The other day, I went to a salon for a head massage and hated every bit of the experience. I left a one-star, negative review on their GMB (Google My Business) page, explaining in detail the terrible experience I had. The review was seen by many, and many found it helpful.

Ten or 15 years ago, this was not an option available to a paying customer. And this is precisely how digital marketing and the various digital platforms have changed consumer behaviour.

The customer has always been the king, but today’s consumer also has a voice. She is empowered and can use technology to make the right purchase decision.

Here are a few ways in which digital marketing is transforming consumer behaviour.

Influencing purchase decisions

The “zero moment of truth’, a term coined by Google’s Vice President of Sales back in 2011, became a part of every marketer’s lexicon thereafter. It is a phenomenon that is entirely internet fuelled. Before purchasing any product, a consumer has the option to educate herself on the product features, access reviews and see whether it’s worth the price. Whether it is a high-ticket price purchase such as a washing machine, laptop, phone or home theatre, or just something as simple as a new brand of shampoo – a large number of the over 700 million internet users in India use the internet to make a purchase decision.

Co-creating brands and their communities

It’s not just purchase decisions and customer feedback loop that digital marketing and the digital era has transformed. Today, consumers co-create brands and their communities, and become and active part of a company’s brand building effort. User Generated Content (UGC), is one of the biggest ways in which customers tell the brand story. The Apple #shotoniphone campaign, is one of the best examples of a really smartly done, successful and long-lasting UGC campaign.

Interchangeable paradigm

In the digital era, the consumer can be the brand, and the brand can often be the consumer. Let me explain. Any consumer with a sizeable number of followers, can become a micro or macro influencer.  Consumers today are investing time and energy in creating personal brands, growing their followers, building a compelling online presence. Personal branding is one of the biggest game-changing phenomena of the 21st century.

Brands, on the other hand, can often mirror their own consumers. Today, a consumer brand is expected to have a personality, tell a story, stand for certain social causes (sustainability, inclusivity, diversity etc) and have several values. In other words, we are seeing a humanising of brands. Brands are no longer corporations that sell commodities. They talk to their customers, listen to what their customers are saying, engage in a conversation, are often witty, funny, friendly, and basically mirror the personality of their ideal customer. Think of Zomato’s brand personality. It’s a bit like a cheeky, funny, 25-year-old, who loves a good burger as much as he loves a great meme. And social media has made this personality building possible.

Expecting personalisation and enhanced user experience

How is the consumer journey being impacted by digital marketing? Thanks to predictive AI, consumers today expect brands to know their choices and needs more than they know it themselves. If you are an Amazon shopper, you expect the marketplace to show you product recommendations and send you mailers with these recommendations based on your purchase history, so that you don’t have to look for similar products in a huge marketplace. It’s the same for Netflix. As a user, you expect the platform to use machine learning to share recommendations on what to watch next.

The consumer today is also expecting to see customised messaging, and ads that are relevant to his or her lifestyle. And AI and ML are making this possible at scale.

The ‘C’ factor

Convenience is the biggest gift technology has given us. Some may argue that it has made us lazier, less social and more isolated. But, today, it’s possible to bring home everything – right from a gym session that can take place through an app, to a haircut and of course, food, fashion and other commodities.  And that has helped us optimise our time better, enabling us to do more with less time, as we get technology to work harder for us. From the marketing context, technology (virtual reality in particular), has even enabled consumers sitting in faraway lands to make purchase decisions for ultra-high ticket price products such as real estate. We have seen many instances of real estate brands leveraging AR to help consumers get a virtual site visit done, and book an apartment, even without visiting a model apartment on site. This gained momentum particularly during the pandemic when many NRIs indulged in remote purchase of real estate. Several fine jewellery brands used VR as well to accelerate remote buying. So product categories in which customers would make a purchase decision only after a “touch and feel” experience, have also been disrupted through digital marketing.

In all, it has been a complete disruption of consumer patterns, behaviours and journey, and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

NVIDIA and WPP today announced they are developing a content engine that harnesses NVIDIA Omniverse™ and AI to enable creative teams to produce high-quality commercial content faster, more efficiently and at scale while staying fully aligned with a client’s brand. 

The new engine connects an ecosystem of 3D design, manufacturing and creative supply chain tools, including those from Adobe and Getty Images, letting WPP’s artists and designers integrate 3D content creation with generative AI. This enables WPP’s clients to reach consumers in highly personalized and engaging ways, while preserving the quality, accuracy and fidelity of their company’s brand identity, products and logos. 

