Marketing with Vani

Ever wondered how Indian culture influences business and marketing?In this episode, we sit down with Santosh Desai, a distinguished authority in the realm of luxury brands. Desai is renowned for his deep understanding of consumer behavior and knowledge of Indian culture. We discuss how deep-seated cultural values shape consumer preferences and impact business strategies across various industries in India. Discover the challenges and opportunities faced by brands trying to navigate the complex Indian market.

Ever wondered how new brands manage to make it big in crowded markets? In this episode, we sit down with Emmanuel Probst, an expert in branding and marketing strategies, to explore the world of challenger marketing. We dive into the strategies that underdog brands use to stand out and capture market share. Emmanuel shares fascinating stories of brands like Liquid Death and Celsius, showing how they beat the odds and became major players in their industries. From building emotional connections to expanding into new markets, we cover it all. If you're curious about what it takes to make your brand shine, this episode is a must-listen!

How do the most successful entrepreneurs overcome the early challenges of sales and marketing? Join Scott Clary, an entrepreneur and host of the popular "Success Story" podcast, as he shares his journey from a side hustle to a leading voice in the business podcasting scene. With a rich history of interviewing luminaries like the founders of Netflix and Reebok, and thought leaders like Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki, Scott tells us the essentials of marketing and business growth. This episode explores Scott's effective strategies in building influential communities through his "Social Club" for high-achieving entrepreneurs.

Chris Maffeo, an expert in brand building with a unique approach that combines marketing and sales, shares his insights on the Maffeo Drinks Podcast. Having journeyed from branding agencies to multinational companies and eventually founding his consultancy, Maffeo brings a wealth of global experience to the table. This episode delves into the nuances of alcohol branding, debunking the traditional focus on target consumers and instead, highlighting the significance of occasions and the consumer's mood and preferences.

Byron Sharp, a Professor of Marketing Science and director of the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, is a leading authority in the field of marketing. His book "How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know" is the modern Bible of marketing and tackles fundamental concepts that marketers often mess up. This episode is a crash course in marketing principles that are relevant to today's business growth. Listen on!

We're talking challenger thinking, the secret sauce to creating a whole new playbook. Masters' Union, with its bold approach to education, is breaking category codes. Pratham Mittal reveals how they're using challenger marketing tactics to solve pain points in ways traditional schooling could never imagine!

Don't be a salesperson- provide genuine value to your community members. Brands that want to have thriving communities must look beyond offering their product or service. Neela Kaushik shares some genius ways brands can make money without annoying their community.

Rebranding is one of the hottest topics in marketing and yet terribly misunderstood! What is rebranding? How does it benefit my brand? And what would happen if I didn't rebrand?Vani explores all these and more with brand evangelist, Lulu Raghavan. She shares insightful pointers on the dos and don'ts, the highs and lows, and the triumphs and tragedies of brands that dared to reinvent themselves.

If you want to build strong relationships with your consumers, you must leverage the power of communities. Managing a community of 18,500+ women, Aarti shares her experiences and insights. This episode is a practical guide to creating a community and making it a win-win for the brand and the consumer!

TV, billboards, email, websites, social media- media today is complex! For a brand to create impact and get people talking, picking the right media mix is a must! Samir talks about some smart media principles that brands must follow to optimize their marketing campaigns and grow their consumer base!If you're a marketeer or founder, confused about how to plan your media, then this episode is just for you!

Cindy Gallop is the founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, the world's first and only user-generated, human-curated social sex video-sharing platform. Through this venture, she aims to normalize sex and promote positive sexual values.This episode is a masterclass on Sex-tech. View the world through the revolutionary gaze of a brilliant, very courageous woman who is destabilizing the male-dominated social order affecting businesses and societies at large. Listen on!

Is voice set to become bigger than video?  Podcasts are easy to listen to anytime, are less demanding on the senses, and don't have a high production cost. Susan shares why podcasting can be a great marketing tool for content creators, marketeers, entrepreneurs, and anybody trying to connect with audiences.

Most founders believe that the key to expansion is to target a wide and varied target audience. That's the absolute death knell for a new brand. When you are narrowly focused on one consumer segment, with a product that solves that segment's specific problem, then you stand for something. In a super fun chat, Vani sits down to dissect and understand this with real examples from different brands, with Dhruv and Dhruv (yes, into two!) of Arata!

Have you tried crossing out an irritating ad while reading an article online, but the 'cross' is almost invisible or the ad itself refuses to go away? Well, you've encountered a dark pattern. Vani speaks with Manisha Kapoor about dark patterns, why you must be aware of how you as a consumer might be manipulated, and what you can do better as an advertiser to not win the consumer's ire!

