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Ep 4. Divya Rao, Sony.
150 Plays2 years ago
Divya Roa has spent more than 20 years at Sony Electronics in India. We talk to her to understand what has kept her going steady at the consumer electronics giant for all these years when almost everyone around us seems to be jumping the gun at the drop of the hat!
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Transcript
Introduction to The Marketing Connect Podcast
00:00:01
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 the art and science of marketing. After all, we are a show for marketeers by marketeers. Listen in.
Guest Introduction: Divya Rao from Sony
00:00:29
Speaker
On the show today, we have Divya Rao from Sony. Let's talk to her and try to understand how do you stay on top of a category as dynamic as consumer electronics is. Hi, Saurabh.
Divya's 22-Year Journey at Sony
00:00:41
Speaker
My name is Divya. I handle marketing communication with Sony. I've been working for almost 22 years now. So basically, I started handling one small category, maybe
00:00:53
Speaker
only one part, then I started handling ATL, VTL, events, activations, then digital came in play, all those different facets started adding up and now handles overall marketing communication function. Okay, so I'm going to
00:01:09
Speaker
start with a little tough or a weird question. In this day and age when every market year seems to be jumping companies every two to three years, you've been with Sony for like 22 years now. So what is it about Sony that has kept you there at Sony for 22 years?
00:01:30
Speaker
Okay, I'll be very honest with you.
Product Launch Challenges and Strategies
00:01:33
Speaker
As I mentioned in a very brief synopsis earlier, I started with one category which is television that's way back in 1990, 1998, 1999, whatever. Then, and I was handling a very part function in that.
00:01:48
Speaker
then slowly slowly with whatever you may say I got another category and every product category has a unique role in the life cycle of a customer so for television you have to think differently for an audio product you have to think differently for a
00:02:04
Speaker
a laptop separately, then a camera separately and slowly, I got one category after the other. And every category in my newer challenge, I worked on newer things. Maybe in one category, I worked on just ATL, which was just print. Then a second category, I started working on television. Then the third category, camera, which was a new category, we had to completely launch it from scratch in India. I started working more on retail activations.
00:02:34
Speaker
then you have to launch a newer feature, newer functions. Obviously your marketing activities have to be differently from a properly established order category. So obviously I get challenges year on year and that's how I continued for almost 22 years.
00:02:50
Speaker
Wow. And in these 22 long years, you would have seen your share of people coming in and going and going back. Yeah, that's how it is. So many people came, many people left. And then somebody probably came back as well, right? I mean, Sony seems to be a place where... Yeah, very few, yes.
A Day in the Life of Divya
00:03:08
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:03:08
Speaker
Cool, so tell me what is a typical day in office like for you? Let's say you start your day early and then what are the first few phone calls? Who are the departments that you coordinate with on a daily basis? How is it? Yeah, me, you start at 9 but because of traffic issues, I generally try to reach early.
00:03:28
Speaker
Then initial one hour is just taking a stock of things, what happened the previous day, issues that need to be addressed, just scanning all the emails. That's what I keep for the first one hour. Then taking a talk of what all needs to be completed in the whole day, make a stock of things. So I think that needs to be addressed and closed in the same way I put a tick mark.
00:03:51
Speaker
And then one has to interact with within the department, interdepartment, because you cannot, I mean, in our kind of field, one cannot work in a silo. It is many departments that one has to work with. It can be product marketing. It can be logistics. It can be service. It can be legal. It can be finance. So one department part is one thing, then your interaction with your partners, which is your agencies.
00:04:21
Speaker
what all needs to be completed, anything that is getting delayed, what are the hiccups, try and resolve those things. Then you come in, then you interact with your team. Because team management, I would be very honest and frank with you, is the team in your success. If your team supports your mammoth staff, also can be completed in a very short span of time. So I need to ensure that the team is happy, it's united, there are no internal fights and all.
00:04:50
Speaker
and we'll talk about things and we'll follow it.
00:04:56
Speaker
So, Divya, tell me, just curious, right? I mean, how many of these, I mean, of your team, how many of you, how many of your members have stayed with you for, let's say, you know, since you were around in the...
