Date: September 15, 2017
Speakers: Mr. Ramesh Ranganath, Ms. Parvathi Mohan
The students of the BMS department were privileged to have a very interesting seminar on the topic ‘Importance of Creativity in Advertising’ on 15th September 2017 at the Audio-Visual room in the library of St. Teresa’s College. It was organised as an extension to the subject Branding, Innovation, Creativity (BIC) handled by Ms. Daly Paulose. The guests were two resource persons from TWBC MARCOM – Mr. Ramesh Ranganath, Account Director at TWBC MARCOM and Ms. Parvathi Menon, Brand Strategist at TWBC MARCOM. TWBC MARCOM is one of the leading creative advertising agencies in South India. It was established in 2008 and boasts of an elite client list of National power brands as well as Global super brands like Larsen and Toubro, Syama Dynamic etc.
It was very interesting to hear the guests speak about how they were able to help several corporate clients position their brands in the minds of the customers in such effective and creative ways. They spoke about the process they follow after they have met a client in order to be successful in accomplishing their goals. Their process includes steps like listening to the client, doing a thorough research, ideation, execution, follow-up etc. One such company they helped was Larsen and Toubro. This company was making electric switches but the business wasn’t taking off. So the people at TWBC MARCOM did a research and found out that it was not the customer, but the electricians who did not prefer switches of this brand because they believed that the switches were too advanced, so they required more time to connect them and that it broke easily. So the people at TWBC came up with a very interesting way to change this perception in the minds of the electricians. They undertook zonal activation campaigns where melas were organised for electricians with games like fitting the switch to see who can fit it first and throwing objects on the switch to see who can break it. This has helped the company reposition themselves in the market and their sales have shot up immensely.
They also spoke about how the digital media, now an upcoming trend, has a very significant impact on the customers and their choices. They broke the misconceptions in the students minds that advertising is just about what we see on televisions, newspapers and magazines hear on the radio. It is much more than that. It about how the brands and companies are able to position themselves in consumer minds. They established that it is not necessary that we always to rely on these basic means of advertising – TV, newspapers, billboards, radio or internet – to convey something to the customers, we can even use other, more creative and innovative techniques like the one mentioned above or using VR to give customers a, 4-D, feel of how their apartment would like rather than the usual advertising methods or displaying a 3-D model. The thoughts they shared regarding the relevance of content marketing in current times was very informative.
Overall, their inputs were very interesting and more than that their experiences were hugely inspiring for aspiring management students who attended the session.