MUMBAI: While addressing a session at a marketing conclave in Mumbai, that debated the relevance of mobile marketing and the need to go app first for brands, Flipkart Ads business head Prakash Sikaria shared that the eCommerce giant spends almost 80 percent of its digital marketing budget on mobile.
Sikaria’s confidence in the medium stems from the data the eCommerce site has gathered as an advertising and eCommerce platform that tracks its consumers’ usage behaviour on multiple screens.
When posed with the question ‘is mobile a minor or a major screen’ Sikaria simply asked, ‘Is that even a debate’. To back his astonishment at the topic of debate, Sikaria shared that for a eCommerce company such as Flipkart going mobile first was only natural, given that more and more of the site’s consumers are switching to spending more time on their smartphones.
“Just to put things in perspective, 3 hrs of mobile in India is equatable to 92 mins of television, which is in turn equatable to 31 minutes of desktop usage by viewers. What we see as a consumption pattern for several businesses mobile is the only screen in India, and going forward a large proportion of the time spent on any medium by consumers would be on mobile,” Sikaria shared, highlighting how India is unique in its mobile friendliness.
Sharing some data the eCommerce platform has gathered from its own consumer research and data and analysis of consumer behaviour on the platform, around 50 per cent of the time spent on mobile is used for communication. According to the consumer pattern gathered from traffic on Flipkart’s mobile app and its web usage analysis, Sikaria inferred that usually customers try the mobile app first, and once they are convinced with the services and have grown loyalty towards the brand, they move to web. This places mobile marketing as the supreme most important requirement for a brand that functions mostly digitally, as it introduces the service to new consumers.
“We have also noticed that across metrics there is better customer engagement and better customer experience on mobile from how much time consumers spend on the site per visit, to how many successful transactions they complete per visit,” Sikaria shared.
As per Sikaria, once the user has jumped the hurdle of downloading the app the engagement is far higher on mobile than on other medium like desktop, provided the app is designed conveniently for them. That is the reason every ecommerce site, every travel startup or web based business wants their app to by in everyone’s phones.
It is to be noted that between the four to five major eCommerce players in the country, television media raised about Rs 1,200 crores in advertising revenue in a single quarter, albeit it was before Diwali last year.
Now with a key player such as Flipkart thinking mobile first, should television advertisement slot seller be worried about the smaller screen stealing away the advertisers which are native to the medium?
MUMBAI: Hyper-local eCommerce platform Zopper has given its digital mandate to ZenithOptimedia’s Performics. The mandate includes the full range of digital, including search engine optimization (SEO).
Performics & Resultrix MD Tanmay Mohanty commented on the account win saying , “Localised commerce is only set to grow in India, as consumers resort to the comfort of shopping from known stores, within a few kilometers of their home or office. This also gives them the benefit of speedy service. Zopper is an ambitious hyper-local market place and has huge plans of expansion in newer categories and towns and cities. With our superior digital capabilities and seamless play in content, data, communications and analytics, we will help them scale up effectively and reach out to newer digital audiences.”
Zopper is an India specific e-commerce model that aims to make the existing retailer ecosystem participate in the e-commerce boom and benefit from it. In a short span of one year, it has reached 22 cities with 15000+ active retailers and millions of users.
Founded by entrepreneurs Surjendu Kulia and Neeraj Jain, the company is backed by investors such as Tiger Global, Blume Ventures and Nirvana Ventures Advisors and has raised has raised over USD 27 million in venture funding so far.
Zopper CBO Harneet Singh Rajpal said, “Performics is long since been known for their superior digital capabilities and marketing expertise. They bring new elements to the game and their fresh innovative approach, enthusiasm and energy make them the vital partner for us. Their strategic framework and ability to execute with speed and accuracy has played a huge role, in us entrusting them with our digital mandate. We look forward to a rewarding working relationship with them.”
MUMBAI: Hyper-local eCommerce platform Zopper has given its digital mandate to ZenithOptimedia’s Performics. The mandate includes the full range of digital, including search engine optimization (SEO).
Performics & Resultrix MD Tanmay Mohanty commented on the account win saying , “Localised commerce is only set to grow in India, as consumers resort to the comfort of shopping from known stores, within a few kilometers of their home or office. This also gives them the benefit of speedy service. Zopper is an ambitious hyper-local market place and has huge plans of expansion in newer categories and towns and cities. With our superior digital capabilities and seamless play in content, data, communications and analytics, we will help them scale up effectively and reach out to newer digital audiences.”
Zopper is an India specific e-commerce model that aims to make the existing retailer ecosystem participate in the e-commerce boom and benefit from it. In a short span of one year, it has reached 22 cities with 15000+ active retailers and millions of users.
Founded by entrepreneurs Surjendu Kulia and Neeraj Jain, the company is backed by investors such as Tiger Global, Blume Ventures and Nirvana Ventures Advisors and has raised has raised over USD 27 million in venture funding so far.
Zopper CBO Harneet Singh Rajpal said, “Performics is long since been known for their superior digital capabilities and marketing expertise. They bring new elements to the game and their fresh innovative approach, enthusiasm and energy make them the vital partner for us. Their strategic framework and ability to execute with speed and accuracy has played a huge role, in us entrusting them with our digital mandate. We look forward to a rewarding working relationship with them.”
MUMBAI: The digital marketing era warrants brands, advertisers and creatives churn out advertisements that go viral. But they better toe the line very carefully in the process. The recently released campaign by Ola for its new super cheap Ola Micro service certainly had people talking online – but they weren’t talking about the things the company wanted to hear. Netizens by the thousands took to Twitter and Facebook to express how disgruntled they were with the TV spot which they found ‘sexist’. So much so, that the company had to take off the spot from TV. A similar situation occurred in Kerala where a public hoarding by eCommerce giant Amazon.in spurred an angry agitation on the social networks.
