Today, consumer connect is the order of the day where brands are constantly redefining their marketing approaches to get closer to their customers. In tune with this, Dabur's brand - Homemade, recently organized a culinary contest for homemakers in Mumbai, where the winners got a chance to win a free trip to the US. During this customer engagement activity, Point-of-Purchase caught up with Nitin Jain, Brand Head - Homemade, who shared his thoughts on the brand's methodology in connecting with customers and its marketing strategy in retail.

Q) To begin with, how do you arrive at a communication strategy for your brands?

For us at Dabur, it is a priority to increase our retail distribution and we are working really hard towards it. We believe that it is coverage and distribution that make our products readily available to more and more consumers. As in FMCG, availability plays a major role, and as far as communication in retail goes, the best way to communicate is through a lot of activations and displays. We also do a lot of contact and engagement at retail.

Q) In retail, how differentiated are your strategies when it comes to General Trade and Modern Trade?

The strategies are different in both general trade and modern trade because of the outlet profile and the visibility that they provide. In modern trade, we lay more emphasis on visibility on the shelf space. In GT we lay emphasis not only on shelf space and visibility but also on getting the product in the right place and catchment area. For example for a product like Hajmola, we will be more interested to keep the product in chemist stores. So we have different strategies for placing products in MT and GT respectively. MT is more like a one-stop shop where we need to place all the products.

Q) Could you elaborate a bit on your in-store communication at retail?

Recently we have seen the emergence of MT, and when it comes to communicating at retail we have to understand that the communication has to go beyond and look at market realities and figure out various scenarios also. For example in MT, the kind of opportunities one gets to communicate through creative marketing is very different from that in GT. A standee or a gondola will work much better in MT than GT. In GT, I will just occupy the shelf space at an eye level rather than being too much in the face.

Q) Could you share with us some of your observations that emerged from the shopper study initiatives you must have undertaken? How often do you commission such studies? Could you also tell us a bit about your own approach to shopper marketing?

We have different categories which need different studies and as far as shopper experience is concerned, say for a brand like Homemade, we find that generally in the MT stores it is the final consumer who comes and takes the product. But in the case of GT, the final consumer might not be the one shopping, it could be her maid. In an MT outlet there is assurance that our creative communication will be seen, but in GT, there is a 50% chance of our brand being seen or not.

Q) How do marketing strategies convert into something tangible for the brand? How do you measure the benefits?

The best part is the distribution and effectiveness of the strategies. We also record the pre and post activation details and compare the outcome.

Q) When it comes to merchandising and activations, who do you partner with for the design and execution?  Have there been any initiatives to put in place some merchandising standards?

We don't have specific partners for designers and merchandising, but do we have a different brand team which decides on the design and executions.

Q) Any other observations you would like to add?

We will be coming up with more contests which will engage with shoppers in future. We have received around 5000 entries for our culinary contest and the response has been heartening. Engagement with shoppers is important for a brand like Homemade as we believe that home makers are the best culinary masters, and our contest is a reflection of that.