Marketers Cannot Work In Silos Anymore: Amish Tripathi

To reinvent a brand, marketers in India will have to engage in a dialogue with consumers; silos will not work anymore, suggests Amish Tripathi, the man credited with re-inventing Hindu mythology through his collection of books including the bestseller Shiva Trilogy. Tripathi was speaking at the launch of the 13thedition of BW Businessworld Marketing Whitebook in Mumbai.

In conversation with Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands, when asked to give suggestions on reinventing old brands-much like his re-creation of old characters from Hindu mythology- Tripathi said that he would strongly advise marketers to be aware of reality.

"One of the key challenges for the marketer these days is that the environment is changing rapidly. Social media is altering the Indian market really fast. Your brand is not the result of a monologue but a dialogue. If your message fails to live up to the expectations of the consumers, the social media may just portray it in a different light. You have to be far more conscious of the dialogue with the consumer now," said the former marketer.

When asked for tips for engaging storytelling and content given new technologies and formats and lower attention spans, particularly among Millennials, Tripathi said that good content is the only solution.

"As per a recent research done on American millennials, the average attention span was found to be as less as 8 seconds, even lesser than that of the goldfish. However, another thing that has been noticed is that this generation will either not give you any attention or would just lavish all its attention on you. This generation can finish reading three books over a weekend if it likes the content. Here is the challenge for every marketer. One has to reach here," Tripathi added.
Talking about his books and his interest in mythology, Tripathi said it was part of his growing up years. "My grandfather was a pundit and both my parents were very religious. However, I never really thought of becoming a writer but studied mathematics and later management. My childhood friends still ask me secretly if the books were actually written by me," says Tripathi on a lighter note.

Tripathi says that being a management graduate, the writing process for him in the beginning was mechanical. He read self-help books on writing and made strategies on writing a book but all of this failed. "When I actually started writing, I felt that most characters did not follow the character sketch I had designed for them. One of my characters who was supposed to be a jovial one became very depressed and sad as I wrote, and no matter what, I was not able to help his fate," said Tripathi.

It was during this struggle that his wife's advice helped. She asked him to allow his creativity to flow in whichever direction it wants to. "She told me to not write the book with the arrogance of a creator but with the humility of a witness. Maybe 20-25 per cent of what I see gets recorded in the book," he added.

And with most of his books revolving around Hindu mythology, Sinha asked Tripathi to share how he ensures that there is no religious overdose while writing mythology."The Indian ways of religiosity and liberalism go hand in hand. It certainly works like that among the common people. I am not saying everything is perfect. Truth is one but the wise men speak it differently. This is what allows us to follow different approaches. Our approach for religious liberalism comes from the fact that everyone has right to their own truth," said Tripathi.