Big trucks, small hooks: Tata Motors turns to AI and influencers for always-on CV marketing

New Delhi: In a rapidly evolving marketing landscape, Tata Motors is reimagining and rethinking how brands should engage with consumers, particularly in the high-involvement, utility-first commercial vehicle (CV) category. 

What was once a product-led, spec-heavy form of advertising is now being restructured into a nimble, always-on and emotionally intelligent marketing engine. 

At the centre of this evolution is the company’s renewed focus on artificial intelligence, influencer-led regional storytelling, precision-targeted programmatic campaigns and a deliberate push to humanise how vehicles are advertised.

Marketing is no longer campaign-led; it is always-on

In an exclusive conversation with BestMediaInfo.com, Shubhranshu Singh, Chief Marketing Officer (Commercial Vehicles Business Unit), Tata Motors, highlighted one of the most fundamental shifts that he has witnessed. It is the move away from one-time campaign bursts to what he calls “an always-on, always-iterating model of marketing.”

Today, attribution is possible at every step. You can no longer afford to be passive or delayed in response. If something’s not working, you change it on the go. If something is, you double down on it,” he said. 

This means the marketing function must now operate in a state of constant attentiveness. “Earlier, when a CMO went to sleep, the market paused. Today, the cloud is always active. The marketing world doesn’t stop,” Singh added.

Automating communication and organising customer data

Tata Motors has been investing in AI tools and data platforms to handle marketing at scale. Singh shared that the company has built a customer data platform (CDP), in partnership with Salesforce, enabling it to consolidate and act upon consumer data across multiple touchpoints. 

With this system, the company is trying to automate "messages, sale, resale, pitch, repitch, upscale, cross-sell,” among other things. 

Singh told BestMediaInfo.com that the system has helped the company create over 60 lakh single-customer profiles through the ingestion of more than 80 crore data points. These include information from telematics, service history and post-sale interactions. 

Knitting it with an example, Singh said, “Earlier, when you had an advertising campaign, it was like shooting a person with a harpoon, like with an arrow. Today, it's more like putting on a Velcro net. There are many small hooks.” 

“Earlier, the constraint used to be the computing power. ‘How do I make sense of the data?’ Now with AI, we can build a better texture of all the data points,” Singh added. 

“The value of the vehicle sold is only about 30–35% of the lifetime value,” he said, pointing to the importance of maintaining communication with customers beyond the point of sale.

According to Singh, the ability to extract actionable insights from this data has allowed the company to engage with customers more efficiently, especially in a category where vehicles often remain in use for more than a decade.

Harnessing consumer experience to generate consumers 

Tata Motors is cognizant of the evolving consumer journey. A consumer of today does not directly drop into a showroom for a purchase. Rather, they will do their due diligence of researching, checking, comparing, and customising, before reaching the last mile of the funnel. 

Accordingly, Tata Motors has “heavily invested” in creating an online ability for the customers to check, compare, and customise their options. 

Complementing this is the influencer push by Tata Motors. “We are working with almost 600 influencers and have profiled nearly 30 crore views through roughly 3,500 videos. We're using micro, nano, mega, and regional influencers across 11 languages to give people content that is relevant to them,” Singh told BestMediaInfo.com.  

“If you’re a construction worker in Hyderabad, you want to hear from someone in your business, in your city, speaking your language. 

This kind of content, when it comes from an influencer, is more relatable, contextually richer, and easier to understand. That’s what we’re trying to do—enable contextual relevance through online means.” 

Fixed ratio strategy in programmatic buying

The company currently splits its programmatic media buying equally across three ecosystems - Google, Meta, and affiliate/aggregator platforms - each accounting for one-third of the overall digital budget.

Singh said this structure allows for clearer tracking across different stages of the funnel. “Each channel is traceable to a large extent. I’m not worried about where our money is going. The real challenge is improving the returns from it.”

This equal-split strategy may offer simplicity and control but also assumes each platform delivers equivalent value, which might not always hold true depending on audience behaviour, platform saturation, or inventory costs.

Battling ad fraud

With digital ad spends increasing, so have concerns around viewability, bot traffic, and fraud. Singh acknowledged the challenge and explained how Tata Motors is protecting its investments.

“First, we work only with partners who offer auditable, transparent operations. Then we use automated dashboards and machine learning to detect anomalies. More recently, we’re exploring how blockchain can be used to lock process improvements,” he said.

He also made a key distinction between ad fraud and diminishing returns. “If you’re reaching from your 100th prospect to your 200th, those additional audiences may not be as engaged. So the issue isn’t always fraud; it’s sometimes about the quality of creative, audience fit, or campaign clarity,” Singh stated. 

Mitigating myths

When asked about one myth about advertising, especially in the automotive sector, that should vanish right away, Singh was quick to point out that speaking more about the product or the vehicle. “I think this is a commonly held belief across the automotive segment that the product sells by itself.” 

Singh rather advocated telling better stories and aiming to “show the human being.” He said, “We need to make people believe that we understand their reality. We need to show the human being. People see the truck, but they don’t see the truck driver. We need to tell the human stories, because that's very powerful for the brand.” 

Keeping up with the pace

Singh summarised with a perspective. He said, “In our business, everybody buys finance before they buy the vehicle. As in, most of the people who are purchasing commercial vehicles are doing it for business reasons. 

Either they are first-time users or driver entrepreneurs, or they are doing it for captive applications, or that vehicle is being added on to a fleet, which means every centimetre of load body matters, every drop of fuel matters, every basis point of interest rate matters, and every feature that gives them better profitability matters.” 

According to Singh, putting all these things in an advertisement seems pushy. But when these things are offered through various mediums, including credible sources, print, influencer content, UGC, etc, it just becomes easier for people to understand and appreciate. 

Singh cautioned against being overly reactive to every new trend. “Be firm on the generics, be flexible on the specifics,” he advised, suggesting that while tools and platforms will evolve, the fundamentals of marketing - relevance, clarity, and empathy - remain consistent.