In this episode of Flipcast, Avinash Pant, a marketing expert with over 25 years of experience, shares his insights on the evolution of marketing.
He talks about his journey in marketing and the impact of technology, mentioning his work with global brands like Meta, Nike, Walt Disney Company, and Red Bull. Pant discusses the importance of understanding consumers, building brand love, and the confluence of art and science in marketing.
He also explores the transformative role of e-commerce and the increasing importance of content and influencer marketing. He addresses the shift in the consumer purchase journey and the impact of AI on marketing.
Finally, he stresses the importance of authenticity in storytelling and points out that while the tools may change, the fundamentals of marketing remain the same.
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Varun Duggirala: Hello and welcome to another episode of Flip cast. Our
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Varun Duggirala: guest today has led marketing over the last 25 years
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Varun Duggirala: across companies like Coca Cola, Nike, Red Bull met up,
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Varun Duggirala: and he has experienced the shift in how much is
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Varun Duggirala: how marketing works and how consumers function, but really, how
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Varun Duggirala: they connect together in terms of their purchase journeys in
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Varun Duggirala: terms of their evolution and relationships.
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Varun Duggirala: I'm going to be digging into all of that in
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Varun Duggirala: this episode and so much more. Today's guest is a
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Varun Duggirala: A has been in the marketing space for 25 years,
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Varun Duggirala: working with some of the most disruptive and as a
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Varun Duggirala: consumer evolving brands. We've had everything from From
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Varun Duggirala: and Nike World Disney Company, and I'm going to make
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Varun Duggirala: a long list and Red Bull, and it's going to
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Varun Duggirala: keep going on and on and on. But one of
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Varun Duggirala: the most impactful things he's actually done is he's been
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Varun Duggirala: on this wave of how marketing is a world, how
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Varun Duggirala: our relationship with consumers is really world and how all
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Varun Duggirala: of this together has changed the ecosystem. But in many
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Varun Duggirala: ways he's
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Varun Duggirala: I think he's a believer in the fundamentals. We're going
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Varun Duggirala: to get into that. So welcome to the show.
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Avinash Pant: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me super
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Avinash Pant: excited to be here and always happy to talk about marketing.
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Varun Duggirala: I want to start off by asking you about your
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Varun Duggirala: own journey in marketing. Um, if you look at a
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Varun Duggirala: broader L of all the companies you you worked across, um,
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Varun Duggirala: how have you seen yourself as a marketer? Evolve alongside
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Varun Duggirala: how the market itself and all the companies You work
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Varun Duggirala: with the world?
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Avinash Pant: Yeah, that's a That's a question that will take a
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Avinash Pant: long answer, Right. First of all, I should start by
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Avinash Pant: saying that I'm actually super happy that marketing found me.
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Avinash Pant: You know, it's not as if I grew up to say, Hey,
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Avinash Pant: this is what I want to do. I'm just really
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Avinash Pant: delighted with the fact that I kind of found marketing
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Avinash Pant: as a profession. I found it to be enormously interesting.
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Avinash Pant: Exciting rewarding continues to energise me. You know, to this day,
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Avinash Pant: um, I started my career with the Coca Cola Company. Um,
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Avinash Pant: joined them straight out of business school. Um, and I
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Avinash Pant: would say, you know, for that time, this is God.
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Avinash Pant: This really this really ages me, right? This is the nineties. Uh,
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Avinash Pant: the late nineties and Coca Cola had just come back
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Avinash Pant: into the country. Pepsi was doing some amazing work already
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Avinash Pant: in India. I done had really built a great youth brand.
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Avinash Pant: So it was a very interesting, exciting time to join
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Avinash Pant: Coke to start to see how Coke can actually build
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Avinash Pant: itself in India. And, uh, before I looked up, I
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Avinash Pant: had spent 14 years in that company working across all
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Avinash Pant: the brands, including a stint in global marketing in the
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Avinash Pant: US Living in the US Um, very interesting stints on,
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Avinash Pant: you know, driving innovation. So everything from I would say
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Avinash Pant: I learned all my fundamentals there, you know, everything from
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Avinash Pant: running consumer promotions to, um,
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Avinash Pant: signing on celebrities. For the first time, Coke was learning
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Avinash Pant: all of that while I was in the company, um,
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Avinash Pant: to launching water for for Coca Cola to working on
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Avinash Pant: all innovation, actually across juices, energy, drinks, etcetera. So,
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Avinash Pant: like all my growing up in marketing pretty much happened
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Avinash Pant: at the Coca Cola Company hugely thankful for that experience. Um,
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Avinash Pant: I had a very short stint at Disney. Um, this
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Avinash Pant: was again a company I'm fascinated by, um, I have mostly,
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Avinash Pant: and this is the other theme. I guess I've mostly
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Avinash Pant: worked with brands that are in spaces that I'm passionate about.
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Avinash Pant: For some reason or the other. It's very difficult. I
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Avinash Pant: can't
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Avinash Pant: I can't do it to say, Hey, here's a Here's
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Avinash Pant: a very exciting job I I need to care about
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Avinash Pant: you know, the product, The company, the brand and Disney
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Avinash Pant: is one of those companies, though again, my stint there
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Avinash Pant: was not very long. This was the period of the
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Avinash Pant: acquisition and a lot of changes that happened.
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Avinash Pant: I then went to Nike and I'm a sports freak,
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Avinash Pant: so that was like, I can't I mean, that was
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Avinash Pant: a dream job and a half. Honestly, my favourite expression
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Avinash Pant: to my team always was. I mean, we spent a
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Avinash Pant: hard day at work discussing cricket for four hours soccer
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Avinash Pant: for another four hours and then running for another three. Like,
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Avinash Pant: how is this even work? You know,
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Avinash Pant: and I think
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Avinash Pant: over this period, I think for me to your to
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Avinash Pant: your question as well I have seen so much evolve
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Avinash Pant: from probably look at conventional marketing. Um, you look at Nike.
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Avinash Pant: Really really strong on social. Um, you know, so start
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Avinash Pant: to learn that for for start to see that come
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Avinash Pant: up and get built up. I went from Nike, I
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Avinash Pant: went to Red Bull
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Avinash Pant: and Red Bull is just incredible, right? They kind of
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Avinash Pant: redefine how you think about marketing. Have a completely different
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Avinash Pant: bottom up approach to marketing. And I always say this
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Avinash Pant: to people that and also never speak about what they do. So, like,
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Avinash Pant: the only way for you to learn about how it
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Avinash Pant: will approach is marketing is to work there. So I
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Avinash Pant: had the absolute privilege to work there and really, I
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Avinash Pant: would say a lot around experience a lot around content.
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Avinash Pant: Definitely very, very strong and social. Of course. You know,
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Avinash Pant: you know this very well. Um, and then from there,
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Avinash Pant: you know, I went to, uh I came to Mera. Um,
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Avinash Pant: first time in tech. So very, very interesting in terms
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Avinash Pant: of its space, its speed, uh, very significant material in
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Avinash Pant: terms of reach
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Avinash Pant: and maybe like last thing I'd say that right? As
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Avinash Pant: a marketer, what a fascinating challenge to work on brands
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Avinash Pant: that are already, like, very strong, intrinsic part of people's lives.
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Avinash Pant: And yet, at least when I joined them and yet
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Avinash Pant: not clearly have a voice of their own, you know,
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Avinash Pant: that was that was essentially the kind of, you know,
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Avinash Pant: just why I thought it was a really exciting role
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Avinash Pant: to take up. And I think as you as you
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Avinash Pant: said in your opening question,
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Avinash Pant: within that, I've seen all the cycles of stuff evolve IIII.
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Avinash Pant: I love saying this right. When I started my career
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Avinash Pant: in marketing in the nineties, forget about social media. Cell
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Avinash Pant: phones didn't exist, right? So So I've kind of had
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Avinash Pant: a whole span through it all.
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Varun Duggirala: And
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Varun Duggirala: that's also the period when you saw I feel that
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Varun Duggirala: the foundation of marketing has always been the same. And
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Varun Duggirala: what I think tends to happen is that as things change,
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Varun Duggirala: mobile phones came in. You had the Internet kind of
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Varun Duggirala: become almost a way for us to do more things
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Varun Duggirala: than we imagined. Then you had social media that you had. Ecommerce.
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Varun Duggirala: Everything kind of come in,
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Varun Duggirala: and what people tend to think about is that because
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Varun Duggirala: of those changes, that market itself changed. But how do
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Varun Duggirala: you think? Have the fundamentals changed? Oh, yeah.
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Avinash Pant: this is This is a topic close to my heart,
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Avinash Pant: I think, and let me start before I come to that.
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Avinash Pant: Let me start by saying, I think as marketers, you know,
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Avinash Pant: amongst how many ill as marketers is this fascination of
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Avinash Pant: what's the latest right we can we kind of tend
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Avinash Pant: to get on a hyper drive on that. And I
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Avinash Pant: think
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Avinash Pant: because of the way technology has evolved and innovation has
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Avinash Pant: come in, it's become easier and easier to get into
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Avinash Pant: the search for what's the next big thing. But to
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Avinash Pant: your point, I think the fundamental marketing have never changed, right,
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Avinash Pant: and the fundamentals of marketing always go back to the
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Avinash Pant: consumer and the fundamentals of human needs and desires that
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Avinash Pant: has never changed. The way to fulfil it has changed.
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Avinash Pant: You know, if you if you have a brand, if
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Avinash Pant: you have a product,
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Avinash Pant: what are you doing to really instil yourself in the
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Avinash Pant: hearts and minds of people you know? Some companies or
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Avinash Pant: brands will call it brand love, you know, some will
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Avinash Pant: have another terminology for it, but what are you really
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Avinash Pant: doing to achieve that?
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Avinash Pant: That has never changed. It never will change right. The
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Avinash Pant: human desire for connection has never changed. It won't change
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Avinash Pant: the way we get to. It has changed completely now, right?