While it isn’t the first time that people have expressed their displeasure over an ad film, seldom has public reaction gotten such a quick and effective response from the brands. The question these incidents raise is how are brands, creative agencies and planners to handle this new breed of trigger happy consumers who are armed with social media?
People have always discussed campaigns that leave a mark on them, while there were some that were praised, there were also a few that were criticised. With social media coming into the picture, the issue isn’t that people are expressing their view; more often these views are a knee jerk reaction rather than a well-considered opinion. “Everything has become like an instant poll if you ask me. An individual having an opinion over something can immediately share that, and several others with a similar voice can add to that. People have suddenly discovered that their voice too has power and they want to put it out in the public domain as much as they can. Sometimes it can be justified, but sometimes it is not,” opined Ogilvy and Mather creative director Sumanto Chattopadhyay. He however stressed the fact that brand communications have to be sensitive to consumers, “At the end of the day advertising exists to appeal a broad spectrum of people. So one has to take cognizance of that, especially now that people’s opinion is a part of the public domain almost instantaneously,” he expressed.
When asked, as a creative what his reaction would be if one of his own works was pulled down, Chattopadhyay quipped. “As a creative person when I do a piece of work I obviously believe in it, I stand by it. There is no negative intent in it. But I have to also keep in mind that as an agency, we work for a brand, so sometimes we have to respect public opinion and go with the call the brand is taking so that the brand doesn’t suffer.”
J. Walter Thompson Delhi managing partner and head Sanjeev Bhargava also advised creatives and agencies to tread carefully when it came to public opinion. “We are becoming a reasonably trigger happy nation when it comes to protesting now that we have the tools in our hand. It started off with a political thing but now it’s transcending into the corporate world as well. At the same time, brands are getting increasingly sensitive about the chatter online as they have the measuring tools that gauge the impact of such negative comments online”.
While Bhargava suggested that brands, advertisers and agencies be extra careful so as not to ruffle any feathers he admitted that this would affect the creative process to a certain extent. “It is hard to be politically correct and have the freedom of expression in creating something. There is a fine line between meaning well based on consumer insights etc., and at the same time hurt sentiments. For example in the case of Amazon’s #WeIndians campaign, things might not have triggered this way had Amazon not been a foreign company. So it’s hard to say what will offend someone or not. In this increasingly wired world, industry needs to be careful till this frenzy wears off.”
Bhargava cited an example of an old Naukri.com advertisement to add perspective, “Years back when Naukri’s Hari Sadu campaign came out, someone with the same name had filed a defamation case against the brand in court, saying his employees thought him to be a bad boss because of the ad. He lost the case. But in today’s day and age, that same person could make it go viral, as virality does not follow predictable metrics. He wouldn’t have needed a court of law.”
Since public backlash is easy to create in today’s day and age, how does an industry body, tasked to self-regulate and monitor such offensive ads, react to such the public opinion? ASCI’s secretary general Shweta Purandare said, “I agree that social media is a very powerful tool. In fact, ASCI has consistently paid heed to it and followed the chatter by being active on social networks. If there is a negative chatter about brands or a particular campaign, many times, unaware that ASCI exists, they vent their feelings on social media. One is if an advertiser listens to that and takes action on its own, and another is that we guide such consumers to register a complaint and then take it up as per ASCI’s policies”.
But there are also situations when a simple opinion may blow out of proportion and affect the brand. “Without taking any brand’s name, I would mention that there was a case when a brand came under fire on the social media, but when the complaint was taken up in ASCI, it was found that the advertisement was not against the ASCI code. Apart from taking voluntary calls to pull down ads, which the brands are free to do, if brands want a fair hearing of their argument they can approach ASCI for a proper analysis,” Purandare asserted.
Whether it is right to target a brand over a cause or not, the fact remains that social media metrics matter to brands, and playing with public opinion is like playing with fire for them. And sometimes that means to bow down to public opinion and take off the ad at the cost of brand value.
Not to mention the fact that creatives are also taking risks with edgier brand communication to draw more eyeballs to themselves. “We are seeing a positive move from a mundane to more strategic insightful work in the creative industry. In process they work around the delicate edge of safe versus edgy communication. Sometimes with such creative push things do go haywire. But these few instances must not hinder the positive moment in creativity. So, brands have to do what was expected – self-censor and self-discipline. It is their responsibility that the ad does not discriminate or offend any sensitivities,” explained Intradia world, brand and marketing advisor, Sanjeev Kotnala.
“Brands always have two choices. If they feel they have really gone beyond the edge, they must withdraw. And they must do that gracefully with due apologies. If this is the strategic action, then it must be swift. The other option is they can stand by their communication and let the social media movement fizzle out,” he added.
Kotnala also advised that while finding a fine balance between edgy and offensive content maybe like walking on a tightrope. Brands and creatives can be on the safer side if they do a concept research to determine if the ad is offending. “Surprisingly and unfortunately many forget to do so. It may then be possible to shoot or create an alternative flow which can be integrated as a part of the campaign to kill a reaction without compromising on communication.”
After all, brand value is created over time but it can be destroyed very fast. It can be protected with a swift response rather than silence, advises Kotnala in parting.
MUMBAI: The digital marketing era warrants brands, advertisers and creatives churn out advertisements that go viral. But they better toe the line very carefully in the process. The recently released campaign by Ola for its new super cheap Ola Micro service certainly had people talking online – but they weren’t talking about the things the company wanted to hear. Netizens by the thousands took to Twitter and Facebook to express how disgruntled they were with the TV spot which they found ‘sexist’. So much so, that the company had to take off the spot from TV. A similar situation occurred in Kerala where a public hoarding by eCommerce giant Amazon.in spurred an angry agitation on the social networks.
While it isn’t the first time that people have expressed their displeasure over an ad film, seldom has public reaction gotten such a quick and effective response from the brands. The question these incidents raise is how are brands, creative agencies and planners to handle this new breed of trigger happy consumers who are armed with social media?
