Gen Z's Are The Inspiration For Marketing Gurus Of Today: Virat Khullar
For today's episode of 'Marketing Maestros', we exclusively spoke to Virat Khullar, AVP & Head of Marketing at Hyundai India.
A marketing visionary, Khullar delved into his intriguing journey through the realm of marketing, sharing insights into his career evolution and the dynamic landscape of the industry. With over two decades of experience under his belt, Khullar revealed how his early affinity for sales eventually led him to the captivating world of marketing.
Excerpts:
What caught your attention to the world of marketing?
During my career spanning two decades, what stood out for me was my head start in sales, a role I was deeply passionate about. In fact, I pursued it for about the first ten years of my career. Eventually, as I navigated through the roles that took me to remotest regions of the country, I gained invaluable insights into consumer behaviour and the power of brand influence to enhance sales of products. My sales-oriented initiatives, rooted in advertising and marketing strategies, had a remarkable impact on the states that I managed. Notably, these initiatives caught the attention of the headquarters, leading to their integration into marketing activities at a national scale. It was during this phase that I realised the intriguing possibilities within the realm of marketing. Motivated by my passion and a genuine knack for the brand, I seized an opportunity to transition to the headquarters' marketing department. This marked a pivotal moment in my career trajectory with subsequent chapters marked by continuous growth innovations.
What has been the turning point of your life in the marketing industry?
Identifying a singular pivotal moment within the marketing landscape is a complex task. However, a notable shift has unfolded from traditional to contemporary media. In the early stages of my career, the scope of a marketer was restricted to mediums such as radio, print, and limited cable/TV outreach. Today, we're immersed in conversations surrounding the digital media, which has even begun to surpass the influence of television within the media mix. It's important to recognise that 'digital' encompasses a vast spectrum, ranging from digital media itself to the wide realms of social media and its other emerging networks.
With sustainability becoming a prominent focus in marketing, what are your thoughts on brands adopting green messaging genuinely versus resorting to greenwashing to remain competitive in the market?
Sustainability has become a buzzword, though unfortunately. The fortunate part is sustainability is the need of the planet and people have started acknowledging it. It is an endeavour to make the planet last longer. Organisations and governments across the globe have taken the commendable steps of proclaiming carbon neutrality and sustainability objectives, and are steadfastly adhering to these commitments. At Hyundai Motor India, we've taken on the mission of carbon neutrality with great determination. This target extends across our global operations, reflecting our dedication to environmental responsibility. As for greenwashing, the concept does not apply as much in the category that we operate in. To give you a sense, both our manufacturing facility and dealerships are consistently advancing toward enhanced sustainability. This involves the implementation of measures like rainwater harvesting, wider integration of solar panels for energy generation, and a greater reliance on LED-based lighting. In our workshops, a lot of customers are now resorting to dry washing. These are facts that we follow and pursue. Sustainability is an organisational goal that should be pursued at a deeper level and not just used for advertising.
How do you ensure authenticity and transparency in purpose-driven marketing, when dealing with sensitive issues?
Purpose marketing is a significant field of advertising and marketing nowadays. Gen Z is very critical for purpose-driven marketing. They like brands that go forward to create a change. On the other hand, they're also critical if they realise something is done for the sake of advertising or is done for the sake of selling goods.
A lot of organisations have done deep work to improve certain social issues that are prevalent in that specific country. From Hyundai, we work on multiple CSR initiatives in the states of Haryana, Tamil Nadu, and also at a national level. Most of those initiatives currently are hard worked upon and not advertised. They are pure CSR social issue initiatives intended for the betterment of the society. Globally, a lot of work is done on healthy seas, mobility for all, and sustainability under our vision of progress for humanity. As a brand, we are working very strongly on a lot of strong CSR campaigns, both regional and national.
In what ways do you foresee generative AI's capacity to elevate content creation and storytelling approaches?
