What kind of branding solutions do you provide to SMEs?
Veerendra Jamdade: Our flagship services include: Vritti iMedia Audio Network on state transport bus stands (bus station audio announcements). The offering involves audio advertising of various products and services through public address systems at district bus terminals.

Also, Vritti i-Media has partnered with the Maharashtra State Road Transport Service (MSRTC), Punjab Road Transport corporation (PRTC), North East Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (NEKRTC), and has been appointed as the sole authorized agency  to run commercial audio advertisements that are played along with the bus arrival/departure announcements on public address systems.

The Vritti iMedia Audio Network, currently, has a reach across 135+  locations across all districts and important towns in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab  with new locations being added every month, making it a formidable force to directly reach out to target audiences in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities and rural markets of India. The reach is 150 million+ people in 3 states

Second, Vritti iMedia Audio Visual Network at highway food malls offers audio-visual advertising through digital screens installed at highway food malls. Advertisement content is displayed through these digital signage in between information display or entertainment. This Digital OOH medium of Vritti is currently helping advertisers to reach out and interact with around 25 lakh travelers every month who wait for around 30 minutes at these highway hotels for having food and beverages

The Audio Visual Network is currently available at 12+ food malls  across different highways like the Mumbai-Pune highway, Mumbai-Nashik highyway  and many other highways .In Mumbai-Nashik highway we have put up a huge 8X 6 LED screen at the Kamat's food mall (Food Hub) and millions of people  traveling to  Shirdi and Nashik  watch this screen. It's considered to be an effective medium to connect with the urban elite and upper middle class. Some people are always on a move for business and cannot be easily connected within the city limits.

Other i-Media offerings are 360 degree branding and activations at food malls, and 360 degree branding and activations in small towns and rural places.

Branding is important to any business, but SMEs, unlike big companies, don't usually have a big advertising budget to support it. In such a situation, how SMEs would be able to compete successfully with big brands in the market?
Veerendra Jamdade: Branding is all about creating a unique identity for the product by which your target group (TG) can recall whenever they need your product or service. People recognize through logos, punchlines, signature tunes or other unique selling propositions. It's important for SMEs to identify the specific target group on which they would like to focus and then set the short-term and long-term brand objectives. Then based on the brand objectives, identify different media through which the  specific TG can be reached. Now comes the real challenge for the SME is choosing  the right media to communicate its brand, based on brand objectives. Here, I don't recommend SMEs to be conservative while choosing the media and on the contrary they should be aggressive. SMEs should know their strengths and should carry out targeted advertising than carpet bombing.

For example, if you are an SME toilet soap manufacturer pitted against big brands, you should identify your niche market or a focus-territory where you would like to dominate and you should go all out and achieve leadership position in that space. You should use all the 360 degree branding and media options to reach your TG in that market/territory. SME shall always look out for alternate media than traditional TV, Newspaper or Radio. Traditional has its advantage but it will be heavy on pocket for SMEs. Even while branding SMEs shall look to get direct sales growth from the campaign.

SMEs have less spending power not just in terms of advertising, but also when it comes to R&D and volume of production. In contrast, big companies enjoy an advantage here too. So, it is difficult for SMEs to base their branding on advertising, technical aspect of products, and price. Then on what SMEs should base their branding primarily?
Veerendra Jamdade: I have already said that with limited resources at your disposal you will have to do target marketing and advertising than carpet bombing. Also, achieve leadership position in certain niche markets.

What mediums - including those related to advertising media as well as others - can help SMEs promote their brands in a cheap but effective way?
Veerendra Jamdade: SMEs along with some limited traditional media usage always needs to innovate and try with alternate media trends  to help the communication reach out to the TG at the lowest possible costs. The emerging  media includes Internet/Digital/social media, Bus stand audio announcements(Audio OOH) , Bus shelters, OOH branding at highway foodmalls and transit places, mobile advertising, transit media, street furniture and many more

Your company helps SMEs to promote their brands in villages and semi-urban areas. Do you think these markets hold huge promise for SMEs - if so how?
Veerendra Jamdade: "Focus on the  bottom of the Pyramid" as C.K Prahalad, a management guru, says. It's these semi urban and village areas where you have 70% of the Indian population staying and we all know that the disposable income of this population is continuously going up. So whether you are a corporate or an SME you have no choice but to focus on this huge potential market. Its easy for SMEs compared to a bigger brand to identify pockets from these semi-urban areas and villages, and work in a focused manner to achieve leadership in that territory. Market potential of the rural and semi-urban areas will surpass the urban market by the end of this decade. Today, even for for the leading automobile makers the larger pie of sale is coming from the rural market. SMEs will have an advantage here as this market will remain cost-sensitive and will look for the second best option which gives price advantage. So, if you have the best product and cost competent to the leading brands you will be preferred.

What different branding approach a company needs to address these markets?
Veerendra Jamdade: "Think Global but act local"-This is what SMEs need to do when you are dealing in semi-urban and rural markets:

* Use local Brand  ambassador

* Communicate in local dialect