Neeraj Bahl, MD & CEO BSH, Home Appliances, India reveals that the company will introduce consumer offers to help aid consumers buy the product and launch newer models with better hygiene claims. The pandemic has affected everyone, every business, every economy and every brand around the globe. It is an unnerving time for both markets and brands, with no precedent to follow and has forced us to rethink our approaches to our work and brand/marketing strategies. It has been a tough time for the consumer durable industry. Here are some important learnings and steps that marketers should look while drawing up future plans.
- Understanding Your Customer: Focusing on the consumer segment, understanding our consumer and making a dent into their anxieties will be the new normal. The key is to shift the narrative to adapt to consumer needs, especially now when we’re just coming out of trying times.
- Experiential Marketing Approach: The rise of smart phone usage and interactive apps/new-age technologies like AR, VR, holographic projections, etc., are helping brands deliver the value proposition in the best immersive manner. Story-telling could never be more powerful.
- Rapid Increase In E-commerce Sector: Customers will naturally shift to e-commerce now, keeping in mind safety and avoid going to markets physically. BSH will service the required e-commerce channels as per consumer need/wherever customer is present. However, we should not completely neglect the offline comeback. Hence, brands need to invest in an omni-channel approach.
- Bounce Back plan: In challenging situations like these, our principle is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. A lot of efforts are being taken externally to speed up economic recovery post the lockdown. At BSH, reviving operations to serve our customer’s immediate needs is paramount for us. We will break all of this down in two different phases i.e. back to business as usual and festive period. We would be introducing lot of consumer offers, cashback offers, no cost EMI to help aid consumers buy the product, launch of newer models with better hygiene claims.
- Leveraging Digital Platforms: Brands can plan to leverage the digital platforms to create contextual content that will enable them to stay on top of mind for consumers. A brand’s marketing strategy will increasingly shift to digital platforms to assist consumers in making an informed decision. Brands will experiment with new forms of content such as short-form videos, augmented reality, virtual reality and more. They will also increasingly create digital touchpoints to move closer to their consumers and this will enable real-time conversations between both.
- Messaging And Communications: Messaging and communications has evolved towards an even greater focus behind driving behavioural change. Especially in the context of home and personal hygiene our consumers and communities are experiencing a never-seen-before inflection point and it’s therefore imperative for us to be at the forefront of educating them with the right information and providing the right access.
