The game changer: How digitalization is opening doors for consumer appliance brands
Guest Column: Priyanka Sethi, Director - Head of Marketing, Haier India, writes why digitalization is not only the need of the hour but also the road ahead for brands to strengthen marketing
In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, the marketing strategies employed by are undergoing a paradigm shift. The advent of digitalization has opened a world of opportunities, allowing brands to reach a vast audience, engage with consumers on a personal level, and build lasting relationships. It has dismantled geographical barriers and provided brands with an unprecedented reach. Through online and social platforms, brands can connect with consumers across India, from bustling metropolitan areas to remote rural regions.
The marketing landscape has been revolutionized by the growing interconnectedness and the rise of mobile-based solutions. In India, the digital advertising industry witnessed substantial growth from fiscal years 2015 to 2020. Its market size surged from around 47 billion Indian rupees to approximately 199 billion rupees. This upward trajectory is expected to persist, with projections indicating that by the fiscal year 2024, the industry will expand even further, reaching a market size of approximately 539 billion rupees. This demonstrates the remarkable growth potential and significance of digital advertising in the coming years.
Digital marketing now holds a larger footprint
Brands are significantly increasing their utilization of digital marketing tools and their various forms, surpassing the scale and reach of traditional marketing methods. This shift is driven by the fact that users now spend an average of approximately seven hours per day on their smartphones, resulting in heightened engagement rates. Brands recognize this as a valuable opportunity and capitalize on it accordingly. Moreover, as digital advertising expands its presence on emerging social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp Business, and Snapchat, brands will effectively tap into the interests and preferences of a vast number of potential and existing young customers. These platforms have become a perpetual presence in the lives of many individuals, offering brands an extensive reach.
Additionally, the increasing popularity of Over-The-Top (OTT) platforms, Connected TV, and gaming serve further motivation for brands to prioritize digital marketing strategies. The growing prevalence of these mediums provides brands with additional avenues to engage with their target audience and drive their marketing efforts.
Video marketing is expected to continue its dominance
Videos have the power to captivate and engage audiences more effectively than other content formats. The visual and auditory elements of videos create a compelling storytelling experience that resonates with viewers, leading to increased engagement and better message retention. India has witnessed significant growth in mobile and internet penetration, with a large portion of the population accessing the internet through smartphones. This accessibility makes video content easily consumable, leading to its widespread popularity among users. With the availability of affordable data plans, users in India are consuming more online content than ever before. This includes videos across various genres, such as entertainment, education, news, and brand promotions. Brands can leverage this trend by creating compelling video content that aligns with the interests and preferences of their target audience.
The need for regional-digital customization in India, regional digital too has become dominant in the online market space. With the government's push for Digital India and the pandemic-induced surge in remote, device-based working, the number of digital connections has already increased to more than 830 million. With rapid urbanization across regions and the decentralized growth of tier 2, tier 3 and tier 4 cities, regionalization of our marketing efforts is inevitable. In 2022, India's rate of urbanization was 35.9%, and by 2047 this is expected to increase to approximately 50.9%. Our customers are becoming more diverse and your typical ‘one size fits all’ selling efforts will no longer make the cut. Digitalization will be the go-to in the foreseeable future.
The digital payment revolution in India
Digitalization of payments too has disrupted the traditional marketing channels. Due to a lack of confidence and security concerns with internet payments, cash payments have traditionally been the preferred payment method in India. However, digital payments are predicted to account for 80% of all transactions in India by 2025 due to a large young population with access to smartphones. The Indian consumer has been adopting digital eWallets faster than the US, the UK, and China, according to ASSOCHAM (The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry). This provides an opportunity for brands to utilize e-payments and e-wallets to promote OEM after-sales services online and monitor post-product purchase behavior for greater customer retention.
The pervasiveness of e-commerce platforms
E-commerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart have revolutionized the way people shop, making it possible for customers to buy anything from anywhere with just a few clicks. These websites have played a significant role in digitalizing the market by providing a platform for businesses of all sizes to sell their products online. They have made it easier for customers to compare prices, read reviews, and make informed purchase decisions. The importance of e-commerce websites lies in their ability to reach a larger audience, provide convenience to customers, and offer a seamless shopping experience. With the rise of e-commerce, traditional brick-and-mortar stores are now facing increased competition and are also forced to adapt to the changing market.
The rise of data analytics
An important opportunity presented by the digital economy is the ability to collect and analyze data about consumer behavior. Tracking website traffic, social media engagement, and purchase patterns, we gain valuable insights into what drives consumer decision-making and give us the ability to tailor our marketing efforts accordingly. This assists us to optimize our product offerings, pricing strategies, and promotional campaigns for maximum impact. It provides a wealth of data analytics that can be used to optimize campaigns and improve ROI on our investments in marketing.
Ecommerce platforms can be effectively used to leverage data analytics to better understand the customers’ needs and how they interact with the brand as it is critical to determine what appeals to them. To improve customers’ end-to-end purchasing experience through personalization of various platforms, use data to understand customer demographics and tailor their marketing messages through data and analytics based on factors such as location, demographics, and online buying behaviour such as monitoring the purchasing behavior of customers, their browsing on the website etc. With constantly changing needs of the buyers and unlimited options available in the D2C brand segment brands will need to focus on improving their capabilities. Hence, data-driven decision-making is necessary for success.
Hence, digitalization is not just the need of the hour but also the road ahead for brands to strengthen their marketing strategies, reach out to a wider audience and deliver the right messages across domains to create impactful and meaningful campaigns, resulting in an overall increase in brand awareness, perception, and consideration.
(The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com)
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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.
In a recent setback for influencers the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has said those promoting activities like gambling and betting are equally liable as the companies promoting the same.
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.