The creator economy is simultaneously a global phenomenon with trends and systems aligning but also a locally driven business ecosystem. It’s this mixture that is driving both how platforms evolve their core product as well as how businesses align from a local growth and global evolution perspective. It’s leading to many interesting shifts, launches and acquisitions in this space. One of the recent ones which could signal a trend of what’s to come is the acquisition of one of India’s top influen...
Jun 29, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 131
A very special crossover episode on Advertising is Dead with Shiladitya Mukhopadhyaya and Amit Doshi from Shunyaone. They join Varun for a candid chat on the rise of live streaming, social media laws and D2C branding. They discuss how radio evolved into podcasts that further evolved into platforms like Clubhouse and Twitter spaces, how have the consumption patterns been so far, list their preferences and experiences on the mentioned platforms, etc. Towards the end, they shed light on D2C brands,...
Jun 22, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 1Ep. 130
The ecosystem around gaming has been built by platforms & companies with a keen focus on enabling gamers, creators, brands and beyond to truly leverage and grow within this mega economy. From building tools within streaming to drive fan engagement to monetisation opportunities facilitating brands & creators to truly leverage these platforms for growth. One such platform is Rooter Sports Technologies Pvt. Ltd. On this episode, Varun speaks to Piyush Kumar, Founder & CEO at Rooter abou...
Jun 15, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 129
The gig economy around the content ecosystem has seen massive growth over the last couple of years. And with this growth has come the need for marketplace solutions that don’t just solve for the needs of brands but also for the pain points that freelancers have faced over time. On this episode, Varun is joined by Mayank Jain, Co-Founder & CEO of Scalenut to discuss what led to the launch of companies like Scalenut, looking to provide tech enabled content marketplace solutions for this growin...
Jun 08, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 128
The creator economy is the buzz word of the season and the pathway to the future of how media, brands and all forms of creation will evolve. On this episode, Varun is joined by Dhruv Chitgopekar, Co-Founder and CEO of BigBang.Social and the Co-Founder of Collective Artists Network. They help us understand the business of influence industry and also how it’s making foundational changes in systems that have stood the test of time & in doing so taking over every aspect of our lives. Find Dhruv ...
Jun 01, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 127
Digital money has been a great unifier in the world today. It’s not just unified how we transact across demographics and regions, but it’s also enabled local businesses to transact on a global landscape . One of the original enablers of this very aspect who’s continued to evolve how businesses and people transact globally is PayPal. On this episode, Varun is joined by Guru Bhat, VP of Customer Success Platform of PayPal India to talk about how the digital money landscape and the fin-tech ecosyst...
May 25, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 126
We love our pop culture! Content we binge not just for the entertainment but because we feel a deep sense of connection with what they stand for and in turn leading us to consume anything and everything connected to that universe. It’s this deep sense of connection that’s led many companies to focus on building products that help us “literally” wear our fandom on our sleeves. One such company is The Souled Store. On this episode of #AdvertisingIsDead, Varun speaks to Harsh Lal, Co-Founder at The...
May 18, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 125
Education and the passion economy have never been as aligned as they are today, with more people than ever pursuing careers or looking to learn more about fields that were at best considered niche or maybe just side projects in the past. This has been pushed forward by companies that have seen the need to fill the gaps in learning around the passion economy by reimagining how education needs to be facilitated for this space, as well as by focusing on providing the best career opportunities for t...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 124
The transition of pets in our lives can just functional animals for security or support to truly being the kids of the house, has been one of the best evolutions in the human-animal equations. It has enabled businesses to build products, services and entire platforms to cater to our growing needs as this relationship has evolved. One such company that has been the founding members of the new age Indian pet care industry is Heads Up For Tails. In today's episode, Varun speaks to Rashi Narang, Fou...
May 04, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Gaming as an industry has grown to being one of the most prominent cultural diverse in the world today. And influencers or creators around gaming have captured a unique position in our collective cultural focal points. By looking at games from not just an competitive aspect but rather using them to enable true content creation across all categories of consumers. This has helped these creators to go beyond the gaming perspective and truly scale their social equity because support of companies tha...
