Music brings the brand’s narrative and communication alive: MG Motor’s Gaurav Gupta

Ahead of the launch of MG Taal season 2, the leading carmaker’s CCO talks about the role of music in the brand’s marketing.

MG Motor India has launched season 2 of MG Taal, titled Naya Safar, Nayi Taal. It is a national talent hunt for indie music artistes. Naya Safar, Nayi Taal aims to focus on showcasing promising talent through a talent search pulsing across the country.

Speaking about the success of season 1 and what led to season 2, Gaurav Gupta, CCO, MG Motor India, says that Taapi Project and Fiddlecraft (winners of season 1) got an amazing response, and MG Motor received more than 500 user-generated videos.

“Music has always been a core part of MG Motor. It launched its brand anthem in 2019, it has its music logo as well. Be it in the showrooms or on MG Motor car’s screens, music is well integrated across consumer touchpoints,” adds Gupta.

How is season 2 going to be different from season 1? Gupta informs that MG Motor will work with the selected artistes to create non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This will help the artistes to take it into the monetisation path. These artistes will also get a chance to perform in the brand’s metaverse, called MG verse, at special curated events.

The artistes will be promoted on platforms like Josh, Songdew and Fever FM. This will amplify their music and get them popularity across mediums, like radio, TV and digital channels.

Gupta explains that Songdew, with which it has an umbrella partnership, is particularly focussed on indie music, and also has a TV channel and an OTT platform. It has built a community of over 50,000 indie artistes on its platform.

Music plays an integral role in MG Motor’s marketing strategy. Gupta mentions, “Music has the power of evoking various emotions. It plays a key role in communicating with customers and building the brand’s stance. We have grown up listening to famous music tunes of brands like Liril, Hutch, etc. We associate brands with these tunes and they evoke a particular emotion. So, music becomes a core part of a brand’s communication strategy.”

MG Motor has also realised that music has to undergo a journey of evolution and can't be static, states Gupta. It helps people to enjoy the brand and also leads to creating value. Hence, it helps to bring the brand’s narrative and communication alive.

While the indie music genre caters more to the millennials and young audiences, Gupta believes that the same music at different times of the day can appeal to different age groups and audiences. “While we may associate indie music with the millennials and youngsters, good music has the ability to cut across age groups.”