Self Reliance & The Aatmnirbhar Brand You

The Indian parent response to a child scoring 99% is “What happened to the 1%?” This explains why Reliance investors were disappointed despite a string of fabulous announcements including the most recent one of Google investing in them. In April I had written about “What to sell in the COVID downturn” and how not all companies are alike – same storm, different boats. In a market contraction the best response is to grab marketshare from competitors, and establish moats for your own marketshare.

Reliance is doing well, of course, but so is Amul. Entering new spaces every week and following the mindshare-marketshare-profitshare path that I suggest is the easiest path. Their recent launch of Panchamrit is an interesting value add though it did raise some eyebrows – here’s a review by Karthik Srinivasan.  I like what they are doing in terms of value addition of their basic product, milk, and moving it up the value chain to create differentiation which is relevant and topical like haldi doodh.  If we were to talk of brand purpose, Amul’s is tied strongly to helping dairy farmers find a good market for their milk through a cooperative movement.  So unless it is going to do something similar for the wheat farmers ie form a cooperative this launch seems opportunistic.  Revisiting your brand purpose in the context of your strategy is always a good thing.

What about you? As an individual? Months into the lockdown more and more folks are realizing that they have to shape their own destiny, control their own trajectory, be self-directed.  This morning a friend updated me that he had fought off layoff attempts and managed to stay on, in fact in a better role.  His boss championed his cause and he got to stay.  Why would she do that? Because if there is a need for a smaller number of employees, you’d want to keep the best, the most passionate, the most innovative.  Undifferentiated profiles are the most in danger of being sidelined.

This is why I love conducting sessions on personal branding – not just the communication bit but discovering yourself and what you are/can be great at, using marketing principles and frameworks.  I recently did my first virtual version of this for a team at IBM, and was very happy with the response.  It’s best when it is interactive, but the content and frameworks in this virtual session will be handy for anyone trying to figure out answers to “Who am I” .

Tom Peters has been discussing excellence in the context of organizations and individuals pretty much forever.  We had him speak at a customer forum at Infosys years ago and he had the audience captivated.  He is very active on Twitter, though, no, he isn’t giving you free bitcoins.  He is however sharing his ideas in Friday’s webinar hosted by Future Generali India Life at 6pm.  Join my watch party on my Facebook Group, CMO India!

Oh, and this week I have a quiz on “What’s your management style”.  Sorry to be all buzzfeedy, but the results will surprise you. (Mine did.)

Content Strategy
Internal Communications
Employees’ concerns regarding their own and their families’ health, their jobs, their ability to perform, their mental health issues are at a heightened level never seen earlier at this scale. If ever there was a need for internal communications to step up its efforts to assuage fears—real and imagined, it is now. (BONUS: Shareable Infographic)

5 Ways to do better

Content Value vs Volume
The content marketing process, like traditional marketing, can be classified according to the different stages of the funnel. Most marketers focus on the volume of the content they need to create, while the real value of content creation lies in creating custom content for customers that are at different stages of the funnel.

What types of content work?

How to get PR right
Public Relations or “earned media” is a fantastic marketing channel. Like every element of marketing it needs to have a process around it. Moreover your PR outcomes are only as good as your story. In this video power session Jessie Paul tells you what you need to know before you sign up that PR agency.

Personality Test: What type of manager are you?
It’s useful to know your management style, and understand the three main ones. There are benefits to each and you may surprise yourself with the results. None are bad, just different.

Take this 5 minute quiz