I always wanted to do my internship in Brand Management .This was mostly because of my fascination for Brands, more importantly I wanted to know what brand management was all about. Sir Kotler was not of much help, hence I took the help of internet and spend some hours reading from various book of random authors about Brand management. Books and internet just gave me the idea: Taking care of the brand. If my face has the brand name displayed on it then my face is the responsibility of the brand manager of that particular brand .The idea was very vague .I wished to know more.
This was when I got an offer from Bharti Walmart to intern with their Brand Management team . I was really excited. The first day I was given a guide book which had a number of information .The guide book was very fascinating. It had information from the color which can be used in the logo of Walmart to the size of the logo in inches .It had information on the lighting of the pictures to be used in store as well as in flyers and posters. It had information about what picture to be used where and how. I was very excited after going through the book thinking that this is what I was supposed to do in my internship; however my delusion was shattered when I got to know this was not what Bharti Walmart followed. First day however I was sent home early .Second day my skills were put to test when I was sent to cover the “Public Holiday Campaign” launched by Big Bazaar. This is when I learned Big Bazaar was EasyDay ‘s (Bharti Walmart’s Hypermarket) biggest competitor. This was a revelation for me because I always thought since Walmart is an American brand , Spencer’s would be its biggest competitor considering the type and selection of merchandise category available and the store Ambience of Spencer being really good. Now on the first day while covering the Campaign I was totally lost. I as usual did a consumer research as to whether the customers are happy with merchandise on sale, whether they would recommend their friends to come and some more questions on the same line. Majorly I was trying to use the questionnaire method taught to us in Research Methodology and Management to measure cosumer satisfaction,however that is not what they were looking for. They wanted me to look at the how they have displayed all the sales promotion .They wanted to know whether the display was in the form of danglers or was in the form of a stand it was in the form of shelve strips .They wanted to know what were the offers displayed near the cash counter. Later on I got to know there was a word for that kind of promotion. That kind of promotion was called “below the line Promotion” activities.I was sent back for the same.This time however success adorned upon me. Even though “Public Holiday Campaign “was not my major project at Bharti Walmart, however this small project gave me an idea as to what the brand Management team in retail does.
After the “Public holiday Campaign” project I was given my main project which was basically competitor’ Communication mapping .I was supposed to work only on fliers and print Ad. When I started working on the project for the first time I realized retail market calendar is divided into a number of campaigns .Majorly the campaigns were.
• January-Republic Day Campign ,Makar Sankranti ,Bhogali Bihu ,End of Winter sale
• February-Valentines Day
• March-Summer Carnival ,Rongali Bihu
• April -Gudi Padwa /Ugadi ,Summer Delights,mile to school,Kitchen Festival
• May-Get Ready for school ,Akshay Tritiya ,Rain Gain ,Summer special saving
• June-Back To school ,Home Utsav,Monsoon Saving
• July-Monsoon saving,Home Comfort ,Kitchen Festival
• August-Raksha Bandhan ,Independence day .Eid ,Ganesh Chaturthi
• September-Ganesh Chaturthi ,Diwali ,Durga puja,Navaratra & Dasara
• October-Diwali
• November-Bakri Eid ,Winter sale
• December-Christmas & New year
In order to do a communication analysis of all the competitors of Easy Day I needed to know where each campaign would add value to the whole day to day selling process. Hence I had to identify whether a campaign would majorly be a success in north India, South India, West India or Central India. This is because if EasyDay launches an Ugadi special campaign in Gujarat ,then the campaign would be a major failure because people of Gujarat would not know what Ugadi is let alone understanding the importance of the festival, rather Janmashtami campaign would be a great success in Gujarat.
Basically other than the religious campaign rest all the campaigns are majorly celebrated in all over India. Hence campaigns were divided into different regions where the campaigns would be a success when launched:
•North India
•Diwali
•Baisakhi
•Dasara
•Valentine’s day
•Christmas
•South India
•Akshay Tritiya
•Eid
•Diwali
•Ganesh Chaturti
• Makar Sankranti
•Raksha Bandhan
•Ugadi
•Valentines day
•Christmas
•West India
•Akshay Tritiya
•Diwali
•Ganesh Chaturti
•Gudi Padwa
•Makar Sankranti
•Raksha Bandhan
•Valentines day
•Christmas
•Central India
Diwali
•Ganesh Chaturti
•Gudi Padwa
•Valentines day
•Christmas
Unlike my other counterparts my project was more towards the creative side .I was supposed to do a creative analysis of each Ad. For example my analysis would be on the lines of - why was a particular copy used for a particular campaign, what could be the possible reason for a particular visual with the campaign, which product was used as the hero in the Ad and what could be the possible association with the campaign, which is the best possible way in which the Ad can find a connect with its target customers. After doing a creative analysis of the Ads for the last two years I was able to spot a pattern that was being followed by different competition. Even though I was informed that Big Bazaar was the biggest player in the retail market but analyzing their Ads made me realize infact Big Bazaar’s print Ad have evolved a lot over the time. For example while earlier in their Diwali campaign for North India they would use Vidya Balan in a housewife’s attire to form an emotional connect with the house wife , now they have started using families having a moment of togetherness with each other to connect with the families. This was majorly to focus on the fact that Diwali is a season for togetherness and prosperity. Even Reliance Ads were not left far behind, whereas Easyday Ads needed to be customized to the Indian festivals. Analysis of the Ads was one interesting part of the project a more exciting part of the project was probably the dipstick study that I did to know what opinion our target audience had about the Ads of our competitors and comparatively what was the recall rate of our Ads in the minds of our target customers. The dipstick majorly helped me validate my Analysis and thus gave me to find a good platform as to on what parameters my recommendations could be based on.
Hence all in all my experience in Bharti Walmart was very enriching and the learning from the company was immense and I would look forward to do more offline live projects with them in the future.