Decoding Maruti Suzuki's PR Evolution: Sanjeev Handa
With a career graph spanning more than three decades across advertising, marketing and communication roles, Sanjeev Handa, Senior Vice President and Head of PR & Communications, Maruti Suzuki India plays a pivotal role in shaping and maintaining the public image and reputation of one of India's leading automotive companies. His leadership and approach have contributed significantly to the company’s position as a trusted and respected brand in the industry.
In a tete-a-tete with BW Marketing World, Handa delved into Maruti Suzuki’s PR and corporate communication strategies, formulating plans that resonate with the diverse audience of India, use of AI, leveraging social media and more.
Excerpts:
What key elements define Maruti Suzuki's PR and corporate communication strategies, and how have they evolved over the years?
In terms of strategies, it's four key elements very clearly. Customer centricity, second is transparency and openness, third is adaptive to digital, and the fourth is system relationship between the new and the old.
To sum up the evolution of our communication strategies, it's very interesting. If you go back, our company is now about four decades old. In the beginning, initially, our communications were centred on product launches and, the introduction of new technologies – it could be from Maruti 800 to Maruti 1000 to a Maruti Esteem. In the 1990s, we shifted the gears a bit and we shifted towards fostering brand identity and emotional connections via advertising. That was the key area.
Just two decades ago, we expanded our digital footprint because earlier it was nascent. Along with expansion, we began focusing on customer-oriented communications. By 2010, we fully embraced the social media. We started doing personalisation outreach. We even started hyper-local, which was a big thing in our company. We started across the country, across all dealerships, across all touchpoints, and started using an omnichannel strategy. So digital has become the new norm - it's not just the physical presence of dealerships, but it's also your digital presence on the medium, which will make a difference.
And as we speak, we're continuously adapting to the dynamic communication landscape. We're placing a strong emphasis on openness and engagement. We're facing placing a huge focus on nurturing meaningful stakeholder relationships.
How does the brand ensure that its PR and corporate communication strategies resonate with the diverse audience in India?
We are a diverse country, for sure. We’ve got 122 languages and 1599 dialects. Our Hindi changes every 50 km.
With this diverse diaspora across the country, unquestionably regional aspirations become very important to us. So while we kind of believe in diversity, we also make sure that all our assessments or customer insights are multilingual in languages. For example, if there is a national press release to be done, my normal language translations are in about 46 to 50 languages, depending upon the brand that I'm communicating. So if I have to go deep, that's the kind of press releases that we do, so that the message connectivity is there with the audience.
Thirdly, and more importantly, we also believe in culturally relevant storytelling. So the narrative has to be in a storytelling form.
And that's very Indian of us as Indians. We believe in the Mahabharata. That's how we've grown up. It's all about storytelling to connect. And this storytelling has to be, again, community-focused in the initiatives that you take and in the format of media connectivity.
And accordingly, in the media that we choose, we also look at adapting our communication, whether it be advertising and mass communication or its targeted media releases. We look at having diverse brand ambassadors. So we do not look at the ‘courses for horses’ approach in what we do. And multilingual communication, like I said, is a must for this.
How does Maruti Suzuki integrate design and technology not just in cars but also in its PR and corporate communication strategies?
In typical inner communication, you have two audiences - an external audience and an internal audience. External is our audience at large - vendors, dealers, customers, prospects, anyone.
And the internal audience is also large. We have a large workforce of nearly about 35,000 people, which is also diverse in itself. We have three plants - in Manesar, Gurgaon and Gujarat.
That itself has diversity. So when you're creating communications, we are very particular about the design that we take. We have the best of the technology available in terms of disseminating this information to people.
For example, we even use tech as simple as WhatsApp. We use that as a very interesting medium of circulating our news. We use the Internet in a very nice way, not just for external, but also for internal communications.
We use an intranet at the same time. If you were to go down to our website, there's a very interesting section we just recently started called Engage. It is nothing but talking to the customer in the language that he understands, giving information about our products and technologies to the customers about what's happening at Maruti, and what's new in the format that they would relate to best.
