Neha Kalra
Advertising

Self-Financing Brand Building Workshop: Brands and their 'emotionale'

In a workshop organised by Univbrands in association with afaqs!, Sumit Roy gave participants hands-on experience of how to generate revenue from their investments

For any business, generating revenue from capital or investments is critical for growth. The Self-Financing Brand Building Workshop, organised by Univbrands in association with afaqs!, took participants through an on-the-job experience of doing so. The two-day workshop was held in Delhi and Mumbai on July 17 and 18, respectively.

Self-Financing Brand Building Workshop: Brands and their 'emotionale'
Univbrands usually organises workshops and coaching programmes for specific companies or organisations. This was its first ever 'open' learn-by-earning workshop, which gave participants the opportunity to win back twice their workshop fees. The workshop was conducted by Sumit Roy, founder of Univbrands.

During the workshop, participants were asked to find the best solution for a client's needs. In Delhi, the client was Dainik Jagran; while in Mumbai, it was Six Inches (an advertising and marketing agency). Incidentally, both of these were also the sponsors of their respective workshops.

Self-Financing Brand Building Workshop: Brands and their 'emotionale'
Dainik Jagran, one of India's largest Hindi dailies, is part of the Jagran Group, which is spread across various verticals -- OOH, events, activation, mobile value added services, radio, and internet, apart from print. Jagran Integrated Solutions wants to be seen as an integrated media solutions provider for the Hindi heartland and beyond.

Participants at both the workshops were given a brief about the needs of each client. The team which would find the best solution for the client's needs won the game.

To enable participants to understand the workshop and its purpose better, Roy explained the difference between a product and a brand. While a product has a rationale; a brand has an 'emotionale'. What distinguishes a brand from its competitors is its emotionale.

Roy provided some instances of successful, self-financing brands, including Harley Davidson's jackets, Disney Movies and Disney World and Femina Miss India; and put forth the task for participants at the Delhi workshop.

Self-Financing Brand Building Workshop: Brands and their 'emotionale'
The participants -- comprising people from advertising and marketing -- were divided into four teams, and were urged to come up with ideas spontaneously, without thinking too much. The principle behind this was that no two things are disassociated.

Given that that everything is related to each other, there are product categories that share the same emotionale, target audience and brand personality, with your brand -- these are your competitors, who are the 'friends' of your brand. The teams were asked to list 25 such friends of the brand, Jagran Integrated Solutions.

Participating teams had to get 20 major clients -- those investing above Rs 2 crore -- to use more than two media from the Jagran Group, for a single campaign, in the next two months. The allowable cost per conversion was up to 1 per cent of the budget spent with Jagran Group. Roy clarified that the teams' ideas for this had to be SMART -- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Reviewable and Time-bound.

Talking about the win-win technique, which is a priority in self-financing, Roy stated that the teams were supposed to come up with ideas which would cater to three needs: one, help the friend of the brand win over the target audience (for Jagran Integrated Solutions, the TG is their clients), which includes figuring out the allowable cost per contact/trial/conversion and giving them better value for money; two, use the branding idea to create an event or service that the client would happily pay for; three, create a community that benefits from the 'friends of the brand' because of their large numbers.

The teams were supposed to shortlist the best ideas for the idea evaluator. The ideas would be rated by the participants on the following parameters: meeting the SMART objective (O), building the brand (B) and yielding profits (P). The total score for each idea by a team is determined by multiplying the O, B and P ratings for the idea.

As for Six Inches, the workshop in Mumbai was for one of their clients - MF Global - one of the world's leading broker for exchange-traded Futures and Options and a leading intermediary for other major financial instruments around the world. In the current economic downturn, they have a challenge - how to retain a relationship with the almost 2000 high net worth individuals on their customer database.

The teams in Delhi and Mumbai made their presentations on the days of the workshop, July 17 and July 18, respectively. The winners will be announced in two weeks.

For the record, Univbrands has coached clients in the US, UK, Russia, South Africa, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Singapore and India. Some of the clients in India, for whom Roy has created and implemented customised communication coaching programmes, are Hindustan Lever, Marico and Coca-Cola. Amongst the agencies, he has worked with JWT, Ogilvy, Lowe and Mudra. The brand building communication went online in 1996.

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