Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Samit Malkani on Brand Marketing Lessons from Google and the DNA of Creative Teams (#005)

Transcript

Samit Malkani on Brand Marketing Lessons from Google and the DNA of Creative Teams (#005) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, Samit, uh, thank you very much uh for agreeing to be a guest uh as a part of the Contraminds uh podcast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a privilege to have you with us.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm sure this is going to be a conversation which is very, very different from the other conversations that I've had.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for taking time and talking to us.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks a lot for having me, Swami.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: It really means a lot to uh to be here.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm I'm honestly grateful and humbled that you thought of me when you were when you were doing this.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: So really a pleasure to be here.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, thanks, Samit.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, Samit, I've been uh uh you know looking at uh your own path uh in your career, how you've kind of uh uh uh you know built your career, the work that you have done.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: And in one of the articles, uh you really talk about the current role of yours in Google, is about telling great stories about Google's products and initiatives.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: How uh really you bring in a storytelling idea for Google in this role of yours?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, at Google Swami, we like to think of marketing as based on you know a very key principle, which is know the users, know the magic, and connect the two.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, that's literally the motto of the Google marketing organization.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's something we take really seriously.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: For me, you know, when when when we begin the task of educating users about our product or showing people the impact that it has, it really begins with very clear user insight.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: It really begins with understanding what users are looking for, where our product can be the most helpful, um, and then just finding a really beautiful emotional way to do this.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, much of my work has been around creating traditional advertising for our brands.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we've you know ventured into different spaces over over the course of the many years uh of the nearly seven years that I've now spent.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think you know it's the easiest thing in the world to do a 30-second ads ad.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: But there's so much more that we can do if we were to just think from a content mindset.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we've been lucky, you know, I've been lucky to have a team and leadership that has believed in it and supported it, and we've been able to achieve some things.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, at its core, Google has always been a brand that inspires.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: It is it is always about seeing, understanding, and demonstrating what the power of access to information can do can help a person do.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: You remember the reunion film, right, from all those years ago, 2013.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right, correct.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: That was that was the start for us, I think, in India.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a few years later, we did uh this this film again for search.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was about this um this young man who discovers his father's secret dream to be an actor and how search helps him help his father complete that dream.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's still there on our YouTube channel today.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Hero or Bollywood Story.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another moment was just understanding that the power of another product of ours, which is called Google Photos.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, photos is all about nostalgia and memories, right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's all about surfacing those moments in your life.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we we realized that the true impact of photos is for somebody who's never actually been able to experience their memories before.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the stories we created was something we call the story of Amit.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was about this true this true story of a visually impaired person who, you know, um was getting an eye transplant, but for the last 10 or 15 years, he had never seen all those moments that happened to him in his life.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we worked with his family, we followed his journey to get his vision restored, and then we gifted him a phone which had all his memories digitized, and we just like wanted to see that reaction and what it meant to him, you know.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that it's hard to describe in words, but it was really, really powerful.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was it was it still gives me goosebumps uh till today.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing we also you know try and do is just showcase the um you know true stories of people who've had their lives impacted positively by some of the products and initiatives.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's this fantastic story that we found of uh a railway porter called Srinath, who used uh the free railway Wi-Fi uh that he had to study for the IAS examination and then got 80% or 86% and went on to start a career in the IAS.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that would never have been possible, right?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um without that access to information.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And and even there, the you know, it's all about the person.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, we see ourselves as catalysts, but it's all about the person.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been the approach.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: Brilliant, brilliant.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think the fact that uh, you know, you take a product and connect it with uh lives, uh, you know, how it has changed people's lives is really the connection that you kind of look at, right?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: That's really what I'm getting out of how you look at Google products and position them in people's lives, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the articles that you were talking about, uh, you also said you kind of create a sandbox for agencies to play.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I've heard software companies having sandboxes, I've heard uh, you know, uh government having a sandbox for fintech companies, but I haven't really heard of uh, you know, agencies having a uh clients creating sandbox for agencies, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: So uh what does this mean?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And can you kind of explain uh how the sandbox is created and how do you get agencies to play in the sandbox?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I'll I'll try it.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it won't sound as you know uh weighty as perhaps it does for the software companies, but um Swami, this was basically an evolution of my thinking as I moved into a client-side role.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, before Google had spent 11 years doing advertising on the agency side.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's always clients who are amazing, there are always clients who are tough, and most clients fall you know between the two.