2: When I Was 13: Ambi Parameswaran, Advertising & Marketing Leader

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So let's hop on into a time machine to go back to the time when Mr. Pareshwaram was 13. Hello, sir. How are you? And thank you for being here on my show when I was 30. Happy to be on your show, Rishi. Thank you. So let's begin with a quick introduction of yourself in terms of what you do currently and what you like to do when you're some free time to yourself. I was born in 1955. So I am now what, 64 years of age. I had a stint in marketing, then I was in advertising for many, many years. I then as a CEO of a large advertising agency. I moved on then to be an advisor to them for three years. And in 2016, I got out, decided to be a consultant, a brand coach. So what I do now, a few things. One is I'm a junk professor of marketing at SP JMR in. So I go there once a week or twice a week. I also do guest sessions that I am Calcutta, I am on the bar, etc. I am also an independent director on a few company boards. Wow, that's nice. And then I also do brand coaching and brand consulting to a few large big companies as well as two startups. And I also am a certified CEO coach. I'm coaching a few senior executives. So while I'm not working full time, probably I'm reasonably busy. Probably three to four days of the week with one engagement. Okay, that's that's what I do now. And I also do a lot of writing. I've heard some books that you've written about like you've write books. I've written nine, a total of nine books, which is on its way. I also write a rhythm in the business standard and I write occasionally in in the economic times as well. Okay. That's what I do. So as you mentioned that you were born in 1955. So when you were 13, it was I think 1968. So what town of city were you in when you were 13? So I was born and put up in Madras, which your generation calls Chennai. Yeah. Spent a large part of my childhood and even teenage in Chennai. Okay. So can you tell us more about Chennai? Because I've never been to Chennai. So I would like to know what how the place is. At your age, probably I've never been to Delhi either. So Chennai is you know is a capital of Tamil Nadu. So it's a city on the Bay of Bengal shore. So it's a large spread out city and on one side of the city is in the beach. What we call the Marina beach, which at one time was the longest beach in the world. I don't know whether it still has. That's nice. It's a very long, long, long beach. The day is in 1968. It was a very, very beautiful beach as well. So I was I was born in Chennai and I grew up in Chennai and many part of my childhood. I used to live in a house which is pretty close to the beach. So that's nice. So that's where I live. Beach is a part of you know my growing up very much. That's I love to I love the water and the ocean. So that's a very nice place to live near the beach. As you mentioned earlier that you spend most of your childhood in Chennai. So in Chennai did you study in one school or did you keep changing your schools? You know my grandfather came from a small village in Kerala started a small business which grew pretty well and then my father looked after it and I started I think early part of my life. I was in a place in Chennai called Pursuakum and we had a house. I mean better than I was born my grandfather. We were completely successful. So we had a large house. So my early years up to class one which was I think up to 8/6 was in Pursuakum and in a first in a play school and then later in Christian one of those connoisseurs. Then when I was class six my grandfather gave away the house which he had in Pursuakum to the cooperation of Madras to be run as a maternity home and we moved to a place called Milapur in Chennai and I shifted school to a school called Vidya Mandir High School in Milapur. And that's where I studied from class two to class 11. You know those days we had a concept called the Metriculation. So you studied 11 years in school and then you go for one year to a college to do a pre-universe course. So there was no 12th grade? No 12th grade. So I spent all the time in that school from class two to class 11. So when you were moving from class one to a different school to class two, was it hard for you to leave your friends behind? Because I've been in the same school since kindergarten and thinking about leaving my school really makes me feel a bit emotional. So how did was it hard for you to leave your friends behind and move to a new school? I don't remember. I don't think there was a problem at all because what you have to remember is that small kids make friends very quickly. That's true. So if I were to think back, do I remember any friend from my kindergarten or my first standard? Maybe there is one guy but I can't even remember his name. And then I moved to this school and I've been in this school for the last the next nine years. And then I for one year I went to PUC to and interestingly of the 30 guys in my class from my school. I think two guys came to my lab but both of them were not in my section. So when I went to my lab which I was in a class of 90 and not a single person came from my school. It was literally a room full of strangers, but it took just two days to adjust and then we made friends. I had a fresh set of friends in my college. So it's not too difficult to make new friends. Yeah. Okay. So when you were 13, did you see yourself as a marketing and advertising expert? I had no clue. At 13, you had no clue what you wanted to become when you grow up. But you observe people around you. So in my own family, I had, you know, my grandfather was in business. My father was in the same business as my grandfather. Uncle was a very, very successful lawyer. Okay. He also used to write fiction, Tamil fiction, Tamil nonfiction books. His poems used to appear in magazines. So somewhere probably he was a bit of an influence, but