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Ep 8. Rahul Mishra, Shemaroo Entertainment
157 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, we speak with Rahul Mishra of Shemaroo Entertainment about how his team is revitalizing a decades-old brand!
And how they are expanding the business into a seemingly unrelated category like food!
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Transcript
Introduction to The Marketing Connect 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 nuances of marketing that we often miss. After all, we are a show for marketeers by marketeers. Listen in.
Role & Responsibilities at Shimaru Entertainment
00:00:29
Speaker
Our guest today is Rahul Mishra from Shimaru Entertainment. He talks to us about what does it take to ride the disruption curve from the lens of an entertainment company. Hi, Saurav. Thank you for having me here today. So my name is Rahul Mishra. I am the head of marketing and communications at Shimaru Entertainment. Shimaru Entertainment is an iconic media and entertainment company. It's been there for about 57 years now.
00:00:58
Speaker
My role encompasses taking care of the overall brand and marketing all the businesses which Shimaru takes to consumers and also in the B2B space. Got this. Rahul, do you want to tell our listeners the four or five key verticals that you talk about, that you work on? So for example, you mentioned consumer space, B2B space. So you want to talk about the verticals. Sure, sure. So at Shimaru, we have multiple businesses which we take care of.
00:01:29
Speaker
You know, we have at this point of time two satellite channels which are running. One is a Marathi movie channel and one is a Hindi general entertainment channel. So that's part of my role. We also have a very popular OTT platform called Shumaru Me and marketing content, marketing, running performance, running, you know, getting in subscribers and joining
00:01:57
Speaker
Ensuring the lower churn happens is something which I do on a day-to-day basis. Apart from that, we also have recently entered into something called as a devices business where we sell pre-loaded content speakers in the market. It's available across close to about 2,000 retailers at this point of time. So managing that, which is retail marketing part of it. And of course, it also comes with e-commerce. Those are two aspects for the devices business.
00:02:26
Speaker
And then the fourth part of my role is, so Shimaru actually is, you know, for the last, over the last decade was essentially a B2B media organization.
Career Journey: Hospitality to Media
00:02:39
Speaker
We still have a lot of interest in, you know, business to business revenues. Marketing the brand into various aspects of the business from syndication to, you know, other aspects of content is what I continuously do.
00:02:55
Speaker
And coupled with all of that is the entire brand piece and the comms piece, which is the PR and sort of, but really don't talk about what you've done. You know, it's not really an injustice to that. So that also is something we should take care of. And that's what the teams have been divided in, you know, within Shumaru as well. So now take us through your journey, right? So from, let's say I was reading about you, you went to a B school in Delhi in 2005. So take us through your journey from there on.
00:03:23
Speaker
I can, I can even step, step, step back, you know, if you want, uh, it'll give you a good perspective. So, uh, I've actually had a very, uh, interesting journey and childhood, everything, as I would say, uh, you know, I grew up in a defense background. My dad was in the Navy. So, you know, I was born in Cochin and, you know, eventually moving on to a new, a new city every two years.
00:03:50
Speaker
So actually what it did is it exposed me to a lot of different cultures, and that's what I really like observing myself. I love observing why people behave in a certain way, what other cultures and nuances are happening. So that sort of built my formative years and post that I actually went on to do my hotel management from IHM Mumbai and obviously
00:04:17
Speaker
You know, within hotel management, I had days when I wanted to be a chef, then I had days I wanted to be a bartender. And bartending was something which was sort of very close to me, till eventually I sort of started. My first role, which I took up, was in sales and marketing for a leading hotel chain. At that point of time, it was called the Lee Meridian Mumbai, but now it's rebranded as a Hilton. So I did about two years of hotel sales,
00:04:46
Speaker
Not much marketing, I would say, because my role essentially was to drive revenues through contracts with larger corporates and post that. So I did that for about two years and I actually found hospitality industry to be a little limiting with the outlook I had towards life.
Media Roles at BBC & IndiaCast
00:05:06
Speaker
And that's what I decided to do my MBA and I joined IMI Delhi.
00:05:11
Speaker
So to interrupt and out, your father was in the Navy, right? So you didn't have any pressure, you know, from your family to actually be in the defense forces because that's a very common theme that I see in friends that are, you know, from the Army-Navy background. You didn't have those pressures. Actually, you know, honestly, I didn't have that pressure at all. You know, obviously, my family would have liked if I would have taken up a defense profession, but it never sort of came from them in any way.
00:05:40
Speaker
Very much. So, you know, why would I join hotel management? I had no, I didn't even know what hotel management is actually. So I think my parents were pretty okay with what I want to do and discover myself through that. So I think that, yeah, that pressure wasn't there for me. Yeah. Nice. So you went to Delhi for the management school? Yeah. So I did my MBA for MyMyDelhi and MyMy, typically the recruitment from MyMy is a lot in the finance space. And that's something which I,
00:06:11
Speaker
as, you know, is not sort of the space I really, really enjoy working on. I had left hospitality to get into something which is more, you know, gives me more creative freedom to work and, you know, do things a different way. I started getting a sense that media was my calling during my MBA days and that's when I actually, you know, interviewed for a role which is off campus and
00:06:37
Speaker
got a role into a company called World Space Satellite Radio. Oh yeah, World Space Radio. Yeah, it's a pretty interesting company. I think they just hired me because I loved that concept. I actually was one of the few owners of World Space Radio before it was even launched in India. I love music, so I actually purchased that product much before. So they hired me, they don't know what to do with me. They love my passion about the company. And they were about to launch in a couple of months, so they needed
00:07:07
Speaker
sort of beef up the teams and, you know, I was there. So I took on a very interesting role. I was actually looking at large volume revenue and brand partnerships for WorldSpace. Okay. So that sort of opened up my new journey, post hospitality, where I actually was talking to a lot of marketeers about how do we, you know, bundle our product with your offering? How do we co-brand? How do we use, you know, in a
00:07:36
Speaker
co-market ourselves and, you know, together become a bigger brand. A very interesting concept selling conversations is what I used to have. I did that pretty well for about close to two years. And that's when I moved on to. So after about two years at WorldSpace, the company was, you know, had a very, very promising product due to certain, certain regulatory issues in the country.
00:08:01
Speaker
You know, the growth of world space was limited. World space at radio in the US works in cars as well. Or it's called XM radio in the US. It still sells actually. Sirius XM is still around in the US. They're still around in the US.
International Media Sales & Consumer Behavior
00:08:16
Speaker
Yeah, correct. And you would actually choose a car based on what's at radio you're getting. It's that strong. It used to be not anymore because internet is sort of
00:08:23
Speaker
To be honest, I remember when I went the same amount of time, around the time when I went to college, and once I passed out of my college, Wordspace was one of the things that I wanted to buy for myself. It was expensive. I mean, I do not recall the exact number, but it was super personal. And it was a cool thing to have, right? I mean, you don't need radio, there was no ads, and you could have channels that do like that. National radio would play on your thing. Yeah, just for the listeners, I'm not sure how many of them know about this.
00:08:52
Speaker
That was a subscription-based satellite radio. I think subscription for radio didn't exist back then. We hear of it now, thanks to Spotify and some other platforms. But back then, radio essentially meant free. And how can you make somebody pay for radio? And if I remember, subscription was about 180 bucks a month. And you will get about 48 stations.
