One morning, my daughter came up to me and asked me to write a birthday message on a greeting card she had made for her friend. I told her she could have easily obtained a card from a gift store. Instead, her answer surprised me. She said, “When connections matter, how you communicate counts.” In her few words, she made it clear, that to communicate is to inform and to connect is to befriend. Her relationship with her friend defined the latter. It took me no time to conclude that she has got a marketing mind just like mine.
At work, I sipped my tea over the bitterness of oil prices. The way oil prices are looked at constantly, it seems as if the world’s economy is dependent only on oil. The fall in oil prices is assumed to be directly related to revenues and that is making the survival of companies difficult. But, the very land that gave them the confidence to start a business, will provide the courage to surpass such a turmoil especially with the help of a powerful tool called ‘strategic advertising’.
I have observed that the advertising industry is thriving through various modes, irrespective of the current market sentiments. Why? My daughter’s words dawned upon me: communicating effectively to the people who matter is important. The relation that a brand shares with its consumers has to be maintained constantly and consistently through various channels of communication.
There are many companies that are considering a cut down on their advertising budget, but there are many others who are securing their advertising budget so as to retain their bond with their targets. Many are moving away from the conventional modes of advertising to digital platforms to use their marketing expenditures more effectively. It has been observed that advertising spends will grow 4.6 percent to $579 billion this year and a forecast reads that digital advertising would overtake television advertising globally in 2017.
It has been observed that brands that maintain their marketing budgets during a tough market downturn end up in stronger financial positions and improved market share in comparison to brands that cut back on their market spend.
There’s a popular saying that saving money on advertising is like stopping the clock to save time. Companies understand this and know the importance of the marketing department in the growth of a company. No communication means no connection and no connection means loss of a consumer.
The idea is not to stop marketing, but to change the advertising strategy so as to put it to the best use.
As the president of Diplomats Summit and the regional director of the SME Chamber of India and Indian International Trade Centre (IITC), I have been invited to speak at various conferences such as the World Leadership Congress Summit to testify my success story of investing in this soil and yielding benefits manifold. With in-depth insights of economies around the globe, I am certain that there’s a lot of potential in our soil, and advertising has grown and will continue to grow over the years.
Advertising has its space defined amidst oil, soil and turmoil. After all, it’s a small world with big opportunities.
