Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic production at my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: What happens in tiny places like small screens. There are
Speaker 1: multiple brands which are stacked next to each other. When
Speaker 1: you come to the checkout page in an online shopping store,
Speaker 1: the name master Card, nobody could even read it. So
Speaker 1: if I dropped that name and occupied that space by
Speaker 1: enlarging my interlocking cycles a little bit, the visibility was
Speaker 1: suddenly far more superior than any of my competitors. So
Speaker 1: I walked to my cestal, I think we should drop
Speaker 1: our name from our logo. The look was priceless. Hi
Speaker 1: am Bob Pittman. And this is Math and Magic Stories
Speaker 1: from the Frontiers and Marketing, where we explore the business
Speaker 1: and marketing world through the entire gamut of analytics and creative.
Speaker 1: Today we have someone who has covered it all engineering, sale,
Speaker 1: business CEO, all of the world, many sectors, and his hallmark,
Speaker 1: his transformation. Raja Rajaminar, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Communications Officer,
Speaker 1: President of Healthcare Business for master Card. Born and raised
Speaker 1: in India, his undergrad is in chemical engineering. Then he
Speaker 1: got his NBA with a focus on marketing. Valedictorian of
Speaker 1: his class. He also received two Gold medals for academic excellence.
Speaker 1: Even today, he's still winning awards for his prowess as
Speaker 1: a marketer. Just out of school, he worked for the
Speaker 1: largest paint company in India, then Una Lever and Sales
Speaker 1: as a product manager. He went on to City Bank
Speaker 1: in Dubai, London and New York. He was Chairman and
Speaker 1: CEO of Diners Club, where he engineered a very visible turnaround.
Speaker 1: He went on the City Bank and City Global Cards
Speaker 1: as e VP and CMO, Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer
Speaker 1: at Humana, then All Point before he landed at MasterCard
Speaker 1: and for all the great innovation there, he'll probably remember
Speaker 1: most for the new logo and image of the company.
Speaker 1: Another transformation. Welcome Raja. Thank you very much, Bob. We've
Speaker 1: got a lot to talk about today, but I first
Speaker 1: want to warm up with you in sixty seconds? Ready
Speaker 1: to go? Yes? Do you prefer sunrise or sunset? Sunrise,
Speaker 1: Dubai or New York City, Instagram or Twitter, Twitter, golf
Speaker 1: or meditation? Meditation call or text? Call, coffee or tea?
Speaker 1: Neither cats or dogs, dogs, Bifa hummus or lentils hummus. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's about to get harder. Smartest person you know A J. Bana.
Speaker 1: Favorite book Jonathan Livingston, seagull, childhood hero at Bollywood actor
Speaker 1: by the name of Anti Ramaro. Favorite sport to watch cricket,
Speaker 1: favorite food, Indian carries, last vacation Kenya, secret talent, astrology.
Speaker 1: Favorite restaurant in the world the Rock. What did you
Speaker 1: want to be when you're growing up? Astronomer? What's something
Speaker 1: we might be surprised to learn about you that I
Speaker 1: have actually studied astrology? Okay, if you can have one superpower,
Speaker 1: what would it be? I should be able to sing? Done? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's jump right into the branding upgrade for MasterCard. You
Speaker 1: push the company into digital and voice world in a
Speaker 1: rather dramatic way, and you've got a lot of attention
Speaker 1: for it. Can you take us through the why first? Yeah? So, firstly,
Speaker 1: MasterCard brand is not a director consumer brand. We don't
Speaker 1: directly market our products to and consumers, but we do
Speaker 1: it through the banks. So it's a B two B
Speaker 1: two see play. Historically, the brand has always played a
Speaker 1: second fiddle kind of a role in the overall scheme
Speaker 1: of things that we wanted to change that we wanted
Speaker 1: to create a pull for the brand, so we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that consumers a are aware of the brand,
Speaker 1: be that all the right perceptions about the brand, they
Speaker 1: have a liking for the brand, and hopefully they will
Speaker 1: demand our brand versus somebody else's brand when they have
Speaker 1: a choice. So this was the lofty aspiration with which
Speaker 1: we started. If you look at our brand, it has
Speaker 1: been in existence for more than fifty plus years, right,
Speaker 1: so we had inherited a fantastic recognition for the brand,
Speaker 1: which was both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because
Speaker 1: you have those inherent properties which every brand would strive
Speaker 1: and aspire for. But the curses because any change that
Speaker 1: you want to do comes with a huge risk. This
Speaker 1: was exactly the conversation I had with the agency folks.
Speaker 1: I said, I want our brand to really look very modern,
Speaker 1: very contemporary, very futuristic. Should be esthetically superior, should really
Speaker 1: cut across all the categories, not just payments. Should feel
Speaker 1: native in many environments. But the two interlocking circles of
Speaker 1: red and yellow you cannot change. You cannot change the
Speaker 1: color red or yellow, or you cannot change the word
Speaker 1: master card. Then they just looked, so what then, what
Speaker 1: the hell can we change everything? Is literally fixed. It
Speaker 1: was a long journey of two years and we came
Speaker 1: up with exactly the design which addressed every single aspect
Speaker 1: of what we set out to accomplish. We retained the colors,
Speaker 1: but gave little tinge to those colors, which made them
Speaker 1: look very esthetically superior, more contemporary, more youthful, more energy, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Optimized for the digital Channel's quite a lot. That went
Speaker 1: very well for us. So after two years, and this
Speaker 1: was a very thoughtful process, we went ahead and dropped
Speaker 1: in a master Card from our logo. That was a
Speaker 1: really big move. It was a huge move. You should
Speaker 1: imagine the kind of conversation I would have had with
Speaker 1: my that I'm going to ask you about the internal
Speaker 1: on it. So I walked to my C I think
Speaker 1: we should drop our name from our logo. The look
Speaker 1: was priceless, you know, in terms of it's almost very
Speaker 1: shocking to So why would you want to drop your
Speaker 1: name from your logo? There are two main reasons why
Speaker 1: we did it. On the one hand, the recognition of
Speaker 1: the brand and even without the name MasterCard written was
Speaker 1: extremely high. Eighty four pus in. People around the world
Speaker 1: knew that this was MasterCard, even without the logo written there.
