As the Nepali market and products continue to grow and diversify, branding, marketing and advertising are becoming more important than ever.

Today, it no longer is enough that you have a great product; how you market the product and how it is perceived by consumers plays an equal role in determining whether the product sells like hot cakes or ends up an abject failure.

With that in mind, Nepal Association for Overseas Technical Scholarship (AOTS) and Advertising Agents Association of Nepal (AAN) organised a workshop—The Kathmandu Post Presents BrandVanCom Workshop—which sought to engage Nepali branding and marketing professionals last week.

The two-day workshop, mentored by Bangladeshi brand guru Sayed Apon Ahsan—the chief belief officer of Expressions Limited—focused on creating, understanding and developing brands, including the various aspects of turning a product into a prolific brand.

“Currently, brand promotion is going digital,” Ahsan noted during the workshop, “And advertising agencies are among those that quickly adapt to changing technology.

But Nepal, like Bangladesh, is still behind the curve when it comes to making that jump over the digital divide.”

The first day of the workshop, therefore, focused on bridging the current gap. With the focus placed on developing a brand communication campaign strategy, the participants engaged in discussions on public relations, digital strategy, websites, sales and business, events and promotion, recruitment marketing, employer branding and market research. 

But even as platform for marketing is changing, the core principles of advertising and branding remain the same, according to Ahsan.

“Bangladeshi and Nepali consumers are exposed to international brands which is a disadvantage to locally-made products in the countries,” he said, “I would suggest entrepreneurs and businesses that whenever they come up with advertising ideas, they should always remember their roots and should give the campaign a local flavour.”

Along those lines, the second day of the workshop focused on building brands through sensible advertisements that tug at the consumer’s emotions.

“Whether it is love, anger, humour, sadness or sexual desires, an advertisement needs to elicit emotional responses from the customer,” Ahsan added while leading a discussion on tailoring campaigns targeted specifically to select customers. 

Speaking to the Post after the workshop, a participant, Amshu Dali, the managing director of Prakriti Bread said, “This workshop has been an eye-opener in terms of marketing my brand. Also, I like the way how Ahsan has made this two-day workshop interactive and energetic.” While Drishti Joshi, creative head at Furniture Land added, “Branding and marketing are always evolving. The five step of branding process—uncover your unique selling proposition, sharpen the brand’s look and feel, ensure that all messages are consistent, choosing your marketing mix and establishing the marketing/communication success measurements—will definitely help me improve our brand.”

With the platform for branding and marketing evolving, Ahsan expressed his delight at mentoring a group that was dominated by young professionals.

“This is the first time that I conducted a workshop in Nepal and it has been amazing to see the youth participate so enthusiastically. Because Nepal still needs to grasp how the digital world works, in terms of marketing a product, seeing this young, energetic and engaged audience is really energising,” he said.  

One of the organisers, Shiva Shrestha, the treasurer of Nepal AOTS, echoed the same sentiments, “The participants were very engaged and Ahsan’s interactive instructions and energetic aura was really great as well. This has been a great building block and we will be coming up with bigger, better workshops in the near future.”

The two-day BrandVanCom Workshop was held on Feb 9-10 at the Hotel Himalaya in the Capital.