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized that um, you know, the clients I enjoyed working for the most, the clients that allowed me to do the best work of my of my career, were those who one had tremendous faith in their agencies and their ability to bring amazing thinking to the table and to solve business problems in a really creative way.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, two, they empowered their agencies to challenge their thinking um and to think different and and not to necessarily be bound by formulaic ways of approaching things.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: And three, they used their brand guidelines as guidelines versus constraints uh as much as possible.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um fourth, finally, I think there's a large element of transparency in the relationship uh you know with these clients.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, many of these clients were folks that I could pick up the phone on and talk to and be very honest with about the challenges that we faced or the support that we needed, or you know, what it would take to get something done to the level that we all wanted to.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what I tried to adopt because my role in India was a very new one.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we never had a brand creative person in the Google India marketing team till I joined.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we never had somebody whose pure core job was to go and sit down and work with agencies and really bridge, you know, uh play the bridge between a marketing manager and a uh and an agency team and focus on elevating the creative work.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and to do that, I had to I had to put myself back in their shoes and I had to try and remember what it was like creating good work and what it was like, you know, creating bad work.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um or working with a good client, working with a bad client.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what the sandbox is all about.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's still core to driving the relationship that we have today with our agencies.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's a lot of transparency.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we share a lot, we share a lot uh openly.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of you know belief in the agency's ability.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when we onboard a new agency, we go through an intensive process to find the right one.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then we invest a lot in the relationship.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I believe it takes an agency at least a year to really get set with working on Google.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and because we are not an easy brand to understand.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And it's about that investment and it's about that faith, and it's about that transparency to try and make things happen and really treating it like a partnership and giving agencies free reign.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: While you know, the the boundaries of that sandbox to me are with these are the things that we will absolutely not do.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, okay.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that is the guideline.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Within that, you are you're free to do almost anything that you want.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: So give me an example of how uh the sandbox helped crack an idea, helped crack interesting concept, something that comes to your mind as we speak.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'll go back to um the example of the photos campaign, Sony, um that I mentioned earlier.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um we actually had two agencies working on this.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: We had RGA in Singapore, you know, doing strategic work, and low on on ground in India were to go out and build out the whole story.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And we literally told them, guys, all we want is some phenomenal earned media work.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have a huge media budget on this.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Something that will get people to understand what photo stands for and start using the app more frequently.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: So RGA went and, you know, we kind of seeded this thought of moments and memories in in the brief.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: And RGA went and created this entire exploration around, you know, to whom do these memories matter the most, these visual, you know, artifacts of memory matter the most.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they had this kind of very interesting kind of physical space that they had designed and they were thinking about.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as we worked through with them and then we pulled in low, we realized that the larger idea was probably in saying finding one person, uh, making a two-story out of this concept of um helping somebody who's never really seen or remembered or experienced their memories.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we left that in there with in that sandbox.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this was a collaborative effort.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: This was over many meetings, over several weeks, where you know, the product marketing manager I was partnering with, both the agencies, we were all in the room brainstorming together.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we weren't, we aren't one of the kind of clients who will give a brief and then you know let the agency disappear for two weeks.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: We we really roll up our sleeves and collaborate with them uh and shape it you know from the very beginning.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this also avoids a lot of the back and forth that usually happens, right, when you're when you're working on a campaign.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and yeah, and we shaped it, and then one day Lo picked up the phone on me and said, We think we've got it.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: We want to do a story about this visually impaired person.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we have spoken to some you know foundations that support you know visually impaired people in in restoring their eyesight, and we think we can find a story.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they told me this over the phone, and I got goosebumps, and from there on it was just a matter of like selling it in.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: We waited for like two months to find the right story, Swami.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't want to rush it.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: We said we will wait, and we waited for two months till finally the foundation got back and said, We think we have a candidate who you might be interested in working with, and then we did it, you know, very humbly, very authentically, empowered the agency to represent us really well.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ourselves, we were in many of those meetings till finally this whole thing took shape.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, even when we did the production, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: We went through, if I'm not mistaken, I looked at 16 edits of the film before signing off, which means my creative director had probably looked at 50 edits.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and my boss got to see about four edits along the way before approving.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was a hugely collaborative process, and it was very clear that you know the idea is to just elevate the quality of work, very free flow of ideas and information, and just building on top of uh of each other's ideas and discarding very early those that didn't feel right for us.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me, uh, you talk a lot about content, you talk a lot about brand storytelling.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, how do you really curate content for a brand that has got nothing, right?
