By buying attention cleverly and by having something to say. For the Super Bowl they skipped the multi million dollar network spot and bought many OTT slots at a fraction of the price, getting the association without the invoice. The Made in India Made for the World campaign used real artisans and Shekhar Kapur's voice, which tied a global ambition to a specific national story instead of a generic one, and the UAE VAT campaign won a market by solving a local regulatory problem nobody else was speaking to. Underneath all of it sits Vembu's transnational localism, a genuine belief stated for years, which is what makes the campaigns read as conviction rather than advertising.
3 hand-picked resources, 3 India-specific, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it Vembu articulates transnational localism, the belief that made Zoho's rural India roots a positioning asset rather than something to hide from Salesforce buyers. This is what a genuine point of view sounds like.
On The Six Five by Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman with Sridhar Vembu 25 min
Why we picked it Zoho's former creative director explains the UAE VAT campaign, Made in India Made for the World, and how they bought Super Bowl reach through OTT slots instead of a network buy. A masterclass in brand impact without a US sized budget.
On Prime Venture Partners Podcast by Jerome Manuel with Raffic Aslam 53 min
Listen on Apple Podcasts podcasts.apple.com →Why we picked it Carries the stat that matters for brand budget arguments: 92 percent of B2B buyers pick a vendor from the list they had on day one. Uses Indian companies (JustCall, Uniqode) rather than the usual US case studies.
From Think with Google by Think with Google APAC 8 min read
Open business.google.com →How brand and narrative reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Brand, web & content, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Find your idea & build the brand, our D2C track.
