Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast

Most agencies chase Mumbai and Delhi. Vikas Chawla built Social Beat from Chennai and turned it into a ₹2500 crore powerhouse.

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we sit down with Vikas Chawla, Co-Founder of Social Beat, Influencer.in, and D2Scale. Vikas shares how contrarian decisions, starting outside India's advertising hubs, organizing around media instead of creative, and building complementary businesses instead of chasing vanity scale, created one of India's most successful independent agencies.

From Facebook page likes in 2012 to full-funnel attribution in 2026, Vikas walks us through the evolution of digital marketing metrics, the structural advantages of a media-first approach, and why AI is forcing agencies to double down on business strategy and creative strategy as their only defensible moats.

🎯 Key Topics Covered:

• 00:00 - Why Chennai became Social Beat's secret weapon, not its limitation
• 08:15 - The media-first architecture that changed everything
• 16:30 - From vanity metrics to business outcomes: The evolution of digital marketing measurement
• 24:45 - Building Influencer.in and D2Scale as complementary businesses, not distractions
• 33:20 - How Social Beat is preparing for the AI transformation
• 41:10 - Why business strategy and creative strategy are becoming the only agency moats
• 48:35 - The full-funnel approach: Why performance and brand can't exist in silos

Meet Surender (Host & Co-Founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/
Meet Vikas Chawla: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikaschawla/

About Social Beat: India's leading independent digital marketing agency managing 300+ brands with 540 people across India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, delivering ₹2500 crores in annual media spends.

About Hawky: A creative intelligence platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-powered optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

Related Episodes & Resources:

• Full blog post: https://hawky.ai/podcast/social-beat-vikas-chawla
• More episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast

#PerformanceMarketing #DigitalMarketing #AgencyGrowth #MediaStrategy #CreativeStrategy #AIinMarketing #SocialBeat #Influencermarketing #D2C #MarketingPodcast

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we sit down with Anita Rane, Head of Brand Marketing at Cult Store. From crafting award-winning campaigns for Kingfisher Beer (Cannes Cyber Lion) to leading brand teams at hyper-growth gaming giants like MPL and Gameskraft, Anita now drives the retail brand strategy for one of India's fastest-growing fitness unicorns.

Discover how Cult Store maintains brand consistency across 500-rupee t-shirts to 50,000-rupee gym equipment, the truth about brand marketing vs performance marketing integration, and why the most important brand metric can't be quantified on a spreadsheet. Anita shares her 18-year journey from content writing at WPP agencies to building iconic campaigns for Kingfisher, Tata Tea Jaago Re, and CoWrks, revealing the frameworks that work across wildly different categories.
Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction: From Content Writer to Brand Leader
01:51 - 18-Year Journey: Agency to Gaming to Fitness Retail
05:54 - What Cult Store Stands For: Accessibility + Consistency
09:37 - Messaging Strategy: 500₹ T-Shirts to 50,000₹ Equipment
28:20 - Building Brand from Scratch in 9 Months
35:15 - Brand vs Performance Marketing: The Integration Problem
48:40 - Future Creative Team Structure: Organic vs Paid Directors
59:27 - The One Unquantifiable Brand Metric That Matters

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Anita Rane: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitarane/

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

More Episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we explore the journey of Ashutosh Bharadwaj, a marketing leader who has built brands from scratch across wildly different categories, from a $2,000 roti maker to India's first vernacular learning platform to premium home services. With 14+ years of hands-on experience, Ashutosh shares his counterintuitive playbook for creating market space against well-funded competition, understanding the real "Bharat" audience, and the power of deep user research in building sustainable growth.

