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Social media has the power to change things - be it products or governments of nations, Bula tells Abhilasha Ojha
There is a shift in how brands are now communicating with the consumers given the emphasis on digital media. How do you view the change?
Companies have moved from brand advertising to brand communication to brand conversation, finally allowing the consumer to converse directly with the brand. So, yes, 'digital' is changing the way people converse, both at the social and economic levels. Moreover, their relationship with brands is changing because people love brands and they want to know what the brands are doing. These are consumers who want to be in touch with the products and offerings directly. The time has come for brands to innovate in terms of digital tools that allow them to engage with consumers, respond with speed while also showing empathy with them so as to transform new business relationships with consumers.
Digital is the way to manage the brands in the future. The relationship, brand conversation through the digital media, is so powerful that it has an impact, even before print or television advertising happens. Clearly, then, the shift of resources is taking place from traditional media to digital.
We now have a digital acceleration programme in place for the Indian market at Nestlé. In fact, India is the first market to have such a programme in place. We will follow up with other markets such as Italy and China soon. By having something like this we are embracing brand 'conversation' especially because consumers today want answers from their favourite brands in a speedy, transparent way.
But isn't there way too much clutter in the space of 'conversation with the consumer'? How can brands filter out what is unnecessary?
There's a true revolution in marketing today. Social media has the power to change things - be it products or governments of nations. Tools like Facebook, Twitter are powerful enablers of communication. Some months ago, a consumer in the UK put up a simple conversation on a social media webpage of how his Nespresso capsule was over. In 20 minutes, he was delivered the coffee capsule and in no time, it became a story of how a brand had responded to its consumer.
Brands have to manage and constantly be alert because not acting on the wishes of the consumers can backfire. I always tell marketers to embrace this 'revolution' with positivity. Yes, there is a lot of clutter and given that there are one billion 'tweets' every minute, the amount of conversation taking place in the world can baffle anyone. The investments for brands now will have to be on tools that can gauge the level of communication that consumers have with brands. Through our digital acceleration centre, we have done just that.
Having said that, it must be remembered that brands cannot stop conversation, especially given that consumers are constantly challenging brands. When that happens, brands have to maintain and continue the conversation: they cannot afford to shut out the consumer. Brands have to show attitude, empathy, transparency towards the consumers.
With brands moving rapidly in the direction of having a conversation with consumers in digital media, is there the danger of forgetting the basics of communication, of understanding the consumers first because they are not always clear about what they want?
While it is very essential to move with the changing times in marketing, brands must remember that while they understand the consumers, they must also be willing to lead them with courage and patience. That is something that should never change. Brands have life; they mature with changing times. No one taught us to put coffee in a capsule (Nespresso) but we ensured we not just listened to the consumer and what she wanted but also led her to enjoy the same coffee given to her in a capsule.
While the emphasis is always on communicating with consumers, another basic lesson is to hear out your people and employees on the ground in a way that they don't feel victimised by 'strategic' decisions taken at the headquarters.
How can market leaders gauge whether their strategies are succeeding or not? What are the checks and balances they can put in place so that they can identify mistakes early on?
Companies always need curious people, those who will understand the property and help in 'gap creation'. So when you, as a market leader, run ahead, it's important to know how much gap you're continuously creating with the one who is second. That gap, and hence, the gap creation, is imperative. Remember, when you are a leader, you don't benchmark, you 'bench create'. Innovations, cross-fertilisation of ideas, learnings, it all comes from creating innovative, thoughtful strategies in not just marketing but other sections of the companies as well.
There is a time for strategy and then there is time for execution. Plan the work and work the plan. You cannot build a strategy (marketing or otherwise) and say six months later, 'forget that, we now have a new strategy in place.' No, that cannot work, certainly not for big markets like India, which require consistency and conviction. At Nestlé, for instance, we review product strategy every three years.
We speak of marketing tactics to get products noticed. We speak of companies thinking of unique digital marketing ways in developing brands. But in one stroke, rivals can copy ideas and the whole thing can backfire. Nestlé's Nespresso capsules, for instance, have been copied by rivals after its patent ended last year. How can brands tackle this basic issue?
Patenting is integral to a successful brand strategy. I'll speak about Nestlé, which invests a lot of money in research and development, and is a leading company in understanding nutrition. When we began Nespresso, it was a small company, it grew gradually and in the last few years, it has taught consumers to have premium quality coffee in a capsule. We have managed to keep the quality, even managed 80 per cent of recycling with each capsule, in the last few years, as a result of having kept its proprietary formulation intact for the last two decades. In a way, Nespresso has been the ultimate in intellectual protection for us.
When we have breakthroughs, we always try and build the intellectual property around the system. Patenting is important for brands because everything, the colour, design, the look of the packet, everything defines that brand and its product offerings. The colour yellow, for instance, is 'protectable' in a lot of countries for Nestlé because if you see a yellow coloured packet of noodles at a shelf in a grocery store, your first reaction will be, 'this is Maggi'. The shape of the Nespresso capsule, which boasts of premium coffee that is sourced from just two per cent of the world crop, is protected. For companies that invest millions of dollars in technology and visual equity, patenting becomes immensely critical.
Digital innovations at Nestlé
- In 2011, Nestlé added "3D augmented reality" to over 26 million of its cereal boxes in 53 countries for Twentieth Century Fox's animated film Rio.
- Ahead of Felix Baumgartner's record breaking skydive, Nestlé launched a Kit Kat chocolate packet into space. Its ascent and descent was filmed and put on social networking sites.
- Nestlé, which sells 1.2 billion items worldwide daily, runs more than 600 Facebook pages. Many of its brands have their own Twitter feeds and YouTube channels.
- India is the first market to have Nestlé "digital acceleration programme" after the initiative kicked off last year at Nestlé's head office.
- Nestlé introduced quick response (QR) codes on some of its products to inform consumers about the nutritional profile.
