“One of the biggest misconceptions is, what is a brand? People think making Ranveer Singh dance on TV is building a brand. Actually, a brand, the way I look at it, is building expectations that a customer has from that entity,” said Vedang Patel, who was one of the three panellists at Brew 2025, organised by GroupM at the Fairmont Hotel, Andheri.
Vedang Patel of The Souled Store, an apparel and merchandise brand; Parul Gulati of Nish Hair, a premium 100% human hair extensions brand; and Chitresh Sinha of The Plated Project, a unique home-decor brand, held a discussion on the topic ‘Loyalty Rewritten: Building Bonds Through Content’.
Mitesh Kothari, co-founder and chief creative officer of White Rivers Media, a digital marketing agency, joined them to give an agency perspective on the topic. Upali Nag Kumar, chief strategy officer at Wavemaker India, moderated the session.
The panel discussion centred around how consistency, storytelling, emotion, and authenticity shape brand loyalty despite reduced attention spans.
Vedang Patel opened the panel discussion by calling out the misconceptions that stakeholders have about building a successful brand. He said that people think making Ranveer Singh dance on TV is building a brand, but actually, a brand is building expectations. According to him, there should be consistency and a lack of schizophrenia from one advertisement to the other or from the point of sale to the product that comes — just that consistency is what will eventually build trust.
He elaborated on how The Souled Store built resonance by banking on the ‘pop’ in the pop culture. He said they already sell pop culture, so nobody really needs to buy trust. He also said that they were in an interesting position where he didn’t have to convince anyone to buy Harry Potter — JK Rowling had already done that.
Patel also said that he felt the consistency in who they are translates and resonates with the customer because everyone is a closet nerd about something — if not superheroes, then maybe some TV show, movie, book, music, or an IPL team.
He believed there was almost a sense of a borrowed brand that contributes to building their brand, and eventually, that interaction continues, leading people to purchase other items from them as well.
Pointing to his outfit, he continued that everything he was wearing wasn’t fandom, but he hoped that kids would start buying even striped shirts from them — because back in the day, The Souled Store was a warm, cosy place to go to.
Actor-turned-entrepreneur Gulati, founder of Nish Hair, reflected on how her decision to be the face of her brand helped her sell products that influencers couldn't for the brand.
She said that when she started out, she didn’t know better and was comfortable in front of the camera, so she put her face in front of it and talked about her products because she made them—and no one else could talk about them as well as she did. Gulati noted that, especially in an expensive category like hair extensions, trust is everything.
Gulati also emphasised how the market had evolved, especially for women-led businesses. She said there were many small businesses and homegrown businesses doing crazy numbers, and 100 crores is nothing for small businesses nowadays.
Chitresh Sinha, founder of purpose-driven brand The Plated Project, argued for the power of resonance rather than fleeting relevance. He believed that a lot of people think relevance means there’s a trending reel, and they should do it or just keep jumping on things, but for them, it’s about resonance.
He elaborated his brand’s ethos by questioning what vibe one wants somebody to feel and whether one can own that vibe consistently. He shared an example of their first series, 'A Quarter of Nostalgia', which consisted of six plates, six artists, and a simple brief — to depict their happiest memories of childhood on a plate. He said they left one-fourth of the artwork blank, which is where they would tell them that one in four kids in India are malnourished.
Sinha expanded on why The Plated Project avoids leading with guilt or charity. He admitted that usually when people see messages about donating or helping children, he used to get put off by it. Instead, his team decided to take a different route.
He said that maybe 10% of people are already committed to helping a cause, but there’s 90% of the world — people like him — who want to do good but also need to feel good about themselves. So they decided to talk to that 90%. Their solution was storytelling with sentimental hooks.
He added that when people consume something, they want to use it for their betterment — to appear smarter or to show aesthetic taste when people visit their homes. So they tapped into that market.
Mitesh Kothari described how the definition of loyalty has evolved. He believed loyalty has stopped being a marriage and has become a situationship. He said it’s not a given anymore and asked how one defines loyalty, questioning whether buying a product again and again is loyalty anymore — to which he said he didn’t think so.
He introduced the concept of “ambient loyalty”, explaining that even if he had not purchased The Souled Store in a while, if somebody asked him about buying that kind of product or a store in Phoenix, The Souled Store would be a brand he would recommend.
Kothari added that Gulati clearly did something that ended up on his feed, and if she did content only around hair, it would not have. He believed she possibly tapped into other micro-elements that told the algorithm he could be interested.
He also emphasised that brands must understand emotional triggers and questioned whether they are a digital soundboard, provide therapy, or give social currency — such as sending something that can be shared with five other people. He cleverly pointed out that the concept of wanting customers to be loyal to the brand had flipped, and now, brands have to be loyal to their customers.
Closing the panel, Upali Nag Kumar shared a personal anecdote about a brand she deeply connects with — Freedom Farmhouse (Freagles of India), a not-for-profit brand that rescues laboratory beagles and sells skincare products for dogs. The brand had not spent a penny on paid media.
She explained that the raw content from the rescue work resonated with the audience. There were images of dogs who had come out of cages, running around, known by numbers, and later given names.
She said the pictures were very candid, shot on the phone, showing how the animal was blossoming, coming out of its shell, and getting adopted — with both happy and hard stories.
All three brands seemed to have found their footing in the snappy digital world, and the agency perspective is in their favour. The success of The Souled Store, The Plated Project and Nish Hair rewrites loyalty by creating bonds with their content.
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