Advertising Masterclass 2024: Ft. @tanmaybhat at Masters’ Union

[Music] what uh high class and it feels weird I don't think I've uh I've never taught anything I mean uh so really if this goes badly it's on you so they go I I don't have any I've never thought so I don't really know exactly what what to say to you guys so I would let you guys take the lead and tell me what would you like to know from me I'm happy to share whatever it is that I've learned over the years I'm happy to share it with you guys so let's just jump into

that so do you see that marketing has changed over the last five six years Legacy brand that you think have adapted to these new techniques and have you know come up with new techniques in order to Market their brands has changed in the last decade I would say ever since hyper connectivity happened right because your our attention spans have become lower um there's actually a few things that I've that I've changed let's just let's just look at that first one the modes of distribution have gotten decentralized there were just a few ways to communicate with

the masses in general right there were like 10 20 players in in the market who would control most of the communications now anybody can be a publisher thanks to social media uh information has gotten disseminated so this is the one major change second what competes for attention has changed dramatically earlier uh earlier you there were fewer modes of entertainment whereas now everything is entertainment right now um right like 10 years ago making a how many punjabis are in the house um so because of this it's become harder to it's become harder to build Brands because

you have to have more bullseyes in order for you to start getting recognized right um so you need to you need to be consistently good over a period of time this is the mistake that a lot of people make sure right if you want to build a solid brand now you have to be consistently good for many years so there are few brands that have stood out naturally who've been who've been good consistently you guys will obviously know them in fact we're a very large enough sample size for us only to to be able to

guess like some one of the brands that I really like is I think zomato has done a killer job over the last 10 years uh but if there's one thing that stands out from zomato we'll all have a different answer right is there something from tomato that you've liked over the last 10 years tell me one thing minimalism what else like a quick creative nobody has one particular name what does that indicate to you that it's just they've just been doing they've just been taking more shots and more of them land on land on point

and that's why over a period of time um you you start liking it and this this this fundamental principle of brand building hasn't changed over the years right um what builds like one of the things that builds a strong brand is hey there is a particular quality about you and if you consistently deliver on it like zomato has been minimalist consistently Joe type K Holdings right right romantic pictures so that's that's actually still one of the keys of advertising which is you you pick you pick a brand style and you're you're consistent to it so

that I think has become super key the second one is of course um the term I use is refresh rate right which is things get boring a lot quicker so you have to you have to hit refresh so the the challenge is to stay true to Brand while also Reinventing yourself in uh like that that is hard so you need to Define your broad playing area a lot more uh earlier on I mean but if you're a new brand you can explore a little bit you can see what works for you and over a period

of time you can you can decide that so these are the last like these are the last major changes I think in the last 10 years or so it stands for both the corporate Brands and individual Brands as well uh those are the folks that you should usually succeed by using a fundamentals you know you need to you need to be likable you need to be consistent these are these are things that that play another major thing that has changed is that I think the lines between product and marketing have started blurring a little bit

right like that's it's no longer the case that too much yoga if the product doesn't reflect it then it won't it won't quite work uh what are some of the brands that you guys have liked in the last decade or so vote what do you like about them like the design it's quite nostalgic prioritize those animations so it's really good to see it's colorful yes which is a phone case brand D brand yeah from the US um they're rude why does that why is that interesting because they're rude on social media because this is a

very refreshing to see your brand exactly exactly right because they're different from what they usually do and what other other folks usually do so when there is a this is one of the okay let's let's start from the basics okay so I was just doing some quick research last night okay about a thousand ads are made 1000 video films are made a year right someone brought a blog post they they went through all the major films that were released last year about a thousand how many will you actually remember you can actually end up remembering

less less than 10 if you know 10 means you work in advertising otherwise right you know you know less than 10 right so the hit rate is super duper low um so our aim is to make something that shows up in this right that to me is a win if if you show up here's exam clear okay bye right that that is a win um so in order to show up here you have to you have to make something that does one of these two things one is to create some form of Engagement videos you

know how many people have engaged with the content and the other one which is The Sweet Spot which is the bullseye which is if you get someone to share right if you get someone to share that is one-to-many distributions are those depending on how popular you are that those many people will end up watching it so these these two are the sweet spots if you can get either two the first one if you engage with something then the algorithm does the job of pushing it further but if you get something if you get someone to