00:09:19
Speaker
24 hours a day playing one genre. So you have a station for pop, station for rock, station for Hindi classical, station for, you know, different different genres of music. So it was, it was a great thing for that. It was a great, you know, we had so many loyal users of that product. It's not even funny. Well, to me, you know, I think 180 bucks was not too expensive, but I think that the device was expensive as well. You had to buy a certain device to be able to connect to satellite radio. That's correct. That's right.
00:09:48
Speaker
In India, WorldSpace had an association with BPL and we used to have BPL produced speakers which were branded as WorldSpace and they were priced between I think about 2000 to 6000 rupees. There are different speaker ranges available for that. That was actually a big challenge and drawback for that product as well.
00:10:12
Speaker
I think it's a classic case of product way ahead of this time because they were the ones to launch satellites in the space and make an entire network of those satellites and then create a service around it. I mean, I don't recall the fact details, but obviously good memories of school time coming back. You pretty much know the product. Actually, you're right. This is one of the few companies which invested in that.
00:10:33
Speaker
to that level. Yeah, correct, correct. But it's unfortunate the company eventually, eventually the world space now is shut, by the way. So it was a NASDAQ listed company. And because of its heavy investments in the technology itself, and not able to grow the subscriber base to the required number, the stock prices kept calling. So if I'm not mistaken, 2010, it's when is when the company sort of liquidated itself and moved out of business.
00:11:02
Speaker
I don't recall the details of this because I was a consumer. A consumer who never bought it, to be honest. I was always intrigued about it, but never got around to buy it. So yeah, I can understand it. It must be tough for you to sell it. Yeah, we had a great... So we had A.R.M. as a brand ambassador back then. And we had a great streak. For the two years I was there, I think the brand was sort of at a very good peak.
00:11:29
Speaker
Very, very interesting conversations with, you know, CMOs of big brands is what I used to have. So I used to really enjoy my time there. That must be great exposure for you. I mean, imagine two years out of B-School, you are actually talking to CMOs. That must be enriching as well. Yeah. And you know what? Music makes a very easy connect with people. Okay. So I was always passionate about music and different genres as well. Okay. It's not just limited to genre I like.
00:11:59
Speaker
And if you have a composition for a product like Workspace with a marketing manager or a brand head, and you ask them what's your space of music, and if you genuinely have an interest in that, you're able to contribute, your conversations go really, really smooth. It doesn't seem like work at all. So what will happen? And then after that, what did you do?
00:12:22
Speaker
Then I moved to BBC. I joined BBC in Delhi where I spent about close to two years building the BBC's. So my role was in business development. Essentially what I had to do was look at new avenues for BBC to be presented in India. So like, can we have a play in the FM radio space? Though news is not allowed, but is there a way we can
00:12:50
Speaker
offer other content of BBC on FM. So at that point of time, we did a partnership with Big FM, Radio 1, various smaller stations across the country where we would provide non-current-affair content to these radio stations to be played top-of-the-art. Other aspects like, and that's when I entered the digital space as well, how can we do
00:13:14
Speaker
BBC dot com RSS indication, you know, how do you see the news feeds to other portals getting getting on to the Google platform? I'm talking about 2009 10. So the early days of Internet in India as well in terms of usage of news, et cetera, getting BBC on on mobile platforms. Back then, all the operators had a wall garden. So you could actually only have limited number of vast offerings made available.
00:13:43
Speaker
through a particular platform. Now it's all open. Now you can actually browse and go anywhere. But previously, if you were a Vodafone or Airtel customer, you would actually be limited to the choices of media they would offer you. So how do you get on there? How do you make a revenue model out of that, except that's what I was doing. And did that for about two years. And then I moved to a marketing role within BBC to take care of BBC World Service for South Asia. And
00:14:12
Speaker
I was marketing various language offerings for BBC. So I spent about eight years at BBC and then most of my role was in marketing where I was actually taking care of BBC World News, the television channel for India, South Asia actually, and bbc.com, which is a fairly popular website right now as well.
00:14:41
Speaker
and growing the language offerings of BBC across APAC. So BBC operates in various languages like, so Bengali for Bangladesh, Urdu for Pakistan, Sinhala for Sri Lanka, Bahasa for Indonesia. And this is between 2011 to 2015 when all these languages were historically radio brands, but converting into either television or digital brands. So I would sort of read the entire transition
00:15:11
Speaker
working with a lot of my editorial colleagues across various regions and a lot of business development teams who are trying to sort of grow the BBC in various parts of the world. So I would sort of essentially create the central brand structure for these teams to work on and implement. Yeah, so that was my journey at BBC, very interesting, spent about good eight years. And then I moved on to
00:15:39
Speaker
join a company which is a subsidiary of Wycom AD. It's called IndiaCast Media. It essentially represents Wycom's interest out of India. So Wycom and TV18, the channels which they run are distributed by this joint venture company called IndiaCast in India. So this distribution is under the stream in media, which
00:16:08
Speaker
So I'm not, I'm sure you probably are aware of it, but for listeners and press, I can just. It's the same company, right? That licenses the content for various Indian channels to diaspora markets in say US, Canada, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Yeah. The TV in a regional channel in New York, India. Right. That's, that's what India does. If I'm not wrong. That's right. That's right. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, uh, so yeah, it has two parts. India cosplay is essentially two parts. One is in the, on the domestic front on the India front.
00:16:37
Speaker
It distributes all these group channels about, I think, about 50 to 55 channels to consumers through the distribution platforms available from DTH to cable. So that's the biggest chunk of the work it does. And also internationally, it represents, so it takes colors to US, it takes colors to UK, from India to US. So similarly, there are a state of channels. So it's about 14, 15 channels, which probably
00:17:07
Speaker
outside of India and managing the entire panel including advertising sales to distribution and content is what India costs. So the reason why it was formed as a separate entity was because of the nuances is international markets needed and the expertise which it needed. So yeah so if you ask me my role in India costs was mostly international facing and I would actually at the time I joined my role was to sort of put together a marketing structure for India costs because
00:17:35
Speaker
These channels were just being launched in or had launched, but not sort of fully grown. How do we build our own entity in a very competitive international market as well? So, you know, there are close to 15, 20 big channels being distributed to every part of the world right now from India. What makes colors distinct? What makes, you know, Rishti or MTV India distinct channel for consumers is what I used to work on.
00:18:03
Speaker
And on the domestic front, you know, ensuring that channel, that's more of B2B, you know, big platforms like, say, Tata Sky or Airtel, where do they place the group company's channels? How are we promoting the group company channels to their consumers, which are huge bases, you know, 20 million, 30 million base of consumers who are watching, you know, on the Tata Sky box? How do we tell them what new show coming on that, to their platform itself? So those strategies is what I was building on.
00:18:33
Speaker
What is interesting to me is that, you know, I have been in the media communication entertainment space for 10, 15 years now. And despite that, even I do not know all the black boxes that exist within the, you know, the world, like, for example, India cast, I was lucky to bump into somebody who worked at, you know, India cast some five years ago. And from that, what do you guys do, right? Otherwise, I would not also have known.
