D2C brands share marketing tips on personifying brands, creating names that lasts
Marketing experts reveal insider tips for Giva and Akshayakalpa, including fostering community engagement and sustainable initiatives, creating premium lasting products.
When you can describe a company in as much detail as a person and your customers can emotionally connect with the innate qualities of the personified name, that’s when you have a brand, said Giva’s Chief Brand Officer, Resha Jain.
During a panel discussion at YourStory’s Brands of India 2024 event, Jain said that creating a brand is about identifying the company as a person and personifying its existence.
She said this identity is “built by repeating yourself enough number of times in an impactful way that people start relating certain aspects of you and knowing that that is what you are made of.”
Vachana Shetty, Head of Marketing at Akshayakalpa Organics, added that brands must convey their driving ideologies to consumers instead of the product.
She said that Akshayakalpa sees fixing the soil problem and helping farmers earn better as its core purpose; the milk is just the by-product of the exercise. Akshayakalpa sees cows as an integral part of fixing the soil since they create a closed loop by giving nutrients back to the soil through cow dung and protein through milk.
In conversation with Vishnu Chowdhary, who runs a D2C founders community at Simpl, Jain outlined two key things that matter while navigating more stringent marketing budget allocation talks.
She said it is crucial to have clear specific goals and monitor every response extremely closely. She emphasised the importance of being clear on what you plan on achieving from a particular set of tactics and standing steadfast on those expectations instead of constantly changing them.
She highlighted that Giva cracked product opportunities, created premium product fit, and addressed the growing consumer need for semi-premium, affordable, and long-lasting gifting options.
In terms of influencer marketing for Akshayakalpa, Shetty highlighted how the company has been operating on two fronts. From its backend, it has worked on reverse migration for villages across India
The company set up one role model farmer per village across the country who earns Rs 1 lakh per month from farming. She said it is an inspiration for others in the village to not move to cities and pursue professions outside of agriculture.
On the customer front, Shetty cited the brand's popularity to the word-of-mouth publicity, where customers created their own communities focused on consuming sustainable and organic farm products.
She also highlighted the vision of building a brand that lasts.
For instance, the company’s 'Let's Give Back The Milk Pack' recycling programme asks customers to put their used milk packets outside their door for the Akshayakalpa executive to collect every morning when they deliver a new pack.
The company built a sustainable initiative by making reverse logistics feasible. “We could've built it as just an initiative, which would last a certain duration. But no, everything from infrastructure to training has been built for as long as Akshayakalpa will exist,” said Shetty.
Jain said it is on the creators to give priority to the long-term image of the brand rather than short-term incentives, retweets, and initiatives. “I'm not going to do something just for the face value of it because I'm playing a very long game,” she said. As people behind the curtain, it is important to know the brand like a person and what people interacting with that person find captivating about it.
Edited by Suman Singh