Speaker 1: That was a big reassurance. Secondly, what happens in tiny
Speaker 1: places like small screens, there are multiple brands which are
Speaker 1: stacked next to each other. When you come to the
Speaker 1: checkout page in an online shopping store, the name master Card,
Speaker 1: nobody could even read it. So if I dropped that
Speaker 1: name and occupied that space by enlarging my interlocking circles
Speaker 1: a little bit, the visibility was suddenly far more superior
Speaker 1: than any of my competitors. So we said, this has
Speaker 1: got a great advantage. Plus, also, MasterCard is just not
Speaker 1: a payments company. We had it too, so many spaces.
Speaker 1: For example, I'm also ahead of our health care business,
Speaker 1: so we are into other spaces than the traditional payment space.
Speaker 1: Per se, dropping the name MasterCard emphasized the name master
Speaker 1: cardless and the card in the master Card even lesser,
Speaker 1: and therefore the applicability across multiple spaces has suddenly got up.
Speaker 1: And because it looks more stylish and very contemporary, ray
Speaker 1: we could put it in many places which in the
Speaker 1: past would have been very difficult for us to put
Speaker 1: a logo out there. So that way was a very
Speaker 1: big move, but thankfully it went extremely well for us.
Speaker 1: So let's get the story behind the scenes. So you
Speaker 1: tell the CEO we're going to drop MasterCard. The reaction
Speaker 1: is you're out of your mind. Okay, you now talk
Speaker 1: to the people in your marketing group, your team. There's
Speaker 1: got to be some skeptics who go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you can't take the name absolutely yes, So how did
Speaker 1: you work through that? Well, first and foremost, I had
Speaker 1: to carry the team with me, make them see the
Speaker 1: reason why we're wanting to do what we're wanting to do,
Speaker 1: What is the sense behind it, and what can go
Speaker 1: wrong at worst? And if it does go wrong, is
Speaker 1: the damage containable or not? So are we mitigating the risk.
Speaker 1: There are some folks who want to reassurance that everything
Speaker 1: will be find nothing will fall apart. Then are those
Speaker 1: people who want to soar, and to them, showcase very
Speaker 1: clearly that this is going to put us in every
Speaker 1: different league. It would be really taking us into the future.
Speaker 1: And that really worked quite well. The logo is to
Speaker 1: be owned by the whole Company's not just a marketing
Speaker 1: department's logo, it's a company's logo. Then we had to
Speaker 1: go to the board eventually and then share it with
Speaker 1: them and everyone of us had to be speaking in
Speaker 1: unison to the board saying that hey, this is a
Speaker 1: great idea and we are all in it, we are
Speaker 1: all behind it. It was a journey. As I said,
Speaker 1: it was not done overnight. It took us two years.
Speaker 1: When I think it's interesting about it is you did
Speaker 1: this driven by this new digital world in which the
Speaker 1: logo had to exist, but you also did it for
Speaker 1: this emerging voice world as well. NBC until they've all
Speaker 1: got little Sonic I d s, but you took it
Speaker 1: a step further and did this beginning to end consumer
Speaker 1: journey Audio. Tell us a little bit about what you
Speaker 1: did and how you did that, because the voice environment
Speaker 1: is becoming so prominent with voice commerce and all the
Speaker 1: statistics when I looked at them, they were very compelling.
Speaker 1: So for example, last year, ten percent of all US
Speaker 1: households already had a device at their home like Alexa
Speaker 1: or a Google Home, and not only that, seventy of
Speaker 1: them have done at least one purchase transaction in the
Speaker 1: preceding few months. So voice commerce is here to stay
Speaker 1: and it is growing pretty rapidly. If you look at
Speaker 1: the work that we had done on our logo, it's fantastic,
Speaker 1: but in a voice environment, how do I even showcase it?
Speaker 1: There is no visual real estate and my brand was
Speaker 1: predominantly visual, our only visual, So we needed to find
Speaker 1: a different way of depicting our brand in the context
Speaker 1: of sound. So we said, the basic element of everything
Speaker 1: that we do in sound should be off of a melody. Now,
Speaker 1: the melody has to be neutral. They should not be
Speaker 1: contextually appropriate to some and not to others. It has
Speaker 1: to be appropriate everywhere. It has to be likable. It
Speaker 1: has to be memorable, because without memorability there is no association.
Speaker 1: It has to be hormable. It should be simple enough
Speaker 1: to hum because that which you can hum will be
Speaker 1: retained in your mind much much longer and more effectively.
Speaker 1: It had to be very versatile, whether I'm laying it
Speaker 1: into buy or in South America or in Germany, anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. It has to feel native. So that
Speaker 1: versatility and able to render the melody in different contexts
Speaker 1: has to be there. And finally, what we also said
Speaker 1: is that different contexts, whether it is you're in a
Speaker 1: soccer match, audio or an opera setting, it should be
Speaker 1: very native and very very appropriate to those contexts. So
Speaker 1: this was the brief from me to the agency, and
Speaker 1: again they looked like I had multiple heads and how
Speaker 1: can you really come up with something like this? Again,
Speaker 1: it was a long journey. We worked with composers, we
Speaker 1: worked with musicians, we worked with music experts, musicologists, everyone
Speaker 1: around the world, and eventually we came up with this melody.
