Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy where
Speaker 1: we talked to super successful and self made people to
Speaker 1: find out exactly how they did it, how they went
Speaker 1: from nothing to something. Today I am joined by none
Speaker 1: other than Raja Rajamana, CMO of MasterCard. We talked about
Speaker 1: a lot of different things and let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode. Take me back to the beginning,
Speaker 1: so for the audience and everyone that's watching and listening,
Speaker 1: your story into like fortune, fortune five hundred, you know
Speaker 1: the world to being the CMO of MasterCard, which is
Speaker 1: just nuts. You don't wake up one day and say mom,
Speaker 1: this is what I want to do. You initially went
Speaker 1: to school for chemical engineering and now you're in marketing,
Speaker 1: so clearly there was there wasn't a book on that.
Speaker 1: So take me back to your little kid, you're running around,
Speaker 1: what were you first interested in? See if a stay
Speaker 1: as a kid. I used to be a good student
Speaker 1: even then, and my mom would put the fear of
Speaker 1: God in us to say that if you don't study well,
Speaker 1: you will have to probably be a manual laborer in
Speaker 1: one of those fields or construction sites, which petrified me.
Speaker 1: So I used to really study very hard. Did she
Speaker 1: make you do that work like at nights or weekends
Speaker 1: or summers. No, no, no, no, she did not. Viewing
Speaker 1: it from a distance was enough for me to say
Speaker 1: that's not what I would really like to do. So
Speaker 1: as a student, I was a very good student, and
Speaker 1: I joined chemical engineering because I was interested in chemistry,
Speaker 1: and I was also specializing in environmental engineering, which is
Speaker 1: all about pollution control and treatment of effluence and all that.
Speaker 1: And I really enjoyed it. And I was a valectorian
Speaker 1: and I stood first to the university as well as
Speaker 1: other universities, got some gold medals and all the good stuff.
Speaker 1: So I thought that's where I was going to actually
Speaker 1: make my career. And I joined NBA after that in
Speaker 1: one of the prestigious management schools in India called the
Speaker 1: Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, and I joined for
Speaker 1: environmental management and human settlements and habitats. So that was
Speaker 1: where I thought I'll specialize in. And quite by accident,
Speaker 1: between the first and second years, I had to do internship.
Speaker 1: And I did this internship with a company called lack Me,
Speaker 1: which was a color cosmetics company in India, in India,
Speaker 1: in India, in Angalore. So I was sitting in one
Speaker 1: of the cabins and working away on my logistics projects,
Speaker 1: and I overheard a conversation between my supervisor and the
Speaker 1: agency guys in the next cubicle, and I said, why
Speaker 1: are this guy struggling so hard? To me, it was
Speaker 1: very evident how they should produce the campaign, though I
Speaker 1: had no clue of advertising or marketing for that matter.
Speaker 1: So I just took a small piece of paper and
Speaker 1: I said the campaign caption I gave, is it bad
Speaker 1: to look good? And then I created a small campaign
Speaker 1: out there right there as an ad and I went
Speaker 1: to him and they said, hey, I got an idea.
Speaker 1: I just overard your conversation, so I hope you didn't mind,
Speaker 1: but here is what I have as an idea. So
Speaker 1: he fell off his chair. He said this is brilliant,
Speaker 1: and then that made it its way to the chair
Speaker 1: one of the company, and then they really converted it
Speaker 1: to the real campaign, which become a big hit once
Speaker 1: some awards and all that. Wow, and it was just
Speaker 1: something you were overhearing. I was just overhearing, and they
Speaker 1: intuitively did it. So then I started thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe this is what I'm really good at. So in
Speaker 1: stuff environmental interesting, our environmental management. Let me also try
Speaker 1: to specialize in marketing. So I started taking a lot
Speaker 1: of marketing electives and that's when the bug had really
Speaker 1: written me. And here it is thirty six years after.
Speaker 1: I'm still in marketing and I joy every moment of it.
Speaker 1: So then you graduated, You've decided to make the switch
Speaker 1: over to marketing, which is a massive mindset shift. How
Speaker 1: did you have the courage to do that? Like I
Speaker 1: hear you you had that line with you know the superiors,
Speaker 1: and it works and it's fun and it's exciting. Let
Speaker 1: me go take some electives. But you train your whole
Speaker 1: life to do one thing to then just make such
Speaker 1: a dramatic shift, Like, how do you have the courage
Speaker 1: to do that? Or did you not do it? Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't so black and white, It was kind of
Speaker 1: over time. No, it was an immediate switch. Literally, it
Speaker 1: was an immediate switch. There was no pondering route for
Speaker 1: a long time. So the key thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: every marketing course that I took, I really enjoyed it
Speaker 1: very deeply, and I could perform very well in the examinations,
Speaker 1: in the case studies and things like that. Uh, and
Speaker 1: when I graduated, I had I also want some scholarships
Speaker 1: and all the good stuff. So when I graduated, there
Speaker 1: was a company which came to the campus called Asian Paints.
