Harsh Deep Chhabra’s playbook for resilient marketing, from crisis-time deals to CTV bets

Mumbai: “Always remember to differentiate between a man and a chair.”

That one line, picked up during a 2006 deal negotiation, has stayed with Harsh Deep Chhabra throughout his two-decade career in media and marketing.

“Let the chair not get to my head. That was his philosophy. It struck me then, and I carry it even today. At the end of the day, we are not in the business of saving lives. We are professionals trying to build brands and connect with consumers. Relationships matter more than the position you hold,” recalls Chhabra, now Global Media Lead at Godrej Consumer Products.

From crisis-time strategies to AI and CTV, Chhabra shares his unfiltered take on the future of FMCG marketing in the BestMediaInfo Podcast. 

Watch the full podcast here: 

Early lessons and industry roots

Raised on a steady diet of Chitrahaar, Hum Log, Ramayana, Mahabharata, cable TV and MTV, Chhabra says working in media has been like turning a childhood hobby into a profession. He began his career at Zee, spent long years at GroupM and Mindshare where he led the Unilever account, and moved to the client side with Godrej Consumer Products two years ago.

Along the way, an early lesson from media veteran Pradeep Guha also stayed with him. “Every broadcaster is a brand in its own right. That reminded me that whether you are at a channel, an agency, or a company like Godrej, each organisation has its own brand value. Just because my context changed did not mean I should change as an individual.”

A business where every day brings a new story

Looking back, Chhabra says he is glad no one warned him about how unpredictable the industry would be. “I wish someone had told me that there is never a day where you can sit back and relax because something or the other is going to happen. But I am happy no one did. It keeps things interesting.”

For him, the dynamism is both a challenge and a thrill. “We are in the world of content and stories. Why do people watch our ads? Because they like the stories we tell. What is interesting today may not be tomorrow. That is what makes this industry exciting.”

One of his most unexpected turns came at the age of 28 when he was handpicked by Zee’s chairman Subhash Chandra to move from ad sales into investor relations. “That was a game-changing moment. It opened my eyes to the business holistically, beyond marketing and media. Working closely with the leadership during such interesting times such as the launch of Colors and the Lehman Brothers crisis taught me invaluable lessons.”

Mentors, he said, shaped him at every stage. “From one, I learned aggression. From another, the power of negotiation. From yet another, how to have fun at work. I even had a lady boss who taught me flexibility across industries. It would be unfair to name just one. I have learned something from each of them and equally from peers and subordinates.”

Despite long hours and constant churn, his enthusiasm for the business has not dimmed. “The other day, a group of us were asked, who wants to be in this industry? And like school kids, I raised my hand. If you enjoy it, there is no better place to be.”

Making the elephant dance during COVID

One of the toughest phases of his career came in March 2020 when COVID hit. Barely a week earlier, he had been named to lead the Unilever business at Mindshare.

“Unilever is a mammoth engine that runs. Overnight we had to recalibrate the entire strategy to make the elephant dance,” he says.

The hardest part was negotiating with media owners while businesses everywhere were struggling. “I had to ask for fair pricing, but I also put myself in their shoes. Yes, their top line was hit, but with production halted, their bottom line was not bleeding the same way. That is how I worked out the maths on discounts.”

Instead of squeezing partners, his team kept cash flowing. “We ensured money stayed on the table. Rather than asking for deep discounts, we paid in full during COVID but negotiated banking bonuses for later. Cash was king. Media owners appreciated it because everyone needed liquidity.”

He credits WPP Media’s flexibility and Unilever’s partnership-driven approach. “We were fortunate to have a client who understood the situation and co-created with us. In hindsight, we did right by the circumstances rather than throwing our weight around. It reinforced my belief that good negotiation is not about extraction but about finding value for both sides.”

FMCG’s blind spot: proximity over dashboards

Chhabra believes the biggest mistake FMCG brands often make is letting the medium dictate the message instead of staying close to the consumer.

“The folks who do it right are the ones who stay close to the consumer. The people who think medium first may or may not be doing it right. There are still 160 million households in India consuming linear television. Yet some FMCG brands have gone completely off TV as if they are preparing for the future but also executing the future today. That is a challenge.”

At Godrej, marketers are encouraged to step out of their glass buildings and spend time in the market. “All of us in marketing spend ten days a quarter in homes, shops, rural areas, meeting consumers and trade, understanding what people watch and what drives their choices. The insights are invaluable. We test them and if they deliver on brand results, we scale.”