share that's like that's that's the ideal spot that you want to be now why does someone share why does someone share something relatability relatability but even more fundamentally you want to um you wanna you wanna stand out why yeah we're in the zone what else why else why else do people share social validation they are with it they are with the tribe that's interesting um so when you what's your name huh yeah or your French I don't know that okay so when you share when you put something on your profile what's actually happening in your

brain is that you are building a catalog of things you've shared on your profile so what you're really doing is you're building your own brand yeah when you share right it's actually not so much about the content it's about who you are the internet is a bizarre place we we share relatable content in order to stand out is which is it's kind of a paradox right so what's really happening is that you're you're trying to build you're trying to Signal hey this is this is who I am for the many years of uh making stuff

some very clear signs have emerged of hey here are the type of things that people tend to people tend to share right this is of course not a not a definitive list uh these are just this is just I'm just putting it out there so it can get you guys thinking for example I've observed that topical stuff is an easy bait to get people to share right if something is topical then you and you kind of want to share that uh what's the latest right like Coley had a century yesterday everyone wants to have a

hot take on what what happened there so I also put out culminic tweet mardiya I was like topic oh I stopped watching the World Cup after I stopped watching Cricket after dhoni won the World Cup is the old I stopped watching Odis after Coley hit a century yeah I'm gonna take take money yeah on Twitter not because what I said was amazing it's just topical it's the that'll get shared right now so if you if you if you have a take on something that everybody else is talking about um you are offloading the work you're

offloading the cognitive load of someone else to have their own pick right yes right what you're essentially doing is right like I'm doing making a job easier for you so something topical always works people love people love a hot take on something that's currently written what else do people share cute stuff puppies this yeah why are they sharing that spread possible to spread positivity right so people love sharing anything that's like hyper positive right it's just it's just a break from the sadness that is the rest of the world right so hyper positive is something

that always works I remember at eib social media's team I should tell them when in doubt just be happy when in doubt was cute just here to put a smile on your face yeah because the rest of the rest of your lives are so uninteresting and this thing or you just want to engage or you just want to share that describe some positivity similarly Nostalgia Works Nostalgia works really well right because uh is always nice right it just triggers a part of your brain that just always makes you makes you happy um extreme opinions you

know is another is another tool right when you have a very strong definitive take on something right people love it when someone has a spine when someone gets to call out something like aib's brand of humor was very call-out is very calling out so people love that that's an extreme take on something so we have an extreme take on something what happens you automatically create a market for the contrarian take to that take right so like oh um Game of Thrones I remember I remember this actually happened uh the last season of Game of Thrones

was trashed so heavily that I was like counter opinion pieces right everyone universally heared it and then slowly at some point I saw Huffington Post or some article that came out saying it wasn't that bad actually right this is like you said uh people just want to feel like they're part of a tribe they just want to feel that um so especially on like Instagram posts and social media like this is everybody wants to have one extreme take on this thing or Twitter here's why I think artificial intelligence is bad for you a thread right

people are engagement farming no fully knowing if you have if you have a strong take on something uh they'll get traction and the contrary is also true which is if you have a strong take against the popular notion so this broad framework can be applied to everything right like you said that brand of yours um which is which is rude on social which is basically saying oh everybody else is this way I will be this so This broad framework can be applied to everything obviously we'll do the opposite thing uh this kind of helps what

else what else do people share related plagiarism so this is like identity based identity based stuff right if you if you trigger someone's identity honest engineering engineering right Savage Pakistan is all what do you all want to click right so identity based stuff generally is a is a no-brainer everybody wants to say you know everybody wants to be told that the identity that they have chosen is uh you know uh they wanna they wanna consume content about 10 things only gujaratis you will understand uh yeah I think in countries where individualism is usually pushed down

this sort of stuff does super well and anything based offer so this is like another easy it's an easy no-brainer if you do something anything to do with our entity especially if it's identity plus positive that kind of stuff um really works possible things also work very well anything that brings me every day yeah we brought framework yeah the sensation Is Nothing but Extreme take on on something right because I'm I'm talking about super macro takes on things I'm being I'm being very broad this camera emotional stuff also works usually positive emotional stuff um positive

