Saturday Nov 16, 2024
Saturday Nov 16, 2024
Thursday, 6 March 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Siddharth Banerjee is an experienced consumer business leader with extensive international marketing and general management experience. In his fourteen years of corporate experience, including the last eleven years at Unilever, he has gained multi-category and multi-country exposure, with a mix of country P&L roles and global/regional brand marketing roles with rich exposure across developing markets.
Banerjee is a published author and a top-ranked speaker on business innovation and consumer marketing. He holds a BA in Economics (Honours) and an MBA in Marketing from the University of Delhi, India and has completed prestigious executive education courses from Harvard Business School, USA and University of Oxford, UK.
Banerjee outlined in his opening remarks that: “Brands and engagements are the two key words that would be used during my presentation. When we talk about consumer engagement what are we really referring to? What would you look for when you talk about engagement? Simply put, engagement is truly about having a valuable relationship which occupies the mind space and the emotional space of consumers.
“While we deal with or study brands every day, learning about brands which truly excites us the most is essential. In order to engage with consumers the key lesson as marketing or brand managers, brand custodians we need to understand is that we need to stop interrupting what people really want or are interested in and we become what people are really interested in.” 
He added: “Through a typical TV commercial or digital banner, do we engage consumers or do we interrupt a consumer from the content that they want to view?”
“The key to building brands is differentiation. Successful brands that build engagement with consumers are built on differentiated ideas. Truly successful brands are ones that voice out the reason why a consumer should buy a product or service and differentiation can be addressed by keen listening and understanding. How does one understand consumers?”
Banerjee shared the key formula for this. “It is keen insights”. Marketing campaigns to build engagement should necessarily be based on consumer insights. To highlight this area Banerjee took the audience through examples and case studies so that the audience could evaluate and judge whether campaigns carried out by some of the major brands were based on observation or on the true understanding of the consumer, led through insight.
He explained the consumer decision making process and the three stages involved. He explained the necessity as to why these factors need to be taken into consideration. Banerjee commented: “Every decision the consumer makes should be taken into account. Your ability to closely engage with consumers depends on your keen understanding of these three stages. These areas will also determine the media one should use to communicate with their consumer at each step of these three stages.”
He further spoke about social media and how it is changing both the nature of consumers and the nature of marketing. He shared some statistics by stating: “A key aspect that we must consider in present context is that consumers today have started living a digital world. Out of 6.8 billion people 2 billion are already on the Internet. What is interesting is to note is the huge amount of user generated content coming from consumers with approximately 100 hours of content is being uploaded on Youtube every minute, whilst every day Google answers more than 1 billion questions from people around the globe in 181 countries and 146 languages. These numbers need to be kept in mind by all brand marketers, as one can argue that today there is nothing called a digital plan, since digital is an integral part of almost any marketing plan. Consumer engagement is not only about a 30 sec TV commercial anymore. Brilliant brand growth and brilliant consumer engagement these days happen through various kind of communication.”
He enlightened the audience by stating: “In today’s digital world the benefit that we get as brand owners is that we become share worthy.” In fact whatever the content, whether it is a 30 second commercial or a small video it should be free-flowing. This means that people should be forwarding content to their friends, family etc.”
He concluded his presentation summarising the guiding principles surrounding his examples and case studies shared stating: “There is no difference in online and offline. What is the future of marketing and what should we be aware of as a marketer? The content is the key in this digital world. If you are to talk about delivering consumer engagement what is the content that you would be talking about.”
Banerjee closed his presentation by adding: “Is it really about a small idea or is it an idea about taking a consumer on an experience journey?” The program was brought to an energetic conclusion with a lively Q&A session.
The CIM Sri Lanka Region organises many versatile events catering to the key needs of its members adding value to membership. The ‘Talking Point’ program is organised with the sole objective of providing Sri Lanka’s marketing professionals relevant, important and interesting topics of discussion that would be essential towards professional and personal development.
Commenting, Chartered Institute of Marketing Sri Lanka Region Chairperson Nadi B. Dharmasiri said: “The ‘Talking Point’ program is organised with the objective of exposing our marketing fraternity to relevant, important and topical discussions that would be vital towards their development. In this backdrop, the Talking Point titled ‘Building Brand Growth through Consumer Engagement’ gave corporate executives many leads on how they could take their brand to the next level through the correct strategic approach with their consumer. I am pleased to state that the recently concluded ‘Talking Point’ brought together nearly 200 participants; creating history with the highest number of participation at a Talking Point.”
Head of Membership Development Sujith Silva said: “Our first membership program for 2014 featured Siddharth Banerjee and eminent speaker who talked about consumer engagement and how engagement helps grow a brand. In a challenging environment the topic discussed certainly was insightful. I thank him for having accepting our invitation to attend as our speaker for this event. It is also noteworthy to mention the support received from our sponsors and the marketers and corporate executives for their attendance in making this ‘Talking Point’ successful.”Stafford Motor Company Ltd. was the Corporate Sponsor, Sarva Integrated was the Creative Partner and Pan Audio Ltd. as AV Partner. Media partners were The Daily FT, TNL and Art TV.
