Festive Season Is The Biggest Quarter In The Whole Year: Arvind R.P

In our exclusive series, 'Marketing Maestros,' we delved into the world of marketing with Arvind R.P., Chief Marketing Officer at McDonald's India (West & South). With a career spanning over two decades, he is an accomplished marketing professional with a diverse skill set, encompassing sales growth, strategic planning, e-commerce, brand development, category management, innovation, CRM, and digital marketing. 

Arvind's journey is a testament to his passion for marketing, as he shares insights into his career, his personal experiences that have shaped his trajectory in the field, his vision for the festive season, the power of Generative AI and much more.

Excerpts:

What drew you to the field of marketing?

When I looked at marketing from the outside, even before I joined the industry, I would say glamour played a big part in pulling me towards marketing. However, the real reasons are more mundane. I did my graduation in statistics and I saw Consumer Insights as a natural follow-up to my educational background.

So I joined the industry as a Consumer Insights professional and then moved on to brand management, sales and so on and so forth. Through the early years of immense learning, I would say I was fully set in the marketing landscape.

Your turning point in your marketing career when you knew this was what you wanted to pursue?

I would say two different turning points. The first was my first big brand launch, TVs Victor at TVs Motor Company, where we signed up Sachin Tendulkar. For a young brand manager, it was like a dream come true. I was mentored by many big professionals and that's where I learned my stripes. That moment cemented my interest and my career in marketing.

The second turning point was my stint in Indonesia. I realised one has to unlearn a lot and learn completely new things, which oriented me for the latter part of my career. It taught me that there's nothing called a fixed playbook. It taught me that all of it depends on the category truth, the consumer truth and how humble you are as a professional to learn new things.

Traditional media has seen a rise recently. How do you see the marketing spend for traditional media in the upcoming year?

I am a big advocate of the right mix between traditional and digital media. Traditional media isn't going anywhere soon. TV, for example, even the latest studies say that it is a medium that is very strong as far as attention goes compared to some of the other digital platforms. So the attention metrics do very well on traditional media like TV. On the other hand, digital proliferation is immense, and the penetration among the youth especially is going very strong. So, digital and traditional media will work together, be it from a funnel perspective or from simply a reach perspective. Nonetheless, traditional media would be a strong component of our spends even going forward. 

What is your take on brands using greenwashing or green messaging for sustainability?

Greenwashing is not sustainable. I think it is important for the brand to be authentic and genuine in its sustainability efforts. For example, in the case of McDonald's, we have eliminated all single-use, consumer-facing plastic from our restaurants. Many of our restaurants are moving to solar panels to generate the energy needs. Recently we changed our delivery packaging to easy bottles which are reusable. These are all tangible moves. There is no option but for responsible brands to behave this way. 

It's crucial for responsible brands to commit to sustainability genuinely. Once there is a belief, then the investments to make these things happen stem from that belief.

How do you envision generative AI's potential to enhance content creation and storytelling strategies?

Generative AI is an exciting possibility and opportunity for brands and marketers. It has the potential to truly transform the way we do marketing in many ways. The opportunities are endless. 

For example, Generative AI has the potential to transform, to do a large-scale effort in a matter of few minutes or hours, which normally takes days. While the science is evolving, technology is also evolving.

I think we have also seen a lot of versions of Generative AI in the last one or two years and we can see how it's improving from one solution to the next solution in terms of progression. I think it'll do well for marketers to embrace this, see what problems generative AI can solve and put it in meaning. With the enhancement of Generative AI, we can see a shift in the fundraising between marketers and agencies. It will impact the ecosystem of brands and marketers and pose hard questions.

How do you ensure authenticity and transparency in purpose-driven marketing, especially while addressing sensitive issues or new product launches?

For me, purpose-driven marketing is a wide canvas. However, at its core, I think it has to come from a genuine space. With a real problem to solve and a genuine solution, it has to be strongly linked to business and brand goals, or else it will likely have a very short shelf life. There's a saying that purpose-driven marketing has to cost the company something. If it's not costing you something, it's not really purpose-driven marketing; it's just a marketing campaign. Sometimes I am uncomfortable with the phrase 'purpose-driven marketing' because it seems to be an umbrella term with everything under it.

How do you address challenges in allocating ad spend during the festive season and a major event like the World Cup?

In the context of the festival quarter and the cricket season, it is a combination of these two that make the October, November, December quarter, the biggest quarter in the whole year. 

I think there are two ways to approach the resourcing. One is where brand building is very important. It's a great opportunity for building the cultural connect for the brand.  For example, this year, McDonald’s has a comprehensive festival campaign which aims to build brand affinity and the connect between the consumer and this occasion. The second is, given the festive nature, it's also a quarter of indulgence, be it Dussehra, Diwali or later towards Christmas and New Year. Indulgence is a big theme and we have a very strong cheeseburger range that we are also augmenting with a few new burger innovations. So it is a strong aspect input for us this quarter.

With the World Cup, our channels also contribute a lot in terms of business. Through the funnel resourcing, we will ensure that not only the top of the funnel, but the bottom of the funnel also has adequate resourcing to drive that app, installs and clicks and hence orders. So these are two or three ways in which one approaches this quarter to make sure the initiatives are resourced.

Which marketing veterans or leaders do you admire and find inspiration from in your professional journey?

Late Ivan Menezes, the man behind Johnny Walker's "Keep Walking" campaign, is my inspiration. When I read the story, it gave me goosebumps thinking “How as a marketing person, did he come up with this campaign of Keep Walking?” It's a legendary campaign and one of the longest-running campaigns.

In this era of marketing, where the shelf life of a campaign is a few months or a few quarters. Here is a long-running campaign over a decade or more. To create something so powerful that it runs through ages and generations of, in this case, drinkers. It requires a talent and as a professional, that's very inspirational story for me. 

Any advice for young marketers?

I would like to share the advice I got when I joined this journey which is, ‘Marketers get a seat at the table by being the voice of the consumer.’ Every marketeer aspires to have a seat at the table when important decisions are being taken about the business, about future strategy but many a time one forgets that you earn a right to be at the table only by being a voice of the customer, by being close to the customer, by being close to the marketplace, being on top of the trends and how does one do that? It takes a huge amount of effort, openness, humility and truth. 

How would you describe your marketing journey in one word or one sentence? 

Fulfilling with plenty of twists and turns, and each twist offers a new area of learning. I've been working across beauty Retail, Automobile, Dairy, FMCG, fashion retail, and now fast food retail. Every category comes with its own challenges and own category truths and all the time you're dealing with the same consumer who has different needs from different brands and categories. That makes it truly interesting.