MxMIndia

Tag: digital

  • WATConsult has won the social and digital duties of Godrej Nature's Basket, the gourmet retail venture of the Godrej Group

    WATConsult wins Godrej Nature’s Basket’s digital and social mandate

    By A Correspondent

     

    Social media strategy consulting agency WATConsult has won the social and digital duties of Godrej Nature’s Basket, the gourmet retail venture of the Godrej Group.

     

    The account has been won recently and the execution for the same is slated to begin soon. With the addition of Godrej’s Nature Basket, WATConsult extends its current portfolio and takes the total number of clients to 55+.

     

    Commenting on the win, Rajiv Dingra, Founder & CEO, WATConsult said, “I am delighted with the win of the new account. Since our inception in 2007, it has been the constant endeavour of WAT Consult to create path-breaking creative campaigns that not only make an impact digitally but leave a mark across media. Godrej Nature’s Basket is a leader in its respective industry and by providing excellent quality innovation through strategy, technology and quality of management; we hope that we deliver exceptional performance.”

     

    Mohit Khattar, Managing Director, Godrej Nature’s Basket said, “Social media plays a pivotal role in building strong consumer engagement for Godrej Nature’s Basket. Understanding the importance of this platform, it was integral for us to get on board an agency that can help us drive our vision towards being a preferred world food destination. We look forward to a long and sustained association with WAT Consult.”

     

    Currently, WATConsult manages various brands from the Godrej Group. These brands include Godrej Appliances, Godrej Locks and Godrej Security Solutions.

     

  • Digital solutions agency FoxyMoron has bagged the duties to handle the Digital portfolio of L'Oreal Paris in India, replacing Jack In The Box

    L’Oreal appoints FoxyMoron for Digital duties

    By a Correspondent

     

    Digital solutions agency FoxyMoron has bagged the duties to handle the Digital portfolio of L’Oreal Paris in India. According to an industry source, prior to FoxyMoron, Jack In The Box was the incumbent agency handling the digital duties for L’Oreal Paris – India.

     

    Harshil Karia, Online Strategist at FoxyMoron said “It’s a huge opportunity for us to do something innovative with a legendary brand. We’ve also got a great canvas to work with. A brand that works in hair care, hair color, skincare and makeup is almost a dream and we’re sure it will always have something meaningful to say online.”

     

    Manashi Guha, Marketing Manager, L’Oreal Paris said, “For a beauty brand like L’Oreal Paris, the digital medium is a great storytelling platform.  We are excited to be working with FoxyMoron to evolve and execute our digital strategies for 2012 and beyond.”

     

    With its key focus on the current campaign, a large number of unique activities are said to have been planned out, to optimize the digital presence of L’Oreal Paris’.

     

    L’Oreal Paris has businesses in hair, skincare and makeup. While makeup and skincare will be led digitally, the hair business is said to see a lot of integration as far as campaigns are concerned. L’Oreal Paris has products like Total Repair 5 and Fall Repair which are said to be mass market products and here digital is said to play a role where it engages and educates the younger audience.

     

    It is also learnt from sources that McCann erickson is handling the mainline creatives for L’Oreal while Maxus is said to be handling its media duties.

     

  • For big creative shops to get serious about digital, they need to modify their outlook and treatment of the medium

    The Anchor: Madan Sanglikar on 4 big changes needed in Indian digital advertising

    #1 Erase the traditional vs digital mindset:

    This mindset has created a silo where what the digital team does is not known by the traditional media team and vice versa, whether it be at a client level, at an agency level etc. There is no unified thinking and therefore if we want to believe in convergence then it needs to first change with the mindset, not just in the devices. If we can therefore rule out this digital versus traditional mindset, it will work far better.

     

    #2 Single unified data points:

    We have different data points for different set of consumers, a lot of countries today are moving towards unified data points. It is high time that we start getting single sourced data which allows us to capture data points for the same consumer across different medium. Right now there are four or five different companies providing different data points, and hence like most developed countries it is high time India also adopts single source data points for tracking consumer behaviour.

     

    #3 Big creative shops must get serious about digital:

    While the media side of the business has seen tremendous growth, the creative part of the business is still struggling. I would like to see a lot more traditional media creative guys jumping into the digital media creative bandwagon. Because what I see today is a clear gap in the way work is done; as a result a lot of small time creative shops have got an opportunity to pull this gap. The big creative shops therefore must get serious about digital, not just by acquisition or adding business but, by actually understanding the medium and getting their hands dirty rather than just acquiring business.

