Mediabrief concluded a bracing BreakfastBrief in Delhi, with Abhishek Chakraborty, Head of Brand Communication, Digital & PR (India), Oriflame Cosmetics; Ajey Maharaj, Senior Vice President & Head Corporate Communications & PR, Fortis Healthcare; Annkita Karrva, Associate Director Marcom, (B2B) BenQ India; Anmol Ahluwalia, Area Director, Operations & General Manager, Taj Mahal, New Delhi (Taj Hotels (IHCL)); Arvind Saxena, CMO – NEC Corporation India, Head – Marketing Centre of Excellence (MCoE), Global Smart Cities (GSC), NEC Corporation, Japan; Cherryn Dogra, CMO, Bharti Real Estate; Gaurav Sharma, CMO Campus Activewear (Campus Shoes); Karan Kumar, CMO, Hero Realty; Nidhi Rastogi, Marketing Director, UNIQLO India (UNIQLO); and Saket Choudhary, National Marketing Manager, Hisense India, partnered by Truecaller which was represented by and its Sales Director Nikhil Kumar and Global Head, Measurement & Analytics Archana Roche, to enrich the discussion. Hosted by Mediabrief Founder-Editor Pavan R Chawla, with Amrutam supporting the experience as the Gifting Partner.
At the latest edition of MediaBrief’s BreakfastBrief, held in Gurugram, Delhi, an invited room of distinguished Chief Marketing Officers, senior business leaders, and brand heads gathered for a closed-door ‘marketing huddle’ that focused intensely on the central theme of Trust ROI.
Moving beyond general discussions of customer loyalty, the conversation, partnered by Truecaller, treated trust not merely as a valuable slogan but as a measurable operational outcome and the core foundational element necessary for sustained growth. The event was structured as a “completely non-transactional” meeting where good minds could learn from one another, sharing insights on how Truecaller might later empower their brands.
The discussion explored how diverse sectors — from luxury hospitality and healthcare to technology, real estate, and consumer goods — are internalizing the principle of authenticity to build ‘relationship capital’.
Key themes included Truecaller’s advanced measurement suite designed to prove the return on investment of trust, the necessity of embedding trust into a brand’s fundamental DNA, defining brand authenticity through product integrity and customer-centric actions, and fostering rigorous internal communication to turn every employee into a brand advocate.
Let’s take you across what Abhishek Chakraborty, Head of Brand Communication, Digital & PR (India), Oriflame Cosmetics; Ajey Maharaj, Senior Vice President & Head Corporate Communications & PR, Fortis Healthcare; Annkita Karrva, Associate Director Marcom, (B2B) BenQ India; Anmol Ahluwalia, Area Director, Operations & General Manager, Taj Mahal, New Delhi (Taj Hotels (IHCL)); Arvind Saxena, CMO – NEC Corporation India, Head – Marketing Centre of Excellence (MCoE), Global Smart Cities (GSC), NEC Corporation, Japan; Cherryn Dogra, CMO, Bharti Realty; Gaurav Sharma, CMO Campus Activewear (Campus Shoes); Karan Kumar, CMO, Hero Realty; Nidhi Rastogi, Marketing Director, UNIQLO India (UNIQLO); and Saket Choudhary, National Marketing Manager, Hisense India — along with Truecaller’s Nikhil Kumar and Archana Roche — had to say.
Pavan R Chawla: BreakfastBrief is about free flowing conversations around a theme, and the theme here is Trust ROI. Let’s begin with the brand and someone with whom we have partnered for the Trust ROI discussion in this edition of BreakfastBrief. Nikhil?
Nikhil Kumar, Sales Lead, Truecaller India:
What we are trying to build at Truecaller is a narrative of trust. Truecaller is now a household name — one out of three smartphone users is using Truecaller. We have strong insights into how we find our users and how we add value to them. Our focus is safety, spam detection, being a full-fledged utility app, and spreading this communication of trust.
Four years back, we were close to 100 million daily active users. We have now crossed 300 million, driven by a single thought: making communication safe and efficient. India, like all developing economies, has a big spam problem. Wherever the economy is developing, people will be faking, spamming, and trying to take money away from you.
Our ethos, which is very Swedish, is about establishing trust — finding the right strength of data and backing everything with it. When we go to brands and tell our story, we back it with data by putting different users into cohorts that give accuracy and relevance. Truecaller’s approach is: start small, be conservative, stay committed to the business we are in, and do the right targeting to the right specific audiences.
