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Ep 3. Arvind RP, McDonald’s
162 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of Marketing Connect, Arvind RP of McDonald’s India talks about whipping happiness, burgers, smiles, safety, and a lot more!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi, this is the Marketing Connect Podcast. Hi, this is the Marketing Connect Podcast. Hi, this is the Marketing Connect Podcast. Hi, this is the Marketing Connect Podcast, a show where we get up close and personal with some of the most celebrated marketeers in the country. We talk to them and discover the art and science of marketing. After all, we are a show for marketeers by marketeers. Listen in.
00:00:28
Speaker
Today's guest is Arvind from McDonald's India. This was one of the most candid and fun conversations I've had on the Marketing Connect podcast. You are in for a ride. Listen in. Hi, everyone. My name is Arvind. It's my privilege to be a part of this podcast. Looking forward. Thank you. Thank you. So Arvind, what do you do right now? Well, just had a cup of coffee, caught a bit of Netflix in the afternoon.
00:00:58
Speaker
And yeah, here I am. And what kind of shows you what's on Netflix?
Arvind's Personal Interests
00:01:03
Speaker
Sorry, I'm going to ask a difficult question. Well, it's a variety of stuff. I'm now watching through some movie called Train to Busan, which is all about, you know, some kind of infection spreading throughout South Korea. But I do watch a lot of comedies also, a lot of historical fiction, so to say.
00:01:27
Speaker
So I do end up, you know, watching a fair bit of variety of shows on Netflix, Hotstar and so on so forth. I was doing some talking, you know, to understand who you are before we talk. And you mentioned at every other place, I can imagine that you are a pseudo historian and economist. Can you talk to me about that please?
00:01:51
Speaker
What I can imagine the earliest, you know, data point is probably in class sixth or so, I was a favorite of my history teacher. And it didn't happen by accident. I love stories. And among all the subjects, you know, mathematics, science, I felt a peculiar affinity to history.
00:02:14
Speaker
A, it's story-based. B, it takes you back into time and brings alive those eras and those histories. So I think right from childhood, I'm a big fan of histories, stories, mythologies, and so on and so forth. And it's been one of those interests that has stayed with me.
00:02:35
Speaker
Right. So so I have my favorite sort of authors that I keep reading, you know, and my history spans from ancient history, medieval history, religious history. And I'm a bit of a voracious reader of all of that, including World War histories.
00:02:55
Speaker
So I think apart from being interesting and what we call passing the time, what the histories does is gives you a lot of perspective and I found that quite useful. I'm a bit of a reflective person and when I read history it takes you back into time but also
00:03:18
Speaker
Many things repeat in history, right? And you see the things that repeated in the past coming back again, being in terms of political perspective or a social perspective or an economic perspective. So I really think there's a lot that people can learn from reading history so that A, you don't repeat the same mistakes again. B, importantly, it gives you better perspective of what's going on.
00:03:45
Speaker
And that perspective kind of helps you avoid getting into situations that are untenable, helps you position better with what's going on because you have a kind of a long view of the situation.
The Value of History in Marketing
00:04:03
Speaker
and not a short-term reactionary view. So I found it because of history and all the allied reading I have been doing, it just makes me a much more balanced person with the perspective. Of course, I have got my deep dives into history. So you have the world war, you have the religious history, especially I would say the crusades that happened.
00:04:31
Speaker
So I tend to kind of deep dive into those topics because
00:04:35
Speaker
because of conflicting ideologies, people having different perspectives, how the clash of civilizations happen, right? And sometimes it's called a butterfly effect, right? A small incident happens that has no direct bearing, but it sets off a ripple effect, right? And it sets off things in motion. And finally, you have something like the old war going on, for example, right?
00:05:02
Speaker
So those kind of very uncanny situations kind of intrigued me a lot. I just finished the last book of a trilogy. There's an author I follow, Hilary Mantel, who wrote about Cromwell back in the 16th century.
00:05:22
Speaker
And it's very interesting. It's about King Henry, seventh or eighth, I forget, who has got five, six wives. Most of them he did to death. And here is this Cromwell, this character, master bureaucrat, master politician,
00:05:41
Speaker
who almost survives till the end of Henry's reign, but is then put to death because he makes a mistake. And it's all about the Tudor dynasty, and there is enough of stuff online in Netflix, etc., of the Tudor dynasty. And this particular author is a very solid writer, brings alive those situations in a very dramatic fashion, in a very unique writing style.
00:06:08
Speaker
So that's what something I finished just yesterday. And once Cromwell is put to death, it's almost like an era has finished for me because that's a third of the trilogy that I just finished. So yes, I'm a bit into a lot of those stuff. And you would have spent time with that, right? If the trilogy would have probably spent few months on it, right? I mean, it's not overnight read, correct?
00:06:34
Speaker
Of course, of course. And I savor those things, you know. There was probably one point in time where I used to finish books, one book in over a weekend or so on and so forth. A, you don't get that kind of time nowadays. But I got into more of savoring it over weeks and so on and so forth. And I think it's like wine.
00:06:56
Speaker
I was just thinking do I want to get there and ask him that is it like wine and whiskey that ages with time so that you savour it instead of a beer that you like pound all the time.
00:07:05
Speaker
I want to go back to your history from the time you read your MBA or even prior to that and where you reached right now. I want to talk about things that shaped you as an individual. When did you know that marketing was it that you want to do? So I want to take you back to the college days and start from there.
Educational Journey and Marketing Beginnings
00:07:27
Speaker
My father was in a transferable job, and I think I benefited a lot from his stints in Bengal. Started off with Delhi, of course, then went to Bengal, went to Andhra. We came back to Delhi. I finished my education there. And I think that early exposure to different cultures was very enriching as far as I was concerned. But I would say those days, schooling, et cetera,
00:07:55
Speaker
I was a typical confused student as to what is next. I tried my hand.
