Mohit Doda, Chief Digital Marketing Manager, Reliance Retail has over 13 years’ experience across digital marketing, advertising, and e-commerce. Doda is one of the speakers we have lined up for the Bengaluru Brand Summit & Hot Brands 2019. Read his thoughts on what makes a brand HOT!
- What is the one factor that took your brand from good to great?
There are multiple factors at play that made our brand good like a strong network of 520+ stores across the country, a robust supply chain and the right merchandise mix. But what truly made us great is the value we offer our consumers in terms of garment quality, designs, shopping experience, and ease of accessibility. A good understanding of the consumer coupled with an obsession to surprise them with better products and convenience has gone a long way in building the Reliance Trends brand.
- What role does technology play in making and keeping a brand hot?
We live in a world where people access shopping, dating, networking, entertainment, news, travel, food, education, banking, insurance, healthcare and transportation on their mobile. There’s virtually no business which hasn’t been disrupted by technology in the present. I believe brands no longer have much choice other than to embrace this change. Traditional brands have often labeled ‘digital’ as a media vehicle and couldn’t see it as a way of life. Brands that acknowledge the consumer evolution and create newer business models will thrive, whereas, the complacent ones might become redundant in the future. We have entered an era where AI and machine learning are becoming commonplace and innovation is the key to improving the product offering, reaching out to the right audience and keeping them engaged.
Technology can completely transform businesses and optimize their current processes, bringing efficiency into the system. It also helps brands scale up in preparation for unprecedented growth. When we talk about technology, data follows shortly after. Brands that use data intelligently have a significant competitive advantage.
- How has data become the essence of business/marketing?
The rise of cloud computing and fall of data processing costs have fueled the entire big data narrative. Transportation companies use data to optimize their routes, healthcare professionals use predictive analytics to control cancer, insurance companies use it to reduce the premium and a city’s administration uses traffic data to avoid jams – examples can be found in every sector. Data is solving business challenges, cutting costs and improving efficiency.
Marketers are equally enthusiastic about data since they can make data-driven decisions, use analytics tools to derive consumer insights, get consumer feedback at scale, target the audience on multiple platforms, and create and optimize the campaigns on the fly. Digital marketers can’t even think of marketing without data. With more and more martech companies emerging, marketing is getting complex but intelligent and scientific.
- What are your thoughts on the need for digital transformation?
Most new age companies are born digital first. They make use of free/cheap digital products available in the market for IT, HR, accounting, operations, and marketing. Digital has leveled the playing field and enabled small companies to compete with large enterprises. A startup doesn’t need a huge marketing budget to advertise, as it can tap into search tools or social networks and use them to create a totally new marketing campaign. The digital natives need no transformation as it’s the only way they know. In fact, they are at the epicenter of this revolution.
Transformation is for the mammoth organizations and if they haven’t woken up yet, they might already be too late. Digital transformation in large organizations needs to be driven by the leadership and not the ‘transformation experts’. As a part of the transformation, the chief executives may need to take difficult decisions like killing your own products if they have lived their lives, rather than waiting for someone else to do so. Rather than aiming for marginal YoY growth rates, they need to look at completely different revenue streams, business models, and product offerings for the future.
