Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Cracking The Gen-Z Marketing Code | Srinjoy Das | Ep 018

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Cracking The Gen-Z Marketing Code | Srinjoy Das | Ep 018 · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're FMCG, you know the best market resource you can do is to go.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We used to say that in our day, Dukan pe ya kay karyoja.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you go stand by Rukan and observe your users.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do they say, etc.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like that?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Someone comes in and says, I want that cake.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, don't take this cake, take the other cake, etc.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: He or she says, No, no, I want this cake because of this, etc.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because mummy bully, because this is because whatever it is people say.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you get to get real insights which you won't get on the other side of the mirror in your AC room that a market research agency is conducting for you, right?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, in case so beautiful ways you can do.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're running an airline company, do you know the kind of stories you can gather by just standing at the check-in counter?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a brand manager for an airline, just go stand outside a check-in counter.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Insane stories you will get.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Guest today has a phenomenal background of building digital first brands.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: As he himself admits, the marketing rules are turned on its head as digital brands reshape and recreate marketing methods and algorithms.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_02: He is an engineering graduate from NIT Tritchy and a management graduate from IM Calcutta.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Our guest today is Shrinjoy Das, Associate Director Marketing Crafton, one of the world's leading gaming companies.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: He spoke on a wide range of topics, which included the importance of marketers in having a good grip in finance and how finance knowledge helps marketers get a seat on the table with the CEO and CFO.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: We then discussed the essential methods of building content and context and how it can help build memorable campaigns.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_02: Shunjai then talked about the importance of virality in campaigns and how it helps build customer engagement and customer obsession with brands.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: I asked him about the new business metrics that he looks at and thinks are important and what are the skills that are critical for marketers to succeed in the future.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: Over to my conversation with Shinjoy Das.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: This episode of the Super CMO show was made possible by the great folks at Moving Walls.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: Moving Walls provides a global technology platform built by out-of-home advertising experts automating the process of planning, buying, executing, and measuring out-of-home campaigns.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Moving Walls helps leading brands and agencies to move into audience-based planning, improve down around clients with automated proposals, and implement programmatic digital out-of-form and verify campaign performances.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: Moving Walls helps measure, reach and influence moving audiences across the world.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: For more information, log on to www.movingwalls.com.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And how is a how is it a civil engineer actually started getting interested in marketing?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So to be honest, civil engineering courses these days mostly act as giving you an analytical bend of mind.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was like the kick-starting point.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I used to uh look at uh companies' books a lot during my uh uh 3G days and then I found out that there is while a lot of things companies were doing would have direct impact in what they uh what the output they produce, for example, the the profit pools and whatnot.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you set up 20 factories, then you're likely to get a uh 20 times increase in revenue.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you increase CapEx, uh you're likely to get uh higher profit pools.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do good margin uh expansion, your profits increase, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing was always, I found, extremely random as a variable.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So some people some companies did tremendously good marketing and got really good results, and some companies did not, right?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that was very fascinating.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: What it meant is that marketing really needs skills, right?
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else is about execution, execution itself is very difficult.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: I completely get that, but marketing is is skills, like like the likes of Nestle and Coke in India, PG back in those days.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of marketing that they did it took a lot of skills, and I could see that it gave them results, which is very interesting.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I found out so obviously when I went to B school, uh, read a lot of case studies as to what companies globally have been doing, what companies locally have been doing.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that was, I think, very, very interesting that I found out, and uh it helped me understand marketing from a very different lens than what people do, which is more from a financial point of view.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And also, if you read a lot of case studies, you understand all the ways you can do marketing and not necessarily the way marketing was done in the noughties, in the in the early teens in India, right?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that is where I thought that this is interesting, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing is not just putting out great ad films, and uh, it is it is more about how you can add value to a company's uh bottom line as well as the top line.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, what was interesting to me about your uh career in marketing was uh you have largely been in a startup ecosystem, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of young companies, uh you know, funded companies with Sequoia and stuff like that is really where I think you have spent a lot of time, though you started with Airtel and things like that.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, any specific reason why you wanted to take this route?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because a normal marketer typically goes through the traditional uh big company brands, uh company brands where they do marketing.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: But I find your profile to be completely different.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: So is there a reason?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so is that something that excites you?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: Can you tell me a little bit about that?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's mostly all of these are listed companies only, to be honest.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've not really, I've probably spent two, three years in a startup.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from that, most of these were, but they were not listed in India.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: So for example, um, Tencent was what half a trillion dollars in general.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Airtel was close to now.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I think roughly 10, 20, odd billion dollar companies back then it was a 10 to 15 billion dollar market cap companies, and Crafton roughly is around 3 billion dollars, right?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's it's the difference is lies in I've always worked in digital first companies rather than uh uh consumer-faced uh e-com-based companies, so that's the difference, but uh it just allows you to learn different things at different scales.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: For example, what works a million-dollar campaign in a company like Tencent has very different meaning than a million-dollar campaign in a company like Airtel because the scales are just like radically different, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And also your objectives are different in a lot of really large established brands like Airtel.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: All you want to do is to expand your TAM in on your fringes and on your core audience, you're trying to extract more uh RPO, which is uh realizations in in modern-day terminology, whereas for Tencent it's about exploring new geographies and and everything else, like in Kraft, it is about exploring new games and getting new uh audiences in.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the little bit of a difference uh when you look at the size of the companies, their objectives become very, very different.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: In my startup, it was all about market building, market awareness, and then and taking it from there, right?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it was very normal to have 250%, 300% growth even month on month, which is absolutely crazy.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas even for very large Behemoths, even if you increase the top line by a single double digit or high single digit, even that is at a consistent level, it compounds your uh top lines very well over a five-10-year period.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, so it different companies gave me different exposures to the kind of uh things that you can pull off in marketing.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you a very wide range of things you can do, and it also taught me how marketing is done globally, also, not just in India.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Which uh because because if you restrict yourself to just India, it takes a long time to change your perspectives from traditional media, from TV into what is happening, uh which which lies at the cutting edge of where uh you know consumerism is right now, which is moving away from traditionals into digitals right now.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, so that is where you I as a professional you go exactly where learning is the highest, right?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, as as learning progressed, I I kept exploring and then finding things which which helped uh bring value to both my teams as well as the companies.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: So when uh you know when I was actually uh talking to you even before this podcast, one thing that impressed me a lot is the first point that you made uh during our discussion, which said the importance of knowing finance for a marketer is very, very important.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I rarely hear that from CMOs and head of marketing and anybody who is a marketing professional.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_02: So, why do you really think uh finance and the art of knowing finance is important for marketers?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: And can you elaborate a bit on that?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I think is that the world is shifting a little bit.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I think for me it's more predictive than something which is happening right now as we speak in 2025.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the world is adapting a little bit.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, what used to happen is that previously in organizations there would be the chief financial officer here and the CMO seated here, and the strategy folks who decide the course of the company or give recommendations to the CEO who to sit on top would be equidistant from both, from the CFO as well as the CMO.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Modern-day companies, that equidistency is no longer there, so they're more aligned towards the CFO.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when this happens, it happens mostly because as economies open up, we have gradually opened up since 1991.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's almost like 30 odd years, right?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: As consumerism grows, marketing becomes extremely intense.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh breaking clutter becomes far more difficult.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it is no longer easier to just rule out a campaign and think, hey, I've done enough and whatnot, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: So when these things happen, you have to be able to understand the perspective of your CFO as well as the CSO, who is the chief strategy officer or your CSO leads, to be able to convince your CEO in a convincing way, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why concepts like return on marketing dollars, understanding your brand's rookie's return on capital employed, and the turnover, which is your uh how fast you are able to rotate your cash, is extremely important for you to understand what your marketing budgets are.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: The second point is what you do with those marketing budgets, the ratio which goes into content creation, the ratio which goes into distribution, the ratio of what should go into sales and whatnot.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of these to have a very deeper understanding onto it helps you bring those large projects to your CEOs.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And since I worked only in almost listed companies, for me, the fiduciary duty is even higher because it's not just yours, it's also in a way to the board and the shareholders in general, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are proposing a$10 million campaign, if you have a$15 million campaign, the impact of it should be in line with what has been discussed in CONCALs, what has been discussed, you as a strategic business unit, and what has been discussed as your company KPIs, right?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can no longer sit just because you're a large consumer brand, sit on your laurels and think, hey, whatever I do, even if it gives me a little bit of a delta, the movement will not be much.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, look at some of the top FMCG brands, what has happened to them, like the direct-to-consumer brands, which has come up in the last few years, have completely disrupted them, right?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Completely disrupted them, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at, for example, like we can take many examples, this is one example.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So folks are having to justify their brand spend even more severely because the CEO is going to ask direct questions.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I give promotional discounts on the channel, right?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to have very logical answers.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can't have logical answers if you don't have a background in finance.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where my I am Calcutta Education, which is known for its finance in general, really helped.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It came in clutch, right?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I also come from a background in forensic accounting in general, so I understand how cash flows sort of work.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: So more than the PL statement, it's a cash flow statement that you look at to understand uh how these affect your margins, right?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: The second part is that I think uh it's been a long time since India has seen a slowdown in consumerism, right?