Now that we are at 300 million daily active users, the next step was measurement. Marketers kept asking, “What’s next? What are you doing that’s different from other partners?” Many platforms can offer reach — 170 million in a day, 2 billion impressions — but what next? For us, the answer was measurement backed by data. We made key investments. Archana came in, having led measurement at Meta globally. From that point, whatever we do is backed with data — multivariate testing, MMM (marketing mix modelling), brand lift studies, research.
That is our strength. When we say we are with you, we mean we are committed — we will prove and back your campaigns and the efforts you are putting in to grow India. Our thought process is to grow India together.
Crucially, the second part of trust is privacy: my data will not be sold, my privacy will not be violated. We are 100% GDPR-compliant and follow all privacy laws of India as our duty and commitment.
And you may not believe this, but in some rural markets in India, there are users who are almost surviving because of Truecaller — because somebody else has stored their name, they have Truecaller on their phone, and that identity keeps them going.
Pavan R Chawla: Thanks, Nikhil. And I must tell everyone here that there is another relevant deeper dive I want from Truecaller — and that will come from Archana Roche in a bit. But first, let me invite Dr Anmol Ahluwalia to speak.
Anmol Ahluwalia, Area Director, Operations & General Manager, Taj Mahal, New Delhi (Taj Hotels – IHCL):
I look after the Delhi cluster — Taj Mahal, Ambassador, Connaught — and I also lead the Centre of Excellence for housekeeping and front office across all 350 hotels, including Selections.
Pavan R Chawla: During COVID, how did the Taj group demonstrate trust and live up to the expectations people have of the brand?
Anmol Ahluwalia: During that time, trust was divided into four parts. For employees, there was trust that Taj would stand behind them — jobs, salaries, families. Everyone who works with the House of Tata knows they can trust it.
For guests, there was trust that they were safe within the premises. When I was posted in Goa, guests called saying their children were stranded because flights had stopped — and asked if we would look after them. We said yes. Employees were inside, guests were inside, everything was shut, and we were looking after people.
We introduced “Pay what you can and stay as long as you want.” Guests stayed because they felt safe. Our Managing Director, Mr Chatwal, always says trust is a lifelong feeling — you feel it, you cannot narrate it. There are many stories of how Tata and Taj stood by internal and external stakeholders.
Pavan R Chawla: Thanks, Dr Anmol. Now let’s just go around the table to every expert, without me interjecting. Thanks.
Ajey Maharaj, Senior Vice President & Head Corporate Communications & PR, Fortis Healthcare:
I have worked in PR and corporate communications for more than 30 years, with organizations including SAIL, ABB, Reliance Power, Bharti and Tata Power. Trust is the most essential part in healthcare. People come to a hospital because they have to trust the brand, the doctor, the outcomes, the transparency, and the governance.
Before COVID, a trust parameter survey ranked doctors at Number 10. Post COVID, that jumped to Number 3, because people saw doctors risking their lives to treat patients. Awareness was critical — there were misconceptions about vaccines, misinformation, and fear. A doctor treating you during COVID raised the question: why would they risk their life unless it was to heal? That built trust.
When a patient comes to you, they are putting their life into the hands of a doctor. This is not a product that can be replaced. Trust and faith are essential; when you trust, confidence itself can heal you. Evidence-based outcomes, transparency, research, investment in oncology, and evolving healthcare practices… all reinforce trust. Longevity has increased — from around 55 years decades ago to 75 or 80 now. Healthcare is evolving every day. Clinical outcomes are published, new equipment is being introduced, but India is also becoming the oncology capital of the world. And investments and research are growing.
So Trust is essential.
Pavan R Chawla: Thanks Ajey, I really liked what you said there: ‘Trust and faith are essential; when you trust, confidence itself can heal you.’ And let me now invite Nidhi.
Nidhi Rastogi, Marketing Director, UNIQLO India (UNIQLO):
I have been with UNIQLO since it started India, in 2019. I liked the brand and I just wrote to them that I like the brand and I want to work here, and it kind of spiralled, and I got the opportunity. I also worked in Tokyo for a while, where I understood a little bit more about UNIQLO — about its philosophy and how it is so different from other brands.