Team Loyalty and Career Advice
00:05:10
Speaker
Okay, okay. I'd be very honest with you. Out of 10 to 14 people that I have, there are four members, three to four members, I would say,
00:05:21
Speaker
who have been with me for almost seven to 10 years. And one member has been with me for 10 years. So he knows me in and out. I function and I know how he functions. So we complement each other very well. He is my backup, I would say. Nice. So they're more like family now, rather than colleagues, right? And in 10 years is long. True, I would say.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, nice. After a given point of time, if you have trust and confidence and he becomes family. Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think I have somebody who's worked with me for as long. So, you know, that person looks at me and before I speak a word, he knows the mood that I am in. Yeah, that's the thing I would say. I mean, without me speaking,
00:06:06
Speaker
Then gentleman understands what I want. If there's a conversation meeting going on, somebody says something. We just look at eye to eye and that's it. You don't have to speak up. That makes your job better.
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me a quick question. So a lot of people that listen to this podcast know, so they ask us that we are about four to five years of experience in the marketing business. And we want to understand how do we rise up the ladder fast? So what are those two skills that people have to have to become, you know, senior marketers?
00:06:42
Speaker
and reach the top of the ladder? I would say your hard work. There are no shortcuts in this. That's the first thing I would say. Whatever work you're giving, please do not skip processes. Follow all processes to the core and be true to your work. That's the first thing I would say. And anyways, the work would be recognized if people see you, you're not shortchanging, you're doing it diligently.
00:07:11
Speaker
And you should think like you're not an employee in a company. One should think you're an owner of the company. If that mindset comes in your mind, you will always overperform and it will be visible to people. That's the mantra that I have. I mean, if you have got 100 things to do, do 101, do something extra over and above that is required from your job role. It will get visible and people will actually look at you with much more respect and
00:07:41
Speaker
trust. Okay. Okay. Do you have any more insights on this? I mean, primarily I would say this way. I mean, that's the first thing that one should look in for. I mean, that's what I have followed, primarily. I understood. And that's how it is. Got it. So tell me, this is a question that was sent to us by one of our student listeners.
Adapting Global Mandates to Local Markets
00:08:03
Speaker
They want to know that, you know, like Sony is a global brand, you know, I mean, I mean, with Japanese heritage and American
00:08:10
Speaker
you know, what do you call it? Large influence over the business and the branding and the communication. How do you balance, you know, global mandates and how do you bring them to Indian sensibility when you create communication? There are in not even organization, many global organizations, there are many global mandates that one needs to follow. Yeah. That certain processes,
00:08:36
Speaker
some dos and don'ts one has to follow. For certain categories we have flexibility that we can customize based on Indian nuances, likings and behavior. So in many of the categories like I would say
00:08:53
Speaker
When we had bio laptops, we had webcam and Cybershot. So we did a lot of customization in India and we got the flexibility to do that. And we did many local campaigns wherein the Indian nuances, preferences were always kept in mind and they worked for India. To be very frank, it is a good mix of local and global campaigns that we have done.
00:09:17
Speaker
And I think every product category and depending on the product life cycle, is it a launch stage? Is it a mature stage? All those things actually depend in devising the overall campaign and the success of the product. So we kept those things in mind. So like in case of bio, we did a very complete localization. We got a local celebrity, we tied up.
00:09:42
Speaker
with them kept the product promised inherent and upfront and it worked for us. I mean from a market share point of view from two to three percent we immediately jumped to ten percent that way. So it's a good mix of local and global campaigns but actually it depends upon organization to organization how much flexibility you have.
00:10:03
Speaker
whether it's just adaptation of a global campaign one needs to do, or is it the local company, marketing company has the flexibility of devising their own strategy, keeping the customer who's going to buy the product in mind. So in our case, we got good flexibility of local and global campaigns that time. The other thing I was talking to was a marketeer who works on a global brand, but in India, the gentleman said that, you know,
00:10:32
Speaker
that the good part or bad part is that because the brand that he works for is available in probably every country in the world, they can hear a lot of case studies and innovations that happen in different markets. And then that information is available to them to adapt to Indian context. So just want to understand, is that a normal phenomenon in your experience at other places also? Yeah, of course, in this current scenario, I mean, of course, all global brands are
00:11:02
Speaker
available in most countries and as an information source, internet. So these days blogs, your reviews, for example, the product is not even launched in the country. People go through the net and search what exactly are the reviews, the product, USP's and all in and out about the product.
