Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Sunder Madaakshira on The Power of Connecting Data, Brands, and Strategy (#028)

Transcript

Sunder Madaakshira on The Power of Connecting Data, Brands, and Strategy (#028) · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: A company has hired a student from an MBA college to be the future leader.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now their immediate assignments are meant to give them a flair of the business.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: But they after five years, when they're really required to get those strategic skills out, by the time they have actually given up on those skills.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that intellectual preservation, if I may say, of sorts that you need to do for the first five or six years to ensure that you still have an analytical mind, a strategic thinking mind, irrespective of what your immediate job role is.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And keep all those frameworks and uh you know uh concepts very clear because when you grow into leadership uh positions and organization, it is that conceptual quality which is going to help you in those roles.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have become too tactical by then, you will have forgotten those things and not be able to apply.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we are in conversation with Sundar Madakshira.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Sundar currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Resolve in India.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Prior to this, he was the head of marketing at Adobe India.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: He specializes in brand management, thought leadership, and lead generation functions of marketing and is considered a pioneer in data-driven operating models in India.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: He is also known as a prolific lecturer at India's premier business schools and enjoys listening and learning Indian classical music.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, here is our conversation with Sundar Madhushiva.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Hi Sundar, thanks a lot, and it's an absolute privilege to have you as a guest in the Contraminds podcast.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Mami.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's an absolute pleasure.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have had the opportunity to hear some of the earlier versions, and I must say it's an honor uh to be speaking to you today.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Sundar, and uh I just wanted to straightaway uh deep dive into the first uh thing that I saw, which I think you've spoken about in many forums.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh really the currency of engagement for marketing uh when you started to where it is today has changed.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: So, uh what is it that uh you know has changed and what's important maybe in the next uh decade for marketers?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: How do you think the currency of engagement needs to change?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so thanks uh I think that question that you bring up is bringing us to the absolute core of the marketing world, which is how do you really engage with your customer?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: How much do you know your customer?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: How much are you able to identify um what is the medium you want to use uh to stay engaged, what is the best way to communicate, and uh in a two-way process.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we oftentimes forget that uh communication is a two two-way process.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think in the first marketing class that we were ever taught, I think there was a there's a picture where we said there's an input and there's an output and there's a feedback loop.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we sometimes uh quite oblivious to that uh uh feedback loop, which I think which is where the engagement process actually uh sort of breaks down.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if you ask me, I think the the currency of engagement, if you are, you know, if you really look at it, has not materially changed over the years, right?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um the customers and the brands always found a way uh to say, okay, how how do I how do I the for the marketer to find out how am I engaged with the customer and for the and for the cup for the consumer to come back and say look this is what I feel about uh a brand which I which I truly am very I care a lot about and I'm loyal to, uh or it might be also I'm not loyal to anymore and I want to walk out of the brand, right?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: In both the cases, people always found um ways in which uh you know you can uh you can communicate to each other.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what's happened is because of the fact that today we have an omni-channel uh you know way of communicating, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is this has apparently you know become very complex.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: My view um and uh you know putting it in a very simplistic way, I would say that uh the the way in which consumers and brands have to connect with each other, uh the engagement if the focus is clearly on the engagement, I don't think it has I don't see any change uh that has happened over the years.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: However, because that there are more channels, I think you will have to monitor more and see what kind of engagement are you getting.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important to not to get lost in the data, uh, you know, and uh then say that okay, some you know you can always, we are all very smart, we can always have a metric which uh sounds very familiar or very easy to us for us to conquer.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that may not be the true reflection of uh you know of uh engagement at all.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I used to always say that you know we have this thing called the customer uh satisfaction score, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: On a 0 to 5, uh the we even without doing a survey, you can say the customer uh satisfaction score is 3.6, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's because people have a tendency uh you know to give everything in the median measures of uh central tendency as they are called in statistics, because of which people give you certain score.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I've seen that in many cases, despite that score being what it is, the customer has walked away and said that no, um there are things that which I did not find right.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, the customer uh might even come back and say, has come back and say I'm very very loyal.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Although then you can always turn around and ask, why is it that you have given only 3.6?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It should have been 515 for a brand that you are willing to even uh you know uh to be absolutely loyal to.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think if you have an understanding, we we're using multifarious metrics and multifarious ways to understand whether the customer is really engaged or not.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, and use the first cut of data that you get to only form the hypothesis.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a I'm a big fan of this, saying that okay, whatever are the first results that you get out of any kind of engagement, it could be an engagement on social media or it could be uh in terms of customers telling you in a qualitative survey that they really like your brand, and you know they it could be a brand awareness, aided awareness or unaided awareness, whatever metric you want to take, and which you believe is the right one for you because there can't be a universal script prescription for this.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: A new brand will will think a lot about what is my brand awareness in my target audience versus somebody else who is well established.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are industries where people have been fighting for 2% market share uh against their competition, those metrics are going to be different.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But whatever be your metrics, I think a good idea is to get use a qualitative measure to get directionally where your engagement is headed towards customers, towards you know, from your customers.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Use those qualitative measures and then put together a much more rigorous, in-depth analysis, you know, Unilever at that time used to call it habits and attitude studies, which are much more in-depth understanding of how not just the relationship between your brand and the consumer, but the the consumer and the category and the all the other allied categories also.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are a person who's actually trying to sell uh toothpaste, you actually try and understand how that person is having an oral hygiene regime in the morning and how does it sort of pan out uh for different personas and so on.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we should not get lost um by putting some metrics and then saying whether uh you know the customer is engaged or not.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, engagement is purely a product of the human mind, which is very complex.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So one will have to get into the depth to understand what one a customer really means by saying he, you know, whatever he is trying to say.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: So given the fact that uh you know uh you are somebody who probably uh have lived in many cities, seen many cultures, uh I see you as somebody who uh really understands people, personas and relationship very well.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh has uh your wide uh you know uh exposure to different cultures, uh has that helped you in this as a background and uh how does it how does that help you uh you know when you are actually in the middle of such a uh you know important uh role and portfolio that you have?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so I mean thanks for bringing it up.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've been very fortunate.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, let me start by saying that I've been very fortunate.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my father worked for the Indian Air Force, uh, which meant that all our childhood from the time that we bought we were born till we got into uh engineering uh colleges, I have changed as many as 28 schools.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think I don't know, I I should do a more rigorous count, but I think I have lived in 80% of the Indian states that were there.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, the number of states have gone up.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, but at that time, I think 80% of the states uh we have been.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh wherever we went, I think there was uh uh there was always a choice and uh of actually absorbing the culture of that place, uh trying to learn the language, trying to understand uh what is the mindset, trying to understand the music which which which is uh very popular in those uh places, and uh you know in India is as diverse as you can even imagine.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every 50 kilometers when we used to drive into the interior parts, we could say that the culture has changed, the way people interact with you uh has changed.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think this has been of great help uh to me as such, and I think I what one trait which I picked up probably from a mother is to be able to be, you know, talk to people in their language and in the manner which uh they would uh like to do.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you actually, in a very short period of time, you absorb the culture of a of a particular uh uh state or a city or a town or a even a village uh pretty fast.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think what it helped me, the way it helps me as a marketer is that you know, when first of all, I think you've got to be genuinely interested in people.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's like a baseline.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be interested in talking to people, you have to be interested in uh uh you know um connecting with people.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: That that inherent trait is very, very important for a for a marketer, because otherwise, if you keep on looking at only data and uh you know other things which which are which are from from a distance, you'll never get to know you know what your consumer is saying.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things which are told, but the more things which are untold.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh all these years of doing market research in various circumstances has taught me this.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh what the way it helps is number one, you first of all recognize your audience is very heterogeneous.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and your segmentation variables, which is very important for you from a GTM when you're drawing drawing a go-to-market plan, uh, is going to be very different.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you recognize that there is variation in the in your target audience, and that can be on many very interesting axes, uh, something that you have probably not experienced or not anticipated.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: But if you keep your eyes and ears to the ground, I think you will observe that the the market is much more complex uh than what you think, it's much more heterogeneous than uh what we all uh sort of assume.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all uh it's nice to go with a high, medium, low kind of a classification as used to be it used to be a joke those days that everything is high, medium, low.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, you start with that, definitely it's a good starting point, but slowly you realize that there are many, many uh interesting access uh to which um a person actually a market can be you know segmented.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for example, I for recently read about um and I had the opportunity to work with that brand as our customer was uh with a brand an automobile brand which was segmenting on the basis of gender, which is which is uh the common thing, but they had used psychographic ways of segmenting the market, which meant that the primary axis of segmentation, which was gender, had to be given up.