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang unveiled the engine in a demo during his COMPUTEX keynote address, illustrating how clients can work with teams at WPP, the world’s largest marketing services organization, to make large volumes of brand advertising content such as images or videos and experiences like 3D product configurators more tailored and immersive. 

“The world’s industries, including the $700 billion digital advertising industry, are racing to realize the benefits of AI,” Huang said. “With Omniverse Cloud and generative AI tools, WPP is giving brands the ability to build and deploy product experiences and compelling content at a level of realism and scale never possible before.” 

“Generative AI is changing the world of marketing at incredible speed,” said Mark Read, CEO of WPP. “Our partnership with NVIDIA gives WPP a unique competitive advantage through an AI solution that is available to clients nowhere else in the market today. This new technology will transform the way that brands create content for commercial use, and cements WPP’s position as the industry leader in the creative application of AI for the world’s top brands.”

“I think what is happening with generative AI and AI is for everyone to see,” says Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO of RD&X, said in a conversation with exchange4media.

With the evolution of technology in the last few months, the focus of the marketing world is also evolving. RD&X, founded by Dingra during the peak pandemic year of 2020, stands for ‘Real Time, Disruptive and Exponential’ and it brings a blend of MarTech, Ad Tech and deep learning to help its clients to become more real time with their marketing solutions.”

Speaking about the blend of the three technologies being used at RD&X, Dingra says, “We call it mad-tech for short. ReBid is our platform that we have in the market that clients are using today and it's a mad-tech intelligence platform. We connect martech to adtech.”

He gave an example of an omni-channel retailer who has stores, also sells on e-commerce platforms and has ad data on social media, first party data, emails, SMS and so on. “What ReBid does is it connects all these ecosystems in one platform, bringing in all your data and giving you a unified funnel unit of ad to transact and giving you a 360-degree customer profile and customer journey.”

RD&X has also come up with a chat-based AI tool that RD&X has launched which helps marketers ask simple questions for their data and get answers to make informed campaigns, Dingra said.

While handling such powerful data, Dingra believes it is important for agencies to focus on finding better talent who can handle this complex data. “The problem with agencies using technology is that they need to find better talent. The challenge is, agencies need to find specialists who can work with technology and start delivering the value to clients. Technology for technology's sake, as a gimmick or as a new shiny tool that they are showing to clients is not going to get them results. I think agencies need to integrate technology at the heart of their business.”

Dingra also spoke about the trends that marketers should keep an eye out for. “I believe this AI trend is going to explode because the money behind it is way beyond any other vertical of technology today out there. So, AI definitely everyone is going to invest money into it and that is going to create a huge trend. If you see the industry that's already getting most disrupted is the advertising and marketing industry. You don't need to write content; you don’t need to think through ideas. You can even get your basic recommendations on how to run Facebook and Google ads and whatnot.

The other trend in advertising and marketing I see is that marketers will start to take back control of their marketing and advertising data for multiple reasons. One is because it is now clear awareness to marketers that data is what drives the difference in their marketing campaigns. Second, is the cookieless future, which means that they have to collect, manage, and enrich first-party data. So that the data-driven focus in marketers is going to explode even more.”

Speaking about ad spends, Dingra said: “Ad spends, in general, because of the market environment for the first quarter have been subdued. But marketers are focusing a lot on driving bang for the buck, which is why we've seen a lot of new clients come on board with us. People are very focused on optimizing to the last mile. Given the general global environment, spends and overall focus on ad spends is likely being shifted from January, February, March to April, May, June and beyond. I do see that the market on the spending front will be much stronger in September. The festive season will definitely bring it back up to a great level.”

On the expansion front for the company, Dingra says, “Our focus is geographical expansion. We've hired a head of sales in the US. We already hired a salesperson in the UK. Our goal is geographical expansion for this year and next. On the technology front or our product roadmap, I think we can invest heavily over the next two to three quarters in leveraging GPT and natural language AI to make cool features for our clients that would solve a lot of the headaches that clients have.”

With Gartner predicting that 70% of in-house applications will include AI by 2025, data companies stand at the forefront of this transformative technology that will shape the future of business. Within the next three years, every company is going to require a strategy to incorporate AI and ML into their business and applications. The problem is that most companies are struggling with their real-time data strategies. And that’s where DataStax comes in.