00:11:22
Speaker
Once you do that, I mean, of course, it's readily available to everybody. Before even the launch of the product, you know what are the pros and cons of the product. So you make up your mind accordingly. So voting also, and it's a bad thing also, whichever way you want to take it. But consumers have full access to information which is available globally. It's much more
00:11:45
Speaker
simple from their point of view. They can get all the information. They don't have to wait for the model to get launched in the country. And it's a free source of information for them. They can make up their mind much ahead of the world getting launched in the country. Yeah. Yeah. So David, do you want to talk about any of your favorite campaigns from the time that you've been at Sony?
Successful and Failed Campaigns
00:12:07
Speaker
Like something that you really enjoyed and that was really, really in your opinion, informative, knowledgeable. You learned so much in that campaign.
00:12:14
Speaker
Okay. I would say, as I was mentioning it earlier, Vio has been one of my favorite categories, product categories, laptop brand. When the Vio got launched in India, we took out the product proposition, what we need to communicate so that we can actually latch upon the preference immediately. So what we did is Vio is the worst slimmest laptop and that time I had this
00:12:45
Speaker
So that we were thinking to open, how to open, which should be the best fit. So there were many questions that were actually coming up in our mind.
00:12:59
Speaker
At that time, there was a size zero concept with Kareena Kapoor. We had a discussion with them. The product does not overpower the product. Of course, the product has to remain upfront. So we did the size zero campaign with Kareena Kapoor.
00:13:20
Speaker
That time that laptop which we had launched was world slimmest. So we did the world slimmest campaign, we did a TVC, we did a print campaign, retail, activations, all those we did. We did not just pick print, we picked up TV, we picked up all retail stores from India.
00:13:45
Speaker
We did road shows, we did a lot of activities at all levels. And within a span, we saw the YO share from 2% to 3%, growing, growing, growing. We reached a level of 10%. And then, of course, after that, every three months, the new model got launched. And we talked about the QSP, beat color, beat whatever different feature that we had to talk about. So I would say YO is one of my favorite campaigns that we really contributed
00:14:16
Speaker
to the category. And apart from that, there were a few others, camera as well. We launched the Cybershot also in 2012, wherein we were on the technology, I would say we had Kyanan and Nikon who was there in the point and shoot category. And we were, I would say kind of challenges. So again,
00:14:41
Speaker
of finding a unique purpose and what to communicate. So we had it upfront and the cyber-shot shares started growing. Of course, your product has promise has to be fulfilled first, then all of your advertising and marketing follows. I would say marketing is like a
00:14:59
Speaker
I would say, art and science of getting into the consumers. You have to be building the brand at each and every touch point. There's no single touch point, I would say. You do pee and you're done. You have to be present at each and every touch point. It's not advertising. You have to be at every touch point, build awareness, try and do customer engagement, and you have to have a compelling brand proposition. How does the product actually touch your life? That's the key.
00:15:29
Speaker
Okay, so the next question is, do you also want to talk about some of your failures? I mean, these were obviously the highlights, but maybe you planned something really, really, you know, with a lot of the girl and it didn't work out that well. Do you want to talk about that and maybe some lessons? Okay, I would say a long time as we had planned a
00:15:50
Speaker
audio campaign. We fixed the product proposition. We actually identified and copied global as is. But finally we realized that it did not work for us. So we just learned from the failure that of course a bit of customization
00:16:08
Speaker
is required at times, depending on the product category. Got this, got this, got this. And do you want to give me any specifics, like for example, in terms of the bio category, you told me that you have a large influencer in Karina Kapoor, who went door set, and then you... So for this audio campaign, do you want to give me some specifics? There was a celebrity, it was just a local, it was just a global campaign that we tried and... Okay, this...