     

    #4 Political will to make India more digital-savvy:

    There seems to be a lack of strong political will where building good infrastructure facilities in order to make India a digital-savvy country is concerned. I would like to see a strong political will in improving the broadband infrastructure of the country because India is ready and looking forward to newer opportunities in this area but, sadly there are not enough opportunities available at the moment.

     

    Madan Sanglikar is the Co-founder and CEO at AD2C

     

  • Even in the virtual world genuineness is appreciated, especially if the response is prompt and correction faster, says Saurabh Parmar

    The Anchor: 5 ways you can never get into a jam in the digital world

    By Saurabh Parmar

     

    1. Be a good listener:

    Digital is a two way communication medium, so before you start talking, start listening to what your customers are talking.

     

    2. Now understand:

    Get market research experts and your brand custodians to work on all this data and channel the insights to both your online and offline marketing.

     

    3. Get together:

    Don’t treat digital in a silo, integrate your touch points both in offline to digital banner campaigns, website, mobile, social media with each other. Integration is not just about giving links but really ‘getting together’ mediums to create a cohesive campaign.

     

    4. Be useful, fun or informative:

    It’s a crowded world out there with millions of brands and products talking. To connect with your customer make sure your message is either useful (What he is looking for), fun (what he will enjoy reading or sharing) or informative (makes him aware and interested)…just a higher media spend does not guarantee you more customers.

     

    5. Be real, say sorry:

    We all fu ** up, it’s better to admit it and rectify it rather than your customers creating a petition about you or criticizing you on blogs. Even in the virtual world genuineness is appreciated, especially if the response is prompt and correction faster.

     

    And the sureshot way…hire a better agency: Well the shortest and the easiest way of course is to hire a better agency

     

    Saurabh Parmar is Founder & CEO, Brandlogist

     

  • Domino's Pizza will be spending 6-7 per cent on digital out of its total marketing budget

    Domino’s Pizza increases its focus on digital

    By Tuhina Anand

     

    Harneet Singh Rajpal

    Domino’s Pizza has increased its spends on the digital medium and this year, it will be spending 6-7 per cent on digital, out of its total marketing budget as opposed to last year where the spend was 3.5-4 percent.

     

    Domino’s Pizza online ordering launched last year has been a runaway success, while it has launched mobile application just month and a half back, which though early days, has seen a traction of 1.5 lakh visits in a short span of time.

     

    Harneet Singh Rajpal, Vice President-Marketing, Domino’s Pizza India, talking about their digital foray said: “It’s more to do with closing the loop by being on the digital medium. Quite often the decision to order a pizza is instantaneous. Hence we wanted to facilitate the ordering which could be done by clicking on the ad and placing an order in few simple steps. In fact, digital has become an effective channel for us in driving our business and getting consumers instantly, thus able to measure our return on investments too.”

     

    While digital medium is being used by Domino’s, which Mr Rajpal points works well on weekdays, like catching people ordering at work, the television works well for them during the weekends.

     

    Television has also helped them in building their brand in Tier II and Tier III cities which is equally important for the company as the metros for growth. In fact, Domino’s has presence in 105 cities and has 465 stores which, as Mr Rajpal puts, makes them the largest Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) player in India which has footprints beyond the metros.

     

    In fact, he points that, inIndia, in the QSR there is a huge potential to grow even in metros, despite competition as metros still have a huge degree of under-penetration.

     

    Like is the trend now with the QSR players namely, its competition – including McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut – Domino’s too has been focusing on introducing new products to woo customers.

     

    It has recently launched the stuffed garlic bread and the product is even being supported by a TVC. In April this year, it re-launched its Pizza Mania and one has seen a constant effort to rev up its menu. It has also been focusing on side dishes and that, as Mr Rajpal said, is to offer to its customers a complete meal experience.

     

    Mr Rajpal explained: “In the QSR category, the food fatigue is very high and people get bored easily with the offering, especially in India, the demand from consumers for new taste is much higher than around the world. The thinking behind the constant launch of new products is to give consumers new reasons to come to us and taste new products. This has been our growth strategy, which not only helps us to get new customers but also hold on to the existing ones. Our R&D team is constantly working to come out with unique and tasty offerings for our consumers.”

     

    Domino’s has seen a growth of 30 per cent in the last fiscal and has seen 20 per cent plus CAGR in last five years at the store level.