he was a lawyer. He was not involved in the business. Because we had relatives, you know, uncles who were chartered accountants, finance, people. At the age of 13, you know, you know, there are various options open for you. Yeah. Yeah. A few study well. And then, and then, and then decide later. There's no, I mean, no need to hurry up and take a decision. You know, my friend's father was a, was a legal expert. And then he was a different father was in law. So another friend's father was a chartered accountant. Another friend's father was working in a big company. So you have a lot of different told martyrs. So you don't need to say, look, I want to add at 13. It's only maybe a little later problem. Yeah. Okay. So as you mentioned earlier, your uncle was a lawyer and a writer. So when you were 13, did you want to be a lawyer or a writer? I was not sure about law, about writing. Yeah. I mean, maybe inspired by him, I did write a bit, a few poems in Tamil. It's got pop. That's right. You know, how's that in our school magazine and all that, but I was not very good at English. So I'll, but I was not sure. You know, at the age of 13, I was not sure what I wanted to be. And I don't think you should be sure that early also. Yeah. Yeah. on and explore more options that you can figure out what you really passionate about. Absolutely. So now we're going to hop on back into a time machine and come back to our present lies. So as an advertiser, how did you decide what stories to tell people so that they will buy the products that you want to sell? When you start working on brands, whether it is a brand like say, Tropicana or a brand like Tata Indika or a brand like, let's say Sunpeace to Briscate, you don't start writing stories around brands. What you start is with the consumer. How does a consumer interact with a car? How does a consumer interact with a fruit drink? How does a consumer interact with a cookie? What role does the product play in their life? And then you start looking at your product. How is your product different? What is a unique story you can tell about the product? And that will sell the product. That will sell the brands. And then from there you make a connection between the brand and the consumer. You create, you write, you know, so in advertising there are various functions. So there is what is called client servicing function. There is a conc planning function. There is a creative one. Con planning guys go meet consumers, look at the product, not product. If I'm out of the water, no one has a consumer insight. Like what is the insight which will make the consumer buy your brand? And then they give that to creative guys. And the creative guys then write to the brand and the consumer. And that becomes brand story. So like for example, a brand of so contains a term, what does a sign language do? What do women want to be? So women, every woman wants to look young and sign language actually makes you look young because it works on the skin. And so that was a brief given consumer. We went to the creative guys and the creative guys then came out with some sort of campaign. It was about younger looking skin and the other of a five year old getting mistaken for a college kid. And then the little kid compensates mummy and the whole that story right. That doesn't get created and vacuum. It gets created as a combination of consumer insight which is married to a. So when you marry a consumer and type of brand creative brief and that creative brief then given to the creative guys and creative guys and the general right, the story whether it is tropical or the result or now, or or or some fees, you know, all those stories get by the creative guys. I didn't know that I thought it was just one step but there are a lot of steps to create an ant. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It looks easy that you know, and there's also this image that advertising is all about those you know, long head ponytail guys, you know, who kind of from the air think of some idea and they write a story. Yeah. Yeah, they do write the story and they are often ponytailed or long head but but before they write the story they work on what is called a brief. The brief is normally written by by the client as well as the account being in the strategic planning and the client servicing people in the agency but they it takes a lot of time to write a brief, you know, it could take a week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, sometimes even three months because you need to get the right, you need to get the right insight. Yeah. Time getting the right insight can take a lot of research, you know consumer research. So it looks easy but like in life, but it's not that easy. That is. Yeah. Okay, so now as technology is evolving, a lot of people are watching Netflix or Amazon prime but Netflix does not have any ads. How do you show ads to those people who are actually like stop watching TV and are just watching Netflix? Okay, so this is advertising, adapts to what is available to you. You know, so when I started my career in advertising or in marketing in 1979, the way you used to advertise was in newspapers. Yeah. A little bit of radio and magazines and cinema advertising, right? There's no television. Yeah. There's very little television. Yeah. I mean, when I was 13, there was no television. Yeah. I started working, which was in 1979. There was television but only in four cities. Okay. And then later television became so big and so television became a primary medium. But today there are two things. One is that your generation may not be watching television as we know it. Yeah. But often they end up watching television during certain events, whether it is the, whether it is this IPL sports match or let's say the prime ministers address or the news or the Oscar live webcast or whatever, right? So your generation also will watch some type of entertainment may not