emotional stuff kind of kind of works someone said relatability like relatability is super interesting because there's a couple of layers of relatability um one I used to call it gifting and emotion or shared emotion like if you make something about you know flatmates I know it will appeal to everybody who's ever had a flatmate if anybody who has lived on campus or shared a room with someone anybody who's left their City to go to another city to live to and has a has a flatmate in any immigrants etcetera immigrants is another identity based thing and

then there is like personal relatability right you know 10 things only tall guys will understand all tall guys are like this is just for me um so relatively is also also fairly Broad um but you wanna you if you wanna make something you want to pick you want to pick uh if you're going to do something you want to pick a niche that's not that occupied with a competition uh isn't that occupant I remember when we made the thread campaigns the first one right we got bappi lari and we got like Anil Kapoor and all

that where the idea was okay because in the ads okay this just right off the bat these are people you won't cast in a in a mainstream ad during the IPL during the IPL where you have ranveer saying and every like all all the more contemporary Stars online it'll be interesting to put Narayan on screen there also because you know credit card holders are all older and you know they're Millennials these are folks that they would resonate with so just off the bat we were like yeah this would just be interesting then within that we

said okay usually we usually movie stars are doing their thing and they sell the products like we'll we'll reject it right it's work for the brand really well because credit was positioning was supposed to be that so yeah approaches um so let's get now let's come to ad writing okay so I just wanted to know uh is there a set formula to create a viral campaign or is there a new process every time but there's some basics um there's some Basics that at least this is the stuff that works for me um I would just

want to put a disclaimer that this works for me and I'm not a conventional advertising person either I would make content uh and then I just started writing ads a couple of couple of years ago um so most of my principles come from I like to approach it as I'm first making interesting content advertising comes second um so some stuff that are written down one is look if someone is going to spend a lot of money buying inventory on on television or on Ott um you have to respect that this stuff costs money okay often

as creatives now excitement right which means inventory business you're basically eating into 50 of someone's inventory right which means you're automatically reducing the number of people you can directly reach out to the tomorrow so you've got to respect you want to respect the budgets that are on these things right see you just have 30 seconds like this is sacrosanct uh my writers have a tendency to overwrite and my job is always to be like hit 30 seconds and under so 30 seconds in that it's you just have to stand out from the get-go immediately um

so I often ask the brand saying what are some things that can person think that can get you attention quickly because you don't have any time the first is of course a celebrity helps right if it's someone that you know you want to continue watching that that obviously helps especially when you're playing at scale even more so because uh if you use someone popular in an interesting way it it just works better I think because you're used to seeing them a certain way um you can either be visually or Ally um you can be interesting

audio wise which is why people often like if you're gonna if you're gonna see an ad 15 times over you have to either be visually or interesting through audio which is often jingle songs that sort of stuff that sort of stuff traditionally has always done well if you're catchy um any form of incongruence you guys understand what incongruence mean which is square peg round all right incongruence can be created in many different ways X is expected X is expected but y happens okay this is basically incongruence right so how I usually think is key what

is the incongruence I can find for this particular for this particular film because if you are congruent you are boring you are just like everybody else um right so that I think is is the is what how I usually works again well uh foreign exactly right so that usually catches your attention which is X is expected but why happens right like this is this goes without saying I apply this to everything because fundamentally in your brain what is what is happening right your brain likes to predict things it's doing that naturally foreign foreign but you

also get pleasantly surprised so keeping people engaged is always a is always a combination of giving them a little bit of what they want and a little bit of a of a surprise um so you have to somehow manage that quick as in in as shorter time frame and this applies to everything it applies to print it applies to social it applies to uh to TBC replies to everything if you can make if you can make people expect X and deliver y you have one quite simply uh that to me is is the formula is

but a lot of people they kind of miss that um and you and the thing is brevity is your friend right like the quicker you can make make someone get into the mood or the milieu or the setting of whatever it is that you're trying to do um the quick the easier it is for you to flip that is basically anatomy of a joke by the way all content works this way jokes are also this only right um my grandfather had the heart of a lion and that is why he's not allowed in a zoo

anymore right expected X but why happened jokes work the same way right um all content works the same way if you can somehow if you can somehow beat an expectation or deliver on it right delivering on expectation is a more of brand building thing right if you if you deliver if people expect something and you deliver on it there's just more likability that's more of macro view on on brand building but on a Content view if you can create expectation and you can beat it that usually releases dopamine I hope that answered your question next

