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Ep 12. Vivek Sharma, Pidilite
159 Plays2 years ago
In the first season's finale, we speak with one of the most accomplished marketers in the country - Vivek Sharma of Pidilite.
Vivek talks to us about his career spanning more than 30 years and his experience at both the agency and the client-side!
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Transcript
Introduction to 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, 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.
Featuring Vivek Sharma, CMO of Pidilite
00:00:30
Speaker
On this episode of Marketing Connect, we have with us Vivek Sharma of Pedialyte. Vivek is easily amongst the most accomplished marketeers in the country today with over 30 years of experience, both on the client side and on the agency side. This was amongst the best conversations I've had on marketing. I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Vivek's Career Journey and Roles
00:00:49
Speaker
I'm Vivek Sharma. I'm the chief marketing officer for Pedialyte Industries and
00:00:55
Speaker
In my career, I have worked with Cadburys, I have worked with Ogilvie, I have worked with Oneida, and I have worked with Philips. And now I have been with Pidlight Industries for the last five years. And Pidlight is a billion dollar company in adhesives, construction chemicals, sealants, art and craft materials, and pigments. It's really fun to work at Pidlight on all these iconic brands and take their legacy and history forward.
00:01:25
Speaker
Thank you, Vik. Welcome to the Marketing Connect Podcast. I mean, I'm thrilled to have you here. I'm also happy to be here. It's very nice to informally chat and share your learnings at my stage of careers. I'm very keen that I share my thinking and my experience with more people and people who are coming into marketing a sales career and business careers now, and they can gain something out of my experience.
Education and Early Career Insights
00:01:52
Speaker
Amazing, Vik.
00:01:53
Speaker
So let me take you back to the very beginning, right? Tell me, which college did you pass out from, where did you pass out from, and take you from there on. Saurabh, it'll surprise you and everybody who is listening to this that actually I'm a mining engineer. I passed out from India School of Mines, which is now IIT, Dhanbhaad. And I'm a B.Tech in mining.
00:02:21
Speaker
My basic training has been to dig out all the valuable materials from below the earth like coal, gold, petroleum. And now I'm busy digging for insights, product ideas and marketing ideas. So that has been my basic education actually. Nice. So did you actually work in the mines?
00:02:43
Speaker
Yes, of course, as a part of our engineering, we were supposed to do work experience in mines after every year for two months. So, cumulatively, I have worked for six months in three mines. I have worked in coal mines. I have worked in gold mines, which are now shut in near Kolar. And at the time when I worked sort of, they were the fourth deepest mine in the world.
00:03:09
Speaker
And I have been up to a vertical depth of 2.35 kilometers below the earth. For three days, I went there. And then I worked in most advanced mines near Asan Seoul, coal mines, which are fully automated. Even at that time in the early 90s, they were automated.
Lessons from IIM Bangalore
00:03:32
Speaker
So basically, I'm an engineer, and I have been trained to look at problems, logically solve problems.
00:03:39
Speaker
And that has been the basic training. And as you talk, you will see, I will talk about the fact that how this logical brain has to be shaped to become a better model. From ISM, I went straight without any work experience, unfortunately, to IAM Bangalore. And yeah, IAM Bangalore. And from there, I went to join Cadbury's. It was a campus place.
00:04:06
Speaker
So Kelly, if I were to ask you to summarize your experience at IM Bangalore in three bullet points or key learnings, what would those be? See, when I was in engineering, I used to think, oh, I'm great. I'm in engineering, and I was on top of my batch. I'm in the top percentile, top 10%. But reaching IM, it teaches you to be humble, and you realize that you are among best of the best.
00:04:36
Speaker
So you have to raise your game in terms of whatever you do. It's not just studies and GPAs, it's your co-curricular activities, what you do, how you think, how you conduct yourself. There is so much to learn from your peers and my classmates and I realize from being tallest among the foothills, I was among the Himalayas.
00:04:56
Speaker
And I had to raise my game and I had to become better. And I really enjoyed doing that. And I still talk to those bad mitts of mine now. And we all laugh. But I think one thing which I am does and did to me was to put me in company of great minds and great talented people. And it helped me become better. It helped me open my minds to multiple things because some had talent in writing. Some had talent in sports. Some had talent in realizability.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, I should also have talents other than just studying. No, and I think second thing which I am teaches you, of course, is actually disciplines you and it trains you to work very hard. You know how I am sorry. We used to think we work very hard in engineering, but the pace really amazes you because what you learn in engineering in three months semester, they finish it off in two weeks and then
Path to Becoming a Top Marketeer
00:05:55
Speaker
you move on to next thing.
00:05:56
Speaker
Really, really. And so that is something which which which I am does, of course, I can talk about studies, it is a multidisciplinary game and it teaches you. But you also start realizing a bit about social skills and how you need to become better at social skills. If you are to succeed in life, some early germinations of those relations for me happened there.
00:06:23
Speaker
Of course, later, life teaches you far more about social skills, emotional skills, all those things. But the first realization that there is a thing beyond CGP and IQ happened in IAM to me. So I'm going to ask a tough question. And I would love an honest answer. When you went to Bangalore, let's say your batch was, say, 120 people. How big was the batch? 120. You're right.
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, so out of the batch of 120 people, I'm just taking a wild guess that, you know, not more than, say, 20 to 30 percent of people would have reached, say, a head of marketing, CMO, sort of a level or a goal. So if I were to ask you to reflect that, you know,
00:07:14
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? You could obviously be extremely lucky and be at the right place at the right time, but was there a method to your journey that allowed you to reach the top of the business? It's difficult to compare yourself to others and talk, but I can say a couple of things. See, to reach the top of marketing game and business game,
00:07:41
Speaker
First of all, you have to really love marketing. You don't have to look at marketing as a stepping stone to become an MD or a CEO. Only if you really love what you're doing, whether it's working with dealers, working with wholesalers, working with distributors, working with consumers, advertising agencies, peer agencies. If the work is not just a means to be somewhere, then I think you will do it better.
Advice for Early Career Professionals
00:08:06
Speaker
Second thing is to
00:08:08
Speaker
early in your career gain varied experiences. I would say don't keep on doing the same thing and same industry and the same segments for a long time. You have to change. Because if you don't collect eclectic range of experiences around sales and marketing, your mind will not open up and you will not become a true marketeer. You will become an expert in that industry.
