Tag: MarTech

  • Mirum & WebEngage enter a partnership

    By Our Staff

     

    Mirum India, a Wunderman Thompson (soon VML) company, and WebEngage, a full stack retention operating system, have joined forces.

     

    The collaboration is set to bring together Mirum’s experience and expertise in MarTech and WebEngage’s marketing automation platform.

     

    Commenting on the partnership, Mihir Karkare, EVP, Mirum India, said: “This is a significant partnership for both Mirum and WebEngage as we are two best-in-class players working towards delivering value to our customers. The strong synergy of WebEngage’s robust platform with our expertise in delivering MarTech projects will surely create a more holistic approach to delivering a top-tier customer engagement      solution, enabling our clients to achieve even greater success. We have just begun, and I am happy to share we already have some great wins on the way.”

     

    Added Apoorv Sood, Vice President Of Global Business Development and Partnerships, WebEngage: “The digital era has reshaped the way businesses operate and embracing digital transformation is no longer an option but a necessity. Brands need to constantly reinvent their engagement strategies, whether it involves better understanding their customers, enhancing engagement models or deployment of personalised user experiences. In line with our core philosophy of Simplifying Customer Engagement and Retention for brands, we are proud to announce this full stack solution under one roof in partnership with Mirum India. Clients of both WebEngage and Mirum, as well as brands looking to stay ahead of the curve will benefit from this solution.”

     

  • Netcore Cloud appoints Mahesh Narayanan as Chief Marketing Growth Officer

    By Our Staff

     

    Netcore Cloud, a global MarTech and Customer Experience company, appoints Mahesh Narayanan as its Chief Marketing Growth Officer. In his new role, Narayanan will be pivotal in accelerating the company’s global expansion plans and fortifying its leadership positioning by leveraging his marketing expertise to drive growth strategies effectively.

     

    Said Kalpit Jain, Global CEO of Netcore Cloud: “Mahesh is a world-class business leader whose deep understanding of marketing technology and inspirational leadership will build on the foundations to rejuvenate our marketing team as a high-performance growth engine and take Netcore to the next level. He represents our core values of craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, and can-do attitude, and I am delighted to work with him.”

     

    The Founder & MD of Netcore Cloud, Rajesh Jain added: “As we welcome Mahesh Narayanan into our Netcore Cloud family, we are not just adding an outstanding leader to our team, we are infusing a new energy into our growth journey. Mahesh’s seasoned understanding of the digital world, sharpened at the forefront of global technology giants promises to be our distinct competitive edge – the unbreachable moat protecting our ‘economic castle’.”

     

  • Maruti Suzuki appoints AGL for hyperlocal marketing

    By Our Staff

     

    AdGlobal360 (AGL), MarTech company that’s a member of Hakuhodo International, has won the mandate for managing the PAN-India Hyperlocal Marketing of Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) – which would span across 3400+ Outlets across the Country.

     

    Sharing his opinion of this burgeoning partnership, Shashank Srivastava, Sr. Executive Officer, Marketing & Sales, said: “The contribution of hyperlocal marketing to our business is significant and digital leads from this program account for nearly 30% of our car sales. AdGlobal360’s are specialists in this and we are looking at a partnership that will collectively help us grow manifold. We look forward to their expertise in managing a program of this scale and delivering effectively on our expectations.”

     

    Speaking on the win, Rakesh Yadav, CEO-AdGlobal360, added: “This is more than a win for us, since we were already managing half of Hyperlocal Marketing for MSIL. This is a validation of our expertise and the value we bring to our partners, MSIL and the Dealers. It is our promise that with our continuous investments in understanding Indian Consumers through our Sei-katsu-sha philosophy, we will keep getting better and deliver better outcomes.”

     

  • Sahil Trehan launches RazorLabs, a marketing technology firm

    By Our Staff

     

    Sahil Trehan
    Sahil Trehan

    Former AutumnGrey Vice President Sahil Trehan has kicked off his entrepreneurial journey with RazorLabs, a marketing technology company as Chief Executive Officer. Trehan has co-founded Razorlabs with Shubhankar Nath – CEO and Founder of Razorpod, a full service digital marketing agency.

     

    RazorLabs will be focused on marketing and sales transformation, via a range of smart solutions built to dovetail with existing processes, helping in disruption, growth and evolution of the functions. In addition, the company will also provide data driven solutions aimed at stronger returns on marketing investment and higher measurability.