Prior to this, I was in Myntra, so I was very familiar with fashion and lifestyle, which made it very interesting to see how UNIQLO is extremely different. And I am happy that we are talking about trust here, because just two years back, when we were creating the mission for India, we said that we want to be the most customer-trusted apparel brand in India.
That’s the mission.
And we said we want to be what Tanishq is to jewellery, what Tata is to India, what Taj is to hotels, we want UNIQLO to be that for our customers.
And I think trust, at least when we look at it, comes from two things. One is the quality of the clothes that we offer. And the second is the customer service that we offer.
The quality of the clothes is rooted in a very interesting philosophy which UNIQLO has, which is the philosophy of LifeWear. By LifeWear, we mean it is basically wear for life. And when we say that, every product that is made and all the R&D that is done is to ask: How can we make everybody’s life slightly better? Clothing is so imperative to us.
If you have a jacket, can we make the jacket lighter and packable? If you have a thermal, can we make the thermal thinner? If you have kids’ clothes, can they be safer? If you have shirts, can they be stress-free, like non-iron shirts? It is so interesting and that is what interested me in the brand: that we have around 300 products and I can actually tell you the life reason behind each one, the ingredient and the thought behind every product.
So yes, trust through products, trust through service, and eventually getting our customers to come back — that is what we work towards.
Pavan R Chawla: I know that UNIQLO is also popular amongst GenZ and the millennials. But tell me about Gen Z — how do you earn their trust?
Nidhi Rastogi: Interestingly, a lot of millennials buy UNIQLO more than Gen Z. But clothing needs are age-agnostic. Everybody wants comfortable clothes — whether you are 20 or 40 or 60.
What I have begun to realise is that everybody wants to eliminate the complexity of choice. And that is where UNIQLO comes in, because we are not saying we will give you thousands of products. We say we will give you simple products that are better than other products.
Even for Gen Z, we are probably the only brand that is factual and functional. We are creating an emotional connect through a rational, functional approach. We are not a brand saying, “Buy us and you will look wonderful.” We say the product is functional, comfortable, and innovative, and that helps you feel better.
That is what creates resonance for a 20-year-old as well as a 45-year-old. We are one of the few clothing brands where a 25-year-old will come and buy something for their son or daughter, for their parents, and for their grandparents — and everybody will have the same jacket or sweater. It is a democratization of age and gender.
Gaurav Sharma, CMO, Campus Activewear (Campus Shoes):
I take care of the product part and the marketing part for the brand. While most of us have already outgrown the category I am talking about, this is a brand from Bharat. In my past life, the categories I handled, like at Bata, or at Perfetti, were slightly transactional at the face of it. But let me tell you honestly — when it matters, consumers are not seeing those as transactions; they are seeing them as relationships.
Very early in my career, I was told that whenever you talk to anyone — even if as an ASM you are doing a call in front of a shop trying to sell a ₹1 candy — it is not the transaction that is there; it is the relationship that is there, and that relationship drives business.
Fifteen years later, I realised that relationship capital is nothing but the trust consumers put in the brand, because that is what the brand is trying to solve for.
Talking about Campus, we sell almost 30 million pairs annually. To give you a sense of scale, that is more than the sum total of the next five brands in India. There are international brands, Indian D2C brands, and then this Indian brand that is here and trying to challenge the hegemony of international and D2C-first brands in this category called fashion.
And we all know fashion – it is here today; tomorrow it is not.
So how do we measure trust? Through repeat transactions of the same silhouettes of shoes. If I launched 20 shoes five years ago, how many of those are still in the business and still giving back business to me? That is the trust matrix for a fashion lifestyle brand. And yes, this is a 1,500-plus crore listed organisation.
Abhishek Chakraborty, Head of Brand Communication, Digital & PR (India), Oriflame Cosmetics:
I am heading brand communication, PR, and digital for Oriflame, and for, and with, trust and authenticity, we work on two dimensions: One is products. In our products, we have banned 1,300 ingredients based on strict European standards.
It is not only about what works; it is also about what is safe. That shows how critical the brand is when it comes to human usage.
The second part is that we are in community selling, where thousands of people are associated for decades. The reason is trust and authenticity — because the relationship starts transactional and becomes emotional due to trust and authenticity.
Products that are safe and high quality, and business opportunities that change lifestyles. So without authenticity and trust, we cannot even survive.