00:08:36
Speaker
Very naturally, you can become narrow in thinking. And third thing is, I think you have to be really a good marketer. You have to be naturally curious. You have to be curious about why and what. And last but not the least, it's kind of a hygiene condition, but I would advise all youngsters early in their careers
00:09:00
Speaker
to do field and sales so that they know the meetingities of the ground realities. And that's an experience they must put under the belt as early as possible in their careers. That brings me to the most often asked questions at the campus. How do I get to brand and marketing and fancy things right after my MBA? So I think that answers that question for a lot of people.
00:09:29
Speaker
I must say I've also been asked that question so often when I go for placement in campuses or when I'm interviewing youngsters. And this is, shall I do marketing first? Shall I do sales first? I have a simple answer. I said, you could end up doing whichever first, but make sure in the first eight years you do both. Eight to 10 years. And the simple answer is if you get a chance to do sales first, grab the
Learning and Experiences at Cadbury's
00:09:57
Speaker
opportunity. Don't say no.
00:09:59
Speaker
go to the remotest of places and work your way up from the ground level and dirty your hands. Got this. So, you went to cadres on campus. So, what was your first stint at a corporate like? What role did you play? What was your boss like? How did you learn there? And so on and so forth.
00:10:24
Speaker
See, in Cadbury's, my first six months was in corporate headquarters. Now that building is gone, it was called Cadbury House. You know, I have such emotional attachment to that. Vula by the side road and then Bombay and now it's gone. The building has been raised down. No, we all have such high emotional attachment to the building. That building, I think, was a piece of history for Cadbury Fry and then Cadbury India in India.
00:10:52
Speaker
And once upon a time in 60s and 50s, there was a factory there in the basement. So I don't think they should have sold it. Yes, they should have sold it. But, you know, the world moves like that. So coming back, Aapka I experienced, so you joined Cadbury's at Cadbury House? Yeah, so my first six months were in corporate headquarters, which was Cadbury House. And I worked on various assignments.
00:11:24
Speaker
And that time Nestle was about to enter. So I was imagining Trini was fortunate enough to work with Vinita Bali, who was the VP marketing. It was my total of that on that project. I was supposed to report to her and give her direct feedback. I was supposed to gather information about Nestle strategies and then advice. That was a really high learning experience and very interesting. And as a part of that,
00:11:48
Speaker
I'll tell you, interestingly, so we found that in Silibudi there, the largest distributor there who is also Nestle distributor, he has some information. So I traveled all the way to Silibudi, spent a night there, spoke to the guy and came back with information. So it was my high learning was in the for those six months was to get guided by somebody as a senior and experienced an iconic marketeer as Vinita Bali.
00:12:18
Speaker
Then I moved to Ahmedabad in my sales tent, where I worked as a salesman in old Ahmedabad city and later worked in upcountry Gujarat for quite some time. So what triggered you to move on from Cadbury's to the next role? And what was the next role? See, Cadbury's, I must say, I worked for almost a decade. And I worked on various brands.
00:12:47
Speaker
I worked on looking at the technical names. I worked on dairy milk. I worked on five star eclairs, every brand born with.
Pioneering Product Launches
00:12:55
Speaker
I was very fortunate in Cadbury's to work directly with marketeers like Vinita Bali and Rajiv Bakshi, from whom I learned my fundamentals in marketing and sales. They had a program in those days called accelerated development program where they used to take top 10 to 12 youngsters from all over the world, only 10 to 12. And these two
00:13:18
Speaker
post them in more, I would say, developed markets and give them a role which is a little tougher and let them learn. So I went on that street to London and I worked in the group headquarters for a couple of years. I came back, I continued to work on drinks category, cocoa and monvita, then I worked on halls,
00:13:43
Speaker
chiclets, chlorides for quite some time. And that was a high learning experience. At that time, the business was a club tundra head called Warner Lambert. And Hoss was a fantastic experience for me. And I remember launching Hoss Ginger. And that was my high learning experience because Hoss, you know, is a mint lozenge. And so white used to sell a lot all over India, more in South and orange used to sell
00:14:13
Speaker
More in north. And there was a honey lemon. And I said, let's launch another version for India. I am a foodie, and I am particularly like Ginger. So I said, let's launch a Ginger variant. Ginger is also good for throat. And I worked with R&D to develop the product. And India was the first country across the globe to launch Haul's Ginger. We launched it. It was a runaway success.
00:14:44
Speaker
And so my learning there were two, but the problem was, and for all marketeers, while we developed the Rolls Royce of a product, it was expensive and the profit marches were not very good. Then I spent the next six to nine months in the first year
Finding Unique Consumer Insights
00:14:58
Speaker
of the product journey to bring the cost down on the flavors, et cetera, and also make it profitable. But the key here is that always go for local taste and local insights and you'll find success. And we should not go to obvious things because I remember we were
00:15:16
Speaker
developing communication which is TV ad for this all ginger and the most obvious solution coming to search was good for throat and I said good for throat for ginger research is also telling us that good for throat is known and believed by all Indians so why should I talk about that in advertising and waste my air time but people also believe that ginger is very bitter and you know harsh on throat
00:15:39
Speaker
And it will not taste good. So I said, we will talk about taste of hauls ginger in the ad. And goodness of ginger will be taken for granted. So our ad is all about hauls ginger, which is tasty. And then he said, good for throat. And that worked. That worked. So you have to have to go into this
00:16:02
Speaker
under the what is obvious observation and dig deeper for insights and then how develop your product preparation and communication proposition. Got this. So this, I'm dying to ask the question and this was probably amongst the last questions that I had planned for, but let me ask it here. So what is, you mentioned that you get into the shoes of the customer and get insights and then create communication.
00:16:27
Speaker
So what is your, your way of finding new insights? I mean, let's say you want to launch a new product and you want to understand deep insights of the consumer. So how do you go about that? And don't tell me research. So how do you do it? No, no. So I'll give both answers so they will like it or not. So the most
00:16:48
Speaker
I had a million dollar question. We had an answer to this. It's like you asking me, how do I make a runaway successful commercial, runaway success feature film? A similar question is that how do I get insight? So the most obvious answers are for some of the students who are listening in that, of course, you can get insights by meeting consumers, by meeting shopkeepers, by observing them in their homes or talking to them.
