007: Editor’s Choice: Vandana Verma on Wellness, Building a Brand Voice and Listening to the ‘Gut and Guests’
⌛ 6 MINUTES
“Brand communication is about telling one story many different ways, rather than telling different stories”.
With an innate penchant for writing, a young Vandana Verma had known authoring a novel was never going to be her thing — but she did know how to tell a story. Now the head of brand communications for Nicobar — the sister brand to Good Earth — Vandana credits years of editorial experience for arming her with the ability to deliver narratives that come out in the most natural vein.
Picking up the Pen: Finding her Niche
Vandana knew from the age of three that she wanted to write. “I’d compile handwritten books with little cliff-hangers as gifts for my parents’ birthdays,” she reminisces, recalling spending her youth honing this prowess.
An undergraduate of Media and Cultural Studies from University of the Arts, London, Vandana sailed through college-life taking on internship after internship, accumulating experiences and building a steady work-ethic. “I hated every one of them,” she confesses belatedly. “But each of them gave me a clearer idea of what I didn’t want to do — and each of them had a takeaway.”
Verma’s childhood interest in writing later turned into a springboard for her rather eclectic career trajectory, propelling her straight towards working with illustrious magazines and media houses like ‘Time Out’, ‘The India Tube’ and ‘Motherland’. Writing for pleasure on the side, Vandana created ‘Sing for your Supper’, a blog where she’d pair quintessential food and music recommendations, and later, ‘The Tonic’, where she documents her journey to adopting wellness as a ritual.
Motherland Magazine—Bandra (Issue #14); Skin (Issue #11); Military (Issue #13); Football (Issue #16): Established in 2010, Motherland lends a contemporary perspective to issues embedded within the culture of the nation. The magazine casts away the typical Indian magazine format, picking up a singular theme for every issue and building content around its parameters. Vandana was the Editor of Motherland between 2012–2015, prior to joining Nicobar.
The Nicobar Story: Giving Voice to an Inimitable, Modern Indian Brand
While she enjoyed the creative freedom working at Motherland offered, print deprived Vandana of a two-way conversation with her audience. Nicobar, being a digital-first brand, allowed her to satiate her appetite for that dialogue.
From the get-go, Vandana’s role was at the core of the content behind Nicobar. Coming from an editorial background, retail was something she had little technical knowledge of — but she learnt on the job. In that sense, Nicobar has been an extremely edifying experience for her. Over the years, Verma’s role has delved more and more into the communications side, working closely with the design, digital, photography and marketing teams. She emphasises that it takes harmonised effort to bring out the intended brand voice. “The people that you work with are sometimes as important as the brand itself.”
Vandana talks of Nicobar as a brand “rooted in India and inspired by India but intended to exist anywhere in the world”. Going beyond the archetypal vision of what is ‘Indian’, Nicobar has a restrained, distinctly not-kitsch urban-Indian aesthetic paired with a coastal vibe. The brand straddles both the physical and digital domains; each touchpoint — digital properties, in-store visual merchandising, events and experiences, customer care and products — is given equal weightage in building a unique, consistently stimulating brand experience.
Keeping the ‘Nicobar’ experience alive amidst the pandemic, the brand has organised cook-alongs with home bakers, mindful eating sessions and live-performance sets to ‘bring value to the customers at a time when they cannot be encouraged to buy.’
For Vandana, there is no one way to define ‘brand communications’ — nonetheless, there are some principles she sticks to:
Contrived communication with the audience is a strict no-no
Throwaway use of words like ‘authentic’ and ‘curated’ is off-limits
Knowing the ‘why’ of a brand as well as ‘what a brand will be able to do’ helps establish the brand’s identity
Clarity of vision plays a big part, something Vandana lauds Nicobar co-founders Simran Lal and Raul Rai for. “Not everyone has the clarity of vision that they have. Simran knew exactly what she wanted the store to look like — the fittings, vibe and visual merchandising. Meanwhile, Raul focused on building unique, unparalleled standards of customer experience. He wanted the store to be more than just a store.”
For someone who grew up in an India embedded in old-school thought, Nicobar is perhaps quite close to the culture of free thinking Vandana always yearned for.
Listening to the Gut and the Guests
In designing the communication strategy for Nicobar, Vandana’s own sensibilities and those of the team play an important role. Meanwhile, understanding the guests’ passion-points has also been pivotal in defining how they communicate. According to Verma, ‘community’ and ‘collaboration’ are core values that Nicobar fosters through multiple channels, including the ‘Nico Journal’ and other digital platforms.
Vandana brought her editorial experience and her grasp of independent media over to brand communications at Nicobar through the Nico Journal. Less of a brand inventory and more of an actual journal, the Nico Journal offers the audience a one-of-its-kind experience in the form of hand-picked recipes, style advice, travel archives and features with creatives offering a glimpse into their lifestyle against a snug, intimate setting.Featured here from the Nico Journal Archives — How to throw the ultimate garden brunch: a three-part series with event planner Namrata Mamak
But Vandana understands the perils and prizes that come with the digital world. Today, brands instantly receive audience feedback. “Everyone has a seat at the table. Brands are automatically in dialogue with their audience and do not get to silo themselves.” Largely appreciative of how more and more retail brands are listening to their consumers and making ethical, informed decisions, Verma maintains that cutting out unwanted noise is just as essential. At the same time, the slow withdrawal of ‘cancel culture’ has made it easier for brands to take necessary accountability and rebuild the dialogue essential to the spirit of a community.
Work, Wellness and Withstanding the Uncertainty
Which brands are getting it right? “[The] Summer House, OLIO and Raw Mango.” Vandana places importance on having a real narrative, be it about the makers, the process or the product itself. She insists that creating good, memorable content trumps populating the feed just to keep up with the race of content creation.
Having worked in media and communications for a decade now, Vandana advises creatives to explore their strengths and weaknesses, their likes and dislikes. She encourages students to get their hands on as many internships as possible, if only to narrow down the list of career pathways: “More valuable than learning what you do want to do is learning what you definitely don’t want to do.” The willingness to roll-up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, she finds, is essential for a career in this industry.
Withstanding self-doubt is key. Coming from a place of experience, Vandana reveals that putting things on hold for the fear of not doing them right tends to result in stagnant projects: “Perfectionism is almost like a fear or a stalling tactic — a constant battle between the rational and the irrational. And a lot of my self-work this year will be about quelling that fear.”
Speaking on wellness, the central theme of her blog ‘The Tonic’, Vandana points out the rewarding domino effect it has on one’s life. “We sleep better, eat better, work out, become more creative.” Contrary to popular opinion, Vandana firmly maintains that wellness is not vain; it’s the very opposite. “When we invest in our physical and mental health, we are nicer and more pleasant to be around.” Not to mention also very useful to your brand. Wellness means productivity and productivity is infectious — “It starts with the individual and expands to the collective of individuals.”
At the moment, Vandana is looking to turn ‘The Tonic’ into a space housing the best resources for people interested in wellness and self-care.
As we reach the end of the episode, we sign off with some rapid 🔥 questions. Get the popcorn and start reading!
