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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds, Brand Nerds, calling all Brand Nerds, LT.
LT: Yes, sir.
DC: We're back at you with another podcast of Brands Beats and Bytes. LT, I'm going to start this podcast with a familiar quote. And it is, "The stuff you don't know about the stuff you know." Oren Katzeff, guest on Brands Beats and Bytes.
He dropped that on us, Larry, one time. And we thought to ourselves when he said it, the best movies, stories, content, books. All of it. They have this one quote in common. They tell you the stuff you don't know about the stuff, you know. Brand Nerds, this, this next guest of ours. Um, he's an example of that for me.
We worked together at the Coke Coca Cola company when it was Camelot. When it was the Apple, the Amazon, the Meta, any of the major juggernaut companies, the Googles of today. That is what Coca Cola was when I was walking the halls back in the day with our next guest. What I did not know about this brother was while I was watching a brand manager in the making, I was also watching the birth of an entrepreneur.
I did not know that at the time I thought like he, and I, and you, Larry, we were all there to rush up on our brand and management chops, and we were going to follow that path for the rest of our careers, I wasn't certain that I was going to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know whether this brother was going to be an entrepreneur or not.
But it turns out he was on the path of entrepreneurship and specifically he did something Larry and Brand Nerds, he made a decision after his experience at Coke, influenced at Coke, where he picked a path. And this is very interesting brand nerds, because when you go down the brand management path. You are taught to be a generalist.
Then you can determine where you might specialize and not too many of our brand management generalists, uh, Larry will pick the innovation path because it's more techie, it's more science and Brand Nerds, this particular guest of ours, who I can't wait to get into, picked that path. And I think it's going to be very interesting to hear and learn more about how and why he picked and discovered that path and how this brother decided he was going to become an entrepreneur and with that, Larry. Please tell the Brand Nerds who we have in the building with us on this auspicious occasion.
LT: What a great prelude DC. That's awesome. We have Udaiyan Jatar in the house today. Welcome Udaiyan.
Udaiyan Jatar: Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor and a pleasure.
LT: We're thrilled to have you. So, okay Brand Nerds.
As DC alluded to, this is another Coca Cola alum making things happen. And we bring you the best of our, what we call inside Coca Cola, the stock ticker of K. O. The K. O. alums are the best and the brightest are brought to you through, uh, through our show, which is wonderful. And, uh, this is something that, uh, that DC alluded to, someone who, uh, and, and Udaiyan goes by UJ, too, that has really been a driving force in, in really moving business forward through innovation.
And Brand Nerds, if you are a proven innovator, you become a prized, must have executive and this is really UJ. So let's walk you through his very unique journey.
So Udaiyan is born and bred in India, where he is schooled first at Ferguson college, where he earns his undergrad degree in economics, mathematics, and statistics. And then he follows this up with an MBA in marketing from Symbiosis International University. And by the way, UJ funds his college first through being a door to door salesman and then creating, as DC alluded to, his first startup, which was a direct marketing agency.
This is going to be really interesting to hear more about this. I'm sure that this will thread through. So out of school in his native India, Udaiyan's first gig is an excellent one where he goes to work with big global ad agency, Gray Advertising. Where he gets to work on P&G, and Brand Nerds, you've heard us talk, DC and I, a lot about P&G, which is just a great place for young marketers to really cut their teeth.
He first works on Old Spice. And then gets to run the Pantene brand account at Gray. So now he's in the P& G world. UJ then gets to go to work at P&G, where he leads the launch of a line extension for Vicks Vaporub. With this great early success, UJ then gets a great opportunity. to join Coca Cola India, where he is hired to launch new products at Coca Cola India, where he develops the business case and launch strategy for Kinley, which, by the way, Brand Nerds, fun fact, that's Coke's first worldwide foray into bottled water and Sprite in India.
And by the way, those brands become the number one and number two brands for Coca Cola in India. D, as, you know, since you were there, this gets the attention of the folks at North Avenue at Coca Cola headquarters. And this leads UJ, to transfer to Coke's global headquarters in Atlanta, where he leads the 400 million plus global joint venture between Coke and Nestle, which was referred to as CCNR.
So then Udaiyan moves within Coca Cola. He's making his moves, becoming one of the youngest Global VPs at the company. Where he leads strategy, innovation and marketing for global R&D. Several innovations came out of his team's work, including the Coca Cola Freestyle machine. Which is now over a billion dollars in sales.
And Brand Nerds, that's the machine that's really cool when you go to different fast food places or what not. Where you get to sort of put in whatever Coca Cola product is there. It's awesome. So additionally, also starts the first 100 percent fair trade and carbon neutral coffee tea brands launched by a Fortune 500 company.
These brands are based on a highly disruptive technology developed in house by Coke under Udaiyan's leadership. So, okay, all this great work experience and research leads to Udaiyan developing and starting model For for transcendent innovation, Udaiyan's has an excellent TED talk outlining this model, which we will put in the show notes.
This is a venture studio. Then we're talking about Blue Earth Model that facilitates, creates and incubates breakthrough innovations for organizations ranging from startups and nonprofits to fortune 100 companies. The studio has launched startups of its own, including one that recently completed a series a raise at a 50 million valuation.
So UJ has taught aspects of this model as an adjunct professor at Emory's School of Business, at Georgia State's Robinson College, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, both undergrad and executive ed, and presidio for MBA. Udaiyan has led leadership training programs for large corporations and non profits like Verizon, Piedmont Healthcare, Panasonic, Gates Foundation, to name a few.
He also serves as a strategic advisor to high tech, small and medium sized businesses to help them develop and sustainably scalable businesses with a triple bottom line and check this out the profit. People and planet. You love those threes and the location of the of the P. Love that
DC: You he had me at hello.
LT: That's right. But I love that profit people planet. I'm sure we're gonna talk more about this. So we're almost at the close here. Brand Nerds, he is a sought after speaker who has spoken at events like Ted Talks, President Obama's Summit on Entrepreneurship. The Ethical Luxury Brand Seminar at HEC, just to name a few.
In closing, Udaiyan is passionate about unleashing the full potential of underappreciated people. He has served on the advisory board of Georgia Tech's T. I. I guess it's Tiger Center and shared the innovation task force at the Georgia Center for Nonprofits. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, Sirachi, two Children, Rohan and Anya and two dogs, Layla and Maya.
Really looking forward to this one. Welcome to Brands, Beats and Bytes, UJ.
Udaiyan Jatar: Thank you for having me, larry. I appreciate the background.
LT: You earned it all. You did it all.
DC: Flowers to you, UJ. Flowers to you, which Larry does brilliantly with every guest. It is nice to see the faces. For those of you all, uh, Brand Nerds who are listening and not viewing, to see the faces of the guests as these flowers are being given. It's really cool to see that. UJ, it's really cool to see that.
Udaiyan Jatar: Thank you, my friend. Thank you, Larry. Really appreciate it.
LT: You did it all and, and truth be told, Brand Nerds, I stole most of it from, uh, from UJ's bio. I usually, uh, I'm able to, uh, I'm giving the Brand Nerds a peek under the hood. I usually, uh, write more, but UJ's, uh, uh, bio is so good, I liberally stole most of it from him.
DC: Alright, so UJ and, uh, Brands, Beats and Bytes World, we names are important, so I wanna make certain we go back to the pronunciation of your daughter's name. Thank you. It is it Ananya Ananya. Onya Ananya, correct. Ananya. Okay. Ananya. I know we got the Anya part right, but the Anaya okay. Ananya. Alright, so sorry, Ananya, we didn't mean to like hack your name up.
Yes. We didn't mean to do that, but that, that takes us to a segue. Uh. Get Comfy, uh, UJ and Brand Nerds, you, you may or may not know this. Most of you don't, but the kind of conversation that we're about to have Larry and I with, uh, UJ now are the kind of conversations he and I used to have when we were both at Coke, we, we, we would just grab a quick second and talk to one another.
And, uh, in addition to being a brilliant marketer and business person, he's a, he's good people. So I'm going to go to your threes, the profit people in planning and go right to people in the Get Comfy section. Uh, UJ, my people came here enslaved. And because of that, what they did generation to generation is they would put their hopes and dreams on the next generation, even as that generation was enslaved.