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: And marketing is very closely linked to consumerism, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So and and I think balance sheets of companies are really, really good right now.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's far better than what happened in 2008 when I was in college and everything, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, whenever a slowdown comes, the CEO is gonna come out and say, hey, let's let's slash down budgets and whatnot.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a very deep understanding of finance, you have a very brilliant ability to figure out what campaign suits what.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So certain campaigns will be for say TAM expansion, TAM expansion for your viewers is when you're working on the fringes, you're trying to expand more and more people who will do trials of your product, right?
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, on the other hand, I think there's certain campaigns you do to extract more revenue from your existing users.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's certain campaigns you do to uh uh launch your subproducts or sub brands and whatnot, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: The balance of what budget goes into those is not something that you can no longer stare at your CSO or at your CFO and tell them, sir, tell me what the budgets are.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You get a full budget and you need to be able to figure out which one gives you more ROE or ROI in general.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: ROE is a language that you should speak with your CFO to understand what sort of incremental benefits I can bring to my company's top line and bottom line, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this sort of an understanding is no longer outsourceable, I can say, to your strategy leads.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: You should do it on your own, right?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, once upon a time, a leads marketing CMOs would only have the job of maintaining the brand, figuring out some ancillaries like PR and whatnot.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But apart from that, they would not.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: These days, because there's agencies for everything and there is precise data prediction and analytics available to even the biggest of offline companies, uh, you can make those analyses on your own.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have a little bit of a finance background, I think it really helps you understand how our brands function in general.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: So these things really help me.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, it goes without saying because I've always worked in digital companies, uh, the amount of data I had available at my fingertips helps me take decisions which I can analyze later to come back and do very easy post mortems, and you become better as as someone who does marketing while keeping finances in in mind, right?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is a prudency which I predict will come into CMO circles, will come into CMO WhatsApp groups a lot in the next four or five years.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is just starting to enter uh uh into our into our lingo, into our discussions as of now, and has far reaching implications than just budgeting what budget goes into what campaign.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: It has far-reaching complications as to how you think about how effective your campaigns are gonna be and and whatnot, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's see how the future holds.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but uh you can no longer just uh uh silo brands uh from the financial impacts of what your campaigns are gonna be.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you explain a bit about uh this uh you made an interesting statement on how do you convince a CEO or a CFO or a uh chief strategy officer on uh you know whether this campaign works, what are the metrics.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you give me an example of uh how do you approach that uh you know finance first thinking, which is very, very important?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can uh you know give me an example of how to how should a market start thinking around it, especially because it's an evolving area, uh that'll be extremely useful to some of the folks who are listening to this uh conversation.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so one of the biggest debates people usually have is that how much should you spend in distribution, which is uh whether you want to put this on TV, whether you want to put this on digital, and what is what should be the spends, and what ratio of that should be into creation, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, this in itself needs you to understand what is the incremental impact of just going for deep distributions.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: For example, say basis projects, you know that there is a project on which you are expected to hit like 17 to 18 percent uh ROC, and if your margins contract by around 2 to 3 percent in general, then it comes to around 15 to 14 percent, right?
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, what you need to do is to talk to your CEO and say, hey, if you give me an additional 1% of the ROC, since you have that leeway in in your margins in general, I can get you an additional reach of X million, uh which gives you a dollar value of Y million, right?
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, in case it gets confusing, just to redo the math, say there's a product line you're launching which has an 18% to 16% ROC, they're always in ranges, right?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have exact assumptions.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the chief strategy officer and finance officers have given you a 2% levy to use that amount of budget to expand your total addressable market by X million, which gives you Y million dollars in additional revenue, right?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you have the confidence basis your previous campaigns, basis your market understanding, basis your market research, and the risk-taking ability of your business unit, you go and say hey, if you give me one to two percent more, it will decrease your ROC by this.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It will not decrease your ROC, it will decrease your margins by this, but because I can extract more volumes out of it, I think I will be able to deliver slightly better ROCs.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: So net net it will not get affected.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I did just now is that explained to my CEO that I understand that your ROCs, which are dependent on your rotations, how many times you can rotate the same cash, as well as your margins, how they interlink with each other.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: So at a quarterly basis, I can tune my marketing campaigns basis that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Second, I do understand that if I crack open a new market, what sort of incremental revenues that I can bring in, even though they may not be margin accreditative.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Margin accreditative is that when you go into a new category, they don't give you uh the same amount of margins.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: A very easy example is Netflix mobile.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Netflix mobile is at 149, 199, it's not the same margins for Netflix as you do on a 4K uh plan, which is like 849, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Different margins, but you get that new consumer, you get the volumes in, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So uh very easy examples, but once you speak in this language to your CEO, now you have a conversation going, right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Previously you would go and say, sir, can I get this India's biggest superstar into the game or into your product or into your brand?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: He or she will unlock this many rural markets for you, this many tier three, and this many SECs for you, and hence your brand will be known.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a language that they don't understand.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: They understand that language, but that's not a language that they can speak to their board or their shareholders, right?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a language that everyone speaks.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like everyone was speaking different languages, but once you accept that English is the most common language that everyone understands.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, in that table, finance, I think ROCs, net margins, these are languages that everyone understands.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine that you are as a marketeer know this language as well.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You suddenly have a superpower, right?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can speak French and English.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's great, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's fun for everyone.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So so now you have you gain the confidence of not just your CEO, but also your CSO and your CFOs, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it helps you bring rational decisions.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Other thing it does is that say this goes south.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Say if it goes north, then it's great.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: You'll you'll get more budget next year as well.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Say this goes south, you have your mitigation plans in place.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you know that you will mostly take a 2% hit in your margins, even if you ask for that budget, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then you will be able to explain to your leads that hey, these are the reasons why the budget is limited this year.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because there's a slowdown, it's not because we don't want to focus on this project or whatever.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you understand it very well, then you will be able to internalize that to your team very, very well.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the teams will also have these sort of expectations and and uh uh what what it does is that over a period of time you believe you build the series of cases, and your company becomes so rich with these beautiful case studies through the years.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like ours is a very new company, but for if you have been working for a period or a decade or whatever it is, these cases help you fine-tune the predictability of your revenues and the predictability of your marketing impact very, very well.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you'll always have these discussions after an IPO, I after an IPL that a CEO comes out and says, IPL maybe a kya wa you don't want to get into those conversations.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You need more more mood strong and then legitimate conversations to to gain the confidence of everyone in the room.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where I see the future of marketing being headed.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are ways you may like it or you may not like it, but adoption will be there, so you better adopt it.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I would think uh Shinja, it's very, very important coming from a marketing and analytics background.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: For me, uh this has been always uh you know an important aspect, and not often marketing talks this language.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about, I've been in meetings where uh you know the CMO talks about I've increased top of mind awareness, but the CEO will say, but my market share has not increased.