‘THIS PODCAST HAPPENED COMPLETELY BY CHANCE’

Varun Duggirala, Co-founder and Content Chief, The Glitch tells us what inspired his podcast ‘Advertising is Dead’, with its rather interesting choice of name, his plans to monetise it and more...

On the decision to start a podcast
“My decision to do a podcast happened completely by chance,” Duggirala remarks. “It just so happened that IVM Podcasts called me once to be a guest on a show and that’s when we got talking about how there was no podcast in the advertising and marketing space.” IVM Podcasts suggested that Duggirala do one, which was how ‘Advertising is Dead’ happened.

So is advertising really dead?
With a name like ‘Advertising is Dead’, the podcast is definitely intriguing and Duggirala has a grin on his face when he admits that it is a tad ‘click-baity’. However, he points out that the name is in fact a reference to a changing advertising landscape, adding that advertising as we knew it in the past, is dead. The podcast has seen a good response, particularly from people between 20 and 35 years of age. “Most of the people who connect with us on social media platforms are young, and often have career-related questions. We try to respond to as many queries as we can, and that has been really rewarding. While my focus is to educate the audience through the podcast, I try to stay away from things like industryspeak or too much gyan.” The podcast has so far had 36 episodes, featuring varied guests from the industry such as Ogilvy India CEO, Kunal Jeswani, Sidharth Rao, CEO & Co-founder, Dentsu Webchutney, and the one person Duggirala admits he has been ‘fanboying’ about – entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala. He has a few people on his podcast wish list too. “I hope to get Ashish Hemrajani of BookMyShow.com on the podcast some day. Another person who’s probably on everyone’s wish list and definitely on mine is Anand Mahindra. I don’t know how I can make it happen but I would be thrilled if we could get him on the podcast!”

On monetising the show
As far as monetising goes, Duggirala hasn’t yet got sponsors on board but is open to it. Speaking about the monetisation opportunity for the podcast, Amit Doshi, Founder IVM Podcasts added, “We are looking to work with brands to monetise the shows on IVM. We are in a place right now in the podcasting industry in India where putting things behind a paywall would be a very tough nut to crack.”