00:16:37
Speaker
Audio campaign we tried and...
00:16:40
Speaker
created a brand proposition but finally we realized it's not syncing with the heart of the consumer. We were just pushing information from our side. We thought it's a consumer led communication but actually it was not. Ideally in those cases it should be a consumer fed information. We should have taken the insights from the need and requirement for the customer wants from the product category and further build a campaign on that. We thought that
00:17:08
Speaker
this is what the consumer wants without taking into mind what the insights that he's looking for, whether it's the value that we are giving. We should have done that homework, which we missed at that time because of the need of the R, we have to urgently launch the product. So that was something that
00:17:28
Speaker
We should have waited rather than just rushing it based on the urgent push from the team. Got this. So I'm going to ask you a tough question. For argument's sake, assume that Sony decides that they want to get into electronic pencils, for example, a pencil that works automatically.
00:17:48
Speaker
If you and you are supposed to brief your agency partners, and this could be your creative agency or digital agency. So what are the few things that you will, you know, tell the agency guys before they even come for a brief, like, you know, like, for example, do a search, understand the category. So what are the few things that you're used to?
00:18:06
Speaker
talk to the agency. Basically it's the product creation that is the key in any agency, creative, digital, media, whoever. So you have to be very careful in understanding what exactly, is it an expensive or whatever product I would say. Your insights about the product, what is the
00:18:29
Speaker
you want to keep because ultimately the brand strategy goes in current scenario be it whatever product you're launching. The brand has to embrace the customer's real requirement and we have to keep our communication simple. We don't ideally should not complicate it and make it very difficult for the consumer to understand and no type in analytics should be used.
00:18:56
Speaker
We should understand what is the need of launching the
Meaningful Marketing Strategies
00:19:00
Speaker
product. Is the customer actually in the real need of this product that we are launching? Or is it just that we want to feed in to the consumer? There has to be a quantitative and quantitative understanding. You have to feel that whatever you are launching, that is really worth it. And then after that, come up with a brand proposition. What exactly you communicate? How do you communicate?
00:19:26
Speaker
whether it will touch the consumer's heart, whether the customer will really bind your brand and trust you, whatever your thing is actually leading to enriching his life. So those are the things in mind. And based on all this homework, come up with overall marketing strategy, brand strategy, and work on it accordingly. Because ultimately, customer is the king. You have to
00:19:55
Speaker
ensure that whatever customer experience is getting is actually a key in whatever product and service you're launching. I mean, customer is a driver of innovation. His journey is nonlinear. He can jump
00:20:10
Speaker
from A touchpoint to B for touchpoint. So whatever touchpoint you're working on, it has to enrich his life. Got this. Got this. Amazing. So the next question is for, I mean, again, a hypothetical question, right? Let's say you are told that the way you are supposed to get out of Sony for, let's say, a two year break for education.
00:20:32
Speaker
and you are supposed to hire a replacement and it could be from within the system or could be outside the company. What are the two tenets that you would look for in that person to replace you as a marketing headed owner? Okay, to be very honest, again, as I mentioned earlier, you have to be true to your work. That's the first thing I would look for.
00:20:54
Speaker
I would not say he or she should be a replica of me, to be very honest. You have to be true to your work and think from the mindset of the consumer. And another thing, that's from work point of view. Then second thing is from operational point of view. To be very honest,
00:21:18
Speaker
You have to manage work. Managing is a very integral part of our work life and you have to have that, I would say, jugaad of interacting with various departments and how to get work out of them efficiently. That's the key. Those skills have to be really
00:21:40
Speaker
there. And I know one or two people who have them. So I hope they're listening and then they can take some heart from this conversation. Yeah, sure. Okay, so I do not know if you can discuss this or not, but just want to understand, do you think you can discuss that, you know, what are the some KPIs that you use to measure your ROI and marketing spend at Sony?
Essentials for Marketing Leadership
00:22:04
Speaker
Okay, it varies from what we do is used to share the allowance in such a way that point by touch point, we have our KPIs. Okay, okay. Point has a KPI, whatever activity you're doing for that touch point has a KPI.