When we became, um, we became unenslaved, at least physically, no longer enslaved, there was, there was this desire to make certain that they would imbue in each succeeding generation what they needed to make it in this new land with a new status called free. And my mom would really pour into me as her parents poured into her.
UJ. That is true of immigrants. That's true of immigrants. The parents pour into the children and say, we're going to take this risk of moving to this new land. We don't know it. We don't know the language. We don't know the customs and the moors, but we're going to make this move. Not just for us. For our children and so UJ, I would like you to just talk a bit about what did your parents do for you to set you up to become an entrepreneur, a successful business person, a successful speaker, a great parent.
What did they do for you?
Udaiyan Jatar: DC, that's an amazing question, the, so my childhood, my dad was a fighter pilot, a war hero, and my mother was an artist, gardener, and kind of like a social worker. And then in every neighborhood that we went to, we went, I went to 13 different schools in five different states. moving with my dad. So by the time I was in 12th grade, that was my 13th school. And some schools I was there for as little as six months and some as long as a year and a half. So it was kind of a breeding ground, I guess, for adaptability. Because you had to adapt or you died. You didn't, you couldn't get along.
And these were people, people think, you know, it's within India, but these are five different countries. If you look at the history of India, it was, became a nation only after imperialistic, uh, Britain left, right? And that's when it really started to coalesce into a country. So these are different languages, different cultures, uh, different shapes, sizes, colors of people.
And so to settle in the people part, I guess that kind of, I learned to find ways to adapt to the local population, wherever I went, uh, to local culture, to appreciate local culture, to appreciate local history and food. And, uh, and so the biggest thing that my parents imbued in me is, Hey, listen, change is going to happen.
And they're going to have to adapt to it. And don't be, uh, you can't complain about it because there's no use because we are moving. So, and we can't leave you behind, unfortunately. We don't have the money to, uh, to put into boarding school. So that is what it is. And from my dad, I kind of got more of my left brain side of things, which is, you know, analytical.
That's, he pushed me into doing mathematics. My mom pushed me into art. I used to win art competitions when I was in second grade. And of course, everybody said, well, art's not going to get you anywhere. And Indian culture and academics is pretty notorious for being very STEM driven. And that's how it was.
So I think that combination of left brain, right brain, and constant change is. You know, I guess you could attribute entrepreneurialism and the willingness and ability to move to another country with less fear. I do want to make a comment, though, about what you brought up is I was privileged to grow up in a free country that did not have our former oppressors all around us.
DC: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
Udaiyan Jatar: But there was nothing in our surroundings. They were role models all around us who had no recollection of being subjugated. And so the education system was. And of course, I grew up in a very socialist country. So there was not a lot of entrepreneurism except for unless you already came from a rich background, which I did not.
So there wasn't a lot of role models for entrepreneurship, but there was no role model. There was nobody around telling you, you couldn't do something or you couldn't be someone. And I think that's really important. And so I consider myself extremely privileged and blessed to have been able to not only come to this country.
Uh, as a well rounded, well educated person from India, where education was, even though I had to pay for it by working door to door, Um, it wasn't atrociously expensive. I could do it on 30 cents a day, right? That's what I earned. Uh, but, you know, so that, that's, that's just a reflection on You know, when we look at people that are in poverty in America, we need to take into account the context that it is not easy to get a great education and you are still in an environment where your former, if not current oppressors are still around you.
How do you break through in that environment is a separate matter altogether, and probably a topic for a totally different discussion.
DC: Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Sir. Hadn't thought about that difference. And thought about that difference. Thank you for that. Udaiyan. Thank you.
LT: One just quick thing, D, before we move on, I, I was struck immediately, and Udaiyan did this with us in, uh, in, uh, our pre pro meeting, that, um, fighter pilot dad, art, artist mom, and that is really amazing to have both of those, you know, almost extremes, right, Udaiyan, to have that.
You know, I think the most successful business people and for sure the most successful marketing people, especially today have that great combination of both left and right brain and not only, uh, are flexing those muscles, but are comfortable with both. So it's both of those things that you have the ability and the skill set, plus the comfort with both.
And that was, again, you didn't know this when you were a kid, you're going to be a marketer, but that was a really great setup to be a marketer too, uh, UJ, wouldn't you say?
Udaiyan Jatar: Oh, absolutely. I thought I was going to be a fighter pilot. Just, you know, follow my dad's footsteps. But, uh, yeah, I, I, there's, there's no question that a combination of left brain, right brain, uh, really does work.
Uh, and I don't know whether it is genetic or whatever, but it's certainly been trained into me, uh, through, you know, my upbringing. And then at P&G is very, very analytically driven, as you all know.
LT: Yup.
DC: All right. We are moving to the next section. It's called five questions. It goes down like this. I ask a question. Larry asked a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at five. And I am going to give you the first one here, UJ. Take yourself back, brother, back to when you were experiencing a brand for the first time and you had this feeling of just, ebullience.
There was just a euphoria involved with your engagement and time spent with this brand. Whether thinking about it, having it in your hands, watching it, talking about it with a friend or family member. You were really into this brand. You loved this brand. Almost like a first love. What was that brand for you?
Udaiyan Jatar: Okay. So this is going to sound very sacrilegious, but as a kid growing up in India, in this social democracy, where we did, we had 1940s technology, right. Till 1988, there was not a lot of great brands that were, and I was not very brand conscious, you know, mostly because I couldn't afford it. Right. So that is part of the whole thing.
So. When you think, when I think about like my first love, it is the first brand that became a full brand manager of full, full PNL ownership. And that was brand Limca at Coca Cola India in 1997. And what I learned about that brand as I started talking to consumers is that it's a, it existed in a very commoditized market.
Carbonated soft drinks. Very little barrier to entry, almost no real differentiation in terms of benefit. And P&G, as you know, is a very product centric company. Products have to deliver some benefit superior to competition, right? Meat consumer needs better than anyone else. The needs here that Limca met were very psychological, emotional.
It was a change of pace. It was like a little island in the middle of a stormy sea of softening brands shouting at you to be cool, be aggressive, be a winner. And this brand was about life is good. Take it easy. And in fact, that was my first tagline. I would develop, take it easy for that brand. So that brand is kind of still very near and dear to my heart.
I have built brands from scratch since, but that was my first love because I think that's when I became truly conscious of what a brand truly is. It's not just a great product, but it's a product that that's just a brand experience that makes you feel good about yourself, which is and builds a relationship that is a more emotional human relationship.
DC: Larry?
LT: You know, what's interesting about that, first of all, I love the story, and As I did say in the, in your intro, P& G is a great place to cut your teeth. Now, now, now, here's the, the yin and the yang of that. You said it perfectly, um, UJ, that they are really product focused. Like, it's gotta have, A product efficacy difference at P&G for it to mean something.
Well, we at Coca Cola learned is all about emotional connection, right? And you, so you took a lot of the fundamentals that you have to learn. And again, a lot of left brain stuff, really important. I'm please Brand Nerds. Don't misunderstand me for thinking that's not important, but the key difference, the way you really connect a brand with consumers is through emotion.
And that's what, uh, that's exactly what UJ alluded to. And it's interesting that he got the Coca Cola to do that. It rarely happens at Procter Gamble.
Udaiyan Jatar: It's a really, really great point. And, uh, it's almost like they add an emotional benefit on top of the functional benefit as a icing on the cake, but it's not the cake for them.
Whereas if you think about brand building and product innovation as the cake being an emotional experience that enables humans to do something that improves their world, then that becomes even so much more powerful.
LT: Exactly. And that's, it's, it's sugar water. Right? Ultimately, what soft drinks are, what DC did with Obey Your Thirst, look, there's not that much of a difference between lemon lime soft drinks, there just isn't. But it's the brand, the brand, the brand. And what he was able to do in really building that, that connection was all about emotion.
DC: Thank you. Thank you, Larry. UJ, spell the name of this, this brand for me, please.
Udaiyan Jatar: Limca. L I M C A.
DC: And what kind of beverage was it?
Udaiyan Jatar: The lime and lemony Limco was its original tagline.
So it was a clouded, yeah, it was a cloudy lemon soft drink, carbonated soft drink. So it is still around.
