Marketing Expert in India

Vishal Parekh

Marketing innovator
rooted to common sense.

WELCOME TO MY SPACE OF IDEAS AND THOUGHT EXCHANGE.

Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, APAC Region – India and Kingston Technology.

I love building brands, architecting winning ideas and creating impact that reaps long-term benefits.

I have almost two decades of experience which runs through and is amalgamation of from retail, advertising, gaming, photography and technology. My core competency lies in engaging with brands when they are at the nascence and the cusp of transformation. I play the role of being a brand builder and growth multiplier. I have worked with leading brands like Pantaloons, Zapak, and Lintas. Until I found an anchor in Kingston.

My association with Kingston Technology is of eleven years and is still running strong. Marketing, channel building, relationship management, brand strategy are my forte. I have been instrumental in building Kingston as a brand in India and also successfully architected HyperX the premier gaming brand of Kingston right from its very roots.

I believe I am not just a Marketing Director, I am Creative Thinker. Mentor. Thought leader. Experimenter. Logic Believer. A fan of Common Sense. Photographer. A gaming enthusiast. A traveller’s soul.

Let’s get talking.

“There are no short-cuts. There may be smart-cuts. But to strive is inevitable. Do strive for anything you want, dream and desire because that is what makes the journey beautiful. And the destiny worth-it.”

Awards & Recognition

2018

100 Best Marketing Minds of India
Enterprise IT World

The Greatest Marketing Influencers
World Federations of Marketing Professionals

Guest of Honor – DT Awards
Digital Terminal

2017

Most Influential Marketing Leaders
World Marketing Congress

India’s Greatest CMO
URS Asia One

2016

Most Influential Marketing Leaders
World Marketing Congress

2015

Most Influential Marketing Leaders
World Marketing Congress

2014

Most Talented CMOs of India
World Marketing Congress

2013

Thought Leaders Award
World Federations of Marketing Professionals

2012

Best Marketing Concept of the Year
SAP Media Worldwide

2011

Best Marketing Concept of the Year
SAP Media Worldwide

My Story

Mission MBA
I wasn’t a first bencher with heaps of highly impressive mark-sheets. I was an average student, an ordinary guy and happy. Studying never excited me. But challenges did.

A distant relative once remarked, “There are no MBAs in our community and I don’t see one in the distant future” In his remark I found my challenge. And to study and become post-grad became a mission. After two years of rigorous self-alteration and studying mission was accomplished, I became an MBA in the field of Marketing.

The Professional Road-Map

First Job

My performance earned me a job at Pantaloons through campus placements. A year of managing one of the initial stores of the retail giant. It was an amazing year long stint. The madness of retail, the direct connect with consumers teaches you much more than any marketing book ever can.

The Day’s At Lintas

My wish during the campus placements phase was to crack an advertising agency. It did not happen then, nonetheless I cracked it later and got myself a job at Lintas. I worked for Lintas Direct – their direct marketing arm. My tenure at Lintas changed me forever, it shaped me professionally.

Here I got the opportunity to meet every mammoth brand there was, from Hindustan Unilever, Bombay Dyeing, Tata Housing, Maruti, Tata AIG and many more. Here I experienced the merciless grilling sessions by bosses and clients that shape you into an invincible professional. Here I realized my forte is creative thinking. I found myself sharing ideas rooted to common-sense that clicked. I comprehended the direct marketing as a communication discipline in its entirety. Here I spent two amazing years.

The need to keep doing something new made me make an unusual career move.

An Unusual Move, Monarch

I joined Monarch Innovative Technologies, a small Indian organization into an unrecognized industry Photography. This was back in the days when technology was VCRs, Cassettes and bulky wedding albums. Monarch was a manufacturer of hardware and software developed in India that could convert wedding cassettes into CDs and DVDs. I had joined them at an incubation stage and that is where the fun was.

At Monarch a lot of exciting initiatives brewed – from executing 300 roadshows across the country in three months, to launching 32 new products in a year, to being a part of two path-breaking products of that industry – Photo Express and Karizma Album.

Here, along with Marketing, I was entrusted to build Channel (Trade) Partner Network in India as well as countries like Australia, Europe, US and other Asian countries.

I spent three years at Monarch and being a part of this company right from its nascence gave me immense exposure and a freedom to grow.

A Gaming Enthusiast

I love games and an hour of my day is still dedicated to this little indulgence. And so when I got a chance to work for a gaming company I embraced it. I joined the Pune operations of Level-Up a Mumbai based gaming company that developed and sold the game – Ragnarok – a multi-player role playing game. It was ahead of its time for back then India’s internet and tech infrastructure wasn’t up to the mark. The role I played there was about crisis management and help the company traverse through its hurdles. But Pune as a city wasn’t may spirit city so I came back where I truly belong – Mumbai.

Reliance Capital Gaming Portal

I joined Reliance Capital Gaming Portal, which was later rechristened as Zapak. I joined Reliance Capital Gaming Portal in its initial stage I was just the fifth or the sixth member in the team. I enjoyed building this brand right from the beginning. Since at this stage a lot of creative ideas become important. But once the company was doing great, I felt my role was stagnant and so I dived out again to find a new challenge.

And I Found An Anchor – Kingston

Yet again I joined Kingston in its very nascence in India. Globally it was a known brand but in India it was yet to make its mark. Our by-line back then was committed to memory. My initial role was of managing the retail market. But my homework and initial work made me realized that Kingston needs to be established as a brand, because it is just associated to RAM which is a technical aspect. No one knew we were into SD Cards, USB drives. Thus I approached my senior and shared my concern and my will to make a change.

My role was thus switched to Brand-management. And from there one started a journey of building Kingston as a number one brand. We did path-breaking, one of its kind campaigns like – ‘It’s my space’, ‘World largest pen-drive – that made to Limca Book of Records’. We were very selective in our marketing initiatives and did highly targeted ads and this helped us create an invincible brand.

With Kingston we have many firsts to our credit, it was the first tech-memory-solutions brand to have transformed into a lifestyle brand with the campaign ‘It’s my space’, it was the first memory brand to have sponsored an IPL team, first to have done an in-film placement in the movie Dum Maro Dum and also the first to have executed customized retail branding. These initiatives resulted in a strong brand-equity and made Kingston Number 1 in its space.

I then also embraced the role of channel development and management. Here we did unforgettable campaigns like ‘Kingston Santa’ and I dived deep into the channel partner space and created yielding relationship.

HyperX Yet Another Adventure

Along with Kingston, I was entrusted with a new brand from their stable – HyperX. It is Kingston’s premier gaming brand. I was instrumental in architecting this brand from its roots. The approach that I embraced to make a difference was to talk to the gaming community. Being a gamer I realized I cannot hard-sell, I can only offer an experience of my product and then trust its quality to create advocacy.
From sponsoring E Sports League, flash-sales to community building a lot of interesting ideas made HyperX.
And the journey at Kingston continues!