For Brand’s Sake

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For Brand’s Sake Vivek Singh

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Copyright © Vivek Singh 2022 All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or means without the written permission from the author. First edition 2022 Imprint: Independently published This book has been published with all the efforts taken to make the material error-free. However, the author does not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. All the stories and incidents have been mentioned for academic purposes. It is not a comment on the company or its working style in any manner whatsoever.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Who is this book for?.............................................................................. 5 About the author.....................................................................................6 Advertising ............................................................................................... 7

How to hire an advertising agency? ........................... 8 How to get the best out of your ad agency? ............ 12 How to evaluate a TVC script?.................................... 17 Should you sign a celebrity for your brand? ........... 22 How to choose a filmmaker? ...................................... 28 Pre-production meeting (PPM) ................................ 32 Pre-test your TV commercial .................................... 37 Approving artworks .................................................... 40 Media Planning.................................................................................... 43

How to evaluate a TV media plan? Part 1 ................ 44 How to evaluate a TV media plan? Part 2 ............... 49 Reach of Frequency? .................................................... 54 When should a new brand advertise?.......................56 Scheduling: Continuous or with breaks...................59 Media planning: Beyond the numbers.................... 62 How much money do you waste in advertising? ...67 What’s the ideal ATL-BTL ratio? .............................. 73 Choosing the right media mix ................................... 75 Note on print advertising............................................ 82 Market Research .................................................................................. 87

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To research or not to research? ................................ 88 The power of research ................................................ 92 How to brief your research agency? ........................ 96 Trade Marketing .................................................................................. 99

Running trade schemes ............................................. 100 Planning consumer schemes ................................... 108 New Brand Launch............................................................................. 114

Launching a new brand .............................................. 115 Positioning and differentiation ............................... 120 House of brands or a branded house? .................... 126 First TV commercial of a brand ............................... 129 BTL Activation and Vendors ............................................................ 131

BTL activation ............................................................. 132 Negotiating with vendors ......................................... 140 Getting the best out of your vendors...................... 143 PR, E-commerce, Social and YT .................................................... 146

Using PR to your advantage ..................................... 147 E-com ushers in a new era ....................................... 152 Social media ................................................................. 156 Advertising on YouTube ............................................ 160 Influencer marketing ................................................. 163 Behind The Scenes.............................................................................. 171

Dealing with commercial .......................................... 172 Quality and you ........................................................... 175 Don’t ignore the legal stuff ...................................... 178 Taking approvals ......................................................... 181 vi

Visting the market ...................................................... 186 How To Build a Consumer Brand?................................................ 190 What Really Matters ......................................................................... 193 Thanks .................................................................................................. 196 Notes and References ....................................................................... 197 Recommended Books ....................................................................... 199

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DEDICATION To you Amma and to my family

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INTRODUCTION Building a consumer brand is one of the most exciting jobs in the world. The work is full of amazing and creative things to be done. There are brand names to be coined, new products to be launched and new ads to be made. For those who love numbers, there is enough data to be churned and insights to be uncovered. For those who love art, there are enough designs to be approved. But beyond the glamour of ads and designs, there is plain simple good old hard work. There are mundane processes to be followed, long presentations to be made, complicated approvals to be taken and tough people to be managed. How are good brands built? Brands are not built by money. Brands are not built by fluke. Brands are built by taking the right decisions. If you are working on a brand, then you need to make a lot of important decisions. There are certain decisions that you take once in a while. Which advertising agency to appoint? What should be the name of your new brand? Which celebrity to sign? There are certain decisions that you take every year. Which script to choose for the next TV ad? Which filmmaker to pick? How to measure the brand’s success? What should be your ATL

and BTL ratio? Then there are decisions that you take more frequently. How to evaluate a media plan? What consumer schemes to run for generating trials? Which influencer to choose for promoting your brand online? What BTL activities to plan? Every right decision is a step towards building a successful brand. This book will help you make all these decisions and make them confidently. I will discuss every important decision that you need to take for your brand and I will share the approach which should be taken. This book is born out of experience – my sixteen years of experience in building consumer brands. I have also learnt from the experiences of my colleagues, mentors, friends in other marketing companies and the experience of several marketing authors whose ideas I have implemented and tested in my career. I have worked in sales and I have worked in brand management. I have sold FMCG, realty and commodities. I was part of the launch of an FMCG brand in South India. The brand grew rapidly and became the market leader across three states. I moved out of that brand and became a marketing consultant. Where again I worked on two more brands, one of which I helped launch. I was involved with this brand from its inception. 2

I wrote this book for anyone who is working on a consumer brand. You could be on the brand side or the agency side. If you sell your brand through traditional trade and modern trade, you will benefit from reading this book. If you advertise on traditional media and YouTube, you will benefit from this book. If you sell a mass consumer brand, you will benefit from this book. When I started out in marketing I was unsure about many things. Sometimes I knew what the brand should do but I could not say why. Moreover, as I was young, the people above me did not have complete confidence in my ability. How do you make better decisions when you are still young? Even if you are not the decision maker, how can you help your manager make better decisions?

As you read this book and learn to make better decisions about your brand, you will gain confidence. This book will give you a new way to think. This book will help you form your ideas better. It will give you the techniques to prove your ideas and test your ideas. Even if you don’t know what’s right, you will know how to arrive at the correct decision. There are no frameworks or marketing models or two by two matrices in the book. There is no theory and there is no gyaan. It is a practical book.

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This confidence in brand management will help you move up in your career. This will also help your brand do well in the marketplace. This is my only aim. I want you to learn what I have learnt in sixteen years and what other people have learnt before me. I want you to be smart in making decisions. And I want you to be confident in your recommendations.

Without much ado, let us begin by addressing all the major decisions that you need to make day in and day out as a marketer. This book is divided into eight sections. 1) Advertising 2) Media planning 3) Market research 4) Trade marketing 5) Launching a new brand 6) BTL 7) PR, Ecommerce, social and digital 8) Behind the scenes We will cover all the major decisions that you need to make in each of these areas. As I promised, this book includes advice which I have seen work in the marketplace. I have tried the lessons and it has worked for me. Some of the lessons have come out of failed experiments. Overall, this is a practical book, free of marketing jargon which you can put to use immediately.

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WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR? This book will help anyone who wants to build and grow a consumer

brand

in India. It contains

insights

on

advertising, media, market research, BTL and every other aspect involved in the day to day management of a consumer brand. This book will help you if your brand has a presence across general trade (GT) and modern trade (MT). It would help you if you spend money on traditional media and YouTube. It will help you if you market a mass consumer brand. Anyone who works in marketing, advertising and media will find it useful.

The basic principles of building a consumer brand do not change. You need to increase consumer awareness and increase distribution. In the era of e-commerce, the tools change but the basics don’t. Knowing the basics of brand building will benefit even the brands which are selling only on digital.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR I am Vivek and I have spent the last 16 years in marketing. I fell in love with marketing during my summer internship in Mumbai. I graduated from IIM Ahmedabad in 2006 and worked in FMCG sales. Then I moved into brand management. In 2015, I became an independent marketing consultant. I consult consumer brands on all aspects of brand building including strategy, advertising, media and market research. For Brand’s Sake is my second book. In 2020 I wrote a Kindle bestseller, Presentation Masala.

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ADVERTISING

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