Category: Advertising

Most large agencies have started digital divisions. These are, however, compartmentalised. There is no cross fertilisation of ideas. Most creative work on brands happen outside the digital division, and the digital specialists are then expected to take it forward digitally. Digital division is considered to be a place where long TV commercials are made. Conventional agency may not be the right place for a person who wants to work in digital space. Creatives should make a switch to a pure digital world advertising firm. A digital creative person thinks of a brand and video simultaneously. He may have to work on films with a shoe-string budget. However, his competence in this field can be leveraged in future. This is the place where the future is. It is full of opportunities. TV stories are linear and predictable. Digital is idea-centred. You have to bring this idea to life, all in unexpected ways. Smart phones enable one to engage with video anytime. Video consumption is growing. There are not enough people who can write quality video content. This content must be engaging enough, must be entertaining enough and must be moving enough.

Videos are made easier by technology. Even smart phones can shoot HD videos. It is not necessary to shoot on films — in fact films will be a quaint word in a couple of years.

On TV, a creative has to consider the dictates of the client. TRPs and GRPs also influence the creatives. On digital side, the consumer is the king. There are no viewers. There are only only people who prefer and choose to view what stuff you have produced. The idea that you have nurtured finds audience if it is worth seeing. Maybe, it is horrendous to some, and exhilarating to others.

In order to get business, an agency pitches before a client. When this is done free it is called speculative pitch. This is an industry practice. The client chooses an agency after seeing what they bring on the table. There is a possibility that the client rejects your speculative pitch or spec, but uses your ideas, thus violating your IPR ( intellectual property rights ). The client thinks that the past work of an agency is not enough to arrive at the judgement. Maybe, it is an altogether a different product category and the client is entitled to know your thinking, say you are shifting from FMCG to tech. To ensure that the ideas are not stolen, an agency can get an agreement in place ( NDA ). Agencies give away their ideas at no cost and clients have great time at their cost. An agency should also enquire as to why the client parted with the previous agency. Speculative pitchimg does require an  industry policy. Pitches must fetch fee, and specs which are free should have certain conditions attached. Maybe , the clients have to pay rejection fees. Even agencies accept spec work and finish it in a short time of a few weeks, and present it in such a way that what annoyed the client previously is done away. The whole spirit of partnering with a brand is lost. A client must get a real team to work on his brand, rather than a few freelancers who are hired to do the work.

There are three major factors in this digital age. Youngsters and other users are connected by mobiles.  Most services are accessed on mobiles through apps, and fast consumers have shifted from the web, there is an era of mobile experience which is new. Mobile is thus at the cusp of this change. Billions of dollars worth sales is conducted on mobiles. Mobile has emerged as an advertising medium. Its power cannot be underestimated. Mobile commerce is the future. Still shopping apps usage is low, still the time spent on shopping apps is low. Just apps are not enough to leverage mobiles for e-commerce. Marketers think in terms of online-offline and mobile shopping. To a consumer it is not different. To him, what matters is shopping. There are impulse driven purchases and intent driven purchases. Mobile apps do not encourage impulse driven purchases. And who searches a large array of products to discover the right product on the mobile ?

Global m-commerce is growing by leaps and bounds. As majority of parchases are impulse driven or discovery, the potential is huge.

Mobiles must carry shoppable ads. It is going to be retail driven. M-commerce can be advertising driven by apps like Miib. These platforms can be made human by adding a discovery. Miip reads consumer emotions and curates selection.

By and large, shopping on mobile is intent driven. Adding the element of  discovery makes it widely acceptable. It defines the very nature of advertising on digital platforms.

Many from the creative agencies shifted to marketing. It was understood as a shift for green pastures. However, a shift to a media agency was never appreciated. A media agency did number crunching, used Excel and were not glamorous. Previously, creative agencies were considered to be the Brahmins of the marketing scene. However, the things are changing. Creative agencies are not associated exclusively with the stewardship of the brand. It is beneficial to focus on media business and grow it. Media agencies are now popular career choices, and more profitable than their creative counter parts. Clients now would like to interact both with the traditional and new age  mediums. Media agencies are in touch with tech companies, start ups, social media to keep pace with the changing times. It is better to explore this than to be obsessed just with the big idea. It does not mean that creative agencies can be dismissed lightly. They are islands of excellence for account management. They are essential for day-to-day business. They are better at collection from clients. They learn the lessons of story telling in a creative agency. The focus, however, is shifting to the media agencies.

A typical agency had planning, servicing, media and creative departments. Agencies worked on a brief –a creative idea was developed into a campaign. The role was clear-cut for the agency. Develop a communication idea, and get it developed through its creative department. It was later realised by the media people that the department can attract lot of money. They splintered from the creative agencies. With the exit of the media, creative agencies finances came under stress. Another development is the rise of the digital media. This made it necessary for the creative agencies to change.