guy so how does a new startup uh approach social media marketing with low versions to build your brand interesting so it's at the risk of repeating myself right there are I like to look at all companies imagine if your own channel okay let me rephrase that I don't think budgets are a problem in today's day and age because you can make content out of everything um you can make content in your office um some basic fundamentals remain the same which is you just have to be consistent you just have to keep trying because if you

don't take enough shots not enough land that's pretty simple um one thing that I often tell Founders is if the folks who work in your marketing team if they are creators and or artists who output generally uh that kind of helps this is the hiring process right yeah which is if you're used to creating something presenting it to an audience getting that feedback and then reiterating it is even when I was at aib and I used to I used to we used to make videos on YouTube from my name is a lot of time with

the social media team who is to Output six seven posts a day so the more you the more you output and you put out in the world you get you get the feedback and then you reiterate the better your judgment becomes the 150 first time foreign ERS who are used to who are used to outputting stuff higher my marketing team will be full of artists who are driven by some form of artistry and will be full of creators who have either built their own page and scaled it naturally zero to fifty thousand years right so

I think the future of marketing is effectively creators and artists I think those are the folks who will who will rule marketing oh yeah consistency I think is is important next brand like are we making pressing content so my question is how do you ensure brands are Brands communication and foolishly how do I ensure the Brand's communication and positioning is maintained um I don't uh these things are usually um determined by the founder which is what they wanna what is it that they want to say that is determined by data research etc etc see anything

that you want to communicate will have will have some some root which is an interesting way of um of communicating I don't think it's an either or um it's not it's not like founder cables right um that I think is is uh the usually the problem is saying too much the problem is um usually the problem is that which is foreign so that's what I would say like today's when I when I see what stuff you guys have done I foresee it's usually it's usually a typical amateurist mistake where you want to say more guys

it's so much amazing but it's a very popular code which is writing is rewriting actually the more you the more you edit out the better it is so what we usually do is foreign minimum and this by the way applies in life in general in more social interactions right because usually a sign of doing more and telling more is like a people-pleasy it's like those who are really sure and clear about what they want they stick in their Lane and they know just exactly how much to say but yeah you the Lesser you say the

more people want to read into what you say Etc these are all like deeper psychological things um so yeah so our question uh in creative writing it always happens like them foreign go back to the Whiteboard sketch it out again and start fresh overthinking objectivity in which case um in which case what really helps me is if you have a band of people whose judgment you trust who have high taste right yes so we were stuck with it for about three four weeks right by the end of it everybody was losing objectivity because but when

an audience sees it they're seeing it for the first time right so the first times you have you cannot forget that that most people are going to see it for the first time so you don't want to kill your own baby fully uh stagnant right balance comes with time the more you do it the more you start having an idea of when to detach when when your involvement is necessary how to work with with a larger team whose judgment do you trust so I think if you if you have I on my WhatsApp at any

given point I have 20 people I can send something to who all have high high taste you want to surround yourself with folks you want to feedback with folks who have who have good taste right there you know knowing what to what to tell someone but in general um yeah if you have a list of it's creative collaborators you usually tend to have taste which is like mine so if I can trust your judgment right if someone can judge things well or someone is able to give an idea of hey I think this is what

make the product better you don't want to let that person know because often creative collaborators don't leave like I've been working with the same team for 10 years I still go to the same people I still ask them no matter what I'm doing they have an idea of objectivity so you wanna you wanna be able to just the phrase that I use is foreign foreign um that usually gives you an idea of what is working and what is not and I feedback mostly to find out most times what I've seen is if you have a

group of smart people come together and you pitch an idea you can instantly see I'm going to put a room can you purchase this location is for me my personal metric is I need to enjoy it and if my room is enjoying it most people will enjoy it because I'm I'm basic okay so yeah feedbacking is your friend man you've got a feedback why you gotta you gotta be able to filter out what you got to be able to filter out who's giving you feedback for feedback's sake yeah just to make them make themselves feel

like very important so you want to be able to see a lot of cool like my best friends and the most creative friends I have nothing to say like you you achieved what you set out to achieve and that's that's good enough as well so uh what do you think separates a good Market here from a great Market here just experience I think consistency and experience um like that distinction is is the thing with the thing with making content or big doing marketing is you are the last hit you game right generally being an artist