Apr 27, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 122
The EV market presents a paradigm shift in modern mobility. It's something that has never been, "no will it happen", but rather "when will it?". And in recent years, both the narrative and the technology around it has evolved fast to making it a core area focus globally. And India has always been an interesting case, where one sector focused either on purely functional products or base level two wheelers, but that's quickly changing. And to understand this change and the basics of the sector and...
Apr 20, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Words like blockchain, crypto, first party data, NFT’s and beyond surround us in today’s world. But do we all truly understand what these mean not just for how the world functions but also for how we understand them at a very basic level before we get into the advanced understanding of its nuances. One person known to have had a deep understanding of this area is Gowthaman Ragothaman (also popularly known as G-Man). Tune in, as Varun speaks to G-Man, CEO of Aquilliz, about the basics of blockcha...
Apr 13, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Platforms built with editorial content at their core are most times built around a specific audience and grow on the basis of depth of content they provide that trust their garner. With each platform, there is a lot to learn on how to build and grow captive audiences and keep them engaged. There is no community that requires more trust and depth than that around kids and their parents. Tune into this week's episode, as Varun speaks to Mansi Zaveri, Founder of Kidsstoppress and Host of the podcas...
Apr 06, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 119
In today’s world popular culture isn’t just shaped by social media, it is in many ways created, grown, evolved and disrupted in the matter of a few swipes and clicks. And the last year has accelerated this to no end. Tune into this episode, as Varun speaks to Ajit Mohan, the Vice President and Managing Director of Facebook India. They talk about how culture has been pushed ahead through the lens of Instagram & the social video experience. In the later part, they also discuss about Ajit's pas...
Mar 30, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 118
The word "content" is such a broad based term in today's world that it is perceived as different things by different people. But the area of content that is changing how brands are and will engage with their consumers is content that is build on the pillars of Aggregation and Technology. Aggregating a broad spectra of talent for different use cases and enhancing, optimizing & deploying what they create through the use of technology is the way of the future for brands, creators and any form o...
Mar 23, 2021•59 min•Season 1Ep. 117
The narrative structure of a creator involves building the character & storyline over time & multitude of content pieces. It requires taking what is an authentic expression of their creative flow into a structure that evolves over time which in the guardrails of what areas they are focusing on. This has fundamentally changed the concept to what a celebrity is in today's world. As well as what the power dynamics of the media industry at large are. In this week's episode, Varun is joined b...
Mar 16, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 116
Our relationship with food, especially newer cuisines, different kinds of flavors & even fine dining has evolved over the last decade. It's gone from being something we try it all once in a while to something that's part of how we look at and consume food in general. This broadening of our ballet has been grown by entrepreneurs in the food & beverage (F&B) space who brought this flavors and experiences for us to try. Tune into this episode, as Varun is joined by Gauri Devidayal, Foun...
Mar 09, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 115
We all have started to look at our health & nutrition more focused manner in recent times. We have got in a habit of checking ingredients label behind the products or researching the true effects of what we putting into our body has become a natural way of being. It's this very need that has brought the term "Evidence Based Nutrition" into our headspace. And it's this category of product that straddles the perceived line between pharma & nutrition that is leading the way for the future o...
Mar 02, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 114
The transformation of the consumer-product relationship has been redefined in recent years through the troika of what we like to call “Connect-Purchase and Delivery”. But on an equal measure it's also the pace of addition of not just more products but evolving newer product categories by modern brands that has changed the foundational principles of the business landscape. One such company in India has been Drums Food International through it's brand Epigamia. On this episode, Varun is joined by ...
Feb 23, 2021•44 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Welcome to an very interesting episode of Advertising is Dead, mainly because Varun is not hosting today & has handed host duties to a higher power. Pooja Jauhari, yes you heard it right. Pooja would be hosting this week's episode on Valentine's Special. Varun is curious & intrigued to know what's coming up in this episode. As Pooja tells us the survival skills of Varun & how he shifted from madness to zen mode state. Tune into this not so episode of Advertising is Dead, as Varun is ...