Speaker 1: It was the largest paint company in India. Like the
Speaker 1: first company you worked for, correct, yes, And they came
Speaker 1: for the campus recruitment and they don't They didn't have
Speaker 1: a marketing department though they were India's largest paint company
Speaker 1: and they wanted to create a marketing department. They wanted
Speaker 1: me to be a founder member of the marketing team.
Speaker 1: But as a founder flunkey, which I was okay with.
Speaker 1: I had two bosses. It was a three people team.
Speaker 1: So somehow the idea of creating a department from zero
Speaker 1: and being a founder of that department gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of kick. I said, okay, I'll go and do it.
Speaker 1: And imagine my surprise when I went to the camp.
Speaker 1: When I went joined the company, one of the directors
Speaker 1: on the board of that company, he and I we
Speaker 1: happened to meet in a men's toilet. So he asked me,
Speaker 1: I believe you're the guy who has come in to
Speaker 1: teach us how to do marketing, But tell me we
Speaker 1: are doing anywhere so well without the help of any
Speaker 1: marketing so far, and we are the market leaders, So
Speaker 1: tell me what exactly are he is going to do
Speaker 1: and how are you going to transform this because we're
Speaker 1: doing well without your help so far. That actually set
Speaker 1: me thinking quite a lot. I said, these guys are
Speaker 1: already market leaders. They don't have a marketing department, So
Speaker 1: what exactly does marketing do in companies? Till that time,
Speaker 1: my knowledge and marketing was all very theoretical. It was
Speaker 1: reading Philip Cartler and all the marketing books and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Then I started on a journey going to
Speaker 1: different companies h and trying to ask them what do
Speaker 1: you do in marketing? How are you organized? And what
Speaker 1: are your goals and what are your strategies and so on.
Speaker 1: And I was going to people who are not companies
Speaker 1: you were not competing against. And it was a fascinating
Speaker 1: eye opener for me that each company had its own
Speaker 1: definition of marketing. They do whatever they pleased and call
Speaker 1: it marketing. And I said wow, because that that sort
Speaker 1: of dispelled the myth that marketing is a function is
Speaker 1: very well defined and this is how it has to be.
Speaker 1: It was as varied as the companies were so Hi said, Okay,
Speaker 1: then we'll come up with our own definition of marketing.
Speaker 1: And I created my own job description and our own
Speaker 1: mandate for the function. And we produced some award winning
Speaker 1: campaigns and created some award winning new products which became
Speaker 1: market leaders and became with the distribution and logistics innovations.
Speaker 1: Had a fantastic time there, and then what happens is
Speaker 1: once you start, you know, seeing success, success motivates you
Speaker 1: to do even more, and that sort of even more
Speaker 1: and some of that that sort of kept going throughout
Speaker 1: my career and I moved from after three years with
Speaker 1: Asian Pints, I moved to Unilever, which was considered to
Speaker 1: be their school of marketing in India. Yes, and the
Speaker 1: reason why I wanted to mut huge company. It's a
Speaker 1: gigantic company and it's a household name in India. And
Speaker 1: I didn't move because if it was a household name
Speaker 1: or a great brand. But I moved because they were
Speaker 1: giving me accommodation in Bombay. As a nice little they
Speaker 1: give you an apartment. It's a big perk right in Bombay.
Speaker 1: You don't affer you cannot refer an apartment on your own,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're starting your career in three years into
Speaker 1: your career. So I said, that's a great deal. So
Speaker 1: I went and joined, and when I joined, I had
Speaker 1: the biggest shock in my life when they said, okay,
Speaker 1: you're coming into Uni Liver, but you start in sales,
Speaker 1: not in marketing. And here I was. I always had
Speaker 1: very low opinion of salespeople. Oh good, you've come to
Speaker 1: the right podcast. Correct, so welcome. So interestingly, I said, no,
Speaker 1: sales is meant for people who are not intellectual. Great, God,
Speaker 1: I want to just keep recording this. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: going on right. And I always felt if people are
Speaker 1: a glib they can talk smoothly and they can trick
Speaker 1: you into buying things that you don't need. You're a
Speaker 1: great sales guy. You in awards, you get your come
Speaker 1: incentives and all that. They said, that's what sales is.
Speaker 1: And I'm not that kind of a guy. Always fancy
Speaker 1: it myself as being a intellectual and a creative kind
Speaker 1: of a guy, but not a sales guy. So I said,
Speaker 1: I'll not joint and then the head of marketing for
Speaker 1: Univerity India he said that you trust me unless you're
Speaker 1: a good salesman, you'll never be a good marketer. You'll
Speaker 1: remain an ivory town marketer. And uh, the temptation of
Speaker 1: the apartment was too much to let go, So very
Speaker 1: reluctantly I went into sales. And I was put in
Speaker 1: charge of North India, which was a gigantic territory for
Speaker 1: India at the time for all the personal care products.
Speaker 1: And I had like a salespeople that had to supervise
Speaker 1: and had no clue of sales, and I was put
Speaker 1: off their boss. I said, he's going to be a
Speaker 1: crazy journey. And I think my myths about sales got
Speaker 1: dispelled with it. The very first week. Suddenly started seeing
Speaker 1: that these guys and I joined. In summer, it's hot,
Speaker 1: scorching heart in India. In the I've heard it's awfully hot.
