In today’s time, for a brand to create a mark in a consumer’s head, purpose is very important. Purpose-driven marketing has been a buzzword and is still one of the best strategies in marketing. While technology is advancing every day, the definition of purpose is changing as well. At e4m India Brand Conclave, experts gathered to discuss the intersection of purpose and technology.

The session was chaired by Chaaya Bharadwaaj, Founder - Managing Director at BC Web Wise. The panelists were - Anuja Trivedi, Chief Marketing Officer, Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd.; Anirudh Singla, Founder & CEO at PepperContent; Rohit Talwar, Vice President and Head of Marketing Castrol India Limited, Rohan Manglani, Head - Brand Marketing Strategy and Implementation at FastUp and Sapna Desai, Chief Marketing Officer, Manipalcigna Health Insurance.

Bharadwaaj began the discussion by inquiring about the perspective on purpose amidst discussions about technology and its role. Talwar said, “It's important to understand what purpose means, it's a great way to kick start. But there are other elements of purposes; competence is another way to define purpose. For example, BMW, the ultimate driving machine, it's really about functional competence. In addition to cause, there's competence. And then there's a third element, which is culture, so culture is really about intent.”

Trivedi added her insights saying that her definition of purpose is to solve the needs of consumers. She said, “For me, purpose means what is the need that I'm solving for my customer. As an organization, we keep the customer as the center of whatever we’re doing.”

Building on Talwar and Trivedi’s insights, Manglani shared, “Purpose is so important for a brand to have, keeping your fundamentals, your values, your principles very intact, and moving forward with short-term goals or long-term goals. Our purpose was to see a more active and healthy India and to develop products that are more accessible to people and we have built on it.”

Bharadwaaj routed the conversation towards technology and asked about its collaboration with purpose. Speaking on it, Singla said, “We work with a lot of CMOs and brand leaders, and the last 10 years have been very different. I feel every lead legacy brand or enterprise brand is right now wrestling with brand purpose because what happens is that brand purpose is built out of business goals. And the business goals and the consumers are changing dynamically, especially with digital. Fundamentally, what your consumer wants should drive your brand purpose. I think that the brand's purpose has to keep reinventing. I've been hearing this one interesting thing, is the consumer able to think about your brand when they don't have a need?”

Speaking on the intersection of technology, Trivedi shared her experience and said, “When we went from VCR to DVDs, it became a 50 million install base in India, and today, with all our content available on YouTube and Facebook, the kind of reach we look at as 5x. So, with every technology advancement, we've been able to jump in.”

Manglani spoke about technology’s role. He said that technology has helped them reach different audiences across the globe and help with requirements in the health space. It wouldn’t have been possible without technology.

Speaking on tracking the purpose, Talwar said, “Purpose has to be authentic. And for it to be authentic it has to be forward-looking customer-facing, but also lived and breathed by your employees and the people who work in the organization. Only then can it really come to life meaningfully. It's something that has to be built consistently over time.”

“So, we are a b2b, b2c company and there's a very large community of mechanics and garages where all vehicles go for servicing in India, that’s a hard-to-reach audience. I think technology can also really help you sharply target and reach the right audiences with the right messages when they're looking for.”

Singla shared his thoughts on technology and purpose when it comes to content. He said, “I think technology is a lot about measurement and impact of a team's work. I think all of us see that the creative ecosystem, the marketing ecosystem works so hard in terms of input”. He went on to give the example of Shah Rukh Khan My Ad by Cadbury and how it was successful at a difficult time of COVID because of the use of technology. The campaign had a purpose and technology enabled it to happen hence helping the brand to gain awareness and convert it into business.