Box8 is one of the leading food delivery startups in India, with over 100 outlets and presence in 4 metro cities across the country. Established in 2011, the brand switched from being a Mexican restaurant to delivering “Desi Meals” at the doorsteps and also delving successfully another venture going by the name of Mojo Pizza.
On 25th February, 2019 Ms. Harsha Biyani and Mr. Palash Anchilya from Box 8 addressed the Advertising and Public Relations batch of 2019. Ms. Harsha started her career in 2015 as a brand designer at CredR: an automative company in Mumbai, left it 2 years later to join Box8 and in a span of two years became the Head of Marketing and a core team member there while Mr. Palash Anchliya, the Brand Manager at Box8, started as a graphic designer at Outkreate – design and marketing labs in March 2016 to then becoming the founder of Creative Xeno in 2017.
Ms. Harsha began the session by explaining the students how the branding and marketing scenario was evolving in India with the entry of new age companies, especially startups. She went on to explain how the marketing game is different for big players like Flipkart, Amazon etc. and for startups like Box8; while the bigger players have insane budgets to shell on promotions and marketing, the smaller players need to work in a tight “box” both communication and budget wise.
Further she shared her experience as the marketing head of Box8, how she personally interacted with customers to understand how the customers perceived the brand, what they liked or disliked. Post this Ms. Biyani discussed some promotional campaigns by the startups like Zomato, Swiggy, Cars24 etc. and explained how in-house marketing is different from externally sourcing it, how content needs to be digitally produced almost on daily basis. The two also touched on how Mojo Pizza as a brand was recreated with help of customer insight, them changing their tag line from Doubly loaded to 2X Topping in order for people to understand the concept of the product which they market.
Ms. Biyani post discussing the branding aspect went on to conduct an activity with the batch wherein the students were divided into groups of 10 people and they had to launch a Biryani brand inclusive of the branding, concept note, promotional campaign and packaging. Post the activity, the groups were made to present their work and explain their brands. The session was concluded by a feedback session on the activity conducted in the class and work done by each of the groups. Overall this guest lecture was insightful and helped the students get a new perspective into the evolving industry of marketing and promotions and help them adapt to the changes.
Katyayani Rana
(Batch 2019)