00:18:58
Speaker
So do you also touch upon some while you talk about your experience, please touch upon some of these, you know, roles that people are not aware of. Like today, if I want to pass out of a B school and want to get into media and entertainment, all I know is that, you know, like everybody is hired for ad sales and, you know, account management and stuff like that. But there are some roles. So yeah. So I can quickly touch upon that, you know, essentially,
00:19:25
Speaker
So I'll keep it to a broadcast level right now. I'm not going to an OTT platform because that's a different ballgame altogether Yeah, so there are there are two revenue streams for a for any broadcaster Which is one is subscription revenue and second is the ad sales revenue Globally in the in the Western world. I should not globally in the Western world your subscription revenues Account to about 70 to 80 percent of your revenue and 30 percent 20 percent is your ad sales revenue in India
00:19:56
Speaker
The split is almost half, okay? It's 50% subscription, 50% ad sales. But you know, we only hear of ad sales mostly, you know, in our day-to-day lives that this channel is selling sports, et cetera, but. Because this entire, like, you know, stream of people that are called media sales executives who go around to all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at the same time, there's this big parallel universe existing of people who are actually driving
00:20:25
Speaker
sometimes half or maybe more than half of the revenue from distributing the channel itself. But we never get to hear about them. You know to be fair that industry at some point of time wasn't as evolved as it is right now. So imagine when you would, so let's let if I take you 15 years back or 18 years back
00:20:47
Speaker
There were not a lot of DTH players, they were unorganized cable operators who would offer the channel to you and take money from you. And then this money would be passed on to various broadcasters who they were taking free from. But there was no accountability, there was no digital mechanisms to understand who are they taking your channel to, what is happening, what is the number, how much should we pay, how much should we receive. All that is sort of getting formalized or has got formalized in the last
Daily Life & Collaboration at Shimaru
00:21:14
Speaker
post the digitization phase, which happened five years ago. So now that Dusty has become very formalized and there are, it's like ad sales itself, how people will go and pitch and get an advertiser on board, but the ad sales team doesn't, the distribution team will negotiate with these large platforms or smaller platforms for a revenue, basis the reach they have, basis the content the channel is offering, and build a scalable business.
00:21:44
Speaker
So it's a very interesting space and a lot of in the broadcast space also, I must add, a lot of senior people at this point of time have had distribution experience. So anybody's looking at a entry into the media space and specifically in sales, I think should evaluate both distribution and ad sales before taking a decision.
00:22:15
Speaker
So India has happened and then you must have seen all those interesting markets, consumer insight has anyways been your favorite subject, so you would have probably used it there. So talk to me about some of the interesting case studies wherein let's say you are trying to sell a channel to somebody in UK or US or something and you probably use consumer insight there, so you want to talk about some case studies there. Some interesting anecdotes, some incidents, some case studies, some lessons.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, actually lots. So strangely, some of these markets, though they are developed markets, the Indian or South Asian consumer there is actually at sometimes five years behind the Indians in India we have. So their outlook towards how they'll perceive content or look at live or understand family values are a lot more stricter than what Indians really follow at this stage.
00:23:12
Speaker
Okay. Wow. So yeah, it's actually true. It was a sort of a revelation for me, like, like in parts of UK, you know, extra marital affair would not be appreciated by Indian sitting there. Well, and you assume in India that, you know, they're open society. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they would, they would sort of value that. Correct. Correct. And, and within, and one interesting aspect is because they're sitting,
00:23:42
Speaker
away from the country. Their perception also about. So the Indians, Indians would probably visit India maybe once a year also. The way they assume things which are happening in India is way different than what India is actually going through. So I can give you an example. So we, you know, everybody's heard of the show Big Boss. Yeah. So the reactions of fans on social media in India
00:24:11
Speaker
is very different from what the reaction of fans in US or UK would do to a particular show which has been telecast the night before. So for example, if there's been some sort of a scandal on that show the night before somebody likes something and expects that on the show, how the Indians would appreciate or behave would be very different from how the Americans would do it. Some of them would shun that, some of them would actually not look it in a positive light as well. So yeah, it's a very different consumer behavior.
00:24:40
Speaker
All the markets actually in the Middle East would behave differently from US to UK. So the challenging part of the role at India cost was that how do you ensure that whatever content you're putting out and whatever you're communicating still holds the brand value. Your channel has a certain brand attribute, but you also localize it to the flavor of that particular market.
00:25:08
Speaker
The brand ethos has to stay true, right? I mean, they have to look at the brand the same height that they would look at it in India. That's exactly why I was actually hired for the role as well. The idea was to make it look very, very similar to what the Indian brand would also hold for the channel. But the communication might change. I can give you another example. Like in the Middle East, if you go into outdoor,
00:25:36
Speaker
There are certain restrictions and rules about what women can wear in that particular image. So in India, when you do outdoor, if you, I'm sure you, we've all seen a lot of voting of the movies or shows. There is a fair amount of freedom to play with that. Obviously, we also maintain certain self censorship and regulation on that.
00:26:02
Speaker
Imagine you take something from a very scandalous show and put it in a holding in Dubai. That's not going to fly, right? It's going to have either regulatory issues and we'll probably not be allowed to broadcast in the country anymore. So from smaller challenges to much larger growing the consumer and sometimes consumers of these channels are not Indians only. They are probably
00:26:31
Speaker
either the Lokans or South Asians who also want to watch such channels. So you need to communicate to them as well. So that was a triple-led challenge we had at all times to take care of.
COVID-19 Impact & Adaptation Strategies
00:26:42
Speaker
So there's a friend of mine who's in New York who's a stand-up comic and he performs in Hindi as in you know he does it for the diaspora audience and he says in the clubs he goes he goes to
00:26:52
Speaker
On any given moment, more than 50% of people there are non-South East Asians. They're Spanish and they're Europeans and they're Russians. And even though they don't take a zilch of Hindi, they still like the entire flavor and vibrance of these comedians on the stage. So they come for that. And then they don't understand Jack Shek, but of Joe Batoria. So I have a question. So tell me now, suddenly from, let's say BBC wherein you are trying to talk to consumers in
00:27:18
Speaker
South East Asian markets to going to India, where you were talking to almost every large market where Indians are, right? How did you, what did you do to learn those nuances? Because after 10 years of working, they did not give you like a six month kind of period to learn the ropes and understand the consumer and then create communication. How would, what did you do to learn those consumers and the behaviors super fast? Like, did you help take care of the team? Did you commission research? What was your
00:27:49
Speaker
So yeah, commissioning, yeah, we did, we did a lot of research in each of the markets. I, you know, I'm, I'm not a, I wish I could claim that I know a lot of audience segmentation without even going there, but I don't. So I, we had to do a lot of, a lot of deep dive into consumer understanding. There was a lot of data available in, in, in my role at India. All these markets which are developed have a very, very robust measure in place.
00:28:16
Speaker
And, you know, once you have data, you have a good understanding of what is happening with your audience, what is happening with the competition, and making analysis post that is very, very easy. So a lot of dependence came from data, second came from the commission research, and third came from, so obviously, inter-courses offices everywhere in the world, not everywhere, but most major countries where we are running big distribution setups and as in setups like US, okay, Middle East,
00:28:46
Speaker
And some of the people we employed in this company in the Viacom International offices were maybe second-generation Indians and a mix. So having conversations and bringing in these nuances really helped. And I would also talk to new platforms as well. The platforms are the best way to learn what people are watching. So for example, in the US, one of the biggest platforms is Dish, which is a big
00:29:16
Speaker
big distribution company in the US. So having conversations with their teams as to what sort of consumers do they have? What are the scene involving? What is the take on Indian content? A lot of, a lot of inputs used to come and we used to be very, very handy. But as to, is to make our, you know, either a promo strategy, communication strategy, our paid spends in those markets. So yeah, so all, all, all depending on various factors and a lot, a lot on data to make things work. Got this. Nice.
00:29:45
Speaker
Cool. So after India Cast, what next? After India Cast, I did a short stint at a startup called Cineplay. It was a startup which was owned by Subodh Mascara and Nandita Das, essentially a film studio. So with me, I actually like to do a lot of experimentation at all stages. So the reason I left news is because I wanted to get a flavor of what GC is.