Speaker 1: And that melody is something which we'll go into all
Speaker 1: our ads, into all our events, into all our presentations
Speaker 1: as a background and also as a music on hold
Speaker 1: when somebody calls up our office and people can download
Speaker 1: it as a ring tone and so on. So this
Speaker 1: is one level. Level two is we took a subset
Speaker 1: of this thirty second melody which is about three seconds,
Speaker 1: and this is a sonic signature, so end of every ad,
Speaker 1: PEO will have this three second sonic signature plate. Then
Speaker 1: the third level was unlike many other companies, MasterCard is
Speaker 1: in your purchase transactions. So each time a transaction goes
Speaker 1: through successfully, can we insert the MasterCards sound, So we
Speaker 1: call it the sonic acceptance sound. So the acceptance sound
Speaker 1: is a subset of the sonic signature, which is a
Speaker 1: subset of the melody, and the acceptance sound is one
Speaker 1: point three seconds. Each one of them is exactly the
Speaker 1: same set of notes, and you can clearly see the
Speaker 1: connection between them in a very obvious fashion. Very happy
Speaker 1: to say that nearly seven point six million points of
Speaker 1: interaction around the world today already have God the MasterCards
Speaker 1: Sonic Acceptance sound embedded in those devices. Seven point six
Speaker 1: million is good, but not good enough because we want
Speaker 1: a recognition now the visual logo to more than fifty years.
Speaker 1: I don't have fifty years to get the recognition. So
Speaker 1: what we did was basically said, are there ways to
Speaker 1: really get into the culture. People are not going to
Speaker 1: be anxious and enthusiastic to listen to a corporate sound,
Speaker 1: so you have to embedy yourself in those areas where
Speaker 1: they're already listening. So that's how we said, we have
Speaker 1: to create music. We had our first song which we released.
Speaker 1: When you listen to the song, it doesn't look like
Speaker 1: a corporate anthem. Nobody wants to listen to corporate anthems.
Speaker 1: This is exactly like any regular good pop single. But
Speaker 1: it has gotten nice infusion of the melody that is
Speaker 1: not intruding, that is not annoying, that's not irritating. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to have about eleven or twelve off these
Speaker 1: in one album that we will launch, and the whole
Speaker 1: idea is each one of them would look completely different
Speaker 1: than the other. And at the same time there is
Speaker 1: this undertone of masterca it has to be very subtle.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a new way we're going
Speaker 1: to popularize and get our brand recognition up. So it's
Speaker 1: again a very big, different experiment that we have embarked on.
Speaker 1: We just launched it in ces. You tell the CEO,
Speaker 1: now we're going to make songs. What's the reaction there?
Speaker 1: Another priceless moment, Another priceless moment in the Absolutely you've
Speaker 1: done other transformations before. What lessons did you call upon
Speaker 1: for this transformation? The first and foremost is it's very
Speaker 1: critical to have a buy in from everyone. Even the
Speaker 1: brightest ideas get killed if they are not emotionally embraced
Speaker 1: by your team and by your peers. That was the
Speaker 1: one big lesson. So I went out of my way
Speaker 1: to socialize these concepts around the company and give people
Speaker 1: an opportunity to weigh in so that they should feel
Speaker 1: that they are part of the whole. Co creation as
Speaker 1: opposed to marketing is sitting in its Ivory Tower, creating
Speaker 1: some fancy stuff and then thrusting it down the throats
Speaker 1: of everyone at the company. And beyond. What also happens
Speaker 1: is people get excited. On one hand, they realize how
Speaker 1: difficult the creative process is, so therefore they would not
Speaker 1: be very light about making their comments on something which
Speaker 1: is creative. And the second one is I want allies
Speaker 1: and partners to be able to weigh in in favor
Speaker 1: of this concept if they truly buy into it. And
Speaker 1: that's all was invaluable. When you're coming up with new concepts,
Speaker 1: particularly some of them might not be very evident in
Speaker 1: terms of what their applicability is. The might think that
Speaker 1: this stupid idea, you know, so unrelated to master Card,
Speaker 1: what are we doing, etcetera. So those kind of areas
Speaker 1: I can very well tackled through this process of socializing
Speaker 1: and getting employees buy into it. We're going to keep going,
Speaker 1: but I want to take a step back. I want
Speaker 1: to go back in time. You were born in the
Speaker 1: early sixties in India where Hyderabad. What was going on
Speaker 1: in India at that time, What's the context of the
Speaker 1: world You grew up in India in those days was
Speaker 1: pretty peaceful, slowly developing country. The state I was born
Speaker 1: in was formed only for our five years before then,
Speaker 1: so it was still a new state at that point
Speaker 1: in time, and a lot of development was happening on
Speaker 1: the ground. The concept of television did not exist. We
Speaker 1: had radio. Radio was a real mass media. It was
Speaker 1: an event for the family to get around the radio.
Speaker 1: We used to listen to movies on radios. There was also,
Speaker 1: I think a general sense of upward mobility and people
Speaker 1: wanted to succeed and grow in their careers and in society.
Speaker 1: Education was seen to be the best route for you
Speaker 1: to grow in life, and so education was a huge emphasis.
Speaker 1: My mom was. She was brilliant, one of the brightest
Speaker 1: minds that I have seen. Mathematically, she was a genius.
