Huda Merchant

Brand Marketing Lead @Digit. Marketing professional with ~ 7 years of experience in India & Saudi Arabia. My strength lies in using my creative superpowers to build brands & their worlds. Outside of work, you'll find me amidst pages of a book.

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Brand Strategy

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Brand Management

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Strategic Planning

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Creative Strategy

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Bangalore, India

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At a glimpse 👀

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brand marketing
creative strategy
new innovations
advertising
research
content strategy
social media

I have experience in both India & Saudi Arabia in categories like fintech, fashion, lifestyle, healthcare & literature amongst others.

Currently📍Bangalore

I have spent the last 5 years building the world of simplified insurance (brand) at Digit & bringing in a fresh perspective to the category

Latest in my creative toolkit — leading the 2024 campaign, 'That's it? That's Digit!' ft Virat Kohli ⭐

Previously led the ICC World Cup & Asia Cup 2023 campaign for Digit's new car insurance - Drive Less, Pay Less giving the brand a 24% jump in brand association & 53% jump in creative recall

brands I've worked on/with so far [in India]

brands I've worked with [in Saudi Arabia]

Beyond work, I am passionate about books, writing, art & design. Whenever time permits, I write my substack, & run an initiative, 'Bookish Culture' (previously Jeddah Reads) to foster a culture of reading

Now for those who like details. Here's my story (or in other words, how did I get into this magical world of brand building)

Hi, I'm Huda!
[pronounced 'Who-da']

I've often felt that our resumes portray a limited understanding of who we actually are, leaving the how and whys; why we do what we do, and how we even got here in the first place. As a writer first, I can't help but delve into the details and actually tell you my story. Without my story, I would be just another marketing professional. Without my story, there is no context to my background (beyond the degrees!) and what I could actually bring to the table. Long story short, what makes Huda, Huda?

"Where are you from?"

The most common question asked. The most difficult to answer. But yet important I believe, as we always carry within us the places we come from, live in. I am a Mumbaikar by blood. Born & largely brought up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia whilst I've done a good share of my schooling & university in Pune. However, it is for the last 6 years that I call Bangalore my home :)

Serendipity much?

Growing up, I was pretty sure I'd have a career in fashion. I was also a wordsmith at heart though, and wrote online on the old-school blogger.com. And in quite a serendipitous chain of events, I had the opportunity to write Features for a leading English daily in Saudi Arabia, 'The Saudi Gazette', when I was just 15. And that's what marked a turning point in my story...

Life as a Features Writer for Saudi Gazette

My journey with Saudi Gazette exposed me to a plethora of experiences & people in the field of art, design, culture, fashion, education, & even business. The almost 2-years spent as a writer is what piqued my interest in the field of media & communications.

Re-routing from fashion to media & marketing

In 2013, I got accepted at NIFT Mumbai for their Fashion Communications program & Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication for their Media Studies program. However, not wanting to limit myself to one industry (even within communications) back then, I instead embarked on my journey into the overarching world of media & communications.

During my college years, I pursued many internships & part-time jobs; learning the tidbits around copywriting, content, social media, events & even communication in the social impact space.

Marketing meets Literature

During the same time, I started working for the literary journal, The Bombay Review to kickstart their marketing efforts. Within 2 years, I achieved a readership base in 110 countries, the top 5 being India, USA, UK, Nigeria, & UAE. All this primarily through community building events & effective social media marketing. Eventually went on to manage the editorial too post college, until 2017.

After my stint at The Bombay Review, I started working at Humming Tree, in Jeddah; a co-working space dedicated to professionals in the creative industry. I worked at the intersection of community building & marketing — managing member engagement programs, events, digital marketing & newsletter production.

In early 2018, I made my way back to India, to Bangalore; the startup haven & accelerated my career in marketing; by joining a digital advertising agency as a content creator & digital marketer where I had the chance to work on a mix of fashion, lifestyle & health brands like All About You from Deepika Padukone, Intimates by Van Heusen Woman, HomeLane & Practo amongst others. [you can find my work on these accounts in the below sections]

A year into the agency side soon led me to join a startup itself, i.e. Digit Insurance - back when it was 1.5 years old. What I then perceived to be an unexciting space actually led me to accept the challenge & bring in a creative & simplified approach to an otherwise complex category; leading to not only growth of the brand but (more importantly) myself. I talk more about my journey at Digit in the below section.

5+ years at Digit; a walkthrough of my journey

You know how sometimes amidst the whirl of challenges, there lies a subtle invitation to creativity? To pushing your boundaries & learning what you could actually be capable of? That's exactly what happened with me at Digit. I joined Digit 5.5 years ago when it was just a toddler. And I? Well, I was a stranger to the world of insurance & even fintech then, yet there was something about stepping into the unknown, & taking on this as a challenge that led me into this journey.

My role was to infuse creativity into our communications, to transform the opaque into the understandable. What began as an experiment in various content forms blossomed into a leadership role, guiding the brand’s voice, building the brand's world. The journey has been that of learning, adapting, & growing— a testament to the notion that sometimes, stepping into the unknown can lead to some meaningful experiences! :)

While the details of the transition from content marketer to brand lead would be a rather long story, here are some key milestones instead.

Creator of The Ouch Potato!

