First Interview: Duration – 35-45 mins.
No of Interviewers: 1
Interviewer: Hi Sharan! How are you? Nervous?
Me: A bit
Interviewer: Relax. This will be just like a conversation. So tell me about yourself…
Me: Standard answer about my background, CV etc. Mentioned my role as editor of
several school, college magazines etc. I was asked to elaborate on my role there etc.
Interviewer: Sounds interesting. Let's talk about that. Have you heard of Femina?
Me: Yes
Interviewer: So tell me about its market?
Me: Talked about its content (women related issues, fashion, cooking, etc.) and that its
positioning was the urban Indian woman (both professional and stay-at-home), I was
asked why etc.
Interviewer: How would you increase its market share?
Me: Talked about strengthening it's positioning…Increasing distribution and visibility by
advertising etc. Including more current issues with a special focus on women related
current issues, include advice, perhaps localize some content etc…(This was a long
discussion, with many ideas being thrown about)
Interview: Alright so segment the women's magazine market?
Me: Well there is the young teenage girls, fashion conscious women. For older women
there could be two segments. Career women with an interest in current issues and advice
etc. and home-makers who prefer house-keeping features.
Interviewer: What do you think should be the guiding principle when you segment
such a market?
Me: I think it should evolve from readers' interests. Those interests are of course
dependent on their lifestyle etc. But I think overall it should be a psychographic
segmentation
Interviewer: Is that what you've done?
Me: I think I have in a way
Interviewer: Look again
Me: (positively confused) I did bring the age element in, so perhaps it started as a
demographic segmentation
Interviewer: Yes (and then we discussed this for a bit coz I thought I'd tried to bring
the psychographic element)
Interviewer: So if you were a publishing house like DNA and you had to launch a
women's magazine, what would be your strategy?
Me: I'd like to use a sample urban area like say Delhi and extrapolate that to other areas.
I'll also assume that the circulation will be in an urban setup only.
Interviewer: That's fine
Me: I want maximum circulation, so I need to identify which segment is the largest and
what growth potential it has in the future. (some discussion about India's population
being young and growing..I chose to broadly target english speaking women in the 20-50
age group – sort of Femina's segment)Interviewer: Let's start with determining the size of this market. How would u do
it?
Me: Let's assume Delhi has a population of 10 million, of which 50% will be women. So
5 million. And let's assume 80% can read English at some level. So 4 million..Now we
need to eliminate the 0-20 age group…(Discussion abut how this could be done..either
assume even distribution for each decade and just remove 0-20 grp. Interviewer not too
happy since cities have a young population bias. Look at population growth since say
1990- roughly 1%. Find out what population was at 1990 and subtract the number of
individuals added since then etc. Very happy with this approach)
Interviewer: Ok good. Let's discuss your favourite brand
Me: Dove
Interview: No not that one…I can imagine why. Let's talk about your most hated
brand instead.
Me: Ok. I hope you'll excuse me but I really do not like the Fair and Lovely brand…Of
course I think it emerged from a great consumer insight that the Indian concept of beauty
is a fair complexion. This is not really HUL's fault. It's only reflective of politically
problematic values prevalent in societies sometimes..(A hundred other disclaimers)
Interviewer: (looking very grim-faced) So, if you were the brand manager of Fair
and Lovely, what would you do?
Me: From the marketing perspective I believe Fair and Lovely has got it right. A bang-on
insight with the right kind of positioning. I would undertake activities that help empower
women, like fund education, provide career opportunities etc. Mostly promote
empowerment and positive self image for women in lower and middle income segments.
Go beyond finding a groom and looking good. I believe the Fair and Lovely foundation
already does this. I would publicise that effort. I believe that in the future advertising with
somewhat problematic messages would come under the scanner of social responsibility
watchdogs and it's better to undertake efforts preemptively to deal with that situation….
Interviewer: Questions for me?
Me: Yes about the BLT stint…(Interviewer calls a senior and an HR person and we
discuss the BLT program. Interview over and was asked to come back for the 2
nd
round)
2
nd
Interview: 65-75 minutes
No. of Interviewers: 2
Disclaimer: This interview went by in a blur. It was extensive and I don't remember all of
it…It was more like a discussion with 2 tough negotiators than an interview. I'll recp the
interesting parts..
