ITV

Tag: digital marketing

  • How Sony sparked conversations on entrepreneurship with ‘Shark Tank India’

    How Sony sparked conversations on entrepreneurship with ‘Shark Tank India’

    Mumbai: Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in association with its digital partner White Rivers Media (WRM) was successfully able to make conversations around entrepreneurship more mainstream with the first season of “Shark Tank India.”

    “Shark Tank India” was able to sustain a consistent engagement with the audience throughout the season with live updates, decoding the business jargon, anecdotes from the Sharks, inspiring moments from the show, and highlighting each ‘deal’ thereby making the business reality show more inclusive and relatable to the audience.

    Starting with the registration phase, WRM played a pivotal role in reaching out to the incubator community, college alumni, and co-working spaces encouraging participation in the show. Furthermore, the digital agency created exclusive social media pages, on Twitter and Instagram, to engage with the audience. It gained 750K followers in no time and went on to become the one-stop destination for everything related to the show with its viral posts.

    WRM also executed a 100-hour countdown on social media leading to the launch of the show thereby building intrigue and urgency around the show through content that explained the format and gave a sneak peek of the ‘Sharks.’

    From building the sharks through live sessions to promoting the ‘pitchers’ and their unique ideas and explaining A-Z of ‘entrepreneurship’ through curated content, WRM ensured that the social media engagement on the show is sustained and heightened throughout the show.

    It was only a matter of time post the launch of the show that content creators, brands, and communities were found indulging themselves in viral contexts via episodic content. #SharkTankIndia was trending week after week and everything about it, from the Sharks to their responses, became a palpable part of the popular culture. The daily average of one million+ views on reel content and positive comments drove a massive increase in followers for SET and SonyLIV’s owned social media platforms.

    “It has been an incredible experience being a catalyst in disrupting India’s TV narrative with SET’s Shark Tank India,” said White Rivers Media chief executive officer and co-founder Shrenik Gandhi. “Commonly used business-related terms turned into a regular dinner-table conversation at any average Indian household. Entrepreneurs, who were noted for their achievements among professional circles, turned into celebrated faces. These have been the team’s top marketing wins for this season.”

  • GUEST COLUMN: Top marketing trends brands may need to adopt in 2022

    GUEST COLUMN: Top marketing trends brands may need to adopt in 2022

    Mumbai: With the rising internet and smartphone penetration and social media usage, especially in tier-II and tier-III cities, the way brands engage with their clients has irrevocably changed. Digital adoption has been the primary focus for marketers in 2021, with a myriad of trends appearing in the marketing industry, including growing online shopping, technology-integrated operations, and so on. With this backdrop in mind, here are some of the most essential marketing trends to watch in 2022.

    Influencer marketing

    Once known as an additional leg to a brand campaign to gain social media visibility, influencers have expanded their audiences and now are driving the communication strategy for many brands. Millennials and Gen Z customers religiously follow influencers on social media, considering them to be highly relatable in terms of content they share. Various brands are already banking on this trend, collaborating with influencers to promote their products and services. The coming months will see more marketers and advertisers follow suit increase brand exposure and garner fans from the influencer’s audience. In fact, several businesses are developing technologies that will enable influencers to create their D2C brands, resulting in creating a micro-entrepreneur ecosystem.

    First-party data will become relevant

    Until recently, most marketing platforms have relied on third-party cookies to collect consumer data. These insights help them understand the evolving shopping patterns of customers and accordingly modify their ongoing marketing activities. However, with rising privacy concerns, the new legislation has initiated restricting the use of third-party consumer data sources. Given this, first-party data will become more relevant than ever. As a result, organisations should enhance their existing data practices and partner with platforms that have extensive first-party data. Doing so will not only give them access to quantitative insights but also help them craft innovative marketing campaigns that are tailored to the intent of consumers.

    AI-powered conversational marketing

    As technological advancements continue to evolve, consumer behavior, interests, and expectations will keep changing at an accelerated pace. Today’s consumers aren’t satisfied with simply appealing websites or products. They are always looking for something new, desiring more personalised, engaging, and immersive shopping experiences. Brands must therefore modify their customer interaction strategies to generate interest, engage buyers, and convert demand to flow in sync with the new customer journey.

    Many brands are implementing conversational AI technologies such as chatbots and voice assistants that can understand and speak vernacular to provide an enhanced experience and strengthen brand-customer relationships.

