Since the past few months, I have been working on BTL marketing. I have been ordering a lot of the traditional BTL elements like Posters, Danglers, Stickers, leaflets, Pocket Brochures etc. for my brand. Which made me think about the waste produced in marketing activities.
These BTL elements are made from paper and plastic. The quantity of these elements for a campaign is planned according to the places they are to be put and their life. This made me think of the waste these elements produce. Let’s take an average figure, suppose an FMCG brand installs 5 lac elements in a region every quarter. Which makes it install 20 lac elements in a year. 20 lac pieces per year per brand. If we calculate the total for 1000 brands also, which is far less than the number of brands present in India. Then every year we produce 20,000 lac elements as waste.
There are articles online about the waste produced by such activities. Click here to read one of them.
THE QUESTION
My question is do we really need this kind of traditional BTL marketing? Earlier there used to be few companies and hence it was ok for any retailer to put such stuff in the shop, but today there are thousands of brands and it becomes difficult for the retailer to put such a huge quantity of posters, danglers and leaflets in the shop.
The distributor has many brands with him and it is very difficult for him to keep track of all the BTL material implementations. I have seen BTL material kept at the distributor’s and the retailer’s place unused.
Another important question is that can we use the marketing budget more effectively? Can we optimise it to create a win-win situation for all? Reducing waste and improving result can both go hand in hand.
WIN-WIN
Win for the business as it would save money which can be used for some other activity.
A win for the shop keeper and the distributor as they don’t have to keep tracking and these elements.
The customer is not bombarded with all the elements placed in the shop while they go shopping, hence it is a win for them.
And the most important win for the Mother Earth, as we are ultimately reducing wastage of paper and other resources.
CONCLUSION
The ultimate objective of all the brands is to increase sales and create brand awareness. Today there are many other methods or ways of achieving this. Guerrilla Marketing, Influencer Marketing, etc. have been in trend since a long time now, but still, brands are going for traditional BTL activities. The question is can we find a replacement for these elements? Are other marketing activities not enough to achieve the marketing objective?
Read some unique sustainable marketing ideas here.
Think about the waste produced in marketing activities and please do share your views in the comments below. Thanks!