Category: DAS KA DUM

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Q: What do you think is better for the growth of the game of cricket: a one-side batter-friendly IPL or a balanced, more bowling-friendly T20 World Cup?

A: Any competitive situation demands a balance approach. The objective can’t be solely winning a game but develop the specific sport so that we remain globally competitive and aim to be amongst the best in the world. It is true for business segments too. A monopoly or an oligopoly only contributes to a lopsided growth in innovation, quality of product and a stunted growth in employment opportunities. Now, look at the democratisation of cricketing talent post the introduction of IPL and WPL (for women). Protectionism in a borderless world is a sure route to concentration of power and is not beneficial for universal good.

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Q: Given that climate change and extreme weather conditions are playing havoc with life in India, do you see a growth in weather-wise marketing growing in India? Are the winds of change blowing in that direction?

A: I would emphatically say that concern about deteriorating impact on climate has reached alarming proportions. Time for expression of interest on the subject is over now. Now is the time to act decisively. But what we lack is crisis of leadership and absence of political will to initiate decisive step. The time for platitudes on the subject is over. We are collectively responsible for where we have reached today, in India and globally. A marketing campaign can at best create consciousness of the problem and goad citizens to act but if the policy-makers don’t initiate steps to show a clear path of actions to be adopted by every citizen including punitive actions, we can’t make measureable progress.

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Q: In the 20-game version, past reputations don’t really matter. Given that, your sentiments as India plays South Africa in the Final tomorrow?

A: Why in T-20 ? It’s true for most aspects of our life- past has no Future. Extrapolation of past success to future is no longer a game even. In case of T-20, a team has to be in the present always. The record of past performance is no guarantee for its continuance. Eg: look at Virat Kohli and Jadeja or Shivam Dube for that matter. Nothing is working for them. At the same time, Hardik Patel’s performance has dramatically improved when one compares it with his IPL performance.

May be Rohit & Co need to revisit their fetish for continuing with the same team. Some good players are sitting on the bench. I doubt in the final match , the Indian team would take the risk of experimenting with the team structure.

Sentiment-wise I would like India to win the Cup which has eluded India for 13 years . South Africa has a good team. They are unbeaten also. The pitch seems to be the real hero and bowlers have a field day. Each pitch is unpredictable and on Final day, how one adjusts to the new pitch and respond would be critical. The India captain is playing an exemplary role. The ability of the Indian team members to adjust the new operating ecosystem has yielded dividend. There is no choking. New heroes have come like Axar Patel and Arshdeep Singh. Rohit, SKY and Hardik have been generally consistent and delivered at the crunch. Ultimately, the best team would win at the end of the day.

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Q. Fortune favours the brave, said captain Rohit Sharma after winning the Men’s T20 World Cup. For you, what was the Big Takeaway from Team India’s Big Win?

A: Can’t agree more with Rohit Sharma. However, cliched the adage may sound, but the Indian team under Rohit had demonstrated on Saturday night how to maintain bravery and composure in the face of significant competitive challenge throughout the tournament.

My takeaway from Team India’s win are:

1. In T20s, individual uniqueness and collective accountability can co-exist as part of a shared belief.
2. Consistency (bordering on conservatism and boldness to experiment) might not always be bereft of virtue. Eg Indian team remained unchanged throughout the tournament inspite of a few lacklustre performance of a few players and a significant bench strength.
3. Rohit perhaps ticked all the boxes of inspirational leadership, but the glorious uncertainty of cricket, especially in T20 format, needs dynamic and real-time experiment with decision like bowling change or batting order which even a coach can’t predict always. So, ability to take risk or make experiment might be a visceral instinct and is not an algorithm.
4. Baggage of a past moment could be a liability. One has to see beyond the last ball or last stroke, as one is as good as the last one and a fresh approach to the next ball or the next catch ensures a perpetual focus on the next moment (future focus mentality).
5. Finally, phlegmatism or equanimity to any situation and remaining positive are the hallmark of a winner, almost always. The Indian team demonstrated it amply in many crunch games including the last Saturday’s one.

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Q. Amul was sponsor of the South African cricket team. Should such associations be avoided especially since Amul is decidedly India’s biggest homegrown brand?

A: Let us get a  few facts straight before I answer this question: Amul exports to almost 50 countries in the world, if not more, and they intend to increase their base, going forward, in different parts of the world. So, Amul is not just an Indian brand, but a global brand now.

