MUMBAI: Many brands are planning to use the puja festival at various pandals to engage with the consumers. The product range can be as wide as possible. Starting from soya bean nuggets to aerated products brands can make use of this huge platform as a great place for engaging and delivering experiences to the worshippers who will throng in huge numbers across several pandals especially in East and North India. Brands must leverage this opportunity as they are able to address a wide spectrum of audience from kids to adults to elderly people; and thus helping brands to deliver that extra mile through brand experience. Let’s examine how brands can enrich themselves and establish a strong connect with the audience at the various pandals.

1. Relevant Brand Connect: The essence of the brand should be captured with firsthand experience. Vijayadhsami is the most auspicious day for most parents to make their kids learn and start their beginning to step into the educational world. This is a brilliant opportunity for writing instrument brands to connect with tomorrow’s audience. Catch them young to stay connected with your brand. People especially in the East are avid travelers and sincerely make use of their LTA to visit new holiday spots. Travel and tourism brands should try and explore it to the maximum advantage by capturing some of the tourist spots in the most dramatic manner to bring them closer to the brand.

1. Right Brand Experience:  Give a proper structure to deliver the brand experience. For example an audio and television brand can create a mini auditorium to deliver great sound and picture clarity to give the consumer that original and natural experience at the venue. Brands like Dolby can really capitalise by educating and promoting their sound features with live demonstration and firsthand experience.

1. Interactive engagement: Make use of the best of technology to make your consumer engagement interactive. Touch screens and use of apps will intrigue customers to take maximum advantage. With so many Pandals located at various places, downloading of apps at the venue which gives you all information on various activities at various pandals will excite the consumers to download the information using their mobile. Some famous devotional songs can also be made available for downloading at the venue to bring in some emotional connect with the festival and the relevant brand.

1. Relevant Target audience: You will witness people from all strata of the society queuing up at all pandals. So one need not worry about the brand fit to be present at the pandals. A mixed population can be reached with the relevant product and brand and thus giving you an immense opportunity for branding your product at various touch points.

With the economy slow down and limited marketing budgets, I am sure most brands will use this platform to propagate their brands in the most engaging manner. What’s more with festivals like Puja becoming popular year after year it’s one of the best platforms for marketers to pump in money and increase their brand saliency.

By Ganapathy Viswanathan, an independent communication consultant, in communication, branding and public relations.