00:17:18
Speaker
You can go to sites, you can do research, very obvious. You can go to panels of consumer, panels of carpenters, panels of architects. And you can also visit advanced markets like Southeast Asia or US Europe to learn what is happening there. But real insight, what is an insight? Insight is something that is not obvious. That brings a unique difference to your business or a brand proposition.
00:17:47
Speaker
And that is what is obvious will not come from going through all these usual touch points of collecting observations. It is by connecting the dots. Okay. Now there are two things here. It works at two levels. First of all, when we collect observations, when we visit consumers, shop markets, et cetera, you have to be curious and you have to ask, I always tell my people who work with me ask why, why, why, why five times.
00:18:15
Speaker
of everything and keep on going deeper and deeper until you get something, okay? That way you will observe things more than others. And it's not an easy task. Out of 10 observations, only one or two will be unique to you. And collect such unique observations from very touch point. One observation may come from a shopkeeper who has told you something or not. Something may come from a contractor in South. One observation may come from consumer. One observation may come from what's happening in Thailand. One observation may come from a panel.
00:18:46
Speaker
And sometimes when it will hit you and as you either go through a workshop or sitting in your room, you'll connect the dots and you'll find that actually two and two makes 20. It doesn't make four. And that is an insight. That's an insight.
00:19:03
Speaker
Got it. So can I just try to, I mean, I'm trying to learn right with you as well, even though I've spent enough time in the world per se. So are you trying to say that, are you trying to say that, that you gather all data points, all inputs, all stimuli from wherever you can, and then let them simmer in your head, you know, at the back of your head, and then suddenly, this light bulb will pop and say,
00:19:30
Speaker
But the tenet remains that you have to be curious to be able to just pick those insights by asking those five buys and so on and so forth. Is that what you are implying? You're spot on. So yes, you have to simmer these things in your head and let your brain come up with the connects. There's also other way to do it, which is be humble enough to call people of different backgrounds, sit in a room, share all the insights with them. For example,
00:19:56
Speaker
call for a special with R&D or non-marketing people and let them look at this and comment. So they may have come up with the connection which you will not come up with because you are trained and wired to think in certain way and they are trained and wired to think in a different way.
00:20:12
Speaker
And this connects. So one is to sit with people and to naturally let them connect in a way different than yours. Second is to keep on simulating it in your head. It will only simmer in your head if you love what you're doing and don't think it's a job, you know, and good ideas, good product ideas. What happens to you? I get most of my ideas in the morning when I'm between getting up and getting ready, you know, in shower or somewhere else. And then suddenly,
A Day in the Life of a CMO
00:20:43
Speaker
I say, we can do this, we can do that. And why did this happen? And that forms at least 20, 25% of my day. And then I do that. You touched upon the fact that the best ideas to you seem to come from between the time when you wake up till the time you actually go to office. Brings me to my next question. What is a typical day of a CMO of, say, a billion dollar company like yours?
00:21:09
Speaker
Of course, ideas keep coming to me all the day, but I think the new things most often come in the morning. It's very difficult to say what a typical day is, but I would say on average, head of marketing of any large company would go and spend at least a quarter of the day in reviews. It could be sales reviews, it could be advertising reviews, it could be agency reviews, it could be new product reviews with various groups.
00:21:38
Speaker
and analysis etc post evaluations. The other quarter of the day actually go to external meetings with external partners vendors where you're looking at new ideas evaluating new ideas and because I really believe that instead of only getting bogged down in what you do in your company and your own people
00:22:02
Speaker
one must always keep certain part of the client open to meeting external people. They may or may not be of immediate value, may or may not be of immediate application to you, but you never know what can come out of hearing. And I have often found very useful things like this. And I think the other last 45% part with me goes in spending time with my people, because I really believe that
00:22:31
Speaker
ahead of the marketing has to spend time with their own people. Own people means not only the people in your department, but I walk across to my sales colleagues, my business colleagues, my R&D colleagues. And I make sure that at least twice a day I'm walking in those people, informally chatting with people. And a lot of problems surface there, a lot of solutions surface there.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I find that doing by walking, I find very useful. So at least I spend 20% of my day just walking around meeting people, chatting. OK. So Vivek, Cadbury, what next
Experience at Ogilvy and Creative Processes
00:23:10
Speaker
happened? Like, where do you go from Cadbury's? See, Cadbury's, I joined Ogilvi Advertising. And I worked there for five years, where I was head of businesses in Bombay. And then for the last three years, I was heading the Unilever business, Hindustan Unilever business for Ogilvi.
00:23:27
Speaker
across Bombay and Bangalore, across all their functions and divisions, businesses like rural, outdoor, advertising. And that was a period of high learning in Ogilvie because as I mentioned the morning in the first 10 years of my career, I was in contextually industry, foods industry and snacking industry. So my mind used to
00:23:54
Speaker
like that and typical FMCG. In Ogilvy, I began to work on businesses which were banking, which were hygiene, which were personal care, which were fabric wash, which were paints, patient paints and multiple kinds of new consumers, new industries. And that opened my mind and that made me a broad based marketeer, a broad with a broad based thinking about who would stress the thinking beyond one industry to multiple industries.
00:24:22
Speaker
And Ogilvie actually helped me strengthen the fundamentals of my marketing discipline by being able to think and apply the concepts across various industries. And of course, I must say it was very interesting to work in Ogilvie because in the morning you're working on soap or dove, in the afternoon you're working on a tea, and in the evening you're working on paints. And each were equally interesting. That kept my interest alive.
00:24:47
Speaker
and you know you really also get in touch with the creative people in the creative process whether it is creative people who are writing your ads studio people who are drawing good things or producers and song people and music people so to really understand the creative process and was the biggest learning for me in Ogilvish and I think that a market marketer must
00:25:11
Speaker
spend at least a couple of years either directly or indirectly in an agency to learn the creative processes because that will not only make them better marketeers, that will also make them more holistic people by making them understand art and the software processes better.
