Auto mechanics play key role in recommending brands, Amit Ghugre of Shell
According to Amit Ghugre, chief marketing officer of Shell, auto mechanics are among the most important stakeholders for its engine oil business. They too are excited about being associated with celebrity-endorsed brands.
On April 12, Shell Lubricants India unveiled its upgraded portfolio of Shell Advance Motorcycle oils. The ‘Rukna Mushkil Hai’ campaign, which was launched in 2023, came out with version 2.0 and featured Shahid Kapoor as the brand ambassador, continuing their partnership.
Amit Ghugre, chief marketing officer of Shell, touched upon the genesis of the campaign, its marketing strategies, and the target audience.
Edited excerpts:
Could you touch upon the genesis of the Rukna Mushkil Hai (RMH 2.0) campaign?
We wanted to basically create a campaign which resonates with our target audience, which is primarily everyday bikers. In what way can Shell Advance play a role in their aspirations beyond being just a lubricant engine oil supplier?
It evolved with that concept and one very important aspect that we identified as we speak with our consumers is the overall optimism and confidence they have in themselves and their ability or their willingness to actually stretch.
That is where the whole concept of 'Rukna Mushkil Hai' came. Because in this campaign, we basically want to celebrate that spirit of youth, their willingness, their ability to basically go beyond all challenges.
That is what Shell Advance wants to be contributing. When it comes to their journey on their two-wheelers, Shell Advance has a very direct solution, which is basically a world-class engine oil which can make their rides much more comfortable. But how can we also be connected with them in a broader message?
That's where again the campaign and then the context of Shahid (Kapoor) comes in because Shahid is an excellent brand ambassador for us and is a very good biker. So people know him as a serious biker and not just as a film celebrity.
But the second aspect of that was also the fact that Shahid himself is not such a big star because of his parental lineage necessarily, but because of the effort and the talent that he himself brings. He started very small, but now he has reached a completely different level.
Could you touch upon the campaign’s advertising and marketing strategies?
Around June or July, we started round one of this campaign, which was RMH 1.0. After a big launch, our initial step was to announce the celebrity on social media and digital platforms.
We had PR events. We had a big launch event in Mumbai last year, and it was widely publicised. It was very well received and we also had a layer of influencers along with it, because that is also another important marketing lever that we continue to build on as part of our strategy.
After that, we had a comprehensive plan for ATL (Above-the-line) as well as BTL (Below-the-line). So on ATL, we focused on television advertising. Because at that time, it was very important for us to get a mass level and a spike in consumer awareness as a first step. And after one month of television commercials, we basically shifted our focus mainly to digital through social media.
One of the most important stakeholders for us in our business is the mechanic, because mechanics play a very important role in the recommendation of a brand. They are particularly also very excited about association of brands like us with celebrities. So we are also able to communicate our association, create some activations for mechanics to basically participate in displays in the store.
What is your take on celebrity endorsements and how beneficial has the strategy been for Shell?
It was important for us as a brand to create an immediate big impact in a short period of time.
A celebrity will actually help us to create that linkage much faster. So I do believe that the celebrity name does give that extra benefit or weight to the campaign. That was the logic with which we basically decided to go ahead with a celebrity-led campaign. But, of course, it wouldn't work if the choice of celebrity was not right.
While we want to appeal to the youth, we want to particularly look at the youth who also look at biking not as a chore, but as an important part of their life. Therefore, we wanted celebrities associated with biking and love for bikes.
If I were to look back on whether that choice made sense in terms of how we quantify, I do think that, yes, we have substantially good data to say that it helped us to deliver a significant increase in our brand preference that we wanted to achieve.
And even when we look at the numbers of the digital metrics on the click-through rates or, for example, how many were able to see the full videos, etc, and if you compare those KPIs versus the typical average KPIs, we had higher KPIs than the average. And a lot of that can be linked to the combination of probably an interesting campaign, but also the presence of the right celebrity.
How have the marketing strategies evolved, and which has been the most useful?
Though one ends up changing engine oil once in two or three months, it depends on what a mechanic is basically doing.
So therefore, given the nature of this category and the role of the trade and influencers, which is basically mechanics, our marketing mix always has been a combination of what is required in the BTL side and what is required in the ATL side. Shell and most of our competitors also, as far as I understand, are focused on the BTL side as a first priority, which is basically trade activations, displays and loyalty programmes.
And then similarly for the mechanics because they still are very big influencers. Almost two-thirds of the category purchase decisions are influenced by mechanics. So that is where our marketing investments have been skewed.
We also see that particularly in some categories, there is an increasing role the consumers are playing. Particularly with the advent of digital and the availability of information online, consumers are interested and want to know what kind of oil is going in their cars.
So we do see some trends there, but it's still at a premium side, and not the biggest source of volumes today. That is how our investments are also basically distributed. So, it has been retail driven. And to an extent, ATL also for specific categories.
Who is your target audience for this campaign?
It's just last year when we started this particular campaign, Rukna Mushkil Hai. As I mentioned, we were primarily focused on the trade side or the BTL influencer side of the marketing dynamic.
If I were to look at it in two separate buckets, one is the consumer side and other is the trade side.
On the consumer side, our target audience is definitely the youth who are basically bikers, but for everyday biking. The only difference is that for them, biking is not just a mechanical means of going from place A to B. They do like to roam around, at least in their own ways, and they know how important it is for them to have smooth and safe biking and the role that all accessories like lubricants can play in them. That is our key target audience.
Is there any new market launch from Shell in the future?
As a global company, one of the advantages we have is the benefit of the global portfolio and technology that we can always introduce in the market at an appropriate time.
So last year, not only in the two-wheeler category but even in the four-wheeler category, we launched three to four very successful products for SUVs. Similarly, this year we have a very interesting new product launch plan, which will continue to hit the market over the next few months.
Product launches are definitely one of the important aspects because as vehicles are evolving, technology is also evolving. The product specification quality requirements also change. And we have to keep pace with that.