00:08:02
Speaker
I'm yet to meet a student who's not confused right now, like in life. Yeah, that's a tragedy, isn't it, Saurav? I mean, our educational system is so predictable in that sense. So, yeah, I kind of took a stab at medical exams, engineering exams, and I did that, you know, the usual stuff. Thankfully, I didn't get into those streams.
00:08:28
Speaker
And later on, I realized it's not my cup of tea at all. And I stumbled almost by accident into statistics. I did my BSE in statistics. And sometimes you have an instinct where you like stuff. Like history is something by instinct I love. In contrast to that statistics, I grew to love.
00:08:51
Speaker
So it's something I worked hard and after working hard, it was very smooth. I just segued into the subject very well. I almost became a natural. I wouldn't have thought after three years of statistics.
00:09:06
Speaker
I would be among the top 10 students for my statistics teacher. She was hoping that I did more in statistics, MSc in statistics or something like that. I went into marketing, did my MBA. So it was disappointing for her. But for me, it was a signal that, OK, I did statistics well. And three years back, I was not sure if it was my cup of tea.
00:09:28
Speaker
So thankfully, the statistics stayed with me. I'm told I'm a very analytical person. And yes, analytics and data analytics, advanced analytics are areas of interest. So again, statistics is something that has stayed with me in various ways over time. Coming back to your question, I think it was during the college days I used to read Business Today magazine.
00:09:54
Speaker
and brand equity in economic times you know business line had a magazine I forget what at that time it still has I guess so those were very impressionable days and I was very intrigued by this thing called marketing where there are various brands like Asian paints
00:10:13
Speaker
Hiro Honda in those days. Those were the brands in those days, big brands. And who had larger than life personas. And then there were people actually making it happen. So it was very glamorous. Let me put it that way. It wasn't anything else. Just a very glamorous and very fascinating thing for me. But that sounded very far off. Then I did my marketing, sorry, MBA in marketing.
00:10:38
Speaker
because I thought that, yes, I should get into corporate life and do something like this, what these guys are doing. I should say, I should admit that, you know, during my MBA, I wasn't, you know, my exams were just above average, I would say, you know, the scores were just above average. But what that scores hid was my interest in marketing. And absolutely thanks to those professors I had, one professor in particular Vijay Raghavan,
00:11:08
Speaker
I mean, he had a certain flair, he has a certain style, and he kind of sparked that interest in marketing it. It's completely, I think, to his credit, that spark remained in me. I kind of worked at it, worked on those philosophies that he kind of talked about. And I think I have been able to live more or less that over a period of time.
00:11:34
Speaker
And my first job was with TVS Suzuki at the time. TVS had a joint venture with Suzuki as well as two winners is concerned. They had a budding market research department.
00:11:49
Speaker
And given my background in statistics and my MBA in marketing, they took me in market research. It made a lot of sense to me. Market research in TVS was a very important job. They called it the voice of customer. And since customer is God, they called it the voice of God. Wow.
00:12:09
Speaker
So it's a very aspirational thing to get into, right? For a management trainee to get into that kind of a role description. And I think I had a lot of fun, right? So it's almost as if sort of I approached marketing from the edges, right? While brand marketing is the heart of marketing.
00:12:27
Speaker
You know, I got into consumer research. I did a few things there, which got the interest of the company. And there are a whole lot of mentors in TVS that I came across who honed my skills, who made sure my career made the right moves, who kind of exposed me to serious challenges, and which also gave me serious learning. In particular, one of my mentors was Mr. Chandramali, who recently retired from TVS.
00:12:57
Speaker
I owe a lot to people like him. So he was a serious believer in the management training program, right? Recruiting people across campuses, putting them into serious business challenges, right? It was not like those classic programs where you do the work on sales and marketing, and then five years later you get into something serious. He believed in throwing the kids right at business problems then and there.
00:13:24
Speaker
And he believed in empowering those kids, right? And he had a direct line to the kids. The kids, he built so much of trust and he was a senior vice president. The kids, there was so much of trust that kids could go and tell him what's going on. I know I still remember one incident and these things are etched in my mind.
00:13:45
Speaker
One of the things that you do is you go into dealerships. And at dealerships, you meet customers, customers who come for service. And of course, TVS is a big believer in customer satisfaction. It's paranoid about customer satisfaction. And so we five kids went to different parts of India. We did our stints. We came back. And he had a presentation. And he was asking all the guys, OK, what did you learn?
00:14:15
Speaker
give me a few incidents, anecdotes, right? So one of my colleagues, poor thing, he did it in the right spirit. He told about an incident where a customer came for tire replacement, right? Something went wrong in the tire. I think it got punctured or whatever. He came for tire replacement. And for some reason, the customer had to wait for an hour before anything happened to him, right? It may be the lunch or something.
00:14:40
Speaker
something like that, I forget. So suddenly Mr. Chandramoli asked this guy, so what did you do? You stood there, you were observing this, what did you do? So that kid didn't have an answer. And he got wild and he told the management trainees, including me. So you couldn't have stood there and waited for an hour.
00:15:09
Speaker
in the customer got satisfied. It is your job to get customer satisfied. If someone is not solving the problem for you, you have to move heaven and earth to get this problem solved for the customer. And he lost it. He literally lost it for a couple of minutes. Those kinds of things made a tremendous impression upon me. End of the day, customer is first. Customer is God. And you do everything from a customer perspective. Yes, there are corporate processes.
00:15:38
Speaker
a large company, TV is a large company. But in the end, it's about, you know, there's a customer in front of you, and the customer has to walk away happy, right? So like that, he was a master at teaching us the right things, the right attitude, I would say, capability you tend to build. Sometimes you build attitude a little bit more slowly, right? But I think his mastery wasn't building the right attitude.
