Finding the light: Schneider Electric reimagining the brand with a purpose

The 184-year-old global electrical energy company rewires the brand around environmental concerns, looks for a direct connection with consumers

How does a brand that has been invisible to its consumers for the most part of its existence, find its way into the light? By stringing together a narrative that inveigles the brand into the consumer’s daily routines and, increasingly, by finding a purpose that is larger than its immediate remit. 

At Schneider Electric, the marketing team has just launched a campaign that elaborates on the brand’s multiple consumer touch points and looks to build a narrative around climate change. It is also working with cricketer Sachin Tendulkar on a rural electrification project in the country, thereby developing social capital for a brand that has spent most of its years as an unseen presence in consumers’ lives. All these steps are aimed at creating a larger purpose around the brand.

Bidisha Nagaraj, vice president-Marketing, Schneider Electric said, “We look at the marketing function holistically and have been strategically using digital marketing tools with the right use of data analytics and consumer insights.” She added that they are continually measuring the pain points that the brand has and, “we map the entire customer journey and the transformation that we have introduced through a dashboard called Brand to Order (BTO). The brand salience, digital engagement and influence on revenues are the three measurement pillars of BTO.” 

For Nagaraj and her team, it is a challenge creating a brand narrative that resonates with all consumers. “Our target audience ranges from electricians to CEOs to whom we market our entire range of IOT solutions. Homemakers too are an important TG (switches and smart home solutions).” 

Climate concerns, being a universal issue, help  find common ground among its disparate and diverse set of consumers. Hence the company has pitched its tent firmly in the space of the global environmental crisis. Nagaraj said, “It involves communication at three different levels, awareness, product and solutions and making sure that people in our eco system are aligned to the same goal.” Some months ago, the company released a video on the global energy crisis. “We don’t make energy, we make you save it,” it said; this is the core message that the brand wants to convey, according to the company. 

While the intentions are appreciated, Harish Bijoor, founder of Harish Bijoor Consults said, “This comes across as forced messaging.” Brand positioning is an exact science, not an "also" science and hence the messaging must be crisp and engaging. “To that extent I detect a communication flaw,” he added.

Schneider, he pointed out, is attempting to do what Tata Steel did, a few years ago, with its ‘We also make steel’ campaign. However, the execution is weak and the brand could lose out as a result.

The company meanwhile is tapping other channels to build an effective communication flow. Nagraj added that apart from the campaigns, the company is talking to its varied set of consumers to double up as brand influencers. There is also a regular stream of  success stories being presented via social media and other channels.

The company is also presenting the work it does with rural electrification. “We have electrified 750,000 households under the Rural Electrification Program (with SHIF – a partnership with Sachin Tendulkar and Schneider Electric),” she said. Globally, the company has stated its commitment to create a brand that considers corporate social responsibility and social acceptability as a vital part of its mission. In a blog on the company’s website, written by Howard Bowland, vice president of Field Services Australia, the brand’s approach towards social causes is explained in detail. “These two (CSR and social acceptability) are integrated in what we call Social Licence to Operate, or to simply put it: the ongoing acceptance of a company or industry’s standard business practices and operating procedures by its employees, stakeholders and the general public,” he wrote.

To a large extent, the global framework is being rolled out into the Indian ecosystem. The company has been documenting its work with energy, with skilling people, with lighting up people’s homes and so on to help draw up a more complete picture of itself. However the team has made sure that the brand is always focused on the customer journey and greater measurability said Nagaraj and that, she added, “has enabled our marketing team to become more accountable with higher influence on closing the sale cycle.” Perhaps the brand needs to apply a similar set of metrics for its advertising, to get the tone and pitch of its communication right.