CMO Arjun Bhatia on how Bharat Matrimony blends tradition and technology

Few industries have seen as rapid an evolution as online matchmaking. What started as simple websites for arranging marriages has now become a sophisticated, data-driven ecosystem that caters to the nuanced preferences of today’s singles. The shift in how people perceive marriage—viewing it not just as a societal expectation but as a partnership rooted in shared values—has redefined the role of matrimony platforms. They are no longer your namesake matchmakers; they are facilitators of meaningful connections in an increasingly digital age.

According to a 2023 report, the global online dating market is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2024-2029) of 1.91%, resulting in a projected market volume of USD 8.96bn by 2029. What drives this growth is not just the increased use of digital platforms but a fundamental shift in how people perceive relationships and commitment. Younger generations, particularly Gen Z, approach marriage differently than their predecessors, valuing compatibility and shared values over societal expectations. This shift has compelled brands in the matchmaking industry to rethink their strategies, balancing tradition with modernity to stay relevant.

In a landscape where consumer behavior is influenced by everything from social media trends to the latest AI advancements, Matrimony.com has tried to adapt to an evolving audience. Its flagship brand Bharat Matrimony has been consistently churning out marketing communications in the last few years with an emphasis on experimentation–within the bounds of the category, that is.  

When AI emerged as a disruptor, the brand tried its hands at it with an innovative campaign. It used ChatGPT and MidJourney to create an influencer named Aditya Iyer, which is an acronym for AI. Aditya was developed as a poetic, caring, Pan-Indian character. Through influencer marketing, his Instagram quickly gained 10,000 followers. On Valentine's Day, it was revealed that Aditya was a digitally generated character, highlighting the futility of chasing perfection and encouraging people to embrace real, imperfect relationships on Bharat Matrimony. The campaign went viral, trending on social media and winning multiple awards, all with minimal investment.

Bharat Matrimony recently launched a campaign titled ‘Wedding Games’ that aimed to capture the zeitgeist of today’s singles—those who are inundated with well-meaning but often intrusive matchmaking attempts from relatives during weddings. It had a sporting twist to it as the brand anticipated the upcoming sports season at the time of its release. 

In an exclusive interview with Social Samosa, Arjun Bhatia, Senior Vice President & CMO at Matrimony.com Limited shares how Matrimony.com has managed to stay ahead of the curve, crafting campaigns that speak directly to the hopes, anxieties, and aspirations of today's singles. He takes us into the creative process behind the brand’s latest digital campaign, ‘Wedding Games,’ which humorously tackles the all-too-familiar scenario of matchmaking at weddings. Bhatia also highlights how the company’s marketing strategies have evolved in response to the digital revolution, shifting consumer demographics, and the media landscape. 

The CMO also opens up about the impact of AI on the industry as a whole and shares personal anecdotes of how he has leveraged the technology to advantage. 

Edited excerpts:

How did the Wedding Games campaign come about? Take us through the ideation and creation process. 

This is a digital-only campaign targeting primarily singles of marriageable age. The idea came from a humorous, slice-of-life take on a situation almost every single person has experienced at least once.

During weddings, many uncles and aunties see the event as a hunting ground for prospective singles and want to play matchmaker. They are well-meaning and have no ill intentions, but they see marriage and think of other kids of marriageable age. They crowd around these prospects, asking uncomfortable questions like, "When are you getting married? It's your turn now," which singles find very awkward.

Their matchmaking criteria are often superficial, based on social status, looks, and age. They might say, "Sharmaji ka ladka" or "So-and-so auntie's friend's daughter," assuming compatibility. However, today's singles are far more evolved. Their exposure levels are different, and their understanding of marriage has changed. People are delaying marriage, especially after COVID-19. 

Today's singles have a mind of their own. Marriage, to them, is an institution where two people come together with meaningful compatibility—shared philosophies and life goals. This traditional matchmaking approach feels very uncomfortable, yet they don't want to be rude to their uncles and aunties whom they rarely meet. So, they prefer to avoid these questions.

We wanted to lighten the insight and decided to exaggerate it, drawing inspiration from the upcoming Olympics (though I won’t name it). This was the whole idea behind the campaign. We derived insights not only from general observations but also from the consumers who use our app. 

When we ask users why they are on the app, a common response is that they have specific criteria for a life partner that their friends or family cannot meet. Traditional matchmaking imposes implicit commitments and pressure to accept the alliance unless there's a significant reason to reject it. This pressure is another key insight we gathered from speaking to our consumers.

You have been at Matrimony.com for close to 4 years now. In your tenure, how have you seen the marketing at Matrimony.com evolve? 