Speaker 1: And these poor guys would go onto the streets go
Speaker 1: shop to shop to shop, because in India the distribution
Speaker 1: was moment pop stores. They would go, they would plead,
Speaker 1: they would convinced, they would sell the product, actually deliver
Speaker 1: the products themselves, because they had to pick up stocks
Speaker 1: and if you don't deliver the stocks, then the shopkeeper
Speaker 1: might change his or her mind. So they wanted to
Speaker 1: fulfill the right then and there itself, collect the money
Speaker 1: from the previous visit, and then go to the next shop.
Speaker 1: They had to do forty shops a day, and I
Speaker 1: started walking with them. I found a new and a
Speaker 1: level of respect for these folks. I said, these guys
Speaker 1: are killing themselves. They're pounding the pavements relentlessly, and when
Speaker 1: you're told no, no, no, in multiple shops, it's very
Speaker 1: for me. I was feeling thoroughly depressed and demoralized. These
Speaker 1: guys they wouldn't let their spirits sink our sag. They
Speaker 1: would just keep going. I tell you that was probably
Speaker 1: the biggest lesson in my life from the point of resilience.
Speaker 1: And I a new founding appreciation for sales like never before.
Speaker 1: And then I start getting addicted to sales and we
Speaker 1: started really together the sales that we were bonding beautifully,
Speaker 1: But what was enduring was the relationships with the people.
Speaker 1: They would give their life for you. And these folks
Speaker 1: still now. There's some of my best friends and I
Speaker 1: keep in touch with them and whenever I go to India,
Speaker 1: we have a reunion with the team. And they're all
Speaker 1: in different places now. Some of them have unfortunately passed away,
Speaker 1: some of them are there. So the those who are
Speaker 1: life we all get together frequently and we have our
Speaker 1: zoom calls these days. Actually I made lifelong relationships and
Speaker 1: they taught me, actually, what is marketing in the field,
Speaker 1: mar It is sales. You are fighting the marketing warfare
Speaker 1: on the streets, in the shops, in the retail and
Speaker 1: that's where the actually the rubber hits the road. You
Speaker 1: can sit in your ivory tower head office in an
Speaker 1: air conditioned comfort and then start creating all your fancy campaigns.
Speaker 1: But these are the guys who actually make it happen.
Speaker 1: You know, you can create demand, yes, but these are
Speaker 1: the guys who are actually enabled the demand fulfillment and
Speaker 1: get the distribution going. Without all that, your whole marketing
Speaker 1: is altherways useless, and particularly in those days, there was
Speaker 1: no direct marketing. You had to go through distribution channels.
Speaker 1: But what also done it did was in sales, you're
Speaker 1: focused on tangible outcomes. In marketing, you can become very
Speaker 1: fluffy and intellectually justify to yourself that you're doing a
Speaker 1: great job. People, I've loved this campaign, stuff like that,
Speaker 1: But sales is all abouts and it's very very tangible, right,
Speaker 1: connecting the dots between the results, marketing, etcetera. It was
Speaker 1: a phenomenal journey and I was there for three and
Speaker 1: a half years in sales before then I moved into marketing.
Speaker 1: And then when I'm so grateful that I had that steam,
Speaker 1: I want to go back there to that that moment
Speaker 1: it where you know, you talked about the question that
Speaker 1: came to you of Okay, we're a huge company, we're
Speaker 1: selling a lot. What are you going to do for marketing?
Speaker 1: What is marketing for a company that is already selling
Speaker 1: the most? Is it just really? I mean, you've done
Speaker 1: a lot of innovation and what I mean I could
Speaker 1: talk to you for a hundred hours right like there
Speaker 1: is That's what I'm saying when you came in here
Speaker 1: as I don't even know where to start with him
Speaker 1: because from this award to this title, to this role
Speaker 1: to this is so much. But it's it's innovating new
Speaker 1: products to help sales. Is that kind of the path
Speaker 1: that you then took. For sure, you're selling everything you
Speaker 1: currently have well, but you could sell more and you
Speaker 1: could also do this, this, this, and that's where marketing helps.
Speaker 1: So marketing or the way I would look at it
Speaker 1: is creating demand across every point within the value chain. Okay,
Speaker 1: consumers should demand your product, the retailers should demand your product,
Speaker 1: the whole siters should demand your product or service. Which
Speaker 1: you were it is the factory people should prioritize your product.
Speaker 1: You're creating demand for your product to be produced by
Speaker 1: these guys. You're literally selling You're the need to get
Speaker 1: your product into their respective domains across the entire value
Speaker 1: chain is one part of it. Second, you're trying to
Speaker 1: understand the latent demand, latent needs of people. People many
Speaker 1: of the times they don't even know what they want, right.
