MUMBAI: The third WatSummit took place in Mumbai and it brought together executives from the digital industry to a single platform. The panellists not only shared industry insights but also gave a forecast of the biggest trends for this year.

The summit began with a welcome note from WatMedia founder, CEO Rajiv Dingra.

Keynote speaker Microsoft senior director for Emerging Markets, India, Malaysia, Thailand & Korea Advertising and Online Neville Taraporewalla shared his views on the growth of social media, the smartphone culture across the world. “Growth of smartphones and tablets are changing consumer experience are catalysts in building an identity in the digital space” he said. According to him the smart phone culture has given a huge impetus to gamification. “Games are everywhere. Everything is becoming a game. In Korea, games are ranked no. 2 activity, after talking on phone”he added.

The first panel discussion of the summit – Social Media Marketing – Making sense of jibber-jabber by brands saw personalities like MTV India head digital Eklavya Bhattacharya, PaulWriter CEO Jessie Paul, KRDS business head Asia Preetham Venky and Komli Media VP and country head Ad Network Gulshan Verma discussing social media platforms and the opportunities it brings for the B2B and B2C brands.

While Jessie Paul thought that B2B is a major challenge on social media, Eklavya deciphered the pros of contextual advertising catering to the B2C industry. It was commonly agreed that platforms like Facebook and Twitter drive engagement and help you converse with the B2C group and platforms like Linkedin are more influential for B2B. “B2B is a slow adopter of social media.” said Paul.

The second panel discussion – Digital Media Marketing – ‘Can it build a brand on its own?’ saw panelists discussing conversions and the effectiveness of the digital medium to enable conversions. There is a lot of investment that goes into digital. Madison Media digital director Amit Duggal said, “Any medium that converts more than 100 million users is a huge medium in itself.”

The effectiveness and importance of mobile marketing was discussed at length at the fourth panel discussion – Mobile Marketing – Promises of reach Vs. Actual Impact. The panelists were seen conferring the various aspects of mobile marketing. Mobile First is the way for marketers. The point was made that advertisers have realised the need of the mobile medium and its penetration. It was also stated by the panelists that there is a lot of impact-oriented strategies taking place on mobile. ‘App routes’ and ‘Web routes’ are the best ways to target consumers on mobile.

Known for his expertise at start-up Games2Win co-founder, CEO Alok Kejriwal said, “If you are a start-up, you don’t spend money, you spend your brain.”