Stanley Carvalho launches Orion Consultants

Stanley Carvalho

Stanley Carvalho launched his Consultancy Company called Orion Consultants. Orion will specialise in Consumer Insights based Strategy - both Brand and Brand communications. Carvalho has functioned in the advertising industry for over 30 years. His expertise and inputs have added value to many a client partnership in the combined effort at building great brands.
Speaking on the niche role of his Consultancy in the current brand marketing scenario, he pointed out that his endeavors will be focused on achieving the best synergies in partnership with clients in their marketing efforts of building successful brands. Such synergistic and strategic partnerships, he emphasised, are imperative in the context of the dynamics of a challenging market place, a choice empowered consumer and finally in achieving a meaningful and productive consumer engagement.
He pointed out that especially in today’s context of the economic downturn and diminishing consumer confidence, if brand communication strategies are to be relevant and effective, then consumer insights is a given. That is the mission of Orion Consultants. That is what Orion is committed to deliver.
He reiterates that consumer insights, will be the foundation on which all Brand and Brand Communication Strategies will be built, to achieve that elusive ‘connect’ with the consumer. However, he continued, I must clearly differentiate ‘Insights’ from ‘Information.’ Insight is the skill to sift through loads of information and facts and pick the all important core. It is the ability to look into the hearts and minds of consumers, discover the touch-points that help brand communications connect meaningfully. Insights, detect the ‘feelings’ behind the facts.
Explaining further, he said that consumer insights require the regular monitoring of collective social, cultural and economic under-currents which help us to understand the forces that affect and influence consumers and determine their choice of products and services and also how they react and respond to brand communications. It is not something that is obvious. ‘What is obvious is never an insight’, he stressed.
After completing his education in India, with a Bachelor’s Degree in Commerce, Mr. Carvalho joined Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, a Fortune 500 Company as a Management Trainee.
He worked there for seven years in sales & marketing. He then won a scholarship to attend the School of Business Administration in the University of Massachusetts and after completion of the MBA programme, he continued in the US for five years, working at American Hoechst, a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey.
When he returned to Sri Lanka, he joined Grant McCann Erickson, and rose to the position of Head of Strategic Planning and Consumer Insights.
He is also a qualified trainer. With over a decade of experience in training, he will continue to train in all aspects of Brand Communications, in addition to functioning as a Strategy Consultant. He is also in the faculty of lecturers of Synergy School of Marketing, specialising in Advertising and Public Relations.
He has worked with the Department of Marketing Management of the Sri Jayawardhanapura University and served as a part-time lecturer in Communications at the University of Moratuwa.
Orion, which is the name of the Consultancy, refers to a Constellation that has its origin in Greek Mythology. It is believed that Orion helps set direction in a navigational context.