70 marketers walk into a room
what happens next? a day filled with big ideas, bigger energy, and the kind of conversations that don’t happen over emails.
when we hosted the founders’ collective last year, we saw what happens when a room full of ambitious women comes together — so we knew we had to do it again. this time, for one of the biggest cohorts at our club in bombay: marketers. enter: the marketers’ collective.
from freelancers building their personal brands to agency owners scaling their businesses — our attendees ranged from 24 to 56 year olds, each bringing their own perspective, challenges, wit and wins to the table. for some, this was their first-ever networking event, while others traveled all the way from cochin and pune just to be in the room. “when a room like this comes together, it’s worth showing up for” - their words, not ours.
we started the day with a ‘spark session’, where attendees spoke about the marketing campaigns that left a mark on them.
taylor swift and shahrukh khan were declared the greatest marketers of our time, proving that storytelling, brand loyalty, and reinvention are everything. others reminisced about iconic ad campaigns—fevicol’s timeless creativity, nike’s powerful narratives, and cadbury’s nostalgia-filled storytelling.
our fav part? ‘hey! i know who worked on that campaign you loved!’
we then moved to two roundtable discussions - on topics that we know keep marketing folks up at night.
the first - brand building on a budget, hosted by zahra khan, who really broke it down: the best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing. she took us through brands that have mastered storytelling, proving that the most viral moments often come from content made on the fly, in the moment, not in a strategy deck. she reminded us that some of the most impactful content in recent years wasn’t planned for months—it was a reaction to culture, trends, and human moments.
the second - content that converts, by dr rutu mody kamdar, who challenged the idea that conversion is just clicks and sales—because the best content isn’t transactional, it’s memorable. her take? brand building happens through repetition, consistency, and trust. she spoke about how the best brands create mental shortcuts for consumers—distinct colors, sounds, and messaging that make them impossible to ignore. and that conversion isn’t about immediate sales—it’s about staying top of mind until your audience is ready to buy.
lunch really was a whole lotta food for thought—attendees carried forward the insights from zahra and rutu’s sessions, sharing their own experiences, swapping lessons, and debating which brands are getting it right (and which ones have lost the plot).
for the finale, we went all in on creativity.
6 teams. 12 people per team. each picked two random brands—from spotify x unicef to haldiram’s x durex (yes, really)—and had 30 minutes to create the most unexpected brand mashup. the results? skits, jingles, shark tank-style pitches, and ideas so good they deserved real $$. and a whole lotta cheer — like only women can!
marketing is easy to overthink and hard to do alone. but in rooms like this, ideas flow faster, conversations go deeper, and sometimes, a single takeaway can change the way you approach your work.
if you’re in bombay and if this sounds like your kind of room, you gotta check out: www.leap.club/offline