Speaker 1: She could even do my engineering math in her head
Speaker 1: without any calculators. Tough love is what we used to
Speaker 1: get from her, and she would say, you have to
Speaker 1: absolutely to your best and not feel entitled to anything,
Speaker 1: and the only way that you will grow in life
Speaker 1: is by educating yourself, working hard, etcetera. So I think
Speaker 1: that was a time when the values for sort of
Speaker 1: being instilled very strongly. I come from a middle class background,
Speaker 1: So these things were very important to us when you
Speaker 1: were young growing up in this world. Did you ever
Speaker 1: see yourself living in Dubai, London or the US being
Speaker 1: on the world stage like you are today? No? I
Speaker 1: did not. What would your aspiration? Then? I thought I
Speaker 1: would become a civil services officer, so in India, the
Speaker 1: best of the kids would want to join the Indian
Speaker 1: administrative services. That used to be my aspiration. But once
Speaker 1: I got into chemical engineering, I started feeling that there
Speaker 1: are other things that I would like to do. I
Speaker 1: did my chemical engineering and I was supposed to come
Speaker 1: to the US and I had a full scholarship, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately my mom at that stage had a heart attack,
Speaker 1: so I stayed back in India. Then I went on
Speaker 1: to do my m b A because NBA offered better
Speaker 1: and faster career growth than classical engineer by itself. That's
Speaker 1: where the marketing bug with me. When I had done
Speaker 1: a campaign by my own hands for one of the
Speaker 1: cosmetics companies during somebody internship. When you did that campaign,
Speaker 1: was that what suddenly lit you up to say, I'm
Speaker 1: a marketer, I'm not a chemical engineer. Correct, you jumped
Speaker 1: from India Dubai London, the US. What kind of cultural
Speaker 1: divide did you have to overcome or did you didn't
Speaker 1: even know was there until you hit it. For me,
Speaker 1: moving in different parts of India already sensitized me. But
Speaker 1: as well, India is one country. Each state in India
Speaker 1: is very different than the other state. I'm from South
Speaker 1: of India and I worked in Mumbai, which was west
Speaker 1: of India, and Delhi, which was north North. For all
Speaker 1: you know, could be a completely different country than the South,
Speaker 1: both in terms of the looks of the people that accent,
Speaker 1: their language to speak is different, their cuisines are different,
Speaker 1: so like two different countries. So moving across these countries,
Speaker 1: I guess I got a little versatile in terms of
Speaker 1: moving from one culture to another culture, though of course
Speaker 1: there was a strong common Indian thread. The first time
Speaker 1: when I went to Dubai, I was very pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1: While the country itself had very different cultural context and
Speaker 1: religious wise, it's very different, the fundamentals are exactly the same.
Speaker 1: They all had the same family values, they had the
Speaker 1: same aspirations, they had the same fears, the same pain points.
Speaker 1: I took my playbook from India the Fundamentals and the
Speaker 1: foundational aspects, adapted them to Dubai and we had a
Speaker 1: huge success around hand. We built market leading credit card
Speaker 1: business there in less than nine months from launch, coming
Speaker 1: right from behind and overtaking everyone else. So after my
Speaker 1: first move to Dubai, we stopped feeling as being strangest
Speaker 1: in the land. We felt completely at home. And my
Speaker 1: wife has been a trooper, going with me from city
Speaker 1: to city, country to country and taking get of the
Speaker 1: families side of the equation. That made me able to
Speaker 1: focus on the workfront. Just hold on a second, because
Speaker 1: we've got so much more to talk about. We'll be
Speaker 1: back after a quick break. Welcome back to math and magic.
Speaker 1: So let's go back just a little bit, back to India.
Speaker 1: You got into business at India's largest paint company, and
Speaker 1: the largest paint company didn't have any marketers. You were
Speaker 1: the only marketer. You then jumped a few years later
Speaker 1: you went to the opposite You went to a company
Speaker 1: all about marketers, UNI Leader, and you went into sales.
Speaker 1: So how did you get it into that and why
Speaker 1: sales instead of marketing. When I was at Asian Paints,
Speaker 1: I had produced award winning campaigns and created a lot
Speaker 1: of new concept. Life was very good. When I got
Speaker 1: this call from Uniliver. I was interviewed by the vice
Speaker 1: president of marketing and he liked what I brought to
Speaker 1: the table. So once I joined, then he said you're
Speaker 1: going to be in sales. I was horrified because I
Speaker 1: always thought that sales was probably for the less intelligent,
Speaker 1: less intellectual, and less creative people. If you had the
Speaker 1: gift of the gab, you're go into sales if you
Speaker 1: don't have any other skills. That was my perception in
Speaker 1: those days. They said, I'm not going to go, so
Speaker 1: he said, you gotta trust me. You can never be
Speaker 1: a good marketer unless you're a good salesperson. You need
Speaker 1: to know what it means to pound the pavements, what
Speaker 1: it means to really sell the products to yourself and
Speaker 1: fight the marketing warfares on the streets. It opened my
Speaker 1: eyes and it is my guard. This is what sales is.
Speaker 1: It is not what I thought it was. Even after
Speaker 1: being in marketing for three years, by perception of sales
Speaker 1: was very different. This was training by fire. I had
Speaker 1: to learn to manage large sales teams remotely. You need
Speaker 1: to really inspire them, you need to make them buy
Speaker 1: into the objective of the company, make them feel that
Speaker 1: energy to get up, go, sell and then kill competition.
Speaker 1: It was an amazing experience for me on that level.
Speaker 1: That was the best foundational program I ever had. I
Speaker 1: ended up staying there for three years. So you jumped
Speaker 1: to City Bank and you spent a number of years there.