00:16:06
Speaker
and a customer first attitude, a business first attitude. I think many things like that stayed with me over a period of time. And he also believed in throwing people at problems, like I said. So that kind of exposes you to new situations. You have to come up with solutions and solve issues. So it kind of challenges you to come up with the best. And yeah,
00:16:34
Speaker
a much better person and a professional thanks to mentors like him. So what happened after TVS? You wanted TVS and then where did you go from there? Right, so TVS, you know, there were two strengths with TVS, one in India and one in Indonesia.
International Experience and Cultural Insights
00:16:49
Speaker
I have to talk about the Indonesian stint. It was an unforgettable stint. The culture was so different. The challenges were so different. And a wonderful country, much like India, very diverse. And every few hundred kilometers, the culture changes, right? And one thinks that only India,
00:17:12
Speaker
is that oddity where this happens. But then I realized Indonesia is very much like that. So there's a complexity in the culture. And as a marketer, you need to unlearn many things before you learn things. So it taught me humility. You can't go into the new market and say, OK, I'll cut, copy, paste stuff. This is what I did three years back, cut, copy, paste, implement.
00:17:36
Speaker
So early on in my career, it told me that start with the customer, unlearn stuff, go with a blank sheet of paper, don't assume stuff, right? And then you build hypothesis and solve for issues. So that's what I did there, started from scratch, learned a lot about the Indonesian customer and the marketing programs I conceptualized were far better simply because of that approach. So the Indonesian still was very enriching.
00:18:06
Speaker
both personally and professionally. Then I moved into Britannia. Britannia was I managed marketing for the diary business. Britannia is a wonderful brand and wonderful marketing machine. So it was like from a two wheeler industry to a fast moving consumer goods industry and complete contrast in terms of systems and processes. And it was a wonderful experience at Britannia.
00:18:36
Speaker
a pleasure to work in brands like that. And it was a very steep learning curve, very many brilliant marketing minds at Britannia, from whom I thought. And, and then, you know, another memorable stint was with Levi's. Levi's, as you know, is a multinational brand. Both Britannia and Levi's, I was based out of Bangalore. And, and
00:19:01
Speaker
Being a multinational brand, you kind of collaborate with different stakeholders in India and abroad. So that kind of a dual reporting structure came to life. And one of my mantras that I learned in Levi's was collaboration. I think that has helped me a lot in the second half of my career.
00:19:23
Speaker
how to collaborate with people, right? Collaborate with different functions and get the best out of them and solve for the problem at hand or to tap the opportunity at hand. So collaboration is something that typically, you know, especially culturally, I believe we are very individualistic, right? So collaboration is something that doesn't come naturally, I believe, to people like us.
00:19:49
Speaker
That's what I tend to believe. And so it was very useful to kind of, you know, get this theme of collaboration drilled into you. And that I think, again, that's something that has helped me a lot in the years to come.
00:20:07
Speaker
Of course, Levi's also was in Bangalore, like I said, and then they moved on to Mariko Kaya. Kaya was a skincare business started by Mr. Harsh Marivala. And it was a part of Mariko before it was kind of spun out into a separate listed entity.
00:20:25
Speaker
So till the time I had done two wheelers was urban rural customer, you know, and at Britannia diary, my target consumers were women, housewives. Levi's was a fashionable young team.
00:20:39
Speaker
And here in Kaya, it was completely skin care, premium skin care. So H&I women were my target consumer. And it was a very different kind of a milieu. So I had to start from scratch because beauty is a very complex category.
00:20:55
Speaker
All categories have the complexities, especially beauty. And so I have to learn beauty industry right from scratch. So what motivates the woman? What is she looking out for? What is she looking out from the brand, Kaya? So it was a very, very interesting category business. And I think I have been able to do a lot there, be it in terms of the e-commerce business,
00:21:23
Speaker
be it in terms of data analytics and CRM and of course apart from brand marketing.
00:21:32
Speaker
So you mentioned that you had to, you jumped TGs, like every time you change companies, you got TGs changed, right? And each time, and then there is a standard of unlearning that has stayed with you all your life. So what do you talk about if tomorrow you were to change the TGs again, if somebody's listening who wants to change the market too? How would they go about learning about this? Like you mentioned, you have to learn about beauty from scratch, and you have to speak to them. So obviously, everybody knows F.G.D. Karlo, research Karano.
00:22:01
Speaker
What did you do? So I think the interesting part of handling different target consumers over your career is something that I learned actually very early on. Let's say you're targeting
00:22:16
Speaker
A teen, right? A male teen looking for fashion, right? One should not be surprised with the fact that the male teen looks at fashion with a certain lens. And you tend to think that as a marketeer, I know this consumer inside out, right? I know what he's looking for, psychographics, lifestyle, and so on, so forth.
00:22:40
Speaker
But the same team, male team, interacts with, let's say, for example, male grooming in a very, very different way, right?
00:22:50
Speaker
So when you look at male grouping categories, this male team interacts in a very different fashion, right? And you think because you have interacted with him from a fashion category perspective, you have cracked it. But the consumer is so different when he or she interacts another category. So the same consumer, you know, it's not just about the consumer, it's also about the category lens with which the consumer interacts.
00:23:16
Speaker
So the same consumer has different expectations of various categories and that nuance makes it very interesting and of course very complex.
00:23:24
Speaker
So a part is about understanding people's motivations as a marketeer. So it's all about what makes this consumer tick. What are the customers' aspirations? What are they looking forward? And you kind of look at life insights from the customer perspective. But equally important, as many marketers would say, is also the category insights or the category truths. What are the expectations from the category perspective?
00:23:54
Speaker
And of course, it changes from category to category. It changes within category in terms of segments. In a category, there are like, say, five segments of products. Simplistically, it could be mass and premium, for example. So the expectations change so much within a category. I think it's very important for marketeers to, A, understand customer, and, B, understand category.
