Madison’s Lara Balsara warns bad products fail faster with good advertising

New Delhi: Lara Balsara Vajifdar, Executive Director at Madison World, said, “Good advertising can kill a bad product even faster. That is why developing a strong product must always come first,” at the convocation ceremony of the School of Branding and Advertising (SoBA), SVKM’s NMIMS (Deemed-to-be University), Mumbai.

A graduate of Harvard Business School, Balsara encouraged the graduating class to combine strategic thinking with passion to drive innovation and growth. “You’ll have the opportunity to work with diverse clients, products and services, helping them navigate the ever-changing landscape of consumer behaviour. So today, I wanted to talk to you about you, and you as a brand, about building ‘brand you’,” she added.

Highlighting that branding today extends beyond products, Balsara noted, “Countries are brands, communities are brands, delivery infrastructures are brands, and even individual personalities of legal consequence are big brands. Do you know about the Kardashians?”

Reflecting on her career, from a Master’s in Marketing in England to joining Madison in 2004 as a management trainee, she emphasised the value of long-term commitment to an organisation. “It’s not about counting your work experience in terms of years, but in terms of what you have actually learned. In many companies, the people promoted to managing director are often those who joined as management trainees or have stayed for a fairly long period,” she said.

She cited Shailesh Jejurikar’s career at Procter and Gamble as an example. “He joined the company in India in 1989 after his IIM degree, and after 36 years in multiple global roles, he has just been made the global president and CEO,” she noted.

Speaking to Director of the School, Dr Kiran Desai, Balsara emphasised the importance of training and delivering updated branding knowledge to young talent. Urging a rethink of generational perceptions, she concluded, “Gen-Z is widely considered an employer’s worst nightmare, entitled, easily offended, and unable to handle feedback. Prove them wrong.”

Balsara also appreciated the four-year BBA in Branding and Advertising offered by NMIMS, highlighting that the institute’s branding education is built on strong business and marketing fundamentals and delivered through applied and experiential pedagogy.