 Hello and welcome to ExchangeForMedia.com. My guest today is one of the most trusted marketers of India. He is the man who crafts the marketing strategy for country's most reliable automobile brand, Maruti Suzuki. Please welcome Mr. Shashank Srivastav, Senior Executive Director at Maruti Suzuki India Limited. Thank you Shashank for joining us. Thank you. I have been chasing you for quite some time. Thank you. So Shashank, as I said in my intro, you are one of the most respected and senior marketers in India. Can you take us through your professional journey? Well, I joined Maruti Suzuki a long time back. 15 years I read the role. No, actually, 33 years back. And 13 years in this role? Yes. So just after my college, so I did my MBA from Ahmedabad. I am an engineer by the way, then subsequently did my MBA from Ahmedabad, joined Maruti Suzuki. And the reason I joined Maruti Suzuki was that it was the only professional automobile company and I had a passion for automobile. And subsequent to that, the journey has continued. And I have been through various functions. So when I joined, I joined the MDs office and subsequently corporate planning exports as well in about five, six years in international exports recently and then for domestic as well. So Shashank, we've just wrapped up festive season. We had, I mean, of course Christmas is yet to come, but for India, Navratri, Diwali, Dhanteras, it's just the best season for automobile sector. How was it? And if you can give us some numbers, like, how did it go for you? So by the way, festive season in automobile is because it is a diverse country. So the intensity of festivities is different in different parts of the country. It actually starts from Onam in Kerala. And that is always on the 17th of August. So the start is always 17th August. And the end is in, and the end is at the Bhai Dooch, which is two days after Diwali. So that ended this time on 15 November. So that end keeps varying, start is always 17 August. Now interestingly, this year, we had a longish festive season, starting from 17 August till 15 November, which was like about 89 days. Last year, the same period was 71 days. So they're not like to like comparable, but for the first time ever in the passenger vehicle industry, this time in this season, this festive season, the industry clocked 1.1 million. Only the first time it has crossed the 1 million mark. And that was actually a big growth over the previous year, almost like a 40% growth. But of course, if you adjust for the extra number of days, there are 17 extra days this year. So the growth was about 17%. So in all ways, you look at it, whichever way you look at it, it has been a fantastic season. And in fact, a fantastic year so far for the auto industry passenger vehicles. When I was doing the research, I came across this number that over 226,000 bookings are pending for Maruti. And your SUV in particular is in high demand. So when there is a gap in demand in supply, advertising is often put on hold because you're not able to deliver what already is in demand. Do you also follow this strategy? Do you also hold back with advertising? No, no, absolutely not. Actually, for us, as I think it should be, there is the advertising has got many roles. One of the role is building up the brand and establishing the core of the brand in the minds of the consumer. Now, that is something which is on running is a long term. I mean, it's a long term target objective to be achieved and therefore, you can't cut back on that. However, there is also a portion which is tactical advertising, which is basically at the lower end of the funnel when you want to push the consideration into actual sale. And that tactical advertising might vary depending on the market situation. But I would say this year, the tactical advertising is a little less. However, in terms of the overall, because we have larger number of brands, we have introduced four new brands very recently. So the overall spends have actually been higher than previous years. According to your recent numbers, you have shown better growth in rural this year, almost 12% compared to urban, which was 8%. What has the change in advertising on media mix? Yes, it does. In fact, this rural phenomena, we noticed almost like 17, 18 years back. We had a special sale, which started specifically looking at rural sales, which was I think in 2007 or so. So that's like about 16 years back. Every year since then, rural growth has been higher than urban growth, except for one year. I think it was 2012, 13, where the urban growth was higher compared with rural growth. But otherwise every year, and the reason is rural incomes are rising faster than urban incomes. There's a lot of push from the government in terms of infrastructure spending, the accessibility. So generally speaking, and we have had some very good run with the monsoon the last five, six years have been normal. Last year was just a 6% less than the previous year, but otherwise very good. So that has fueled a lot of demand in the rural areas. And because of this, we see the percentage of sale in the industry of rural is actually gaining ground. And it's around 30, 32% of the industry. But for Marty Suzuki, it's about 44%. So that's a large chunk. So obviously, the media habits for people in the rural area are