Are brands 'hijacking' PV Sindhu's Tokyo win? Industry debates
Brands shouldn’t be blatantly riding on the success of players who they are not sponsoring or partnering with, experts opine
The crowning glory of Indian athletes at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics has been a moment of pride for the whole nation. From the prime minister to celebs to brands, everyone joined the celebration with congratulatory tweets and creatives. However, some of these brand posts might have crossed the thin line between using the opportunity for moment marketing and being opportunistic to ride on someone else’s success.
The discussion started when the co-founder and MD of Baseline Ventures — which represents two-time Olympics medal winner shuttler PV Sindhu — Tuhin Mishra took to LinkedIn to express his displeasure over posts by Vicks & Happydent, calling them an infringement of Sindhu’s IP rights.
Both the brands, soon after, pulled down their respective creatives and Mishra also removed his post against Vicks, but the incident put forth a very pressing question — is it right to use faces or references to people who are not your brand ambassadors as a marketing activity?
From a legal point of view, this could be an infringement of Publicity rights, as highlighted by spokespersons from Legally Yours, “As J. Thomas McCarthy said that publicity right is the inherent right of every human being to control the commercial use of his or her identity. However, unfortunately, India does not currently have any specific statute which clearly recognises and protects publicity rights, though it has got some recognition in very specific cases. In the absence of a definite law on Right of Publicity, one might explore the legal actions such as instituting a suit of passing off or a civil suit for violation of privacy.”
The marketing industry, though divided on the creatives in question, feels that it is also wrong on moral grounds to blatantly use faces who don't endorse your brand.
BrandNomics MD Viren Razadan says, “To hijack such moments and associate your brand to it is definitely a great idea but to use a sports person's name is in poor taste and primitive.”
Samsika Marketing Consultant MD Jagdeep Kapoor elaborates, “There is a thin line between genuinely celebrating a win and being opportunistic and using it for own benefits. I feel the brands who have really sponsored PV Sindhu during her Olympics journey or have her as the official ambassador deserve to win from her success and not anyone else. Why should anyone be using the winning moments to promote themselves while they will not say anything when any sportsperson fails to perform. It’s not idealistic to piggyback or be opportunistic in the marketing world.”
Communications Consultant Karthik Srinivasan highlights that it is not the first time that Baseline Ventures has put spotlight on the issue. “Baseline had sued Swiggy and Freecharge back in 2018 when they rode on Prithvi Shaw's debut century. The latest calling out of this moment-marketing free-for-all is long overdue.”
He continues, “The same brands won't dare to name a player from the Indian cricket team or IPL because they have been chastised adequately that they would be sued. But with the Olympics players, they seem to be having a free-for-all since the Indian Olympic Association hasn't taken cognizance of such a possibility, learnt from IPL and sent across a note to all agencies and brands. There is a considerable difference between indulging in moment-marketing by naming the people involved without considering the rights of those stars/people and merely using the moment to allude to something clever. The former is a failure of imagination and an invitation for a lawsuit by the celebrity management agency, while the latter involves true creativity and imagination since it lets people make the connection. The latter is, obviously, harder.”
He feels that a good example of the latter case can be Zomato’s comment on CRED’s viral IPL campaign #IndiranagarKaGunda featuring Rahul Dravid.
deliveries in Indiranagar miiight be late today due to an angry gunda on the road
— zomato (@zomato) April 9, 2021
On the other hand, industry veteran and Global CCO of Nihilent & Hypercollective KV Sridhar (Pops) feels that while it is justified on celeb managers part to feel that it is an intrusion, using such moments to celebrate such a win is also important.
“I feel if the brand hasn’t used any derogatory remark or copyrighted images and their intent has been good, it shouldn’t be a problem to use such creatives. It is a way to show that they are proud of an Indian sports person’s win like most of us collectively are feeling right now. Also, it is heartening to see, in a society like India, brands celebrating women athletes and their success. This has the power to influence society at large. And if the brands are not making a direct sales pitch through these creatives, I don’t see them as a problem,” he opines.
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About 60% Instagram influencers in India have fake followers: Report
As per a media report, influencer marketing platform KlugKlug has found that only 2.48 million profiles out of the 8 million have ‘high-quality’ followers
Two of three Instagram influencers in India have more than 60 per cent fake followers, a report by influencer marketing platform KlugKlug shows.
