MAM
Guest Column: The future of advertising
It’s a rare and beautiful thing these days, the truth. We’re living in a world where echo chambers and ‘what we want to believe’ determines our truth of the day. With distrust becoming the new normal, consumers are becoming masters of the art of calling bullshit, especially when it comes to brand claims, stories and advertising. The age of the naïve wide-eyed bambi-in-the-woods consumer is well and truly over. In the post-truth world, ideas like honesty, authenticity, trust will be key to earning consumer respect.
Some brands are leading the way, and here’s a few learnings from them on what ‘truthful’ advertising means:
Showing off that thing you can *undeniably* do well
Forget ‘hopes, dreams, desires’, the straight talk about great products is what people want. Brands will need to make sure they have a product that’s so compelling that its story is undeniably great. Advertising’s role would be to tell people about it in a way that they listen.
After years of trying to sell ‘happiness’ in a bottle with not-so-great results, Coca-Cola went back to selling its undeniable product truth – great taste – with its new advertising inviting consumers to ‘taste the feeling’. In fact, it’s very latest product Coke Zero Sugar (which is a big success) eschews the typical ‘lifestyle’ advertising we’ve seen associated with zero calorie drinks and goes the old-school taste-tests way. All while informing consumers not to believe it until they taste it for themselves.
Authentic self v/s piggybacking on what’s ‘cool’ or trending
Brands will need to know their place in the world rather than trying to awkwardly ‘fit in’. Know what you can authentically represent and the value that you can bring and tell those stories.
Clearasil attempted to be cool by trying to make memes about acne but what it ended up being was straight up cringeworthy. That’s when they decided to be honest about the fact that it’s a company run by skincare experts not pop-culture experts. With the new ‘We know acne, we don’t know teens’ campaign they captivated their teenage audience with refreshingly honest and entertaining communication.
Real people have flaws and the unrealistic ideals of perfection seen in advertising only serves to create distrust in the brand. Advertising will need to embrace and celebrate the ‘real’ v/s the fake.
Target’s latest swimwear collection focused on body positivity and showcased completely untouched models across sizes and shapes. It was a bold move, redefining beauty as ‘flawsome’ instead of the unattainable ideal that industry has peddled for decades.
Dropping the act
And finally, we know interruptive advertising sucks, but what sucks more is deceit. Consumers want choice and transparency when it comes to advertising. The moral of the story–in the years ahead, honesty is likely to be the most profitable policy for advertising.
The author is the chief strategy officer at ScoopWhoop Media. The views expressed are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.
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MAM
MSM Unify appoints Rohit Kumar to lead India campus business
Ex CollegeDekho COO to drive partnerships, scale campus engagement in India.
MUMBAI: From classrooms to boardrooms, the campus playbook is getting a new chief architect. MSM Unify has appointed Rohit Kumar as founding member and president of its India Campus Business, signalling a sharper push into one of the world’s fastest-evolving higher education markets. In his new role, Kumar will oversee the company’s India business vertical, taking charge of institutional partnerships, campus engagement strategy and domestic growth. The mandate is clear: build scalable, technology-led models that connect Indian universities and colleges with global academic and career pathways, while staying grounded in local campus realities.
Kumar brings over 24 years of experience across telecom, IT services and education technology, an unusually broad mix that mirrors the convergence shaping modern education platforms. Most recently, as co-founder and COO of Collegedekho, he helped scale the business into a Rs 300 crore enterprise, delivering a 67 per cent CAGR over five years and building partnerships with more than 2,000 institutions nationwide.
That growth journey also saw the platform expand into adjacent verticals including learning, marketing services and overseas education, backed by multiple funding rounds from investors such as Girnarsoft, ADQ, ETS and Man Capital.
Earlier in his career, Kumar held senior roles at companies including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Sify Technologies, Indiatimes and Videocon, where his work spanned revenue growth, operational efficiency and market expansion across key regions including Maharashtra.
His appointment comes at a time when India’s higher education ecosystem is undergoing structural shifts driven by digitisation, global mobility and increasing demand for outcome-linked education. For MSM Unify, the opportunity lies in bridging domestic institutions with international pathways through a more integrated, tech-enabled approach.
As the race to own the student journey intensifies, Kumar’s task will be less about building from scratch and more about connecting the dots between campuses, careers and a rapidly globalising education economy.