be the classic. So you can still catch them through through television. The other thing is that your generation does spend a lot of time on on their mobile. Yeah. So the various websites going on to Facebook, Instagram, yeah. Or etc. So you'll have to catch them there. You'll have to tailor your message to reach them there. It's impacting to that. So if you look at India, to 50, 60 percent of India can be reached pretty effectively 15. But another 15, 20 percent, it is difficult. Look at how to reach out to them. Is it through digital? Is it through YouTube? Or the other new thing with not really that new, but which is which we'll catch on is what we call product placement. Brands get placed inside inside a series inside a program, right? Like someone drinking an S. K. A. during a break. S. K. A. branding on the on the cup, you know. So just it could be cute. Niscafe or you know gets out of his house and starts driving a tata next on. Tata next on may have paid for money for the hero to drive that car, right? So we do what is called infill in placement. So that will become important to catch your prediction. I believe news will continue to be important whether it is physical news or news or web-based news delivery. And you'll have to catch them there. And then of course, finally, outdoor, is a reminder medium will continue. Podcast is done and will start doing stories. Like for example, if I am a milk maid, right? I want I can create a podcast of with milk, milk, milk, and I can try and spread the word for people listen to that. So new forms of communicate podcasting digital film. So I use for consumers. All these are already emerging. I think internationally, the several methods brand that they're all part as they don't even know the number of I with own YouTube channel. Yeah. Brands will develop new ways of communicating with consumers. So it could be what we call branded content like a cook studio, right? You may also have your own YouTube channel where you put up useful stuff or your consumer, right? I've seen when I watch YouTube people like I think advertising agents, they pay the people to show the products so that people can buy it because now YouTube has a skip ad option. So usually people just like I don't want to see this. Let's just see the on the video. So yeah. So you have different type. There is a skipable ad. There is a non-skipable ad. Yeah. I can create my own YouTube channel where I put out videos about my product. Okay. That will start becoming more important. Okay. And the plans have to be, you know, how to manage this whole multitude of communication media which is open in front of us. Okay. So from this question, I've learned how advertising has evolved and how creating advertisements has changed. Could you tell me a little bit more about how the products have changed in the past few years because you have been working with advertisements and usually advertisements help products. So how have products changed in these years? There has been a growing multitude of products which we have seen in our country. When I was growing up, we had probably one, two plans of cars, you know, ambassador and premier Padmini today. Probably you have a few hundred varieties of available for you to buy. Those days you had two scooters. Today you have a multitude of, you know, two-wheelers. Those days you had to wait for 20 years to get delivery of your scooter. Now you can walk into any showroom and pick up your van. In these 60s and 70s, if you wanted a phone in your house, a landline in your house, it could take six months, it could take two years. If you can walk into any shop and pick up a mobile phone and get connected, it creates you. The same can be said across different product categories whether it is soaps, shampoos, television sets, music systems, shoot clothes. So the number of products has dramatically increased. As a result, brands have to work that much harder, you know attract the attention of the consumer. The consumer is becoming more and more finicky and less and less brand loyal. They become what we call vicarious consumers. So in marketing we call this consumer culture that consumption has become a part of culture. So a lot of families even say that look what do they do on Sundays and Sundays they go to the mall and that's become a part of your family activity. You go to the mall, have a meal, you walk around, pick up something and come back. So the brands have to struggle to keep track of consumers, to make sure that they stay loyal to you and as we say in marketing, consumer bases are leaky bucket. You know you keep attracting new consumers but you're losing consumers all the time. So they become very very challenging task today to attract consumers and retain them. And compared to them when there was a limited number of products, now you have a multitude of products, you know hundreds of varieties of every product. So this has happened pretty fast, you know till around 91, 92, 93, we had very limited choice of things and then in the last 20 years it just galloped, so a dramatic change. So the consumer is also not used to it. So they're also trying to figure out, I have this car, should I repeat the same car again or should I buy something else? I have one watch, should I buy another watch? Why should I have two watches? Or I have a mobile phone, it's working okay but it's now three years old, should I buy a new one? Or I have a refrigerator, change you working fine but it's now three years old, should we change the refrigerator? So Indian consumers still trying to figure out what is the frequency of change, should the refrigerator be changed every three years or is it okay to keep it for 10 years? So these are changes which are happening and hopefully. So a lot of, there's been a huge change from when you were 13 and I was 13. So you've seen that change which is pretty cool. Okay so you have been in this field for a very long