 Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time for our first panel discussion and a truly interesting one on that. Knowing your customer is the key to success for any brand and brands today have an unprecedented insight about their consumers. However, how does this data deluge help a brand's target audience better and focus on consumers who may not have uniform needs? Well, to discuss more on the topic, has marketing changed from knowing your customer to knowing your customer segment? Well, we have an eclectic panel with us here today. First up, let's welcome our session chair, Prita Atre, head of marketing, Twitter India. Also joining Prita would be our panelists, Deepthi Sampath, the vice president of marketing and ancillary services, Vistara Kunal Bhartwaj, senior director of marketing upstocks. We've got Manindar Bali, head of brand marketing with Antu Rohit Doshi, the director of Microsoft advertising business in Mobi and we've got Vishal Sharma, the head of marketing, sleep well joining us. Well, thank you firstly to all our panelists for taking out your valuable time. With this, I'd like to invite you all on the screen and pass on the light bait into our session chair, Prita to take it forth with her panel. Over to you Prita and I hope everyone's doing great. Thank you so much. Absolute pleasure to be here and I hope the audience has been enjoying the session still now and look forward to an extremely interesting and engaging panel discussion. A big warm welcome to the panelists who are here with me today and we are here to talk about an extremely interesting topic. Like you said, marketing has changed and it's moving from knowing your customer to knowing your customer segment. In fact, the past two years have not been easy for anybody and it has been extremely challenging for customers. Customer behavior, customer, the way the customers are, what the customers are looking for, a lot of it has changed and we have had to adapt and be flexible to go with their ever increasing or changing requirements. No longer is it a one side and personalization, especially when businesses are scaling or we're looking at marketing at scale, it will not cut ice unless we know our customers and our customer segments. In fact, this is something that's extremely interesting is everyone around us is a customer of some kind of product. We ourselves are customers and consumers of products and the way we speak and communicate with our family, with our friends, with our colleagues, with our business acquaintances, it's all different. We speak and communicate with them extremely differently and it's these differences and this variety and traits which are important for brands to understand and today we've also moved away from the way we used to look at customer segmentation. Gone are the days of looking at it purely from a demographic or a geographic perspective. Today we have to look at something much more deeper. We've got to engage with our consumers based on their common interests, their passion points and in fact we need to tap into these communities which is like an organic army with varied voices, many faces yet one common blue that holds them together and people no longer just look at the product packaging and buy a product. They are actually looking for a lot more as to how is it relevant and how is it going to make a difference in their lives. So just a short introduction on how we look at this conversation and this topic and before we kind of get into more deeper questions I would like to throw this question open to the panelists and ask them if they could say a few words from their point of view as to how they have looked at customer segmentation and how are they reaching out to their customers especially the journey in the last few years and where is it heading over the next few years. I'd like to throw it open to Vishal if you would like to start and give a few inputs or a few thoughts from your end before we move to other panelists. So very quickly panelists and audience, since it's become very important the way customer segmentation is happening today, it helps you identify the right cohorts of your audiences, customize your right messaging or build the right narrative to those cohorts. It gives you even gives you better opportunities to create new products and services around those segments of customers that you identified. Also ultimately it gives you the better return on money. I'll give an example. So for us we quickly identify customers between active and non-active loyalists and online competition and non-buyer those kind of customers and then you can decide on what kind of dollar that you want to spend on and what kind of effort that goes into marketing into addressing those segments. Ultimately it all points trying to how segmentation is helping is you know delivering a better return on a dollar. That's the ultimate question that every marketer has to answer. Thank you so much Vishal. I fully agree return on investment is becoming ever increasingly more important. Not that it was not important before but I think it's come to the foreign center of it. Dipthi would you want to add a few more points from your end as we look at this conversation? Yes sure. Happy to be here first of all. Good afternoon everyone. Yes I think it's very important as Vishal mentioned that it's very very important to understand what you know because customers today are not the same across you know they're different type of customer, they're different type of needs. So understand you know where they sit what their wants and desires are and accordingly if you can tailor your product and your communication there is a better ROI that one can get. Having said that I think this is this is as a concept this has been done ever forever you know. I think the way it is being done now is changing because there are many different platforms and many different tools that we have as marketers today to understand and deep dive into the segmentation as well as the behavior today. So yes absolutely very very important for any marketer to look at it in a holistic you know overall kind of way. And Maninder how does this play out in an industry that you come from where your customers are multifaceted. You have a younger audience who are your direct consumers and you have an older audience which actually is a key decision maker and it's it's it'll be quite interesting to hear your viewpoint from a very different industry that you're from. Sure yeah hi Pitha. That's a super interesting question right and like I said nothing exists out of context so my views on this are going to be hugely colored by the category that I operate in today right. I mean just for instance we are there