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: They're going to be starting from scratch.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you used a very interesting word called authenticity because more and more marketing is becoming more authentic.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you just can't fake your way into a consumer's mind.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_02: How do you really go about building this authenticity?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you go about building this content and brand storytelling for a brand that actually never existed?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you go about building it?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: What are the key components one should have in their minds as they go about building it?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: I actually don't think that there is a brand, however new, that does not have any content to it.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually think there's a lot to be found, and this is where the authenticity comes from.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot to be found from the brand's own story and the founder's own stories and their visions for what the brand should be.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm lucky to be at Google.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: We have a very you know deep history, rich history, um, and a lot of stories to tell.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: But if I were to take, if I were to tomorrow work on a brand that were brand new, right?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And we're trying to figure out what kind of content, I would actually look first into the brand's reason for existence and into the founder's own stories to begin with.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think your first start starting point for content lies there in the brand's own journey.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can, I mean, I I I can think of so many, right?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't know if you remember, for example, my wife used to have her own business for many years.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: She was an Indian home designer of home home accessories.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and uh her story itself made for very rich content, uh, which we deployed you know on social media or you know for press coverage.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and that gave us a really good starting point.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Other areas, for example, became the her design process, and we took some of that and converted it into social media content when we were advertising for the brand.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: It could be, you know, details of the craft, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like choices of materials, or it could be about a use case, or it could be about people that are buying, like, you know, a certain restaurant picked up several pieces from her.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and we spoke about it, we took photos of that restaurant, and we kind of showed how our pieces fit into that restaurant's decor.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that, you know, as a starting point, starting with your brand and then just your brand history and and vision and mission and purpose, and then following through with the journey, I think you can create a lot of rich content.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_02: Very interesting.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_02: So you really are talking about the reason why behind the brand.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it could be the reason why behind why the customer is uh you know buying the brand, the reason why behind the benefit the brand delivered to a set of consumers.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a there are interesting takeoff points which one needs to look at if you really have to build authenticity and storytelling for a brand.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the point that you're making, right?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh one of the things that uh you know I really uh you know uh admire about your own uh way, uh the way you've shaped your career is you actually went out and started working at Yahoo, right?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: That was your early days when a typical creative person would not would shudder to think, you know, how do I go and work in a uh you know, in a tech technology firm, so as to call it?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh uh you know, what were your expectations?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Many creative people don't take the risk of you know doing it.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: What are your learnings?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: What were your expectations?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And how did that shape the way you know you've kind of grown in your career?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it, I believe, uh paved way for a very interesting foundation for you.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're absolutely right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've reflected on this many times, you know, over the years.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sony, I I actually joined Yahoo because I had just dipped my toes into digital marketing.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, back in 2008-9 is when I felt like I was stagnating.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was a writer at Law, and um Law gave me the opportunity to work in their digital wing, Linteractive.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it there was a lot of self-learning, and I realized that I wanted to focus on digital, not you know, traditional advertising.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also figured that I needed to learn faster and I needed to learn more, which is why Yahoo made sense when the opportunity arose.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: The role I did at Yahoo was brand solutions.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I headed brand solutions for West and South uh India.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I had a small team.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: We used to go out and build content solutions for Yahoo's clients.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, along with the advertising that they would buy on Yahoo's platforms, they would also create content.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: We would also create content for them.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: So we built platforms for Dove, you know, the real beauty platform to really bring to life Dove's own philosophy.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: We built platforms for Accenture, for Coturk, for many others.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I actually had no fear of tech.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've grown up in a tech first household.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was an IT consultant for many years.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a computer in my house since I was one year old.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I've literally grown up with every generation of computer.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, so tech was not a worry for me.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: I think I went in with the hope to learn about digital, about content, about performance advertising, about digital platforms and technology.