Udayan Bose - NetElixir

Speaker A: Udane Bose founded NetElixir almost 20 years ago. They're an integrated digital marketing agency that focuses on client empathy and doing as much powerful good in the world as possible. Today we talked about the transformation in pay per click campaigns, the needs of developing countries, and how AI in the metaverse has an opportunity to bridge a constantly fragmenting world. He was our guest today on the brand manual. It is so nice for you to join us this morning and we really appreciate you taking the time to do that. And I am fascinated by E commerce. We, as marketers, we're always interested in what is, uh, new and what is on the bleeding edge of digital, uh, marketing. So it really is an honor to have you with us today and so thank you for being here.

Speaker B: The honor is all mine. Uh, Mark, thank you so much for having me on this, uh, on uh, this show. I have been sort of listening to some of your previous podcasts and all of them are exceptional. Even if I get.

Speaker A: Oh, thank you.

Speaker B: 10% of that level, I'll consider myself very successful.

Speaker A: Well, I'm sure that we're going to get into some really good stuff today, so I would love it if you could kind of, um, as the founder and CEO, you have the longest tenure with the company. So tell us about how, how you guys decided this is a thing that the world needs. It must have this, it must have net elixir. So tell us the origin story.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely, Mark. So this goes back to probably about 2002, 2003. Uh, Mark, uh, at that point in time, uh, uh, with two of my engineering schoolmates, we were still in India at that time in uh, a city called Hyderabad. We, uh, decided to start an online gaming company. So they had already started this. I had joined them later as uh, someone who started their bingo business. Uh, it was a fascinating time. This was like the wild west of online. 2002, 2003.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And you could do whatever you essentially wanted to do. So we started a bingo business. And uh, they already had poker and casino running and all of this from the city of Hyderabad, India. We had our offices in Dominican Republic. And uh, that was the time there was this small company called Google which essentially uh, was uh, slowly uh, emerging into sort of a massive focus. Yahoo used to be a dominant player then. And uh, uh, Yahoo had come up with an interesting model, probably not even Yahoo, a company called Overture had started an interesting, uh, marketing model which was called the pay per click advertising. So anytime clicks on any ad, uh, it was done by a gentleman called Bill Close, uh, Way back, I think 1999 or something. So it was an interesting. I'm sorry, Bill Gross, not Bill Close. Uh, it was an interesting one because um, we used to spend a lot of money at this company, party gaming that I was working for. Um, and it really seemed to convert extremely well. So these people sort of clicked on it, they came to the website, they signed up as a real money player or a play money player. So in our gaming world, uh, and it was interesting because we could actually go ahead and really, really capture the return on investment and fascinating part. So I have a, I have a bit of a maths and tech background. Uh, and uh, one of my, one of my big uh, big struggles is everything has to be measurable and this really into that particular mold very well. This was entirely measurable. This was controllable to an extent. And um, we used to invest a lot at party gaming. In fact, party gaming went on to mark becoming the uh, world's largest online gaming company in 2005. Uh, it was actually at that time bigger than Google and British Airways combined. But anyway I sort of moved on from party gaming in 2003, December, uh, to start the company which could bring in uh, a bit of a mathematical modeling as well as uh, a lot of technology to make this, what was called the PPC advertising then pay per click advertising or paid search advertising, uh, predictable, uh, and controllable for advertisers. So that was the inspiration starting off then. Uh, also I mean I come from uh, a pretty middle class Indian family and we were in India. So uh, all of my father's side, they are professors or teachers and their son working in an online gaming company was not really a matter of great pride. So this really allowed me to step out into a more ethical world of Google and search advertising and mathematics and so on which I absolutely, absolutely cherish.

Speaker A: That's wonderful.

Speaker B: We started off. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: You know there you said the more ethical world of actual, you know, digital marketing and advertising for, for people who don't understand the back end and the algorithms and the ways that, that it actually there is a true science to it and those who can see it and appreciate it, um, bring a tremendous amount of value to the marketplace. Because part of the difficulty of dealing I'm sure with clients is that you have amassed a massive body of knowledge and information and there's probably a consistent struggle to go. I understand your questions but let me help you, let me help this make sense to you. Right? So you're having to, to communicate with clients and do Some education piece. I would imagine we face that from time to time. Uh, helping to educate, to say no, no, here is the methodology and it works these ways. And let me help you interpret that. Do you feel like that's a thing that you guys are doing all the time?