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: So then you know if you give me a metric which says top of mind awareness is increased, but the market share is not increased, which is a resultant of revenue coming into the company, the marketer does not get the respect of the board, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, what is important from what he was telling me is that it's critical to look at return on marketing investment, look at margins, look at return on capital employed, look at return on marketing uh you know investments in terms of different distributions, how how are your margin spread across your products?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's very, very important to talk that language because it has got implications on valuations, it's got implications on uh you know the scale, what you are doing, and that I think is very critical for marketers to learn, right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's really what you are saying.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can see that people are noticing it, right?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I think even in the VC ecosystem, you can see that profitability suddenly is the buzzword compared to top line growth and all.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: So these things move in cycles.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think these are just market cycles.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think we are headed towards a market cycle where uh it is important to have uh in-depth understanding of uh finance also, in addition to marketing, because that's what gives you an edge.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, there's too many CMOs running around in the country with very little understanding of how finance works, and hence it finds it very difficult to reconcile with with the top folks whenever you get into discussions with them.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So you are somebody who uh is a big believer of content and context, okay?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you've done some fantastic campaigns.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: I saw the uh awards that you have won uh you know for some of the work that you have done.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you talk about the importance of content and context and how have you been able to build marketing innovations in an industry like yours where gaming, you know, you may say that you know, yes, it doesn't have enough attention, but you seem to have built uh you know not a MOO, but a DAO, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Clearly that's something which which you're passionate about.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you give me some examples of how you have brought content and context to build customer engagement?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so I have been very lucky to have worked with brands, all of which have really, really high DAU, like incredibly high DAU brands, right?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and like eight, nine digit DAUs in general.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that is very special, I think, in my opinion.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what it also allows you to do is to work with content.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: So what it means, content is essentially what content is just narratives, content is story, right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you do that, something different gets triggered inside your fans, inside your users, right?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of like whenever you start watching anything, be it an ad or a film or a content or whatever it is, your first instinct as a consumer these days, because we live in this overtly consumeristic world, someone is selling me something, right?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: What content does is that it relaxes you.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It says no no, hey guys, I'm not here to sell you something.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we've created mini content around our top game called Battlegrounds Mobile India, uh, which talks about friendships, right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to ask you to download the game after you've seen that film, right?
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking you to just watch this film and guess what?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: People really love it, people really enjoy it.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: What it subconsciously does is that it endears people to your uh brand, right?
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that I've I will definitely credit that gaming and a lot of social first brands did it first in India, and then people came.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're very used to seeing placements of brands in films.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's very obvious someone sipping on a beverage that they know about, some someone talking about driving a car that a brand that we know about.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: But uh what I think gaming brands and social first brands did, they turned this into entertainment.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And entertainment is not something Indians can ignore.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: They love watching content.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you are on a bus ride which is one hour and you know there's a great episode of BGMI which has come up, you will watch that episode because you are anyways gonna watch something on YouTube, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that is extremely important, I think.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: The second part is context.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's not really it's an open secret right now that most folks in India are spending time, a large amount of time on Instagram and YouTube.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Previously, this is like two, three years back.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I would have said, like, hey, Gen Z is spending a lot of time on Instagram and YouTube.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nowadays it's true even for my dad, by the way.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: My dad, whenever he's not watching OTT, he's doing something on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that's anecdotal evidence.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have actual evidence also where we see that majority in this country, the highest MAU products in this country are all social media led, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't get a guy or a girl to play my game all the time, right?
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a limit to the amount of video games that you can play in a day.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: What do you do when you are out of it and you still want some entertainment, right?
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from OTTs, which is different, you go to social media, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to YouTube and Instagram, I am there.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't be there again, ask him to download the game.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's just played a game anyway, so big kitna, you will get people to download and all of those things, right?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you say, hey, there's this nice feature that we made around, uh, this is this nice feature film that we've made, this is nice web series that we made, this is nice funny content we've made.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: So this is these are known as Instagram takeovers or YouTube takeovers, you as buzzwords in general.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But at the heart of it is that your storytelling is so so so beautiful that people watch your content.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is why the metrics that we have that we follow here in crafting currently in my current company are very different from metrics that other marketers follow.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: For example, most marketers look at impressions, reach, etc.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: We look at weird things like average view duration.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of metrics that we are looking at are AVDs, like average view durations.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Then we look at the number of shares and things like that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: These are all geared towards your innate instinct, whether you are enjoying a content or not, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: So from us, views and impressions and reach are output metrics, which come if you are really good at AVD and shares and all that, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: This corroborates with what YouTube is also doing and Instagram also is doing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like by the way, if you put something on YouTube which has very high AVD and high shares, it will get high amount of views because that's where YouTube gets its information that it's getting viral.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, going back to my statistics and analytical D's, etc.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: like that, where we crack down some of all of these things down to the T, like back three years back in general, and figure out this is going to be a strategy at least till 2026, 2027 for the next four or five years.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we figured out if you don't have great content, then people at some point in time will leave your brand and then go towards a brand which is the more new and hip thing to do, especially if you're a gaming or an entertainment brand.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is not so relevant for other brands, but for us it definitely is.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, if it is a game or a brand which has a lot of stories to be told, then tell those stories, no.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And thirdly, if you are able to figure out that these are metrics which are helping you grow the brand, for example, AVDs and shares that I talked about, instead of impressions, reach, and views, which are output metrics, then you should focus on that, right?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so these are some also in in a way I'm also telling you what my predictions are gonna be in the future, which are some things that we'll address later on.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that give it four or five years, I think everyone will start talking about shareability of content.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: How much how many shares have you gotten rather than views?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because people are feared out that you can just get views through money, like you can just promote any music video and it gets your views in general.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: But are people really engaging with that video that you have put out?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are people really watching it for the entire two, three minutes or six, seven minutes that you put it out for, or people are just watching it for two seconds and you paid that one cent or ten cent or whatever it is, and then people skip on?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that people are catching on to slowly but steadily, but that's where the future sort of lies.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_02: So when because you have worked in categories which are digital first or uh you know, I would say social first, say, for example, Crafton is a mobile gaming company, some of what you just said is also very relevant for traditional brands, right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: Say I may be a FMCG brand, and uh I still believe that content still plays a role, and even if you talk about ADV and uh you know sharing, uh again, it's very, very important if you build content in a storytelling manner rather than the traditional advertising model.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_02: Would you agree that that's the route that marketing is going to take over the next few years?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Even if I'm a traditional, I would call it a fidgetal brand.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is small correction.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Crafting is not just a mobile gaming company.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: We we make video games for PC as well as for console.