a little different, the media consumption habit is a little different from the urban areas. At the same time, there are a lot of overlaps as well. So yes, we do for reaching out to rural areas and rural consumers, we do have a different strategy. And in fact, it's not just communication strategy, it's also how you approach the customers. So like in rural areas, it's very important if you know the person. So you have to depend a lot on your manpower to reach not just advertising, but otherwise, yes, the communication strategy itself for rural areas is a bit different from urban areas. Correct me if I'm wrong. For other sectors, rural consumption is kind of low this year. They've been complaints that while urban has picked up, rural is still not showing much consumption, especially in FNCC and other things. So how is it different for automobiles? Yeah, so actually, the consumption group for automobile in rural areas is actually a little different from the consumption group in the rural areas for FMCG or even two-wheelers. So two-wheelers recently started doing well as also by the way last report on FMCG is also positive for rural. Of course, I know in the early part of the year it was the reverse. And I believe that in the rural segment for the car market, there is a large population which whose behavior is not exactly the same as it comes to the behavior of those people who buy FMCG goods, for example. So I believe that that is causing that divergence in the reporting pattern for sales for cars and sale for FMCG groups or even for two-wheelers, for example. So unlike many of your competitors, Maharupi for last many years doesn't have a celebrity face selling it. So is there a particular strategy behind it or what, I mean, not the rational behind it. Yeah, yeah, so I think for automobile, as for some many products, it's possible to have, if you are trying to build up a very good awareness in a very short time to take support of celebrity faces. Also, even if that was not the objective, it does support the brand in terms if there is a good brand fit with the characteristics for which the celebrity is known. By the way, we have for our arena the brand ambassador which is Varun Dhawan. We have for Nexa Ranbir Singh, which is who is the brand ambassador. And for our true values, the used car business that we have, we have RR Rao as a thing. So we actually using them. And in the past in some advertising also we have used. I remember there was a van which we had which is Versa. We used Amitabh Bachchan for that. But he was not a brand ambassador, but just for that advertisement we had used as also in the previous, this thing we had some discussions earlier with for our SX-4, which is Sedan, Sporty Sedan, where we were discussing with John Ibrahim. Of course, that didn't go through. But yes, I think the important thing for marketers to understand is that if the characteristics of that ambassador, that has to match closely with the brand values that you have, otherwise it can go very wrong. Also we have to watch out for what else he is advertising for. For example, there are some really busy brand ambassadors or these famous faces who actually are doing maybe products like 15-20 products at one time. And the product categories could be quite irrelevant to your product category. And therefore that is something which obviously we look at once we decide. But more or less your observation is right, we don't extensively use like some of the brands do. I think go to many of your recent campaigns and I didn't find many. So we don't extensively use as I said, brand. I mean, a star face. So I was reading your many interviews where you talked about a Eureka movement for Maruti, which was the whole launch of Reagan R. Can you take us through that journey again? So I think that Eureka movement is the first Eureka movement for me as a marketer and for Maruti Suzuki, generally at that point of time, we have had many Eureka movements subsequently. But that moment I was talking was the introduction of the Vagana, which was the highest selling car in Japan. And at that time it was competing with the Santru, which had been introduced earlier. It had a tall boy design. The first time tall boy design came in India was the Santru and the first tall boy design which Maruti Suzuki introduced was the Vagana. In 93 it was introduced in Japan and it became the best seller. When we introduced it in India we thought this is something which is going to be because it's the best selling in Japan. It's going to be the best selling here as well and consumers would obviously it's very logical. But to our horror we found that there was very little traction for that brand and it took a lot of time for us to re-establish. We almost re-launched it and this is also by the way a classic, not a classic, it's a very rare case in India where a brand at the time of introduction doesn't do well and subsequently does very well. In fact, Vagana is now the number one selling brand for the last two years in the industry. So it's selling more than 200,000. So you changed the design? Designed a little bit on the product design side because it was in that sense we found out that a good car in Japan may not necessarily be a good car for consumers in India because every country culture has its own likes and dislikes