Speaker 1: And I think Steve Jobs has really made it famous
Speaker 1: with his court and that's true. But Philip Carler long
Speaker 1: long before that, he said that marketing is all about
Speaker 1: satisfying the felt and the latent demand of people. And
Speaker 1: uh so that part of it is something which is
Speaker 1: fascinating to understand. Like, you know, how innovative can you
Speaker 1: get creating a soap? How much two people related a
Speaker 1: stupid soap are a shampoo? Right? But then you're trying
Speaker 1: to split hair and come up with concepts which are
Speaker 1: really compelling and shift the market share in terms of
Speaker 1: the demand that you get and then fulfill it. It's
Speaker 1: that kind of a thing. How do you manage logistics
Speaker 1: very differently, how do you come up with packaging innovation
Speaker 1: Because when people are going not every product purchase is
Speaker 1: a predetermined purchase. There is a lot of impulse purchase.
Speaker 1: Plus also at the moment of truth, when you're just
Speaker 1: buying it, the packaging needs to be motivating and give
Speaker 1: you that just gentle nudge to go over and then
Speaker 1: pick up that and then buy the product you create
Speaker 1: packaging pricing this is a quantitative game, and pricing is
Speaker 1: where in fact I have leveraged probably the most of
Speaker 1: my engineering skills because you're playing with numbers and how
Speaker 1: small changes in pricing can vastly impact your profitability on
Speaker 1: the one hand, but on the other hand, it can
Speaker 1: also you know, move your consumer behavior, whether your price
Speaker 1: elastic or not. That's what the term is. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: And then there's behavioral economics, which is a completely different
Speaker 1: field where it has got nothing to do with rational thinking,
Speaker 1: but it's all about emotions and feelings and how do
Speaker 1: you connect that behavior with economics And the combination of
Speaker 1: the intersection is habit of economics it's a fascinating thing.
Speaker 1: So marketing is such a rich and holistic function. Uh,
Speaker 1: and that's what I tried to do throughout back area,
Speaker 1: which you a role with you a company or with
Speaker 1: your geography I was in So how long were you
Speaker 1: you lever almost seventy years, almost seven years, and from
Speaker 1: there you went to City Bank, City Bank and you're
Speaker 1: there for a long time, fifteen years. So what was
Speaker 1: the first thing you thought about then? As as the
Speaker 1: marketer right behind that new credit card? That that other
Speaker 1: people listening who are starting their own businesses, whether it's
Speaker 1: in sales of real estate or cars, or starting their
Speaker 1: own app or whatever they might be doing. Like where
Speaker 1: do you what do you start? I get that question
Speaker 1: a lot because people become very overwhelmed. Right, they know
Speaker 1: what they're doing, but they have no idea where you
Speaker 1: even start? Do I start with socialize it people on
Speaker 1: the street? And I should I print out flyers? Do
Speaker 1: I go on a radio show? Do I do it all?
Speaker 1: And then I don't do anything because it's too much
Speaker 1: like when you did that, Like, what was the first
Speaker 1: thing you thought about? What you want? See? The first
Speaker 1: thing is you need to make sure that you understand
Speaker 1: what need you are satisfying and of whom? Uh? And
Speaker 1: if you know, for example, I'm satisfying the payment needs
Speaker 1: of consumers, that is a notion in itself. What part
Speaker 1: of payment needs is it the borrowing or is it
Speaker 1: the you know, a spontaneous immediate payment or you're talking
Speaker 1: about the convenience. There are so many aspects of So
Speaker 1: what you do is you look at the need dissected
Speaker 1: to death to understand every facet of that need. Number one,
Speaker 1: write it all down. I think there's nothing gives you
Speaker 1: better clarity than either speaking it out or writing it down.
Speaker 1: Writing it down is by far the best when I find.
Speaker 1: Then when you look at it and then see, okay,
Speaker 1: these there are ten needs or sub needs or manifestations
Speaker 1: of the need or the one need that I'm actually
Speaker 1: saying I'm going to address. Choose your bucket of needs
Speaker 1: that you want to satisfy Number one. Then get the
Speaker 1: cultural context and the fabric. People say, oh, I'm in
Speaker 1: the business to business marketing or my product is to businesses,
Speaker 1: so why should it be b to be so why
Speaker 1: should it be bothered about, you know, human psychology and
Speaker 1: all because I'm selling it to your business. The thing
Speaker 1: that's a big fallacy in people's minds. So long as
Speaker 1: it is human beings who run businesses, they still behave
Speaker 1: like human beings even in the business context. So Raja
Speaker 1: the consumer behaves exactly the same way as Raja the
Speaker 1: decision maker for his business, the same aspirations, the same insecurities,
Speaker 1: the same goals, the same apprehensions. It's your one individual,
Speaker 1: irrespective which context you are in. But what happens, for
Speaker 1: some weird reason is people become very formal and impersonal
Speaker 1: when it comes to be to be communication or b
Speaker 1: two be pitching, whereas in personal they're all you know,
Speaker 1: oozing emotion and nice and warm and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So that people have to really realize it is one
Speaker 1: single person into different contexts. Yes, when I make decisions
Speaker 1: for my company, I'm not paying it out of my pocket. Sure,
Speaker 1: somebody's financing, there are some gatekeepers, there are some influencers
Speaker 1: to my decision. But I'm still Raja. I'm the same
Speaker 1: person with the same emotional makeup, with the same feelings.
