'The larger objective now is to convey how a brand looks at a situation like this'

These are tough times for any brand which has had to literally rework their marketing strategies after the onslaught of COVID-19. In our segment ‘Beating All Odds’, we are in conversation with A S Sundaresan, Joint MD and CEO, JSW Paints, who shares with us the struggles of the brand in the past month and a half.  

Many brands at this point are refraining from advertising, but you have launched a campaign called #PlanetHome during the lockdown. What was the thought behind it?

The first thought was to empathize with the entire ecosystem and more so with our consumers, stakeholders, etc who are locked down at home. Our home has now been our planet for the longest time. But it is at such times that each one of us gets the opportunity to understand what is happening and why it is happening around us. Our brand idea was about thinking beautiful and we felt like these times really give an opportunity to each one of us to be absolutely thoughtful at home as well as with our community because that is what can always bring about positivity and bring about the change that we seek between what we currently are and what we seek to be. And that is why we managed to capture a video like this which talks about what is happening outside of our homes and what is happening inside and how little acts of thoughtfulness can really make things better.

The biggest challenge at this point is to complete the purchase cycle. What does a paint brand hope to achieve by releasing a campaign? Is it just a way to keep the engagement going with your consumers?

Everything is completely shut down and in terms of times like these when we sent out a certain communication, the larger objective is to convey how does the brand look at a situation like this, and what it is as a company probably keeping in mind. And we would urge everybody connected with that to keep in mind. So, that’s the idea. It is certainly not done with a very straight objective of will this increase sales. That’s not what it is. It’s more about, how we are looking at this as a brand. That’s the idea behind it.

What has been the biggest lesson that the month-long lockdown has taught you?

The key learning from the lockdown is, I think, the speed and the way the entire ecosystem has responded to a challenge like this which is facing each one of us but it is just not facing us individually but the community and the world at large. And how everybody is aligned and say that is this is the best thing to do. So, I think that is something very good. The way we are able to still stay connected and the ability to communicate even when we all are locked down and at home, I think that’s a great thing. So, which sort of reinforces that like in today’s world if you want to, and with the help of technology, etc., we can actually take things across to a wide set of people fairly quickly rather than having to actually go and stand in front of them, but even without that we can put across a lot of things. I think that would be another key learning in terms of saying that we are all connected, and therefore we all can come together. At the same time we can keep communicating very effectively if we want to. I think that would be the single-most learning which has come out of this.

What kind of consumer patterns are you seeing right now for your brand category?

We have two legs of the business, but the larger part of the paint industry is consumer facing. And therefore to that extent whatever we are reading, and whatever we are sensing as what the consumers will be doing is that initially there is an intuitive feel that there will be some conservation in terms on how consumers will spend, how they would probably cut off discretionary stuff and spending. Therefore, consumption may get affected and this is something most industries are talking about, especially the consumer-facing industries. So, I don’t think we will be any different in terms of that but having said that we also have an alternate perspective when we feel that’s also important from a consumer point of view, which is there is going to be a heightened consciousness about, you know hygiene and how clean are the home and the surroundings. And I believe that is something which will certainly trigger a certain bid of actions for consumers if they’ve been postponing a painting, they would probably take it up and rather get it done live in not so clean surroundings. I think that is something which certainly would happen and we would do anything that is going to be helpful to support that.

And the other thing which we see is in terms of consumers will also be that they will be much more careful about who comes at work at their homes. And therefore to that extent how does this entire ecosystem of people who go and apply, or do the painting job, I think that is something which consumers would be that much more careful about and their expectations probably would go up a bit in terms of how they come and do the job. So, these are two things which one clearly sees as what would be an emerging trend once the market opens.

No brand wants to look like it is trying to exploit the situation and use it to their benefit… What are the big don’ts for you as a brand right now?

The one thing which we should not do is as an industry has been more of a push kind of an industry. You know the companies push, stocks and then stock up the retail and then sell it sometimes, they take 1 to 3 months. We started about a year back. Our approach to the market has been saying in today’s world where everything can be reached very fast and serviced very fast. Our focus has been more on the second. So, as far as the entire retail is concerned, we would continue to do that. We should not do it to go and push too much material than what is required but we should certainly look to service the market very effectively, and very quickly. So, the stocking of the dealer and the retail is not what should be the focus as we go out. But, in terms of how effectively we are able to serve as a market. That is something we should have in focus.

Are you going to move your ad spends on mediums like TV, Print or OOH into digital, or increase your spends on digital in a big way?

Digital has always been the important part of what we’ve been doing. And to the extent that television would probably take time to come back with content because right now I think that is also something which has been severely affected. So, digital will play a much larger role, and we see that going up. We are still in our early stages, the number in terms of how much would be digital but it will be quite significantly enhanced at least in the next quarter or two.

These are testing times for brands as well as consumers. What would your advice to the consumers be?

 First thing, we would urge all our consumers to stay very safe. Be aligned with the way the government is suggesting to take care of themselves and their family, because that’s very important. And as we open up, we would certainly urge them to look at taking care of whatever they can about their home and surroundings in terms of making them stay hygienic, clean so that’s it’s easy to maintain because those are all going to be important. It’s not just the lockdown, I think it’s going to be an extended kind of a fight which is going to be there against this pandemic. So, that’s something which we would encourage them to do.

And like it happens after any such adversity like this, we would certainly look forward to consumers therefore not be wary at holding back on spends but I think we would expect them and we would encourage them to seek how much life can come back to normal, because that’s going to be important not just for us but the industry but I think as an economy because it’s very important rather than to really overcome this thing because certainly there is going to be a huge economic cost not just on the individual families but as well as on the economy. But, the best way is to kept to be more positive, more active, and see what each one can do to really help things bounce back.

So, therefore to that extent we would encourage them to be active, be positive, go, spend and take part in those activities which all become that much more safer as time goes, and let things bounce back to normal as quickly as possible because that is what I think will be good for all of us. And one thing which certainly we would also like to looking to do is to see if we can work with as I only talked about the concern which consumers may have about the applicators. We are going to be working with that set to seek how they can be better prepared so that the consumers are able to take to painting because that happens in the house with lot more care and comfort. So, that’s something which we would also be working very closely with our partners.