Brand Baja Baraat | Chandan Pansari at SIMClairvoyance 2011

A marketer, an erstwhile operations guy, a theatre enthusiast, a film director and a brand manager; Mr Chandan Pansari from Proctor &Gamble dons many hats. On 21st August, 2011 he spoke as the Assistant Brand Manager for Olay at SIMClairvoyance ’11, a series of industry interactions hosted by SIMC. He opened his session At the onset, he very clearly outlined the agenda for his session.

He started at the basics clarifying as to exactly what it is a brand manager does and where he would fit into the scheme of the entire business and marketing ambit. Managing the health of brand which includes advertising, promotion; positioning and customer training is the basic function of Brand Management, a term coined by P&G, said Chandan Pansari. Elaborating on the structure around which a brand manager works he created a picture where the creative agency, PR team, media, finance, advertising, sales and supply are multiple functions that are tied together and directed towards a common objective by the brand manager.

Mr Pansari emphasized that the manager has to be the champion of brand knowledge – its equityand design. “You got to know your consumer better than your girlfriend or boyfriend” he quipped! Tracking performance, outputs like share, equity, sales etc. and inputs like media spends and communication quality etc. are vital. Understanding latent needs of your consumer group and periodically updating the profile snapshot of your consumers is another point he stressed on.

He discussed the process of developing a brand strategy or campaign using several case studies such as the Old Spice revival campaign, the Olay “LINC’ campaign and the Gillette Shave Sutra. Some of these entailed hilarious visuals with even funnier genesis which Mr Pansari shared with us, but ones that created a strong consumer connect. Communication is after all connecting and being able to communicate with your audience. He mentioned a particular character, ‘Baanke Bihari’ created by Tide who was so real to the audience that they actually sent letters to him! “The point,” he said was, “Can you rise above the clutter?” He concluded with a mention of the increasing role of social media in branding and the consumer taking control of brands.

(with inputs from Sneha Padmanabhan, MBA 2013)