Brand Wizards Roundtable
‘Gen Z doesn’t just want to buy from brands; they want to belong’: Anil Wanvari on building communities
At IndianTelevision.com’s Brand Wizards Roundtable, Founder and Editor-in-Chief Anil Wanvari set the context for a discussion on how brands can move beyond audience-building to create meaningful communities around Gen Z.
Mumbai: For brands trying to win Gen Z, being visible is no longer enough. The bigger challenge is creating a sense of belonging that turns an audience into an active community.
That was the central thought articulated by Anil Wanvari, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, IndianTelevision.com, as he moderated the Brand Wizards Roundtable organised by IndianTelevision.com. The roundtable, themed ‘Building Communities: Best Practices for Gen Z Marketers’, brought together marketers and business leaders from brands across categories to discuss what it takes to build deeper connections with a generation that engages with brands differently.
Setting the context for the discussion, Wanvari pointed to a fundamental shift in the relationship between brands and consumers.
“Gen Z doesn’t just want to buy from brands; they want to belong to them. An audience may watch you, but a community engages, advocates and grows with you.”
For Wanvari, this distinction is at the heart of community-building. While traditional brand-building has often focused on reach, visibility and consumption, communities require a more participative relationship between brands and their audiences.
The challenge becomes even more complex in a market such as India, where consumer identities are shaped by different languages, cultures, platforms and interests. Building a community, therefore, cannot be reduced to simply identifying a demographic and creating content for it.
Wanvari highlighted the need for brands to understand the diversity of audiences and the different cultural and digital spaces in which they participate.
The discussion also brought into focus some of the practical questions marketers face when attempting to build communities: how brands can retain authenticity, deal with backlash, navigate internal budgets and demonstrate the business value of community-led marketing.
These questions are increasingly important as marketers look beyond short-term engagement towards relationships that can sustain brand affinity over time.
The Brand Wizards Roundtable brought together Ajay Singh, Business Head, HRX; Ayush Kumar, VP Marketing, Appreciate; CJ Mathews, VP – Marketing, Ashar Group; Kapil Bhatia, Founder & CEO, UNIREC; Kulbhushan Atkar, Chief Revenue Officer, Pepperfry; Namita Mitla, Head of Marketing, Hunger Inc Hospitality; Parth Parmar, Director, Paré Innovations; and Shiv Bhasin, Sr. General Manager – Marketing (West & South India), Wow! Momo, with Wanvari moderating the conversation.
At its core, Wanvari’s opening message offered a simple distinction for marketers navigating the Gen Z opportunity: brands can build an audience through attention, but they build communities through participation, advocacy and belonging.
For marketers, that means the question is no longer simply how many people a brand can reach. It is also about whether those people feel invested enough to stay, engage and grow with it.
