2015 is bright and action time for delivery over the 2014 euphoria of India on the world stage, sentiments of economic revival and investments worth $43 billion in a year where ad spend was buoyed by the General and Maharashtra elections.
Comparatively the ICC World Cup, Delhi elections and IPL are expected to be major ad spend contributors this year. Modest growth is expected of the global economy with Asia Pacific and India leading the pack. India being a major exporter of oil, the drop in prices as also low inflation will have positive effect on the Indian economy and consumption. And herein lies India’s vantage point - its momentum will be paced more internally, by domestic consumption and domestic investment. Primary Target – the Indian consumer, the driver to put India on the map.
To talk to this Indian consumer and gain a larger share of his wallet, many marketers across the industry will attempt to make a paradigm shift in how they communicate, not only in newsprint story but to market to real customers in real life. It is nothing short of a fundamental rethinking of silos-marketing to marketing. This gains increasing importance as customer touch points increase exponentially in our world of wearable tech, smart homes, smart devices and fresh inventions everyday also yielding unprecedented data of user behaviour.
Agencies and brands will have to put their algorithms to actionable use today omni channel else they risk losing control or in the least abandon rich insights to the path to their customer as marketing progresses.
In Lesson 1.0, some marketers will learn with success, failure or aborted attempt, to blur the lines between all communication channels - TV, Print, OOH, Social, Mobile and Online; across platforms, each channel leading to the next to drive conversations; to create the conversion funnel based on brand message, objective and audience; to adapt, alter and be measurable. They are the marketers who will be future ready also making the best use of available technology and techniques today.
THINKING is at the core, of course aided by technology, technique, data, etc.
Marketing Moves we will see more of in 2015:
1. The Traditional Partnership
Traditional is not dying anytime soon in India and is still the foundation of M&E ad spend in India. All the channels have upped their programming with new channels in the offing; Radio and OOH are to play an active role in 2015 and Print will continue to be important. It augers well for marketers to view traditional as an asset on the balance sheet. E-commerce mapped it to an ROI Win-Win situation for everyone in 2014.
2. Programmatic Advertising Implementation
We will see increased implementation of programmatic potential as agencies and brands use it increasingly in campaigns. Yet most will use it more as a buying tool for best rates in 2015 with newsprint on its importance; the exceptions learning to unlock its value. It is pure play right message, right audience, right time, media agnostic drawing from complex algorithms and trend insight of the customer.
3. The Ubiqutous #, Selfies, Crowd sourcing & CSR Campaigns
The ‘Hashtag’ will become ubiquitous, marking every readable media. Campaigns with Selfie stories, CSR and Crowd Sourcing as campaign and content will assume greater prominence.
4. Brand Integration, Experiential Marketing & Activation
Brand integration will become more prevalent yet just touch the tip of the iceberg of what it will become and how innovatively it will be portrayed; case in point Zandu Balm and Fevicol in the Dabangg 1 & 2 songs. As will Experiential Marketing and Activations around it.
5. Grappling with Personalisation & Social Media to the Fore
Marketers will grapple with ‘personalisation’ the other buzzword, which needs very clean databases, algorithmic audience behavioural – preference mapping and apt customised content.
Social Media will be used for engagement and interaction, its customer behaviour data logs of understanding them.
6. Launches on Social, Ecommerce& Mobile
We have seen the launch of Burger King on eBay, Good Day Chunkies on Amazon, Motorola’s MotoX 32GB on Flipkart and Xolo phones on Twitter. More brands across sectors will take the social, E-commerce and Mobile route to launch.
7. Mobile Marketing, Apps, Chat leverage
It’s not only the Smartphone story. The feature phone can scale audience and markets.
8. Videos , In-Video Ads, Web Series, Native Advertising
There will be an explosion of these.
9. Rise of Technology & Logistics Companies
The e-commerce boom will see these as advertisers and investment worthy.
10. Tier 2, 3, 4 cites in Focus
It will not only be about the cities but also in their regional languages.
In the end really in Twitter language – It's being Meaningful. It’s ‘Thinking how to Market’ or ‘Re-thinking how we Market’.
(These are purely personal views of Havas Media Group, India & South Asia CEO Anita Nayyar and indiantelevision.com does not necessarily subscribe to these views.)
