Rahul Saighal is the Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung India. Before joining Samsung, Saighal held the same position at telecom company Aircel, which he joined in October 2007. Saighal worked with Unilever for almost two-and-a-half years, starting August 2005, as regional brand director in Thailand. Saighal’s experience in the telecom industry could prove useful for Samsung, which is establishing itself as a key player in the smart phones and tablets category in the Indian market. In an exclusive interview with India Digital Review, Saighal discusses his thoughts and ideas about implementing digital marketing for building the Samsung brand in India.

How does the digital medium - both internet and mobile figure in Samsung India’s plans to reach out to consumers?

Digital is an incredibly important marketing medium for us. Most of our products are really designed for a great digital and internet experience. Even in the latest campaign that we have launched today for Samsung Galaxy Note II, which is one of our most advanced products, this whole activity is all about submitting entries digitally to create a Guinness World Records for the most artists contributing to a single art piece.

Speaking about this particular campaign, what answers did you seek from your digital advertising agency?

The pitch was very simple. Our objective was to create an exciting idea that magnifies the incredible creativity of Galaxy Note II and engages with our consumers and potential consumers in a very exciting manner.

In your category, visual brand building works the best. With new engagement forms such as videos coming up on internet, what are your thoughts on visual brand building exercises on internet in India?

We are moving into a digital economy and a digital society. And with the emergence of bigger screen sizes and user-generated content, video is hugely important. Also, given the increased amount of bandwidth available these days, a lot of content creation is happening across multiple devices like PC, mobiles and TV. Thus visually, it is imperative for a brand to be present in all content formats digitally to be able to reach the consumer effectively.

How do you see the growth of Samsung India’s digital marketing budget?

It is definitely going to grow up, reason that the number of digital users is going up exponentially. But, digital is not only about budgets. It is a medium which is very interactive and at the end of the day it is engagement that matters the most, especially when one puts social medium as a part of digital marketing. So I won’t put a number to the growth, but can assure you that along with the spend, the engagement and creativity also grows.

Internet is said to be a measurable medium. What is your take on this? Have we overdone the measurement quotient and made this medium hard to understand for the brand marketers?

I think it is a relatively newer medium and is evolving very fast. Hence it lends itself the measurability much more. Besides the quality of interaction and two-way engagement with the consumers on this medium, is also evolving. And in case of any new medium, it always takes time to get the grip of its nuances.

How do you see your marketing objectives aligning with what the online medium offers from two years down the line?

Our marketing objective is to provide our consumers with exciting innovative products and services that really make their lives richer, exciting and help them as a productivity tool. We will continue that focus and we will use this medium so that it effectively blends well with our objective and what our consumers want.