Speaker 1: So if you recognize that part of it, you're going
Speaker 1: to be marketing very differently than the way you are.
Speaker 1: In fact, I give this feed back to a lot
Speaker 1: of my peers as well. Is a look at the
Speaker 1: flyer or some brochure that you produce for a company.
Speaker 1: It looks like a piece of industrial brochure, which you
Speaker 1: should not be. Make it interesting, make it exciting, make
Speaker 1: it playful. So when you came into MasterCard, because I'm
Speaker 1: still you know, I've always come from a point of
Speaker 1: you know, every house we sell is a brand new puzzle.
Speaker 1: You know, the house hasn't sold a thousand times where
Speaker 1: it's selling so well that one house, so I could
Speaker 1: sell it in a heartbeat. I don't have to do
Speaker 1: anything for it. Every house we get is hard in
Speaker 1: some way, unless it's underpriced. But it's maybe twice in
Speaker 1: my whole life I've met a seller who's agreed to
Speaker 1: underprise something every other time by far, well it's over priced. Um.
Speaker 1: And so you MasterCard is a huge company, right, a
Speaker 1: massive company. What was one of the first things you
Speaker 1: did when you came in there to really help them
Speaker 1: think about marketing in a different way, to help them
Speaker 1: grow their business? Yeah? You see, Actually MasterCard was already
Speaker 1: a top hundred brand whether you inherited it, right, And
Speaker 1: that's a huge privilege to inherit a brand like MasterCard,
Speaker 1: and I felt very grateful for that, and I still
Speaker 1: feel very grateful for that. And the company had a
Speaker 1: fantastic ad campaign called Priceless. Uh so it's not like
Speaker 1: I have inherited something which is broken that needs to
Speaker 1: be fixed, but just chugging away brilliantly. Famous. Who came
Speaker 1: up with that? An agency? An agency, yes they have that.
Speaker 1: They were the ones who came with the Priceless campaign.
Speaker 1: And we is running now. In fact, next year is
Speaker 1: the tiversary of that happen, So it's it's absolutely doing
Speaker 1: a brilliant even today. So when it came in my
Speaker 1: my mandate was not a fixed marketing, but to really
Speaker 1: move marketing into a different realm of effectiveness. And so
Speaker 1: we started asking ourselves, what why does marketing exist within
Speaker 1: master Card? So in those days it all used to
Speaker 1: be about build and nurture the brand and make it strong.
Speaker 1: So I said, that's a very narrow way of defining marketing.
Speaker 1: So we said, we'll have three pillars. We will grow
Speaker 1: and nurture the brand and protect our reputation. We will
Speaker 1: be the single biggest competitive advantage for master Card. So
Speaker 1: marketing and communications should be the single biggest competitive advantage
Speaker 1: for master Card, and therefore we can fuel the business.
Speaker 1: So we said, we'll be actually feeling the growth of
Speaker 1: the business, profitable growth of the business, and of course
Speaker 1: build these UH platforms and capabilities that are very difficult
Speaker 1: for other people to replicate, so we have a sustainable
Speaker 1: competitive advantage. So with these three pillars, we went in
Speaker 1: and we went a complete overhaul, including the Priceless campaign.
Speaker 1: So Priceless used to be an advertising platform, so you
Speaker 1: show very beautiful moments in people's lives that are truly priceless.
Speaker 1: Might say you focus on priceless things for everything else
Speaker 1: there is master Card. That was the campaign very simplar.
Speaker 1: So what I felt was that first day had to
Speaker 1: be very careful not to have the new Bright syndrome.
Speaker 1: So new Bright syndrome is actually an Indian concept where
Speaker 1: they say when in India we have the concept of
Speaker 1: joint families where everyone lives together from the family, so
Speaker 1: that the boy, if you have got sons, the daughters
Speaker 1: in law and the son, they all live with you
Speaker 1: and you grew up in you age, the previous next
Speaker 1: generation comes up, the previous generation passes away, but they're
Speaker 1: all living together. So they say, when a new bride
Speaker 1: comes to the home, she wants to prove herself that
Speaker 1: she is worthy of the family, and and then she
Speaker 1: tries to impress. And then first thing, the way she
Speaker 1: tries to impress is to criticize the existing practices and
Speaker 1: tell everyone how great her mother's house works, and get
Speaker 1: the best practices from the previous home. So that is
Speaker 1: a recipe for disaster. So when I came into the
Speaker 1: basket at one of the first things I said is
Speaker 1: I have to respect the heritage. I have to be
Speaker 1: grateful for what I have inherited, and then not be
Speaker 1: biased only by that, but to say, okay, how can
Speaker 1: I take it to the next level. I'm not throwing
Speaker 1: the baby out of the bath water, but how do
Speaker 1: you make the baby stronger? So the first thing we
Speaker 1: struck me is priceless is being so underutilized as a
Speaker 1: concept for us by us, it was used only for advertising.
Speaker 1: But can priceless be truly infused into all the four
Speaker 1: piece of marketing? Which product? Can we create priceless product opportunities?