Secondly, when a brand has global market, it has to customise all its communication strategy (including brand endorsement strategy) to reflect its integration with local sentiments and cultural moorings.

Thirdly, sports-led spectator emotions are universal in nature, albeit at a different magnitude. From that sense, it’s myopic for a marketer to identity with only its place of originating country. As someone once commented that sports doesn’t build character, it reveals it. It’s as true for players, spectators as for brands. After all a brand is an aggregated human emotion also.

Given all the above realities, I would not find any omission on the part of Amul in partnering with South African cricket team. It is better not to mix up patriotism with nationalism. The difference is that: patriotism implies that when love of our own people comes first. Nationalism, on the other hand, implies (more often than not these days) when hate for people other than our own people comes first. It’s not my quote… this is what Charles de Gaulle said once, resonates with my beliefs when it comes to global marketing.

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Q. We all know you are very fond of cricket. And now there’s the India tour of Zimbabwe starting later in the week? Overkill?

A: Fatigue on a frequently exposed event/ occurrence is usually an individual level occurrence and might not be an emotional epidemic at a collective level. Secondly, for any commentator of an episode, there is a tendency to extrapolate individual sentiment to the universe. In the instant case of your question, there is a seemingly brahminical level of quality consciousness equivalent to a T20 World Cup or any such intense emotion-evoking event. The racial undertone (pejorative in today’s world) of the boredom for a cricket match with Zimbabwe can also be discerned.

Given the above, a  meta majoritarian perception might not be a reality of the universe of cricket lovers. We shall be able to see how some budding players rise to the occasion of proving their skill of the game. In the process, we might find out some hidden gems amongst the young team. That would be good for Indian cricket.

Finally, if one is exhausted by frequent cricket matches, one has the option of watching other programmes. If one de-averages markets for consumers, there is always a market in such a niche audience. Let them enjoy it.

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Q. Any advice to the new leadership of the two news networks that have seen changes at the top

A: Leaders generally know what they have to deliver and they don’t need lecturing on the same. So, I won’t walk into that path.

Having said that, I may hasten to add that leadership tasks in any organisation and in any sector have become more complex than before as one has to be ambidextrous in balancing external volatilities of the market and expectations of various stakeholders with internal cultural alignment. Not an easy task. Hence, leadership by example to deliver outcomes as per the shareholders’ vision is an imperative. The media landscape is evolving continuously, thanks to accelerated technology-led transformation and changing consumption behaviour. These have made it imperative to reinvent organisations multiple times to survive and thrive.

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Q. The new Budget will be presented soon. Any steps that you think can help marketers turn buoyant?

A: The Finance Minister is gearing up to present the first Union Budget of NDA 3.0/Modi 3.0 this month. There are high expectations from various quarters for steps that would accelerate growth in topline and bottom of India Inc (including growth in employment opportunities). The upcoming full Budget has to balance between fueling growth, curbing inflation, and ensuring fiscal discipline and generate employment.

With crucial support from key allies, the Finance Minister faces the challenging task of delivering strategic initiatives that will stimulate sectors such as defence, railways, infrastructure, renewable energy and digital infrastructure and its progression. Inflationary pressures have to kept under check too.

I hope the above steps would also, in turn, result in the buoyancy of M&E sector.  With a stronger opposition, the populist demands have to catered to with a few state elections round the corner. Economics and politics have to be mingled adroitly by the finance ministry – not an easy task. But good economics can result in good politics too. Am I dreaming of a utopian world?

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. Do you believe that the democratisation of news via social media platforms poses a threat to legacy journalists? Not just in political news but in every sphere?

A: There is no doubt that democratisation of news or content for that matter have created a different competitive landscape for legacy media. But this is a mixed truth as such a statement needs more granular probing.

For legacy media, whether print media  or TV news channels, the audience can be anyone from baby boomers to Generations X, Y or Z. Alpha may be too young to be interested in consuming news content which is either static or lacks interactivity. In the new mediascape, such infirmities engender audience migration to substitutes. Social media caters to that aplenty.

While audience has many options of news as per individual preferences, social media has its own challenges. For example, the trust quotient of digital news media isn’t very high as the veracity of source of news is often suspect. The real-time news break in social media can have different socio-economic and political Implications. In the age of generative AI, the challenges are only getting compounded. Leading print titles generally enjoy high trust quotient. The electronic news media in India have earned the sobriquet of towing the establishment line to the point of disbelief. The exit poll of the recent Lok Sabha elections is a classic testimony of that.