    Short-form content

    Long-form videos make consumers reluctant to watch and consume content about the brand and its products, pushing them away rather than attracting and retaining them. But fitting well with the fast-paced attention spans of Millennials and Gen Z consumers across several demographics, short videos have gained substantial traction, contributing to an overall increase in e-commerce. As a result, major e-commerce platforms are shifting their focus to short-form content to create more engaging purchasing experiences.

    Mobile-friendly digital experiences

    With over 600 million internet users in India, it’s no wonder that people are spending more time on their smartphones and tablets. And, as millennials and Gen Z audiences, who like to explore and buy across a range of devices, increase their purchasing power, the problem of providing a & seamless experience across all devices — particularly on mobile — will get more complicated. So, it is pivotal for marketers to recognize that mobile-friendly digital experiences are more important to consider, and accordingly create meaningful user experiences to drive brand awareness.

    Conclusion

    The Covid-induced quarantine and consequent isolation have redefined the consumer expectations and how they interact with brands. Improving customer satisfaction is the most accessible approach to distinguish yourself from the increasing e-commerce crowd. And catalysed by the pandemic, the aforementioned trends will continue to thrive in 2022, which is why you should start experimenting with different advertising strategies to keep customers happy and delighted at every point possible.

    (Vijay Kumar Mikkilineni is TCL India marketing head. The views expressed in the column are personal, and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)

  • GUEST COLUMN: Digital marketing trends that reigned supreme in 2021

    GUEST COLUMN: Digital marketing trends that reigned supreme in 2021

    Mumbai: 2021 was coined as the year of the ‘New Normal’ and it did turn out to be one in many ways. The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic this year not only affected every aspect of our lives but also impacted how companies further realigned their operations all over the world.

    Strengthening the migration to a digital environment in 2020 became the only viable option to stay on the map for many businesses, which in turn greatly impacted their digital marketing strategies. 

    The ‘New Normal’ kept alive the status of digital marketing as the need of the hour for businesses to stay afloat, gain new customers, retain current ones and generate revenue. Staying ahead of the digital marketing game is beyond just understanding and applying basic industry principles.

    As we bid goodbye to 2021, it’s time to analyse trends that reigned supreme. By analysing past trends and staying aware of ongoing changes, marketers in India will be better prepared for what’s next for the coming year.

    Marketing automation:

    Automation stood at the top of every marketer’s strategic pyramid this year and played a pivotal role in providing brands with more detailed insights into behavioral patterns of their users. Our research estimates that some brands even saw a 30-35 per cent increase in leads generated after implementing automation software. With each channel working together, brands were able to create a unified customer experience, thereby facilitating a seamless journey.

    AI-powered personalised marketing strategies:

    As per industry research, 70 per cent of companies observed that AI-powered personalised marketing strategies generated around 200 per cent ROI while 86 per cent of brands noticed a spike in business after integration. Thanks to AI, marketers were able to make product recommendations to users, hyper-personalisation of messages, optimisation of display and search ads, email marketing, and even content marketing by discovering what works better and what type of content is more effective. All in all, it empowered brands to have a better engagement with their customers and gave a boost to customer loyalty and retention.

    Live streaming

    The number of live streaming platforms and streamers has increased mainly since the onset of the pandemic in late 2019. With the use of live streaming this year, consumers got yet another opportunity to acquire better information about brands, products & discover the character of brands. Thanks to real-time interaction, Live streaming emerged as a strong medium for brands to create a better relationship with their consumers and expand the viewership for their marquee events and new launches.

    Continuous visibility on different live streams enabled brands to experience better engagements. The community of live streamers is just starting to get bigger and live streaming will continue to play an exceptional role in 2022 as well. 

    Vernacular content

    According to a Google KPMG report, 70 per cent of Indians find local language digital content more reliable; 88 per cent of Indian language internet users are more likely to respond to a digital advertisement in their local language as compared to English.

    We saw digital marketing moving towards vernacular in a holistic way. Brands actively began transcending into literacy agnostic content across formats – audio and video to target consumers across the spectrum. For example, if you look at the latest brand video for Baidyanath Chyawanprash, the entire communication is primarily in Hindi as North India is their target location. Even the media banners and communication on the social media handles follow the same route. In this year, there have been multiple examples of brands like Britannia Good Day (Tamil), Ola Autovin Home Delivery (Tamil), Goodknight Fabric Roll-On (in Bengali), Sunfeast YiPPee (in Malayalam) which were some of the most viewed YouTube Ads in the regional language.