     

  • While email marketing may be a cost-effective medium enabling larger reach, the challenges that accompany it are also large

    Email Marketing: Vast opportunities make it a favourite with brands

    By Robin Thomas

     

    Easily the most preferred medium for a brand or marketer to get close to his consumer, digital has never seen such a fervent chase being put up by its users. While it was mostly search and display advertisements that advertisers flocked to, much of digital advertising is still unexplored territory. The importance of engaging the youth through social media marketing has only just been realized, while video marketing and mobile advertising are also gaining traction among marketers.

     

    According to a recent IAMAI-IMRB report on Digital Advertising (as on March 2012), the total advertising spends including classifieds was valued at Rs2,850 crore.  It is expected that by FY2013 the digital advertisement spends will be about Rs4,391 crore.

     

    The March 2012 report on digital advertising points out that search advertising constitutes about 20 per cent of the total online advertising spend or about Rs570 crore.  The report also states that advertisements on social media, email and video over the Internet constitutes about 3 per cent (Rs94 crore), 5 per cent (Rs144 crore) and 2 per cent (Rs59 crore) respectively. What is noteworthy is that a major proportion, around 53 per cent, of the overall digital advertising spends come from classifieds listing (Rs1,496 crore).

     

    With such infinite possibilities continuing to emerge on a frequent basis around the medium, one tool that has been a favourite with the marketers in the recent past is email advertising. With just a handful of players that operate in the realm of providing email services, it becomes all the more challenging for owners to come up ideas that catch the attention of the advertisers. The question is whether there is enough being done around the vertical or if companies are missing out on the edge that this medium can possibly offer.

     

    The IAMAI – IMRB Digital Advertising report already states that email advertising is worth 5 per cent of the overall digital advertising spends. According to industry estimates, email advertising is expected to grow from the current Rs144 crore to Rs250 crore in the next year or two. The role or purpose of email marketing is said to be about delivering the message and inviting consumers into brand engagement. Further, with mobile internet being touted to take internet inIndiato new heights, email marketing is expected to also thrive in the long run.

     

    Mr Prasanth Mohanachandran, Co founder, AgencyDigi stated: “email marketing is very relevant and important today, it is cost-effective and reaches to wide range of audience. While it is already witnessing growth, mobile will only further grow email marketing as nearly 27 per cent of mails received by consumers are on handheld devices. The challenge, however, is to find newer ways to reach out to the consumers’ inbox and not their spam. Segmentation in email marketing will also help brands reach their relevant consumers.”

     

    Mr Gaurav Nabh, Business Head, Quasar was of the view that since email is the most used platform for internet users in India, it is absolutely important and critical for any brand as a medium for reaching out to its consumer. “It is a communication medium, much like print, radio or TV. What you do with this platform and how you are able to maximize its effectiveness depends on the idea and approach,” he said.

     

    What is noteworthy about email marketing is that it acts as a reach building medium by allowing brands to segment the audience as per their demographics and profile, and thus directly targeting them. While email marketing may be a cost-effective medium enabling larger reach, the challenges that accompany it are also large. Most email advertisements tend to be unsolicited mails and thus enter the spam mail. Lack of creative email advertisements could be another challenge for this business and hence it must not only get more creative but, also innovative in terms of rich media and interactivity and so on.

     

    “A lot has been done with email marketing as a platform – from embedding previews of videos to lead generation, polls and voting. The limitations of the platform are based on poor bandwidth and technology limitation of most email clients and platforms. email marketing has been most successful for finance and real estate sector – helping them in generating leads. email marketing is here to stay as it has a role and purpose and the fact that it is cost effective. Email marketing will over time be seen not as a reach builder, but that of targeted awareness, and a medium to initiate and enable dialogue rather than just spread the message,” affirmed Mr Nabh of Quasar.

     

    Mr Saurav Patnaik, VP-Marketing, Kenscio Digital Marketing Pvt Ltd was of the view that email marketing or digital direct marketing does not lack innovation, but to a great extent, is lacking creativity. “The agency’s focus has been on producing beautiful communication, but not much attention has been given to this channel. The road ahead is bright for this channel of marketing. We are very positive about the future and India as a market is growing and more the penetration of the internet happens the bigger it will get in the next few years,” he said.

     

    Mr Gupta of DGM India noted: “Spam is a big issue, due to which it faces similar issues as SMS marketing. Like SMS, email marketing is also being done by loads of small/unorganized players. Due to this the larger players with opted-in databases are not getting their due pricing and share. Because of its nature, email marketing is being predominantly used for activation/ response oriented campaigns rather than branding campaigns. It is, in fact, very cost effective for these objectives. Also it is very effective in lead generation campaigns for BFSI, travel packages, auto, online listing businesses etc. It also works very well for highly niche products.”

