Ad:tech 2019's Mumbai edition wraps up

Day 2 of ad:tech began with a rather eventful session by Rishad Tobaccowala, the chief growth officer at Publicis Groupe. He spoke about the importance of creativity in marketing in the era of data and technology. Tobaccowala, in his talk stressed upon the importance of understanding people as humans, and not just as consumers. He pointed out that people have a tendency to choose with their hearts and that the decisions we take are heavily influenced by moods. “The future does not fit in containers of the past,” he informed the audience with a dramatic flourish and stressed on the importance of reading and keeping up with technology, for at least an hour daily.

What’s the difference between an audio experience and background noise? Arjun Kolady, head of sales at Spotify took to the stage to try and explain. Thanks to the growing popularity of music streaming apps and playlists, consumers now expect to find music that suits their every mood and context in their life — through these playlists.

Kolady pointed out that most listeners on the audio medium are fully engaged with the content they listen to and that the tendency is for listeners to switch to an audio experience when they feel visually overwhelmed. What this means for advertisers on streaming platforms is that they have a listener’s undivided attention and if they’re performing an activity such as driving or cooking, they’re much less likely to skip through an ad, even if its 15 seconds long.

Next, Tarika Soni, head of commercial strategy and ad monetisation at Snapchat stepped up to talk about Snapchat Scan and the new features added to their camera. She showcased a few case studies of brands that had collaborated with Snapchat Scan to bring customer experience to life.

During the day, there was a panel discussion on the topic of how traditional brands are now going D2C. The panel included Garima Dixit – head of e-commerce India – Mondelez, Prachi Mohapatra, chief marketing officer – FBB, Projjol Banerjea, chief product officer and founder – Zeotap, S Subramanyeswar, group chief strategy officer – Mullenlowe Lintas Group and Kartik Mehta, chief revenue officer – Silverpush.

At the beginning of the conversation, Dixit pointed out that there was tremendous pressure on brands to move and respond, keeping up with current marketing trends. The panel unanimously agreed that for millennials and Gen Z, it is no longer about selling a product, but all about selling an experience. Dixit pointed out that by means of hyper-personalisation and reaching out to the consumer directly, consumers have greater opportunity to experiment with the brand and play around with its offerings.

Subramanyeswar pointed out that these days, it is important for a brand to find and create a path to their purpose. He stressed on the importance of building an ecosystem around the product and its experience. Dixit agreed, stating that it was paramount for a brand to have a clear objective and proposition in order to appeal to potential customers.

Following lunch, marketers from different companies took to the stage to present successful brand case studies. Rakesh Mishra, vice-president of marketing for Target presented a case study on one of Target's marketing campaigns that was anchored on relevancy. After that, Vivek Nayer, the chief marketing officer for group corporate brand — Mahindra Rise presented a case study on how they built Mahindra's e-racing brand with a 360-degree video and Google's Daydream technology.

The final case study presented was by Kotak Mahindra's Elizabeth Venkatraman - senior vice-president and head of marketing at the bank. She shared some insights about women and their relationship with the BFSI sector. Venkatraman mentioned that women are naturally inclined towards saving and want to discuss topics related to finance, but they have no idea where to begin having those conversations. She spoke about the different ways they played on these insights in their marketing for Kotak's Silk account offering, including a branded association with Filtercopy - a video content platform.