Sri Lanka’s urban-rural divide will dictate how companies target consumers in a future, increasingly digital world, local brand builders say.
“Sri Lanka will have to form two distinct advertising strategies to reach local consumers,” said Dilhan Fernando, Marketing Director of MJF Exports – from the group that made Ceylon tea an international name through the Dilmah brand.
Fernando was addressing local marketers and advertisers at the LBR-LBO Advertising and Marketing Forum on Thursday together with President of J. Walter Thompson, Neelanie (Nilo) Goonetillake.
He points out that new age technologies that have begun making its mark here and increasingly tech savvy users, will have to change the way advertisers do business.
It’s no longer advertising to tell the consumer what to buy, but more creative advertising like famous ‘headvertsing’ or forehead tattoos, to persuade and fight to be a consumer’s top choice.
President of J. Walter Thompson in Sri Lanka, Nilo Goonethilake disagree