Feb 16, 2021•41 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Fashion has always been a space that has been fascinating. Not just as a consumer but as someone looking at the industry outside in and seeing a constant set of shifts that have been changing not just how we as consumers buy but also how the industry as a whole functions. What’s also driven this shift has been brands that have started off as D2C brands and evolving to a balance between D2C, brick and mortar stores while evolving their product offering based on the backbone of data and delivering...
Feb 09, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 111
The creator & influencer economy has been one of the biggest growth engines of the digital content space. It’s not just enabled platforms and creators to scale but also grown businesses that have helped build the ecosystem around them. Many of these companies were founded around individual creators that have reshaped how the entire landscape functions and the dynamics and economics within it. One of the companies that has been a strong enabler of this growth in the Indian market has been Mon...
Feb 02, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 110
The short-form video app space has been one of the most interesting spaces to look at not just from the range of competitors in it and the opportunities but also the various hurdles, twists and turns that have affected its market dynamic. From an Indian context global players have had to compete with homegrown apps, and the ban on TikTok led to a very interesting journey for many of them in the months since. In this new episode, Varun is joined by Shivank Agarwal, Founder of one such home grown ...
Jan 26, 2021•27 min•Season 1Ep. 109
One of the areas, where Advertising is Dead hasn't focused enough has been traditionally called B2B companies. This B2B space that was always been looked at as separate industry from more consumer facing businesses has evolved a lot closer in approach to consumer brands because of the advent of digital and the larger digitally ecosystem. On this episode, Varun is joined by Praval Singh, VP, Marketing & Customer Experience of Zoho to discuss how B2B looks at all aspects of marketing and conte...
Jan 19, 2021•55 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Mothers make the world go round. Or rather they are the support system that hold it together. As the world has revolved in the recent years so has the science of motherhood and the ecosystem of products & services around modern mothers. One company that has it's routes in this very need, as a personal use case is Moms Co. And it's the sheer focus on this category of consumers that has scaled and expand both in market share as well as product category. On this episode, Varun is joined by Mali...
Jan 12, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 107
We all love toys. It doesn't matter if we're toddlers or supposed grown-ups, the one that brings a unanimous sense of joy to all of us are toys. Be it by bringing families together over a board game or igniting one's imagination with action figures, the collective effect of toys on humanity is often underappreciated. Additionally, the advent of digital hasn't slowed toys' standing in our world, but instead has enabled this industry to evolve in multiple new ways, this enabling us consumers to en...
Jan 05, 2021•34 min•Season 1Ep. 106
What a year it's been for us all! We could all use a nice way to finish it off in high spirits (both literally and figuratively). So, to round it off, we have got a banger of a year ender for you! Come join Karthik Nagarajan (The Filter Koffee Podcast), Varun Duggirala (Advertising is Dead) and Vineet Kanabar (StoryTellers & StorySellers) for the ultimate podcast crossover as they round up 2020 in a fun and thoughtful way - by reviewing the year on the basis of advertising, branding, content...
Dec 28, 2020•1 hr 39 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Creators have had a unique role in defining humanity's mindset this year. It's because 2020 has been a year when content consumption and social media interactions have been our gateway to human connections. And, while every creator has adapted one way or the other, it's the ones who have spread positivity and happy vibes to us all that have seen the most growth.On this episode, Varun is joined by three breakout creators who have seen astronomical growth this year across their Instagram accounts....
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 20 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Markets evolve and get disrupted by changes and change drivers in consumer behaviour. One massive shift in recent times, especially in 2020, has been the growth of hyperlocal solution drivers. They've helped locals and local businesses build a pipeline connecting each other, and in doing so, help drive an alternative to the larger e-commerce industry. One of the platforms on the forefront of this has been Dunzo, not just by enabling hyperlocal delivery, but also by giving us a verb that truly de...
Dec 15, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 103
The structure of marketing has been through some interesting evolutions. It's also demanded professionals who, over the years, have seen the practise itself evolve, both globally and locally, to constantly evolve and understand it's paradigm shifts. This process of being part of an ever evolving system of functioning has made many of these marketers look at marketing from an interesting lens of understanding that all of us can learn from if we tap into it right. On this episode, Varun is joined ...
Dec 08, 2020•42 min•Season 1Ep. 102