Having worked across broadcaster, agency and brand roles, he says ad sales was the toughest. “You are two steps away. You do not always know why an agency is making a plan or what the client’s larger strategy is. On the client side you control the budget and know exactly why you are putting what, where. Selling niche channels is even tougher. Maximum respect to those folks.”

Regional and dialect-driven media, he added, will only grow in importance. “At the end of the day, you can enjoy pizza or pasta outside, but at home you want dal-chawal. Similarly, people enjoy content most in their own language. Regionalisation is not just a trend, it is core to reaching the consumer meaningfully.”

From AI to artificial imagination

Technology, Chhabra said, is rewriting marketing. “Twenty five years ago, who would have believed that alarm clocks, torches, cameras, even walkie talkies would all sit inside a single device? Or that you could speak into your watch and get a response? Technology keeps proving the impossible possible.”

Adoption, he argues, follows the Good Cheap Fast principle. “Anything that delivers all three is adopted rapidly. That is exactly what is happening with Gen AI. Just months ago it felt like science fiction. Today at GCPL, we have a content studio in South Africa that creates one video per hour at a hundredth of the earlier cost with quality intact. It is good, it is cheap and it is fast.”

He believes the wave will only accelerate. “Today it is artificial intelligence, tomorrow it will be artificial imitation and the day after it will be artificial imagination. Signs of that are already visible.”

At GCPL, AI is embedded into media strategy. “We use MASH, our in-house media planning and budget allocation tool, and we have built a programmatic desk with a SaaS partner. The question is not whether to adopt technology but how to stay ahead while competition does the same.”

On whether this threatens agencies, he is clear. “Automation replaces redundancy, not relevance. When computers came, media planners did not vanish. Agencies still bring negotiation clout and strategy. Yes, jobs will change, but new ones like prompt engineering are already emerging. It is survival of the fittest.”

Why CTV gets 85% of GCPL’s digital budgets

GCPL spends nearly 80-85% of its digital budget on connected TV. Chhabra called it a natural extension of how India consumes entertainment.

“We see it as large screen versus small screen. TV and CTV are large screen, mobile is small screen. Either linear TV will grow or CTV will grow or both. The likelihood of Indian households giving up TV altogether is low.”

India still has 210 to 220 million TV owning households, of which around 160 million rely on linear TV. “The mode of reception is changing. Less affluent consumers may see TV as a luxury compared to mobile, but among the consuming class, the large screen is not going away.”

The real problem, he stresses, is measurement. “BAARC’s last establishment survey was in 2018, still pegging linear TV at 210 million households. TRAI says it is 160 million. That is a massive gap. Measurement in this country is broken, not just cross screen but within screens too.”

GCPL is investing its own resources to validate numbers while also working through the Indian Society of Advertisers. “We do not know what competitors are doing on CTV and they do not know what we are doing. These are walled gardens. In the US and UK, advertisers have pushed for unified reporting. Hopefully, India will get there too.”

Better measurement, he argues, will directly boost ad spends. “Any medium that is measured robustly gets more money. Historically, OOH, cinema and even print have struggled because measurement did not evolve. The more confidence advertisers have in the numbers, the more they will invest.”

The structural risk no one is pricing right

Beyond buzzwords like AI, CTV and data, Chhabra points to a deeper structural risk. “The minute you get away from your consumer, or start imagining the consumer as your version of what they are, that is when you are in trouble. Staying close to the consumer is the only safety net for a marketer.”

But he warns of another risk, the hype around first party data. “Very quickly the ecosystem will move from first party and second party to what I call every party data. At that point, the massive investments FMCG players are making into exclusive first party pools may not add up.”

For low-ticket FMCG products, the maths does not work. “Our MRPs are 10 rupees, 45 rupees, 99 rupees. Unless your average order value is 500 or 600 rupees, the cost of acquisition, deployment and logistics makes first party data pools unviable. Yet many are doubling down on it. That is the structural risk I see.”

The legacy he wants to leave behind

After over two decades, Chhabra is not chasing titles or power. For him, legacy is about staying grounded. “I would be happiest if people remember me as the same guy who came into the industry at 23, just a slightly more mature version. If they still see me as that young, enthusiastic professional who was always willing to learn and contribute back, I think I would have done justice to my legacy.”

Summing up his philosophy, he returns to the line that has defined his journey: “Kursi aur aadmi ko alag rakhna chahiye.”