MAM
CX marks the spot as brands bet big on experience over everything else
MUMBAI: What do movie remixes and customer experience (CX) have in common? Both, as it turns out, need staying power, emotional hooks, and the ability to get even the toughest crowd on their feet. That was the mood at the 3rd India Brand Summit 2025, where CX leaders gathered for a session titled CX-Led Growth: Why Experience is the Ultimate Differentiator and the conversation hit all the right notes.
Session chair Deloitte India, partner Vivette D’Cruz set the tone by urging brands to design CX not just for today but for the decades to come: “Make it like a remix that still works 20 years later evergreen, adaptable and impossible to resist.”
From there, the panellists spanning sectors from entertainment and holidays to manufacturing and consumer goods unpacked how experience has become the real battlefield for brand loyalty.
Mahindra Holidays & Resorts India VP for customer operations Shweta Srivastava traced CX’s rise from a back-end support function to boardroom strategy. “Customer experience has evolved from reactive firefighting to being a core driver. Many companies now have Chief Customer Experience Officers at the table,” she said. Her advice: pick three metrics that matter most, whether CSAT, NPS, or retention, and make them part of leadership KRAs. That way, ownership spreads across functions finance, supply chain, marketing not just the service desk.
She recalled an e-commerce fix designed through empathy: “We created a ‘green pass’ tag for loyal customers, flagged in the CRM. It allowed frontline agents to override rigid return policies and say ‘no questions asked’ because loyalty deserves flexibility.”
Panasonic Electric Works India head of customer services Rakesh Gupta highlighted how embedding CX into culture requires mapping the entire customer journey. From browsing switches on a website to watching demo panels at a shop, installation, servicing, and even product disposal, every stage was considered. “We even run chai-samosa meetings with electricians, train dealers, and reward loyalty. Because one grumpy ‘Chotu’ at the store can undo months of marketing effort,” he quipped.
Digital tools like AR/VR are now part of the mix. Customers can virtually test whether a fan matches their walls or a plate complements their curtains. Panasonic also recently piloted a “ballroom” model where its most skilled technicians guide local teams through AI-driven video support, saving costly travel and slashing resolution times.
Hindalco Industries (Aditya Birla Group) head of customer centricity Namita Bohara stressed that in B2B, trust is built as much through billing details as through product quality. “We measure customer satisfaction through something we call the Fairness Index tracking not just value but whether customers feel they are treated fairly. Even small requests like a GST line item on an invoice matter hugely in cementing loyalty,” she explained.
Her mantra: listen, learn, act, and close the loop by showing customers how their feedback drove change. Increasingly, Hindalco is co-creating solutions with clients, anticipating needs before they arise.
For Shemaroo head of digital marketing Anvesha Poswalia CX boils down to emotional connect. “We’ve pivoted from B2B to B2C. Customers come to us not for discounts but for goosebumps,” she said. Citing the Gujarati film Umrooni Pen Paar, she described how Shemaroo turned its launch into a cultural moment by encouraging audiences to share their own ‘first threshold’ stories. “It wasn’t just about streaming a film, but sparking conversations people related to. That’s how you build loyalty,” she said, adding: “Our mission is to make Gujaratis fall in love again with Gujarati cinema.”
Hamilton Housewares’ head of CX & Service, Uday Bhosale, argued that technology must augment, not replace, human connection. “Fifteen years ago, call centres were the only channel. Today, we have bots, Whatsapp, emails, even AI answering calls. But businesses must decide where to draw the line. Use bots for order status or FAQs, but when frustration and emotions enter, only a human should step in,” he warned.
He noted that 70 per cent of companies deploying AI for cost-cutting miss their targets. The better approach: let AI assist agents by surfacing faster answers, while humans handle empathy-driven queries.
Shweta added that transparency in personalisation is non-negotiable. “Customers should feel their data is enhancing their experience, not invading privacy. In our membership model, we use past holiday behaviour to design plans that fit their lives. When personalisation feels helpful, it works,” she said.
The session ended with consensus: CX is less about one-off “wow” moments and more about remixing consistency with innovation. Whether through loyalty councils, AI-enhanced service, fairness indices, or goosebump-worthy cultural campaigns, the goal is to make CX the evergreen anthem of brand growth.
As one speaker summed it up, “Technology and human connection must work hand in hand because in the end, customers don’t just remember the transaction, they remember the feeling.”
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
