"Digital spends will increase by 3% by 2020" Shripad Kulkarni

Few days ahead of AAAI's workshop, we caught up with Shripad Kulkarni, managing director, Vizeum India, on media strategy in the digital age.

Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) recently announced a one-day workshop that is going to be held on Friday, September 22 in Mumbai. The workshop - 'Media Strategy in the Digital Age' - is for client servicing executives from agencies and would be held by Shripad Kulkarni, managing director, Vizeum India.

Shripad KulkarniTalking about the reason behind choosing this topic and the gap that needs to be filled, Kulkarni says, "This is aimed at the client servicing people within agencies. But the clear need-gap was created when media and creative were segregated; a lot of media data would be shared by the media people with client servicing people and they (media and client servicing executives) were the custodians of the complete strategy, with the strategy happening at the initial stages, at the start of the discussion. Now there is layering and client servicing people are not up to date on various things that are changing; this is led by digital disruption at one end and the whole segregation of media and data at the other."

He adds, "The second thing is that the entire process of creative development needs a fresh perspective, given the whole digital disruption. The client servicing people and the entire creative team are already far moved from that reality. That's the gap this workshop is trying to bridge."

Broadly, Kulkarni is going to cover the topic on what the exact digital change is that's happening; how it's impacting customer decision/ journey; how to build a 360-degree marcom strategy along customer decisions; and what are the creative implications of this change in the customer decision. He will also address attendees on the understanding of various methodologies, terms, tools, and researches that client servicing executives don't get exposed to.

Adding about the digital growth in the Indian market, he says, "I think digital will account for 30 per cent of ad spends by 2020. But more than that, the entire economy is going to become digital and the consumer's life is going to be ruled by digital and technology."