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Avinash Pant: We live our lives out of that one phone. You know,
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Avinash Pant: in my last job at me, we already talking about
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Avinash Pant: the Metaverse, the next generation of how you know people
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Avinash Pant: will live their lives on the Internet. But the fundamental
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Avinash Pant: human needs don't change. And therefore, I feel and again,
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Avinash Pant: this is more, you know, as marketers are,
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Avinash Pant: um you will only be as good as your understanding
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Avinash Pant: of your consumer. That has never changed. You can talk
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Avinash Pant: about various ways in which you can understand more about
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Avinash Pant: your consumers. But, you know, do you really? And I
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Avinash Pant: always like that you know, the three wise principle. Do
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Avinash Pant: you really, really understand the motivation behind why they behave
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Avinash Pant: and how they behave? And at the core of it,
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Avinash Pant: those fundamentals, honestly, to my mind, they won't change.
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Varun Duggirala: You mentioned brand love. I think that's an interesting part
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Varun Duggirala: to cover
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Varun Duggirala: because we live in a world of of performance. We
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Varun Duggirala: also live in a world of everything from influencer campaigns
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Varun Duggirala: to Ecommerce, marketing everything else, but at the core of it,
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Varun Duggirala: and I know you and I agree on that is
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Varun Duggirala: brand love, right?
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Varun Duggirala: How does one look at Brand? Because it's often easier
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Varun Duggirala: to explain than to derive and a lot of the
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Varun Duggirala: brands you work for them. And I'm picking up Nike
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Varun Duggirala: as an example genuinely have so much brand love built
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Varun Duggirala: over like decades, which still stays. How does how does
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Varun Duggirala: the brand to build brand love?
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Avinash Pant: Yeah, I must say, a billion dollar question. This This
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Avinash Pant: is one of those questions that you don't have an
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Avinash Pant: answer for, right? I think
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Avinash Pant: what I can share is probably just in terms of examples,
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Avinash Pant: I think because I again I've had the great fortune
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Avinash Pant: of working in these companies. One of the things I
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Avinash Pant: noticed with brands that do an exceptional job at this
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Avinash Pant: is they seem to be quite convinced about what works
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Avinash Pant: for them,
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Avinash Pant: And I are both great examples of that, and they
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Avinash Pant: don't actually kill themselves trying to measure it. It's the
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Avinash Pant: classic Heisenberg's principle, you know, you want to split it
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Avinash Pant: fully apart and say, Oh, this precise thing is helping
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Avinash Pant: Bill Brand Love You probably won't find the answer and again,
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Avinash Pant: I think each one of us has our own hypothesis
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Avinash Pant: on this debate, I think, and I keep therefore, to
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Avinash Pant: my mind, consistently does that very well. Doesn't mean that
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Avinash Pant: they don't measure metrics doesn't mean that they don't try
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Avinash Pant: and understand. Whether the brand is, you know,
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Avinash Pant: in its connection with consumers is improving or not, but
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Avinash Pant: they don't obsess over it. In my three years, I
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Avinash Pant: never saw Nike search and Ad just as an example.
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Avinash Pant: And Red Bull is probably even further along in that
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Avinash Pant: in that journey, in the sense of their even deeper
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Avinash Pant: understanding that what builds brand up to your point experiences
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Avinash Pant: build up right.
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Avinash Pant: And as I span across my career, you know, brand
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Avinash Pant: and identity of Brand was usually this idea of that
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Avinash Pant: one ad that you made and, you know, invested so
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Avinash Pant: much behind spent six months doing
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Avinash Pant: versus it's actually when they interact with you as a
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Avinash Pant: as a product or they interact with you as an
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Avinash Pant: experience in the case of Red Bull that can. So
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Avinash Pant: the unfortunate part is there isn't a single answer on
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Avinash Pant: what builds brand love. But I if I had to
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Avinash Pant: hypothesise I would say,
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Avinash Pant: Are you clear about who you are? And I think
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Avinash Pant: this is where a lot of brands already lose. Forget
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Avinash Pant: about have I hired the greatest team to do this?
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Avinash Pant: And do I have the coolest cutting edge campaign? Are
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Avinash Pant: you clear about who you are? What you stand for
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Avinash Pant: Is your voice clear? You know, Is it unmistakable? I
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Avinash Pant: always say this right. Whenever I see work and work
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Avinash Pant: can mean anything from a brand.
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Avinash Pant: Can I take away the brand? And I know unmistakably
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Avinash Pant: that it is you. If you've done that, then this
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Avinash Pant: is before you create anything, right? Then you have a
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Avinash Pant: then you have something to stand on. And then are
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Avinash Pant: you doing all the right things to build those connections
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Avinash Pant: with consumers? And again, I mean, sitting in the age
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Avinash Pant: we are today, that can mean anything and everything. You know,
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Avinash Pant: I think the difference between where I started and now
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Avinash Pant: is probably there will be 100 different touch points to
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Avinash Pant: what could have been that one film, you know, 25
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Avinash Pant: years ago,
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Avinash Pant: Um and and I know this is a very long answer,
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Avinash Pant: but the last thing I would say because you mentioned
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Avinash Pant: performance and brand law almost like these Are, you know,
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Avinash Pant: somehow not in the same space. You know, I have
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Avinash Pant: always believed that the best marketing is the right confluence
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Avinash Pant: of art and science.
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Avinash Pant: So this idea that marketing is only art coming just
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Avinash Pant: from the creative lens or marketing is pure performance or,
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Avinash Pant: you know, it's only Data Analytics. Well, I mean, it
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Avinash Pant: needs to be both, and I think both as possible.
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Avinash Pant: That's at least my might be on actually
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Varun Duggirala: agree with you on that, because some time back I
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Varun Duggirala: think it was a chat I was having with the
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Varun Duggirala: creative director. And I see that
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Varun Duggirala: data is actually your creative use what you understand about
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Varun Duggirala: the consumers, but drives your creative vision and what you're creating.
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Varun Duggirala: And now you have a lot of that. You have
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Varun Duggirala: a lot of understanding of consumers because a consumers are
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Varun Duggirala: have a lot of brands which are attracting them. I
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Varun Duggirala: think a normal consumer today has way more brands focused
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Varun Duggirala: on them than ever before in the world
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Varun Duggirala: and in that lens do you feel that the consumer
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Varun Duggirala: has changed in terms of how they interact with the brand, Uh,
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Varun Duggirala: what they want out of a brand. Or rather, what
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Varun Duggirala: they expect out of,
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Avinash Pant: um,
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Avinash Pant: like, I mean, the the fundamental starting point for me is,
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Avinash Pant: you know, like the fundamental zone change, right? So I
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Avinash Pant: think that I think, keeping that aside, I think a
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Avinash Pant: lot has changed in behaviour just over time and with
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Avinash Pant: all the all the things that have happened right in
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Avinash Pant: our lives, I think
00:13:34
Avinash Pant: to your point, maybe you could rewind 2030 years ago
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Avinash Pant: and say, Hey, the core of what a brand really
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Avinash Pant: meant is just an affirmation of quality, right? Your generic.
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Avinash Pant: And here is a brand name on it, like you
00:13:45
Avinash Pant: go to classic. So what is branding really right? That's
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Avinash Pant: what it meant. Maybe 30 40 50 years ago. I
00:13:51
Avinash Pant: think increasingly what you see and I've been lucky enough
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Avinash Pant: to work in the youth space. So, you know, there's
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Avinash Pant: also years of research one has seen around it, right?
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Avinash Pant: People care about who you are and what you stand for.
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Avinash Pant: They really do, you know, And and so therefore, what
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Avinash Pant: do you one? Of course, it's not just who you
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Avinash Pant: are as a product It's also what you stand for
00:14:13
Avinash Pant: as a brand, and that can mean many things. It
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Avinash Pant: doesn't necessarily only mean the idea of, you know, are
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Avinash Pant: you doing something great in the social space, though increasingly,
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Avinash Pant: we are seeing that that is something people really care about.
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Avinash Pant: It doesn't mean whether they themselves in their personal capacities,
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Avinash Pant: are doing something or not. But they do care about
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Avinash Pant: the brands that they bring into their lives. Do have
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Avinash Pant: a point of view, maybe are actually doing something. So
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Avinash Pant: that's just that's just one example.
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Avinash Pant: I feel, um,
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Avinash Pant: I believe in many ways
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Avinash Pant: consumers are way more aware today
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Avinash Pant: than they were before I I again. One of my
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Avinash Pant: one of my biggest learnings, or something I've always carried
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Avinash Pant: with me is that as marketers, we don't give enough
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Avinash Pant: credit to consumers. Consumers always run three steps ahead, or
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Avinash Pant: what you would expect or never expect to happen. Yeah,
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Avinash Pant: they are always ahead.
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Avinash Pant: So when I'm saying this, I'm not. I'm not questioning
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Avinash Pant: the intelligence. I'm just saying, given the world we live
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Avinash Pant: in today, they have so many sources of information, they
00:15:15
Avinash Pant: just way more aware today than they were before which
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Avinash Pant: means therefore as a brand. And if you look at
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Avinash Pant: it from the other side of it, you've got to
00:15:24
Avinash Pant: be so much more watchful, even right, in terms of
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Avinash Pant: what's getting talked about. What is it that's, you know,
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Avinash Pant: coming to it because way back, it could be that
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Avinash Pant: one campaign that one spokesperson or celebrity
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Avinash Pant: versus the world today that every each and every person
00:15:39
Avinash Pant: has a voice and they can express it really, really well.
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Avinash Pant: So So, yes, I think there is. In that sense,
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Avinash Pant: I would argue there is. There is massive change, for sure.
00:15:50
Varun Duggirala: I think the interesting part also about the Indian market
00:15:52
Varun Duggirala: is that there was always this thought that, you know,
00:15:56
Varun Duggirala: India follows global trends, and over time we kind of
00:15:59
Varun Duggirala: realise that if you look at the Indian market and
00:16:00
Varun Duggirala: Indian consumer, a lot of the stuff that might be predominant,
00:16:03
Varun Duggirala: let's say Western markets doesn't stick. Um, and you also
00:16:07
Varun Duggirala: work with a lot of brands which are global. Brands
00:16:09
Varun Duggirala: kind of come into India
00:16:10
Varun Duggirala: and then it often becomes this case of Let's Indian
00:16:13
Varun Duggirala: is what is an international concept. But how did you
00:16:16
Varun Duggirala: get Indian consumer today? And how do you do you
00:16:19
Varun Duggirala: truly create for them? Or are you saying it still
00:16:21
Varun Duggirala: kind of works? Kind of just say, I'm always giving
00:16:23
Varun Duggirala: you an answer here, but I'm gonna let you take
00:16:24
Varun Duggirala: it from them. No, no,
00:16:25
Avinash Pant: no. I think it's a very interesting debate. I'm laughing
00:16:28
Avinash Pant: because
00:16:29
Avinash Pant: I have finally been on both sides of this debate.