00:25:29
Speaker
Mm hmm. So what would what I mean, my biggest takeaway from this is now imagine you getting to interact with all the amazing people at those places. So I think the amount of learning that you will have will get compounded drastically. I mean, you know, compared to if you work only on one company, right? Absolutely. Because as I said, you grow when you actually work with people who are better than you, who are different than you.
00:25:56
Speaker
And across Hindustan Unilever, Asian Pains, Adveries, ICICI, I worked the best of the best. And that really, really, yes, made me learn far more. And they helped me learn that we were able to contribute. It's a fantastic marketing and business minds I have worked in those days.
00:26:18
Speaker
Got this. So next question we make has two parts to
Importance of Advertising Agency Experience
00:26:22
Speaker
it. I mean, the question is the same, but I will have two thesis to build that question. So one in one of the recent interviews, you had mentioned that you advise everybody to work in advertising agency for some point in time in their career.
00:26:34
Speaker
the way you told us sales. So that is one thing that I read about you. And second is that a lot of people, especially with 4 to 5 years of experience on the client side, the parlance that we have, are reluctant to join the agency side because they feel that they will get stuck in the agency. And you are clearly one of those people who's been on both client and the agency side for substantial amounts of period, and you've been able to easily move. So what is your take on this entire client side and agency side piece in terms of career?
00:27:05
Speaker
So let me address the first part. Why speak of marketeers should have the need to work in advertising agencies for a couple of years. I say that because marketeers at the end of the day want to build successful businesses and successful brands. Successful brands are made in the minds of consumers.
00:27:30
Speaker
Okay. Not in the physical market. It's in the premium for the brand and the loyalty for the brand is in minds of consumer. You reach the minds of consumer through various touch point, which is product packaging, but very important communication. Right. Many marketers have seen are good at product packaging, the logical part, but they're not good at creating communication always because
00:27:56
Speaker
they don't have full understanding of the nuances of actually how a consumer mind works and what are the leaps you need to take. The leap between a physical product and a brand is the creative part of communication. And that creative part, how to translate a marketing brief into a good communication brief into a good piece of communication, you can only become good at if you work for some years on the other side in the trenches, getting advertising on the road.
00:28:27
Speaker
Second part is, you know, advertising agencies work with people's businesses. There's no factory, there's no product. So you really learn people management far more in advertising agencies than marketing companies. And that makes you a better professional. To your question about the concern which some marketers have about getting stuck in advertising agencies, I acknowledge that concern and that's the real concern. There are two
00:28:55
Speaker
suggestions I have in which people can handle it. A, join agencies not when you are very young, but when you are middle or senior. Because then you have more experience behind you in marketing that can help you jump over again to jump over back to marketing again.
Leadership and Brand Growth at Oneida
00:29:17
Speaker
Second is you can take help of your senior marketeers in the company or you can take help of your MD and CEOs and ask them to send you on a settlement to an residency for one and a half year or two years. Where you work in an residency, learn on the company behalf, but also have the safety line tied back to your marketing career, which you can pull back and come back to marketing.
00:29:45
Speaker
A week or a month stint will not do. You have to be there for a couple of years, one or two years, where you have the responsibility for clients, only then you will learn what it needs. Also, a lot of marketers think that advertising is a level below marketing, so one should not go there stepping down, etc. I don't think it only reflects upon what people think.
00:30:10
Speaker
If you are secure enough in your mind, you will never think like that. And you will have confidence in yourself to jump back to marketing. So I really have developed after working. It will be a very high level of respect for advertising professionals because it creates so many good ideas, so many fantastic piece of work, which works for brands and businesses for years. And we must respect that.
00:30:34
Speaker
You got this. So after your lecture, after you spent five years with Oglibi, then you moved on to the next role. What was the role and what did you do there? It's very simple. So I moved back to Oneida as VP sales marketing and service. And it was a tough industry.
00:30:56
Speaker
Um, but I think after five years, I thought I had learned enough. Um, so I moved back to my first love marketing and sales management. So I was heading all three functions, sales, marketing and service. And I did, uh, did a three year stint with one of the, uh, although it was the largest brand at that point in time. Uh, and we were up against Sony and Samsung. Uh, I am very proud to say we grew business very high rate and we were able to retain the market share.
00:31:24
Speaker
And some fantastic learnings because Durables is one of the toughest industries. It teaches you the intricacies of the B&L management of operations. As you know, the technology is very high end in Durables and you have to be on your feet. The pace of the industry is very fast. It teaches you agility, which is very much required when you become a senior marketer.
00:31:51
Speaker
So, bring me to another point. I don't know again if you were responsible for that or not, but that entire Oneida, you know, evil genius neighbors and the owners pride is again one of those campaigns that I think I can never forget in my entire life. It was like very outrageous, right? I mean, imagine using a negative character to talk about your product. Yes, sort of so. That character is called Oneida's devil.
00:32:18
Speaker
And I must say that I was not responsible for conceptualizing the campaign which was done in the early nineties of neighbors and the owners pride. But then I joined that character was not in use for many years. They had discontinued it. But I brought it back. I re-launched Oneida with the devil character again.
00:32:42
Speaker
And the brand jumped in the most trusted brand survey in multiple places. And it was in the top 10 brands for many years. And I don't remember the data, but I think we jumped in trusted brand surveys, jumped in consumer rankings. And that campaign with Oida's devil was with the line, nothing but the truth. And it was a huge success. And I was very happy that I was able to bring it back.
00:33:11
Speaker
And that is core of the brand. That was the DNA of the brand. It was Envy and the confidence of the brand in its Indianness. Yeah. And Envy is one of those deep core insights that drives, you know, purchases for most of these, let's say, you know, non-essential category products like fashion, OVIA, technology, OVIA. Envy is, I think, what drives a lot of people, right?
00:33:39
Speaker
Yes, fundamental human emotions drive all non-discretionary purchases, whether it's a BMW or a fashion brand or a new mobile phone or whatever. And I must say there are various shapes and degrees of envy. It's not just envy. There is an envy at a physical level. There is an envy at a subtle level. So there are degrees of envy. Jealousy and envy is the difference. Jealousy can destroy you and envy can propel you.
00:34:08
Speaker
But fundamental emotions like love, envy, fear, admiration, respect, patriotism, they can drive brands and businesses to places if you use them well and if you connect them to your product through insight. And the fundamental aspect there is a product insight has to connect with the life insight.