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because they said it's about tech, you know, a car being you know techno-savvy.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does it matter whether it's a man or a woman?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas a type, you know, uh you know, as if you look at a typical way we would look at it, we typecast it saying it's a man of the house who is going to decide, and if it's a woman, it's got to be a small car.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it uh that I think that stereotype was broken by this uh brand.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think um you know, knowing so many languages, understanding the uh ethos, there are certain things you can express only in certain languages uh very well, and if you can absorb that, I think you your ammunition available to you as a marketer about what are the multifarious ways in which you can communicate will change, and that starts with basically recognizing that people are different, people evolve again.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the all this is not uh cast in stone.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh earlier, if you remember Swami, you would have you've seen that uh quite a bit in your career.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: The typical time that was being uh the the interval between market research is used to be anywhere between six to seven years.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe any brand is uh willing to I mean is wanting to do that in six to seven years, I think it will be a history for that brand because things are evolving very, very fast.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all the more that the brand the marketer should uh really um take cognizance of this heterogeneity which is there and seeing new what are those new patterns uh which are which are emerging uh in the way people are buying things and way people are making uh you know making decisions.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm I'm staying in Bangalore and as you know it's the call the Silicon Valley of India and it's a home to many startups, and especially some uh suburbs that that you go into are full of companies which are uh startups, and people who are living there also are you know coming from similar companies.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So their lifestyle, their uh you know, risk appetite, their the way they they uh have planned out things, the way they therefore make purchases are very different.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But remarkably, the same thing I saw when I visited Gurun recently.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, again, it's a it's a small sub it in that sense it's a suburb of many many startups that are there.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't now call it a north and south market, it's got many other shades to it, and to be able to do that, um you know, just knowing that there is heterogeneity in the society really helps us.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sundra, I think this is a I think we are seeing great sparks and different threads on how we can take this conversation forward.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, let me try to pull a couple of them together and ask you a very pointed question.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, given that you have a huge background uh in marketing, a lot of professional and personal experiences, having been at a lot of companies like Whip Pro and Adobe, and having traveled across the country at a very young age and sort of absorbing culture and ethos as you have discussed.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: And also another dimension of your career is that you're a prolific teacher, a prolific lecturer, and you and you mentor a lot of students.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: So, with that in context, the question that I would like to ask you is you know, if you could set up a marketing curriculum, what would it look like?
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's a great question, Vignesh.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think I agree with everything that you said, except for being a prolific teacher.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with it, I'm not sure whether it's a prolific teaching, but yes, for sure, I'm a very passionate teacher.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I love marketing and I wouldn't mind doing it 24 bar 7.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, who who cannot like marketing?
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's my question.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: It deals with the human mind.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it's obviously something which is always always interesting.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, if today if the my marketing curriculum would be there, first of all, it wouldn't be a marketing curriculum.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it'll be it'll be something which is uh, and why I say that is that this is something that is evolving, right?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I teach a subject called new age marketing, and it has been deliberately called new age marketing.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: What comes under it every year and every semester keeps changing because by definition it's new age, so you can't have a new age marketing course which has got old age content in it.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that that just does not, it is an oxymoron.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if I look at it, I think uh what what uh what I would definitely add uh to the existing body of knowledge knowledge which is already there, well established, and a lot of those criteria um uh hold good.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of new things that are to predominantly with digital marketing, etc., have already come into the curriculum.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not a new thing, it's been there for almost 10 to 12 years in a serious manner.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: But what I would like to add is about tenacity, right?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know there is a side there is a psychological aspect about about marketers which which I think needs to be there for every business leader, but I think a marketer needs to uh need to needs to have it more than the others.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I say that is uh, you know, the you know, whatever are the changes that are happening in the market, I think it's the marketer's job to be able to sense that right first and then get that knowledge back into the company and re-engineer thing re-engineer the company itself uh towards that goal.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's a very important aspect of marketing, which uh what we used to call, you know, we used to do it by doing market research or getting information through the sales organization or other secondary ways of getting that information.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think marketers marketing has to own.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: He they have to be the voice of the consumer, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you really spot a trend?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: How do you really spot a consumer need and build being able to build a business around it uh is something which I think is uh extremely crucial.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing I think I would like to add is that uh you know that uh ability and that genuine genuine curiosity to learn about new technologies which are emerging.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you just see the the new technology the technologies which have coming, all of them have an impact on the on the marketplace.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the marketing software.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here I'm not talking about uh something which is very directly connected with marketing analytics, those are a given.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not even going there, but I'm talking about uh technologies which are allied uh to the area of marketing and how are they going to have a potential impact on the um on the uh on the market is is going to be very important.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: The third thing I would like to say, and probably the last one from my side, we can go on and on, but one one thing which comes to my mind is business modeling.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, ability to be in a very very agile manner.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do you rebuild business model?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right, we've all been through a recent experience, which none of us want to ever uh remember, which is when COVID happened, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it it took a while, you know, for companies to get to their new uh ways of doing that.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: That agility, if you see, was not the same across all organizations.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: It appeared like that, but when you actually knocked and checked, you know how many companies have really re-engineered their uh methods of marketing, uh, one could see that they were very different.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, why did that happen?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, why did marketers not change quickly enough?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And those who did, why did they do it successfully as opposed to the others?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think was about their understanding of the business model itself.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because marketing is a subject which does not exist in isolation, it's a part of a larger ecosystem.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the ability to rethink the way the you know the business itself is run, finding out new ways of generation of revenues uh for the company, thinking about partnerships where you can't do certain things, and you know that's the typical synergy where you are partnering with somebody else to get more than what both of you can do individually.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think these are areas that uh I would like to it like them to be a part of the uh new marketing uh you know paradigm as such.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you permit me we one more I would like to say the data-driven operating model of marketing, the DDOM and as it's called, I think is very, very essential for customer for marketers to have.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I will not like to say that it's a new thing.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's been there for five years, but I am afraid that you know many people, especially at the marketing leadership level, have sort of said that this is something that should be handled by somebody, uh, you know, the the new kid on the block in marketing, because it's something that you know I can get somebody else to do it.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's too important for the CMO to uh you know outsource it or um you know sort of uh pass it down uh the hierarchy.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: If the somebody does not have that skill.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think they should go back to their B school and uh uh you know relearn the skill.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's perfectly fine.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And also, like you said, a relationship, like you said at the beginning of the conversation, it's a two-way street, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, on one hand, as a teacher, as a lecturer, you're supporting students and giving them the tools and some, you know, the principles and a general pathway on what it takes to be a well-rounded marketer.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, if I can ask you the other way of the two-way street, which is what has being a lecturer actually taught you?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and how have you applied those lessons both personally and professionally?
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there have been a lot, Vignesh.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh when you teach, I think I don't know how much my students learn, but I learn and at every stage because uh, number one, we have to prepare, you have to sit and prepare, uh, which gives you the opportunity to go back and present it, you know, get that ideal framework.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've got to go back and present because you can't be presenting things which are hazy.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to get relearn sometimes, learn new ways in which uh some subject is being thought about.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when you actually when when you're preparing like this, one question which comes to my mind very often is that why don't I do it in my work?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: This framework is so good.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't seem to have adopted it in my work.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, how will it be?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those are forgotten lessons, if I may say, and um, so I I learn a lot when I'm preparing itself uh for the class.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing I have learned is that when you're teaching at uh the institutes today, a lot of information, 99% of what you are supposed to teach, uh, that's coming from a textbook or some from some known source is already known to students.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today, any content uh that is there uh you know is available on the net in some form or the other, right?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So for them, they don't have to sit in your class to understand what uh is a standard framework.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: For example, let me uh take it, you know, uh basic topic, four pieces of marketing.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need to attend a class in the university to be able to understand what that is, there are enough uh ways in which they can do it, but so therefore, what is the value add that you are going to do as a teacher becomes important.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when I teach this, one as I said, I shared is that I learn by introspecting whether I am doing it myself.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing is that when they are looking at it, when my students hear a certain concept, they ask me questions because they are coming from a different point of view altogether.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: They are they're they are born and then they're being brought up in a different world, a world which is very, very fundamentally uh different from mine, right?