The real-time data company looks to make it possible for customers to overlay an AI pipeline on their real-time data to make real-time AI accessible and part of their business process. 

exchange4media spoke to Thomas Been, CMO, DataStax, about how a host of new tools are revolutionizing the way organizations utilize AI and big data, and how the company is helping to drive that revolution through Real Time AI, and why it’s different from Generative AI.

As Been defines it, Generative AI is a set of models that tap into a broad knowledge. “Everybody talks about ChatGPT, which has trawled the web for a long time. Generative AI produces content, images based on its knowledge. So you ask it something and it's going to produce something that looks good. It repeats the patterns that it has seen in other content (which sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not; that's something that marketers need to keep an eye on), which is extremely useful because it's very, very productive.”

Meanwhile, “Real Time AI is actually a different type of AI which is born of a different family called Predictive AI, which is able to understand based on information that's available, as an example, how a customer is going to understand the context.”

So Real time AI is really enabling marketers with the ability to decide in a moment and really build these experiences. “We talk about it as the consumer experience but real time AI allows the ability to make informed choices very quickly and actually instead of just trying a few things to see what sticks from start to the outcome.”

“It’s not let's try hundreds of offers and see which one has the most success but really knowing and having the confidence that you know the customer that's going to show up. The outcome is that the customer takes the offer, so it really changes the way you think about your experience, your call to actions. I think it also changes the game because everything happens in an instant,” says Been.

He points to the fact that when you or I search for a particular product or service, we are then inundated with offers by brands in those categories for the next few days, through mails, banner ads, and even newsletters. “The thing is, by then, you’ve probably already ordered that lunch, bought tickets for that trip, purchased those pants. So responses need to be faster, in real time in fact.”

That also of course leads to the larger narrative, of how companies use consumers’ own data to draw them in.

“I think our customers are sitting on their own goldmine and that gold is data. We are the shop where you buy it, and we are happy to help you turn that gold into even more value,” says Been adding that as a cookieless future becomes more imminent, marketers should absolutely look at other sources of data, all of which will be needed to fuel AI capabilities.

“There will be information coming from their partners from other services that that's going to help AI. I think brands will also develop ways to provide an improved experience and immersives for their consumers and users. I'm thinking about technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality.”

When it comes to these, Been says Gaming is a perfect example. “To me, gaming is the top experience you can have today. It's completely immersive, driven by loads of real time data, and AI is already present. And I'm not talking about the gamification of brands, like ‘you have to give me badges and points’, but in getting inspiration from gaming, in terms of experience.”

One of the biggest trends is AI getting even more connected to the consumer experience. As Been explains, “There's a company called Uniphore, which is actually an Indian company that does AI and sentiment analysis on the fly during sales calls. They're one of our customers, and that's also the power AI gives to marketers and salespeople. The ability to understand as you're talking to somebody, what the reaction is, what are the topics that are hitting the point, so you can react to them accordingly as they are talking so that's very, extremely powerful.”

“So these are the tools that marketers can bring together, where they combine some of these technologies with data and AI, and I think that's where the future is going to be,” concludes the Datastax CMO.

It has been two weeks since Elon Musk announced that Linda Yaccarino, ex-NBCUniversal advertising head, will be the new CEO of Twitter. Although there are a few weeks left for her to take over as the top exec, the expectations from Yaccarino are quite high already.

Being a huge influence in the advertising space and driving NBCUniversal’s growth, Yaccarino has been a name synonymous with the glam world of marketing and advertising. She was a key member in the launch of the ad-supported Peacock streaming service for NBCUniversal and she is said to be a great candidate for luring back advertisers to the social media platform after the setback last year post-Musk’s takeover.

Before the new CEO announcement, research firm Insider Intelligence in April cut Twitter’s global ad revenues forecast by 37%. “This is the second consecutive downgrade since Musk first offered to buy the company in April 2022. In Q3 2022, we decreased our outlook for the company’s ad business by 30% compared with the prior forecast,” the report said.

According to a source-based report by a business publication, GroupM removed its “high risk” classification for Twitter, and informed its clients that they are “cautiously optimistic” about Yaccarino’s appointment. GroupM had classified Twitter as “high risk” last November after Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover. We reached out to GroupM for comment on the same but it was denied.

In India, Mondelez also said that it would pause paid-ads on the platform when Musk took over in November. A plethora of global brands also went off Twitter advertising. But with Yaccarino’s appointment, will there be a change in the way brands and advertisers in the country approach the platform? What are the expectations? We asked experts.

Savior for Twitter’s ad revenue?

