By Anuka Roy
Top leaders of the media and marketing services business in India addressed students at the annual Media Management Conclave of the Pune-based Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication hed on Sunday (August 7). The broad theme of the Conclave was ‘Agency of the Future’, focusing on how media in India has evolved over the past years.
The Conclave was part of the silver jubilee celebrations of the institute and was followed by a Media and Marketing Analytics Conclave held in the second part of the day. Kartik Sharma, Managing Director at Maxus; Suresh Balakrishna, CEO, Middle East and South Asia at Kinetic and Sundeep Nagpal, Founder Director at Stratagem Media Pvt Ltd were the speakers on Media Management.
“The value of data will shape not only the future of organisations but countries and human kind as well,†stated Sharma in his keynote speech. His presentation focused and elaborated on the trends which can currently be seen in the country, especially with mobile phones, whose reach is higher than that of television. “We are becoming a visual world driven by mobiles,†he said. He spoke about advertising on television, which still gets huge investments from brands for their products. According to him, television is the most effective in generating not just sales but profits. The importance of content was highlighted by him through video examples. He said that sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly, the consumer becomes the producer of the content it consumes. Moreover, he encouraged everyone to closely notice how technology would change the world.
Next up, Suresh Balakrishna shared a fresh perspective on the concept of ‘Out of Home’ (OOH) consumption and its dynamics. In his opinion, OOH includes television, newspaper and the internet. He cited how 80% of mobile consumption is done outside of home. Besides this, he also stressed on how innovations in digital OOH would impact OOH marketing. He opined, “Anything is OOH, and we do all of it.†He stressed on the importance of digital displays and gave the example of ‘Cadbury Bubbly’- which successfully carried out digital displays in metro stations. In conclusion, he said that once the measurability issue is resolved, OOH will become larger.
‘How to make media work for brands? – Black Magic’ was the name of the presentation by Sundeep Nagpal. He added that the reason behind the same would be understood once the presentation was over. Through various video examples he stressed on the changing investment scenario of media businesses in the digital era. The videos were also used to show what should be and what should not be done by brands to promote their products through content integration and Advertiser-Funded Programmes (AFP). “Big data is considered to be the most important thing happening not just to communications but to businesses as well,†he said. He spoke about the concept of branding and big data analytics, where businesses actually track every movement of their consumers. Nagpal also stated briefly about micro targeting, for which he said Netflix is the best example to understand how it can be done and about augmented reality. Even though the advancement of technology was spoken about in detail at the conclave, he concluded by saying “Technology is not everything, simplicity matters.†And, what does Black Magic actually mean? Black- a clean slate for you to start anywhere in the ecosystem.
The second half of the day was dedicated to Marketing and Media Analytics Conclave, where NiteenBhagwat, Executive Director and CEO at Asterii Analytics; SarangPanchal, CEO at MRSS India; Mubin Khan, Head of Products, Research and Analytics, Senior VP at BARC, India, shared their expertise on the subject.
The Marketing and Media Analytics Conclave opened with NiteenBhagwat, who spoke about the basics of analytics and the prospects it holds. Speaking on why measurement is the core of analytics he opined, “We cannot manage what we cannot measure.†Further, he underlined the amplification of human behaviour by technology and social media, and interestingly pointed out how social media is driven by altruism, homophily, tribalism, narcissism and control.
Sarang Panchal, who covered the concept of research in the media landscape, further explained about the trends in the market research industry and its future, which involved the growth of DIY research, popularisation of market research, online communities and predictive analysis.
The last speaker of the event, Mubin Khan began his discussion by saying, “What BARC envisaged for the future is happening now.†He elaborated on how market research is no more as simple as it used to be and predicted that the future agencies will not just depend on analytics but on consumer insights as well.
The Analytics Conclave concluded with the speakers in a panel discussion with SIMC Adjunct Professor and MxMIndia columnist Indrani Sen moderating the discussion. They shared their personal experiences in the industry to make the students understand what the companies require from them during recruitment.
The correspondent was hosted by Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication