Our long-term vision is to support talent from grass-root levels and bring more Olympic glory to India: Deepak Gulati, Bridgestone India

• The Tokyo Olympics are around the corner and brands have been coming up with campaigns around the tournament.
• As the excitement continues to build up, we speak to Deepak Gulati, Chief Marketing Officer, Bridgestone India. The Tokyo-headquartered tyre brand, while supporting some of the biggest names from the Indian contingent, is also going deeper into the country, working with organizations that are helping athletes at the grass-root level.
• He also tells us about the brand's areas of focus to ring in more growth, the pandemic's impact on its business and his biggest learnings from the last 1.5 years.

We are finally just a few days away from the Tokyo Olympics and as people wait in anticipation, brands across categories have started rolling out their campaigns celebrating our athletes. In the past few weeks, we have seen brands tell us inspiring stories of many athletes from our contingent this year, and we are not complaining.

It was in 2014 that the Bridgestone Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, became a Worldwide Olympic Partner. In 2018, it became a Worldwide Paralympic Partner. The company has global rights to the Olympic and Paralympic Movements through to 2024, a period that includes the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024. Considering this year, the games are happening in Tokyo, it is a double celebration for the brand.

Bridgestone India launched its campaign, ‘Chase Your Dream’ celebrating the struggles and achievements of MC Mary Kom, PV Sindhu, Sakshi Malik and Srikanth Kidambi. The brand has also launched a microsite (www.chaseyourdream.in) where viewers can see for themselves the challenges these sports icons overcame to reach where they are today. It also gives people a chance to tell and share the story of their struggle as they successfully chased their dreams.

Recently, we caught up with Deepak Gulati, Chief Marketing Officer, Bridgestone India, where we spoke about its Olympics campaign, the importance sports marketing plays in its overall marketing strategy and how it is making its presence stronger in India.

Chase Your Dream

Chase Your Dream is Bridgestone’s global communication around its partnership with the Olympics. The aim of the campaign is to inspire people to overcome obstacles and persevere in pursuit of their goals. This is also part of the brand’s efforts to help create a more inclusive and sustainable society in alignment with its global corporate social responsibility commitment, Our Way to Serve.

Throwing some more light on what the campaign will entail, Gulati said, “The campaign was first announced before the 2016 Olympic Games and it highlights the pursuit of performance that Bridgestone shares with the Olympic movement. It honors the commitment necessary to stay the course to realize one's dream. That's the thought behind it. We are one of the top 13 global sponsors of the Olympic Games. We have translated the campaign for India by recognizing the inspirational stories of our Team Bridgestone athletes. We, as a brand, believe in the power of sports to motivate and encourage people to chase their dreams. And Team Bridgestone members have exhibited a lot of endurance and performance, which are key attributes of Bridgestone tyres as well, to reach where they are today and that’s the connect between the brand and our athletes.”

On why sports marketing is important for the brand, Gulati said, “We firmly believe in the power of sports. We see it as one of the core ingredients to motivate people and to help them chase their dreams. The endurance and the performance required to achieve a certain level in sports marries well with the kind of attributes that are a part of our brand proposition. I also feel that the kind of sports we choose also helps us build a strong bond with our target consumers. We feel that sports has the ability to bring the best out of people and there is an insight and motivation behind each sport and each sporting personality and that helps us build a very special bond with our target consumers.”

The brand is also working towards an ecosystem where it can support more athletes, and not just the ones that make it big. “Our vision is to bring the Olympic glory to the country. So while we have been working with some of the biggest names like PV Sindhu, Mary Kom, Sakshi Malik and Srikanth Kidambi, supporting them through sponsorships and training, we are also working with organizations that focus on building talent at the grass-root level. Also, in terms of our communication, while we still are a cricket-crazy nation, we are asking cricket fans to come forward and cheer for our athletes too,” he added.

The Covid-19 impact

While the auto industry had been witnessing a slowdown even before pandemic brought the world to a stop, things have been looking up for both the auto industry, and therefore the overall tire industry in India. The pent-up demand, and also the fact that people are giving more importance to personal mobility, has helped in recovery.

On how the pandemic affected the brand in India, Gulati said, “It's been a hard time for the whole world, everyone was hit by the pandemic. We were hit too. But the way the Bridgestone team rallied together helped us come out of it. One of our core values is agility and our team responded to the situation with a lot of agility and collaboration. We were able to do the right things at the right time, and were able to come out of the crisis. The business impact it had on us would be similar to what the overall auto industry faced, the lockdown resulted in markets and our plants being closed, it hampered our production, but again, the pent-up demand when the lockdowns opened helped us make a good come-back.”

According to recent figures from ratings agency ICRA, the Indian tyre industry's demand is expected to grow by 13-15% in the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) segment and 7-9% in the replacement market segment this fiscal.

In line with the predications, Gulati said there has been a good demand. “Since people have been in their homes since the lockdown last year, it has led to a lot of pent-up demand for road travel. There is an increased focus on personal mobility because of concerns about public transport. All these factors have resulted in a tailwind for the industry. And since we are a key part of the industry, we've been able to support that tailwind,” he explained.

On what the brand’s areas of focus will be in the future to bring in more growth, he said, “We are currently present in the PSR (consumer tyre business) and TBR (the commercial business) segments. We are a very strong player in the consumer business with a strong market position. The market is growing in India and we, being the leading player, will continue to grow in line with the mega trends as well as our own brand position. On the commercial side of the business, we are a relatively smaller player. But being a global powerhouse in this area, we have the right product propositions and the right go-to market ways to win in the segment. Thirdly, we plan to aggressively focus on mobility-centric solutions. With the global ecosystem driven by a lot of digital technologies, there is a different play happening in the overall mobility ecosystem and Bridgestone will be a key player in this ecosystem.”

Learnings from the pandemic

The pandemic brought with it a lot of lessons. It has changed the way we buy, consume, and communicate and the way we conduct business. Empathy has been a key to most businesses and one of the biggest learnings for leaders across the world.

On what the last 1.5 years has taught him, both as a marketer and as a normal person, Gulati said, “Before a marketer, we are all human beings. So as a human being, this experience made us realize the value of being in the present, the value of your friends and family, and the value of having those human relationships which come to the fore at this time. Secondly, such times of crisis ask for a huge amount of empathy in anything and everything you do, be it in your marketing, or your interactions with your colleagues and customers. Empathy is the best way to connect. The unprecedented nature of the pandemic also made us realize the value of health and mental well-being. As a marketer, ensuring we had an open and constant communication with all our stakeholders was very important. It also taught us the importance of agility. You need to work towards making sure that you are ready for the future, that you can pivot quickly during a crisis like this.”