So, of course, the design will have to be very attractive. It will have to be resonating with their desires. Then the connect will happen.
How does the brand’s future-focused approach reflect in the company's communication strategies?
When we have an eye on the future and while talking about the future, we are focused on sustainability.
We are very dedicated to communicating our commitment to reduce emissions – the PM has set a net zero target for us. We are all working towards that and showcasing green technology and other sustainable practices.
Some of the things that we do is a zero water wastage and servicing of cars. We use solar energy in a large way for charging and running our plants in a larger format. Highlighting R&D is another strategy that we use - we have a whole R&D set up in Rohtak, which is one of the best in Asia right now.
When it comes to what we are doing, the tech-relevant initiatives that we are taking and that are going to impact the customer in the future, and how will he benefit from it - of course, the most important part of the company's communication strategy is focusing on the young. India is only getting younger. 65 per cent of our population is under 35 years of age today.
When it is about focusing on the younger audience and the selection of the appropriate medium, a digital-first strategy becomes imperative.
In what ways does Maruti Suzuki utilise AI in its marketing and communication strategies, and how has it impacted the effectiveness of these efforts?
We're very actively indulging in and utilising AI in our marketing and communications.
In personalised marketing, for example, we are using AI very effectively to use dynamic content creation. When I say dynamic, it is adaptive to the audience at that particular time, at that particular moment of emotions, to that level. We are getting into it, what the person wants. So typically, we have tools in our dealership that when you walk in, we have those red eye sensors which sense the emotion of the person, and we also figure out what exactly you are looking at, if you are looking at the shape or design of the car, at the colours, or the stance of the car. Then accordingly, our salespeople are tuned to pitch the car to you.
But that is not just enough. We also track the customer’s/potential customer’s journey. There are typically 26 steps in the digital journey of a customer buying a car, that's been stated to Google. Maruti Suzuki has covered 24 out of those 26 steps on digital. So imagine we have tracked the customer effectively.
If you engage with us at the point in time when you first maybe looked at a social media post or a website, and from there when you land up to the dealership, we have collated all the information we want to collect about you. So imagine if you are looking for a Swift that you want to buy. And you land up in a dealership and you just punch in your name and telephone number on the screen. The people in the back end immediately come to know that you are the same customer who was looking for a Swift a couple of days back. So if this person is to come and speak to you and he says that he understands you're looking for a Swift, and offers to show you one. What would be your reaction? That whole wow feel is there. So we're doing dynamic content creation.
We are doing chatbots and virtual assistants. Very clearly, most of the initial engagement with the customer is via chatbots and virtual assistants. In terms of marketing communications, we're doing a lot of campaign optimisations.
When I say campaign optimisations, it is about hyper-local marketing which we have been doing and delivering content across the country in a hyper-local way. We are also using predictive modelling for customer behaviour. We're using sentiment analysis.
We're using the voice of customer analysis. So when we do research with customers – we can reflect your tone, your mood, your sentiment. We are trying to see how we can use machine learning to sense that and give us valuable predictive insights that a certain customer is more approachable and may buy a car immediately versus maybe buying over a longer period.
Your tonality or engagements will tell us. And of course, we top it up with all market research and customer segmentation reports which further embellish these findings.
Undoubtedly, social media plays a vital role in consumer engagement. How does Maruti Suzuki leverage social media platforms to connect with its audience, and what challenges are encountered in this digital landscape?
At Maruti Suzuki, we can very confidently say we understand the power of social media and we actively use various platforms to connect with diverse audiences.
We use a multi-platform approach or presence - we are actively present on Facebook, on Insta, Twitter, and YouTube. We have regional language platforms and pages which are available. We create engaging content, and we try and feel what the customer needs, and what is his desire, and then create creatives around it, or the information we want to disseminate to them accordingly.
We also largely use community building. So we have brands like Swift which is an iconic brand, and multiple clubs happening. Jimny is another example that we just got in a portfolio.