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't, I wasn't disappointed.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know it introduced me to understanding what performance marketing is.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: And many of the basics that we follow today, even at Google, um, are things that I had started learning at Yahoo uh back in the day.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: It also taught me a huge amount about content marketing, which to me has been foundational.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's helped kind of solidify my thinking.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I never believed that 30 seconds was enough to build a brand, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Brands can truly be built only over sustained engagement, and content marketing is key to that.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Yahoo really helped me learn that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's very interesting.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's very interesting, uh Samit.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: The point that you make is I think you learn to solution for a brand rather than messaging for a brand, right?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_02: That is a very big difference in you know creating a message versus creating a solution, right?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'll, you know, and and Dav is a great example.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: The platform was already existing when I joined.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: But as we developed it further, right, it wasn't just about messaging the philosophy of real beauty, but it was actual advice, it was beauty tips or personal care tips to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: To readers and users.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it became a mix of utility as well as entertainment or slash inspiration, which really kind of landed well.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can't just be building out messages.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have to create that richer environment for a brand to really solidify itself in the minds of its users.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what Yahoo taught me about content marketing.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a it's a beautiful point that you make.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, it kind of gives me uh you know a segue into the next uh thought that comes to my mind is typically you know creative folks you know are subject to ego, there is they're subject to biases.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Typically, what I found is it affects their imagination and ideas, right?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh, you know, you have to kind of work with a diverse set of people if you really have to be creative.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And Google definitely provides you that because you're not working with uh people who are similar, but you're working with engineers, you're working with product managers, you probably are working on OKRs, which probably you know in the agency world, not too many people even know about these things.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you overcome all this and what's been the learning for you in this kind of an environment?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I have a confession to make Swami.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um honestly, now I I have, you know, when I when I got into Google, I came in with a bit of intimidation, under a bit of intimidation.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've been a fanboy of Google, you know, since 2008.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Google was on my radar as a company I wanted to work for since way back then.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And when I walked in, right, I kind of knew that I would be working with some of the smartest people in the world, with some of the brightest minds, brightest marketers, people who wouldn't be afraid to share their opinion or to you know correct you when you were wrong.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I it was the first time I was moving into a client side, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I also knew I had a lot to learn, and I had to, so I came in with very honestly, a lot of maybe fear is not the right word, but there's a bit there was a lot of like um nervousness.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Because I didn't want there's a bit of anxiety, as I you know, if I if I were to put it.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't want to be seen as or that guy who was too too stupid to be at Google.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, really, like, you know, here's a company I've loved for so long.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I really wanted to succeed here.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I figured that if I had to do this and I had to make this role work, I needed to be very open to listening.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and one of the things that I tried to do was I tried to remind myself that I'm not at the caliber of a Pyush Pandey or a Bulky.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I am not, you know, at that level of creative caliber.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that means there's only one way for me to go, which is upwards.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I can only do that by listening to people who are smarter than me and learning and incorporating that into the work I do.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that forced me to put aside my ego because then I was also finding myself working with amazing people, you know, worked with Kinu at Ogilbi, worked with Amer and Sri Ram and Arun at Lo.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, today we work with Surjo at FCB.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're working with people who have got such deep creative experience who have done better work than I could ever dream of doing.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you feel like you have to learn from them.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: You feel like I felt like I had to uh respect that and I had to, you know, understand that cumulatively my agency partners had like 10x more experience than I do.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And that was made it very easy for me to put my ego aside.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I still like one of the things I like to do is I used to I would share work really early with my with the colleagues that I was working with, the partners that I was working with.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I would get input, I would discuss, and something would always come out.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: I would always walk away feeling this conversation can help me make my work better.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um and touch wood, that is what that is what has kind of happened, and that's kind of shaped me as a person as well.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh the point that you are making, uh Samit, open to learning, right, is very critical because as you move up the creative ladder, many a times you know, technology change, the way you communicate, you know, the styles change, but the core ideas don't change because those are the moments which people live.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: So being open to learning, being open to listening, these are very, very critical for uh roles like yours because that's when you kind of live the role that you have to do and deliver for the product that uh you know Google builds, right?