Annkita Karrva, Associate Director Marcom (B2B), BenQ India:
I head B2B Marketing for BenQ and have been with the organisation for more than eight and a half years. When I started, I was not a tech person and even questioned whether I should be hired because I didn’t know technology — but eventually I learned the product.
BenQ is a product company, and the name stands for Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to Life. We always focus on quality. BenQ never creates generic products — our products are niche, and very high quality. If you are a designer, we have a product for you. If you are in the teaching space in schools, we have a product for you.
We try to understand what the problem is and create a product to solve that problem. It is not the other way around: ‘Oh, we have launched a product, now we have to sell it.’
That is why customers trust us. People who understand technology always vouch for BenQ, and our products last for years. That longevity and problem-solving approach is what earns trust.
Arvind Saxena, CMO – NEC Corporation India; Head – Marketing Centre of Excellence (MCoE), Global Smart Cities (GSC), NEC Corporation, Japan:
I represent an organization that is 126 years young — a Japanese company of about 30 billion dollars, with group companies across the world. And we have acquired companies which are group companies of about 22 billion dollars spread over the world.
What NEC India does touches daily life: the Aadhaar ecosystem, DigiYatra when you travel, surveillance infrastructure in cities, smart cities, the submarine cable system connecting Andaman through which Airtel and Jio deliver services, smart healthcare and smart manufacturing — an end-to-end B2B technology stack. Trust is the core ingredient of why we have stayed relevant for 126 years.
In India, we have an AI practice through which we are powering UNIQLO’s retail solution. So the entire process when you buy a jacket — apne jacket kharida, toh uska jo punch hua hoga, it is all happening on the AI platform developed by NEC. That’s pretty much what we do in India. We are about 12,000 employees here, and primarily we cater to government and government-led initiatives.
Pavan R Chawla: And what about helping your internal teams become conscious about their responsibility too
Arvind Saxena: On internal trust consciousness, well, many CMOs do not control internal communication — it becomes an HR extension. At NEC, internal communication resides with us. Communication is defined by top management, product, technology, and functions.
An organisation that survives 126 years through changing economies and continents does so because of a deeply ingrained value system drilled daily — integrity. Whatever you do, you have to “orchestrate a brighter world” — our tagline and brand promise.
Because our workforce is diverse, we run a motivational program for the last five-plus years: ‘Empowering Lives, Building Tomorrow.’ If I created a program or developed code today, did it make society smarter, safer, better? Did my project have responsible impact? This is reinforced every day through town halls and internal engagement — not left to one function.
A key factor that helps us is that rather than marketing pushing communication, we let employees speak. It builds pride — ‘I made a customer happy. I made this city safer. I reduced crime in this patch of Trivandrum because of my deployment.’
These are stories of impact. We have documentaries with mainstream media highlighting how NEC’s work affects the life of a child, a doctor, a teacher who once lacked basic connectivity in today’s world.
Karan Kumar, CMO, Hero Realty:
I have been in the industry for about 24–25 years. I have sold 50 paisa candies — Candy Man, Minto Fresh — then Wills Lifestyle, John Players, Classmate notebooks, Paperkraft, India Fashion Week. Fabindia — their first Chief Marketing role — all of this in ITC. Kitchens of India, Aashirvaad, Sunfeast, Bingo, and exports. Then IVF and healthcare in the Gulf, then back to India in real estate with DLF, and now with Hero Realty.
This matters because trust means different things in different categories. When selling a 50 paisa candy to a child, there must be integrity in formulation and effects. When selling a 50 crore apartment, trust means standing for certain values and delivering what is promised. In fashion, it is about the integrity of clothing and relevance. In notebooks and stationery, it is about how accurately a child can use everything that comes in a geometry box, for instance.
Trust is many things to many people. It works best if it is ingrained in your spirit, because audiences and contexts change — but if your DNA is authenticity and trust, you will deliver it in every environment. Thank you.
Archana Roche, Global Head – Measurement & Analytics, Truecaller:
We recently launched our measurement suite, and the premise was to take the trust our users place in us and extend it to advertisers. And our measurement suite is built on the belief that attention only matters if it is trusted.
When a user sees an ad on Truecaller, the platform lends credibility to it. That credibility gets transferred, and people start believing. Belief leads to confidence, and confidence leads to action. That is the halo of trust.