Brand expert Lloyd Mathias believes Yaccarino’s appointment could be a game-changer for ramping up advertising revenues on Twitter. “Linda Yaccarino’s appointment is a slightly late acknowledgement by Elon Musk. Twitter will need the support of advertising to stay afloat. Everyone knows that Twitter's financials are in a deep mess. When Musk took over, he thought he could convert the business model seamlessly into subscription plus commerce. That obviously has not taken off. So now, I think there's a clear acknowledgement that if Twitter has to grow, it can grow at the back of getting advertisers to advertise on the Twitter platform.

Therefore, you're getting an advertising specialist, someone who spent many years with NBCUniversal advertising, sales and marketing. She will be on the front in terms of getting advertisers back into the platform. A lot of them have left the platform in the last one-year because Twitter became very toxic. I think, hopefully, she'll bring some stability.”

Speaking about the impact on Indian advertisers, Mathias said it was better to wait and watch. “With somebody who understands what clients want, what advertisers want, I think there will be a change in some of the things the way Twitter is doing it. So, one is to ensure that advertisers have a slightly safer environment to advertise. Advertisers do not want to be in a very controversial place. Once she's able to impact that element, I think it'll be positive; it will see a lot more advertisers wanting to come back. But like I said, for now, it's a wait-and-watch. People will need to see how the platform is changing. Right now, it is not obviously one of the most-favoured platforms, advertisers spend a lot more on channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But I think over time, one will need to see how it evolves. But the fact that there is a change, a much-needed change and hopefully some fresh thinking, is very positive.”

Amit Dhawan, Partner and CEO, Art-E says Yaccarino could use her knowledge and her commitment to diversity to drive growth among Indian users. “Considering her background and extensive experience, it is likely that she will prioritize the growth of Twitter's advertising business by actively collaborating with advertisers in the Indian community and jointly developing solutions. Notably, in her recent series of tweets, Yaccarino has emphasized the word "together" multiple times, suggesting a focus on fostering partnerships and implementing region-specific enhancements, particularly in user targeting. Given her profound understanding of the global media landscape, she may also concentrate on expanding Twitter's presence in new markets and engaging with a broader user base in all regions. As a visionary leader, Yaccarino is expected to explore innovative ways to leverage technology and enhance Twitter's value for Indian users. Furthermore, her commitment to diversity and inclusion suggests she will work towards making Twitter a more inclusive and welcoming platform for all Indian users.

As for Viren Razdan, Managing Director at Brand-nomics, brands will be Yaccarino’s biggest focus. “Yaccarino comes with a solid story from ad sales at top media brands, known for her tough negotiation and relationship management skills with top honchos. She has been nicknamed ‘the velvet hammer’ for this blend of tough and soft effective approach.

Post Musk’s takeover of Twitter many big advertisers almost abandoned the platform weary of how the brand association would work. Enter Yaccarino - to reverse this slide back. While Musk and company fine-tune the product, Yaccarino is to ensure the platform syncs to the tune of the brands.”

“Yaccarino is riding heavy on her reputation. What really is to be seen is how she brings brands back on the platform, and how makes the engagement sing,” Razdan added.

As human calls to regulate rapidly growing AI capabilities, particularly Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, grow louder, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to Apple’s Steve Wozniak to X’s Elon Musk demanding government oversight if not all out pausing development of AI capabilities, India has chosen a different path.

After hemming and hawing over fears that regulation would stifle innovation and entrepreneurship, India's digital and technology authorities have announced that the long-awaited Digital India Act will include provisions for setting guardrails for AI. Union Minister of State for IT and Electronics Rajeev Chandrasekhar told a news agency that the Act will regulate AI and emerging technologies through the ‘prism of user harm’, while noting that India has its own ideas on AI regulation.

“Are AI regulations important? Certainly! AI-based applications can possess serious short and long-term negative impacts when deployed incorrectly - intentionally or otherwise,” states Anand Chakravarthy - Chief Growth Officer, Omnicom Media Group India, adding “In advertising and media – many new-age AdTech and MarTech tools use or claim to leverage AI as their core USP. These platforms or tools are likely to be affected by new AI regulations as well as by Data Protection regulations.”

““It's one of my areas of greatest concern. Let's not ignore the words of Sam Altman, the architect behind one of the most groundbreaking AI technologies of our time. If we don't start considering the importance of AI regulation now, we risk the potential misuse of this powerful technology in the future,” cautions Samir Asher, Co-founder and COO, at Tonic Worldwide.