Speaker B: So I think one things that we have learned I, I think in all, all humility I think uh, even though we may have the knowledge uh it's I, I think it has been extremely important for us to understand that every client's business is unique and in many cases we work for a fairly wide range of mid sized companies, SMBs and some large companies as well. But majority of our folks would be anywhere between $20 million to maybe $70 million. Right. That's our uh, area that we focus on and uh, it's a very humbling moment to see the amount of passion these uh, uh, these businesses have for their business. So m, uh, I think the, the moniker so as to say that we have essentially used is remember Mark, those uh, uh, uh, old family physicians who sit, sat beside your bedside when you were not feeling well and who uh, held your hand, sort of held the pulse and m patient in terms of asking you questions and listening very carefully didn't really sort of try to jump in. They didn't try to preach. They just sort of listened very patiently and just because of the empathy that they showed you felt very comfortable. I mean your uh, your, your illness probably was half cured right there and then when they spoke it really had substance. M this was the same feeling which we felt because uh, at party gating I was doing the marketing for about two years. Um, I somehow felt that the agency's world uh had become a little too transactional. I mean we were in gaming company and the other agency that we were working with, they were trying to impose what they had learned for E commerce or retail uh onto the world of online gaming. I mean I really wish they had done a little bit, little better in terms of understanding and asking the questions. So when we came in that's the philosophy based on which uh, uh, Netlex was built. Uh having said that, I think the speed and the dynamism uh, that really is uh, almost like the constant factor in our industry or category. I am pretty sure both you and Tim are very aware of that. That really requires uh, a growth mindset uh from our side as well as the client side as well. Because what really was applicable yesterday, uh probably is not applicable today and may not be applicable to us. How to really simplify this part While at the same time listening carefully to the client and matching both of these pieces. Uh, that I must say, as you rightly mentioned, sometimes can be uh, a pretty big task. Uh, yes. So it's an, it's an interesting space that we live in. Uh, the space is changing at a very fast pace. I mean for example, back then Google Ads, if you look at it in today's Google Ads, there is no similarity.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: So uh, I think uh, having that humility that we understand that the client's business is unique and important and at the same time being being aware as well as uh, rather than trying to be a thought leader, just trying to be an extension of the customer's team in transforming those difficult concepts into something which is a little more human, where the customer really feels that they need this rather than we are trying to impose on this. Uh, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, are you primarily still pay per click and Google Ads is your platform that you play on?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think, uh, Tim, I mean roughly about 50% of our business now is the paid search part. Basically Google and a small chunk of Microsoft are Bing as well. Uh, but uh, the balance 50%, I think we have tried to, uh, quite successfully so so far, uh, try to sort of reposition ourselves more as an E commerce growth partner. So specifically working with retail, direct to consumer and B2B commerce companies and helping them grow their business online. That's essentially what our mission is.

Speaker C: Fascinating.

Speaker B: 50% is pay per click though. Yeah, 50% is paid search though.

Speaker C: And you, y', all, you have been doing this since, I mean, since 2005. I mean that's. You have a long tenure in this. What, how is um, are you building this business thinking through the next 20 years we're going to keep going, or are you thinking I want to build this business and it needs to convert into something else? How are you thinking about it?

Speaker B: I think that, that that's a great question, Tim. I mean honestly speaking, before the, before the COVID struck us, I must say that uh, it was just so focused in terms of build, build, build. We never really uh, uh, got any time to take a pause and really reflect. But having said that, I think if I were to really look into the next 10 years, I think that'd be a very good time frame. 10 to 12 years. Uh, what do I see in the digital world? I see obviously the digital world maybe 10 years later, let us say 20, 30, 31 may look completely different. Right. Uh, so far, uh, we have been so used to a certain way in which the Consumers interact and uh, there is a certain amount of predictability in the consumer behavior as well. Or at least the pre Covid times there used to be more predictability. Uh, so that's something which is going to evolve quite dramatically. Right. And uh, a big driver are the digital natives, for example, the Gen Z for example, really interact and engage completely differently compared to probably us or probably completely different from the baby boomers. So it's very interesting as to how the different segments really pan out and where it really sort of settled. But having said that, by 2030 about 40%, probably roughly of the maybe 30 to 40% of the buying cloud would be with these digital natives. Right. These are very comfortable.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker B: And their behavior is difficult, difficult at this point in time to even really predict. So that's, I think the first part, the second part, and I'm sort of giving you a very long winded answer to a very simple question.

