What Sudhir Sitapati teaches about brand purpose

The insight of sholee is loha hi lohe ko kaat sakta hai, which I thought was brilliant and when I thought about it and I said oh this is an it's a contradiction that you know only iron can cut iron and it's obvious in hindsight. I am joined by Sudhir Sittapati, executive director at Unilever and we're talking about marketing and a lot of other things today on the sidelines of wonderful episode of Brand Studio Life that we've just shot.

Sudhir 20 years in Unilever and now a book which I've got here inspired by the great company and very interestingly it's called the CEO factory. I notice you know that the book's name is very strategically chosen. Tell us a little bit about that. I mean why the CEO factory? You know Ramit six months ago I had met Chiki Sarkar the publisher of Juggernaut and she said look you know there's a

book waiting to be written on Hindustan Unilever. It's an old iconic company in India and you know every company CEO or CXOs tend to come from HUL and what makes so many CEOs come from HUL. I said look I'm a busy guy you know I've got a day job I'm not here to write books but it got me thinking and I started thinking about HUL and why so many CEOs come and the real reason for so many CEOs coming from HUL is it's a company that's had unmatched performance over a 60-70 year period.

There are very few companies in the world you know for example in 1957 when Hindustan Unilever was incorporated it was among the top five private sector companies in India. In 1986 when the Sensex was formed it was a top five and today it's number four. In a 60-year period it's impossible to find a company that stayed top of the game and ultimately the reason lots of CEOs come from Hindustan Unilever is it's managed despite you know troughs and peaks managed to stay on top of the consumer game in India.

Yeah and when I sort of thought about this sort of and you know I thought there's certainly a story waiting to be written about this great company so I said okay to Juggernaut and I did it. It's a lovely name though. Yes. And it's enticed me to read the book I've had the privilege of reading it and it has lots of gems and I noticed among the many gems in the book a line which said great CEOs are great marketeers. Is it fair then to say that marketing and brands are well entrenched in the DNA of the company? Oh very much.

You see the best CEOs and CMOs are the same people because the job of the of marketing is to identify and fulfill consumer needs and that's the core job of the company. So in many ways for all companies it should be in my view that marketing should be at the very engine and certainly for Hindustan Unilever it's most famous for its marketing abilities. The book is beautifully written and there are many gems and I'm going to pick another one and insight is a contradiction that is obvious in hindsight. Yeah. I agree with it.

I've just never been able to express it as beautifully. In fact, I think it's a very insightful definition of an insight. I find it fascinating that you refer to insight as the competitive advantage for Unilever marketing which of course has been best in class for many, many, many years. But competitive advantage? Tell us more. Yeah, no, I think Unilever marketing and if you look at advertising of HUL for the last many, many years you will find insights at the core of many brands.

For example, the insight of the core of brand Rin is that appearances can open or shut doors which is a really powerful insight. So HUL's marketing in many ways pivots around the insight. Every single one of our brands, I mean, dirt is good as an insight. It's a contradiction. Dirt is normally bad but dirt is good as a... But it's obvious in hindsight because while for adults dirt is accidental, for children dirt is always a consequence of learning.

And I think when the definition of an insight came to me when one of my colleagues whom we keep talking about insights and we've kept trying to find what is the definition of an insight. And he said, you know, Sudhir, the definition of the insight of shole is loha hi lohe ko kaat sakta hai. Which I thought was brilliant and when I thought about it and I said, oh, this is an... It's a contradiction that, you know, only iron can cut iron and it's obvious in hindsight. And every time you hear an insight that's powerful, you're like, I knew that.

I knew that. That's the characteristic of an insight, you know. You say, I knew that. Wonderful. I'll pick another gem. Fame is more important than persuasion. Interesting learning from a company that dominates market share in so many categories. See, the interesting thing is our natural instinct is to think that marketing is about persuasion. But if you think about it, consumers need to get persuaded to buy categories. Usually they just need to get reminded to buy brands.

And we've seen a lot of empirical evidence that shows that the best correlation with market share and sales is a measure called spontaneous awareness or salience. You know, think of a detergent or think of a tea or think of an ice cream. And the brands that come in the top two or three are likely to be the ones you're using. Yeah. So the big game in marketing is to become more famous. There is a game on becoming persuasive. But that's in the rare case in which you're developing a category.

The TV commercial is just as much a piece of content as any other content including long form content or rich media sets on the internet. Ads should not feel like ads. In fact, I think you've almost gone to the extent of saying they should feel like enjoyment. An ad works if somebody wants to see it again and again and again just as much as he wants to see other content which is entertaining again and again. Enjoyment that you can repeat again and again is the words you've used. No one has done it better at least more often than Unilever.

What's the secret? Is it built into the research? Is enjoyment built into the research as a metric? Yeah. See, I mean you've got to take a step back and say that if you believe that fame drives sales, right? And fame and brands and sales are not different things but fame is a big driver of sales. Then you've got to ask yourself the question, what's the driver of fame? And there are two drivers of fame. One is you've got to be clearly positioned. So many Unilever brands, you'll be able to describe them in one or two words very, very easily.

And two is for you to be famous, people have to enjoy listening to you. You're not going to be famous. Not run away from your ads. They're not going to run away from you. So enjoyment is the most important thing in advertising. As a marketer, while you were writing the book and at some point of time we should show a closer version of this book so others can read it. Who were you marketing the book to or who were you marketing it to? What's the proposition? Who should read it? And what will they get out of it?

So I wrote it as a passion but as I was writing it, I realized that it will really be useful to a lot of young people. You know, lots of people aspire to become CEOs. And HUL is famously called the best management institute in India. So I said, you know, if there was a single line proposition and, you know, Puresh Pandey is a friend of mine, I would say an MBA in a book is probably the proposition of this. So if you want a real life MBA, then, you know, this is why you should read this book. Yes. And it's very interesting.

I mean, while we pick some gems which are very marketing, advertising gems, the book actually deals with HR, deals with operations, deals with almost every aspect of the business. Yes. Before I finish, we want to get to know you a little better. When you're not working or writing a book, what are you doing? I just sort of chill out and hang out. I go to the beach. I have a house near the beach and I go there and I enjoy a good drink. And I enjoy reading. So I enjoy doing not very much. That's.

As a marketeer, where do you derive your motivation, energy, inspiration, ideas? I love the most. In fact, what I'm going to do now after I meet you is I'm now going to go into some very low income consumers and spend some time with them. Next two, three hours, I've got booked between two and five actually. So I derive most of my energy in traveling and meeting people. I hope the book does really well. Thanks. Because I think a lot of young people, I think everybody should read it now that I've read it. And best of luck. Thanks.

Thank you for having come to the newsroom today. Thanks. Thanks a lot to me. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.