MAM
Brands have to be showstoppers to grab time-starved consumer attention
MUMBAI: The utility derived from time has changed significantly in the last decade and will change even more in the next decade as very young people become consumers and buyers of brands.
Thus, marketers believe that brands have to do the unexpected to create and spread awareness and stickiness in the shortest time span possible.
“Gone are the Ramayan days when media planners would capture the maximum pie on the show and thus, get 80 per cent exposure. These are the days of optimizers as everyone is fighting for their share wherein consumers are spoilt with choices.,” said Colors CEO Rajesh Kamat, while speaking at the The Mindshare Brand Equity Compass 2010 held here today.
Kamat noted that with one thousand messages reaching consumers daily in various formats, marketers can no longer cut paste the winning template.
“If a brand wants to grab attention, it has to be a showstopper in the very first instance today as there is no second chance given in this competent market,” he said.
However, Radio Mirch CEO Prashant Pandey noted that unlike other media platforms, radio still remains to be built as a conventional brand as the fundamentals of radio marketing stays unchanged.
Panday further explained that brand building has to talk about the style and persona of the product and that has to be supplemented with right delivery and consistency.
Thus, according to Pandey, brand building can never take place in compressed time “but sales surely can.”
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