DC: It's still around. That's good. So Udaiyan and Larry, take yourselves back to when we were at, uh, at Coca Cola and we were on our journeys, career paths, and then a recruiter would undoubtedly call us.
Larry's just pulled it, pulled it up. I see it. Yep. It's got, it's got some Sprite cues in there, or maybe Sprite has some of the Limca cues. I don't know which one was first when we were, uh, when we were. And Camelot, we get these calls from recruiters and the recruiters wanted to know they were trying to entice us to go to other places and, uh, one of the questions that they would have when they would call is they would say.
This is the thing. Are you interested in it? And if you would say no, they would ask you, then what are you interested in? What would interest you? So they could narrow down and give you some things that, uh, that might entice you to leave a Coca Cola. And I remember saying to one of the recruiters, I can't remember the name of the recruiter, but I said, um, here is where I am at my best.
In a category where the product has two things. One, it's a, it's a want that by the skill of the marketer becomes a need and that's it. So it's a want skill of the marketer, then makes it a need. That's the first thing. The second is where there aren't any real benefits at a product level that separates one from another, but that the separator is the degree to which the marketer, to your point, Larry, and yours, UJ, Can make an emotional connection with the consumer.
I said, those are the instances where I am most interested. I'm most interested in those. And I remember this recruiter that I started going like, Hmm, that's good. That's a, that's good. That's like the, it, it, it, it, so I don't know what I was saying. This recruiter, if you put me in a place where the product has three X, the whatever, then the other one, that's easy.
Okay. I can do that in my sleep. Give me one where there's like, Neck and neck or possibly behind. Now you got my attention. Now you got my attention. So very interesting example with, uh, with, with Limca. Like that, UJ, like that.
LT: Really like that. DC, before we go to the next question, just one quick capper on that.
Your three X example at the face would say, yeah, that's easy. But we also know, especially again, this is where being in Silicon Valley, invariably people then want to stay at the product level.
DC: Oh, great point. Yeah.
LT: And then when you try and, um, really sell people over and above, no, they want to, they want to keep it at the product level.
So that's right. That's where the resistance happens and that's where the brand needs to take over. And that's why the, the emotionally connecting brands are few and far between. So I just wanted to point that out.
DC: Agree fully Larry.
Udaiyan Jatar: It's a really great point, you know. It's kind of, and so in my world of innovation, uh, I say something similar DC to what you said, but in my case, it is, I'd like to work in those categories where there's no differentiation, there's complete commoditization.
And now it's an opportunity to create a truly differentiated product.
DC: Yes.
Udaiyan Jatar: In that category, by thinking unlike people in that category think give me a commodity category so I can find a way to disrupt it.
LT: Yeah.
Udaiyan Jatar: That's one where I shine. But to your point, Larry, I've always said, even if I have a significant point of difference.
Talking about that point of difference in your advertising is the lazy way out. And two, it is also the fastest way to commoditize your product because in today's day and age, that product differentiation Technological advantage is very transient. Sooner or later, somebody's going to copy you. And even if you have patents, they'll patent around you.
And they'll patent around your patents around, if you know what I mean. So commoditization is almost inevitable. It's like the force of gravity that pulls down even innovative products. So building your brand while you have product innovation is based on emotional connection. And something authentic in that area allows you to then withstand, you know, competitors who will inevitably come gnawing at your ankles and copy your product.
LT: Love that.
DC: Excellent point. Excellent point. So Larry, just a clarification on my end. When I said, if there is truly a product difference, It's easy. I meant it's easy for people who know how to build brands and make emotional connections. It is not easy for people that don't know how to do that for the reasons you've listed there because they get seduced by the efficacy of their product and they just want to tell everybody Oh my, my, my speed, my thing. It's just the best. They just want, they just want to talk about it. All right. Go ahead, Larry.
LT: Yeah, I just wanted to point out the branders. I know where you are. Oh, that's a great point.
DC: That's a great point, Larry. I'm glad you brought it up.
LT: Okay. So next question Two, UJ, uh, who has had or is having the most influence on your career?
Udaiyan Jatar: You know, it's kind of really, uh, such a great question and I didn't know where to start because I have almost everyone I've ever worked with, whether they were, they liked me or didn't like me, I really learned tremendous amounts from those experiences. But I'd like to pull out three if you don't mind.
One is as a teenage entrepreneur doing door to door sales. One of my projects was Ariel Green. Which is P&G's version of Tide, and my job was to go door to door, uh, as you, as you know. The brand manager there, for some reason, took a shine to my effort and my diligence, and he said, you know, you should consider being a P&G brand manager someday.
And, uh, you know, the book that changed my life is what he said. His name was WABS, or is WABS. I'm not in touch with them anymore, but he gave me Stephen Covey's matrix of importance and urgency. And he said, the whole world spends all their time on the urgent, maybe the urgent and important, but a lot of time on the urgent and not important, but those who will make a difference in their own lives and be fulfilled are those that work on the important and not the urgent.
And that has really guided my life, my career decisions. I've quit jobs when I was on top of the world, getting paid crazy amounts of money that is almost obnoxious, but it was not fulfilling. And therefore, I really feel that that was the first piece that I lived my life to. Next came a gentleman called Jay Gould that both of you may have known.
This is, I was an early, I was a recent immigrant and into the United States with full of a lot of self doubt. I was really young and running a very large business and he double promoted me. And, uh, I, I never understood, uh, till he told me, he said, you're, you're able to envision the future and you have the ability to integrate a lot of disparate things with your left and right brain combination.
And that gave me self confidence, uh, to then start to seek to make more of myself than I would have probably done if it wasn't for that. The last person I want to kind of, uh, also mention, and there's so many, I feel guilty of not mentioning them, but Mary Minnick, uh, I don't know if you remember her.
DC: Oh yeah.
LT: Oh yeah.
Udaiyan Jatar: He sent me an article that talked about introducing sustainability into business, people, planet profit. Until that point, I was conscious of social justice. I grew up in a very poor country as a very poor person. And I used to walk through. extremely, extreme poverty to get to my bus stop, for example. Areas like slums, but I was not conscious about how business could play a role in doing better from a social and environmental standpoint. And that is the first instance where I found, Oh, I have permission to play there. And that has kind of become part of my mission is to bring innovation into building great brands that are highly profitable, highly differentiated, highly emotional, but at the same time, actually add value to the human experience.
Thank you.
DC: UJ, Yeah, it was great. Sorry, Larry. No, go ahead, Larry.
LT: No, I was just saying that's those are three great ones and and they're very different in their own way. Go ahead, D.
DC: This Stephen Covey model, when you discovered it, it's a two by two, I believe,
LT: Right.
DC: When you discovered it. I'm talking, I'm talking the first time.
What went through your mind?
Udaiyan Jatar: I realized that I was spending all my time on the urgent and not important first of all. I was worried about grades, I was studying, I was going for practice for my cricket, I played college cricket. And, uh, I was trying to make a living doing door to door sales. And that was the first time I said, okay, what is truly important?
And where can I get the maximum learning? And that's when I took that job that was, Very painful. It's 45 degrees centigrade. I think. I don't know what that translates to in Fahrenheit. I think it's over 110 dry, dusty, uh, six, four, six foot, 175 pounds on a little moped that could not go uphill. It was not an easy life.
And it was, I could have been miserable. Till I heard this. And then I saw the learning I was getting from this. I still didn't know what I got out of it. Well, I didn't know then the value of what I was learning, but, uh, the focus on learning, the focus on self improvement, the focus on, uh, and also the fact that such a thing even exists was kind of an eye opening experience.
DC: Yeah. Udaiyan, I Remember what I thought the first time I saw that model, and I viewed it as a gift and a curse. The gift was exactly as you have said. I recognized that I was spending 80 percent or more of my time on what was urgent and unimportant. And, uh, so that was the gift that I discovered it. The, the curse was that I wasn't even conscious.
That I was doing it. I was just running on inertia and, uh, and so I felt like, man, I, I have wasted so much of my life in this domain of urgent, but not important. Then the other curse was that I began once I was awakened to this, then to now, if I'm hurried for whatever reason. If something is feeling urgent to me, but it's unimportant, I am really bothered by it, like it, it really like gets under my skin.
It's like, I don't have to be running for this.
LT: Like I've seen this in action. Brand Nerds, trust me.
DC: Yes. I don't, I don't want to be running for this. Now, if it's important, my ass is going to run. I'll run. I'll run like a damn motorcycle.
LT: Well, you also slow down to speed up. You're really good.
DC: I will slow down to speed up. But when I'm like trying to like run and I know it's not important. That's just my own opinion now because it could be important to you, UJ. But it's just not important to me. Oh, I'm and so in some ways, I'm really happy for Stephen Covey's insight. In other ways, it's been a little vexing. In, in my work life and in my personal life, a little vexing.
Udaiyan Jatar: I think that vexing piece is really true. And it is especially true when, if you're having to work in an environment, whether it's home or at work, where you're surrounded by people who don't value what's important and what's not important the way you do. And so that's where it creates incredible angst and friction, right?
DC: Mm mm
Udaiyan Jatar: So for instance, running an entrepreneurial intrapreneurial startup inside Coca-Cola used to be kept called, called into leadership meetings.
DC: Mm-Hmm. .
Udaiyan Jatar: And those meetings were urgent but not important in terms of the survival of the brand. The business a customer started Cut.
LT: I have to say this, Diane, as before as you were saying it, I was thinking, think of all the brand planning that as brand folks, we had to go through a Coke. That was urgent and really not important as it relates to actually moving the business forward. So, but the vexing part of that is if you don't do that, right. It, that doesn't work. So it's hard to discern sometimes what's urgent and what's important and the difference between the two. Right.
Udaiyan Jatar: Absolutely. And I think even brand planning and brand strategy meetings are still relatively useful, but they were used to be these. You know, update meetings at five levels. So you have to meet your boss, then your boss's boss, then your boss's boss's boss. It is all in preparation for something that is all unnecessary because in my opinion, if you don't trust the people leading the business, you don't need so many update meetings.
And you don't need so many layers of update meetings for the same update is the same quarter. And I need to now prepare five times with five different, you know, so the vexing part of that was, it is probably a career limiting move to not attend those meetings. And in fact, some of the people that I, you know, worked with got laid off because they didn't go for these leadership meetings and instead goes to go meet a customer.
Yeah, that's sad beyond belief.
DC: Damn. I'm glad you brought that up. That that's good. That's really good. All right, Larry, uh, any more before we go to the next question, brother?
LT: Let's do it.
DC: Udaiyan, you've had many successes. It's almost like you've had multiple different careers, but somehow they amalgamate together for one career. Uh, you know how they, uh, there's a saying about cats, I don't mean this about you, but the cat has like nine lives.
Like, you've had like nine careers, UJ. You've had a, you've had a lot of different careers, and you've had a lot of successes. But this question has nothing to do with any of those successes, uh, Udaiyan. I want to know, for the Brand Nerds. What is your single biggest F up this, the big, stinky, wet, you made the mistake and what did you learn from it?
Udaiyan Jatar: Uh, where do I start? Um, the, I guess the, the one that I feel is probably most valuable and a little bit maybe unexpected. Is when you're inside a large organization trying to do some disruptive innovation, there's domes written on how difficult it is to innovate inside a large company. And my biggest F up happened when I had my biggest success.
But I finally, and my team and I finally got a set of leaders inside the Coca Cola company to say, yes, this phenomenal breakthrough technology that you have with brewed beverages, a great brand you built, Farcoast, which I'm extremely proud of, is really something great. It has phenomenal breakthrough technology built on a shoestring that competes with some of the biggest food and beverage companies on the planet, Nestle and Kraft.
They finally agreed with us and I made the fatal error of allowing myself to raise too much money.
And because we raised so much money, we became, we transformed from this cute, cuddly, interesting project that is a bit of a distraction, maybe a little bit of a nuisance into a major threat, but other senior leaders in the company that were trying to raise money at one point brand Coca Cola and the global team had the same budget as I did for the brewed beverage team.
When you think about that, that's a pretty crazy accomplishment on one hand, but it was stupidity on the other hand. On my part, we should never have gotten that ambitious so fast. If it stayed under the radar, continue to raise money in small bit by bit. We would have probably been able to save that brand and Coca Cola would have had a 5 or 10 billion dollar presence in the brewed beverage market instead of having to go buy a 5 billion dollar brand from England.
And I hold it on myself for not having had the presence, the consciousness of the corporate environment to, to not be seduced by the success that we got in, in leadership, uh, kind of buy in.
LT: Thank you. Okay. This is a, this is really interesting.
DC: So if
LT: you don't mind expounding upon this more, uh, what I think you're saying is, and again, having been in those walls that once you did elevate yourself to that level, the arrows were coming and they were more than arrows.
They were bullets and even worse. Right. And so that's, so in essence, by elevating with the success. You got your legs chopped off because you went too fast too quickly and there were other folks coming for you because they saw you as an internal threat to money, prestige, and more. Am I reading that right?
Udaiyan Jatar: Yes, sir. Absolutely. And, and it was still a speculative business, right? Because anything new and breakthrough is always speculated. Whereas putting 20 million onto brand Coca Cola is a no brainer. Half a percent increase is going to be much more than what we could achieve in a year. Um, and so any tiny error mistake, which you would make, and you should make, otherwise you're not really innovating.
We'll then get exacerbated would be under a microscope. Uh, and then, for instance, somehow, we had managed to get a full cross functional team under, uh, under the Far Coast brand things, little things that you would not expect. There's a new R&D leader at Coca Cola, I will not name names, who came in and they decided that they wanted to consolidate global R&D under themselves in the global headquarters.
So they went to Japan and said Japan, the Japan R&D team that is doing phenomenal work should now be reporting to them. So the division president of Coca Cola. Japan tells this leader that if UJ can have his own R&D, why can I not have my own R&D ? I contribute 25 percent of the global profits. What does he contribute and how does he get to keep his R&D people?
Right. Of course, they took my R&D people away and laid off one of them, taking away seven years of intellectual property between his years. That was kind of the last straw that broke my back, if you will. And that's. Part of the reason why I left the company, but that is, but it is my fault because I should never have gotten above the parapet and for my head to be blown off.
DC: I don't think in the more than a hundred and some odd podcast we've ever had this specific kind of answer to this question. We haven't ever, this is juicy. This is juicy ud. When I make mistakes, especially the big ones, I view them as an edifice on my brain, and I say to myself, If it's going to occupy space on my brain, this is the most valuable, uh, land, if you will, that I'm aware of for me is that's what's happening here.
So if this is the most of that valuable land, then some structure on it needs to pay me. It needs to give me something back. And what I've started to do with mistakes is I examine them. And very few times, uh, UJ and LT, do I find some mistake happens. And after examination, I say to myself, I never in a hundred years could have ever seen that coming.
Most of the time upon examination, I look back and go, Hmm. You remember when this happened like five years ago? And this person said that and did that, I just, that thing just went right over my head. But now in the context of this major fuck up, I can connect the dots. Okay. UJ looking back now. So before you got your head blown off, well, what were the clues that you noticed that In retrospect, probably shouldn't have made that move or probably shouldn't have said that or did that.
What, what, what, what was it?
Udaiyan Jatar: The, I think, you know, so I had read Clayton Christensen's book. It was outlined pretty broadly there. Don't stick, don't get above the radar. But I thought that applied to me four years ago because we weren't, we were building that idea for four or five years, you know, getting funding and management would change.
You'd go back to the drawing board again and again. I thought this was our time, number one. Number two, I did have DC, to your point, some, you know, in my subconscious, I was aware that this was going to be difficult to execute at that scale. But it could be done, and there was no reason not to do it. There was no business reason not to raise that money.
The ROI would come, and there was no, uh, you know, there was no good business reason not to do it. There was a very strong political reason not to do it. And I think one of the realizations I had then, Is that I felt that since management wanted me to go forward and we're funding it and it became their ambition too.
Right. I believe the CEO and other C suite leaders at the time saw this business being a legacy for them as much as it was for me. Right. And they wanted to go and I had maybe, you know, and again, that's why it's an F up. It's a fuck up because. I wouldn't call it a fuck up if I had no inkling, no clue, there's no way to know.
It's a fuck up because somewhere in my heart of hearts I knew this is going to get dangerous. And that's why it is a real fuck up. Right. I didn't listen to my own instinct and my consciousness, and I didn't take agency for the outcome. A lot of people, and I myself, could easily, and at that moment I probably did, blame that R&D guy and blame politics inside big companies.
DC: Of course.
Udaiyan Jatar: But now I need to think, and this is how I think now. That's a given. That is the environment you live in. As much as there's oxygen and, you know, in our air, that is what happens in a corporate. If you don't preempt and plan for that, you're just going to die. So now I have a mantra that came out of it.
Dream massive. I'm not giving up on big dreams, but start, but start tiny, not just small, but really, really tiny and scale conscientiously. Don't go too big, too fast. No matter how much you love your brand, how much people love your brand and how much money people are willing to throw at you. Especially for something like what I do, which is breakthrough innovation.
Breakthrough innovation is hard to copy because it takes incredible vision and courage. And even your competitors are waiting to see if you succeed before they come in. So you have time to build a brand in that area and in breakthrough innovation, which you typically do not have in other types of incremental innovation.
LT: This is so good.
D, I have one quick thing if that's okay?
DC: Yes.
LT: Um, what I'm struck with is, and Brand Nerds, this is what, when you're reading the tea leaves of organizations that you're in. at places like Coca Cola that are highly successful, that people have, uh, been You know, working there many times for 10, 20, 30 years, and those folks may be in middle management, so they don't seem that, oh, you know, um, I'm okay, cause, and I would have been seduced like UJ was, I'm inoculated, C suites got me, they're with me, that's what you were thinking, right, UJ, I'm inoculated, I'm cool, but we know, when you, when you work at places like Coca Cola, it's like they talk about the government, the, the bureaucracy runs the government, Because those are the people that are there throughout through different administrations.
And it's the same thing in places like Coca Cola, where there's longstanding employees. And so you got to understand that.
Udaiyan Jatar: Absolutely. And inside corporate, the other big challenge is that even though you may have a sponsor, there's no guarantee they're going to be in that job a year or two from now.
That's what I meant. And as they move, the next person coming in is going to be the previous person's baby and they need to throw the baby out with the bath water.
LT: Yep.
DC: Two things, uh, UJ, give me that three step framework.
Udaiyan Jatar: Dream, dream massive, start tiny.
DC: Start tiny. Yep.
Udaiyan Jatar: Scale conscientiously.
DC: Scale conscientiously.
All right. I'll say this as a closing note before we go to the next question. Um, one of my bosses in Coke, he'll remain unnamed, but he's, he was a really good boss of mine.
He taught me something that, uh, applies here. I'm in his office once and I'm talking to him about some strategy, some idea that we concocted to deal with a problem. And I was quite happy about this. So he sits. Listens to it. I get done. I'm expecting him to just go thumbs up. Go forward. DC, you, you, you and the team, you got it.
He says, Hey, um, what unintended problem might your wonderful solution create unwittingly? And, and I just sat there, Larry, and Udaiyan, I just sat there going, Wait, you know I've not thought about that. Come on, that's not even a fair question. It was absolutely a fair question. Yeah. And I would, I would venture to say.
That early in the process for you, as you were coming into, you were transitioning from being the hunter to the hunted, that's an important difference to recognize. Have you posited that question to yourself and your team? Your anticipatory skills may have propped up early enough for you to do something, but this is hindsight.
Sight. Absolutely. I'm sorry. Bam. Great, great answer. Great answer. Wow.
LT: Awesome.
DC: All right, Larry.
LT: Let's go to the next question. Mm-Hmm. . So UJ with, you know, again, with your great brand background and innovation and whatnot, uh, love this question for you. So, when you're thinking about technology and marketing, the both of them, can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech?
Or you can take areas that you think they should be leery or simply avoid.
Udaiyan Jatar: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, you know, part of, you know, being in the world of constantly searching for unmet needs and trying to solve problems, what I've kind of come and come across really is that there's always something that I'm trying to do that I have inadequate ways to do it today that are not, forget perfect, but maybe not even adequate, but that's the best you've got.
So you use it right in that vein. I'm going to talk a little bit about AI. Obviously it's a big topic, but I've been dabbling with it for the last couple of years.
LT: Yep.
Udaiyan Jatar: And for my startup, uh, I just used AI to develop, uh, our new packaging. And so this is something you guys are going to love with your background in brand building and, uh, creativity.
When you write a creative brief, In gen AI terms, it essentially is a prompt. It's a prompt that you put out based on your intention that is taken up by an agency or a creative director. Then they, they might push back. They may clarify a few things. And then they go and execute, they'll create, I don't know how many different ideas they'll filter those ideas based on what they think your prompt was intention to deliver.
They'll throw out many ideas that you'll never see, and they may even forget that they came up with and they'll show you something. And that is your first moment of truth as the writer of the original prompt, the creative brief to see whether they got it. And then there's another dialogue, and there's another black hole, and then there's another revision, so two or three revisions, and then you have something.
With Gen AI, I found that I could improve my prompt rapidly, in a matter of hours, till I got something back that was remotely in line with what I thought, but I also got a lot of things that I did not expect that I loved. And I got a lot of things that I expected that I didn't love as much as I thought I would.
So this really helped me to get my prompt right. I got references that worked, and then I put them into 99design. And did crowdsourcing with real human creative people. Got great ideas back, hundreds of them. Now, a bit overwhelming. That overwhelming amount of designs from AI that I had to go through. The overwhelming number of designs from 99design that I had to go through.
And here's the thing that shocked me. When you work inside a company like Coca Cola, you have teams and you sometimes launch a new brand idea, new packaging, you show it to your team and you'll get feedback on it. And usually the feedback is, I like it, I don't like it. Humans are feeling animals that think, but the emotional center of the brain, the limbic center has no language skills.
It's not just men who can't express emotions. Humans in general, biologically are not wired to express emotion. So when a design is intended to have both an emotional and a functional response, the functional part people get quite easily, but the emotional one, they can't give good feedback. AI is surprisingly good at giving you emotional responses to your even abstract symbols, not just design, not like designs and words, but just designs.
But that was a big epiphany for me. And through that process, I was able to use AI to evaluate these ideas, not just on the functional value that I wanted to create, but especially the emotional value that I wanted to create. And of course, because it was the first time I was doing it, uh, for a real project, not just for fun.
Uh, I tested it and I went through rigorously through the entire process. But for example, when you're a brand manager, you present, you have an account person, a salesperson, and they're giving you feedback. I don't like it. Make that bigger, make the smaller, you know, that kind of stuff. But they're not telling you, Hey, does this make me feel.
Like what my brand is intended to make me feel. AI does it better, which is phenomenal. Long story short, I think, you know, there have been a few designs throughout my 30 year career that I really felt were amazing. And this was one of them and did it in one week for 5, 000 or less. And it is truly something I'm really proud of.
LT: Wow.
So do you mind if I clarify some things here before we get into the door? So first of all, amazing story. Okay. Secondly, by the way, we've worked with logo tournament, um, with logos and we want to have them on the show. Actually we've, we've done logos that are phenomenal for a thousand dollars, right?
Like because you get the best people across like, so we're, we're, we're big fans of that kind of crowdsourcing. Um, so. Are you suggesting, UJ, that you use AI both at the beginning of the process to help you, as you put it, with the prompts, right, to, to put forth the best brief, and then also at the end as an evaluate, sort of an evaluative process?
Um, way to to really measure, you know, if this was working, as you said, in an emotional way. Did I understand that right?
Udaiyan Jatar: Yes, but I do want to make one very important clarification here. Obviously, my 30 years and 20, 000 hours of working on graphic design and evaluating it and asking for it to be built was used to, of course, to assess.
AI's initial responses and also to, it was not exact. It was not perfect by any means. So I wouldn't use it independently to this, to evaluate. I use it to just bucket things into tiers. And in the future, I may, if I'm really short of time, but this is so fast that, you know, you can't be short of time with this.
You should still evaluate every all the ideas. And I also want to say that part of my prompting included great ideas that I've seen from humans. As part of my brand development process over the years. So the human component here is still 90 percent of it. Right. The AI component is the, you know, the difference between great and transcendent or iconic.
Got it. It really helped me to fine tune my own thinking, uh, rather than give me new thinking.
LT: I get it. I, uh, I think I played back to you where, and that, that is, that is super dope. The way you described that.
DC: Great clarification. All right, UJ, what are you most proud of, brother?
Udaiyan Jatar: Well, I guess, you know, the.
The thing that you, you said something really that struck me earlier today, DC, where you said, you know, you look back and you think about the failures and the mistakes and, and the space that it occupies for you needs to, it's not good enough to just say, I made a mistake, but what did I learn from it? And sometimes you don't realize you made a mistake till it's too late or way after the fact.
And so when I was developing this new brand, the coffee tea brand at Coke Far Coast, I started to kind of get this, that feeling in me that, you know, Hey, if we, if I do the same things I've always done and expect a different outcome, that is insanity. This idea of building a brand positioning where, and so this is going to be real sacrilege.
I thought I was being sacrilegious earlier, but this is true sacrilege. I think brand positioning is obsolete in today's world.
And I'll explain why. Because I thought I became a reasonably decent, you know, proponent and user of that framework from P&G and Coca Cola. But all those brands became commodities.
They were all ultimately being driven by some genius advertising like what you did, DC, with, you know, uh, with Sprite. Or it is dependent on some other operational, you know, excellence that keeps you one step ahead of your competitors. Thanks. But fundamentally brands like Apple and Nike. You know, are so much more transcendent that transcend the categories that transcend the competition that transcend time and culture and geography, Coca Cola itself, right?
Do you remember how hard they used to struggle to put Coca Cola the brand into a positioning statement?
DC: Oh, yeah.
Udaiyan Jatar: The challenge comes from is the two, two pieces in a positioning statement, a frame of reference, which is almost inevitably some category, something tangible, uh, you know, soft drinks or beverages or liquids or whatever.
And then it's a point of difference, which as you and I and Larry have been talking about, those points of difference are, you know, transient these days, they're easily copied. So now you have a positioning built based on a framework that is based on competition in today's point in time, and that's going to change your point of difference is no longer going to be a point of difference in a little bit because it can be copied.
So then, and it is primarily going to be copied if you're very product centric, not if you're emotion centric, that's a bit harder, of course. And so when I look back on my career, I realize that all, you know. We need to do something different. So I started studying how founders created brands like Apple, Nike, Red Bull that totally dominate the categories, even Gatorade, and came up with what I call the seven disciplines of transcending brands.
And why do they transcend their categories? Why are they so hard to compete with? Why is it that somebody will put a 2 cent Apple sticker on a 150, 000 Mercedes?
What is it adding to the fact that they're already driving 150, 000, you know, iconic car. And that's where I kind of began to realize it's, you know, That brand has a purpose that they resonate with that's higher than just a functional need or even an emotional need.
It's actually all the way up at, you know, at the top of Maslow's hierarchy is self-actualization. But even higher than that is this idea of a, uh, uh, a community of practice. You want to feel that you are part of that community that reflects that particular brand's vision. And so that that's really what I'm most proud of is being able to look back and say, okay, yeah, that may have been number one or number two.
I got promotions, you know, got kudos, et cetera, et cetera, making good money and working for a great company, but looking back and saying, what can do? How can we do better? And that that framework. And I want to tie this into one other thing, which is really important. I think, have you heard of A gentleman called Atul Gawande from the Harvard Business, uh, Harvard Medical School.
He has built a book, he's written a book called the Checklist Manifesto. And what that book is, is it's trying to reduce errors in surgery. And he learned from the, from the, uh, airline industry. That they have checklists because if they don't follow checklists, planes crash. And then he noticed that the construction industry has an amazing checklist process and discipline.
That's why they're able to build these massive buildings in completely disparate climate and geological and ground realities for different functions and different designs every time, without, you know, catastrophic failure happening more often than it does. And what I've kind of. What we're trying to do is build a checklist for transformative innovation and transcendent brands.
And the innovation piece, I think I've done reasonably well at, because I can, you know, with great accuracy, predict that we will have transformative innovation outside by following a certain set of disciplines. And the branding piece, I think I've got some big chunks of it together. And so that's all kind of encapsulated in this thing I call the seven disciplines of transcendent brands.
DC: Mm, UJ we are in agreement on one element and perhaps different on another, but, uh, we are in agreement that positioning statements as they are currently constructed are useless, and we don't think this is a recent phenomenon for in, in terms of the creation of a brand. They're very useful for internal dialogue and decisions.
But in terms of creating a brand in the marketplace, Larry and I and our, our, uh, our company, we believe that they are insufficient. And I'll explain quickly. And then I'm going to ask Larry to give what we consider to be a sterling example. Positioning statements have four elements. Typically target audience category for our reference.
You've noted that point of difference and then reason to believe these are the four elements typically of traditional positioning statements. Well, let's walk through. Let's walk through them in any category. The target audience. For you in any category is probably going to be pretty similar to your competitions.
So that's one thing that doesn't have any difference. It's a watch. They're smart. You're smart. That's who buys you all have identified the group that buys. Excellent. Move on to the next one. Category reference. Because you are competing with smart people. When you lay out the category that you're in, your competitors are doing the same thing.
You're there together in the same category. You've acknowledged that. So that's a wash. Take that away. Then you have point of difference. Now this is the one area where you go with amongst this target audience. And within this category, this is the thing I'm using one now, but there might be several, but this is the thing that we consider to be differentiating about ourselves.
So that's it. That's the third one. So that's one area that you might be able to go different than your competitors for a while. As you said, that could be transient. Then the then the fourth element is the reason to believe, which is a regurgitation of the point of difference. It's why would one believe that this point of difference you have is even important.
So imagine playing a baseball game where you have four strikes, uh, one strike and you're out. If you miss that point of difference, you're done. We have an entirely different model at brand positioning doctors, and it has four distinct areas. And one of them is called the brand lover. And Larry's example around Powerade is a sterling example of the difference between a brand lover and a target audience.
We're not going to give all four of them here today. Cause folks will have to pay us to get this knowledge, but like you're seven, we've got four. But Larry, can you talk about the brand lover?
LT: Yeah. And, and what's interesting, like, you know, you mentioned Gatorade, like, you know, when we started Powerade, uh, obviously it's.
At the core target audiences, people who sweat, right? Um, and so, you know, that becomes your larger target audience. But one of the things that we learned, um, you J is that, uh, it's about the brand lover and the brand lover, as we like to put it is sort of the middle bullseye is the highest common denominator is the person that is elevated, who, if there was a convention, they're the representative.
So, um, It took us a while, um, but we found for Powerade, and I believe that this is why Powerade became at least a viable number two to Gatorade, is our brand lover was the captain of the football, baseball, and basketball team in high school. So everything we did, all the marketing that we did for Powerade at the beginning was geared toward that guy.
Um, and so that became the influencer to everyone outside. We could all picture who that guy is because it is a guy. And so everything we did and down to, and you'll appreciate this, UJ, we sent the video, we took a video of one of our focus groups, and we had a kid who was an all state basketball player in Florida, and he was an African American kid, was really smart, really got stuff, and we had a 10 second clip of him talking about what he likes about brands, and just, and we said, if everything we do for Powerade, it's got to be geared toward him.
If he doesn't like it, we can't do it. And so, uh, that's what, that's a big difference for what we at brand positioning doctors espouse and believe in.
Udaiyan Jatar: Right. And, and, and that totally makes sense. It's. It's when you're working with a given product in a given category, there is no alternative to doing positioning extremely well.
You have to do it brilliantly. And, and as you said, take those four components, you know, the target, the frame of reference, point of difference, and the reason to believe and imbibe in it. The tiny little fractions of differences, which add up to a lot, right? A tiny percent difference in your DNA is a whole different animal.
So that, that is great. My, when I talk about building a transformative value proposition, as opposed to a positioning statement, this is Around building a transformative new category altogether. Got it. And then, and building a brand that's not constrained by that category anymore. But take Apple, right?
They were called the Apple computer company, right? And they said, how on earth does that justify me working on iPods? And then watches and phones, right? So then they realized that they are not in that any of those categories. They're building new categories. So how do you have a frame of reference to a category anymore in a positioning statement for a brand like that, Coca Cola, all things to all people and all occasions and all meals and right.
Tough to put that into a box. That's why it's transcendent. So I'm talking really more on the transcendent branding side, as opposed to branding on its own for existing brands and existing category.
DC: Got it. Understood. Understood. Makes sense.
Udaiyan Jatar: And, you know, let's take the example of Gatorade versus Nike, even in the naming, right?
So Gatorade, no one can dispute it as a dominant brand in this category, far more dominant than Nike is in its category. But tomorrow it is possible you might buy a Nike sports drink. I can guarantee you no one's going out and buying a Gatorade shoe.
LT: Yeah.
Udaiyan Jatar: And that's because the positioning has constrained it.
That framework is constrained. The naming the product and its marketing was with Nike's lack of a positioning statement when they launched the brand as founders in the product itself. Led to a far more higher value brand at the end of the day
DC: Got it.
LT: Very cool. Great conversation.
DC: Very much so.
LT: D should we go to the our next segment here?
DC: Let's do it brother. Let's do it.
LT: So D what's popping?
DC: What's popping?
LT: UJ with this is our chance to shout out shout down or simply air something happening in and around marketing today we think is good fodder for discussion And you have said you have one so hit us with it, please
Udaiyan Jatar: Yeah, so for me, uh, I'm at a inflection point in my career. Uh, I've done the big companies. I've done innovation consulting and incubation primarily and done my own startup. And what I've learned is, you know, I was talking about the, the checklist manifesto and I'm building a checklist for innovation and transcendent branding. And the one thing that is probably the hardest to navigate with any checklist is having the right team to execute.
The human element is the most complex and the most important. You can take two people and give them the same checklist and the master and the apprentice are going to come out with very, very different outcomes. And so what's popping right now is my desire to build a community around what I call The Blue Earth Network.
And within the network is. People that can collaborate across organizations, and I invite you both to be a part of, and I shouldn't say part of the Blue Earth Network. Blue Earth Network is not the Apex or the node or whatever. It is just a part of the network and so that we can And I'd like to attract people, great coders, designers, copywriters, scientists to come together with the ambition and the purpose of building transformative innovation that improves the human condition.
And I have no, no jobs for you. I have no work for you right now, but I promise you there will be because that's what I do. That's really to invent something or we'll work for somebody who's invented something. And I'd love to build a community or be a part of a community. Something already exists. I have no desire to be the creator or leader of any of that.
I just want to be a part of a community that is inspired to build something great and truly transcendent. And if you're out there, I'd love to have you all. Be a part of it or include me to be a part of your network and help to build a larger community of highly creative, highly passionate people with great skills.
So that we can, you know, they talk about product market fit, but company people fit is even more important. Oh yeah. Getting the right people, makes or breaks, uh, even the best ideas.
LT: Well, there's the, the example in good to great, get the right people on the bus, right? I mean, that's, that's really what you're talking about.
Udaiyan Jatar: Um, that's right.
DC: Do you have thoughts? I do. First, thank you for the invitation. We accept. Yes. Start with that. Second, this community, uh, UJ, that you want to bring together, we will, in our show notes, put something about this community here and do a clarion call. With this podcast. So there's people listen to it, give us the information to give them.
And I'd like you to state it now, if you have any on, if someone's interested in getting in contact with you to hear more about this or join the community, how might they do that? So I'll ask you to share that now and we'll put it in our show notes and then I have a third piece, but go ahead.
Udaiyan Jatar: I joined, uh, sign up to be a part of The Blue Earth Network on theblueearthnetwork.Com.
DC: Okay.
Udaiyan Jatar: And promise no spam, no emails, no reach outs or anything except, Hey, here's an opportunity. Do you want to work on it?
DC: Got it. Okay. Thank you for that. So we'll put that into our show notes as well. My third point goes to what you said, Larry, about good to great. And it does talk about getting the right people on the bus.
Okay. I love this as a metaphor. What's popping for me guys is the second step. Once you get them on the bus, how do you get them in the right seats? And I say this, uh, gentlemen, because you could have the right people on the bus, but if they're misplaced in seats. Problemo. Yep. And I'm still working through how the seat positioning happens.
How does it happen? Who decides how it will happen? When does it happen? Because I, I've, I've had a couple of experiences where no doubt, uh, UJ and Larry, the people are brilliant, but without the right positioning. Of the seats, it ain't really going to happen. So that's what's popping for me.
Udaiyan Jatar: I totally agree.
Uh, I've seen too many teams with superstars that go nowhere. Yep. So I think the definition of the right people, it needs to be clarified, right?
DC: Yes.
Udaiyan Jatar: The right people. And I've found this really interesting thing is we talk about humility among leaders, but then you find that the best leaders have an ego, right?
DC: Yeah.
Udaiyan Jatar: It just comes with the territory.
DC: Yes.
Udaiyan Jatar: So I've kind of clarified that a little bit in my own mind now is that if you have a purpose that's higher than your ego, I don't care how high your ego is, as long as your purpose is even more important to you, that ratio is still fine because you'll still be open minded to things that can help you to achieve that purpose.
LT: Because you're still subservient to the purpose.
That's what you're saying.
Really. Right. Right.
Udaiyan Jatar: Right. Right. Absolutely. So a guy like a Steve Jobs is going to listen to someone if he believes that that guy or that lady is going to help him to achieve that transcendence that his brand desires. Whereas somebody who's got a big ego, but no purpose is going to just be wanting to be the smartest person in the room, regardless of what they hear.
LT: Even if they're not. Right. Yeah. You know what I'm struck with? There's a sports analogy that that I always go back to UJ. I was a youth basketball coach. I've talked about a lot, and I had five different teams that I coached in middle school, and four of them did exceedingly well. Two won championships. The other two had really good records. Was a fun season, most importantly for the kids. The fifth one was terrible. When I say terrible, we were 500 team, but it was, I couldn't wait for that season to be over. And what, the reason why is because functionally we had a good point guard. We had, you know, we had, we had the positions. But I didn't account at all for leadership and, um, leadership can't be just from, in this case, the coaches, you know, the players had to have some leadership and I had was a seventh and eighth grade team. We only had one eighth grader and the kid was a really good player, but he's really quiet, had no leadership ability and that team was was terrible.
Um, and so I learned tremendously from that, um, because to this goes back to what DC said at the beginning, got to find the right seats for folks and it's not just functional, right? It becomes there, there becomes emotional and personal and all those different things that, um, if you could get people to focus on the things that they're good at, and they love.
Right? Then that's where you start to sink. Um, so you have to account for all the 360 degree elements of the people, both individually and as it pertains to the whole.
Udaiyan Jatar: And that's part of the reason one, when I talk about what's popping for me is to get people that want to build firstly, that purpose, they want to build truly transformative solutions to the world's biggest problems.
Second, they have to be really good at their job. Third, they need to be willing to put the purpose of the brand, the business ahead of their own ego. Then it becomes relatively easier to put them in the right role because that role is going to be where they're needed the most. And they'll be willing to play in that post because I might be a great center, the center forward.
I'm sorry, I'm going to use a stalker analogy, but you need me in defense and I'm better than the person we have right now because they broke a foot. Well, that's where I got to go.
LT: This is awesome, man. Great conversation. Uh, UJ, uh, man, again, our best shows just fly. And this is flown by. We're at the last segment here where we're at the show close, where we posit our learnings and I'm going to lead off, um, as, uh, As I'll, uh, do the Jeff Shirley of UD.
I have five with a bonus. So really six. Let's go. Let me give you those. Number one, as, uh, as, uh, UJ's dad told him change is going to happen. You better figure out how to adapt to it. That's number one. Number two, for you, brand nerds, both professionally and personally, think about how you can develop both left and right brain muscles.
You might be dominant in one, figure out how you can bring up the other. That's number two. Number three, like UJ has figured out, find your way on focusing on the important and don't get sucked into the urgent. Number four, as you get promoted higher in organizations. You got to be really cognizant and then super conscious about the politics and plan accordingly.