00:24:24
Speaker
and link the both, right? And I think A, the question then comes, how does one do this, right? Is it the focus groups, do five focus groups and you have cracked it? I'm afraid not. I'm afraid not. So thankfully, you know,
00:24:43
Speaker
whenever I have entered these new categories, they have been quite experienced colleagues of mine. And you get into deep discussions with the colleagues to really understand from their perspective, what makes this category tick. So A, you don't want to end up making the same mistake twice. And sometimes, if you're careful though, many people say the strategy has not worked. I tend to believe differently. Sometimes the strategy might not have worked.
00:25:12
Speaker
But sometimes it could have been a wrong execution of the right strategy. So it's wrong to conclude that, OK, I have tried this three years back. It hasn't worked. So coming back to the point, it's very useful to have those discussions with people who have been in the category for a long time. They give you valuable perspectives. So that's one kind of learning. The second is reading industry reports, trends, global trends, Asia trends.
00:25:42
Speaker
I think it's very important and that helped me especially in the skincare category. I spent a lot of time looking at global trends, Asia trends, and predicting the Indian consumer trend. Because as a marketeer, it's very important to be ahead of the consumer. It's not just about, okay, customer has told me this and I'm going to do this, but it's important to predict how the customer behavior will change over the next few years.
00:26:11
Speaker
There could be lengths of customers say that they want something, but they imply something else altogether, right? There could be lengths like that. It's quite possible. It's quite possible. And, you know, for example, if I were to kind of explain that with an example, you know, so there's a dual trend in beauty care, right? So there's some people who spend the time
00:26:40
Speaker
to kind of go through what we call as a cleanser, toner, moisture, makeup routine every day. It could take 20 minutes, it could take 30 minutes. But there are many consumers who take the time, invest the time in looking good and go through the whole routine.
00:27:02
Speaker
That is something that's a trend and which means that you kind of make products in that fashion. But there is also the conflicting trend where people say, okay, I don't have time. I want products that can do five in one or three in one kind of a benefit. Right. So for example, CC cream is a good example where there are multiple benefits in the same product. Right.
00:27:27
Speaker
You have products like face mask, which is kind of on the go beauty. So many a time when you see a trend and
00:27:38
Speaker
Given that India is in the early stage in terms of beauty category growth, sometimes you find this conflicting trends. It's very important not to just go for one, but sometimes both trends make sense. It's just that different consumer segments and different consumers behave differently and need different things. So sometimes the needs articulated by customers are quite nuanced.
00:28:04
Speaker
you need to go deep to really understand what's what. Importantly, try and predict the trends so that you are ahead of the customer.
McDonald's Brand and Work-Life Balance
00:28:13
Speaker
Of course, the last year and a half at McDonald's, it's great fun. It's a fantastic brand, great equity from the customer perspective and a very democratic brand.
00:28:27
Speaker
take it into different kind of target consumers. Importantly, it's a leader in the QSR space, and especially in the context of the current situation, it's a leader as far as safety and hygiene practices go.
00:28:45
Speaker
Right. So so there are many, many aspects of the brand to be proud of. You know, one of the one of the biggest thrust areas for the brand is food delivery. So we have got make delivery, which which, you know, taps into the convenience need and delivers food to homes and offices as you order. Yeah. There's also make cafe. Yeah. Which is our coffee brand. It's it's a product. It's very much appreciated by consumers.
00:29:14
Speaker
I have to say I'm a big, big fan of McCafe's coffee. I mean, I do not, to be honest, I don't consume a lot of McDonald's burgers, fried, and McCafe is like a place to go to. I mean, given an option, if there's a Starbucks and McDonald's close to each other, I'll probably grab my coffee from McDonald's, then go to Starbucks and sit and work and come back. So that's what I do. Right. Right. Thanks for that, Saurabh.
00:29:38
Speaker
Yeah, so thanks for that sort of. So yes, McAfee is a very, very appreciated product, highly appreciated product. As a brand, it has a long way to go in terms of awareness and appeal. And we are working towards that.
00:29:52
Speaker
So there are different facets of the brand that makes McDonald's a very, very interesting brand to work with. And I lead a very fun team, a committed team, mixed of youngsters and experienced professionals who do their bit to make this brand come alive in every sense of the word.
00:30:15
Speaker
So tell me, what is your typical day like at office? And walk to me from like, you know, given hour by hour account. Let's say you reach hours at eight or seven or nine or whatever. So what's your typical day like? Right. So even before that, I kind of planned my day ahead. Right. So till at about seven thirty eight, I am quite clear of the day. You know, I kind of clear my head early in the morning. OK, these are the five things I'm going to do today or three things I'm going to do today.
00:30:44
Speaker
And I make sure I set reminders so that I don't forget about those three things or five things. And end up at 9, 9.15 AM in the morning.
00:30:54
Speaker
And for the first couple of hours tend to knock off the most important stuff. They could be strategic things. They could be interventions with our agency partners or set up review meetings because let's say the last week sale or last weekend sale has not been as per plan. So we needed intervention, right? So what's the course of recommended course of action?
00:31:19
Speaker
to make up for the lost sales. So it could be any of this. I kind of set up those meetings for the first couple of hours. Most of my time is spent in reviews with my various teams, be it the brand team or the PR team or the digital team or the media team. It's spent in reviews. It's spent in constructive discussions. It's spent in ideation.
00:31:46
Speaker
It's spent in problem solving. So there's a retail marketing team who's very active in solving on the ground below the line brand solutions. So it's very important for me to kind of get my hand dirty and
00:32:06
Speaker
help my people do their job better. That's the way I see it. So I try and enable these reviews so that I'm constructive in terms of helping my team find solutions. And of course, you know, I kind of keep my administrative stuff towards the end of the day after 5pm. Right.