00:22:22
Speaker
And we map it based on the touchpoints, our KPIs. There are certain cases, certain campaigns in one touchpoint we achieve, overachieve in certain touchpoints we underachieve. So at the overall ready to be available to everybody, you before even the launch of the product, you know what are the pros and cons of the product. So you make up your mind accordingly.
00:22:45
Speaker
So it's a good thing also and it's a bad thing also whichever way you want to take it. But consumers have full access to information which is available globally. It's much more simple from their point of view. They can get all the different information. They don't have to wait for the model to get launched in the country.
00:23:02
Speaker
And it's a free source of information for them. They can make up their mind much ahead of them while getting launched in the country. OK. So do you want to give me some more details about, let's say, the digital touchpoints, because these are the hottest contested? OK. I would say, as I mentioned earlier, VIO has been one of my favorite categories, product categories, laptop brand. When the VIO got launched in India, we took out the product
00:23:31
Speaker
proposition, what we need to communicate so that you can actually latch upon the preference immediately. So what we did is why time the worst slimmer slap top. And that time, I had this celebrity that we were thinking to rope in, how to rope in, which should be the best fit. So there were many questions that were actually coming up in our mind. Then what we
00:24:00
Speaker
At that time, there was a size zero concept with Karina Kapoor. We touched on that had come in. So we had a discussion with them. How do in that product and the celebrity, nobody, I mean, the celebrity does not overpower the product. Of course product has to remain upfront. So we did the size zero campaign with Karina Kapoor.
00:24:28
Speaker
We did a TVC, we did a print campaign, retail, activations, all those we did. We did not just pick print, we picked up
00:24:42
Speaker
We picked up TV. We picked up all retail stores. We did shows. We did a lot of activities at all levels. And within a span, we saw the YO share from 2% to 3% growing, growing. And we reached 10%. And then, of course, after that, every three months, the new model got launched. And we talked about the QSP, be it color, be it
00:25:09
Speaker
whatever different feature that we have to talk about. So I would say WIO is one of my favorite campaign that we really contributed to the category. And apart from that, there were a few others, camera as well. We launched the Cybershot campaign also in 2012, wherein we were
00:25:30
Speaker
technology I would say we had Kyanan and Nikon who was there in the point in shoot category and we were I would say kind of challenges at the time. So again we thought of finding a unique and in proposition what to communicate. So we had it up front and the Cybershot shares started growing. Of course your product has promise has to be fulfilled first then all of your advertising and marketing follows.
00:26:00
Speaker
Basically, I would say marketing is like an art and science of getting into the consumers. You have to be building the brand at each and every touch point. There's no single touch point. You have to be present at each and every touch point. It's brand building. It's just not advertising. You have to be at every touch point.
00:26:22
Speaker
build awareness, try and do customer engagement, and you have to have a compelling brand proposition. How does the activity
00:26:32
Speaker
That's your life. Last 15-20 minutes that you spoke, and you spoke a lot about how consumer and customer is super important to you from the perspective of the team or the product. So tell me, what are the few things that you do to keep abreast with whatever the customer is doing?
Understanding Consumer Behavior and Digital Insights
00:26:49
Speaker
Because every passing day, the customer changes, the preferences changes, the world around us is changing super fast. So how do you keep track of this changing behavior of the customers?
00:27:00
Speaker
Okay, I would say a long time as we had planned the audio campaign, we fixed the product proposition. We actually identified and copied global as is. But finally, we realized that it did not work for us. So we learned from the failure that, of course, a bit of customization is required at times, the main product category.
00:27:29
Speaker
Okay. And what about using digital as a medium, right? For example, you know, a lot of other marketeers that we spoke to, they said that, you know, digital also, apart from communication, that also gives them insight into what customers are thinking. So what? There was a celebrity, it was just a local, it was just a global campaign that we tried and, okay, this audio campaign we tried and
00:27:54
Speaker
created a brand proposition, but finally we realized it's not syncing with the heart of the consumer. We were just pushing information from our side. We thought it's the consumer-led communication, but actually it was not. Ideally, in those cases, it should be a consumer-fed information. We should have taken the insights from the need and requirement for the customer wants from the product category and further build a campaign on that. We thought that
00:28:23
Speaker
this is what the consumer wants without taking into mind what the insights that he's looking for, whether it's a value that we are giving. We should have done that homework which we missed at that time because of the need of the hour we have to urgently launch the product. So that was something that we should have waited rather than just rushing it based on the urgent push from the team.
