Meta (formerly Facebook) highlighted its commitment to creators in Delhi and across the country, by organising its first ‘Creator Day’.
‘Creator Day’ is Meta’s annual flagship event to celebrate creators, and provides an opportunity for them to create, collaborate and learn from each other. The 2022 version of the event took place across five cities – Mumbai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chennai and Delhi being the city for the event finale.
Said Manish Chopra, Director & Head of Partnerships for Facebook India (Meta): “Young people across India, and what some call Bharat, are expressing themselves on Reels and being discovered by audiences across the country. They’re becoming the new generation of creators, with a national following, in the process shaping culture and influencing trends. For this reason, we believe a key pillar of India’s new economy is going to be built and fuelled by creators. And with Reels, everyone has a stage to be a global icon of tomorrow.”
Actor Varun Dhawan added: “It’s impressive the way young people are showcasing their talent on reels, and how they’re breaking through everyday, every moment. Being authentic and keep experimenting – is the advice I can offer creators. From ‘Student of the Year’ to the upcoming ‘Bhediya’, these are two principles I’ve lived by and maybe that’s something you could follow too. I wish you the best in finding your own path, and being advocates for your collective success. I’m glad Meta’s providing you with opportunities like Creator Day, and I’m happy I got to be a part of it too.”
Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in collaboration with Meta, has launched a report titled, “Measure To Grow: Drive double-digit growth by measuring marketing right” that brings together an industry consensus on optimal marketing measurement for marketing spends. The study provides a comprehensive view on the best-in-class marketing measurement practices that can unlock exponential business growth for businesses, small and large.
For the purpose of this study, BCG and Meta collaborated with leading marketing measurement specialists including Adobe, Analytic Edge, AppsFlyer, Cartesian Consulting, Nielsen, and RainMan Consulting as well as 18 digital-first organizations from India across five key industries (Financial Services, EdTech, E-commerce, Travel, Media/OTT) to present this view.
The report findings highlight that there has been a 3x increase in the share of digital marketing spends over the last five years by India Inc. However, despite its significant growth, the measurement practices have not kept pace. As a result, organizations are leaving significant value on the table.
Said Shaveen Garg, Managing Director and Partner, BCG: “While the spends on digital marketing have sky rocketed, the true efficiency of the spend is not measured in most Indian companies. Thus, potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. As the customer journeys have become complex and intertwined between online-offline and across channels, the ability to measure business impact of digital marketing has taken a hit.Our study showed that while there were some companies have taken a lead and are getting exceptional returns, vast majority are in early stages. There is no silver-bullet single answer to what to measure and how, but the core principle to follow is to capture incremental impact on true business metrics.”
Added Pratham Hegde, Director and Head of Measurement at Facebook India: “Digital is the new mainstream, and in order to unlock growth, there is a growing need for businesses to measure the true impact of marketing on business outcomes. The industry consensus is that there is no single measurement method or metric that will address all measurement requirements. The core recommendation for advertisers is to have an incrementality based approach at the centre of their measurement philosophy.”
GSK Consumer Healthcare’s antacid brand, Eno, has partnered with Facebook given its ongoing focus on the rural audience. As part of this leg, Eno will be rolling out a series of digital comics and nnimation videos on the Facebook family of apps and target millions of rural and Small-town Hindi speaking audiences. The Chacha Choudhary characters, Chacha Choudhary and Sabu, while resonating perfectly with the brand’s personality, also provide a very authentic voice to all of Eno’s key messages – Quick Relief, and Product Superiority.
Speaking on the partnership, Anurita Chopra, Head of Marketing, GSK Consumer Healthcare said: “The Rural markets are absolutely critical to win for a brand like Eno. This involves reaching more people, increasing brand penetration but also speaking to our audiences in a culturally relevant way. We are quite certain that the visual storytelling format amplified by the much-loved Chacha Choudhary world will allow to talk to our audiences authentically.”