     

    While industry players are of the opinion that email marketing is here to stay and will grow over the years there is a need to be innovative and creative in delivering the message to the audience. E-marketing must be used to send relevant information and brands must start a meaningful dialogue with their consumers through email marketing. In order to escape spam and reach their consumers directly, email marketing could be used as a perfect tool for permission marketing. As internet consumption through mobile or smart phones grow, and consumers are given unique experience on mobile, email marketing could possibly witness a whole new chapter in the way it gets consumed.

     

  • Net net: It's the traditional mind set that needs to change. A tall ask in an industry where some senior leaders pride themselves in not even trying to figure out how a basic internet tool like the social media works

    Anil Thakraney: Zero in digital work

    By Anil Thakraney

     

    So, once again we did miserably in the Cannes cyber awards category. Here’s mxmindia’s story on this subject, and I must say it is pretty depressing.

     

    http://www.mxmindia.com/2012/06/are-we-duhs-in-digital/

     

    I suspect the main reason we continue to languish in this field is the apathetic creative directors. Most large agency creative directors don’t get this new medium, and it appears to me they don’t even WANT to get it. Because we are a third world nation, for lakhs of people the television set is still an aspirational purchase. And, therefore, it is widely believed that it will take many years before the digital medium becomes truly relevant in India. This might be true, but that still doesn’t change the fact that the digital world is already at our door step… rather, it has walked right in… and many brands can benefit from it. And the winners will be those who move early.

     

    Another thing: If the traditional ad agencies continue to ignore this space and treat it as a ‘supplementary’ medium, they run the risk of losing this business to specialized tech solutions shops. Such boutique digital agencies are already sprouting, and before the sluggish large agencies get their act together, this part of the business will be lost to them. Perhaps forever. All the more reason the ad agencies need to act before it’s too late.

     

    It is also true that most of the senior ad agency leaders are old worlders and they are finding it difficult to connect with this medium. Their lives begin and end with the 30 second TVC. That’s all right, and they can continue to focus on TV commercials. But as long as they make sure their creative departments are packed with young ‘techno-creatives’, and these blokes are on the job from the very first client briefing. This would naturally lead to upping the staff budget, but this is an investment that will pay off in the long run. Just as when television started booming in India, ad agencies were compelled to start out a specialized films department, exactly that’s what needs to be done now.

     

    Net net: It’s the traditional mind set that needs to change. A tall ask in an industry where some senior leaders pride themselves in not even trying to figure out how a basic internet tool like the social media works. Check for yourself how many of them are on Twitter and Facebook and you’ll know what I mean.

     

    * * *

     

    PS: Must watch: Repellent Radio. Brilliant stuff. This is a good example of Brazil’s super advertising talent. And also why that nation always does marvelously at Cannes.

     

    Link: http://www.canneslions.com/work/2012/radio/

     

     

  • The primary role of marketing is to drive sales and bring in revenues, writes Lloyd Mathias, as he lists the six vital lessons marketers learn on the job

    The Anchor: Lloyd Mathias on the 6 things every marketer learns on the job

    By Lloyd Mathias

     

    1. No matter how good your campaign is, it won’t work till you have your team fully aligned with it. So, as much as you spend time on zeroing on the consumer insight, researching the proposition, fine tuning the communication – it is important to “sell” the campaign to your internal constituents.  Hence the need for internal communication – point-of-sale material for trade, detailers for the sales force.  It is also critical to align campaign breaks with availability of field materials and widespread distribution.  The best campaigns don’t succeed without product in the shelves.

     

    2. The past is no guarantee to the future. Most marketers believe if it’s worked well in the past, it will work again. The fact is consumer tastes change over time. Even more importantly, the market dynamics change. Also, most consumers need fresh stimulation.

     

    3. Treat your agency as an integral part of your marketing team.  It is amazing how many marketers have near adversarial relationships with their agencies (creative, media, digital PR).  Your agency is the co-custodian of your brand – the more they know about your business and the issues facing it – the richer will be their input. Treat them as co-owners. Give them the freedom to do the occasional over the tip creative.  Long term they won’t let you down.

     

    4. Marketers tire of their campaigns much faster than consumer do. Remember most consumers see a whole lot less of your brand than you do.  Refresh if you need to, don’t revamp.

     

    5. Meet real consumers as often as you can. An hour with consumers is worth many hours of pouring over research data. Consumers today – more than ever – have a strong point of view and want to be heard. Some of the finest ideas come from immersing with your consumers. And remember – don’t confuse your sales force or trade partners with REAL consumers. No, not even analyzing the brands’ Facebook page responses or looking up the Twitter handle can beat real consumer face time!