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not just mobile, we're mobile PC plus console.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we are a full full-fledged marketing company, uh video gaming company.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, I think it would be relevant, but I wouldn't speak on their behalf.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: But given the kind of slowdown that I've seen in FMCG brands, the old traditionals, how they're struggling with digital first brands on all fronts, and given how severe competition is, and given how much value for money that customers and consumers are looking for, I think it's only a matter of time.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like if you are uh say uh if if you are say for a delivery service, there is 14 or 15 odd delivery companies which is going to exist, I think, in about 5-10 years from now.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: So your narratives will define your loyalty, your retention in general, right?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: You already see in uh cabs, for example, cab aggregators, as soon as two, three aggregators do very well, there's four or five who turn up in general, some of them die out, some of them get acquired and whatnot, right?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's gonna be important for you to be very, very good at content and be very, very relevant with it so that you can build those retentions, and those retentions will come from loyalty.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Loyalties only come in if your emotions are triggered, if your cognitive biases and uh emotions are not triggered, you will not feel that loyalty towards a brand, right?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, so for example, if you take classic international examples of Nike versus Arides in general, there's a reason why a Nike fan is an Nike fan, and an IC fan never touches Aridace.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it, and very very rarely in general, because there will be debates on this otherwise, uh, a coke versus Pepsi.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: If given the opportunity, that person will always go for a coke if he or she wants it right.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Why are these?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because they have triggered you at an emotional level at some point in time, and these things can only happen in my view if you have content to suggest and push those narratives.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you just keep making ad films at some point in time, people will be like, heart, I had quenched my thirst, but that's not why I bought coke for, just to quench my thirst.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a certain feeling I get when I do this.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you fly your favorite airline, there's a reason why you fly your favorite airline on your favorite route in general, right?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Having said that, there are certain categories which are just commodities, like to be honest, this mineral water.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how many people have specific preference for mineral water unless they have it for health reasons or whatever it is.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not sure about it, but certain super commodity brands in general, I don't know, but but certain objects which are high involvement and passionate about, for example, phones, airlines, and everything, like like I was talking about delivery services, even even hotels, etc.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like that.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: There are ways that you build retention through uh you know cards and whatnot, but there are ways to build retention through marketing, also, which which happens through narratives.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe it's relevant, but I wouldn't speak on their behalf.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I found it to be very, very relevant in digital, but it's easy to switch.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: The switching cost is near zero, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: You you switch very, very rapidly.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like your bank that you hardly change your bank, right?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: But people switch their wallets at at your Vim even.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I have to take a financial comparison between banks and wallets, you don't change your primary bank, but you change your wallet very rapidly, right?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, you people have changed their social media.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: I remember like you don't change your SIM card.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like uh I have been an Airtel user all my life from the start, but I have not changed my SIM card as my primary number.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: Social media have changed, like I have I started off with Orco, I should do Facebook.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh then I was in Instagram for some time.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen Discord and Reddit growing the fastest in the last one year in India.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you you never know, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, how you need to feel something about a brand to stick to it over a long period of time.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, apart from the utility which the product team is taking care of.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: What is your value to this?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is the narratives that you can build uh towards your brand, right?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I said it and I let's let's see how what the future holds, to be honest.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: Contraminds is a podcast dedicated to decoding people, minds, strategy, and culture.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: We interview and learn from high performers so that you can apply these lessons on your journey to becoming the knowledge worker athlete you were meant to be.
• 35:03
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• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are interested in revisiting past episodes or taking a look at our show notes from this episode, please visit us at www.contraminds.com.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: And now back to the show.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: So one point I want to pick up, Srinja, is you talked about the uh uh you know the content bit, and uh you said not everything is about messaging, you have to uh you have to build entertainment in your marketing, right?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, can you give me an example of a campaign that you ran uh where you moved away from the traditional uh as a gaming company, you know, as a messaging to entertainment, and therefore it helped you build an audience.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: Can you give me an example of what you saw as a powerful example of what you did?
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh the so I'll I'll come start from the beginning and give you some examples from existing industries are also my example.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if messaging was that important, I think every kid here would know what messaging is Airbnb's Airbnb ka slogan kya.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I know you know Nike's slogan because it's been drilled down for 50 years, but you don't know what Airbnb is, belong anywhere, right?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of people don't know what is Uber's messaging, also which your destination and a lot of campaigns that they did, right?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I discovered this around four or five years back, but for a lot of digital brands, take India's largest e-complayer, take India's largest food delivery service, take India's largest modern digital brands, they don't know what is their primary slogan or what their messaging is.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Certain things maybe they associate it with certain there's certain brands you associate with trust, like say if you say the SDFC Bank stands for trust, SBI stands for banker to every Indian, those things you know.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: But outside of PTM, which which popularized PTM Caro, you know, very very standout example.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have not seen many examples of people having done that.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when that is the case, what I do is that I go user first, I go fan first, I go customer first, right?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you speak to your customers and you figure out what they want and tune your messaging to what they want at that stage of their use of the product, right?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we launched BGMI under a slogan called India key heartbeat, right?
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh which is very beautiful.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, first it's a very large statement because you're saying India key heartbeat, right?
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not India heart throb, which which may be a superstar or whatever it is, right?
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it might feel a little bit ki ha zadane bold or whatever it is, but you know what gave us the confidence?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because this slogan did not come from us, it did not come from our agency, it come from it came from our YouTube comments, it came from our fans because they felt that uh this game really stands for what makes their heart goes wow, right?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that is a very beautiful insight that we picked on, right?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we ran this campaign.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: When we ran this campaign to accentuate this, there could be so many emotional films that we have made ads 30 seconders, 15 seconders, and whatnot, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to do that, but we didn't do that.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: We launched this game with a documentary, actually.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: The documentary is a very archaic way of putting it, but it's still there, India Heartbeat.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a three-series uh set of six stories, which which is spoken about in about three.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that, I saw that.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: I saw that, yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are telling you why they think this game is India heartbeat.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're literally telling you this, and these are what like eight-minute, twenty-minute or odd videos, people are watching it.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: You see the amount of views.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: More importantly, see the amount of comments because views, like I said earlier, uh you should stick to you can you can get views, you can buy views.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the comments, look at the amount of shares that people are done.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Same same episodes that are on Instagram, also, you can check them out.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that was incredible.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: When you make a campaign, the logic, basis, and slogans of that campaign, if it comes from your users, then you're pretty much guaranteed a success because you're making it for them, Jinsko Pasandh, right?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what if your mom knows what you really like and your mom is gonna make your favorite dish when you come home for summers, right?
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: So so chances are very, very high.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing is you know exactly how people are going to react.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, will people react with empathy?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: Will people react with excitement?