which we have to be very careful about. On the pricing front as well as well as on the overall design, the product proposition as they say and for Vagana we did change design. It was too flat and too blank and therefore we introduced some elements. We couldn't change the basic design but subsequent and then additions which we had subsequently we made sure that the interior design, the exterior was as per the tastes of the Indian consumer. So the Eureka moment of course which is always taught anyway in Kotler's marketing and all your MBAs and all that for marketing is that you have to be customer centric and but it's very difficult to practice and probably at that time and we had a long waiting queues. If you remember Marthe 800 you won't remember it too young but it was it you know long waiting queues. We had the esteem which also had a huge waiting so it's sort of you take customers sometimes for granted that anything will sell because the basic functionality requirement is so high in a growing country and economy like India but that was not so and that has helped us subsequently and I call it the Eureka moment because it's helped us subsequently when we launched new products to be going exactly as per the consumer requirement and be very conscious. Did you also change its marketing when it was relaunched? Yes we did actually both in terms of yeah so it became a little bit more experiential because people said Marthe Soutok is fine so you don't have to market the mother brand but in terms of what this brand did so we positioned it subsequently as a brand which was engineered well and very practical product to use and that we appealed more to the rationality. Earlier we were saying Japan stopped selling model that was the first ad I remember which was like not properly well appreciated by consumers. So with the advent of digital era advertising has changed dramatically in the last decade. How in particular has it changed for auto industry? What are few things that you're doing differently now compared? Yeah so I'm glad you asked this question because it's changed hugely in the sense that you know if you really research the car buying process we have done extensive research there are 26 stretch points that the consumer goes through when he buys a car from the time anything so he thinks about buying a car to the actual delivery 24 of those stretch points are now digitized the only ones which are not so are the test drive and the actual delivery which obviously so we call it digital actually not purely digital but we have made the buying process to be friendly to this digital savvy consumers and now you know almost 25 percent of the details are through the digital platform. We are running the largest hyper local program in the world in automobile for you know at the lower end of the funnel even at the upper end of the funnel now we are using it for building awareness building brands and so the mix of media itself has changed now about 30 percent of us spends 27 30 percent of us spends now around the digital front a lot of change of course financing now is by the way on digital platform which is like the only company we are doing it in India and it's giving us more than 50 percent of our retail financing through that platform. So Shashank as I said in the beginning also that is one of the most experienced marketers. So you know when we talk to younger marketers or in general it is assumed that younger marketers are perhaps better equipped at technology and they would understand digital better. What are a few qualities you feel they don't have that you know seasoned marketers like you have some piece of advice you would have for younger marketers. So let me talk like an old man which is that I feel experienced man the patience that brand is cannot be built overnight and it is not just about communication or technology it's the whole 360 which you have to take into account when you build a brand and I think the great strength with youngsters have is that they have a much more open perspective because our society not more globalized and therefore the exposure is much more than the times earlier that's a very positive but of course we have to see that you don't forget the basics in this maze of technology and the desire to use technology all the time sometimes put the basic objective which is fulfilling the actual needs and desires of consumers the back that site I think gets lost out sometimes when you are too much focused on technology and pushing so that's one advice I would but never green or advice is that you have to be customer centric at all times. So and how do you keep yourself relevant like how do experienced marketers keep themselves relevant. So first of all we must realize in our minds that things are changing and things are changing very fast that realization is something which many experienced marketers miss out because they think they know enough they have seen enough so one is to be grounded and please realize that things are changing so the realization itself is a one big factor for and then you have to update yourself both in terms of the knowledge of the technology the new media vehicles people use and the trends in the consumers which might be and also the more you are in touch with consumers younger or current customers the more