     

    6. Always keep the larger business objective in mind. Remember the primary role of marketing is to drive sales & bring in revenues. Everything else comes next. So try not to be overly protective about the marketing budget – especially if the business needs cuts.  In the long run if business wins – marketing wins.

     

    Lloyd Mathias is Director, GreenBean Ventures. He was President & CMO, Tata Teleservices until late last year and was Sales & Marketing Director of Motorola India prior to that.

     

  • Too harsh a question? India's dismal showing in Cyber & Mobile at Cannes Lions 2012 pushed us to discuss it with industry leaders

    Are we Duhs in Digital Media?

     

    By Tuhina Anand and Shruti Pushkarna

     

    India has once again drawn a blank in the Cyber Lions category at Cannes 2012. From the 27 entries from India in this category, none made it to the shortlist. Considering that digital is the talk at all industry forum and the future, or is it actually the present, of advertising, its dismal performance at Cannes makes one realize that India is still miles behind on this medium.

     

    Nagesh Alai

    Nagesh Alai, Executive Director – India Operations at DraftFCB Group, pointed out: “It is not surprising not seeing a shortlist in the Cyber Lions from our shores. Most in our industry continue to see and use Digital as a ‘medium of messaging’ instead of seeing and using Digital as a ‘medium to engage with and start a conversation about the brand’. It is a classic case of getting stuck in hoary mindsets of a 30-second TV commercial. The day our digital specialists get out of this mindset, I reckon one will see a sea change in the digital executions and becoming award worthy. I am sure we will see that happen in the not too distant a future.”

     

    Talking about the digital in India, Carlton D’Silva, Chief Creative Officer, Hungama Digital Services Pvt. Ltd, said: “As I have mentioned in the past, the standard of good digital work in India to compete at the Cannes can only be made possible if the playing fields are even.”

     

    He listed the factors that go against good digital creative work, which remain remains the same – the inability to acquire the requisite budget for a digital campaign, the lack of time and the lack of risk taking (both from the client as well as agency side) the digital medium is still used more for its effectiveness than creativity.

     

    A senior mobility and digital media executive with a leading media agency felt that India’s performance in Cannes Digital categories should at least have some positive side-effects. “Why this happened? If I have to sum up in short, it is because of lack of respect for the Digital medium, which comes from ignorance about the medium and its possibilities; lack of budgets, which comes from lack of respect for the medium; lack of creative talent, which stems from lack of budgets,” she added.

     

    The executive explained that there is a need for a reality check on how evolved the consumers, marketers and agencies are, as compared to Cannes shortlisted entries or winners. “Look at the short-listed entries for Cyber Lions, they come from countries which have more than 75% internet penetration, while we are celebrating our 10% mark. Of course, one can argue that the population of these countries is lesser than some of our states but one also needs to understand that their consumers are also much more evolved. Again, take a look at the Mobile Lions winners, what do you see? Smart phones and Tablets! In our country Voice is the most penetrated medium on Mobile and we have 21 million smartphones in a mobile subscriber base of 900 million plus. If rich media creatives are the tickets to Lions, I would rather design mobile campaigns that work in Indian eco-system and bring value to advertisers in terms of media effectiveness,” she said.

     

    Vikas Tandon

    Giving his take on India’s performance in this category, Vikas Tandon, Founder and Managing Director, Indigo Consulting said: “To start with, I think we should recognise that Cannes is as big as it gets, the competition is really tough with hundreds of entries from all over the world, so there is no shame in not winning. We must keep learning from the experiences and pegging away at it. Let’s not write off the Indian team because we lost one tournament. But, definitely it must serve as a reminder that we need to commit ourselves a lot more to Digital than we are now. Among Indian marketers, it is still not as important/critical a piece in the marketing game plan as it is in many other countries and hence, while it seems to get some attention, it just does not get the time or budgets. One of the most frustrating challenges that digital agency invariably have to encounter in India is lack of execution time. Once you have an idea/construct, and even detailing it takes time. Execution is, of course, equally critical for success, and the time constraints often do not allow an idea to reach its full potential.

     

    So one thing has clearly come out from this, is that for Indian marketers, digital is an after-thought and not still a critical medium.