That's number four. Number five, I'm going to repeat it. What, what UJ said, DC asked you to repeat it. I'm going to say it again because it's so awesome. Dream massive, start tiny, scale conscientiously. That's number five. And the last one is, Uh, brand nerds, lean into AI, lean into AI, man, just lean in as UJ has done.
Think about how AI can help you take yourself to the next level. Those are my six.
DC: Excellent, Larry. Now go ahead, UJ, were you about to say something before I go next? No, no, I was just going to say
Udaiyan Jatar: that's phenomenal. I don't know how you do it while you're talking.
DC: Really good. Very good. Cause he's, cause he's gifted.
Udaiyan Jatar: It's gifted, it's gifted, the right person on the right team in the right place on the bus.
LT: No, it's all listening to your gifts. Go ahead, D.
DC: Udaiyan, it's most, uh, gratifying to me when I learn something new about someone that I already know. Back up to my opening quote that is attributed to, uh, Oren, and that is the stuff you don't know about the stuff you know.
You've given me quite a bit of that. And our discussion, I get giddy when I have these kinds of epiphanies, I am going to attempt to tell you from my point of view, just my point of view, what it is I believe UJ, you are bringing to this world of ours. That is uniquely yours to bring, and if you don't bring it, we don't get it.
This is what I attempt to do at this stage of the, uh, of the podcast. So with that in mind, we'll go back to your parents. One, a fighter pilot, your dad, and one, an artist, your mother. By the way, I would love to have been a fly on the wall, listening to some of the arguments in that home, but I digress. I, I, I know you wouldn't knock her.
So you have this, you know, You have the analytical left side from your father, and then you have the creative from your mother. You have both and, uh, the, in, in these things. There's something going on here with your father and this fighter pilot thing that I want to build upon. The next thing you talked about is, in, in the answer to the question of what was your biggest F up, you said, My biggest effort was also connected to my biggest success.
And then Larry and I, Oh, we haven't heard that before. And the lucidity with which you talked about how it happened, the success that led to a failure. And it was almost as if there was a prescience to it that you didn't quite allow yourself to accept. But your instincts were like giving you bells. It was warning signals, UJ, UJ, UJ.
Hey, something's watch out, watch out. So there was some, there was some data coming toward you. You didn't listen to it or recognize it in the moment or embrace it. But then you look back. And then you said, Hey, this is what was going on. This is what I was reading. Second piece. The third piece is that you talked about this book.
Don't get above the radar. The radar. You said you, you, you went back to that after you gave it a chance. Don't get above the radar. And then Larry, I'm going to where you were with this, uh, this trifecta here of your framework, dream massive, start tiny, and scale consciously. And I stopped at the scale consciously, because I thought to myself, well, we can all in some way or another, it's relative, dream massive.
We can dream. We can all in some way say, well, let's start really tiny, but I don't know how many of us can really scale conscientiously. I don't know how many people can truly do that because this is where you bridge the difference between the dream and the tiny going from the dream to the tiny requires some work and that's the scale conscientiously yet.
UJ, you know how to do that. You have the vision and the leadership to actually do that, which caused me to think why, why does UJ have this? Why have you been able to consistently do it? And I think part of it comes from your, your father and your mother. From your father, the fighter pilot. Brand Nerds, some of you all may have a car or have been in a car that has a A special feature called HUD, heads up display.
This thing's wonderful. Y'all you're driving. It has your navigation there. It shows how fast you're going when you're going to turn and it's just wonderful. And it's you're looking through your windshield of your car and this thing populates in front of you as if it's just floating in the air. This technology came directly from fighter pilots being in planes and you.UJay, have an ability to look out like a fighter pilot and understand this is where we need to go and this is how we need to get there. So that's one thing you have. That's your father's side of the head up display. The other thing a head up display does is it helps you keep your passengers safe.
Keep your eyes on the road. You don't have to be looking around at your phone or trying to figure out, Hey, where do we go? It's right there in front of you. That's your mother. So I believe UJ, you are the living embodiment in business of a heads up display. That is you. You are actually that. So when someone's working with you, you're the person that they see in the windshield.
You're the one going. This way, that way, stop. This is how we scale conscientiously. You are the HUD of the brand and business world. I think that's what you are, brother. And then I'm gonna pause and get your reaction to this, and I have one more thing to add.
Udaiyan Jatar: DC, you're setting me up for failure. I wish, because, you know, looking into the future is always murky and, uh, but I do appreciate the sentiment.
Uh, I do want to say one of one thing, which is kind of interesting in here is that the scaling consciously kind of comes from having scaled unconsciously many, many times and fail consciously.
DC: Okay.
Udaiyan Jatar: Yeah. Right. But having got, say distribution ahead of demand. It goes against the primary economic principle of supply and demand.
If you have demand that's higher than supply, you are in, you have leverage. When you have supply ahead of demand, you don't have leverage. When you're a drop price. And we do that all the time in every product launch that I've ever seen in Fortune 500. The second component, I don't know, kind of connected to nature.
You know, there's a, you know, there's a fable of a young boy who sees a caterpillar trying to come out of his cocoon and become a butterfly. And he said, Ooh, let me help this. And he breaks open the cocoon. Well, it can't fly because the act of coming through the pressure allows the strength of the wings to fly.
And I think we do that. All the kids are, babies are meant to be born in a certain period of time. If they're born early, they go into incubators. If they're born late, there's other problems. Same thing in every year. You can't make an elephant give birth at the same speed at which you give a human baby.
And that's what we do with our brands. As we don't take into account how, how do you build the strength, the foundations. or scale before you scale. And that's where the third piece is more a discipline because you will be carried away with euphoria by ego, by investor demand, shareholder demand, et cetera, et cetera.
Lots of peripheral issues that have nothing to do with the actual value that your brand needs and the strength that needs to grow.
DC: Woo, UJ. Now, Brand Nerds, I want you to know, Udaiyan and I have not had this conversation that we're having right now. I did not know, based on what I said to him about heads up display, that that would lead to him talking about a butterfly and talking about flight.
But I did say this before I said, I'm going to let you re respond to this, UJ, and then I have another thing. Here is the another thing that I, that I was going to say. But I wanted to give some space now. You just talked about a butterfly. I said, head up display. That's a fighter plane. You said butterfly taking flight.
Here's what I've noticed. There's a word you've said multiple times in this podcast. And the, and the word is, uh, transcendent. You have said that word many, many times. Brand nerds. Let me read you the definition of the word transcendent. Exceeding unusual limits. Extending or lying beyond the limits of ordinary experience, being beyond comprehension.
UJ, you gave an example of, you're working with leaders, they have an ego, that's just how they become a good, a good leader. So long as their purpose is above their ego, no matter where they are on the strata, you're good with that. You're good with that. And by the way, I will tell you about it, UJ. Uh, I, I, I have an ego and I'm perfectly fine with my ego cause I think my purpose is above my ego, but here again, the word I know you well
Udaiyan Jatar: for 25 years, man.
That is true.
DC: Thank you, brother. Thank you. Thank you. UJ, transcendent has to do with limits beyond. You said purpose above ego. Yes, we agree. All of those elements. The heads up display, the transcendent word that you've used multiple times, the purpose above ego all has to do with flight, which takes me right back to your father.
Yeah, so while you're not, thank you, thank you. While you're not a fighter pilot, you are a pilot. You are just in a different domain, brother.
Udaiyan Jatar: Thank you, DC. That is incredible reflection.
LT: He has an uncanny way of doing this at the end here. UJ. So before we sign off, UJ, anything you want to hit the brand nerds with in reflecting about our conversation?
Udaiyan Jatar: I, I believe that, uh, you know, this format you guys have taken to another level. Uh, it is truly, uh, you know, not, uh, uh, ordinary conversation. So, uh, I didn't even realize I was in a podcast. So that's the best feedback I could give you. And I just hope we can continue to talk and, you know, be a part of that community that I'm talking about to build truly transcendent and transformative experiences that take the human condition forward.
LT: We all need it. We all need it. Well, that is, uh, that's a great close here. Brand nerds. Thanks for listening to Brands Beats and Bytes. Thanks The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl "DC" cobb, and Larry Taman Hailey Cobbin, and Jade Tate, and Tom D'Oro.
DC: The Podfather!
LT: That is he, and if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share.
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