Chapters:

00:00 - From Chemical Engineer to Marketer: The Accidental Journey

06:03 - The Google Analytics Moment That Changed Everything

09:58 - Josh Talks: Building India's First Vernacular Learning Platform

14:11 - Understanding How "Bharat" Really Thinks

17:48 - Marketing Rotimatic: The $2,000 Roti Maker Challenge

28:42 - Broomberg: Creating the Premium Home Services Category

40:12 - Building Brand Search Volume & Organic Traffic

48:55 - Performance Marketing vs Brand Building Balance

55:17 - Career Advice & Rapid Fire Round

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Ashutosh Bharadwaj: https://in.linkedin.com/in/ashutoshbharadwaj

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

More Episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast

From mixing tracks in a music studio to mixing data with creativity, Sindhu Biswal's journey is anything but conventional. The Founder & CEO of Buzzlab started as a sound engineer, built a social app to 1.5M users, and is now disrupting India's marketing landscape with proprietary playbooks that deliver 40% lower CAC and 3X conversions.

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, Sindhu reveals why traditional agencies are dying, how content became the new competitive moat, and why brands and creators are converging into the same thing.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction: Why Sindhu matters in performance marketing
02:27 - The pivot: From 1.5M user social app to joining Paytm Insider
04:25 - Full-stack digital marketing before it was "growth marketing"
05:12 - FilterCopy, Pocket Aces, and the birth of content-led growth
07:59 - The thesis: Why predictive content analytics is the future
12:15 - What makes Buzzlab different from traditional agencies
18:30 - The three proprietary playbooks: Instagram, YouTube, Growth Marketing
25:45 - Why "cost per share" is the most underrated metric
32:20 - Brands vs Creators: The convergence happening right now
38:15 - How Buzzlab reduced CAC by 40% for Pharmeasy
42:30 - The Super.money campaign that won Gold at EMERGE 2025
48:10 - AI's role in content production and creative workflows
52:30 - Why script writing is the most underrated skill for marketers
58:37 - Lightning Round: Books, creators, and contrarian content hooks
1:00:12 - The contrarian view framework that hooks audiences instantly

Meet Your Host:
Surender - Co-founder at Hawky.ai
https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Our Guest:
Sindhu Biswal - Founder & CEO at Buzzlab
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sindhubiswal

About Hawky:
A creative intelligence platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-powered optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we sit down with Prashantt Deshpande, Chief Brand Officer at Kurlon Enterprise Limited. From Café Coffee Day to Future Group, Zivame, and now leading one of India's most trusted mattress brands with 60+ years of heritage, Prashantt shares his 20-year journey of building brands across radically different categories, all united by one truth: human emotion.

Discover how Kurlon balances heritage with performance marketing, why AI is "the favorite intern that never sleeps," and the exact moment when brand care meets performance clicks to create magic. Learn the frameworks behind creative validation, real-time consumer dialogue, and maintaining brand soul in the age of AI-driven marketing.

Chapters:

0:00 - 1:53 Introduction

1:54 - 4:05 Prashantt's Marketing Journey: Café to Comfort

4:06 - 8:44 What's Changed in 20 Years of Marketing (And What Hasn't)

8:45 - 12:21 The Magic Moment: When Performance Meets Brand

12:22 - 18:36 Measuring Brand Love Beyond P&L

18:37 - 24:15 Kurlon's Dual Comfort Strategy & Category Positioning

24:16 - 32:40 Creative Development: The Thin Line Between Intent & Understanding

32:41 - 37:57 How Strategy Flows Into Performance Marketing

37:58 - 42:09 AI as Your Favorite Intern: Tools & Integration

42:10 - 44:01 Does AI Raise or Lower Creative Quality?

44:02 - 45:14 Guest Recommendations & Closing

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Prashantt Deshpande: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanttdeshpande-567530a/

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

More Episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast
Visit Hawky.ai: https://hawky.ai/

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we sit down with Veera Raghavan, CMO and Founding Team Member of Sweet Karam Coffee. From bootstrapping during festivals to scaling across 32 countries, Raghav shares the authentic story of building a clean-label snacking brand rooted in tradition, powered by data, and loved by 100,000+ customers.

Discover how Sweet Karam Coffee cracked the code on D2C growth, dominated quick commerce, and maintains creative velocity while staying true to their "No Palm Oil, No Preservatives" promise.

