Vishal Chinchankar on data and measurement and storytelling

you're a you're a fantastic place to start in the sense that on the one hand your business is called Madison world and on the other hand famously Madison world is exclusively focused on India why are you just focused on India and not the world well the term world is because of the kind of areas and specialties and expertise that we've built into other marketing areas we've been an independent agency largely local and we believe that's an advantage for the kind of nuances that we sort of understand the market much better so I think it's an advantage and we'd love to call it world but we're local for local but Vashal it sort of makes sense doesn't it I mean we were talking

before and you have a lot of people that will purport to have deep knowledge of a place they've only been a couple of times right so so so I totally understand what you're getting at but India is vast how do you even begin to be local in a country this big look I think there's a lot more in India and I like I keep saying there's an India within India you're talking about a massive market with 1.4 billion population somewhere around 23 states 28 languages look that's even much sort of bigger better than I'll put it in a perspective a population of Delhi is bigger than New Zealand how does that sound right so that's that's big right having said that look I think when you talk about India as a market I mean

that's massive growth and there is a huge scope of expansion in India itself so let's get into the nitty-gritty of this Vashal so so Madison is is client focused right so you're in the business of enabling your your clients to expand what is it about you that innately makes you able to do that as an agency so I think it's it's more important for any marketer any media person to really understand the market in a better way before really being an advocate to the clients of really expanding the business right now I think to my mind the better you know your own markets the better you can come with a better solve and how do you go about that I mean there are some there are some guests that we have on

trailblazers Vashal that that swear by insights and data there are others that say there's nothing like being in the markets in the bizarre you know cheap by trial where are you out with that I'm a firm believer of data and to my mind it's the consumer insight it's the data that really makes you look better when you want to launch your brands or whenever you want to expand your brands just to give you a bit of an insight look I think inside to my mind is very important one of my brand which is into hair serum which identified and and some of the research that we did we figured out that Kpop the Korean pop is very big with a certain TG in in Northeast I mean that was a great insight for

us to build a great market share in that particular market and how in practical sense Michelle did you figure that out how did you make that connection between a salmon career or or Nagaland and Korea look well you've got to really do a lot of market visits to understand the consumers and do a lot of research but that's that's more important to understand the local nuances of that particular market that you actually want to get into and expand it since we're on Kpop just because it's such a phenomenon it's gone from sort of not very much I mean had you heard of Kpop five years ago not really well you might I certainly hadn't but what is it in terms of Kpop's market expansion that makes

them able to you know be down with the kids in Assam well that's the influence that those kids probably would have got from the lookalikes that they may feel over there but that's that's become like a craze and my my sense is it's it's a influence it's a large influence on them but if you look if you look into it I was talking to my children about this the other day and one of their theories was Kpop works so well in terms of both genders because it's sort of androgynous in a way and you can over it's very unthreatening you can overlay it anywhere and its expansion is perversely based on the fact that it's not threatening at all would you buy that absolutely I must cite this example my I have a daughter 16

years old and I asked her the same question that you're asking me right now and when she said look I I like these boys and they're great where they have a green color hair or a purple color hair but but I love them and well she knows all the songs and it's it's of course being populated there's a lot more word of mouth and it's it's a crazy sort of stuff that kids have gone into right now but that's unbelievable well and I and I guess as a father you'd rather the k the kpop waller turned up than some great big hulk of a man you know if it's if someone's gonna turn up on the doorstep asking for your daughter out you'd rather you'd rather it was that guy okay let's get a wrap on kpop I want

to get back into yeah the the innate idea of of your business take us back to when Madison started because like all brands that expand it starts in a single place right geographically why didn't you just stick to that what why why have you gone broader is it a client thing clients are asking you what how do you define the market as such because it's so big look I think we're a 35 year old agency still standing strong tall and the firm belief is that there's a lot more you can do in India that market itself is so huge and this this tremendous potential you don't really need to go out of the boundaries of India to create the fame or money right there's not you can do your I mean we're talking about a massive size I just gave a anecdote of a

Delhi versus some other country but that that's so many things that you can talk about there's hinterland which is growing in a massive manner today when you look at India as a market per se I think we're one of the best economies we're hitting a great economy a GDP of about 6.7 looks like it could be even getting better next year we've got a and the beauty is we've got a demo demographic which is a very younger demographic unlike a Europe or a China which has got a older demographic right if I had to just break India into two parts here India and I think it's a very much more a very much more 10 lakh plus population and a B looks like six lakh villages right there is a massive rural and and

well thanks to the mobile and 5G 4G and 3G connections it has broken the divide right the digital divide you there's a lot more empowerment woman empowerment in rural over the urban there's a lot of literacy level which is going up I think there's so much in India to do okay but if you if you if you if you're talking we often on this show ask experienced marketers like yourself Vishal to to talk to the young out there right so if you're a well-educated tier one city metro dude working for Madison how do they understand people in the villages that TG there's a lot of like I said earlier there's a lot of research that we do and there's a lot of red mid stuff I mean you just buy out certain researches or buy it certain medium products right

but you encourage them to go there not really that's feel it not really it's it's actually how the consumption's going right whether it's consuming a content or consuming products or whatever I think it's it's largely a growth story but but there is a there is a strength which is sort of pushing it so it's all moving in that direction okay and let's let's get back to your clients because they're the that's the mother load of Madison clearly Vishal is there something when you think about identity where you're finding that your Indian clients are innately very interested in having an Indian agency of course that happens yeah so a lot of our clients are Indian clients often it's not that we don't have

MNC clients but I think for the kind of work that we've done we probably have more Indian clients I would say and what you do what you do here's here's an interesting question so inevitably a client will come to you Vishal and say we're setting up in Japan or Hong Kong or Nairobi what do you say then we you know we want you to help us so we put them on to our partners if you have any good friends based out of the other countries or if that's something that if it's just on a on a digital medium and manageable we probably give it a shot but ideally and to be very honest I'd probably say it's best you look at it

it's best you look at others well that's very interesting isn't it because we've all we've all been in front of agencies who we say we're going to Japan and then they use that as an opportunity to set in set up in Japan a place they may never have been so so you're holding the line absolutely like I said you know the more we learn out of the market that we are into the more we just you know growing and and there's a lot lot more to come away yeah has a multiplier effect right absolutely and you're yeah as you say there's this team a this team B this is team C and team D I'm going to finish off Vishal on on a particular question which is it's a sort of philosophical question

yeah India's been a trading nation for thousands of years there was only really a little lull after independence right but when you think about Indians of which there are a million different types of Indians do you think they're good at international expansion and going international just talking about the international side of it on the brand side of it brand side of it brand side of it brand side of it personality side and we have these huge diasporas around the world is there something about the Indian generically that makes them good travelers well I think it's the Indians who are feeding up the tourism industry if you ask me I mean I mean more from a travel perspective but is there is this a likeliness to move