00:16:32
Avinash Pant: So I'll first share that anecdote. Because II I grew
00:16:35
Avinash Pant: up in marketing in India, working at the co cola company,
00:16:38
Avinash Pant: always advocating for the fact that it is unique.
00:16:42
Avinash Pant: It is not one you know. I used to always joke.
00:16:45
Avinash Pant: Being a brand manager in India means you're like a
00:16:48
Avinash Pant: brand manager for many countries, right where the languages you
00:16:50
Avinash Pant: don't know. I used to supervise and approve language that
00:16:53
Avinash Pant: it's a films there. I had no idea about the language, right,
00:16:56
Avinash Pant: so So it is, of course complex, and it is unique,
00:16:58
Avinash Pant: without a doubt. And then I moved to global marketing.
00:17:01
Avinash Pant: I was responsible for Fanta as a brand globally,
00:17:04
Avinash Pant: and I just I just always share this anecdote because
00:17:07
Avinash Pant: then I had the Italians telling me the next day
00:17:09
Avinash Pant: that they're unique. Then China is telling me that they're
00:17:11
Avinash Pant: very unique. South Africa is incredibly unique. And you have
00:17:14
Avinash Pant: this interesting puzzle of how do you stitch this uniqueness
00:17:17
Avinash Pant: together to an identity that is global. So I've been
00:17:20
Avinash Pant: on both sides of that debate, to be fair, but
00:17:23
Avinash Pant: I think there is just no doubt when you look
00:17:26
Avinash Pant: at the size and potential of India
00:17:29
Avinash Pant: when you look at how vibrant this economy is, I
00:17:32
Avinash Pant: don't think there can be any brand today global brand
00:17:35
Avinash Pant: that can not recognise that fact and work very hard
00:17:42
Avinash Pant: to create uniquely for I think that will be consistently true.
00:17:45
Avinash Pant: There are just so many examples, even from my own life.
00:17:47
Avinash Pant: I think pumps up is maybe the best one I
00:17:49
Avinash Pant: can take from back when, right? You look at the
00:17:52
Avinash Pant: might of Coke and Pepsi globally, and you look at
00:17:55
Avinash Pant: this homegrown drink, which is a little spicier. Yeah, and
00:18:00
Avinash Pant: and you just see the continuing appeal even to this day.
00:18:04
Avinash Pant: I worked on thumbs up, you know, when I was
00:18:06
Avinash Pant: at the company,
00:18:07
Avinash Pant: Um and that's just one example, right? But there are
00:18:11
Avinash Pant: just so many examples across my career of having to
00:18:16
Avinash Pant: think uniquely find. When I worked at Nike, it was
00:18:19
Avinash Pant: interesting because cricket was such a clear, you know, signifier.
00:18:26
Avinash Pant: If you had to build a sports brand in India,
00:18:29
Avinash Pant: then you had to be about cricket.
00:18:31
Avinash Pant: But it was unique to Nike because Nike didn't do
00:18:34
Avinash Pant: work on cricket. And Nike is an innovation company, right?
00:18:36
Avinash Pant: So Nike wouldn't just sponsor something. They would want to
00:18:39
Avinash Pant: be able to develop product in that space and build
00:18:42
Avinash Pant: a business around it. Which, to an extent, I guess,
00:18:45
Avinash Pant: you know,
00:18:46
Avinash Pant: I would say it was always a struggle. Maybe, but
00:18:50
Avinash Pant: I've seen this to your point across companies. Red Bull.
00:18:53
Avinash Pant: Red Bull is masters at Localising and going really deep,
00:18:57
Avinash Pant: you know? So I used to be fascinated to your point.
00:19:00
Avinash Pant: It wasn't me trying to espouse the cause of us
00:19:04
Avinash Pant: doing local work in India. Red Bull was incredible in
00:19:08
Avinash Pant: their in their intent to say no, tell us, find
00:19:10
Avinash Pant: us something unique.
00:19:12
Avinash Pant: I mean, we created an event for the handy, like how?
00:19:15
Avinash Pant: How unique is that Red Bull as an example, or
00:19:18
Avinash Pant: a volleyball tournament in Kerala? Because volleyball is just so big.
00:19:22
Avinash Pant: Once you enter the interior, you know
00:19:25
Avinash Pant: so So I mean again. It's kind of a long
00:19:27
Avinash Pant: winded answer. The last one I will share from my
00:19:29
Avinash Pant: meta days is, of course, and something that's such an
00:19:32
Avinash Pant: integral part of our lives is real. You know, the
00:19:35
Avinash Pant: company hadn't yet found product market fit when we were
00:19:39
Avinash Pant: starting to see theses explode in India. So, you know,
00:19:41
Avinash Pant: it was massive credit I would give to the company
00:19:44
Avinash Pant: to actually do something first off in India. And then,
00:19:47
Avinash Pant: of course, you know, it kind of became massive. So many,
00:19:50
Avinash Pant: many examples. The
00:19:51
Varun Duggirala: reason I asked to the Indian consumer also was because
00:19:54
Varun Duggirala: this is a mobile first market. I feel a lot
00:19:57
Varun Duggirala: of other countries and market started off, like went to
00:20:00
Varun Duggirala: the traditional route of you had offline. Then you got laptops,
00:20:03
Varun Duggirala: and then you eventually got some mobile. And this
00:20:06
Varun Duggirala: I feel a lot of us kind of skipped straight
00:20:09
Varun Duggirala: to the phone and straight to Ecommerce straight to online
00:20:13
Varun Duggirala: payments and everything else.
00:20:15
Varun Duggirala: And there's a part of that big jump happened. I
00:20:17
Varun Duggirala: would say the the period of of pandemic that this
00:20:21
Varun Duggirala: huge jump towards OK, how much of the mix is
00:20:24
Varun Duggirala: digital and You also would refer to it as advertising
00:20:27
Varun Duggirala: and digital advertising. And then everything became advertising and marketing.
00:20:30
Varun Duggirala: The digital kind of just sometimes stopped even being asked.
00:20:35
Varun Duggirala: How do you feel this entire part? Because Ecommerce did.
00:20:38
Varun Duggirala: One thing was that it stopped making marketing just a
00:20:41
Varun Duggirala: marketing channel, but also made it a sales channel. Correct.
00:20:43
Varun Duggirala: You could finally sell products through marketing. Um,
00:20:47
Varun Duggirala: a two part question here. How do you think that change?
00:20:50
Varun Duggirala: Just the dynamic of how you looked at a marketing team,
00:20:53
Varun Duggirala: how we looked at how you look to market to
00:20:56
Varun Duggirala: a consumer. Um, and also, how do you see that
00:20:59
Varun Duggirala: change the role of marketing in general?
00:21:02
Avinash Pant: It's very interesting. I think the entire E-commerce journey has
00:21:06
Avinash Pant: been for me honestly, even as a marketer or a
00:21:09
Avinash Pant: student of marketing. As I say, it's been so educated
00:21:11
Avinash Pant: in the sense that going back to the point I
00:21:14
Avinash Pant: was making earlier about consumers are always two steps ahead.
00:21:17
Avinash Pant: I love saying this that back in the day, if
00:21:20
Avinash Pant: someone before the entire Ecommerce boom, if someone told me
00:21:23
Avinash Pant: something that you'd be buying jewellery online, you must be nuts.
00:21:26
Avinash Pant: There's no way that's happening right.
00:21:28
Avinash Pant: And to see that and come to a time where
00:21:31
Avinash Pant: and especially around the pandemic, since you mentioned right I
00:21:33
Avinash Pant: had joined me at the time. In fact, we did
00:21:36
Avinash Pant: a report on this where we were seeing
00:21:39
Avinash Pant: again, being surprised yet again, being surprised by the pace
00:21:43
Avinash Pant: at which consumers adopted right. Of course, there was a
00:21:46
Avinash Pant: situation that post them to. I can't step out anymore
00:21:49
Avinash Pant: to check things and to figure things out. I'm just
00:21:52
Avinash Pant: finding the easiest ways to get stuff to myself, because
00:21:56
Avinash Pant: that's all I need at this time. And E commerce
00:21:58
Avinash Pant: was a fantastic platform.
00:22:01
Avinash Pant: And even then, when you look at it from the
00:22:02
Avinash Pant: idea of, let's say, start up or to see companies today,
00:22:05
Avinash Pant: or or even in terms of the idea that it's
00:22:09
Avinash Pant: not just about marketing, it's not just about delivery. I
00:22:13
Avinash Pant: could potentially complete the entire chain right here, right? As
00:22:17
Avinash Pant: long as I'm present here, I can give you a
00:22:20
Avinash Pant: proposition
00:22:21
Avinash Pant: and and I can find I can. The marketing aspect
00:22:25
Avinash Pant: is just finding the right consumers with the right proposition
00:22:27
Avinash Pant: that can happen right here on the platform. You can
00:22:30
Avinash Pant: order it and you can have it right. It kind
00:22:31
Avinash Pant: of short circuits the entire thing. And I it's been
00:22:34
Avinash Pant: it's honestly been very fascinating to observe. And I think
00:22:38
Avinash Pant: from a broader marketing lens, as you said, this idea
00:22:42
Avinash Pant: of fundamental zone change in marketing, right? Where are consumers?
00:22:46
Avinash Pant: What are they doing? How can I reach them?
00:22:48
Avinash Pant: And it's incredible in terms of in the Ecommerce journeys,
00:22:52
Avinash Pant: how all of this could be put together. And this
00:22:55
Avinash Pant: is the fascinating thing I was saying earlier, Right? How
00:22:58
Avinash Pant: consumers are we two steps ahead of marketers, right? I think.
