Marketing ShOTTs with Ashok Jaiswar, VP & Head – Marketing & Communications at Finolex Industries Ltd

Marketing ShOTTs – a platform for CMOs and industry thought-leaders to gather and share insights, tips, and trends from the world of advertising that fuel marketing strategies for top brands.

In this edition, Ashok Jaiswar, VP & Head – Marketing & Communications at Finolex Industries Ltd, talks about their brand strategy, throws light on the association with Bigg Boss Telugu, Bigg Boss Tamil, and more.

Being a low-involvement category product, what’s your strategy to achieve top-of-mind recall?

There is a general assumption that pipes and fittings are a low-involvement category since the focus is much on exteriors and cosmetic aspects of the home. However, contrary to that, a single leakage can affect the exteriors and be a hefty expense.

We feel responsible for customers who install our pipes and take great pride in its durability and  top notch quality. We have been delivering this performance consistently since the last 41 years and have created a legacy of long lasting trust and bond with millions of customers. Our customers swear by the product and its usage across multiple applications.

Our overall campaign approach has been to educate buyers about brand strengths & long-lasting products, pipes that last for generations, and pipes that stand the test of time in the minds of our customers. This facet has been used to communicate consistently across multiple touch points, build salience & boost recall.

Your campaign ‘Ek baar lagwayyie, aur hamara naam bhool jaiyye’ is quite bold. What is the thought behind this witty tagline? 

The insight that we deliver a superior quality product, which lasts for years, gave birth to this tagline. While it is a bold stance for a brand to take, we are happy that we can take this stand because of our confidence in Finolex Pipes’ quality & durability. We have withstood this promise for the last several years wherein our consumers mention Finolex pipes, “once fitted, these pipes last for a very long time.”

Our tagline – ‘Ek baar lagwayyie, aur hamara naam bhool jaiyye’ stems from this core strength of reliability, assurance & trust gained from millions of end users- farmers, plumbers, contractors and homeowners.

What according to you is the perfect media mix for building awareness in your category? What makes OTT an integral part of it?

To generate the right kind of awareness and connect with our key stakeholders, we leverage phygital, which is physical and digital. This is not just a buzzword but a current reality. A good mix of both ensures that we reach our audiences at every touchpoint, be it television, social media, and now increasingly on OTT. The improved penetration of smartphones and region-specific content creation has widened the avenue for us. People watch content not just out of interest but also to unwind, and the availability of this content on the go has led to prime-time entertainment moving to OTT.  There is massive potential for audience targetting on OTT, which makes it an important medium in our mix. The capability of OTT to enable region-specific targetting is unmatched, and if leveraged accurately, the outcomes are bound to be favourable. 

Can you throw some light on narrowing down on Bigg Boss Telugu and Bigg Boss Tamil on Disney+ Hotstar for your brand building efforts?

We want to be present where our audiences are. Hence, going regional and advertising on vernacular content is a  great prospect for us. Going rurban is the new trend, which means having an equally significant presence in rural areas as urban and vice versa. The South market, especially Hyderabad and Andhra Pradesh, is a fairly large market and key to us. Our selection of targeting viewers on Bigg Boss Telugu and Bigg Boss Tamil is in harmony with our strategy to build brand affinity and top-of-mind-recall within these markets. They are amongst the top entertainers in their respective regions. The host of Bigg Boss Telugu, Nagarjuna and Bigg Boss Tamil host, Kamal Haasan, are popular voices in these regions and have a tremendous fan following. The show is deeply penetrated, has a wide audience reach, and since it’s a family entertainer, there is likeability for the show amongst a wide age group. We wanted to best leverage this to build favourability in these markets. 

How would you evaluate the success of your campaign and partnership with Disney+ Hotstar?

Even as the shows are ongoing, we have been hearing positive feedback about our presence on both – Bigg Boss Tamil and Bigg Boss Telugu from both our internal sales team and our external network of dealers, retailers. Our key stakeholders have noticed the brand’s mentions on the shows and have been sharing raving reviews. We recently did a mid-campaign check with them and gauged that our integrations on the show have effectively created awareness about the product and our proposition of being the most reliable and durable pipes and fittings brand.