‘WE ARE HERE TO BUILD A LONG-TERM EMOTIONAL CONNECT’

For most brands functioning in the Business-2-Business (B2B) space, traditional marketing communications often take a backseat, since fellow businesses are their primary customers. However, one brand that has realised the importance of reaching out to consumers innovatively, through the way of smart content marketing is the Indian arm of French electrical & digital infrastructure building specialists, Legrand. The brand has partnered with digital agency Liqvd Asia and production house Bohemian Films and is soon to launch a webseries called The Good Vibes. The effort of the exercise is to create brand awareness among the youth while building a longlasting emotional connect.

The brand has been in India for the past few decades now. However, as is common with most low-involvement categories, it has hardly ever gone all out in terms of advertising and marketing. With the new webseries that the brand is producing and not just sponsoring, it aims to bridge the gap between B2B and B2C consumers, making the brand desirable for both the category of consumers.

Talking about the increasingly blurring lines between B2B and B2C category audiences, Arnab Mitra, Managing Director, Liqvd Asia says, “As an agency, we strongly believe that the lines between B2B and B2C are blurring, thanks to the internet. The impact of any brand on the minds of consumers is driven by every possible communication and not necessarily when it’s for a B2B purpose. We wanted to come up with a strategy that would connect all the dots and also connect a lot of people to the brand.”

Echoing Mitra’s thoughts, Sameer Saxena, Director-Marketing, Legrand India says, “We have been observing the changing lifestyles and somewhere, with a change in lifestyle, there is a change in living spaces too. This is a mid-term strategy for us. So the thought was, someone who is 25 years old today will have a considerable amount of money by 2020. We wanted to target this audience and for that, the Digital medium became the obvious choice.”

Owing to the fact that people are increasingly consuming content on different screens and on the go, both the agency and the brand thought that the best way of building that connect would be through a long-format webseries, portraying the story of a couple, while subtly weaving the brand into the story.

The webseries will comprise six episodes and will be available on SonyLiv and the brand’s YouTube channel. It also features actors Naveen Kasturia and Maanvi Gagroo, two very well-known faces among the youth, thanks to the hugely popular webseries Pitchers.

However, how does an electrical brand fit into a webseries about the life of a married young couple? Further delving into how the story brings together the couple, their families and the brand, Rashmi Putcha, Co-founder and Director, Liqvd Asia says, “On the surface, the series revolves around a couple and how they are going through the ups and downs of their marriage and how things are getting resolved. However, the house where they live is going through a renovation and that’s where the brand comes into the picture. As the story goes on, as the house and its electrical problems, etc, get fixed, their relationship evolves and gets fixed too. There is a subtle interpolation of the brand because the idea is not to force the brand on the consumers.”

Talking about his expectations from the webseries, Saxena adds, “I am not a firm believer in numbers but if we are able to establish a long-term emotional connect with our target audience, we will be a winner.”