Your business can only be as big as the market you choose to play in. How you define your market determines how big you get. Vani shares some creative techniques to broaden the way in which you can define your market. Peppered with loads of real-life examples, this episode is bound to deepen your business understanding!

Why bother with consumer research? To understand people's motivations. If you don't know the psychology behind what people say and do, how will you address their pain points? How will you solve their problems? In this episode, Vani speaks with psychologist & researcher Julia Izmalkowa who helps global brands grow their business by uniquely combining scientific knowledge with business objectives.If you want to know what people are like and how they think, then this episode is just what you need. Listen on for a fascinating conversation filled with insights as well as actionable takeaways!

Data data everywhere, but not an iota of insight! You've gathered a ton of data, but what do you do with it? How do you turn your data into useful information? This episode is a masterclass on converting data into marketing insights, and what kind of muscle and genes a modern marketeer needs to develop. Listen on as Vani decodes the value of Data for winning the battle of customer love.

Today, each e-Commerce business owns the entire value chain of a transaction but ONDC or Open Network for Digital Commerce proposes to make a platform in which different players can own different parts of the value chain. Through this approach, ONDC aims to make e-Commerce more inclusive and accessible! Vani interviews Shireesh Joshi, captain of the ONDC ship. Listen on!

What is good design? Good design is everything. It's a verb and a noun. Design is the secret to enhancing every aspect of the brand experience and driving conversion. Vani interviews Ashwini Deshpande to decode the what, why and how of good design and how brands can craft smart design strategies to grow their business!

Don't we all want to create iconic brands even as we launch a new brand? But when the brand is new, when one has just started out, there's limited money, and one is using digital only for communication, then what should one do to have all the makings of an iconic brand?  Vani and Karan Amin discuss what it takes to build an iconic brand in the early stages using digital media.

Every year, millions of new brands emerge. In the digital age, where our attention spans are less than that of goldfish, a cohesive brand strategy must be crafted to capture consumer attention. In this episode, Vani tells Amit Ray about what makes a business a "brand" and the mistakes new-age brands are making.

What is an iconic brand? How do brands become iconic? Are all familiar brands iconic? How do iconic brands evolve to stay relevant to their consumers? These are the big 4 questions answered in this episode, peppered with loads of examples, both global and local. Here, Amit Ray, a serial entrepreneur, ex-Citi banker, and now a podcaster himself questions Vani on what makes brands iconic.  Listen on! :)

Imagine stepping inside a store and instantly getting transported into the happy, magical world of fairytales- Avneet Mann and her friend Vivita pursued this idea and turned it into a successful brand that's "The Wishing Chair" today. After acing a corporate career for 8 years, Avneet started The Wishing Chair as a lifestyle retail brand. She shares with Vani some of the secrets that helped this D2C brand grow.

Digital transformation is the current industry buzzword, but is the industry ready for true digital transformation, or is it merely paying lip service? Tune in as Vani and Shiv discuss digital in detail and what it actually means for the future of marketing.

Shiv and Vani discuss why, in today's context of digital, FMCG companies or 'Fast Moving Consumer Goods' companies are in fact slow! Listen on for some great pointers on how traditional large companies must reinvent to keep pace with the digital newbies.

Everyone has heard about the new normal, but for people in marketing, what does the new normal look like? What are the ways in which customer behavior has changed? How does buying happen post-pandemic?  Vani Gupta talks to Bhaskar Ramesh to decode trends that every marketeer and D2C founder must know. Bhaskar is the director of Google's omnichannel business in India and has spent more than a decade with the search engine giant, giving him a unique insight into how consumer behavior has evolved. Listen on for some fascinating insights into the new normal!

Go digital, get growth- the pandemic has changed rules for the B2B segment. How to better address pain points? Will branding become indispensable?In this episode, industry expert Shiv Shivakumar speaks about what it would take for B2Bs to make the cut!

Out with the old, in with the new- companies must pull their socks up if they want to succeed in a digitized world!In this episode, Vani speaks with Shiv Shivakumar who lays out his new theory on digital and shares golden insights on how companies can pivot to thrive.

What's this buzz about Purpose Marketing?!Is it really necessary for brands to stand for a good cause for society?Listen on to understand why it is important for brands to sync purpose with the product offering rather than advocate something that merely sounds good to society.

In today's ultra-cluttered mind, media and madness how does one make a brand stick in the consumer's mind? By creating distinctive brand assets. A strong sonic identity is one such. Listen on!

In this mobile-first world, one must include YouTube in the marketing plan.But is it wise to blindly copy-paste TV ads on YouTube and make them un-skippable?In this episode, Vani speaks with Karan Amin, who explains the difference between TV and digital and what brands must do to win at digital.

