Maruti Suzuki Commercial has rolled out its first-ever integrated campaign more than five years after the launch of the division.
Titled 'Tarakki Aapki, Saath Hamara’ (your success, our support), the campaign has been conceptualised by Dentsu India and features actors Manav Kaul and Aparshakti Khurana as brothers.
It consists of a total of five films – a montage video (above) which narrates the story of the growth of a family business on the back of purchasing Maruti Suzuki Commercial vehicles, and a film each that exhibits the brand’s ‘wide range’, ‘service network’, ‘powerful performance’ and ‘easy finance’ services.
We caught up with Shashank Srivastava, senior executive director (marketing and sales), Maruti Suzuki India, to learn more about the campaign as well as the commercial division.
Edited excerpts:
The company forayed into this segment almost five and a half years ago. What made this the ideal time for the brand campaign?
Firstly, the commercial segment is seeing growth after a couple of years of de-growth and is bouncing back.
When we came in five years ago, we were testing the market and could be called challengers and beginners. Now, five years later, we are still challengers, but not beginners anymore, and have a range of vehicles.
What is the objective of the campaign and what was the insight for the same?
We want to communicate that we are an expert for growth and the range of our offerings is based on the insight that one goes further in life when you partner with an expert.
How has this commercial channel grown over the last few years? What would be the contribution to the total sales numbers?
For Maruti Suzuki, the total sales numbers were around 14 lakhs last year. The commercial vehicles sold in 2021 would be around 30,000 for us. The total segment of light commercial vehicles saw sales of around 5,68,000 last year.
What's your target audience for the campaign?
We want to speak to those who have a growth mindset. Our customers are owner-drivers, fleet owners, app-based drivers, tourist drivers and meter taxis. These are broadly either looking to deliver goods or passengers.
The idea behind appointing Kaul and Khurana for the films. Would they be brand ambassadors or are they only being used for this campaign?
The duo is only on board for this campaign. We have a brand ambassador for Nexa, which is Ranveer Singh, Varun Dhawan for Maruti Suzuki Arena, and Rajkummar Rao for Maruti True Value.
Kaul and Khurana are well known among our target audience. As challengers in this segment, we are looking for quick awareness for our brand, and we believe they could help us deliver it. The consumers are very logical in terms of business and these characters indicate that combination.
The films show a dedicated showroom for the Maruti Suzuki commercial. How many such showrooms do you have?
We started in 2016, with three outlets and have expanded to more than 300 now.
