What Mohit Joshi teaches about brand purpose

2020 planning is not about mediums planning, it's going to be content planning. If a content is there on three mediums, then probably we need to be there on all three mediums. You were recognized as one of the greatest marketing influencers of 2018 by the World Federation of Marketing. How did it feel like? Just run us through the entire incredible journey. Well, it was an incredible feeling, I would say, being recognized as an influencer, a marketing influencer, an area on which you've been working for a very long time. And I

thank the social media for it because that's how today one is able to connect with the consumers and the decision makers at large. And I use it in a big way, especially the Twitter domain. So, I think that is how I was able to put my thoughts across to the marketing fraternity and I really felt nice when I got this recognition from them. Integrated marketing is now a buzzword probably and slightly overwhelming for marketers. So, how can one get it right, you know, and what are the right focus areas for that?

Integrated marketing for me is slightly more than what integrated marketing means for others because as I was talking just now in my session, today we are getting together in such a manner that the creative and the media also need to be together. So, when I say integrated marketing efforts, they have to be at the base, at the root where the creative, media, digital all sit together and work for the brand in a unified direction, which is what used to happen when we started our

careers, but finally got disseminated into specialists. So, in my view, together is the way forward and only then integrated marketing will make sense when creative, media, digital all work together. Also, thanks to the coming of, you know, that always on digital channels per se, media planning has become a little more complicated. So, how do you think agencies can provide more impactful campaigns to their clients, especially in the digital platform? We need to understand digital much better because while, you know, we say that everybody is

digitally savvy and on digital, but we hardly know what they're doing over there because it's a huge domain in itself. And that's what I say. It's planning on television is far easier because you have 800 channels. Planning on digital is far difficult because you have unlimited number of domains where you can touch them. And which is why I think it's important to talk to the consumer, get a much better understanding of what that digital domain is, which is meaningful for that consumer, where the consumer

is going for information and then talk to him in that domain in the right context. That information is very important. By just saying that, you know, you should do search, you should do social, you should do programmatic is not going to solve the purpose. You need to understand where the consumer is because digital, as I said, is far more complicated than a television or a print environment where the opportunities or the touch points are significantly larger.

Right. Also, I mean, the whole media planning mix is changing. And as you correctly said, it's also important to understand the digital medium per se and other forms that are coming up. So, can you give examples of brands that have actually done a good job in like planning their media thing entirely, getting the media mix right basically? So, as in Havas, we call it meaningful media planning. So, we have an MX process, media experiences process. And what we feel is that it has to be an integrated

approach. And you have to connect with the consumer on all those various touch points, which are meaningful for him or her. And a lot of my clients, I could, you know, talk about one is Swiggy, where, you know, right from the time when they used to do no offline media, they were only program, they were only performance driven to a time when they started taking big formats like cricket. The entire journey has been very, very targeted, at the same time, reach oriented, and also meaningful. So,

I would take Swiggy as an example where we've really been very, very thorough with how we've approached the whole process. Right. Also, even as we are talking about digital mediums and it becoming a reality per se, what are those, also the traditional media has its own pluses. What are those key benefits that brands shouldn't overlook when it comes to traditional media per se?

See, traditional and digital is something that we have created, right? And I think all mediums are equally important today. And as I was saying, 2020 planning is not about mediums planning, it's going to be content planning. If a content is there on three mediums, then probably we need to be there on all three mediums. We know that television is important, it gives you the reach, it gives you the lowest cost per thousand that no other medium can give you.

We know that print is very good in impact. And if you have to launch a car or an important brand in this market, you need to be there on print. You need outdoor for certain categories, which can't live without that. But at the same time, rather than making a plan based on mediums, we need to make a plan based on what is the objective and what are the genres that we need to be present on. And hence, what is the content domains that we need to be present on?

Right. And as an agency veteran and a marketing veteran per se, what would be the advice you would like to give young marketeers who are trying to navigate their way in the ever-changing media landscape, the media planning landscape? Don't think of the solution first. Think of the problem. I think what we do is we immediately, the moment we start talking to a client, we'll say, we'll do this for you, we'll do a television plan, we'll do.

First, understand the problem that the client or the brand is facing. And then see how you can make a meaningful difference in the communication and try to create a lot of relevance for that brand through your communication. First, understand the problem.