Industry heads discuss power of omnichannel experiences

One of the insightful sessions at the recently-held Pitch CMO summit in Bengaluru was one that deliberated on the pertinent topic of “Creating Meaningful Consumer Connections and Delivering Omnichannel Experiences”.

On the panel were Abhinav Vadrevu, Senior Director – Marketing, Rupeek; Ashish Mishra, Executive Vice President - Marketing, ACKO; Kartikeya Bhandari, Chief Marketing Officer, Livspace; P Madhavan, Executive Vice President - Sales and Marketing, TVS Srichakra Limited, and Vanda Ferrao, Head of Marketing, FreshToHome Foods. The session was chaired by Praveen Ramachandra, Head of South India, Kantar.

Ramachandra reflected on how the pandemic and the lockdown had impacted the entire behaviour of the consumer and has forced marketers to adapt to the situation in terms of how they can reach out to the consumers and make it seem like a seamless experience.

The panellists were asked what omnichannel meant to them, and how the pandemic had changed it over the last couple of years.

Mishra shared that as a D2C brand they witnessed a lot of consumers willing to shop and transact online during the pandemic. “We definitely benefitted from the change in behaviour. As an online brand, omnichannel for me is the same experience that the consumer gets when they buy from us. I am setting large expectations when you are buying me and the ease with which we are buying us. I have to deliver the same experience when we come to the offline version. That, for us, is a benchmark to keep track of,” he explained.

However, the first wave of Covid did impact the business, he said, adding that car insurance was not on top of the mind for a lot of people. “But we saw a surge post the first wave. It did affect us but I'm glad to say that the worst is behind us.”

On gold as an asset doing well in tough times, Vadrevu said, “We are also an online-first brand, and I think we found tailwind during the pandemic because gold as an asset tends to do well in tough times. As far as omnichannel is concerned, I think we always wanted to, because gold is so precious for Indian families and has emotional value, to have their gold close to them. So, being a digital-first brand, we had to marry that with being close to them and chose our marketing pipes, the kind of product features we have in terms of fulfilling demand to the customer – all of them had to keep the 'real-resonant-relevant' mantra in mind.”

Ferrao spoke more on omnichannel from the perspective of Fresh To Home. “The textbook definition of omnichannel is the strategy of lead generation and user engagement that a company does for its products and services across platforms and devices and channels. Fresh to Home is the world's largest vertically-integrated meat and seafood company. We reach 180 cities in India and the Middle East and we are in the business of fresh and not frozen. All this is a huge logistics challenge for multiple reasons because meat and seafood come from different coasts – we go to 300 coasts across the country, so imagine the logistics nightmare there. The consumers are also different – a Bengali, A Malyali and Punjabi eats are different. And now there are also the channels which you have to go and fulfill for these consumers. And I think the pandemic has thrown up a lot of interesting opportunities. For us, what really worked was that there was a huge influx of customers coming to us which made us take retail very strongly. We had our website and were available on Dunzo and Swiggy but retail was the biggest foray that we actually had to make.”

Joining the conversation, Bhandari said there was an interesting dichotomy during Covid. “It is a digital-first brand in the sense that it was thought that most of our demand comes through digitally but you have to have a physical presence as well. It is a touch-and-feel business. What was interesting for us was that physical interaction was limited, at least in the initial phases, but because people were spending so much time in their homes, demands were also soaring because people felt the requirement that the homes need to be more than what they were. And I think that realisation helped us from a perspective of people wanting to do more with their homes. In terms of the journey, we are always an omnichannel player.”

Sharing how Livspace fares in the omnichannel space, Madhavan said, “We are in the business of tyres and I take care of the global sales and marketing effort. It is a different category altogether. For us, going with one channel is not an option.

The second challenge is the demographic and diversity we deal with. All of them consume media differently – millennials absolutely shunned TV and they are vaguely aware of print. We need to know who we are talking to, how do we reach them.”

He further said that Covid also impacted the physical channels – the salesmen were not going into the shops and picking up orders. “The retailers did not know how to reach the orders and get them in time. We had started work on introducing a retail application, We thought that since it was not an evolved category, it may not be accepted easily. But in three months' time about 20,000 retailers downloaded it and started placing orders. At the peak of Covid, 20 per cent of my business came from the application. Also, India Inc at that time was also not buying new vehicles – the older ones had to be refurbished, and repaired so we were one of those benefitted when that happened. In every misery, there is an opportunity. We took advantage, we saw a 20-30 per cent increase during that period.”