By Steve Antao
Cheree Tree Concepts is a Brand Growth Agency with a special focus on Marketing Communication as a tool to build brand perception, likability, and trust. Based in Panjim, Goa the company helps brands to make an impact in their customer markets with powerful communication and branding strategies. The company works on offline and online marketing to develop a strong brand presence and growth strategy.
Their belief that “the quality of our connections with customers (and the brand image that the community perceives) depends on the quality of our communication.” Through a complete understanding of the brands target audience, they have been able to develop and execute campaigns for clients in Goa, and internationally. What sets them apart from Digital Marketing and Brand Agencies is their ability to combine 20 years of the founder’s experience in Brand Management, along with expertise from a diverse team of social media, SEO, digital strategists and brand consultants.
Founder’s Profile
The company was founded by Rina Barreto Shankar, a personal and business brand strategist and communication coach. Rina started the firm in 2019 when she moved to her hometown Goa after a 15-year-long stint in the corporate world in Mumbai. During her time in Mumbai, she worked with various advertising agencies and was part of the team that developed brand campaigns for brands like HDFC Bank, Airtel, Samsung, Tata Indicom, Unilever and Godrej. Her 15 years of corporate experience in branding, communication and employee motivation strategy as well as her experience working with an NGO in Mumbai helped her get a strong perspective on the human communication model and brand communication strategy – both critical aspects of influencing a target audience.
To enhance personal and professional communication, Rina also facilitates workshops on the Human Communication Model. She mentors business owners as well as students, helping them develop confidence by mastering communication techniques. She advocates for Personal Brand Building as a powerful strategy to develop one’s presence and impact as an entrepreneur or an influencer.
The Idea Behind Starting Cheree Tree Concepts
Rina says that every business requires an experienced and empathetic entity that can understand the nuances of its brand and plan its marketing communication so that it can earn the trust and loyalty of its customers. “Effective communication is critical in raising a company’s brand image, fostering trust and earning respect”, she says. An established firm constantly requires support in communicating with new customer markets, creating promotional material to launch new products, rebranding themselves to appeal to new-age customer segments or attracting the best talent. New businesses may need to announce the launch of their brand and create awareness via a human-centric communication model.“With my experience with multi-national companies, I realized that I could address these needs effectively,” says Rina.
Services Provided
Cheree Tree Concepts helps brands to reach out to their target markets by crafting content- it varies from radio scripts and magazine articles to hoarding designs, marketing collateral, blogs, brochures, and social media content. From a launch event to announcing a new brand, to designing in-store and outdoor branding at retail locations, to logo, website and marketing collateral designs, the firm has helped businesses to communicate their brand impactfully. “With a healthy mix of traditional brand strategy and digital marketing & PR, we support brands at all stages of their growth”, says Rina.
Clients Served
Rina and her team at Cheree Tree Concepts have had the privilege of developing brand strategies for diverse clients over the years. Their clientele includes brands from the health & wellness sector, interior design firms, women entrepreneur platforms, training institutes, recruitment firms, and many more. Rina says that her clients value the trust, transparency and complete understanding of the brand that comes to her naturally over the years, having worked across many different industries and markets. “We are one of the few brand-building agencies that integrate personal branding as well as employee engagement in the overall brand-building strategy, thus enhancing the client company’s brand image”, she says.
Accolades Received
Rina has received many awards for the work that she has done in the field of women empowerment, youth development and entrepreneurship. In 2019, she was felicitated with a Certificate of Excellence by Womennovator, a virtual global incubator for women entrepreneurs for her continued work in the field of women empowerment. She was also recognized at the Inspirator Life, Leadership & Learning2Learn Success Summit 2020-21 for the work done by her in building inspiration for youth.
Challenges Faced And Future Plans
While setting up Cheree Tree Concepts, one of the major challenges Rina faced was finding talent that was willing to start and grow their careers with start-ups. “Having to juggle various roles at the beginning of an entrepreneurial journey can be really challenging if you do not integrate yourself into the startup ecosystem and build your personal brand”, she says. “Along with building your business, it is equally important to make time to create value for the community – conducting training sessions, panel discussions and growth mindset workshops have all been part of my personal brand building – and it can be as exhausting as it is fulfilling”.
In the years to come, Rina plans to develop a tech platform that will create a unified window of convenience to manage a client’s brand assets in one place – from brand designs and content to marketing and PR campaigns to social media assets – thus helping clients save time, money and effort in building their brand’s image.
She strongly believes in cultivating the youth and small women-led businesses – especially in a small state like Goa, where we have the avenue and reach to lend our knowledge to a segment of society to which we can add value to.
Rina advises people to create value in areas that they feel strongly about – be it in providing guidance and mentorship to youth, women-led small businesses or by documenting one’s learnings and making them available to others. She also says that one must not allow someone else’s definition of success to control how one conducts one’s work and life. “Have a strong sense of self – and build your personal brand image to serve your work-life goals” she concludes.
