Most marketers talk about digital transformation. Few have actually lived through four category reinventions while staying grounded in what never changes: human emotion.

In this episode of Velocity, Prashantt Deshpande, Chief Brand Officer at Kurlon Enterprise Limited, reveals how two decades spanning café culture, fashion retail, intimate apparel, and sleep comfort have taught him the delicate balance between data-driven performance and emotion-driven brand building. His journey from Café Coffee Day to Kurlon isn't just a career trajectory, it's a masterclass in understanding that "people don't buy products, they buy a sense of belongingness."

About Prashantt Deshpande: A Career Built on Human Truth

With nearly 20 years of marketing leadership across radically different B2C categories, Prashantt Deshpande represents the modern brand strategist who bridges legacy and innovation. From managing 18 domestic brands at Future Group to now leading Kurlon's marketing across 800+ stores nationwide, he's proven that core marketing principles remain constant even as platforms and technologies evolve at breakneck speed.

His philosophy is elegantly simple: "My career runs on café, comfort, and curiosity." Each category shift taught him something fundamental, coffee taught him emotional brand building, fashion revealed the power of subtle storytelling, intimate apparel showed him the importance of nuanced communication, and now with Kurlon, he's "literally selling dreams."

The One Constant Across Two Decades: Emotions Trump Everything

When asked what has fundamentally changed in 20 years of marketing, Prashantt's answer reveals the paradox at the heart of modern marketing strategy.

"Pre-COVID and post-COVID, consumer buying behavior has completely changed," he explains. "Urban consumers today are super well informed. When they go to any store, they would have done primary research. They want convenience, speed, and options."

This behavioral evolution has driven the adoption of AI tools, real-time performance optimization, and hyper-personalized marketing. But here's the insight that separates strategic marketers from tactical executors: "One thing hasn't changed, emotions. Big festivals, consumers upgrading their wardrobe, changing their lifestyle, that's constant because emotions are very constant."

The craft remains the same: clarity, consistency, and courage. "If your brand doesn't stand for something," Prashantt notes, "no amount of ad spend will make it stand out."

Where Performance Clicks Meet Brand Care: The Magic Moment

The tension between brand building and performance marketing creates endless debate in marketing teams. Prashantt offers a framework that resolves this false dichotomy.

"Performance marketing shows what people click. Brand marketing shows what people care about. When they both meet, when the click and the care meet each other; that's when real magic happens."

This isn't philosophical positioning. It's operational reality. Brand metrics don't show up immediately in P&L statements, but they manifest through recall, experience, preferences, loyalty, and repeat purchase behavior. The challenge is measuring what matters without reducing everything to immediate conversion metrics.

At Kurlon, this translates into maintaining a 60-year heritage of trust while competing against digitally-native D2C mattress brands that move faster and test more aggressively. The solution isn't choosing between brand or performance, it's orchestrating both with strategic precision.

The Human-AI Partnership: Your Favorite Intern That Never Sleeps

Prashantt's approach to AI reveals mature thinking about augmentation versus replacement. "AI is my favorite intern now," he says with characteristic wit. "It works fast, never sleeps, and occasionally gets confused but I'm sure it'll work out better as it learns."

His team actively uses ChatGPT, Midjourney, Canva AI, Gemini, and Perplexity for idea generation, concept testing, insights extraction, and quick drafts. The goal: "Move faster, explore more options for testing, and reduce blank page moments."

But here's where strategic clarity emerges: "The final touch can I completely depend on AI as a marketing leader? No. Human touch, emotion, context, these can't be programmable."

On whether AI raises or lowers creative quality, Prashantt offers a nuanced take: "Honestly, both. AI makes creation very easy, anyone can design an ad, write a script, create a visual in seconds. But that also means real creativity moves upstream into the idea, strategy, and human insight."

The winning formula? "People who win in the AI era won't be the fastest creators. They'll be the ones asking the right questions."