00:32:29
Speaker
And probably my day at the office ends at around 7 p.m. roughly. Of course Bombay is a city of long commutes, so you're home by 8-8.30. Do you bring your work back home? I try and avoid, but many a time it's inevitable, right? Your work does spill over sometime late in the night. There is something that needs to be, especially during campaign launches, I think work does spill over.
00:32:59
Speaker
There are some late night interventions I need to do. I need to be available for my team if they want to check some creatives before they kind of send it off. But by and large, I try and do a digital detox after 8pm, 8.30pm. I think I would be about 60-70% successful.
00:33:21
Speaker
Right? I'm trying to work on that. And yeah, so I try and relax while I'm at home. Catch up on, you know, if there is some series that we are watching, catch up on the latest episode with my wife, we tend to have common interests as far as OTT and such things. Political satire, those kind of stuff. May I ask if she works as well or she is a homemaker?
00:33:50
Speaker
She's a homemaker. She's the CEO of my household, taking care of my son, a 12-year-old son. Wow, nice. Oh, so you have a target audience right at your home, right? Your son may want to. How the big girl is doing.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, so very much, you know. But yeah, so he loves our McVeggie burger. He loves fries. Not very experimentative, I would say. Once he finds what he likes, he kind of sticks by it. I try to interest him in the McAfee shakes and so on and so forth. But he has a limited range and he loves that range.
00:34:31
Speaker
Got this. So a quick question is assume that you are told that you will have to let go of what you're doing right now and you need to hire somebody to replace you and somebody to do marketing gigs at McDonald's. What kind of questions would you ask him or her? What kind of skills would you want that person to have? What kind of insights? What would you want to look into that person?
00:34:59
Speaker
So I think for the role I do, it's very important to A, of course, be good in marketing and from a functional perspective, it's very important to have a breadth of experience in marketing.
00:35:16
Speaker
While we say marketing, you also know marketing is a very complex subject, right? So there is brand marketing, then there is media, right? Then there is this whole new world of digital, which is so fast growing, so many new age platforms like On The Go Music Listening, OTT, right? So this fast paced revolution that's happening in digital, you need marketers to be on top of that trend.
00:35:47
Speaker
and invest more in digital as compared to the traditional media. And of course, analytics, data analytics, and CRM, et cetera. So it's very important for marketeers, especially for brands like McDonald's, to have enough experience within all of these disciplines, within marketing.
00:36:14
Speaker
Okay, right. So that that's one very important requirement. The second is, I think being a seasoned marketeer is very important. And let's see, you know, how do you become a seasoned marketeer, right? So A, it helps to have multi category experience.
00:36:33
Speaker
so that you don't get it to the trap of cut, copy, paste, like I say. It's very important to develop a playbook for the brand. So McDonald's is a very unique brand having a different set of challenges, different set of opportunities. So you need to develop a playbook for the brand rather than just leverage past experiences.
00:36:54
Speaker
So a multi category experience and wisdom from past in terms of, like they say, right, you need to win and lose in your, in your, during your in your career to learn, right, it's not just about winning, right, you learn a lot from the failure cells. Yeah, absolutely. Right. So so so that kind of a seasoned marketeer is also very important for a brand like
00:37:17
Speaker
McDonald's apart from the exposure to various marketing disciplines. And the third big thing is leading the teams and managing the teams. You need to
00:37:30
Speaker
motivate people, you need to bring the best out of people, you need to be very high on collaboration so that you are able to work with the operations team, you have to work with strategy, you have to work with people teams and get the best out of everyone. So people management skills are very, very critical.
00:37:50
Speaker
And I'm going to push a little bit on this again, sorry. But imagine you were interviewing me for the role. So what question would you ask to judge if that person is a good fit or not? Specific questions.
00:38:05
Speaker
Well, I think one of my favorite question is, you know, have you been to McDonald's recently? But you know, it's a common question, right? People do ask that question to kind of check, A, do you really have interest in the role and have you experienced the brand as a consumer? So that's very important. And that's often an underestimated virtue as a marketeer, right? Or rather, before you're a marketeer, you're a consumer, right?
00:38:34
Speaker
And you are a much better marketer if you are a consumer of the brand. So thankfully, you know, every brand that I've worked with, I liked it first as a consumer.
00:38:48
Speaker
right and I adopt it more as a consumer and then I put my marketing hat on top of it so that helps you kind of appreciate the role even better than be just clinical about it so once you kind of ask a person you're interviewing have you kind of experienced the brand then I would say my next question would be what would you do right if you wear the
00:39:13
Speaker
managing this brand, what would you do? How would you tap those opportunities? What are those opportunities in the first place? And how would you, or what would you do to kind of tap those opportunities? That would be my, I would say the most important question I would ask because A, it would test his commitment, right, his understanding of the brand, the understanding of the category, and importantly, the approach with which, right, you kind of approach opportunities, because
00:39:41
Speaker
In these kind of roles, it's very important to hit the ground running. In senior roles, it's quite, quite critical to hit the ground running. And this kind of tests people from those aspects.
00:39:52
Speaker
And if I were to ask an extension question, let's say somebody in your team who's got four to five years of experience, and you see potential in that person, and you know that that lady would go on to do larger things with life,
Digital Marketing and Customer Insights
00:40:06
Speaker
what kind of skills or courses you'll recommend to her? Apart from what she does for you, apart from mentoring her, what kind of things would you point her at? So that this helps you tomorrow.
00:40:19
Speaker
Well, my standard recommendation nowadays is courses on digital, right? So be it a brand person or a PR person or a retail marketing person, right? I think digital is so all pervasive and influential.