When I joined Matrimony, we were on the brink of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2021. People were working from home, and physical interaction was minimal, which also affected marraiges. During that time, weddings became smaller, and many people delayed their marriages. Consequently, the opportunities to find someone at weddings or through alliances decreased, which is something the film portrays.

People began to realize the significant role of matrimony apps in matchmaking. With more time on their hands, they explored these apps in detail. Over the last 4-5 years, there have been notable changes in matchmaking and communication, especially post-pandemic with a newer audience.

From a marketing standpoint, both communication and media are crucial. The rise of OTT, connected TV, and increased digital penetration shifted our audience's behavior. About 75-80% of people registering on our platform are individuals, contrary to the misconception that most parents register on behalf of their children.

Nowadays, product discovery is less about linear TV and more about digital platforms, including connected TV. Communication has also evolved; consumers want to see brands in action through testimonials and real user experiences, which applies to all products, not just e-commerce. Influencer marketing has become essential. Three years ago, we didn't produce any influencer videos, but now we release 15-20 videos monthly.

This approach allows us to address specific consumer concerns, such as safety, privacy, and profile authenticity, through targeted digital channels and influencer marketing. The biggest communication requirement in this category is demonstrating the availability of profiles and choices. We communicate this in our commercials and brand messaging. However, issues like privacy and fake profiles are better addressed through sub-themes in digital channels rather than major brand campaigns.

The audience has become more evolved and discerning, often having a point of view on a product or service based on online reviews and success stories. As marketers, we need to ensure consistent communication across all touchpoints. Consumers now discover products through various channels, including Instagram, referrals, TVCs, and platforms like Quora. This changing landscape requires us to adapt our communication strategies to meet consumer needs and preferences.

What have been the standout campaigns for you personally? 

There are a lot of campaigns, but one that I really liked was something we did last year. This was a campaign during Valentine's Day. If you remember, at the beginning of last year, generative AI became a big buzzword. ChatGPT had just come out, Microsoft released their tools, and so on. 

At that time, we were discussing how to use generative AI in our communications. We came up with a very nice idea and won a lot of awards for that campaign. 

We noticed that nowadays people are so into Instagram and looking perfect, having the perfect holiday, partner, dishes, dresses, etc. Expectations have changed a lot, and people are moving away from realism. So, we used ChatGPT and MidJourney to create an influencer named Aditya Iyer, which is an acronym for AI.

To build this character, we used MidJourney and spoke to over 50 to 80 women in our agency's office about how a typical desirable Indian male should look and what he should talk about. The feedback was that he should be a great communicator, able to do poetry, love children and pets, and care for elders.

We created this character with a Pan-India look and used ChatGPT to generate social posts for him on Instagram. There were posts of him cooking, writing beautiful poetry, and more. Once we established his personality, he started posting about looking for the love of his life.

Within 7-8 days of starting this handle, and with the help of influencer marketing, he gained around 10,000 followers on Instagram. We amplified the campaign through influencers, and on Valentine's Day, we revealed that Aditya Iyer was not a real person but a generated being. The images and posts were fake. 

The whole idea was to show that chasing perfection is futile. Humans are naturally flawed, and it's important to embrace those flaws. We tied this message to Bharat Matrimony, encouraging people to find real, imperfect people on the platform.

The campaign did very well. It received millions of views on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, trended on both platforms, and won several awards. Despite spending only around ₹40,000 to ₹50,000 on ChatGPT, MidJourney, and some consumer research, the media attention we received was worth crores. The ROI was immense. This was one of my favorite campaigns at Matrimony.

Marriages are looked at a certain way by the earlier generations. Now the generation coming up is more progressive and looks at marriage differently. The viewpoint has changed. How do you look to cater to that? When a person goes on a matrimony app, there's a certain intent involved. They want to get married, but how do you make it about organically finding a partner?

The way I see it, matrimony apps were far ahead of their time. People were discovering matches online 20 years ago, and now they are finding food online. Ideally, it should have been the reverse—you found people online 25 years ago to spend your life with, and now, food, which is a short-term pleasure, is coming online.

Gen Zs are the first audience segment born when smartphones were coming up. They have seen digital-first consumption of products and services, unlike millennials who adapted to it later in life. Gen Z interacts with apps and lifestyles very differently from even millennials.

If you see our communication in the last 20-25 years, the evolution is evident. Initially, the focus was to convince parents with messages like, "You have more choices and a better way of finding matches without calling people home." Then, the girl became part of the decision-making process. As more women started working, our campaigns evolved to reflect this. One notable campaign was the 'Sudha' commercial, where a woman states she loves her job and wants to continue working. 

Just before the pandemic, we had a campaign with MS Dhoni called ‘Find Your Equal,’ highlighting the equal roles of men and women in household chores and life priorities. This campaign resonated during the pandemic when men also participated more in household duties. It communicated that just like men, women have priorities beyond family and household—they have careers, friends, hobbies, etc.

