Akriti Arora - The Way Brands Communicate With and Market to Their Customers Has Undergone a Drastic Change (Marketing Head at Carnation Hotels)

Head – Marketing and Public Relations

Carnation Hotels, a subsidiary of Lemon Tree Hotels Limited

Linked In - @Akriti Aora

1. Tell us more about your journey and background.

My journey in PR and marketing has been a fairly interesting one. As a child, I was passionate about writing, acting and debate, and the original choice was actually to get into either journalism or reporting, which is why I pursued journalism and mass communication. 

Having done my first internship with a magazine, I opted for a second internship with a PR agency, simply to broaden my horizons and understand a different side of the business. It was at this agency that my career path changed towards PR, for two reasons. 

The first was that my team and branch head were extremely supportive and engaging, and I think for any young professional, working in a comfortable, fun environment is always important. 

The second was that I found PR not only allowed me to continue to sharpen and evolve my writing skills, but by allowing me to work with different sets of clients across different verticals, I was also able to explore other aspects such as events, business development etc. 

From there, as organic opportunities in print media started to reduce, and digital/social media grew manifold, it was only a matter of time till I got involved in marketing as well, as I had to evolve and learn in order to stay relevant in the industry. 

That being said, even today, a majority of my role is centred around public/media relations, corporate communications, offline marketing and advertising and content creation, while I also spend time learning about different digital platforms that can be utilised effectively for brand awareness and promotion


2. How according to you has marketing evolved over the years?

The major evolution in marketing has been the transition from offline to online marketing. Online/digital marketing looked very different 10 years ago than it does today. Earlier, companies preferred to spend on offline marketing and advertising, finding both the prestige and reach of different ATL and BTL platforms to be higher than digital avenues. 

However, over time, more social media platforms emerged, stabilised and found huge audiences, the web experience improved drastically, and the quality and availability of smart phones and other web enabled devices grew substantially. 

This brought about a shift in the way data was found and consumed by customers, with millennials not just in urban areas, but rural ones as well, using the internet to connect, engage, conduct research, watch content, listen to music, play games, shop, make bookings – the list is endless. 

Therefore, companies had to realign their marketing strategies to give considerable time and resources on building effective channels of digital communication.

Amongst the many differences between the two mediums, some of the benefits that online mediums provide are:

• Immediate, real time dissemination of information
• Two way exchange of communication between a brand and its customer, thereby increasing engagement, and allowing collection of feedback for improvement
• Highly targeted and niche marketing campaigns can be implemented, with the target audience demographics being defined across numerous parameters, from the basics of age, gender, city etc., to very specific areas of interest, income, spending power etc. this is different from traditional offline marketing, in which most mediums are far more oriented towards mass marketing
• ROI tracking, while still not perfect in any system, is far more trackable and quantifiable for marketing done through online platforms, as data for website traffic, conversions, average spends etc. are much more readily available and easier to source

Of course, the past year has brought about a sea change in marketing and communication strategies, with the pandemic creating an ecosystem where the global population was forced to live, work and play online. 

Offline, particularly print mediums, which were earlier considered the most prestigious, have taken a back seat. As consumers have moved online, so have brands and publications. 

At least in the short term, online sales and marketing and gone far ahead of, and somewhat replaced, a lot of the offline activities that were conducted earlier.


3. Where do most of your marketing budgets go, traditional or digital?

As mentioned earlier, the last year has turned marketing completely on its head, and the way brands communicate with and market to their customers has undergone a drastic change. 

Where earlier, spends were divided between traditional and digital advertising and marketing campaigns – with some tier II and III cities continuing to see majority of spends in the offline space – the past year has seen almost all marketing expenditure targeted towards digital mediums. 

As we return to a new normal, some offline marketing channels, and their related spends, have revived, but a majority of expenditure and outreach continues to take place online.


4. How can one reach the top echelons in marketing?

I don’t know if I’m the right person to answer this question, as I believe I still have a long way to go before coming anywhere near the top.

But, from what I’ve seen of the great leaders and achievers, I think an insatiable thirst for knowledge, a constant need to research and learn about a variety of topics (not just your own vertical), a willingness to accept lack of expertise in certain domains, and learn from those who have the relevant experience, and the ability to constantly adapt and evolve as the world changes, are some of the critical characteristics to succeed not just in marketing, but in most professions.


5. How will marketing change in the next decade or so?

I think if there’s anything the past year has taught us, it’s that no matter how much we try and predict the future, there will always be unexpected occurrences, some of which will forever change the landscape of the industry that we work in. 

Given what experts in the medical, environmental and ecological fields are predicting, it would seem that cases of natural disasters, epidemics, pandemics are only going to increase as we go forward, and the only thing that seems predictable is the unpredictability of the future. 

So, I think, we need wait and watch the space, and possibly this answer can only be given retrospectively – ten years ago, no one could have predicted the pandemic, let alone its impact on marketing, and ten years from new, we would probably have seem more than we can predict today. 

Hence, the ability to introspect, accept, adapt and evolve will serve professionals well in these uncertain times.


6. Which is your favourite book and why?

I happen to love reading fiction, and have numerous books that I love. Chief amongst them would possibly be And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie – the writing style and unexpected ending are quite marvellous.

There are, of course, the standard management and self-help books – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; Good to Great; How to Win Friends and Influence People; I’m Ok, You’re Ok; Who Moved My Cheese – and many more, which have been very helpful in developing efficient management styles, dealing with change in my work life etc.

However, for me, the most interesting non-fiction books are some of the texts by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung – I learnt the basics of psychology briefly, and have always found it an extremely interesting area of study. 

Though a number of their works were discredited in their later years, their contribution to the field cannot be denied, and some of their findings were instrumental in defining how childhood events can shape our personalities well into adulthood. 

I also have great faith in the power of psychological analysis, and think that if we can take the time and make the effort to introspect and understand any negative aspects /drawbacks of our personality, and then study why they exist, and how they can possibly be improved upon – that would probably help us more than any self-help book. 

- Interviewed by - Sanjana Jain