00:40:36
Speaker
It's not just a medium, right? And it's not just about an app. So it kind of changes the way you work. So my, my first, what do you call advice would be to up the digital quotient in yourself, right? That you really do with a lot of reading, you know, being up to date with stuff, as well as
00:40:59
Speaker
Formal courses do help and go along to create a structure of what you're learning right formal courses Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the learning never stops but sometimes structured learning is even better and there are different facets of digital So there is digital the context of e-commerce this digital in the in terms of you know, social media marketing SEO So so it's very important to get a well-rounded view of digital because the future is all about digital
00:41:30
Speaker
Got it. So next question is for you. Let's say you are trying to solve a super critical business problem and you are out of your mind. So the question is, who are those few people that you go to? And these could be colleagues or non colleagues or agency contacts or whatever. Who are those two, three people that you go to when you are really struggling to sort of, you know, make a big breakthrough in your thinking? Well, I think, you know, some of my colleagues who have been in the industry for a long time,
00:42:00
Speaker
And they have been colleagues, thankfully, who have been helpful and who have been guiding me, be it at Levi's or Kaya or here at McDonald's. So some of those colleagues have seen the various cycles and they've seen various situations and they are ready with advice as to what could work and what need not work.
00:42:26
Speaker
So, definitely I picked their mind on this saying that, okay, what do you think I should do?
00:42:32
Speaker
or what do you think should be done? And in the context of inputs, it's not as if many a time what they say is exactly what I do. But I think it really helpful in provoking thoughts many a time and building upon that thought. So I would say seasoned colleagues in the category, in the industry, in the brand are one of the first put-off calls. The second, of course, is my partners. The great thing about marketing is you work with specialist partners, be it in advertising,
00:43:02
Speaker
be it in PR and communications, be it in digital, collaborating with them, troubleshooting with them is going to be very, very important. And since McDonald's is a global brand, the great thing is there are playbooks for various situations from across job receives. So accessing those playbooks, accessing those learnings, tweaking it for your occasion, troubleshooting when problems come up, those are some of the things that one gets to do much better over time.
00:43:32
Speaker
Got it. So that brings me to the next question which I have always been curious about and I think you are the right person to ask that. So Levi's and McDonald's both.
00:43:41
Speaker
They are state global brands and they must have very strong brand guidelines in terms of what could work and what could not work and how to approach a certain problem or a launch. So, and obviously you like to mention that you need to understand the consumers and the community and the context in which they operate. So, how do you balance the global push versus what you want to do at on the ground in the country?
00:44:07
Speaker
So the expectation is always from everyone that you do the right thing for your business. So let's say you're managing the Indian business and you are the marketing head for the Indian business. The first assumption everyone makes is you're doing the right thing for your business. And having said that, there's a certain way you manage the brand. There's a certain way the brand is defined.
00:44:33
Speaker
and there are certain boundaries. So it's about these people exist to help you understand those boundaries. So that's the way I would say it. I think the key thing is having collaborative mindset, which also means utter transparency, honesty and transparency.
00:44:52
Speaker
So the moment you are transparent with your different stakeholders and you make a serious effort to get them all on the same page. And everyone's expectation is you are doing the right thing for your business. I think that reduces conflict significantly. Then there's a positive energy that's in play. Then you're using the positive energy to do the right thing.
00:45:20
Speaker
So, like, I mean, when I was growing up as a marketeer, when I was learning, I used to be given studies that, you know, India is the only country wherein you offer a McAlu Tikki burger, right? I mean, I'm not sure if that's true anymore. But is it true? Well, we have made Alu Tikki for the Indian market, yes. And even that orange sauce, I don't know what it is called, the sauce that you put, the orange color sauce that you put is specifically for Indian market. That's what I've been looking for.
00:45:48
Speaker
Yes, there are many sources, many products that are uniquely Indian, so to say. Of course, Macaulay Tiki is the most famous example of that. So I don't know if you want to cover this or not, but do you want to talk about the role the marketing plays into creating these new products from research to consumer? Do you want to talk about that? Well, I think
00:46:11
Speaker
In the end, like Kotler says, it's all about those four P's or the five P's or the five C's and so on and so forth. Intrinsically inherent in them is a product solution. Throughout my role, innovation was one of my favorite subjects where the whole science and art of
00:46:37
Speaker
developing a solution from a customer insight, giving the brand a competitive edge. And I have worked with service brands like Kaya, I have worked with product brands, and I find that interplay between product and service very fascinating.
00:46:54
Speaker
So for example, make delivery. Make delivery is all about someone orders on the app and the product comes home. You get your favorite burger home. But it's also a service. And how fast the service happens. How seamless is the ordering on the app? In the end, does it come to you in 20 minutes, 30 minutes? So it's also about a service. So it's a very fascinating aspect, I think, about how product and services
00:47:23
Speaker
kind of come together and play a role as an augmented product in consumer minds. I think marketeers have a huge role in kind of developing that proposition and bringing it to life as far as their campaigns go. Okay, I want to ask a simple question before we jump into the coronavirus set of questions. So tell me some unconventional ways in which people can pick up insights around customers and marketing, like somebody has
00:47:52
Speaker
And he gave an example of Nagant and said that Nagant was all about how this one individual can use power of communication to rally the entire village behind him. So what are some international ways for you to learn about marketing?
00:48:07
Speaker
Well, for me, the one unconventional way is what I used in Indonesia, the power of observational research. And so what I did a lot was observe customers, how they interact with two leaders in different situations.
00:48:26
Speaker
Early in the morning, what do people do? Many of them, for example, have an habitant coming out and cleaning their vehicle, right? How they kind of use it on the way to office, come back home, how they use it in weekends. So it's very fascinating the way consumers interact with products and
00:48:45
Speaker
While I use traditional research techniques, I found observational research very, very powerful because there's a lot of stuff implicit in that interaction between the consumer and the product. So I found observational research, I would recommend strongly the youngsters to kind of study observational research, non-traditional research, use it to augment the formal researchers that companies anyway tend to do from time to time.
