Asit Gupta, Founder, Advocaci
Asit Gupta is a professional manager who, through his startup ventures, is bringing about positive changes in the social sector. Asit is the founder of ‘Advocaci’ and ‘Women Of Opinion’. The entrepreneur had previously worked with ‘Procter and Gamble’, ‘British American Tobacco’, and ‘DDP Advertising’.
Podcast
Overview
Asit Gupta is a professional manager who, through his startup ventures, is bringing about positive changes in the social sector. Asit is the founder of ‘Advocaci’ and ‘Women Of Opinion’. The entrepreneur had previously worked with ‘Procter and Gamble’, ‘British American Tobacco’, and ‘DDP Advertising’.
The FMCG marketing guru explains how to build a brand. Asit, in this episode, summarises the learnings of his life into a few minutes of insightful discussion. He elucidates the revolutionary concept of ‘flipping the marketing funnel’.
In the section that follows, he talks about his social sector initiative, WOOP, a community of over three million women, spread across seven countries. The multi-faceted entrepreneur advises young individuals who are starting their career in the corporate sector.
Profile
Asit Gupta is one of the few marketers in the world to have worked in 3 out of the 4 BRIC countries, having worked in India, China, Russia and UK. He has 26 years of experience which straddles big FMCG cos like P&G Inc, BAT plc, an advertising company – DDB advertising and finally as an entrepreneur for the last 10 years. His entrepreneurial journey has two distinct parts. -Part 1 was focused on championing a philosophy of marketing with, not @ consumers, through his company Advocaci. This meant collaborating with current customers to turn them into active advocates who recommend, review and refer brands to their social circle. This involves flipping the marketing funnel, embracing consumers as part of marketing team and changing the traditional mindset of controlling the message. Within 3 years, Advocaci became the most awarded word of mouth company in the world winning 8 WOMMYs – the oscars of word of mouth, more than what anybody has ever won. However we found that’s its not easy to change the entrenched mindset as well as current marketing system and establishment which continues to focus on targeting consumers and surrounding and interrupting them with messages, now though with more targeting and ubiquity courtesy digital technologies. While we had fame and also fulfillment because we were doing more authentic marketing, the business didn’t grow commercially as expected. Depth lost the battle over reach. Part 2 which started in 2017, was the launch of a platform called WOOP, which stands for WOmen of Opinion. This combined the learnings from part 1 and Asit’s desire to give back to society in a sustained and structured way. WOOP aims to make marketing a force for good, a force for compassion and not just consumption. WOOP is working with capitalism’s worst instincts- engendering mindless consumption, to help the underprivileged – those who are not yet a consuming class.