00:30:14
Speaker
That's when I joined the Wicom group and post that I wanted to get a flavor of what does it take to actually get into production and what's happening on the digital space. Yeah, so Cineplay was trying to find a sweet spot between what digital consumers are looking at and what sort of films are being produced right now in the market, Bollywood films, indie films. And it was a great concept. It was a full fledged production house.
00:30:43
Speaker
And I was heading the entire business piece for them. Entire sort of the group business requirements. But we had to eventually shut down the company due to certain differences which emerged in the vision of the company and the promoters. So that got shut. And then that's when I moved on to taking up a challenge at Shimaru Entertainment.
00:31:09
Speaker
And how long have you been in Shabaru now? So Shabaru has been close to two and a half, more than two and a half years now. I joined them in November 17. So yeah, so it's been a great, great journey here. So what is a typical day like for you in office? Let's say you, I mean, just talk to me from the time you wake up in the time you go back to sleep and a regular day, right? Not the coronavirus impacted, you know, modified digital day, but a regular day in office, what would be like?
00:31:41
Speaker
So yeah, so I, okay, firstly, I enjoy my days, okay? Every time, not Shimaru ever as well. So, my days have to be a lot of fun. It has to be exciting and busy. So, if I have to break it up for you, what do I do during the day? Let's see. Okay, let me put this into five parts for now.
Leadership & Career Growth Advice
00:32:01
Speaker
I think the first part of my day, which is the morning part where I sort of, everyone kicks in and is at work.
00:32:07
Speaker
I'm not talking about the lockdown period yet. So at first part of the day, mostly would revolve around looking at certain dashboards of performance. As I mentioned, we run various businesses. So I would be looking at OTT's performance, which could be from installs to subscribers to the churn, the minutes of usage we've had, what sort of new markets have we entered into.
00:32:33
Speaker
followed by we have a business of selling products to retail, what's happening on that front. So essentially, most more of putting together an MIS and dashboard to get a sense of what's happened in that period, or the television channel performance, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't limit to that. I actually plug it in with a lot of appreciation for the teams. So I don't do that alone. I actually bring in my director bodies into these forums and meetings, which I do. And I really like to start the day on a positive note.
00:33:03
Speaker
Mostly, it would be a lot of appreciation for what people have done. I actually always believe that every team member or every person can perform as well as the next person. So there is no favoritism I can actually want to bring in. So I make it a very, very fresh start the next day morning. Guys, this is what we've done. This is what the numbers are. Let's go on. And then obviously, it's a marketing role. So I have a lot of
00:33:37
Speaker
internal teams which have to sort of sit together and give a lot of approvals on either a creative or a comms piece or something like that. That sort of is my second part of the day where I'm looking at a lot of approvals to be turned out because work has to continue. Followed by, I obviously do take out some time in the day to meet new partners or possible partnerships we should be looking at.
00:34:01
Speaker
It could range from publishers who are trying to talk to Shimaru for advertising on their platform to event companies who are coming up with new IP ideas to any new digital startup setup which can add value to what we have. That's sort of the third part of the day followed by a lot of internal meetings with various business heads because of the multiple businesses that take care of from marketing point of view.
00:34:30
Speaker
Usually the last part of the day is actually most of my interaction with agencies. So the agencies we work with, it will be creative media, VR. Typically agencies also do like to work slightly more towards evening, so that works well. Yeah, so that's my day. Typically it mostly ends up with some discussion with the agencies before I close for the day.
00:34:59
Speaker
So tell me a very quick question that a lot of people want us to ask to other, you know, CMOs is, is that, you know, so what other business functions within the company do you talk to? Like, you know, everybody assumes marketing will talk to one creative agency, one digital agency, and then they will go home happy. But at your level, I'm sure you talk to even the stakeholders of the company and the shareholders in the management, right?
00:35:26
Speaker
So what are those key contacts? I mean, who are those people that you talk to in the business, in the company? No, so yeah, I think I think we have a, it's a fair question what you asked. A lot of people think that the marketing role is limited just to take out the, or communicate what the company has created and do it in the best way possible. You know, it's getting, getting very cool.
00:35:52
Speaker
looking at sports or going for photo shoots, et cetera. Which is there, but it's not the majority part of a marketeer's role, I think. End of the day, an organization exists to fulfill the commitment it has to the board and range from whatever it is, whatever the KPIs organization has overall, it could be from revenue to growth to users to whatever.
00:36:21
Speaker
So I think that understanding every marketer should have very, very clearly firstly. And to have that understanding, if marketing doesn't input into the business or into the product, it's going to be very difficult for a company to grow. So at least at Shimaru, you know, we are marketing is just not a team which goes and communicates. We are essentially a team which is as essential as every business which exists. So so we sit on
00:36:52
Speaker
from say annual operating plans to monthly revenue projections to change in say a product or a content piece, et cetera, from the Genesis itself. So we don't sort of come into play once everything is done. We input from scratch. Yes. Our specialty is as a team to communicate and, you know, to make, get more and more consumers to look at our product or buy our product.
00:37:20
Speaker
which is what we focus on, but we don't just do that only. We take care of a lot of other KPIs along with the businesses because otherwise there'll be two teams working in silos. We would not understand why we're doing it, what sort of investment should we do, what scale are we looking at to operate. So I think understanding of the business is more critical, I would say, for a marketer. Communication, I feel,
00:37:49
Speaker
You have a lot of agencies who can help you and support you with that, actually. As long as you've got your objective right, the agency can come and fine-tune that for you. But that understanding only comes if you understand the business well and have a say in the business. So, okay, tell me, imagine you want to hire a new agency, right? Zoom, Karo, Apco, you want to get your AOR, you just move and find a new AOR.
00:38:15
Speaker
So what are those things that you will tell them before they even come for a pitch? So what would you expect them to read about, know about before the meeting? What is important to you as a marketeer when you start to look for partners? I would love to make a claim that I don't like to get called for pitches. But a lot of times I don't actually call for a pitch. When I want to work with a company or an agency,
00:38:46
Speaker
I think what really, really drives me to work or excites me to work with a partner or agency is their level of excitement about the space the company's operating in. For example, Shimaru operates in the space of, say, Bollywood content or, say, space of syndicating large volume of content, creating regional content. If the partner's sensibility
00:39:15
Speaker
matches that. The agency essentially matches that or is at sometimes even better than what I have or my teams have as a, you know, and in their calibre. That's when the excitement for me kicks in and we start working together.
00:39:33
Speaker
So essentially, let me ask the question in different manner. I mean, probably I didn't get the question across to you well. So if you were to define Shimaru's customer, let's say in STP segmentation, who do you think is an ideal Shimaru customer? Who do you market to? So Shimaru essentially as a brand, we talk to people.
00:40:01
Speaker
Or as a brand, we are unabashedly Indian. We are as Desi as we can be. And we have no, we're not pretending to be something we're not. We are Desi. We love the Bollywood masala sort of flavor content. So as a whole, though the brand, though the company operates in various vertical businesses, which have different set of consumers, overall, as a brand, we appeal to the set of Indian audiences who are looking for that masala experience.
00:40:29
Speaker
So imagine us as an extreme opposite of Netflix is what I would say. Got this. We are talking to the mass, mass, the big India and that 1% India which is watching in English content. Got this. Super. Okay. A couple of tough questions coming your way. So imagine you were told, and you need to now take a different role within the group or whatever.