Interviewer 2: Hi. Tell me about yourself. Why marketing?
Me: (standard answers)
Interviewer 1: Do you think women have it very easy in job interviews? Standards
are lower etc.
Me: I've heard and seen so in some organizations. But broadly in my experience, this
hasn't happened. (was trying to evade the answer. Sowas pushed to answer whether it
WAS so and not whether it SHOULDN'T be so..) My interviews for the previous job were as technical as my male peers. My CAT percentile is high (no bias there) and the
interview was fairly rigourous. There are only 19 women in a batch of 280…blah blah.
So I'd conclude standards have been the same.
Interviewer 1: Your CV does not reflect any marketing interest. You should be
grateful we short-listed you.
Me: I am and I thank you for it. I hope my form did better justice than my CV to my
interest. (Was asked to convince them on why marketing again…some nonsense about
the same magazine experience and drawing marketing parallels. Talked about courses
and projects.)
Interviewer 2: Tell us about the Brand Management course (SBM)
Me: (Explained broadly what the course was about. Was asked to talk on my project on
Nestle's brand portfolio. Asked to pick a brand. Chose Maggi. We discussed how the
brand evolved independently and it's relationship with the parent brand Nestle has never
been explicit…Talked about how such an association would dilute the brand etc.
Discussed ad campaigns and what should Maggi do, as they were changing their
positioning towards health food. hey suggested that perhaps it was time for Nestle to
endorse Maggi. Talked briefly about another project on Cadbury Dairy Milk's ad
campaigns)
Interviewer 1: Ok. Your favorite brand?
Me: Dove
Interviewer 2: (Groans) Lets not go there. Tell me about some other course.
Me: Talked about Consumer Based business strategies (CBBS) and what it covered.
Talked about a project on Sony's portable audio market and how it could try and reclaim
its leadership position. It needed to rationalize its product portfolio. Lot's of useless
products. Still following what everyone did. Nothing new and revolutionary like the
Walkman was. They asked me what Sony's USP was. I said it was a technology leader
and innovation. They laughed and said Sony had never invented anything. Sony became a
household name with Walkman and it was not original. It's USP was portable music and
convenience. Asked to talk about rivals. Naturally Apple and I-pod came up. Asked what
Apple's USP was. Innovation. They laughed again and said the I-pod was only like a
USP. I fumbled for quite a while and then blurted out – It's cool! Right answer. They told
me a bit about Apple's campaigns etc._
Interviewer 1: Pick a product market. Any that you're comfortable with. Cars,
elecronics anything.
Me: Shampoos. (Interviewer 2 grins evilly and asks me if I'm sure coz he was heading
the shampoos division) I said I was sure and ws asked to name all of HUL's shampoo
brands. Did so. Was asked to list rivals bands as well…Soon we'd mde a list of some 15
brands
Interviewer 2: Now if you had to start from scratch and had unlimited money,
which brands would you buy?
Me: I'd like to balance my portfolio and chose those that had large market share in
different segments. Picked up Clinic for the mass-market. Sunsilk for women's market.
Then had to choose between anti-dandruff/herbal niche and the luxury products niche.
Chose anti-dandruff and picked Head & Shoulders.
Interviewer 1: Have you heard of Brand Valuation? An agency called Interbrand
does only that job. People pay it to put a number to a brand value. It has 2 axis, Can you tell me what the parameters are? Alright if u were Interbrand, how would you
value a brand?
Me: I'd look at current market share. Present value of advertising and promotional spend
since it's inception as it helps in building recall and market share. Next I'd look at it's
effectiveness and would choose Brand awareness…
Interviewer 1: I think that's enough. It has two parameters Respect and Recall (cant
remember, ironically).Your answer in a way considers these. So perhaps the most
premium brands would be the most valued. Would you like to change your answer?
Me: Oh! If I understand correctly, I should buy a Dove rather than a Clinic…
Interviewer 2: Possibly…Questions?
Me: Asked some about BLT and how it was personally to work at HUL…After the
interview we had a brief discussion on the difference between a Customer and a
Consumer.
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