in 10,000 plus cities like when we talk about impact at scale that's the kind of scale we're talking about so not not just different kind of audiences in terms of their age but even when you look at their income right for example something as simple as price your income elasticity right. Typically an elasticity of less than one would mean it's an essential the ratio would mean that it's somewhat of a luxury right. Just to put that in context education in India for any parent is it falls in like about 0.9 as income elasticity what that means is that they're going to and healthcare falls at 1.95 just to put that in context right. So what that means is that any parent in India at any income level is going to want to invest more in education than healthcare itself that's crazy. Now when you try and understand things from this context how you segment the market how you segment the customers and then your responsibility towards then delivering the right kind of value not just communication right but actually the right kind of value what is the service you're providing them what's the shape and form that product actually takes for that kind of a segment radically changes right and one thing also to our category is that averaging out doesn't work at all you know when you've got something so diverse because the solution for the average is actually a solution for no one in our category right. So in that sense yeah absolutely the shifts that we're seeing in how consumers behave and therefore the responsibility of getting segmentation right is a make or break not just for the business in the brand but also for the people themselves because if they don't get the right products we can't create the right kind of value for them and in a category like education that's going to set the nation back a bit. That's so true and like you said you have to get your customer segmentation absolutely spot on. Kunal how does this play out in your industry and where you're coming from I know it's very different from where Marindar is so how does that play out for you. Hey good afternoon Prita thank you for the question good afternoon everyone else. So I'm going to answer it in this way that look the world now and you know the world of brands and consumers now is pretty much similar to a modern retail outlet that we walk into. For a particular product you'll see a hundred brands and it's up to the guy customer to walk in and figure out what he wants. Our category is that one right in the corner where it's kindly dimly lit right now because only four percent of the entire population knows who we are what we do. So although rate of expansion is such that pretty soon I think we'll have lights installed and ECs also installed there but that being said even in our category right it's and I'm going to quote I don't know if you if any of you've seen this movie called Patch Adams. Now in Patch Adams Robin Williams is having this conversation with this Michael Arthur and Arthur puts a four fingers and says what do you see and he says four fingers you know look and seriously look and then he sees eight. So even in our category we need to look beyond those one two three four different kind of product segments and direct consumers and look beyond what their needs are and what they really want. So until we do that and which we are doing until we do that and that multiplied by every other category on the planet doesn't work. So of course you know customer segmentation understanding their needs and then delivering to them what they really don't even know they want at a certain point in time is the game. That I completely completely agree with because unless you tap into the latent need that's prevalent but they're not aware of you're not going to get that first move of advantage and at the same time kind of could be relevant enough for them to adopt and work you know consume your products. So when you work with brands across Rohit how does this play out? I know because you kind of work with so many of them. So what what is the shift that you've seen and how does this play out? Good afternoon everyone first of all it's good to be here. I think a very specific question Pritha. Customer segmentation I think is extremely important right in the times that we are today. The behavior of consumers is changing a lot. I think their user preferences and behaviors online have drastically evolved and all brands out there today are dealing with a digital first target audience right with extremely unique needs. Now in order to successfully build brand connect first of all you need to identify the needs of your users right and then map them to the right consumers and in order to do this I think that is where customer segmentation becomes extremely crucial. Customer segmentation can help what we've seen across the brand that we work with right. It helps brands to be present at the right time and at the right place right which effectively they can use to drive better engagement and conversations. We've seen you know customer segmentation helping in different aspects right the first one of that being increasing marketing efficiency right I think which Michelle spoke about right in terms of how to drive better ROI at some point in time right. So it helps brand to better understand their audience segments right to be able to effectively design better campaigns right. The second would be it helps you identify new market opportunities. When I say that I mean the market is ever evolving and the customer segments are also you know emerging and evolving. So the brands maintain a competitive edge in the market right that is where customer segmentation really helps and then the third one is you know it helps just improve overall distribution strategies or overall brand strategies right. I think improvisation right now and evolution is critical for everyone right and I think knowing the market pulse and then better being able to segment your customers really you know is the third area that that segmentation plays in and then eventually like once you have your customers right there is an ongoing connect that you need to maintain with your consumers which is more loyalty and retention right that is again you know the next area where segmentation really helps and keeps them. That's true connecting with your consumers constantly tapping into those special moments that you can reach out to them and be relevant to them is going to be absolutely important once you get your customization right. I know a lot of us have also touched upon how does customer segmentation improvise and help deliver an exceptional customer experience. Vishal I'd like to hear a little more from your end especially coming from a business that's been