00:23:01
Avinash Pant: And you made that point right? How India has been
00:23:03
Avinash Pant: unique in how
00:23:05
Avinash Pant: we leapfrog technologies, right? The the desktop just never happened, right,
00:23:10
Avinash Pant: And and that's simply because consumers are always smart and
00:23:14
Avinash Pant: they'll find a way. If you make it accessible to them.
00:23:16
Avinash Pant: You know, give them easy access to data, make mobile
00:23:19
Avinash Pant: phones a little bit cheaper. They will find a way
00:23:21
Avinash Pant: to make it work for them. And I think that's
00:23:22
Avinash Pant: exactly what has happened in this space,
00:23:25
Varun Duggirala: and I feel the interesting part also with the E
00:23:28
Varun Duggirala: commerce and the companies like Flip card is that they
00:23:30
Varun Duggirala: also
00:23:31
Varun Duggirala: gone from just being platforms to buy from being platforms
00:23:34
Varun Duggirala: you can advertise from so suddenly, as marketers, you can
00:23:37
Varun Duggirala: just look at it as as an end point. You
00:23:38
Varun Duggirala: look at it as a starting point of, of how
00:23:41
Varun Duggirala: you actually connect to the consumer, how we advertise to them. Um,
00:23:45
Varun Duggirala: I like going into that part a little bit because
00:23:47
Varun Duggirala: we always looked at things in silos in market, you know.
00:23:51
Varun Duggirala: But now it's almost like worlds merge in terms of
00:23:55
Varun Duggirala: what's a marketing platform? What's the sales channel? What are
00:23:59
Varun Duggirala: your touch points for consumers? How does a market of
00:24:02
Varun Duggirala: today deal with that? How do you look at it
00:24:04
Varun Duggirala: and say, How do we navigate this entire aspect of things?
00:24:08
Avinash Pant: Yeah. No, it's a It's a fascinating question. I think
00:24:11
Avinash Pant: I'll always go back to the idea that certain things
00:24:15
Avinash Pant: haven't changed. Like, to me, at least, the way I
00:24:18
Avinash Pant: grew up in marketing was the was the classical brand marketing,
00:24:22
Avinash Pant: where you're responsible for everything you know. So it wasn't
00:24:25
Avinash Pant: only about creative, it wasn't only about campaigns, it is.
00:24:28
Avinash Pant: It was a classical product marketing. So you are worried
00:24:31
Avinash Pant: how you're performing. You are wondering about what's moving, what's
00:24:35
Avinash Pant: not moving. You're actually tracking all kinds of data to
00:24:38
Avinash Pant: look at how your metrics are, how your brand performance is.
00:24:40
Avinash Pant: So that was I mean, that's at least the fundamentals
00:24:42
Avinash Pant: from where I come. But what you're right about is,
00:24:46
Avinash Pant: at least in those days, sales was different, right? So
00:24:49
Avinash Pant: it was. It was a whole different team. I think
00:24:51
Avinash Pant: when I think about and I'm, I'm kind of evolving
00:24:54
Avinash Pant: your question to like the role of CMO. Today versus
00:24:57
Avinash Pant: Let's Say, a few years ago is definitely you need
00:25:00
Avinash Pant: to be aware about a lot more, for sure.
00:25:03
Avinash Pant: And yes, I think the one big difference I will
00:25:06
Avinash Pant: say it doesn't stop with saying, Hey, this is only
00:25:08
Avinash Pant: marketing I think that's what you alluded to as well.
00:25:10
Avinash Pant: You are actually responsible for the business end to end
00:25:14
Avinash Pant: because it isn't as if the marketing channels are separate
00:25:18
Avinash Pant: from the sales channels. It's literally is all merging together,
00:25:22
Avinash Pant: and in fact the smarter you are about that, whether
00:25:25
Avinash Pant: it's platforms of Ecommerce like flip card that you mentioned
00:25:28
Avinash Pant: or
00:25:29
Avinash Pant: it's the work you're doing through influencers, which can directly
00:25:32
Avinash Pant: be sales channels by themselves, so just needing to be
00:25:36
Avinash Pant: aware of a lot more and I probably if I
00:25:39
Avinash Pant: think back 10 years versus now.
00:25:41
Avinash Pant: Also I would say and that has always happened is
00:25:44
Avinash Pant: the pace of change right? The pace of change is
00:25:46
Avinash Pant: quite incredible. So every here's another new platform, which seems
00:25:51
Avinash Pant: like it will take over everything now. And are you
00:25:53
Avinash Pant: ready for it? Have you thought about it? How are
00:25:56
Avinash Pant: you looking to incorporate it into what you do? And
00:25:58
Avinash Pant: I think to my mind, that's one of the things
00:26:02
Avinash Pant: one of the ways to solve. For this, though, that
00:26:04
Avinash Pant: hasn't changed because I keep going back. Are you building
00:26:07
Avinash Pant: the right?
00:26:09
Avinash Pant: And when I say team, it isn't just your directing.
00:26:11
Avinash Pant: It's also what the partners you work with and are you.
00:26:14
Avinash Pant: There is a way for you to solve for this,
00:26:16
Avinash Pant: to be better aware, to be better armed, to be
00:26:20
Avinash Pant: able to reach out to your consumers. And I think
00:26:22
Avinash Pant: to me that has not changed. The way to get
00:26:25
Avinash Pant: to it is definitely changing, right? Do you have enough
00:26:28
Avinash Pant: young people in your team that is going to be
00:26:30
Avinash Pant: my constant point?
00:26:33
Avinash Pant: Even at that age. So yeah, Speaking
00:26:35
Varun Duggirala: of young people, another aspect kind of comes into this
00:26:38
Varun Duggirala: mix is attention span and attention span doesn't just come
00:26:42
Varun Duggirala: across the content you consume. It comes across in, let's
00:26:46
Varun Duggirala: say the advertising you see or the marketing is subjected
00:26:49
Varun Duggirala: to all the products you kind of looking for.
00:26:52
Varun Duggirala: Do you agree with this entire attention span aspect Because
00:26:56
Varun Duggirala: of the fact that you think OK, young people don't
00:26:58
Varun Duggirala: have attention. So you got to throw a lot more
00:27:01
Varun Duggirala: at them. You got to do it differently.
00:27:03
Varun Duggirala: And does that actually play into the fact that you
00:27:05
Varun Duggirala: need more young people in marketing teams?
00:27:07
Avinash Pant: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, this is This is again one of
00:27:11
Avinash Pant: those questions which is actually hard to answer in the
00:27:13
Avinash Pant: sense that
00:27:14
Avinash Pant: it's not just about young people. I think in our
00:27:17
Avinash Pant: lives today
00:27:19
Avinash Pant: we have media kind of coming at it, coming at
00:27:22
Avinash Pant: us from every direction, right, gone other days and sometimes
00:27:26
Avinash Pant: I think about them very fondly. You know, where there
00:27:28
Avinash Pant: was just one TV channel and you made this one
00:27:32
Avinash Pant: film that everybody saw, you know, and just kind of
00:27:35
Avinash Pant: sold your lives, right? So it's it's I don't think
00:27:39
Avinash Pant: it's as much about attention span. It's about what's coming
00:27:42
Avinash Pant: at people, right? So, um
00:27:45
Avinash Pant: so the point is, the job of marketing has always
00:27:48
Avinash Pant: been to be able to stand up, right? That's your job.
00:27:51
Avinash Pant: You need to be able to stand out. And I
00:27:53
Avinash Pant: would say Yes. To a great extent, that job is
00:27:55
Avinash Pant: harder today. You need to think a little bit harder,
00:27:59
Avinash Pant: even harder, because it might. You're doing it in an
00:28:03
Avinash Pant: environment that is extremely chaotic. It's not. I wouldn't even
00:28:07
Avinash Pant: say busy. It's just chaos, right? What I
00:28:11
Avinash Pant: what? It doesn't necessarily mean, though, because one of those,
00:28:15
Avinash Pant: you know, I have this thing that truisms bother me.
00:28:17
Avinash Pant: Anything which you say, Oh, this is the answer. I
00:28:20
Avinash Pant: will fight to say I'll give me Let me give
00:28:23
Avinash Pant: you 10 examples. Why it? Yeah, because then the truism
00:28:26
Avinash Pant: becomes oh, for three seconds and and I, I work
00:28:29
Avinash Pant: at me. Second man 1st, 2nd, right. What is true
00:28:32
Avinash Pant: for sure is when I have so much of choice,
00:28:35
Avinash Pant: you can't do a very slow build up for me
00:28:38
Avinash Pant: because I have so much of choice, I'm just gonna
00:28:39
Avinash Pant: swipe and move so sure you do have to grab
00:28:42
Avinash Pant: my attention for sure you do. But what always wins
00:28:47
Avinash Pant: is true, compelling, authentic storytelling, right? So do you have
00:28:52
Avinash Pant: a compelling story to tell? You can have all the
00:28:54
Avinash Pant: attention from me. So I think for me, both of
00:28:57
Avinash Pant: those are kind of realities in themselves.
00:29:02
Varun Duggirala: And I asked about it and also because
00:29:05
Varun Duggirala: content again, being almost an output of marketing so core
00:29:10
Varun Duggirala: and you worked at Red Bull. So content is a
00:29:13
Varun Duggirala: core part of the entire marketing mix and and how
00:29:17
Varun Duggirala: we look at consumers and because you're not seeming like
00:29:20
Varun Duggirala: advertising being thrown at them, seeming like content you would
00:29:23
Varun Duggirala: consume anyway. And that's because the ingrained way for I
00:29:27
Varun Duggirala: mean brand love to build for long term connections as well.
00:29:31
Varun Duggirala: How does content play into a the team that works
00:29:35
Varun Duggirala: in marketing within an organisation? A. For the C m's mind?
00:29:39
Varun Duggirala: But how does it kind of How do you think
00:29:41
Varun Duggirala: that's really changed? How the relationship between a brand and
00:29:44
Varun Duggirala: a consumer is?
00:29:46
Avinash Pant: Yeah, I think, um, yeah, I think I think, this
00:29:50
Avinash Pant: idea of content marketing, right. I think it's It's a
00:29:54
Avinash Pant: It's an incredible one My my first glimpse of this,
00:29:58
Avinash Pant: by the way, was
00:30:00
Avinash Pant: I think I used to work at Nike then
00:30:03
Avinash Pant: and a man jumped from space and I still remember
00:30:08
Avinash Pant: this was before I joined Red Bull. I remember I
00:30:11
Avinash Pant: collected my entire team at Nike the next day, and
00:30:14
Avinash Pant: I was like, What was this like as students of marketing?
