DMA Trailblazer Series|S1E3: Igniting Innovation - A Journey from Sachin's Socks to Rural Resilience

Music Welcome to Trailblazers, a joint We On DMA Asia initiative. In his seminal 1974 work, The Inner Game of Tennis, Timothy Galway argued that the key to innovation was not knowledge, but ignorance, unlearning, and to try and achieve a state of relaxed concentration. Is this the key to innovation? Joining me today are an esteemed panel of guests to debate the topic of innovation. Damyan from Oppo, veteran of the tech and sports marketing world. Gan Patti from LT Foods, King Cobra of the Indian food scene, and ex of the Darba Parish. Ram, a man of many parts, currently with DDB Mudra. Puneet from Case Construction Equipment, ex of JCB, understands the rural marketing scene of India inside out. And finally, Sukhleen from the Good Glam Group,

expert in FMCG, beauty, ex of L'Oreal, Garnier, and Unilever. Welcome to our Trailblazers. Now our first guest joining us on stage is Damyan from Oppo. I'm obsessed by one thing you told me before, which is Sachin Tendulkar's socks. How on earth can this start a show about innovation? I've got my red socks. Tell us about his socks. Most innovations come from a relevant question being asked. And I think in the context of Sachin, it was essentially, this was 2007. He called us up and said, I need to kind of get an upgrade in my socks. This is Adidas. And this is an Adidas. And so basically I did what any good boarding school boy would do, which is I picked the most expensive pair of socks in the range and I sent it to him.

Two days later he calls back and says, nonsense, doesn't work for me. And so what he wanted was not a regular towel sock, but something that would kind of enable him to wear the same pair throughout the day and allow him to feel better, allow him to kind of not get blisters, etc. So it was a pretty tall ask. We basically created a tank of a sock that this gentleman loved. It's an awesome way to start our inner show. But sort of moving up from the socks further up, let's talk about this thing, right? You talked about this thing being the little monster. Talk to us, particularly with your current Oppo experience and Apple, about how you think about tech marketing and is less more.

What we're kind of increasingly trying to do at Oppo is these are amazing productivity devices. You can't live without one. But, you know, what we're trying to do is, for example, with the product that we've just launched recently, we're trying to kind of put the tech into the background and make it less intrusive. And so what we've done with the Oppo Finan 3 is essentially let the product sit in the background and still behave and act as the productivity device that it's supposed to without it necessarily intruding into your life. So what we've done, for example, is the cover screen of the phone literally runs 40 apps. So you don't even need to kind of lift your phone or unfold it for you to kind of use your phone to make a call

or otherwise send a message back. The notion of nomophobia is, again, something that, you know, we've tried to kind of ease by introducing innovations like we call it SuperVOOC. But you can literally charge your phone and Oppo device in less than 10 minutes to 100%. These small little iteration that we're kind of making, this what we call this notion of iterate of innovation or what we kind of credit this as being innovation that impacts society positively at large. You've done Adidas, you've done the Mighty Apple, Oppo now. You know, you've had a big career and you're only really in the second innings of a sort of five-day test. But where are you at with innovation? What's your personal innovation credo? Do you have one? Is it just process?

Is it light bulb? How do you think about that? I think going through life without acknowledging that you need to kind of evolve and change on an ongoing basis, I think, is the first part. So this notion of continuous improvement, this sense of always being seeking, being curious, is, I think, super important. My dad was in the army, you know, and we would basically move… And you were in like eight schools by the age of eight, perhaps. Exactly, exactly. And so we would basically move schools. We would move cities every two, three years. And I think what it did to me was essentially forced me to kind of, you know, be… Evolve as a person. You were a very different person if you were in Bombay versus what you were in a small city

called Ferozpur in Punjab. So the other one that I really kind of find useful is what the All Blacks use, which is this notion of divine discontent. And the All Blacks, as you know, are one of the most successful teams in team sports. And the notion of divine discontent essentially is never being happy with where you are and what you might have done. Because there's always something in what you've done or what you've created or what you've put out in the world where… In which you should seek the imperfection, right? You should always kind of try and figure out what can I do better? What is it that I can kind of improve even further? Well, Damian, I think that's a fantastic place to sign off, despite the fact that we'll now