Speaker 1: How did you make that jump? So when I was
Speaker 1: in India and I was approached by City Bank in
Speaker 1: those days, City Bank had a gentleman, Bill Campbell, who
Speaker 1: was hired from Philip Morris. He came to a City
Speaker 1: Bank as the global head of Consumer Bank, and he
Speaker 1: came up with the concept that we should not be
Speaker 1: a bank, we should be a brand. We should not
Speaker 1: behave like bankers, we should behave like marketers. He started
Speaker 1: actually a movement literally in City Bank in those days
Speaker 1: to hire people from the packaged courts industries and bring
Speaker 1: them into the bank instriness, the culture and transform the
Speaker 1: entire place. So that's how I was approached. It was
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to get international exposure. Did you think
Speaker 1: you needed to get out of India? Was that part
Speaker 1: of your plan at this point? Once I was in Unilever,
Speaker 1: I started thinking more globally. I said, I need to
Speaker 1: have an aspiration to have much broader playground to play,
Speaker 1: our canvas to paint on. So Yes, International was part
Speaker 1: of my aspiration. Plus it was a new category. Literally
Speaker 1: that was my third industry right and I said, this
Speaker 1: is going to be very cool. I didn't by this
Speaker 1: time how old were you. I was probably thirty one,
Speaker 1: so you're still a very young man. Yeah I was,
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, I'll go ahead and take the role.
Speaker 1: And it was also a great opportunity for me to
Speaker 1: launch a business from zero. That also was very inspiring
Speaker 1: for me. Right City Bank didn't have a credit card
Speaker 1: business at those days in the Middle East and this
Speaker 1: was going to be the first one. That was a
Speaker 1: big thrill. So I went into it and when it
Speaker 1: was successful, my responsibility started growing from credit cards to
Speaker 1: all of the consumer bank and then I was promoted
Speaker 1: again and then sent to London where I was responsible
Speaker 1: for Europe, Middleastern Africa for all consumer with assets which
Speaker 1: is credit cards, heart a loans, personal loans, mortgages. And
Speaker 1: that was the first time I had experience of managing
Speaker 1: Western markets the likes of Germany, France, UK, etcetera. That
Speaker 1: was a fascinating experience. You went to run diners Club
Speaker 1: that was thought to be a dead brand and you
Speaker 1: really brought it back to life. Why did you say yes,
Speaker 1: I'll do that, because that sounds like a hard mission
Speaker 1: and to what did you do to really take this
Speaker 1: tarnished brand sort of left behind and bring it back.
Speaker 1: When I came to the US, I was looking for
Speaker 1: a business management roll. I really wanted to have a
Speaker 1: scalable business sizewise, and they got a good experience. So
Speaker 1: when diners Club opportunity came along, I said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: would like to take that. People told me it was
Speaker 1: a suicidal mission. There were things which were probably doable
Speaker 1: there that were not done. That was my perception from outside.
Speaker 1: So I took the opportunity and it was in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and what he realized was on the one and it
Speaker 1: was a great brand. They had some solid strengths like,
Speaker 1: for example, customer service, well every other card company was
Speaker 1: putting you on automated voice recorders human beings who were
Speaker 1: actually answering calls. And the rewards program was one of
Speaker 1: the best in the industry compared to anybody else out there.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of opportunity to cut costs. The
Speaker 1: first one year was brutal cost cutting and how did
Speaker 1: you do that? For example, we cut down the sizes
Speaker 1: of offices. We gave up some floors in our buildings.
Speaker 1: We used to work in those days four and a
Speaker 1: half days a week in summers. I said, now will
Speaker 1: work six days a week. There's a time for war
Speaker 1: and the time of peace. Right. Renegotiated every single contract
Speaker 1: all our vendors, telling them, look, guys, we need help
Speaker 1: and we cannot afford these contracts. We brought down the
Speaker 1: rates so significantly. My head of marketing, very bright consumer marketer.
Speaker 1: She wanted to produce a campaign. We didn't have money
Speaker 1: to produce a campaign, so we said, we need to
Speaker 1: find something really innovative. So eventually we created a print
Speaker 1: campaign out of Canada by paying twelve tho U S dollars.
Speaker 1: That's it, so cost cutting we to get to that way.
Speaker 1: The second year was all about growth. In those days,
Speaker 1: Diners Club was not accepted anywhere, so people were not
Speaker 1: takeing a Diners Club card because they will I use
Speaker 1: this card if you go to the merchants and tell
Speaker 1: them please accept Dinas Club card. This is why nobody
Speaker 1: even comes to me with a Diners Club card. That's
Speaker 1: when we said, okay, how do we do it. If
Speaker 1: I have to build a proprietary platform which has got
Speaker 1: an acceptance everywhere, it's going to cost a bottle lot
Speaker 1: of money. So we said that's not doable. We said
Speaker 1: we'll do something unthinkable. In those days. Diners, MasterCard, Visa,
Speaker 1: Amics they were all seen to be competing networks. So
Speaker 1: I said, we are not competing against stamics or we
Speaker 1: said let's be real, so let's go and talk to
Speaker 1: them and see if MasterCard or Visa can accept dinerslup card.
Speaker 1: Where are they're accepted. It was a little bit of
Speaker 1: a breakthrough for the industry. Had anyone ever done that before? No,
Speaker 1: that was the first of its kind. So I went
Speaker 1: and eventually signed a deal with master Card and overnight
Speaker 1: Diners Club Card could be accepted wherever master Card could
Speaker 1: be accepted globally. The single biggest pain point of anid's
Speaker 1: club got taken care of. So with a wide acceptance,
Speaker 1: then we hired away some of the best salesman from
Speaker 1: my competitors. Then they started winning deals in a big way.