Chapter:

0:00 - 1:56 Introduction

1:57 - 11:46 Journey of SKC

11:47 - 14:55 Raghav's Career Path

14:56 - 20:38 SKC's Positioning & Messaging Strategy

20:39 - 23:43 The Story of Janaki Paati

23:44 - 27:11 Can Janaki Paati be Correlated with Conversations?

27:12 - 32:59 How SKC Attributes Content

33:00 - 35:00 Story Behind SKC's Name

35:01 - 38:50 SKC Quick Commerce Growth

38:51 - 41:31 Does Quick Commerce Affect D2C/Retail

41:32 - 45:26 SKC Festive Season Planning

45:27 - 47:22 How SKC Produces Creatives

47:23 - 51:50 SKC's AI Integration

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Veera Raghavan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/veeraraghavanbv/

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we explore the world of TV marketing with Chethan Shenoy, VP of Marketing at Zee Kannada. With 17+ years spanning agencies (TBWA, FCB Ulka), brands (Acer, Samsung, Speedo), and now TV, Chethan reveals how traditional media still dominates reach in India, how BARC measurement works, and the strategy behind launching Zee Power—a new entertainment channel bridging the gap between traditional TV and OTT content.

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Chetan Shenoy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chethanshenoy/

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

More Episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, Abhishek Upadhya, SVP at HiveMinds (Madison World), shares how his engineering background shapes his approach to marketing innovation. From leading festive campaigns where brands hit targets in 72 hours to implementing AI-powered creative intelligence that reduced CPL by 27%, Abhishek reveals the frameworks and systems that keep HiveMinds ahead across travel, luxury retail, real estate, and e-commerce.

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, Abhishek Upadhya, SVP at HiveMinds (Madison World), shares how his engineering background shapes his approach to marketing innovation. From leading festive campaigns where brands hit targets in 72 hours to implementing AI-powered creative intelligence that reduced CPL by 27%, Abhishek reveals the frameworks and systems that keep HiveMinds ahead across travel, luxury retail, real estate, and e-commerce.

Chapters:
00:00 - 10:30 - Abhishek's Journey from Engineering to Marketing Tech
10:30 - 19:06 - Innovation Framework and Tool Evaluation
19:06 - 27:31 - Festive Strategy and Quick Commerce Planning
27:31 - 36:59 - AI-Powered Creative Intelligence Framework Evolution
36:59 - 46:38 - First Principles Over Platform Expertise
46:38 - 54:39 - Building Proprietary Tech for Agencies


Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/
Meet Abhishek Upadhya: https://in.linkedin.com/in/abhishekupadhya


About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.

More Episodes: https://hawky.ai/podcast

In this episode of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky, we dive deep into Dinesh's 17+ years of experience scaling B2C brands across travel, e-commerce, fintech, gaming, and edtech. From his days at MakeMyTrip to his current role building scalable growth engines at Univest, Dinesh shares the universal marketing principles that work across every industry.

Chapters:

• 03:28 - Which marketing experiences excited him most across industries

• 06:20 - Channel strategy by revenue stage: 0-1M vs 1-10M vs 10-100M

• 13:14 - Essential MarTech stack tools that actually matter

• 15:19 - How AI reduced 40-person teams to 2-3 people

• 21:44 - Why SEO is earned media, not organic

• 29:57 - In-house vs agency: when to keep performance marketing internal

• 37:33 - AI-led creative operations: 110 creatives daily with 3 people

• 41:55 - The 40% creative rule: why perfect isn't always better

Meet Surender (Host & Co-founder at Hawky): https://www.linkedin.com/in/say2surender/

Meet Dinesh Arora: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dinesh-k-arora/

About Hawky: A Creative Intelligence Platform that transforms marketing guesswork into data-driven success. From Ad Creative Analysis to AI-Powered Optimization, we help B2C brands and agencies achieve higher ROAS and predictable campaign performance.