00:49:12
Speaker
got this and also somebody else told me something similar he said that you know you can use this observational research he called it anecdotal evidence or whatever and jargon do it so you can use this to create a thesis for yourself that you can then go to a larger agency to go and validate you know is this correct or not so in the end you know if i
00:49:33
Speaker
kind of articulate from a statistical background perspective. It's all about hypothesis and then proving that hypothesis or disproving the hypothesis, right? And if you use that framework, let's say, and I would strongly recommend that framework, then you're going with, you're forming a hypothesis, right? And forming a hypothesis itself is tricky, right? So there's an effort needed to form the hypothesis.
00:49:58
Speaker
And then once you have a hypothesis, you look at the facts, you do consumer research, you do a lot of consumer insight work, and then you kind of decide is the hypothesis positive, right or wrong? So that kind of framework really helps you develop and add to your bouquet in terms of knowledge as a marketeer. Cool. So coming to the first part of the conversation,
00:50:24
Speaker
Corona and obviously the impact it is having already. And in the last two months, I'm sure there is zero sales in the stores and maybe some trickle of sales in the delivery business. So how is Corona impacting, A, the consumer at large, as in the sentiments and spending and so on and so forth. And B, how is Corona and COVID impacting McDonald's, communication from McDonald's as a business? So these are two questions essentially around Corona.
Adapting Business Models during COVID-19
00:50:49
Speaker
So, differently, COVID has had a huge impact on the way we go about doing things, right? Specifically, I would say
00:51:02
Speaker
with regard to categories, it has a different impact on different categories. So there is an interesting framework that a gentleman Sajit Pai used in economic times in the early days of COVID. He divided the business into what he calls a singular and proximate. Singular businesses are where consumers consume one-on-one. So for example,
00:51:29
Speaker
It could be a game that I'm playing online, right? I'm consuming it one-on-one I'm the only one consuming it
00:51:37
Speaker
Or there are many businesses like Proximate where you consume as a group, like cinema halls. You go with your family and friends to the cinema hall. So in his view, the Proximate businesses will be much more impacted than the singular businesses. And I think that's one framework that's very useful to see will your category be impacted by COVID or not.
00:52:00
Speaker
Then the second question comes is, how do you solve for it? So I think it's very important for businesses which are impacted to change their business models, be much more digital friendly. For example, in the context of QSR, food delivery is a channel that's going to increase in importance.
00:52:20
Speaker
because we launched, for example, contactless delivery in February. Given the importance of social distancing, contactless delivery was a very much important solution, much needed solution for consumers. And that was very much appreciated. We are still doing contactless delivery even when the lockdown is going on.
00:52:39
Speaker
So it's very important for those businesses to switch their business models and be much more digitally friendly because even as consumers during this lockdown, there's enough data going around to say that the consumption of digital media has significantly grown. In markets like US, there is a sharp uptick as far as e-commerce goes in the last 45 days.
00:53:04
Speaker
So, there's enough data points to say that digital, the growth of digital will even more accelerate compared to what it has been doing pre movement. So, these are some of the ways in which you need to kind of change the business model. But third most important thing is the importance of hygiene and safety. Brands have to
00:53:26
Speaker
integrate hygiene and safety into the business processes. Thankfully, McDonald's quality, cleanliness and service standards have been always very high.
00:53:38
Speaker
But we found opportunity to up it even more. And communicate to customers about our kitchen processes, about our hygiene standards in restaurants, about our hygiene and safety standards at our vendors, suppliers, place. So that whole farm to fork story, as we call it, bringing it alive from a hygiene and safety perspective. I think these are some of the things that are very, very critical. A, for business survival.
00:54:08
Speaker
but B, to grow faster in the post COVID era. So staying in COVID, right? I mean, a lot of people are saying that because of corona, people have now learned the lesson of washing their hands, staying healthy, eating healthy. So now there is a huge reputation. I mean, I don't know if it's a fact or not, but people know that fast food tends to be unhealthy as well. Well, I think in the end,
00:54:38
Speaker
We do a lot of work with our food, with our supply chain to make sure that the freshest food is there presented to the consumer. We take a lot of effort in our kitchens to make sure the food is untouched by hand, freshly prepared after the order comes and is delivered hot and fresh to the customer.
Nutritional Improvements and Community Initiatives
00:55:01
Speaker
We take a lot of effort and we have been taking a lot of effort over the years to reduce the sodium content in our food, to increase the fiber content in our food. For example, one of the recent innovations has been whole wheat bun. And consumers really have taken to whole wheat bun in a very, very big way.
00:55:23
Speaker
So they, you know, we give the option of customers to kind of use to switch the whole wheat bun. And many, many customers opt for that. And whole wheat bun, you know, is much more nutritious, right? And consumers know about that. So these are some of the steps we have been taking over the years to make sure our menu is up to the standards in terms of customer expectations. And we are really leaders as far as that goes.
00:55:50
Speaker
Got this, got this, got this. So, okay, the next question is, tell me, so I do not know, is the team busier than before? Is the team still working hard? How is the, you know, workload on team changed because of this coronavirus crisis?
00:56:07
Speaker
The team has been working even more hard. There's no difference between weekdays, weekends. You need to make even more effort. We use Microsoft Teams to connect regularly. But very clearly, the people need to put in extra effort so that everyone is on the same page. The collaboration continues.
00:56:31
Speaker
I guess in offices, face to face, things that happen faster, take a little bit more time when you're working from home.
00:56:39
Speaker
So what it means is people have to put in that extra effort and people are doing that. People are putting that extra effort to get things going. For us, delivery is a very important business channel. Takeaway is a very, very important business channel. And the team is working hard to kind of reassure customers, be sensitive to the customer's concerns, and prep ourselves for the post lockdown period.