People have always discussed campaigns that leave a mark on them, while there were some that were praised, there were also a few that were criticised. With social media coming into the picture, the issue isn’t that people are expressing their view; more often these views are a knee jerk reaction rather than a well-considered opinion. “Everything has become like an instant poll if you ask me. An individual having an opinion over something can immediately share that, and several others with a similar voice can add to that. People have suddenly discovered that their voice too has power and they want to put it out in the public domain as much as they can. Sometimes it can be justified, but sometimes it is not,” opined Ogilvy and Mather creative director Sumanto Chattopadhyay. He however stressed the fact that brand communications have to be sensitive to consumers, “At the end of the day advertising exists to appeal a broad spectrum of people. So one has to take cognizance of that, especially now that people’s opinion is a part of the public domain almost instantaneously,” he expressed.
When asked, as a creative what his reaction would be if one of his own works was pulled down, Chattopadhyay quipped. “As a creative person when I do a piece of work I obviously believe in it, I stand by it. There is no negative intent in it. But I have to also keep in mind that as an agency, we work for a brand, so sometimes we have to respect public opinion and go with the call the brand is taking so that the brand doesn’t suffer.”
J. Walter Thompson Delhi managing partner and head Sanjeev Bhargava also advised creatives and agencies to tread carefully when it came to public opinion. “We are becoming a reasonably trigger happy nation when it comes to protesting now that we have the tools in our hand. It started off with a political thing but now it’s transcending into the corporate world as well. At the same time, brands are getting increasingly sensitive about the chatter online as they have the measuring tools that gauge the impact of such negative comments online”.
While Bhargava suggested that brands, advertisers and agencies be extra careful so as not to ruffle any feathers he admitted that this would affect the creative process to a certain extent. “It is hard to be politically correct and have the freedom of expression in creating something. There is a fine line between meaning well based on consumer insights etc., and at the same time hurt sentiments. For example in the case of Amazon’s #WeIndians campaign, things might not have triggered this way had Amazon not been a foreign company. So it’s hard to say what will offend someone or not. In this increasingly wired world, industry needs to be careful till this frenzy wears off.”
Bhargava cited an example of an old Naukri.com advertisement to add perspective, “Years back when Naukri’s Hari Sadu campaign came out, someone with the same name had filed a defamation case against the brand in court, saying his employees thought him to be a bad boss because of the ad. He lost the case. But in today’s day and age, that same person could make it go viral, as virality does not follow predictable metrics. He wouldn’t have needed a court of law.”
Since public backlash is easy to create in today’s day and age, how does an industry body, tasked to self-regulate and monitor such offensive ads, react to such the public opinion? ASCI’s secretary general Shweta Purandare said, “I agree that social media is a very powerful tool. In fact, ASCI has consistently paid heed to it and followed the chatter by being active on social networks. If there is a negative chatter about brands or a particular campaign, many times, unaware that ASCI exists, they vent their feelings on social media. One is if an advertiser listens to that and takes action on its own, and another is that we guide such consumers to register a complaint and then take it up as per ASCI’s policies”.
But there are also situations when a simple opinion may blow out of proportion and affect the brand. “Without taking any brand’s name, I would mention that there was a case when a brand came under fire on the social media, but when the complaint was taken up in ASCI, it was found that the advertisement was not against the ASCI code. Apart from taking voluntary calls to pull down ads, which the brands are free to do, if brands want a fair hearing of their argument they can approach ASCI for a proper analysis,” Purandare asserted.
Whether it is right to target a brand over a cause or not, the fact remains that social media metrics matter to brands, and playing with public opinion is like playing with fire for them. And sometimes that means to bow down to public opinion and take off the ad at the cost of brand value.
Not to mention the fact that creatives are also taking risks with edgier brand communication to draw more eyeballs to themselves. “We are seeing a positive move from a mundane to more strategic insightful work in the creative industry. In process they work around the delicate edge of safe versus edgy communication. Sometimes with such creative push things do go haywire. But these few instances must not hinder the positive moment in creativity. So, brands have to do what was expected – self-censor and self-discipline. It is their responsibility that the ad does not discriminate or offend any sensitivities,” explained Intradia world, brand and marketing advisor, Sanjeev Kotnala.
“Brands always have two choices. If they feel they have really gone beyond the edge, they must withdraw. And they must do that gracefully with due apologies. If this is the strategic action, then it must be swift. The other option is they can stand by their communication and let the social media movement fizzle out,” he added.
Kotnala also advised that while finding a fine balance between edgy and offensive content maybe like walking on a tightrope. Brands and creatives can be on the safer side if they do a concept research to determine if the ad is offending. “Surprisingly and unfortunately many forget to do so. It may then be possible to shoot or create an alternative flow which can be integrated as a part of the campaign to kill a reaction without compromising on communication.”
After all, brand value is created over time but it can be destroyed very fast. It can be protected with a swift response rather than silence, advises Kotnala in parting.
MUMBAI: From Tata Motors taking India on its first ever virtual drive using Google Cardboard, Facebook allowing brands to message users using chat bots, to drones covering live gig at concerts –the last few months have been exciting in brand land. By themselves these events maybe little pockets of wonder, but they also point towards a larger paradigm shift in the way products will be hawked, how methods to attract consumers have evolved and are evolving.
If marketers in the country haven’t been taking notes, they better catch up as technology is fast changing how consumers interact with brands just like a friend after marriage. On the one hand it poses countless possibilities for innovation, on the other, there’s an impending threat of becoming irrelevant. It’s either adapt, adopt or perish. “Brands can surely become the tissue between consumers and technology. We will see emergence of many technology led marketing solutions more so because business are challenged to break open the walls and digitally transform,” points out triggerbridge co founder and future facing marketer S. Yesudas.