right you are the last thing that you made it it's like you ask you ask anyone yeah you ask uh who's just starting off in his career or or beat Rahman right which is next album you are the last thing that you made man if the last thing doesn't work you're like I guess I gotta get back to the drawing board and do it again um I think yeah it's marketing marketing is nothing short of artistry um you are the last thing that you made in I think just being good consistently for a long time

makes you great that's about it but being good only is hard just if you become good by you you are insanely valuable and you should find find a team that values you next uh do you think data or consumers yeah I that's an interesting question so for me personally uh I rely on the person who's giving the brief to do this part of the job but I expect them to um right you want to be able to you want to be able to flex your creativity on the problem that's actually will move the needle a

little bit uh so I expect the person who's briefing to do that I am I'm very data friendly I'm my most used app is YouTube Studio analytics you know so I am a firm firm believer believer in that but once I'm in the realm of where I need to be there I think I'm okay with key ageism uh because creativity is not a number at the end of the day uh you want to be in the zone of what's effective but you want the zone to be wide enough that you can you can play around

because there is no idea that is you know it's not like ideas are not like one plus five equals to six they're not that right we are going to find nothing that says the exact same thing that you expected um so I think numbers can take you to the zone of where you should be and once you're there you should let your creativity Flex so it's all it's always a it's always a mix of two um it's like saying he and so they go with the team um right so you want to be able to

use the number at the angle in which you are you're going to shoot right so you want to be you want to be in the zone of where you need to be you can't there um yeah yeah next okay okay you talked about credits do you think these ads would have worked had it not been the stars in those Arts no it wouldn't have but it was written keeping in mind I wouldn't have written those if I knew that we didn't have access to the people that we had I wouldn't have written that only those

wouldn't have worked without without the Stars why would it why would you why would you watch uh him dance do you want those were written keeping in mind that this is these are the tools that are available to us how can we create something interesting using that all right also wouldn't have worked if you didn't have the Stars right okay that's the that's their playing around and you want to play you want to play Within that so how do you get in that zone while you're creating these Arts uh I have a person whose only

job is to show me references right I have one person's job is to be like if I'm writing an ad for a for a for a car I'll be like just pick the best car ads and just show it to me I just want to be in the zone and just want to know okay what are the best Minds thought about a lady so for me I love watching stuff that gets me in the zone for me it's like when I sit down to write stand up I love watching many different many different uh Clips

they're getting the Zone but that's my process it's not necessarily true to have for everyone a lot of people are like I don't want to be derivative but I'm like everything for me personally I think everything is a derivation of something like something has to spark something has to trigger um if it's not this then just sitting in a room with other people it all begins with some sort of an angle or some sort of an Insight if you're writing something for a car you just want to be able to be in a room with

people and be like yeah I just want to be you just want to be in in that zone um but I I like a trigger I like to see something that triggers some some thought in me I am an awful solo operator I can't I cannot work in isolation there are a lot of writers who will shut themselves in a room and come out with 15 things I am not one of those but there are people who do that as well everybody has their everybody has their own process I just know the key message um

oftentimes it begins with watching a reference of one thing and then that leads into another then you watch something else and then I'm watching a documentary about caterpillars and then something strikes and it's all uh creativity is is just a bunch of neurons in your head which are making weird patterns right when two neurons who haven't spoken to each other start talking to each other that's when something new happens right that is literally that is literally creativity that's literally uh how your brain functions you need two random patterns to be created between two neurons and

then you feel like I have something fresh um that that is how I operate I like to watch stuff uh but now how I work is there's a bunch of folks who work with me um this is now now I like to exercise my judgment on a more macro level key if there's a team that comes with me I get in on the they all do the first round of ideation which is they put down 20 ideas these five look interesting come now let's let's work on this is this is okay then we round up

on we work for two three hours um sometimes those two three hours aren't enough and you feel like we don't have a winner these are terms that I use internally saying I don't think we have a winner yet um and then you go back and you'll be like yeah uh sometimes my feedback will be like um I'm not I'm not visually stimulated enough in any of these these are all seem like these all feel like visuals that are done so I like to work with a group of people um and I like to exercise my