In the same way, the creator economy has plenty of content generators under various genres but each one of them has to fight fleeting loyalty of the audience by constantly creating novelty and prove authenticity of their content.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. In the rush for reaching out to the youth and women audiences, would you say that the media has forgotten senior citizens given that it’s a growing strata? Is yes, how can the 60+ be targeted?

A: The 60-plus or GenS (if I may use the term) are not neglected technically as they get benefits as a residual audience. The addressable market for each brand is generally younger demographics but in the process around a 149million audience base is ignored. Even if one ignores the underserved or bottom end of the pyramid, yet 50 million of the top end of the pyramid are ignored, willingly or unwillingly, by marketers. Interestingly, the segment offers significant opportunity for corporates as the 60-plus segment has resources to splurge on various products and services. Decoding their unique needs and wants (which requires empathy) can expand possibilities in an already existing market.

In case of the underserved and the people at the bottom end of the pyramid, innovation can open up consumers for affordable routes to need satisfaction. For this, understanding of the relevant audience’s circumstances of life are very critical and basic human requirements for those who are at the fringes of the economy, could be added to the mainstream of consumption. That’s a tall order in terms of social and economic will of the corporates (apart from politicians) beyond platitudes and tokenism and commit to make tangible difference.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. Is there a bit of an overkill on the Indian team victory and now the Ambani wedding? Or is that what it will be since content is served as per what is consumed most?

A: One needs to be clear about the definition of the word ‘overkill’. IMHO, it’s a relative and subjective concept and what is overkill to you might not be an overkill for someone else. The proof the concept in recent times is the celebration of homecoming of the T20 World Cup winning team in Mumbai. While viewership on TV leapfrongged, an incredible number of fans congregated at Marine Drive.  Now, I didn’t go there and perhaps you haven’t joined the celebration too. The final was over on June 29, but the celebrations weren’t. It wasn’t an overkill for fans.

The same is true for other social engagements of celebrities or other leading citizens of the country. Media is in some ways leverages the voyeurist inside us. We like escapism from the daily grind through content immersion.

Biologically, human beings are also programmed to be curious creatures. We have evolved to retain neotenic traits. This implies that as a species we are more childlike than other mammals. Curiosity is one of these neotenic traits that has helped our species to survive as we constantly look for new data points to adjust to our environment.

Social media sites such as Meta, Instagram etc also activate the brain’s reward centre, called the nucleus accumbens. When we get positive feedback on social media sites, in the form of likes, hearts or comments, our brain processes rewarding feelings. Therefore, we become addicted to consuming other people’s social media content as well as posting our own content. Hence, in the prevailing time of hyper-individualism, there is nothing called overkill. Every content has a relevant audience and customer satiation of the same is infinite.

If you wish to access the archives, please go to the Das Ka Dum tab on the website’s top navigation bar or click here: https://www.mxmindia.com/category/columns/das-ka-dum/

Q. Influencers seem to be making easy money. And some of them are pretty below par. Do you think it would be a good alternative career for folks in our business?

A: I wish life would have been so easy. I agree that the influence of the Influencers has grown with the increasing penetration of social media, but like any career it needs continuous honing of requisite skills to remain at the cutting edge of technology to deliver unique and authentic content (audio, video etc) in a sustained manner. In case of specialised subjects like fashion, finance etc, domain understanding and expertise are indispensable for growing the user base. The content need to be unique and differentiated. For this, knowledge of subject, technology and social media marketing tools are a must.

There are some challenges for influencers as the lack of a typical full-time career, volatile income structures, dependence on popularity for earnings, exposure to public feedback that can potentially impact one’s image and mental well-being (due to the pressure to maintain consistent quality output).

The possibility of burnout due to the constant need for content creation, public scrutiny and the pressure to maintain a certain image online and dependence on single platform ( generally) are some common risks associated with the career of an influencer. Finally, the influencer must also be ready to face air pockets in the form of ever-changing social media algorithms, which might affect content visibility and immersion of the audience in the same.

Net -net, like any other career options, life of an Influencer is not strewn with roses. One needs to navigate the thorns also. Hope I haven’t discouraged you for making a career shift.