00:34:35
Speaker
has to connect with the brand insight. Only when a brand insight is connecting to the corrupt insight and the life insight can become successful and from life insights you have to dip into fundamental emotions and aspirations of human beings as you said love and we fear belongingness so on and so forth.
00:35:00
Speaker
So in my, in my head as you speak, no, I can try, I'm trying to draw a Venn diagram in my head that, you know, brand truth in consumer truth. And obviously the communication truth is to be able to give you that magical campaign, right? Think of it as a triangle where on the top is the, is the life truth. And on the left hand side is your product truth. And the right hand side is the brand truth. So when you connect these three,
00:35:31
Speaker
Even if one is weak and one is not connected well, you will not have a strong grand proposition. Got it. Super. No wonder, no wonder the communication from Félica keeps hitting us so hard and so nicely that, you know, you can't get over those ads. I mean, this entire, the recent communication about that so far, oh man, you have no clue how many people have come to me and asked me for an opinion and
00:35:56
Speaker
And pardon my language, but people are either on, they love it or they are like, it is, and obviously number of people that love it is far more, I'm sure you have data on that. But it is super, super, super cool. I have no clue if Mr. Pandey came up with that or the team came up with that or how did that happen? Let me make a mention of this. It was an ad conceptualized by Piyush Pandey and executed by Prasoon Pandey. And all I want to tell everyone is that
00:36:27
Speaker
Look, here is a brand which a consumer never sees because he hardly buys it, his carpenter buys it, right? He pays money to carpenter to make furniture. After it is put in the furniture, he never gets to see the brand. It is gone inside the wood. A brand which is bought by consumer, which is not used by consumer, which is not seen by consumer, but is loved by consumers and is owned by every consumer in India, right?
00:36:52
Speaker
And that is to the core value proposition which we have kept alive in Fevicol for 60 years is the unbreakable bonds. And unbreakable bonds and so forth was able to illustrate that. So we said Fevicol will go beyond bond between people. We will actually conceptualize the bond between generations of people through something which Fevicol is a part of, which is a piece of furniture.
00:37:22
Speaker
And a hairloaf furniture has going from generation to generation is a part of lives of people in India as well as abroad. It's a global insight.
Creative Advertising During COVID
00:37:31
Speaker
And that's what people are related to. People are related to emotions attached to a hairloaf furniture. And a brand being able to actually dip into those fundamental positive emotions is a brand which is remembered and loved. Yeah.
00:37:49
Speaker
And more, I think, more it seems to just fit so rightly into the triangle that you just drew for us Vivek. Absolutely. Yeah, cool. And even the recent communication around COVID, right, what you've done with elephants and masks is also super interesting to say the least. I mean, if I can use that kind, like a milder world there. And then the poetry was narrated by Mr. Pandey himself. Yes.
00:38:16
Speaker
Both these pieces of communication, one in March, where we took the two elephants and we put them at a distance, and we said... And the second one is around the two elephants of every call with mask and this poem. Both acts were conceptualized by Dush Pandey.
00:38:44
Speaker
And the voiceover in the second one of the poem is also of the Ushmati. So I mean, if I can talk a bit about these two ads, see in the times of COVID, you will see all kind of communication. Some is around fear and selling you products. Some is trying to associate with COVID and doing associations. I would name them. Some sounds very genuine, some don't. We believe that we don't have
00:39:12
Speaker
force a connection between brand and COVID directly. And we have to be a responsible brand, which doesn't try to either sell the product or doesn't try to force the association and only has a dialogue with the consumer in this time, which is natural and responsible. So we said the first dialogue we should have in March, we thought was that to caution people about maintaining distance. And the second one is about still maintaining distance when the unlock, when the
00:39:40
Speaker
battle for coverage from indoor to outdoors. But that point, if you listen and solve, ends on a note of positivity and high spirit in the end. And that positivity and high spirit we believe is required to boost the morale of people, consumers, dealers, contractors. Because the brand also needs to give a message of positivity in these depressing times.
00:40:04
Speaker
Absolutely. And more than that, you know, these brands, when you give such messages, you actually become a part of their lives. I mean, if you are invisible and yet a part of their lives, you better be talking about that as well. Sort of you are a fantastic marketer. You stole my next piece of thought, which is that
00:40:26
Speaker
People have often asked me, so what is Fevicol trying to do to talk about COVID? It has no connection with the category. You are not a health and hygiene category. And we say that Fevicol is a much loved brand for Indian consumers part of their lives the last 60 years. And the brand is having a dialogue with consumers about their life. It's not necessary that brand always needs to have a dialogue with consumers about its own product or unregional wants.
00:40:54
Speaker
The brand which are loved by people talk to their people about anything which concerns people. If today in the lives of people, what concerns people is COVID, fan college talk about COVID. If it is able to relate to unrivaled bond, if it is not, then also it's good. But a loved brand in a very natural way becomes a part of life of people through these, I would say genuine and empathetic dialogues.
00:41:23
Speaker
Okay, so I have a question on this. I mean, in my entire life as a marketeer on the agency side, most communication is triggered by a business need. Now, for a brand like Fedricol, for example, where you work on in terms of day in day out basis, what triggers these communication pieces apart from let's say the COVID extraordinary times that we're living in, but let's say when you made that
00:41:52
Speaker
What triggered that need for that communication? So, allow me to take you through the journey of Fevikal. If you may, then you'll understand the content. So, Fevikal was a brand launched in 1959. And if you remember, one of the first iconic ads of it is Dham Lagaati Haisha. Two elephants, elephants and people on men on other side doing a taga rope.
00:42:21
Speaker
So that is about physical bonds. Then over next 10 years, it tried to demonstrate that unbreakable bond to culture and symbols from India, like neta, like egg, et cetera. And after that, when it firmly established this physical bond through sticking to wood,
00:42:49
Speaker
all the way to cultural symbols that move beyond physical bonding into metaphorical bonding. Like the bus where people are sitting in a crowd. You may have seen that that had also won a Kans Award. Or the joint family, Kishtan, joint family, Kissa, Kursika, Govinda,
00:43:12
Speaker
Then brand moves into a space where it stands for an unbreakable bond, but not in physical sense, not in cultural sense, but metaphorical sense. Anything in life of consumer around unbreakable bonds, we begin to do ads. But remember, the brand also has a role to play in this category. So on other dimensions, where we call Kept Innovating, we launched Marine, we launched HeatX, we launched Hyper. These are advanced technologies and advanced versions of adhesives.