00:30:17
Avinash Pant: What was this? This wasn't an ad, for heaven's sake, right?
00:30:21
Avinash Pant: This wasn't this broke the Internet then we didn't even
00:30:23
Avinash Pant: know what that term meant then, And just so strato
00:30:28
Avinash Pant: Red Bull strata. Of course, I understood more about it later,
00:30:30
Avinash Pant: but
00:30:32
Avinash Pant: and and the only reason I'm using this example for
00:30:34
Avinash Pant: me to one of the first examples is
00:30:37
Avinash Pant: it's not as if you start by saying, Oh, I'm
00:30:39
Avinash Pant: going to market to you through content. Hey, I have
00:30:42
Avinash Pant: something truly compelling for you
00:30:45
Avinash Pant: that I've obviously been very careful to capture, but I
00:30:49
Avinash Pant: have something truly compelling, and that's why one of the
00:30:52
Avinash Pant: reasons I use that example is I see so many brands,
00:30:55
Avinash Pant: and I've been to forums where companies will ask about
00:30:58
Avinash Pant: always struggling with content marketing. But the point is, do
00:31:01
Avinash Pant: you have a story to tell and have you thought
00:31:04
Avinash Pant: hard enough about it, then we can find ways and
00:31:07
Avinash Pant: means for you to connect. And I think to your
00:31:09
Avinash Pant: point
00:31:11
Avinash Pant: it is supremely important because consumers are now pretty very
00:31:15
Avinash Pant: of advertising and one of the things I love to say.
00:31:18
Avinash Pant: And I'm sure many people have said it before. Consumers
00:31:20
Avinash Pant: can smell bullshit a mile away like they really can,
00:31:23
Avinash Pant: you know. And I think over time I think everyone's
00:31:25
Avinash Pant: gotten quite wary of advertising, right. If you're talking to me,
00:31:28
Avinash Pant: there's already a problem here, right? And therefore, you know,
00:31:32
Avinash Pant: content becomes super important
00:31:35
Avinash Pant: to your point being able. And that's the job right.
00:31:38
Avinash Pant: Being able to identify what is a great compelling story
00:31:40
Avinash Pant: to tell. Ah, being able to be authentic with it,
00:31:44
Avinash Pant: being able to, to capture it well and capture it
00:31:46
Avinash Pant: where it doesn't necessarily mean always a fancy set up
00:31:50
Avinash Pant: and the most expensive camera. It's just that Hey, do
00:31:53
Avinash Pant: I have a point of view from which I want
00:31:55
Avinash Pant: to tell this story right? So I would say it's
00:31:58
Avinash Pant: one of those pieces that a lot of brands and
00:32:01
Avinash Pant: a lot of companies are kind of trying to solve for,
00:32:04
Avinash Pant: but it is something that requires slightly harder work. It
00:32:08
Avinash Pant: is something that requires maybe a broader, I would almost
00:32:12
Avinash Pant: argue point of view. You know, again, I think back
00:32:14
Avinash Pant: to do you have enough young people? Do you have
00:32:16
Avinash Pant: enough people who can look at something and say, Hey, listen,
00:32:18
Avinash Pant: I just don't know why. I don't know why I
00:32:20
Avinash Pant: would listen to the story.
00:32:21
Varun Duggirala: I'm glad you said that the connection was different because
00:32:25
Varun Duggirala: often times we use the term branded content, but it
00:32:28
Varun Duggirala: actually is content that's been told by a brand right,
00:32:31
Varun Duggirala: which is a whole different way to look at it.
00:32:34
Varun Duggirala: And what it also kind of does is that I
00:32:36
Varun Duggirala: feel in the long term you look at the brand
00:32:39
Varun Duggirala: differently because they're telling a story. You connect like you
00:32:42
Varun Duggirala: just said yes. Do you feel that also, I mean,
00:32:45
Varun Duggirala: in my mind, that would be performance marketing as well
00:32:48
Varun Duggirala: as you. It's a slower version of it, but you're
00:32:51
Varun Duggirala: helping build a stronger bond to the consumer while you
00:32:54
Varun Duggirala: have the fast paced of going alongside it. So we
00:32:56
Varun Duggirala: had
00:32:58
Avinash Pant: Yeah, sorry, I just I just jumped in But do
00:33:00
Avinash Pant: you want to finish your? It's such a great thread, right?
00:33:04
Avinash Pant: The idea that and I'll always react to it, right?
00:33:07
Avinash Pant: The idea that this is performance and this is brand it,
00:33:10
Avinash Pant: it just it just doesn't work that way, right? I
00:33:15
Avinash Pant: have various ways of catching your attention and telling you
00:33:18
Avinash Pant: something that can help me as a brand. Now help
00:33:22
Avinash Pant: me can mean many different things
00:33:24
Avinash Pant: because I'm biassed to brand love anything that makes you
00:33:28
Avinash Pant: me rethink of you in in in in a material
00:33:32
Avinash Pant: way is actually helpful. It can be quite transactional, even
00:33:37
Avinash Pant: because the content is something interesting that you see.
00:33:41
Avinash Pant: And by the way, the shots that the guy is wearing,
00:33:43
Avinash Pant: as you see it are actually clickable to an ad
00:33:46
Avinash Pant: on Instagram and you can actually get them right. So
00:33:48
Avinash Pant: you can. The connections can be built any which way.
00:33:51
Avinash Pant: So So in that sense, everything is performance and everything
00:33:54
Avinash Pant: is brand. But being able to kind of think through
00:33:58
Avinash Pant: that piece and being able to find ways to connect
00:34:01
Avinash Pant: to that story definitely plays a very big role.
00:34:05
Varun Duggirala: Do you also kind of feel that the word community
00:34:08
Varun Duggirala: gets thrown around. But look at how do you build
00:34:11
Varun Duggirala: an audience? And oftentimes you're looking at building an audience
00:34:15
Varun Duggirala: to just drive sales, sometimes building an audience to build
00:34:18
Varun Duggirala: a deeper connection. See what else you can kind of
00:34:19
Varun Duggirala: do with them, um, to eventually lead to sales. Is
00:34:24
Varun Duggirala: there a shift in how you build community around right now?
00:34:28
Avinash Pant: I think, Yeah. I think the very fact that we
00:34:31
Avinash Pant: started to talk about community, I think is quite interesting.
00:34:34
Avinash Pant: Right again, you can go back to the the the
00:34:36
Avinash Pant: classical to say, Listen, it is always about a community
00:34:39
Avinash Pant: right here are here are people who love my brand.
00:34:41
Avinash Pant: That's you know, that's kind of my community. Maybe they
00:34:44
Avinash Pant: were easier to reach than as I said in the
00:34:46
Avinash Pant: simpler times with, you know, single media channel. But I
00:34:49
Avinash Pant: would say yes. I think
00:34:51
Avinash Pant: I think this is one of the bigger things for
00:34:54
Avinash Pant: for for marketers to kind of think harder about today
00:34:57
Avinash Pant: is around community. And I see this from a lens
00:35:01
Avinash Pant: that it isn't about the size only and it isn't
00:35:04
Avinash Pant: necessarily only about here. I want to, you know, I
00:35:07
Avinash Pant: can then sell to this community. That will come for sure,
00:35:11
Avinash Pant: but it's the idea of Do I have people who
00:35:13
Avinash Pant: care about something,
00:35:14
Avinash Pant: you know? And again, this is something I learned at
00:35:16
Avinash Pant: Red Bull, right? It doesn't matter. The numbers don't matter.
00:35:20
Avinash Pant: It can be 100 people who passionately care about something.
00:35:23
Avinash Pant: Can I play a role in their life? Is there
00:35:26
Avinash Pant: a way I can help this community? If that help
00:35:28
Avinash Pant: is authentic? It's genuine, right that can that will blow up.
00:35:32
Avinash Pant: I think hip hop is a great example in India.
00:35:35
Avinash Pant: I think it's a perfect example because the hip hop
00:35:37
Avinash Pant: community is not a massive community. But hip hop culture
00:35:40
Avinash Pant: is quite massive now and of course we've had our
00:35:43
Avinash Pant: own swings with it. But I remember being back at
00:35:47
Avinash Pant: Red Bull. We were doing a documentary of Divine before
00:35:50
Avinash Pant: any of the the Masha with the movie and everything
00:35:53
Avinash Pant: else happened before it became really massive or the work
00:35:56
Avinash Pant: with the boys in India, B boys and B girls again,
00:35:59
Avinash Pant: a very small community. I'm just I'm just using an
00:36:01
Avinash Pant: example to illustrate the point that
00:36:04
Avinash Pant: the community itself can be small, but how you connect
00:36:07
Avinash Pant: with them and what you do with them, which needs
00:36:09
Avinash Pant: to be authentic, can actually help you both. Give an
00:36:13
Avinash Pant: idea to a larger body of consumers who you are
00:36:16
Avinash Pant: and what you stand for. And they can kind of
00:36:18
Avinash Pant: connect with that. And you can take that forward. So
00:36:21
Avinash Pant: that's just the notional Let's say the brand love idea,
00:36:24
Avinash Pant: because now you planted the performance thought in my mind,
00:36:27
Avinash Pant: since you asked me twice.
00:36:28
Avinash Pant: You look at it also from a very material perspective today,
00:36:31
Avinash Pant: right when we're looking at an age going forward, you
00:36:34
Avinash Pant: know where you may not have cookies, you know? And
00:36:36
Avinash Pant: you
00:36:36
Avinash Pant: so first part, right? So for a lot of companies
00:36:39
Avinash Pant: or a lot of brands, man, do I have first
00:36:41
Avinash Pant: party information? What is what is it going to take
00:36:43
Avinash Pant: for me to be able to talk to my consumers
00:36:45
Avinash Pant: directly starts to become material as well, and therefore that's
00:36:48
Avinash Pant: another sense. Maybe, maybe, almost, you can say a more
00:36:50
Avinash Pant: transactional sense of building community, which is, I would say,
00:36:54
Avinash Pant: is incredibly important. It's just that you have to be
00:36:57
Avinash Pant: very careful. Why should they care? In fact, that's one
00:37:01
Avinash Pant: of my favourite questions. You know when
00:37:03
Avinash Pant: ideas get pitched or even as companies as brands have
00:37:07
Avinash Pant: come up with stuff. It's like, Why should they care?
