Social Cause Marketing - The Regis Group Inc

INTERVIEW
and more. Society morphs and grows
again. Functional attributes and functional
positioning stances give way to
emotional ones. The tea that gets you
to fall in love? The tea that helps you
work more (the work-mate tea) and
more. Society grows up. Society is
tired of everything else now. Consumers
are matured and are selfactualising.
This is the time for the ësocial
causeí USP to come in. Tata Teaís
Jaago-re campaign fits in here. Tata
Tea is not the only company that has
experimented with this to success.
Lifebuoy has, with its ìLifebuoy
Swasthya Chetanaî and the Lifebuoy
clean up the locality campaign ads. So
has Surf, with its Do bucket paani
bachana hai campaign with Shabana
Azmi in the lead. It sure is cause-related
marketing as well.
Can you give us a few examples of
highly successful global Social-
Cause Marketing initiatives. What
can be the insightful perspectives
for marketers and brand managers
from these initiatives?
Very simply, when you involve society
in your marketing mix, it can be profitable.
Society that is self-actualising
emotes with your brand that much
more, when you support society and
its many causes. This is a terrific way
to make consumer connect happen
through brands.
Are there any Indian brands that
have succeeded in coming up
with social campaigns?
HUL and Tata Tea are leaders in this
space (social campaigns) of socialcause
marketing.
Do you consider social marketing
to be an effective tool in influencing
the buying behavior of the customer?
If it succeeds, what is the
longevity of this marketing approach?
Social marketing can be a single idea or
it can be a cascade of many ideas that are
campaignable. Tata Tea Jaago Re is a
single idea. An idea that attains relevance
during election time in a big way.
This single idea can be used in different
ways altogether. The joy of this idea lies
in the fact that tea is a wake-up stimulant.
The product story can be woven
intrinsically into the campaign with no
disconnect at all. Longevity of such
ideas lies in the creative excellence that
can be achieved through differing and
different campaigns.
Take for instance, the Jaago Re!
campaign, the ad focused on election-related
issues. Would people
still remember the Jaago Re! campaign
even after the elections? Will
this make some kind of impact on
the customers? If the customerís
memory is short-lived, to what extent
can they relate the ads with
Tata Tea? Will this drive the sales
of the brand even after?
Most Cause-Related Marketing (CRM)
campaigns are poor on sale generation.
They do much more than create sale.
They seldom create sales. They help
build a positive brand image. Tata Tea
will need to create separate and disparate
campaigns to create sales. Jaago Re
essentially creates brand salience, and
brand positivity. For sales, you need
Most Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) campaigns are poor on
sale generation. They do much more than create sale. They seldom
create sales. They help build a positive brand image
campaigns that operate at a crass level
of consumption oriented dynamics.
If social branding becomes the
long-term initiative of Tata Tea,
what can be the other socially relevant
themes for the brand?
Would Tata Tea continue coming
up with the same kind of advertising
in the future?
I do believe Tata Tea must lapse into its
standard format of advertising once
again and must not get carried away
by it all too much. It has done an excellent
job with Jaago Re. But the company
must move on. Remember, the
number of customers who sit at the
self-actualisation level in India are a
nano-percentage of the total market.
Time to move on. Move on with campaigns
that will sell more and more tea
once again. The memory of Jaago Re
will be there as a good and positive
stroke for a brand right through. It is
important for the brand management
team of Tata Tea not to get bogged
down by all the accolades all around.
Brand managers need to be realistic
and in sync with ground level needs of
the sales teams.
How do you look at this initiative?
Is this Tata Teaís Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) or just any
other marketing/branding initiative?
I do believe this is Tata Teaís social responsibility
activity that has a brand
piggybacking on it. I do believe it is an
excellent campaign and has created
for the brand and the company a very
positive appeal in the minds of consumers
ñ not only consumers of tea,
but consumers of the democracy that
we live within.
Tata Tea is also a global brand
with significant market shares in
countries like the UK and the US.
In the light of growing cause-related
marketing programs, do you
see any need for the company to
take up such initiatives even at the
global level?
I do think the opportunity lies open in
this realm. There can be campaigns
that talk the green language for instance.
Tea is green and the green
cover it adds to, is a story in itself. The
global opportunity is big, but highly
cluttered as of now.
Tata Tea took up Jaago Re! campaign
after it attained first position
in India in terms of volume.
As such, do you establish any relationship
between brand life
cycle and social-cause marketing?
At what stage of brand life cycle
does it make sense for any company
to come out of its traditional
advertising model (highlighting as
usual the emotional and physical
characteristics of product/brand)
SEPTEMBER 2009
31
EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVE