5 Minutes with… Menaka Menon
Menaka Menon has been on a journey that led her through the realms of media and design before leading her back to advertising.
Now, back and better than ever, Menaka brings fresh perspectives from diverse fields.
Speaking with LBB’s Tom Loudon, she discusses how pivotal projects have shaped her strategic approach and highlights the significant role advertising plays in driving cultural change. Menaka also delves into balancing creativity with analytical demands and the importance of responsible advertising.
Menaka's experiences offer a deep understanding of how to navigate and influence the dynamic landscape of modern advertising. Her insights and experiences continue to influence impactful work at DDB Mudra.
LBB> What inspired you to return to the advertising industry after finding success in other fields?
Menaka> This industry seems to pull on me. It is one place where you get to work across multiple categories and businesses simultaneously. There is never a dull moment, with different problems and challenges. And I truly enjoy the energy when everyone comes together to solve a given challenge.
My exposure and experiences outside of advertising have also given me a newer and broader perspective, which I have found adds excellent value to our work here.
LBB> Can you share a pivotal moment in your career at DDB Mudra Group that significantly influenced your strategic approach?
Menaka> When people start engaging in difficult conversations, change begins to happen. And we saw that happen, to ourselves, while we were working on a brief.That’s when we knew we had hit paydirt on that specific project.And that moment further strengthened the fact that for any change at scale, conversation leads to awareness, which leads to eventual change.
We were working on a global DEI campaign for a client. We were in the midst of consumer work to better understand how DEI practice seeped into the organisation’s fabric, how people experienced it, how it shifted culture, etc. Through this immersion process, we heard different people voice their experiences, the slight microaggressions they each experienced, etc. Hearing this made each of us on the team become aware of the many nuances we all tend to miss out on. Engaging in that conversation for a while made us all more aware and conscious of our minor, unintended infractions, leading us to alter our behaviour and stop making those mistakes again.
This was an AHA moment for the entire team. Our entire approach to the campaign became about taking these microaggressions head-on because just engaging with those instances could make people more conscious and careful of their own behaviour.
LBB> How do you see the role of advertising in driving cultural change and impacting society?
Menaka> Our social conditioning shapes who we are, and advertising plays a crucial role in either perpetuating or reshaping these influences.
It is a reciprocal relationship, with advertising reflecting and deriving from popular social mores just as much as it influences or perpetuates them.In this context, we as an industry have the responsibility to ensure that any work we produce is socially responsible, does not perpetuate biases, and, where possible, helps provoke conversation around sensitive topics.
An example of this is the work on Stayfree. By normalising conversations around periods and bringing fathers into the conversation, the work on Stayfree has played a critical role in bringing the conversation around menstruation to the fore.
Doing work such as this is not just an opportunity but also a responsibility that each of us in the industry shoulders. After all, the more might behind it, the sooner the change will happen.
LBB> How does your experience in various industries influence your current role in advertising?
Menaka> Each of my non-advertising experiences has given me a different perspective and some new learnings, all of which I can plough back into my current role.
My time in design strategy and strategic consulting has influenced my approach to customer-backed problem-solving. It has helped me hone my skills in research synthesis and connecting the dots to arrive at the right problem.
Working at a non-profit to build and scale out a product intervention involved solving issues at various levels, from manufacturing and the supply chain to the end consumer, including creating a model for capital access among the unbanked. This experience gave me a far broader perspective, given that it entailed every aspect of the supply-demand cycle. This perspective helped me look at client problems from a broader perspective.
Building a consulting practice that worked with small business owners to optimise their processes and systems to improve revenues and bottom lines has given me a keener understanding of business processes and systems.
Each of these experiences adds to my present role, be it in terms of the consumer and the ecosystem, the client business challenges, or even our business needs.
LBB> What core principles guide your approach to strategic planning and business growth?
Menaka> In many cases, the presented problem must be reframed to get to the real problem that needs solving. The first step is going deep and understanding business challenges and market realities.
This is followed by a deep immersion to get beneath the consumer's skin and understand the cultural context and specific nuances.
All of this information is just that — information until one connects the dots and arrives at something that has the power to move both the consumer and the business.
LBB> How do you balance advertising's creative aspects with the analytical demands of strategy and business management?
Menaka> Our business is genuinely about the left and the right brains coming together.
Advertising wouldn’t have flourished this long had it not been for the coming together of these two aspects, not just as two departments but even as individuals in the industry, each bringing their creative and analytical sides together to create magic.
Suppose you look at it from the perspective of business and strategy. In that case, the task is to understand business challenges, identify the right problem to solve, go deep and build out the right approach to addressing that problem, and then inspire the creative team with an insight that unpacks the problem interestingly. This requires creativity in addition to the analytical side. And it’s this yin and yang that keeps it interesting.
LBB> What are the most critical skills for a strategist in the advertising industry today?
Menaka> Technology has made data and information gathering far easier in today’s times, with various AI tools aiding immensely in the process. It is essential to leverage this tech and utilise it to one’s aid.
But even as this is relevant and critical, it is equally important to do the consumer and stakeholder immersion and engagement. Only by getting to the heart of what makes the consumer tick can one unearth the specific nuances and insights relevant to the problem.
LBB> How do you ensure the campaigns you oversee empower consumers and provide them with the right information to make informed choices?
Menaka> This question speaks to what responsible advertising is all about.
The role of advertising is not about influencing at any cost; instead, it is about providing consumers with information and allowing them to choose for themselves. And that’s something we pay particular attention to here at the agency.
Our recent work on i-activ menstrual cups is an example of this. The work here has been about enabling the consumer with answers to all the questions she is not always comfortable asking, explanations and clarifications that allow her to make an informed choice about her choice of menstrual care product.
As an agency, we also pay particular attention to understanding the cultural contexts and regional nuances and ensuring our work is inclusive of all communities. We have many initiatives to ensure everyone on the team is well-informed and engages in conversations about these nuances. These initiatives and practices go a long way towards ensuring that any work we put out there bears the mantle of responsible creativity.