This mirrors what Hawky's Creative Intelligence platform enables: using AI to handle the volume and analysis work, processing thousands of creative variations, identifying performance patterns, tracking competitor strategies, while freeing human strategists to focus on the insight, positioning, and emotional resonance that machines can't replicate.

Performance Marketing as Real-Time Consumer Dialogue

When discussion shifted to how strategic insights flow into performance execution, Prashantt revealed the operational intensity behind modern marketing.

"Performance marketing is the most dynamic. We get consumer insights on an hourly basis from Meta and other platforms. Some people ordered but haven't received the product. Others love the product and want more colors or different sizes. The reaction has to be instant."

Kurlon maintains teams working 18-20 hours daily, monitoring traffic and consumer responses across platforms; Facebook, Instagram, their own website, quick commerce platforms, Amazon, Flipkart. They're not just tracking conversions; they're engaging in continuous dialogue with consumers who provide feedback, ask questions, compare prices, and suggest improvements.

This isn't customer service, it's real-time market intelligence feeding back into creative strategy, inventory decisions, pricing optimization, and platform allocation.

Strategic Creative Development: The Thin Line Between Intent and Understanding

Prashantt's approach to creative development reveals why so many campaigns fail despite strong strategy: the gap between what marketers want to convey and what consumers actually understand.

"It's the most thin line which most marketers may fail," he explains. "What I want to convey and what consumers are understanding. If there's a gap, it's a disaster. I'm trying to convey XYZ, but consumers understand ABC."

His solution is rigorous validation: internal reviews, external testing with closed groups, multiple iterations to ensure the communication, visual appeal, and message alignment all resonate correctly before launch.

This validation extends from major brand campaigns down to performance creatives. The strategy-creative team brainstorms communication approaches, develops concepts, tests them internally and externally, then refines based on feedback. Only then does content go live, whether it's a TVC for festive season or a performance creative for Facebook.

This is where AI-powered creative intelligence becomes transformative. Platforms like Hawky can analyze thousands of creative variations across competitors and your own campaigns, identifying which visual elements, copy themes, and messaging strategies actually resonate with audiences, providing data-backed validation at scale rather than relying solely on small focus groups.

The Tools Behind Modern Marketing Velocity

Beyond AI content tools, Prashantt's team operates in an ecosystem of platforms enabling real-time optimization:

For creative ideation: ChatGPT, Midjourney, Canva AI, Gemini, Perplexity
For consumer insights: Meta analytics, platform-specific dashboards
For performance tracking: Real-time monitoring across owned sites, marketplaces, and social platforms
For validation: Internal review processes, external testing groups, iterative refinement

The emphasis is on speed without sacrificing strategic rigor. AI enables faster iteration and broader exploration, but human judgment remains the filter ensuring brand integrity and emotional resonance.

Key Takeaways

Human truth remains the foundation: Despite two decades of technological evolution, the fundamental driver of purchase behavior remains emotional connection. Brands that stand for something meaningful create loyalty that transcends price and convenience.

Brand and performance aren't opposites: The magic happens when what consumers click (performance) aligns with what they care about (brand). Strategic marketers orchestrate both rather than choosing between them.

AI is an amplifier, not a replacement: The winning approach treats AI as augmentation, handling volume, analysis, and iteration speed, while humans focus on strategy, insight, and emotional resonance that machines can't replicate.

Performance marketing is continuous dialogue: Modern marketing isn't broadcast; it's real-time conversation with consumers providing feedback, insights, and signals that feed back into strategy.

The gap between intent and understanding destroys campaigns: Rigorous validation ensuring consumers understand what you're trying to convey is more important than creative polish or media budget.

This post is based on our conversation with Prashantt Deshpande in Episode 5 of Velocity: Performance Marketing Podcast by Hawky. Listen to the full episode for deeper insights into building brands with soul in the age of AI-driven marketing.

More Episodes:hawky.ai/podcast