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the ability to, for example, the ability to use technology is coming much more naturally to uh to my students than it to me.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, that should not be the case.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I should be the one who is telling them how to use technology, but it's all many times it's the other way around.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: When they say, you know, sir, you talked about it and you talked about say that there's a big challenge, you know what?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: There is a there is a simpler way to do it if you decide to automate it.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh not that every time you know you hear something, you can always go back and automate things, you might have your own constraints, but the fact is just looking at it from that point of view and saying that okay, there are things that you know technology can solve, and you use technology much more uh in your work to get to tackle all the business as usual uh topics so that your time and your you know mental bandwidth is getting freed up for you to go and do something which is much more strategic and something that needs your attention much more is something that I've always learned uh and admired in my students.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh their ability to go on the net very easily, learn things, come back with questions, uh, come back with a counterpoint of view is is very high.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, last thing quickly, if I may say, is I really appreciate how bold they are in a classroom, how participant they are, participative they are in their in the classroom, how agile they are.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because I to be honest, I struggle to get on to an online teaching marketing online, uh, because I am a person who likes to use the blackboard left to right, top to bottom, jump around the class, go inside amongst the students, uh, use everything I have at my disposal, uh, you know, including my body language, my uh, you know, sarcasm, humor, whatever what you have, play ads, it's a very it's a very noisy class that I teach.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: But um I struggled initially to teach them that, but uh, I could not help but observe that they had adapted to it much faster uh than I had.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like, yeah, if I have to teach these people, I have to be agile uh myself and see okay, now I probably need to go back and learn how to present something online in an attractive manner, right?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that I'm still able to keep them engaged.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so going back to the drawing board and learning, um, anything I think I'm uh I have um learnt a lot uh from them.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: So Sundar, uh you are somebody who's transitioned from a CMO to CEO, right?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: And many times uh the roles, the responsibilities, and the goals are very, very different, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so if you are sitting from a CEO shoes today, what do you expect a CMO to do?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, and if you are a CMO in the past, what did you expect your CEO to appreciate and understand?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: Can you kind of you know do that distinction?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Because you are somebody who can do that distinction, and that's very critical for uh CMO to understand and also for a CEO to understand.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a very good question, uh Swami.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about it, um, you know, um, you know, when I was when I so so let me come to the um first part, which is that you know, as a CEO, what would I expect my CMO to do more uh and what to do differently?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think one is that I would definitely like my CMO to think more strategically than uh what his functional uh silos are permitting him to do that, right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: I I believe that CMOs are working towards many, I I will not say everyone, there are exceptions, and and those have to be really commended for the way they have looked at and redefined their own roles, uh, even when there was no organizational mandate, they've just gone ahead and said this is what I'm going to do, and they've just gone and done it.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is about uh being able to break the functional silos about what is marketing, what is sales, what is growth, and all the other you know allied areas that exist in an organization.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the second thing I think I would like to like that person to do is to think big.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh because I think uh you know, when you know we are all sometimes a victim of our past.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, for example, you know, there is uh let us say the growth of a product revenues has been going on for five to six percent.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is somehow enshrined in our memory that it can be only five to six percent.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is a conditioning which we we all claim we don't have, but it is very much there.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: And how many times have we told we have raised that you know, past we have never done anything like this?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how somebody can expect me to you know do something like uh like this anymore is uh is quite surprising, and that sort of takes me back to a learning that I had when I was reading an article in Harvard Business a few couple of years back, is that the way our brain work works is that we always try to build the future looking at past parameters, uh, and we expect the future to be a very logical extension of the past, whereas never, never in history of mankind has any future been a logical extension of the of the uh of the past.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there is that famous Intel joke, it is 286, 386, 486, and then there's a Pentium, and then what next?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: The everything in life is not this uh arithmetic and it is not so uh linear as well, right?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have seen from then on, you might have named it for whatever reason in in that order, but the the computing power itself jumped uh several times to be able to uh you know to to keep pace with the the the total amount of uh you know the the the load or the expectation that existed on an information system uh you know um uh you know in a business information system that existed.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh you know I would expect my CMO to be much more strategic, be able to open through that silo and think through, okay, now tell me how do I grow by 20%, right?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: If there is um uh you know, given that you know, for example, we've been growing by five to six percent.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Does is that mindset, the growth mindset, is it even existing?
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I would like the my CMO to do.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And now that you know I'm not in that position, I can I can give a lot of sermons.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the other way around, if you know, if I reflect back, that when I was a CMO, um, you know, what is that one thing that you know I would like uh my uh CEO to do is um you know definitely I think uh to be able to count marketing as a strategic arm, right?
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: In in many ways, what happens is it becomes a chicken and egg story.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Should a function prove its metal and then people will uh take it uh you know, look at it as a strategic uh uh you know function, or it's the other way around.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, you you you bestow that uh kind of uh confidence or that kind of an importance to that function, and that function somehow decides that they will have to scale up and deliver to that business.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I will not get into that chicken and egg question, but I would say definitely as a CMO, if I uh you know, if the the times when I was looked at as a strategic leader in the company, uh I think I have always been able to give more uh to that role of CMO, and so has not only me, but the you know the rest of my team also acted in that manner that yes, we are very important, and so therefore we can't let the business down, and we always have to keep performing to uh to our level.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: So these are uh you know two CSAs that I can think of.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: So uh Sundar, I think uh you hit upon a very uh important point, which is a CMO needs to think strategically.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_02: Uh can you dive deeper and then say what is strategic?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's a very, very uh you know, very used word, right?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, so therefore, what do you think is strategic and uh what do CEOs see as strategic?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: See if you look at it, you know, the number one goal um for the CEO always has been growth, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is the growth, it's growth in revenues, growth in profit, growth in any parameter that you know holds good for that particular industry.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Growth has been a very, very important um aspect.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the other piece is trust, if you ask me.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: These are the two things that uh uh a CEO has in his mind where he wants to, he should be taking these things in sort of building, uh building on this.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So when I say uh a CMO should be thinking uh strategically, uh one which I just spoke about is finding out okay, tell me what do I need to do?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where do I do I have a plan which is going to help me grow to X?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: What do I have to do uh to do that?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what is the plan that can be given?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Removing all the self-imposed constraints, right?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh many years ago, and let me share a very interesting um you know anecdote which happened with a with a company that I was uh you know, I was a summer trainee, and I was uh being interviewed by the board of the company for what we used to call as PPO.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether it still exists, the pre-placement offer that that was there.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the my summer project had had to do something with uh the softy ice cream market, and uh the company I work for was uh was a market leader, uh, but they had not got into the softy you know format.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they saw the potential, they asked me to do a national uh uh you know market size estimation about what the size could be, and then of course, maybe subsequently decide whether it's attractive for them to get into that or not.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now I brought up this thing you know in the interview, they said uh is there anything that you have not liked in the way we work?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have been with us for two months, or is there something that you have so I um uh you can call it youthful exuberance or whatever?
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just came out and it was a very honest opinion.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I just said that look, I don't think we are ambitious enough.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be able to tell the board of directors that the company is not ambitious enough is a clear statement against them because it's the board of directors' job to make the company as ambitious as it should be.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: So uh then they asked me, hey, you know what?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: You you know why, so why do you say that?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a lot of you could see the anger and uh you know irritation at my comment.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they asked me why do you say that that is the case?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Look, we did we are the market leaders, right?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the softy market ice cream format is not something which is new.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Why did we not get into that?