     

    Naresh Gupta

    Naresh Gupta, Managing Partner, Bang in the Middle when asked on what ails Indian digital advertising said that he would rather look from the perspective of why the Indian digital advertising is not growing up. Giving his take, he pointed out four aspects: “The digital advertising in India is stuck in a time wrap. The traditional method of advertising is about creating awareness, to generate Interest that creates desires that leads to action. More often than not, digital campaigns are built around the same parameter. Digital behaviour is really about search and share, and that is a paradigm that marketers haven’t been able to factor in. This is part of the reason why campaigns neither aid search, nor motivate share.”

     

    Mr Gupta also mentioned that Digital engagement has been reduced to a Facebook page and a Twitter handle: “I am not saying they are not important, they are, but they are just the tools. For a lot of brands getting the followers or number of likes becomes the strategy. Now that’s not really smart. The brands have to have a strategy for social media.”

     

    His third points is that the TV-led thinking for brands where an idea is crafted for TV and then adapted to digital is actually the biggest problem. Consider this, all marketing theories were written before the advent of Internet. The need to position, the need to leverage a singular attribute and build on one are all fine with TV-centric thinking, but not so for ‘word of mouse’-centric thinking. The digital medium has its own dynamics and needs a different take. The strategic thinking that leads to ATL idea needs to be interpreted keeping digital dynamics in mind.

     

    And lastly: “Most importantly, the brand owners need to recognize the importance of digital and craft the entire strategy accordingly. The brand owners too fret to get their TV brief right, but rarely debate to get their digital idea right.”

     

  • Monetization is the key for survival of any business and radio stations must find ways to do that for their social media activations, say media captains

    Need to monetize radio-social media connect (+Vdo)

    By Robin Thomas (Videos: Insiyah Rangwala)

     

    Social media has, more or less, become a necessity for every organization today because the consumers are out there and no brand can afford to not be interacting with them. Moreover, social media can also help  brands know their consumers’ thoughts, behaviour, likes and dislikes. It also allows brands to have a two-way communication with their consumers, and thus provides high level of interaction and engagement. And it is not just brands but other media like radio stations which are coming out with innovative ways to connect with their listeners through social media.

     

    At the sidelines of the India Radio Forum (IRF) 2012 industry veterans from the advertising fraternity discussed the importance of social media for radio.

     

    Mr Premjeet Sodhi, COO, Lintas Media Group said: “Social media is certainly important for not only the radio industry today, but also for every other medium. In the long run we will see more integration taking place between social media and radio.”

     

    Mr Raj Nayak, CEO, Colors- Viacom 18 explained: “Social media is growing by the day. Today almost 65 per cent of the people in India are below the age of 35 and 50 per cent are below 25 years of age. I believe this is the fastest growing medium, therefore, it is a very important medium and those that have not got onto social media, must get on before it is too late.”

     

    Mr Suman Srivastava, Founder and Innovation Artist, Marketing Unplugged said: “Social media is important for radio at two levels. One is to connect with the listeners and therefore, get much larger engagement which might even result in an increase in the reach. On the other hand, it is a fantastic medium for radio channels to build their own brands as well as the brands of their advertisers. In the future, I believe, we will see a lot more advertisers using radio and social media together along with, perhaps, ground activations to create events which could have a multiplier effect for those advertisers.”

     

    Speaking on the need for radio to partner with clients, Mr Vinay Bhatia, Customer Care Associate and Senior VP- Marketing, Shoppers Stop said: “The real big partnership for radio and their clients is in the digital space. Digital and radio have to come together and ally in such a way that they deliver joint value to the client, and I don’t think any of this is happening today. Radio is an out of home medium and we are increasingly seeing out of home consumption for digital. I think these two medium can go very well together and brands like ours which have large Facebook pages need content, we need engagement and I think radio channels that provide us that.”

     

    Mr Harshad Jain, Business Head – Radio and Entertainment, HT Media said: “Radio is a medium which is free of cost, it is the cheapest form of entertainment in the country, and if there are issues that can be interlinked with social media, it could call for a good integration. Having said that, it is still early days because radio as a medium still has to catch up big time before it starts integrating with social media.”

     

    While there are calls for integration between radio and social media, the radio industry must also find ways to monetize the radio-social media connect. Mr Sodhi pointed out that while social media can make radio activations richer, it is vital for radio stations to find newer ways to monetize this activation.

     

    Agreeing with Mr Sodhi, Mr Raj Nayak said that no business will work if there is no monetization. He added: “One of the biggest disservice broadcasters have done is that they have not woken up to the digital media.”

     

    So while radio and social media will see more integration in the long run, there is also another school of thought that believes that radio is still at a nascent stage and has a long way to go before it can get into integration with social media. However, monetization is the key for survival of any business and radio stations must find ways to monetize its social media activations.

