that the recently held Covid induced lockdowns may have increased the acceptance levels for drinking at home in India. “Moreover, with h ome drinking gaining ground, people might tend to drink less and of better quality,” he suggested.

Not Wavering from Long-term Goals

Rishi Walli, Director Marketing, Beam Suntory India, thinks this year for him is about “unlearning what we all have learnt in our lives.” “This year has tested our ability to innovate differently, more than any other year before. This is also a year when really balancing the long-term and short-term became more of a necessity than earlier,” observed Rishi.

“In the initial phases of lockdown, the first reaction for us was to cut down long-term expenses and focus on short term. But soon we realised that this is not the right way to go. This is really the right time to be visible to your consumers and partner with them; collectively empathise with them but not sympathise on them. Hence, as a company we decided to change our plans and really went back into continuing staying in the course of building long term equity of our brands,” explained Rishi further.

He said that Beam Suntory India would not waver from its long-term agenda because of the “short-term uncertainty.” Even in this year, the company launched Oaksmith – Indian whisky, and Toki. Rishi viewed agility and flexibility as crucial factors in this period of crisis. “I think the flexible way of defining marketing plans will continue for the next one year,” Rishi conveyed.

“It is really wonderful to see that many organisations came forward to support not just bartending community but other arms of alcobev sector across the country. As marketers we are ready to invest big chunk of our spending to invest in trade relationship. It was very heartening to see that lots of maturity was shown by marketers in the adverse time,” he articulated further.

Though he admits e-commerce is the future, but at the same time, he gave a cautionary note when he asserted that the industry needed to be very careful in the way it managed e-commerce. “It should not merely be a promotional tool, but a means towards brand building,” he opined.

About the growing trend of drinking at home amidst lockdowns, he viewed that “we need to observe more before predicting the trend comprehensively.”

The Growing Role of Digital

“Digitisation has gained a huge impetus as a result of these Covid induced lockdowns and has become the base of our marketing strategies,” asserted Anmol Gill, Head Customer Marketing India and Neighboring Countries, Bacardi India Pvt. Ltd. In April, Bacardi India initiated a few online campaigns.

“Amidst this crisis, we initiated Weekender, which is one of the biggest music festivals from Bacardi. Who would have thought to have  virtually I was skeptical of its success but we had 65,000 people viewing Weekender online. So that is the power of digital…” disclosed Anmol.

Anmol expressed that she was very much passionate about e-commerce. She feels online delivery of alcoholic beverages as a progressive marketing initiative, introduced by the eastern part of the country. “We have to now better understand how e-commerce works in terms of inventory, management and getting partners on board,” she averred.

“Moreover, mobile marketing is now more important than ever before. Content to commerce is going to be extremely crucial for market to tap consumers,” she observed, while stating that alcobev brands operating in India should quickly learn the nuances of the working of content to commerce. She however believes the future of e-commerce in India depends upon regulations and the behaviour of the consumers in the post pandemic period.

Contrary to popular opinion, Anmol thinks that premium brands have good market prospect during pandemic. “Those people in India who are saving money during pandemic due to paucity of occasions are now spending on premium brands,” Anmol opined. Though she admitted that with the sharp decline in number of occasions/parties, etc. lots of alcobev products, especially beer have experienced slowdown in India. “Depending on category and price point of alcobev products, I think different kinds of products are seeing different kind of market variations at the time of pandemic,” Anmol expressed.

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