How did Zoho build a global brand from India without a US sized budget?
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.
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3 resources, 3 India-specific, 3 link-checked.
🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checkedIndiaFreeIntermediate
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.
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.
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.