time. So what has been your favorite ad so far? Many many ads, one has had the opportunity to work on numerous ads. So if you were to look at an ad which our agency or I was involved with, my favorite ad would probably be the Hari Sado ad created by FCB ULKA's Delhi office where this man is trying to book a room, a book a table and he's a very arrogant man and he's shouting at the hotel receptionist and so one of his colleagues you know Subodh obviously says that you know Sir I'll take the call and he says Hari Sado and he says Hitchfoll Hitler if arrogant, still I for idiot and and had turned out to be a very successful campaign. Like I said this was based on the consumer insight. So I wish you all people quit jobs. You some people quit their jobs because they don't like their job and they want to pursue their own genes which they want to do well some if they may be they're not earning much and they want to go back to family or maybe some have like family problems and they need to like help their parents so they go back home. So maybe those are the reasons why people leave their jobs. Good. So what we found in the research done by the team what the team found was that one of the most important reasons why a person quits his job is because he doesn't like his boss. So we then came out of the inside people don't quit jobs they quit bosses. Okay so the idea was if you're working with a Hari Sado kind of a boss okay it's time you moved on and how do you move on you post your CV on on now and now Kri will find you a better job. That's nice. Tested on on an inside but that's one ad which I really like. If I wait to name an ad which probably which our agency did on me but I'm a big fan of is an ad for a cooking oil called Dhara. There is a little kid who's sitting in a railway station and an elderly person wearing a khaki uniform walks by him and he's here he takes shots out to him saying Ramukaka and Ramukaka's round and test him. What are you doing here? Oh Bablu says I'm running out of my home. Mummy, I'm very angry. So then Ramukaka says okay but your mummy is making a hot jelly too. Jelly? Yes jelly. So then the next thing you see the kid sitting on the Ramukaka cycle and he's taken home at home his mum is feeding him jelly and his father is asking him because mum asked him actually so what happened to your house? This is a month jelly. Jelly means he's going to have a job and his father says that's B. Sal Bar. So it's such a wonderful I mean it's what 30 seconds or 30 seconds it's such a wonderful story you can I think it's there on YouTube you can search Dara and you can say Jalebi and Dara you will just even Google Jalebi it'll come up. Okay so there's lot so from what I can understand for advertising you need to know how to analyze you need to find out how people what people really like you need to figure out human nature and then you need to go into business so a lot of talent has to go into making a proper ad so that's pretty lovely and pretty cool. So now we're going to hop on back into a time machine and go back to the time when he was 13. So as you mentioned TV wasn't that big at that time so how would you spend your free time then? We had a great time we didn't have TV we didn't have internet we had we had radio we used to listen to radio there was what is called radio salon which used to play movie songs there was also BBC we used to listen to which used to play Western you know pop music so one was a little bit we used to listen to radio and they used to be called radio plays you know pretty much like cereals so they come on every Sunday half an hour and it's like a cereal we listen to that so that we use to listen to that but more than that we used to we used to play a lot than today's generation and we also used to read a lot more. Yeah now everybody's becoming lazy here and they don't want to go outside so that's pretty sad. So for example I come back from school around 3.30 have you know something to eat and I'm again out you know there was a ground nearby where all of us used to go and play something or if I said that game was not happening we all used to go to the beach and roam around on the beach. That's right. Eating our mangoes so that was one thing it used to do the other thing was I think we used to read a lot more and I used to go to in Madras there used to be very famous lending library called East Ferry Renting Labelty so we used to do the almost like clockwork and we were there every week picking up a few books as well as comics and we used to read a lot. So in those days you must have read all the one of you must have finished of in it bright and and believe in the billium and all those books and we are I think by class 8, class 9 we had graduated to I think Arthur Haley and Irving Well James Hadley Chase and books pair of draw with those with those with the very popular authors then and of course we used to read a lot of Indian authors as well. Arkeen Arayan was a particularly favorite author of a lot of us. He did a lot of Arkeen Arayan but you know time used to pass pretty fast right I mean you had a whole bunch of friends in school and often you had a different bunch of friends who used to live near your house so you walk back from school and you change and they get into a different bunch of friends and you're playing you're cycling around the colony or you go playing cricket or you want Willy Randa or you know. Willy Randa was a very fun game we used to play on the road. Those days there was not much traffic you know we were our house is one of the side lanes we had a lot of free area so there was a Willy Randa season used to play. Willy Randa or there was a cricket season and cricket and there was a cricket or a cocoa we used to play. Yeah cocoa it's still there like in our school. It got really good which means you hit other person in the ball it in as well so you were just thinking the ball around you know so time