Marketers decode the rules of navigating the digital marketing playground

IAMAI's 11th Marketing Conclave 2015 saw industry leaders giving their insights on new-age media platforms, cross media measurement and challenges in the new ecosystem

Aanchal Kohli | Mumbai | June 11, 2015

Marketing is the tool that businesses heavily bank upon to create awareness about their products, services and ideas and thereby, generating revenue. In such a scenario, it becomes obvious for marketing to attract the attention that it does.

However, with the influx of digital technologies, media and content types in the past decade or so, the old-school thumb rules for marketing have changed. It has become imperative for marketers today to evolve with the changing trends, be aware of the new marketing platforms, aids and tools available, and assume different roles within their organisations. In a nutshell, the marketing concepts have changed and the marketers now need to unlearn and switch to the 'Digital Chapters'.

While there is need for marketers to adopt the new-age marketing approaches and be more experimental, the same needs to be backed by a good understanding of the nuances of the Digital Marketing Playground; there are certain rules and then there are overwhelming perks. Internet & Mobile Association of India's (IAMAI) 11th Marketing Conclave, held in Mumbai on June 9 and 10, was an endeavour towards establishing a greater comprehension of the modern methods and mechanics of marketing.

One of the important sessions on day two of the conclave was on 'Establishing a Common Digital Standard', which highlighted points like why there is need for an absolute, standard method for measurement of the attributes of all digital platforms, how can the Industry work out a common, unified marketing management yardstick and how digital marketing could be made more simple and appealing by adopting a system that's easily understandable by brands and advertisers. The session was moderated by Tushar Vyas, Chief Strategy Officer - South Asia, GroupM, and the panellists included Ashish Bhasin, Chairman and CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network (South Asia); Partho Dasgupta, Chief Executive Officer, BARC India; Ravi Dixit, Head - Market Insights, Google India; and Prashant Singh, Managing Director, Nielsen.

Tushar Vyas

Tushar Vyas started the conversation by stating the fact that marketers are moving towards digital. He remarked, “There are few marketers who still focus on traditional media more than digital media, but there are a few sets of brands which are just focusing on digital media. Today, marketing is all about what value it gets on the table for the brand unlike earlier, when marketing and advertising was more about creating brand awareness.”

Ashish Bhasin

Giving his views on cross-media management, Ashish Bhasin said, “Cross-media measurement and management has been around since a long time. We all have tried, tested and experimented, but have not come across anything substantial. The reason behind the same is that we all have always been focused towards measuring mediums and not the consumer behaviour. It should have been the other way round and marketers or research analysts should focus on measuring consumer behaviour as that plays a vital role.”

Prashant Singh

Agreeing with Bhasin, Prashant Singh said, “Reaction measurement is very important. One should think about consumers as one entity and then should try and understand what happens to a consumer when they witness any marketing solution or an advertising campaign. Understanding consumer behaviour is more important than understanding the medium.”

Ravi Dixit too felt that cross-media measurement was an important tool as it gave a brand the power to measure results collaboratively.

Partho Dasgupta

Partho Dasgupta commented, “Today, every brand is in need of valuable results and data. Cross-media measurement enables the same and helps in measuring valuable results.”

When it came to language for communication, a lot of marketers are moving beyond English language and have started using Hindi and other local languages even in mediums like outdoor and digital. The Internet is no longer the medium exclusively for the English literate audience. Marketers in a separate session highlighted the new opportunities in the market that the industry can look to tap.

The session was moderated by Gyan Gupta, Chief Operating Officer, DB Digital, and the panellists included Milind Pathak, Chief Operating Officer, Madhouse; Ashish Sahni, Head – Digital Marketing, Tata Motors; Vincent Noronha, Marketing Manager, Parag Foods; and Yateesh Srivastava of Vemanya Design Worx.

While Ashish Sahni felt that it was important to tap the market in local languages as it helped building a better connect and reach amongst those set of consumers, Milind Pathak remarked that the world had moved on to mobile completely and marketers needed to understand the most important concept that mobile was as different from the Internet, as television was from print. Pathak added, “Mobile and digital are new mediums and marketers need not be scared about failure while using this medium. Marketers tend to face challenges initially.”

Yateesh Srivastava felt that marketers needed to make their marketing agencies the communication agencies as today marketing had become equivalent to communication and engagement on the digital medium.

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