here for so long. How have you actually used customer segmentation to evolve your customer experience and create that unique experience for them? So Preeta and you know segmentation is work for you know kind of help us define the propensity of a customer to you know discover you sample you and you know at the right time of what is the right time of conversion for him and also kind of back you know forms of feedback new for my own sales team for my own product teams for the pricing for the right value proposition for the customer key teams and all that. It also kind of you know helps in so it has helped us you know kind of identify unique needs and scale up some of the things which we even didn't know existed. For example we were very surprised to discover that you know more mattresses are sold through furniture shops 45 percent than mattress shops you know that's that's the discovery for us also and then how how do I address that channel and how do I address this customer working to that channel you know in our case which is a physical led business and of course now being highly digitized very rapidly digitized. Fidgetle is a big space that has emerged really truly for us and how we can deliver you know create a lead funnel and you know deliver to the last mile without a very painless way of discovering and buying to the customer that has helped us scale up. Also I you know talking of the scaling up thing I would say a couple of things you know end of the day marketers are demand creators and you know enablers of sales. We also need to think like salespeople you know end of the day you have to have some experience of sales and product and you know and not just be pure marketers and create this opportunity for the business to grow. You know things like during covid we used the covid time to actually scale up our physical business and the digital business whereas the competitors were sleeping literally in the sleep world so it really gave us a lot of you know market size and volumes which they missed. We use that covid as a good time to we are using omni very rapidly now to scale up again in that segment which nobody else is in our segment. But I would also caution you know with the scale up also comes the challenge of scaling up your teams your own customer teams sales teams your channel teams your proposition and they have to keep pace with your ideas otherwise you know you cannot deliver the wrong thing to the customer. You scale up for the sake of scaling up but you know end up creating a dissonance to the customer that's that's a no no. I mean completely agree on a lot of those points. I quickly wanted to check with both Dipti as well as Maninder on customer segmentation versus market segmentation in many ways many people feel there's a huge overlap between the two but how do you find that sweet spot so that you don't over segment and at the same time you kind of reach the right audience. So Dipti if you could talk a little more about that before we move on to Maninder to add a few more points. Yeah sure absolutely so you know as far as aviation is concerned then I'll give you a few examples from there. So of course market segmentation is extremely important for us as well because we are looking at you know going to new market new destinations etc and studying those in terms of demand and in terms of what is the existing product that's there. So for example if we are going international what kind of product and by product I mean what kind of aircraft is there what kind of experience is already there in terms of so of course there is product parity and hence comes what kind of segmentation do you want to go after. So you know when we look at customer segmentation there are two three parts that we go after maybe two parts that we go after because you cannot talk to everybody and looking at you know in the space that we are in which is the slightly premium you know service that we provide. We look at which customers are price sensitive which are not which are say probably a little bit more wanting to you know experience and explore say a new product and wanting a little bit extra service say a little bit of extra price so they don't mind paying that especially when you're doing long haul. So plus looking at what that market is how is how is sales for example how is media consumed there you know what what channels do we use in in that market. So segmentation from you know in terms of all your demographic, psychographic etc plus what is your customer segmentation and which market kind of will allow you or which how do you marry the two in those particular markets is very very key especially as far as you know aviation as far as airlines are concerned because as I said there is product parity the only thing that that you can do is service differentiator and looking at what extra you can give. So for example in our in our international flights you would have seen our in flight safety video right while it has nothing to do with you know sales or or or wanting anybody wanting to buy because of that but it's a slightly different experience that we are giving you know and and so these are small small things that you kind of marry so because nothing like this was done in the domestic market of course but even in the international market only one or two airlines probably did it sometime back so there is this like an opportunity that you find and then you kind of connect you know how this is apart from that I think it's very very important to look at the behavior of the customer. So what's happening in terms of market segmentation and customer segmentation you know and in that space in terms of behavior the the kind of service or the kind of product that we offer differs and that's where you kind of create a wow. So I think especially in a service industry that we are in it's very very important. That's that's so enlightening and interesting to hear about how you use customer segmentation to enhance the experience and service differentiation. So Maninder how does that work in your line of business? Yeah no super interesting points from Deepi. I'm going to come at it from the other end right for us often the challenge because we're sitting on enormous amounts of data right which is there's just so much of these tools and modeling that you can do and there's no end to it right you can really split hair in terms of how deep you can go with the segmentation rabbit hole. The question that we find super useful is you know always asking us at what point do we stop you know because your question was around how do you find that sweet spot right it's a bit of an art and a science and internally at Vedanto at least all of us are very very mindful of what we don't want