Aditya Save
Chief Marketing Officer
Shaadi.com
What makes a good marketer?
Curiosity & Empathy are two critical ‘raw materials’.
You can’t even be a bad marketer (let alone a good one) if you aren’t curious by nature. The burning desire to know & investigate phenomena & behaviour is absolutely crucial.
Similarly, empathy is a basic necessity. You have to be able to feel your consumer’s highs & lows, if you hope to solve her problems.
3 things you do to prepare for a meeting?
Pre-prep is a luxury, given the frequency of meetings. Whenever possible,
- I go through previous meetings, conversations & interactions on the same topic
- Usually visualise the required outcome & the roadmap that would get us there
- I try to get 30 secs of ‘nothingness’ beforehand. It really helps to focus during the meeting.
3 things you look for when you hire a person?
- I look for people who love solving problems. If they enjoy that, most times they will be successful for themselves & their company.
- I have a preference for team players over individual performers. As a marketer, it is essential to be able to build on the work of others & genuinely care for your team & your customers.
Where do you think Marketing is headed?
Marketing has already moved beyond just the Marketer. It’s way too important to be left to just one function or team in a company. Returns from marketing are getting more and more tangible and there will be a pressure to get things right the first time!
More importantly, Marketing is recognised as the biggest growth driver in organisational fly wheels. Technology is driving speed, scale & efficiency in all businesses. So the role of Marketing today is to ensure that your business gains & maintains a healthy edge over competition & category.
What would you say to someone who aspires to be in marketing?
I would say “Think Again “ 🙂
Most marketing efforts (especially the ones that matter) produce results with a lag. If you are the kinds who must have an immediate response to stimulus, this may not be your game. But if you enjoy the thrill of solving hairy problems & making life a little better for your consumers, then the job itself becomes the reward.
What are a few activities you do at your leisure?
I love spending time at home with my family. I love to read, listen to music & watch movies when alone or while travelling
Do you love/ hate data?
Data doesn’t have enough of a personality for me to be able to love or hate it J
I am not a fan of looking at data for the sake of it. My starting point is usually rooted in a business problem or in consumer behaviour. I prefer to form my hypotheses & then look for patterns & answers in data sets that either prove or disprove those hypotheses.
One app that you cannot do without?
I can live without a phone, so living without an app is not a problem. The one app I end up using a lot is Whatsapp.
Profile: Aditya Save is the Senior Vice President of People Interactive and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Shaadi.com, The Worlds’ No. 1 Matchmaking Service. Aditya has over 15 years of experience in developing and implementing strategies for consumer-oriented business as a marketing practitioner.
Prior to joining People Group, Aditya was heading Marico’s Global Centre of Excellence for Digital and Media and his portfolio covered markets across Africa and Asia, each with their unique mix of consumer & product mix. For more than a decade now, Aditya has worked with in-market brands across Foods, Personal care & Healthcare. He has led multiple new product incubation projects & has more than 1000 hours of oneto-one consumer insighting experience. Besides his regular corporate role, Aditya is the Corporate Services Director at an NGO & and is a visiting faculty at MBA schools. He was a member of the inaugural MMA India council & has spoken at MMA forums in Singapore, Delhi & London. His paper on Mobile Marketing has been published by the IDM in the UK. Aditya has also served on the Board of Advisors for DMTI & mentors select entrepreneurs and start-ups.
Aditya is a certified psychological counselor & is currently working on research for a book about the interaction of digital technology & consumer psychology.
