MxMIndia

Tag: Day1@Goafest

  • The Conclave had the marketing chiefs of the leading e-commerce brands, Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra explain to the audience the dramatic changes that have taken place in the field of digital marketing

    Day1@Goafest: E-commerce calls the shots at Industry Conclave

    By Rahul Chandawarkar

     

    E-commerce held centre stage on Day 1 of Goafest 2019 which kicked off at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Bambolim, Goa on Thursday, April 11.

    Sponsored by Discovery Channel, the Industry Conclave had the marketing chiefs of the leading e-commerce brands, Amazon, Flipkart and Myntra explain to the audience the dramatic changes that have taken place in the field of digital marketing.

    Ravi Desai, Vijay Sharma, Achint Seti and Velumani

    Ravi Desai, director, mass and brand marketing, Amazon India explained how the old system of ‘pen portraying’ a customer was completely passé now. Desai said that Amazon India had created a mind-boggling 1,00,000 digital advertisments during Diwali 2018 to address hundreds of customer-types across multiple segments.

    Desai explained how primetime TV advertising was also passé. According to the senior executive, the modern-day, urban consumer was consuming content in very different ways. Desai demonstrated with the help of a video clip, how consumers were comfortable directing Amazon’s artificial intelligence device, Alexa to play songs of their choice on Amazon’s Echo, smart speaker system. “If consumers are hooked to this, we need to devise ways and means to catch their attention on this platform,” Desai said.

    Citing the example of his teenaged son and his friends, Desai said that multiple TV channels did not interest these teenagers anymore. “They were more keen to play PUBG ( Player Unknown’s Battleground), the popular, online multiplayer game and live streaming video games. Our advertising needs to cater to these new trends,” Desai said.

    Quoting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who said, “Focus obsessively on customers,” Desai explained how building customer loyalty was a prime objective at Amazon. According to Desai, the ‘Amazon Prime’ programme where a customer paid INR 129 every month to avail of a free and fast delivery, advertisement free video streaming, audio streaming and exclusive deals was a step in this direction.

    Likewise, Vijay Sharma, associate director, brand marketing and head digital media, Flipkart said that digital marketing and digital brands had changed the face of modern-day marketing. According to Sharma, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) like Coke and Pepsi had made way for brands like Apple and Google as the world’s leading brands.

    Explaining the challenge of digital marketing, Sharma said that artificial intelligence was being used extensively by Flipkart to run its latest advertising and marketing campaign, ‘The Big Billion Days’.

    Multiple celebrities and models were roped in to run the popular, ‘Ab Hoga (name of city) budget se mukt!’ digital marketing campaign, which was made to reach a wide audience across the entire country.

    In a similar vein, Achint Setia, vice president – marketing, Myntra, explained how the modern-day customer was consuming information across a wide variety of platforms like the internet, television and the android phone. “In such a scenario, we necessarily have to use artificial intelligence to make a customer experience a joyful moment with the mere touch of  button,” Setia said.

    Explaining that Myntra was a cool and youthful brand, Setia said that the company had put a customer loyalty programme titled, ‘Myntra Inside’ in place. With the help of a video clip, Setia demonstrated how the programme treated the customer to a personality make-overs, gifted new dresses and curated the experiences of the customers using cutting edge technology. Myntra also gifted select customers overseas trips.

    Earlier in the afternoon, popular singer Shaan regaled the audiences with many of his hit Bollywood songs and also sang several English-Hindi medleys.

    The audiences were also regaled and kept spellbound by a very peppy presentation made by Dr A Velumani, creator and managing director of Thyrocare, the company which has made a mark in the field of healthcare. Velumani touched many a chord when he narrated his rags to riches story. Advocating the philosophy of frugality, Velumani explained how he did not own a home despite being very rich. “As an entrepreneur I feel it is more important to grow my business and create more employment,” Velumani said.

     

    Rahul Chandawarkar, a former newspaper editor, is a communications strategist and superactive triathlete based in Goa. He has been covering Goafests for MxMIndia since 2017.

     

  • After the inauguration, Chandramouli Venkatesan, Samar Singh Sheikhawat and Oliver Maletz spoke at the Industry Conclave

    Day1@Goafest: Agency-client ties dominate discussion

    By Labonita Ghosh

     

    What makes for a good agency-client partnership? The question that plagues both the marketing and the advertising world, formed the subject of discussions on Day 1 of Goafest, the annual, big-ticket event jointly hosted by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Advertising Club. The answer was delivered by the three main speakers of the day, Chandramouli Venkatesan, Managing Director of Mondelez Foods (makers of Cadbury), Samar Singh Sheikhawat, Senior Vice President, Marketing at United Breweries, and Oliver Maletz, head of connections planning, media and international communication at Volkswagen.

     

    If a client-agency partnership has to be successful, it must be like the partnership of Jai and Veeru, the protagonists from the film Sholay, said Venkatesan. “It should be a study in contrasts,” he said. “A client and an agency, who are two different entities, coming together to create magic. Not two entities who think in a similar manner.” Indeed, client-agency meetings are often like a Bollywood potboiler, fraught with emotion, drama and even tragedy. But what works, in an overarching manner, is when two very different styles at play come together to complement their strengths; have a shared purpose and passion, as well as a trust and friendship that allows them to challenge each other continuously to do better. The last bit is really important, said Venkatesan giving examples of successful campaigns that Cadbury entrusted its agencies with, and backed them on. Some years ago, when there was a quality issue with chocolates in the UK, and the company had to recall hundreds of bars, the agency came up with the hugely-successful Gorilla ad, showing an ape beating a drum. The company was puzzled. Instead of addressing and firefighting on quality issue, the agency was suggesting that they go in completely different direction. Cadbury trusted the agency view, and it led to one of the most memorable campaigns for the company. Given such a situation, there are things agencies can do to forge better partnerships, according to Venkatesan, and this  involves generating trust, earning that trust and putting better processes in place.

     

    Sheikhawat had a slightly different take on client-agency partnerships. “Agencies need to get to know the business,” he says. “They don’t spend enough time understanding the business.” Sheikhawat said he facilitates brewery visits for agency reps working with his organisation, just as he had to – early on in his career – spend time in the offices of advertising stalwarts like Roda Mehta, to understand how the agency world works. Agencies should also get to know the consumer – a big challenge in a rapidly-changing country like India, when consumer choice plays an increasingly large role in the success of brands and products. One sureshot way to do this, says Sheikhawat, is to get into the marketplace and see for yourself. Get behind the counter at a department store or a liquor shop to gauge things for yourself. And once agencies get past the barriers of understanding the business and knowing the consumer, they need to be the solution for their clients. Sheikhawat cited an interesting example to illustrate this. Experience shows that women don’t like to drink beer. So trying to market a product which doesn’t appeal to half the (potential) population of India, is bound to be a problem. That’s when a 24-year-old representative of the agency UB was working with some years ago, came up with a unique (though initially incredible) solution. She suggested creating a beer-based drink that would be fruity, which led to the Kingfisher Buzz, in flavours like lychee.  It just goes to show, Sheikhawat said in conclusion, that while solutions can come from anywhere, agencies should be the first to generate them. Oliver Maletz of Volkswagen, in his session, outlined that agencies need to be true business partners to clients; be innovators, though not just for the sake of innovating and aim to deliver meaningful value to a meaningful number of people.

     

    In its eleventh year, Goafest 2016 edition has seen participation from over 2300 delegates, and that number is expected to exceed 2500 with spot registrations.