2018 At A Glance – A Blue perspective!

Authored by Sanjeev Shukla, Group CMO, Muthoot Pappachan Group

As CMO at Muthoot Pappachan Group, Sanjeev Shukla brings with him over 25 years of experience and has played a key role in the digitalisation and various other initiatives to boost the group’s business. Shukla has held several leadership positions for mandates such as strategic marketing, brand management, marketing and corporate communications, consumer engagement, digital marketing, and consumer engagement.

Year 2018 has been an exciting year from a Marketing perspective. But then, Marketing is always exciting!

But if I were to say, the year saw the Global Godfather of the Marketing World, Sir (sic) Martin Sorrell exit the giant – WPP after an unfortunate turn of events – that he himself created and one of WPP giants – JWT – a 130 year old  Ad agency and one of the biggest in the world simply vanishing from the surface of the earth, indeed was stirring and caught the nation’s attention! Certainly from marketing, particularly, from branding lesson perspective, it’s explicit that while reaching to the top is tough, staying there is just too tough! Imagine being an ace sprinter and then asked to run a marathon and ace that too!

The challenges, many a times are regulatory, but most of the times driven by customers, pushes companies/brands to refresh, reinvent, innovate…simply put, continuously change…and if you are behaving like an Ostrich, market  pulls you down and you become a truly ‘grounded’ (pun intended) brand. The year 2018 saw global giants Visa & Mastercard forced to house the Indian customer data in India itself…with an active customer base of around 4 million and walk-in at  our (#Muthoot Fincorp) branches of 100,000 a day, customer data and its protection is indeed core to CRM practice in Marketing at #MuthootBlue.

Talking about change, even in the every so hyper dynamic world of Digital, a massive change from real-India-so-#MuthootBlue perspective in the year 2018 has been the Indian languages – Vernacular – making Marketers give them centre-stage. Vernacular in Digital, in all facets of Digital, has indeed been one of the key trends this year. Talking of Digital and at a larger level of Tech, the year 2018 also saw launch of Google BOT, Alexa. Apart from the digital-comedy (sic) of the two digital assistants (Siri & Alexa) fighting over their bosses, the tech/digital changes & mainstreaming of stuff launched in earlier years, like OTT/Online media platforms like Hotstar, Netflix, etc. have led to substantial change in media consumption habits, which we marketers must watch out for. Talking about companies/brands having to change to run the marathon and the digital/tech/BOT/AI space, an age-old company which was really grounded, saw its fortunes change with the change that they effected; HMV launched an innovative version of music/content device, Carvaan and look how it’s well & truly flying again!

One of the biggest and tragic event this year was #KeralaFloods. For us at #MuthootBlue, with roots in and headquartered in Kerala, was overwhelming on all fronts. All hands & resources were and are, on the deck for rescue, relief and rehab efforts. At the same time, it provided once in a lifetime lesson in power of people coming together, power of digital, power of emotional connect and so on. Each company and/or brand, worth its salt, contributed some way or the other, notwithstanding their connect or lack of it with Kerala. For marketers, a noteworthy brand-action was Samsonite #KeralaisOpen video…storytelling is not a 2018 phenomenon and the marketing world is flooded with storytelling content, but the 2018 Samsonite video launched post the aftermath of #KerelaFloods, really shook the world up.

From a Marketing perspective, Year 2018 was a milestone year for us #MuthootBlue. We launched unique on-ground engagement brand IP in the form of digitally driven Cricket league for the poor but passionate people, called Muthoot Blue League of Dreams (MBLOD). As part of its Credo of ‘Empowering Human Ambition’, Muthoot Pappachan Group conceptualised & launched MBLOD helping people to play Cricket at the bottom of the pyramid, to play in national level tennis-ball cricket tournament, that too alongside international cricketing legends. Kickstarting its change, in Marketing terms, from Muthoot Pappachan Group to #MuthootBlue with MBLOD, the year 2018 saw the Group also roll out its #BlueSoch campaign with Vidya Balan. The campaign with TV Films inspired by true Group customers’ stories, celebrated #BlueSoch of ordinary people in India, taking the growing trend of storytelling to a different level.

The year 2018, has indeed been an exciting year.

With Exciting phenomena of all types & hue; year 2018 saw Muthoot Pappachan Group, turn Blue!