Added Arun Srinivas, Director, Global Business Group, Facebook India:”With more than 430 million people using Facebook every month in India, we offer the ability for our advertisers to reach their desired audience across the country. We know from external studies that the rural internet population is growing faster than the urban one, and we see increased interest from businesses to build for small towns and rural India. We’ve partnered with Eno previously as well to drive successful campaigns for rural India, and with this new one, Eno has the unique opportunity combine nuances around popular culture with targeted messaging to achieve strong business outcomes.”
Facebook India has released its Festive Marketing Guide for 2021 which called out social video, influencers, immersive experiences, and conversational marketing as the key trends that will drive the discovery of brands and festive shopping this year.
The key insight from the Guide is that social media is a leading channel to drive brand discovery and purchase during the festive season. A Facebook-commissioned online survey by GFK showed that 96% of the surveyed people said that they discover brands and products online. Of the people who use Facebook platforms weekly, 83% who discover new brands and products online typically discover on Facebook platform. The same study showed that of the online shoppers who use Facebook platforms weekly, 96% ultimately purchased fashion, beauty, furniture or consumer electronic products they discovered on the platform.
Said Arun Srinivas, Director, Global Business Group, Facebook India: “The intent to spend on festive is higher this year and several businesses on our platforms have already seen strong results from their festive campaigns as early as August. Digital has emerged as the largest influencer of festive purchase decisions and with more than 400 million Indians on Facebook, we play a pivotal role in discovery and delivering truly incremental business outcomes. The opportunity for businesses, small and large, is to leverage digital to enable personalised discovery through video content, creators, immersive experiences, and conversational marketing.”
Instagram has announced a new consumer marketing campaign aimed at encouraging young people to express and explore their personal stories, on the platform. The campaign, ‘We Are In the Making’, is Instagram’s first brand campaign in India, and will air on TV during the IPL and the upcoming T20 cricket World Cup, in addition to other broadcasters. the campaign has been visualised in partnership with DDB Mudra.
Said Avinash Pant, Director – Marketing, Facebook India: “With Reels, we’ve seen the rise of a new cohort of short form video creators who’ve discovered their interests and found their voice, and attained national popularity in the process. The new campaign from Instagram brings these local insights together, with our global platform, and celebrates the multi-dimensional generation. While the young continue to shape their identity, we wanted to highlight the power of self-discovery for them through relatable and inspirational stories. We hope the campaign encourages young Indians to express and shape themselves on Instagram.”
Added Pallavi Chakravarti, Creative Head – DDB Mudra West: “Experimentation is the name of the game. Or at least it was, an hour ago. That’s how quickly the world is changing in the Instaverse. A platform where a storm of creation is constantly brewing, self-expression is being permanently redefined and identities are being shaped and reshaped with every passing day. Nothing is set in stone here, it is culture-in-progress. To bring this reality to life through a campaign, we decided to keep it real. Hence the articulation: We Are In The Making.”
Republic Media Network has conducted its first ‘Social Media Summit’ to discuss issues around social media regulation, tech developments and promotional possibilities. Interestingly, the Summit also had a session on fake news.
The Summit started with a one-on-one that Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami had with Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.
Said Goswami on the summit: “Over the last six months to a year there has been an incredible amount of conversation about social media, its regulations & responsibility. These conversations are not in isolation but linked to the fact that internet penetration, usage, accessibility has grown dramatically over the last decade. When things change, it garners interest across corporate, social and political platforms. When we conceived the idea of Social Media Summit, it was to ensure that we take two steps back away from our roles as stakeholders and users, and look at it as something in which the future of the country is vested in”.
