Goafest 2023: Brands need to up their game in a dynamic world, say industry experts

In a world with a multitude of options, consumer attention is a scarce commodity. It is a situation that marketers not only confront but must also figure out effective ways to deal with. The question is how will the brand come to terms with this nature of disruption.

All this was discussed in great detail at Goafest 2023, a congregation of the best advertising and marketing minds. The session titled, “Brand love suffering at the altar of short-term sale moderator,” had its panelists Hemant Malik, Divisional Chief Executive, ITC's Foods Business, Rohit Kapoor, CEO, Swiggy and Prabha Narasimhan, MD & CEO, Colgate-Palmolive India, elaborate on key issues such as brand relationships with consumers, performance marketing and how creativity today can be effectively employed.

In the backdrop of a complicated world is the plethora of data and then drawing consumer insights. ITC’s Malik said the definition of a relationship has changed and it is really more about a situation today. “It is something we must recognise when addressing the consumer,” he explained. Clearly, the newbie brands across categories are challenging the status quo and those that have been around for years need to rise to the occasion. In that context, Colgate’s Narasimhan said one important piece was how well a brand could deliver on its promise. “Our brand has been around for over 200 years and getting it right on the product proposition is hugely critical.”

For Swiggy, the dependence on data is significant and Kapoor, the company’s CEO said that more data leads to more importance on gut. “We have to be flexible in today’s scenario. For instance, I changed my media at least plan during this year’s IPL,” he pointed out.  

Apart from gut, the other issue that came up for discussion was creativity, which is really no one’s domain. According to Malik, the approach is to have the “horses for courses” approach. “Which medium to use is always evolving,” he said. The increase in the number of touchpoints raises pertinent questions on the message and Narasimhan’s maintained “the core of the message is very important.” Over time, marketing teams in large organisations too have more functions such as insights and research. In the time to come, a more complex world could only see more insights but making sense of it is what will be most interesting.

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