     

  • Work on an intelligent, creative and smart campaign without reading too much into youth behaviour because reality is that one will never ever be able to understand how these mindsets function, says Samyak Chakrabarty

    The Anchor: 5 Reasons why Brands get it wrong with the Youth

    By Samyak Chakrabarty

     

    1. Boxing youth into strict definitions

    In a country as diverse asIndia, one cannot define our youth or predict consumption behaviour by merely categorizing them under conventional economic segmentation or geographies. Our youth is continuously evolving, especially those born after 1988 are still caught in a transitional phase from and into very different eras. It can never be obvious what a SEC A+ 20 year old male inNew Delhiwill purchase just by looking at the size of his wallet or the kind of college he studies in !

     

    2. Youth don’t wake up thinking about brands

    Just because your brand ambassador maybe Ranbir Kapoor or your communication is ‘cool’ (I hate it when brand managers say this!), one can’t take it for granted that youngsters will always have your brand on their top of mind or will purchase your product. Today, we are more conscious and calculative about what we consume, hence substance is equally as important as packaging. Second, to build loyalty with this generation, the brand has to be equally loyal to them!

     

    3. Digital is the holy grail

    There was a time when brand managers would pull out their hair trying to figure how to engage youth sustainably. Soon enough,Silicon Valleyanswered their prayers and there landed from ‘the cloud’ Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But unfortunately, brands take it for granted that just because they are on social media or rather have a million likes/views, theirs is a ‘cool youth brand’. This is not true, these days we ‘view’, ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ about anything and everything that comes into our online space – it has become a function of habit. These numbers cannot be used to measure brand engagement/conversions in pure statistical terms. Just because your brand is now digital, it is not young.

     

    4. Trying to measure word of mouth

    Indiais perhaps the only country in the world where brand managers ask for a ‘measurement matrix’ for world of mouth campaigns conducted in colleges. I guess they like to show off to their bosses how much they know and meticulous they are. How can one ever measure, record or contain conversations that happen offline? And just because therefore there is no direct ‘ROI’, youth brands in India refuse to run simple WOM campaigns, even though in fact, if rightly administered and structured, the investment can be more profitable then all digital spends put together since most purchases/brand decisions happen through peer references that take place in conversations over chai in the canteen or a beer in the pub – NOT on Facebook.

     

    5. Today’s Youth is an alien species

    To my final point, brands look at ‘youth’ as a totally alien species, which they are trying to figure and due to that very attitude, all the numbers, insights and ideas start not making sense. I, myself, have written above that those born after 1988 are indeed a totally different than their predecessors but that doesn’t mean that we overcomplicate and give too much importance to the way they think, eat, drink and surf! I guess the simplest thing to do is work on an intelligent, creative and smart campaign without reading too much into youth behaviour because reality is that one will never ever be able to understand how these mindsets function since there is no one point where this transition will end.

     

    Samyak Chakrabarty is Chief Youth Marketer, DDB Mudra Max

     

  • Clive Armitage, Co-founder & CEO of Bite Communications highlights a few markets that would help bring growth to the agency and maps out new avenues that would put the agency on a higher pedestal in the months to come

    India will be key growth engine market: Clive Armitage

    It’s been a modest start for Bite Communications that completed a year of operations inIndiarecently. Still a newbie in the trade, the agency expects to widen its strides as it prepares to take on larger challenges in the communications space. Confident of putting up a stellar show going forward, Clive Armitage, Co-founder & CEO of Bite Communications says that India will emerge one of the hottest growth engine markets for the agency given the unlimited scope it throws up for agencies.

     

    In conversation with Johnson Napier of MxMIndia, Armitage delves on his agency’s performance in the past year inIndia, highlights a few markets that would help bring growth to the agency and maps out new avenues that would put the agency on a higher pedestal in the months to come. Excerpts:

     

    It’s been a year of existence for Bite Communications in India. As you look back, how would you analyse your journey thus far?

    There are different ways in which you can measure the growth of an agency – on a financial basis, on a reputational basis or on a service basis. The most important thing that you do when you start an agency is make sure that you start it with a good foundation because it’s the foundation that will decide how your agency will grow or sustain itself in the future. When we came intoIndia, we weren’t sitting here saying that the most important thing for us is to grow very quickly and earn lots of money but what we wanted to do was come into the market and establish a strong team doing really good work. The assumption was that if we do that, it will lead to a good performance on the financial front as well. I think after a year we have done exactly that. We have a good team out here who are working with clients that have a great calibre in the industry.

