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An avid blogger, voracious reader and an activist for animal rights, Prateek N Kumar feels that a marketing campaign today is all about speed-to-market with the right message at the right time through the right mix of channels while maintaining brand consistency and being non-intrusive. NeoNiche has carried out over 500 activations for reputed brands; CEO & MD, Prateek N Kumar talks to us about the journey.
Q-Your Company NeoNiche promises to provide integrated marketing solutions to brands. So what is integrated marketing solution as per you and how do you provide solutions for it?
A: Discipline of “integrated marketing” deals with development of marketing strategies and creative campaigns that weave together multiple marketing mediums that are selected and then executed to suit the goals and objectives of the brand. Integrated marketing leverages each communication channel’s intrinsic strengths to achieve a greater impact together than each channel could achieve individually. NeoNiche provides solutions across different spectrum of “Marketing Mix” and what our clients gets is a single window for all their marketing needs, like on ground Events, Online Digital campaigns, etc. We understand that the era of rack listed services are gone and you need to first understand the “Brand” and then customize the offering to better suit the people who matter most to them. Be it Customer, Channels or the Employees in a unified voice across choice of medium.
Q- NeoNiche has carried out over 500 activations for various brands. Share with us your journey about some of the most innovative and difficult activations carried out by you?
A: NeoNiche core DNA has been Ideas, Innovation and Insight which means every campaign that we roll out need to have one or all of these elements. Having said that in past we have rolled out campaigns with elements like Selfie Challenge, Hashtag Contest, Crowd sourced installations and Silent theatre conferences, Paperless conferences and each of these have been difficult as there are no existing benchmarks and you are trying to chart out an unbeaten path.
Q- Your are a self-proclaimed Social Media Junkie. In your opinion how important is social media integration for experiential marketing domain today?
A-Yes, I am a digital nerd if there is a nomenclature like that, and to answer the second part of the question. Let’s say, Technology, Internet, social/digital media and smart devises on one hand have connected people like never before. On the other, it has provided the marketer with actionable insights. Goal of experiential marketing is to form a memorable and emotional connection between the consumer and the brand and integration of digital elements and social platforms helps in achieving that across geographies and demographics.
The marketing plans for BTL customers are considered to be more static and simple than for ATL. How can one really innovate in this segment in terms of experiential marketing?
A- I believe today there are no ATL or BTL customers. Brands have shifted their focus from more traditional ATL /BTL to TTL (through The Line )way of marketing their products and services as a result of changing consumer attitudes; Today more sophisticated and informed consumers demands relevant messaging that engages them in a dialogue, and allows them to interact with the brands through their preferred communication channels. The world changed from Brand Promise to Brand experience addressed by whole new form of Marketing termed as what we call experiential marketing which tries to immerse the consumers within the offerings by engaging as many senses as possible and to do that in innovative manner one has to get into the shoes of the audience being targeted.
Q- What are some of the best innovations seen in the event management space in the last 5 years?
A- I would divide the innovations in event management space broadly into two categories .Viz; Technology led where innovation is primarily due to usage of technologies including silent theatre conference, hackathons, 3D mapping, holograms, google glass conference. Etc. and People/ experience led where the execution and treatment changes, viz; Unconference, Crowd sourced installations, Speed geeking, Ignite talks and speed conferences ,Etc.
Q- What do you think is the way forward for experiential marketing down the line?
A-The moment you think you have got the answers someone comes along the way and changes the very question, what we realize toady is that Customer is truly a Queen / king with so many information and options. To win the trust and to connect with a customer constantly in a very user driven non-intrusive way and with the advent of smart devices and technologies. I feel in the future Experiential marketing discipline will become more collaborative to ensure more one to one communication between consumers and brand.