Asit Gupta, Founder, Advocaci and Founder, Women Of Opinion (WOOP)

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.