CMO Corner. Driving brand recall, the Tata Motors way

Till about a year ago, had someone asked you which was the last Tata Motors car launched, you would have found it difficult to respond as we had not launched a new product in a while.

This was among the big challenges as we readied for a new car in 2014. Moreover, global competition had the advantage of bringing well-established brands from other markets.

We began by introducing our first petrol engine from the Revotron family, followed quickly by the Zest and Bolt, making up for the lost time!

You might ask how we started selling more cars, growing faster than the industry and winning awards in design and technology. Of course, product attributes and a host of segment-first features played a significant role.

But another key driver was the way we upped our ante on how we communicated it.

Creating an engine brand — the Revotron — was a start. But then we took it literally to town, with 23 key locations in India where people experienced the Revotron Labs to get a taste of segment-busting multi-drive feature — eventually driving petrol sales for a company known for diesel cars.

Our print media campaign for Bolt made reading rewarding by placing an innovative advertisement in a major daily, by attaching a reward card.

It generated 81 per cent brand recall and also drove footfalls.

The Bolt Arena and Zest Studio were first-of-their-kind futuristic hubs where customers could engage in various activities and know everything about the car took our customer engagement programme to the next level.

Our marketing and advertising integrated seamlessly with digital campaigns like the ‘#MyCityMyZest’ and ‘Zest for Stardom Contest’, to create a huge buzz around the brands, resulting in more than 5.4 million impressions across digital space.

In a media test drive for our new vehicles, a poignant moment for many of us was when we were told how Zest seemed a non-Tata car.

Well, we have some great achievements to our credit but this statement showed us we had elevated and the fact that people could see a new Tata Motors emerging!

We learnt from our past and we challenged ourselves on all fronts — and the customers are noticing the difference we are making!