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And why were we waiting for some other smaller competitor to bring it to a scale where we feel that you know we should be uh you know, we we should be looking at that format.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the ice cream business, you've got to be innovative.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, any food business, it's it's very common, and that with a category like uh ice cream, you've got to be innovative.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we never even thought about another format which is as basic an innovation as you can think of.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so they said, Look, you know, you know what, you're rubbish, you have two months, you've been with us.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that you know you've got uh there are hygiene parameters?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: We don't sell ice cream without uh, you know, which is of which are below a certain standard of hygiene.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: How are you going to, you know, how how is it that you are going to be uh selling it in the softy format?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with the with the same exuberance, I I said, look, today you have seen the market, and suddenly, overnight, our research center has come up with an option by which this ice cream, which could which was not hygienic all these days, can be made hygienic.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we are delivering it in all our pilots that we were doing.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: We were delivering ice cream to that hygiene level.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, therefore, when you see a market which is large enough, you always figure out the technology, the operations to be able to capture that opportunity.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: But being the market leader, should have we have waited for somebody else to teach us is a question that that is there.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: What coming back to question uh Swami, I think strategic to me is one which is going to give us a significant increase uh in our revenues and profitability, something which could which last from a time perspective at least the next uh two to three years, and something which you know which we the company has to do at a fairly fundamental level to leapfrog.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because the moment you think about making an annual plan for a company, you know, even before, so how do we all make it?
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I believe that I'm with friends with you and your viewers later on.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how do we all do it?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: We take the last year's Excel sheets and start building the plan on that.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: We never question those, you know, those assumptions.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And whereas look at the market, and this is you know, you can sense Philip Kotler's uh you know uh frustration when he said that markets change much faster than market years.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you mean to say in 12 months and that to the last 24 months of uh of an eventful time, nothing has changed in the market, nothing is gonna be done by competition, uh the no technology which has uh you know impacted your life, uh, no change in demographics which have happened, you know.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: So all these things, I think uh, you know, leaving it aside, I think the habit of coming back to your business, if I may say, you know, just from a from a work rhythm perspective, if a CMO can come every day to his work, questioning a lot of the you know constraints which are trying to pull him down and his business down, and think about a workaround, saying how do we overcome these challenges?
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm not good in entering China.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, can we think about a partner?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes these decisions are parked for someone else to take make the decision.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little disappointed when some of us, and I'm no exception till very recently, when I say when I hear CMO say business has to decide this.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: You are the business.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: What are you expecting someone else to be?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you are marketing, unless you know for some reason you think business marketing is not a part of business, which is a bigger disappointment for me.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think uh one should say, you know, I'm taking the cut gins, and you tell me which company in its right frame of mind will not have a set of leaders going out there in the market looking for new opportunities, committing that okay, they will they will make a certain business plan work and um um you know and and and deliver the goods.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: No company in its right frame of mind will ever do it.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they may put some frameworks, they may put certain caveats, and you know, there may be some governance mechanism, which are all very, very fair.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I think uh uh the time has come for CMOs to start doing what they were doing very well earlier, but I think uh over the years that that role has been sort of uh submerged a little bit.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I would say.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you can help uh build that you know 30% growth for your uh uh for your CEO, and I'm just taking 30% as a very healthy growth.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in another industry, very very healthy growth may be 12%, and in another comp in another uh you know startup kind of an environment which is new, um uh 200% maybe healthy growth because all depends on the base figure.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: But as you I'm when I say 30%, it's more symbolic of a healthy growth and say, look, this is the business I'm gonna add with a complete P and L.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not again come back and say I'm going to run the five marketing campaigns which will give me 30%.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you a business case, and marketing is a part of it, and I thought through everything, and this is how we should do it.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think the you know it's is that'll be great.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I would call it strategic.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic, uh, fantastic points, I think uh you touched another raw nerve, I would call it, which is you know, thinking of marketing as a business.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a very important thing.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me, but more CMOs will keep on saying that you know, I am not responsible for the product, I am not responsible for revenues because certain distribution I am not responsible for, you know, uh certain costs I am not responsible for.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, then how do you uh think I can be held responsible because I can only control the budget that you give me, which is the marketing budget.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll do more campaigns, I'll do more uh you know branding work, uh, which then is the constraint that they put themselves around.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: How do they come out of something like this?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think uh our life in you know has been made simpler by the first lesson that we got in marketing for me, which is there are marketing has four pieces of marketing.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you by by you know take taking this position that you just mentioned, you're relinquishing four, three, three out of the four piece already.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can't say that look, you gave me a four-wheeler, but I have made it a one-wheeler now because I that's all I can do.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's some of this concern, I agree with you.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very uh practical situation, and uh one has to uh you know one has to contend with it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's what I'm saying.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: When when marketers start looking at you know their job as to be running a business and collaborate with the others.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, if there's something that is you know holding us back because there is a certain distribution chain that is not working for us, because of which whatever we do is getting suboptimal.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, you're doing a lot of activation in uh city or three cities.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just picking up some something like that without there being a proper distribution there, right?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you've got to come back and say, hey, you know what?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: One of the two things is gonna happen.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: One, uh if nobody is gonna do anything there, I am not going to do any marketing there.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, which means you've got to be very specific about what you want to do, right?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think the challenge with marketers.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that many many people do sort of communicate in qualitatives?
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: That has to change.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I was emphasizing on the topic of the data-driven operating model for marketing.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a zero-sum game.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: How much ever you like.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you touch one data, something else is going to get impacted.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to spend more on awareness, your uh your propensity of your ability to influence purchase might come down, and you have to decide what you want.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a in some sense, in a given period of time, it looks like a zero-sum came that is there.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are data driven and if you are business driven and look at all the aspects.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, you know, uh, you you are uh perennially suboptimal in the way you're giving retail margins for a for a for a product, the product is not going to work, and you've got to bring it out rather than keep on saying that look, look at my top of the funnel parameters, they are so beautiful, my tofu is is is great, but you know, my bottom line is you know is not happening.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: It it is very common.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is very common because marketers define their own metrics, measure their own metrics, they present to themselves and they are feeling very happy about it.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Market the CEO, the CFO of the company does not understand any of these metrics, right?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: Which are you know marketers' best kept secrets.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, what my one of the things which I have learnt, and uh I can't say I always succeeded it, but always have the CFO on your side.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because every board definitely has the CFO on it, even though there may be a situation when the CEO of the company is not on the board, the C there is no way.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, CFO may not be on the board, but he's a special invitee to every board meeting.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because anything that they discuss, anything they touch, any decision that's making direct impact on the top line and bottom line of the company, and nobody in their right senses will ever want to leave the CFO of that.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if the marketer is able to convince the CFO about a certain business case where the opportunities are better because they're interact, they they interact more, they understand their businesses, each other, and if he can make his metrics, the marketing metrics, talk to the financial metrics, you're done.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because everybody is going to hear your business case, give one look at the CFO, and if the CFO is saying, Yes, I'm supporting it, I know exactly what this guy is saying, your job is half done.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't spring a surprise on everybody, including the CFO, when you're presenting a business case.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then people will find enough ways of shooting it down or asking for rework to be done or whatever that is the case.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's that's a very important and very practical tip I can think of.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in one of my earlier companies that I used to work for, uh I was invited by a B school to say, can you present something on marketing?
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, See, you've heard enough about marketing and all that.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many videos of mine available.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you invite me and my CFO, who by the way, many people think are foreign enemies in an organization?
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, why don't we you get both of us, right?
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: And see how we actually interact with each other and what is it that CFO expects from me.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: I will also attend what I expect from the CFO in written.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you can have that two-way dialogue, it is going to and establish a form of trust.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then I think you know uh it's going to be a different rhythm.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Great point, Sundra.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: Great points.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh uh uh there's this big joke uh that uh that's always there, which is when you appoint a new CMO, the CFO always expects a big budget to come his way, right?
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: So therefore, but what you are really saying is look at the business case, look at the business problem, uh make marketing being embedded in the business.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think that's a that's a that's a great uh that's a great point.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I just want to shift our conversation, Sundar, to uh something that you have been doing for many years now, which is you have been on the tech side of the business, and there are so many uh you know tech companies that build marketing software.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh almost the creator economy, as you would call it, is completely built uh with this kind of software uh where creative itself has become a commodity, right?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, uh what you thought was uh extremely uh you know uh differentiated at one point in time, the software has made it a commodity, right?