We have built metrics unique to us. Like the Trust Metric and the Confidence Metric. We have run many pilots and are seeing that when we ask brave questions like ‘Do you believe this message? Do you think what the advertiser is saying is true? Are you confident you would want to buy?’, the results are strong.
Another thing we have is incremental reach. While brands are on other platforms, they may reach 60 to 70% of their audiences because those are social platforms. But the users you cannot find anywhere else — the light users of social — are heavy users of Truecaller. These are unduplicated users. We have found around 26 to 36% incremental reach.
And the A/B testing we offer is like an A to Z — helping advertisers avoid investing heavily in campaigns they are unsure about. Within seven to ten days, you can experiment with every hypothesis and then put investment behind what works. And because we have a pan-India presence, everyone — affluent NCCS users, Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural users – is here.
Trust does not have an SEC tag. That is the power of Truecaller.
Nikhil Kumar: And In rural markets, there are users surviving only because of Truecaller — because someone else stored their name, and that identity keeps them going.
Cherryn Dogra, CMO, Bharti Real Estate:
In our category, real estate, trust is everything. It is a high-value purchase and a long-term relationship. We are not selling a short-term consumable — we are creating spaces where people live, work, build families, grow businesses, and spend their lives. The expectations are extremely high.
For us, trust is built through delivery — delivering what we promise, delivering on time, and delivering with consistency. Communication can amplify trust, but it cannot replace delivery. The customer must feel that the brand stands for integrity, transparency, and accountability.
Every touchpoint matters — from the first enquiry to possession to the after-sales experience. And in commercial real estate, where organisations choose their workspace, trust becomes organisational because the brand becomes the environment that represents them.
Trust really is the most valuable currency in real estate.
Saket Choudhary, National Marketing Manager, Hisense India:
Trust is not just a word — it is fundamental to everything, whether it is business, friendship, or personal relationships. For Hisense India, selling a product in the consumer durables category is not the hard part. Anyone can sell because of pricing, offers, or discounts. What builds trust is how you care for your consumer after the sale. That matters a lot in consumer durables, especially in consumer electronics.
Recently during the festive time, a customer in Kerala bought a Hisense TV. They requested through our social handle if we could help install the product on the same day after delivery because they had a family gathering planned. Despite all the festive-season hassles, our installation team installed the TV the same day. The consumer posted and appreciated it on social media. That means we gained not just a customer — but trust.
You cannot get that through marketing campaigns. Trust cannot be built overnight. It takes time — it is a journey. Hisense globally is almost a 60-year-old brand, but in India it is relatively new. We launched only in 2023. We are not just selling a product — we are selling an experience.
We manufacture our TVs, and we focus on small innovations. Recently, we launched a TV with a remote featuring voice in multiple regional languages — not just Hindi or English. As TVs become smart, elders sometimes struggle with technology. This makes it easier for them to change channels and programs without hassle.
We are trying to gain trust from consumers, and within two years we crossed almost 120 million dollars in business in India. Trust also comes from every action the brand takes. If we stand for innovation, it must come from every communication and training touchpoint. That is what trust is for me.
Pavan R Chawla: This edition of BreakfastBrief has proved immensely rewarding, as it has brought together some of the industry’s most respected marketing and communications leaders for a free-flowing, non-transactional huddle centered on the theme of Trust ROI.
Our guests have shared a wealth of collective wisdom, and have confirmed that trust is not merely a marketing tool but the core DNA and responsibility that drives growth, whether through establishing a very strong value system, which is ingrained, which is drilled on a daily basis (NEC), ensuring product integrity through European safety standards (Oriflame) and the LifeWear philosophy (UNIQLO), or emphasizing how you care for your consumer post the sales (Hisense) that builds loyalty.
Crucially, we learned that trust is measurable, as demonstrated by Truecaller’s unique Trust Metric and Confidence Metric and advanced AB testing on steroids, offering tangible evidence that attention really matters only if it is trusted. And that trust is a lifelong feeling (Taj) and extremely essential (Fortis).
My sincere thanks to each and every one of the CMOs who graciously gave us their time for something as unique and different as a non-transactional BreakfastBrief meeting, and shared so much wisdom and inspiration for not only all Mediabrief audiences, but also for every other respected Marketing and Comms leader at the table.