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's very, very important.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: And how is it working with engineers who are extremely rational and uh your role is extremely imaginative?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: How do you kind of synthesize this difference?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't personally work with too many folks on the product side.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um my role is more focused on brand, and I work with product marketing managers.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but when I do, honestly, Sami, I think that some of the best product and engineering people are the ones who are the most imaginative, who are the most empathetic and the most insightful.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: I actually challenge the notion that engineers are supremely rational.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: They have to be, yes, you know, while coding something, you know, you want to be the most logical and most thought through.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I think great products begin with empathy and they begin with with human insight.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I've seen that, you know, I've been privileged to work on some of our best products.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've seen the level of understanding that our product managers try and gain off their users that they want to work with.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, not just how they use their products, but what are their real life needs.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then they take those and they synthesize those, and next thing you know, you know, we've launched a new feature set or rolled out something unique, you know, for the Indian user.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't, you know, I think it's uh I don't think you can say that product folks are necessarily entirely rational.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a huge amount of emotional empathy.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's very easy to connect with them.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Which which is very, very interesting.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: So uh uh the point that you're making, Samit, is that engineers who are very good are extremely imaginative, and it's a joy to kind of work with such guys, is what you're saying, right?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's the point that you're making.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, okay, yes.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: So one of the questions that I had uh was uh, you know, as you said, you moved into Google, you know, this was a role that got created which was not there.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: Do you recommend such a creative role uh in client organizations?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Because they already have brand managers, they have product managers.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: So, in your opinion, if clients were to create a role like this, what would this role do and how will it transform marketing in your personal vision?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: So personally, short answer is yes.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, short answer is a resounding yes.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you were to just step back and look at current marketing structures, right?
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, you know, most marketing managers, whether on the tech side they're called product marketing managers or on you know FMCG, they're called brand managers, they have many things to do, right?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: There is there's a huge amount of user research work or consumer research that they need to constantly drive.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's a huge amount of product input uh to really help develop product solutions for those consumers.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then they have to you know take everything to market.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: There is a distribution strategy, pricing strategy, packaging strategy, um, media strategy that leaves them very little room to focus on creative.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, some of Google's own research suggests that 70% of a campaign's impact is down to creative, not media.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: How will how will a busy brand manager or product marketing manager ever get the time to land creative with excellence over and over and over and over again when there are so many more things to do?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just given what we see today, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like organizations are trying to, you know, not overhire, they're trying to make sure that every single person stretches and delivers 100, 110, 120% at times.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you then compensate for that?
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing to note is while creative judgment is something that many people can have, I think when it comes to actually bringing great creative to life, you do need people with that kind of training, which I'm not sure that every marketing organization hires for.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in today's data-driven world, a lot of consultants find themselves moving into marketing today.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, you have the classic, you know, traditional marketers as well.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it just feels like it just feels like you're hiring for a different kind of skill set.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: The way so the way I see it is if you have somebody on on the brand creative side, right?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think their job should be to go out and really own the creative expression of the brand, the story of the brand.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's through product work, whether it's through building programs, whether it's through um you know storytelling or social media.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think having a group of people who have that relevant expertise and know how to inspire agencies, brief them well, guide them through the process.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: Not every marketer has that skill, no matter how well-meaning, not every marketer gets it right.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think, I think, therefore, having that set of people will help marketers move faster, you know, get better workout more, you know, more frequently and more consistently, and reduce a lot of the load.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that in my mind is more specialized than a generally general marketing manager.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_02: For somebody who is a creative person moving into a client environment, what skill sets should they learn to succeed in that environment?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because the client environment is far more tougher than uh you know a traditional agency environment because there are so many other pressures that are there.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, what skill sets do you think they need to kind of brush up, learn to succeed in that kind of environment if clients were to create these kind of structures?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: So great question.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that there's several, right?