to be doing is boiling the ocean for the cup of tea right we want to know where to be able to stop what is the right I think Vishal spoke about it which is super important is the ROI right the ROI on segmentation has to be greater than the expense of this entire exercise on segmentation and for us it plays out in very meaningful ways right there are no assumptions made for example when you're teaching a kid from thousands of miles away you can have different models at day you can have a one-to-one model whether it is the teacher and the student life you can have a one-to-few model you can have a one-to-many model where you've got 300 kids in the same class now if you don't get your segmentation right you don't know which model to apply if you're not very very deliberate or rigorous with your analysis you're going to use broad brushstrokes right that maybe one one-to-many model is the right model in this attack category and you're going to fail there because the needs of some parents with some kids is always going to be better served by one-to-one models right and so for us when we talk about the experience layer through customer segmentation in education experience is the education part of it the experience is the learning you know so it's directly related to that so for us yeah that's how we find the sweet spot right it's exactly knowing when to stop what are the right abstraction of segments and how many of those are actually actionable right through our targeting can we even address those segments so that in our experience serves us well that's very interesting points being made by all our panelists I just want to go a little a little different from what we have been talking about which is on segmentation and market segmentation and customer segmentation the last two years we've seen a huge shift in the way people are being reached out to people are being communicated to there's a huge growth in digital consumption of content we've seen people have got more access to the internet and to devices and content is becoming extremely important and a relevant content more than ever so Kunal this one's for you in the digital space how do you feel that customer segmentation and reaching out to customers has changed and evolved and what does the role of content per se play when you kind of reach out or talk to your customers okay so I'm going to start off from the second part first about content right like by the nature of the segment that I mean it's more about in and the nature of the company that I represent and we're working with and our vision is to expand this category to get more and more Indians to start investing in new financial instruments so by default for us content is super important because especially you know a conversion of a non buyer to a fan sitter and from a fan sitter to a trader or a transactor that that entire journey is kind of covered by the kind of content we put out so we focus a lot of of our efforts you know when it comes to content right sorry what was the other part and how have you seen the consumption or the adoption to digital and how was this played out in the last two years I know it's I mean for us it was I mean I shouldn't say that and I sound very happy saying that but the pandemic really worked out for us I think you know I mean it worked out in two ways right a people were at home and they were bored and unfortunately a lot of traditional income sources dried up so when you combined both of them it gave us a potent mixture of being at the right place at the right time with the touch with the right product which enabled a lot of people to start you know trading and understanding and this is exactly what I said right the beginning as well right content played a huge part because look it's it's like this you know dipping a toe in the pool and to see how cold the water is so content was the you know the the temperature graph for us and then that kind of helped us scale it for further and further and further and in terms of consumers I think we've not seen any we haven't seen any massive fragmentation in the kind of consumers coming in of course the largest contributors that we have are the millennials and among the millennials are one of the biggest chunks that we have and a dominant chunk is women so for us that's something that you know as a strategy and as a brand that's consistently worked for us I'm kind of glad to hear that that a huge number of your consumers are women it's a very interesting insight also to share that a lot more people are coming on to social media more than ever they're leaning into communities they're looking at topics they're looking at their areas of interest and engaging with people across passion points and twitter provides an opportunity for people to virtually join into these conversations and be a part of communities so Vishal when you sorry Rohit when you kind of speak to your clients how do they kind of how have they adapted and adopted to this shift because this shift has been a sudden shift it's not something that people I mean people were obviously adopting and adapting to social and digital but the the last two years it's been kind of drastic a lot of them who were not too active in this space had to kind of pull up their socks and get get more active to be more relevant and to be there to catch the eyeballs of their consumers so how has this how have your the people that you work with how have they kind of embraced this change and what is it that you're seeing which is there are going to stay there for the future as we move along into 2022 so starting to start with right I think we we all agree that you know this I think the last couple of years were we saw a lot of digital transformation happen right so I mean the clients that we work with right they were pretty advanced clients right which have moved from I think even beyond personalization right I mean they're talking about hyper personalization right you know how do kind of they start segmenting more and more and there were a lot more traditional brands right which have now started to kind of come in you know online so I think depending upon where or which life cycle or stage you know at brand is we've seen all of them you know rapidly move towards the digital marketing or digital you know platform funnel I think we've done a lot of work right for example we worked with clients like GCPL right they have they went from kind of you know launching just not a video communication but then they went from doing video communication in local languages right to to kind of build interest you know with their hyper personalized local audiences right is what you know what happened I mean similar examples you know were spotted where