    Nano influencers and creators

    Nano influencers were one of the core facets of all major ongoing campaigns and helped in providing brands with valuable awareness and recall amongst a niche audience. They often see the highest percentage of engagement, as they have a small and more closely linked community of followers. According to the INCA report, the average engagement rate of nano-influencers in India is 30 per cent, while for micro-influencers it is 14.5 per cent. For mega and macro, it stands at 18.2 per cent and 12.7 per cent, respectively. We observed major brands dedicating about 20–25 per cent of their brand promotion budget to influencer marketing and primarily focus on nano-influencers that can reach their target group.

    Voice Search

    emerged as a new market for marketers. According to research estimates, 65 per cent of smart speaker owners don’t want to go back to a life without a voice-controlled assistant. Smart speakers will continue to change the ways users interact and spend.

    Tech will continue to take the lead in the new year with robust advancements in technology, marketing tools, and forward-thinking strategies. 2022 will be the year to further seize opportunities, take charge from the front and take necessary steps to leverage customer behavioural trends to get the maximum out of digital marketing.

    (Shreyansh Bhandari is COO and co-founder at Lyxel & Flamingo, while Shikha Abrol is a media strategist at the same company. The views expressed in the column are personal, and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.) 

  • Sociowash elevates Surbhi Allagh to business head, Mumbai

    Sociowash elevates Surbhi Allagh to business head, Mumbai

    Mumbai: Creative digital marketing agency Sociowash has named Surbhi Allagh as its new business head for Mumbai.

    With more than half a decade’s worth of experience in the advertising industry and close to four years in the organisation, Allagh has a clear understanding of the advertising industry and Sociowash’s culture that needs to be built in Mumbai, said the agency in a statement.

    Hired as a creative lead and soon promoted as the agency’s creative director, Allagh is also an instructor at the Sociowash and is currently helping build Sociowash Studios, a new venture that is soon to be launched by the organisation.

    With 200 brands and 120 team members across both of its offices, the agency is set to expand its Mumbai team. “Surbhi joined us in February 2018 as a creative lead. While working with a team of over 50 individuals, she has built a massive pipeline of future leaders,” said Sociowash co-founder Pranav Agarwal. “She then took the challenge to set up Sociowash in Mumbai, having acquired and created a strong brand portfolio comprising names like P&G, Viacom18, UpGrad, Voot, Starbucks, Big Bazaar, Nykaa, and more.”

    Allagh has worked in a plethora of profiles ranging from programming executive to brand stylist before joining Sociowash.

    “Over the last few years, we have established ourselves as one of the go-to creative digital agencies for brands across genres and the next few years would aim at setting up a strong team in place along with accelerated growth,” said Allagh. “While the pandemic years emphasised on the need to strengthen our teams and processes across the agency, the next years would aim at further scaling the business while continuing to add value.”

  • Grapes Digital rebrands to Grapes, unveils new logo

    Grapes Digital rebrands to Grapes, unveils new logo

    Mumbai: Digital marketing agency Grapes Digital announced on Wednesday that it is shedding ‘Digital’ from its title and will be known as ‘Grapes.’ The rebranding strategy reflects the vision of the company while repositioning it from a digital agency to a strategic partner for brands. The agency unveiled a fresh brand identity with a new logo.

    The new name is effective immediately and will be executed across platforms as well as in products and services, said the agency. Grapes will become a 360-degrees integrated advertising agency and will offer services like media strategy, ATL & BTL activities, campaign execution, digital strategy, social media marketing, creative support, public relations, and media planning and buying, it added.

    “The lines between traditional and digital agencies are diminishing, and with Covid-19 it has pushed brands to have a digital strategy first with the mainline media,” said Grapes founder & CEO Himanshu Arya. “In the past year, the demands of clients are evolving, and digital is acquiring the centre pie of it. The decision was always in mind to reinvent it but certainly, we realised this is the right time to hit with the compelling need to reinvent ourselves and make Grapes future-ready in terms of its business model and offerings.”

    The transformation has been initiated to serve clients better while expanding the offering of varied services altogether, stated the agency. The company has been working in the digital media landscape for more than a decade. With this move, the agency will expand its horizon into new and emerging business areas by creating new possibilities to serve the ever-evolving needs of clients.

