ad:tech 2015: Insightful panel discussions on key growth drivers of digital ..... !

The day 1 of ad:tech 2015 saw some interesting panel discussions  which included topics like challenges and opportunities of Big Data in digital marketing, programmatic buying : understanding the challenges and opportunities of advertisers, how to create brand value with right content in Digital world, How can marketing efficiency and effectiveness be improved through analytics, key metrics to measure social engagement, Is data enhancing or diminishing creativity, native Advertising – Is it advertorial rebranding or evolution of content marketing etc.

The speakers included Shalini Rao, Marketing Director, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, Vikas Mehta, CMO, Lowe Lintas & Partner and ED, Lin Teractive, Deepak Jolly, VP, Public Affairs & Communications, Coca-Cola India & South West Asia. Kunal Jeswani, CEO, Ogilvy & Mather, Vivek Nayer, CMO, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd.,  Mandeep Malhotra, Executive Director, DDB Mudra Group & President and head DDB Mudra Max-OOH, Ajit Verghese, MD Asia Pacific Maxus, Anisha Motwani, Director and CMO, Max Life Insurance, Ashish Bhasin, Chairman & CEO Dentsu and Mohit Ganju, SVP IndusInd Bank and many more.

This year again adtech sees the presence of some big brands and an impressive  attendee list which boasts of many of the biggest brands and agencies of  India and the world including:  Airtel, Oberoi Group, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Thomas Cook, Yes Bank, Olx, HDFC Life, American Express, Indusind Bank, Max Life Insurance, Tata Capital, Tata AIG, Amazon, Johnson & Johnson, ITC, Star India Pvt Ltd, ITC, FlipKart, GSK, HDFC Life, Mahindra & Mahindra, Wipro, HCL, Madison Communication, GroupM, Lintas, Cheil worldwide etc.

Another Keynote Discussion highlighted how brands can add value to conversations which included panelists like Shalini Rao Marketing Director (Global) at Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces; Vikas Mehta CMO, Lowe Lintas & Partner and ED, LinTeractive; Deepak Jolly Vice President, Public Affairs & Communications, Coca-Cola India and South West Asia; Kunal Jeswani CEO, Ogilvy & Mather and Vivek Nayer Chief Marketing Officer, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. The session was moderated by Anita Nayyar CEO India & South Asia, Havas Media. 

Time spent by consumer online is growing exponentially across day parts and devices. This keynote highlighted the fact that how  brands are  connecting and engaging with conumers in this technology driven social era. Anita Nayyar said, “We have already entered the  mobile age and new media is taking the center stage. Multiple screens have also enabled engagement and connection among the brands and their target audiences.”

Deepak Jolly said, “Today all the conversations are digitized as compared to early days of advertising and marketing. With evolving and growing mediums the conversations too have changed. Today it is about enabling connection and engagement through innovation and unique steps like we created Coke Studio. Coke studio enabled us to connect to our target audiences that are youth through music which we think is the right mix. It also enabled us to shift from just impression on Youtube to engagement of users with the brand.”

Jolly also mentioned another example of Coke Zero wherein they for the first time made an FMCG product to sell through E-Commerce portal, Amazon.com and interestingly, within few hours of its launch around 4000 cans were ordered online. He said, “It is important to stand out different and carve a niche and enable distribution through engagement.”

Vikas Mehta said, “The brand building should be strong and effective. Sales and brand reach depends upon making your brand meaningful .”

Vivek Nayyar said, “The focus should be on building a platform for the consumers to engage with the brands and build a connection. While creating a campaign the brand needs to use meaningful insights which can create an everlasting impact on its consumers.”

George Kavoor said, “Digital storytelling is the most on-going trend in today’s market scenario. For brand’s today the key focus area is to create real time conversations and engagement. If the campaign thought and if the story manages to create an impact on its consumers the brand will be able to build necessary buzz in the market.”

Summarizing the session, Anita Nayyar said, “After such insightful thoughts, the three things that can be looked upon from this session are: today is about expression versus impression, secondly it is about making talking engaging and thirdly, creating meaningful content.”