What works is at mass, what works for them is niche. And niche community building is very important - we also encourage and focus on those interactions.
Influencer marketing is another thing that we are adapting. It is a challenge, yes, because you have to identify the right influencer to reach out to the right audience. But I think today, with technology available, with options available, we can always get the right influencer to carry forward the product that we have.
And of course, multilingual languages - if you have to be regional, language presence has to be there. My key challenge is that I feel in terms of the digital landscape, there are two challenges. One is standing out in the crowd today. You're hit by so many pieces of communication; you're virtually bombarded by multiple options. How can I stand out and be recognised, as a brand that connects? That's a challenge that we are working on, but that comes in handy if you understand the customer. You are innovative, you're engaging, hopefully.
But standout is a challenge. The other is adapting to the platform changes today. You know, platforms are also changing.
Clubhouse happened and it changed within three months. You listen to podcasts, so you had Saavn and you had other music platforms, but then they're also changing. Again, the whole question is about adaptability and being agile.
How does Maruti Suzuki strike a balance between embracing new technologies and honouring traditional values in its communication?
Our traditional values were and remain very clear, reliability and trust as the two key virtues that we always stand for. We used to have a motto at one time – ‘Count on Us’, and then we made it to ‘Way of Life’ as a brand theme. Coming in from those traditions, we make sure that we have a wider range of products with the change.
We have a portfolio of about 16 brands today which cover right from Alto, all the way up to Invicto. So we have a brand presence. We have technologies that consumers can choose from.
We are now limited to mostly petrol. We moved out of diesel a couple of years back, but within petrol ICE (Internal Combustion Engines), we have platforms which you can use – ethanol-based fuel, or petrol, CNG or flex fuels that we are working on.
We also have a hybrid as a new technology. A strong hybrid is finding favour with consumers. As the numbers speak, a couple of months back, the hybrids sold nearly the same amount as EVs.
There are 16 or 17 brands of EVs in the market today, whereas there are only about six hybrids, strong hybrids.
And of course, the automotive landscape is getting highly competitive. So we will have to keep up with the tech part in a large way.
How does Maruti Suzuki involve its employees in PR and corporate communication to enhance brand advocacy both internally and externally?
Involving employees and PR strategies is there. We always listen very carefully. We have a two-way communication that we always propagate in the company. It's not a one-way street.
But more importantly, on the PR front, we make sure that whatever is being disseminated by the company, whether it be a press release or a statement by a managing director or senior members of the company, is always circulated down to the last person in the organisation. That person has to know what is happening in the company.
We believe that every employee is an advocate of the company. So, therefore, an advocate will have to be educated in the best possible way. He will have to be informed on what is happening in the company, be it the products, be it the information that has been passed on.
As part of the internal communication strategies, we have everything very well laid out. We have a newsletter which comes out monthly. We have newsletters that come out quarterly. We also have daily information updates - it's called Pitstop. That's somewhere where all employees go in every day – it is like an intranet page where you go in for your attendance, to find out about what's happening, if you want to do something in the HR, you have something in finance, you go there on that page.
I think the biggest advocates we would love to have are our customers. So, having our customers be there, having our customers speak for us, is the healthiest thing that we look forward to.
We also have our evangelists that we kind of create or our well-wishers who speak well about us. So communicating to them, giving them information - the whole thing is about information. Information is the fuel.
According to you, what are the trends that are expected to disrupt the PR and communications industry?
The changing medium itself is one of the trends. So, today you have a particular medium, tomorrow there could be something new that will come up. Social media itself is very dynamic and changing every day. News consumption is changing largely. Consumers are now looking at news in a very different format. I think the challenge in front of peers and communication is to be adaptive to this medium.
Secondly, there's a lot of dynamics happening on the news front itself. You have a large part of people moving in different mediums. How do you keep the relationship alive? How do you keep in touch with them on a real-time basis? How do you get them to experience your products so that we can make them our brand advocates? They speak about us. Those are things, with time, that we will have to keep looking at and adapting as we proceed.