00:43:43
Speaker
So Fevicol is the first one, it innovated, and we have also advertised those. We have advertised HeatX and we have advertised Marine. So the brand keeps doing that. Now, why did we do so far? So advertising for Fevicol is driven by it needs to communicate the new product innovations to consumer like Marine, HeatX, et cetera, or SpeedX, or it needs to
00:44:13
Speaker
keep on strengthening and further building upon the core value of unbreakable bonds. It can build it through metaphorical means, Govinda, Kissa, Kursika. And here came an opportunity to us, all celebrated 60 years of existence last year. Okay. So we thought that's the time for us to celebrate our unbreakable bonds again and take to consumers
00:44:42
Speaker
a tropical journey through their life for 60 years and our journey through their lives. And that he celebrated through by making this sofa ad, which actually took control of the journey of this sofa, which went from this past from generation to generation. And it lives the life which Indian consumers live from fifties to sixties to seventies to eighties to nineties to round.
00:45:12
Speaker
And now that you're talking Vivek, actually I can relate that, you know, the fact that so far went through, let's say Pani and then there was Dhup. And I mean, all the small part innovations that you spoke about are also there. I mean, they may not be communicated very, very upfront verbally, et cetera, et cetera, but they're still there, those elements. Yes, then you may notice that ads start from black and white fifties, the music is like that.
00:45:39
Speaker
And then it moves to a TV with more passion, then it moves to a colored era, but with faded of 70s, 80s, then it moves to 90s, then it moves to now. So subtle changes, which jump and descriptive touches are added by Piush and Prasoon. And that is what actually evokes emotions amongst people. And then they respond to you very, very positively in the brand.
00:46:08
Speaker
Okay, so next question coming back to your journey, you were at Oneida and after Oneida, what happened? Where did you go? From Oneida, actually, I went to Philips as their first chief marketing officer for India. Philips, you know, had three businesses, consumer lifestyle, lighting and healthcare. At that time, the global CEO wanted to really
00:46:36
Speaker
bring Philips to the emerging markets and want to really build Philips as a brand across various businesses. So they decided to create this position of Chief Marketing Officer. And in buying emerging markets, which was including China, India, Brazil, etc., they appointed the Senior Independent Chief Marketing Officer. So I was fortunate to actually join Philips India in 2008 as their first Chief Marketing Officer.
00:47:06
Speaker
and work on establishing Philips brand, one Philips brand across three businesses of lifestyle, lighting and healthcare. Okay. Okay. And what was your experience? Like, what did you learn from that? What was your biggest takeaway? How difficult was it in different from the other categories? It was really a fantastic learning experience. It was a challenge because having worked with S&T G in Cadbury's advertising, you know, will be and be durable in Orida.
00:47:35
Speaker
In Philips, there was a part which was durable, which was consumer lifestyle electronics and appliances. But for the first time, I experienced marketing in lighting and healthcare. So lighting was consumer as well as B2B. And I was fortunate to work in one of the best companies for B2B marketing with Philips Healthcare and I learned my B2B in professional marketing there. So that was initially challenging to learn healthcare as an industry because not easy to learn about
00:48:04
Speaker
MRIs, X-ray, various medical devices and instruments which you were selling. You had to first understand them before you could even visit a customer like a hospital or a doctor or a cardiologist and have a meaningful conversation. So I did made effort to learn and the journey then was beautiful. And how long did you spend at Philips? I spent seven years at Philips.
00:48:34
Speaker
And I must say we were able to reposition Philips from, at that time it was known as a bulb and a TV, DVD brand. I'm talking of early 2000. And from there we moved it to dynamic, innovative, and high technology brand, which is across healthcare, lighting, lifestyle, selling air-fired, selling most advanced medical equipment, and LED lighting. So that was fantastic.
00:49:02
Speaker
And there are a lot of global learnings from also there because Phillips is quite a strong company and was quite a strong company but white. And I met some fantastic people there and I learned a lot from them about innovation and role of innovation in company. So what happened after Phillips? So Phillips, after working for Phillips for seven years, I moved to Pidlight and since then I've been with Pidlight.
Current Role and Innovations at Pidilite
00:49:32
Speaker
and fantastic journey here because Pidlight also has B2B businesses, industrial, pigments, additives, chemicals. Now we have consumer, purely consumer businesses in five week quick art and craft. And we also have what we call in between bazaar businesses, where consumers use the product, but not directly. The contractor use it for them either in building their furniture or waterproofing their homes.
00:50:02
Speaker
So we have businesses here that we call, Dr. Faceit waterproofing and MC in plumping. So it's very, very interesting for me to work across span of these B2C, Bazaar and B2B businesses. And I must say, marketing at Pidlight is highly developed and this company has innovation and insights as its DNA and our chairman and MD drive it personally.
00:50:32
Speaker
So it was a fantastic opportunity for me to contribute to it and take it forward. Got this. So I'm going to ask you the toughest question that most of my guests stumble on, to be honest. So imagine if I told you,
00:50:47
Speaker
you are going to be given a different role with Pitylite or someplace else. And you need to find your replacement for this role that you're doing right now. And it could be internal or external or whatever, the candidate can come from wherever. So what tenets would you look in that person to replace you? The first thing which you need for a CMO of such a diverse company like Pitylite or any diverse company is actually comfort with ambiguity.
00:51:15
Speaker
Because when you're heading businesses that are at senior levels, all information, all data is not available. So you have to be comfortable with everybody in situation, businesses and brands. And you have to be comfortable with that. Second biggest thing is that you have to have that trait, which is in you, where you are happy working on new things, not necessarily biggest.
00:51:43
Speaker
People often go for largest brand, biggest business, so many crores. But if what gets kicked to a person is something new, whether a business could be small, brand could be small, something new, I think that is something which I would look for.
Key Traits for a Successful CMO
00:51:59
Speaker
And third thing is ability to work with people across functions. And this is a high level of people skills and adaptability and flexibility is desirable in such a role.