used to pass and I think we used to you know those days we didn't have mobile phone, iPad so we used to do a lot of physical reading of books of comics they used to be magazines, Chandapaama magazines like that which we read a lot of that you know and those days we also used to go to life. libraries in a British Council library in Chennai had a children's section so that was a place that We used to go American library did not have a very good children's section, but there was a another government library Central that we had a very large children's section and And friends of ours discovered that some Billy Bunter Books were available only there. So we became them subaroad was books So we had a lot of very different kind of fun from our generation, but yeah, it was fun growing up. Yeah Yeah, but the good thing is that some of the things that you had are still here. So like And it blighted people still read a lot of and it blighted arcina riana school For like the English literature syllabus we have a few stories by him. So it's good that they're still there and you know We're learning about the past It's not that your generation only is growing up on jk. Ralling or whatever right. Yeah, so it's good that you know some of these are all time All-time favorites which continue arcina riana's absolutely fantastic. Okay, so let's come back to when you started your Business journey. So who inspired you to start your journey? Oh, well, I think I went into IIT it was a bit of an accident because I was actually wanting to do started a contancy Uh, so I was walking to a loyaler college in No group in a math economics commas or something like that and my dad said no, no, no, why don't you do math physics chemistry? So I said why math physics? You said no then you can try for IIT So I said what's IIT so he said IIT is a good engineering college So I was okay, so I was that time in 10th standard I think 10 for 11th and And I said okay, and I went to Loyola and I discovered some of the guys in my class in Loyola had already been had been practicing for IIT For the last one year so I said have you started as a what have you started? No, no, there is an entrance exam. Is it oh? So you had to prepare for that? I said, yeah, I mean prepare. I mean I'll prepare later. Is there what do you mean later? I mean we've been preparing already for a year and you've done anything. I said yeah, I'll do it later. So And luck would have it, you know, and it's whatever I those days we crazy coaching classes were not there so I think I must have studied for IIT JEE for about three or four weeks after my PUC exam with a few friends and we managed to Get in and then in IIT I discovered that after two years Engineering is not really my cup of tea and then so it started early on management and then after IIT event I am Calcutta and I'm Calcutta I really enjoyed my course and I don't know to be actually be a good good student did well academically Yeah, and though and IIT I was not such a top rank But in I am I did a summer assignment with that time a small agency called re-defusion advertising And I met two people whom I call my long term mentors Ajith Bala Krishna who later went on to found the zredif.com and subashakravati and they put the idea of getting into advertising Into my head and so when I graduated from I am Cal and 1979 Did it aid me what is called a pre placement offer and I'm trying to advertise it So it was you know, and probably I was only IIT I am character to enter advertising in 1979 So there are about three years in advertising and I said look I should look at marketing So I went into marketing was in marketing and sales for about seven or eight years Then I came back to advertising and then I stayed in advertising for 26 years So it was it was advertising then marketing sales and then back to advertising so yeah So because I thought advertising was an interesting field to be it It is okay So we have almost reached to the end of our episode What advice would you like to give to me and the listeners listening to the show I think your generation is extremely smart You know I mean look at you you're doing a podcast at the age of 13 I discovered I discovered podcasts six months ago So that I didn't know that there were a lot of I mean I you have NPR But I didn't know that there were actually a lot of podcasts happening in India In Mumbai and so on Okay, so great sir I think your generation has phenomenal opportunities ahead of you Both in terms of economic success as well as making change in the society you live in So simple advice is keep learning keep dreaming Don't get fixated on any one idea or any one thought Yeah, just keep your options open till you're probably 8920 You know keep your options open Explore new things do not get Disheartened with rejections and and failures Look at each addiction look at each failure as an opportunity to learn something new And as you keep learning as you keep dreaming You will get your own And then you will be able to live your dream So that's my little wise too the young generation people like you And I think all of you will do us all very proud So thank you very much for having me on the show And thank you for taking your time and thank you for that lovely advice I will surely keep it in my mind So thank you for taking your time out and to be on my show Thank you very much I wish you all the very best Thank you So that brings us to the end of yet another episode of Venom's routine As you know every fourth night I interview people from Anand Rosh And take them back into the time machine to find out how the world was when they were 13 You can follow this podcast on Instagram on the handle When underscore I underscore was 13 And yes we now have a Facebook page as well You can search yourself Facebook as at the rate when I was 13 Till we meet the next time with another interesting person This is your teenager host Arishi Gupta signing off