The fake news session was moderated by Suhel Seth, Managing Partner, Counselage India Pvt. Ltd, the panel featured Dr Ratan Sharda, Author, Mohandas Pai, Chairman, Aarin Capital Partners, Harish Bijoor, Brand-Guru, and Gaurav Pachnanda, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India. There were other sessions featuring Anand Ranganathan, Scientist & Author, N.S. Nappinai, Supreme Court Advocate & Founder, Cyber Saathi, Lizzie O’Shea, Digital Rights Activist, Human Rights Lawyer & Writer and Kanchan Gupta, Senior Advisor, Ministry of I&B, Government of India. Another session had Rujuta Diwekar, Nutritionist for celebrities and one more was moderated by Karthikeya Tanna, U.S. Immigration Attorney and Political Commentator where the panel featured Dr Siddhant Bhargava, Co-Founder, Food Darzee, Anshoo Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO, magicpin, Garima Khandelwal, Chief Creative Officer, Mullen Lintas and A S Rajgopal, Founder & CEO, MYn. There were other panels with Smita Prakash, Editor, ANI, Madhoo, Indian Actor, Sinan Aral, Actor- David Austin Professor, MIT/ Director, MIT IDE/ Founding Partner, Manifest Capital, Author- The Hype Machine, Shefali Vaidya, Author, Speaker, Fellow-Ananta Leadership Program, Major Gaurav Arya, Consulting Editor, Defence and Strategic Analyst, Aprameya Radhakrishna, Co-Founder & CEO, Koo, Niranjan Narayanaswamy, Executive Editor-News, Republic Media Network, Pulkit Agarwal, CEO & Co-Founder, Trell, Ashish Bhasin, CEO APAC & Chariman India, Dentsu, Umang Bedi, Co-Founder, Verse Innovation (Josh & Dailyhunt) and Dr. Pawan Duggal, Advocate – Supreme Court of India.
The Summit will air on Republic TV over the weekend and can be accessed on the RepublicWorld website.
Facebook India’s policy head Ankhi Das has resigned. She was at the centre of a controversy after a newspaper reported on Facebook’s alleged political biases.
As a report in Times magazine’s website, Shivnath Thukral, former journalist and WhatsApp’s public policy director, has been asked to take over Das’s duties on an interim basis until a replacement can be found. This has not been confirmed or denied by Facebook or Thukral.
According to a statement published on The Hindu website, Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India, has said, “Ankhi has decided to step down from her role in Facebook to pursue her interest in public service. Ankhi was one of our earliest employees in India and played an instrumental role in the growth of the company and its services over the last nine years. She has been a part of my leadership team over the last two years, a role in which she has made enormous contributions. We are grateful for her service and wish her the very best for the future.”
Instagram celebrated its 10th birthday this week and has launche a new campaign called ‘Love Runs Deep’ to redefine the way brands can authentically tell their stories while engaging with influencers.
As part of the campaign, brands are invited to submit their briefs in the ‘Love Runs Deep challenge’, and five of them will be chosen to have exclusive access to 25 creators to work with them free of cost, in addition to support of USD25,000 worth of ad credits to run their campaigns. The brands could be from all over India and could be big or small businesses. The jury making the selection would include Prabha Narasimhan, Executive Director – Home Care for Hindustan Unilever and Vice President – Home Care, Unilever South Asia; Asim Warsi, Senior Vice President & Head E-commerce, Samsung India; Harish Narayanan, CMO, Myntra; Prasanth Kumar, CEO – GroupM, South Asia; Rajdeepak Das, CCO and MD, Leo Burnett, South Asia; and Neha Markanda, Head of Business Marketing, Facebook India.. The selection will be done on the basis of originality, creativity, suitability for mobile and expected business outcome.
Said Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook India: “Instagram is the place where people express themselves creatively, and there’s a natural affinity to interact with public figures, creators and brands. We want to spur this interaction between creators and brands, in a way that redefines the ecosystem, and allows stories to be told with greater business impact.”
While entries close on November 13, the campaign will continue for a duration of four months. Brands can submit their briefs on the campaign website (www.igloverunsdeep.com).
Facebook has announced the appointment of Arun Srinivas as Director of Global Business Group to lead the strategy and delivery of the India marketing solutions charter that is focused on large advertisers and agencies. He will have the company’s key business vertical teams, agency teams, and business solutions teams reporting into him.