Speaker A: No, it's great. Yeah.

Speaker B: The second thing is this entire thing of Metaverse. And I know Metaverse in certain uh, circles can be uh, a matter of ridicule. In other circles it is something which is really, really sort of something which will sort of lead the way. So but my question or my thought is uh, as someone who's there in the industry, what we really try to encourage our team members to do is to really, with an objective and an open mind, really sort of see as to how this evolves and try to really participate in anything in any evolution. Right. It's almost like let us say you're trying to learn riding a bicycle, right. So initially you get it right from the word go, but if somehow we are able to really objectively observe as to how this is evolving and participate, even though I think we have a failed faster motto at Netlix, you may sort of be failing all the time, but at least we sort of figure out as to how this is evolving. So that really has helped us over about 17 years, as you mentioned, 17 or 18 years. And that is something which I think would be critical in terms of companies evolution as such. So that's, I think the one part, the consumer behavior evolution. And how does it really that the different parts of digital really look maybe 10 years hence? The second part, which, uh, I think I'm sort of fascinated with Mark, is this entire concept of more of an inclusive digitalization. So when I say inclusive, I mean you probably know it very well that roughly around 50% of the world doesn't have access to Internet as we do. Right. And uh, they will, I Mean a big chunk of the, we will sort of get the access in the next 10 years. Right. So how would this world look like when suddenly we have almost like different segments come up, segments like digital natives who are uh, extremely comfortable. That's the life that they is basically their primary life. While some folks maybe somewhere, maybe in rural parts of India, somewhere in the eastern, northeastern part of India, right, who doesn't have access to Internet suddenly sort of getting in. So are we really ready to look at the Internet world in a way whereby we are able to be inclusive for all these different groups which come in? Because if we don't do that then we risk um, a big chance of really having a very fragmented world. And as you know very well, I mean I think the current crazy war which is sort of going on, I'm sorry to make an allusion to that, I mean I think it has to be a more unified, a more human place. And for that I think inclusiveness is the key and the digital can really do a lot, lot on that direction. So if I were to really put these concepts like consumer behavior, evolving technology, more of an inclusive digitalization part, uh, I think there is a role for your agency or our agency to play in trying to bridge this gap and that's what we want to be. So I don't know in terms of paid search, to answer your question, whether paid search will be that big etc. Etc. But if you can really help our clients make those human brand connections uh, in a meaningful way, uh, I think ah, I think we would consider ourselves blessed and successful. So that's the part it's basically how do you really make those connections happen in a meaningful manner, uh, essentially for big, big mass around the world.

Speaker A: Yeah M. So I would imagine though that with almost 20 years experience, um, as an established agency you're better able to see natural, natural tendencies and the way that markets fragment and to be able to isolate and really focus in on specific key demographics or psychographics. Uh, you're able to be able to speak simultaneously to that Gen Z kid who is not just digital native, but like not, not just native but like 90% of his life and human interactions are happening there and at the same time be able to, to help in the transactional way with somebody who's like I'm just happy to be able to click on something and it gets delivered to me that in a way that I couldn't get any sort of access to, to goods or online services uh two years ago. So I would imagine people who Already think in terms of segments are really poised to be able to sort of um, address both or multiples.

Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. Mark. So I think one is the segments part and the second part is how are these segments evolving as well. Like for example a very uh, candid confession which I sort of did to my team. See if I were to try to uh, essentially as a Gen Xer, try to really, really project as to how would a Gen Z think. I know I'll fail all the time. I think so effectively in our company we have this uh, this responsibility sort of lies with the Gen Z folks who are there in the company. Right. So I think it's important for us to really. And that really requires a tremendous amount of humility as well. Um, Mark. Right. Because you really have to accept first of all that you will not be able to figure out the mindset or the overall behavioral patterns of this, of this very unique segment. Right. I think that that's, I think the accepting that, being humble about that. The second part is identifying and really encouraging the team to really go ahead and do that for you essentially. So it's a fascinating part, um, the other piece where I mean it, the folks who are sort of new to the Internet, so I'm probably digressing a little bit on this one team but we also started uh, a non profit uh, in India. It's uh, more of the rural parts of India called the Flight foundation or uh, in India we call it the Quran Foundation. Mark. So uh, there is a massive challenge or a problem in the developing nations where young girls, just because their parents cannot support their education, they get married away after the age of 13. It's just an uh, just I mean just to give you an understanding. Every seven minutes one girl who's 13 gets married away. Right. Just because it's, it's a, ah, it's a massive humanitarian going on. It's just absolutely terrible. So we started this foundation which uh, identifies just a small group of girls, three to five girls and we sort of sponsor their education, the high school and four years of college. And this time I was in India actually to celebrate because the first batch is just two girls essentially they graduated and they already have got about three job offers each for companies like Accenture, all right, Virtuosa, uh, and Hitachi and all that. So extremely proud. But I think while you talk about it in terms of just being sort of proud about it, but if I were to really look at their overall engagement patterns versus the engagement patterns of those girls who did not get selected in our program. Right. So I'm just doing a bit of a, uh. Again, yeah, being very analytical, Mark. I just analyzed as to the girl did not really get in and so on. So the girls who did not really get into the program, uh, they already have at least one kid team. It's just crazy, right? And, uh, they would be 20 years of age or 19 years of age. And they, for them still owning just a basic phone is the, the highest level that you can really get to. And these girls who came from the same slums, essentially in these underprivileged neighborhoods in India, they are able to now really compete. And she is joining Accenture. One of the girls is joining Accenture. The second one is joining Hitachi, and she'll be talking about product management and this entire class and so on. So it's almost like a surreal moment I spent with them exactly a week back last Monday I was with them. And it's just fascinating, right? So if you really take that analogy and really extend to the entire world now, the question is, is it the question of accessibility? Is it the question of somehow really finding champions who can help these folks? But one thing I hope that you would agree with me that if, if the, the polarization or the, the fragmentation becomes too huge, uh, it can fundamentally probably create problems that we may not be able to even. So that's the. Yes, the idea of unifying everything and the inclusive digitalization, I think, becomes an important, important component. But that was, I think, the, the point I was talking about. So different segments, different evolution patterns. But we didn't have to sort of get everyone, all these segments in and then really identify members from that particular demographic segment and so on. The Gen Z's focus on the Gen Z's, let it tell us about their behavior and so on. So we. Very interesting time. So it's very, very interesting.

Speaker C: So I, what, what is wild to me is we're having a conversation with marketers, marketer to marketer, but what we're really talking about and already veering into is, is global economics, global politics, um, right now, and hopefully this won't date the show, but there's the Russian, Ukrainian war that's at play right now. And a majority of it goes into, uh, information war. And um, and an interesting thing I saw yesterday is that the US Believes that the Ukrainians are winning the information war because, um, all of our social channels and Reddit and everything is filled up with Ukrainian, uh, uh, messaging. But the thing I saw yesterday is that Russia has not even started targeting USA with their information, they are more pushing in India and in Africa uh, because of population and proximity. And so um, as we, as even global politics advances, companies like yours and like ours, messaging and communications companies, um, they, they play a higher and higher importance role. And so your, your company turning and putting more emphasis on what is the good that we can do, I think is, is brilliant. It keeps a focus on something positive versus something negative. Um, but also I think it's uh, finding creative ways to, to utilize your skill sets. Right. So uh, I don't know, uh, do you, in your company, do you think about like how. How is my company influencing the global economy?

