Zee Melt 2016: Nestle's Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan speaks on importance of good creative ads

Radhakrishnan took a session on the emergence of new media and how it is important for brands to adapt and use it to communicate with consumers in a creative manner

Akansha Mihir Mota | Delhi | August 29, 2016

Day one of Zee Melt 2016 ended with a session on 'Brand Building in the New Reality' by Chandrasekar Radhakrishnan, Head of Communications and E-Commerce, Nestle India. He talked about how important it is to be updated in the era of digital communication and the importance of good creative ads. He emphasised the importance of communicating with the consumers in real time for brand building.

Radhakrishnan began the session by mentioning, “It is quite an exciting time for the marketers as the basic fundamental principles are challenged.” The digital revolution is giving more power to the consumers and changing the hierarchy between the brands and the consumers. Consumers nowadays are a very powerful source of information and knowledge. In this kind of rapidly changing environment, it is important to know the new reality and talk about certain guiding principles.

The first principle he talked about is to adapt and not abandon. He said, “We stick to the belief that the fundamental principles of marketing have changed and it needs to be adapted to the new digital reality. Millenials are not age segmentation but a mindset and attitude. It is really important to respond to the ecosystem of content.”

He said there are two pillars on which brands need to pay attention. First, continue to focus on the fundamentals of reality and second, marketing adapting to new reality.

On needs to keep in mind four things for focusing on the fundamentals:

1. Brief
2. Message quality
3. Brand and business results
4. Knowing your consumers very deeply

Radhakrishnan said, “The very video marketing is what brand building that Nestle does. It's an extremely well-defined process. We follow this with extreme amount of passion and results. The message quality matters the most to us. The brand-building experience is directly proportional to creative quality. The message quality is not a one-time content, but it's something which is built over a period of time”

He gave the example of Nescafe, a brand of Nestle, which is '#ItAllStarts' commercial.

Radhakrishnan commented, “So much of conversation is happening about engagement and engagement metrics. There is a plethora of engagement metrics. For example, likes, comments, share, tweets, retweets and all these are critical for us. We still make money selling noodles, milk and coffee. As much as engagement is critical, it is important to understand if the piece of content is positively received or punished. It is important for us to run behind brand building and business results.”

The second part of adapting to the new reality is to build capabilities and structures. For that there are three models:

1. Digital acceleration team

It is a global concept that makes sure that one accelerates, understands and adopts digital internally. In partnership with Group M, Nestle has put a social media centre right in the middle of their head office in Gurgaon. This was the centre where they could listen, engage and actually inspire with the general audience. Now is it a 24X7 engagement service now.  The other part of this team is about content creation and curate.

Chandru said, “Creative quality matters most to us, it is also important for us to drive conversations in a very interesting ways. The other part of it is curation of content. There are enough content houses, producers, Bollywood and various other TV channels, which are producing content with that good idea.”

2. Digital innovation outpost

This is a model which gets brands and technology together. Technology today is disrupting decisions. The key for brands is to use technology for business solutions.

3. Design labs

The most powerful communication tool for Nestle is packaging design. Chandru added, “To inspire people internally and make sure we have world-class design, we have a design lab inside our office. It is essentially a partnership between Nestle and WPP's Fitch.

He further commented, “It has three benefits to us. It is at the centre of brand building. Secondly, the speed, cost efficiency and confidentiality and thirdly, the best part is that you are actually sitting inside the Nestle.”

He ended the sessions by presenting the case study of Maggi coming back with a bang and said, “All the above principles were put to test last year.”

The Maggi Case study:

#WeMissYouToo

Maggi Late Night ad

#WelcomeBackMAGGI

#NothingLikeMAGGIMom

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