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, therefore, how do you really now differentiate uh one of the arsenals of a marketer or a CMO, okay, where creative itself has become a commodity and actually software and technology has made it a commodity.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: So, how do you really therefore uh you know uh bring about this change and uh add an application on top of software to differentiate and build value for a brand?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think uh very good point, uh Swami.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is uh uh it is something which many people ask, saying that you know, when you when you use a marketing software, it could let okay, let's sort of for the moment uh restrict our discussion to design software, right?
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which is there, which is used to making uh creatives of many types.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the fact is these create these this technology is available to every marketer, but yet you see that there are brands, there are people who stand out.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are finding that the messaging and the you know the the quality of creative is becoming increasingly common, which is what you probably mean that it's getting commoditized, right?
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because there is no differentiation, so it's become a commodity, right?
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's because people are you know very consciously trying to benchmark against others and trying to be like the others, right?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: One one thing that I learned very early in my career is if you want real creativity to come from a team, never be prescriptive about what you want.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: We often mixtake a creative brief, for example, to uh to mean something that you actually go and start drawing on the whiteboard in front of a designer what you want.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you draw, if you are the marketing head and you walk across and you know you say that look, I want a design which looks like this.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: Take my word, it will be a replica of what you just drew.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: Your idea was to give them an idea about what are how it should possibly look like.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that person says, What's the easiest way for that person?
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_00: He he would have he would think that if I'd got a creative brief, I would have designed it in a very different way.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: But this person is telling me what I should do, so I've just done that.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like a common minimum program, like you know, our LCM, least common multiple that we studied.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: It'll never be the HCF, where from a marketer's perspective, he should always be number one restricting himself to the insight that he would like to draw.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm coming to, where the differentiation in the creative will start.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: It'll start at the base, which is what's the insight that you have drawn from a consumer, which again you know you want it to manifest in your creative and so on.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing is uh it's important to these tools and technologies are available to everybody, but I think the person who understands this insight the best and is able to come up with multiple alternatives for this and present it will be the person who will probably be best suited for um uh you know for um uh for bringing that differentiation in terms of design, so it will not get commoditized, right?
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean you you just take movies, for example.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking example of movies because everybody has an equal view of all of that.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the same software is used to make uh an Oscar-winning movie and uh another movie which uh is probably a very mediocre movie.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: The software is the same, it has not commoditized uh, for example, storytelling, it has not commoditized uh the way in which an insight is converted into uh into a message, it has not uh you know it has not um stopped from people from saying, okay, how do I carry the same insight and the same message across multiple channels?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you know creativity, there is there is ample scope for a person to create things which are very different.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you what could potentially be causing this is not access to the technology, I think what is happening is that in the rigma role that we all sometimes fall a trap to, and that ability to kill, let's get something done quickly.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: That quick and dirty earlier was meant to be the first version, but now the final version has to be quick and dirty, is is a is a very uh you know is a very uh is very detrimental to the brand for to put it very mildly.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you want something to be done quickly, you want to get something out, you have to invest time in it.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: There is uh no doubt about it, and it has to be viewed from multiple uh you know angles and perspectives.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: How will my potential customer look at it?
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: How will my uh you know um how it does it sort of marry to the insight that I want to talk about?
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: How will you know how does it differentiate itself uh with the other you know messaging I'm giving?
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have an opportunity to take this to a whole new level?
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, I'm um you know, I'm a big fan of paperboat, for example.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, look at it.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you just talked about commodity, right?
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: What can be more commodity commoditized in summer in India than fruit juice, right?
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's available for anywhere between 10 rupees a glass to 2500 rupees uh a jar in a in a five-star hotel.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: But they took it is a commodity, it's very much uh competing with them from a product perspective, took a very different route, took a route of uh packaging, uh, took the took the route of pricing it in a unique way, making it available in a certain way, giving a very emotional narrative to a commodity.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I always say that you know, whenever a brand has to be launched, it has to be launched on a very functional parameter.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can't take an emotional route.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the exception to this is paper boot, which they launched on an emotional part, thinking about it's as commoditized assault, in my opinion.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think they've fought that very well and uh come back.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Technology will only help you get this to life in terms of how it is.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I think uh moving from sort of monoliths to individuals, I think uh we just touched upon the creator economy, and I just wanted to know that you know uh I think we are having multiple technological tools, like you said, which have come into play, like like your uh uh no-code tools and your marketing stacks and your playbooks and other it's almost like a strategy stack has been built for any individual person to basically go online, set something up, ship it, you have social media to promote it.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: So when you have a thriving, when you have so much of energy towards the creator economy movement, uh, you know, what are some fundamental principles of marketing that you know a creator, an individual needs to keep in mind as they're trying to grow their product or service in today's economy?
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very good question, Vignesh.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's a it's a you know, one has to definitely try and break that clutter because it is it is almost looking like that playbook that you referred to is something which is available on the net and everybody seems to be, you know, tends to uh you know just replicate and say, Okay, this these guys have done it, so let me do it like this.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't like to take the names of the brands because uh to be honest, I don't know the sufficient inside story of those brands, and that's why I don't have the permission to use their names, so I wouldn't.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_00: But two brands, you know, which are from the same industry, have taken very, very different routes uh to you know to to or what appears to be different routes, but ended up you know with the same result sometimes, and different results sometimes.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when when you know uh coming back to your question, when you're looking at um building anything that's there on marketing, number one, and we've been told enough number of times, is that I think it needs to be uh clear on who is the target audience and what is the consumer insight which is driving me towards you know communicating that business, right?
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can give you two examples, very well-known examples of Nike as well as uh Starbucks, right?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the founder is the custodian of that knowledge in these two companies, and they were driven by that insight about how they will grow, how they will improvise, how they will innovate, and so on.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: The moment they lost sight of that insight, no matter what they did, their marketing mix stopped working.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a that's a danger signal for for any marketer.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know what is that basic consumer insight on which you're founding your entire business, you're bound to lose track, and you know you may design the best campaigns, but they will not work because they're not based on uh you know based on a certain insight that you have.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: So first thing is whatever you do, check, check, check 100 times whether it is answering to that particular insight uh or not.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing is don't get lost with technology.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be very clear what you want technology to do, right?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're bound to get confused, bound to be bombarded by lots of types of platforms, technologies, which can which will all obviously promise you a lot of things.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_00: But is that what you really want to achieve?
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_00: Is that what you really want to get at?
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is something that you know I think you have to make an assessment for yourself.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if and that clarity you will get if you have a clear consumer insight about what you want to sort of uh uh take it forward.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh it is yes, I think we are seeing a massive increase in the um in different softwares available across the stack, as you as you rightly said.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's it's a like a good marketer decides what to take in and what not to take in.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think um the decision has to be made by the marketer.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: What's going to help him achieve his strategic goal?
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: So there is an insight and there's a goal.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do you move from a point A to point B and what all do you need?
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: I keep telling, you know, even when people are investing in digital uh you know marketing, uh, in my even in my classes, and this is what I share with my team is that just because there are 20 boxes, you don't have to tick all 20 boxes.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you got 100 rupees, you can decide which channels, which formats, which technology you can you want to in invest, and it's fine to say no.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: Great brands, what are they known for?
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're known for knowing how to say no, right?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: A Mercedes bench never says Garagarme Mercedes bench.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what they want.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I know I'm giving an exaggerated example just to make a point.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_00: But as a brand, you should be clear that no, this is not what I want to do.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you've just it's it's it's about uh deciding what are your priorities.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you as they say, if you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a tool, uh everything looks like a nail because you you you have already made up your mind to use a tool.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because why?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because somebody else has used it.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing, if I may say, quickly add is you know, keep some money in your back pocket in from your marketing budget to be able to do these low uh intensity marketing experiments.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't know, for example, how a tool works.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should be fine to you know invest a little bit of money just giving it like a spin to see what it can do for you.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: Suppose someone comes and says, I'll help you with social media listening tool.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have something.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: Good, great.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're convinced that's the way to do it, go ahead and do it.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: But then what are you expecting out of it?
