Chennai: The 7th edition of International Brand Summit organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on the theme Building Brands Across Generations here on Friday emphasized the need for brands to reinvent themselves and keep pace with evolving conditions to survive generations.
Standing true to the theme, the two days summit at Chennai witnessed 20+ Brand custodians and marketers from various sectors sharing their stories on successful journey with challenges witnessed during the same.
In his welcome address Srinivasan K Swamy, Chairman, CII International Brand Summit and CMD, RK Swamy BBDO, dwelt at length on the various aspects of building brands across generations by giving examples of how some product majors had reinvented themselves to sustain their image value in the market which had been subject to severe competitions from time to time. He also said that four out of five brands died within five years and wanted the companies to make use of the changing market situations and keep the people connected to their products as brands always outlived generations and remained inherently fragile.
Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, Chairman, CII Southern Region and CMD, Lakshmi Machine Works, outlined the importance of brand image for its incredible valuation and lauded the efforts of the Tamil Nadu government in making use of the wisdom industry bodies like CII in matters relating to the healthy growth of the state economy with a pointed reference to the CII’s Centre of Excellence to improve the prospects of industries across all verticals.
Sharat Verma, Marketing Head – P&G India insisted on the importance of reinventing content and context to remain relevant in the ever-evolving marketplace and also stressed on the need for brands to reimage branding and advertising strategy.
Sanjay Behl, CEO – Lifestyle Business, Raymond Limited took the audience through several phase of evolution of the brand Raymond along with changes and challenges in communication strategy. Revealing Raymond’s future plans of reaching the consumer with advanced technology, he also emphasized that today is an age where the brands to built relationships with the consumers first and convert it into transaction rather than building a relationship after transacting.
The day one of CII Brand Summit 2019 also witnessed an array of knowledge sessions with insights pouring from Sameer Singh – VP – Monetisation (India)ByteDance (TikTok), Neeraj Roy – Founder & CEO, Hungama Digital Media Entertainment.,PrakashBalasubramanian, VP & Global Delivery Head – Cognizant Interactive, B Srinivasan, Managing Director – Vikatan Group, Mayank Bhatt, Business Head-SocialImpresario Entertainment and hospitality Pvt Ltd.
The day ended with a candid talk between Megha Tata, Managing Director-South Asia, Discovery Communications India and actress KajalAgarwal.