00:52:12
Speaker
Because the reason I say that is you don't try marketing in a big company by issuing directions and dictates and policies. You work through by influencing people, by leading them, by inspiring them, and by getting examples for them to follow. So the leadership model which one has for a CEO in a big company is not of issuing directives and policies, but of leading people by example, or
00:52:42
Speaker
It's like saying having influencing power without direct control. So that aspect needs to be learned very well before one can become a senior CMO. Of course, last but not the least, that's what I mean. One needs to have marketing competition skills, which I assume the candidate would have. Obviously, if you've reached the table of the chairman, then obviously he has been vetted out for those skills for sure, right? He or she, for that matter.
00:53:11
Speaker
As you can see, it is the softer parts which will become more critical. When you work at these levels, and last but not least, tenacity is required because at these levels, failures will come, things will not succeed in both the leading phases. If you're not tenacious enough, and if you react to situations, then you will not be able to lead and inspire people, always. I got this.
00:53:37
Speaker
Super answer. Thank you. You mentioned that you spoke about your replacement. Now, let me flip the question on the head. Let's say you have five job offers from five different
00:53:52
Speaker
companies to work for and super hypothetical, right? One is a B2B consumable company, one is a B2C startup, which does a lot of work in let's say online details. So what kind of questions would you ask your prospective employers before you join them? The first question I'll ask them is, what is their ambition and vision about their business? Where do they want to take it? What are the new things or different things that needs to be done?
00:54:22
Speaker
because that will tell me what will be my role and contribution where I can contribute in that journey. Second thing, I will try and learn a lot about the business model because a good job depends on a business which is sustainable and not necessarily profitable immediately, but has to be sustainable long term. And you can only create medium term things
00:54:47
Speaker
If fundamentally the business is sustainable and there is something fundamentally right in the propositions and the way it's going, we have to play how to win. And last but not least, I will try and understand the people behind the business because at senior levels, you don't work for business and brand, you work with people and chemistry is very important. The trust and chemistry is super paramount. That's what I want to say.
00:55:16
Speaker
In fact, one of the things that I got told by somebody is that most people don't quit their jobs, but they quit people that they work for. So I think you're also hinting to the same thing, right? Yes. So next question, tell me if you're grappling with a big marketing problem and you know that you, for some reason, argument sake, your team is on a leave or something and you can't talk to your team. Who do you go out to jam with ideas on and come up with solutions if you are facing a big problem at work?
00:55:46
Speaker
I must say that I will reach out to and often reach out to my colleagues from previous companies. And I've been fortunate to have good friends in those people whom I've worked with always and I've always maintained to connect with them and they've always maintained to connect with them. I will reach out to any one of them who is available and bounce my ideas with them to say if I'm thinking right or wrong.
00:56:08
Speaker
So the lesson for my listeners would be that even if you have to move between organizations, always try to have that connection
Value of Genuine Relationships
00:56:19
Speaker
going. Is that what I can leave my listeners with? Yes, because it's necessary to have relationships. And the relationship should be natural. The word which often here is networking. Exchanging cards and saying hello's on LinkedIn is not networking.
00:56:38
Speaker
because networking happens when you have genuine relationship with people. People only help you when they have a genuine relationship with you. When you're giving the relationship as much as you're taking, okay? So at least in every place you work, make some good friendship, keep connections, don't think of immediate benefits, and I'm sure they'll always come handy and helpful for you in your life some point in time. So it's necessary.
00:57:07
Speaker
The key thing I've realized sort of in life is that you have to be yourself and be genuine. If you are genuine and if you're not selfish and always sharing a knowledge and your success also with others, people will always be in correct with you. You have to be a bit giving and generous. If you're giving and generous in sharing credit, sharing success, even sharing their failures or helping them,
00:57:34
Speaker
then your life will open and people are always there to help you. That's what I found. Another question that a lot of people ask me is, A, tell me about your failures. We've heard success stories. We know that all the communication is great. Team is great. People is great. But tell me of two or three times when you actually fail as a marketeer. I'm trying to see where should we go. Which industry example do I take?
00:58:05
Speaker
Talk to me about something that nobody has even heard of. Like, for example, more often than not, when things fail, you don't really tom-tom those on, you know, communication channels and you don't even do a press release, for example, when you know that it's going to be a bad, you know, thing. So maybe talk about something that nobody knows of that could be a surprise to listeners as well. I was not directly involved, but in Cadbury's, we had one beta. And the biggest at that time, competition to monitor's complaint, which is 21 ingredients.
00:58:35
Speaker
And I remember, can I, if you research, you'll dig out the name. Can this launch a brand which was like Complan white powder with 22 ingredients. They had two more ingredients or nutrients in those. And it sank like a stone. And the biggest lesson I learned from that as a brand manager at that time was if you try and shape your marketing strategy, looking at a competitor and what they're doing,
00:59:03
Speaker
and trying to build your strategy around two SPs of I am better than you in this attribute of products, you will fail. You have to do your own strategy. So biggest lesson for me. So long time back in Five Star, we were trying to increase penetration of Five Star. Those days, chocolate market was very, very small. So we said we will launch us.
00:59:31
Speaker
smaller gram, a smaller version of five star at a cheaper price point. Yeah, the price point was that time was two rupees. And we just marketed it in one of the southern states. And I was the brand manager at that time. And what we thought was fantastic. So when people find a cheaper five star,
00:59:56
Speaker
The new consumer didn't afford a chocolate at rupees five at that time. We'll come to rupees two and we'll expand the market. The learning was opposite. A lot of five rupees consumers, they downgraded to rupees. So a lot of cannibalization happened and we found that the net sales value at the profit pool in that state, it was showing to be that would have declined. So we just continued and didn't roll it out further.
01:00:24
Speaker
The learning from this is logical to go to lower price points to expand the market. But always be wary of giving choices to your customers and consumers of down gradation. They can often downgrade and especially the need of the category is in distributionary space and in space of tweaks. Then you have to be very wary of cannibalization and down gradation of consumer or down, as they say, people
01:00:54
Speaker
come down the value chain into cheaper SKUs. This is more true of distributionary or impulse purchase products, where it is desirable for consumers to just experience and, you know, snack the category and move out.
