Category: Brand Makers

Why do brands like CRED and Zomato not have a CMO?

The future-ready marketers are the ones who understand the importance of collaboration and identifying the right skills that they need to master and reset themselves time and again, based on a solid foundation of marketing fundamentals. (Representational Image: Amirhossein Hasani via Unsplash)

Startups have created decentralised systems to build brands and run marketing. The first casualty of the new system is the CMO role.

Bookstrapping: Ten books you must reach for in 2023

Our reviewer Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta puts together the ultimate reading list for all the book enthusiasts out there. (Representative Image: Patrick Tomasso via Unsplash)

From ‘A Lucky Man: The Memoirs of a Radio-wala’ by Mark Tully to Rachel Louise Snyder’s ‘Women We Buried, Women We Burned’, here’s your 2023 reading list.

Home Credit India’s Ashish Tiwari: As a marketer, you need to be able to celebrate consumers’ lives and achievements

Ashish Tiwari says, "The entire category of finance is based on trust. Trust and transparency is the code of the category. What is necessary is how a brand communicates the right message to the consumers at the right time which is easier to comprehend." (Image source: LinkedIn)

Ashish Tiwari, chief marketing officer of Home Credit India on the supremacy of trust in building BFSI brands, marketing trends, Web3, finfluencers and more.

Media Mavens: Work-life balance is passé, what one does today is work-life integration, says Carat India’s Anita Kotwani

Kotwani says, "I do see a lot of my female peers leading other operating companies, and I personally feel very proud that the media industry has been able to drive this change. It’s the belief of the leaders at those operating companies where they have rewarded meritocracy and have chosen leaders that are able to drive the organization’s goal."

Anita Kotwani, CEO of Carat India, talks about the big trends of 2023, leadership mantras, work culture and more.

Piramal Finance’s Jairam Sridharan on the brand’s maiden ad campaign: Our aim is to create awareness

"In financial services there are a lot of ads that look nice and pretty. Customers laugh merrily over a table of pizza in a restaurant which almost looks like a social media profile of customers, as opposed to their customers' real lives. We wish to show the real customers in the real situations, not their social media personas," says Jairam Sridharan in an exclusive interview with Storyboard18.

Jairam Sridharan, MD, Piramal Finance, talks about the genesis of a new campaign, building brand Piramal Finance and creating awareness through muti-media platforms.

Ex-Sharechat exec Ajit Varghese joins Disney Star as head of network advertising sales

He would also be looking at developing the long-term vision and defining the strategic direction of the sales organization in his new role, said an official statement from the television network. Varghese would be reporting to K Madhavan, president and country manager, Disney Star

Ajit Varghese was the chief commercial officer at ShareChat and Moj. Prior to this, he headed WPP’s Wavemaker as the global president.

DY Works appoints Ashish Bahl as CEO

Bahl has spent over 25 years in advertising, marketing & media. He has worked with SABMiller India (now AB-Inbev) Neo Cricket & Sports, Mccann, Contract, JWT, Leo Burnett and O&M, where he’s worked with over 100 iconic global brands including Pepsi,Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Nestle, ESPN, SABMiller, Hero-Honda and many more

Bahl takes over from Tresa Paul who has moved out to pursue new opportunities.

upGrad’s CEO Arjun Mohan resigns

In 2022, the entire focus was on digital. Digital media spends of the company went up by 20 percent. Television took a complete backseat in the company’s marketing playbook. In fact, after their partnership with Shark Tank India, upGrad had zero spends on television between March and December

Mohan joined the company in April 2020 from competitor Byju’s where he last served as the chief business officer.

Punt Partners’ Sidharth Rao: I’d like to believe that I donned the hat of Webchutney’s CHRO

Sidharth Rao said,"Madhu, my co-founder, and I believe given how nascent the martech landscape is, marketers will need time to build inhouse skills to leverage these products to their fullest extent and ensure they work well with all the other products they are using. This will lead to a dual problem - poor outcomes for the marketer and churn for the product provider."

Sidharth Rao, co-founder of Punt Partners, who also founded celebrated ad agency Webchutney, talks about untapped potential in martech, hiring the right talent and his legacy.