What Alok Shankar teaches about brand purpose

Our vision is to make everyone in the world healthier, right? So that is really the core philosophy which drives all our actions. Fitbit was one of the early players in this segment, but today you see the segment is cluttered with Chinese competitors. Many of them priced much lower. How are you sort of tackling this challenge at a perception level for consumers? How is Fitbit setting itself apart as a brand of choice? So, you know, at Fitbit we are very clear that one size doesn't fit all, right?

Different consumers have different preferences, whether it comes to hardware or software, the solutions and services. So what we excel at is actually providing an entire ecosystem, which basically means is we will provide the best hardware possible. So we have one of the best sensor packages that is available. We have a great and a super application. Plus on top of that what we do very well is that we give meaningful insights and guidance to people on their journey of health and fitness, right?

So what we believe is that for a person to achieve their own health and wellness goals, it is actually a journey, right? And it requires a change in your behaviour and lifestyle. It is not a one off, right? So then that is where what we do is we give you the insights and those insights are actually customised for that specific individual, right? And that we can do because we have one of the largest sort of databases of, you know, of health around the world. We use that to benchmark various aspects.

We work on things like sleep, you know, how well you sleep. We work on things like, you know, cardio fitness. So all of that what it means is that we work not only in silos of say just the hardware or just the software but the entire ecosystem. How have you seen health awareness grow in India especially with the millennials and post millennial crowd? And how is that sort of, is that sort of a proxy for the growth of brands such as Fitbit in India?

See, I think overall if you see over the last few years there has been an overall awareness around health and fitness, right? Unfortunately, in India we have had a lot of lifestyle related diseases, right? And there has been a lot of narrative as you see across all the platforms whether it is in media or wherever. And overall there has been that great awareness in terms of overall wellness for people, right? And I think that is something which is extremely good I think in that sense.

And that is where for us, like I just explained to you, that we are, our vision is really to make everybody in the world healthy, right? So that's the core philosophy. And as the end customer is really at the centre of everything that we do, right? So for us it is really very topical and contextual that the awareness around health and wellness is there. And we just become an enabler for that person as I said on the journey of getting fitter and remaining fit.

So when you look at marketing, do you look at focus groups like for example women, professionals, do you sort of reach out to certain offices directly? I know for a fact that many offices as part of the HR incentives of culture these days are focusing on health for their employees. So is that a great way to sort of market your product that's more direct marketing or would you sort of look at a more mass level? So not necessarily, we are much more mass level, right? Like I said, you know, our vision is to make everyone in the world healthier, right?

So that is really the core philosophy which drives all our actions. Within that, obviously as you mentioned, there are those subgroups of whether it is the millennial women, you know, the corporate sort of workers. And the fact that there is awareness all around in everybody's mind around wellness and health, I think that just sort of falls. Is an enabler. Yeah, that just is an enabler. Right.

Specifically talking about women, what we had done last year is actually we also launched within our app, the facility for people to, women specifically to monitor their, you know, health cycles, right? So menstrual cycles is something that you can manage and monitor. So we are providing more sort of tools for different category of people, so to say. But for us, it is much more mass market and anybody who wants to be on their wellness journey is our target customer.

What are your health goals? Are you happy with meeting them or, I mean, the year is just about to end. Do you have any new year resolutions you want to make on camera? Touchwood, I think, overall, I think I am fairly fit in many ways. Actually growing up, I was a lot into sports. So I played a lot of sport. And luckily I managed to keep in touch with that. So I continued to sort of have some sort of physical activity which I have followed right through. Along with being a bit more conscious about what I eat, right?

But coming back to say Fitbit, you know, before I joined Fitbit, to be honest, I wasn't really using a health tracker that much. But what it has certainly done is helped me monitor some of the key sort of parameters. And it certainly helps me keep more in control of what I do. Yeah, what I do. Like I said, I had mentioned in the past, sleep patterns is something which is very important. And as more and more studies show, sleep becomes very essential and a critical aspect of overall wellness of a person, right?

It has impact on your weight. It has impact on your stress levels and so on and so forth, right? Has it improved? Have you seen a difference? Yes, certainly. So in the past, I never really tracked how much I slept. But lately, like since I have certainly been part of the Fitbit family, you know, I am very conscious in terms of the number of hours I sleep. I do keep track of that. And actually I can see that if I am short of sleep, I can actually, you know, then feel the differences of that, right?

So I monitor some of those things as I ensure that I am sleeping well. I ensure that I am doing those minimum level of exercise that you must do. And I think overall, relatively speaking, I think I have managed to maintain my weight and I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. ! I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit. I am fairly fit.

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