     

    Talking about his new journey, Trehan said: “With the MarTech & ConsumerTech heating up further, I have been urging to enter this space, to enable marketing & sales to be even more effective and efficient, for businesses across sizes and segments.”

     

    Added Nath: “As an entrepreneur, I’ve always been focused on leveraging the endless possibilities layering technology with creative & data offer. With RazorLabs, the intent is to leverage this amalgamation to drive stronger experiences across the customer journey and incremental value to the marketer.”

     

  • Valasys Media eyes India expansion

    By Our Staff

     

    B2B Media Publisher Valasys Media is aiming for a major global expansion drive in 2021, with aggressive plans to strengthen its presence in India.

    Said Mohammad Tareeq, CEO, Valasys Media:“The Covid-19 pandemic has brought about a major digital push and boosted the demand for B2B marketing services. In India, a large number of small businesses who had little or no digital presence till last year have gone online and are aggressively looking to boost their businesses by embracing the latest MarTech tools. As a result, the demand for B2B services has witnessed a dramatic jump. Having successfully accelerated the pace of embracing digital transformation and MarTech technologies last year, Valasys Media is looking to significantly strengthen its market in India. Revenue wise we are aiming to achieve a 60% growth in India this year.”

     

     

  • DAN Consult & MMA presents MarTech series

    By A Correspondent

     

    DAN Consult and Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) hosted a three-part series in partnership with Google under the Modern Marketing Confluence banner.

     

    The series hosted 18+ Industry leaders representing sectors such as BFSI, Retail, Consumer Goods, FMCG, Apparels, Born Digitals and more. 500+ audience were engaged through live discussion, debate, deliberation, and polling on key MarTech trends which have gained popularity and importance through the pandemic. The sessions were launched by industry experts providing a macro view and perspective with Sapna Chadha, Sr. Director Marketing for Google India & SEA  in Session 1 and led by Vikas Purohit, CEO, Tata Cliq and Vivek Bhargava, CEO, DAN Performance Group, as keynote presenters  in Session 2 and 3 who brought much needed attention to how first-party data is marketers gold, the new approach to personalisation with N=1 concept, marrying D2C strategy with digitisation, and reimagining marketing strategies with technology and machine learning along with implications of cloud marketing.

     

    Said Lalit Bhagia, CEO, DAN Consult: “Change isn’t coming; it’s here. COVID-19 has brought it at breakneck speed, when we leave our houses in the near future, consumerism won’t look the same. New behaviours are being formed which will become permanent and this is redefining how businesses sell, service, engage, market, and retain their customers. The standards of customer engagement have shifted yet again, and marketers need to be at the forefront of this innovation. At DAN Consult, we are committed to partner with CEOs and CMOs in this transitional journey. As a business, DAN Consult has been working on the forefront of this marketing transformation and the MMC series is our endeavour to showcase & drive thought leadership in this ever-evolving space.”

     

    Added Moneka Khurana, Country Head, MMA India: “The series couldn’t be better timed given the new normal we are all living in. It is the era of modern marketing. The Marketer is upskilling to adopt modern marketing techniques as organisations dabble with  first party data strategy, D2C and cloud for marketing as must haves for marketing plans to succeed. It is imperative for a marketer to be equipped as he leads digital transformation from the front. Hence its important MMA enables the expertise and learnings required to shape the future of modern marketing.”

     

     

  • Martech and Adtech Predictions 2019

     

     

    Over the years, mobile marketing leader InMobi has been releasing its annual research and predictions on the state of mobile marketing. Here we bring you the executive summary from The InMobi Almanac for Marketers 2019. It delves into the top trends emerging from the consolidation of adtech and martech solutions. The ones that InMobi thinks will define the industry for years to come.

     

    Here goes:

    Today, marketing is no longer a one-sided game. The power dynamics have shifted – with the consumer now having more control over what they consume. As consumers seamlessly hop, skip and jump between various digital and offline channels, they leave behind a treasure trove of data in their wake. And with all this data at the marketer’s disposal, marketing can no longer remain a pre-planned agenda but an agile and real-time network.. The industry stands at the cusp of a transformation, and data is at the center of it all.

     

    As pioneers of the mobile advertising platform – we have witnessed the transformation of this industry first-hand. In this year’s report, we share our predictions on what lies ahead for marketers in 2019 and a repository of information that taps into these learnings – all witnessed first-hand by our in-house business leaders, balanced by industry perspectives from renowned thought leaders. It’s a quintessential guide capturing trends and innovations that will shape the global ad tech and martech sector in the coming years.