Now, with Gen Z entering the matchmaking scene, the focus has shifted again. Gen Z looks for compatibility beyond just looks, money, or career. They value connections on hobbies, lifestyles, and interests, which they believe lead to better future compatibility and lifelong bonds. 

We’ve noticed that the age of marriage is also shifting. Earlier, people registered in their mid-20s, but now women register in their late 20s and men in their late 20s to early 30s. This shift indicates that people want to experience life and build their careers before settling down. They seek partners who share similar interests and lifestyles for better compatibility.

Our product has adapted accordingly. Earlier, we matched people based on traditional criteria like horoscopes, region, and language. While these criteria are still relevant, the focus has shifted to matching based on hobbies and lifestyles. Our communication has also evolved in this direction. 

For instance, our internal analysis showed that 60-70% of people on the app love pets, many are food enthusiasts, and others are into yoga or social causes. These passion points are now part of our commercials. Gen Z is more evolved, thinking about the planet and social causes, and they want partners who share these values. Matchmaking apps need to reflect these priorities to stay relevant.

BharatMatrimony spends significantly on advertising, both on traditional TV campaigns and digital platforms. In recent years, we have also collaborated with influencers to reach our audience more effectively.

How do you allocate your marketing budget between various mediums? How does your media plan look? Has that changed in the last few years since social media has taken over?

It's changed significantly. Five years ago, we were probably 75-80% TV and 20-25% digital. Digital was mainly performance, such as search or app install campaigns. Now the shift is almost 50-50, or probably 55% TV and 45% digital. 

The digital piece of marketing used to be only search campaigns or app install campaigns. Now, what has become 45% includes things like influencer marketing and digital films. We bring them onto popular platforms like YouTube, Meta, and Connected TV. A lot of newer digital platforms have also started coming up, and we experiment with those as well, such as X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, certain OTTs, and music apps. 

Different platforms cater to various passion points and niches. We try to create stories that are native to each platform, and a significant budget goes into these experiments. While platforms like YouTube and Meta have become always-on, similar to how TV used to be, a lot of the budget is dedicated to experiments and innovations. For instance, our Aditya AI campaign involved influencers and Meta, but it also incorporated generative thought processes.

Another aspect is content integrations, whether on TV, OTT, or any other platform. For example, instead of just running plain vanilla TV commercials, we integrate our content meaningfully. If we are sponsoring a show like Bigg Boss, rather than just having ads, we might create a segment where contestants discuss what is important in a message. They could write and read out messages to see if there is compatibility between what a female and a male contestant say, indicating if they are a good match. This segment would be sponsored by Bharat Matrimony, making it a more meaningful content integration. We aim for integrations that have a purpose and are not just random, adding another layer of innovation to our approach.

According to you, what should be the ideal ratio between performance and brand marketing? 

I've seen both extremes. There are brands like Airbnb that have now completely stopped doing performance marketing. They do brand marketing only. I've heard about some brands who spend 80% of their budgets, not Indian brands, on content creation. Just imagine, they won't spend any money on media. They put in a lot of effort, in terms of money and time, into content building. 

So, those are the extremes that focus more on awareness. Then there are brands doing a lot of performance marketing. Ultimately, it depends on a couple of things. One is the maturity of the category you are in. If you are in a well-known, accepted category, it will have a different ratio of brand versus performance spends. It also depends on whether you are digital-first or more traditional. 

Second, it depends on the product itself. Is it a physical product or a service? These factors determine your marketing strategy. After the category, it's about your brand—how much favor your brand has. The third point is your target demographic. Are they Gen Z or an older generation? 

For example, if it's an older demographic, I can't rely too much on performance marketing because I won't reach them or get action from them through digital channels only. So, it depends on several aspects. 

If you ask about matrimony, I would say both brand and performance marketing are equally important for our industry. Our product usage is not repeatable; I cannot acquire a customer today and keep them for the next 10 years. So, I focus on awareness too. It's not like I will get a lot of word-of-mouth because it's a very intimate category. People generally don't talk about it openly. If you're looking to match, it's a very personal decision, unlike recommending a restaurant or a product like a protein shake.

Hence, I need to keep my own channels open for awareness. Influencer marketing, TV campaigns, and digital films are important because I'm communicating one-on-one with my audience. Performance marketing is required if there are category intenders who are not very aware of your brand or services. I need to introduce them to my brand at the right time in their journey so they consider it as an option.

For my category, it's broadly 50-50 between brand and performance marketing. But, as I said, it depends on the industry and its nature, so it will be different for different categories.