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, investing a small amount is fine, but whatever you do today's world, Vignesh, it's very important that these have to finally talk to the metrics that you have set.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing is not today about printing brochures and making ads and getting TV spots and uh you know running a clever campaign.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_00: People will give you a big pat on the back for having done all this.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, these are core marketing functions, but they come at a uh with a lot of accountability about how those resources that have been allocated, how do they justify business?
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, even before you do any of these things, let us say you're talking, you you're evaluating an analytics tool, what are you expecting out of it?
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the business outcome that's gonna be there?
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not able to set those goals, then you're taking a big risk in that investment.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_00: You may get it wrong, it's okay.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: As I said, it's only 5% of your budget, which is not gonna burn you.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't do these experiments, you may never learn.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh you gotta balance those two things.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: So Sundar, uh, I also know uh you are somebody who likes music, and uh so when did you start uh learning music?
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_02: Where did this interest you know get uh you know get a spark from?
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: And uh what really prompted you from uh you know jumping from you know uh somebody who appreciates music to somebody who practices music and how does this help in your professional life?
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for me actually that's a little tough question because I really don't know when I got interested.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think from a very young age uh there was music all around me.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um in our house uh too, there was a lot of music.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my mother used to sing uh you know classical, semi-classical uh film music uh a lot, and my uncle used to be you know playing uh a lot of music in the night, uh, which is um uh you know from uh Ceylon station as we used to call it and uh Sunnay Varnin in La Layam.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we heard the word Sannai for the first time.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a lot of music which used to start from 9 o'clock in the night all the way up to you know 11, 1115 uh till the concert used to be over.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: I used to be listening to a lot of music uh since I was a child.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and from then on I think uh there has been a strong urge to learn music, but um, unfortunately, uh you know I uh started twice and I had to give it up because my father was in a transferable job.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, there was a lot of plus uh in that kind of a lifestyle, but it brought too many interruptions, and we were in areas where there was absolutely no access to somebody teaching music and all that.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd give it, I had to I gave it up twice, but I think uh once what happened was I was listening to uh a concert, a live concert with some of my cousins as I was about 31-32 years of age, and um you know the singer at that time he just you know went on to a higher octave.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what happened at that moment.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, look, for me, I think this is very, very intrinsic to me.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is too fundamental for me to even sit and evaluate how far I will go with music.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever sat and evaluated that if I sit and you know learn, you know what level can I play to.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: Just learning itself was a is a big thing for me.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that very minute I turned towards my cousin who was sitting next to me, and I told her, You need to take me to the teacher who was who uh taught me for 14 long years.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: I learned the Veena from uh Dr.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Rama Barthasarti.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, he passed a passed away three years back.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so um to me, I think uh you know the construct of that music was very important.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when when when I would hear uh classical uh raga, I I predominantly learned the Karnatic style of music, and when there would be a certain formation, I would say, why does this formation of uh notes why does it create this kind of a feeling in me?
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um with strong feelings in me.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that is how you know I started learning, and then I could match that okay, there is this uh you know string of uh notes which are actually producing this kind of an emotion in me.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was more like a mixing and matching, and I really loved the construct of every Kriti that was composed by the great masters.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think learning music, I think one.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: One aspect, uh, two two two things I would say that as a marketer, I always use uh, I always look at music as a big tool.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can change the mood in a in a setting in in two minutes by changing the music.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you would have seen this when you go to a mall on a on a Sunday night, you know, eight o'clock, they're about to close.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: They pay placed, they usually play very fast-paced music for people to just buy quickly whatever they want and get out because it's already eight o'clock and it's coming to closing time.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas on a Tuesday afternoon at 2:30, uh, you know, there'll be very, very few people in the mall.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you might want them to stay as long as you want them because then they'll likely buy more.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very, I mean, very salesman use of music as a tool.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the big impact music I think has on all of us, uh, we may not be even aware of this.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_00: I am aware of it because uh being more conscious about it, but even a small child, uh, when you play the wrong note, you know, it's got a scone on its face, uh, saying that the music is in all of us, I guess.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um the second uh application for me personally um has been that fact that you know uh whenever there's been a stressful day or I need to change my mood.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think uh you know it comes in very, very handy.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_00: I remember you know one incident which happened in Palo Alto.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I had I was there with my leadership in uh one of the companies I used to work for, SAP, and suddenly Haso Plattner, the founder of the company, um, you know, just came and sat in front of me.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh he and he was all of us were sitting and he said, Okay, what do you think SAP should do differently?
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we were all very innocently, we had gone there to work on something else, and suddenly the founder of the company is standing in sitting in front of us, and what should SAP do?
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be very uh, you know, it obviously created a lot of anxiety, but you will not believe this for me.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_00: I it was a blank for me.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_00: That entire meeting, I could able, I was able to sort of relax by letting one raga suddenly from nowhere that raga started playing in my mind, and all I remember of that of that meeting was that raga that was playing in my mind.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I hope I made some sense to Haso Platner because I when I went back and checked uh uh the payroll of the company, I was still on the payrolls of the company, uh, which meant that I was still around.
• 1:08:31
  SPEAKER_00: But what uh it gave me was um uh maybe it was like a what shall I say, it's like an immunity that it gave me from that stressful uh uh situation.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you play Nalina Kanti for two minutes, I think anything can it can totally take you to a different uh world.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: And see that, and other thing is, you know, we in our minds we think about North Indian music, uh music from the south, music from the east, folk music, and so many other types.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the more you know you you travel across India, especially, you'll find that the music actually becomes more and more similar.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh I've heard uh people playing some very, very um, you know, ragas which I thought were very, very, very typical to Carnatic music, but they were playing it in the folk style.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: In in some some boy sitting on a tree in Bihar was actually playing that near my house.
• 1:09:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't help come out and say, What is this fellow?
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, what is this guy playing here of all the places where I never expected that that raga will be uh played there?
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some ragas we are all familiar, right?
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: They are all common between uh they are pan-India, but even in that uh it is there, so uh you don't need to really put any filters.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's a boon.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you can really enjoy music, as they say, it's anytime anywhere.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, Sundar, given the fact that you are your joy of music, your understanding, your your reliance on it to a certain extent, uh has a has an edge of a you know serious uh self-learner, like somebody who's really interested in learning to understand things at a deeper level, connect with things at a deeper level, leverage those experiences to make uh different decisions, think different about problems and solutions, etc.
• 1:10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, being somebody like that, a question that I have for you is you know, what advice would you give to young graduates who are coming out of the hallowed marketing departments in the country about what are some of the harsh realities that they have to deal with once they leave the confines of the safe and uh trusted classroom?
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so first thing I would like to I and I always say that that in real life in business, right?
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever gives you a level 15-page case study with all the you know tables from page number 12, 13, 14, and 15, which as a student you will of course ignore because you will not fall, you will not have even got to those pages to solve these cases, and uh you know, on top, it is written as marketing case study, right?
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and because it is being discussed in a marketing uh class, you assume it's got something to do with marketing, right?
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem statement is why is the revenues of the company not going up?
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how do you know it's not a motivational issue?
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's got nothing to do with marketing, it is actually an HR case study, right?
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, first thing is that silos that exist uh because again, in a B school, you've got to teach, you can't be hazy there saying, Okay, today I don't know what I'm going to teach you, and let me teach you something which comes to my mind.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, first of all, things are not this black and white that are there you know in in business.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is ample anxiety, ankle ambiguity, I would say.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not anxiety, sorry, I meant ambiguity, and you've got to be get you have to be very comfortable with that ambiguity.
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing is you know, if you look at the typical B school curriculum, all the subjects which have got some word called strategic will all be in the you know fifth and the sixth term.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So when the when when somebody graduates from there, they will be under the impression that probably you know they will handle something very, very strategic, whatever that means, right?
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, first day they get into the Tatas, they're gonna say, Okay, I'm gonna meet and say, Ratan, this is what you should do, right?
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact is uh their immediate opportunities are not likely to be in that area, right?
• 1:12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their first few years, you know, maybe one, two, three, four, five years, uh, their uh their assignments will be more towards working in in, for example, being a sales head or being a brand manager or being a you know a finance operations person or something like that for the first five years.