Srinivas comes with 24 years of experience in senior sales and marketing roles at companies such as OLA, Unilever, and Reebok. He also did a stint at investment firm WestBridge Capital Partners where he led the consumer vertical. His last assignment was with Ola, where he was Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Ola Mobility. Srinivas started his career with Reebok and then moved to Unilever where he spent more than 15 years across food, beverages, skin care, and personal care categories. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.
Said Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head of Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook India: “Facebook is committed to enabling economic opportunities for businesses, and this charter is more important than ever before as we navigate Covid-19 and the economic crisis. Large businesses and agencies play a crucial role in the country’s digital economy and are critical to driving ecosystem standards for media. I am thrilled to welcome Arun as he joins our team as Director GBG, and leads the mandate to shape the role the Facebook family apps can play in enabling businesses, supporting India’s economic recovery, and building the digital advertising ecosystem of the country.”
Instagram has announced the extension of the testing of Reels, a new video format, to India. This format offers a new way to create and share short videos on Instagram, aimed at redefining the future of entertainment on the platform.
Said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India: “With the rise in video consumption overall and videos making up over a third of posts on Instagram in India, Instagram has a big role to play in unleashing expression in the country. People across the big and small cities of India come to Instagram to express themselves safely, and also to be entertained. With Reels, we’re unveiling the future of entertainment on the platform, in a way that ignites creativity. With the multiple creative formats, whichever way you want to express yourself, it can now be on Instagram.”
Added Vishal Shah, Vice President of Product, Facebook: “Instagram has always been a place where culture is created, because people come to share the things they care about and be entertained. We’re constantly listening to our community, and have heard that they want to make and watch short-form videos on Instagram and have the opportunity to be discovered by our broader community. We’re excited to expand the test of Reels to India and give the next generation of creators born and bred in India a chance to share their native and cultural context — and be potential global stars.”
India is the fourth country, after Brazil, Germany and France, where this new format is being tested.
FB-BCG Guidance bo Brands based on Report Findings
By A Correspondent
Facebook India in association with Boston Consulting Group has released a report titled ‘Turn the Tide’ that focuses on how Covid-19 has dramatically changed consumer behaviour and altered the path-to-purchase. The report also shares actionable guidance for brands to build for the new consumer journeys in times of Covid -19 and beyond.
Sandeep Bhushan
Said Sandeep Bhushan, Director and Head, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook India: “As business after business joins the dots to understand consumer shifts in both mindsets and behaviours as a result of COVID-19, we have invested in studying the new paths to purchase in continuing our commitment to enabling growth for businesses both large and small. The ‘Turn the Tide’ report outlines the opportunities that businesses need to embrace in the context of new consumer journeys and category needs. In response to consumers embracing the digital medium, brands need to focus on solutions that are relevant for the new normal such as hyper-localization, creating virtual experiences, re-looking at the media-mix to build efficiency, or building messaging around new habits such as DIY and the increased focus on health and hygiene.”
Facebook and Boston Consulting Group are also expected to share vertical-specific insights to help businesses gain almost real-time insights, enabling them to ‘Turn the Tide’.
The report delves into key consumer-shifts based on three societal-truths that have emerged as a result of the pandemic – social distancing, increasing focus on health and hygiene, and increasing income uncertainty. Within each of these shifts, the report finds that there are three kinds of behavior change movements that are being observed – reversal of past trends, acceleration of existing trends, and formation of new habits.
Nimisha Jain
Added Nimisha Jain, Managing Director and Partner, Boston Consulting Group: “We are experiencing unprecedented shifts in consumer attitudes and behaviors – 80%+ consumers will continue to practice social distancing and are bringing the outside inside, over 40% of consumers are dialing up on health and wellness spends, e-commerce adoption has already advanced by 2-3 years – to name a few. These aren’t just temporary surges, and many will last longer and become more defining traits. Our analysis reveals that only one in six companies emerged stronger in past crises – players who show the agility to reinvent their value propositions, go-to-market plans and business models to address these demand shifts will be the ones that set themselves apart from the pack”
The reports especially calls out the massive acceleration in digital led by social media, the emergence of micro-market opportunities, an increase in value consciousness leading to more utility-led shopping, consumers embracing digital even in historically offline categories such as education, health, and fitness, the increase in spend on e-commerce in the coming months even for traditionally offline categories, a definite increase in spends on health, hygiene and wellness, and a rise in do-it-yourself (DIY) trends.