Your social media marketing seems to feature a mixture of elements from memes, reels, static posts, and influencer collabs. How do you go about your social media strategy? What kind of approach has worked for you? 

I will not say that we are doing a great job on social media. Influencer marketing is slightly separate because we treat it more as performance-oriented, but when it comes to pure organic social media, we are still learning what works and what doesn't for our category.

However, we have made some efforts in the last 2-3 years, transitioning from being very generic and not knowing what we were doing to being more oriented towards what we want out of our social media handles. Broadly, the thought is that we want our social media to reflect the lifestyle of married people, showing that marriage means having a lifelong friend with whom you share all your successes, joys, and low points in life.

We aim to paint a picture of how marriages are in today's age, possibly creating a sense of FOMO among singles by highlighting the importance of having that one person to share everything with, from happiness to sadness. That's our central thought. While we do include memes and other content, our main goal is to show singles that they're missing out on something special if they don't have that one special person in their life.

This idea also stems from narratives we keep hearing. People are delaying marriages due to personal aspirations, and a small percentage even question whether marriage is necessary. They might think, "Why do I need to get married? I have friends, family, and a beautiful career." We want to address this by showcasing the kind of life one can have if married to the right person—a life shared with a special friend. That's what we aim to communicate through our social media.

How has been the impact of AI on your team and on you personally? Are you leveraging AI in product development or marketing efforts? 

From a product standpoint, we're using AI for a couple of things. One key area is helping people articulate their personal descriptions. Many people know who they are but struggle to express it in writing. AI assists by generating prompts that guide them through this process.

Another significant application is in identifying fake profiles before they even enter the system. Our AI, especially the regression models, spots patterns and flags any potential misuse or inappropriate behavior on the platform. This helps maintain the quality of users and ensures any misuse is flagged even before a person reports it.

From a marketing perspective, AI has been instrumental. Our first experiments involved using AI for social media creatives. We serve a diverse audience across hundreds of communities in the country, and cultural differences play a significant role, especially in weddings. The way a bride looks in Rajasthan is very different from a bride in Kerala. Previously, creating images to reflect these differences involved costly photo shoots. Now, with generative AI, we can produce customized images and content for different regions and languages, greatly improving efficiency and reducing costs.

For example, if I needed images of brides from four different regions, it would have taken a long time and significant effort to organize photo shoots. But with AI, we can quickly generate the necessary visuals without the need for expensive shoots, particularly for basic creative content.

We also used AI for a recent campaign. Initially, I wasn't satisfied with the script we had, which was in Hindi. I used an AI tool, Claude, where I provided the campaign's construct and objectives. The AI helped refine the script by considering the perspective of a North Indian elder speaking to younger people. Within half an hour and a few iterations, the AI significantly improved the script. This saved a lot of time and effort compared to going back and forth with a copywriter or agency.

In just 30 minutes, I had a script that was 95% complete, which I could then send back to the agency for final tweaks. AI made the process much more efficient, though, of course, the final human touch was still necessary.

How has the role of a CMO evolved since the time you joined the industry? How were marketing heads during the early stages of your career different from the ones now? Additionally, what skills do you think are must-haves for a CMO in today’s time?

The traditional CMO has evolved. When I joined the industry with ITC and others, traditional CMOs relied a lot on gut and instincts, but they were also very creative. The marketing heads I interacted with were very creative and gut-oriented because data was limited at that time. Many decisions were based on experience and intuition rather than quantifiable data. They would say, "I think you are correct; this is the way it is," based on having met hundreds of consumers.

Today, while creativity remains important, CMOs are required to be very data-oriented. Decision-making has become extremely data-driven. I also try to orient myself to this. For example, when developing the AI character, we discussed with female colleagues and our agency what defines a good-looking Indian today. We considered traits like caring for parents, socializing with friends, cooking, and being romantic.

Decision-making has become much more data-oriented. Today's CMOs, regardless of the industry, must collect and analyze data to gain meaningful insights. Creativity is still crucial because data can only provide so much; insights and creativity built upon that data are key.

In the last 20 years of my marketing journey, I've seen a major change. Today's CMOs need to make sense of data, as there's an overwhelming amount available. They must sift through data from thousands of campaigns, touchpoints, and reports to identify what's critical. This skill is vital.

Additionally, having a global perspective is important. With the internet, consumers are aware of trends from the US, Europe, and beyond. It's more about tribal behavior than geography. For example, a gamer is a gamer regardless of nationality. Understanding these cultural codes is essential, as we're consuming global content through platforms like Netflix and YouTube.

Lastly, with the internet, many new industries have emerged, like food tech, cab delivery, and edtech. CMOs need to be aware of innovations in these industries and consider how they can be applied to their own categories. These are the critical skills for today's CMOs, beyond the traditional disciplines of marketing.