Speaker 1: How do you infuse pricelessness into price, into packaging, into promotions,
Speaker 1: everything like across the ind of her distribution and that
Speaker 1: changed our whole approach, and then we started create using
Speaker 1: priceless as an experiential platform introat of showcasing wonderful experiences
Speaker 1: on the television. In the advertisements, we said, we'll curate
Speaker 1: and create experiences for people that will really experience. And
Speaker 1: you know, there are certain things which you can explain,
Speaker 1: there are certain things you cannot explain. Your experienced. Priceless
Speaker 1: is to be experienced, not explained. So we were creating
Speaker 1: those priceless moments for people to experience. Like just as
Speaker 1: an example, if you say, okay, you can go and
Speaker 1: sleep on the Great Wall of China, or sleep inside
Speaker 1: the Pyramid the Great Pyramid Chaps that's in Egypt. That's
Speaker 1: a once in a lifetime experience. Or have it to
Speaker 1: ur off Loover Museum after the museum is coursed for public,
Speaker 1: and you sit at the end of the dinner in
Speaker 1: front of Mona Lisa's portrait and you have dinner with
Speaker 1: her and there is official photograph of taking your pictures
Speaker 1: and you're trying to sneak your pictures when nobody's watching,
Speaker 1: and you sleep for the night under the glass pyramid
Speaker 1: created by I M. Pay and you sleep out of
Speaker 1: the stars. It's an ethereal experience, unbelievable experience, truly priceless.
Speaker 1: So we started curating this at scale in an economical fashion,
Speaker 1: and I moved a lot of my money from traditional
Speaker 1: marketing into experiential marketing. We started building experiential marketing platforms
Speaker 1: which became rock solid for us, and we started getting
Speaker 1: into sponsorships in a big way to be able to
Speaker 1: curate these experiences. So we looked at people's lives into passions.
Speaker 1: What are people passionate about? No two people are passionate
Speaker 1: about the same thing. Each one is very unique. So
Speaker 1: we would focus on ten passion points around the world
Speaker 1: like sports is one passion point, music, traveling, art and culture, movies, philanthropy, environment, sustainability,
Speaker 1: help them well being and so on. So we had
Speaker 1: these ten passion points. In each one of these passion points,
Speaker 1: we're curating experiences that money cannot buy, but you can
Speaker 1: get only with a master Card. That changed our trajectory completely,
Speaker 1: both in the B two B context and two B
Speaker 1: two C context and fast word. Now master Card has
Speaker 1: become a top ten brand in the world, as may
Speaker 1: shared by brand z, which is we had identified one
Speaker 1: of the most robust methodologies and trackers done by a
Speaker 1: third party. So we're not self reporting ourselves. Somebody else
Speaker 1: is doing it and they are publishing it and we're
Speaker 1: looking at pure that public data. And uh so we're
Speaker 1: a top ten brand globally. We are at number eight
Speaker 1: in the United States. Our brand has never been stronger.
Speaker 1: Brand valuation has multiplied about eight times in the last
Speaker 1: eight years. Crazy, yes, and it's been sort of that's
Speaker 1: just on the brand side. But in terms of the
Speaker 1: cutting it stuff, we are doing something like, you know,
Speaker 1: creating our audio brand, and we have been rated for
Speaker 1: two years in a row as the world's number one
Speaker 1: audio brand for two years. You know that. That's a
Speaker 1: very nice thing for us. We created and launched our
Speaker 1: own restaurants. We launched our most recent restaurant three weeks
Speaker 1: back in Some Paula in Brazil. The next one is
Speaker 1: happening next week Mexico. Priceless. It's Priceless by master Card everything,
Speaker 1: you got everything. It's it's a phenomenal restaurant, but it
Speaker 1: gives you unbelievably could experience. That is the idea. Then
Speaker 1: through all the experiential marketing and not just magazine ads
Speaker 1: right and standard television commercials. Is you're you're taking budget
Speaker 1: dollars and you're putting it in places that can permeate
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, like you know behavior more than
Speaker 1: any Yes, it's behavior, absolutely right, and connecting and engaging
Speaker 1: with consumers on things that they get about, which is
Speaker 1: what we call passion points, and not just reminding them
Speaker 1: that you your credit card. Nobody cares right, they can
Speaker 1: about themselves and their needs. So how do you really
Speaker 1: engage them in that sense? And also one of the
Speaker 1: key things we do is we call it multisensory marketing.
Speaker 1: If you see most of the ads that cater to
Speaker 1: do off your senses the sense soft, site, and a
Speaker 1: sense of sound. Now, human beings by and large are
Speaker 1: blessed with five senses, which means they've got sensors, five
Speaker 1: sensors through which they absorb information, the brain processes and
Speaker 1: comes to conclusions and makes them act or feel or think.