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Will people react with intrigue?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know the emotional triggers also.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: To every marketer who is listening to this, they know that that is the one thing that people search for.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Every mareteer's dream is that if I know the emotion that this will trigger, or no emotion at all.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, first thing takes care of ki no emotion.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: So you will definitely have an emotion triggered.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Second, you also know what emotions will be triggered.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you know what emotions can be triggered, then you can build engagement sub-campaigns out of it.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so say if you know that an emotion of nostalgia will be triggered, you can put in Easter eggs of nostalgia in it and ask them what do you remember from your playing days, what do you remember from this, etc.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can put up these beautiful things and accentuate those roads.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, we did all of those with India K heartbeat.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: We put emotional triggers in it, we put in beautiful pieces of nostalgia in it, and we brought out stories from all parts of this country that when people saw those stories, they realized, oh, this is me, and that is incredible.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's this nothing more beautiful in this world than you as a Nike fan seeing someone wear Nike shoes and putting a dunk on a basketball in general because you resonate to that superstar and the Nike promotes in general, right?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that is extremely beautiful because people understand that this is exactly who I was, and this is exactly who I want to be, and this is why I love this brand so much.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the results were tremendous.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: We we recorded our uh highest ever uh views on a single day.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: We there were many, many records being broken.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: We trended on YouTube effortlessly without a dollar spent, and uh I don't know of many such instances, at least in India, where a brand launched with a documentary, but there it is.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's one for the history books also.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: We we now have a brand which launched with this documentary, so we do take content so seriously that we are ready to launch our games also with content, right?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: In a way, documentary is content, it's not a 30-second film, right?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_02: You're uh you're you're primarily a content company.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_02: Game is just one uh you know aspect of how you present that, right?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: So no, no, we are not primarily a content company, which you have.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: No, but but I but still I'm saying uh even if you're gaming, I'm just saying there's a lot of emotion involved in gaming, right?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: So content creates that emotion, so therefore, to that extent, I think you use that effectively, right?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's important.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: It allows you to maximize your storytelling the way you want it to be, the way you want it.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that I think that's the analogy that I was talking about.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's important, and that will be very interesting in in the future as well.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't I don't really rule out seeing the top food delivery apps talking about how beautifully is food is crafted or stories around whatever it is in the future in general.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: I already see a lot of these things.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: People are really the top digital companies are already making a lot of content who have got nothing to do with entertainment.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I can see the future going in that direction, uh, to be honest.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we had these features that we had to discuss before a launch of a feature.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: We call these updates in BGMI, and it sounds like a very boring name.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: We thought so too.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, to release these updates, we started podcasts right between the top players, esports players.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, this happened two or three years back, right?
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast have become in voog, have come in voog now.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: We did it in 2022, and by the time that they have come in voog now, everybody and their kid is doing a podcast right now.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are not doing that anymore.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are doing something else right now.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: We we are collaborating, we believe the future is collabing with internet celebrities, and these are not celebrities that we know about.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, we collab with Purabja, Kari Vinati, and whatnot.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we we move on very, very fast because we have to be at the cutting edge of trends because gamers, like I said, they have too many things at their disposal, too many choices to move on to.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they they really need to understand uh that we understand their psyche, we understand their way of thinking.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So so that is where we are.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, can you share with me?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you are somebody who's very close to understanding the insights about Gen Zs, right?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: And what have been your uh you know learnings that you can share with the audience on how do you see the Gen Zs as a uh you know as an insight?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: What are the things that you are seeing and which marketers should take note of?
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's anyways very evident right now that Gen Zs are the most difficult uh TG to market to.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh mostly because uh, first of all, I think Gen Zs are extremely self aware.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, even though we might not give them that credit or someone might not, but they're extremely self aware.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Their ability to research is incredible.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now with Chat GBT, they can do research even even better than anything that you can think of, and all the things that our generation sort of Took for granted.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: Gen Zs never never take them for granted and they evaluated all options and all choices that they have, right?
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Which makes them the most difficult to market to.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there are two, three things that if you can hit well, no, then you get Gen Z to collaborate with you, to work with you, to comment on your videos, to talk to you.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when you get that, I think that is very karmic in nature.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because when Gen Z come, they don't come in singles and duos and whatnot, they come in hordes, right?
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: So which is why a mega brand like Battle Transmobile India uh emerges, right?
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I could see the transition like from subculture all the way to pop culture when it happens, it comes in hordes, right?
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: Same with with the growth of Snapchat in India, if you look at it, right?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: So many of these brands became really big, which a lot of people who are not Gen Z don't understand.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the key to it is first speak their language.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think language is a massive barrier, like it's it's almost like English and French, to be honest.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: They do not speak the same language at all.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: To crack that language, there are many ways, but but you can do it if you if you follow it, you can track and whatever it is.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Second, is that you have to do many campaigns in a year.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot think that I will do two campaigns in a year and Gen Z will give me credit for it and remember it and all of those things.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're thinking from your perspective, this campaign was so special.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll continue this all the way till July.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now we are sitting in April.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, they don't think like that.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: They will move on because Gen Z are getting pampered like hell, like from all directions and on all possible medium, right?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they have their own crowds and then everything, right?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the things which stay common from even our olden days of marketing to now is that the cognitive biases still remain the same that apply to Gen Z that used to apply as well.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to use those cognitive biases cleverly, like fear of missing out, uh spotlight effect, and then a bunch of these, but those still trigger the same emotions that they would trigger, right?
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the things that used to take for granted back then, like loyalty, for example, uh, you can still get loyalty, but to keep up that loyalty, you have to keep delivering as a brand.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is it that you value as a brand, and do those values sync with the same values that Gen Z has, not your company values I'm talking about?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Your brand values should sync with what Gen Z's value systems are, right?
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if those match, then you get sort of really long loyalty, lifelong loyalty, though I'm not sure, lifelong retention, but you get really high retention, you know, high dose D30, D60 odd retention products that you have, you you get those, uh right.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I think these are some basic starting points, but every brand will have its own challenge.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you have your success factors, you have your uh failure points in general.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the way to look at it is always be surprising.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do not wait it out.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you if you put out three pieces of content which are similar to each other, Gen Z will start losing interest in your channel faster than you can think, right?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: So try and putting up put out a content around animation, let's put out the next content with a internet celebrity that they never expect.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things which which really move Gen Z.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you know, you know, olden days we had this always be closing ABC in sales, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I say so with modern day marketing, it's ABS, always be surprising.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Once you lose the surprise factor, if if Gen Z have figured out no your chocolate brand, next ad Easy chocolate meetaske upper bath karaia, they are not gonna watch your ads as soon as they find the skip button.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: Toma, like dude, skip this ad.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: Again, they'll talk about celebration, dude.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like Diwali, I know this chocolate brand and Diwali they do the same ads 20 years in a row.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what special will you bring this time?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, so these are these are things that Gen Zs are very clever about.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about other TGs in general, but I have generally found out that Gen Zs are the most difficult TG to market to.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but some people say till now, maybe something even more difficult is gonna come up as you go to Gen Y and whatever it is, Gen X and whatever is Gen Alpha.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Gen Alpha.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Gen Alpha comes about, right?
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: So so then you'll run into other issues in general, right?