Kickstarted Digit's Instagram with the unique proposition of The Ouch Potato, Digit's first IP

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Launched Digit's first Health Insurance product for d2c with a simplified buy-journey

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Went on to lead Digit's social media strategy & acts of simplicity; i.e. initiatives we take up to *really* simplify insurance & promote financial literacy

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Developed & launched a tech tool, BizCoach for sme owners & startups to find the right insurance for their business needs

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Transitioned our social media from an agency-model to an in-house creative team + studio and managed the same

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Evolved to then lead the brand, including our ad campaigns. In the last 1.5 years, I've led two major campaigns — product launch for Digit's new car insurance as part of the Asia Cup & ICC World Cup 2023 & the ongoing brand campaign series, That's it? That's Digit! ft Virat Kohli

Currently still leading the brand, whilst also taking up new responsibilities for Digit's soon-to-be launched life insurance products

Favourite moments (of work) at Digit

That's it x Virat Kohli 😎
Spent time talking to multiple departments. Dug up consumer insights & made sense of all our internal data to chalk up the brief & consequent campaign for 'That's it? That's Digit!'. Inspired by true claim events, & with the aim of communicating Digit's breezy claim experience, I recently took my first campaign with Virat Kohli live during the T20 World Cup & beyond :)

Art 🤝 Insurance
An odd combination? Sure. But the one that actually had people reacting, "That's so cool!"
Collaborated with Art&Found & three artists from different parts of India to create a series of artworks & merch collection to spread insurance awareness

Simply Put by Digit ✨

Conceptualized, wrote, & led the Simply Put pop explainer series to demystify health insurance, & financial decision making using pop-culture references, memes & data visualisations >>>

Creators who drive less 🤝 Digit's Car Insurance

Conceptualised & led the influencer marketing campaign for Digit's new car insurance add-on pay as you drive with multiple creators & comedians who barely seemed to drive much...Delivered a reach of more than 15 lakh, with a CPU of Rs 0.80

Pop-culture 🤝 insurance

An experiment turned favourite. A series of posts we've created from time to time, at the intersection of pop-culture & insurance, making a boring topic much more palatable for our younger, social media audiences. Think Game of Thrones, House of Dragons, Never Have I Ever & even The Indian Matchmaking in the world of Insurance 🤭

That one time we collaborated with Dr Binocs! ⭐
When you owe to make insurance so simple that even kids can understand it, so you go ahead & *actually* explain it to...well, kids!

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Launched Digit's innovative car insurance product, pay as you drive with the Drive Less, Pay Less campaign launched during the Asia Cup 2023, YouTube & Cinemas

A glimpse into some of my work with HomeLane, Practo, McAfee, & VH Intimates [2018]

Building a culture of reading with Jeddah Reads [now Bookish Culture]

Jeddah Reads 🚀📖
Jeddah lacked a culture of reading. 70% of schools didn't even have libraries to begin with. Literary events? That was unheard of. I learned about all this & more when I led my curiosity to find out why people in the city didn't read. One thing led to another, & I started the initiative, 'Jeddah Reads'. The aim was simple. Encourage, promote & build a culture of reading & literature in the city. While talking about the complete initiative is a long story, here's a glimpse >>>

Libraries for Jeddah 📚

People will probably not be drawn to reading if access to books is limited and unseen. So we built, & enhanced libraries in schools & other public, community spaces.

Events & Workshops 🎉

A culture is not built without taking things offline :) Organized a bunch of literary events, book launches & community talks too. Eventually went on to nurture the niche, local literary talent too via curated workshops & talks.

Pay By Book 📚💵

During one UNESCO World Book Day, we collaborated with social enterprises & cafes to use books as currency for the day. People paid with books for coffee, & 1-1 consultations with top professionals; highlighting the message that books are valuable, whilst crowdsourcing books for a library at a low-income school. The result? 650+ books collected & with everyone's love towards it, this became an annual World Book Day initiative!

Hello Bookish Culture ✨
Whilst I was largely running this in hybrid mode between two countries, the pandemic made me realize the potential the initiative could have beyond geographic borders. And that's when I extended this initiative to 'Bookish Culture', an initiative that could be run anywhere & everywhere. Same goal, wider potential. Because in an age of short attention spans & infinite screen-time, fostering a culture of reading has become more important than ever!

Making reading cool again 😎

What lies ahead for Bookish Culture?

While the last few years have been in hiatus mode, the second half of 2024 is the rebirth of Bookish Culture, currently headquartered in Bangalore + open to people staring city chapters. :) I am currently open to collaborations with people, initiatives & brands who connect with this, whilst I build the future of all things bookish :)

😎 Unorganizer at Geekfest Pune

I guess I've always had a creative streak, & for the love of this, I kickstarted Geekfest Pune, an offshoot of an existing event in the Middle East, to Pune. This annual event brought together people passionate about art, design, film, books, gaming & tech together under one roof for a day long event featuring talks, workshops, & gaming jams. The best bit was, that we were able to successfully run this without any sponsorships, but solely through ticket sales >>>

Suyash Kamath, Filmmaker

Rega Jha, Editor-in-Chief, Buzzfeed India

Tejas Modak, Graphic Novelist

Geekfest today?

Once I left Pune for good, I stopped Geekfest Pune too. But, it's something I learned so much from, and also where I discovered that I really love organizing, managing and curating such events and if given the chance, I wouldn't mind doing something similar, or even better again.

Words in other Worlds...