The best part about these emerging technologies is that they give equal opportunities for brands, small and big to be firsts in many ways. Given the accessibility options available, there is a more democratic penetration of some of these technologies across the globe, putting India at an advantage in many cases. “If you watch the trends that are making the waves in the marketing communities, some are happening faster in India while others will take time to penetrate here. For example mobile and smartphone based technologies will no doubt see a more rapid boom in India just for the sheer utility and scale that the country presents,” explains Kyoorius founder Rajesh Kejriwal. According to him, while mobile and social media aren’t ‘new’ technologies, the way they are used to target and interact with consumers will see a sea change in the upcoming recent years.
To some marketers who love to dabble in technology wearable technologies like ‘smart watches’ are on top of the list of marketers, though they do admit that India hasn’t caught on to their full fervor as yet. Location based marketing that makes optimum use of geo tagging will be the next phenomenon in local and regional markets. “They are not just tech but a source of data, very precise and targeted data,” quips Kejriwal. This is at a time when brands are paying millions to get hold of data and analyse them.
As per the inputs from creatives, agencies, planners, startups, techies, gadget freaks, and brand managers, top emerging technologies that marketers should watch out for are —
Read on:
Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality: VR/AR seems to be the martech buzz word for 2016. It is evident from the number of technology and smartphone brands that have come out with their own headgears in the past few months — Facebook, HTC, Samsung Huawei just to name a few. Globally several brands have awed their peers with a brilliant use of VR in marketing. India isn’t a late bloomer in this sphere and has churned out some awe inspiring work for the home market. Why use it? “Firstly, VR helps brands with a significant amount of credibility through immersive experience, which otherwise is not possible as effectively. Secondly it also allows to communicate the entire value chain with the customer, through multiple channels — be it retail, or post sale etc; from the factory to the showroom and then road,” says Happy Finish APAC CEO Ashish Limaye.
Tata Motors initiated a virtual drive for its flagship car Tiago through a newspaper ad on the front page of a leading daily. It mass distributed 2.3 million (23 lakh) branded Google Cardboards, digital campaign and print ads in The Times of India, across the highly potential automotive markets of Mumbai, Delhi/NCR and Bengaluru.
Drones: While government restriction has given a limited exposure to drones in India, they are quite a craze in more mature markets like the US, South Asia and Europe. “Consumer drones offer the ability to capture a unique perspective that previously required either a higher cost (helicopters), a more intense set-up and time (custom-made quadcopter or aerial rigs) or a mixture of both. Our drones create the right mix of affordability, stability and ease of use that allows small-to-medium-sized enterprises (as well as large ones) to create unique marketing campaigns based around this new perspective, at a cost effective alternative,” explains drone manufacturing giant DJI’s director of Strategic Partnerships Michael Perry.
However, India is not alone in facing restrictions when it comes to a commercial field – the solution is that these platforms must be treated according to their weight classification, as a 2 kg quadcopter with minimal payload abilities should be governed by different rules as compared to a 10 kg quadcopter with a sizeable payload, shares Perry.
Jaguar and DJI recently teamed up to showcase how drones can help change film car chase sequences and the future of such sequences.
Chat Bots: After disruption, convenience is the name of the game and that is exactly what chat bots are banking on. The recent announcement by Facebook last week, allowing brands to have their chat bots in the Facebook messenger has been a revolution of sorts, and brand owners in India have yet to get the feel of it. The biggest impact is expected in the service industry. There was a time when brands became apps, and now it’s time for them to become bots.
So how are chat bots different? “Chat bots are a game changer because they are much simpler to use. Everyone is already on their messaging apps. If instead of having to go to a website, or an eCommerce site or download an app, consumers could simply access all their brands through their messengers, imagine how convenient it would be. Unlike AR and VR which need marketers to create an infrastructure to reach full potential, chat bots have a ready playing field,” shares cloud messaging platform Gupshup’s co founder and CEO Beerud Sheth, while he was in India to create awareness on chat bots for brands. From ordering pizza to booking flights, nothing is impossible for these smart chat bots.
3D Printing: More than its utility in marketing, why brands and advertisers need to pay attention to the fast growing market for 3D printing and its quick evolution, is how it empowers consumers. With 3D printing becoming a household product, the entire manufacturing industry will see a drastic change. The rules of game will change for them and so will it for marketers who are promoting the products.
“The beauty of 3D printing is that it will take advertising from computers and graphics into making into real physical products. You customise the product and it will be immediately made for you. It will revolutionise advertising as none of the advertising has so far given us a product. Plus 3D printing will affect every pillar in the industry, like distribution, parts manufacturing, merchandising,” shares iPropect India MD Vivek Bhargava.
Videos: India has seen a huge boom in video consumption, which is only expected to grow bigger as the internet penetration expands and strengthens within the market. As per a Carat report in 2016, “The continued growth of digital is driven by mobile, online video and social media, increasingly becoming more prevalent components of advertising investment. Mobile continues to show the highest spend growth across all media in 2016, with a year-on- year estimated increase at +37.9 per cent in 2016.
Therefore videos will play a major role, especially live video streams. Facebook understands this well, and anticipates the trend before it has hit us by launching Facebook Live. It will open up new vistas for pushing one’s service and product. Infact, in the words of Facebook Creative Shop APAC head Fergus O’ Hare , “The dying breed of salesmen will find a renewed motivation with Facebook Live as they can make calls to consumers at specific relevant times of the day when they are most likely to buy the product. Brands can call you any time of the day when it matters the most.”
Somewhere down the line all these separate technological advancements will be connected, and what will connect them are Big Data and Internet Of Things. That is why Big Data and The Internet of Things will revolutionise technology, marketing and human lifestyle even. Ai or artificial intelligence, which falls in the purview of the former, is also making ripples in the brand space.
But Yesudas throws a note of caution for aspiring ‘martech’ users. Care needs to be taken about over dependency on technology or going overboard with it. “Brand owners need to understand digital transformation is not about technological gimmicks. They need to ensure humans are put before technology, using it only to accentuate human behaviour. Brands that will crack this code will lead the marketing charge in the digital era.