I mean for at least household stuff right women were the primary decision makers right but then brands went ahead and started targeting men right because I think they were spending a lot more time at home and then that is where they kind of you know needed to target different audiences right so this is this is more you know in-depth you know movement towards how do we personalize better right I think while all of this has happened right I think Kunal was speaking about you know how their audience is millennials and how they've done a lot of work in kind of you know putting the content out there right we've seen a lot of brands face challenges you know when they tailor their marketing communication out right what's the best way to do it I mean sometimes how much personalization is too much personalization right I mean that is the question that everyone keeps asking because they want to be relevant but they don't want to be intrusive right and I think that's the I mean we see majority of brands kind of solving for that everyone does want to target relevant folks and get the better ROI and as well as reach more and more audiences right but they do want to be kind of you know very you know careful about how they are being pursued with their customers and existing on you so yeah a lot of changes have happened that I would say in the last couple of years on all multiple brands and Vishal how do you see this being played out I know you said that you've kind of expanded during this phase but have you kind of redone your whole communication mix and looked at it from a different lens? We have completely redone our communication mix we've had to do that in fact you know in fact women are becoming an important marketing technique for us also whereas 90% of the audience was men and we've looked at women products we've looked at new things you know instead of talking of comfort which is essentially what we say we talk of health and hygiene and you know things like mattress cleaning and new services have been born out of that things like you know so it's also the important I think you know what Deepi said what is the minimum behavior right now you know what space in the mind space or the you know life space in his lifetime at this point of time and then you know kind of you know customize your products and your value propositions and your pricing and offerings around that set the right cadence and the narrative you know set the right messaging also kind of you know I feel you have to feel there's a person behind that entire segment and data there's a living person behind you know behind that data set so how do you value his time and you know what is what he needs at this point in time it could be it could be safety it could be need for more regionalized communication or regionalized way of reaching him it could be things like cultural markers that he keeps you know feels more comfortable with it could be people like today getting more environment conscious do you want is your is your product or you know services that are is environment conscious so things like that is what is helping us kind of segment it and you know make more customizable messaging and products most snackable content if I may call it and drive that to the customers yeah and it's really paying off now that's that's interesting the shift that market years have to have had to do and how they had to adapt. Deepi quick question how do brands now move beyond personalization in tailoring their communication especially you come from an industry which has had its fair shares of ups and downs in the last two years and things are I mean travel is coming back in many ways and I think people are longing to go back and travel and and how so how do you kind of look at your communication how do you kind of make sure that what you say and do is extremely relevant today and constantly changing and fast changing so how do you kind of keep pace with that. Yeah sure so let me go a bit step back because you know this this has been really really dynamic for us so our business is based on movement of people right which did not happen for the last one and a half years or two years and then when it started to happen it was almost like we restarted the airline because you know there are slots and there are so many things that you need to kind of again redo or kind of you know reapply and things like that having said that in terms of communication to the customer there are two types of communication as as as we see it one is what you what is your transaction which is you know around your ticket around your what any other ancillary product that you bought around your flight and things like that and the other is how you engage having said that now when COVID happened of course a lot of communication around transaction and kind of dipped that was not happening or if it was happening it was very very relevant to that specific flight or whatever but at the same time we had to kind of really talk about you know what what we are doing as as an airline when we restarted so after the two and a half months of lockdown we restarted everything right we started to fly but with a lot of you know say guidelines and tests and things like that which had to be communicated so that had to become very personalized just to give you one small example if I'm taking a flight from Delhi to Bombay and actually that that is relevant today as well if I'm taking a flight from Delhi to Bombay there is a certain requirement of Maharashtra if I'm taking a flight to Delhi to Bangalore there's a certain requirement for Karnataka and how am I to personalize that communication so it's a big challenge right plus the journey on on our website in terms of communicating what needs to be done so so the government said that you have to do a self declaration form for example and that has to be in the booking window so there's a huge you know backend technology change that we had to make in in the booking flow which means it's a huge job actually for any any airline or any service industry so that kind of personalization we had to go to and and we still do it if today I'm sending an SMS saying you know your flight is blah blah blah check the travel check the state guidelines so that link has to be very personalized personalized for that specific consumer right it's a huge challenge because government also kept changing now other than that you know beyond personalization you know if you were to talk about of course there are many many things so you look at the look at the behavior of the of the consumer right there are and of course we know our business class and we know our PEI consumers etc how have they behaved what have they looked at what what are their