“Picture this: AI technology taking the advertising and marketing industry by storm. On one hand, the benefits are too tempting to ignore. On the other hand, the thought of privacy invasion and data misuse can send chills down our spines. AI can delve into vast amounts of personal data to sculpt detailed user profiles. But without the right permissions or protections, it's like peeking through someone's window,” he says.

“Worse, if this data strays into the wrong hands, it could spawn nightmares like identity theft or fraud. And yes, AI can track our digital breadcrumbs across different platforms, serving up ads that hit the bulls’ eye. With access to data and detailed user profiles, it could unfortunately also streamline large-scale spamming and phishing efforts. This misuse could open the floodgates to potential scams or data breaches,” adds Asher.

AI has been a part of the media industry and has shown tremendous growth over the years. Platforms like Google and Meta have consistently been using AI-based optimizers that enable campaign execution through their platforms.

Over the last few years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of AdTech tools claiming to be using Advanced AI, says Chakravarthy, noting, “At the heart of AI is the usage of historical data to train models so that they are able to automatically make decisions when put to use. So, one of the most critical aspects when using any AI application or tool is the quality of data that was used to primarily train the AI model. This is where the larger problem exists. When historical data is flawed or skewed or biased in any way, this flaw will be carried forward and propagated by the AI application.”

John Paite, Chief Creative Officer (ART & TECH) Media.Monks India, agrees, observing “AI gets trained under thousands of models and may not be able to categorize race, gender and other ethical matters. End users will need to have a QA team to monitor outputs before publishing them. In conclusion, we have to be responsible and use it with precaution for anything that is AI-generated as it is randomized and consistency is still a big issue.”

Vijay Varshney, Head of Technology, MESA at Smollan, believes that addressing certain areas within the advertising and marketing industry is crucial when it comes to AI regulations. Promoting transparency in AI-powered advertising, particularly in the retail sector, can build trust among consumers through personalized product recommendations.

“I also believe there is a need to strengthen consumer protection laws, such as the existing Consumer Protection Act of 1986 in India, to safeguard against biased, deceptive practices and false claims about products driven by AI-based marketing algorithms. By doing so, we can enhance transparency in the industry. It is important to recognize that the integration of AI technology in the retail industry is an ongoing journey,” says Varshney, adding it is therefore necessary to amend and update associated laws in a timely manner, ensuring they keep pace with the evolving landscape and effectively address the challenges and opportunities presented by AI-driven marketing.

Vivek Kumar Anand, Chief Business Officer, DViO Digital agrees that the need for AI regulation has ignited a spirited debate within various business communities, and he prefers to take a different view.

“In a written statement, IT and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw clarified that the Indian government does not plan to introduce laws to restrict the growth of artificial intelligence. However, it was acknowledged that ethical concerns and risks surround AI, prompting government agencies to embark on efforts to standardise responsible AI practices and foster their widespread adoption.”

The perspective resonates with the viewpoint of Yann LeCun, the chief AI scientist at Meta, who chose not to endorse the open letter advocating for AI regulation. LeCun believes that demanding safety measures for current AI systems, which possess limited capabilities, is premature.

“I align myself with this standpoint. Imposing excessive and stringent regulations at this early stage of exploring AI's potential could stifle creativity and impede the development of valuable AI-driven advertising technologies. Thus, regulations should strike a delicate balance between promoting innovation and ensuring responsible AI use,” says Anand.

“Since advertising and marketing is an industry that directly speaks to the general audience there are several things that have to be caveated. Plagiarism and infringement of copyright has to be checked before publishing any form of content. There are other AI platforms that can quickly help the process,” adds Paite.

“With Deepfakes in advertising, a company could whip up a video featuring a popular celebrity seemingly endorsing their product. However, this could potentially lead consumers down a misleading path and tarnish the reputation of the unsuspecting individuals involved. AI can also perfectly mimic the voice of a famous personality or a loved one, says Asher, concluding “While we embrace AI's perks, we must avoid crossing into discomfort, privacy breaches, or manipulation.

YouTube has said it will be introducing new ad offering for 30-second unskippable ads on connected TVs, media networks have reported. As per YouTube this will enable a "richer storytelling".

This will replace the current format of two 15-second ads that are aired in a row.

YouTube Select offers marketers the chance to spend on curated content in various categories.

As per media reports, YouTube Select gets over 70% impressions on TV.

Experts say YouTube helps to build a large and loyal user base over the years.

The creator community has been key in building a bond between businesses and consumers, and enables brands to focus on a difficult-to-reach demographic.