Punting on the new normal

Insightful session with Ved Agarwal on what the new normal could look like and how businesses can step-up.

#ORNKnowledge organised a webinar with Ved Agarwal, a passionate marketeer currently working at Amazon. An explorer at heart, Ved gets his energy from understanding the drivers of consumer behaviour & being able to influence them leveraging tools new & old. 

Prior to Amazon, Ved worked at leading FMCGs for about 10 years, in both international & domestic markets, and built a well-rounded understanding of why consumers behave the way they do. He has worked on a myriad of brand types which have helped build his own unique narrative – he worked on ITC’s entry into the Beverages category with the launch of ‘ B Natural’ juices, he worked on Marico’s digital-first brand ‘True Roots’ which attempted to create a new category within Hair Care,  he managed India’s largest Hair Oil Brand – Nihar Shanti Amla. He also led the marketing and brand agenda for Marico in markets of Sri Lanka, Nepal & Bhutan. 

The topic of the webinar was “Punting on the new normal” in the context of Covid-19 and with the operative word being ‘Punting’. Ved says his initiation and interest to building this module started when he thought – if there were ways to organise all information being bombarded onto us and channelize them to our benefit in these rather challenging times. From ‘circle of concern’, he directed the conversation strongly towards aspects in the ‘circle of influence’. ‘The most lethal weapon you can carry into war is preparation’ and this was Ved’s attempt at it. 

About 110 participants representing Advertising professionals, Brand marketers and Business owners from Nepal, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Mauritius attended the webinar. The 2 hour session was received with rapt attention, un-wavering focus and great engagement. It was truly a worthy initiative, which expanded the knowledge sharing beyond the borders of Nepal, and engaged like-minded people on a topic of extreme common relevance and impact. 

Ved mentioned that while the current situation was definitely more shocking and sudden than anything we’ve seen before, there lay opportunities for us to get impacted differently or in a relatively muted manner, solely on the basis of our reaction to it. 

Ved aimed to stir thought with his narrative and successfully helped participants look at emerging trends, newer themes, unsaid consumer realizations and uncover potential opportunities and ways to relook at the current scenario. He helped trigger thought and assist participants to be able to organize themselves better around COVID-19 and its implications. He provided numerous novel models and structures to help make more mindful & business benefitting decisions.

Some key themes he discussed were (a) the sub-phases of the emerging new normal (b) how consumers will look at spends (c) how brands would consider ROI (d) newer trends and opportunities they present (e) lateral thinking and its criticality (f) the supreme power of empathy & transparency in current times and (g) how agility & operating beyond self-made constraints is the new ‘cool’

#ORNKnowledge is a knowledge-sharing platform by Outreach Nepal, which promotes interactions with international advertising leaders with the objective of pushing the local industry to learn from international practices and standards and also inspire new talents.

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