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: When you move into the client side, even as a creative person, I think you have to broaden your understanding.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just be creative, you have to understand product and business strategy, you have to understand media and which which dictates how you write your brief.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think there's that's one aspect.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Another is I think you have to also uh learn very quickly where your team is in terms of creative.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is the shared understanding across that team of one, what is good creative, two, how do we get there?
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and getting to that level, at least understanding that will allow you to build further.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe the team is at, for example, a six on ten in terms of creative quality.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: So then you need to show them that you know what, we're doing good, but here's what we could do to get to a seven and then an eight and then a nine, right?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: And consistently kind of push them to raise the bar.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is to understand operationally how they work with their agencies, see where there may be gaps, see what's working, because a lot might be working really well, and see where there may be gaps and and then solve for that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: The last thing that like I've realized is you know, in in the agency world, I was always spoiled.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most creatives are spoiled because you've got an account management team that is operationalizing everything, you've got a planning team that is doing so much of the thinking, and then you can sit back and write some funny lines and make the ad.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think on the client side, you have to take end-to-end ownership.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have a problem, which if you see a problem, it's your job to solve it.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: If it means going and working with a media agency today, if it means going and working with a planner tomorrow, doesn't matter.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: If it means rolling up your sleeves and and doing the planning, that's if that's what it takes, then that's what you have to do.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I think taking that end-to-end ownership and stretching to learn, to learn the areas that you have not practiced yet is critical.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: So it comes down to growth mindset and being able to develop that and cultivate that.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: You also talked about you know, TV business is broken and you predicted that channels need to you know get creative and curate content.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_02: They need to transform themselves into almost like an OTT platform and build engagement with their viewers.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something uh you see happening at the pace that online content is being consumed by uh consumers today?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, do you see them moving in that direction?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: Are they are they doing enough in your view?
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's a mixed bag, Swami.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um I you know, I wrote an article many years ago and a lot has obviously evolved.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, OTT platform streaming has you know it's exploded.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um and you know, obviously, TV is facing its own challenges.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think um, you know, we can ever discount television or say it's dead, but I definitely think that transformation is the name of the game.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're seeing some of this already happen, right?
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_01: You're seeing um you're you're seeing, for example, like star, right?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: What they've done with Hotstar in India is is outstanding.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they've made the IPL, for example, in cricket available to anyone with a phone.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: You might be in the on the train commuting home, you might be stuck in a traffic jam, you might be sitting in your office.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, you can actually like sit and and connect.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think they star has actually got it got a lot right.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I yeah, so I I think that it's getting there.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in my view, and I'll I'll just say here, I'm not an expert on on this side of the tech world, but I think I think you make some relevant points there, Sam.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: The the fact that TV has to be an on-the-go medium, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's not anymore uh sit back and watch medium, it's going to be on the go medium.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_02: Therefore, how do TV uh channels uh change the way they deliver their content?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the change in mindset that's uh that's important.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think that's that's the point that you are making there.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me this whole passion for creative content, copywriting, uh, did it all start with your uh you know, Jahin College in Mumbai, where you were a part of the editorial committee.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, how did you kind of uh learn this craft?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_02: How did you improve on this craft?
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: And who are your role models?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_02: And if young listener is uh listening to this podcast, what are the things that they should do to be masters of this craft?
