Due to increasing tussle between the companies, marketing communications have become important even for commodities. Effective message delivery helps a brand distinguish itself.
Messages in Effective Marketing Communications
Most of the companies are still promoting themselves basis their superiority in the fundamental attributes of the commodity. But a few companies have taken the lead and come out of the clutter. Some of the impactful communications recently are hinged on technology/ quality, environment-friendliness or customer-service. Companies have adopted innovative ways to drive home their USP. Ambuja Cement using heavyweight Khali to show that houses built with its brand have good strength became an online craze.
A lot of companies also use communications centred around happy family, value for money, legacy and scale of operations, etc. However, very few communications leave any recall in the consumers’ mind. But at the same time, it is getting more difficult to drive home the point of uniqueness with these approaches. A very recent trend has been commodity companies talking about aesthetic beauty. For example, Solid HD+ cement is harping on High Designability as one of its two USPs, the other being High Durability. Ultratech Cement is promoting its brand through its Build Beautiful campaign.
Objectives of MarComm
Marketing communications should achieve two objectives. First objective is to tell the target audience what are the benefits of using the product. Second objective is to communicate how is the product unique from the competitors.
MarComm is not restricted to churning out product literature only in the form of brochures/ leaflets/ in-shop posters, TV/ radio commercials, sign boards/ hoarding/ OOH media advertisements, etc. Marketing Communications also include using innovative ways of sampling, product packaging, social media advertisements, email marketing content and CSR initiatives to drive home the point.
A glass company wanted to communicate that its glass sheets are actually of the thickness as promised in the specifications against the non-compliant ones by its competitors. So, it distributed a small U-shaped tool to all its retailers to measure the thickness of a set of 5 or 10 glass sheets. This helped the retailers in demonstration in front of the end consumers. Several cement companies have mobile technical labs or toll-free customer care numbers. They make it a point to advertise about these customer services.
Having realized the importance of each of the elements for promotion like advertisement, targeted marketing, customer meetings, wholesaler meetings, etc., the companies are adopting Integrated Marketing Communications for branding their products. Companies use TV commercials, newspaper advertisements, radio jingles, brochures, leaflets, outdoor displays, retail shop branding, etc. to communicate their USPs. Previously each medium was treated as a silo. Different message was coming from each medium as there was no Centralized or Integrated planning. But now trends have changed. It is Marketing Communications department (MarComm) responsibility to achieve coherence in all the communication campaigns.
A commodity brand might have been introduced at a certain price in the market but if the communications strategy is not aligned with the marketing objective, the desired positioning in the market cannot be achieved. Also, proper market research has to drive the marketing communications planning. Research will let us understand what the consumer desires. As a result, commodity companies are using market survey companies now-a-days before embarking on a new marketing campaign.