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I speak to my mentors who who are, they say that you guys were the most difficult to market to, dude.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're from a different generation, right?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: So so they say this happens with every generation of mareteers.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: You always script that the next one is the most difficult to market to in general, but yeah, and I mean that's that's the reality of uh developing economy like us, where consumerism is growing.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like like Gen Z have recently the difference between when I started my career and now is that Gen Z have now found their wallets.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Previously they were dependent on their mom and dad's wallets, now they have their own wallets, so they vote with their wallets, right?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: So never let a bad customer experience go or you speak to them directly.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like they have a lot of uh uh power, purchasing power right now.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if they belong to California India, which is the top 60, 200 million odd users of India in general, they have a ton of powers.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: You better listen to them, right?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: So these are some beautiful challenges coming out.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now we are all adapting, but I gave like two, three basic understanding pointers where you can start with to work around uh some of these problems.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_02: How important is uh market research for a brand like yours?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Do you uh you know for a traditional brand, they invest so much in market research, right?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_02: But for somebody like you who heads marketing for a gaming company like yours, uh, you know, how important is market research?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, market research is everything, but the way we do market research is completely different though.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what I wanted you to talk about.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we we do not talk to agencies and get those agencies to scout potential candidates, put them in a closed room, feed them chai and biscuits, go to the other side of the glass wall, listen to them talking, etc.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't do that.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like unfortunately, it it creates it it doesn't create fake results, but probably you don't get those deeper insights, etc.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not authentic, it's not authentic.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not possible for everyone, but for us, the easiest way is to just play a game with others and you can tune into your headphones and listen to what they are saying, right?
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we are really blessed to have a community of players who are as involved as us in making our products better, so they leave their feedback on our YouTube comments.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like anyone who's listening in, go to Battlegrounds Mobile India, Instagram, and YouTube channels.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see that they talk about their life problems, their game problems, the things that they love about their life, the things that they love about their game, and also feedback on my content.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: For example, if I posted a great ad, they will come and write it.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, when do you see people write that this is a great ad?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody writes that like explicitly, right?
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: People hardly comment, to be honest, right?
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thousands and thousands of comments, like at a at a monthly basis, we process like close to two, three lakh comments in general.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of data you have at your disposal to talk to, right?
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have so many games played, like an incredibly large, like close to a uh like a billion odd games played per month in general.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you can listen to a lot of data that can come out of it.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: The thirdly is that there's no estimation which needs to be needed because we are a digital brand, so we get accurate data.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there's no 47 to 50 games played.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally 47 games played.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's no average time spent of roughly 90 minutes.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is like average time spent of 87 minutes, right?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: So because we get very precise data, we know exactly how to talk to people, how to get things done and get things moving in general.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that works out, I think, beautifully, right?
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: So uh market research is super duper important, but the way we do market research, at least the liberties that I get to do market research in a digital first brand are very different, and I will honestly say that I'm super privileged to have these options with us because to me it just uh is a cheat code, right?
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: If there are 10 marketers in the room, I just literally have a head start of 100 meters in a one kilometer race.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just is this if you have a ex if you have a very easy cheat code to exploit, you you should really talk to your users much in general.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: All I have to do is to instill a heavy culture of listening to your users, not ki muje mazana.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Users ko fans then they should do it right.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and the proof is there in the pudding, like like almost 80 to 90 percent of our videos go viral, like like with tremendous amount of participation, both in shares as well as average view durations, which is very admirable for a brand in general.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: For an influencer, you can still get high AVDs, but for a brand to get these kind of AVDs and shares is incredible.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: And views and impressions, if anyone wants to like check, that's very high views and impressions, that's always there.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: But that's that's that's something like if you have market research abilities the way we do, please invest a lot of resources.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I say resources, I mean mostly time in it.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the results will follow.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you are a big believer of virality, right?
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh that's something that's close to your heart.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_02: I seen some interview of yours uh where I think uh for you it's like a first love, and uh the way you've built consumer engagement for some of the brands is really starts with the promise of virality.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, why do you think virality is important and why should you think marketers need to have a focus on virality?
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so firstly, it's mostly because of the industry that I work in.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, in my industry, in in gaming and in entertainment, if you are is it's the there's a saying go viral or go home.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you are not viral, you're pretty much gonna be dead in a few moments.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like we all grew up playing Counter-Strike and Dota, right, through our college days, 2005 and 2008.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think a lot of people are playing Counter-Strike and Dota right now?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, right?
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: But think about it in my college, I don't know a single guy who did not play Counter-Strike and Dota.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody used to love playing those games, right?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're no longer that big in India that that they could have been in general, right?
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, virality is the art of keeping something relevant and at the top of your mind's awareness for a long period of time, right?
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about the misunderstood definition of virality, which is like I need a spike in general.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: So so so IPL's first year, IPL was rapidly viral, but but IPL managed to keep its popularity throughout the years, through through amazing techniques and whatever it is.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: So virality is not just that, virality is that how can you break something down to an extent that you understand the causes for the virality, and those are replicable.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they are not replicable, you do the same things twice and thrice if people aren't gonna listen to you, right?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: So you can replicate those over a long period of time, and those can translate into business results, right?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something very beautiful we've managed to do in craft and and in in gaming.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you can do this, does this literally translates to an enormous amount of uh revenue and user base, right?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I think it's important is that if you use science, no, you can break down virality to certain factors.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like till this, like till today, I still find people talking about virality in terms of number of views and impressions.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_00: Ki hey, this video went viral, is keeping a million views in general, right?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: Views is mostly an output metric, like I said, right?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: Check out the number of shares.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: If someone gets like 50,000 to 1 lakh shares on Instagram, it catches my attention because I know it's gonna go to the trending page, right?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: So virality has a lot of science behind it, like I discussed.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there is AVD, there is total time spent.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: Total time spent is different from average view durations, right?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number of shares, number of comments, right?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then there is a there's something called uh randomness in comments.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if everybody is commenting, key uh say say somebody is promising free iPhones, then and type free iPhone in comment section, everybody is typing free iPhone, free iPhone, free iPhone.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: So the algorithm rejects it, even it might have 10,000 comments, right?
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's something called randomness or the complete uh uh the the total change in comments that you see.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, how rich your comment section is, how granular your comment section is, all of this contribute to a huge amount of views.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we broke all of this down to a science because we had that data with us because we have been a viral brand for five years, right?
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: This again gives us a little bit of an edge, right?
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I think your question was that if you're starting out now, how do you start out?
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, since you since you have broken down the signs of virality, if you were to tell me there is a mental model or a framework of virality, what are the four or five things that a marketer should look at?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very simple.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, first is that make your content shareable, right?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And with every ad agency is the first page in the first deck, they will write a shareable content, etc.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: But nobody really does it, right?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody watches a content, sorry, creates a content to make it interesting, but people do make content to make it shareable.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference, by the way.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: So think about Instagram.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, all of you viewers, just close your eyes and think about Instagram for a second.
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_00: What is the most deepest action you can take or you have taken in Instagram when you've shared it with a friend?
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: That that button, right?
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_00: That beautiful.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that button is extremely valuable.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is the most valuable button that you can think of.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that you and Instagram both agree on.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_00: Instagram also thinks that's my most valuable button.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: You also think it's my most valuable button because when you share with something, it's it's something deeply personal, not the like button, right?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think track your shares is something that I will do.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_00: Make your content shareable.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Second, is that please start your content in an interesting way?
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first five seconds are very important.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: In your first five seconds, if some a huge dopamine hit is not coming, a huge important thing is not happening, etc., people will skip your videos at least in the first 30 seconds.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not able to grab your uh users' attention, they are not going to continue doing or watching that, right?
