My Lifecycle as a marketer!

I would like to share my life story as a marketer. What I saw and felt, while growing in the field of marketing with my inquisitive mind and passion to learn, achieve and succeed.

Moving on to my story, actually my life span as a marketer today is of 20 years only, it all started when I took my first course called “Principles of Marketing” at my university and studied books written by Philip Kotler, didn’t we all do that? As an individual I knew my strengths were communication, modulation, creative and strategic thinking. From those days I knew deep down I can only be a marketer. When I found myself getting thrilled by watching TV commercials more than the shows themselves. Or the excitement of unboxing of a product, how packaging always looked like an art to me, how product display in a store made me curious. How I always thought of ways a billboard could look and communicate better? Or simply noticing the evolution of brands, logos, typography around me while I was only in my early twenties. I ended up choosing marketing subjects for all my electives and finally stepped into the corporate world qualified as an MBA who had majored in marketing.

At my first job in my home country which was in the telecom industry as a brand manager, I started realizing how important the role of marketing and communication is. It can drive and influence the behavior of a society. When you sell a product, you actually sell what your community aspires for. Of course, it may be either for a niche audience or for a larger target audience but it does educate and guide people on how they should live their lives by showing the outcome through the usage of a particular product. I felt responsible and proud of the fact that I was working on creation of products and brands that people would like to buy and possess. And not just that but also creating awareness about how a brand or a product can benefit them. Since I was in the telecom industry, I also took pride in the fact that indirectly I was helping people stay in touch with their loved ones through connectivity.

In my second job again with another telecom player in the same country, I had the privilege of launching the corporate brand for that company, the face of the company: from creation and ideation of a logo, to planning the brand strategy, personality and positioning. It had its own challenges and fun moments where consensus on subjective things like color and aesthetics had to be made objective and logical for it to be approved and executed. Seeing the launch of that brand, feeling its success, sighting your campaign on the biggest billboards in the country nationwide, gave a sense of ownership. As if that brand was my own baby. With cut-throat competition of six telco players in the market at that time, I did learn how we had to balance between strategic and tactical plans. Brand building is a long-term process, whereas price wars and launching pricing promotions in a day’s time was equally important and challenging. While being in the telco industry, I learnt a lot about marketing and enjoyed the big budget spends telcos provide a marketer. Also saw and learnt from the technological innovation that was happening or should I call it the evolution of telcos. Starting from TDMA and CDMA to GSMA launch. Not just that, also did massive network roll-out coverage campaigns, announced free local roaming, no incoming charges campaigns and then how can we forget the introduction of MMS, ringtones, caller tunes and then international roaming. The list keeps growing but the essence of the brand always remained the same. Customers’ needs were still at the core of any innovation or launch. At that point, I had no idea, I was going to explore multiple, cross-cultural markets in my next role.

My third job was with an OEM in UAE, a country that is very diverse and had its own market dynamics. Where there are different pockets of population with their own culture, likes and preferences. Dubai also being the business hub, made me create marketing strategies and communication for the entire region along with Africa which also added another flavor to my marketing exposure. Allowed me to experiment different marketing mixes for each country. During my time in this role, I actually tasted the beauty of channel marketing and distribution with not just retailers but also carriers. Experienced how every market even in the same city may have its own requirements for point-of-sales (POS) materials. This universe of POS has its unique methods of running the show.

And now in my current role, again with a telco but in a different space, which is not connectivity but solutions that are beyond connectivity. Where the goal is to try and communicate how we can leverage technology to make a difference and transform lives and businesses to create a happy yet sustainable smart city. What I see, the world is rapidly changing and digital transformation is happening at its own pace. Also changing the landscape for marketers where traditional mediums of communication for marketing are being replaced by the new digital marketing mix. Where AI, data analytics and social media platforms are influencing the buying behavior making the reason to believe for a brand more real and personalized from the old aspirational and fictional form of communication and marketing.

In short, I feel lucky to have experienced the evolution of the marketing mix from traditional to digital. Similarly, have also seen the evolution of the telco industry from TDMA to 5G technology and many more advancements that will happen in the future, with change being the only constant in life. I am thankful to all who have helped me learn something new every day and wish to continue doing the same.

To conclude, what I see and feel today as a marketer is something you all will agree to. Trends and technology keep on changing, making the consumer behavior more complex especially in today’s world with a gazillion customized options available at your finger-tips. Yet the basic needs of humans to belong, still remain the same. So let’s keep exploring with the same passion, what the future will unfold in our so called world of marketers, who have the power to drive and influence societies for their betterment.