The next session was on Leveraging engagement to deliver real business results which saw panelists like Mohit Ganju SVP, IndusInd Bank; Rajat Mehta President & Country Head, Brand and Retail Marketing, Yes Bank; Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah Head – Marketing at The Oberoi Group of Hotels; Alok Saraogi Vice President- Brand Marketing & Corporate Communications, Ashok Leyland and Sanjay Tripathy Senior Executive Vice President, HDFC Life. This session moderator was Shubhradeep Guha Vice President and Global Lead for Digital Marketing & Content, SapientNitro.        

The panel showcased results by blending the scalability and efficiency of automation solutions with sophisticated personalization based on known preferences and previous response patterns along with orchestrating the use of channels most preferred by customers. The session opened up with Shubhradeep Guha’s thought, “It is important to engage your customers when, where and how they want.”

Mohit Ganju said, “Banking and Insurance category has started focusing and utilizing digital quite extensively from last couple of years. Digital not only helps us build reach but gives us an opportunity to integrate our brand innovatively.”

Agreeing to Mohit, Sanjay Tripathy said, “It is important to build awareness about your product and digital is the only platform that helps us do that. Not that, that other mediums do not but it is about using right medium. Digital is beyond just facebook and brands have kind of understood this fact.”

Prasanjeet Dutta Baruah said, “For hotel industry every medium plays an equal role. It is about creating right content on the right medium. No doubt digital takes some brownie points with its advantages and digital helps us integrate our communication in the right way.”

Alok Saraogi said, “The automotive industry is very different.. Unlike other industries our conversations with the consumers starts once the product/vehicle is sold and when the consumer comes for its first three services that is time when we engage with them. Yes, digital does play an important role as its no-time-boundation enables brands to create an unique story.”

The next session delivered insights on How to create brand value with right content in Digital world? The panelists include; Deepali Naair CMO, Mahindra Holidays; Charulata Ravi Kumar CEO, RazorFish; Sujatha V Kumar Category Director – Marketing, Coca-Cola India; Amarjit Singh Batra CEO, OLX South Asia and Zaheer Travadi Digital Media Manager, Hindustan Unilever Ltd.

This session examined the need for content based marketing strategy to drive consumer conversations, inspire purchases and enhance brand value.  Deepali nair said, “We have been focusing a lot towards putting in right content and disseminating it to right target audience.”

Zaheer Travadi said, “We all have been facing profound changes in the way consumers access and share information the effectiveness and relevance of traditional creative media is fast diminishing.”

Charulata ravi kumar said, “it is better to understand the objective of the brand communication first and then one should create the content around that.”

Sujatha V Kumar said, “It depends upon brands to brands. Like for us at Coke we believe in creating moments of happiness which is our brand’s core proposition hence we target and focus towards creating associations which revolve around that though. We create content that is relevant.”

Amarjit Batra said, “For us at Olx it was important to understand the key market and target audience first and then create content which is relevant to them. When we launched this was an untapped market hence we had to create exciting and catching content which would help us carve a niche about the brand. Today thats the  core proposition we bring forward in the industry thus we create different content for different mediums as per their respective essence.” 

The 14,000 Sq Feet exhibition floor has booths of  sponsors like Hotstar, Vizury, YeahMobi, Airloyal and other exhibitors like AOL Platforms, Lucini & Lucini, Cake and Skype to name a few. The Innovation Zone - A zone dedicated to start-ups and some of the newest suppliers of innovative products, services and solutions  hosted BidSopt, Scientia, Retail9, Inuxu Technologies, Plann To, HealnDeal, DotcomInfoways, Adcanopus Media, Luvia Global and Adcovenant. The think:tech sessions hosted leading companies such as IBM, Hot Star, Times Internet, Vizury, Tune and Criteo showcasing the latest trends, case studies and solutions.
 

Advertising
@adgully

News in the domain of Advertising, Marketing, Media and Business of Entertainment

More in Advertising