The Matter of Belief

Swachhata (cleanliness) is a habit, it's a belief that is learnt and that's what is the motto of young and swachh India. Today, the companies and the brands with the hygiene attributes in their product portfolio are happily taking the responsibility to develop the beliefs in the minds of people. It has been a difficult exercise and required more engagement than ever.

These brands are coming up with campaigns that are all about engagement with the message for hygiene than mere brand communication. The surge is so strong that the big companies HUL, Reckitt Benckiser are not bothered about their own branding! For example, Lifebuoy will not mind if people learn about handwash, and they do it with Dettol! Seriously. The swacch bandwagon is about creating beliefs. If you have learnt your consumer behaviour well, you know that it is directly proportional to sales. Since the Swacch Bharat Abhiyan started, sale of toiletries in India have increased to 30%. Automatically, you see the proportionality! The category sales figures are very encouraging for companies like RB, HUL and Dabur. For them, it is Newton's third law of motion. The budgets that they use for CSR activities are paying them. Brand building is far more than the conventional methods.

Learning the early lesson are some other brands where the again the brand name is not prominent in the advertising campaign. Brands like Biba, Anouk, Cello and Lenovo are coming up with campaigns with social messages. Issues like gender equality, women empowerment and equal choices are topics of conversations in the video ads and towards the end just the mention of the brand. Many would see it as silent marketing but it is emerged as a strong method of communication. Started with Tanishq last year, this strategy at the end aims at developing the category or target markets or the thoughts of target market.

Have a good day and Happy Reading!!