Not all marketing is brand building: Ronnie Screwvala

With diversified channels, shrinking attention span of the audience and increasing competition, a marketer’s job is becoming more complex and that much more crucial. Building a brand and a loyal customer base has never been more difficult and in such a scenario it is important to understand what goes into building a brand.

Speaking during the XIV IAMAI Marketing Conclave, Ronnie Screwvala, Co-founder, UpGrad and Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Aditya Birla Group, discussed the art of brand storytelling and what really constitutes the building of a brand.

According to Screwvala, not all marketing amounts to brand building.

“The word brand is used so loosely by people today. People start a marketing campaign and are only beginning to create awareness and they term this as ‘brand spending’ or ‘brand building’. Confusing marketing and creating awareness for brand building is flawed in many ways. Brand is something that evolves over a period of time,” said Screwvala.

Screwvala believes that real brand building exercise can only happen when one already has a loyal consumer base and that can be leveraged to carve out a niche or something very different.

“Everyone seems to be thinking that all aspects of marketing spend is equal to brand building and that is not correct. Because the brand quotient has a lot to do with your customer experience, how people view your brand and a lot of other factors. If your product or service is not up to the mark then no amount of marketing spends will help,” explained Screwvala.

Screwvala also touched upon the importance of storytelling when it comes to brand messaging.

“Today, the medium of communication is much more digital and even in digital it is now 70% video and 30% text. One doesn’t have a choice but to lay emphasis on storytelling in such a scenario. Marketing today is about anecdotes. Anecdotes and storytelling help in credibility building in an age where people look for word-of-mouth and reference to context. Storytelling in messaging is an absolute necessity,” said Screwvala.

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