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Time for the CEO's pitch

The CEO should actively participate in a company's advertising campaign. Here's why

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Rohit Nautiyal
Last Updated : Feb 17 2014 | 12:09 AM IST
Should CEOs cultivate the kind of celebrity that Apple's Steve Jobs had and Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg now commands? Studies by television analytics firm AceMetrix have established that ad campaigns featuring CEOs outperform any other run-of-the-mill campaign with pop celebrities and leggy models.

Paradoxically, in the history of business you will find only a handful of CEOs coming forward to tell consumers why they should buy into their companies' products or services. In their latest book The Human Brand authors Chris Malone and Susan T. Fiske say that "CEOs enter the limelight only when forced by disaster or threat of disaster. That's when, under the stress of fluid circumstances, poor phrasing can become almost as big a problem as the problem itself... Conventional wisdom in corporate communication says that top leaders should be kept away from public view because the risk is too great that they will embarrass themselves and the company".

Well, your CEO better be your best brand ambassador or you cannot expect your employees to be so and taking a stand is usually better than not taking one. Companies across the globe that have taken these principles seriously have stood to gain.

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Closer home, leaders of big ticket categories like IT, FMCG, automobiles and consumer durables can learn a lesson or two from Dharampal Gulati, the 90 year-old spice maker from Delhi who turned his roadside shop into MDH Spices. Gulati who came to Delhi in 1947 in search of work after migrating from Sialkot, now in Pakistan, understands the importance of pitching his own brand better many B-school graduates. There are two fixed elements of every commercial of MDH Spices. All of them celebrate the culture of India and feature Gulati by rule. Initially when he appeared in the TVCs, the consumers were curious to know more about this exuberant old man. 2011 onwards almost every media outlet in the country was talking about the man whose spices now have a permanent space in the kitchen shelves. Interestingly, every pack of MDH Spices sold carries a picture of Mahashay Ji (a moniker showing fondness). By doing all this, Gulati has brought trust and credibility to his brand.

Cut to 2013-14. As Tata Motors' Nano began to show no signs of living up to its initial promise, Ratan Tata, former chairman and now chairman emeritus of the Tata Group, admits before a gathering of journalists that marketing Nano as the 'cheapest car' was a mistake. Now imagine if this confession was not made at a press conference and used as a candid confession captured for the relaunch campaign of Nano. Such a communication strategy is worth a shot because today consumer's expectations to know the people behind companies and brands are skyrocketing.

This strategy works. For proof check out Domino's ''Pizza Turnaround'' campaign of 2009-10. Stung by a public relations nightmare, when two employees from a North Carolina Domino's Pizza franchise posted several gross videos on YouTube in 2009, the pizza giant first responded with a two-minute apology video from Domino's US President Patrick Doyle and posted it where the whole thing started - on YouTube.

Eight months later, the pizza maker released a campaign titled Pizza Turnaround created by Crispin, Porter + Bogusky. In the four-minute documentary-style YouTube footage, Doyle told viewers the company has listened to its harshest critics and and launched a completely revamped pizza, with new recipes for both its sauce and dough. "The pizza is a response to the "Domino's 'haters' of the world, who don't hesitate to bash us on blogs and in social media sites everywhere," Doyle said. According to an estimate by Forbes magazine, Domino's spent about $75 million on developing and marketing the new pizza.

Did it work? Domino's became the first pizza delivery company to win back-to-back Chain of the Year honours from Pizza Today magazine and the campaign was nominated for the prestigious Cannes Lion award. Better still, Domino's sales shot up 14 per cent in the first quarter of the campaign and US stock prices jumped over 50 per cent in in the months that followed the campaign launch.

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First Published: Feb 17 2014 | 12:09 AM IST

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