00:28:51
Speaker
So you mentioned that you've successfully used a Karina Kapoor in one of the campaigns for a product. So just want to take your perspective on, nowadays what is happening is a lot of these girls next door, boys next door, young people are becoming celebrities on these platforms like Instagram and TikTok and other platforms.
00:29:12
Speaker
So, as a marketeer, what do you think? Where do you think the scale will take? Will it go back to those cricketers and Bollywood celebrities or will it go back to these youngsters that are coming up? So, just don't understand your take on that. Basically, it's the product creation that is the key in any agency. It's creative, digital, media, whoever. So, you have to be very careful in understanding what exactly, is it an expensive or whatever product I would say.
00:29:41
Speaker
your insights about the product. What is it you want to keep? Because ultimately the brand strategy, because in current scenario, be it whatever product you're launching, the brand has to embrace the customer's real requirement. And we have to keep our communication simple. We don't, ideally should not complicate it.
00:30:06
Speaker
and make it very difficult for the customer to understand. And more insights and analytics should be used. We should understand what is the need of launching the product. Is the customer in the real need of this product that we are launching? Or is it just that we want to feed in to the consumer? There has to be a quantitative and quantitative understanding. You have to
00:30:33
Speaker
you feel that whatever you're launching that is really worth it and then after that come up with a brand proposition what exactly you communicate how do you communicate whether it will touch the consumer's heart whether the customer will really buy in your brand and trust you whatever your thing is actually leading to enriching his life so those
00:30:58
Speaker
keep it in mind. And based on all this homework, come up with overall marketing strategy, brand strategy, and work on it accordingly.
00:31:09
Speaker
Let's talk about this coronavirus care,
Post-COVID Entrepreneurial Growth and Consumer Focus
00:31:12
Speaker
right? I mean, obviously the entire world has seen, I mean, it's come to a grinding halt, right? Though as a marketeer, you know, what do you think will change once life comes back? Like when the lockdown opens up, what do you think will change? Okay, with this COVID coming in, many people will get into the entrepreneur mode, to be very honest with you. Because there is no, I would say,
00:31:35
Speaker
I mean, keeping the current scenario in mind, there's no surety of business which is there, jobs which is there. I mean, you never know. I mean, travel used to be such a lucrative option from job point of view. But nowadays, it's so scary from that point of view. Even though each and every field, there are kind of question marks that are coming. And so I would say one has to look at the overall level, understand what
00:32:05
Speaker
You do because whatever you know, you have to be very sure that it should be slightly a long-term approach. You shouldn't keep all those things in mind. What is your USP that you are best at? Keep that in your mind to the core and start working on that as a business proposition and take it into your entrepreneurship.
00:32:32
Speaker
as your main USP. So whatever you're best at, find that, think through, and then get into the entrepreneur mode. You should be very confident of whatever you're doing, that you will be delivering a value ad, whoever your future client that will be.
00:32:50
Speaker
Got this. So imagine you're talking to a young set of audience, let's say, people who are in business school right now, second year of MBA, second year of MBA. What core skills, core marketing skills could they learn right now to be able to, you know, leverage those once they pass out in college in, let's say, this year or next year? Skills, I would say.
00:33:14
Speaker
One has to look at basically all your marketing skills that you get anyways. You of course will be going through that only. But one thing is that market is ever changing. I mean there is every day there's something or the other that is being taught. So digital of course is coming.
00:33:35
Speaker
in a big way that's there. But consumer, I would say, always keep yourself consumer as your core. Because in this scenario, customer insights, customer lifecycle management, you have to do your customer segmentation. Everything around the consumer will be the key. You will have to understand what is relevant from the consumer psyche. What is he looking at?
