BRANDING & CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR:

Vani Gupta, Founder CherryPeachPlum Growth Partners.

Ex Pepsi, Unilever, Reckitt
How are iconic brands built? What gets them there and how they stay there. How smart
marketers influence consumer behaviour to make their brands even stronger. And get
more business.

Session 1: What is the value of a strong brand?

• Brand vs Commodity
• Implications beyond ‘worth paying more for’
• How to create a brand positioning statement and brand identity model.
Guest Speakers:
• Sapna Chaddha – Google, Global CMO (what goes into the making of Brand Google)
• Manish Jhaveri/ Jayant Rane – Amul DaCunha agency creative team
• Siddhartha Lal – M D Royal Enfield

Session 2: The Psychology of Consumer Behaviour

• How psychology directly impacts consumer behaviour
• Models of buying cycles and the role of psychology at every step
• High involvement vs low involvement
• How we shop
• Value of rituals (explain behaviour changing attitude rather than the other way
around)
• How tough times change what we do, and what can brands do to stay relevant
• Rational vs irrational decisions
Guest Speakers:
• Atul Sinha –CMO Caratlane (how do we buy jewellery + how Caratlane applied consumer psychology to change
behaviour towards buying big ticket jewellery online!)
• Pawan Sarda – Why Big Bazaar stacks its summer shirts next onions
Suggested Reading:
• Decisive Moment – Jonah Lehrer
• Predictably Irrational – Dan Airely

Session 3: Fundamentals of Advertising

• What’s a good ad? (examples of good and bad ads)
• What is the value of a good ad brief and how to write one (will take them through
the template and what they must necessarily think about)
• What is a consumer insight (examples of great brands built on strong and specific
consumer insights)
• How communication assets should be treated differently for different media
• The growing importance of visual communication
• The value of consistency in building strong brands (codes that stay unchanged
even while brand managers come and go)
Guest Speakers:
• Bobby Pawar – Chairman and Chief Creative Officer Havas
 • Subhash Kamath – President BBH
• Piyush Pandey – O&M/ else Kunal Jeswani
• Santosh Desai/ Jeetu Dabas/ Gaurav Mehta

Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani Podcast episodes ( Why Nike doesn’t do funny shit/ value of a brand book)
Watch: Panel discussion excerpts on my YT Channel –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPJf797JlJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf18Vf95pvw&t=10s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9cwWDdm19c

Session 4: How do I pick the right celebrity for my brand?

• Checklist to pick
• When should one consider a celeb and when not
• Cases of great use of a celeb
• Cases of not-so-great use of a celeb
• What happens when a celeb fails the brand – case studies
• Value of a mascot in this context (Bira/ Chester Cheetah/ Zoo Zoos/ Ronald
McDonald)
• Brands that have never used a celeb - surf, dove, tide, whisper, ariel
Group work:
• We pick 5 brands that today do not use celeb endorsement – if we had to pick one, who? And why?
Guest speakers:
• Dhruv Chitgopekar – Collective (earlier Kwaan)
• CMO from Unilever / Reckitt on how they pick a celeb (Dilen Gandhi/ Sudhir Sitapathy/ Rajeev John)

Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani Podcast episodes (Why signing up a celeb is always a good idea and why it isn’t)

Session 5: Why is Influencer Marketing so big today?

• What is it? Why it matters (because people believe celebs lesser than before + two
way .. and more…)
• The making of an influencer
• Using IM correctly (for reach vs purchase), picking the right Influencer
• How do you issue brand guidelines to make videos that are consonant with your
brand grammar?
• Why did ASCI issue guidelines on IM and what are they?
• Examples of brands created primarily on IM (country delight, Sugar, .. )
• Social commerce – why is it growing so rapidly in India and how it works
Individual work:
• Which one do you follow?
• Any one or two videos you really like of theirs?
• Brand adopted / tried after seeing a reco
Guest speakers:
• Manisha Kapoor – President ASCI
• Dhruv Rathee / Prajakta Kohli - influencer
• Shankar Prasad – founder Plum, uses several skin influencers
• One Plus CMO – was launched by influencers only!
• Founder BulBul/ Meesho/ Josh
Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani Podcast episode (Decoding ASCI guidelines for Influencer Marketing)

Mid Term Assessment:

Pick any one brand you love. Break it down to decode why you love it as much.
• Why does this brand have your love when there are other similar offerings? How
often do you switch / flirt with competing brands and why?
• Is this a high involvement or a low involvement purchase for you? Explain
• Do you make rational or irrational decisions in buying products from this brand
stable?
• Is the advtg good / bad/ ugly? Why? What’s stayed constant? What is the
consumer insight it leverages?
• Has it used a celebrity? Is that the right choice? Why? If not, who could their celeb
be, and why? If they don’t need one, explain your POV w.r.t the same.
• Do they use Influencer Marketing? How? What videos would you like to share as a
great example.