00:57:05
Speaker
So tell me, is there a message or a branded initiative from not just a competitor, but from across the category that you've seen these times? Like I was reading a report where you said you respect what Nike does as a brand. But you understand, is a communication around Corona from a different brand that you've liked so far? So one of the very, I would say, you know, very, very useful programs that we have kind of implemented is the Meals for Good campaign.
00:57:35
Speaker
Right. So as you know, sort of the people are going through a lot of pain, right? The economy is going through a lot of pain. There are less privileged sections of the society who have borne the brunt of this crisis. So as a food brand, we felt that we should take the initiative, partner with NGOs and reach out McDonald's food for the less privileged sections. Right. So we launched this Meals for Good campaign in March.
00:58:04
Speaker
We worked with various NGOs in different markets. And the aim is to get fresh hot food in the hands of the less privileged sections of the society. So we just started another campaign.
00:58:22
Speaker
along with Salam Bombay Foundation in Bombay. Salam Bombay Foundation works with BMC and makes sure that different clusters are kind of catered to from a food perspective.
00:58:36
Speaker
given that we are in the food delivery space, we are uniquely advantaged in kind of playing an important role here. And that gives not only a lot of satisfaction, but also it's very important because what consumers are saying today is it's not just about what you're doing for me, what are you doing for the society.
00:58:58
Speaker
So they expect brands to do a good for the society in this times of pain. And the Meals for Good program has gone a long way in doing its bit for the larger code of society. And what about some, not just competitors, but other global brands that you've seen in this COVID crisis? Can you talk about some other case study?
00:59:20
Speaker
Right. I think, you know, I really appreciate what Coke has been doing. Coke has said that, you know, it will cut down the marketing spends and and reinvest that for the larger good. Right. And they have been doing it. Some of the interesting some of the recent digital campaigns have been very, very interesting in terms of bringing cheer to the community. So that's something that a brand has done
00:59:48
Speaker
which is very interesting. And obviously, Coke has in a long time partnered with McDonald's, right? Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, okay, within COVID, I mean, once the COVID crisis is over, like you mentioned that we do not know when and how and what would be the new contours, but do you still have an inkling in terms of how would marketing change for you guys? And then, you know, would it be a lot more digital? Would it be a lot more in-store? How do you, do you have an inkling back?
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, so of course, you know, one of the big changes will be, you know, the growth of digital or the influence of digital would accelerate. Anyway, pre-COVID, it was a faster growing medium, but it will be even more so in the years to come. I think that's one thing very different. So the digital quotient of everyone working in marketing has to really go up. The second thing is,
01:00:38
Speaker
to be sensitive to what the customers are saying. It's very easy for brands to go tone deaf in their effort to sell. But I think it's very, very important to pick up the nuances beyond top of what the consumers are saying, what the consumers are wanting in this time of crisis. Because I like this saying something I kind of learned. It's important to treat customers as people first and consumers second.
01:01:06
Speaker
I think it's even more so during this crisis so that the brands don't become tone deaf. So I would say these are the two most important things for marketeers during this time. I also want to touch upon that cause-led marketing piece. You clearly mentioned that customers nowadays care a lot about what the brand does for the world at large and not just the world. So how do you spend like a couple of minutes on talking about what do you think of the cause first for marketeers?
01:01:34
Speaker
Yeah, so I think while cost-led marketing and CSR has been there for a long time, my own belief is to weave in that very strongly to the brand ethos so that it adds value to the brand.
01:01:50
Speaker
and it's not independent of the brand. So it's critical for brands, especially for the larger brands who have a larger than life kind of connect with consumers to do stuff from a community perspective also.
01:02:08
Speaker
And there are very examples around the globe of brands doing it. For example, McDonald's has the Ronald McDonald charity, where it works with hospitals and takes care of kids in certain life-threatening situations, medical conditions. So cost rate marketing is important.
01:02:33
Speaker
you know, connecting it to the brand role or the role in the life of the consumer is very critical to make sure that it yields dividends.
01:02:41
Speaker
Got this, got this. So last couple of questions I know you have to rush out. What we're trying to do is if you can throw a challenge to our listeners and it could be from McDonald's or it could be something that you personally, passionately care about, like environment or whatever. So throw a marketing challenge at our listeners and if there is anything interesting, we'll share some selected ones with you so that, I mean, there's no, there's no compulsion for you to do that, but if you have something that you want to understand, it will be really cool.
01:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, so my question to listeners out there is how differently would you market the brand? If you were the CMO of the brand, how would you handle it differently? Got it. And I think the last question that I have in my notes, Arvind, is that you mentioned that you have obviously failed gloriously multiple times in a career. Do you want to touch upon one of the failures, things that burned really bad and you still remember it? Do you want to talk about that?
01:03:38
Speaker
It could be previous advertising, not just McDonald's, but could be many of the previous rules as well. So well, I think my Indonesian experience, wherein I went in from India and I was a young kid and I assumed a lot of things about the Indian consumer would be true for the Indonesian consumer also. But I didn't get very far with that thought. It helped me understand that every consumer is different.
01:04:08
Speaker
you know, are one of the big defining aspects to a consumer, right? So the culture is so different and but naturally the consumer expectations will be different, the consumer dynamics will be different. So that's where I would say that it brought that thought to the fore about unlearning and learning, how important that facet is.
01:04:32
Speaker
So that was Arvind from McDonald's India. I'm not sure about you, but I need to go and grab some fries. And while I do that, please write in to us and tell us what can we do better at the Marketing Connect Podcast. Thank you for listening in. You have heard the latest episode of the Marketing Connect Podcast, a show for marketeers by marketeers. The show was brought to you by C4E and The Poja.