Speaker 1: Before you know, year two were very profitable and year three,
Speaker 1: it wasn't sustained profitability level, and that's when I was
Speaker 1: moved back to the mothership, which is City Bank Core
Speaker 1: credit Cards. You had a stellar career City and you
Speaker 1: move the health insurance. Yes, as CMO of Humana. Why
Speaker 1: that move? It was a very fortuitous situation. There was
Speaker 1: a financial crisis and all the banks had to borrow
Speaker 1: tark money from government, and a lot of marketing programs
Speaker 1: god shut out. That was the time when fortuitously got
Speaker 1: a call from one of the headhunters saying that there's
Speaker 1: a role with a company called Humana in Louisville, Kentucky
Speaker 1: as their chief Innovation and Marketing officer and chief executive
Speaker 1: for the international business. I was very curious, and I've
Speaker 1: always open to new environments and new industries. Way, so
Speaker 1: I went and had a chat with the chairman of
Speaker 1: the company, and I felt very inspired. Here is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for me to truly do something because you know,
Speaker 1: in my personal circumstance, I have a son who is artistic.
Speaker 1: I was struggling to get the right kind of health
Speaker 1: care support for him in New York, which was all
Speaker 1: like bizarre to be coming to the US for the
Speaker 1: first time, because I haven't heard of the concept of
Speaker 1: health insurance before I came to the U S. So
Speaker 1: here when the opportunity came where I could join the
Speaker 1: health insurance company, I said, I could join and hopefully
Speaker 1: bring about some transformation. And I'm so glad I did
Speaker 1: because I understood how broken the health industry was in
Speaker 1: total end to end, and we did some very cool
Speaker 1: things while I was at Humana. We did a lot
Speaker 1: of innovation. We brought a lot of new concepts to
Speaker 1: the table, and I moved from there to well Point.
Speaker 1: In those days, it was called well Point. Now it's
Speaker 1: called Anthem. And then suddenly master Card happened, and after
Speaker 1: four years in healthcare industry, then I said, fine, I'll
Speaker 1: come into master Card because the CEO of master Card
Speaker 1: was my boss before at City Bank and we had
Speaker 1: a fantastic relationship. Two thousand thirteen, this was two So
Speaker 1: you're back in the credit card business. You're back in
Speaker 1: then it's actual not a credit cards. Card is not
Speaker 1: a credit card, but it is for the outside world
Speaker 1: that brand. I know it from my card. That's my
Speaker 1: consumer touch point. You came a CMO. You later added
Speaker 1: the head communications officer as well, and you're running the
Speaker 1: healthcare business is well, and you say it's not a
Speaker 1: credit card company. The consumer knows it as a credit
Speaker 1: card company. They know it as this piece of plastic
Speaker 1: or now a number, what is it. We're a technology company,
Speaker 1: We're not a credit cards company. That technology enables a
Speaker 1: variety of transactions to take place. The transactions can be
Speaker 1: a credit card transaction. The transaction can be a movement
Speaker 1: of money from one bank to another bank. It can
Speaker 1: be a movement of money from government to some entity
Speaker 1: outside or an individual. It's any movement of money and data.
Speaker 1: It is sick. Your safe and seamless fashion is what
Speaker 1: our technology enables. So we're a technology company. But your
Speaker 1: point is absolutely right when you say master Card, People
Speaker 1: secredit card because they see the image of the plastic
Speaker 1: in their mind, and that's something which we have been
Speaker 1: trying to change in consumer's mind. Hence the dropping of
Speaker 1: the name master Card from our logo, hence getting into
Speaker 1: other businesses. We are actually a lifestyle brand. We happened
Speaker 1: to be a technology company, but we are a lifestyle brand.
Speaker 1: We will give you the lifestyle that you'd aspire exclusively
Speaker 1: for you. It's the definition of priceless. We can get
Speaker 1: these only because you have a master Card. You took
Speaker 1: the name of the logo radical change for a company
Speaker 1: that's been around like this, now you take this priceless
Speaker 1: campaign and reimagined it another big step. Why did you
Speaker 1: do that? When I joined master Card in the campaign
Speaker 1: was still working very well. But the question I was
Speaker 1: asking myself was this campaign was created in ninety nineties seven,
Speaker 1: when there was no Internet, when there was no mobile,
Speaker 1: when there was no social media. When the world has
Speaker 1: changed so much, how can we still say that my
Speaker 1: campaign is optimized for today and not for nine Probably
Speaker 1: MasterCard is the only brand out there which has got
Speaker 1: one single word, which is a very powerful word that
Speaker 1: is uniquely associated with it, priceless, and priceless was known
Speaker 1: in the context of advertising campaigns. We said, can it
Speaker 1: be made a tangible reality for consumers? Can we infuse
Speaker 1: pricelessness into all the four piece of marketing, not just
Speaker 1: in advertising? That was one piece. The second thing is
Speaker 1: priceless has got such a unique capability to create stories
Speaker 1: that are worth telling and sharing. Consumers are not looking
Speaker 1: forward to watching an ad or hearing an ad. It's
Speaker 1: an intrusion to that experience no questions about it. So
Speaker 1: consumers say they put ad blocks or they are going
Speaker 1: to add free environment by paying dollars. In that kind
Speaker 1: of situation, realize where the consumer's mind is, where the
Speaker 1: heart is, and try to adapt your strategies. So if
Speaker 1: consumers are not liking ads, but I still have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to tell them the story of my brand, is
Speaker 1: there anyway I can do it differently than just adds.
Speaker 1: So I pivoted a lot of my money away from
Speaker 1: classical advertising into experiencial marketing. We started identifying what are
Speaker 1: the things people are passionate about ten areas we call
Speaker 1: them passion points like sports, music, shopping, travel, philanthropy, sustainability,
Speaker 1: and so on. In each one of these areas, we
Speaker 1: try to create and curate experiences that money cannot buy,
Speaker 1: but you can get all the big master card when
Speaker 1: people are experiencing those at scale, we amplify those stories.
