Storyboard18: Mastercard’s global CMO Raja Rajamannar in conversation with Meesho’s Vidit Aatrey

The pandemic, and the chaos it’s unleashed in our world, is certainly not the last global crisis we’ll see. Given the increasingly complex and uncertain times, our greatest test will be endurance. Businesses and brands face the same challenge today.

Storyboard18's special series Build To Last, featuring Raja Rajamannar, global chief marketing and communications officer and president - Healthcare business, Mastercard, helps us decode new realities and the power of brand in building lasting and legendary companies.

Watch Rajamannar’s insight-packed conversations with brand and business leaders of homegrown companies, which will surface ideas and strategies to build future-fit, enduring brands. They also share insights for business and marketing leaders at legacy Indian companies and startups on a fast-growth path.

Rajamannar, who wrote the best-seller 'Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow's Consumers', will engage with these leaders to give us a glimpse of how companies can reimagine marketing for the modern world. We'll also learn the importance of cultivating and sustaining an innovative mindset, and how companies harness the power of purpose and people-first cultures to build brands.

In the first episode, Rajamannar chats with e-commerce startup Meesho’s founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey, who shares how he is building one of the most fast-growing brands in India. Watch the two in a conversation for the first time on Moneycontrol and CNBC-TV18, this weekend.

When asked what it takes to build brands that are endearing and enduring, Aatrey said one has to earn the customer’s trust with every single interaction. “And, never take your customer for granted,” he said.

“A lot of legacy products (companies) that we see, you just start to feel that someone takes you for granted and that's when disruption happens. We have to always keep working towards earning the customer’s trust in every single interaction every single time and if you do that for years, then you have a chance of building an enduring brand,” he explained.

Adding to Aatrey’s view, Rajamannar summarised, an enduring brand is not only adaptive and adjusts constantly, but it is also consistent. “Many brands can lose their way with some shiny new pennies and toys... You need to have your Northstar and keep your core focused on it,” he said.

Watch the interaction on Storyboard18 on CNBC-TV18 and CNBCTV18.com, and the full conversation on Moneycontrol, on Saturday, November 6 at 8.30 AM. And read 'Build To aLast' in Forbes India.