If we were to put it in numbers, 10% of the internet users in the country are ‘India'. The rest is Bharat! Yet most of us marketers fail to understand the real Bharat and fail to deliver authenticity in our content.In this episode, Vani speaks with Vinay Singhal, the flag-bearer of Bharat. He is a two-time entrepreneur who previously headed Wittyfeed which was India's largest viral content company. In his second innings, he is taking Stage to newer heights. With Stage, he is on a mission to build an OTT for Bharat and offer content in numerous languages and dialects.This episode is truly a masterclass for one who wishes to get the marketing for Bharat right!

In India, 80% of celebrity usage in the advertising industry is not thought through!In this episode, Vani speaks with Bobby Pawar and Subhash Kamath – the who's who of the Indian advertising industry, where they debunk the myths surrounding celebrity endorsement and explain why it is not always a good idea to incorporate it into your brand strategy.

Of course, a celebrity brings stature and immediate awareness - but how does one make sure one picks the right one, and what all goes into making for a great celeb endorsement? In this episode, Vani speaks with Dhruv Chitgopekar, Co-founder, Collective Artists Network, who takes us through the world of celebrity endorsement and explains why it is always a good idea!

Everyone knows of the legendary war between Coke and Pepsi in the 90s. In spite of Coke winning the title sponsorship for the 1996 World Cup, it was eventually Pepsi that garnered all the eyeballs with its campaign ‘Nothing official about it'.That was challenger marketing at its best!This episode is a deep dive into the concept of challenger marketing where the industry stalwarts explain how brands are using the challenger mindset to stay at the top of their game. Bobby Pawar – Chairman, Havas Group Lloyd Mathias – Angel Investor and Business Strategist  Subhash Kamath – Chief Executive Officer, BBH & Publicis Worldwide, India. Chairman, ASCI Shankar Prasad – Founder, Plum Goodness

This episode is truly a special one!The one where you'll deep dive into the brain of a man with the Midas touch, founder of one of India's oldest internet companies, Info Edge, that has produced numerous unicorns.In this episode, Vani speaks with Sanjeev Bikhchandani, the original giant of the Indian internet start-up ecosystem, where he shares golden insights on what it takes to build and scale a venture and what can make it a worthy investment.

Today every brand willy nilly has performance marketing as part of its promotion mix. But can it alone bring value in the long term?In this episode, Vani speaks with Pawan Sarda and Lloyd Mathias, who have explained in detail the pitfalls of using performance marketing in isolation and why it is necessary to marry it with conventional marketing principles.

What is performance marketing?How can one get the best deal?Why does it come cheaper at times and not so cheap at other times?In this episode, Vani speaks with Shankar Prasad, Shashank Mehta and Shubho Sengupta, on the science behind Performance Marketing.

Are you clear about the problem you are solving for? Seems simple yet it's the one thing start-ups struggle with most. Rohit Bhayana, Co-founder and Managing Partner, Lumis Partners, has invested in numerous ventures. In this episode, he has shared insightful pointers on how early-stage start-ups must think of innovation and give it scale and form.

Influencer marketing has become an essential part of the digital marketing mix!In this episode, Vani speaks with Subhash Kamath, Chairman and Manisha Kapoor, Secretary-General of The Advertising Standards Council of India, who explains the ASCI guidelines for Influencer Marketing and why it is required.

Have you ever wondered why a brand like Coke or Pepsi is iconic and why some brands fail to create any impact?Well, the secret lies in something known as ‘The Brand Book'.In this episode, Vani speaks with Bobby Pawar, Kaushik Prasad and Subhash Kamath – the stalwarts of the advertising world, to decode the whats, whys and hows of a brand book and how to get it right!

Are you someone who checks out the Instagram page of a brand first rather than stopping by at their website? In this episode, Vani speaks with Pawan Sarda, who shares insights on why Instagram has become the most-trusted vehicle for brands to increase their reach.

Building a brand is just like a jigsaw. And a clearly defined brand philosophy is one such crucial piece!In this episode, Vani speaks with Bobby Pawar, who decodes Nike's brand philosophy and explains the reason why ‘Nike Doesn't Do Funny Shit'.

I don't think consumers differentiate between 85 and 90, people only differentiate between 0 and 100.In this episode, Vani speaks with Shashank Mehta of The Whole Truth Foods, where he explains the philosophy of Challenger Thinking and why challenger brands are able to make the difference and rise above the din.

Creating is easy, what to create is a million-dollar question!In the first episode of Marketing with Vani, we have Aashish Chopra, Vice President (Content Marketing), ixigo.com, who talks about what it takes to make a content piece viral.