What Malini Agarwal teaches about brand purpose

I think the problem with social media has been the fatigue that's set in is actually a symptom of it. The real problem is that it's become a very sort of impersonal space. From radio to your blog to TV shows, it's been such a fascinating journey. I'm sure that there's been lots that we can learn from that journey. The good things, the highs, the lows. Tell us a little bit, talk us through that journey and what we can learn from it. So first of all, thank you so much for having me here. So the reason I have a funny accent is because I'm a Diplo Brat.

My father was in the Foreign Service, so I grew up all over the world between 0 and 17. When he retired, I moved to Delhi. And my first job was I was a professional backup dancer for Sukhbir. And I did that for about six years and I loved it. Then my parents jokingly said, do you want to get a real job? And then I moved to Bombay and I joined MTV India. And I used to be part of their content piece when digital just started, the bubble burst. And then I joined Radio One. I was a radio jockey for nine years. I was the programming director.

And then I moved to Channel V and became digital content head. But while I was at radio, Midday actually owned Radio One. So I started writing a gossip column called Malini's Mumbai. And in hindsight, that was kind of the first iteration of the blog in a sense. I love fashion and beauty, but internationally there would be so many publications and magazines and sites. But in India, I only found kind of a data dump of celebrity pictures. You know, Aishwarya Rai in 17 poses in front of a backdrop.

And there was no voice and everything tended to be quite negative. And I didn't like that. I felt that there should be a space for positive entertainment journalism. And I think that's where it was all born. And you, the name is Malini. Yes. It's got a quirk to it. You know, and we've all sort of now grown used to the name. But tell us where that came from. I like alliteration basically. And I thought it would be really cheesy for me to call myself like Bollywoodgirl.com. So I thought I'll keep it simple.

And I was kind of inspired from brands like Perez Hilton and Just Jared internationally. I said, I'll just use my name. And since I like the alliteration, I made it Miss Malini. Ironically, a lot of people ask me if my name is Malini. I'm like, obviously. Imagine if it was Anjali. It would be so weird. Everyone's favorite joke now that I'm married is, why don't you make it Mrs. Malini? Yeah. So I'm like, well, then it would be Mrs. Rizwanullah and a whole other blog altogether.

I know, I've heard at least one talk where you said that the social media is broken. Yes. And that we need to fix it. Yeah. But is it getting fixed? Is it changing? Is it keeping pace with the times? I think that the problem is that keeping pace with the times doesn't necessarily mean fixing it. I think the problem with social media has been the fatigue that's set in as actually a symptom of it. The real problem is that it's become a very sort of impersonal space. And all, you know, I love that there's an industry of influencers and it's become such

a valuable career and brands are recognizing it. But as a result of it becoming sort of this rat race for how many brands can I promote, it's lost its authenticity. Interesting. Where does the brand Miss Malini go from here? Are there more languages? So the way I like to describe it is if, you know, Oprah was going to create her digital network today for the global millennial Indian, this is how she would do it. Because I feel you have to be platform agnostic. So for us, definitely there's an expansion in terms of what we offer.

Influences are a big thing. So we're definitely doubling down on our influencer content studio offering. The other thing that we're going to do is create a lot more video content for OTT platforms, because that really is the future, fiction and nonfiction. We're doing a lot of podcasts now. I'm writing my second book. And like you spoke about languages, there's definitely an expansion because the next 500 million are vernacular audiences. So definitely Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, we definitely want to offer more for women.

So the community for women that I started, Girl Tribe, is really about that. Being able to create a space that women are actually empowered to make a big change. And that actually leads well into what brands want is actual genuine, authentic conversation around their brand. And then yes, down the line, the opportunity to also do commerce and create products that speak to women without making them feel less than themselves. Look at how most products are marketed to women. You're not fair enough. Your body doesn't look good enough.

Your boyfriend won't like you. Where is the messaging that says you are an empowered woman? I have a sense you're always working, at least your mind is. Yeah. What do you do on your time off? How do you spend your influence? People always ask me about work-life balance. And Wendy Clark, who's I think the first CEO of RBB Mudra, said the best thing. She said, it's not about work-life balance. It's about work-life integration. Because I don't really know where my work ends and my social life begins because there's so much overlap.

And I'm okay with that because if I start driving myself crazy about how many hours I'm doing stuff at work and how many not, I'll never get anything done. Luckily, my husband is my CEO, so it works well. So we have the same sort of timelines. So I'm quite happy that there's enough of overlap that you can't tell one from the other.