• 1:13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a tricky situation because what happens is many graduates who come they feel a little frustrated at not being given the strategic arm.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't realize you know that you know if they were to be made a brand manager or day one of their joining a company and they're made the brand manager for surf.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine what's going to happen.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The number of things that they handle are tremendous, they're not aware of this, to be honest.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in in in uh on Nywite, they may be thinking that way.
• 1:13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, what happens in the first five years because they don't get anything strategic, they start to believe that a lot of things that they studied in B school is actually not useful, right?
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they say, Okay, you know, work is different, studies are different.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a believer of that.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_00: A company has hired a student from an MBA college to be the future leader.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now their immediate assignments are meant to give them a flair of the business, but they after five years, when they're really required to get those strategic skills out, by the time they have actually given up on those skills.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that intellectual preservation, if I may say, of sorts that you need to do for the first five or six years to ensure that you still have an analytical mind, uh, a strategic thinking mind, irrespective of what your immediate job role is, and keep all those frameworks and uh you know uh concepts very clear because when you grow into leadership uh positions and organization, it is that conceptual quality which is going to help you in those roles.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have become too tactical by then, you will have forgotten those things and not be able to apply.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is my you know, practical study of students, including myself and how I sort of also thought when that was the case.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the reality is the business world is is has a lot more ambiguity than what exists in um uh in academic uh environments.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, number two, I think uh uh your work will always be you know uh a mixture of tactical things and strategic things, different things getting amplified on different um in different times in your career, and also in for a for a for all, you know, even during a single day, you will have to yo-yo between a lot of things, right?
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: You have two customer meetings, one person, one one meeting is a customer escalation.
• 1:15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very tactical thing that you need to go fix it.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: There you are a fixer, you know, you're ready with a screwdriver, you're gonna go for go fix it.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_00: That mode is very different.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Next minute, um, you know, you're you're in a situation where you're supposed to have a strategic conversation with a uh with the CEO of a company.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, that's a very different uh conversation that you have to have.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that dexterity you have to create.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't say, oh no, no, this is not my job.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an MBA, I will not do these tactical things.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, some I don't want to use that word, but a lot of people say the way they said everybody's has a shit content in their job.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one has to do it.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a part of the job, it's a part of the learning experience.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the people who intellectually preserve themselves, conceptually preserve themselves for uh strategic roles are the people who are going to uh I think get those roles and be successful in them.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Sundar.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we're coming to some closing questions, and uh uh I want to start off with asking you a first question.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_02: What does the word successful mean to you?
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think um being happy, right?
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh with whatever one has done and um a good night's sleep.
• 1:17:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's being successful because I think a person who's got the right conscience uh will will be able to sleep when he knows he's given it 100%.
• 1:17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's success to me, Sony.
• 1:17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sundar, my next question to you is what are some of the books uh that have influenced you the most over the course of your life and career?
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
• 1:17:23
  SPEAKER_00: You asked that question.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_00: You got someone right next to you who recommended one of those books, and since then I've um become very famous recommending those books that book to everyone.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one book which I really like, and thanks to Swami for having recommended it, is uh God the the the God, the country, and Coca-Cola uh by Mark uh Pandergast.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a beautiful book.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's a long one, that's the only challenge.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's a beautiful book which talks about how you know business has evolved, how a brand has evolved, and uh since it's about Coca-Cola, I think everybody can relate to it.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great book that uh I always uh uh sort of um uh recommend to people.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the second one I would um uh uh say is uh the board the book Onward on Starbucks.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's a great narration about how it is how a business is always built on consumer insights, and when you lose track of that insight, what happens and then you sort of uh struggle a little bit.
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the third one uh was is a book called The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan.
• 1:18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um he uh unfortunately I think that book has not got the visibility that it should have, but it's got a very simple construct where uh Ram Charan talks about six curves that you know turns that a person will have to make as he climbs in the corporate ladder.
• 1:18:56
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine you're going on a hill and on a car, you go around like this.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have to make a turn, you know, every time, and failing to make the turn, you know what's gonna happen.
• 1:19:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he's divided the career into six stages and very beautifully plotted what are the turns that people have to make.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So uh all the way from a you know junior executive to the enterprise leader, who you may call it a business unit head or a CEO of a company or a managing director, whatever however you would like to draw it.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Very practical book.
• 1:19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh these are three of my uh favourites that I would recommend.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So, Sundar, uh given your long career and uh you have had many heroes across uh you know many of the categories and the companies that you worked.
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_02: So if you were given a chance to invite four guests for your dream dinner, who would they be and why?
• 1:19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, um one, of course, uh I would definitely, if given a choice, I would definitely invite God to be one of them because I really want to know how he is and how he looks like.
• 1:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um the second thing is um um second person I would love to uh interact and get to know much more of, uh, person I might admire along is the former chairman of Hindustan Levers, uh Vindi Banga.
• 1:20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I have a great admiration for him as a um as a business leader.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think I will have uh um someone whom I would love to learn uh a lot.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the third person I think uh is Lata Mangeshkar.
• 1:20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think a person whom I think the whole world admires, and I'm no exception because I really want to check whether that person existed in reality or not.
• 1:20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I still don't believe that such a person never existed, it's all a myth that is there.
• 1:20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So somebody will have to prove that Lata Mangeshkar really existed.
• 1:20:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I have taken a lot of lessons from her own life and uh and uh her music itself, you know, for some things you don't need an introduction, right?
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you for example, somebody who can sing like that, uh, or you know, for example, it's a dumb thing to say, you know, Roger Federer works hard.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what do you expect?
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you some things don't need any explanation, right?
• 1:21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think uh when you look at a rose, it it's just so beautiful.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Does anybody have to tell us, see how beautiful it is?
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe if somebody has to tell it, maybe it isn't.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's there.
• 1:21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the last person I think I would like to uh definitely invite is Charles Chaplin, uh, someone whom I'm a great admirer of.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, but the whole art of storytelling and making people laugh.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, for years, I mean, for for a century, he's made people laugh.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and all of us know humor is the most difficult genre to treat.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I think these four people would be good to have on the dining table.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Only thing for me, if these people are there, there's no eating that's gonna happen from me.
• 1:22:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I am going to be hungry and then after the dinner is over, step outside the house to have a wada paw uh, you know, on Juhu Beach.
• 1:22:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, my quite my next question to you, Sundar, is what would be the advice that what would be the three to four piece of advice that you would give an 18-year-old entering university today?
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think uh the first advice, or I can't call it an advice, I don't know how capable I am of giving any advice, but one thing I would definitely like to share is that um I went to university only once.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_00: I did my engineering and then after a few years I did my MBA, and that was the end of my formal education.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first thing he's got to be prepared is that this will be this will be his first, but definitely not the last time he's going to enter university.
• 1:22:59
  SPEAKER_00: He will enter a different university once again, at least once more in his career, because I think the need to re-engineer himself uh is is going to be there, and he will have to be learning much, much more than what people of the past did.
• 1:23:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's just too much happening, you know, to you know stay away.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_00: So more opportunities for formal education and lots of opportunity for continuous informal learning uh that will um that that is going to happen uh in his or her career.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing is I think uh I would really like them to focus on the basics.
• 1:23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think today, the you know, the moment uh you know, for example, uh when I when I for example I start teaching and they hear that I'm coming from so-and-so company, the immediate default mode is okay, you've got to tell us something about digital marketing, right?
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But my subject is called uh integrated marketing communication.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't use the word digital anywhere.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_00: It may be an expectation that since I'm coming from that company, I will probably accentuate that part more, which I do, but definitely I think to keep an open mind about what it is and learning the basics of that subject without jumping and coming to pre-conclusions about what it is, uh are the two things that I'm going to definitely say.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Third thing I'm um I will also say that I think start building a good professional network, right?
• 1:24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Start now, don't start you know when you are 45, and you know, one of the unstated KPIs for any professional is what is the professional network he has, and this is not told in any B school, there is no uh you know course which is networking, art and science of networking.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is no such thing.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there are a lot of interesting articles though, and people have seen the value.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So one can learn from them, uh, but it is something that one has to do very naturally.
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to a new city, don't sit at home and don't sit in your hotel room alone and have your dinner.