     

    InMobi Predictions

    Owning Customer Experiences Will Be the Future of Marketing

    Today, in our connected worlds, marketing efforts without a unified view of the customer is not only unfathomable but equivalent to a crime. The growing focus on customer experience requires a 360-degree view of the customer, which today has been made possible by a combination of factors like the ubiquity of mobile, technological advancements in processing speed and AI, and the proliferation of various tools and platforms that offer solutions to specific needs in the marketing journey. In addition, the recent spate of acquisitions, along with data partnerships in martech, are paving the way for a more hopeful future. It is time for marketers to rethink their siloed approach to data if they haven’t already, or else they risk losing the race to owning personalization.

     

    Consolidation in Martech Will Increase Marketing Efficiencies

    In the coming years, oversaturation in point solutions will drive changes in the industry. If companies have a relevant proposition in the market, they’ll likely be bought by the big players. And, if not, the effects of the investment drought will see them shrivel away as the industry rids itself of dead weight. The outcome will be a far scaled-down version of the Lumascape. Cutting out the noise will, ultimately, drive better revenue for all industry sectors, and provide a greater experience for the consumer. In today’s over-stimulated martech landscape, it’s easy for marketers to lose sight of their martech stack’s ultimate goal: ROI. On collecting data on their current tech stack, marketers can then focus on connecting these various technologies and eliminating data silos.

     

    The Rapid Diffusion of OTT Will Diversify the Marketing Mix

    For the marketer, OTT brings to the table an array of advertising opportunities characterized primarily by video ads. OTT also provides them with opportunities to better understand the consumer’s journey and path to purchase. The consumer may view video content on a tablet, engage with social media through a phone but eventually use a laptop to make a purchase. They can gain greater insights across all touchpoints – so long as they have knowledge across all of these devices and interactions. However, the ability to track overall media consumption behavior comes with the additional need to be connected in terms of systems, technologies and partners. But, if done right, the future of OTT is an optimistic one.

     

    Voice-Activated Tech Will Become the New Normal

    A perfect example of technology that caters to how humans work naturally – is voice technology. Communicating through voice is more natural to us than say, typing. With the onset of AI and IoT connectivity, more and more people are now replacing the act of typing with voice. The connected home and smart speakers are also penetrating Wi-Fi enabled households and are here to stay. Not only is voice tech gaining popularity in the consumer’s purchase journey (voice commerce), it also acts as a advertising channel with great potential. Brands can now have the window to interact with the consumer through dialogue – a very unconventional brand-consumer relationship compared to other marketing tactics.

     

    5G Will Pave the Way for a New Era of Connected Cars, IoT and More

    5G, with speeds up to 20 times faster than 4G, could offer a quantum leap, especially when it’s developing alongside continuing advances in AI and the worldwide rollout of IoT devices. Smart 5G wearables, 5G-powered IoT devices and AR/VR/mixed reality will empower mobile advertisers with unprecedented access to consumers, their personal interests and their activities. In addition, many rural areas who missed out on the broadband revolution can be brought online since since it’s much easier to set up a wireless network. Forward thinking in terms of preparing adequately and planning out possible strategies will get businesses that initial step ahead of the competition. With 5G, the possibilities are seemingly endless.

     

    Data Privacy, Trust and Accountability Will Change Consumer Relationships Forever

    Increased consumer awareness surrounding data privacy, coupled with growing concerns about data protection, has mobilized countries and companies to be more stringent about safeguarding consumer privacy. The EU’s GDPR, for example, is a  crucial step in giving consumers more control over their personal data. In order to establish a more trustworthy relationship with the consumers, marketers will have to consider some best practices, the primary of them being a consistent adherence to data privacy regulations. In the absence of such regulation, companies must handle consumer data with a greater sense of responsibility and accountability in order to continue enjoying the consumer’s trust.

     

    The Enabler of the Future: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

    What’s particularly interesting about these trends is that they are panning out alongside continuing advances in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. AI and deep learning technologies will be the underlying engines of the changes to come and the transformations waiting to happen. Whether it is to predict the consumer’s next move, to prevent fraud or to enable customer-centric personalization, AI & ML will continue to be adopted more and more by the marketer.

