What Sagar Boke teaches about brand purpose

Conversations that you could never create with the consumers and it was always a one-way conversation when it came to the traditional media. I think digital is allowing you to do it. Your industry has mostly been traditional, be it sales or marketing. How has digital interrupted the entire ecosystem? Well, I would say if you look at FMCG as an industry, has been one of the most stable industries in terms of the growth. So no business cycle has ever affected the FMCG growth sentiment so to say. While digital per se hasn't disrupted

the business so to say, but I would actually look at the question a little differently and say that there is a big opportunity that digital ecosystem is providing us. So the first thing that digital is providing us that the e-commerce customers, while we like to believe that they only want to buy high-end products, there is a large section which is wanting to look seeking out convenience and there is an opportunity for brands to be there. Second thing, the conversations that you could never

create with the consumers and it was always a one-way conversation when it came to the traditional media. I think digital is allowing you to do it. Third thing, digital is allowing you to really understand your customer in detail and increase the depth because most of the time the FMCG model classically worked was that spray and print. That means you're spending money on traditional media like television, print, hoping that some of these customers who want to consider your brand,

some of them will go and actually buy. But the problem was that there was a lot of leakage in the value chain in this process. Also, the loyalties were very fickle. I think what digital will allow you to do it to chase the customer, trying to see if you can upsell to that customer, try to engage with that customer in multiple ways so that the value that you're realizing out of a customer can be significantly higher. So when you plan your media budgets, what kind of a weightage does digital

get? Well, I think everything really starts from the consumer objective, right? So there are two approaches that we essentially look at. The first approach that we look at is that who is my audience and what that audience is currently doing and what is the media behavior of that audience. So if you look at two brands that we have, which is Tata Salt and Tata Sampan. So Tata Sampan is essentially a metro brand and Tata Salt is obviously, I mean, it travels across the length and breadth of the

country. So when we look at Tata Sampan as a brand, a significant amount of money goes on digital because metro markets, the consumers are there on digital. Also, significant amount of money goes both on e-commerce as well as on creating awareness. It purely depends on what brand and what object do you have. And also do you see like more consumers moving to digital in metros as compared to say two years ago, even the buying is also happening on digital and the marketing is also happening on digital. So the

entire ecosystem is digital only. Yeah, well, I would say predominantly, yes, the movement is definitely towards consumers moving more towards digital. In fact, the average amount of time that you're spending, the consumers are spending on the mobile screen is far, far higher than the average amount of time that you're spending on television screen that tells and also it's an undivided attention like you are watching television. Obviously, there are other members of the team, other members of the

family who are watching this plus also are distracted when you're on mobile. That's the only thing that you're looking at. So clearly there is a trend towards consumers spending more amount of time on digital. But I would at the same time, I would say it's not only digital. I think what is happening is that consumers journeys, I mean, there is there is times which is spent on television, there is time spent on digital screen, there is people still spending time also reading newspaper.

So it's become more cluttered and more complex, so to say, and not predominantly digital. So how do you track the consumer purchase journey? Well, I think classically, the consumer purchase journey earlier was that you would say IDA model, classical IDA model is attention, intention, desire, action, that means you create something which is very clutter breaking, that makes consumer want to buy your product. And hence the consumer goes to the outlet and finally purchase happens. What is happening because of digital, that model is

completely been broken now. All these things are happening simultaneously. So at all points of time, especially on digital, we try to be simultaneously present and try to impact all these parameters together. So let me try and tell you what I mean. Say if I am using advertising on YouTube, wherein I am wanting to talk about the advertising, I would want to do the same data and be on GDN and try to make that customer buy because I exactly know who is the customer and the lag between the two

cannot be very high because the mind space that the consumer has for your brand has gone down. So the length, so the way the consumer purchase journey has changed, I think the length, the time length has gone down and also sequence has completely changed. Brand safety is a very important factor for Tata. And especially when you advertise on digital, it becomes even more important. So how do you ensure that your brand safety is intact? And do you think that platforms such as Google and Facebook compromise on that and the local publishers, the

Indian publishers give you kind of a more safer environment? Brand safety is not the same. And I would also be very honest in saying that as brands, and most of the brands have not really found a clear solution. So what we do essentially is, I mean, we try and put some processes like we always are ad tracking and ad serving so that we know where exactly you are, who has seen your ad, which platform has it been seen. When also we have continuous online reputation management also going on. So we try and put all these factors together and see to it that

a our ad is not put somewhere where you wouldn't want it to be displayed, not along with the kind of content which doesn't align with the view that Tata as a corporate or Tata Salt or Tata Sampan as a brand believe in. But having said that, is it completely safe or completely foolproof? I think the answer is no. So your industry is very competitive. What do you do when you want to unwind from work? Well, I think lots of things. I'm into fitness. So I'm a marathoner and try and be at it at least

three to four days in a week. I run. Also, I love reading and recently behavioral economics is something which has taken my fancy and find it very interesting. Spend a lot of time with my daughter and that's a big relaxation.