MAM
Weekend Unwind with BOD Consulting’s Saurabh Uboweja
Mumbai: With another weekend upon us, it is time to unwind with the latest Q&A edition of Indiantelevision.com’s Weekend Unwind—a series of informal chats that peek into the minds of business executives through a fun lens in an attempt to get to know the person behind the title a little better.
In this week’s session, we have BOD Consulting founder & managing partner Saurabh Uboweja.
Saurabh is an accomplished positioning expert and executive coach who specialises in guiding founders and their core leadership teams.With a wealth of experience, he shares his expertise as an adjunct faculty member at leading business schools in India and Europe, where he teaches digital entrepreneurship, strategic brand management, and leadership.
As a certified independent director, Saurabh serves as an advisor on boards of both listed and non-listed firms. In his role as managing partner at BOD Consulting, he partners with client teams on building their growth roadmap and vision, unlocking value creation, organisation transformation, and driving internal & external stakeholder engagement.
Recognised as a dynamic speaker, Saurabh has graced the stages of renowned events worldwide as a keynote speaker and a panellist in business schools, conferences, and forums around the world such as the World Communication Forum in Davos. He has shared his insights on diverse platforms like TEDx Hindustan University, TiE Lucknow, Salaried Talks and Josh Talks and prestigious institutions such as Nalanda University and Indian Institute of Management Ranchi.
Without further ado here it goes…
Your mantra for life
Instead of creating my own show, I am learning to live my life as an actor being directed in a play, listening within for cues and scene changes.
A book you are currently reading or plan to read
Currently reading
Quintessence of Sai Satcharitra: A Biography of the Incredible Sai Baba of Shirdi by Shuddhaanandaa Brahmachari. The author is a motivational speaker, spiritual teacher, and humanitarian. This book based on the original Sai Satcharitra, a sacred book on Shirdi Sai Baba, authored by Hemadpant Dabhokkar, offers a simpler and more detailed version for the modern reader. Hemadpant started writing this book with Sai Baba’s blessings and permission. It chronicles whatever he witnessed personally around Sai Baba as well as the experiences of hundreds of others.
Planning to read next
Harsh Realities: The Making of Marico by Harsh Mariwala and Ram Charan. Harsh Mariwala is one of India’s most prolific entrepreneurs and the leader behind the great rise of Marico into an Indian FMCG major. Ram Charan is a world-renowned management thinker and guru. This is the story of grit, gumption, and growth, and the core values of trust, transparency, and innovation that have brought Marico to its current stature. I am deeply inspired by Mr. Harsh Mariwala’s humility and courage as a leader, values I espouse and hold very dearly myself.
Your fitness mantra
Sleep well each night, eat clean food, walk a lot, and drink lots of water.
Your comfort food
Nothing beats the fragrance, flavours, and after-taste of Homemade Rajma Chawal.
A quote or philosophy that keeps you going when the chips are down
Stay tight, hold your position firmly and with poise, and let the storm pass by. Don’t fight with it, don’t get carried away with the flow.
Your guilty pleasure
Complete disconnection from the world I am a part of, friends, team, clients, family, and spending time with myself.
The last time you tried something new
I try something new every single day to improve how we work at the firm I lead. There is nothing definite, evolution is the key. I am very excited, like a child, each time I have a new idea about improving something. Thankfully, this happens frequently for me.
A life lesson you learned the hard way
You are not necessarily good at what you want to be good at.
What gets you excited about life
The mere thought of what’s possible, what’s not been accomplished yet, the true potential of a human being, my true potential as a human. This excites me a lot and keeps me going.
What’s on top of your bucket list
A visit to Taos, a town in New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be
Ask for help from others, more frequently and without shame.
One thing you would most like to change about the world
It’s not my responsibility to change the world. I can surely change a few things about myself though. I would like to develop more compassion and kindness towards all.
An activity that keeps you motivated and charged during tough times
Picking up an inspiring book or the book I am currently reading, self-reflection, writing my thoughts, and sharing with those around me (if it’s shareable).
What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?
I don’t think life gets you down or is ever unfair to you. This feeling that I am not in charge and life is just happening the way it should and that I can surrender to it fully, is a deeply empowering feeling. I try to practise this often, not just when my spirits or chips are down.
Your go-to stress buster
A short walk or drive followed by a well-made cup of tea or coffee.
MAM
The Merit of Madness: How AI is Changing the Game in Advertising
By Ritz Malik, founder, Ritz Media World.
MUMBAI: When it comes to growth in a competitive landscape, a businessman always has to be a firm believer in Darwinism. You either need to bring a better product, or a better price, or both to the table to get customers and scale. Without this value proposition, you remain unnoticed, and staying unnoticed is not something that a brand wants to do.
You have to do all this and also make sure that you stay cashflow positive at the same time. Otherwise, you’re at a real risk of becoming a large hollow balloon that your competitors are just waiting for to explode or implode under its own weight.
As we’ve entered the era of AI, the notion of a product’s efficacy, cost efficiency, marketability, workflow management, and logistics reliability has become increasingly relevant and prevalently impactful. None of this is background noise anymore. It is the difference between bleeding money on traditional media and actually engineering a profitable campaign.
For example, META’s AI Algorithm has finally given us the ability to measure the ‘CREATIVE’ for a business’s promotions. The best part is that we can do so organically. Content that is actually relevant to the target audience gets more views through reach. This tells us exactly how the audience is reacting before we even scale the budget. This is how we have been gifted the ability to provide merit to the madness of the creative process.
So, our process is as follows:
A set of creatives is built for social media
Their performance is closely monitored for reach and engagement.
Based on the best organic performance, we choose the creative.
Make micro adjustments to add a sales proposition and CTA (but keep it subtle)
Publish the modified creative as an ad.
There’s a lot that goes on in between, but this is the basic method for getting it right. And this is just the AI that’s being used by platforms across the world.
AI utilisation is something that has greatly made the creative process a lot easier. As an agency that thrives on coming up with ideas that are out of this world, we have made the most of leveraging AI to bring ideas to life without spending a fortune.
So, this way, the ability to create high-impact brand stories is no longer under the tyrannical gatekeeping of large budget organisations. It is now that merit solely falls on the storyteller.
Now, AI-powered content production and the AI algorithm on Social Media platforms are asking the question: Is your content compelling?. If yes, the audience will watch your content, share it, and engage with it.
And when it comes to keeping budgets down, we can surely say that it holds the capability to execute million-dollar shoots at a fraction of the cost.
For example, we recently came across a creative challenge by a major Real Estate Developer from Gurugram. They had signed a celebrity couple for their brand ambassadorship a few months ago. They were now about to launch their new project, but for some reason, they could not get their shoot done.
What we came up with was to use the likeness of this celebrity couple and place them throughout the project’s feature video. With the help of AI generation, we were able to rebuild a completely new feature video with their brand ambassadors in 2 days, and no additional physical shots were required.
Imagine being able to save 50-60 lakhs in production costs, 15-20 days in production time, and comfortably be ahead of schedule to launch the project.
This has changed the game entirely. With AI, you can now just acquire the likeness rights of celebrities, and you can just build environments and scenarios with them. The balance between creative and artificial intelligence isn’t a battle for control; it is simply the ultimate tool for survival and scale in a landscape that rewards the fastest and the smartest.
