Mumbai, 10th June, 2024: In today’s fast-paced world, where consumer preferences are continually evolving alongside rapid technological advancements, staying ahead of the curve is paramount for leaders in both FMCG and Technology sectors. As the landscape of consumer behaviour undergoes unprecedented transformation, the challenge for businesses lies in not just keeping up, but also in driving growth and innovation amidst hyper-competition. From leveraging AI to staying abreast of industry developments, let’s uncover the multifaceted approach required to thrive in today’s complex market environments.
Join Vaibhav Rathi, Head of Marketing-Foods, at Marico Ltd, in conversation with Marquis Fernandes, who spearheads the India Business at Quantic India, as they delve into the pivotal role of technology in shaping consumer preferences, driving growth, and fostering innovation, offering insights and strategies from leaders who navigate these dynamic market environments.
Mr. Vaibhav Rathi is a business leader with diverse experience spanning FMCG & Technology sectors. He has rich experiences in FMCG marketing, having led some iconic Indian brands. He is an avid believer of leveraging technology in marketing to bring alive rich consumer experiences, to create an edge for marketing brands.
With your extensive experience across FMCG and Technology sectors, how is technology shaping consumer preferences and how to drive growth and innovation catering to them, in leadership roles?
Consumer today are consuming unprecedented quantum of new data, information, and content which is significantly shaping their wants and preferences. As a result, consumers desire new & better products, faster than ever. FMCGs offer multitude such opportunities for consumers to try new products and thus offers brands in this space a fertile territory to develop innovative offerings, though in a hyper-complex and hyper-competitive environment. In this quest, technology also is a great enabler to unlock higher levels of relevance and agility at every step of the innovation process.
Driving growth and innovation, in such environments, requires a multifaceted approach. Understanding the consumer needs and prevalent trends to craft winning mixes is a key part of the equation. Today, tools and platforms offer a significant amount of data, information, opportunity to shape and stress test the mix across vectors, forming a critical component of innovating in today’s day and age. Collaborating & communicating across stakeholders in such situations is crucial and thus needs focus. Deployment on the other hand is another key component that requires meticulous planning and execution. Not all innovations win in the first shot and thus agility and continuous improvement to better them, in light of consumer and customer feedback, are critical to winning and harnessing technology allows for these.
What strategies or resources do you rely on to stay abreast of the rapid changes and developments in the dynamic marketing industry?
I think there are a plethora of resources, in today’s day and age, to stay abreast of the changes and developments happening within the industry. Consumer outlook itself is changing dynamically, and monitoring trends, feeds from agency partners, publications, social media, expert opinions, networks, and insights from multiple stakeholders form an essential part of staying abreast of the trends. Given the ample sources, the critical aspect is zeroing in on the ones that matters and distilling it down to the actionable ones. Experimenting and innovating with new technology and approaches, gives one a much better chance of understanding and leveraging these dynamics, but the one that tops the chart for me still is knowing, observing, and meeting consumers and customers. That’s where one gets the truest perspective and keeps one grounded to stay agile and adaptive in such dynamic contexts.
How will technologies like AI shape the marketing industry? What are some examples of brands using such technologies.
Technologies like AI are already shaping the marketing industry, and their impact will only continue to grow. While there are multiple aspects to it, the two that I find the most impactful are, first, the ability to zero down significantly complex data, information, and trends to some very simple actionable insights. In the plethora of data and information that exists, this is a big unlock. Second is the ability to take a hyper customised approach to target consumers with improved effectiveness and efficiency. Other important aspect is the scale at which this can be done with AI, which otherwise would have been very time and cost intensive.
Tell us more on how hyper-personalisation through AI will help marketers.
Hyper-personalisation at N=1, is the ultimate form of marketing customization. It obviously improves the impact the stimuli have on the recipient. Some examples include personalised and dynamic website chatbots to enable personalised conversations with consumers, or the shift to conversational search for increased relevance, customised offers etc. Curating content, even videos, at a personalised level is another great opportunity. Consumers find it more engaging consuming such technology led personalised content and brands proactively using such technology to enrich their content and consumer experience are likely to benefit. As AI technologies continue to advance, their role in marketing is likely to become increasingly integral to driving the brands growth and success.
While there are so many advantages of using AI technologies, are there any watchouts too?
While adoption of these technologies allows for differentiation, with more adoption it is going to be table-stakes and thus the need to continually differentiate and intercept consumer attention in newer ways is going to be an ongoing quest. Additionally, as technology led content becomes more frequently relayed and consumed, its critical to be cautious of not losing out on the authentic quotient as a brand.
What advice would you give to aspiring marketers looking to make an impact in competitive and dynamic market environments?
Change is the only constant, and it is happening at a rate faster than ever, at both the consumer and technology end. It presents a great opportunity for businesses and brands to embrace and leverage this to develop an edge in their forays, while being consumer centric.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are solely of the expert and do not reflect the views or opinions of his current or previous employers.
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