Bhubaneswar: Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar’s (XIMB) Media and PR Cell, Illuminatix, organized its annual media conclave ‘Communique’, here on Sunday. The theme of the discussion was “Evolution of Media- The Nexus of Brand Transformation.”
The head of corporate management and communications, L & T, Yuvraj Mehta, senior vice president, Ogilvy, Digvijay Shekhawat, senior creative consultant-IBD and Da Cunhas, Manish Jhaveri, and associate editor of Business Standard Bibhu Ranjan Mishra were speakers of the conclave. Professor of Marketing, XIMB Sandip Anand, was the moderator of the session.
The dignitaries inaugurated the event by lighting the ceremonial lamp. Professor Sandip Anandstarted the session by briefly elucidating on the topic and explained the concepts of Macromedia and Metamedia.
Yuvraj Mehta talked about how social media has revolutionized communication. He cited the example of the ‘MeToo movement’ and how a single tweet through digital media spread like wild fire. Within a fortnight, there were 2.3 million tweets, 24 million facebook posts that spread across 85 countries. He emphasized the fact that had it not been the spread through social media, the movement would have been limited to a particular region only. Further he talked about how brands are increasingly moving towards online marketing as it not only provides better engagement with the customers but also better return on investment. Adidas had a 40% growth in online sales for the first quarter of 2019. The company largely attributed it to the advertising it does on Instagram. Yuvraj also touched upon how marketing is done through personalized communication to maintain customer loyalty.
“For me, the change in media is not evolution but a revolution, where every debater, blogger, influencer now has an opinion.”
Digvijay Shekhawat explained the concepts of Strategic Marketing and Data Driven Marketing as these are the tools being increasingly used by brands nowadays. Using data, brands are moving towards customizing their communications as they realize that the notion of ‘One message fits all’ doesn’t apply anymore. Customization is mandatory. He talked about how brands are specifically targeting their ‘ideal buyer’ rather than selecting a broad market to deliver their message. Brands are building relationships with these ideal buyers through increasingly powerful marketing strategies that foster trust in their product or service. He further gave insights about various marketing campaigns that made an impact through social media like GoPro’s ‘Photo of the Day’, IBM’s ‘Call for Code’ and Volvo’s Superbowl campaign.
Manish Jhaveri drew an analogy between Bob Dylan’s popular song ‘The time they are a-changin’ and how marketers need to change according to the circumstances otherwise they would be left behind. He talked about topicality and witty one-liners, something which is associated with Amul from time immemorial.
“Before Twitter, Amul used to be the twitter with its witty one-liners.”
He further explained a key issue of how governments are using media to communicate with the common public and how it is trying to regulate media.
Bibhu Ranjan Mishra spoke about the rising issues of misinformation on social media. He told that although social media is becoming the preferred medium of communication, traditional mediums cannot be ruled out as they are still known for their authentic content. So, every medium should find its own space.
“As a marketer, it’s up to us, how to use the media and how to identify the right platform for advertising.”
The 4th edition of ‘Communique’ newsletter was released on this occasion. The eminent speakers felicitated the winners of ‘Communiquiz’, a quiz competition organized by Illuminatix in association with XQuizzite. The winners were Sarthak Satapathy, Kaushik Bhattacharjee, Sanat Sarangi, while the first runner’s up team consisted of Sidhant Nayak, Sidharth S Panda, Siddhartha Biswal. The winners of the article writing competition and poster writing competition organized by the team were also awarded at the occasion.
Kriti Sinha, the student coordinator of Illuminatix delivered the vote of thanks.