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: So these are two things that you can easily do.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_00: The third and fourth metrics are things which are very difficult to achieve, but these are called hacking your AVDs.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: So when I say hacking your AVDs, it's very difficult as a creator to do that, by the way.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Say you have around 30 minutes of content, you cut out and you reject things continuously to make a six-minute video so that you value the user's time as much as you value yours.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have known teams where they have put in their videos where the marketing team has not seen the entire video because the video was 30 minutes long.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Dala Qui.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_00: You should put a six-minute video and say for the long version, click here, whatever it is.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then you get to know, right?
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: The third is being honest with your objectives.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people are not honest with their metrics in general, like because it's become easy.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because YouTube and Instagram gives you the route to sort of increase your views by paying money, you sort of don't stay honest to it.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_00: And on TV, you never really know what the metrics are.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who is watching your ad on mute?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: I have known in recent times, I've like this is anecdotal a little bit.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've gone around to many houses, people are watching IPL on mute, right?
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: And doing their own things, like laptop, TV mute, IPL, Chalra, etc.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't know what impact you're doing, what driving, so again, you can never really trust all the data that you get from TV in general, right?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you should only look at data which which you can trust.
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if your starting point, make sure your content is interesting, make sure the idea is interesting, make sure insight comes from an user, comes from your users who think about it deeply, right?
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if you're a food brand and you are selling products which are unhealthy and you know your users technically do not like unhealthy products, you will never make it big, even in advertising, at least.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can make it big by giving discounts and and free stuff and whatever it is, but in advertising, you will never make it big if that is your pulpit in general.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: The reverse is also true.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're making a food plan and you know people love eating you because it's just so goddamn tasty, if you start bringing in healthy stuff, they're not gonna listen to you, right?
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be like, right?
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to nail your insight absolutely spot on and understand them at a very deeper level, etc.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I say that if you're FMCG, you know, the best market resource you can do is to go.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_00: We used to say that in our day, so you go stand by the observe your users.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_00: What do they do?
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: What do they say, etc.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: like that?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Someone comes in and says, I want that cake.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: I say, hey, don't take this cake, take the other cake, etc.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: He or she says, No, no, I want this cake because of this, etc.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because mummy bully, because this is because, whatever it is people say.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: But you get to get real insights which you won't get on the other side of the mirror in your AC room that a market research agency is conducting for you, right?
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, in case so beautiful ways you can do.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're running an airline company, do you know the kind of stories you can gather by just standing at the check-in counter?
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a brand manager for an airline, just go stand outside a check-in counter.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: Insane stories you will get, right?
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing stories.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a brand manager of an automobile company, go to the showrooms, people are expressive, etc.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like that.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you find it difficult to gather the easy hack that I have, the comment section of my video, if you don't have access to that, you can always do that, right?
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: So with any brand, like if you're a food delivery, you can always tag along with the delivery rider and go visit, say, it's a survey nikan, but that we came and gave you the delivery in fast or we reimburse you when something goes wrong or whatever it is.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just tag along and meet like five, ten customers in general.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: These are again easy things to really, really do, right?
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I said was a cheat code earlier in this podcast.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: May not sound like a cheat code just because I gave you five examples in five completely different industries where you can talk to real customers in a real way.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you get these things done, you can become viral if you want to.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're an aspiring brand trying to break it into the food industry or any other industry, you can always make it big, to be honest.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_02: Shunjai, one of the questions that I have for you is uh uh what do you see is the future of agencies given that uh you know marketing is changing so much with so much of proliferation of media.
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_02: So uh how do you see an agency to be a partner for a brand in the future?
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: And what do they need to do be to be a real partner?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so uh capabilities have not changed much for ad agencies at least.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_00: So what I mean is that ad agencies were making ad films 10 years, 20 years back, they're still making 30-second and 60-second ads right now, right?
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain agencies which are doing some good stuff right now, but very soon agencies might get briefs as to can you create a full episode for us?
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you create a thoughtful video for Diwali for us?
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: Video on the 30 second, no, no, no, a full-on episode about our users who celebrating Diwali in their hometown, you know, drinking their favorite beverage or whatever it is, right?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: These kind of agencies might get briefs.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_00: Can you create animated content for us?
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_00: So these are capabilities that agencies, because for 20 years change takes time, you know, 20 years they've been sitting and they've built huge executive leaderships, building 30-second of films, 30 second of films for 20 years in general.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: They might struggle a little bit, but there are certain agencies who are extremely agile, have their sub-agencies who can build animated content, long-form content, and whatnot, and are good at it.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one agency, I think, change which is gonna come out where very weird beliefs will come your way, right?
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing, I think a lot of these companies will come to agencies asking for engagement campaigns.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: Engagement campaigns are not make a film and release it sort of a campaign.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: Engagement is that there's got to be something in it in which the user interacts with my product, not the easiest way that you do it.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: K QR code al dia scan karke, magitunga, ki nehi, a bike, or whatever it is that people do.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe something more than that.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: You watch this ad.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you can find this video on YouTube, you get something else, you can do this with our product, you go to this shop, you find this way, you go to this retailer, or like if you have a showroom in a particular mall, you go this, you do that.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, a lot of these interactive ways will come about, which will allow agencies to create a deeper connect with users.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: But usually you shy away from doing that because you think the user will not enjoy it.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then you have access to creating digital properties.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can create a website full of Easter eggs and say this website meaking fine karo, you get a full free uh uh one year worth of coke or whatever it is you get, or whatever it is, right?
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: So beautiful these uh possibilities are coming up, which I think agencies will have to put into the campaigns which are engagement led in general, right?
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: The final thing I think that users are really, really passionate about what brands they use, and they can get easily dispassionate about a brand if a sub-brand comes in.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: Essentially, I'm trying to explain competitive intensity in a different way, but this difference is important.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hear me out.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I have seen a huge amount of disruptions since COVID in existing industries than I've ever seen in my last whatever 20 odd years.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: In these three, four years, the disruptions that I've seen, the existing behemoths, the kind of market shares that they have lost, be it airline, be it entertainment industry, look at the consideration consolidation which is happening in TV as well as in OTT, uh, be it FMCG, be it gaming, for example, the way gaming has been disrupted, be it films, be it uh automotive, so the kind of disruptions which are coming your way are so severe that agencies will have to adapt to find way more clutter breaking stories if they have to stick to ads in general.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, no longer will the conventional ads of Palae Eta Bioa or normalized stories that you do.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Etc.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: As a result, I have seen the quality of ads has also increased.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have it's been a some time since I saw a very, very plain vanilla ad of a product being rolled out.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: Every ad nowadays has some funny twist to it, or trying something different in general.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that I find is very cool and moving in the right direction.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think agencies will have a lot of catching up to do.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from these are things that your viewers and listeners already know, which is reliance on analytics, you need to have very hard-coded understanding of analytics, use of uh artificial intelligence to give very strong pitches where you end up trying like you reach the pitch with your website ready.
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because it takes me what literally five minutes to create a website nowadays on Clot, right?
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if your pitch preparation takes an hour, can you not dedicate five minutes to do that?
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_00: So pitches will become far more advanced, right?
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, penetration into new industries will become much easier because AI allows you to learn everything about an industry minus the experience, everything that you can factory learn about industry in literally as little as it gets.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you can make incredible pitches in general, right?
