Brand Owner's Summit: "Brand marketing has given way to content marketing"

The amount of time consumers spend online often exceeds the amount of time they do watching TV. In such a scenario, the implications for brands are plenty. In a session at the Brand Owner's Summit held in Ahmedabad on February 8-9, InfiBeam's Vishal Mehta and GroupM's Tushar Vyas discussed the matter.

In a quick discussion at the Brand Owner's Summit, Vishal Mehta, founder, InfiBeam and Tushar Vyas, managing partner, South Asia, GroupM spoke about what goes into building brands in the digital world today.

Mehta addressed the topic by outlining a few characteristic features that have come to define the virtual world of late. For starters, he reminded the audience that today, there's more content out there than one realises. And, when it comes to consumption of this content, things have changed too; unlike earlier, today content consumption is "more digital than analog".

Also, when it comes to weeding out the junk from large piles of online content and separating it from the useful material, consumers are getting more and more efficient. In fact, according to Mehta's understanding of things, human beings are far faster at making this distinction than machines and algorithms.

Secondly, Mehta stated that while earlier digital content was hinged solely on the concept of reach, today viral marketing entails a lot more than just that. Reach, by itself, is an empty metric, unless optimised along with other catalysts of virality. Say, for instance, 'visual marketing'. Consumption of a visual creative is a lot faster than that of a creative without any visuals, said Mehta, adding that online conversations increase by almost 20 per cent each time the size (measured in pixels) of the visuals in question is increased. "The visual world is important today. It is very under-rated," he stated.

Thirdly, while traditional media is about how one wants to communicate information about one's brand, today, the digital medium is all about engagement and scientific timing. "Today it's about what you want your consumers to communicate about your brand," explained Mehta, insisting that engagement is yet another under-rated aspect. He floated the idea that today people have begun making both decisions as well as discoveries online.

The fourth point he made was about transparency with respect to online data. According to Mehta, opening up one's online assets (data and information stored online) to people, studying how they use it and building on top of it is the way forward. "In the old days," Mehta explained, "we were protective about our assets. In the digital world we have now started opening it up for others to use and make attributions back to us."

Agreeing, Vyas added that in today's '24 by 7' online marketing era, 'brand marketing' has given way to 'content marketing'. Further, in today's digital environment, brands have started moving from 'creative excellence' to 'content excellence', so much so that often the 'brand' itself takes a back seat. "In fact," he said, "in the digital medium it's about 'adaptive marketing'. Consumers are always present online so brands too need to be there constantly," making it clear that it's so much more than creating a 30 second TVC once every three months, and that instead, it's about generating sustained engagement.

Lastly, for online measurement of any kind, the duo declared that it is important to focus on what one's brand 'needs' measured as opposed to what one is 'able' to measure. Measurement ought to be strictly need-based, and not opportunistic, for it to be effective, they asserted. Moreover, cautioned the duo, a uni-dimensional (that is, one-dimensional) metric system is typically less effective than a multi-dimensional one.

To conclude the discussion, Vyas left the audience with some food for thought. "In the digital world, marketing is not a mere 'department' in your company; it is, in itself, the whole operation. When it comes to the digital space, anything related to branding and analytics is not a one person job. You have to have the whole company driving it," he said.

The event was powered by monster.com, supported by associate sponsor Bestow and dinner sponsor Khushi Advertising.