I was supposed to write about it earlier. Preoccupations and bad health kept me away!

Day 1

The World Brand Congress 2009 was held at Taj Land’s End, Mumbai on the 4th and 5th of November 2009. Taj Land’s End is strategically located as like most other Taj properties and this one is a beautiful hotel too! The brand Taj Hotels is so old and so unique by itself and it seemed apt to have a branding event here.

The event started with much fanfare with Hemant Sachdev (JMD, Microsoft India) inaugurating it along with Shantanu Bhanja (VP – Marketing, HT), Alok Bharadwaj (SVP, Canon India), Sanjay Behl (Branding & Marketing Head – Reliance Communications). Jody Turner, Founder – Culture of future was also present for the inauguration.

The start of the event was an indicator of the entire two days. Go DIGITAL. With Mr. Hemant Sachdev trying to position the consumer in the center and the different ways to engage him, it was pretty evident that every speaker was going to hit the same road. Hemant’s key message:

Anticipate and Engage. Don’t just fulfill.

Up next was Jody Turner. The speech was less engaging than expected despite being an interesting topic. Trend Spotting. However, there were a few cases presented, which were interesting and new to the predominantly Indian audience. The discussion ended soon with some important takeaways.

• Spot the trend. Keep watching.
• Being ’small’ is more powerful today.
• Corporate Social Responsibility is becoming an important tool to connect with today’s consumer

Prof. David Rogers of Columbia Business School is a vehement promoter of the digital route to create a conversation with the consumer. Clear arguments and simple lucid examples. Proved that the digital wave has already started hitting and also gave 5 strategies to connect with the consumer in the digital world.

• Customers need access – Be accessible
• Need to be Engaged – Be engaging
• Require Customisation – Provide customised information
• Need to be connected – Stay connected
• Customers prefer to collaborate – Provide collaborative platforms

The discussion on ‘Economic Downturn’ was a panel of advertising professionals. K V Sridhar a.k.a ‘Pops’, Aditya Nath Jha of Infosys, Ishan Raina of OOH and Shantanu Bhanja of HT. There were some excellent examples by POPS and Ishan on some fantastic ideas by many marketers on promoting their brand with very little on the expense side. Pretty sad most of them weren’t Indian!

This panel discussion however, can be considered the most important session for one line, which came from an unlikely marketing professional – Aditya Nath Jha 0f Infosys.

Surrender to the customer

I think this was the line of the two days. It sounded like “I’ll be back” by Arnie and very true too! Another pointer that came out was “Go Digital”. I wasn’t surprised!

The second panel discussion didn’t have much to write home about!

Day 2

The first speaker was Alok Bharadwaj of Canon. The topic was “Holistic Brand Management”. Some good examples on how they have approached the brand in India. However, the session was a total sales pitch for Canon with nothing new about it (at least for me).

Harmanjit Singh, GM – Corporate Affairs, Godfrey Philips India spoke about ‘Cause Marketing’. It was particularly interesting since he didn’t stick only to the bravery awards instituted by them, but went on to take other Indian examples like Tata’s Jaagore campaign.

Subhrangshu Neogi of Religare failed to make an engaging case of the brand despite the topic being interesting – Branding redefined in challenging times.

Bill Schley – President & Chief Creative Officer, David ID spoke about ‘Micro Scripts’. Bill reiterated the importance of word of mouth and how micro scripts can help you achieve it. Bill took some western examples to present the case. Interesting. However, one point of intrigue: Dominant Selling Idea – DSI – a term used by Bill was refusing to enter my head. How different is it from Unique Selling Proposition?

Birger Linke of TBWA presented the concept of Disruption. There was very little as words, but filled with examples. I think Birger is a man of few words . All examples however were by TBWA and worthy of applause. I could figure that the Indian Advertising community has copied quite a few from these ideas!

Knowledge sharing sessions = sales pitches. We had country / marketing heads of three Indian channels who presented on how they survived the ‘economic reset’. I particularly liked the 3 minute AV after Shruti Bajpai’s presentation on HBO. Rameet Arora of Colors and Nikhil Madhok of NDTV Imagine promoted their channels.

Abraham Alappat of Future Generali is an old associate. Both of us used to handle MRF. While I was with Lintas (now Lowe), Abraham used to be with Goldwire. I think he is a very sensible speaker. To begin with, there was no presentation. Just a couple of TVCs as examples and he spoke with the help of a cuing sheet. I guess that made it very interesting because what came out of the mouth was what was genuinely felt at heart. What did he leave us with?

Stick to the basics and put the customer first

I tweeted the entire event live (twitter handle @nandaseth). It was fun and I was absolutely impressed with the medium. I was tweeting about Prof. David Rogers (@David_Rogers) on the first day of the event and voila!, he was following me the next day. I now connect with him at my convenience and he responds at his! Awesome how the digital world has actually managed to remove boundaries.

In all I carried mixed feeling about the Brand Congress. I could connect with a few good men and was also able to get a decent understanding of the marketing life to come in near future! And what better way to highlight the importance of the digital world than on a blog or a tweet?

Go world, get online and connect with your consumer or marketer online. Sureshot way to make your life easy!

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