Speaker 1: How do whatever? Why are we using only two? How
Speaker 1: can you leverage all the five senses? Fragrances one that's
Speaker 1: a sense of what it called as well. Then we
Speaker 1: have got restaurants as a sense of taste as an example,
Speaker 1: sense of touch. We launched a card last fortnight, a
Speaker 1: card called Touch Card, which actually helps blind people by
Speaker 1: feeling it. There is a small notch on the side
Speaker 1: of the card so they can orient the card because
Speaker 1: otherwise they have no way of front of the card exactly,
Speaker 1: and they don't know which is that a credit card,
Speaker 1: DEVID card, prepaid card today, what they have to do
Speaker 1: a person whose site impaired they had to take the
Speaker 1: current shoot to somebody else? Which card is this? Why
Speaker 1: should this we depended on somebody else? It's scary on
Speaker 1: one hand that a lot of bad character to take
Speaker 1: advantage of it, and on the other hand you should
Speaker 1: give them an enablement to be independent. So when we
Speaker 1: did develop this concept and we ran it past some
Speaker 1: brilliant not not for profit organizations like the National Royal
Speaker 1: National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom, they
Speaker 1: loved it. So we have actually just announced the launch
Speaker 1: and we're going to be making it available in the
Speaker 1: first quarter of two around the world. So this is
Speaker 1: laborating the sense of touch. Now, what what we are
Speaker 1: doing here is not to brag about MasterCard the brand,
Speaker 1: but show you and give you experiences that are truly
Speaker 1: meaningful and relevant to you, and you know subconsciously, subliminally
Speaker 1: or virtual level it, or even consciously that this has
Speaker 1: been brought to you by MasterCard, and you feel good
Speaker 1: about it. So there is a strong positive connection between
Speaker 1: your feelings and the enabler, which is in this case MasterCard.
Speaker 1: So we're rethinking marketing completely. And you know, I actually
Speaker 1: returned the book called Quantum Marketing, which went on to
Speaker 1: become a Wall Street a General bestseller. Congrats right way,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much that one lots of awards. I
Speaker 1: feel very very grateful for that. And many business schools
Speaker 1: have actually changed the marketing curriculum in their NBA program
Speaker 1: based on my book. And so what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is the way you do marketing today is not going
Speaker 1: to work tomorrow. You need to reinvent marketing in the
Speaker 1: new context of cultural changes that have happened and are happening.
Speaker 1: They're literally tectonic changes. Then you're talking about technologies coming
Speaker 1: at as like a tsunami. More than twenty four different
Speaker 1: technologies like AI, A are we are, You've got a
Speaker 1: body called autonomous driving vehicles, sit aroun of things, wearables,
Speaker 1: twenty four different technologies each one capable of disrupting life's
Speaker 1: twenty four of them together will totally alter lives altogether.
Speaker 1: So marketing has to really leverage those technologies and not
Speaker 1: get obsolete or left behind. And then there is data
Speaker 1: every time, Like you know, people have connected a thermostats,
Speaker 1: connected tooth prussures, connected commotes and coffee makers, so everything
Speaker 1: is connected and these connected devices are gathering information. So
Speaker 1: we need to be very careful of consumers privacy, be
Speaker 1: in incredibly respectful of their privacy. And even as you're
Speaker 1: respecting the privacy, then figure out what am I going
Speaker 1: to do with all this data? How can it make
Speaker 1: sense out of it and how can it be in
Speaker 1: better service of the consumers tomorrow. No, between the technology, data,
Speaker 1: and the cultural shifts between the three of them, marketing
Speaker 1: is not going to be the same. And the new
Speaker 1: way of doing marketing is quantum marketing and MasterCards is
Speaker 1: my labs. MasterCard is my labs literally where we are
Speaker 1: trying out and then figuring out what works, what doesn't work,
Speaker 1: and then take it on. So it's been a fun journey.
Speaker 1: What excites you about the future now, right, You've been
Speaker 1: doing this for a long time. You've seen the world
Speaker 1: change real fast, and it gets faster every single year.
Speaker 1: The way you market and the way you sell is
Speaker 1: very different today than it was when I got to
Speaker 1: the business thirteen years ago. It's very different than the
Speaker 1: way it was. You know, it's less door to door now,
Speaker 1: which is great, um, but it's also overwhelming because there's
Speaker 1: almost too many options. So thinking about marketing, branding, and
Speaker 1: sales in the ties and beyond, how do you stay
Speaker 1: motivated and how do you how do you plan for
Speaker 1: success when there is so much noise and you can't
Speaker 1: win with dollars. Dollars is not the way to win
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. In fact, you know, when I look
Speaker 1: at the future, I talk about the advent of the
Speaker 1: fifth paradigm of marketing. So if you go back in time,
Speaker 1: marketing used to be in its very first parody, very
Speaker 1: product centric. I've got a great product, packaged, beautifully priced,
Speaker 1: appropriately available next door, consumers well flocked by product. And
Speaker 1: why because consumers the logical in their thinking and rational
Speaker 1: in their behavior. Why would they go anywhere else? If
Speaker 1: we get the best product, best price, great packaging, easy availability.
Speaker 1: That used to prevade for a long time, actually for
Speaker 1: more than two thousand years. Literally, But then marketers discovered
Speaker 1: that now people are not rational in their thinking our actions.
