The Business of Communication by Lulu Raghavan

It’s been a few years since I have been teaching Marketing Management. The subject has always excited me since every time I take up a chapter or theory to explain, I keep discovering new applications. And similar has been the case with an extended subject matter that of Branding.

While recording our second podcast, I had an opportunity to talk with Lulu Raghavan. She is the Managing Director at Landor and one of the top women in India, in Marketing, Advertising, and Branding. She shared her professional journey and views of Branding in today’s world. From her interview, I am sharing here her opinions on personal Branding, microbrands, and how technology is impacting the domain.

Rohit Lalwani: Being an advocate of building a personal brand, can you share your inputs or tips in terms of how one can build a personal brand?

Lulu Raghavan: I’ve started to think about why we aren’t using the tools that we have in Branding, strategically, to make ourselves more relevant, differentiated, engaging, and attractive. Because ultimately, we all dream of greatness and are all looking for the next opportunity. It may be a job, but sometimes it could also be an opportunity to speak, write, or host an event. Opportunities in this world are tremendous, and unless you stand out, you’re not going to get these opportunities.

So what personal Branding allows you to do is distill, what you are, what you stand for, and what’s so special about you — using all the tools of Branding and design to signal that ‘specialness’ about you and that expertise in the touchpoints of your personal brand.

It could be through a website, social media, or even in the interactions that people have with you. I believe that personal Branding is relevant, irrespective of where you stand in your career. This way, you get access to incredible new opportunities.

Rohit Lalwani: There is also an immersion of microbrands across social media. Do you think these can have a cumulative effect on the way consumers react to brands? And do you see the buying style-shifting to these micro brands someday?

Lulu Raghavan: Yes. I think it would depend on whether that micro brand has created enough of an engaging community. If you think about Glossier, which is a personal beauty brand in the U.S, it started as a micro brand on Instagram and through a blog. The founder was taking pictures of the beauty products used by celebrities, posting those pictures, and created a community of very interested consumers, those interested in personal beauty brands. Over time, she’s now built that into a $200 million business. It’s incredible how Glossier started as a blog, became a community, then became a retail store, and now is this incredible force to reckon with. All the FMCG companies like Unilever and P&G now are paying attention to Glossier.

Any of these microbrands have a chance to become huge. But, I think it comes down to product-market fit, the community that they create, the storytelling that they do, and if they’re able to develop a habit. If you go back to the Glossier story, they got their consumers hooked! Consumers wanted to keep coming back to see, ‘which is the next celebrity bathroom shelf I can look at?’ And that helped the behavioral hook, which was what built the business. Of course, Emily Weiss, the founder, did brilliant things, starting products using the community to power the brand.

There are a lot of odds of making it low. While the cost of building a brand has crashed, the difficulty of standing out has increased. As you said, there are so many. So, which one will attract me? Which one will continue to excite me? And, which one will manage enough of a scale of consumers to be able to become a brand to reckon with? These are all the hurdles.

But, I think focusing on and creating something that hooks your consumers is the way to go.

Rohit Lalwani: All of this will inevitably change the behavior of these mainstream global brands. They’ll be on their toes, and I’m sure there’s an opportunity for newer and better captivity and Immersion out there.

Lulu Raghavan: It is a fascinating trend. Big brands should be focusing on these microbrands. In the U.S., they used to be called DTC brands, using the digital mediums to go direct, but I think microbrands is a better word.

Rohit Lalwani: Yes, and in fact, it’s given birth to this new industry. What’s exciting is the East stands out in this area. The westerners are learning from people in the East, the concept of social commerce, and it’s growing very aggressively.

Lulu Raghavan: You mean like Tencent, WeChat, and WhatsApp businesses.

Rohit Lalwani: Yes. Instagram businesses. I see a lot of women, homemakers, and students who use these platforms actually to do business.

Lulu Raghavan: Yes. So, the ability to have that interactivity with the consumers’ real-time information, to own all of the data, and continuously evolve your product and service, is I think, what makes the medium of Instagram incredible. It is a super visual medium that lends itself to many of these new product and service launches.

Rohit Lalwani: You mentioned digital-first, and we can’t ignore technology. Is branding or communication design for the digital medium very different than that in the conventional physical world?

Lulu Raghavan: Absolutely. Because there are a lot of these elements; the voice, visuals, movement, and the screen, the real estate that you have is very different. It’s also about catching attention; digital banners are very different from a print ad. So the storytelling Language of the medium is different. Think about Instagram stories; it’s amazing how my kids are so fluent in it. I look at it, and every day I try to be more creative in it, but I just don’t have that fluency in the same way that they do.

It is a different medium and mastering it will be essential because the way you tell stories, the way you visualize, and the way you catch somebody’s attention will be very different.

Rohit Lalwani: Can you share with us some exciting ways of implementing technology to accentuate brands that you’ve seen in recent times?

Lulu Raghavan: I think if you look at any of these brands; Spotify, Netflix, Snapchat, and Uber and if you study them, they’re all in constant beta. They’re trying so many things all the time. Nano has done a lot of work in this area. We’ve even taken traditional brands, like old spice, for example, into the digital space. It’s a question of mastering the medium, which only comes from practice. It is something that you prototype and you’re constantly at it. I don’t have any specific principles here, but it’s about; telling your story in the shortest time, originally and strikingly, to stand out.

If you are someone who loves Branding or communication design, don’t miss her podcast show, live on all major channels now. Details are available on the profile.