CIM Talking Point takes up ‘thinking local’

The CIM Talking Point titled “The ‘PAVA’ (sin) of not thinking local”organized by The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Sri Lanka Region was held on Wednesday, 28th March 2012 at the Salon Orchid, Galadari Hotel.

Over 120 participants representing diverse sectors such as telecommunications, banking, insurance and other support services were in attendance.

The keynote speaker for the event, Managing Director of Sarva Integrated, ChrishanthaJayasinghe spoke on how local thinking leads to winning more market share, the importance of understanding the local consumer and how communication should be strategized in a language they could understand, instead of translating an English concept directly.CJshared his experiences on how locally inspired communication strategies have been successful and revealed the importance of applying such strategies to the newly emerging markets in the North East. He further elaborated the importance of travelling into the interior of villages and not just towns to understand the behavioural patterns of the masses in order to ensure that communication strategies were devised to suite their needs.

Having been exposed to both account management and creative departments working for J Walter Thompson, Phoenix O&M, Q&E and Sarva, CJ has obtained a unique ability to understand and develop campaigns that address the needs of clients as well as consumers alike. CJ’s passion towards developing campaigns that are thought-out from local perspective using local insights have seen many brands gaining share of market and becoming market leaders in addition to winning several accolades for effective advertising.

The event included a panel discussion with renowned marketers and industry experts namely NandanaWickramage, Group Director/Head of Marketing & Sales of Ceylon Biscuits Limited, DileepaAbeysekera, Director ofHeensare (Pvt) Ltd, and DiliniJayasuriya, Senior Research Directorof Breakthrough Business Intelligence. The success of Muncheecream crackers’ “PodiBadaginna” campaign conceptualised on a local insight was reviewed and the feedback obtained from both rural and urban audiences was discussed at length at the panel discussion.

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) UK is the world’s largest professional body for marketing, represented locally by the CIM Sri Lanka Region. CIM Sri Lanka strives to continuously support and uplift Sri Lanka’s marketing profession through education and a host of training and development initiatives.