What Sudeep Narayan teaches about brand purpose

We're the first car company in India to have radar-enabled safety. So Volvo Cars has completely refreshed its portfolio. What has been the response to this new positioning? Actually, you know, it started in 2014 when globally we reintroduced our brand with a completely fresh look which is designed around you. And designed around you is not just a baseline, it's actually a philosophy wherein we look at customers' needs and the daily requirements and we fit a car, you know, befitting that lifestyle. So, yeah, it's taken very well in India.

Whichever cars we've launched in the last three years have always been on wait list. We're gaining 40% market share over last year. It's a robust growth and it's great to be, it's a great landscape to be in India. Very competitive, very energetic and then lots to do. Right. So, as we know, the luxury car market in India is an aggressively contested space. So, how do you deal with competition and how do you kind of, you know, what is your differentiator? It starts with the home country, you know. Our competition is mostly either German or Japanese

and we are from Sweden. So, that's our first distinguishing factor. Right. And what we need to look at there is, what are the things that make Sweden a country and a culture? Right. And a lot of it actually stems into Volvo. Safety being one, environment being the other. So, we're playing a very, we're the first car company in India to have radar enable safety, active safety in India, where the car automatically stops. So, you know, there is, there is less chances of a collision, there's less chances of a car damage or damage to people who are inside.

So, that's one step that we've taken, which is completely different on the product front. The other step that we've taken is, everybody's talking about electric vehicles, electric vehicles, but there's a chicken and egg situation here, where's the infrastructure, where the cars, the cars will come after the infrastructure, infrastructure or vice versa. We're actually negating that entire game. We're going to launch an array of plug-in hybrid cars. Now, we've launched the first plug-in hybrid car, which is an XC90.

Now, I'll just take two minutes in explaining to you what the plug-in hybrid concept is. Plug-in hybrid is just like you charge your phone, you can charge the car, plus the car has a completely regular engine, which works like a hybrid. So, if you run about less than 40 kilometers in a day, from Monday to Friday, you're actually driving an electric car. It's only on the weekends, when you go out of town, you drive the plug-in hybrid Volvo as a hybrid car. So, it's not dependent on infrastructure. Where everybody is zigging, we're actually zagging.

So, that's one strategy we've taken. The second, thank you. The second thing which we're doing is, we're not doing traditional marketing to talk about a brand. We're not just doing storytelling, we're doing story doing. And a lot of cause-based marketing. Like, we were part of the women's walk, for night walk in Mumbai. We did an environment campaign recently in Delhi to tackle the air quality. When we went to schools, they did DIY kits of air purifiers, and we gave them to people who are needy. So, there are a lot of things that we develop pods

for traffic cops. So that, you know, we understand that they are the ones who are always in amidst pollution from, let's say, 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening. And we've given them a breathe-free air cubicle. It's in various places in Haryana. We hope to do that in other cities as well. Right. So that's how we're distinguishing ourselves, both from the product front as well as the brand communication front. So how do you kind of constantly reinvent the wheel, you know, as a marketer? How do you stay creative? It's very simple, actually.

The difficult part is to understand what the customer wants or what in the customer's life does the community, where in the customer's life does the communication fit? Once you do that, so when we started, we all know that between Diwali and Christmas, the air quality in Delhi is going to be bad. Right. So we know it year after year. So what we did was we started thinking about it as early as much. And then we did a... So I think you take a step back, see how relevant it is and see how important it is. So if you have these three mantras in place,

I think everything else does fit into place. Right. So what do you do when you're not working? I know that you're an avid roadie, if I put it that way. You're a health buff. Yes. What else goes into making you the way you are? I think it's that that makes me the professional that I am. It's the other way around, you know. While I'm not in office, I'm in the kitchen or I'm on the road. And it's very therapeutic. So we do a lot of road trips and we have not the standard, but you know, places where people don't go, places where there is no internet.

So for example, we were in... Everybody goes to Goa. So we also went to Goa. Right. But we didn't stay along in any of the beach properties. We stayed in a farm in a village where there was no internet. Right. So for one week during the Diwali holidays, we were completely with nature. And there's a nice gazebo there. So we cooked all the prawns and the crabs and had a nice swim in the pool, had the beer. So it's... Basically, it's that rejuvenation or that battery charge you need to get back into your professional. So... So... So... So... So... So...

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