wants and desires what did they kind of you know so there are loyalty members that we have what is it that they want every time who travels what and accordingly offer so to give you an example again once so how we have come to this going beyond personalization per to say and to generate revenue out of it as well is that if I have booked a ticket today you know I actually cross sell and upsell and cross sell and upsell is a very very very generic term but but it goes to the detail of what level that member is what business class he has booked now or what cabin class he has booked now and and what is it that I can cross sell so for example if I have booked a premium economy obviously it doesn't make sense to talk about any other services or privileges that you get if you're sitting in economy right and especially if you're a club this time remember then it gets even further tiered to that so it's a combination of what your travel what your transaction is that's what your behavior has been or what your stature has been with us so that's on the transaction side on on the other side which is typically on the communication side side you know you basically go a little beyond personalization and you take a higher stand so for example in during COVID like when we went after the second lockdown sorry before the second lockdown second wave was just about coming and we said stay home stay safe don't fly even though it's you know it's compared to to the business but you have to kind of take a higher ground and and you tell your customer then it was not just a mass campaign that we did on Dan digitally but it was also we communicated to our members and we said that you know don't don't travel if it's not essential so sometimes you have to do that kind of a mix and and and of course going forward we only hope that we are able to better we are able to sharpen and we are able to look at what kind of relevant and timely messaging and timely service and product that we can offer and again it's it boils down to the same thing that you don't want to over communicate you don't want to you know you want to draw that line so yeah keep it relevant keep it timely and and arrive at what can can happen at what time at at that particular time given the circumstances and that that's the key that's true nothing exists without context and I know Marinda you have spoken about value and need-based segmentation and intimacy at scale so how does this flow for your business where you know you have an audience which is very diverse and you have a market which is very spread out and behavior consumption patterns which are very different so how does how does your communication and personalization and segmentation all merge and marry together yeah I mean like you mentioned for the the entire single-minded mission is impact at scale right we want to be able to get a child studying in India the best possible teacher right which is not necessarily what happens because you're trying to find somebody within your pin code somewhere closer to you so you're working within your means right you're not necessarily optimizing for what's best for the child you're optimizing for what's possible for the child right so the ambition here is of course impact at scale you want to be able to get the best teacher for every child but you want to also do it for every child in every nook and corner of the country right doesn't matter if the kid is sitting in Mizoram or in Delhi right it really doesn't matter you want to be able to create that level of impact at that level of scale we cannot do that and that's where segmentation plays a huge part we can't do that without having intimacy at scale right you want to be operating at scale but you still want to be intimate you want to be able to understand the fears motivations aspirations of every one of them we're also part of a category where there is a huge distinction between the customer and the consumer a lot of times the customer is the parent the consumer is the kid the kid could be three years old the kid could be 15 years old so there's massive differentiation right that goes so again everything that happens here is again basis first principles two principles that really hold us grounded is one is I think again Vishal had alluded to that but data is people in disguise right for us that's the job to be done very clearly understand who the people behind this what are their fears what are the emotions aspirations you spoke about unstated needs right latent needs that's hugely important that what you're reading through the funnel what's the data telling you about these people that's one and of course there is crazy amount of science to how we go to the market right in terms of media strategy are targeting when we go on OTTs the role of content how we choose between open options and PGDs all of that happens but there's an equally important part which is the art of it right and like sir John Haggerty said all of the information goes through your heart not your head and that is super important to us what are you going to do with such level of insights if you can't then translate it into something that melts your heart right so for us the litmus test for any piece of communication we're trying to craft is that is it one mind opening of course but equally important is it heart opening right does it really warm does it level create a level of empathy with parents with students and not a one size fits all right even for the same person for the same child at different levels when they're studying in class what's the kind of nudges you know we've all grown up in school systems where the only nudge we got was a teacher throwing a chalk at us but that's completely changed right the pace of communication internally now with technology is completely changed the kind of nudges and motivations that a child gets in class to be a radically different and no two children get the same nudge and their 300 students sitting and they all feel like they're sitting on the first bench you know that's crazy that's almost like magic but that's what's happening in our category today that's what we're delivering right at scale similarly for parents right somebody who's worried about how the kid is going to be doing how you don't have to wait six months or one year to figure out what happened and then do a post-mortem on that right you're getting a daily analysis of how your kid is doing and you can really do something about it in real time all of this is part of communication right not necessarily branding but that's how we do it so the most important point that enables us to do is we're not looking at demographics and all of that anymore right we're looking not also only at attitudinal