ICS 2025: Championing context, insight, and storytelling for impactful communication

Time of India

28-05-2025

HighlightsChandan Mukherji, Director and Executive Vice President of Strategy, Marketing and Communication at Nestle India, emphasized the distinction between content and communication, stating that content serves as the core message of a brand while communication is the strategic delivery across various platforms. Mukherji highlighted the importance of using data to develop accurate customer personas, noting that understanding the context in which consumers live is essential for creating effective communication that resonates with diverse audiences. The Director and Executive Vice President stressed the need for brands to optimize content for different platforms and moments while maintaining a consistent core story, ensuring a cohesive brand experience that evolves with its target audience.
'What does
content-driven communication
mean? Why differentiate between content and communication? Why insist that content should drive communication?' asked
Chandan Mukherji
, director & EVP, strategy, marketing & communication,
Nestle India
, while addressing the audience at the recently concluded
India Communication Summit 2025
.
From Mukherji's lens, content is the core of a brand's message, the story, emotion, or value it aims to spark. It's the 'what' that defines the brand's narrative. Communication is the 'how', the strategic delivery across diverse touchpoints, timings, and platforms like digital or press.
'In today's multifaceted world, with varied audiences and connection opportunities,
brands
must craft meaningful content tailored to resonate deeply. This creates a synergistic ecosystem where content and communication align to engage effectively, fostering trust and driving impactful brand interactions,' Mukherji noted.
At the heart of communication and content lies data; your communication is as good as the brand's understanding of its customer and in a data-driven world, developing accurate customer personas and the context they live in is key to developing good communication.
Elaborating on this idea, he said, 'Brands need to use all forms of data to understand consumers deeply, identifying who brands target and their contexts. Consumers live across multiple contexts, requiring content that is either broadly encompassing or highly specific to a single context, or a blend of both.'
Mukherji highlighted three key elements that brands need to work on to deliver accurate communication: context, insight and storytelling. Context defines the 'where' and 'when' of communication, ensuring relevance. People exist in varied contexts, requiring adaptable content strategies.
Insight is the 'why', the substance rooted in the brand's purpose, its reason for existing in people's lives, and the impact it seeks to create. This 'why' forms the foundation for meaningful engagement. Finally, storytelling translates these elements into narratives that resonate, connecting with audiences emotionally and authentically.
In today's dynamic landscape, brand stories must be compelling and easily discoverable for customers, whether through user-generated content, influencer collaborations, or branded content. Mukherji stressed the importance of search-optimised content to ensure discoverability, as unoptimised content risks being overlooked. For performance-driven goals, brands must craft content optimised for measurable outcomes, aligning with consumer search behaviors and platform algorithms.
With more touchpoints for customers to shop on than ever before, social commerce is an emerging way that merges social media and e-commerce, letting users discover, share, and buy products directly.
Mukherji stressed on optimising content for social commerce. He said, 'Broad-brush approaches, assuming one piece of content suits all platforms, are outdated. Instead, consider diverse elements and tailor content to create nuggets that resonate deeply with consumers, ensuring meaningful connections across varied touchpoints.'
Concluding the session, Mukherji highlighted the importance of crafting varied content for different platforms and moments, creating a cohesive ecosystem. However, the core story, the 'what', must remain consistent.
'For brands, a unifying thread is vital to deliver one brand experience. Marketers must identify a central nucleus, around which content is developed, tailored for diverse moments, contexts and occasions. This ensures the brand remains relevant, meaningful, and evolves with its target audience over time,' Mukherji concluded.