judgment on macro things like I think my core skill is I know what will slap better when it lands like I've gotten very good at that um if you present to me five ideas I've gotten very good at picking key I think these three will that's people who said who is like there's no there's no set rule do you foresee traditional Media newspapers um not in the next five years I mean as long as people continue to go outside Billboards will still be around as long as people continue to read newspapers print will still be

around um I don't think I think the I'm not worried about there being less modes of advertising I think there'll be new modes who knew that making 9x16 videos would be the new advertising right who knew um so there'll be new things to advertise because advertising advertising much like brokerage is a business that's not going to die that's going to continue living um I don't I don't in the next five years you know that's what I think to understand so one thing that brand matches failed to understand interesting well there's no there's not just one

thing I think brand managers fail to realize that is right because I think um I mean it that comes from a Founder mentality right you have to be willing to take calculated risks um especially the larger the conglomerate the more the more bureaucratic the process the less risk-taking ability exists um that I think like it's at the heart of which at the heart of the problem which is being too scared to be able to take this because too much is it too much is at stake which I think is a Founder issue to take care

of no matter how large the organization if the founder comes and tells you it's okay if you it's okay if it doesn't slap that's fine um that's it's a big relieving thing I've worked with so many so many managers as an influencer as a as a writer as a collaborator um and this is a one common problem that I've seen and the best brand managers I've worked with are folks who are like I'm you know I'm an open book Let's just I'm this is a collaboration and it's not a I'm not commissioning work from you

I'm working with you uh those usually are the best band members and those usually have Founders who have full faith and trust and being like it's fine um this is at the Heart of Heart of most most brand values especially ones within larger companies foreign um I think the bra I think folks who are good at predicting second order and third order effects of content and marketing those people tend to take Morris for example I've worked with a few Brands now and each time a campaign is successful at an IPL scale right it has the

second and third order effects for example it becomes easier to hire right when a great campaign goes out at scale everybody wants to work with you it becomes easier to close close someone the employee NPS becomes super high tomorrow you can't buy these things right you know I'm like you're not you're not understanding the things that can happen uh if you just like you can't these things are Priceless you can't put up put it you can't put you can you can't value these things like I have delivered 10x on what you've paid me actually because

these 10 people can have effects on your company that otherwise wouldn't have had so I think the great brand managers recognize this okay internal NPS is like um like like Folks at credit put credit on their Tinder bio right you can't buy this no amount of money and and Kunal look you know he's so good at at understanding this stuff gave me full Freedom okay you make stuff that you would be proud of and automating the whole company is proud of it right so Great Bear measures think like this and it only happens once you

have multiple successes right I just did the I was telling this to piyush we just did the lens card stuff and I was on LinkedIn and I had so many lens card employees tagged me on LinkedIn saying we put this stuff out really interesting this is how we were part of it etc etc um that feels great to see when you're when the folks inside the company are like that is that is always nice I'm kidding please let's just want to find almost if there's anything else you guys please uh what are the eye brands

for which you want to make as um how are the journey from content to ads happen they are very organically like Kunal called me one day and said can you help me write something uh for for IPL um for me this thing was oh it's gonna it's gonna go uh this is gonna be you know they were one of the sponsors of the IPL it would be cool if the whole country like whatever 300 million people are going to watch this thing it would be cool like that scale was very exciting to me that everyone

would would watch it so that's how I was like okay I'm not going to approach this as uh I was like um that's how that's how I start writing uh what are some five brands that I would like to write for I don't think about these things as brands or like my trip in life is the I did the Shark Tank ads because I was like shark tank is a it's a cool it's a cool show I like I like the show and I love the impact that the show is having which is everyone's thinking

about startups so like this will be fun to make some say something for this I did the lens card stuff because I was like I know Karan loves he loves uh he loves doing fun quirky stuff so like it'll be fun too it'll be fun to do something with him um so there I don't look at it as but someday I would love to write political campaign for you know for like an election campaign I would love to do that uh like I would love to do that kind of that kind of thing right I

would love to Market a film at some some point I would love to do different different things there's no uh there's no set there's no set thinking actually yeah like no one wants to do that so I like I enjoy scale foreign the best advertising folks in India have ended up both doing political stuff only eventually uh I the subjects you want to write stuff for stories right at the end of the day foreign yeah did you guys have fun it's like you see like it was like at once choreographed to all the best you

guys uh hopefully everything that we spoke about was useful and I'll see you guys in the tank all right nice that was good all right guys get to work