     

     

  • MarTech & TV dominate sessions at Zee Melt 2018

     

    The fourth edition of Zee Melt 2018, the two-day conference on advertising, marketing, media and technology, conducted by Kyoorius was held in Mumbai on May 30 and 31. Along with the conference, there was an exhibition area which saw displays and experiential zones set up by Google, Surewaves, WION, National Geographic.

     

    Here are highlights of the two-day event:

    :: A live televised chat with Sir Martin Sorrell. The chat with senior journalist Anant Rangaswamion CNBC-TV18 assumed importance given that Sorrell had unveiled plans for his new venture

    :: Speaker sessions by Tom Fishburne, AnindyaGhose, Mark Shayler, Fernando Machado, Global CMO, Burger King; Tom Goodwin, EVP, Head of Innovation, Zenith Media; Ana Milicevic, Principal, Sparrow Digital Holdings; Babita Baruah, Managing Partner, GTB India and others

    :: “How Return Path Data Will Turbo-Boost Television Audience Measurement Globally” –Keynote by Ricardo Gomez-Insausti, Vice-President (Research), Numeris

    :: &Prive – A panel discussion featuring SonalDabral and Ashwini IyerTewari and a screening of “The Post”

    :: A panel discussion by Zee and Indian Market Research Bureau on TV: The Business Propeller

    :: A session by Jasper Donat, CEO, Branded & Producer, YouTube Fanfest was followed by a meet-and-greet with Bhuvan Bam, YouTuber, Singer & Songwriter

    :: Day 2 concluded with a Keynote session by James Southern, Managing Partner at Front Row Advisory. He addressed the audience on the topic, “The Next Seismic Shifts In Television”.The session was followed by a panel discussion hosted by SureWaves moderated by Paritosh Joshi (Principal, Provocateur Advisory) featuring Punit Misra (CEO, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd), Shashi Sinha (CEO, IPG Mediabrands), Partho Dasgupta (CEO, BARC).

     

    And these are highlights of what some of the speakers said (for details on the Martin Sorrell session, please visit http://www.mxmindia.com/2018/05/return-of-the-sorrell/):

     

    Fernando Machado, Global CMO, Burger King:Creativity helps you thrive the business and grow your brand. You should start one campaign at a time. Understand the business and see what ticks people. There are certain brands that strike a chord with the consumers and Burger King is one of them. People ask, what if it didn’t work? They always have this fear. These 5 things helps coping with the fear:

    :: Need to understand the brand- it is about not doing random stuff. You need to understand the positioning. The positioning and personality of the brand should match

    :: Create a great brief– Challenge your client with a one line brief

    :: Let the idea grow- Trust on certainty

    :: The biggest risk is not taking any risk- We are afraid all the time. But the thing is if I am not afraid, probably I won’t do it

    :: One Team- Marketing, agency and everyone else together should be one team.  Fight with everyone, together

     

    Tom Goodwin, EVP, Head of Innovation, Zenith Media: Speaking about the power of digital transformation, he mentioned three key aspects to be taken care of:

    :: Understand people- People go to the internet consciously and get off it only to be reminded to go again. Brands still think of it as a pattern. But the consumer is obsessed with the idea like it is a behaviour. It is not helpful. It is a hybrid world that transcends it. People are disappointed if they don’t get the same experience as any other brand.

    :: Apply technology at the core- Consumers are inclined towards everything that has a quick turnaround. Brands are realising this pattern and providing quick, cheap and hassle free service without understanding that this remains as the outer most layer without deeper existential question. Younger brands are utilising contemporary technology and it is incredible to see how much value they have created.

    :: Rethink everything- The key is to think without expectations. The greatest threat to incumbent business is to not know too little or being naive, it is about having too much knowledge.

     

    Ana Milicevic, Principal, Sparrow Digital Holdings: “The advertising industry is stuck in between the technology change. As an industry and as professionals it is important that we are constantly changing and are not being outdated. There has to be a balance between speaking to the audiences and amplifying annoyance. Future without advertising is far-fetched. Hence, we need to focus on today’s advertising trends and that is story-telling. Every interaction the brand has with consumers, it becomes advertising. It is imperative to stay relevant or risk getting skipped.”

     

    Nelson Rodriguez, Global Director of Industry Strategy, Akamai:“Digital advertising still has a lot of noise. India has the highest ad-block user across the world, although ironically, India is an ad driven market. There are three innovations happening today in transforming relationship with audiences in this market.