Speaker B: Well, I think that may be a little bit of a far fetched thing, but I think you sort of bring in a very important point in that we discuss a lot in the company, right? Uh, the entire concept of what is the responsibility of uh, companies like ours, right? I mean uh, your company Netflix and so on and so forth. Right? So I think. So that's, there is a, there is a big responsibility component as well. Because, primarily because uh, the communication as you rightly mentioned Tim, uh, I mean it's bound to become very polarized, right? I mean Russia, uh, I mean they are uh, sort of having their own propaganda. Uh, here there is a different part, there is a third party and so on. And someone really has to take an objective viewpoint to this thing, an objective viewpoint and say that, let us just talk about as to what are the facts, but most importantly the context as well. Take a step back and really in a responsible manner try to help the clients really go ahead and market themselves. And I think that, I think is a very important piece from that perspective. So I don't know whether we uh, directly can make any claims in terms of influencing the global economy. I think the goals I have seen normally need to be stretched, but achievable for team. But what I really try to uh, challenge the team constantly on is about the responsibility as marketers. And that's something which it's extremely important for us to understand. Uh, because in the, I mean you can only connect the dots looking backwards. Right? So essentially after five years, the work that you are doing today may really have an impact which may not be even visible to you today. But if you really do the right thing, doing the right thing is extremely important and doing it in a way which has a human face or human touch, uh, I think five years later you would not be ashamed of the work that you did today or you would actually be extremely proud of the work that you do today and then you can really claim back that maybe team in a very, very small way we really had an impact which was much bigger than just that small paid search campaign or whatever paid social Facebook campaign that you are running. Uh, it was much bigger than that. So just really taking a step. So we have this concept of five years hence, how would this look? So, and then sort of bring it back to really uh, define us.

Speaker A: So that's kind of a, that's kind of a governing rubric that you guys talk about all the time is five years.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So five years back, I mean if you really retrace back, I mean would you really be proud of doing that thing today? Yeah.

Speaker C: So what are you working on today that in five years you're going to be most proud of?

Speaker B: Well I think one, I don't know, it's difficult to tell you that uh, there are a couple of areas which I am uh, very uh, excited about. I mean one is on the humanitarian side. I'll start with that. The foundation Mark that I talked about. Uh, see currently we have just about 15 girls who really we are sponsoring. So every year about three girls join in. We have probably five. Uh, our goal is in five years if that number can be raised to maybe over 200 I think it's possible.

Speaker A: Wonderful.

Speaker B: Because that's I think one part and in 10 years we want to go that number to about 1,000. So that's I think one piece. And we are now finally taking some measure that this again not to really demeanor any sort of uh, anything but I think now that one full cycle is complete and the uh, so called from a startup perspective that the MVP is now really proven that this is, this model works. The goal is how can we really scale it uh in a beautiful manner with the right people that I think 1. The second part that we are very fascinated with is this intersection of AI and uh Metaverse, so the AR VR and primarily the virtual reality and the AI world. Now uh, we have invested substantially over the last about five years building our uh, own first party customer intelligence platform uh Mark. And that's something uh, which we are going to be launching on an alpha mode uh in about three months from now. Uh what it does it really helps us get a deeper understanding of those consumer behavioral nuances which you may not be able to get through a standard analytics platform. And really it provides that stimulus to marketers to market in a more uh, responsible manner. So I think that customer intelligence platform called Alexa Insights I think is a big one and associated to that, the we have set up about seven different groups who are working on one problem or solving one problem or tackling one problem essentially in the virtual reality or the metaverse world. So, uh, we, uh, recently had an annual innovation contest in the India office. And I think there were about multiple teams. We selected about seven teams. Each one of them is sort of working on a different project. This is ball groups, about four people per group and seven groups working on different things. And their only mandate team is to go ahead and try something new and fail that, fail faster is I think, extremely important because the learning that we are able to get but by freeing up people and getting their creativity at full blast can be precious. So those are the two areas I'm really proud of that m the AI and the metaverse part and the humanitarian, more of the foundation, not the flight foundation part.

Speaker C: Ah, that's fantastic. Thank you for being on. This has been fascinating and enlightening.

Speaker B: Thank you very much for having me. It's absolutely a privilege. Great.

Speaker A: We'll be in touch.

Speaker B: Thank you so much, Mark. Thanks a lot. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Brand Manual podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. We'd be super grateful if you shared. You can find the other episodes on Apple Podcast and Spotify. We'll see you next time on the Brand Manual podcast.