MUMBAI: From Tata Motors taking India on its first ever virtual drive using Google Cardboard, Facebook allowing brands to message users using chat bots, to drones covering live gig at concerts –the last few months have been exciting in brand land. By themselves these events maybe little pockets of wonder, but they also point towards a larger paradigm shift in the way products will be hawked, how methods to attract consumers have evolved and are evolving.
If marketers in the country haven’t been taking notes, they better catch up as technology is fast changing how consumers interact with brands just like a friend after marriage. On the one hand it poses countless possibilities for innovation, on the other, there’s an impending threat of becoming irrelevant. It’s either adapt, adopt or perish. “Brands can surely become the tissue between consumers and technology. We will see emergence of many technology led marketing solutions more so because business are challenged to break open the walls and digitally transform,” points out triggerbridge co founder and future facing marketer S. Yesudas.
The best part about these emerging technologies is that they give equal opportunities for brands, small and big to be firsts in many ways. Given the accessibility options available, there is a more democratic penetration of some of these technologies across the globe, putting India at an advantage in many cases. “If you watch the trends that are making the waves in the marketing communities, some are happening faster in India while others will take time to penetrate here. For example mobile and smartphone based technologies will no doubt see a more rapid boom in India just for the sheer utility and scale that the country presents,” explains Kyoorius founder Rajesh Kejriwal. According to him, while mobile and social media aren’t ‘new’ technologies, the way they are used to target and interact with consumers will see a sea change in the upcoming recent years.
To some marketers who love to dabble in technology wearable technologies like ‘smart watches’ are on top of the list of marketers, though they do admit that India hasn’t caught on to their full fervor as yet. Location based marketing that makes optimum use of geo tagging will be the next phenomenon in local and regional markets. “They are not just tech but a source of data, very precise and targeted data,” quips Kejriwal. This is at a time when brands are paying millions to get hold of data and analyse them.
As per the inputs from creatives, agencies, planners, startups, techies, gadget freaks, and brand managers, top emerging technologies that marketers should watch out for are —
Read on:
Virtual Reality/ Augmented Reality: VR/AR seems to be the martech buzz word for 2016. It is evident from the number of technology and smartphone brands that have come out with their own headgears in the past few months — Facebook, HTC, Samsung Huawei just to name a few. Globally several brands have awed their peers with a brilliant use of VR in marketing. India isn’t a late bloomer in this sphere and has churned out some awe inspiring work for the home market. Why use it? “Firstly, VR helps brands with a significant amount of credibility through immersive experience, which otherwise is not possible as effectively. Secondly it also allows to communicate the entire value chain with the customer, through multiple channels — be it retail, or post sale etc; from the factory to the showroom and then road,” says Happy Finish APAC CEO Ashish Limaye.
Tata Motors initiated a virtual drive for its flagship car Tiago through a newspaper ad on the front page of a leading daily. It mass distributed 2.3 million (23 lakh) branded Google Cardboards, digital campaign and print ads in The Times of India, across the highly potential automotive markets of Mumbai, Delhi/NCR and Bengaluru.
Drones: While government restriction has given a limited exposure to drones in India, they are quite a craze in more mature markets like the US, South Asia and Europe. “Consumer drones offer the ability to capture a unique perspective that previously required either a higher cost (helicopters), a more intense set-up and time (custom-made quadcopter or aerial rigs) or a mixture of both. Our drones create the right mix of affordability, stability and ease of use that allows small-to-medium-sized enterprises (as well as large ones) to create unique marketing campaigns based around this new perspective, at a cost effective alternative,” explains drone manufacturing giant DJI’s director of Strategic Partnerships Michael Perry.
However, India is not alone in facing restrictions when it comes to a commercial field – the solution is that these platforms must be treated according to their weight classification, as a 2 kg quadcopter with minimal payload abilities should be governed by different rules as compared to a 10 kg quadcopter with a sizeable payload, shares Perry.
Jaguar and DJI recently teamed up to showcase how drones can help change film car chase sequences and the future of such sequences.
Chat Bots: After disruption, convenience is the name of the game and that is exactly what chat bots are banking on. The recent announcement by Facebook last week, allowing brands to have their chat bots in the Facebook messenger has been a revolution of sorts, and brand owners in India have yet to get the feel of it. The biggest impact is expected in the service industry. There was a time when brands became apps, and now it’s time for them to become bots.
So how are chat bots different? “Chat bots are a game changer because they are much simpler to use. Everyone is already on their messaging apps. If instead of having to go to a website, or an eCommerce site or download an app, consumers could simply access all their brands through their messengers, imagine how convenient it would be. Unlike AR and VR which need marketers to create an infrastructure to reach full potential, chat bots have a ready playing field,” shares cloud messaging platform Gupshup’s co founder and CEO Beerud Sheth, while he was in India to create awareness on chat bots for brands. From ordering pizza to booking flights, nothing is impossible for these smart chat bots.
3D Printing: More than its utility in marketing, why brands and advertisers need to pay attention to the fast growing market for 3D printing and its quick evolution, is how it empowers consumers. With 3D printing becoming a household product, the entire manufacturing industry will see a drastic change. The rules of game will change for them and so will it for marketers who are promoting the products.
“The beauty of 3D printing is that it will take advertising from computers and graphics into making into real physical products. You customise the product and it will be immediately made for you. It will revolutionise advertising as none of the advertising has so far given us a product. Plus 3D printing will affect every pillar in the industry, like distribution, parts manufacturing, merchandising,” shares iPropect India MD Vivek Bhargava.
Videos: India has seen a huge boom in video consumption, which is only expected to grow bigger as the internet penetration expands and strengthens within the market. As per a Carat report in 2016, “The continued growth of digital is driven by mobile, online video and social media, increasingly becoming more prevalent components of advertising investment. Mobile continues to show the highest spend growth across all media in 2016, with a year-on- year estimated increase at +37.9 per cent in 2016.
