We have always believed in being a content creator rather than an advertiser: Amul’s Jayen Mehta

In an interview with afaqs!, Jayen Mehta, COO, Amul (GCMMF) he talks about the brand’s intent marketing initiatives, audience’s behaviour and spending pattern, social media marketing, Quora as an advertising platform and more. The interview is part of Marketing Thought Leaders: an afaqs! and Quora For Business initiative to highlight a marketer’s mindset to reach a high-intent audience and the dynamics of consumer behaviour. 

Edited excerpts:

One of the biggest marketing/business goals today is to ‘find buyers who are ready to buy’. What is your thought and strategy to leverage intent marketing?

One of the first products we launched online was Amul Lactose Free Milk on Amazon, and recently we launched Amul Protein Buttermilk and Amul Protein Mango Lassi on our D2C portal. This is a classic case of intent marketing where these products required a dedicated segment of customers. 

We are focussed on building this community by reaching out to them using social media by highlighting the products and its benefits. It was a step-by-step approach to building a community and the early adopters gave us very positive feedback. 

We plan to launch many products and will be leveraging these strategies for customer acquisition. 

Now that the ‘new normal’ trend has settled, what are some of the shifts in spending patterns and consumer behaviour that you have observed with your TG? 

One of the changes we observed is the preference for branded products. Customers have become more conscious of quality products. This has helped us to increase demand for Amul products, especially pouch milk. We also found a demand for products with high protein and since dairy-based proteins are easily digestible, we launched our range of protein-based products. 

Lately, platforms like Quora (for business) have gained traction among marketers for their high-intent audience. What are your thoughts on brands leveraging such new-age platforms?

Quora is a good platform for solving problems or guiding the individual with appropriate information. It will help us in creating a community among these consumers and could be helpful in testing product concepts as well. 

Presently, we are leveraging the platform for consumer queries as it would help the customer to have the right opinion of the brand and it will eventually translate to sales at the point of purchase.

Today digital has become a marketer’s favourite in the media mix. What are your thoughts on social media marketing? How can brands drive maximum ROI? 

At Amul, we have always believed in being a content creator rather than an advertiser. Social media is therefore a good playground for us to create a variety of content from topicals, to live cooking to web series and now reels. 

We have created more than 2 lakh minutes of original content which has millions of views organically and our social media community through 67 social media handles in 10 languages has a combined reach of over 20 lakhs.

Brands can leverage social media by creating engaging content which would be appreciated by their consumers. They need to constantly innovate and challenge new forms of communication. It needs to be done steadily and over a period. This time-tested approach will help any brand.

How can brands take a thought leadership position on Quora to communicate their objective in a more integrated and one-on-one approach?

The approach to be taken should be to clarify the query rather than sound preachy to the customer. Brands must act like an individual today and platforms like Quora have eliminated these barriers which existed until a few years back. Technology has democratised communication and thus acting like a peer who wishes to share their ideas and thoughts would be more acceptable among this generation of consumers.

What are the consumer trends that can impact marketing in 2023?

We believe that a customer is becoming conscious about the product that they consume, from ingredients to packaging and the impact on the environment and society. Our product fulfils this requirement as we are conscious about taking care of all our stakeholders – farmers, consumers and society at large.

Another trend we foresee is demand for fresh products without any adulteration and thus we are investing in building a network of dairies wherein all our fresh products and mithai can be freshly prepared and delivered to our customers in 24 hours.

Lastly, we feel the consumers in rural markets are aspirational for products sold in urban markets and thus we are increasing our presence in every town with a population of 5,000.