suffer divine discontent having to terminate our session. But a bit about socks, a bit about phones, a bit about the All Blacks. You've come a long way from Ferozpur. Thank you so much for being on Trailblazers. We really appreciate it. Cheers. And now we're joined by Ganapati from LT Foods. Let's start this off with a basic idea. You know, we're talking about innovation. And we've just had Damian with his shiny phones. Now we're into rice, right? And I don't know from a viewer perspective. Maybe their hearts sink and think, rice, that's a staple. I've got it every day. But actually, you've got a really interesting story about rice and innovation. Start us off with that.

A lot of times I think it's a great disservice that rice, which is the most commonly had staple across the globe, does not get enough mention or conversation, part of conversations. You know, when you get into a business of consumer food, and you'd appreciate that much better, you would want to speak to the consumer about what they do with the product rather than what we make. And that's where they started off. Way back, we understood the importance of how biryani is a recipe in the country. It's taking the world by storm, actually, an Indian recipe. And it's the big dog biryani, isn't it? Yes, yes. And it's an Indian creation. For all the myths surrounding it, it's an Indian creation.

And, you know, as part of our portfolio, we picked up one of our products, called it the Dawat Biryani. That's the branding which we did. This was way back in 2010. We wanted to provide a product which gave the most cherished recipe coming out of rice a platform. You know, it's like a canvas. You provide for Michelangelo to paint. Michelangelo still needs the best of colors. And a couple of years back, we said, how can we actually get people to celebrate this favorite dish? So we came upon the thought of celebrating the World Biryani Day. We instituted that last year. Talk about the process of selling it internally, right? Before you get to the customer, you've got to get it through your bosses. They've got to get it through their bosses.

So it starts off unlearning, learning, and learning it fully. And deep, deep, right? Yes, much better than anybody else out there. And that gives you the confidence to kind of sell your thought. And it obviously, you know, it can't be a vague, out of the place thing. It's got to be rooted in what you believe the people, the consumers at the end of the day need. And need it late in. And if you don't believe it, they're never going to believe it. Nobody's going to believe it. But just following this on and staying on the idea, Gampati, of what makes an innovative man. I mean, you're someone who, you're a keen birder. You're out there looking at the migratory birds in Delhi. You're a historian buff, right? You're a man of parts. You're a physicist.

From before. Has this all helped you, this kind of hinterland? Certainly. You see problems in various shapes and sizes. And you try and interpret it in multiple faculties you're exposed to. So it helps you. It helps you tremendously. We're kind of in the final furlong here. But let me just ask a slightly provocative question, Ray. Sure. Is there actually anything new about innovation? Don't you just have to be new and innovate all the time? It's become this sort of idea. Do you think to a certain extent it's just a bit of MBA jargon? So I'll tell you if you fall into the trap of wanting to innovate for the sake of innovation, that's a problem. And that's a serious problem for a lot of people.

And that's why I guess strike rates on innovation being successful are so low. Because there are people who are trying to innovate for the sake of innovation. They said, you know, you keep up with the curiosity. You try and unlearn. You try and be humble. And try and be brave with the idea you really thought of. But look, Gampari, are you more innovative now as such than you were 20 years ago? I think I'm as curious as I was. I think that's the deal there. Keep your child alive inside you. And I look forward every day to meeting people who are more curious than me. Gampari, that's really fascinating. A tour de force that starts with something as simple as rice but ends in something as profound as discover your inner child.

Thank you so much for being on the show. And now I'd like to ask Sir Clean from the Good Glam group. We're talking about innovation. Yeah, you've been across lots of different organizations. And without, it's always a bit invidious to compare one brand with another. But just talk about how your views of innovation have changed through that journey across these great brands. So when I started my journey, I distinctly remember consumer intimacy is one thing that we immensely took pride in Unilever. You know, whether it was to go and live with your consumer or study them by being one with them. You know, and developing that empathy of being able to see the world from their eyes by asking the four whys.