00:40:53
Speaker
But before you go, you need to hire a placement for you. And this could be a person from your team or this could be an outsider or this could be, you know, some third party altogether. So what kind of skills would you want that person to have? It's a very, very interesting question because, uh, yeah. Uh, okay. I actually do think about it sometimes if you ask me, it's not something which, you know, sort of you,
00:41:20
Speaker
me but I didn't I'm not sort of structured my thoughts so well but let me let me make an attempt to this yes so as a as a leader I I do think of succession planning and you know what kind of person should sort of come up and if if I move to a next role who can sort of fill in and do this very very well something which come top of the mind to me are I think we Shimaru is in a very very different phase altogether you know 57 years but the action we've picked up in the last two and a half years is another level
00:41:51
Speaker
I joined the company and I sort of did the entire rebrand to make the new imagery of the organization and post that we've launched so many consumer facing businesses on the back of new entity, which didn't exist before. So these are uncharted territories for us. And the vision is very, very big and strong. So I think the biggest point I would put here is somebody who takes on the role has to be very, very agile. You have to be nimble.
00:42:20
Speaker
You can't be making plans which are cast in stone. You have to keep the agile model. You have to just keep moving and changing as the environment changes in the organization or the consumers or the product or the business. That's very, very important. Thinking out of the box, second is the most important aspect here because as I mentioned, marketing is also trying to play a role here in the organization.
00:42:50
Speaker
creating certain businesses or helping in fine tuning businesses. So how can we help fine tune a product? How can we help fine tune an offering? And that happens, obviously you have a lot of research which can happen, but you need to think out of the box, you need to think and have the courage to take that step. So that's very, very important. And I think the final thing I would say is somebody should be able to lead great teams because
Shimaru's Rebranding & OTT Launch
00:43:16
Speaker
I think we've built a really, really strong team of marketers at Shimaru. Not that they were not great marketers before they worked with me, but the team which we've put together, which I put together, is extremely, extremely talented and committed and strong. So whoever takes on as a leader next should have the ability to build great teams as well so that this team continues to flourish.
00:43:47
Speaker
Okay, next question, which is again, I believe a lot of people find tough to respond to, is that let's say you're talking to, assume I've done an MBA from a decent B school, I'm five years out of the campus, and I'm struggling at the lower mid management kind of a role. And I'm seeing that, you know,
00:44:07
Speaker
somebody like you who's taken like 13, 14 years to reach the top of the ladder at a fairly largest company, a publicly traded company. What did you do different that you've reached that high? I mean, not everybody from IMI from your batch in the marketing function would be a CMRI. I mean, just look at it from that perspective. So what did you do different that allowed you to reach this far? What did I do different actually? And what can I do? Let's say, for example, if I'm five years experience right now, what can I do?
00:44:36
Speaker
you know become what you are. I think the ability to overcome and have a voice is very very important is what I feel you know and a lot of us I did the mistake as well when I was in my earlier years of my career I would actually you know have a certain thought and not put it out because I would I don't want I don't want to stand out I don't want to be you know cushioned more etc I think somebody who has a courage to
00:45:03
Speaker
put out what they feel and what they think is right for the company or right for what they're doing are some are sort of people I really admire and that's what I started doing much early on when I realized that I wasn't doing that so having an opinion is very very important it may not it may not always be if you don't want the S-man around you at all times is what I'm trying to say so how can you genuinely have an intent to help the company
00:45:32
Speaker
Second is I hear a lot of people talk about something called as work-life balance. You should all do that. Yes, very, very important. But sometimes when you're so passionate about your work, you don't really think that going to work is going to be pain. How am I going to get up and go? And I'm going to do this, do this. I can't do all this. So when you are seamlessly building a boundary about what you love to do, you start performing very, very well. And I think that's a cue which people should look at.
00:46:02
Speaker
early on in the career. When am I feeling that what I'm doing right now is seeming like a job to me? I think it's time to look at some other career. No, that's a nice one. So if you find a sweet spot, just go for it. I fortunately found my calling. You know, I love both media and marketing. And I found my sweet spot and I built on it. I obviously didn't change a lot of things in my career, you know, from the way I would
00:46:30
Speaker
And a lot of it comes through learning as well. I always believe you have to keep continuously learning to be a good leader, to be able to lead very, very strong teams. If you stop learning, then I think that's the day you will stop growing as well. You're saying formal learning, a formalized learning as well, not like just reading papers, you know. Got it. Got this. You have to augment your skills, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:47:00
Speaker
So the next set of question is, you just mentioned briefly that you launched Shimaru all over again, once you came in, like, you know, the new logo, the new branding. Maybe we can spend some time on what was the process like? What was the brief? What was the mandate from your management? How did you go about it? You know, you must have spoken to five or six agencies, they would have come up with these concepts, and then you would have taken one concept and then launched it. Yeah, I have.
00:47:27
Speaker
In my past, before I joined Shimaru, launched shows to films to launch channels in different territories, but never worked on a brand rehaul as such. So for me, it was also very, very interesting and sort of challenging opportunity.
00:47:51
Speaker
I think one thing I have to give to, you know, our Shimaru's CEO and COO, which is, you know, Ann Kranti, I think there is a very, they're very clear about what the company should be. There are no gray areas, you know, in their mind. And when I, obviously, when I met them, I was told about what the role is and what they want to do with the organization, etc., and how they want to build and why am I the right fit. And, you know, I had like series of questions to ask.
00:48:21
Speaker
This is one of my longest interactions for a role I've ever done in my life. But the clarity I got really helped me. What I did immediately after joining Shimaru was to not brief agencies actually. I said, let me just take some time and speak to people who Shimaru matters and what they think about Shimaru. So essentially understanding what your partners are talking about you, what your consumers are talking about you,
00:48:51
Speaker
what your internal employees are talking about you, or think about you. So Shumara is about 800 people, 800, you know, mad people, strong organization. So when we started talking to various set of people, from partners to vendors to consumers to, and within consumers, different segments as well, different regions, different markets. And they see people as you said, right, as they see as you can get. Yeah, but, but yeah, but everybody had a, had a,
00:49:18
Speaker
had a different understanding. It was like the elephant, you know, the elephant with the blind men, where everybody, whatever past they touched, if I would go talk to a telecom operator, they would say, Aya Shimaru is a great VAS player. They won't know much about other things Shimaru does, if you go and talk about it. Consumer who's consuming devotional content, Aya Shimaru makes the best devotional content. It had so many aspects to it, so we put them all together and we started talking to agencies and
00:49:48
Speaker
The first thing we wanted to do at Shimaru was to change the way we appear. We just felt, I think, that was collectively agreed by the management that the logo currently may not be something which is as appealing because it's been 57 years and I got a change. But the more I sort of got deeper in my role within a month, I realized that it's not the logo. I think it's, what do we do with the logo is more important. What do we communicate? And that's when we had our series. Yeah, that's when we had, honest, we had a lot of pictures which were done.
00:50:18
Speaker
We were also working with a very well renowned consulting firm called Ecuador, headed by Rameshu Thomas there. So we call him Arjiti and he was already working with Shimaru as a consultant guiding Shimaru to the journey of changing itself.
00:50:40
Speaker
So we would sort of discuss and dabble what we do, what we do next. So I realize in the course of time that it's not a design challenge what Shimaru is facing right now. I think what we do with aspects in the design is equally more important. And that's when we finally did a series of pictures and we onboarded Ogilvi. Ogilvi wanted to take on the mandate for creating the new identity of Shimaru.
