Paul Writer launches Innovative Marketer Dialogue, 
Video interview series with CMOs highlights marketing best practices
Anisha Motwani
Director & CMO
Max Life Insurance
On Multi-channel marketing program and their synergies …
I particularly find this question interesting because of all the debate going on about the message, the medium, the conventional marketing arguments that we are used to having. You had a brand proposition that you created for a particular channel and then you adapted it and ran it across different channels, this used to be the conventional approach. This has changed completely,
Imagine a palmtop consumer who is operating out of an instrument in his hand and I create a program for mobile users and then I try to adapt this program to television users. Gone are those days where you used to create a single message on a single proposition and then adapt it to different channels. I think it’s a colossal waste of money when you actually just treat each channel as just a reinforcement channel of your core thought.
Today, you have the opportunity to use different channels for different purposes and that is how we use it. We do have a multichannel program but each channel has a different role to play. My digital channel has a role of engaging with customers, building a community with them, having a dialogue with them, conversing with them. My television channel has a role of creating awareness, connecting with the consumer, building imagery for the brand, it has a completely different role by itself.
I could have a third channel in my strategy which could be outdoor, I go to a small market which I’m not able to reach out to through the digital channel and If have just launched a new product then I may need to create awareness for that only in that market so I will use outdoor selectively only for that. So different channels are playing different roles and we use it very differently.
So multi channels and the combination of channels also depends on the task at hand, it is not very easy with limited budgets today to say that I will have a five channel program. Today, within television itself, you will realize that you want to only cater to the high definition channels and that’s the segment that you want to talk to. So you would do something very differently for that segment versus doing something for the mainstream mass channels as well. I would probably put a high value product only on HD channels and if I have a mainstream product, I would probably take a national television approach to it.
“Gone are those days where you used to create a single message on a single proposition and then adapt it to different channels. I think it’s a colossal waste of money when you actually just treat each channel as just a reinforcement channel of your core thought.”
Sometimes I just do a combination – I start building the awareness and imagery through the television but I complete the dialogue through the digital channel. We give the opportunity for television viewers to log in and complete the dialogue, they have more detailed information available online for them.
Multi channel, for me will depend on what the objective is, what’s the task at hand, who are you trying to target. Sometimes the messaging is an extension of each other, sometimes it is customized to that channel and it just plays out depending on the task at hand at that point in time.
