Professor Anand Narasimha Tells Us About The Top 4 Ingredients To Build A Successful Brand

BabyChakra’s Advisory Board Member Professor Anand Narasimha, is a corporate turned academician, with over 30 years of leadership experience. He’s worked on brands for corporations such as P&G, Nestle, Dabur, ITC, Britannia, BPL, Sony, Samsung, Hyundai and HSBC. Rated among the Top 25 Brand Marketing Professionals in Asia-Pacific, he’s no ordinary professor.

A member of The American Marketing Association (AMA), Professor Anand Narasimha has won a host of Marketing Effectiveness awards, including two Cannes’ and three EFFIES. He also set up India’s first Shopper Marketing Consultancy with Madison Media World.

An alumnus of BITS-Pilani and IIM-Calcutta, today he teaches at leading B-Schools- IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Indore and JAGSoM to name a few. However, despite his extremely busy schedule, he still finds time to follow his various passions; cooking, music and travelling. 

In an interesting conversation with BabyChakra, he tells us what it takes to build a successful brand and talks about the future of baby care, beauty and wellness products.

We all know that you’re a senior professor and celebrated marketing professional, but our readers would like to know more about you.

I am essentially a brand and marketing communications person. I’ve worked for over 35 years. 25 years in the corporate sector and 10 plus years in academics. I graduated from BITS Pilani where I did my masters in social sciences. After that, I joined advertising with JWT. I worked for about three years there and took a break to do an executive PGD in IIM Kolkata.

I then worked in various brand marketing and advertising roles. In 2010 I quit the corporate sector since I wanted to do something else in my life, I moved to Bangalore and started teaching and consulting. Now I teach and consult with a lot of start-ups and help them build brands.

What goes into building a successful brand?

Most people think that brand building is about advertising and communications. While that’s true, it is most important to start with a very good product and deliver a good customer experience. A strong brand experience is always greater than brand frills. You need to have a great product like BabyChakra. Why I love BabyChakra is that the products are very good and very thoughtfully made. 

You have to have a great product or a service and a good customer experience. When we talk about customer experience it’s not just advertising, it’s all about the experience of the product, of delivering the product to the customer, and the experience of attending to the customer’s complaints, etc. So according to me the ingredients for building a successful brand are:

1. A great product and a great customer experience.

2. Your brand must stand for something unique, relevant and distinctive in the consumer’s mind. You can have a great product and a great experience but if you are not able to occupy a distinctive slot in the mind of the consumer then it doesn’t work. 

3. The brand must also engagingly communicate with the consumer. It must have an emotional connection with the consumer.

4. 50% of your revenues should be spent on brand building and 50% on performance marketing like sales activation. 

What according to you are the things that are important for a brand to be sustainable?

I think sustainability has become an important component for brands. Brands today have to be responsible. It has to be profiting with a principle, you cannot fool people in today’s day and age of social media. Brands must be conscious and responsible for what is called the triple bottom line. The triple bottom line is profits, people, and the planet. You cannot ignore the people and planet at the cost of profit.

A brand must do good to society and contribute to society in what it does. Like BabyChakra is contributing to parenting which is important because today with most people living in nuclear families new parents and first-time mums are anxious. Things like carbon footprint and using natural ingredients, green marketing to be kept in mind. A brand which does not respect the planet and the people will not go a long way.

What do you think about the future of baby care, beauty and wellness products?

It’s poised for tremendous growth. Earlier the category of wellness and baby care had two segments: grandmother’s remedies or home remedies and second was packaged products, but now with more and more nuclear families and people becoming detached from their roots etc. they don’t have time for home remedies even though they would like that.

That’s where brands like BabyChakra that combine both the goodness of home remedies and natural ingredients along with the convenience of a package are bound to do very well. It is like getting the goodness of both worlds, therefore natural and organic brands are going to be very highly growing sectors. 

Multinational companies market milk powder for babies, while doctors say mothers’ milk is best, what’s your say on that? Do you think that’s ethical?

This is a huge debate which will go on. Are companies like tobacco and liquor companies ethical? When these things are not banned, why would you ban baby food? This is a dilemma and a matter of huge debate and discussion.

My take is that we don’t live in an ideal world so there will be products which may not be good for you being sold, it is the consumers who have to be discerning enough to reject them. In the world of brands and business, there is going to be good and not so good it is up to the consumers to decide what’s good and not good for them.

Age-old traditions and traditional treatments are often frowned upon. How do u think traditional and natural treatments should be marketed?

We all know that things which are loaded with toxins and chemicals are not good for you and things which are natural and pure are good for you. There is already a huge movement toward organic and natural stuff and an increase in consumers moving towards organic and natural products today. Today social media is the best way to promote these products as internet penetration is high.

A lot of housewives even from smaller towns are on Instagram and Facebook today. People are more conscious about what is going into the product, especially the ingredients. Brands like BabyChakra are helping people become more aware of natural and organic products. It is the brands that will help increase awareness. 

What kind of brands or products do you think new-age parents are looking for?

Most of the new age parents are people where both partners are working. Their lifestyles are busy so as new age parents since they are living in nuclear families there is a lot of anxiety and questions about raising a child. If brands can drive home the idea that they are there as a companion to help them discover the joy of parenting by using our products etc.

New-age parents will welcome any brand that helps them reduce their anxiety and fears when it comes to bringing up their kids. In short, brands should also be like a helpline for new parents along with giving them products. Parenting tips and products should be integrated as that’s what new-age parents are looking for; a guide on parenting. New-age parents don’t just want to buy products, they want to buy solutions and experiences.

You like cooking and travelling: What is that one dish that you think you cook best and what is your favourite holiday destination and why?

I am a huge foodie and I am blessed because my wife is a chef! I have also learnt to cook from her. We love travelling around the world to experience the food, beverages and culture. When we travel our focus is the local food.

One dish I think I cook well is the Tuscany chicken, it’s roasted chicken with vegetables. My favourite holiday destination is Tuscany too, it has great food, wine, culture and architecture Besides cooking I am fond of music and singing. 

Tell us about your role as a member of the BabyChakra Advisory Board.

At BabyChakra my role is to advise them on how to grow and build the brand. I am more like a sounding board to the brand teams at BabyChakra, and also an ‘ideas person.’ To put it in a non-jargon way, my role is to help the team make the BabyChakra brand rich, famous and loved!

We say Amen to that!