data we're looking at behavioral data that's magic right when you look at behavioral data people are always going to tell you something but they're going to behave in that way itself right and that's what we're looking at and that's what we are then picking out and saying you know what's actually at play here pick up the phone speak to a couple of them and then go back and then try something so that's how we're going that's extremely interesting I must say and we've always said in many ways that Twitter is the largest public forum of human thought people keep coming and sharing their experiences and a lot of the inputs that come and what people share actually influences behavior in many ways so while we kind of look at wrapping this wrapping up this discussion I want to kind of throw this question out to each panelist as we move into the next year and we've seen a change over the last two years and we don't know what the future holds for us but I know it's going to be kind of dynamic it's not going to be one of those phases where we like oh we figured it out it's never going to be oh we figured it out we don't know what's there on the next step so I want to understand I'll start with you Kunal on how do you think this whole customer segmentation communicating to customers as well as identifying those needs of those customers is going to evolve and change as we move into 2022 and what are the pro tips you would give to our audience and marketeers who are listening in to you know kind of keep in their mind as they plan their way into the next year that's a great question thanks all right so let's start from 30,000 feet above and then come to land so as to speak look from a 30,000 feet perspective when I'm talking about personalization the flip side of the coin is expectations and once a marketer and this expectation is different for customers at different price points so just to give you you know go deeper into it the expectation of a customer who's going to a dhaba to eat a dal makhani is going to be very different from the expectation of if he's going to Taj or Maurya similarly a Goer and a Vistara right whether he's economy class of Goer versus economy class of Vistara the expectation in his mind would be at a certain level so the trick for a marketer is to a understand that expectation level right now comes a question of do I match it or do I go beyond now that invariably comes down to the numbers game to go beyond if the cost versus revenue number is in the green then by all means go ahead because that's the wow factor and the differentiating factor that you're going to build into your product then coming down further especially you know in a digital first category because that's where we're all moving right it's it's going to be you know the biggest failure of any brand to think that he's there is a loyal customer whether of the category of the or of the product or of the brand because if he's for example even if he's buying something as simple as toothbrush he's going to go to at least 10 sites and do the reviews right so therefore once he does land on your side there needs to be consistency in communication so while there is there is there is of course there is this latent you know bug that all marketers and every brand has that I'm going to be as personalized as possible there needs to be consistency in messaging as well so that being done if and of course then the biggest thing and I think that's something that we all need to figure out on when it comes to either segmentation or personalization or anything that the biggest thing we all need to work on is to build trust with that guy because unless that is done anything of the other that you're doing is not going to work so yeah I think pretty much that and not go too deep into trying to understand each and every nuance of a human being because unfortunately all human beings are different and we live anyways in the country where every 100 meters the country changes so the tech guys are going to basically kill us if we go that granular totally agree I mean as a person who's travel the length and breadth of this country I can I can second third and fourth that point but I kind of I really agree with your other points on building trust consistency in your communication and more importantly being authentic in everything you say and do and show up for what you say and not say something for the sake of saying so I like you know Rohit if you could talk about how you encourage your the brands that you work with and what is it that you feel that they should look out for as you move into 2022? I think I mean we've had a great discussion first of all about personalization and segmentation right but I think while we do this the entire personalization and segmentation cannot happen in pockets right there are different marketing platforms and digital strategies that marketers are using and kind of you know for kind of meeting their customer goals right but I think all the platforms need to talk to each other I mean if it starts happening in pockets then it's a mess right and I think therefore it is important to come up with that unified strategy I would say 360 degree view of you know what your customers are doing on different platforms and then communicating with them and I think in order to do justice to personalization I think it's it's a heavy task right is I would say because every customer right now is unique so I think there is definitely a lot of investment needed in building scalable ecosystems to be able to personalize properly right so I think brands need do need to invest a lot in you know customer data platforms analytical tools and then not just tools right you need to also have the right people and the talent to be able to do this right so I think those are at least you know a few things from my side that that marketers and brands should look out there as they move into 2022 so all data is good as is but it's not going to be useful if you can't mine it and get those insights from it so that's that's absolutely true and I like the idea on synchronous communication so that you what you say and do is consistent across the board so how would you look at it Vishal as you look at your business going into 2022 what are the few things that you think a couple of things I'll take it from the other speakers what Kunal spoke about you have to you know to build trust and credibility you have to be consistent you have to be you know you have to really at the intersection of the physical and the digital world how seamless and painless the journey you can build for the customer that's extremely important you get a discovery sampling or purchase you know secondly I would say you know you know the data we