Today, marketing has become so exciting with newer technologies evolving so fast that they have the power of changing the way we create and communicate. Generative AI, is one such tool that has the power to change a lot of the advertising we do. A lot of organisations have started dipping into Gen AI, using it for content creation. For us, video is much bigger than static; For us, the features and the benefits of the products that we communicate are fundamentally important and we cannot make any errors in our communication from that point of view. There are cons as well to Generative AI, which is why we hear words like hallucinations. For instance, the tool can start believing that whatever it is communicating is correct but it isn’t. We value our customer and do not want even a single consumer to buy a product because of a miscommunication, expecting some feature in the car which does not exist. That results in big consumer negativity for us. So we are, in the beta stage of testing some of the Gen AI products. However, I think we will spend some more time testing it, analysing larger language models, and what multiple content creations option can be explored, when we are doing hyper-local personalised digital advertising.
What opportunities and challenges do you anticipate in the future of social media marketing and how do you plan to navigate them to stay ahead in the ever-changing landscape?
This is definitely a challenge. It is not how I will divide media into TV, digital, and print but it is how I will divide media into YouTube, Facebook, Threads, etc. Also, there has to be significant research to tell where our consumer is. We rely on first-party data for re-targeting or targeting look-a-like audiences using Martech tools. However, I believe, this is still very nascent and transient. We continuously monitor the recall and engagement rate across campaigns and those become our guiding principles. Today in India, Hyundai has one of the largest social community across Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, and Instagram within auto. While we get a lot of followers and fans, it also lends us a lot of responsibility with higher and deeper diving into what we should put out. We can hold and not release rather than release and repent. It's an unforgiving as well as a highly engaging medium.
How do you strike a balance between granting creative freedom to influencers and adhering to brand guidelines to ensure consistency and alignment in messaging?
We are a global brand and adhering to global brand guidelines is always our priority while still having creative freedom. We have a brand guideline system applicable to all Hyundai subsidiaries across the globe. All creative work that we do - partnerships, influencer engagement, on-ground activations, Television commercials, will always be aligned. Yes, it is not easy to work with influencers if we are creating such structures. The whole purpose of influencer marketing is not to have interruption via advertising. It is to have integration which is inside the influencer's demeanour, the genre that the influencer is in, and the niche that they are currently working within. The aim of the brand is to integrate into the regular content the influencer is working on. The aim is to let the creator do their work but set a bit of guardrail around it so that we don't go beyond what we don't stand for.
For instance, in one of the cars we launched, we had a big collaboration with gaming influencers because the entire concept was made with Avatars. We had a Metaverse experiential set up. Our team scanned through the profiles of tons of gamers and we went back several years. The objective was to evaluate their content and check if it is in line with our guidelines and if not, the gamer or influencer is not part of our plan. Additionally, all influencer work developed for us is always pre-approve by Hyundai marketing team to ensure the entire campaign falls within the guidelines. We believe in full synchronization of content to our philosophy and messaging that we stand for.
To be frank, there is no dearth of being creative within the guidelines. It is a misnomer that if you are creative, you should not have guidelines.
Which marketing veterans or leaders do you admire and find inspiration from in your professional journey?
I'll give a bit of a cliche answer which is also the truth, the biggest influencers or trendsetters that influence marketing are Gen Z or Gen Alpha. One of the biggest influencers today are not the marketing gurus of the last century but they are the trendsetters of today.
Personally for me and because of this disruptive streak, Dr. Byron Sharp is one of my idols in marketing, from the very fact that he basically questions every old marketing theory. He talks about what is the power of a pricing change, loyalty program, and physical availability of a brand versus the mind space of brands. The way he is thorough with the research, and the way he questions and presents scientific data, is very appealing to me.
How would you describe your marketing journey in one word or one sentence?
It has been exciting and enlightening. It has been brand new on a regular basis, and I am blessed to be where I am, and looking forward to what's coming ahead.