01:01:09
Speaker
So, my friend, like I told you about his best friend with Cadburys, so he works with Cadburys in the procurement piece. I mean, he is their leader for the APAC market. So, he often tells me, when the consumer would eat, it will fill them out when you are chewing onto it. And the entire thing bombed like crazy for them because people weren't getting the same.
01:01:35
Speaker
experience of chewing on to a certain quantum of things in their mouth. You know what I'm saying? So they hit a pilot. We call it mouth feel in force category. So it also happens in other chocolates that while grammish can be reduced slightly, on visual inspection you don't see it. But there's something called bite feel and mouth feel. If bite feel and mouth feel changes a lot.
01:02:03
Speaker
Then consumer or long term will reject you because they will not get the sensorial experience with their desire. That's what he was trying to explain to me because I was talking to him about something and he was cranky because his procurement, right? So every time you change the graphic, he has to now calibrate all the factories.
01:02:21
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so the next question I have to wait for you is, as a marketeer, you brushed upon briefly in our conversation that that you need to understand technology and data and
Continuous Learning and Personal Growth
01:02:34
Speaker
everything. So tell me what are the what are some of the gadgets that you use on a day to day basis to, you know, help you with your job? Like everyone else, I use laptop. I use phone. And we I use teams. I use room.
01:02:53
Speaker
Those are the gadgets I use, frankly speaking. Any specific apps that you use to stay ahead of the curve in apps or social information that you use to stay ahead of the curve? No, I'm active on all social media assets, at least the professional ones. And there's no particular app, etc, which I use, but I'm active on all of those. And I read a lot.
01:03:22
Speaker
digitally. I subscribe to many magazines and news super global as well as India. And I try and make sure that in the day see is what is necessary for a good marketer is to have good stereo knowledge. Whereas the stereo knowledge, what I mean is that a marketer need not only be aware of the product knowledge and the segment knowledge, but also on the what's happening in the country, what's happening in the state, what's happening in the city, what's happening geopolitically.
01:03:49
Speaker
because nowadays conversations are everywhere. And unless a marketer is aware of all these implications or regulatory, what are the issues emerging? They will not be able to handle marketing. So one has to continue and one has to be aware of a lot of information in the day and try and measure through my reading, whether it's through social media feeds or through my news apps or through physical newspaper also. I'm aware of what's happening.
01:04:20
Speaker
And bigger reading pieces, like bigger articles, newspaper, et cetera, I keep aside for the flight reading or weekend reading. Because it's not necessary to only consume snacks of information and news in few lines of one para. Sometimes you have to read the incisive analysis to really appreciate the nuances of situation.
01:04:42
Speaker
I actually quite like this entire idea of stereo knowledge. That's an interesting word to use and I'm going to use that in the accompanying blog post. That's a good one. Okay. The next question is a question that you always wanted somebody to ask you and nobody's asked you that so far. Nobody has asked me. Yeah. People often don't ask about, see what we do in a personal life also shapes us as marketers.
01:05:13
Speaker
but also people don't often ask is what do you do in a person life which has influence on you as a marketeer? What are your interests? I've seen fantastic marketeers who are shaped by their interest in the art or music or some technology. So this is a part often missed because at the end of the day, we don't live life in buckets, you know, work life, personal life, this life, that life. It's one life, one human being, it's all one. And one effect, one shapes another.
01:05:41
Speaker
So this whole thing about the person behind a CEO, the person behind a CEO, the person behind an employee is equally necessary for people to know. So that's the endeavor that I have at T7. This conversation essentially is about we make the individual, not we make the market here. You know what I'm saying? So that is what we are trying to achieve with this. So validation from here. You've got some flavor of it, I hope.
01:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, validation. I mean, I got validation as an individual for the idea and obviously a lot about you. Okay, last question, absolute last question. So what we often do is for each marketeer that we talk to, we ask them that if they could throw open a challenge, a marketing challenge to the listeners, and these are typically students or mid-level marketeers, what would the challenge be? And this could be from your work, or it could be a thing that you're passionate about, or it could be a random challenge that you can cook from thin air.
01:06:40
Speaker
No, I feel very strongly about social issues. And I wonder if we could be a better country if we could actually develop more civic sense. The marketing challenge is with consumers, with people, what they do emanates from their belief in attitudes. Can someone develop a more sharper, relevant and hard-hitting marketing campaign where we can get Indian people to maintain cleanliness in social life?
01:07:10
Speaker
Got this. And maintain civic responsible sense, not rid traffic rules, not spit in public, care about each other, and have social attitudes. We will be such a better country if we have all that. So it may not necessarily be a TV campaign, but could be some kind of an intervention in altering people, attitudes, and behaviors in this area is what I feel.
01:07:39
Speaker
It's a challenging thing. And it's an interesting challenge, to be honest, because I thought a lot, but I haven't been able to find an answer because I come from the same school of thought. You know, I'm safe. Yeah, it's a tough one. That's why I think it's a challenge. It's interesting. Cool. So this is it in terms of questions. I have any final words to sort of summarize the conversation or we just let you go back to your coffee and your other meetings.
01:08:09
Speaker
No, I had my team between because it's not a video interview. So I'm glad you were not able to see it. No, no summary words. I think all I'll say is that marketing is marketing sales. Business is a fantastic profession. As long as you start every day with different problems, you work on different things. I look forward to meeting people, meeting people.
01:08:39
Speaker
It's not necessarily the advertising which is sexy part of marketing. Equally exciting is actually creating something out of nothing, creating something out of air, which is a new brand or a new business. And equally as people who are listening realize as they grow senior, equally exciting will be when you see the people whom you work with, if you're able to shape their careers, if you're able to train them and do more of that, that will be more satisfying part.
01:09:10
Speaker
Thank you so much, Vivek. It was great, great, great fun talking to you. Hope you have a great evening. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. And I don't know, out of sheer intuition, I took this invitation. And I said, let me try and do it. I've never done a podcast. And I must say this information has been very effortless, seamless, and you shepherded it very well. My compliments to you. Thank you so much, Vivek.
01:09:38
Speaker
That was Vivek Sharma, Company Delight. This has to be amongst the best conversations I have ever had on the show. Please do write in and tell us if you enjoyed it and what can I do to improve the show for you. 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.