Brands, markets, scale and sustainability in the age of pan masala’s bond with 007

James Bond aka Pierce Brosnan endorsing a 50-year-old pan masala brand made much noise on the internet. The trolls had a field day at the expense of the erstwhile 007, with social media hooting at the thought of a British secret agent endorsing a mouth freshener brand.

Was this marriage of two brands a smart move? I can only speak about my own heartache upon seeing Pierce Brosnan with the dabba of pan masala. Why are brands and their messaging so important? How do we build brands, define them and make them stand out?

At the recently concluded TechSparks 2016, the seventh edition of YourStory’s flagship event, we saw some expert answers on brand building, scale, growth and sustainability.

Brand building

“While building a brand strategy, keep doing something not because it’s the norm, but because it works for you.” – Delna Avari, Brand Expert and Startup Advisor

“To build a brand, you need to define who you really are and then walk the talk. Be who you are and stay that way even during testing times.” –Delna Avari, Brand Expert and Startup Advisor

Markets

“Market is the key. No matter how kickass your team is, you need a substantial market to succeed. Even if you are operating in a niche sector, the market size has to make sense for the entrepreneur and the investor.” – Harsha Kumar, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Growth

“For B2B growth, the focus must be on the size of the account you are servicing, and not on increasing the number of accounts. Winning the trust of the customer is important. Increasing the amount per transaction is the way to go.” – Nina Buddhiraja, Director of Product Management, Growth at Ola

Revenue

“You have to think of making revenue from day one.” - Ankita Sheth, Founder, VistaRooms

 Finance and tech

"I read somewhere - Big Data is like teen sex – everyone claims they are doing it but very few actually are!” - Lizzie Chapman, ZestMoney

“People don’t need more banks, people need banking! Technological implementations have the ability to take banking solutions to the living rooms of the masses.” –Lizzie Chapman, ZestMoney

Scale

“With SMAC, especially Cloud, there is the ability to disrupt almost every sector out there. While scaling at high speed, Cloud brings in elasticity.” -Vinothini Raju, Blumeric Inc

Sustainability

“SMAC is not just about scalability, but also sustainability. The deployment cycle of a process can come down from a few days to a few hours, and more startups can manage sustainability to improve processes, pursue growth, and add value to their companies rather than focusing only on scale.” – Vinothini Raju, Blumeric Inc

The authenticity and honesty of a brand are as essential as having a market that makes sense for the brand to exist. Following closely on their heels are a winning team and revenue.