Therefore videos will play a major role, especially live video streams. Facebook understands this well, and anticipates the trend before it has hit us by launching Facebook Live. It will open up new vistas for pushing one’s service and product. Infact, in the words of Facebook Creative Shop APAC head Fergus O’ Hare , “The dying breed of salesmen will find a renewed motivation with Facebook Live as they can make calls to consumers at specific relevant times of the day when they are most likely to buy the product. Brands can call you any time of the day when it matters the most.”
Somewhere down the line all these separate technological advancements will be connected, and what will connect them are Big Data and Internet Of Things. That is why Big Data and The Internet of Things will revolutionise technology, marketing and human lifestyle even. Ai or artificial intelligence, which falls in the purview of the former, is also making ripples in the brand space.
But Yesudas throws a note of caution for aspiring ‘martech’ users. Care needs to be taken about over dependency on technology or going overboard with it. “Brand owners need to understand digital transformation is not about technological gimmicks. They need to ensure humans are put before technology, using it only to accentuate human behaviour. Brands that will crack this code will lead the marketing charge in the digital era.
MUMBAI: It’s very easy to overlook a fundamental fact about brands: people bring brands to life – not companies. Brands aren’t to be found in the factory or in the studio and much less in the balance sheets, but in the minds of consumers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders. In a sense a brand is a public object – and the strongest brands are those whose consumers feel a real sense of ownership: ‘That’s My Brand’. In other words, a brand exists only in people’s mind. So today what is driving people’s mind? Who is moving people? Where is it they go before they make a decision?
How often today do we hear in our day to day conversation that ‘On my Facebook account I read this.’ Is it really one’s Facebook account, does anybody really own it? It’s just a successful evolution of a brand that someone feels her or his Facebook account is her or his?
People today are driven by a small screen which moves along, supplies content on demand and reacts as per the personality of its owner. A personalised interactive medium called ‘Mobile’. “The world is not going mobile, it has gone mobile” says Facebook India MD Kirthiga Reddy. She shares some verified data, “More than 142 million people access Facebook every month in India through any of the access points of which 133 million log in via mobile devices. More than 69 million people get on Facebook every day, 64 million of them through mobile.”
So there is a humongous amount of interaction which happens daily and it happens all across India. “The diversity of Facebook is also an important factor. The data confirms that Facebook has a very strong pan India reach and this perception that Facebook is only an urban Smartphone product is not true. What we found is for every urban user there are two from other parts of India which shows a very strong distribution of people,” asserts Reddy.
Facebook in association with IMRB has done a study which shows, “63 per cent people on Facebook use 3G connections and 37 per cent use a 2G connection to access Facebook. 70 per cent people on Facebook own a Smartphone; 88 per cent use a prepaid connection.” Despite having such high numbers which are real by nature and not sampled or extrapolated, the investment on mobile, social media and digital is far from premium. Digitally born entrepreneur The Viral Fever founder Arunabh Kumar paints the scenario in the best possible way. He says, “The ad spend on a digital video which reaches to at least 15 times more number of people when compared to TV actually is equal to one meal catering spend of a television commercial (TVC) shoot.”
Kirthiga Reddy also echoes same sentiments, but she speaks in terms of time investment of brands. “There is a big delta when it comes to how much time brands are spending on mobile and how much time people are spending on mobile” she says. As a frontrunner of the digital wave, Facebook has taken on multiple responsibilities of educating the ecosystem and the study is one of them, “Our intention through this study is to educate people about what people are doing on Facebook, on mobile, and how this information can help them move the business fast and bridge the gap between how much time people are spending on mobile and how time the brands are investing on mobile. We invest heavily on education as this new platform needs some educating. Late last year we rolled out a multi module educating program Blueprint in association with our partners,” she further adds.
Blueprint is a new education program that trains agencies, partners and marketers on how to use Facebook, so they can create better campaigns that drive business results. Combining online courses, in-person training and certification Blueprint offers training from campaign optimisation, how to use video on Facebook, to effective ad measurement solutions. The Blueprint program features 34 online courses under various categories such as Facebook pages, targeting, buying and managing your ads, campaign optimisation, insight and Instagram. “Since March 2015, more than 175,000 people have taken more than 500,000 course enrolments. India ranks as the second largest country signing onto Blueprint. The top five countries include the US, India, Egypt, Brazil and the UK,” informs the Facebook India team.
Platforms such as Facebook are also used to target people in TV dark areas, informs Reddy. She cites a case study on Nestle Everyday Whitener. “Nestle wanted to target people from media (traditional media) dark areas of the northeast. One creative was created for smartphones and another one was created for feature phones. The creatives drove that brand association and emotion to the end consumer, which later translated to positive results. This is an example of brands leveraging benefits of Facebook’s pan India presence.”
The brand interaction with this disrupting social media platform is also happening in India feels Reddy, “Three years back,if we were having this conversation, I would have only spoken about global case studies. I did not have a single India example to share,” says she. “But today we have so many examples across all the verticals, so the explosion is already happening. In the past also we saw when TV came in and print was there, it took its time,” she informs further.
As per the FICCI – KPMG 2016 report, TV witnessed ad spends of Rs 542.2 billion (Rs 54,220 crore) which means a 14.2 per cent growth from the previous year. Whereas the growth rate of digital advertising which witnessed a spend of Rs 60.1 billion (Rs 6,010 crore) is an overwhelming 38.2 per cent. The same report projects a 15.1 per cent growth of television despite all the digital disruption and OTT emergence. The projected spend is believed to reach Rs 617.0 billion (Rs 61,700 crore). Digital is set to see a Rs 20 billion (Rs 2,000 crore) more spends as the projected figure for 2016 is Rs 81.1 billion (Rs 8,110 crore) which means a 33.5 per cent growth.