Clients spend on advertising and the budgets have not shrunk. But their budgets for traditional agencies have shrunk.

To attract more money, agencies can resort to mergers and acquisitions. Another approach is to reorganise –clients are offered services, under one single leader and there are no fences and no administrative divisions. Rebundling of services may solve the problem to some extent. However, if an integrated team works on a brand, their working capacity can be stretched to a few brands only. There are problems of ego clashes in the team, and a larger team may have co-ordination problems. Even the response times may be slow. Traditional advertising agencies were structured around the media platforms, but with the advent of TV, the first disruption came in. There were specialised set ups to begin with to offer better value to clients, and then integration takes over to exercise greater control over the results. The issue is whether to bundle or unbundle the services.

Media agencies bought media in bulk. They then sell off. However,to maximise revenues they need great ideas. Media agencies thus have started hiring creative people. Media is also splintering more and more. Clients too want all solutions under one roof. They are tired of fractured solutions.

Clients can approach a single agency for the communication package. Multiply agency system becomes inefficient. The agency must understand the new media context. The agency could have the freedom to outsource the expertise it itself does not have.

Traditional silks have to break down. There would be a shift towards craft agnostic think tanks. These will produce pure communication strategy. It will be devoid of execution. Craft execution, if necessary, can be outsourced.

In its early days, online advertising was just restricted to flashing banner ads and static pop-up windows. These days, the ads have become more creative and interactive. They pop-up and play automatically — as if viewers are challenged to shut down. They command the screen, either contracting or expanding. They move and dance across the screens. Ads are more pervasive and not easy to get past. The X- button is so tiny, and clicking it is a matter of luck. Sometimes, on purpose, X buttons are placed in the top left instead of the usual top right. Pop up ads were invented by Ethan Zuckerman  in the 1990s. These were intended to give advertisers a way to separate their message from the web page. Later, advertisers started tracking web users and served them targeted ads. Rocket Fuel and Rubicon project, autommated this process. This brought down the price of online ads. As the prices went down, the publishers squeezed more ad formats on their sites to maintain sufficient revenues to keep alive.

On desktop computers, the web pages have turned into a maze The problem is more acute on tablets and smart phones. Many publishers have shifted to HTMLS which  helps them create new ad formats.

Salman Khan’s Prem Ratan Dhan Payo was promoted by adopting the digital first strategy. Actually they wantd to addresses the young audience. All creative were launched on the web first, and later on TV. They used social media extensively to communicate with the audience about the film. All this was facilitated by the popularity of Salman which cuts across all age groups and social strata. People associated with the film  —  Salman, Sonam and Sooraj Barjatya spoke extensively to the digital media. The lead pair is active on the social media. They shared the content of the film.

Audience gives the feedback on the social media. It is possible to course correct on digital based on that audience is telling you.

Rajashri works with YouTube, and close to 100 digital video platforms. They have close to 20,000 hours of content in their digital library.

India is a mobile first market. The youth is a digital first audience. They are in talk with a number of brands who ant to sponsor their digital content. Of course, they can integrate their products and brands to the content. Brands warm up to digital very fast. This is just a beginning.

Advertising is a major source of revenue for the digital media. Paid subscriptions will evolve very soon as payment gateways and cellular infrastructure evolve too.

Yash Raj Film’s Bang Raja Baraat has crossed a lac views in less than 24 hours. Lakme BBB video depicting to families have gone viral. Man’s World of YRF has crossed 1 million views.

Branded content is for subtle advertising of the brand. It is a short film which professionals make. It trends on social media.

Brands such as Myntra Emami and many others have taken to such short films to promote the brand offerings. There are cameos in such films. It can do cross-promotion too.

These short films are made with a tight budget of Rs. 5 lac, but the costs can go up to Rs. 1-Rs. 2 crore.

The target audience of these films is generally between 18 and 30.

Start ups too take advantage of the branded content.

According to the FICCI KPMG 2015 report, the digital advertising industry in India grew from Rs. 3010 crore in 2013 to Rs. 4350 crore in 2014 and recorded a growth of around 45 per cent. In 2015, the report predicts that the size of digital advertising industry will be approximately Rs. 6250 crore.

Siri is the Apple’s digital assistant. Cortana is  Microsoft’s digital assistant. M is being tested by Facebook as digital assistant. Basically these are Artificial Intellegence (AI) platforms. The technology companies collect valuable data about the users when they use the digital assistants. This information serves as input for digital advertising, and keep a user tied up to their system.

Some tech companies give a personality to their digital assistants, e.g. Siri and Cortana. Some build their assistants with no personality, gender or voice, e.g. M and Google’s assistant.

Digital assistants can order flowers or make restaurant. As such, these can be used to guide users to particular products and advertisers.

There is always a possibility — what charms one may become annoying for another.

The Google app makes use of predictive technology known as Google Now. It responds to questions in a female voice.