     

    Are you content with the way the Indian team has gone about establishing the network in India, especially the manner in which they have attracted clients onboard ?

    What we wanted to do when we started was be relatively selective around the clients that we work with. What we don’t want to be is an agency which is just the arms and legs to a client. We want to be a strategic partner to help the client achieve their goals. All of the client engagements that we have now got, we have been fortunate enough to establish that kind of a relationship. There have been moments when we have turned the client away because they didn’t want to work with us as they weren’t willing to consider digital solutions and other such things. From that standpoint, we have been able to meet our stated objective. The other thing to be stated here is that it is a pretty simple business model: if you hire a bunch of people and you want them to be really motivated and stick around, you have to give them a chance to work around big clients. If they get to work on clients who are just doing low profile jobs the best thing to do is leave. The thing about our team here is that we allow them to do big work with our clients. Obviously, every client is different and you do get challenging clients that are demanding, and we’ve had a fair share of those, but I think the current client base is what we are happy with and are seeing them grow very well. So we have seen a great start but it is just an introductory chapter to the book; there are many more chapters to write and much more work to be done.

     

    Despite India being a relatively nascent market, how do you see it shaping up as a market of choice for Bite Communications?

    The thing is that we have around 14 offices around the world. So when we have clients elsewhere and when we refer it to newer offices we are always nervous on how that relationship is going to go. The teams have to be strong and reliable enough that whenever we come across an opportunity to expand our relationship with our clients, we have tremendous confidence that we can suggestIndiaas an option and know that the work gets done and the result is going to be superb.

     

    How do the offices in Asia Pacific and around the globe stack up against each other?

    We have our office inHong Kongthat employs around 40 people. We also have offices inBeijing,Shanghai,SingaporeandSydney. Across the region we have around 100 people andIndiais our newest and favourite child. If I look around the business on a global basis, I have to look at where the growth potential is. Personally for me, the three markets that have the biggest growth potential include North America,ChinaandIndia. North America is a fairly established market already and there is more scope for growth but inChinawhere we have about 40 people and about 8-10 inIndia, we’ve got plenty of potential for rapid growth. That’s how I look atIndiaas a market – it’s one of the engines for the next 5-10 years for the growth of the business. Engine by the following aspects: one, by the sheer headcount and revenues and two, by innovation. Historically, we have a heavy focus on technology and as marketing gradually starts to evolve I seeIndiahaving a great advantage in terms of innovation and starting to deliver on some of the products that we can further use on a global basis.

     

    While you’re ideally tagged a small agency given the staff headcount, how would you associate Bite Communications as an emerging agency in India?

    We are 250-people strong agency across the 14 offices that we have our presence in. I would define us as being a small global network. Our objective is to be in a business that has a higher headcount across the offices that we are present in. I do not believe in the model whereby you have to have a dot on the map of every city. The challenge to that is you end up losing your overall proposition if you have a network that’s very huge. For us, we have around 14-15 offices that are strong and large enough that they can serve the needs of the clients at strategic locations around the world. Probably the countries where we need to make ourselves felt isBrazilandRussiawhere we work on partnerships and are not present there yet. So the next two years or so would be about those two locations and looking at ways to get into them and also growing smaller and younger offices likeIndiavery quickly.

     

    What is the role you see digital taking up for you in India?

    We are ambitious about the future and think about digital as once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the PR industry to get out of the PR silo and get into large and marquee budgets – that’s what we are hungry for. We feel digital will help us become a much larger and bigger agency much quicker than the others.

     

    The Indian PR market is a cluttered one with more than 2000-odd agencies fighting it out to grab the mindshare of clients. What is the future you foresee for the PR space in India?

    I think there is plenty of scope for growth for PR agencies inIndia. I think it’s a reflection of how clients have become more mature and are ultimately left thinking and have started to fuel the need for working with specialist agencies inIndia. The space has become very competitive right now and it wasn’t the case around 8-10 years ago. I think the agencies that have a clear proposition and remain differentiated will manage to win the trust of their clients. We are not afraid of competition; we welcome it. It only inspires us to be more different and creative than most.

     

    As you move forward, what is the goalpost that you’ve set for the agency?

    The goalpost for me is not financial, it is going to be based around the type of work we do – increasingly doing more and more integrated communication campaigns. We still are a traditional agency but we want to be winning more awards for our integrated work which demonstrate we can take great content from client’s point of view in the marketplace and then deliver that to a commercial benefit via a host of different channels be it traditional media or digital media. The challenge for the team here is demonstrate that you can do that for the outside market place to gain a reputation – do that and all the financial success and growth will follow.