Parikshit?s View: MMT has been around for 20 years as one of the most trusted travel brands. Parakshit Choudhary shared how MMT has attempted to stay relevant all this long through storytelling & products and also evolved over time.

The sweet spot is the intersection of what brands & businesses want to say and what customers want to listen to. If that sweet spot is disjointed, it can take away customers.

With zero travel during COVID, revenues plummeted to near zero for MMT. However, not communicating with the customer was not an option. MMT wanted to talk to customers about the topics that were most important to them at that time.

For starters, we were implementing simple things like a mask on the Brand Icon to highlight safety and to stay indoors. MMT also created a product solution ground up to book appointments for vaccinations.

MMT created guidelines readily available for travel and started certifying properties basis safety for consumer choice. Keeping in mind the economic scenario of the book now, pay later, and price freeze were introduced in an immediate post-Covid plan.

Product innovations & relevant communications to the customer have helped MMT remain in that intersecting sweet spot of what customers wanted to listen to and what they had to say.

Girish Budhiraja?s View: Credit cards typically are a very untrustworthy segment. Nobody believes their credit card issuer. Customers believe that card issuers' only aim is to take money out of your pocket and some way or the other. SBI card claims to be the most trustworthy in this untrustworthy segment.

Trust with your consumers is the primary fundamental superpower that every brand should try to achieve, and all efforts of SBI are towards that aim.

It's easier said than done. How do you build trust? What do you do to build trust? What works to build trust?

SBI cards do not use intrusive cookies to be put on their website. The market norms are to employ cookies, and many brands use retargeting. In a way to do marketing, brands have to reach their customers, and brands have to do multiple things.

It is that essential level of trust, and I would treat my customers how I would not like to be treated; this is a basic fundamental upon which the SBI card operates.

For a customer, even a negligible amount of money loss is unnerving, and the emotional feeling of that loss stays. For SBI Cards, true brand superpowers are in ethics like the fair practices code are extremely important.

Girish believes many brand people should build a fair practice code for their brands. The code need not be onerous or lengthy and can cover the essentials.

Times like COVID will come and go, as will events like demonetisation. There will be more events in the future. Sticking with that code, even in the most difficult of times, is the real character of a brand.

If brands keep that fair practice and that trust with consumers that they will not do something incorrectly, they stand to gain a lot. In uncertain times, the brand will stay on course with the code, stay stable, and have the consumer's interest in your mind. This makes the customers stay loyal in the long term.

When it's any commitment coming from a brand, that commitment has to be fulfilled. Some of those codes are very well ingrained in us whether it is in matters of service, offers or whatever. That works more as a superpower than anything else.

Superpowers?

We have an idea. It is not a power ring, nor does it shoot laser from its eyes. We call it x-ray vision. It lets you see if your customers are happy or disappointed, if they are loyal to your brand or if they would like to move on with another option. This superpower can tell you if they are aware of your current offers and promotions or if they are forgettable in their minds. The superpowers of CX allow every brand to see through the eyes of their customers.

The DMAasia Brand Trail is a new concept introduced to the marketing community. A unique representation of insights from a variety of industries, ranging from eCommerce and financial services to food and property.

The DMAasia Brand Trail for CX Superpowers was held in Mumbai & Gurugram on 10th Nov and 17th Nov. It was an interactive session which has garnered industry-wide participation from over 40 CxOs in attendance.

We started with a simple objective: collectively finding what it will take to win in 2023 and how brands can grow at scale.

The perspectives mentioned here have been captured at the Cx Superpowers event by our team at DMAasia. It's a wealth of techniques that you can deploy for your brand.

What is your brand's favourite superpower? Let us know and we would love to get you featured here at the DMAasia Brand Trail.

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