This is particularly true for the beauty and fashion sector, the report noted.
Other countries that have influencers with fake followers are Brazil, the UAE and Indonesia.
As per media reports, such Instagram fake followers can be roped in for as little as Rs 10 to a high of Rs 1,000.
According to Klug Klug India, only 2.48 million profiles out of the 8 million have high-quality followers.
A number of other categories have also been buying fake followers, media reports have noted.
As per a media expert, quoted in the reports, brands are finding it difficult to identify and curb the menace of fake followers and bots.
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Share15% consumers enhance their user experience through virtual assistants: Kantar report
According to Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director & Chief Client Officer- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar, less than 1% of ads get tested due to lack of time
Marketing data and analytics firm Kantar has unveiled a report that studies the burgeoning AI market to dish out actionable insights for marketers. Within AI, virtual assistants are the fastest growing segment. The report noted that 15% consumers enhanced their ‘user experience through virtual assistants’. This segment is the fastest growing at 27% YoY.
According to the study, while ‘fitness’ and ‘social media’ apps are amongst the leading categories, driving AI adoption (with an average of 2.3 AI led features embedded in these applications), segments like ‘BFSI’, ‘job search’ and ‘short video’ apps are relatively slow in AI adoption, with an average of 1.2 features each. Entertainment apps, digital commerce and pharmacy apps stand somewhere in the middle with 2.0 & 1.8 AI features being adopted, respectively.
Additionally, the report said that while 90% of marketing and sales leaders think their organisations should be using AI “often”, 60% said their organisations “rarely or never” do. Speaking to exchange4media, Soumya Mohanty, Managing Director & Chief Client Officer- South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar highlighted that currently there are a lot of organisations who know that there is something called AI, but haven’t yet figured out how it could help them holistically.
“A lot of the AI just gets used for efficiency purposes, so repetitive tasks get automated,” Mohanty pointed out. Data also plays a big role in why certain organisations are struggling with how to use AI.
For instance, Mohanty explained that in segments like D2C, telecom etc. there is a lot of primary or first-party data. So being able to leverage AI also gets easier. “It's the traditional large sort of FMCG type companies where data sits in silos. You don't really have one single source of data where it's a little difficult to use the full power of AI, because the full power of AI also needs a lot of data sitting in a structure that you can use,” she added.
So, can AI help marketers have a unified view of data? No, says Mohanty. “AI does not help marketers get a unified view of data. Once you have data in a unified way, AI can help you do a lot more with that data.”
According to her, organisations today need to have good, strong data warehousing. “It needs to make sense because a lot of the silos are also because everybody owns one part of it. A lot of people have their own analytics teams internally, so there are a lot of agendas and stakeholders. And then we say data is in silos because fundamentally, when you're doing something internally, different people have different stakes in it,” Mohanty added.
Puneet Avasthi, Senior Executive Director, South Asia, Insights Division, Kantar shared that most organisations are now heavily investing in creating first-party data sets. “Companies that have first party data about their consumers and transactions or interactions that they have with the brand are going to be able to leverage that more effectively to create sharper profiles for the brand as such for the consumer and build relevant recommendations at the right moments.
Panning out she also highlighted how AI can be leveraged to enhance market research and make it more accessible, a part of which Kantar is itself involved in. “A lot of times people say that we can't test an ad because we don't have time. So less than 1% of advertising gets tested and just gets put out. Does it work when it gets put out? It is the question the audience should answer, because so many times, it backfires,” Mohanty shared. Apparently, digital particularly doesn't get tested because organisations just do a/b testing and leave it at that.
Speaking of preferred use cases of AI, Avasthi added that various businesses and brands are looking at creating an experience for the brand that is in line with the brand's architecture and progress across all touch points. “That is something that the AI engines that are working behind can ensure, that all such interactions are consistently delivered across different virtual assistants or chatbots that are available to the consumer,” he said.
The other use case, according to Avasthi, is ensuring that there is greater visibility for the brand in the digital sphere as such, through various recommendation engines, when a certain need is being looked for and to throw up the right kind of information about the brand so that the brand message is amplified in the mind of the consumers.
Among other insights from the Kantar AI report is that 88% consumers used AI based algorithms which analysed their preferences, behaviours, and interests to create personalised recommendations for tailored experiences. This segment grew at 6 % YoY. At 21%, ‘smart home automation’ is a smaller segment but growing at 25% YoY.