all use we all say data is God and segmentation is even better but you know or all that data and what when Indra said you can't do really micro segmentation you know you as a marketer you have to you've had your failures and successes and you have to use your marketer's instinct you when you know your business your sales guys inputs your channel inputs and you know put it on top of the data and you know with that mix come to the human benefits delivering you human benefits and not just you know product and service benefits when you start delivering human benefits I think that is a win-win for both the both the customer and the brands finally you know I would say and as again what one Indra said with the micro segmentation and too much of data you know there has to be minimal viable proposition viability to the business or whatever you're trying to offer and that is very very important you know that's the only way to succeed and in the next day thank you so much I know we need to brands need to show their human side and it's important Dipti how would you look at this and what would you say or your pro tips for marketing as they look at 2022 well I think what your product delivers is the key because that's how you build trust so if your product delivery whether it's a platform whether it's a service whether it's you know any other product that your that has to be of a certain quality certain service and a certain stature consistently because then otherwise the trust is lost and I say this largely because you know we are in a service industry a customer applying you know maybe four times five times a month has one bad experience will will really talk about that bad experience more or will remember that more and then the recovery of that is going to be far far more difficult so as far as trust is concerned it's it's a I mean stick to the basics that you that you're your that you you know the value proposition that you are seeing so whatever that is stick to that and deliver it consistently now on top of that if you want to create that stickiness and if you want to create that personalization and and you're asking me you know what is it that going next year I mean what is it that we will look at on top of that build a layer of what you how you can create that wow and that's where your segmentation and customer behavior and etc comes in so for example we are delivering say a good service or a good product on top of that whatever service you're doing you bundle it or you power it with however that particular customer has behaved or whatever you know about that customer that is powerful right so that's the kind of wow you will create and then it it comes back to the trust it comes back to brand stickiness so you know you have to look at it look at it like that otherwise otherwise you're just doing things for the sake of it and and you know you will see it like a cyclical thing and it will keep going up and going down I mean today every brand or every product will must be doing their you know scores so like we do our net promoter scores and we know every month we know which area of which which department needs that kind of improvement so whether it is a crew that needs training or whether it is the food that needs to be you know bettered or whether the aircraft has some issue in terms of broken seeds or whatever that kind of feedback you have to and you have to deliver that product consistently at a certain quality and and as I said then back it up with as much personalization as you can to create that wow but but don't go overboard because you know customers also don't like to see that there is a lot of so when I say as much personalization as much personalization that is relevant you know so stick to that so that's what I would say use data in a way that you are you are reaching to the heart of the customer as you said that we are all humans and we need to and travel is a very very involved category I mean you will get you know you would want to book yourself you would want to make a choice of that airline or that health hotel so it's very very critical. Thank you so much for those thoughts I'm sure they're going to be invaluable Maninder closing thoughts on how brands and marketeers should look at 2022. Oh yeah I speak for myself and I maybe at the risk of being too boring focus on execution right there's a whole lot of theory around all of this right but like the I mean going to what Mike Tyson said right we've all got a plan till we are punched in the face the rubber hits the road not in the board rooms right the rubber hits the road when the academic counselor is calling a parent and talking to them about what the brand is what Vedanta stands for if that counselor does not understand segmentation does not understand who he's speaking with who she's speaking to what are they you know what's driving them what's what are their fears motivations they don't have a sense of that persona it's all going to come undone right so the big part for us the focus for the next year is actually going to be having done all of this exercise having invested so much so much in it how do you actually transmit this how do you actually cascade this to the front lines how are they going to talk about what they've understood from this entire exercise and then use that meaningfully to actually deliver the right kind of value to the right kind of families who are coming to us right they're reaching out to us with an aspiration that might possibly change the child's life you don't want a gap there right you want the person to be understanding so this is you know my favorite I think marketing is too important to be left to marketeers alone you have to have this cascade you have to have this understanding become a shared understanding within the org and we are the 7000 people organization if 40 people understand segmentation you get doomed we're finished so that's going to be the priority 2022 just focus on execution I know the the god lies in the detail and and you can never ever let go of that no matter what you do in marketing because if you don't get the execution right your strategy may be the best in the world but you're certainly setting yourself up for failure so I would like to say thank you to all of you this was one of the most engaging discussions that I have been part of I hope our audiences did take away a lot from this I certainly did and I certainly will use some of these as I go into next year so a big thank you and I hope to stay in touch with all of you thank you so much thank you thank you so much thank you thank you so much Frita for moderating in so one free and thank you to all our panelists for their respective perspectives thank you once again thank you