The opening addresses were delivered by Kiran Mani, Head of Sales, Google and Sameer Satpathy, Head, Marketing, Consumer Product Business, Marico Limited. The panel discussions, which followed, focused on the impact of “Digital Media” and “Retail Renovation” on the Indian marketing scenario.

 

Tushar Vyas, Managing Partner, Group M; Mrutyunjay Mishra, Co-Founder, Juxt Consult; Piyush Jain, General Manager, Hair Care, Hindustan Unilever Limited; Manish Saksena, COO, Tommy Hilfiger; Rohit Bhagat, General Manager, Category Head, Private Labels, Aditya Birla Retail Limited and; Siddharth S Singh, Associate Professor of Marketing, Indian School of Business were amongst the speakers in the panel discussions. The panelists touched upon critical aspects of marketing such as the future of digital marketing in India, the country’s readiness for this channel of communication, impact of the government’s pro-FDI policy on retail and, the changing rules of customer experience.

 

Even in the face of the evolving nature of marketing, Sameer Satpathy stressed upon the importance of the message as opposed to the medium of delivery. “It is how you put across your message which gets a response....Your idea has to be powerful enough to cut across mediums to attract consumers – and they have to be at a very basic human level,” he explained. In this regard, he explained the importance of conveying trust in a brand’s messaging.

 

According to Piyush Jain, there are several trends that are evident in consumers currently  and these trends are evident worldwide. Consumers are now becoming more expressive and are increasingly identifying themselves as part of communities. Marketers must take this into account when reaching out to this new consumer.

 

The conclave also marked the finale of the “ikshaa Marketing Plan” competition. The three finalists presented to the judges a go-to-market strategy for Groupon in India.