Every time you heard something, having the patience to distill the fourth why. But why do you do this? So that you can inherently get into the human motivations that drive people. Was that hard when you were learning the trade, right? So in a country as diverse and as socially stratified as India, but a place like Unilever, you're right in the weeds of the argument. Was it hard to start to understand people? So I came from a background in sociology. So fundamentally, human mind really excites me. So at some level, if you're able to understand who we're talking to and what's the need that's driving them. And this is like shelter, food, etc.

And then you can actually, and you know, the way if you ask me in which way do I really believe the world evolved is in the last two decades, when I started my career, we were still looking for that lowest common denominator, which could cater to a wide mass. So that the products had potential, you could create fewer, bigger and scalable products. Today in the world of direct to commerce, and even with the number of online brands that have come in, I think what we've been able to pay tribute to is niches. You're able to now create products for a specific bespoke niche and find an audience for it. You've been at the front end of any number of innovative campaigns. Which ones stick in your mind and why?

When I look at brands like Durex or Harpik, they were all pioneering within their categories. And therefore advertising or creating advertising on them, which are fundamentally moving human needs of either pleasure and intimacy or sanitation are very primal human needs. I think those brands allowed us to create a lot of advertising, which could really move emotions in the center of plate. But I think most recently in the last two years, having worked in a consumer tech company, I would perhaps talk about the power of content integration to make a brand mainstream. So recently with Goodlam itself, we have a brand called My Glam, which is our fine earring makeup brand.

We were able to gamify the entire usage experience on both two mainstream shows in India, Coffee with Karan and Big Boss. So I think that entire experience of being able to create a 360 content creation journey using tech at the heart of it was something which I thoroughly enjoyed. Okay, staying on other campaigns. So if you cast your mind back a bit when you started your career, when you look back then, was there a certain idea that innovation was easier before the clutter of digital? The positive side of it is it allows you to innovate faster, get feedback faster and also listen to your consumers. I mean, like reviews and ratings make it instant on what consumers think about your product.

The hard part of it is that it also led to a lot of fragmentation and not just on product side, but also on media side, which definitely is a much harder problem for marketers to solve today than I would say perhaps it was a decade ago. Is innovation a young person's game? I think innovation is definitely a curious person's game, but also a very hungry person's game because it does need you to be a bit of a contrarian because unless you question, you are not going to innovate and create something new. But equally, it needs you to be extremely patient and persistent because there are going to be perhaps more failures than success. Everyone talks about the success, but not the 99% things that fail. But unless you are persistent, you don't touch gold.

Sakleen, you've been a fantastic guest. Thank you so much for coming on Trailblazers. Thank you, Jasper. Delighted to be joined by Ram. You've done innovation across the spectrum. You've been an entrepreneur many times. You've been on the agency side, principal side, and you're in a kind of unique position. I know you're a man that loves research and academia. What's your starting out? What is your personal philosophy? I have a very strong sense of belief on what can be invented and what only can be innovated in the phone industry. But if you look at mobility as a space, there was wireless. Everything on top of it is actually innovation. So if you look at it, the airways, which we keep talking about, it started with 2G, Edge, you went to 3G, 4G, 5G.

But all of the fundamentals were invented, which was mobility. That was the core, right? And therefore, I strongly believe that you don't come with inventions every second day. There is a big possibility of innovating on what already exists. Do you feel fundamentally that when it comes to innovation, it's all about solving fundamental human things as opposed to making new things? More or less. There will be needs where you let invent, for example, the vaccine that got invented. For all of us globally on COVID had to be invented because there's nothing like that which existed to arrest that virus. But everything otherwise, like I said, is normally on fundamentals that exist and you innovate on top of it.

You know, COVID created the pressure for a vaccine in the same way that being client-facing. You can't just sit on your back. Yeah, you cannot. Is pressure a big part of innovation? No, I think that innovation comes out of a need which exists, but somebody has not actually cared at looking at it deeply. I mean, look at all the innovations that are happening at scale in India. How do you personally keep yourself loose enough or keep your clients loose enough to see what problems are out there to solve and innovate against? It's another important aspect for you to be successful when you're looking to solve for problems for clients because they're looking up to you.