00:34:03
Speaker
So customer will be the key. And the people who have got a customer database, that will also grow. I mean, data will be the future oil. That's what everybody keeps on saying. So that is what I feel may be the future. But of course, one has to keep on seeing the newer nuances that keep on coming on a daily basis. You have to keep abreast with whatever's happening in the market or not. Learning is a daily process. Right, right.
00:34:32
Speaker
So tell me, you brought a very, very interesting point. That's something that I'm personally interested in. So let's say you have a team of 10 to 12 hardcore marketeers who've been around forever. So how does learning pass around within the organization? Do you have all hands-on meetings? Do you have weekly meetups? So how do you ensure that each of your team member is aware, learned, and is confident? Yeah, basically we have a weekly meeting, Monday meetings, as a structure.
00:35:01
Speaker
So we regrow every Monday and everybody shares what he's here, what she's doing and then we come to know what all is happening and whether that category belongs to me or not. But at least I get to know what is happening as a work. So it's completely a close-knit department and everybody knows
00:35:23
Speaker
Okay, tell me what are some unconventional ways you used to get inspired about marketing? Like this gentleman I spoke to, he says he watches a lot of movies when he wants to understand what is the world doing about marketing? Like, you know, how do you communicate and so on and so forth.
Inspiration from Travel and Diverse Interactions
00:35:37
Speaker
So are there some interesting and conventional ways that you used to learn? Okay, I mean, I would not say directly marketing, like whenever I travel, I'd like to talk with people, understand what they do.
00:35:52
Speaker
different, different places. So I get a lot of insights from there that, oh, this happens like this. I use it for this purpose. That's how I do it. Like once I went to a place, a lady told me that is not now. I'm telling you around five, six years back when internet penetration was just getting in, like I use my TV to talk to my son. That time Skype was a very new feature.
00:36:20
Speaker
So those things I got to know, I mean, I mean, generally I talk to people different, different places, different, different strata, I would say, to get the consumer insights. What should be the real need of getting that product? So travel is one thing that I use to understand the consumer feedback because I have personal passion towards travel.
00:36:45
Speaker
That's one thing. Of course, movies also, as you mentioned, is a nice thing. I really like that thought. I think I was having a conversation and you will probably listen to it. So travel, let's talk of travel, like last few questions. Travel, so what was your favorite destination? I want to know you as a person as well. So what's your most favorite destination? OK, I have traveled a bit of world. I have not been to South America. I have not been to Australia, apart from these two continents I've covered.
00:37:15
Speaker
fairly basic. If you ask me, for me, I like United States as one place because I visited many, many, many different, different places. But I prefer natural beauty, I would say that way. Rather than a city or a urban area, I would prefer a location which has got nice natural beauty. One can walk around, not very commercial.
00:37:45
Speaker
You can spend some time with your own self. So that's what I look at at any location.
00:37:53
Speaker
Got this. And how often do you get to travel? I do not know how. Is it easy work or is it like a lot of work for you? How often do you get to travel? I try to sneak out as best as possible at least 2-3 times a year, generally. Okay. Last few, three questions. So tell me, during this time of Corona, have you seen any branded initiative from a different brand that you've liked as
Effective Branding During COVID Challenges
00:38:17
Speaker
a marketeer? You know, you would have thought, have you seen any of those campaigns?
00:38:23
Speaker
some from FMCG brands. Of course, we cannot do it, but as an individual, I like that.
00:38:29
Speaker
And the very last question that I have for you is, imagine you are again in a B-school, second-year students or first-year students. If you were to leave them with a marketing problem to think on, let's say you tell them that think about how would you change this behavior or how would you sell this particular product, what could that be? It could be from Sony or it could be from your personal experience or it could be a cause that you are passionate about.
00:38:56
Speaker
It's been so many years. There's one thing that still I've not been able to fix this. Just one thing that the customer wants is not, there is no rule that you can fix the customer's need. It is ever changing. So that's one question I still have.
00:39:15
Speaker
So that was Divya Rao from Sony. Thank you so much for listening into the podcast. Please do write to us and tell us what can we do next at the Marketing Connect Podcast. After all, we are a podcast for Marketeers by Marketeers. You just 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.