    “Looking at the way advertising is done, it will be next to impossible for traditional and digital agencies working separately. Clients want agencies who offer both kinds of solutions, hence it’s pertinent for the industry to go for a merger. We aim to associate with our clients right from planning to execution,” Grapes COO & strategy head Shradha Aggarwal said.

    She also added, “Disruption is always healthy for the industry. As digital is a key driver of a brand’s success in the market, clients prefer all kinds of services under an umbrella. This has led us to take a first step towards expanding and reinforcing the regional services we provide to our clients in India. The coming year will see digital agencies working more closely with brands and digital ad spending will continue to grow.”

    The company forayed into the Bangalore market a few months ago. The agency is working to strengthen the team and expand the business into new markets.

  • GUEST COLUMN: How digital marketing is growing post Covid-19

    GUEST COLUMN: How digital marketing is growing post Covid-19

    Mumbai: Technology is fast infesting all of the world’s processes in today’s day and age. Digitisation has become the norm of the day and is fast-changing the way we see the world. The simplest and most regular of activities have now transitioned into a virtual format. In this scenario, the advertising and marketing arenas are no exception, as digital marketing has surfaced as the prime form of marketing in the 21st century.

    Even though digital marketing as an industry has been on the rise for the better half of the decade, one cannot overlook the significant contribution that Covid has made in accelerating its growth. As per a report by Statista, the Indian digital marketing industry that valued at Rs 47 billion in 2015 had reached the value of Rs 199 billion in 2020. The report further went on to predict that the industry will continue on this remarkable trajectory and reach a staggering Rs 539 billion by 2024.

    Since a principal reason for such paced growth of digital marketing as a field is the pandemic, one has to speculate its existence and growth after the pandemic is over as well. Especially with preventive vaccines rolling out and the probable end of the crisis approaching, an evaluation must be done with regard to what a firm operating in the industry can expect in the post-Covid era. Some trends as expected to dominate the landscape of digital marketing in the year 2022 are listed as follows-

    Growing importance of content quality

    ‘Content is king’ is a popularly accepted phrase now. A company is primarily known and recognised by the content that is available on various platforms under its name as that is what a large chunk of prospective customers interact with. Thus, it is vital for the content to be top-notch as a brand’s image and potential business largely depend on the first impression it makes. Good quality content will captivate the reader’s attention and lure them in to glance at the products and services that you offer.

    The quality of the content is, in fact, so crucial when it comes to making a mark on the potential customer and interesting them in your brand that it can prove to be a make or break factor for your digital advertising campaign’s success. Digital marketers are expected to note this steadily growing trend of content importance and capitalise on it in the approaching year to gain customer trust and attention.

    Influencer Marketing

    The attention span of people is reducing by the day in this day of technology and fast entertainment. Nowadays, the prime priority of consumers is quickness and efficiency in all fields of life. Additionally, as the internet population grows more diverse and scattered, it becomes increasingly harder to capture their attention, even for a limited time. There is thus a need for digital advertising to be done in a manner that conveys all vital information in a crisp and engaging manner.

    Additionally, there is also a need for marketing agencies to pick carefully the manner and the platform on which a particular offering will be advertised based on the target customer group. Influencer marketing is one tool that is fast picking up in today’s time due to its several benefits such as existing customer trust in their favourite influencers, affinity to popular platforms, and proven effectiveness. This trend is expected to escalate in the year 2022 as well owing to these and more perks that it carries.

    Growing need and importance of virtual assistants

    Technology is at the core of all innovation and is thus an integral part of ‘the way forward.’ AI has been ruling all industries for the greater part of this decade and is only expected to continue the streak. Automation and Chatbots have now made their way into most of the B2C communication that goes on in today’s date, thereby making these processes quick, efficient, and economic. It is critical for digital marketing firms to infuse the use of automation and AI in their daily processes to enhance their efficiency and results.

    Summing Up

    The digital marketing industry has experienced enormous growth in the wake of the Covid pandemic. However, as the pandemic is coming under control and drawing to a possible end, the industry is bound to undergo some substantial changes. In this scenario, it is important for a firm functioning in this industry to assess the trends that are expected to dictate the approaching times. Some of the principal trends as such were discussed in the scope of this article.

    (Amol Roy is the founder of The Shutter Cast. The views expressed in the column are personal and Indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.)