NewsReach
brings you unfiltered stories from professionals shaping the world of branding
on Brand ki Baat

Brands
today are no longer based on advertising budgets and distribution muscle only.
They are shaped in boardrooms where strategy meets instinct, on shop floors
where careers begin unexpectedly, and in everyday consumer interactions that
quietly define loyalty. In the era of excessive personalization, automation,
and unremitting competition, there is one fact that cannot be ignored: the
brand that knows people, will win. It can be in the form of a more insightful
consumer, emotional narrative or empowerment of teams to make risky decisions;
the art of creating long lasting businesses is based on human clarity.

Welcome
to Crafting Bharat : Brand Ki Baat – Mumbai Edition, a podcast
where we talk about brands, businesses and the people who build them internally.
In this engaging episode, host Kartik Chawla sits down with Vivek
Srivatsa, Chief Commercial Officer of Tata Motors, and Sivaraman
Swaminathan, Founder and Partner at ContraMinds Labs to discuss careers,
consumer psychology, personalization, leadership, and the changing definition
of brand experience.

This series is proudly brought to you by NewsReach, India’s
leading PR-tech platform, Production Partner HT Smartcast, Gifting
Partner Nanaji Natural and Beauty Partner Lakme Academy. Listen to stories,
inspiration, and wisdom!

Episode
link: https://youtu.be/-ZUcQBlHqqM

Edited
Excerpts

Is
personalization still relevant in an age of automation and AI?

Sivaraman
Swaminathan: More than ever. It was the shift to what I term as one-to-one and
digital that made the world change to a mass media. AI and e-commerce today are
based on personalization.

Visiting
a shopping platform, it knows your preferences. That is not only being
convenient: it is being contextually relevant. The concept of AI: It is all
about personalization, the concept of e-commerce: hyperpersonalization.
Personalization is not decreased by automation, but scaled. With automation,
personalization has in fact become much easier since you are essentially
creating scale. It is the brands that remain relevant that use data to learn
the context and provide meaningful experiences.

In
a competitive market, what drives growth decisions?

Vivek
Srivatsa: The fundamentals never change. “Know your consumer well.”

With
the markets becoming fragmented and the competition growing stiffer, the
organization that actually comprehends the reason why consumers buy, the new
needs they have, and how their mind is changing will prevail. The more you know
them, the more you wish to know. There is always a search to know more and know
better.

At
Tata Motors, numerous breakthrough products were achieved by defining very
specific needs of consumers. It is not only ambition that leads to growth, but
insight.

Beyond
pricing and promotions, what truly makes a customer feel valued?

Sivaraman
Swaminathan: “I believe that the brand today is the customer experience.”

You
can have the best product, but every touchpoint defines value. Every
interaction, even inside a bank branch becomes part of the brand experience.
Real differentiation comes when brands move beyond checklists. Birthday
messages from thousands of brands mean little, but remembering something truly
personal like the anniversary of a car purchase makes a difference. When brands
make customers feel seen rather than processed, that is when value is created.

Are brands
relying too much on metrics and not enough on human insight?

Vivek
Srivatsa: “It depends on the category.”

Measurements
are essential but they should not be used instead of intuition and customer
knowledge. The decision is emotional and even conflicting especially in high
involvement products such as automobiles. He remarked how in car industry, even
intervals of waiting can be perceived as something positive that is not common
in other sectors. Finally, there must be a collaboration between insight and
data. The one cannot exist without the other.

Sivaraman
Swaminathan: “The communication is comparable to developing chemistry with
the customer. The metric is actually understanding the physics of how the
chemistry worked.”

It
is chemistry that generates the emotional link, which is explained by physics.
Information is raw material. Data is boring but the thing is, the creative
thought of interpreting and presenting data is the real opportunity. The
problem with organizations is that it is difficult to derive meaningful value
using a sea of data.

What
is one of your leadership lessons?

Sivaraman
Swaminathan: “Act not like a marketer. Be like a consumer.” Marketers
tend to use their prejudices to make decisions. Upon deliberately putting off
the marketing hat and putting the consumer hat on, you will see new
opportunities and blind spots.

Vivek
Srivatsa: “Give your employees the freedom to make mistakes, eliminate the
fear of failure.

Markets
are changing at too high a rate that ideas are not going to stay at the top.
New ideas need to be in-house. That is when young professionals are safe to
experiment and resolve their problems, organizations can then really move
forward.

In
a city defined by speed and ambition, this conversation offers a thoughtful
pause. It serves as a reminder that as technology changes, and markets change,
the principles stand: get to know people, create compelling stories, empower
your team, and create experiences that are personally felt. Fundamentally,
branding, at its core, remains a deeply human exercise. For those shaping
businesses today, the information presented herein is both confirmation and
challenge to consideration deeper. In the following episode, you will get to
hear more, and listen to actual dialogues and expert opinions!

Brought
to you by NewsReach – the leading PR-tech platform in India with production
partner HT Smartcast.