Vishal Chinchankar is the Digital Head at MEC India, which is owned by WPP and is a founding member of GroupM. Prior to joining MEC, he was heading Prodigi, WPP’s digital production business.

An MBA from University of Mumbai, Vishal has over 15 years of experience in digital marketing. Prior to Prodigi, he had stints at Reliance Group and at Mindshare Interaction (Singapore), where he was responsible for regional accounts including Nike and Samsung for SEA, apart from local Singapore accounts.

He has also worked at GroupM Interaction India, where he launched the ICICI Bank IBG services in Canada, UK and Russia. He was also associated with Mediaturf Digital Media Agency in India.

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Vishal talks about how the role of media planners has evolved in India, the importance of mobile, and the various challenges faced by clients and agencies. Excerpts:

Q. With outcome-based campaigns and algorithm-based decisions, how is the role of media planners evolving? Do you think it will move from planning to just monitoring/controlling in the coming years?

Digital marketing is definitely moving away from planning & buying Ad placements to audiences. In the world of programmatic buying, algorithms represent the rules we use to place bids on biddable media: display, mobile, search, social, etc. & eventually this is where most of the dollars would move, beat where it’s a ROI or branding campaign.

Media planner’s role would definitely change from excel sheet planning to Programmatic data planning. Data and analytics will drive significant portion of media strategy. But algorithms can’t replace people when it comes to finding and leveraging innovative angles and undervalued opportunities. Therefore, strategic data planners will likely gain greater visibility.

Media Planners will probably be known as Data planners.

Q. What are the biggest challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium? 

Challenge for digital media advertising will be in dealing with the operational issues that need to be addressed as more advertising moves through programmatic channels.

Publishers need to understand how to get the greatest yield from this channel of demand while evolving custom programs that can deliver value and performance beyond what can be bought and sold on the open market—with enough scale to make it worth the marketer’s time to consider.

Marketers need to master the tech stack and techniques required to get real value from programmatic buying but not become so consumed by the complexities that they miss out on other digital advertising opportunities that can offer greater value.

Q. According to you what are the most important things you keep in mind while planning to buy inventory for a digital campaign?

Clearly the R3 approach Reach, - targeting the right audience, Relevancy - in the right environment, & Resonance – Brand messaging that resonates with audience.

Q. What measures do you take to ensure that you deliver highly effective digital campaign?  How do you maximise online conversions for a digital campaign?

Be Data-Driven: Leverage on data to optimize current programs and inspire future efforts.

Be Discoverable: Align digital footprints with the consumer journey and meet people where they are online.

Be Relevant: Brands that achieve relevancy in today’s digital environment are those able to effectively navigate the ever-changing currents of conversation.

Be Content Creator: Today’s landscape forces marketers to constantly re-think the creation, and distribution of content in order to better connect with consumers.

Be Constant: Be always-on, as consumer search for brands and brands need to always be there to respond to their audience.

Q. How does programmatic buying or any other tech tool impact your job?

I see this as an opportunity for media people to move from the operational excel sheet planning to programmatic buying. Programmatic buying will uplift the media planners & buyers role as long as they adopt the new mindset.

Q. What role does mobile play in your marketing efforts in India?

Today, mobile has become the most popular and rapidly proliferating multi-functional digital device with a huge impact in digital marketing.

The first thing many people impulsively do before going to and getting out of bed is browse through their mobile. They tend to spend more of their time on mobile (for from locating the shopping facilities to providing social media recommendations) than any other device which has made mobile an attractive marketing platform.

As a major driver of the new trends like social, programmatic, and native marketing, mobile is going to have a huge multiplier effect in the marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, what is equally important about mobile is the generation of the user data which is becoming a new gold mine for marketing.

Q. Could you mention some recent campaigns that you found noteworthy? And what do you think makes them stand out?

Colgate ‘Hidden Sugar Receipt’ is one of the most Inspiring innovation I have seen in the recent past. The best part of this integrated campaign is that it is brings out insight of sugar intake using smart technology and maps it with product purchase.