00:51:03
Speaker
Okay. And that process itself is a fairly long process. It'll take me like a long time to go through that. But yeah, that took us that took us a good four month period to sort of create what we look and you know, what is our brand ethos?
Differentiation in OTT Market
00:51:18
Speaker
What is the brand architecture? The company had various, various sub brands, which didn't have any attribution to the overall mother brand. So
00:51:30
Speaker
So while the look was being developed, what did we communicate about the organization, including what are the different sub brands in another company? How can we use the new brand to launch various new businesses? Will the new businesses fit within the brand architecture? A lot of work went on and I must thank our partners at that point of time, which is Ogilvy and our PR agency, which is Avian. We sort of spend a lot of time thinking this through. And obviously I had the support of
00:52:00
Speaker
you know, my bosses to the entire process. So, though it, you know, at some days it would seem like a equivalent task, but I think it all went very smoothly and then we were ready to sort of go out and communicate what we look like and feel like. You know, we ultimately, as I mentioned, you know, when you work with certain experts who know that space very well, like a partner like Ogilvi, you know, kind of assurance you get about what you're doing, right?
00:52:30
Speaker
Uh, you know, makes you sleep in the night as well. So that really helped. Uh, and, uh, and yeah, so then, then the challenge also came as everybody. So tomorrow it's a public listed company, but a lot of, uh, the top management, uh, is with the fam is held by the family as well. And some people are not part of the company as well. So how do you communicate that? This is what you want to change the company to.
00:52:58
Speaker
You know, Shimaru was standing as entertainment in finite before, but now you're going to make Shimaru as India Koshua. That's a tagline. Yeah, I was about to ask you about that. That's a brilliant tagline. Yeah. So how do you go about and do that and the clarity? So I made multiple decks for different stakeholders to make them understand. So every time I would present to a very senior member within the organization,
00:53:21
Speaker
or part of the family, I would actually understand where they're coming from and present the deck in that manner. I would actually rearrange certain content pieces on the floor to give them the bigger picture. But what we're trying to achieve, and that worked really well, I think, the preparation we did to get by. And after the point, everybody was in love with the way the colors of Shimaru logo were coming out because we wanted to be an Indian masala entertainment brand.
00:53:50
Speaker
And we didn't want, we didn't want a logo to, we were sure that if somebody looks at the logo, they should have some reaction. Either you love it, which we hope everybody does, or you have some, Oh, what is this? Like, you know, what's this sort of design?
00:54:07
Speaker
So we wanted to achieve, we want to stand out. We wanted to make a mark. You may love him, you may hate him, but you will not ignore him. So I think that's where it is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would, as a marketer, I can't say that, but yeah, you got it right. So yeah, so that was the journey and it worked brilliantly. And then we had to get ready for launching our OTT platform, Shimaru Meek. And that sort of, you know,
00:54:38
Speaker
was one of the first consumer offerings we took out after the brand was refreshed into the new entity.
00:54:46
Speaker
Got this. Tough question. Again, I do not know if this is relevant or not. Tell me if this is not a relevant question. Even though you've said that you are a mass Indian brand and very different from a Netflix or from a foreign OTT player in India. But actually you are fighting for the same pie, right? I mean, if a consumer has less than 10 bucks to spend on entertainment, they will probably divide it against all the OTT platforms that they have.
00:55:12
Speaker
So in this cluttered world wherein you have so many OTT channels coming up, how do you keep your edge? What is the biggest challenge that you face there? What do you do about it? How do you plan to? So that's one big question I have. So I don't see it that way sort of actually. I don't really see that the pie is limited, especially in OTT. I think the pie is not even like one tenth served right now.
00:55:41
Speaker
It's a huge, huge space and opportunity available for even 50 more brands to come in right now. Okay. But the idea is, what is your brand talking about? So Netflix has identified a certain zone, it wants to talk to people who probably are of a certain affluence, have a certain style, have a certain daily habit, and hence have a need of watching XYZ sort of content. You got this.
00:56:09
Speaker
me operates differently. We are essentially aiming to tap into the larger masses of India who at this point of time are television audiences. They're not OTT audiences. Okay. But we all know and all data and everything predicts that people will start consuming content on digital platforms. On tablets or whatever.
00:56:35
Speaker
It's already happening. Everybody's claiming 300 million daily active users, et cetera, et cetera, numbers. So it's obviously a big number happening. That audience, so we are essentially trying to come into play and we are trying to build a sense of familiarity into the audiences of what they're used to as television viewing. We are making that bridge between television viewing to digital platform. So
00:57:03
Speaker
I would, if you maybe make a spectrum chart, I would place Netflix as the extreme end and as on the other left end. So Netflix, Amazon Prime would all come to sort of right side model where they're talking to a slightly more reformed audience who knows how to operate OTT platforms, who knows how to log in, do this, do that, et cetera. We are essentially the more massive OTT player who's trying to tap into what
00:57:32
Speaker
the television base right now in India, when they move to digital. Similar to what probably YouTube does, if you ask me. Can I say that you're talking to a cousin of mine who lives in a small town in Haryana who's got internet connection, but he doesn't know what to do with it. Are you going to talk to that person?
Post-COVID Opportunities & Personal Insights
00:57:52
Speaker
Yeah. So your cousin in Haryana has a smartphone, has probably dabbled with YouTube, understands WhatsApp, knows
00:58:02
Speaker
you know knows what to do with the phone apart from telephony yeah and clearly has a money right money and the time to invest has the has the intent and wants to watch some sort of familiar content and that's when Bollywood comes into play so we are essentially a Bollywood OTT app
00:58:21
Speaker
Got it. That familiar content is a nice line. I think that's an interesting one. Familiar content is an interesting one. Yeah. Familiarity is what we play with. And so when you put on our OTT, you will see something you'll probably have. Oh, I know this film. Okay. Let me just see it again. But then, oh wow, there's a new film which has come up. So we try to play with that emotion right now. Got this. Yeah.
00:58:42
Speaker
And like other oddity players, do you also get into that entire space wherein you will say that, you know, we will commission these big bucks to create original series for us, which will be super high impact. Do you guys play that game as well? No. No. So at this point of time, we're not playing that game. You know, our strength actually is more around films. So not only Bollywood, we also have a lot of regional films which you focus on. So Gujarati, Marathi.
00:59:10
Speaker
And we probably in the library and the catalog that Shimaru has, right? I mean, instead of you acquiring those, you probably have these in the system already or you still got inspired. Which gives us a big strength. Our existing content bank of more than 4,000 films or 7,000 films actually gives us a good boost. But yeah, we have to acquire a lot of new content. So on ShimaruMe, we run a platform called Bollywood Premier.
00:59:38
Speaker
On every Friday, we premiere a Bollywood film on digital platform. So that film has maybe gone on theater, but has never been played on any digital platform. Amazon, Netflix, Eros, Nowhere. So we put that film for the first time to audiences. And, you know, this could, this could, this may not be your, you know, Salman Khan blockbusters, but these are great films like, say, One Day Justice delivered by Anupam Kher.
01:00:07
Speaker
So we bring films for the first time for audiences as well on an ongoing basis. And that we do across all our languages as well. We offer on OTT. Got this. So the next set of questions is around coronavirus. So tell me, how has life changed since we went into a lockdown almost two months ago? Today, I think it's exact two months since we locked down the entire country. How has life changed for you and for Shimaru as a business?