And for that, you need to continuously be reading a lot, researching a lot, understanding a particular category, which at the heart makes you confident when you deal with clients who are looking for solving problems. What's your advice to up-and-coming marketeers about how they become more innovative? I honestly believe that it starts with the gut instinct to begin with. It comes not from your brain or how it actually comes from your gut. You know that you need to do this so that you're going to solve for a whole host of issues that you're probably addressing. And then how you refine it becomes part of that solution that you're looking for as answer. Well, as a restaurant man, I'm totally pro-gut. I liked all your breakfasts. Thank you very much.

You've been a great guest. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Ask Puneet from Case Construction Equipment. You with JCB and Case Construction Equipment have been absolutely at the front line of building India, right? Not in, I mean, here we are in a fancy film studio, but you've been out in the country. You're an expert in marketing to rural communities. When we talk about innovation, take us back to that. Get us grounded again. There's 130 crore people and they deserve a better infrastructure. And with the infrastructure improvement, actually, a lot of economic activities which are taking off. You know, a lot of industries which have never heard of food processing, for example, is largely because of the infrastructure development which has happened.

Do you say construction is very enabling? Not many things that are more enabling. Do you find that quite motivating in terms of making you innovative? I think my take on innovation is, Jasper, that you don't have to do a disruptive innovation every time. Right? There's always a bit of innovation, scope of innovation, every time, everywhere. And not necessarily the innovation has to be in the product side. In the distribution, in the marketing stuff, in your training stuff, in your HR stuff. I mean, all those small, small innovations add up. In your socks. And they add up and become a large innovation. I'll just quote an example. When I was with JCB, what we thought, let's go to those centers where the demand will come in future.

And let's go and create that demand. See, India is a big country and the kind of infrastructure we need, we need hands. We need people to actually participate in that growth story. So, the second innovation, what we did in terms of customer acquisition. And we thought, let's not acquire a customer who is a competitor customer. And let's go and create new customers. And that's something which we are doing in case construction as well. We are running a project called LEAD. And we thought, let's not create a customer for, say, construction equipment alone. Let's try and create the entrepreneurship. And through entrepreneurship, let's try and create the livelihood. Actually, we are actually broad based at Jasper.

So, we are not limiting ourselves to only construction equipment. We are going to villages. We are talking to the people. We are making them aware about what all they can do. Whether it's a fishery, it's, you know, it's agriculture based occupation. You know, you're an urbane guy. Lots of kind of urban people here. Going out into the country the first time, meeting that customer, was that difficult? Actually, we learn from the customer. And my personal philosophy is that innovation starts from the customer need. The trick is how quickly I am able to understand and identify that need and provide him a solution. How do you use digital, for example, in rural marketing? Absolutely.

So, when we took on this journey, we identified that in a home, when they are buying a capital equipment, the sons and daughters of the family, they make a lot of difference. And their voice is now heard more than, you know, the commercial voice which the father or the uncles would have. So, through our digital campaigns, we identified those influencers in those rural communities. And we tried to reach to the next generation. A, it has helped us to reach out to the larger number of people. Also, to make them aware that what can be done, the pace at which our infrastructure is going is tremendous.

So, not only more and more people are required to participate in that growth, the women of the society are also required to participate both for operating the machines as well as manufacturing the machines. Those are amazing insights and great to start with the socks and end in the earth of India. Thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure is mine. Thanks to all of our amazing trailblazers on this episode discussing innovation. Is innovation a process, a system, a culture? Well, it's all of those things. But I think the thing we've really learned is the eye in innovation is where it starts. It starts with eye. It starts with the individual. Nurture your interests. Nurture your hinterland. Go deep on your insights.

Because in the end, if you don't believe it, no one else is going to believe it. I'm Jasper Reid. And join me on the next episode of Trailblazers, a joint we on DMA Asia initiative.