Speaker 1: So we let people tell their stories and we amplify them.
Speaker 1: That was a big bet that I had to take
Speaker 1: in two thousand. There were a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are very apprehensive whether they is going to work. Here
Speaker 1: he goes again exactly, So fast forward now six years
Speaker 1: our seven years almost nine MasterCards brand has been related
Speaker 1: as the fastest growing brand during the year by inter Brand.
Speaker 1: We were not even the top hundred at that time.
Speaker 1: Now we are growing the fastest brand z We used
Speaker 1: to beat about eighties seven in the list of top
Speaker 1: hundred brands. Today we are at twelve and the United
Speaker 1: States we are at number eight. If you look at
Speaker 1: brands at value scores, we are growing three to four
Speaker 1: times as fast as some of our competitors. So on
Speaker 1: the brand front, felding exceptionally well. So we said these
Speaker 1: strategies are working for us. That was a success, but
Speaker 1: that was more the umbrella. MasterCards also a purpose driven company.
Speaker 1: What exactly is that and what's so appealing about that?
Speaker 1: For someone like you? When they look at MasterCard, they
Speaker 1: found the foundation at the time when the company was
Speaker 1: going to I p O two thousand seven ars so
Speaker 1: and that foundation today I believe is the world's largest
Speaker 1: corporate philanthropy with assets of more than thirty billion dollars.
Speaker 1: The philosophy here has been that let us try and
Speaker 1: see if societal good doing something good for the society
Speaker 1: can be a core part of our business as opposed
Speaker 1: to be a side show. Somewhere we launched something called
Speaker 1: Priceless Causes the biggest problems in the world, one is cancer.
Speaker 1: So we found an excellent partner in Stand Up to
Speaker 1: Cancer Foundation, and we created campaign saying that if you
Speaker 1: use your master card during these eight weeks in the
Speaker 1: United States at any restaurant, we'll contribute a small portion
Speaker 1: of that revenue into Stand Up to Cancer Foundation, who
Speaker 1: in turn will then bring some of the best scientists
Speaker 1: from around the world form in to what they call
Speaker 1: as dream teams, who will work on a given problem
Speaker 1: in a collaborative fashion and come up with solutions. The
Speaker 1: business is also benefiting in the same breath, So the
Speaker 1: business objective and the societal objective are nicely dovetailing in
Speaker 1: our strategy. And that's what is really gratifying. Too good
Speaker 1: and do good for your business. I want you to
Speaker 1: take a couple of minutes here and b t jure
Speaker 1: what power or authority does a c amount need to
Speaker 1: be truly effective. Right now, the position of CMO is
Speaker 1: under existential threat. Many companies have started eliminating the role
Speaker 1: of cmos, primarily because I guess there is a lack
Speaker 1: of apprecision of what marketing does and can do from
Speaker 1: the CFOs and from the CEOs, and on the other hand,
Speaker 1: from the cmos unable to justify the linkages between their
Speaker 1: marketing actions and the business outcomes. That has been the
Speaker 1: bin of this whole situation. What is really needed is
Speaker 1: the CEOs. If they are bringing in any CMO, they
Speaker 1: should spend a little time to understand what is the
Speaker 1: power of marketing, what can marketing to It could be
Speaker 1: very eye opening because many of the CEOs, for example,
Speaker 1: they think, oh, it's some organizing some events, or do
Speaker 1: some pretty packaging and decks, or do some hospitality that
Speaker 1: is not marketing at all. Many stretch of imagination. So
Speaker 1: I think they should invest in themselves to learn about marketing.
Speaker 1: Half of marketing is art and the other half of
Speaker 1: his science the magic. Exactly right. The problem is many
Speaker 1: folks are quick to poopoo the art set of marketing.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult for a CMO to stand up and say,
Speaker 1: or any market for that matter, to stand up and
Speaker 1: so white is great. Now, if you're putting a picture
Speaker 1: of Mona Lisa in front of CEO who does not
Speaker 1: understand art, then say, yeah, maybe waited to make the smile.
Speaker 1: Look this way, willing to make her look down, wady
Speaker 1: to make her where I watch. It's very, very important
Speaker 1: for the CEO to not either bilittle or dilute the
Speaker 1: role of the CMO if he makes one negative comment
Speaker 1: in a public kind of a situation, that gives a
Speaker 1: lot of impetus to the rest of the ecosystem to
Speaker 1: keep trashing marketing and before you know the effectiveness of
Speaker 1: the entire function dies down. You should, as a CEO
Speaker 1: never let that happen. You in your organization, offer finance
Speaker 1: one oh one training for your marketing people. Where did
Speaker 1: that idea come from? And what's the impack? Then part
Speaker 1: of it is the genesis. How do you make sure
Speaker 1: that people understand the value of marketing and for marketers
Speaker 1: to understand the connection between marketing and the rest of
Speaker 1: the business now today rightly so, CFOs and CEOs are
Speaker 1: demanding what am I getting in return? The CMO need
Speaker 1: to have a very clear answer that talks the language
Speaker 1: of the CEO and the CFO. Not just give some fluffer.
Speaker 1: My brand awareness will come down, my net promoters score
Speaker 1: will go down. Nobody cares about it other than the
Speaker 1: marketer himself for herself. They need to understand the linkages
Speaker 1: and connect and convincingly talk about it, not just because
Speaker 1: believe me or trust me, but they should be quantitative evidence.
Speaker 1: Most of the marketers have come from the creative side
Speaker 1: of the house. They're not quantitative. They don't understand numbers.