01:00:37
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, I think there has been a significant impact on how we operate as a business. There are, within the company, we have seen some businesses which have seen a good, probably a good search, which could be around say an OTT part of the business or television as well. There has been a good search. There are other businesses which have also seen not as much
01:01:08
Speaker
opportunities of growth because of the lockdown. And I won't speak for the organization right now. It'll be more my personal views at this stage. I think we know that this is not going to be forever. It's going to change and things are going to be again back on track in some way or the other. So we are still focusing on a bigger picture. We are on a mission to sort of, as I mentioned, which we started about two and a half years ago,
01:01:36
Speaker
to grow rapidly and to grow in a big way. I think that's not changing for us. While we take a small pause right now, while we sort of realign some of our objectives, et cetera, that's something that you're focusing on. And from a marketing point of view, if you ask me specifically, I think what my challenge right now is to, see, we just, we about,
01:02:00
Speaker
It's not too long ago that we started introducing consumer facing businesses. So we did some understanding of what consumers think, feel, their attribution, et cetera. But that's going to change a lot now post the opening up. I think that's what I'm focusing on right now is to what are the new consumer segments which emerge? How do we sort of play a part in their lives now post this? What are the new audience cohorts we have to
01:02:29
Speaker
you know, put in my OTT, you know, MIS systems. Essentially, the idea is that, you know, the hopes and aspirations of how consumers have changed, of all of us have changed, actually, you know, going through a big, big phase. And that reflection of what it is, is what I'm trying to sort of build right now. You got this right.
01:02:56
Speaker
You've been, obviously you've been a curious marketer, you've understood consumers and you've been on startup sites as well. If I told you that Rahul, you have to quit Shimaru in the next two months and start a new business, what would you do? What kind of opportunities do you see getting created as part of this COVID crisis from us? Oh, okay. Like that.
01:03:24
Speaker
I like to ask tough questions. I mean, I don't want to ask you about things that you've rattled off, you know, answers to already in various forums. So I just want to know you as an individual. So, so what do you think is a great opportunity? Like I talked to a different marketeer. He said, he said that, you know, what he do is he will open a kitchen that will deliver super hygienic food to people around his locality. He doesn't want to do a scaly, masi, pan-india business. He's saying,
01:03:51
Speaker
We already do that by the way. We run a brand called Mukha in Shimaru. It's in a POC stage right now. It's actually Bollywood style food. It's a cloud kitchen concept. We already do that. Is it already presented in office? Yeah, so it's available right now in delivery for parts of Bandra, Santa Cruz and Andheri. Yeah, it's called Mukha by Shimaru.
01:04:19
Speaker
And you'll have some very interesting menu when you go into that and find things. I love the name. I know Buka is a great team too. How do you call it the name? Yeah, again, we're working with some really good, cool minds at the agency front. But the idea was to be distinctive and have to have a Bollywood appeal in the name. Yeah, it is. So we don't want to call it Bollywood cafe. That's too boring.
01:04:45
Speaker
That's when Mukha came away. So what would I do if you ask me as a business, what would I launch? And this could be non-tomorrow also, right? I'm thinking, I'm actually thinking, what do I like doing? And what's my sort of space I really, I would actually probably look at entering the hospitality business right now.
01:05:08
Speaker
which is where I did start my career from. I think that's changed. That's not going to be the same anymore, of course. I think that's the most affected industry, I would say. And I think the current setup of hospitality industry doesn't cater to the revised mindsets people have. All the way things have to operate. So my bet would be to enter into hotel business and create
01:05:37
Speaker
create business hotels across major metros in the country, which essentially take care of all the requirements we have post-coronavirus, not only from a regulatory point of view, but from what the consumer is looking from point of view. What is happening is we all are putting these various levels of things to be done, to-dos at every step, like social distancing, sanitize your hair, et cetera.
01:06:07
Speaker
What is the consumer thinking
Marketing Challenges in Rural Areas
01:06:08
Speaker
from hospitality right now is very important to think of. What can I offer him differently when he enters my hotel? As compared to other hotels who are just following guidelines right now to run room business. That's the space I would look at. I don't know if it's, I've not really thought this too well, but maybe if I do, I'll first bounce it off with you if I look at the business. I just hope that you, if you do take it, I hope, you know, your team does not come back to me and tell me,
01:06:36
Speaker
I don't want to be that person. Yeah, that's true. So obviously, as a marketer, you must be reading a lot, consuming a lot, talking to other seniors, you know, other colleagues in industry. So tell me some interesting, branded, initiative or marketing message that you've seen in the current times that you really like for Corona virus or, you know, spreading hope or something. Oh, okay. Yeah, there are actually quite some really good work happening right now, if you ask me.
01:07:07
Speaker
Okay. By the way, sort of, have you seen our really cool email signatures? We've created this set of email signatures, which are called if email signatures were honest. And it will say, I sent this email while.
01:07:21
Speaker
I sent this email while watching the end credits of the binge show I was watching or watching Ramayan. I was between the set of push-ups. They're really cool. I'll send it to you. Have a look. I think one time it's done it well for me, I would say. I think what they've done well is they've not stopped advertising. They are one of the biggest spenders right now in the advertising pie.
01:07:52
Speaker
Even during the lockdown and I love the idea of bringing back the retro ads with the Ramayana and the Mahabharats. I think that killed it for me. I think when they started bringing back some of their old ads which they had played with the right topical programming which the ads were showing. I think that was beautiful. It sort of
01:08:16
Speaker
It's not the most obvious thing a marketeer would actually bring in. They connect when the audience they brought to the ads were beautiful. And I think that's something which the brand will sort of keep enjoying for a long period of time. What brand is this? Amul. Amul. Amul. Oh, I missed the... Sorry, yeah, yeah. So I don't know if you've been watching any television, but Amul is one of... Yeah, Amul continues to be advertising on... Amul did a lot of spends during the Ramayana peak which Doodhushin saw.
01:08:46
Speaker
And they also bought back some of their old nostalgic ads which were made 20-30 years back. When we were kids, these ads were playing. Yeah, when we were kids, these ads were playing.
01:09:02
Speaker
So he also mentioned that he's super inspired by Amul's story, communication. I don't know if it's something about OTT people and Amul. I don't know what the connection is. But he was the other person who mentioned a lot about Amul and what they do as a company. Oh, OK. I think probably because maybe both Eros and Shimaru were sort of very Indian brands. I think a lot of our thoughts go to Indian brands immediately. But yeah.
01:09:30
Speaker
So anyway, Amul is one. What other brands do you think are interesting in these times? What are the brands? I think what else? In the competitive landscape, in the media industry overall, something which I really liked was a brand film which Sony put together. It took all the big actors like Amitav Bachchan to
01:09:56
Speaker
you know, the South and stars, et cetera, and put together a beautiful concept piece. And they did it in such timely fashion and with clear communication that I think that sort of really, really felt an impact to me. Again, a beautiful initiative. You know, at times during this, most organizations or marketeers will be like, oh, what can I do now? I can't do much. But brands who take
01:10:30
Speaker
Okay, last set of questions, sir. First and foremost, as a marketeer who's pretty young. Sir, because are there any gadgets that you recommend to aspiring marketeers? What gadgets do you use? What apps do you use on those gadgets? What is your technology use like? Because going forward, digital will become an important tool and you have to be here to do it. Yes, yes. So are there any other gadgets and some apps that you dig on? Yeah, so I, you know, it's
01:10:50
Speaker
Don't stop. I really would appreciate it. I think you've got to continue.
