CoBB | Conversations on the Business of Brands

We’re 25 episodes in. Yay!!! First up, a big big round of thanks to all our listeners / now viewers across platforms. Your engagement and feedback is what is keeping this show going. Our only intention of starting this show was to provide as much information and declutter the entire Brand Building process for Entrepreneurs, Brand Owners & Brand Custodians to help you build and serve truly rema...

This episode, we break away from the regular format, to invite our first ever guest on the show, Mr. Bharath Sastry , the CEO of Vistaprint, India . In a pithy conversation, Sharan & Sudeep interview Bharat on a variety of topics starting form his early career days at Cadbury, his rise to leadership positions within and marketing lessons thereof. Bharath left the comfort of a thriving career a...

This week, we break away from the regular format, to invite our first ever guest on the show, Mr. Bharath Sastry , the CEO of Vistaprint, India . In a pithy conversation, Sharan & Sudeep interview Bharat on a variety of topics starting form his early career days at Cadbury, his rise to leadership positions within and marketing lessons thereof. Bharat left the comfort of a thriving career at Ca...

A lot of entrepreneurs do not think of pricing from a Brand Strategy angle. The tendency is to look at it as a derivative of multiple ‘uncontrollable’ factors. Sudeep talks to Sharan about how Pricing must act as core Brand pillar, used to drive  the Brand narrative and even enhance the overall Brand experience. They talk about how pricing can be used to determine the eventual positioning in...

Sharan interviews Sudeep on what he calls an oxymoron on a title. Sudeep for his part turn’s the cliche of the the loud salesmen on its head to talk about the silent kind. The kind that continues to pull customers to pick your brand, even without the decibels. Sudeep focuses on the different aspects of the brand pull creation including getting current customers to advocate the Brand. He goes on to...

Get ready for the great reveal as Sudeep delves into Sharan ’s secretive and dramatic world of brand strategy workshops. Join us as we go behind the scenes to witness the magic that happens when creative minds come together to craft a brand strategy. From the thrill of inspired brainstorming to the drama of market research, we'll bring you all the juicy details. Discover the secrets of effective c...

If an underdog protagonist and a seemingly unbeatable antagonist make for a gripping story, then this episode fits the bill perfectly.  Sharan interviews Sudeep about when an episode 10 years ago. Kinder Joy launched in India with a complete package covering all bases. The market responded favourably and soon Kinder Joy charged ahead, while Cadbury / Mondelez was still figuring out the right...

The best of consumer insights are those that are the most obvious and hidden in plain sight. Once in a while there comes an opportunity to examine a complete new reality. Egged on my Sudeep , Sharan walks us through one such fascinating experience when he worked on Harpic. Timed right for the 2023 Republic day drop, Sharan speaks of his first-hand experience of working with organizations engaged i...

For the most parts, Marketing is seen as a very attractive career option to outsiders, glamorous even. Not until you’re in the thick of it do you realise that a marketer is largely dependent on the other functions for pretty much anything. In this episode, Sharan interviews Sudeep on the qualities that make a good marketer and how marketers can actually cultivate these skills. As you might imagine...

Often businesses delay active Brand Building. The most common cited reason is that we aren’t ready yet. One day, when they wake up to the need of having a strong brand, they immediately kick-off advertising mistaking it for Brand Building. This often is an exercise of finding novel ways to rid the business of money, with little to show for it. Unless a Brand’s fundamentals are on place, there is l...

If you’re a marketer, be scared. Very scared. The final quarter is upon us and the dreaded marketing conversations and recommendations from all and sundry are but guaranteed. In this episode, Sudeep details 7 conversations marketers usually dread. With Sharan 's, prodding, he also explains how marketers can handle these situations like a monk boss. Seriously, this episode is a masterclass in stake...

In this year-end episode, Sharan to make a wish list of terms he wants entrepreneurs & Brand owners to stop using in the coming year, for various reasons. He claims that they are misleading, esoteric or even grossly wrong. Sudeep pushes Sharan to come up with replacement terms that he’d rather see used more often and that makes for quite an engaging list. You may or may not agree, but listen i...

