The second leg was to read the consumer’s minds. Health conscious, luxury-loving, peaceful yet value-sensitive, topped with a high affinity for quality, meant that product positioning had to be spot on. Discounts and margins play a humongous role in purchases in Sri Lanka, yet, if a product is inexpensive it is assumed to be inferior. Celebrities are not ‘celebrated’ as much as in India and digital presence is limited primarily to Facebook. Add to that, myriad Government regulations on promotions that made life tougher than ever for marketers. With communication priorities, regulations and brand objectives in place, I went on to set forth strategies for a revamped communication plan. The most challenging consumers were those who actually preferred getting bitten rather than suffering from the harms of a repellent!
I also got the opportunity to work closely with 3 top media and creative agencies, spending hours in comic-book themed ‘thinking rooms’ and ‘design studios’ where being crazy and out-of-the-box was the very Job Description!
However, on a personal level, there was a lot of adjustment required. With shops closing down at 8 pm, ‘compensatory holidays’ when Government holidays fall on weekends, every mid-week holiday translating to a week of inaction and an uber-strong affinity for rice in every meal, it was challenging to prevent procrastination. It really is challenging to devise path-breaking business level strategies in a beach-facing bungalow with beautiful sunsets and the aroma of fresh sea food tingling your senses.
With a new distribution strategy, a nation-wide BTL activation campaign backed by PoSM and digital media, and a detailed short-term and long-term marketing strategy, my project came to a conclusive end by winning the Best Project award among 44 interns nation-wide. Brand management, a great mentor, great peers, a great company and of course exotic weekend getaways in Sri Lanka, that is all I could have asked for, and got, from my summer internship.
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This article has been authored by Abhirup Lahiri, student of MBA (IB) 2015-17 batch at Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (I.I.F.T.) Delhi.
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