Exclusive | Advertising is about building brand awareness: Rajeev Batra

Rajeev Batra, MASB, Marketing Accountability Standard Board of the marketing Accountability Foundation, Director (2009–2011) and founding Advisory Council member (2011), is Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing & Co-Director of Yaffe Center for Persuasive Communication, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan. He is a widely recognized authority in the areas of advertising management and productivity, brand equity management, global branding, and marketing in emerging economies.

His research interests cover the creation and management of brand equity; the improvement of marketing communications productivity; emotional advertising; advertising repetition and budgeting, global branding, and marketing in emerging economies. He has published over 45 articles on these topics in leading academic journals or books, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Marketing, and others. He is also the co-author or co-editor of 4 books, including the widely used textbook Advertising Management, now in its fifth edition.

Adgully caught up with Rajeev Batra to know more about the evolution of advertising and marketing space, the change in the mind-set of the young entrants/students and more.

Elaborating on the current advertising and marketing scenario, he said, “The market is getting much more competitive and complex with more and more brands and agencies making their entries in this space. To an extent some of the older brands are trying their level best to make their presence felt and sustain their existence. One of the examples that strike my mind is Tata Motors. Also I think too many companies in India believe that advertising is the way to build a brand but I believe it is the way to build brand awareness which plays a vital role for driving any brand’s business.”

He believes that Indian companies should pay more attention towards customer demands, needs and services. As we all know, advertising as a word has been changing its definitions with each day passing by. The industry on the whole has gone through tremendous change and is seen evolving at a rapid pace. Indian advertising industry has been reshaped by regulatory and technological changes over the past times, unlike previously, when there weren’t too many opportunities to tap into. Sharing his thoughts on the changes in the industry that he has witnessed Batra said, “I believe that the biggest change that I personally have seen the race behind getting digital capabilities. So, one may observe that everybody is trying to buy up digital shops and willing to gain size because they need to be large enough to bargain with the media sellers like Google, Facebook and other large chunks of the industry”.

As mentioned above, Batra’s research interests cover the creation and management of brand equity and the improvement of marketing communications productivity; so when asked what makes a brand productive, he said, “I think the biggest way to enhance a brand’s marketing and productivity is to understand the reason behind advertising/marketing and know your objectives. As today a lot of brands believe in advertising with an aim to get numbers in terms of likes, tweets, conversations etc but it does not work that way; rather the brand custodians should focus on the brand’s opportunities among their target audience. I believe a lot more disciplined, thoughtful goal-setting advertising is what is needed in the Indian market.”   

Co-author and co-editor of 6 books, including "The New Emerging Multinationals" (McGraw-Hill, 2012), named by Strategy + Business Magazine as the Best Business Book of 2012 (Strategy), Batra is also the author of over 50 academic papers in leading journals, many widely cited, in the areas of global branding, brand creation and management, brand love, advertising, and consumer psychology. When asked which his favourite piece of work, Batra said, “The New Emerging Multinationals” is one of the books I am interested in as it is very much appropriate to the Indian market.”  

Well, being one of the global professors and academicians, Batra has seen the evolving mind-set of the students in the field of marketing and advertising as well. He said, “Earlier marketing was synonymous to FMCG sector’s brands like Colgate, HUL etc but today marketing is becoming much broader and interestingly today students are thinking in that way and are openly getting into industries like pharmaceuticals, hospitality etc and keenly understanding the marketing ways and tools in those sectors.” 

One of the top five global thought leaders in branding, prior to beginning his academic career Professor Batra was a Brand Manager in India with Chesebrough-Pond's. He has had teaching, consulting or research relationships on advertising and direct marketing issues with various advertising and marketing firms. He has co-taught Direct Marketing Statistics and Modeling courses for the Direct Marketing Association, New York, since 1986. He has also been a part of seminars on Branding, and Improving Marketing Communications Productivity, in the US, India, China, Czech Republic, Japan, S. Korea, Sweden, and the UK. He has served as the Area Director for Marketing of the William Davidson Institute and as the Director of the Yaffe Center for Persuasive Communication, co-housed at the Schools of Art and Design, and Business, at the University of Michigan. He is currently Chair of the Marketing Area at the Ross School of Business.

He previously held positions at Chesebrough-Ponds and Columbia University and has been involved in consulting, teaching, or research relationships with many leading companies. Rajeev has published over 60 articles and books and has been listed among “Outstanding Faculty” (Business Week), most frequently published consumer behavior scholars (Eaton), and among top 10 cited advertising scholars (Pasadeos & Beard). Dr Batra received his BA (economics honors) from Delhi University, post-graduate diploma in management from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, MS in advertising from the University of Illinois, and PhD in business (marketing) from Stanford University. Rajeev is on the Brand Investment & Valuation Project team.