According to Rajat Abbi, vice-president, global marketing, and chief marketing officer, Greater India, there are conversations around how to use artificial intelligence more and more in marketing. But for him, one of the key tenets of success in the years to come will be, ‘How do you make marketing more responsible?’
“When I look for influencers who can help me or my company in connecting with audiences better, I always look at responsible marketing as one of the criteria,” he told Storyboard18 in an interview.
Edited Excerpts
The creator economy has taken the world by storm. So which influences and trends are you following currently?
I think the world is changing very fast. And, I think influencers are playing a very important role in influencing the mindset of their audiences.
Everyone and anyone is becoming an influencer. Gone are the days when only a few people used to be influencers. Now the trend is that everyone wants to become an influencer and have a perspective. Personally, one of the people I see as an influencer for me would be the chairman of Schneider Electric, Jean-Pascal Tricoire. The way he has transformed the organisation, the way he has transformed the company from being just a product-centric company to a company focused on solutions, a company focused on software, a company focused on providing sustainable solutions to the customer is remarkable.
He has been able to see things ahead of time, even before people were talking about sustainability. This was visionary thinking and is futuristic. And, the person knew that the time for digitisation, sustainability, electrification etc is now and if we take steps now, we will be able to actually achieve it after several years.
The second influence would be Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Since the last 10 years, one thing he has shown the world is how to think big and execute big.
Every day, or I would say every week, this is a person who’s a role model of thinking big, acting big and always coming up with new ideas all the time. And the way Prime Minister Modi has positioned the country, India is everywhere.
You travel across the world, everyone is talking about India. And the way Prime Minister Modi has helped India get positioned at the very top with the global superpowers is remarkable, But he is not satisfied with what he’s doing. The best thing about Prime Minister Modi is that he’s always challenging himself and his team and his peers to think big and act in a different way.
That is what influencers or role models are all about. And some of the learnings from these role models, you try to imbibe in your own work. Having said that, the field of marketing is changing fast.
There are conversations around how to use artificial intelligence more and more in marketing. But for me, one of the key tenets of success in the years to come will be, ‘How do you make marketing more responsible?’ Therefore, when I look for influencers who can help me or my company connect with audiences better, I always look at responsible marketing as one of the criteria.
I look at people who are popular, but also responsible. Are they sustainable in their own work areas? Are they sustainable in their personal life? Are they only talking about sustainability or are they also demonstrating that through some concrete actions?
What marketing-related content do you consume in your free time?
I always consume a particular type of content. I love to browse various websites, including Storyboard18, to really absorb the kind of good work other brands are doing. Or some of the new trends in the field of marketing, branding and advertising. I scan through multiple newspapers every day followed by multiple news websites, not only from India, but outside India. The objective for me is to have a very holistic approach in improving my knowledge.
It’s not only one type of information I want to consume, which is in the field of marketing or branding. Since I’m a marketeer by heart, I focus on absorbing information in terms of new trends in marketing, new trends in advertising, how to use marketing to drive greater business impact? What are some of the new cutting edge tools coming up. But at the same time also staying connected to what is happening overall in terms of geopolitics, in terms of key actions happening on the business front, etc.
There is a lot of talk about burnout, workplace toxicity and hustle culture. What steps have you taken to avoid the adverse impact of the always-on culture on yourself and your colleagues? And what advice would you give your peers, colleagues and next-gen marketers on this?
I think all of us are living in times when, first of all, any company you pick, the kind of people who are working as part of your team, there is huge diversity.
You have baby boomers to Gen Z, to millennials, to Gen X etc. So, one of the mantras for me to work with my team is to have very open and transparent communication. You need to have a culture where anyone can come and talk to you about anything with respect to their professional life or personal life.
The person needs to have strong trust, not only with peers, but with their manager, with their leaders, super managers, etc. That is the first thing I try to do. The second thing is to ensure that people behave in the way they want to behave.
I’m not a person who would like to go and tell a person how to work, how to contribute and how to achieve their goals. I am a believer of setting ambitious goals for my team because all of us want to accelerate, leapfrog, etc. But at the same time, I give freedom to my team to think in the way they want to think.
So, in my team, it’s not about whether everyone has to work eight hours or nine hours or everyone has to work nine to five. It is absolutely up to the team, what type of time they want to choose, how many hours they want to devote.
At the end of the day what is extremely critical is the output—whether you are able to deliver your goals in the fastest possible time with quality.
And in the process also ensure that you have a good work life balance. Now, work-life balance is something in which a manager or leader can only play the role of a catalyst. I cannot go and control the work life of my team because they need to manage their own work life by adapting to their own styles and delivering expected outcomes from leaders like me.
So, all this talk around burnout and toxic culture, I would say, people like me have to ensure that there is open and transparent communication. We are always there to coach our teams. We are always there to listen to our teams. Listening to the team is very critical and it is important for leaders like me to coach the team regularly.
And then it is up to the team to mould themselves, adapt themselves, and accelerate.
Is there any sport or fitness routine you practice?
During work days, I am into brisk walking, especially in the evenings.
My wife practises yoga. So, that is another learning I’m trying to inculcate based on the kind of results my wife has seen as a practitioner of yoga. Hence, I’ve taken some classes on yoga.
What does your weekend look like?
Weekends are meant for family because during weekdays, the amount of time which I’m able to spend with the family is quite insignificant. So I would say Saturdays and Sundays are fully devoted to family.
I have a nine-year-old daughter, and my wife and I take our daughter for whatever she wants to do.
We do some binge watching, pick up some new shows, movies, etc. on OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc and try to connect with friends, which we are not able to do during our work days.
Any work or life hack you swear by?
My simple hack is that there is no shortcut to hard work. If you want to achieve big goals, if you want to become better, then you need to be ready to put in hard work and you need to put in more hard work than others. My simple mantra in life is to really work hard and ensure that you are laser focused on what you are doing.
I’m a big fan of focusing on what I’m doing right now, or maybe what I have to do over the next two to three months. And therefore, I put in a lot of hard work. But another mantra I have is that you need to have a decent balance between work and life.
During weekends, I might be working on some important things I was not able to look at during workdays, but on weekends I like to unwind in a big way with my family so that when Monday comes, I’m refreshed. Monday to Friday, I want to be fully immersed in work.
What are you reading? Any recommendations?
I’m not reading any book per se at this point in time. But, I love to browse through multiple media applications. I’ll go to some apps like Fortune, Forbes etc. And from there I pick some interesting articles around branding, leadership and management.
A piece of wisdom you would like to share…
One should be very focused and not crib. Every person has similar kinds of opportunities and therefore, one needs to be a positive person. Be it in your personal or professional space, life will throw you many challenges.
So, the first thing which I would like to tell people is to be positive. Second, you need to be fearless and not be afraid to take on new challenges. You should not be afraid to move into unconventional territories or do something you have not done. For example, I have taken many roles and assignments across various organisations in my professional career without thinking too much about whether I would fail or succeed. But those challenges have made me a better human being because I was able to really become hands on in adapting to those situations.
My message to people is be positive, think big and be fearless. And then put in hard work. There is no substitute for hard work. If you put in hard work, success might come late in your career, but it will definitely come.