Executive Summary of Turn The Tide report
The COVID-19 outbreak has proven to be a global pandemic of an unprecedented scale impacting people, communities, and businesses across nations. In India, as with the rest of the world, the first few weeks of the lockdown saw the industry in a wave of panic and uncertainty as the disruption in business continuity threatened to potentially destabilize the economy.
Facebook has always been committed to developing and sharing industry-leading full-funnel solutions for brands across all categories. As India opens up to limited business activity, this joint collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group – a consumer sentiment survey, titled ‘Turn the Tide’ – aims to serve as a reference point on consumer insights, trends, and guidance for the industry, brands, and agencies as they begin to negotiate the commencement of operations.
What’s different about this report is that it’s not just a research study but that it also provides actionable guidance that brands can deploy right away. It brings together the expertise of BCG’s deep insights and years of consulting experience with Facebook’s experience across thousands of campaigns run on its platforms.
Covid-19 has impacted lives in 3 big ways:
:: Social Distancing
:: Health & Hygiene
:: Income Uncertainty
Key points:
:: Consumer journey has altered; brands need to urgently identify opportunities to build for new consumer journeys.
:: COVID-19 has fueled the digital medium in an unprecedented manner. Some of these consumer trends are here to stay.
:: Brands are already leveraging social media platforms to build for the new consumer journeys.
Consumer Behavior has fundamentally changed: Emerging Trends (11 Uber themes)
A. Reversal of Past Trends
1. Bringing the outside inside: 79% people are not going out of house, except work
2. Trust in Brand above all else: 63% people are paying more attention to origin of product
3. Trading Down and Bargain Hunting: 43% people are expecting decrease in overall spend in next 6 months
4. Shopping for Utility: Purchase triggers expected to become more “functional”
B. Acceleration of Existing Trends
1. Embracing digital services & experiences: 51% consumers saw an increase in payment via digital wallets
2. Accelerated adoption of e-commerce and O2O: 50% of all consumers expect to increase e-commerce spend in next 1 month
3. Strive for Health & Wellness: +40% may increase spend on Health and Wellness
4. Rise of Smart Shoppers: Informed purchase decision; High salience of digital research
C. New Habits:
1. Remote way of living: The new normal
2. Do It Yourself: Spike in new hobbies and habits
3. Superior Hygiene and Clean Living: 91% Indian households washing hands more often
Shemaroo Entertainment has aired content of its flagship Hindi GEC, Shemaroo TV on Facebook. The service was officially launched on May 1, 2020 at 6am and the viewers can watch it live on Facebook.
Hiren Gada
Commenting on the launch, Hiren Gada, CEO, Shemaroo Entertainment Limited said: “Shemaroo Entertainment is known to experiment and create new records in the media and entertainment space. With this unique and industry first initiative, where our viewers will see Shemaroo TV live on Facebook, we hope to reach out to a new & wide set of audience and offer content that they would like to watch and enjoy in their free time.”
Speaking on the occasion, Manish Chopra, Director and Head of Partnerships, Facebook India, remarked: “We are excited to see Shemaroo Entertainment launch its Hindi GEC Channel Shemaroo TV on Facebook. Simulcast of their shows on Facebook in inaugural week, will not only bring back the magic of popular TV shows for people across India, but is also a unique way to expand visibility of their programming, at a time when lockdown and social distancing because of COVID 19, has led people to tune into more TV and social media.”
Instagram celebrated its 10th birthday this week and has launche a new campaign called ‘Love Runs Deep’ to redefine the way brands can authentically tell their stories while engaging with influencers.
Instagram has announced the extension of the testing of Reels, a new video format, to India. This format offers a new way to create and share short videos on Instagram, aimed at redefining the future of entertainment on the platform.
