P&G on working with influencers: It does help drive conversations

"The number of people who depend on influencers these days before considering a product is too high to ignore," says Vijay Pampana, Marketing Director, Procter & Gamble Health, while talking about their new campaign EvionInBeautyOn. The campaign has celebrities and influencers like Sara Ali Khan, Ritu Varma, and Karishma Tanna on board and aims to help consumers believe in nourishment from within. In a conversation with Storyboard18, Pampana says, "Consumers nowadays turn towards influencers for suggestions for good products. Be it for recommendations for beauty products or even food habits, consumers are looking up to influencers to lead choices and help products enter their consideration."

Edited excerpts.

What's the genesis of the new campaign?

Evion is the number one Vitamin E brand in India and is trusted by thousands of doctors, consumers, and pharmacists. For more than 40 years, Evion has been at the forefront of conversations to generate awareness about Vitamin E and its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties which help in the nourishment of the body cells. Through our earlier campaigns, we’ve had consumers engage with influencers on social media. We want to keep this conversation active and educate our consumers on the role of Vitamin E and how Evion works at the cellular level to nourish the cells from the inside which reflects on the outside in the form of healthy skin and hair. The campaign aims to help consumers believe in nourishment from within.

Collaborations are a big deal in any sort of marketing communication these days. How important is it for your brands? How do you think having Sara Ali Khan and Karishma Tanna on board helps?

Collaborations are integral for any communications outreach in today’s day and age. While earned content remains the key, collaborations help cast a wider net through owned stories that lead to higher awareness. We always plan integrated 360 campaigns to encourage higher brand recall, while also ensuring better reach and access.

Content creators and influencers in this mix play an important part. Their reach helps the brand with engagement while their popularity helps to increase relatability for the brand. In our case, Sara Ali Khan, Ritu Varma, and Karishma Tanna are admired and followed by our target audience across India – which helps increase our opportunity to be in an audience’s consideration set.

What is your opinion on influencer-led campaigns? Does a brand need celebrities and influencers?

Digital penetration across markets is on a rise like never before, with social media making inroads in all possible scenarios. Consumers nowadays turn towards influencers for suggestions for good products. Be it for recommendations for beauty products or even food habits, consumers are looking up to influencers to lead choices and help products enter their consideration.

The choice of using an influencer or a celebrity or both depends on the choice of audience and the objective of the campaign for the brand.

The idea of choosing celebrities over influencers or both, basis the campaign thought remains the same when we look at Bharat. We believe both influencers/celebrities help fortify the campaign as well as have a higher awareness amongst consumers. Over the last year, we have realized that the best way to reach our audiences is through people who they regularly turn to. So yes, working with influencers does help drive conversations better.

Who is your target group for the campaign? Has your TG widened over the years and moved outside the Tier I markets like it has for most marketers?

Our target group is women aged 20-45 years in tier 1 and 2 cities. With social media expanding and the increasing purchase power of consumers over the years, our target group too has widened.

In the wake of the pandemic, health has been the primary focus for consumers in the last two years. Has beauty also been an important subject? What are your observations?

It is true that since the pandemic, people have been more aware and mindful of their health. Numerous discussions on beauty and wellness in the last two years, suggest it to be an important subject.

Along with that, growing awareness of self-care has also picked up. Today’s hectic lives expose us to a lot of environmental and mental stress. The pressure to juggle multiple roles seamlessly can wreak havoc on our skin and hair. Adding to that, with the ever-changing weather, external pollutants, and unhealthy diet patterns keeping up with our skin and hair care regimen becomes difficult. All this makes it imperative for us to fix the root cause of these problems as they are triggered on the inside at the cellular level.

Hence, I’d say its health and overall wellness have been a recent focus. And that’s where daily supplements can plan an active role.

Tell us about the new marketing trends you are witnessing. Especially the new strategies that took off in the last two years during the pandemic and stayed on.

Digital marketing was already flourishing before the pandemic but in the post-pandemic scenario, it has witnessed a boom. With virtual making up the new normal, the acceleration of digital marketing has gained steady momentum. As a result, digital creators successfully stepped up and made the playing field for the brands a lot wider to reach their consumers. The virality of influencers on social media has completely changed marketing communications behavior. As I mentioned earlier, keeping up with the trend and collaborating with influencers to convey the brand’s message to our consumers has become quite significant. The number of people who depend on influencers these days before considering a product is too high to ignore. I believe the approach of reaching out to the target audience through digital is here to stay.