• 1:25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can as well spend it with somebody from another industry.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think what is important is to learn uh from another industry, not just from your place, but also learn from other sources.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Also learn and hear people who are very different from the way you are.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_00: You may be in for many, many surprises.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, I learned that about music, like since we talked about it, that there are other forms of music which are equally melodious and which are which can capture our mind very different.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I had the opportunity to meet uh MS Vulakshmi once, uh the famous um uh Carnatic singer, and I went into her house and somebody was trying to play uh uh an African you know beat in front of a percussion instrument that he had recorded in Africa and it was being played in front of her, and you should have seen the delight with which she was enjoying it.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine how different Carnatic music and you know African percussion instrument can be, but she saw something in that you know, that fervor which was there.
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we can all learn from other sources.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So don't be with people who are exactly like you since you're getting into a new college.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Try to network with people who are very different from you, from whom you can learn.
• 1:26:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy because we all have our comfort zones.
• 1:26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if we can find another clone of ourselves, we feel very happy.
• 1:26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard a lot of managers say this.
• 1:26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I heard that person because he's exactly thinks like me.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_00: I said, good, wasted talent.
• 1:26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Two people having the meeting are gonna sit and you're gonna tell, and that fellow is gonna listen.
• 1:26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Might not as well have him actually.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I think uh these are three things that I would say, in addition to, of course, the lovely learnings that they are gonna get out of that institution.
• 1:27:04
  SPEAKER_02: Sundan, my next question would be What is the best piece of advice uh anyone has give ever given you?
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh it was given by the chairman of um Unilever the first day I joined.
• 1:27:17
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I joined in Bangalore, and that was the last day on which uh uh Kiki Dadiset uh was uh going to be the chairman of uh Hindustan Leavers as it was called, and he was moving to a global role.
• 1:27:31
  SPEAKER_00: He flew down all the way from Bombay to Bangalore just for a few hours to meet and welcome the future leadership of the company.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I asked him if there's a lead, you know, advice he would like to give me, what would it be?
• 1:27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he said that I think winning the battle in one's mind before winning it in the marketplace is very important.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_00: In the the mindset that isn't required, you've got to play that game clearly in your mind.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Mind saying, look, this is what's gonna happen, this is my plan, and this is how I things will pan out, and these are the challenges I'm going to face, right?
• 1:28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because the world is not waiting for you to come and roll out that plan.
• 1:28:14
  SPEAKER_00: The world has its own plans.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_00: So, what will you do if those plans are at loggerheads with what you see in the ground?
• 1:28:23
  SPEAKER_00: How will you overcome and play that entire thing to that level of detail?
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right, is very is going to be very important.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a very valuable piece of advice anybody has given me.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, my next question to you is uh, what is one thing that you believe in, Sundar, that nobody else agrees with you on?
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I don't think there is anything where people uh don't agree with me for uh sometimes I have a challenge uh uh explaining to people why I want to move at a certain pace.
• 1:28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sometimes, and uh you know I think I want to go faster.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if it's clear in my mind, I'd like to move.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't like to sit and uh intellectualize on things which are clear to me.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh to be fair, uh you know you are a part of a team always, right?
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh other people may not be as convinced as you are, or they may not be able to see what you are seeing because you are in the market.
• 1:29:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I sometimes have a challenge explaining about how quickly I would like to get something done.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I get a little you know thrown off the track if people don't immediately agree that yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the way to go.
• 1:29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_02: So uh my last question, Sundar Sundar.
• 1:29:46
  SPEAKER_02: So my last question, Sundar, is uh uh who's the guest you would like to see featured in Contramines?
• 1:29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, I mean there are lots for me.
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, definitely.
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh love to hear from uh Pallavi Singh.
• 1:30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she's a former uh CMO of uh of um um BMW in India.
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_00: She was with MG Motors for a long time and she's done some excellent work in terms of segmenting uh the market for MG Motors on the basis of a psychographic segmentation.
• 1:30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that that was very interesting for me to hear her.
• 1:30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the opportunity to listen to her a few times, uh, but every time I hear it, I get a new perspective.
• 1:30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh you should um definitely do that, and uh you know, also I think uh what would be interesting is getting people from who are managing brands which are icons, right?
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, for example, uh you know the the the uh the person who is actually I don't know who that individual is, but somebody who runs Jama Masjid, for instance, it's an icon by itself and it's it's an organization which is there.
• 1:31:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, how will how do what do they do?
• 1:31:05
  SPEAKER_00: What what is their business philosophy?
• 1:31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what is their communication strategy, how do they communicate uh to people from learning from a totally different uh uh you know environment uh that is there, and um last but not the least, you should invite uh one of the guys who runs a lovely bookstall near fountain in Mumbai, and I'll tell you why.
• 1:31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I I was buying a book there once, and the young boy, eight eight-year-old, the moment I picked up a book, he brought five other books and said, If you like this, you will also like these books.
• 1:31:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, Yeah, but how do you know this?
• 1:31:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said, uh, see, I've got you five books, three of them are by the same author.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you like one author, it's quite natural you will like other books written by the same author, and the other two are thrillers, crime thrillers, which are in the same genre as this book.
• 1:32:04
  SPEAKER_00: I said, fantastic height of personalization, height of recommendation engine.
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_00: This this happened 22 years back, uh Swami and Vignesh.
• 1:32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine how all this was there was no technical, but the shocker came after this.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_00: The the kid does not know how to read.
• 1:32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he's selling books and he's getting you books exactly the way you want it.
• 1:32:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, all those five books I uh were not were not none of those books were something that I could have said, no, I'm not interested.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think that passion to read a consumer's mind, you know, is something I learned from them.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I don't I don't know whether that boy still exists around in that format, but just those people who are on the street who bring so much of learning uh into the way business is done.
• 1:32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh you know it'd be great to learn from uh those people who are on contrarian uh perspectives and uh how how sort of marketing is done.
• 1:33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, I think I'll be very keen to hear from emerging brands coming from Africa because I think that's one black box for me and uh many people, I guess, but I it's a definite black box, like China was a black box for many people, you know, 20 years back when we all started off our business.
• 1:33:26
  SPEAKER_00: In many ways, it it still is.
• 1:33:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I know enough about the market, about a very fascinating market.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_00: So uh while we do that, I think learning about Africa, and because people throw these uh googlies at me from about that market, it'll be good to know what what's happening there and learn from the way African marketers are uh marketing in Africa.
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Sundar.
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was uh thoroughly fascinating conversation.
• 1:33:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think uh the width and depth of what you have gone through in your professional life, uh, the deep sense of uh you know uh I would say uh commitment and the way you saw it and the way you explained it and the way you had uh you know your thoughts on it, and some of the advice uh that uh you gave uh were extremely authentic and uh as they say authentic brands really last a lifetime and I'm sure that's something that you have learned and you have perfected the pattern that seems to be coming out in this conversation.
• 1:34:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks a lot, and lovely having a conversation.
• 1:34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks uh Swami and thanks Vignesh.
• 1:34:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think when you talk about authenticity, my business leader I personally admire a lot is yourself, Swami.
• 1:34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think you stand for the trust.
• 1:34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, earlier we used to work um as our agency in our company.
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Since then, if there's somebody whom you can always go to for very well grounded, well-rounded uh you know advice, it will always be spami for not just me, I've heard that from many people.
• 1:35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for having me on this uh show and I hope your viewers get something out of it.
• 1:35:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very very keen to hear the episodes.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've had the opportunity to listen to people, but will now be a regular listener to the subsequent episode.
• 1:35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 1:35:36
  SPEAKER_02: For selected links and details promote, visit www.contramines.com slash blog.
• 1:35:44
  SPEAKER_02: Follow Contraminds on social media and let us know who you would like to see next on the podcast.
• 1:35:50
  SPEAKER_02: If you are listening to Contraminds on Apple Podcasts, do share your comments and give us a link.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_02: We're keen to know what you think.
• 1:35:57
  SPEAKER_02: ContraMinds is also on YouTube.
• 1:36:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you are listening to the podcast on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and stay up to date on all our releases.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for listening and stay safe.