143 - Soumya Mohanty on Why Spending More Is Making Brands Invisible | The Erosion Nobody's Talking About

Indian brands are spending more and standing out less. Here's why and what the 2.5X Thriver brands are doing differently.What the flywheel economy, GEO, and upstream brand building mean for every CMO in India right now.In this episode, we go deep on Kantar's latest intelligence on brand meaningful difference and why India's marketing budgets are growing while brand distinctiveness erodes. We unpack the always-on flywheel of retail, social, search, and LLMs that now shapes consumer decisions before they even know they're deciding. We examine how rural India's digital behaviour has outpaced brand strategy by years — and what an original rural-first strategy actually looks like beyond the affordability lens.0:00 Why brands spend more and get remembered less1:09 Brand building playbook for 2026 introduced2:06 Funnel to flywheel: how media fragmentation changed marketing3:32 Meaningful difference: thrivers vs survivors5:16 Tanishq case study: emotional brand building6:24 Why 85% of brands fail at emotional relevance7:50 Royal Enfield brand comeback: emotional consistency11:25 Platform creativity vs consistent brand proposition13:50 Why repurposing TV ads for digital fails15:08 Brand health metrics: what to track instead of VTR16:52 LLM brand visibility and share of model explained17:22 Why PR matters more in the AI era20:14 GEO optimisation: appearing in AI recommendations25:02 Winning upstream: priming consumers before purchase30:27 Retail media and quick commerce strategy34:40 Rural India: the most underserved brand opportunity38:18 Trends vs fads: how to tell the difference39:00 2026 brand correction: what survives39:35 Brand building playbook summary for 202642:09 Rapid Fire - Getting Personal with Soumya