Brands must adapt to consumers' relationships with new mediums to stay relevant: RSH Global's Poulomi Roy

Understanding consumers' evolving relationship with new mediums is vital for brands to stay relevant and connected with their audience, according to Poulomi Roy, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of RSH Global. 

With the digital transition in full swing, consumers' behaviour towards various social media platforms becomes a key consideration for marketers, she stated. Roy also discussed how hyper-fragmentation of media poses a challenge to marketers and instant ROI business is also becoming a matter of concern.

It’s important for brands to understand consumers’ relationship with new mediums

“It is very important for a brand to understand the consumer and the way the consumer is interacting with the new mediums. The digital transition is happening in India, everybody has a smartphone, 4G connection and social media. Now, the question is that my target group might have different behaviour towards choosing what kind of social media they are interacting with. As years pass, there will be more than one platform or medium. Other than demographically identifying the consumers, it is important that we start looking at consumers from a psychographic point of view and try to understand the relationship of our consumer with the new platform or emergence of various new platforms,” Roy said. 

Furthermore, she went on to say that once there is a constant understanding as a marketer about this, it is not difficult to stay relevant and connected with the audience. 

However, she also cautioned by saying, “We have to make a judicious call when we have to make a lot of choices. There will be situations where we will have to sit down and see cost, relationships, what is the ROI and how it pans into the larger scheme of my business plans. So, understanding the relationship of my identified consumers with the emergence of the new mediums will help me take a constructive call.” 

RSH Global does not incorporate things because they are trending, but it focuses on getting involved in only those factors which are relevant, Roy stated. 

She said that RSH Global has three brands - Karis, Joy and X-Men. Joy is synonymous with RSH Global and that is the biggest brand under it.

“There are many products under Joy and some categories where we hold good market share. These include the moisturisation and face wash categories. One of the key reasons behind having a good market share is that we have been extremely consistent with the quality of our products.”

Furthermore, she added that “In the regional markets, we have a stronghold in Maharashtra and Bengal and Hindi Speaking Markets have been our forte. HSM remains one of the biggest contributors to our business.” 

While discussing how she stays updated with the latest trends in the digital landscape, Roy said, “I don't make conscious efforts to learn about trends but I read everything under the sun and I do my bit of learning. Since there is a limitation in the number of people you meet every day, reading becomes the next best option. The difference in the way I approach reading and knowing about things is that I just don't read to gain knowledge and apply it in conversations, I read what is relevant.”

Hyper-fragmentation of media is becoming challenging for marketers

While speaking about the biggest challenges that marketers face in achieving their marketing objectives within their budget, Roy said that hyper-fragmentation of media is increasingly becoming complex. Another point that is often concerning is the instant ROI business. 

“Most of the time I keep hearing that every campaign should have an immediate ROI. Especially with the advent of digital mediums, words like performance marketing, immediate ROI and immediate gratification are something that marketers are constantly hearing,” Roy stated. 

“In the FMCG world, when we do advertising and marketing for a facewash worth Rs 50, we have a longer objective in mind because we are sensible about the fact that just by seeing an advertisement on TV, people do not run to the shop to buy the facewash. Rather, it is a constant effort from the end of marketing and sales teams that their product stays on top of consumers’ minds. Another important aspect is that the sales channel is making the product available to the consumers. The bigger challenge that we have as marketers is to keep talking to ourselves and ensuring that every campaign should have a defined objective which can be immediate, mid-term or long-term,” she added. 

The increasing number of channels is becoming a challenge for marketers because of the fragmentation of channels and mediums, Roy stated.

On how she deals with the same, Roy said, “We look at it from a very simple perspective. Firstly, I try to understand the consumers, what is their behaviour towards that medium and how much time and energy are they spending with that particular medium currently. Secondly, we may also look at what kind of medium the brand needs and at what stage the brand stand. The third factor is also something called ‘the medium is the message’, a theory by a Canadian professor.” 

Furthermore, she went on to add that sometimes it becomes important when there is a particular message that the brand wants to take forward and it requires a certain medium for it to achieve its purpose. 

Roy also said that digital platforms use TV to announce their arrival and TV uses Print to announce its effectiveness. So, the mediums are all interdependent. 

“For us, Print is used if there is a call-to-action kind of strategy. Slowly and steadily, it has diminished because we don't have a lot of call-to-action activities currently. Digital and print can combine in campaigns. However, print as a medium has shrunk a lot for us in this current situation where we have limited budgets.

RSH Global sets itself apart by offering quality products at affordable prices

Talking about what makes RSH Global stand out amongst the competition in the country, Roy said, “We have been consistent in terms of our product offering, quality, brand voice and reaching out to our target audience. We believe if we have to sustain for a longer time in the world of skincare, we need to have a purpose and we also need to deliver functional as well as emotional things to our consumers. That doesn't happen in one campaign so it is a constant effort.”

“So, RSH Global as an organisation has a purpose which is that we believe we can make quality products at affordable prices. That is how we are different from our counterparts. Also, we are the manufacturers of our own products which helps us make the best quality products. Every product of ours does claim certain functional benefits and we do deliver that,” she added. 

Beyond that, RSH Global’s brand Joy has a space of its own called 'Beautiful by Nature', wherein the company believes that every woman is born beautiful, she stated. Roy also said that the campaigns done by the company over the years have led to an uptick in sales, which is a big parameter to judge if they are working in the right direction.

“We have an objective for every campaign that we set up and we do it with utmost clarity. If it's a TV campaign we definitely look at the kind of GRP or TVR it has garnered. So, by defining an objective for every campaign we set up metrics through which we see if we have reached out to the consumers. Additionally, we have been growing year-on-year and that is the biggest yardstick to show that we are moving towards a positive direction,” Roy said.

Discussing a challenge that the FMCG sector is facing, Roy said that in the skincare segment, one of the problems is many new-age products being available on e-commerce platforms where their primary focus is to sell through the same or aggregated platforms.

Furthermore, she said that a lot of claims that products make are not good for society and human beings at large. So, it is extremely important for brands to talk about the right kinds of products. 

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