Amit Duggal is the AVP – Digital & Mobility at Omnicom Media Group. He has over 12.5 years of marketing experience. He has worked in companies like Indiatimes.com, Travelguru.com, Geodesic in the digital marketing department, driving performance marketing for them with a single mind agenda of acquiring customers at bear minimum cost through SEM, Affiliate marketing, SEO and  Display marketing.

Last 4 years he has been involved with agencies like, Mindshare where he led Pepsico digital practice. In his last stint at Madison he was responsible for P&L, new business, and growing existing business for North and South India across digital paid, owned, earned platforms for clients like Airtel (Brand and Performance business), ITC- PCPB, ITC Hotels, ITC Kitchens of India, ITC lifestyle, Dish TV, etc. One of the high point in his career at Madison, he handled the national election campaign for BJP. His role entailed around strategizing to create digital content and distribution across digital medium/platforms.

Currently he is leading the digital practice for OMD (North) with a wide portfolio across automobile, technology, FMCG, CPG, online categories.

In this exclusive interview with Ratnika Swami for India Digital Review, Amit talks about the evolving digital medium in India, programmatic buying and the importance of mobile today. Excerpts: 

Q. What are the biggest challenges you face, especially in being able to optimally tap into the digital medium? What are the most important things you keep in mind while planning to buy inventory for a digital campaign?

Digital as a medium is like a double-edged sword. Measurability of the medium is both boon and bane. While the end to end tracking works for clients in terms of what is working and what is not, it usually leads the team to work / optimize on those mediums / properties which are delivering performance.  We need to look at digital beyond just performance play. We need to look at digital as a brand builder medium just like any other traditional medium.

The question which we need to answer on digital these days is what is to be done and where. The clients have become aware of all the digital mediums available. It is more about how you can juice these mediums in terms of contextual innovations.

The planning of any digital campaign is done basis a simple formula of 3 R’s – Reach, Reference and ROI. A smart planner will make sure that his plan has all the three pillars – Reach to get eyeballs, Reference to get the virality and ROI to see what has worked and what has not.

Q. What measures do you take to ensure that you deliver a highly effective digital campaign? 

It depends from campaign to campaign. In case of performance campaign, the rigor is on getting maximum conversions. And our endeavor is to improve the number of conversions. We look at various parameters like click to visit, bounce rate, landing page performance, exit rates, sales funnel, etc. Performance on mobile, viz-a-vis web.

In case of a branding campaign, our parameters are different. We try to do a pre and post campaign analysis through social listening, brand up-lift survey, sales inclination survey, time spent, engagement, sentiment analysis, word cloud associations, etc. In order, to maintain real time tracking, we suggest command centers which helps track real time conversations, sentiment analysis and engagements. This not only makes sure that we are on top of the campaign but also ensures that we are keeping a track on the sentiment of the brand.

Q. How do you maximise online conversions for a digital campaign?

Real time monitoring is the key. Keeping a tab on what is working and what is not. Constantly ploughing money from non-working buckets to working buckets. The planner will also keep a check on which platform is working, for example Search/ Networks/ Programmatic/ Native/ App downloads will drive conversions.

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

Programmatic is the future; there is no better way to get your audience. Programmatic helps you define the audience, reach out to them at right place, right context and right placement.

We have seen in a few campaigns that the ROI through a programmatic campaign is far better as compared to any digital display.

Programmatic is a smart and efficient way to buy and minimize wastage. It yields better ROI. Secondly, clients don’t lose audience data/learnings once they have run a programmatic piece. They can leverage the learnings and get great results over a period of time

Q. What are the main takeaways from this job? Does your experience help you plan for a performance campaign which is result/outcome oriented?

I have seen digital growing from 1% spend to a substantial 15% spend level. The clients have started believing in the medium. The only thing which I have learnt in this medium is patience and continuous learning from the medium.

Over time, we have realized what works and what doesn’t work. This intelligence is built only when you have been a part of various campaigns. Over time, we have realized the kind of percentage we need to keep to make sure that the campaign will deliver basis the objective.

There are few clients who run branding campaigns but at the backend they calculate the performance, for these clients we do performance led branding. 

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

Mobile in current world is like your buddy or someone you can’t live without. To draw a parallel, mobile is like your daily wear. Someone wears an expensive one, someone wears an affordable one, while someone wears just for the sake of it. But everyone wears it.

With over 200 million users on mobile, it is an essential part of your plan. Mobile as a medium stays with you 24X7.  No plan is complete without a focus on mobile these days. The weight age might differ but no plan is complete without mobile.

Q. Are there any industry trends and technologies that you find exciting right now that might help your clients?

Digital as an industry changes on a daily basis. A trend which is there right now may not be there six months down the line. The things I find exciting right now are:-

- Wearables

- Screen agnostic planning

- From conversion optimizer to content optimizer

- Brand storytelling through programmatic

- Content driven commerce

Q. Despite its growing popularity, social media continues to be tricky for media planners and brands. Having a large number of followers on Twitter or likes on Facebook, for instance, is no longer considered a useful benchmark. What are your views on social media engagement and what key parameters or criteria do you look at when planning to tap social media?

Social media is a tricky space. With over 120 million users on a single platform, 80% of users coming from mobile. Facebook should be considered as a pure reach platform, it needs to be treated like print medium with an additional layer of sharp shoot targeting.

We are firm believers that no other medium compared to Facebook can deliver brand’s message to the precise TG, specific location with specific interests…On the other hand, Twitter plays more on what is the interest of your TG. If a user is interested in sports genre, you can target a set of TG with that layer.

Treat Facebook as a reach platform and Twitter as an engagement platform.

Q. What issues or challenges are your clients facing right now?

Digital – both Web and mobile - is now imperative in the media mix, but how/where/how much is a constant struggle.

Clients are continuously asking for very first tie idea on digital, the reason digital has been to provide it. The medium has so much strength/ capabilities that we are constantly pushed to deliver innovations.

The other challenge is the format of advertising, while the mode of advertising is still banners (web/ mobile/ video) but the challenge is how to use it?

Also we need to constantly produce content for the right placements.

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

A campaign by Horlicks during the fasting month of Ramadan was noteworthy. Through a banner integration, it set a daily reminder on the user’s phone to remind him/her to have their sehri on time. It was a wonderful integration, where technology partnered with the emotions of people to deliver a solution to an everyday problem.  

Another one was the Mentos Ad series featuring a chicken talking to its kid, it was absolutely delightful and creative. IT showcased how a creative advertisement could connect with its audience. Its series of contextual ads run as pre-rolls on YouTube, generating a lot of conversation.

Aur dhikhao from Amazon.com was another noteworthy one. I think the way brand message has been amplified across mediums is commendable. The thought talks about the mindset of Indian’s and dovetails with ecommerce offerings seamlessly. The message resonates with the daily lingo of consumers.

Long format content by Dabur did work out well; the core messaging was emotional and brought out the product attributes quite well.