Performance marketing plays an important role to drive commerce and scalability for brands as they look towards the festive season. We speak with the experts to decode the festive media blueprint to drive performance for campaigns.
As we navigate through the festive season, media avenues become all the more important to drive demand and consumption. In a bid to decode the festive marketing media blueprint to drive performance, reach, and engagement, Social Samosa speaks with Vishal Chinchankar, CEO, Madison Digital & Madison Ultra, Sujata Dwibedy, Group Trading Director, Amplifi India, dentsu, Jai Lala, CEO, Zenith, Sam Thomas, Sr. VP - Digital, OMD, as we deep-dive into the subject matter.
AdEx Trends 2021
The onset of festive season 2021 witnessed an emergence of newer categories in the A & M Industry. As the industry showcases promise after a challenging period, AdEx seems to be better placed, too. The experts echoed a similar thought. Dwibedy highlights, “There has been a 20-25% growth in sales which was pent up since months.” The year 2021 will see categories like e-commerce, fintech, and EdTech, amongst others.
On a similar note, Chinchankar concedes that the AdEx looks positive with a heated market. He adds, “Demand is high. Ed-tech, health-tech, gaming, and bitcoin are steaming up.”
Pointing towards an unexpected growth, Lala explains that with the IPL and World Cup, the revenue generated after a lull is amazing and the industry has certainly picked up in the festive season 2021. “Luxury-based categories such as hotels, travel, etc are seeing a comeback”, he adds.
Thomas surmises that with the pent-up emotions during the pandemic, there is a rise in revenge shopping and revenge travel. He also shares that this quarter has been bullish and might showcase 30-35% growth.
Evolving Media Channels & Consumption Patterns
Media channels and consumption patterns have changed with digital acceleration in 2020. The experts highlight that video on social media has showcased the maximum increment.
Dwibedy explains, “Video is not just being used for search but also the discovery of products.” She points that amongst the evolving media channels OTT and streaming have seen a rise with audio streaming becoming important and connected TV showing a growth. “Vernacular continues to hold prominence”, she adds.
Echoing a similar viewpoint, Thomas shares that apart from digital, television has witnessed a significant growth post a brief hiatus.
Lala expresses that Print has bounced back during the festive season. “However, other mediums continue to be challenged such as theatres and OOH in this period”, he highlights.
Speaking about the evolving consumer consumption patterns, Chinchankar points that one of the biggest trends at this time is the rise of D2C brands that have shown a significant spike in the current season. “Marketers need to be cognizant of the category”, he says.
With the evolving media channels, apart from being present across multiple touchpoints, the consumers also showed a prominent affinity towards e-commerce channels and marketplaces, concede the experts.
As we move past the second wave, the experts point towards brighter hues and better times. Speaking about prevailing media trends, Thomas puts forth that while the media trend of video commerce will continue, the next level would be for the brands to drive the video commerce - how easily brands can replicate the real-time shopping and make it an asset.
Some of the other insights encapsulated by the experts include:
From a performance perspective, D2C brands will continue to grow
There will be increment in influencer-led commerce initiatives
OTT media consumption to continue witnessing a spike
The optimism capped with the cautiousness in buying behavior of the consumers.
Media Avenues To Drive Performance
To drive ROI-centric performance, experts suggest that it becomes crucial to understand your customers first, followed by the segregation of the target audience. This can help the planners to achieve a win-win situation for both, marketers and consumers.
Classifying the consumer cohorts, Thomas puts forth, “One consumer-bucket is bargain-hunters, the second is category-hunters, and the last cohort is brand-hunters.” Each of the consumers can be segregated as per the category they belong to and deployed with supporting marketing tactics to drive conversions as per the marketing funnel, he says.
Taking the full-funnel marketing strategy a step further, Lala explains that the top-of-the-funnel is more about the mass bombing of the brand communication, the middle funnel involves influencers for consideration, and the bottom-funnel should focus on commerce data, as part of the media strategy for the brands. “Understand the stage of the consumer as per the funnel”, he adds.
On the contrary, Chinchankar says, “Performance marketing is a subset of the top of the funnel. In full-funnel marketing, the rest of the stages are manageable.” Further, the remaining part of the bottom of the funnel media channels need to be seen in an integrated manner, he quips.
As we move ahead with multiple touchpoints, another significant question that arises is about the best possible attribution models for media planning for marketers. To this, Chinchankar points that the biggest issue in the industry is that there is no single currency or metrics to follow with the available media channels.
He explains that the one technique that brands, however, can follow is to understand the journey of the consumer to ease the attribution of channels for the consumers
With a huge chunk of data at disposal for the brands and marketers, Lala concedes that while there is a challenge of data syndication, it can also help the brands to achieve the last mile attribution. “The new app-based brands are already doing that but we have a long way to go.”
To ease the process, he suggests attempting to get the belief of the client while setting the expectation right in terms of the attribution and also initiate a multi-touchpoint attribution as part of your strategy. “The latter can vary from client to client”, he says.
Tips For Marketers
The experts share that brands today, have accumulated a lot of data. Understanding their accumulated data can itself help drive scale and the business outcome that they want to achieve. Thomas suggests, “One way to harness the data is looking into your search cookies and target basis that. This could be a good starting point to drive conversions.”
Lala urges brands to start early during the festive season. “Consumers are thinking fast. To be on the top-of-the-mind, start early when the festivities kickstart every year”, he says.
Chinchankar advises, “Don't look at media in isolation. 1+1=3 because when you tap two platforms you also see an impact on the third one
Summarizing the discussion, Dwibedy shares that it's important for the media channels to talk about the same story and be married to each other in that sense. “It is also important to end well. Once the festivities are over, it’s important to look back - evaluate and re-evaluate so that you have the lessons for the coming year, as well”, she concludes.
The speakers shared their views at the Social Samosa Presents Festive Marketing Week 2021: Day 3.
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