We have to look at India in segments and not as one market: B Thiagarajan
B Thiagarajan, Managing Director of Blue Star, spoke about the brand’s journey, at the e4m Pitch CMO Summit 2022 The much-awaited e4m Pitch CMO Summit 2022’s virtual event took place with eminent speakers discussing ‘Building Brand Trust: The Ultimate Currency’. B Thiagarajan, Managing Director of Blue Star, spoke about the brand’s journey and shared interesting insights about the marketing and advertising strategies of the company. The aim is to deliver right and transparent communications, the MD said. The session was moderated by Ruhail Amin, Senior Editor, exchange4media.com. On being asked about the importance of building brand salience, Thiagarajan quoted Mahatma Gandhi: “I believe in trusting. Trust begets trust. Suspicion is foetid and only stinks. He who trusts has never yet lost in the world.” “Blue Star was not a B2C but a B2B brand. We were into central air conditioning and commercial refrigeration, so if you look before the 90s, we believed in leadership and we were communicating that we are leaders in central air conditioning, and that is how we started our brand-building activity.” He further said, “Our previous leaders always focused on customers and took informed decisions for the company. We always believe in delivering what we promise and that is how the journey began. Be it healthcare, hotel or IT, we started providing cooling solutions for enhancing businesses.” “We then got into a residential space. Multinationals came in and we were new to B2C space. So we migrated the same strength we had in the B2B space and take office-like-cooling home. This means we started providing superior air conditioning services in the residence itself in order to build the trust,” said Thiagarajan. “When these businesses were expanding, we also entered into other businesses such as MEP in which we are leaders in data security solutions. So we wanted one common thing which would define Blue Star. After consumer insight and studies were done, it revealed that it was trust that is helping Blue Star to shine in a highly competitive environment. So, we went ahead and ‘Built on Trust’ was the proposition and the journey began 3-4 years back.” Further in the session, Amin asked Thiagarajan about the bigger challenges in sustaining brand trust when people have just a 2-5 second attention span. “I believe that one should be consistent in communications. The second part is that the communication must be delivered in an authentic manner and should live up to the communications. In communications, we felt that we need a brand ambassador and so we brought in Virat Kohli, he is an element where people can connect with him. Given the fact that 65-70% customers are from tier III, IV and V towns and most of them are first time buyers of air conditioners,” Thiagarajan said. He further said, “Recently, we have also learnt that 30-40 second TVC days are over and it is becoming shorter. So, we have figured out that we are doing well in the skippable ads segment on the digital platforms where people are watching the advertisements and not skipping it.” Talking about the brand ethos and the role of innovation, Thiagarajan said, “Most customers are looking for buying ACs. So one needs to invest in consumer insights. We have to look at India in different segments and not as one market. The second part is that we know people are buying ACs for cooling within that we try to find the particular element which resonates with the consumer. We tried to create a communication - which is being world-class and the most innovative one. We were the first brand that came with decimal cooling. The second part was powerful cooling, where we brought lookalikes of Virat Kohli which communicated that Blue Star can provide powerful cooling.” Talking about the fast cooling Blue Star AC communication he further said, “We have launched another campaign for IPL where Virat Kohli is snapping his fingers which promotes the proposition of fast cooling AC of Blue Star. The idea was to communicate the message that our product can provide the fastest cooling even before the advertisement ends.” While talking about the growth of Blue Star, Thiagarajan said, “The Q3 results are in the public domain. We grew faster in the market and we have improved our market share and we find that the demand is sustaining. The forthcoming summer season the primary and secondary sales are good. We are in a pursuit to increase our market share by 2024 to 15%. The whole growth story is happening despite the disproportionate increase in the price of commodities. I think the growth is happening because of multiple reasons and in the next 4-5 years, the AC segment will rapidly grow.”
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