From his journey that began at Hindustan Unilever (HUL) to leading Nestle India's marketing strategy, Chandan Mukherji, the Director and Executive Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Communication's perspective bridges the gap between data-driven decision-making and human-centric brand building in an exclusive conversation with BW Marketing World. As businesses navigate digital transformation and changing consumer behaviours, his emphasis on responsible marketing, sustainability and the fusion of global expertise with local relevance provides a masterclass in building resilient brands for the future.
Excerpts:
You began your journey in marketing with HUL and now Nestle. Today, you are one of those super marketers with an eye for detail. What excites you the most about marketing? What was the point in your life where you realised that this is exactly the profession that soothes you?
I was first drawn towards marketing through the lens of marketing research, which is a great intersection of understanding people, their behaviour, data, insights and the ability to influence businesses and deliver results. Over the years, in my role in brand marketing, I was excited by the opportunity to build brands, be creative, constantly innovate and directly impact business growth by developing strategies that resonate with consumers. Over the next years in the strategic market and global roles, the fusion of human understanding and data-driven understanding, building brands with impact, the ongoing integration of new technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, creative tech, real-time data tracking, immersive experiences and so many others have always evolved the art and science of marketing. The ability to build something and see a tangible result has always kept me going. What I love is diving in deep and wide, pushing myself and my teams to consider different kinds of opportunities and some of them could be transformative, with the ability to build growth momentum.
How do you integrate global consumer insights into India's localised marketing strategies, ensuring both global consistency and local relevance, given that marketers are using the localisation approach to target wider audiences?
The opportunity is to use the best of both – global and local capabilities and strategies, ensuring that what we execute is relevant and meaningful, guided by consumer insight. Global brands bring impactful propositions, purpose and are backed by strong capabilities across the value chain, while tailoring strategies to the local culture is key to building empathy and connection. Localisation extends to language as well, with brands trans-creating content and running multilingual campaigns in regional languages.
The term 'responsible marketing' is gaining prominence. What comes to your mind when you hear these two words, especially if I talk about data privacy concerns, sustainability and personalisation at scale?
Responsibility extends to all walks of life and taking ownership of one’s actions is paramount. It is important that brands are authentic, behave and communicate responsibly, ensure adherence to morality and ethical practices, are transparent in a world which has so much information, drive meaningfully sustainable practices and walk the fine line between personalised services and privacy infringement. Ensuring consent, compliance on data-related aspects and data/cyber security are key to every business. Brands should engage with consumers responsibly through their journey and not spam them or overload them. Aspects about climate change and environmental footprint have a huge impact on the world, and it is important that people and brands care about sustainability, and embrace it for our collective future.
In marketing, what would you do differently had you known earlier what you know now?
In hindsight, the speed of digital transformation and maturity could be underestimated. The rapid level of experimentation and evolution of business models has also been dramatic. Some marketers have caught these two ahead of the curve, while others could be at different levels on the curve. The consumer continues to evolve, Covid being an inflection point in many ways and younger generations like Z, Alpha and Gamma are setting the tone.
Any words of wisdom for marketers in which they can help build stronger, more resilient brands?
To build resilience, brands need to prioritise long-term strategies rather than short-term gains. Stronger brands with impressive equity have stronger resilience and it is essential to make sure that the brand promise aligns with the brand experience. Maintaining authenticity and transparency are important to gain consumer trust. Being true to brand values helps build consistency, connect and can input into resilience. Brands built around a powerful core insight have a great starting point and consumer-centric communication, innovation, differentiation and salience lead to stronger equity. Brands need to stay ahead of the curve by continuously innovating and responding to shifting consumer demand, thereby building resilience.
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