The upcoming festive season is going to be very busy for Tata Motors, as the brand is set to celebrate a number of milestones throughout the period. Be it Nixon hitting 7 lakh unit sales or having 2 million SUVs on Indian roads, the brand will be intensifying its marketing via consumer benefits this festive season.

“We have a very big launch coming up. We are going to enter the largest category in the automotive industry where we were absent so far, which is the mid SUV category. And we have a very differentiated and disruptive product coming in. So that will form a big part of our marketing activities in the festival season. So a pretty busy season is coming ahead for us,” shared Vivek Srivatsa, Chief Commercial Officer, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility, Tata.ev, in a recent conversation with exchange4media.

New Priorities for EV Buyers

Panning out, Srivatsa delved deeper into how the EV market, which emerged in India around 2020, has witnessed a significant shift in consumer behaviour. Initially, EV buyers were early adopters with high disposable incomes and a keen interest in technology. They were willing to experiment with new technology, primarily driven by the promise of substantial cost savings.

Cut to today, the EV customer base has broadened to include the early majority. While cost-efficiency remains a key factor, consumers now prioritise driving experience, advanced features, and a seamless ownership experience. This evolving profile has necessitated a corresponding shift in marketing strategies, shared Vivek Srivatsa.

“Earlier it was the fairly wealthy people with a slightly big appetite for trying out new things, internationally exposed and who have a routine which is very much under their control, that's the kind of people who started buying. But since then, it has expanded,” he explained.

A growing trend according to him, in the EV category, is that today’s consumers are looking at EVs more as a gadget than just a vehicle. “They are looking at it as a gadget, which has a lot of technology and digital capabilities and expect significant technological interventions,” he said.

When it comes to purchasing EVs, consumers are also demanding a greater focus on a seamless buying experience. Srivatsa mentioned that this is the key question and challenge that needs to be addressed – how can one give a differentiated buying experience to their EV customers?

“Customers want to be heard, they want to be responded to even after buying the vehicle, which is very unlike ICE vehicles. So, I would say customers have become far more knowledgeable, but at the same time, far more demanding. Primary reasons to buy remain the same, but secondary and tertiary reasons to buy have changed quite a lot,” he added.

The Marketing Trajectory

Tata.ev has taken a full circle since 2020, when it comes to marketing EVs. Breaking the cycle down, Srivatsa explained that the EV customers in 2020 were the early adopters with a range of basic questions, be it around safety, charging infrastructure etc. In the days following this EV boost, the ‘late adopters’ basically went by the word of mouth of the early adopters and made their purchase decisions.

So, a majority of marketing strategies were devised based on this trend. But now, there’s a change again, because back then the company was selling around 400-500 cars a month. The number is over 10 times now, and consumers with the same fundamental questions as the early adopters have emerged once again. “So, in many ways, today we are doing the same kind of marketing, same kind of consumer communication, same kind of consumer education, what we were doing in 2020, but at a much larger scale,” Srivatsa shared.

Larger scale not just media wise, but also due to the increase in consumer demand from non-metro markets too. “Those days, probably we were talking to customers in the big cities and the metros. Today, we have to talk the same communication, give the same messages of myth busting and assurance about the technology to probably 150 cities across the country, including several smaller cities and even villages. More than 50% of our sales come from small towns,” he mentioned.

This further is one of the reasons to see slight tweaks in the marketing plans for the brand. For instance, earlier, according to Srivatsa, the company could do it through the sales team – by educating the sales team and then in person education of the customer. “But now we have to start using mass media to communicate these messages. So, that's how our marketing has changed. Today, our campaigns are both intended to hype the category up because of its benefits, but at the same time also intended to educate the customer.”

IPL, Digital, CTV and more

Sharing the example of investing in IPL, Srivatsa shared that 3-4 years back using IPL to educate consumers about EVs wouldn’t have been a thought to cross the mind. However, the last two IPLs the brand has been doing that and seeing favourable results too.

Delving further into the media mix, he classified IPL under the experiential marketing mix considering the partnerships involved on-ground display of the vehicle. “IPL is not a cheap media, it is one of the most expensive properties. Because of that our experiential spends are very high,” he said.

Digital has been climbing up the ladder in the media plan, considering the high amount of online research involved in the automotive industry. Srivatsa said, “Digital presence, both for creating awareness about the brand and also for gaining consumers, performance marketing, has become higher and higher. Offline media remains important, but obviously, the spending on offline media has come down quite a lot.”

The brand’s CTV spends are also steadily increasing. “All of us intuitively know that many of the households have moved into CTV viewing. So CTV spends are also going up. And CTV also allows you access into all the digital devices. And so, if you include CTV into digital, I think overall digital has become very, very big. Traditional media has come down substantially,” he mentioned.

However, Srivatsa also pointed out that there is no industry body that ratifies the reach and performance of CTV. “More and more marketers are sinking money into CTV without having any measurement, it is more about gut feel, which is a little unfortunate,” he said.

Even though digital is the largest share of the pie in the brand’s media mix, performance marketing is a cautious decision that Tata.ev makes. “We do it as and when required only. Performance marketing is a little bit of a whirlpool, once you get into it, you cannot come out. So I am always very cautious on how much money we sink there.”