Economy & Market

Digital marketing helps brands connect

Published

2 years ago

July 16, 2024

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Muskaan Jain, Founder and CEO, The Social Culture, discusses how companies can leverage digital marketing to enhance visibility and market reach.

How critical is branding in the highly competitive cement industry, and what unique challenges does it present?
Creating a strong brand identity in the cement industry, or any industry for that matter, is indeed a complex task that requires a deep understanding of both the product and the target audience. As a branding and packaging designer, you are right to focus on the emotional connection and practical sense that your branding should convey. Here are some strategies to ensure your branding is original, resonates with your audience, and stands out in the competitive market:

Understand your audience: Know who your customers are, what they value, and how they perceive your industry. This will help you tailor your branding to their needs and preferences.
Differentiate your brand: In a commoditised industry like cement, it›s crucial to find what makes your product or service unique. This could be your production process, sustainability efforts, customer service or any other aspect that sets you apart from competitors.
Consistent visual identity: Your brand›s visual elements, including logo, color scheme, typography, and imagery, should be consistent across all platforms. This consistency helps in building recognition and trust.
Storytelling: Use storytelling to convey your brand›s values, ethos and unique selling proposition. A compelling narrative can help create an emotional connection with your audience.
Ethical and practical messaging: Highlight the practical benefits of your product, such as durability, strength, and environmental friendliness. Combine this with ethical messaging that reflects your company›s commitment to sustainability, community and transparency.
Engage with your audience: Use social media, content marketing, and other channels to engage with your audience. Share behind-the-scenes content, customer testimonials and educational materials that showcase your expertise and build trust.
Innovative packaging: As a packaging designer, you can differentiate your brand through innovative packaging that is both functional and aesthetically pleasing. Consider eco-friendly materials and designs that align with your brand›s values and appeal to your target market.
Humanise your brand: People connect with other people, so make sure your brand has a human touch. Share the story of your founders, team, and the people behind the scenes. Use a tone of voice in your communications that is approachable and relatable.
Crisp and professional communication: Ensure that all your communications are clear, concise, and professional. Avoid jargon and complex language that might alienate your audience.
Emotional connection: As you mentioned, emotions are key. Create campaigns and content that evoke feelings such as trust, reliability, and pride. Show how your product contributes to building not just structures, but communities and memories.

By focusing on these aspects, you can create a brand identity for your cement company that is both original and resonates with your audience, helping you to stand out in a crowded market. Remember, branding is an ongoing process and it›s important to stay attuned to the evolving needs and preferences of your customers.

What branding strategies do you recommend to differentiate oneself from competitors?
Cement industry is seen as a very not so glamorous field compared to architecture or interiors.
Branding has four key pillars – colour, logo, key problem and tagline.
I suggest that when cement manufacturers are looking to create a place, they should stick to the roots and wear the label proudly on how they are fixing the problem. Do you have different key components that make your cement stronger or do you have a cooling element that keeps the home more comfortable during summers. This key differentiator will help you understand what and how›s in order to grow the brand. When it comes to designing, as per your personal preference you can choose between keeping it simple or creating an abstract logo and adding your company name below. Both ways are efficient. Post this the most key thing is to choose your brand colour. Do a deep dive study on colour theory and its meaning as this will help you get your pillars for your branding. After which comes your tagline that gives you a chance to address who you are targeting, your motives and how you can help. All this makes a strong house for your brand. Basically, cement for the walls to keep your house long lasting.
Digital marketing helps brands connect. Don’t simply sell your product, but connect with your audience by addressing their pain points. Encourage them to book consultation calls, no strings attached.

How can cement brands effectively communicate their value proposition to both B2B and B2C segments?
It›s not one solution that fits all. While you pitch B2B you have to serve their pros right in front of them. At the end of the day, it’s also about business and profits. Make a compelling case how you are a better partner for them and why you are not the same from Brand A. Get into core details. While on other hands B2C you need to be honest, transparent and also suggest to them what all properties your cement has. Education is a must in the B2C category. When a customer is acknowledged with quashing myths and educating them with facts, they feel empowered. They feel they know it all and that›s how they will turn back to you because you are
the source.

How have successful branding initiatives helped cement companies?
The most popular branding campaigns are Ambuja Cement, Ultratech and JK Cement. These names are known to every person from rural to urban India. They capitalised on human emotions, relatable humour ads, subtly putting cement in the humour and getting it to become a household name. This led to word-of-mouth and with the distributors pushing it across offline channels, it created a recipe for success.
Using brand colours and fonts consistently to create a subconscious image is the key. Taglines that are catchy and almost used as everyday lines can really help you become a household name. Subtly hinting brand integrations along with typography, wordplay or even logo can make space in the memory of one’s mind.

Which metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) are most indicative of success?
This is quite subjective. If your brand taglines or colours are adopted by the audience through humour more than just your product is successful. Obviously, you can also count them as the number of your community grows. The KPI here would be to get as many people to speak about your brand
as possible.

– Kanika Mathur

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Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

4 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

admin

TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.