So is it TV versus mobile? “We say it’s TV plus mobile,” says the Facebook India MD. But, at the same time she believes mobile has an upper hand, “Mobile is a screen kept close to you while TV is kept far with many distractions in between. A study shows that mobile has 82 per cent higher retention rate and 79 per cent lower distraction rate than any other screen,” she asserts. On TV there is a fight amongst brands to buy a prime time slot which shoots the 10 second ad rate sky high. “People are on Facebook throughout the day which means the brands no longer need to wait for the evening prime time to connect with people they can connect throughout the day,” says Reddy. “There are definitely key advantages when it comes to mobile. Mobile is a medium of discovery, mobile is a medium of personalisation it is a one screen one person platform which allows you to target individually, send the right message to the right person. You are seeing the kind of businesses that you can get, it gives you many opportunities which TV doesn’t, be it a whole day phenomenon or targeting,” she further sheds light on the advantages of mobile.
Facebook has a strong ethos when it comes to value for money or return on investment or ROI, “We believe whenever a client pays a rupee to Facebook, he could have paid the same for either a TV ad or print or any-other medium. So what we promise is that a one rupee spend on Facebook is the most effective rupee spent by the client, that is what we want to strive for,” informs Reddy.
Facebook is currently working with more than 85 per cent of Kantar’s reported top 100 advertisers in India, which includes Unilever, P&G, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser, Mondelez, and L’Oreal. This also includes companies headquartered in India like Tata and ICICI Bank, India’s largest private bank, eCommerce companies like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Ola, and new companies like Craftsvilla.com. In 2014 Facebook established the Facebook Client Council to learn more and develop better ad solutions.
The study had a few proud findings for Facebook and Reddy throws light on them, “People access Facebook 2.4 times more than Twitter and 2.0 times more than YouTube,” says she while sharing India statistics.
Facebook is focusing on videos too, as there is no India data available when it comes to video consumption Reddy shares global figures, “Everyday there are more than 8 billion (800 crore) video views on Facebook, and more than 45 per cent of video viewing happens on mobile.”
“We are seeing a trend, where communication is going visual and with that Facebook is evolving in terms of being a visual storytelling platform” she concludes.
MUMBAI: It’s very easy to overlook a fundamental fact about brands: people bring brands to life – not companies. Brands aren’t to be found in the factory or in the studio and much less in the balance sheets, but in the minds of consumers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders. In a sense a brand is a public object – and the strongest brands are those whose consumers feel a real sense of ownership: ‘That’s My Brand’. In other words, a brand exists only in people’s mind. So today what is driving people’s mind? Who is moving people? Where is it they go before they make a decision?
How often today do we hear in our day to day conversation that ‘On my Facebook account I read this.’ Is it really one’s Facebook account, does anybody really own it? It’s just a successful evolution of a brand that someone feels her or his Facebook account is her or his?
People today are driven by a small screen which moves along, supplies content on demand and reacts as per the personality of its owner. A personalised interactive medium called ‘Mobile’. “The world is not going mobile, it has gone mobile” says Facebook India MD Kirthiga Reddy. She shares some verified data, “More than 142 million people access Facebook every month in India through any of the access points of which 133 million log in via mobile devices. More than 69 million people get on Facebook every day, 64 million of them through mobile.”
So there is a humongous amount of interaction which happens daily and it happens all across India. “The diversity of Facebook is also an important factor. The data confirms that Facebook has a very strong pan India reach and this perception that Facebook is only an urban Smartphone product is not true. What we found is for every urban user there are two from other parts of India which shows a very strong distribution of people,” asserts Reddy.
Facebook in association with IMRB has done a study which shows, “63 per cent people on Facebook use 3G connections and 37 per cent use a 2G connection to access Facebook. 70 per cent people on Facebook own a Smartphone; 88 per cent use a prepaid connection.” Despite having such high numbers which are real by nature and not sampled or extrapolated, the investment on mobile, social media and digital is far from premium. Digitally born entrepreneur The Viral Fever founder Arunabh Kumar paints the scenario in the best possible way. He says, “The ad spend on a digital video which reaches to at least 15 times more number of people when compared to TV actually is equal to one meal catering spend of a television commercial (TVC) shoot.”
Kirthiga Reddy also echoes same sentiments, but she speaks in terms of time investment of brands. “There is a big delta when it comes to how much time brands are spending on mobile and how much time people are spending on mobile” she says. As a frontrunner of the digital wave, Facebook has taken on multiple responsibilities of educating the ecosystem and the study is one of them, “Our intention through this study is to educate people about what people are doing on Facebook, on mobile, and how this information can help them move the business fast and bridge the gap between how much time people are spending on mobile and how time the brands are investing on mobile. We invest heavily on education as this new platform needs some educating. Late last year we rolled out a multi module educating program Blueprint in association with our partners,” she further adds.
Blueprint is a new education program that trains agencies, partners and marketers on how to use Facebook, so they can create better campaigns that drive business results. Combining online courses, in-person training and certification Blueprint offers training from campaign optimisation, how to use video on Facebook, to effective ad measurement solutions. The Blueprint program features 34 online courses under various categories such as Facebook pages, targeting, buying and managing your ads, campaign optimisation, insight and Instagram. “Since March 2015, more than 175,000 people have taken more than 500,000 course enrolments. India ranks as the second largest country signing onto Blueprint. The top five countries include the US, India, Egypt, Brazil and the UK,” informs the Facebook India team.
Platforms such as Facebook are also used to target people in TV dark areas, informs Reddy. She cites a case study on Nestle Everyday Whitener. “Nestle wanted to target people from media (traditional media) dark areas of the northeast. One creative was created for smartphones and another one was created for feature phones. The creatives drove that brand association and emotion to the end consumer, which later translated to positive results. This is an example of brands leveraging benefits of Facebook’s pan India presence.”
The brand interaction with this disrupting social media platform is also happening in India feels Reddy, “Three years back,if we were having this conversation, I would have only spoken about global case studies. I did not have a single India example to share,” says she. “But today we have so many examples across all the verticals, so the explosion is already happening. In the past also we saw when TV came in and print was there, it took its time,” she informs further.