00:37:09
Avinash Pant: People say I want them to log on to my website. Yeah,
00:37:12
Avinash Pant: but why? Who's going to a website? Unless you're doing
00:37:15
Avinash Pant: something quite incredible there. Why should they care to log on?
00:37:19
Avinash Pant: Which is the smarter ways to get first party information.
00:37:22
Avinash Pant: So So, yeah, I think I think that's the space.
00:37:24
Avinash Pant: But I would definitely say that communities the strength of
00:37:28
Avinash Pant: communities also, because communities you listen to other voices
00:37:32
Avinash Pant: that are very, very important. It isn't just the brand
00:37:35
Avinash Pant: talking to you. That's another reason why community is important.
00:37:40
Avinash Pant: I can, um maybe another example. Let me just use
00:37:42
Avinash Pant: one other example. When I used to work back at Nike, uh,
00:37:46
Avinash Pant: we used to find that, you know, let's say the
00:37:49
Avinash Pant: running communities they had their own gurus, you know? And
00:37:53
Avinash Pant: these are not the celebrities that you otherwise look at.
00:37:56
Avinash Pant: Who would be talking about the shoes that actually work
00:37:59
Avinash Pant: for them, right? And you're trying to figure out Hey,
00:38:00
Avinash Pant: how do I actually start to work with these communities?
00:38:03
Avinash Pant: How do I get them to try out Nike shoes to,
00:38:06
Avinash Pant: you know, specifics. You know
00:38:08
Avinash Pant: the pegs there, whichever running shoes and specifically on performance
00:38:13
Avinash Pant: right now. How do I get this community? How do
00:38:16
Avinash Pant: I How can I be a part authentic part of
00:38:17
Avinash Pant: this community and what can I do? And I think
00:38:19
Avinash Pant: in a Ike example, Nike run clubs was a great initiative.
00:38:23
Avinash Pant: Very genuine initiative, almost altruistic initiative. I'm like when I
00:38:27
Avinash Pant: joined the company, I was like, Really, this is what
00:38:29
Avinash Pant: we're doing. We're like showing up every weekend at Stadium
00:38:32
Avinash Pant: in Bangalore and saying you show up, don't care what
00:38:34
Avinash Pant: you wear. We will help you become a better runner
00:38:37
Avinash Pant: or what? An authentic approach to building community. Right? Then
00:38:39
Avinash Pant: people understand that you actually care about this, and you
00:38:41
Avinash Pant: can
00:38:42
Avinash Pant: now start to be a part of that many. Many
00:38:45
Avinash Pant: sneakerheads is another great example. Right? When I was at Nike,
00:38:48
Avinash Pant: there was no sneaker culture in India, and we were
00:38:50
Avinash Pant: just at that initial stage of trying to figure Hey,
00:38:53
Avinash Pant: what is it going to take to do that? And
00:38:56
Avinash Pant: I remember because I mentioned earlier right
00:38:58
Avinash Pant: building the right partnerships. I remember working with homegrown in
00:39:01
Avinash Pant: the very early days, very early days and be in our,
00:39:04
Avinash Pant: you know, in our office. And, you know, we'd be like, OK,
00:39:07
Avinash Pant: now what can we start to do to kind of
00:39:10
Avinash Pant: work around sneaker culture? And I think now it's pretty
00:39:12
Avinash Pant: much very alive in India. As I can see,
00:39:16
Varun Duggirala: I think the interesting part of communities is that it
00:39:18
Varun Duggirala: also kind of moved, um, brands from looking at just
00:39:21
Varun Duggirala: celebrities or or, let's say, endorses to work with influencers.
00:39:25
Varun Duggirala: But what it also meant was the brand has kind
00:39:27
Varun Duggirala: of let go of a few of the brand mandates
00:39:29
Varun Duggirala: and meet the influencer creator halfway because it won't seem
00:39:32
Varun Duggirala: authentic to the Creator if they make everything look like
00:39:35
Varun Duggirala: what the brand might want. Um, so do you feel
00:39:38
Varun Duggirala: the way a brand looks like these interactions versus how
00:39:41
Varun Duggirala: you work with, Let's say, a celebrity or an end?
00:39:42
Varun Duggirala: So that's shifted. How you do marketing of that aspect?
00:39:46
Avinash Pant: Oh, yeah, yeah, this is I mean, this is such
00:39:48
Avinash Pant: a big topic. Um, I go back all the way.
00:39:51
Avinash Pant: When I started my career, I said, I know you
00:39:54
Avinash Pant: setting up relationships and working with celebrities or ambassadors to
00:39:59
Avinash Pant: the world of today. And actually, I'll tell you an
00:40:02
Avinash Pant: anecdote which happened to me a few years ago. I
00:40:05
Avinash Pant: think I'd gone to speak. I won't say which company.
00:40:07
Avinash Pant: I got to speak on marketing to a company, you know,
00:40:09
Avinash Pant: where they had all their marketing people together.
00:40:12
Avinash Pant: And one of the questions that came to me at
00:40:14
Avinash Pant: the end of the talk was you know, we've heard
00:40:16
Avinash Pant: you talk about influencers and we actually tried to do
00:40:19
Avinash Pant: an influencer campaign. But our problem is that they are
00:40:22
Avinash Pant: not sticking to guidelines and they're not following the protocol. Um,
00:40:28
Avinash Pant: and, you know, and my counter question to her was,
00:40:31
Avinash Pant: Are you trying to make you know, what are you
00:40:33
Avinash Pant: trying to create? Because what? It sounds to me like
00:40:36
Avinash Pant: you're trying to create 100 ads with influences. So that's
00:40:39
Avinash Pant: the classic dilemma of maybe I would say, that's changed already,
00:40:42
Avinash Pant: but I think
00:40:44
Avinash Pant: I can look across brands and say, this is this
00:40:47
Avinash Pant: is something. Companies and brands are learning how to do better,
00:40:51
Avinash Pant: because the most important ability is that ability to lose
00:40:54
Avinash Pant: control and to give control. Now, if you go back
00:40:57
Avinash Pant: to the basics. You know, like going back to my
00:41:00
Avinash Pant: favourite theme, right? Your brand exists in the hearts and
00:41:03
Avinash Pant: minds of people. Just getting comfortable with that idea in
00:41:07
Avinash Pant: the first place
00:41:08
Avinash Pant: is hard, right? It's not a manufacturer mentality of saying
00:41:12
Avinash Pant: this is who I am. You are what people believe
00:41:16
Avinash Pant: you are. And I think my favourite story on that is,
00:41:18
Avinash Pant: of course, from my co blazes New cook, right, The
00:41:20
Avinash Pant: whole story of new Cook. I won't get into that now.
00:41:23
Avinash Pant: But you are what people think. You are right.
00:41:26
Avinash Pant: And I think, um, I think this is something you
00:41:30
Avinash Pant: want people to connect with and talk about
00:41:34
Avinash Pant: what they like about you. So if you're saying especially
00:41:38
Avinash Pant: since you said influencers and they have their own voice,
00:41:42
Avinash Pant: that is why they have followed. That is why you're
00:41:44
Avinash Pant: actually going to them in the first place. So to
00:41:46
Avinash Pant: try to curtail their voice and say, Hey, can you
00:41:49
Avinash Pant: say this for me? But here are the 18 rules
00:41:52
Avinash Pant: and exactly the colour and everything else that you need
00:41:55
Avinash Pant: to work with
00:41:56
Avinash Pant: is definitely not going to happen. But II, I notice,
00:41:59
Avinash Pant: and I see and you know in my job at me,
00:42:01
Avinash Pant: I was very fortunate to kind of work with a
00:42:03
Avinash Pant: lot of influencers. We work on the created, a work
00:42:05
Avinash Pant: where we met with so many of them. So they
00:42:07
Avinash Pant: all talk about the idea that hey, working with brands
00:42:10
Avinash Pant: can be hard. But at the same time, it's actually
00:42:13
Avinash Pant: changing significantly. And I think some of the better work
00:42:16
Avinash Pant: that you're seeing out there is where you are able
00:42:20
Avinash Pant: to marry. Well, what is it that you want to
00:42:22
Avinash Pant: say
00:42:23
Avinash Pant: and then allowing an influencer to speak it one in
00:42:26
Avinash Pant: their voice and two to their audience, right? Because their
00:42:29
Avinash Pant: audience is different. I can't go to you with a
00:42:31
Avinash Pant: brief which is talking to someone else and you're like,
00:42:34
Avinash Pant: But this is what my audience kind of connects with,
00:42:36
Avinash Pant: right or more importantly, this is who I am. So
00:42:39
Avinash Pant: I think
00:42:40
Avinash Pant: when you were saying earlier, it's that much harder for
00:42:43
Avinash Pant: marketing or C MS. To do that work, to say
00:42:47
Avinash Pant: what will be that set of people. And I think
00:42:50
Avinash Pant: one of the big and more important things here is
00:42:52
Avinash Pant: not to fall down the trap of numbers alone. Therefore,
00:42:56
Avinash Pant: it isn't. If all you're caring about is what is
00:42:59
Avinash Pant: the following? Then you go back to your celebrity days, right?
00:43:02
Avinash Pant: You got to care about authenticity and connection,
00:43:05
Avinash Pant: and that is going to actually take you much further.
00:43:09
Varun Duggirala: We've spoken a lot about how things have shifted. But
00:43:12
Varun Duggirala: if you have to look a little further ahead, considering
00:43:15
Varun Duggirala: again the chaos like I use the perfect word for
00:43:19
Varun Duggirala: the world in which brands live in today. What are
00:43:22
Varun Duggirala: you seeing as a shift moving ahead in terms of
00:43:26
Varun Duggirala: how brands and consumers interact, how how they're marketed to
00:43:29
Varun Duggirala: and also how they buy things from brands.
