Post economic liberalisation, there was a new found enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and a lot of home grown brands were going beyond the typecast of their conservative and timid outlook and showing interest in expanding their portfolio and geographical presence. India became a major sourcing market for IT/ITES and this changed the contour of household consumption. For many enterprises, the second generation family members were plunging into the management of the business and were keen to give an identity to their brands. Mr. Nagarajan had by then two decades of extensive experience in marketing and was planning to venture out with a business of his own. Upon discussions with a large number of entrepreneurs, he realized that there was an untapped market for providing reliable and cost-effective consulting, especially in the area of marketing. He went ahead; zeroed in upon creating Brand Kare, a marketing consultancy organisation, based on his foresight and confidence in his conviction to share his expertise gained over two decades.

Brand Kare didn’t commence its operations as a Market Research agency but as a marketing consultancy that gives directions and strategies to SMEs in the area of marketing. For the recommendation of strategies, Brand Kare had to do market research activities and it was never outsourced to any research agency. All the market research activities were handled by the internal team. The team constantly strived to do both fieldwork and analysis themselves. Over a period, the experience helped them in forming Market Research as a separate offering from Brand Kare. “Our advantage is that we stand by our commitment of Market Research and beyond. Unlike the practice in the industry, we as a value addition recommend a detailed way forward or strategy recommendations based on the research findings. We integrate all insights and generate a thorough and actionable strategy recommendation, in a way that is easy for them to understand.

This walking the extra mile approach has won the appreciation of our clients and has been instrumental in securing repeat business and referrals,” enlightens Nagarajan.

An emerging market research agency, Brand Kare provides both quantitative and qualitative research solutions to its clients. The 40+ years of experience in Sales and Marketing enables it to draw objective based questionnaires and thereby the result is precise. The precise results support the clients to take an informed decision in their business. “We have branded our MR services as Insight Infinite. Industries such as advertising, media, hospitality, health care, educational services, FMCG and industrial products have been serviced by us,” he informs.

Sailing against the Wind
They say the road to success is a journey where you don’t stop learning. Every day we improve a little, and the snowball rolling effect makes us push our limitation to a further distance. Initially, when Brand Kare launched its bouquet of services, the market was in a transformative phase.

Mr. Nagarajan
Nagarajan has been instrumental in launching Brand Kare in the year 2001; backed by an extensive professional experience in distribution management, retail, franchisee model and advertising. Has extensively worked different markets across India and neighbouring countries, gaining an understanding of cultural nuances of the Indian Consumer. The three decades of experience in leading organisations had not only given an in-depth understanding of business management but also strengthened the perspective in holistic management of a brand. Brand Kare is an expression of an innate desire to leverage this rich experience to build a bridge between brand and consumer. Holder of certificates from NIIT - IAMAI on Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing

And when it became well equipped to offer MR as a service, the importance of MR and its usefulness seemed to be partially understood by the regional enterprises. The challenge was to make cold calls and educating them on the concept and the benefits of qualitative and quantitative MR. It took almost a year to get the first client. Reminiscing those days, Nagarajan says, “There came a time when people advised me to not continue but I stood still. I believe if one has identified a purpose and move towards realising it with passion and hard work, it is a matter of time before the purpose becomes a reality.”

Over the years, Brand Kare has gained a reputation as a reliable MR Agency; thanks to its value system based on Transparency, Honest Costing, Vendor relation and Adherence to timeline. The team ensures 100 percent of prudence in handling the privacy of respondents. Data storage and retrieval are digitally monitored to ensure the safety of data. Also, as a policy, it does not recycle respondents to certify unbiased responses safeguarding the integrity of the project. Brand Kare has been an Associate Corporate Member of Market Research Society of India (MRSI) for the last four years and has been deriving the benefits of their training, guidelines, and ethics guidelines.

Towards a Bright Future
A self funded company based out of Chennai, Brand Kare has plans to revamp its presence across India and the neighbouring countries in the next two years. It is in an advanced stage talk for forging alliances with a few global market research organisations to represent them in India. This would give the team an opportunity to get familiar with advanced research tools and methodologies.

At present, it is working with some reputed educational institutions in the South to offer finishing courses in MR to the science and mathematics graduates. “This would enable the passing out candidates to acquire the necessary skill sets in frontline MR, besides helping the MR agencies to meet shortages of trained manpower for field operations. We are also investing in digital platforms to reduce the time factor infield interviews, data collection and analysis to offer a cost advantage to the clients,” concludes Nagarajan.

Mr. Sampath Kumar & Mr. Sivaraman
Sampath is a management graduate. Had worked in modern trade format in terms of setting up and launching retail stores, franchisee model, visual merchandising and media advertising. The extensive consumer connect that he had to engage as a client triggered his interest in research and he quickly built his strength in designing and executing models for quantitative and qualitative research. Got interested in the digital marketing when it was nascent and trained in NIIT for a IAMAI-certified course in digital marketing. His time is equally divided between complex research assignments and bringing the client’s website on top of listing! Sampath is working on a doctoral thesis in MRin the prestigious Annamalai University

Mr. Sivaraman has learnt the ropes of distribution management through his back-breaking work in the market place. Meticulous planning for launching a product in the market place, setting up and monitoring a service network, training the team, conceiving and executing below the line initiatives and trade marketing programme have all been his forte. Have extensively worked for leading organisations in FMCG and consumer durable space. Takes keen interest in sharing his experience with the client’s home team and make it self reliant