Speaker 1: They're not logical, they're emotional, they're full of feelings, they're irrational. Actually,
Speaker 1: that was the second paradigm of marketing when sociology, psychology, anthropology,
Speaker 1: they came into marketing. It prevailed for a good number
Speaker 1: of years, and in mid ninety nineties Internet came about,
Speaker 1: Data analytics came about into marketing. It changed the face
Speaker 1: of marketing totally. It was like people are starting again
Speaker 1: in terms of marketing. That is the third paradigm, which
Speaker 1: is data driven marketing. Then in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: iPhone was launched and social media platforms scaled, starting with Facebook.
Speaker 1: That brought marketing into the fourth paradigm. Each of these
Speaker 1: paradigm shifts was being enabled by two technologies at a time.
Speaker 1: But going forward, we are at the cusp of this
Speaker 1: fourth and fifth paradigms where we are going to be
Speaker 1: disrupted by twenty four technologies, each one incredibly powerful, and
Speaker 1: the collection of this twenty four is mind boggling. Everything
Speaker 1: that we learned in marketing till now is going to
Speaker 1: fall flat on its face. It's like you're recreating the
Speaker 1: entire concept of marketing, reimagining it totally, new frameworks, new structures.
Speaker 1: Just to give an example, I keep saying this often
Speaker 1: that advertising as we know it is dead. Loyalty doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Loyalty is dead. There's not a concept of loyalty. Human
Speaker 1: beings are not hardwired for loyalty, period Dogs are. Human
Speaker 1: beings are not. So what's the point of brand's running
Speaker 1: loyalty programs. They need stickiness of the consumers, but they
Speaker 1: have to reimagine the entire paradigm. Ah, Purchase funnels don't exist.
Speaker 1: Purchase worlds are collapsed. So what I'm saying is every
Speaker 1: single facet and tenet of marketing the way we know
Speaker 1: it is falling is failing or falling apart. So we
Speaker 1: need to reinvent and rethink and marketing when you do
Speaker 1: this is so enabled with all these technologies and data
Speaker 1: and everything happening. I almost feel like I've been trained
Speaker 1: these last thirty six years to now enter the real
Speaker 1: field of marketing. Some at the start of the journey
Speaker 1: literally of this fifth paradigm, which is incredibly exciting. There's
Speaker 1: the most inspiring moment and one of the good things
Speaker 1: Ryan is I might sound Pollyannish on this. But the
Speaker 1: reality is there is something fantastic you feel when you
Speaker 1: feel when you realize that they have made a contribution
Speaker 1: for the betterment of somebody or some groups, or some
Speaker 1: communities or some countries. Marketing of future is not just
Speaker 1: about shareholders and your company's profits, but it's going to
Speaker 1: be grounded in ethics, int aegrity and good for the community,
Speaker 1: of the social good. So marketing is going to be
Speaker 1: a force for the growth of the company but also
Speaker 1: for the good of the society. Now, we experimented with
Speaker 1: a few We started at MasterCard with Cancer Cures, so
Speaker 1: we partnered with Stand Up to Cancer. Were raised about
Speaker 1: fifty dollars for them. We created campaigns, we did a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of things. Our job is easy, but they
Speaker 1: created drugs, that discovered drugs which got ft aproved seven
Speaker 1: drugs in the record time. And when patients actually occasionally
Speaker 1: right to MasterCard saying that thank you MasterCard. And we
Speaker 1: do this with MLB and World Series and All Stars
Speaker 1: and all that, where we say the stand up, stand
Speaker 1: up moment, stand up to cancer moment, so you stand
Speaker 1: up for somebody against cancer and you hold the board
Speaker 1: et cetera. The kind of emotional response which we get
Speaker 1: is gratifying. Are getting into things like the Touch card
Speaker 1: for the blind people, and I have personally received letters
Speaker 1: from some of the parents of blind children saying that
Speaker 1: this is so profoundly meaningful, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: doing it. I think that in itself makes it worth it.
Speaker 1: But it is not just to feel good. This is
Speaker 1: going to be a requisite. Consumers are going to vote
Speaker 1: with their wallets for the brands which do social good,
Speaker 1: which are purpose driven, not just for political correctness and
Speaker 1: to give a non nice sound bites. It's not about
Speaker 1: sound bites and political correctness and optics. It's about such substance.
Speaker 1: Consumers are not idiots. They see through us in a heartbeat,
Speaker 1: and therefore you have to be authentic, consistent. Since you're
Speaker 1: committed and demonstrate what value you're adding, you will win
Speaker 1: big time. And again, this is not just you know, uh,
Speaker 1: for the sake of statement I'm saying, but I've read
Speaker 1: a full chapter in about it in my book. Specifically
Speaker 1: because this is making such a big difference to us,
Speaker 1: whether it is for attracting the right talent and retaining them. Now,
Speaker 1: they want to be the place where their social good.
Speaker 1: They're exactly and people are wanting to buy, even paying
Speaker 1: a premium, the products which are actually contributing good to
Speaker 1: the society. So this is going to be the most
Speaker 1: exciting phase of marketing and number so I inspired and
Speaker 1: I wish I'll have longevity to see from the next
Speaker 1: few decades of working. But that's called visual thinking. Big
Speaker 1: Money Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhand. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Lorreesca, an executive produced by
Speaker 1: Lindsay Hoffman. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.