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, you know, Swami, I've always been a good writer.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um in school as well, like I was writing poetry that was being published in the Times of India.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I remember in 1992 when the Babri Masjid riots happened.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember writing a piece that got picked up by the Times of India.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um I was what, 11 years old at the time.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always been a good writer.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: I used to work with the afternoon dispatch and career as the Jahin College representative when I was at college.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually headed for a career in IT.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know, my professors at Jahin College actually, there's one professor in particular, um, Miss Anuradha Sindh Siddhiqi.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: She was also the chairperson of the Jahin College magazine.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: And she spotted that, you know, I have a skill.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, You're passionate about writing, you've won so much, so many awards for writing at the college and intercollege level.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why aren't you thinking of this as a career as opposed to software engineering?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that made me you know stop and take a pause and rethink, and that's what led me into advertising as a copywriter.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of developing craft, at that time, like it was advertising writers that I learned from.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I I bought this, I got access to this book called The Copy Book by DNAD.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's an old book, and I I just got the updated edition a few years ago, which has advice from the world's best copywriters.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's literally like a masterclass in copywriting every time you read one of them.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I use that to develop my skills.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of my creative directors at my second internship at Lowe, which was at Lowe, um, was Elvis Sikwera, who I think leads um Hakuodo in India today.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Elvis spent a lot of time with me because I told him I'm interested in learning, writing, and he spent a lot of time with me giving me mock briefs and challenging me to craft and craft and craft and craft.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um kept learning along the way like that.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: I draw a lot of inspiration from writers, from authors.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: So there are some books that you know really inspire me to raise my own writing craft even when I read them today.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it was just a constant effort to become a really good long copy writer, uh, which and that's just a mad passion that I had.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't uh, you know, we were already moving to an era of visual communication and very, you know, Indian language kind of Indian heartland nuanced kind of work.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: But it was just personal interest and desire that that made me try and learn more.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: How uh how do you uh keep learning today?
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, sometimes I feel like I've let copywriting go.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um today, I think the craft I'm trying to learn more of is is brand marketing, you know, how to be think more strategically, how to you know problem solve in more interesting and innovative ways.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't do much of copywriting anymore.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm also you know on a journey to become a better leader.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um constantly trying to work on that.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: So those are a couple of areas I'm working on.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a lot of reading, a lot of videos.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_02: No, no, very interesting.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think uh as you kind of move up a career, you're also saying you have to build a strategic mindset, you have to look at you know leading the teams.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: These are some of the skill sets that folks need to learn on the creative side because finally you are solving a business problem, right?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh that's the that's the point that you are making, right?
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point you will have to give up on the execution elements, right?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean correct.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: No matter how much you might love them.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you might still want to retain that that ability to say, tomorrow I've had to sit down and write a long copy, and can I?
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm sure I could, maybe I probably couldn't do it as well as I could have a few years ago.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that's been a conscious area that I said, okay, I have reached as far as I could with that particular skill set.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Now I need to learn new things.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: So with limited time, you know, I think you have to narrow your focus as well, which is another thing that I learned along the way.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my final question would be if you look into the future, how will the role of creative professionals change with the advent of technology, AI, ML?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: What skills should they prepare themselves for?
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you are in Google, you are in the you know center of this change.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, what should people in these professions look for and equip themselves with?
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: One, I do want to say, I don't think you need to know how to code, but I think as a creative person today, you will need to start developing a really sound understanding of what can be achieved with technology like AI and ML.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think understanding how it works can help you as you're developing ideas, because you will know, for example, that you can train a machine with a particular data set to identify certain patterns, and you can use that as the foundation for an idea and do something really amazing with it.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think you need to also constantly keep understanding how how platforms are working and evolving, whether they're ad platforms, whether they are um you know social platforms.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think that the creative team of the future has to be copy art and code.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think if if agencies have to really thrive, uh, I think for every single art and copy team, you need to have a creative technologist embedded.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, potentially it could be as as disruptive as saying, you know, we have a you know an art copy, uh, art creative director, you have a copy creative director, and you have a tech creative director who are all sitting in the same cabin and leading a team with a similar structure.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that is the that is the shift that should happen, in my view.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you couldn't have summarized it much better.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh art, copy, and code is really the future of how this uh you know creative profession has to kind of uh has to transform.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Lovely talking to you, Samit.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was a beautiful conversation, a lot of insights on how you do it in Google, how you are seeing the world change, how one looks at building the craft.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was a very, very good conversation and it was really good.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for having me, Swami.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was really good catching up.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um this really took me back in time as well.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, um amazing chat.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for taking up here.