00:43:34
Avinash Pant: Uh,
00:43:36
Avinash Pant: I feel like you know, you talk about the future.
00:43:40
Avinash Pant: It's like, Are you even allowed to have this without
00:43:42
Avinash Pant: talking about a I right? Like I'm just I'm just
00:43:44
Avinash Pant: It's just one of those things that bothers or bugs me, right?
00:43:48
Avinash Pant: I keep saying this right, our fascination for Hey, what's next?
00:43:51
Avinash Pant: What's next? And I think
00:43:52
Avinash Pant: I don't think a I is definitely one of those
00:43:55
Avinash Pant: massive pieces that that we are seeing in many ways
00:44:00
Avinash Pant: is kind of disrupting or making us at least question
00:44:03
Avinash Pant: things right. So, II, I definitely feel that's one piece
00:44:08
Avinash Pant: which we are already starting to see come up when
00:44:11
Avinash Pant: I work at me. One. The company rebranded itself. That's
00:44:14
Avinash Pant: how deeply the company believed in
00:44:17
Avinash Pant: the next generation of the Internet, so to say, and
00:44:19
Avinash Pant: I think that's the right way to look at it again.
00:44:21
Avinash Pant: Terms makes us again fall in love with terms. And
00:44:24
Avinash Pant: so it's all about the Metaverse. Where is the me?
00:44:26
Avinash Pant: Is it coming now? But I think suffice to say
00:44:30
Avinash Pant: what technology is going to keep doing is bringing a
00:44:32
Avinash Pant: lot more innovation into our lives. And I think as
00:44:36
Avinash Pant: you think about the future,
00:44:38
Avinash Pant: while the fundamentals don't change, maybe the ways to get
00:44:42
Avinash Pant: to them might change, right? So as an example, when
00:44:45
Avinash Pant: you talk about a I
00:44:48
Avinash Pant: today,
00:44:50
Avinash Pant: I need to find various ways and means of creating
00:44:52
Avinash Pant: content that is compelling to connect with consumers across audience
00:44:56
Avinash Pant: sets across things that I might need to talk about potentially.
00:44:59
Avinash Pant: What I can do is make it easier, right? I
00:45:02
Avinash Pant: can I can find ways and means of that. That
00:45:04
Avinash Pant: doesn't mean that a I will decide everything for me,
00:45:07
Avinash Pant: but it's so therefore it's the judicious use of technology,
00:45:10
Avinash Pant: which is how it's always been
00:45:12
Avinash Pant: to be able to get it, to do what you
00:45:14
Avinash Pant: want done. And I think that's those are just some
00:45:16
Avinash Pant: of the examples to me at least. I mean, I
00:45:18
Avinash Pant: don't consider myself, honestly an expert. The very fact that
00:45:22
Avinash Pant: this is emerging means there must be some young person
00:45:24
Avinash Pant: who knows this much better than I do, and and
00:45:26
Avinash Pant: I should ensure that, you know, they are part of
00:45:28
Avinash Pant: the team, as I was saying earlier, But there are
00:45:31
Avinash Pant: things that will continue to happen
00:45:35
Avinash Pant: and our ability to use that to shape and create
00:45:38
Avinash Pant: and play with what can be done. So so some
00:45:41
Avinash Pant: of the obvious, easier ones. To my mind that at
00:45:44
Avinash Pant: least come is Hey, we talk about content.
00:45:46
Avinash Pant: We're living in a world where from 1 to 100
00:45:49
Avinash Pant: to 1000 is not enough. And that's where I can like,
00:45:53
Avinash Pant: at least from what I can see already can play
00:45:55
Avinash Pant: a pretty significant role in helping you do things. So
00:45:59
Avinash Pant: so those are some that I see, and like I said,
00:46:01
Avinash Pant: like a little further down the road is this whole
00:46:05
Avinash Pant: idea or conception of if our world today is on
00:46:08
Avinash Pant: a flat screen on a phone. If this is the
00:46:10
Avinash Pant: conception of the Internet for now,
00:46:13
Avinash Pant: how does that emerge and evolve in the future? And
00:46:15
Avinash Pant: what does that mean for brands and for experiences? Because
00:46:19
Avinash Pant: it again disrupts completely. And it isn't just about marketing. Honestly,
00:46:23
Avinash Pant: it is, really. I can run my business like that,
00:46:25
Avinash Pant: you know, I remember used to say Hey, if I'm
00:46:28
Avinash Pant: a bank
00:46:29
Avinash Pant: and I'm in the metaverse, what does it mean? And
00:46:31
Avinash Pant: the answer from the bank? Although I can create a
00:46:33
Avinash Pant: branch in the Metaverse and you're not thinking hard enough,
00:46:36
Avinash Pant: why does it have to be a branch? What is
00:46:39
Avinash Pant: my banking in the Metaverse? Right? What are my various
00:46:42
Avinash Pant: investment options, etc. And how can I just do that?
00:46:45
Avinash Pant: So just I mean again, maybe a complete distraction. Or
00:46:48
Avinash Pant: as an example, I think I think those are the
00:46:51
Avinash Pant: Those are the fundamental big things I see coming. I
00:46:54
Avinash Pant: don't I don't know. I mean, I haven't thought of
00:46:56
Avinash Pant: much else. I think the entire fragmentation. I think that's
00:47:00
Avinash Pant: the other piece to think about, right? If I look
00:47:02
Avinash Pant: at my own journey in marketing from one to many
00:47:05
Avinash Pant: to 1 to 1. Almost now. What does that mean? Right?
00:47:09
Avinash Pant: Because
00:47:10
Avinash Pant: the democratising of voice, in a way has ensured that
00:47:14
Avinash Pant: all of us have a voice which we are trying
00:47:16
Avinash Pant: to make ourselves heard. So the way I think about
00:47:18
Avinash Pant: it is you say influencers today. When I think about tomorrow,
00:47:21
Avinash Pant: I don't even know what that means. Because every individual,
00:47:24
Avinash Pant: in some ways that influence I right now. I can't
00:47:27
Avinash Pant: even conceptualise what that means, you know, for maybe five
00:47:30
Avinash Pant: years down the line. But I feel that that is
00:47:33
Avinash Pant: also going to be its own disruption. In a way,
00:47:36
Varun Duggirala: I think the core of what you're saying is that
00:47:37
Varun Duggirala: the experiences might evolve.
00:47:40
Varun Duggirala: The tools might change, but the fundamental stay the same.
00:47:43
Varun Duggirala: That's never going to change. That's the core of
00:47:45
Avinash Pant: it. So I must stuck record on that one, you know,
00:47:47
Avinash Pant: like I am.
00:47:49
Varun Duggirala: So we have a few quick fire questions. The ideas
00:47:52
Varun Duggirala: to get I've been told one word or one line answers,
00:47:55
Varun Duggirala: but I'm going to leave that to you to judge
00:47:56
Varun Duggirala: and give that, um, what are some of the emerging
00:47:59
Varun Duggirala: trends in marketing to watch out for
00:48:03
Avinash Pant: I think, the rise of creator marketing, the rise of influencers,
00:48:07
Avinash Pant: which we spoke about and what that means from a
00:48:10
Avinash Pant: one is to one perspective and voice, I think that
00:48:13
Avinash Pant: would be for me. That's probably one of the biggest
00:48:14
Avinash Pant: that I can see for now.
00:48:16
Varun Duggirala: Um, what's your career? Advice for young marketers
00:48:22
Avinash Pant: work hard
00:48:24
Avinash Pant: care about the consumer. Don't chase titles.
00:48:28
Varun Duggirala: What does it mean to be a brand
00:48:30
Avinash Pant: to exist in the hearts and minds of people
00:48:34
Varun Duggirala: excluding anything you've worked on? What's your favourite Indian ad
00:48:38
Varun Duggirala: and why we
00:48:41
Avinash Pant: very quick, actually, Because, of course, the whole call campaign.
00:48:46
Avinash Pant: This can't be a short answer, but the reason very
00:48:49
Avinash Pant: quick comes to mind is way. Before we knew short form,
00:48:53
Avinash Pant: they had such a punchy thing like the film was incredible.
00:48:57
Avinash Pant: I always remember that funny humour is the fishing one,
00:48:59
Avinash Pant: the fishing one. The thing is how well it adapted
00:49:02
Avinash Pant: to five second. Like I've seen it for years after,
00:49:06
Avinash Pant: I don't know how many years they used it,
00:49:08
Avinash Pant: lasting value way ahead of
00:49:10
Varun Duggirala: my lesson, as you said
00:49:11
Avinash Pant: that way ahead of its time
00:49:14
Varun Duggirala: favourite book or podcast or article about marketing.
00:49:17
Avinash Pant: I don't have a favourite
00:49:20
Avinash Pant: because I hardly hear any adverts. Advertising is that is
00:49:24
Avinash Pant: the only one. Funnily enough, I don't have a favourite
00:49:27
Avinash Pant: because my answer is I like to live many lives.
00:49:31
Avinash Pant: So when I listen to podcasts or other stuff, it's
00:49:34
Avinash Pant: in the other areas of interest I have in my life,
00:49:37
Avinash Pant: which is either running or cycling or endurance or
00:49:40
Avinash Pant: or everything but marketing. So that's the That's the weird answer.
00:49:45
Varun Duggirala: And the final one. What's the difference between Diet Coke
00:49:49
Varun Duggirala: and Coke? Zero.
00:49:51
Varun Duggirala: Is it just blending?
00:49:52
Avinash Pant: No, no, no, There is a difference. Um, when Coke
00:49:55
Avinash Pant: zero was created, Coke finally cracked a diet version of
00:49:59
Avinash Pant: Coke that tasted much like Coke, which was great for
00:50:03
Avinash Pant: people like me who love the taste of Coke and
00:50:05
Avinash Pant: never like the taste of Diet Coke. But by then,
00:50:07
Avinash Pant: Diet Coke had a massive following and people who just
00:50:11
Avinash Pant: love the taste of Diet Coke and couldn't care about
00:50:14
Avinash Pant: the taste of original Coke anymore. So it's such an
00:50:17
Avinash Pant: interesting thing that they had to create a third brand,
00:50:19
Avinash Pant: which was actually the truer diet taste version of Coke.