    :: Relevance- Every industry that goes through change has an opportunity to build on that change by being relevant

    :: Value- Customer should have the power of consuming content. That is where optimisation can enter

    :: Choice- With micro-transactions in boom, customers can be charged according to the amount of content they want to consume

     

    Babita Baruah, Managing Partner, GTB India:“This topic means a lot to my heart. I thought a lot about how to have more women. Not in terms of number, but in terms of decision making roles and how we can keep this journey going. Melt and of course any forum where you have the industry coming together is good to start off this kind of conversations to get points of views. I think it is important for women to share their personal journey. Because there is a lot of learning from what someone has gone through. And a narrative or story telling is always a good way to connect.”

     

    Patrick De Pauw, CEO, Social Seeder:“There is so much clutter when it comes to brands today where all are shouting for attention in some way or the other. But to get visible I believe there are 2 things a brand should swear to follow and that is – stay relevant and do something so unique that it helps you gain recognition between this mainstream clutter. There is paid media and owned media today but earned media is the word of mouth which works in favour of your brand creating a high decibel impact. An ambassador (on a voluntary basis) is an internal or an external person that is more than integral to spread a word about your organisation. But being an ambassador starts with you.”

     

    Tom Fishburne, Founder, Marketoonist:Technology can’t save boring marketing. We need to stay focused on our marketing strategies and not get excited when you see new things. We need to know who we are creating our marketing for and what is our marketing campaign. I have never been this excited in my life, it was amazing to be here. I have never seen such an entrepreneurial environment. It is great to see what people can do to sell your small enterprises. On my first trip to India I loved to discover the campaign by Amul. In 52 years they have campaigned amazingly and their idea of serial story-telling is something worth taking note of. They have campaigned everywhere from Bollywood to hoardings to newspaper ads. I am always excited to know what incidence their next campaign will be based on.”

     

    Anindya Ghose, NYU Stern School of Business: “Crowdedness is one thing which works best in the case of AI, as when people are alone in a crowd, phone is their best escape. Over a period of time, we have witnessed brands identifying known as well as unknown needs of consumer’s basis which they are ready to invest heavily in mobile data metrics. Addressing to the unknown needs is what will give the brand an upper hand to serve better. This metric eventually helps in measuring the ROI on the capital spent.”

     

    Guneet Singh, Head – Marketing Solutions, Google India & SEA: “The big piece of work we do is on video and the reason is 80% of consumers are on mobile. The phone is a very intimate space, as it is 12 inches away, but your TV screen is 6-7 feet away which is not an intimate space. The average attention span in Mobile is 7-9 seconds; if you don’t change the arc in this time span, one skips the video. That’s how you look at the story arc in digital. In digital you know the exact persona of the person watching something. It is important for you to build content for the right audience. We’ve recently made 2300 videos all running in the same date to distinctive audience.”

     

    Mark Shayler, Director Ape:“Every single action has a reaction and every single movement has an angle. We are all millennial. People like tactility; if you are making a digital campaign make it real, make it human. We can’t lie anymore because the internet is everywhere and the truth will eventually come out. It’s high time that you innovate the new way. Define a purpose, as purpose makes you stronger, being good is new cool and Kindness is competitive.”

     

    Sakshi Choudhary, Creative Controller, Ogilvy India: “Women spend twice the time as men, they are playing more games, and they are also on social media. 74% purchasing decisions are made by women and in cities it goes up to 90%. 70% women are buying houses in top 8 cities of India and 40% overnight solo trips are made by women…. Honda has realised that the scooter market is overtaking the motorcycle market in rural India and therefore they launched Honda Cliq targeted only at rural Indian women. Alcohol consumption among women has been increasing; Bacardi has been making the best of it as their sessions are more focused at women. Hotstar has realised that their video consumption is 3 times more by women compared to men.”

     

    Erica Ng – Senior Editor Asia Pacific Insight – WGSN: “The world is getting future ready and so are our brands. The brands of tomorrow are using the 4 E’s – Engagement, Exclusivity, Experience and Emotion. While today’s traditional spaces are extremely crowded, it becomes a larger deal for the brands of tomorrow to get more creative in their thinking. The brands of tomorrow are engineering vitality, as they aren’t using space to advertise but instead growing their presence on digital. They are using psychographics to understand the consumer needs. Today people don’t buy products, they buy people!”