For a CMO, anything less than four years is too little: Britannia's MD Ali Harris Shere

Britannia’s marketing director Ali Harris Shere shares some insights lessons learnt at Britannia.
What assumptions about marketing or consumers have you discarded over the years?
While we focused on marketing, consumers and communication, we did not focus on our products as much as we do now. There was an assumption that you can do this with an 'okay' product. But consumers are becoming aspirational and their expectations from a brand are very different. Even for a VFM offering like Tiger, you can't strip the product at all.

What was your biggest triumph?
The current phase in Britannia is the best we've ever had. We've re-staged every one of our brands except the creams category, with a mix far superior in terms of product, packaging and advertising. It's helped us tide over slightly sluggish market conditions.

And your biggest setback?
I worked on Tiger as product manager and we grew the brand hugely. When I came back to marketing from a stint in sales, I continued to work on Tiger. But that was a time when other segments were doing really well; people were upgrading and moving to cookies. We got hit. That's when we should have done something more disruptive which would have ensured we do not get hit as badly. I personally couldn't manage to do that. Success in the value segment is something I considered a bit of a setback.

Anything you've learnt from a competitor?
Not too many brands have done work that's cutting edge or really good. But what I have learned is when you are up against someone big, one-off activity does not help. You need a three year plan to take them on. You have to be clear on where you start, how you build and move forward. You need a calendar and investments allocated. Oreo has done that if they have to take us on. We've not done that with Tiger to take on Parle-G. Taking someone on doesn't come cheap. While ideas are important, investments are important as well.

What's the ideal tenure of a senior marketing person?
Anything less than four years is too little. When you have to change something in a fundamental way, you need a longer plan. Just building relationships takes 24 months in marketing. It takes almost a couple of years to incubate ideas and get them off the ground and then you have to make them larger than life.

What's kept you at Britannia all these years?
I never felt I was stagnating from a professional point of view. Every two or three years, I did something different: I switched between sales and marketing, was regional sales manager for the West, handled the kid's nutritional portfolio, the premium portfolio and I'm now head of marketing.
The other reason you stay in an organisation is when you build connections that go beyond work. I've made my best friends here. It's one of the few companies where not much cut-throat competition exists.

How do you unwind?
There are hardly any Hindi movies that get released that I don't see. I love cooking. I lived away from family many years and got married late. I used to make biryanis, korma and kebabs. There was a time I had passion to design furniture: I would rather have furniture with my touch rather than buying stuff from stores. But now I'm too busy to do that.
ravi.balakrishnan@timesgroup.com

How has demonetisation affected Britannia and what are you doing to tide through what's perceived to be a fairly huge crisis for the casual snacking/CSD category?
For most FMCG companies, the impact of demonetization was in two broad areas. One was in servicing the distribution channels and second was the hit on consumer demand. The small retailers mostly deal in cash and hence the liquidity crunch affected their purchase in the short run. In an effort to minimize this impact, Britannia extended credit to its distributors so that they could do the same to the key retailers. At the consumer level, the sales naturally declined due to the cash crunch. The staples did not see a sizeable impact, however discretionary consumption did take a hit. This was however a short term phenomenon. With the stable inflow of new currency, we are seeing a steady revival and expect improvement on a continued basis. We haven't let the issue impact our investments on our brands and business.