perspective you build and that is something which I have always practiced which is to always be in touch with the actual consumer and have a great interaction with the younger people because you have a lot of learn from them and they are also having a perspective which can be totally different from yours. So understanding that is very important I think that's the reason that's the way which I have been trying to keep myself relevant in the current scenario. So my last question is also something that I would want to personally learn from you see corporate sector is highly competitive and very cut throat at times I've always seen you smiling and very calm how do you manage to do that. Yes so I think this is a very important in professional life and the thing is that you have to cut yourself off from that regular work stress and this has to be done every day. So it's not as if you can be you know going on a holiday for a week after two months of heavy stress you have to somehow release the pressure or stress every day. So for me what words is walking generally spending some time with the family playing chess which also focus your attention away from. So we have this software where you have this and then you the thing is the problem with that in my case is that I become very competitive there also because there are levels we can choose a master a grand master and so on and then you know you see I am beating the masters let me try you know so that sort of thing but you have to be very conscious of that and of course I do keep reading stuff something which is not related to automobile like for me reading about origin of universe is one of my favorite topics to read and sometimes I of course do watch I'm interested a little bit in poetry for example. So some Shiree and all that I keep watching on YouTube just to because that gives you a really good feeling and that's something which I enjoy. So we'll come back to that poetry because I know your way for one of it and that's with something we connect on. So we'll now move to rapid fire I have five questions for you and I'll one quick answer your favorite Maruti car is the Grand Vitara your favorite Maruti campaign it's the India comes home in Maruti that general campaign for the brand overall brand yeah your favorite Maruti office this can be globally like Suzuki office yeah but for me it is that old office which we have we no longer use in cannot place and that reason was only that you had I was very young when I joined them there was a lot of good samosas and the Saigash was down so that was the that's the only reason why it still remains my favorite. A Suzuki car that you would like to see launched in India. So there is this car of course now I don't think it can be launched India which is called the Cappuccino it's a small car sporty very nice design and that's something which would look fantastic on Indian roads. So I think it's rapid fire I should not ask you that and your favorite Urdu couplet that you can recite for us. It'll go on. But you know the reason I said why Urdu Shiree is good it gives you that feeling which is like you may learn something with experience over long period maybe the whole lifetime and they put it in into two lines and that sticks with you it's great and for example when you when you go through your life at different points of time in this competitive of course you will have some people always rooting for you some people who are wanting to put you down the thing is that people who put you down are also serving a purpose because you have to be sure that their feedback is taken and you have to be close to just to take the negative this thing but not to be moved and be under pressure from on the negativity like Ahmed Faraz for example put this in and this is something that I am very conscious about because this is I'm I'm sure for everybody that and he put it in very that is that you have to be close to those people and also wish them well because they are actually doing good to you not avoid them and pray for them so it goes something like this So you I mean it's about it's great because that gives you in a very very short two lines how you must treat people even if they are you know not for you because they also serve a purpose of course there are other Ahmed Faraz Gazzal and a lot of share which is which you know if we go on okay so let me see if I can you know I just people will google Higra Ki Raat Baam Higra Ki Raat Mahi Tamam Raktiya then it continues it goes continuously there are there are five so you will listen I'm enjoying it and I'm trying hard to understand it you're very jackman and and the last two this thing He said, in the eyes of the Lord, He said, in the eyes of the Lord, He said, in the eyes of the Lord, He said, I have kept all the words in His feet. And the final Maktah, that is the end. And Faraz wants you, how much love do you have? And Faraz wants you, how much love did your mother keep in your name, the name of your children? Beautiful. I don't think I can have, I should say anything and disturb this, what we have created and conclude. So Shashank, thank you very much for speaking to us. And please do keep visiting us often so that we have something new to understand and that I've never heard this poetry before. Thanks for talking to me. Thank you very much.