Strap yourselves in, a grab a notepad and pen / pencil as is your wont. In this day of ‘LinkedIn’ advertising and a lot of iconic brands being panned for their unimaginative ‘value’ signalling and considering all publicity to be good publicity, Sudeep breathes in some fresh perspective. Sharan interviews Sudeep on the pre & post measures brand owners and custodians must consider in evaluating...

More than 90% of all innovations fail and this is proof that processes and systems are not enough to guarantee the success of a Brand. In this episode, Sharan and Sudeep walk us through the most common reasons why Brands and Brand Building efforts fail despite following all the processes prescribed. The core issues behind any Brand’s failure are largely common to big and emerging businesses alike....

Sudeep answers the big question, by breaking it down to the bare bones. He speaks of long & short-term thinking that tends to pull in different directions by the very nature of the two functions. In the context of the listeners, he puts the onus on marketing managers to play an enabling role first and then get the buy-in from sales with a top-down approach. The ever doubtful Sharan asks for a...

Sudeep gets Sharan to rewind the clock back a decade and tell us all how he single handedly (🙄) rescued Tang India and moved it from a loss leader to a high profit high growth brand within three years. Sharan also speaks about a simple consumer insight led innovations that unlocked growth for the brand and even won it multiple international awards. Sudeep & Sharan point out that despite Tang bein...

Following-up on the promise from episode 10 , Sharan invites Sudeep to further the case of the ‘Healthy Chocolate’ proposition . Sudeep reframes the concept of a brief to something that marketers must pitch to the different stakeholders to get their buy-in and seek their support. He walks us through a step-by-step approach to get the target consumers to try the new ‘Healthy Treat’. He insists on m...

Sudeep interviews Sharan on his dramatic title for the episode, but both quickly settle in, to ally a concern that haunts a lot of the business owners and custodians. Emerging businesses spend a lot of time on their product differentiation or the Minimum Viable Product (MVP), only to have it replicated by competition. They speak about how emerging brands must dare to be different and pursue niches...

Sharan puts Sudeep on the spot to get him to create a brand proposition from scratch for a ‘Healthy Chocolate’ brand. Sudeep is more than upto the challenge with all the frameworks from his armour. He systematically walks us through the different decision stages and considerations in creating a new brand, ladders up the benefits and summarises it all in the form of a pseudo concept narrative. On t...

Sudeep and Sharan break away from mould of interviewing each other, to go on an investigative journey to solve the mystery of the vanishing marketing briefs. It is often said that the role of a marketing manager is not to solve problems, but to frame the right ones. While it seems like a dying art, writing an execution brief is the discipline this problem framing muscle. The hosts go into the impo...

Sudeep attempts to reveal the person behind the name by digging into Sharan ’s past to reveal a few dark secrets and gets him to describe the work he does today. Sharan teases a few episodes that might come up in the future and also discusses his passion for the business of brands. LINKS Check out Sharan’s Brand Consultancy Vitral . If you can stand to bear his provocations, then you just might fi...

This week's episode begins with Sudeep trying to provoke Sharan by asking him if digital first brands are a fad and they go into detail on what brands need to consider before taking the digital dive.  They set the context for where digital can serve its rightful purpose and ask brand owners and custodians to first frame their brand strategy and understand the consumer journey before getting i...

Sharan implores Sudeep to roll back the years and speak about a time wen he actually put to use all that they speak about on the show. Sudeep shares his experience of rebranding a ₹300cr. brand, Dairy Milk Eclairs , to Cadbury Choclairs in 2012. He tells us how a Global corporate mandate initiated a brand transformation that took a WHOLE YEAR of testing with consumers. He ties it back to the earli...

Sharan Interviews Sudeep to uncover the origin story of the fitness enthusiast and poet within the marketer cum educator to get to know the person behind the immaculate voice. LINKS: Sudeep currently serves as the Marketing Director at Sargent Art (A subsidiary of Pidilite Industries ) Click here for his popular course on The Art of Advertising CREDITS Album Art & Design by ting.in of the Blac...

Sudeep touches upon Sharan ’s pet peeve a.k.a Brand Personality. He tables the different types of Brand Purpose used by different brands. Sharan accuses Brand Purpose of triggering marketing malpractice with young marketers who are misled by the purpose pandering of the mega Brands. Sudeep insists that all things remaining equal, Purpose give a brand the fillip at the point of purchase. A few spar...