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where I think it's it's gonna be a very revolutionizing sort of a period for agencies where where larger agencies will disintegrate, there's gonna be coagulation in general.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: You already see this reflecting in awards.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at the top three awards in India and the ad awards in India, uh newer agencies are winning more awards than before, and then somebody announces the winner and then econ, econ, etc.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then they Google it, etc.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's already being very, very evident in general, but uh it will be a very exciting space for me as a marketer to track over the next uh couple of years at least.
• 1:07:43
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you see the marketing department of the future?
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: Because you are in a you know you are in a cutting-edge industry, right?
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: So uh the marketing department that you see today and what you saw in the past and what you're going to see in the future, uh, how will how do you expect marketers to therefore reskill themselves and prepare for the marketing department of the future?
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I think definitely marketing folks need to understand the creative process better.
• 1:08:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I say not just creating a great narrative or a plot line for your ad, but they need to understand how film editing works, first of all, how a shoot works, what happens in a shoot, and what happens on an edit table.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: Usually brand managers I know from before would come down for the shoot and leave, take a flight back on once the shoot is over.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think more and more brand managers will get involved on the editing table with the director, not just there to sit and tell him that bottle a chase, not that, but more than that, like how's the narrative coming along well?
• 1:08:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you taking the right scenes and cards and whatnot?
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something which is happening.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_00: Secondly, because they have to be creators, they need to learn the basics of filmmaking and film editing and basics of Photoshop.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone in the team should ideally know the basics of Photoshop so that they can create basic edits and everything on the fly in general.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: Apart from that, and this again sounds like a laundry list and sounds like a rather long and arduous list, but it's already happening.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I have folks in my team who know all of these things, right?
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they need to understand analytics very well.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, learning tableau is is almost a precondition here at my team, which is a very highly developed statistical software in general, but with AI, you can just learn it very fast these days, not very difficult, right?
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: You need to be able to work with large volumes of data on Excel to find actionable insights, etc.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because those old ways where you did some work, you're waiting for the analytics team to give you a report.
• 1:09:41
  SPEAKER_00: We used to call those MIS reports once upon a time.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: MIS report, Casa results.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to do that anymore.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody is like, okay, fine, you have access to that data, just pull the data, run your pivots, run your VLOOKUPS, find out the results, present the results, and tell me the mitigation.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it take four or five days to do that?
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, in at least in digital first companies, this is a norm where you have to be very good at the creative side and understand everything from the pre-shoot, the pre-production to the shoot to the edit table, so that you know what music goes with, whatever it is, and then everything else that I talked about.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to be very good on the analytics side, which helps you plan the next campaign also, also very, very well, right?
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is where the marketing teams-wise might not be different, but the skill sets that a brand manager would need to have in the future are very different, and uh consequently, this next set of CMOs will come out from these senior brand managers, will also be extremely multi-talented.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I may not say multi-talented, but at least have all the skills and deeply talented in marketing, right?
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, you need to have just the basic skills of how to run an MIS, how to run a query, SQL query to get data out.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You need to have the skill sets to understand how editing goes, what are the top music that that goes on with what content and whatnot.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to understand your core of marketing, which is about what is viral, what is not, how to fit your brand ambassadors to whatever it is, and all of those things.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the skill sets will be very, very different uh in in the future, the future marketing teams, uh, the way I see it.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I think it's good for everyone, to be honest.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: The more ancillary skill sets you have, no, better conversations you'll be able to have with everyone.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And no longer will people look at you and team, I will give this marketing as a black box, I'll get this as an output, and I'll again throw in that won't happen.
• 1:11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So uh already a beautiful set of these changes have been seen in almost at least the top 10-20 startups of this city here, and uh many more changes are coming, but this is something which is definitely happening.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is not even a prediction.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, because I see modern-day marketing teams being so agile with both the creative sides as well as the analytic sides, etc., uh, this is happening and and it's real.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm kind of uh uh wrapping up our conversation with a quick uh rapid fire.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: So the first question I want to ask you, Shanjay, is uh what does success mean to you?
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing my consumers happy.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: What is uh one piece of advice that you got which you value even today as you come to work?
• 1:12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Experiments.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Learn experiments, experiments, experiment irrespective of your age.
• 1:12:33
  SPEAKER_00: You experiment when you're 18, you experiment when you are 70.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Keep experimenting.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Nice, beautiful.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_02: What's one piece of advice you would give to an 18-year-old in college?
• 1:12:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you do what you love, then you'll love what you do.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So figure out what you love doing exactly.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like just because there's a marketing podcast and you're listening to this while you're running on a treadmill or whatever you're doing right now, it doesn't mean you have to do just marketing.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you like, I don't know, flying planes or whatever it is, collecting stamps, do that.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_00: You'll you'll be very, very happy for the rest of your life.
• 1:13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So really do what you love.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's extremely important.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because because we we have we as a as a generation were really got sidelined into engineering or doctor or whatever it is when we were growing up, etc.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you do what you love, no, you'll really love what you do.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_02: So if you were to invite uh uh for your dream dinner three people, who would you like to invite?
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_02: They can be alive or dead, and why would you invite them and what would you learn from them?
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So one would be Travis Kalanik.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, because I think Travis did what people thought was impossible to do uh in in in uh in a in a business context around the world, and he did it across.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_00: He did it in US and people say you can do it in US, obviously.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it in South America, you did it in South America.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_00: In India, I remember my dad said, Oh, you're gonna teach cab drivers how to operate navigation.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: This 2008, 2009.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's impossible.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now look at it.
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Every person, whether he's an auto-waller or extra driver, knows how to navigate, right?
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he did what I thought was impossible globalized cap sharing, which is absolutely uh incredible.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh, second is I think Steve Jobs, uh, in a in a lot of context, I think uh Steve Jobs has been an inspiration for a lot of mareteers who wanted to break through and and I I don't like follow all everything and I don't agree to everything he says, for example, but uh it's it's there.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh third one is is so third one would be Eric Schmidt of Google.
• 1:14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I think uh with the founders they had incredible tech knowledge.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think Eric Schmidt really took Google to a different level, and if you read his books, etc., he understood how a business functions.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's not just necessary to have the genius who just knows how uh uh just how uh this thing works, the tech works, but also how do you monetize it uh uh in in general?
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So so those would be sort of my this thing.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So really, really like three guests.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not possible, I know, but it's just like you gave me a fantasy land to wish for, so I wished for the fantasy land in general.
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure it'll it'll happen one of these days.
• 1:15:34
  SPEAKER_02: So so thanks a lot, uh thanks a lot, Shinjay.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh it was a lovely conversation, lots to learn.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh not the traditional marketing podcast that I have actually been, uh different points of view.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh obviously work in cutting-edge industry.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh therefore, uh the views that you had, the uh examples that you gave were uh very, very interesting.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_02: And uh thanks for your time.
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was lovely having a conversation with you.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, thank you so much.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was lovely to be part of Contramines and hope your viewers and your listeners had a great time listening and they learned a few things which will leave some food for thought on their plates.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So uh thank you so much for having me.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was indeed a pleasure.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_02: For selected links and detailed show notes, visit www.contraminds.com.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Follow Contramines on social media and let us know who you would like to see next on the podcast.
• 1:16:34
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• 1:16:39
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• 1:16:42
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• 1:16:45
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• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening and stay safe.