Session 6: MUST STUDY case studies

• Kurkure - me
• Maggi – Sangita Talwar
• Harpic
• Pepsi vs Coke vs Thums Up
• Santoor vs Mysore Sandal – Ambi Parmeswaran
• Whirlpool
• Maruti
• Naukri – Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Study from the lens of:
• Why is each a strong brand (do a live word cloud in class)
• What’s remained consistent
• What would this brand never do?

Session 7: Brand bullying and trolls in the age of social media and controversy
junkies
6 case studies that recently kicked up a storm – what would you do as brand custodian?
Mix of digital and traditional brands (think)
Discussion points:
• Should brands have a Point of View or not? Stick to product advertising?
• How should brands navigate the storm
• Impact on equity and business in the short term and the long term

Guest speakers: ad agency heads will be easier.

• Tanishq – CMO
• Fab India - CMO
Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani – panel discussion on the same topic, uploaded on my channel

Session 8: Think like a Challenger. Or die!

 • Why is it necessary to think like a challenger
• What are the 7 principles of creating a challenger brand
• The many small things you can do to challenge / disrupt
• Classic case studies: Fogg vs Axe; 7Up&Sprite vs Colas; PayTM vs Other money
Group work as HW: If you have to launch a brand of your own (choose any category) what would you do differently?
Guest speakers:
• Aman Gupta – Boat
• Vinita – Sugar
• Piyush – lenskart (Aditya Ghosh knows him)
• The making of the Bira monkey – the founder (Priyank will help)
• One Plus CMO / Xiomi Manu Sharma – how they carved their own niche
• PayTM founder – vijay shekhar sharma

Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani Podcast episodes – 2 episodes on challenger mktg

Session 9: How to sell to Bharat (vs India)?

• How is the consumer different?
• What should brands do differently?
• Communication and product mix may be different for different regions/ states
• 3 case studies – Lifebuoy, Life insurance, Horlicks, Contraception

Guest speakers:
• Vinay Singhal – Founder, Stage
• One influencer who is big on Josh / Taka tak (can we ask Anurag Batra to help)
• Unilever – the architect of the Shakti amma – Vijay Sharma

Suggested Listening: Marketing With Vani Podcast episode on How to sell to Bharat

Session 10: Creating new habits or new categories

• How do you create new categories – start with the consumer pain point (as always!)
• Veet launch case study
• Why food is most difficult – Quaker favoured oats makes headway, but Kelloggs
cornflakes is still struggling despite years and years of consistent spends
• DeBeers created the diamond category in India – a country obsessed with gold
• How Amazon changed the way we shop

Guest speakers:
• Sumit Mathur – CMO kelloggs
• Bhaskar – Google / YT (how access to internet in remote villages changed how they work/ study/ do business /
entertain themselves… and how content creators and brands fuelled that change)

Session 11: Creating your own personal brand

• Why is it important
• People who are big strong brands today
• How do you create one
• Write a twitter description for the brand you
• What is the one thing you’d like to stand out for?

Guest speakers:
 • Ankur Warikoo
• Shiv – ex pepsi

Optional Session: Purpose Marketing – does every brand need a purpose?

• What is the new ‘buzz and fancy’ around this term?
• When does it work, and when not
• Case studies of brands that got it right and brands that didn’t

End Term Assessment:

Pick any one of the categories listed below. Launch your own brand in that category.
Create the product mix, the brand proposition, the communication plan. Extra marks for
creativity and resourcefulness….
• Skin care
• Colour cosmetics
• Electric scooter
• Lingerie
• Sleepwear
• Bakery
• Mobile phones
• Ice cream
• Rum
• Ecommerce platform – an alternative to Amazon/ flipkart
• Home appliances
• OTT platform
• Pick any not here…. (joker card)