As per the FICCI – KPMG 2016 report, TV witnessed ad spends of Rs 542.2 billion (Rs 54,220 crore) which means a 14.2 per cent growth from the previous year. Whereas the growth rate of digital advertising which witnessed a spend of Rs 60.1 billion (Rs 6,010 crore) is an overwhelming 38.2 per cent. The same report projects a 15.1 per cent growth of television despite all the digital disruption and OTT emergence. The projected spend is believed to reach Rs 617.0 billion (Rs 61,700 crore). Digital is set to see a Rs 20 billion (Rs 2,000 crore) more spends as the projected figure for 2016 is Rs 81.1 billion (Rs 8,110 crore) which means a 33.5 per cent growth.
So is it TV versus mobile? “We say it’s TV plus mobile,” says the Facebook India MD. But, at the same time she believes mobile has an upper hand, “Mobile is a screen kept close to you while TV is kept far with many distractions in between. A study shows that mobile has 82 per cent higher retention rate and 79 per cent lower distraction rate than any other screen,” she asserts. On TV there is a fight amongst brands to buy a prime time slot which shoots the 10 second ad rate sky high. “People are on Facebook throughout the day which means the brands no longer need to wait for the evening prime time to connect with people they can connect throughout the day,” says Reddy. “There are definitely key advantages when it comes to mobile. Mobile is a medium of discovery, mobile is a medium of personalisation it is a one screen one person platform which allows you to target individually, send the right message to the right person. You are seeing the kind of businesses that you can get, it gives you many opportunities which TV doesn’t, be it a whole day phenomenon or targeting,” she further sheds light on the advantages of mobile.
Facebook has a strong ethos when it comes to value for money or return on investment or ROI, “We believe whenever a client pays a rupee to Facebook, he could have paid the same for either a TV ad or print or any-other medium. So what we promise is that a one rupee spend on Facebook is the most effective rupee spent by the client, that is what we want to strive for,” informs Reddy.
Facebook is currently working with more than 85 per cent of Kantar’s reported top 100 advertisers in India, which includes Unilever, P&G, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Amazon, Nestle, Reckitt Benckiser, Mondelez, and L’Oreal. This also includes companies headquartered in India like Tata and ICICI Bank, India’s largest private bank, eCommerce companies like Snapdeal, Flipkart, Ola, and new companies like Craftsvilla.com. In 2014 Facebook established the Facebook Client Council to learn more and develop better ad solutions.
The study had a few proud findings for Facebook and Reddy throws light on them, “People access Facebook 2.4 times more than Twitter and 2.0 times more than YouTube,” says she while sharing India statistics.
Facebook is focusing on videos too, as there is no India data available when it comes to video consumption Reddy shares global figures, “Everyday there are more than 8 billion (800 crore) video views on Facebook, and more than 45 per cent of video viewing happens on mobile.”
“We are seeing a trend, where communication is going visual and with that Facebook is evolving in terms of being a visual storytelling platform” she concludes.
MUMBAI: In January 2016, ASCI’s Consumer Complaints Council (CCC) upheld complaints against 51 out of 102 advertisements. Out of 51 advertisements against which complaints were upheld, 13 belonged to the education category, 12 to the food & beverages category, followed by 11 in the healthcare category, 6 in the eCommerce category and 9 advertisements from other categories.
Balaji Telefilms The suggestive scenes in the movie promo showing “two men and women on the beach” are indecent, vulgar and repulsive, which, in the light of generally prevailing standards of decency and proprietary, will cause grave and widespread offence to general public.
Viacom18 Media Private Limited(Bigg Boss 9) The TV promo advertisement, depicting the protagonists wearing shoes in a temple is likely to cause grave and widespread offence.
Patanjali Ayurved Limited (Youvan Gold Plus): The claims on pack of Youvan Gold Plus, ‘An authentic powder booster Ayurvedic Medicine useful in physical & sexual weakness which improves libido, vigour & vitality, sexual power. Keeps you always healthy, energetic & gives you total satisfaction of married life’, were not substantiated and imply that the product is meant for enhancement of sexual pleasure, which is in breach of the law as it violates the Drugs & Magic Remedies Act.
Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. (Patanjali Pure Cow’s Ghee): The reference to ‘Keratin’ content in Cow’s milk in the advertisement was found to be an error. The word Keratin was used instead of ‘Carotene’ and the claim ‘Scientific fact: Cow’s milk contains Keratin’ was incorrect.
Patanjali Ayurved Ltd. (Patanjali Atta Noodles): The claim in the advertisement, ‘Oil Free’ was not substantiated and is misleading by implication.
Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd. (Coca-Cola Zero): The disclaimer in the advertisement of Coca-Cola Zero was not as per the size stipulated in the ASCI Guidelines for Supers. It was concluded that disclaimer in the advertisement is not clearly legible. The advertisement contravened the ASCI Guidelines on Supers.
Facebook India (Facebook Free Basics): The claim in the advertisement, ‘Free Basics is at risk of being banned’ was considered to be misleading by exaggeration. Further, the claim in the advertisement, ‘Through a trial of Free Basics by Facebook, Ganesh learnt new farming techniques that doubled his crop yield’, the farmer’s interview / testimonial is not an adequate substantiation for the claim quantifying doubling of crop yield directly attributable to the Free Basics trial by the farmer. Also, it was not conclusively proven what the crop yields were prior to Ganesh using internet and post using Free Basics trial. Using an individual testimonial without any claim support data, while reaching out to consumers at large, was considered to be misleading by implication and exaggeration. Also, in the absence of any disclaimer to that effect, the reference to the claim in the advertisement, ‘benefits of Free Internet’ was misleading by ambiguity.
Amazon.in: The discrepancy between the specification declared on the Amazon.com web-site for AdraxxCrosman Roof Prism Binoculars, and the specification mentioned on the product visual led to the conclusion that the advertisement is misleading.
The Times of India: The claim in the advertisement, ‘Presenting India’s most challenging school quiz.’ was not substantiated by providing comparative data versus other contests of similar nature to support how this quiz is better in the challenge level and the claim of the ‘Most’ challenging quiz.
