How to Leave an Impact with People

Impact is a fashionable word these days. Everyone wants it. Few understand it. Fewer still know how it actually happens.

My first real lesson in impact didn’t come from a brand book or a strategy presentation. It came from a noisy newsroom—IBN7, sometime around 2005.

The channel was young then. Still finding its feet, still arguing about tone, grammar, and identity. That’s when Ajit Sahi—senior editor, sharp mind, allergic to clutter—coined a line that left many of us scratching our heads: “Zindagi Live.”

It was an unusual punchline for a news channel. No urgency. No aggression. No promise of exclusivity.Just two words that sounded more like a worldview than a slogan.

Ajit didn’t stop at coining it. He placed it right under the channel logo. And then came the real test of conviction: every reporter, without exception, had to end their piece-to-camera—the familiar PTC—with their name, location, and those two words.

“…Zindagi Live.”

There was resistance. Some felt it sounded odd. Some thought it diluted seriousness. Some simply didn’t like saying it on camera.

Truth be told, most of us didn’t quite know what the line was doing. It didn’t explain the channel. It didn’t summarise the news. It didn’t shout its relevance. It just existed—quietly, consistently.

Then something interesting happened.

As our teams started travelling deeper into the country—small towns, interior regions, places where OB vans still drew crowds—people would gather around the camera crews. Children especially. Curious, amused, alert.

Someone would ask, “Kaunsa channel?”

And even before we could finish saying IBN7, the response would come—almost reflexively: “Zindagi Live wala!”

Many times, during PTCs, you could hear it behind the camera. Children shouting in chorus.Zindagi Live… Zindagi Live…

Some reporters found it distracting. They’d stop the take and record again, hoping for silence. Clean audio. Professional finish.

I found it revealing.

Because that—right there—was impact.

No research deck. No brand recall study. No deliberate messaging exercise.

Just two words travelling where they were never designed to go—and finding acceptance.

That’s when it became clear to me: connection doesn’t always come from logic. It comes from emotion. Sometimes, words that seem unnecessary, even faintly absurd, when first introduced.

We’ve seen this before.

The 1990s were full of such moments.

Hamara Bajaj. It didn’t talk about engines or mileage. It spoke of belonging.

Melody khao, khud jaan jao. No explanation. Just quiet confidence that the experience would speak for itself.

These lines didn’t shout. They didn’t over-intellectualise. They trusted people. And in return, people carried them forward—into living rooms, conversations, memory.

That’s where many brands falter today.

In the chase for virality, we confuse attention with impact. Clicks with connection. Noise with meaning.

Real impact doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes it arrives years later—in a village, shouted by children who don’t even know why they’re saying it.

That’s the real test.

If people repeat your words when you’re not in the room—If they smile when they say them—If they make the message their own—

You’ve left an impact.

That newsroom lesson stayed with me as I moved across formats—news, long-form, branded content, and eventually, video storytelling.

Because video, at its core, is not about cameras, lenses, or technique. It’s about what stays after the screen goes blank.

A well-shot video may impress. A well-thought-out video connects.

Just like Zindagi Live, the most effective videos don’t try too hard to explain themselves. They don’t chase cleverness for its own sake. They find one honest thought, one emotional truth—and repeat it with clarity and consistency.

In video storytelling, impact often hides in the margins:

• in a line that sounds disarmingly human

• in a pause that lets the viewer breathe

• in an ending that doesn’t sell, but stays

At Enox, this belief guides the way we approach video. We don’t treat it as content to be consumed and forgotten, but as communication meant to live beyond the frame. A brand film should feel less like an advertisement and more like a remembered experience.

Because when your story starts echoing back to you—from places you never planned for, from people you never targeted—you know the video has done its job.

That’s not marketing. That’s impact.