What Dilen Gandhi teaches about brand purpose

The different flavors of Lays will bring different smiles to your face which can lead to different connections. Just to start off the first question, there is so much clutter in terms of content, I mean the digital, especially with video growing like crazy, it is harder for brands to stand out today, right? And how do you, so in this sort of an atmosphere, how do you sort of find your inspiration for that next big idea in terms of your product and your campaign, where do you look for it?

Actually, we look for the inspiration in the same place that we have always looked at, which is the consumers. You know, big ideas truly are built on great insights. Insights come from just immersing yourself in the consumer's lives and at PepsiCo, we put a lot of emphasis on keeping, being consumer centric. The word idea is very important in what you just asked because the primacy of the idea is I think what's most important for us. An example of that is the Lays Smile De Ge Take Ho campaign that we came up with,

which is really based on a very simple idea, which is based on two truths, right? Two insights. One insight which is a universal truth which is that smile leads to connections between people. When you smile at a person, it leads to a connection. And the other is that Lays brings a smile to your face. And consumers genuinely believe that, you know, nobody has Lays when they're angry or stays angry after they've eaten. And the twist therefore, the idea that we gave is that different flavors of Lays

will bring different smiles to your face, which can lead to different connections. By giving each flavor of hours, a different flavor of smile. American style cream and onion flavor became the calm smile. India's magic masala flavor became the joyful smile. What did the chili flavor become then? Naughty. Naughty smile, okay. So, you know, so an example of how do you sort of speak to the customer, you sort of engage with the customer in order to get this insight. I mean, are these sort of surveys

that you are running? Are you sort of regularly going and understanding sort of what is he buying? How is he consuming it? Yeah. So, so it's actually a combination of tools. What we are realizing is that the best insights have come when we have triangulated two or three things happening together. So, you look at quantitative data. For example, quantitative data really tells us that flavors is a big strength for us, okay. So, and then we look at marry that with qualitative data, where we've actually gone and met consumers. And

there are different types of doing that. We go and do focus groups, we go and do ethnographic research where we spend the whole day with the consumer, you know, walking the, you know, walking in their shoes almost. And that I think gives us a lot of rich insight. And then what we do is we take a hypothesis of what this could be and place it in front of the same consumers to say, this is what we heard from you. Does this work for you or not? So, what insight was Kurkure born out of? And how has the brand evolved over time? We see so many sort

of, so to say, brand extensions in a way today. Correct. It's very unique because it's one of the few examples of a multinational creating a brand for India, right? Mostly, most multinationals tend to either bring brands from outside that they already have in their stable. PepsiCo has done that also. And or buy some domestic brands. Or buy some domestic brands and we've done that also. Right. But this was a really unique thing which, which I think PepsiCo has really been the front

runner in. And it was based on a very simple idea. So, the idea was how do you take traditional Indian flavors and match it to a Western style convenient format? Right. Right. We think about a lot of our traditional snacks tend to be more palm food. And here was an opportunity to get the traditional snack flavors in a convenient finger food format. So, India versus the developed markets, what are the key trends and insights for the food and beverage industry? What is happening in the US,

in Europe? Are they sort of a lead indicators to where the Indian market is going to go in the few, next few years? Or are we sort of evolving differently? What is your take on that? Well, I think the, like with everything else, but more so in the case of food, there will be some things which will be global, but a lot more things which will be locally driven. Right. If you look at the India food landscape, it is really unique in the diversity that it has. Right. And a lot of strong culinary markets tend to follow a different path than markets which

don't have necessarily a strong culinary tradition of their own. So, we believe that a lot of this will continue to be local, but technologies will travel. So, your, what you want to deliver for your consumer will be, you know, much more. And what consumers look at is exactly the same thing as they were looking for. They are looking for something which is familiar, but layered with something which is new. New experience as well, right? Correct. So, what gets you going for the first time is something new. But what you keep coming back is something new.

That's a very great insight. So, that's, that's, that's, you know, that's what I said. So, that's, that's true everywhere in the world. So, you localize a global idea basically. The global idea and you can really leverage technologies which can, you know, unlock the kind of experiences which will bring you bring this, you know, exotic and familiar together.