01:11:00
Speaker
I don't do it because I want to tap into that consumer mindset, but I have an inherent liking for some gadgets. One is my PlayStation. I like gaming. Though I have kids now who are old enough to be gaming, but I still like my PlayStation as a console. That's my gadget. On the gadget front, apart from that, I actually like my
01:11:29
Speaker
my Bose, my Alexa Bose speaker, where I get my updates from in the morning, et cetera. And it's so super, super efficient. I love that part of it. So those are the two gadgets I love. I think my Bose and my PlayStation. Of course, you know, followed by my Mac, I would say. In terms of apps, which I use,
01:11:57
Speaker
I use a lot of LinkedIn these days. I think I get a lot of information from LinkedIn. In terms of productivity apps, actually I don't use a lot. I used to use some of them previously, but I've discontinued using productivity apps right now. I actually like to define my own style of productivity, which I've sort of developed over the years and I do that myself now. That's not happening. A lot of banking is what I do.
01:12:27
Speaker
in terms of apps online. And of course, some of the really cool OTT consumption, et cetera, which happened. And followed by some dabbling in some apps like Headspace, Gulfit, et cetera, to get some fitness and mental health here. So last two questions. Tell me if I told you that Rahul, you have to throw a marketing challenge to my listeners. And these typically are people who are in their schools.
01:12:56
Speaker
or they are about four to five years of experience in the marketing front. Can you throw a marketing challenge at them, like a problem that is worth solving, something that is worth listening, thinking about? Yeah, I think it's a good challenging time for us to come up with these solutions. I don't know what my question would be if we were not in this situation right now, to be honest.
01:13:24
Speaker
Yeah, but actually, because of the lockdown and the... There are a lot of short term to medium to long term challenges we all have to think as marketeers. One of the things I am personally dabbling with at this stage is... As far as what I told you, we launched... We just launched the Hindi General Entertainment channel, like a full-fledged entertainment channel, which has soaps and everything else. We launched it in the lockdown on 1st of May.
01:13:53
Speaker
One of the biggest challenges I'm facing right now is how do you make consumers aware of your channel? And how our channel is positioned, we are a free-to-wear channel. So we expect a lot of consumption to happen from tier three, tier four, or rural households. In the absence of, so I'm taking out, so my challenge to everybody who's listening to this is take out
01:14:22
Speaker
advertising opportunities of television, radio and mobile. Leave those three aside. How else can I reach out to these consumers who are sitting probably in a rural town in the Hindi market, HSM market as we call it in the media thing.
Final Thoughts & Motivation for Marketers
01:14:42
Speaker
How do we communicate with them? Because previously we had opportunities of going and doing certain events, certain road shows you could actually do
01:14:52
Speaker
You know, be part of some of the bigger forums being done in this rural or tier four towns, etc. and show your brand to people. Correct. And it was impactful. It was very impactful. Now you don't have that opportunity. All those things are gone right now for a visible future.
01:15:11
Speaker
And you would also do your own promotion through starting from counter activities to branding, brand activations, etc. That's not going to happen. And also the print options have reduced over in this situation. I hope things come back to normal. So you can't really go out and advertise on some of the newspapers which had that deep breach there. So I think the challenge is how do you
01:15:40
Speaker
And for me, a lot of experience, a love for a brand comes when you actually see the brand as well in front of you. Do something with the brand. So historically, a lot of the channels, what they do, they'll take a celebrity from the show, you know, do like a roadshow across key markets and UP, Bihar, MP, bring the fans closer to that celebrity or the channel and then bring affinity and be a ship over a long-term period. But that's not there. So what do you do?
01:16:09
Speaker
as a marketeer. What are the options you can think of is what I'm dabbling with right now. And of course, it has to be cost effective. I can't take like technology of, you know, I can't take 5D technology into these hugely spread out rural markets or TFO markets and set it up there because that's not going to be possible also. That's anyways been the biggest challenge for people marketing, right? I mean, in these markets, because these are so, so far and so spread across that whatever you do,
01:16:38
Speaker
think about those things as well, because that becomes really difficult. That's true. And I'm sure all of us know that less than 40% of the entire consumption of goods and services products happen naturally in the bigger cities. Most of it happens in these smaller markets, which exist. And brands have to reach out to those set of
01:17:06
Speaker
you know, population and customers and how will they do it now? One channel was the experience marketing, the road shows, et cetera, which is now gone. So what are the other alternates which will emerge?
01:17:20
Speaker
Because it's super. And so yeah, I think done with most of the questions, I have one question that I am curious about learning, learning. So tell me some unconventional ways in which you get inspired about marketing. Like I was talking to somebody, I was talking to the head of marketing at Burger King. So that gentleman said that, you know,
01:17:39
Speaker
who understand how these villains and heroes in those movies communicate their messages and wants to their teams and their people. So what are some unconventional ways in which you learn about marketing? So a lot of my inspiration of how I feel ideas and thoughts come to me, I actually, I've probably never expressed it before, but I look at a lot of the social fabric.
01:18:09
Speaker
in where people operate and behave. And for me, social fabric essentially comes from, sorry, social fabric filter I look at, let me put it that way, is religion. And within religion, what sort of affinity you have towards either Almighty or God, that sort of changes a lot of things the way you operate and behave and do.
01:18:37
Speaker
And the second part is the kind of content you consume. So films is obviously one part of it and it's been proven. Actually, films have been proven to be a big influencer in how the society talks, behaves, etc. That's what reflects. That's what reflects in your films also. And their films also guide the way people behave and do things. So I actually look at a lot of content pieces beyond films. I get a lot of inspiration from news sometimes, if you ask me.
01:19:04
Speaker
And I think why is the presenter putting this news out? You know, what is it that people want to know about this news? And that's when a lot of ideas come to me that yeah, these are could be possible audience segments he's trying to tap into, etc, etc. So yeah, so religion and content is what I use as a filter, which I observe most and do it in a very scientific way, if you ask more of observation.
01:19:30
Speaker
because it's super. So yeah, I think this is it. I mean, I would love to chat with you more. I think there's another podcast that we have, wherein we talk to like people for like three hours. I think you'll make a good guess there. I do not know when and how that opportunity comes in, but let's see when that happens. But yeah, this was great fun. Thank you so much for your time. Do you want to like say, bye everybody, have a great day. It's kind of an ending and I think. Yeah, I think, uh, I think thank you sort of for having me on this podcast. Um, as I,
01:20:00
Speaker
my confession is to you was that this is my first podcast actually. I've never done a podcast before. I did have a lot of fun and I'm really, really now thinking what the listener who's gonna be you now is thinking of some of the points that put across and I hope I've really been able to add some value if not a lot to your professional and your personal lives.
01:20:29
Speaker
I think thanks for that. Just the closing comment from my end is, I think as I mentioned earlier as well, everybody has equal potential. And we all just have to find the sweet spot between finding what we like to do and doing that. It doesn't come easy to everybody and sometimes it takes much longer than what we anticipate. But I think the quest should continue and the day we find it,
01:21:00
Speaker
We will all sort of love what we're doing. And I hope to see more and more people doing such roles in their lives. That's from me. And thank you so much for putting together this great platform. While I've expressed to you and spoken to you, I've learned a lot of things as well myself. So that's something that I would really thank you for. Makes it worth the effort, right? Thank you so much for this. It does. It totally does.
01:21:27
Speaker
So that was Rahul Mishra from Shimaru Entertainment. Hope you had a blast while listening to the conversation. Please do write in to us and tell us what can we do next on the Marketing Connect Podcast. After all, we are a show for Marketeers by Marketeers. 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 podium.