ICMA 2017: The story is everything: Gaurav Jeet Singh, HUL

Gaurav Jeet Singh, Head (Media) South Asia at HUL, shared his thoughts on the importance of generating a great content creation process. He was speaking at exchange4media’s Content JAM; a platform for discussing the landscape of content marketing, which was held in Mumbai on Thursday.

 

For him, the two key things that HUL always keeps in mind are to always be passionate about building brand love and not getting bogged down by considerations of target audience or target groups.

 

“If you want to be creative then study how audiences react to art,” said Singh. “The story is everything. It has to have authenticity, relevance and should be conversational,” he added. In fact, he pointed out that every HUL marketing communication follows these three basic points.

 

According to him, another important factor for marketers and content creators to keep in mind is that they should always be ready to look foolish. He gave the example of HUL’s Red Label Six Pack Band campaign which could have been seen by many as a risky venture. Singh pointed out that most communications for Red Label have pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable by the society. For example, the Muslim neighbour TVC as well as the live-in relationship TVC, which aired earlier.

 

“The idea behind Red Label is to get people together and that is what we show in our ads,” he said. Speaking about the phenomenal international success that was the Six Pack Band, Singh said, “Our market share and brand equity increased. The campaign won a Glass Lion Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival. This year, the band was asked to perform at Cannes and it was the first time that passports had transgender on them, which is a great achievement.”