Six questions with people from the Winner Brands community
“The penetration of smartphones and affordable high-speed data is perhaps the biggest shift”
1) One defining memory in your marketing career so far?
Marketing has evolved so much over the last two decades that it is difficult to pinpoint just one. The evolution in technology, consumer behaviour and consumption patterns has posed different challenges and created new opportunities along the way. The penetration of smartphones and affordable high-speed data is perhaps the biggest shift. It has not only changed consumer behaviour but also shaped consumer aspirations. Brand discovery and engagement platforms have evolved rapidly, from ever-changing search engines to social media platforms and their formats, to e-commerce and q-commerce platforms, and influencers. AI is now sharpening marketing strategies by sifting through business data, speeding up content creation and amplification, enabling higher levels of personalization and targeting, and saving millions for brands. Today, brands can combine selective mass outreach with precision digital interventions.
“For a challenger brand, by definition you are trying to unseat the category leader”
2) What is the difference between working for an established brand vs a challenger brand?
For an established brand, you are finding ways to grow the category while protecting market share. You are always on the lookout for newer markets and consumer segments, and focusing on identifying the next unmet need. You are essentially defining what comes next for the category. For a challenger brand, by definition you are trying to unseat the category leader. Your focus is on growing market share. This can be limiting because you are often operating within an existing envelope unless you identify tiny moments in a consumer’s day and convert them into the next big thing. E commerce versus Q commerce is a great example.
“There is nothing more valuable than participating in consumer clinics and understanding what consumers actually think about your brand, product or service”
3) How do you typically prepare for a new role?
It is important to understand where your brand sits on the brand evolution ladder. Whether you are a start-up brand barely known to many or a well-known brand aspiring to become beloved, each requires a different mindset and approach to brand building.
There is nothing more valuable than participating in consumer clinics and understanding what consumers actually think about your brand, product or service. Speaking to distribution partners and front-end sales representatives can offer a completely different dimension to your assumptions. Reading consumer research reports and secondary market reports can give you a crash course into your brand and category.
It is always helpful to understand the entire ecosystem of the product or service. This gives you critical context. You understand what market needs you are addressing, what is being done today, what approach you will take to engage with consumers, the repurchase cycles, how long consumers stay in the market before making a decision, how different consumer cohorts behave at different price points, and product development cycles and time to market.
“It is even more important to know who your consumers are not”
4) One brand-building truth you wish was mainstream?
As brands grow, most marketers try to address more and more consumer segments. This leads to dilution. While it is important to know who your consumers are, it is even more important to know who your consumers are not. I wish the idea of consciously excluding consumer segments was more mainstream.
“No matter how beautiful we think our brand story is, it must deliver business impact”
5) Your tip to someone entering the field today?
Today, marketers have more tools than they need. While these tools evolve rapidly and it is important to keep up, we must be smart enough to distinguish what is actually useful for the brand. At the core of everything we do is building the right brand proposition that helps the business grow. No matter how beautiful we think our brand story is, it must deliver business impact, at least in the near term if not tomorrow.
“The first step was looking at internal data structures and building a CDP so we had a clear view of consumers across their buying journey”
6) Your experiments with AI…
The key was identifying where to start. The first step was looking at internal data structures and building a CDP so we had a clear view of consumers across their buying journey. We then used this intelligence to design marketing interventions based on behavioural patterns, reducing cost of acquisition. This same intelligence has powered our social media marketing and improved how quickly we address consumer concerns.
Pranesh Urs is the Chief Marketing Officer at Zuperspeed
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