Speaker 1: So what we said is in our case, we don't
Speaker 1: want to fall into that traffic MasterCard. So every CMA,
Speaker 1: every marketing person will go through a series of trainings,
Speaker 1: one of which, for example, is finance one on one,
Speaker 1: next one is payments one on one. Then we do
Speaker 1: digital marketing one on one. Digital marketing one is not
Speaker 1: only open to just the marketers but also the other
Speaker 1: people in the system, so they need to understand what
Speaker 1: is marketing doing. So it's a part of the educating
Speaker 1: the system as well. If you look at the demands
Speaker 1: on a marketer today, marketer needs to understand numbers and data.
Speaker 1: If some vendor comes and says, so, I've got a
Speaker 1: fantastic solution, which is AI powered, do you have enough
Speaker 1: knowledge about that space to ask the questions? So you
Speaker 1: need to be data savvy. Then you need to understand technology.
Speaker 1: Do you understand your stack? Do you know if you
Speaker 1: have the right stack, are they need remuance is marketing
Speaker 1: folks are more general managers who have got a deep
Speaker 1: specialization in marketing as opposed to having marketing specialists who
Speaker 1: are not good for anything else. So what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is to attract new talent which is more
Speaker 1: general management oriented and within the company, cross train or
Speaker 1: existing people across different areas, based on, of course, their
Speaker 1: aptitude and their interest, trying to get them as equipped
Speaker 1: for the future as possible. So lifestyle you travel how
Speaker 1: many days a year? Two hundred plus? You're a vegan? Meditate?
Speaker 1: I meditate? You love dogs? I love dogs? How do
Speaker 1: those things help you survive two hundred days on the road?
Speaker 1: Meditation is a big grounding experience. It centers you very nicely,
Speaker 1: calms you down, puts things in perspective, gives you a
Speaker 1: good balance so that I find it is absolutely invaluable.
Speaker 1: I think an excited mind will think less creatively and
Speaker 1: will think less intelligently. A calm mine is really very productive.
Speaker 1: I used to be a vegetarian. I gave up dairy
Speaker 1: and now I'm a complete hard person vegan for the
Speaker 1: last almost two and a half years. My weight has
Speaker 1: come down. I find myself a little bit more energetic.
Speaker 1: The third one dogs For me. I have three dogs,
Speaker 1: three big dogs, relation rich bags, and I absolutely love
Speaker 1: them to death. They're so affectionate, they're swellowing. Being with them,
Speaker 1: even for a few minutes is so therapeutic. When I
Speaker 1: go home, that's when I experience I look forward to,
Speaker 1: which just spending time with the dogs. You've done so much.
Speaker 1: Let's get just a little bit of advice if you could.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give to your twenty one year
Speaker 1: old self. There's so much more life than just work.
Speaker 1: And I think for the longest part of my career,
Speaker 1: I have been going straight twenty four hours, thirty six
Speaker 1: hours sometimes and I think I'll tell myself now, that's
Speaker 1: actually not a great thing. You need to have a
Speaker 1: balanced life. Let's go to advice for agencies. What advice
Speaker 1: would you give to an agency about the best way
Speaker 1: to work with a strong CMO. As far as the
Speaker 1: agencies are concerned today, I think they have got also
Speaker 1: some level of existential threat with the consulting companies coming
Speaker 1: in and a lot of insourcing happening, fragmentation and all
Speaker 1: those good things they should be investing in building long
Speaker 1: term relationships with their clients. With the cmos, they have
Speaker 1: to bring something which will help the CMO and his
Speaker 1: team succeed. At the end of the day, they have
Speaker 1: to create magic, right but magic cannot be without costs,
Speaker 1: so they have to really treat the relationship as in
Speaker 1: a holistic relationship, not just you know, you pay us
Speaker 1: the fees and we give you a good creative The
Speaker 1: key thing is given that the cmos have so many
Speaker 1: options now and with the AI also coming in, and
Speaker 1: I've seen some acts created by AI which are shockingly
Speaker 1: good looking. So in that kind of a situation, I
Speaker 1: think agencies have to reinvent themselves along these lines. So
Speaker 1: as you wrap up, we always give a shout out
Speaker 1: to the best in analytics and the best in creative.
Speaker 1: Who would you put on the pedestal for the analytical
Speaker 1: side of marketing? I would probably say a combination of
Speaker 1: Google or Amazon. About creative, I would not put anyone
Speaker 1: singularly on the pedestal as well as creative is concern. Honestly, Roger,
Speaker 1: you are an inspiration to so many You mentor a
Speaker 1: lot of people. You have an amazing story. Thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing it with us today. Thank you so much. Pob
Speaker 1: Absolutely pleasure being here and thank you for having me here.
Speaker 1: Here are a few things I picked up in my
Speaker 1: conversation with Roger. One, look ahead. Even though Mastercard's Priceless
Speaker 1: campaign was working well, Roger saw the need to evolve
Speaker 1: it for changing media environment. Two. To be a good marketer,
Speaker 1: study sales. When you understand what it takes to sell
Speaker 1: a product on the ground, you'll be better equipped to
Speaker 1: create smart campaigns. Three, get buy in from everyone on
Speaker 1: your team and in your company. As Roger says, even
Speaker 1: the brightest ideas can fail if they're not emotionally embraced.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. I'm Bob Pittman. That's it for today's episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Math and Magic, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. This show is hosted by
Speaker 1: Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sue Schillinger for booking and
Speaker 1: wrangling our wonderful talent, Just no small feat Nikki Eatore
Speaker 1: for pulling research, Bill Plax and Michael Asar for their recording, health,
Speaker 1: our editor Ryan Murdoch, and of course gave Al Raoul,
Speaker 1: Eric Angel, Noel Mango, and everyone who helped bring this
Speaker 1: show to your ears. Until next time,