00:50:24
Avinash Pant: So yeah, that's that's why I'm a big Coke zero
00:50:27
Avinash Pant: fan because I never liked the taste of diet
00:50:28
Varun Duggirala: Coke. I'm a Diet Coke. Yeah, I totally get what
00:50:30
Varun Duggirala: you when you look at the entire connection between brands
00:50:34
Varun Duggirala: and consumers, how did purchase journey has really changed? How
00:50:37
Varun Duggirala: is that really all over time? Especially with everything that's
00:50:40
Varun Duggirala: going to go on with digital kind of coming and
00:50:43
Varun Duggirala: becoming an entire channel?
00:50:44
Avinash Pant: Yeah, Ma, Massive change, right? I mean, back to the
00:50:48
Avinash Pant: days when I was a kid and, you know, you
00:50:50
Avinash Pant: walk out of home with a specific idea of what
00:50:52
Avinash Pant: you're looking for to purchase to, uh, you know, to
00:50:57
Avinash Pant: the entire journey is kind of shifting online to searching
00:51:01
Avinash Pant: for stuff
00:51:02
Avinash Pant: to, uh, you know, today actually seeing a real that
00:51:07
Avinash Pant: you like, And then suddenly you realise that you can
00:51:09
Avinash Pant: go right from there, for example to to pick it up.
00:51:12
Avinash Pant: I think I would say it's all been short circuited now,
00:51:15
Avinash Pant: so brands can find
00:51:17
Avinash Pant: great ways to be able to, you know, and and
00:51:20
Avinash Pant: short circuit is the best word for it. Because at
00:51:22
Avinash Pant: the end of the day, you're in a business, right?
00:51:25
Avinash Pant: So hey, how can I get consumers to buy me well,
00:51:28
Avinash Pant: you can actually get to it very, very quickly. This
00:51:31
Avinash Pant: is a much more elaborate process earlier. That's what I
00:51:33
Avinash Pant: would say.
00:51:34
Varun Duggirala: And it's interesting you say that about how leaving the
00:51:37
Varun Duggirala: house with the specific thing that you want to buy
00:51:39
Varun Duggirala: and now with Ecommerce what you actually have you going
00:51:41
Varun Duggirala: and you're discovering new things and sometimes end up finding
00:51:44
Varun Duggirala: things that you didn't really know you needed. But you
00:51:46
Varun Duggirala: do when you add them in as well. So you
00:51:48
Varun Duggirala: become a discovery platform as much as you become a
00:51:51
Varun Duggirala: platform where you purchase and connect to the brand
00:51:54
Avinash Pant: and actually even deeper than that, right? I think ecommerce
00:51:56
Avinash Pant: has played such a transformative role almost right in terms of, uh,
00:52:01
Avinash Pant: it isn't just that.
00:52:03
Avinash Pant: Then you understand the consumer better. You're able to suggest
00:52:07
Avinash Pant: them other things that they might not even have thought
00:52:09
Avinash Pant: of yet, right, because people who bought this also bought,
00:52:12
Avinash Pant: and it's like, Oh, yeah, I never thought of that.
00:52:14
Avinash Pant: I got the iPad. But now I need the fancy
00:52:16
Avinash Pant: cover I need. I need this and I need that.
00:52:19
Avinash Pant: And also over time, being able to then personalise better, right?
00:52:23
Avinash Pant: Because we may. You know, in other words, we may
00:52:26
Avinash Pant: not like that term, but when it's making things convenient
00:52:29
Avinash Pant: for us, we find that to be truly transmitted. So
00:52:31
Avinash Pant: I think,
00:52:32
Avinash Pant: in fact, I would actually high up size that now
00:52:36
Avinash Pant: consumers almost expect that hyper personalization, right? So if I
00:52:40
Avinash Pant: want an eCommerce site and I'm like, you know me already,
00:52:42
Avinash Pant: what are you doing? Like I expect you to give
00:52:44
Avinash Pant: me even better option, for example. So absolutely, I think
00:52:47
Avinash Pant: that's it's been quite transformative, even from a brand lens, therefore,
00:52:52
Avinash Pant: to kind of complete the entire journey, right, That's all
00:52:55
Avinash Pant: of that is possible,
00:52:56
Varun Duggirala: even how the how your store looks right, even how
00:52:59
Varun Duggirala: it looks when it's let's say, on a flip cart
00:53:01
Varun Duggirala: and and you kind of going into it and or
00:53:03
Varun Duggirala: if you're looking at how that's connected to something you
00:53:05
Varun Duggirala: bought in the past and you're getting the suggestion like
00:53:07
Varun Duggirala: you said correct over time,
00:53:09
Varun Duggirala: you I think you understand yourself as a consumer, a
00:53:12
Varun Duggirala: lot more as well as not just the brand understanding
00:53:15
Varun Duggirala: you you understand yourself as a consumer, so I feel
00:53:18
Varun Duggirala: that's also driving deeper understanding of self through eCommerce?
00:53:22
Avinash Pant: Absolutely. I mean, as you said, I think it's been
00:53:25
Avinash Pant: quite transformative and and the ability that it has to
00:53:29
Avinash Pant: actually package everything in right. So as as as marketers
00:53:32
Avinash Pant: or as brands allow you to actually complete the entire journey,
00:53:36
Avinash Pant: and that's quite incredible.
00:53:37
Varun Duggirala: You said something interesting. You said that.
00:53:39
Varun Duggirala: Does a brand have a story to tell? But how
00:53:43
Varun Duggirala: do I as a brand, figure out what my story is? What?
00:53:47
Varun Duggirala: What is the story that I should be telling?
00:53:51
Avinash Pant: Yeah, not as easy to be fair, not as easy to, uh,
00:53:56
Avinash Pant: to to answer that. But I think what I also
00:53:59
Avinash Pant: meant as a brand,
00:54:01
Avinash Pant: you know, have you done the soul searching
00:54:05
Avinash Pant: to actually the one step before? That is, who am
00:54:08
Avinash Pant: I and what do I stand for? And I think
00:54:11
Avinash Pant: that piece is important
00:54:12
Avinash Pant: in today's day and age. Uh, then when you are
00:54:16
Avinash Pant: clear about who you are and what you stand for,
00:54:19
Avinash Pant: and maybe a sense of what your voice is,
00:54:22
Avinash Pant: then the idea of what is the story that I
00:54:25
Avinash Pant: that I can tell or is is you know, will be,
00:54:28
Avinash Pant: you know, powerful or meaningful starts to become important. And
00:54:31
Avinash Pant: then the entire craft of storytelling kind of, you know,
00:54:35
Avinash Pant: follows up. I think one example that I can share
00:54:38
Avinash Pant: in in my early days that it was called Facebook.
00:54:41
Avinash Pant: Then
00:54:42
Avinash Pant: you know, just that the pandemic was happening and we
00:54:45
Avinash Pant: were seeing some incredible. And we were seeing incredible stories, right?
00:54:49
Avinash Pant: That's the whole idea of of Facebook. It's the idea
00:54:53
Avinash Pant: to build community right and allowing people to build community
00:54:56
Avinash Pant: and bring the world closer. And we were seeing people
00:54:59
Avinash Pant: reaching out and helping. And, you know, we thought that
00:55:02
Avinash Pant: this is a story worth telling.
00:55:05
Avinash Pant: But then that was a crafted story. Of course, Pujari
00:55:09
Avinash Pant: was this this film, and I and I'm very, very,
00:55:11
Avinash Pant: very close to it because it was such a compelling
00:55:14
Avinash Pant: idea which defied all norms of the time. You know,
00:55:18
Avinash Pant: we were Facebook. We are about short form, you know,
00:55:21
Avinash Pant: you're telling people Hey, three seconds, five seconds, you know,
00:55:24
Avinash Pant: You know, uh and, uh and this was a story
00:55:28
Avinash Pant: of 7.5 minutes that we told which is about this girl,
00:55:32
Avinash Pant: you know, running a milk centre in Punjab, and
00:55:35
Avinash Pant: it I to my mind, The reason I share this is,
00:55:39
Avinash Pant: you know, and even for marketers really is like this
00:55:42
Avinash Pant: whole idea of being able to go with your gut
00:55:45
Avinash Pant: to say, Hey, I think this is something compelling to
00:55:47
Avinash Pant: tell
00:55:48
Avinash Pant: you can actually break norms because for a because it was,
00:55:52
Avinash Pant: it became truly viral, right? I mean, of course, with
00:55:55
Avinash Pant: all the metrics of at Facebook, we know how well
00:55:58
Avinash Pant: it did on the platform. But you can't measure the
00:56:01
Avinash Pant: way it did on WhatsApp. I mean, I, I was
00:56:02
Avinash Pant: getting it in my community WhatsApp groups in my building.
00:56:05
Avinash Pant: That's when I knew that. Oh, wow. This is really
00:56:08
Avinash Pant: work
00:56:08
Avinash Pant: because now he's getting forwarded to me. Um, and it
00:56:12
Avinash Pant: was it was truly compelling. So again, of course, the
00:56:15
Avinash Pant: privilege of having a lot of, you know, access to
00:56:17
Avinash Pant: a lot of stories. But I would go to the
00:56:19
Avinash Pant: basics of what do I stand for? What do I
00:56:22
Avinash Pant: really care about? What is my voice and then, therefore,
00:56:26
Avinash Pant: you know, what is the story that I could tell?
00:56:29
Varun Duggirala: Thank you so much for doing this. A. I think
00:56:31
Varun Duggirala: we've We've gone through the entire plethora of of fundamentals
00:56:34
Varun Duggirala: of of looking at our performance content brand love even
00:56:37
Varun Duggirala: stories to tell have all kind of come together Thank
00:56:39
Varun Duggirala: you so much for coming to flip casts.
00:56:41
Avinash Pant: Oh, thank you for having me. I think this was, uh,
00:56:43
Avinash Pant: amazing fun. And I can just keep going on talking
00:56:47
Avinash Pant: about marketing. So thank you. Thank you. It's been a
00:56:49
Avinash Pant: It's been an absolute
00:56:50
Varun Duggirala: pleasure. Thank you for tuning into this episode of flip casts.
00:56:53
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